BTMDY Chapter 113

The moment that name reached his ears, Lin Shen felt a sharp ‘buzz—‘ echo through his mind.

 

The detective had some information to share but didn’t stay long before leaving.

 

Shi Yuan’s expression flickered slightly, though his attention soon snapped back to the interrogation room door, anxiety twisting in his chest as he waited for the outcome.

 

Over the past few days, there had been almost no news from Lu Chengxuan’s side.

 

Lin Shen was mentally exhausted and had no energy to think about him. When he suddenly heard that the breakthrough came through Lu Chengxuan, he was completely caught off guard. It took him a moment to react before fumbling his phone out of his pocket to call Lu Chengxuan.

 

The number that was usually answered instantly remained silent.

 

Lin Shen tried calling again and again, but each time the call was automatically cut off at the last second.

 

With no way to reach him at this critical moment, Lin Shen could only stew in confusion, waiting for both the interrogation results and Lu Chengxuan’s return call.

 

For some reason, even though everything seemed to be moving in the right direction, a thread of unease wormed its way into his chest. He just had a gut feeling that something bad was about to happen.

 

Three hours later, the interrogation finally ended.

 

Detective Li, who had been shuttling back and forth in a relentless cycle of questioning, walked out of the room, his face noticeably grim. Lin Shen and Shi Yuan felt a sudden heaviness in their chests and instinctively stood up to meet him.

 

“How did it go?”

 

“Where is he?”

 

Facing the two urgent men, Detective Li clicked his tongue, rubbed the back of his neck, and said in a low voice, “The situation isn’t great. Wu Yingxia took all the blame on herself, but in reality, she knows almost nothing. I asked her how she figured out the IP address and traced it overseas, and she couldn’t explain it at all. The one really behind this is Hu Haoyang. Once he realized his mother had accidentally betrayed him, he confessed quickly—but he’s tight-lipped and refuses to say where the person is. The trickiest part is… he seems to have some kind of deal with the people holding the hostage. If something happens to him on this side, then the other side will—”

 

He paused, seeing the tension in front of him, leaving the sentence unfinished.

 

But the implication was clear.

 

If Hu Haoyang is caught, Lin Wangye could be at risk of being killed.

 

The words hit Lin Shen like ice. He sucked in a sharp breath, his mind going blank for a moment. Shi Yuan lost all ability to think. His body wobbled in place, his knuckles cracking as he clenched his fists, and without another word, he lunged toward the interrogation room.

 

The assisting detectives rushed to stop him.

 

Shi Yuan’s eyes were bloodshot, completely unhinged. His rage was so intense he couldn’t even make a sound. He thrashed and struggled violently, his explosive strength nearly breaking free from the grip of three or four people.

 

If no one had held him back, Hu Haoyang would have already been ripped from the interrogation room and torn to pieces.

 

Lin Shen instinctively reached out to grab him, but in his dazed state, his hand caught nothing but air. He lowered his head, pressing down on Shi Yuan’s shoulders for what felt like an eternity, still trying to make him respond.

 

It wasn’t until Shi Yuan realized that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t break through the legal barrier that his frantic struggle finally stopped.

 

The few people holding Shi Yuan had thought he was finally spent, that his struggle had drained him, and they relaxed just a little.

 

But the next second, his empty, unfocused eyes suddenly flared with fury. He lunged, grabbing Lin Shen by the collar and slamming him against the wall. His voice was hoarse, barely more than a rasp, and he forced out a few words through gritted teeth:

 

“What does he even want? Just give it to him!”

 

A sharp, piercing ringing echoed endlessly in Lin Shen’s mind.

 

The tightened collar pressed on his throat, cutting off his air and forcing him into a brief moment of panic. In that fleeting lack of oxygen, his mind cleared.

 

At the same time, Shi Yuan was pulled back again.

 

Even so, he still screamed at Lin Shen, like a trapped beast in a cage, biting and clawing at anything within reach.

 

“What does he want?! Give it to him, Lin Shen! We can’t afford this! We can’t!”

 

Lin Shen trembled as he exhaled, his body shaking uncontrollably. His lips moved several times before he could speak, struggling to steady his breathing as he turned toward Detective Li.

 

“Can I see Hu Haoyang?”

 

“You can,” Li replied, “But his attitude… you’ll see soon enough. The police are still trying to manage this. To prevent you from saying something that could mess up the case, you’ll have to speak to him through a delayed connection, so we can cut it off if you start saying the wrong thing.”

 

“I understand.”

 

Lin Shen nodded and followed Detective Li into the interrogation room. Shi Yuan, still emotionally unsteady, had to stay outside, adjusting his state under the guidance of a psychological expert.

 

The interrogation room was large, with the suspect separated in a small inner room by one-way glass.

 

Lin Shen quickly spotted Hu Haoyang sitting inside.

 

The room was otherwise empty. Clearly, the police had abandoned the first round of questioning. Hu Haoyang’s desperate gambit had failed completely. Once the company’s CEO, he now sat cuffed to a chair, head down, a prisoner with silver handcuffs, and his demeanor was low and defeated.

 

Lin Shen picked up the microphone. Once Li pressed to connect, he spoke:

 

“Hu Haoyang, speak. What do you want?”

 

The voice from outside came through the speaker. The room had been silent until now, and Hu Haoyang flinched at the sudden sound.

 

When he recognized Lin Shen’s voice, he let out a sharp “huh” from his throat, a cruel smile spreading across his face.

 

“No clues to find, huh? Feeling desperate, Lin Shen?”

 

Lin Shen’s expression stayed blank as he repeated:

 

“What do you want?”

 

Hu Haoyang bent over, laughing as if he’d heard the funniest joke, then lifted his chin high, as if he were the one holding the victory.

 

“My only goal now is to make you suffer. Thank you for coming to tell me in person. My goal is achieved—you’re miserable now.”

 

“You can take it out on me if you’re mad — every debt has a debtor. No need to hurt other innocent people.”

 

“Screw you! I don’t care about any of that!”

 

Hu Haoyang clearly didn’t want any preaching. His real face showed fast as he turned toward the one-way glass.

 

“Why did I have to kiss up to your dad my whole life, study my ass off, then after I graduated get bossed around by your family like a dog, only to be tossed aside? And you — you came out with everything handed to you. You coasted through, did nothing, and still got everything.”

 

He laughed through his anger.

 

Even if he couldn’t find Lin Shen’s exact location, he glared with a cold light, his eyes like a venomous snake. With no way out, he took the chance to stab at Lin Shen where it would hurt most.

 

“Relatives mean nothing to you, so what does that kid even mean? Killing him wouldn’t mean much — it’d give you a quick thrill. Let him die for you. Didn’t you say you had no morals? If someone suffers for you, you can secretly be happy about it. You actually came all this way to ask me what I want — don’t tell me you’d feel guilty? That would make me feel so much better.”

 

He knew exactly where to cut.

 

Lin Shen’s fists nearly crushed his palms. He used every bit of will he had to stay sane, to stop himself from going hysterical, his eyes locked down on a storm of rage.

 

“I told my father before that favors can turn into hate, but he didn’t take it seriously. The Lin family fortune is what my mom and dad built — it should belong to me. It’s not that I can’t strip you all of everything. I gave you the branch company only to honor my father’s last wish — not because I owe you. I’ve already been more than fair. Do you think you’re the only one who worked hard? How many people like you are there in this world? From an internship to being a CEO assistant, then less than a year later you become branch GM with a six-figure salary — you rushed it, took shortcuts, and it was going to blow up sooner or later. Don’t blame me for that.”

 

Hu Haoyang had no words for those moral punches. He slumped back and, in a give-up sort of way, shut his eyes.

 

“Anyway, it’s already like this. I don’t care. Don’t expect me to tell you where the person is. I set things up ahead of time — if anything happens to me, I’ll burn the person and the house. You can wait to collect Lin Wangye’s ashes.”

 

After he said that, Detective Li cut the microphone and put a hand on Lin Shen’s shoulder to calm him, then said quickly, “He said ‘house.’ Try to pull more from him.”

 

Lin Shen went cold in an instant and nodded.

 

The microphone clicked on again. Lin Shen went straight to the point:

 

“Hu Haoyang, your mother is right next door under interrogation. Her confession already counts as harboring a criminal. In minor cases, she could be out in under three years. But if Lin Wangye comes to harm, it becomes extremely serious — at her age, she might never get out. You may be caught, but you still have some assets left. Are you really not going to make sure she can have a better later life?”

 

Hu Haoyang’s eyes snapped open, clearly shaken for a moment.

 

Detective Li squeezed Lin Shen’s shoulder, and Lin Shen pressed the advantage, asking sharply:

 

“How were you in contact with the kidnappers? Where is Lin Wangye?”

 

Before this, Hu Haoyang had already been through one round of police questioning. His willpower was worn down.

 

His initial calm began to fade. His breathing became shallow and rapid. He turned to glare at the one-way glass and struggled against the cuffs, his skin raw and aching from the metal.

 

At the same time, the pain brought back memories.

 

Since he could remember, his mother had constantly whispered in his ear, instructing him how to flatter and curry favor with the Lin family’s uncles and aunts. Those ingratiating words had haunted him like a curse, shaping half his life as he learned to please Lin Pengcheng.

 

He hated that life with a burning intensity.

 

Even facing serious charges, long prison time, or even death, he refused to watch Lin Shen live a perfect life without consequence.

 

Fine — death would feel better anyway.

 

His twisted, pathological hatred for the Lin family finally erased that last hint of doubt.

 

Completely fearless now, he faced the one-way glass and sneered, shrugging slightly, closing his eyes in indifference.

 

“Lin Shen, even if your life goes smoothly from now on, don’t forget — his blood is always on your hands. You’ll never know where he is before the fire starts.”

 

“Goddamn it…”

 

Before Lin Shen’s voice could carry into the interrogation room, Detective Li quickly cut the connection.

 

Fury consuming him, Lin Shen punched at Hu Haoyang’s face. The thick one-way glass didn’t budge. The force cracked the bones in his hand with a chilling snap.

 

All the detectives present, trained in combat, immediately recognized the risk of fracture.

 

Li gave a subtle signal to have someone lead Lin Shen to get checked and pulled out his phone to send a message:

 

“How’s the newspaper investigation going?”

 

Lin Shen barely felt the pain. He refused to move, insisting on turning back to Li Shen, his voice trembling:

 

“Detective Li, is there any way? Any other way?”

 

A man like Hu Haoyang — extreme, selfish, and unhinged — was always the hardest to crack because he had no limits as a human being.

 

The case had hit dead ends repeatedly, even after clues were found. Li Li frowned, keeping things professional:

 

“We’ll start a second round of questioning immediately, doing everything we can to save the hostage.”

 

Lin Shen felt half his heart sink. Like a walking corpse, he was led out of the interrogation area.

 

Shi Yuan, waiting outside, saw him emerge. For a moment, a faint ember of light flickered in his eyes—but when he caught sight of Lin Shen’s ashen face, it died away completely, leaving behind only hollow emptiness.

 

Detectives got hurt all the time; the squad’s small medical room could handle this kind of simple injury.

 

Lin Shen had broken three bones in his right hand. He sat stiffly, waiting for the doctor to reset the bones, splint them, and wrap them up. That process, done without anesthesia, should have been brutal — but Lin Shen barely felt it. After sitting there in a daze for a long while, he pulled his phone from his pocket and called Lu Chengxuan.

 

One ring, two rings, three rings.

 

The default ringtone reached the last ring, and the call still wasn’t picked up.

 

The busy tone after the automatic hang-up was the last straw — it crushed the fragile mental defenses he’d spent three days building. The collapse hit like a dam breaking.

 

He shot to his feet and tried with all his strength to smash the phone into shards, but a second before he lost control he forced himself to calm down.

 

Hu Haoyang had arranged for the kidnappers to contact him so he could wash his hands of it.

 

There was still a chance that person could be reached. Even if it was tiny, he couldn’t make a decision that would ruin everything.

 

After apologizing to the doctor, Lin Shen sat back down quietly.

 

He couldn’t help but replay every moment since he’d met Lin Wangye — how the boy had suddenly appeared in his life and, almost without him noticing, changed its path.

 

He was the only person in half his life who’d made him feel that instant, full-on liking from the very first meeting.

 

If Lin Wangye hadn’t come along, Lin Shen was sure his life would have been very different — much worse than this.

 

If Lin Wangye really got hurt, he didn’t know how he’d live the rest of his life.

 

He couldn’t stop thinking that Xu Suinian’s mother had died in a big fire.

 

If the worst really happened… not only would Xu Suinian hate him to death.

 

He’d hate himself too — hate himself for letting Lin Wangye go to that site.

 

The sharp pain in his finger joints hadn’t gone away. Once the bandage was done, the adrenaline that had flooded him with anger faded like a tide.

 

A sick, stabbing pain shot from his right hand. Unable to face Shi Yuan, Lin Shen sat on a chair by the clinic wall, clutching his phone in his left hand, then pressed the back of his head to the wall and closed his eyes, trembling.

 

[I’ll give you everything I have. Don’t hurt him. I’m begging you.]

 

*

 

The underground casino was hidden, three levels below an off-brand electronics factory on the edge of Ningchang.

 

As the heat on these places got stronger, many people had been arrested and fewer dared to come — the crowd thinned. But addiction keeps customers coming; these places never run completely dry.

 

That day a security guard at the factory gate saw a car he hadn’t seen before and stopped it, chewing gum and holding his baton as he knocked on the driver’s window. “Hey — what’re you doing? No loitering.”

 

The window rolled down and, without a word, a heavy brown paper bag was handed out.

 

The guard took it, opened it without thinking, and when he saw how thick the stack of red bills was, his eyes went wide. He tucked the bag under his arm, changed his face in a flash, put the baton away, and bowed and smiled. “Oh — the new boss! Drive forward, at the end turn left, go down to the underground parking.”

 

The window went up. The black, low-key SUV followed the guard’s directions, found the underground lot with no trouble, and after a moment the passenger picked up a silver briefcase, got out, and headed down the stairs, lifting the curtain as he went.

 

The people running the casino were careful. Behind the curtain one small room had a single table of mahjong players. They all looked over when they saw a stranger come in.

 

The scruffy-looking man running the table glared and asked first, “Who are you?”

 

The newcomer didn’t answer. He tossed the briefcase onto the mahjong table.

 

The four players, familiar with this kind of case, glanced at each other and snapped it open. The nearly twenty-inch briefcase was stuffed with stacks of hundred-yuan bills that dazzled their eyes.

 

The man pulled the brim of his cap down. Blonde hair flashed at the back of his head, and his voice was as cold as frost.

 

“Turn it all into chips.”

 

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