A real killer playing a villain; the guy surnamed Zhen in Detective, run!

After daybreak, the provincial authorities issued a report: the Syndicate "Gods" were completely wiped out, and their leader "Odin" was captured alive.

After getting stitches at the hospital, Lu Yuan refused to be hospitalized. He and Su Qinghan returned to their temporary hotel room.

Su Qinghan sat by the bed to change his bandages. Her technique was clumsy; she tried twice but failed to remove them properly. Her fingertips touched the edge of the wound, and Lu Yuan hissed.

"pain?"

"It doesn't hurt, you just pulled the tape on your hair."

Su Qinghan ignored him and continued to pester him. She stopped halfway through.

Lu Yuan looked at her. She lowered her head, her shoulders trembling slightly.

"I used to," Lu Yuan began, "do many things."

Su Qinghan did not look up.

"The Joker. The Syndicate's top con artist." His voice was flat, like reciting an expired employee ID. "Cheating, gambling, assassination. Many people in the world want to find me, some want to kill me, some want to hire me."

Su Qinghan's hand stopped on the last loop of the bandage.

"I was given a second chance at life. I was thinking of just letting it go." Lu Yuan stared at the ceiling.

"But they wouldn't let us. From probing to assassination, it burned from me to you. Little Orange almost died, Old Wang almost died, and now you have bandages wrapped around your head."

Su Qinghan finally raised her head, her eyes red-rimmed. She clearly understood what he meant: "You're going to Europe."

"Dig up the roots."

Su Qinghan didn't ask him what to do, nor did she ask if she could skip it. She had known Lu Yuan for almost two years. This man could argue with a security guard for ten minutes to save five yuan on parking fees, but he never hesitated when making a decision.

She reached out and pressed the loosened corner of the gauze on his left arm back in place.

"Come back alive."

Lu Yuan watched her fingers linger on the gauze. "I'll treat you to barbecue when we get back; that stall had a great discount last time."

Su Qinghan didn't laugh; her eyes reddened. She buried her face in the crook of his right shoulder, her voice muffled and almost inaudible: "You're not allowed to die out there."

"No, it won't happen." Lu Yuan placed his hand on the back of her head.

......

Shen Nanyin arrived at the hotel and, after hearing the whole story, asked only one question: "Can I leave through normal customs?"

Lu Yuan shook his head. "The syndicate has connections in the global civil aviation system and entry databases. When I leave the country using my own identity, the landing information will be transmitted back to them within ten minutes."

Jiang Yan stood to the side, putting the police badge into her pocket. "Officially, I can't issue you permission for overseas operations; that's outside the jurisdiction of our police."

She paused, then said, "However, your security file will be classified as top secret starting today. I will delete your exit records from the system. You have not left China."

Shen Nanyin was already on the phone. Three minutes later, she turned to Lu Yuan.

"The Shen Group owns a Gulfstream G650, which operates on commercial routes without inspection and bypasses the manual customs checkpoint. I had my legal team prepare a complete set of documents for the Swiss investor overnight, which Interpol couldn't find in their database."

Lu Yuan looked at her and said, "The gas money for a trip to Northern Europe is enough for me to film three short dramas."

Shen Nanyin laughed in exasperation: "You're trying to calculate the gas cost with me now?"

"I'll pay you back next time."

At 6:00 AM sharp, in the business jet area of ​​Pudong Airport, a greyish-white Gulfstream jet was parked at the end of the runway, its cabin door open and its engines already warmed up.

Lu Yuan was carrying a black duffel bag containing several unofficial aid items he had received from Jiang Yan.

Su Qinghan stood at the bottom of the stairs. The wind tousled her hair.

Lu Yuan walked up to her and reached out to tuck a stray hair behind her ear.

"Go back to sleep."

Go home early.

Lu Yuan turned and climbed the gangway, the cabin door closing behind him. The engine shifted from a low rumble to a sharp whistle, the gray-white fuselage accelerating on the runway, lifting off the ground.

The navigation lights on the belly of the plane flashed twice and disappeared into the last stretch of darkness before dawn.

......

At 3:17 AM in a small Eastern European country, a business jet was parked at the far end of the private terminal. Lu Yuan, carrying a black duffel bag, stepped off the gangway, his gray trench coat collar turned up, obscuring most of his face.

He had visited this city no less than twenty times in his previous life. The way through every dark alley and the blind spot of every camera was etched into his muscle memory.

After leaving the terminal, he didn't call a taxi, but walked north along the gravel road outside the railway freight station.

Passing through a cluster of abandoned Soviet-era apartment buildings, we cut into an underground passage through a narrow, flooded alley between buildings seven and eight. At the end of the passage was a rusty iron gate, behind which connected to the old city's drainage network.

The entire route avoids all city surveillance nodes. It's a "cold exit path" that Joker personally tested years ago, designed specifically for people who need to disappear from the city.

Twenty minutes later, Lu Yuan stood in front of an underground tavern.

A tattered neon sign hung above the door, two letters missing, barely spelling out "KOLT". The door panels were made of thick oak, the paint long since peeled away, revealing the grayish-white wood grain underneath.

Lu Yuan pushed open the door and entered. The tavern was filled with smoke and the lights were dim.

Three bald men were drinking vodka behind the bar, while someone was playing blackjack at a card table in the corner.

Lu Yuan walked to the far end of the bar and sat down. Behind the bar, an old man in his sixties was wiping glasses. There were two old scars on the back of his hand, marks left by a razor blade many years ago.

The old man didn't say anything, but simply pushed a whiskey glass onto the third piece of wood on the left side of the bar counter, with the rim facing east and an old silver coin, a 1987 East German mark, pressed under the bottom of the glass.

Lu Yuan didn't touch the cup. He used his index finger to spin the silver coin halfway around, stopping it at an angle that defied common sense, two degrees to the left of the eleven o'clock position. Normal human muscles couldn't achieve such precision.

The old man paused for a moment while wiping the cup.

Lu Yuan picked up the matchbox from the bar, took out the third match, broke it, and put it into the empty glass.

The old man stopped wielding the cupcloth in his hand completely; this was the verification of the death warrant personally set by the Joker.

He braced his hands on the bar counter, staring at the excessively young face in front of him for a long time, "Damn."

He turned around and pulled out an unlabeled bottle of liquor from a hidden compartment at the bottom, poured two glasses, his hands still trembling.

"You've been fucking dead for six years."

"I died once." Lu Yuan picked up his cup. "Now I'm back."

The old man downed his drink in one gulp and vigorously wiped his mouth. This man had been in the underground intelligence circle for thirty years, and the classified information he had handled was enough to fill an archive.

"Old Gun," Lu Yuan put down his cup, "I need you."

Old Gun poured himself another glass, this time with a steadyer hand. "Speak."

"syndicate."