Pristine Darkness Chapter 95

The PD Team wishes all PD readers a Blessed Lunar New Year – the Year of the Golden Rat! May you have a wonderful time with friends and family (and food).

As mentioned in Chapter 94, both Fang Qing and An Yan are heading back to Beijing on personal business. Starting with this chapter, we have two short stories (two parts each), one for each of them, before we head into the fourth and final story arc.

In this chapter, someone has poisoned Jin Xiaozhe! Fang Qing may have ended his relationship with her, but there's no way he's going to keep a distance when she's in danger. Any guesses on how this short story will end?

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Chapter 95

Fang Qing's Side Story – Laugh at Me for Being Sentimental (Part 1)

This was the general ward of a private hospital. Fang Qing had rushed back to Beijing the previous night, and today had followed the criminal investigators handling the case there.

He was wearing gloves and bootees, and his face was cold. His entire being radiated ruthless energy.

At first glance, there was nothing out of the ordinary in this ward. It was brand new, clean, tidy, and s.p.a.cious. Inside the room were a sick bed, sofa, and various machines, a small bar counter and an en suite toilet. A few days ago, Jin Xiaozhe, together with the other cast and crew members, had been filming in this ward. She drank the healing tea which her a.s.sistant handed her and lost consciousness.

She drank the tea every day which was prepared by her a.s.sistant. No one else handled it, and nothing had been different about the way it was prepared.

Currently, the female a.s.sistant who had called Fang Qing to notify him due to her deep worry had been detained as the prime suspect. The more d.a.m.ning evidence was that the remaining poison had been found in the girl's home.

However, Fang Qing felt that something was off. He knew that this a.s.sistant had been with Jin Xiaozhe for three years, and had always been unflinchingly loyal. Moreover, his instincts told him that since she had immediately notified him, she was clearly not comfortable with the situation and was unlikely to be harbouring ill intention. If they had caught the wrong person, this meant that the danger around Jin Xiaozhe had not really been taken care of, and also implied that an innocent person had been falsely accused. Therefore, Fang Qing had to investigate this matter thoroughly.

He stood in the middle of the ward, staring blankly. When the other criminal investigator noticed, he laughed and said, "Lao Fang, why are you so focused on this? Could it be that you are actually the rumoured s.e.x-scandal boyfriend of that big star?"

Fang Qing shot him an oblique glance and said, rather obscurely, "Take a guess."

In truth, the police were not rushing to conclude the case because the female a.s.sistant kept crying and protesting her innocence in the detention centre. As a result, their comrades from the Forensic Department had returned to the crime scene to check through it once more.

However, this criminal investigator from the Special Cases Unit who had voluntarily turned up, was clearly even more focused than they were, but was also about to hinder official business!

The forensic investigators were inspecting the ground inch by inch. Suddenly, they saw a huge silhouette crawling along the ground, even more indifferent to dirt and exhaustion than they were. Fang Qing's eagle eyes were thoroughly raking the ground, not letting the possibility of even the most minute clue escape him.

A forensic investigator said, "Comrade, you are blocking us . . ."

"Oh . . . sorry," said Fang Qing, but he did not move from his position.

After a while, the forensic investigators thought about checking the ceiling board, only to discover that another person had already climbed up the wall, like a lizard, and had even dragged their ladder over to do so.

They looked at him without saying anything.

Fang Qing said, "Heh heh . . . I've found something, come over!"

Everyone was startled and came over to surround him.

Before Fang Qing's eyes was a dark and narrow pa.s.sageway – the air-conditioning ventilation duct above the ceiling board. Although it was narrow, a person of small build could, with difficulty, crawl through. Dust had acc.u.mulated on the surfaces, but a lot of it had been rubbed away – someone had crawled this way. Moreover, on a shutter of the air vents, Fang Qing had discovered a minuscule damp spot of a light-coloured liquid. Just below this air vent was the bar counter. Fang Qing knew Jin Xiaozhe's habit – she did not like to drink anything that was too hot, or too cold. Therefore, after the tea had been prepared, she would definitely have left it to cool down. Previously, in the Ancient City (Gu City), she had done this when drinking her lotus leaf tea. At that time, Fang Qing had been in a hurry, and so had drunk his hot tea in one big gulp. She had scolded him roundly for drinking like fish.

No, he could not afford to be distracted by these memories. They had already broken up, what was the point of thinking about it! Fang Qing pulled himself together, jumped off the ladder and returned the crime scene to the forensic investigators.

A comrade asked, "Lao Fang, where are you going?"

Fang Qing smiled and lit a cigarette, but his voice was particularly grim. "Where? To catch the real killer!"

When Jin Xiaozhe regained consciousness, she discovered that the sky outside was dusky. The city of Beijing always suffered from too much smog. There was a feeling of living in the desert when the buildings outside could not be seen clearly.

Someone knocked on the door and entered. It was a nurse and her manager.

The nurse helped her to change the IV bottle, while her manager sat at the bedside, his face full of exhaustion and deep concern.

"Xiao Xi has been arrested. Poison was found in her home," the manager said. Xiao Xi was Jin Xiaozhe's personal a.s.sistant.

Jin Xiaozhe was extremely shocked. "Xiao Xi cannot be a killer!"

The manager looked helpless. "I don't believe it either, but the evidence is conclusive. Maybe it's a case of not knowing a person's true colours. . . . are you feeling better?"

Jin Xiaozhe's thoughts were in turmoil, and she also felt nauseous and dizzy. However, she was not used to revealing too much of her vulnerability in front of others, even if that person was her manager. She nodded and said, "Much better. I'm a little thirsty." The nurse could sense Jin Xiaozhe's discomfort, and, after all, this was a celebrity she was dealing with. She immediately poured out a gla.s.s of water and brought it over. The manager took it and held it out to Jin Xiaozhe. Jin Xiaozhe received the gla.s.s and was about to drink from it, but paused. After a moment's silence, she set it aside.

The manager did not know what to say. Indeed, once bitten, twice shy*.

*T/N 一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳 (yi zhao bei she yao, yi nian pa jing sheng). I love this idiom! Literally, it means – once bitten by a snake, afraid of a rope at a well for 10 years. Nicely descriptive.

Both the nurse and the manager left the room quickly, leaving her with a tranquil s.p.a.ce. But, how could she be calm? She had left home for so many years to seek success elsewhere, and bright lights and glory had always accompanied her wherever she went. However, how many people she had met truly cared about her? There was no love, no true friendship, and she had less and less interaction with her family. She worked so hard, filming until late at night, night after night. Her thoughts flew to someone else, somewhere else in the world. From the time she had left that man, there seemed to be a definite emptiness within her. The more she achieved and possessed, the bigger the void, but she had always brushed it aside.

Even now, she finally realised that it had come to the point when she could not even drink a gla.s.s of water at ease. She had been rescued from death after two days and two nights. Only those who had walked that thin line between life and death could understand the deep-rooted pain she had experienced. There was no way for her to deny the fear that was in her heart – fear of death, fear of trusting others, fear of life. But, right now, who could she really depend on?

In the gathering twilight, she heard her phone ding as a text message was received.

The person with that number had not contact her for a very long time.

The text was a simple sentence, as short and emphatic as before: Don't be afraid, you have me.

Jin Xiaozhe looked at the text for a long time, and abruptly burst into tears.

Fang Qing strode briskly over the rooftop of the building bathed in bright, golden light with a fierce expression and a devil-may-care att.i.tude. About 10 metres in front of him, a small, skinny man was staggering in his attempt to run away.

The terrified man looked at him and kept saying, "It's not me, comrade policeman, I didn't poison anyone!"

"It's not you?" Fang Qing grinned and sped up. Like a wolf hunting a rabbit, he grabbed the man's collar. "You @^$*&#%, so, that fingerprint in the storeroom is rubbish?"

T/N Ding Mo just left a row of asterisks here. You can fill in the blanks yourself, I suppose!

The man's face was a combination of ugly crying and smiling as he stammered, "It's not rubbish, it's not rubbish . . . I want a lawyer, I want a lawyer . . ."

Fang Qing narrowed his shrewd eyes and seized the man up.

In reality, after they had figured out the poisoning mechanism which the culprit had copied from Conan*, it was not difficult to find the killer. There were only so many people who were familiar with the hospital as well as Jin Xiaozhe's daily routine and habits. The police had swiftly followed the clues and narrowed the suspects to this young man, an a.s.sistant editor on several of Jin Xiaozhe's dramas, who was also quite smart. However, he was light-fingered and had stolen from the cast and crew. Jin Xiaozhe had discovered his thievery and he had been reported to the production team. Thus, this young man who could have gone far in the industry lost his opportunity to do so. However, despite being upright, Jin Xiaozhe was also very soft-hearted. So, she asked the production team to keep this young man on, otherwise he would have to leave the industry and would also probably just drift along. She did not want to destroy his professional career.

*T/N 柯南 (ke nan) – probably refers to Detective Conan, a popular j.a.panese detective manga series which was also made into a television series. For more information, see here.

In Fang Qing's opinion, this was a clear example of two things: indulging one's enemy is simply asking for trouble*, and women have an excessive tendency to clemency.

*T/N 养虎为患 (yang hu wei chuan) – literally, to nurture a tiger invites calamity.

Translator: shl

Editor/ Proofreader: Anks