AP CH4
Chapter 4: You’re All in This Together!
Huai Shi jolted awake from his bed with a scream, greeted by the familiar mess of his bedroom.
A nightmare.
But the gruesome, vivid death in that dream had felt so real—so real that his neck still throbbed with phantom pain as if torn apart.
Still shaken, he reached for his neck and felt only cold sweat. Yet the drowsiness pressed down on him, and after sipping some water, he collapsed back into bed and shut his eyes again.
In a daze, he seemed to become a night shift security guard, sneaking out for a smoke break at the entrance. From the dark corridor came the sound of footsteps approaching.
Someone was drawing closer in the darkness.
Just as he stubbed out his cigarette and turned to ask who was there, he was greeted by a grotesque, blood-smeared mask—the Savage Ape. It grinned, baring its teeth in a twisted smile.
The next instant, he died again.
Huai Shi shot up from bed with another terrified scream, seeing his trashed bedroom once more, along with the dust shaken loose from the ceiling by his own shouting.
He gasped heavily and clutched his stomach.
Another nightmare.
This time, he had been gutted open from below, his insides dragged out until his neck was torn free…
“Damn it… This is insane.”
Panting hard, he lay back in bed, determined to tough out the night. But the moment he closed his eyes, sleep overcame him once more.
This time, he became a fat slob, whistling happily after finishing a good time, washing his hands and getting ready to change and head home—only to see blood seeping in through the crack under the door.
Footsteps splashed in the pool of blood, drawing closer.
Someone pushed the door open.
And he died yet again.
“Damn it, this is really insane!”
Huai Shi furiously opened his eyes, yanked the blanket over himself, and rolled over. “No way I’m giving in to this!”
He shut his eyes again… and suffered nightmares all night long.
It wasn’t until dawn that the terror finally eased, allowing him to fall into a deep sleep. Just before consciousness slipped away, he seemed to glimpse, in the darkest layer of those dream shadows, a single blood-red eye quietly watching him.
At 3 a.m., Ai Qing heard the phone ring downstairs. The call was cut short almost immediately, and soon after, there was a knock at the door.
“Miss, it’s a Class-C emergency alert.”
Ai Qing sighed softly. “Help me get dressed.”
A woman in a tight suit entered, gently lifting her from bed and changing her out of her nightclothes, carefully slipping lingerie onto her pale, frail body.
Supported upright, the slender girl stood before the mirror, propped on a cane.
“Which outfit today?”
“That black one I bought the other day. With the long skirt. And bring a blanket.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Fifteen minutes later, Ai Qing sat in her wheelchair, shielded by an umbrella held by the woman, as they got into the car. In the pouring rain, the vehicle sped off, eventually showing identification at a checkpoint before driving straight to the scene.
The rain had washed away the blood outside, leaving no visible traces. Only white sheets covered the bodies. But inside, the crime scene remained intact.
As the car arrived, someone stepped forward to greet them.
The window rolled down, revealing Ai Qing’s pale profile, her face drawn from lack of sleep. “What happened?”
“A special crime case,” the person outside said. “As per regulations, we had to immediately inform the local inspector from the Celestial Council for handling.”
“As expected…”
Ai Qing sighed wearily and tapped the armrest of her wheelchair. Her driver raised an umbrella and carefully lifted her, chair and all, out of the car, placing her under shelter from the rain.
“How’s the scene?”
She asked indifferently, as if it had nothing to do with her. “Any survivors?”
“None.”
The investigator shook his head. “Jinhao Bathhouse—just opened. Clients, girls, security—everyone inside is dead. The delivery guy noticed something wrong, but by the time we arrived, it had been an hour… Then a police station in District QP was attacked, but no casualties there.”
“I see.”
Ai Qing asked no more. She simply glanced back at her capable female driver and said, “Push me around. I’ve never toured a brothel before.”
The site wasn’t large—four floors and a basement.
Bloodied footprints and broken limbs were everywhere. In the lounge, the corpses of the once-beautiful women bore signs of brutal violation too horrific to behold.
After surveying the scene, Ai Qing yawned without expression. “Any surveillance footage?”
“All cameras were destroyed or removed. But we did find records from nearby traffic cams.”
“Let me see them first.”
Ai Qing lazily tapped the armrest of her wheelchair.
The investigator sighed helplessly but wasn’t annoyed. He gestured for the technician to bring the footage over.
Anyone who saw Ai Qing for the first time would be struck by her face—her cold, distant eyes that seemed indifferent to everything.
Next came the wheelchair, sparking quiet pity in their hearts. Such a beautiful girl, yet crippled—a tragic waste.
Even with her strange, frosty demeanor and complete lack of smiles.
The scene staff had long grown used to this odd, distant girl after so many cases.
There wasn’t much in the footage—mostly brief shadows flashing by before people were torn apart. Only at the very end, as the figure walked out the main door, did a traffic camera across the street capture a frontal silhouette.
But even then, nothing could be clearly seen.
“All useless stuff. No need to look any further.”
Ai Qing turned her gaze away and looked at the people on site. “What about the other police station across the street? Any casualties?”
“No, because it attacked the evidence room. Tore straight through the wall and went inside. The doors were locked at night, no one was on duty. But there’s surveillance footage.”
In a hurry, someone on site pulled up the recording and played it.
In the footage, the evidence room was deathly quiet. Then suddenly, a loud boom, like an earthquake, shook the walls. Cracks split open.
A hunched figure crawled in, and during the brief moment before anyone could arrive, it rummaged through everything, leaving the room in chaos. Finally, it smashed open a cabinet, took something out, glanced at the surveillance camera—and threw something straight at it. The screen went black instantly.
Ai Qing reached out, paused the footage, and rewound it a few seconds.
On the screen, the figure stared straight at the camera. A monkey mask covered its face, its back was hunched, and it was holding something close to its chest…
“Zoom in here.”
Ai Qing’s eyes widened slightly as she leaned closer, staring at the enlarged image—at the strange box in the person’s arms.
“What is that?”
“No idea… a Rubik’s cube?” someone muttered, then immediately realized how ridiculous that sounded and shut up, feeling foolish.
Ai Qing pondered for a moment and asked, “Is there a record of what’s kept in the evidence room?”
Soon, a management inventory—locked in a cabinet—was sent over. Flipping to the last page, they saw a photo of the strange iron box, along with a police dispatch record and the crime scene file.
“A corpse?”
Ai Qing frowned. “Whose body was it when the report came in?”
“A local ex-con named Liu Eryou. He had a drug record… Here’s his file. We even spotted him on earlier surveillance from the club.”
All the files were sent to Ai Qing’s phone.
First, a former drug addict died in an alley after visiting a brothel. Then the entire nightclub was slaughtered. And now, the police station’s evidence room was attacked.
And the intruder took away a little box…
Ai Qing irritably rubbed her brow.
“Another border relic?”
She knocked on the armrest, displeased. “What the hell are border customs doing, dumping this kind of trash into the real world? This is the sixth case this year… And that port explosion during the day must be connected too, right? Why wasn’t I informed?”
“……”
The middle-aged man assisting on site froze, then gave a bitter smile. “No idea. Probably stuck in bureaucracy, as usual.”
“If they love bureaucracy so much, why didn’t they hold it up a bit longer tonight and spare us this mess?”
Ai Qing’s tone was mocking; she knew well the local distrust toward the Astronomical Society. “Never mind. Can’t blame them for thinking this way. After all, who’d enjoy having a crippled girl under twenty barking orders at them?”
“……”
The middle-aged man could only force a smile and curse his superiors in silence.
After ordering someone to bring her hot coffee, Ai Qing took a sip, frowned, and set it aside in disgust.
“Instant.”
“It’s too late… couldn’t get it from your usual place…”
“Enough with the pity act.”
She shot him a bored glance and tapped the screen. “Not much footage from the crime itself, but surely there’s something earlier? Who made the report when the first body was found?”
Soon, the footage at the entrance was rewound. The image froze on a messy-haired teenager.
On screen, he glanced back at the police station, revealing his face.
Silence.
Ai Qing bit her finger, not speaking.
“Tch…”
As if hearing things, the middle-aged man thought he caught a hint of extreme displeasure in her voice.
The morning after the storm.
Faint birdsong could be heard outside the window, along with the fresh scent of grass and leaves blowing in through the cracks. After a whole night of nightmares, Huai Shi finally woke up from his rare dream of slacker bliss.
He opened his eyes.
And found himself staring down the barrel of a gun.
The room was crammed with heavily armed soldiers in body armor, faces masked, guns—both long and short—all aimed straight at him.
“Bro, don’t shoot! I’m one of us…”
Huai Shi froze for a moment, gulped, and slowly raised his hands.
Who the hell is ‘one of us’.jpg
The squad leader said nothing but his eyes were full of undisguised contempt. The next second, Huai Shi felt a sharp jab in his neck.
Then everything went black.
And he knew nothing more…
“Name.”
“Huai Shi…”
“Age.”
“Seventeen…”
In the interrogation room, handcuffed to the chair, Huai Shi drooped like a dying plant, wondering whether this cursed place also recruited male escorts.
What the hell?
What’s going on?
How the hell did this happen?
Huai Shi felt his face morphing into a live meme showcase, eventually frozen in the classic “black guy with question marks” pose.
Just what the actual hell was this?
A whole parade of people took turns interrogating him—asking where he’d been, what he’d done yesterday, who was behind him, what underworld forces he worked for.
They clearly thought he was some terrible criminal.
The interrogators switched tactics one after another—from solo questioning to team raids. Threats, persuasion, casual chatter, good cop bad cop—even showing off “clean” torture techniques that left no marks.
By the end, Huai Shi was near collapse.
“Please, heroes, just give me a quick end,” Huai Shi sobbed, slumping on the table. “I’ll confess, anything you want. Just tell me what I did first, okay? I’m a good citizen, really! I even reported a murder scene yesterday, I swear! You can’t wrong me like this…”
Behind the one-way mirror.
Ai Qing watched the whole process with a blank expression until the impatient middle-aged officer waved for harsher measures.
She finally spoke.
“If this really involves a border relic, no amount of torture will make him talk. Besides, can’t you tell whether he’s lying?”
“But this is our only lead…” The man sighed helplessly. “So what now?”
Ai Qing shook her head, pulled out her phone, scrolled to a number. “Not many Ascenders officially registered in this area… but some are willing to cooperate. Just so you know—the Society won’t cover their fee because you lot delayed the process, got it?”
“I know.” The man sighed. “Still mid-year, plenty of budget left. I’ll double their fee, all right?”
She dialed.
“Special Affairs Department. Fifteen minutes. OK?”
The call quickly ended.
Fifteen minutes later, someone familiar was led in by the guards. Clearly not a first-timer, he greeted Ai Qing casually. “Miss Ai, long time no see. Why not drop by my place sometime?”
“Too filthy.”
Expressionless, Ai Qing shoved a file into his hand, pointing at the boy shouting about exposing them on Weibo behind the glass. “Make him talk. Can you do that?”
“Piece of cake.”
The man grinned, flipped his hair back, and pushed open the door.
But when he saw Huai Shi’s face, he froze.
So did Huai Shi.
“Wait… it’s you?!”
He stared in shock at the “top escort” who once taught him the rules, and wailed in despair toward the corridor: “I get it now! You’re all in on this! Said you don’t hire escorts here—what a joke! I only didn’t sell myself and now you’re doing this to me?!”
In the dead silence, only the boy’s anguished howl echoed:
“—You’re forcing an honest man into prostitution!!!”
Today’s sensational headline: “Shocking! Rich Lady Detains Young Man—Forcing Him Into Prostitution!”