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In Jiang Chijing’s recollection, Zheng Mingyi was seldom unhappy.

Back when Zheng Mingyi had offered to guide him in stock trading and he replied that it was precisely due to stock trading that Zheng Mingyi was in prison, Zheng Mingyi obviously had his mood spoiled.

Later, in the recreation room, when a rapist tried to take advantage of him, Zheng Mingyi had knocked a tooth off that guy, the reason being that he was in a bad mood.

But Zheng Mingyi was, at most, moody during those two incidents. It couldn’t quite be considered upset. But now, Jiang Chijing could palpably feel it. Zheng Mingyi was angry.

“Are you listening to me?” Jiang Chijing asked.

Since returning to the library from the infirmary, Zheng Mingyi’s face had remained completely blank. Even after Jiang Chijing was done reading all the news on the screen, he still didn’t give a single reaction.

What Jiang Chijing expected was for Zheng Mingyi to reply “I am”, because he was always multitasking.

But, today, Zheng Mingyi didn’t give any face at all, icily spitting out two words. “I’m not.”

Got it. Not only was he angry, but he was also throwing a tantrum.

Jiang Chijing checked the time; it was almost nine-forty. Usually, he should have gotten Zheng Mingyi to leave by now. But under the present circumstance, not daring to ignite the powder keg that was sitting next to him, he could only give a soft exhale, asking directly, “Are you angry?”

“Can’t you tell?” Zheng Mingyi finally shifted his gaze to Jiang Chijing, as if long waiting for Jiang Chijing to ask him this.

At Zheng Mingyi’s reaction, Jiang Chijing simultaneously felt it vexing yet amusing.

Zheng Mingyi had such a good brain on him, yet when he lost his temper, he openly wore his emotions on his sleeve for the world to see. Jiang Chijing could practically imagine that if Zheng Mingyi had participated in the Olympiad and only placed second, he would surely be seated to one side with his cheeks puffed up, waiting for someone to pacify him.

“Because of the cologne?” A spark of mischief was birthed in Jiang Chijing. He said with a mild expression, “What cologne I use doesn’t seem to have any relation with you, no?”

“Jiang Chijing.” Zheng Mingyi’s brows were furrowed. “Do you know what it means to break up? Since you’re no longer together, why are you still using the cologne that your ex-boyfriend gave you?”

In Jiang Chijing’s impression, Zheng Mingyi had never called his name this sternly before. Strategist? Field controller? Right now, Jiang Chijing only saw a crazed groundhog screeching.

“Do I have to stop using the cologne he gave me just because we broke up?” Jiang Chijing was beyond tickled in his mind, but his expression was still of the utmost zen. “You’ve also said that it’s a very unique fragrance.”

Zheng Mingyi, seemingly recalling the words he once said, inhaled deeply, and veins faintly popped at his temple. “So, my whole bedroom is covered in the smell of your ex-boyfriend’s cologne.”

“That’s right,” Jiang Chijing couldn’t hold it in anymore, huffing out a laugh. “Zheng Mingyi, are you so cute when you eat vinegar?” (get jealous)

Before this, Jiang Chijing could never have imagined that the sensual, cool guy living across the street from him would actually act this way when angry. Just like the typos that Go made, he appeared like a cold and aloof great god on the surface, but was in reality someone who couldn’t even distinguish ‘fund’ from ‘chicken essence’.

“Cute?” Zheng Mingyi’s face was frozen over. “Can’t you tell that I’m angry?”

“What’s there for you to be angry about?” Jiang Chijing hid the mirth hanging on the corners of his lips. “I’m single, what does the cologne I use matter to you?”

“You’re single?” Zheng Mingyi narrowed his eyes slightly. “Say that again?”

“I’ve always… mmf…”

Jiang Chijing was pressed by Zheng Mingyi into a blindspot of the surveillance again and had his lips bitten. But it wasn’t as exhilarating this time, because Zheng Mingyi’s bite had broken skin, as if he was venting his emotions with this bite. Irate, he pushed Zheng Mingyi away, wiping the throbbing corner of his lips with a thumb. Sure enough, it was a little bloody.

“Are you a dog? Biting people the moment you get upset.”

“You should be grateful that I’m still in prison.” Zheng Mingyi seemed slightly appeased after having bitten Jiang Chijing, and the discontent on his face lightened. “Otherwise, you’d better not think of getting out of bed the entire night.”

The implication in his words was too obvious; the base of Jiang Chijing’s ears involuntarily heated, and filth suddenly coursed through his mind at this untimely moment again. He didn’t have any intention to quarrel with Zheng Mingyi in the first place, so he simply drew a tissue to wipe the blood staining the corner of his lips. He gazed at Zheng Mingyi and said, “Hey, let me ask you something.”

“What?” Zheng Mingyi said, standoffish.

“Do you like me?”

After the night that sparks flew, this thought would surface in Jiang Chijing’s mind from time to time. He didn’t believe that Zheng Mingyi didn’t feel anything for him with how passionately he had kissed him.

However, every time this thought emerged, he would also feel a strong sense of surrealism.

This was someone he used to spy on. To curb this little hobby, he had made sure to avoid him as far as possible. Clearly, they had never crossed paths, so how had their relationship inexplicably developed to this stage?

A weekend had passed and Jiang Chijing was still unable to wrap his mind around it, yet he also vaguely felt that his judgement wasn’t wrong. Now, seeing Zheng Mingyi eat vinegar so blatantly, the certainty in his heart grew, allowing him to voice this question straight-out.

He thought that Zheng Mingyi would minimally freeze up at this question and not give an immediate answer. But he didn’t expect that Zheng Mingyi wouldn’t even pause at all, his eyebrows faintly creased as he looked at him, saying, “Shouldn’t you have the self-awareness to tell?”

Jiang Chijing’s heart dropped at first, his instinctive reaction to believe that Zheng Mingyi was taunting him for putting his own feelings into it. However, on second thought, he realised that it didn’t quite fit. This was clearly an indirect confession.

It was characteristically Zheng Mingyi’s style of speaking—he had a fondness for talking in circuitous paths; someone without at least a little brain wouldn’t be able to understand his implicit messages at all.

“I was the one who initiated the break-up with Luo Hai.” Jiang Chijing crumpled the tissue and tossed it into the bin by his foot, absently saying, “I’ll change the cologne I use in the future.”

Since Zheng Mingyi liked to talk in circles, he’ll just go along in circles with him.

Zheng Mingyi obviously heard what Jiang Chijing was saying between the lines. His earlier irritability immediately vanished into thin air. He arched his brows and said, “I’ll pick it for you.”

“Mm,” Jiang Chijing ceded. No longer wishing to dwell on the cologne, he changed the subject, saying, “By the way, Guan Wei came looking for me yesterday. He had hoped to meet with you but wasn’t able to.”

“He caught the mole.” Zheng Mingyi didn’t seem surprised at all. “Do you like woody or oriental notes?”

“Woody notes, I suppose,” Jiang Chijing unconsciously replied, then continued to bring the topic back to business. “He said that you feed him quite a few bits of intel. They aren’t all true, are they?”

“They are,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Are there books about perfume in the library?”

“No.” Jiang Chijing said, “How do you know that much insider information?”

“Because A-Guang helped me to hack Wu Peng’s email.” Zheng Mingyi tossed out this serious piece of information without a care in the world, going on to say, “Wait for me to get out, I’ll pick it for you, then. You’re not allowed to use cologne at all in the meantime.”

“Stop, stop, stop.”

Jiang Chijing raised a hand to cut into Zheng Mingyi. It was only natural that he couldn’t keep pace with Zheng Mingyi in a game that tested reaction speed like this.

“Yu Guang, helped you, hack, into your boss’ email?”

Jiang Chijing finally understood. No wonder Yu Guang kept asking him what was the next step after recognising him as Go and telling Jiang Chijing to bring him along if he and Zheng Mingyi were up to something. Most probably, it was the influence of the tasks that Go had assigned him before.

Afterwards when Zheng Mingyi was incarcerated, Yu Guang scampered off to hack into a government website, likely because he had nothing to occupy himself with, resulting in him being locked up as well.

“A few months ago, I discovered that Wu Peng was manipulating the stock market but was never able to find conclusive evidence. As it happened, I was acquainted with A-Guang, a hacker, through the forum, so I got him to look into Wu Peng’s email correspondences for me. That was how I learned a lot of insider information.”

Zheng Mingyi stopped at this point. By now, Jiang Chijing was used to his penchant for keeping people in suspense, and he cooperatively asked, “And then?”

“Illegally obtained evidence cannot hold sway in court. All I could do was put together an analysis of irregular stock market transactions and write an anonymous tip-off letter.”

“So what you mean is,” Jiang Chijing said, surprised, “the investigative unit first noticed the abnormality with HX Management because of your letter?”

“Yeah.” Zheng Mingyi said, “However, I underestimated Wu Peng. Having done all these, he made sure to leave an escape path for himself, destroying all the evidence at the first signs of trouble.”

“The investigation didn’t yield anything, so you planned to give the clues in your hands, the contents of Wu Peng’s email, to Guan Wei for him to look into them. But it was at this time that you got attacked.”

Jiang Chijing deduced the sequence of events from Zheng Mingyi’s words. It was only then that he discovered that, from the very beginning, it had all started with Zheng Mingyi.

“Not only the contents of his email,” Zheng Mingyi said. “There are also the conversations between Wu Peng and high-level executives from other companies.”

It was the first time that Zheng Mingyi was showing a positive response regarding those elusive clues. Jiang Chijing lifted his brows, asking, “”Didn’t you say that you didn’t have clues?”

“I never said that,” Zheng Mingyi shrugged. “I only said that they weren’t on me.”

There was a full-body search when a convicted felon entered prison, making it impossible for anything to be brought in from the outside. Zheng Mingyi saying that the clues weren’t on him was essentially a load of drivel.

Jiang Chijing probed without holding up much hope for the attempt, “Aren’t you afraid it would be found if you hid it outside?”

“Nope,” Zheng Mingyi answered concisely, then said, “Speaking of which, aren’t we going to talk about me being attacked?”

Every time he mentioned the clues, Zheng Mingyi would change the subject. Jiang Chijing also knew that he didn’t have any way of prying the information from Zheng Mingyi’s lips, so could only follow along, “What is there to talk about that?”

Although Jiang Chijing didn’t outright mention that he was the one who helped Zheng Mingyi that night, Zheng Mingyi’s window was right across from his house; there was no need for it to be aired, this was already mutually understood between them.

Besides, the fact that Zheng Mingyi had repetitively brought up the smell of cologne in his bedroom also indicated that he had long known that the person who warned him that night was Jiang Chijing.

“Counting that time in the showers, you’ve already saved me twice.” Zheng Mingyi rubbed his chin, putting on a serious thinking face. “By tradition, shouldn’t I be pledging my body to you?”

“It’s fine,” Jiang Chijing said indifferently. “Who in prison doesn’t know that you’re my little bottom.”

Zheng Mingyi smiled without correcting Jiang Chijing. His focus didn’t seem to be on the position but on the word ‘my’.

“What do you plan to do next?” Jiang Chijing brought the topic back. “Guan Wei is still waiting for you to show him the way.”

“He’s probably very interested in those pieces of intel, right?” Zheng Mingyi said. “Just let him look into them, have him come back to me when he gets something more substantial.”

“Aren’t you going to give him the clues you have?” Jiang Chijing found it strange. Compared to all this mishmash, shouldn’t Zheng Mingyi’s own case take precedence?

But once the question left his tongue, he understood Zheng Mingyi’s intent, and he said, “Or, are you testing if he has really caught the mole?”

“That’s one of the reasons,” Zheng Mingyi said. “Also, I have to check how capable he is before determining if I should entrust my stuff to him.”

It was exactly like the situation with Xu Sheng.

Zheng Mingyi wouldn’t carelessly involve others in his business. He would only consider them as allies after ascertaining that they had the corresponding abilities to back him up.

Put more bluntly, not everyone could play Zheng Mingyi’s game.

Zheng Mingyi was only willing to help Xu Sheng resolve an issue after the latter proved his network was wide enough. Similarly, Guan Wei also needed to prove that he had finesse in handling cases before Zheng Mingyi would be willing to give him the opportunity to close the case and take credit for it.

Zheng Mingyi had fed Guan Wei some real intel without backing evidence. On one hand, it allowed Guan Wei to uncover the mole in his unit, and on the other hand, by investigating further, Guan Wei could verify if he had caught the mole…

This had surpassed killing two birds with one stone. Zheng Mingyi was in prison, yet he still controlled the direction of the entire case.

“Say,” Jiang Chijing suddenly thought of something, “if that’s the case, why did you refuse to meet Guan Wei to begin with?”

“I didn’t have any plans for the second game to begin so quickly at first,” Zheng Mingyi said.

“Then why now?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“Because of you.” Zheng Mingyi reached over and pinched Jiang Chijing’s cheek. “You changed my mind. Even though you said that it’s up to me to decide, this, at least, showed that you considered Guan Wei to be a good guy. You telling me about Xu Sheng’s situation also informed me that he was reliable to work with. If it weren’t for you, things wouldn’t have progressed so smoothly.”

Considering it from that angle, it was Jiang Chijing who had helped Zheng Mingyi lower the difficulty, speeding up the set-up of his positioning for the second game.

Jiang Chijing didn’t expect that his role had such significant influence. He uncomfortably slapped Zheng Mingyi’s hand away, posturing, “They’re just flukes.”

“Perhaps.” Zheng Mingyi responded. Then, he called out of the blue, “Jiang Jiang.”

“Hm?” Jiang Chijing’s brows creased. “What did you call me?”

“Don’t like it? Jing Jing, then.”

“Officer, Jiang,” Jiang Chijing corrected. This guy really loved to take a yard when given an inch; did he think that the rumours about them hadn’t spread enough yet?

Zheng Mingyi uttered “oh” disinterestedly. But he behaved. “Officer Jiang, do you want me to be released early?”

It would be false to claim that he didn’t wish for that, after all, Zheng Mingyi was in prison because he had been framed; no one in their right minds would wish to see someone unjustly victimised. Also, once Zheng Mingyi was out, Jiang Chijing could change the filthy ‘trash’ in his mind into ‘treasures’…

Ahem. Objectively speaking, it didn’t matter what Jiang Chijing wanted. He wasn’t a judge; the power to decide wasn’t in his hands.

“That’s irrelevant.” Jiang Chijing said in a businesslike manner, “When the time comes, you’ll naturally be released.”

“Is that so?” Zheng Mingyi studied Jiang Chijing as though he had long seen through all of him, leisurely spitting out a word. “Hypocrite.”