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Chase

His heartbeat suddenly caught and his mind droned hollowly. Jiang Chijing felt as though, without warning, his entire body was dunked in ice-cold seawater.

He came abruptly back to his senses. Never before had he turned the car around so quickly, uncaring even when his car scraped against the trees on the roadside.

Compared to the overturned coach, the black sedan only had a broken bumper. Its airbags hadn’t popped; it should have been deliberately modified before this.

The driver got down from the car, seemingly about to check the situation in the coach, but Jiang Chijing’s car kept accelerating towards him. He visibly took a step back, wavering before hurriedly getting back into the car.

As the distance between the two cars neared, Jiang Chijing gradually got a better look at the driver. The man was wearing a black baseball cap and a black hardshell jacket, exactly the same as the man in black that Jiang Chijing had previously caught sight of.

The car in front rapidly made a turn, obviously trying to flee the scene. Jiang Chijing was tempted to chase after him at first, but when he approached the coach, he couldn’t help but ease up on the gas pedal.

The glass windows of the coach littered the ground and an unsettling aura emanated outwards. Jiang Chijing unconsciously held his breath, and he was isolated from the surrounding noise. Automatically, the scene in his eyes unfolded frame-by-frame in slow motion.

A pair of handcuffed wrists stretched out of a window. Blood could be seen on the right arm, staining the sleeve on that side. Immediately after, a figure staggered from that window. The body was hunched as it moved through the low height of that window. Maybe unsteady on its feet, the figure swayed twice, but it didn’t stumble to the ground.

Seeing that Zheng Mingyi was still able to stand, the heart that had leapt to his throat finally managed to drop back down.

Zheng Mingyi’s shoulders were slumped and his arms were hanging down naturally. He raised his eyes, looking towards Jiang Chijing, and their eyes happened to meet.

The overturned coach served as background to this scene, accentuating the visual effect of having tided through a calamity. Zheng Mingyi’s eyes were brimming with rage and ferocity. The man in black obviously came with the purpose of stopping him from appearing in court; taking it further, that man was possibly even here to silence him, a witness, with death.

However, these emotions were immediately put away at the sight of Jiang Chijing; his appearance seemed to have calmed Zheng Mingyi’s tightly-strung nerves.

He turned his head, gazing where the man in black fled. Even if the viciousness had disappeared from his eyes, his brows were still tightly knit.

The slow motion ended at this point, and the surrounding noise flooded into Jiang Chijing’s ears again.

Zheng Mingyi still being able to move was indicative that he wasn’t facing major physical wounds. Jiang Chijing didn’t choose to stop the car but floored the gas pedal once again, chasing the black sedan ahead.

The two cars were close to each other before, but a distance had pulled apart now. Jiang Chijing was aware that he wouldn’t be able to catch up to the sedan in this short time frame, so he split his attention, calling the police and the ambulance.

The roads in the vicinity of the prison had few cars and were wide. Jiang Chijing scanned the dashboard and saw that his speed had already reached 100km/h. At this speed, a hard tug to the steering wheel could cause the car to flip.

Fortunately, a provincial highway leading from the city centre to the county seat appeared ahead. The increased volume of traffic forced the sedan to reduce its speed.

Cars that were overtaken automatically gave way to the sedan, but not all cars reacted that quickly; some took their time making way, which only held the sedan back. Jiang Chijing chased tightly behind, and the distance between the two cars visibly closed.

This provincial highway wasn’t wide and there were several large freight trucks driving on it. Sometimes, to overtake, the sedan would even use the lane in reverse traffic. Jiang Chijing could only go against traffic with the sedan to prevent being shaken off; this was the first time he had driven so recklessly ever since getting his license.

The screeching of horns and brakes rose in waves. Some cars were unable to dodge in time, ramming straight into the birch trees on the roadside. The anxiety in Jiang Chijing’s heart kept increasing. He glimpsed the mess on the road behind through the rearview mirror, uncertain if there were any innocent casualties.

At this time, a large intersection appeared ahead. Cars had to slow down in order to make the right-angle bend.

Jiang Chijing knew that the sedan would also have to slow, so he didn’t check the dashboard, only focusing on the distance between their cars, trying to keep up with the sedan without being pulled apart.

But something strange happened here. The sedan didn’t decrease its speed, yet managed to smoothly turn the bend, whereas when Jiang Chijing made the bend at almost the same speed, the car body buckled dangerously.

Jiang Chijing hurriedly stepped on the brakes and the distance that he had worked hard to close widened again. He quickly realised why there was such a difference between the two cars—the sedan had obviously been professionally modified and thus was steadier. Likely, the man in black had also considered the possibility of being involved in a car chase, so he had made the necessary preparations in advance.

Jiang Chijing really suffered a loss here. But he noticed the driving route of the sedan. The man was likely intending to move to a road with less traffic, where the advantages of his car modifications could be fully utilised.

Jiang Chijing visualised the map of this suburban region in his head. Continuing down this provincial highway was a newly planned economic development zone. The road there had only recently been repaired and was wide and flat. As the zone wasn’t yet officially launched, few vehicles passed through.

If the sedan escaped there, Jiang Chijing was sure that he’d definitely get shaken off.

Not long later, another right-angle bend appeared ahead. From previous experience, Jiang Chijing knew that this would pull the distance between them apart again, so this time he surveyed the turn beforehand.

This bend was much narrower than the previous large intersection. This meant that at the speed that Jiang Chijing was going, he was incapable of making the turn and would only run off the road. But the end of this road wasn’t lined with trees, only a wide agricultural field as far as he could see.

The sedan ahead had already started to slow down, but it was still moving at a high speed. By normal logic, based on the previous experience, Jiang Chijing should be slowing down even more—but he didn’t. Instead, he abruptly accelerated, ramming into the rear of the sedan.

A modified vehicle should be strong in every aspect. However, Jiang Chijing had thought of its Achilles’ heel. It didn’t have airbags.

The sedan needed to hit the coach in order to get it to roll over, and an airbag would only be a hindrance to the driver. This was proved when Jiang Chijing studied the man in black just now; the airbag in the vehicle wasn’t triggered.

In the next second, the cars successfully collided. As the cars were moving at similar speeds, the impact of the collision wasn’t strong. He continued to step down on the gas pedal, toppling the sedan off the road, and the two cars planted one after the other onto the agricultural field beyond the road.

No, to be accurate, it wasn’t an agricultural field.

Due to the height of the road, Jiang Chijing wasn’t able to see that there was actually a shallow ditch between the road and the field just now.

Both cars plunged into the ditch and lost mobility. This time, Jiang Chijing’s airbag popped out. Even if he expected the impact to be strong, when it hit him, he was still so stunned by the impact that he almost lost consciousness.

Barely recovering, he felt a sort of breathless stuffiness in his chest. Jiang Chijing didn’t have time to reel in the shock. He vigorously shook his head, forcibly pulling himself together, then opened the car door, coming out from the driver’s seat.

The bottom of the ditch was covered in green moss, making it extremely slippery to walk on. The pale green water from the ditch wet Jiang Chijing’s trouser legs, and he could only do his best to maintain his centre of gravity as he walked towards the car.

The man in black was faring much worse than Jiang Chijing. His forehead was bloody and he was barely able to open his eyes. However, he was still conscious. He opened the car door as well, stumbling out of the vehicle.

Jiang Chijing hastened his steps towards the man in black, hoping to seize the advantage whilst the man was still dazed to subdue him.

But the man was a professional hitman, after all. Even if he was on his fours on the ground, unable to stand, he didn’t forget to pull out a black handgun, casting caution to the winds, firing a shot first.

Jiang Chijing was prepared for this, agilely darting to the side. The man in black held his arm up, evidently still intending to shoot, but Jiang Chijing kicked up water to obscure the man’s sight, then quickly ducked back behind his own car.

In the confrontation between the two, brute strength came first, but psychological warfare was just as important. When Jiang Chijing walked over, he had already gleaned the situation of the man in black. That man only had this gun on him and didn’t look to be carrying a magazine on him. He might also have a dagger or some other weapon, but with his current physical condition, they didn’t look like they’d be of much use.

On the contrary, however, the other man was in the dark about Jiang Chijing.

Jiang Chijing appeared from the prison entrance and even chased him down so fiercely. He was sure to be an officer from the system. With the man’s cautious nature, he’d definitely consider the worst-case scenario—that Jiang Chijing was a cop and also in possession of a gun.

The man in black started to shoot indiscriminately towards Jiang Chijing, but most of the bullets hit the car door on the other side. Not long later, the reports of the gun became more and more distant and eventually changed to the catching sounds of the trigger being pulled. It was apparent he had run out of bullets.

Jiang Chijing was finally able to stand up from behind the car. As expected, the other man, aware that he wasn’t in good shape, didn’t dare to force a direct confrontation with Jiang Chijing, opening fire only to buy time to escape.

By now, the man had already run a good way off. However, his figure in retreat was wobbly and his pace wasn’t fast.

Jiang Chijing immediately gave chase. The distance gradually closed, and about three minutes later, when they were only a few metres apart, Jiang Chijing seriously couldn’t be bothered to keep running and simply sent a flying kick his way, sending the other tumbling to the field by the side of the road.

Jiang Chijing jumped into the field after him and pressed his knee firmly against the man’s back, whilst locking both arms together.

The other was holding a butterfly knife in his left hand, seemingly still trying to resist. Most people didn’t know how to use this type of flail blade, but Jiang Chijing directly snatched the knife away, agilely tossing the blade into the air and plunging it into the man’s shoulder.

“As if I’ll fucking let you run!”

a/n. Zheng Zheng: My wifey saved me again, [moved.jpg]

t/n. Slides fanart of Jiang Chijing and Zheng Mingyi – link

Translated on ninetysevenkoi.wordpress

t/n. Anyway random note: I was quite surprised to see guns making an appearance here (crazy strict gun regulations) so went to dig around a bit out of curiosity. Google wasn’t being v helpful in giving me reliable info or stats on common ways to murder someone in China, so I went to baidu 中国常见杀人方式 and rofl the topic is banned. TIL. Gut feel tells me stabbing, but don’t quote me on it; in any case, it definitely won’t be guns.