A brave man may not live, but he cannot die

Chapter 233 CST Wednesday UTC+8: midnight

In the late 90s, the world, having just weathered the Asian financial crisis, saw the stability of mainland assets, and many Chinese with some money chose to return to China to invest. Even in a small place like Beibu Gulf City, a rather large nightclub was built, namely 'Jinlaicai' located on the seaside street in the port area.

With an extravagant atmosphere just like Hong Kong, neon lights flash, and the architecture is in the style of the Roman Baths. Roman columns and artistic windows extend along the coastal street, forming a stark contrast with the surrounding tacky bungalows.

In addition to hotel rooms, Jin Lai Cai also has a trendy disco, ice rink, and KTV. Upstairs there are mahjong rooms for gambling, and downstairs there is a Western-style dessert buffet open all day. It is the only one of its kind in the Beibu Gulf area, and its business is booming.

The cheapest room here costs 120 yuan a night. In an era where the average salary in Lianjianghai City is only a little over 1,000 yuan, only the wealthy can afford to stay here. However, just two days ago, a luxury sea-view room costing 300 yuan a night was booked for seven consecutive days, with the request that it not be cleaned and that no one knock on the door.

Such incidents are actually quite common. These days, many underground casinos like to book suites in hotels and organize so-called "high-end games" for wealthy gamblers to play cards comfortably. But what's strange is that the person booking the room was a stranger, and his accent didn't sound like a local. The only difference was that he was carrying two suitcases, making him look like a dealer with gambling equipment.

When he booked the room, he specifically asked if there had been any "inspections" recently. The so-called inspections, of course, referred to police raids, crackdowns on prostitution and gambling. That man was clearly very familiar with ways to make money; owners of such large nightclubs have very strong connections, and given their role in boosting the local economy, they would give advance notice of any inspections.

The receptionist vaguely indicated that there was no such thing, and the man then took his suitcase upstairs. He was never seen leaving the house again.

On Tuesday, close to midnight, a policeman with slightly damp clothes walked alone into the lobby of Jinlaicai.

The drowsy duty manager immediately recognized him and stood up with a big smile: "Director Chen, are you here to have some fun or stay overnight? Or are you here to see General Manager Huang?"

As the leader in charge of security in the port area, he was naturally the person Jin Laicai tried to curry favor with. Their relationship was very close, and it wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe him as having powerful backing.

"Give me the master key." The policeman held out his hand expressionlessly.

".ah?"

The duty manager was clearly taken aback, not expecting him to make this request.

The master key card can be used to open all hotel rooms and is intended for cleaning staff. However, when the police ask for this card, their purpose is usually only one thing—to conduct a room search.

"What are you planning to do with this?" the manager asked tentatively. "Does General Manager Huang know about this?"

"It's a private matter," the police officer said coldly.

"Which room would you like to go to? I'll take you there."

The manager didn't want to hand over the room key. If a room check were to actually be conducted, the Jinlaicai Hotel would certainly be fine, at most incurring a minor fine. But he, the duty manager, would be in trouble. Not only would the boss blame him, but he might also become a scapegoat and end up in the police station, charged with harboring gambling and prostitution.

The police officer looked around in annoyance. After confirming that no one was around, she pulled down half of her wet clothes, her expression alluring, and her pleading tone became coquettish, like a prostitute soliciting customers.

The duty manager's eyes widened immediately. He obediently handed over the room key and took advantage of the situation. After the police left, the manager hid behind the counter and entertained himself.

The police officer entered the elevator with the room key. Just as the elevator doors closed and the elevator ascended to the second floor, a man wearing a pure black hoodie also walked into the lobby.

The room manager, engrossed in a bicep workout, didn't notice him. Like a shadow wandering in the lobby's dazzling lights, the man approached the elevator and paused to observe the numbers on the display screen.

The elevator stopped on the third floor.

He patted the black hood on the back of his head, didn't press the elevator button, and instead turned around and walked towards the door.

For an assassin, such a building full of climbing points is like a tailor-made solution. Back in the day, Jackie Chan was able to scale the walls between the tenement buildings in Hong Kong by relying on the flashy billboards and air conditioning units.

The duty manager still hadn't noticed the man who walked out. His expression was manic, as if he were on drugs; under the influence of desire, he probably didn't even realize he was playing like a haughty pianist, completely oblivious to everyone else.

The third floor of Jinlaicai Hotel.

There is only one luxury suite on each floor, and it boasts the best ocean view with unobstructed views of the sunrise. The luxury suite on the third floor is room "3103". If Lan Na Niu or Xiao Liu are here, they will realize that the drug traffickers targeted in this operation are inside.

When the police arrived at the gold-standard room number 3103, they did not stop, but instead knocked on the door of the adjacent room 3102.

".diu—" came an impatient, cursing voice from inside the door: "Stop knocking! Knock again or I'll call the police!"

The police knocked again.

A moment later, angry footsteps came from inside.

The door clicked open, and someone yelled as they opened it: "If we don't arrest you, you'll think the criminal law has removed prostitution from it! I already said I don't need any girls, but you keep knocking!"

The man who opened the door was wearing a floral shirt and beach shorts. He was holding a pair of handcuffs and was clearly an undercover police officer.

Upon seeing that the visitor was also a policeman, he was so frightened that he quickly glanced next door and saw that the door to 3103 was not open. He hurriedly waved for his colleague outside to come in.

"Hey, why are you wearing a police uniform? If the neighbor sees him, he'll wake up."

"Awake" means that the suspect has become aware of the police's arrest operation.

3102 is a standard suite. Besides the man in the floral shirt, there is also an undercover police officer fast asleep inside.

On the table was a listening device and a complete set of computer equipment.

The heavy, box-like monitor was displaying surveillance footage from next door. But the image quality was poor, and the lights were off next door. The night vision capabilities of small cameras in this era were far from clear; all that could be vaguely seen was a person sleeping on the sofa in room 3102.

Police officers who perform surveillance are very vigilant; the person in bed immediately woke up upon hearing someone enter. He glanced at the officer whose uniform was still damp and asked suspiciously:

".Who are you?"

Both men were narcotics officers from the provincial criminal investigation team, so it's normal that they didn't recognize him. This mission was basically carried out by officers from the province working together with police from Jianghai City, while the local police officers mainly played a supporting role in the investigation.

The police officer revealed his identity and produced his identification.

"I'll take your place. It's not appropriate for you to stay here while everyone else is having dinner tonight. Go downstairs and get some late-night snacks, I'll reimburse you."

One man immediately showed delight, but the other was more wary. He glanced at the police officer's badge again, wondering why a leader of this rank would come to take his place.

"Who sent you here? And who told you where the suspect lives?"

Upon hearing the question, the man casually replied, "Old Lan, who else could it be? All your colleagues are drunk, only he and I can still stand. He needs to rest early tomorrow to plan the operation, so he asked me to come."

Upon hearing the nickname "Old Blue," the two stopped thinking about it.

Although there were confidentiality requirements, it wasn't a major case after all. The person was already under surveillance, and the arrest was practically a done deal. The two of them had been keeping watch for the past few days, which was incredibly boring, but they couldn't leave their posts without permission. They had been wanting to go downstairs for some fresh air for a while now.

The two thanked the man and, pointing to the screen, gave him some instructions:

"Actually, there wasn't much to keep an eye on. He just finished at nine o'clock. I was worried he'd pass out from all the nicotine, but thankfully the arrest is in two days. Look, he's asleep, at least until tomorrow morning. Ha, with his dosage, he wouldn't be able to break free even after six months of abstinence."

The two plainclothes officers on duty said they would be back in half an hour and went downstairs for a late-night snack. The man first glanced at the monitor, tapped its heavy casing, and shook his head, sighing, "Truly amazing power."

He pressed the automatic restart button on the computer, and once the screen went black, he calmly went out and used the universal room card to open the door to room 3103.

A pungent, smoky smell wafted towards me.

He fanned his nose, walked in with a look of disgust, and closed the door behind him.

The sound of dripping water came from the toilet. The bathtub was full. The guest seemed to be a dazed person who forgot to turn off the water when he left the bathroom. The water was overflowing from the rim of the tub and was almost seeping out of the bathroom.

The room key was inserted into the power outlet, and the air conditioner was set extremely low, sixteen degrees Celsius, with cold air blowing loudly. However, the man sleeping in the room seemed completely unaware of this, lying sprawled on the sofa without even a blanket.

The police turned on the lights, and the bright, golden light illuminated the luxurious room.

The bed was a mess, the TV was playing the news but had no sound, and plastic cups, glass bottles, tubes, and measuring spoons were scattered haphazardly on the carpet.
The glass bottle was blackened by the fire, and the neck of the bottle was covered with a nauseating dark yellow layer. Matches and a bottle of cough syrup were on the table, almost empty.

There were two suitcases on the ground, both open.

One suitcase was empty, intended for carrying things. The other suitcase was half filled with clothes and half with US dollars.

Bundles of US dollars, as thick as five fingers, the green banknotes seemed like fertilizer to nourish desires.

But to the police, it was no different from waste paper; they couldn't be bothered to give it a second glance and walked straight toward the man sleeping on the sofa.

Thirty years old? Forty years old?
It was difficult to accurately estimate the age of the man on the sofa. He looked as dejected as a bankrupt man who would weep outside a casino. He had a long beard, sunken cheeks, and wore ordinary clothes, yet he could afford to stay in a luxury hotel that cost 300 a night.

Black sores had grown under his ears, yet he still clutched a blackened glass jug in his hand. The jug's long straw dangled on the ground along with his hand. Even the warm yellow light couldn't make his skin look any better; it had become dry and dull.

If this continues, festering sores will cover his entire body. If he doesn't quit and receive treatment, he will have to choose one of three ways to die: drug overdose, cerebral embolism, or thinking he is a bird and jumping off the balcony.

The police didn't care how he died; he wasn't a real policeman anyway.

"Hey, wake up."

The police officer slapped the man to wake him up.

But the man just tilted his mouth, drooling, and remained motionless.

"Get up!"

Seeing that the man still wouldn't wake up after shaking him for a while, he grabbed a glass, went into the bathroom, filled the bathtub with cold water, and splashed it on the man's face.

He was snoring uncomfortably, but even when he choked on water, he didn't change his sleeping position at all. If it weren't for the fact that he still had a heartbeat, the police would have thought he was a corpse.

"Tsk, damn it, how can he sleep so much? Wait, this guy..."

The policeman frowned and reached out to lift the man's wet hair.

Gradually, his eyes narrowed.

The police immediately searched the man's clothes and found nothing except a handful of loose change and a mobile phone in his pocket.

This is the latest model of the PHS phone this year. It doesn't even have an antenna. It not only has the latest communication module installed, but it even has a color screen.

The police officer pressed a button, and the phone was password protected, only displaying the screen saver.

A woman holding a baby in the screensaver.

The woman, in her thirties, wore a bright red floral dress and had a stylish perm. She seemed to be in postpartum confinement, so she looked a bit chubby. Her features weren't particularly delicate, but she had a pair of very deep-set eyes—which might look good on a man, but on a woman, it made her look somewhat fierce.

The baby was only two months old and looked as ugly as a water monkey.

The police officer scrutinized the man's face again, hesitated for a long time, and then picked up the walkie-talkie.

He connected to a channel that didn't belong to the police or any other department.

This time, a woman's voice came through the walkie-talkie, unusually alluring: "Did it work?"

It is in Taimouran.

"If the person we don't interfere with gets too big and doesn't wake up, then tonight's trip was for nothing."

He replied in the same language, Temurian.

"Oh, I see." The voice on the other end seemed a little confused, clearly not expecting this situation. He could only reply, "Then come again tomorrow. As long as the ceremony gets him the goods and he doesn't get caught, it's considered a success."

"There's a situation here. I don't know if it counts as a situation, but I feel it's necessary to report it. It's the first time I've seen something like this."

"Speak." The voice on the walkie-talkie also became serious.

"The objective of this ceremony and that policeman from the Jianghai investigation team—"

The evening breeze blew in without warning.

The salty, fishy smell of the sea mingled with the bloody smell of shattered nasal bones and rushed into my nasal cavity.

He was completely unaware of what was happening when a shadowy figure suddenly punched him in the dark, his mind going blank for a moment. When he came to his senses, the policeman had already crashed onto the bed, his cheek throbbing as if he had been run over by a car, and a hard, cold object pressed against his forehead—a .64 police pistol.

The man in the black hoodie held his walkie-talkie, and a parrot poked its head out from the hood, like a Viet Cong emerging from the grass.

The parrot said in its exact voice and in the exact same language, "Just like that young man from the Jianghai investigation team, he loves to eat snail rice noodles."

The walkie-talkie was silent for a few seconds.

"If you're free, go find a job."

After saying that, the other person hung up.

Seeing the walkie-talkie crushed like a piece of jelly with one hand, despair gradually welled up in the man's eyes.

(End of this chapter)