Becoming The White Moonlight’s Human Weapon After My Death - Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Yan Chenli Suddenly Felt That, As Long As He Invited Him, Shen Lu Would Surely Agree.

“It’s over, regroup.”

When Yan Chenli opened his mouth to speak, he discovered his voice was a little hoarse. He coughed lightly to clear his throat, and continued speaking, “Everyone, go gather at point N8. Rest, come to point EB. Bring a stretcher.”

Yan Chenli hung up the radio, finally looking away from the sight on the sniper rifle. He lowered his head to look at the man in his arms. The other man’s white shirt had been soaked in red blood, which had dried into a deep, dark black colour. His limbs and joints had begun to stiffen after three hours of death, and his hand had finally come to rest on his chest, not far from where Yan Chenli’s own hand was pressing down on his gunshot wound.

It looked just like he’d really wanted to touch his hand, but stopped in the end.

Yan Chenli softly loosened his hands, putting the man gently down on the floor. He stared at the man briefly for a moment, then turned around and left.

While Group 1’s leader, Qin Ke, waited for everyone to assemble at the meeting point, he felt very excited, but also a little worried.

Their team had just completed the largest operation since the Tribunal arrived in Augustus, dismantling the most notorious violent armed organisation in the region.

The fierce and vicious Executioners were shoving the handcuffed criminals into the cars, and the criminals who’d just been viciously beaten by those monstrous, human-shaped weapons were now obediently following along like quails. As Adjudicators, they just had to stand by idly and watch, which was basically like already being off duty.

He could sense everyone was also excited, and some people were already discussing what kind of liquor they should drink at the celebration feast.

But the bad thing was that, as night fell, Captain Yan had an emergency dispatch.

He didn’t need to guess to know that something must have gone wrong with the Adjudicators’ encirclement formation. The most likely possibility was that someone had been ambushed.

This ominous premonition was confirmed when he saw Yan Chenli arriving slowly, his left hand soaked in blood.

But as everyone turned their heads to look at the group, they couldn’t make out who was missing among the familiar faces.

“Captain Yan, were there any casualties?” Qin Ke was the first one to go up and ask.

Yan Chenli looked serious as he nodded, “…Yes. Adjudicator Shen Lu has died in the line of duty.”

The Adjudicators looked at each other in dismay, ad although they felt shock and regret, many of them were also confused, “Shen Lu? Who is that?”

“Ah, it seems he was that tall man who didn’t speak much.” Qin Ke lifted his hand above his head and gestured, “The one who was a little taller than Captain Yan, that brown-haired man.”

The others turned their sights to Yan Chenli, who was 1.87m, and gradually recovered their memories, remembering who that was.

There were a total of ten Adjudicators participating in this operation, and unexpectedly, over half of them did not remember Shen Lu. Even Yan Chenli, who was jokingly called the social butterfly of the Criminal Investigation Bureau, wasn’t familiar with him, which just went to show how closed-off this person was.

The news of losing someone made the atmosphere depressed, so Yan Chenli clapped his hands and tried to raise their spirits, “It goes without saying that this operation was very dangerous, but our main goal has already been achieved thanks to everyone’s hard work. A series of chain reactions will follow, so everyone should take care and rest.”

“Also——” Yan Chenli swept his eyes past those present, “All Adjudicators, turn your firearms in using an evidence bag to avoid contamination. Right now, hurry.”

This order left everyone present a little perplexed, but they still packed all the sniper rifles used in the operation into evidence bags. Yan Chenli watched attentively as each one handed them over, putting them into a large cardboard box and sealing it with a strip of paper, then finally closing the car door.

“Good, let’s go back. There’ll be a meeting tomorrow morning.”

Captain Yan clapped his hands, and everyone scattered in different directions. Qin Ke was just about to get into his own armoured car when he saw Yan Chenli walking in the opposite direction, so he stopped a little anxiously and asked, “Captain! Aren’t you coming back with us?”

“I still have something to do.” Yan Chenli lowered his head and took off his gloves.

This was the first time Qin Ke saw Yan Chenli take off the gloves he wore year-round, and they had already stiffened from the dried-up blood. Yan Chenli glanced at them, put the gloves into an evidence bag, sealed it, and turned back towards the surroundings that encircled their battle, which he had checked countless times before settling on the place.

“Captain Yan!” Qin Ke couldn’t help but open his mouth to call after him, “I think… Originally, it would have been almost impossible for just sixty men to complete this siege. All the other Chief Adjudicators also indicated that they didn’t support it. But you succeeded, didn’t you? I’m very sorry about Shen Lu… but I just want to say that you’ve already done a very good job.”

Yan Chenli turned his head around and smiled silently, “Thank you. I’m fine, you should go back.”

Yan Chenli walked quickly, and disappeared from view after a few moments. Group 3’s Adjudicator, Chen Zhi, turned to glare at Qin Ke, “Allow me to correct you, it wasn’t sixty people, it was ten.”

His resentful gaze shifted towards the Executioners who were currently escorting the prisoners. The external appearance of those guys was very close to that of humans, but one could still see their bare metal skeletons on some parts of their body, and the light of the numbers on their collars flashed in the dark. After a night of bloody battle, every one of them was dreadfully covered in blood.

Chen Zhi watched them with disgust, and spoke in an ice-cold tone, “Don’t count those lethal weapons made from dead scum as members of the human race.”

Qin Ke shrugged and shook his head, he’d long since gotten used to Chen Zhi’s attitude, and had no intention of wasting his time debating with him. He called his own Executioner back and sealed it inside the hibernation cabin, then closed the door of the car with a ‘bang’.

It was the wee hours of the morning when Yan Chenli returned to the Tribunal.

Everyone was very worried when they heard an Adjudicator had died in the operation, and a few people poked their heads out from the doorframe to look at him when they heard the sounds of movement. Yan Chenli was rummaging through his keys in front of his door when he caught sight of the worried glances all around him, it seemed like everyone was wondering if he was hiding away to cry.

“Captain Yan, how come you’re back so late? Are you alright?” Qin Ke took the lead and asked the question everyone wanted to but didn’t dare to ask.

“It’s nothing, there was just something I was concerned about, so I went to see for myself.” Yan Chenli looked exhausted, but he really hadn’t closed his eyes for three days and wasn’t planning on trying to hide it. He turned his head to look at all the heads piled up on the doorframe, “Since you’re all so unexpectedly energetic, why don’t you just turn in your reports tonight?”

The heads shook fiercely and shrank back one after the other, and the corridor was cleared in the blink of an eye.

Yan Chenli laughed involuntarily, then grabbed his key and stuck it into the lock. After that, he stopped, and couldn’t help but turn to look at the door of his left-hand neighbour.

That was Shen Lu’s room.

When an Adjudicator died, their room should be cleared out within two days, so that it could be ready for its next owner to move in.

Yan Chenli paused, and took his key back.

He pulled out a lonely, bloodied key from his pocket, and then pushed open the door of that neighbouring room.

Yan Chenli closed the door and pressed the light switch on the wall, the power switch let out a crisp ‘pop’ sound, but there was no light. The ceiling light had always been broken, but Shen Lu never said anything.

There was a distinct smell of coffee inside the dark room, dense and fragrant, but also a little bitter. Yan Chenli could often smell this on Shen Lu’s body.

Fortunately, Yan Chenli had pretty good night vision, so he adapted to the darkness after a few seconds and saw a lamp on the desk. When he pulled the switch, a dusky, warm light illuminated the small room.

Augustus was one of the cities with most scarcity and crime in the Federation, and everyone in this place drifted along in life among the ruins, covered in dirt and grime, almost every day. In this place, one couldn’t even buy common household items like quilts, bedsheets, desks, or chairs, and most people——including Yan Chenli——had long since gotten used to only having a wooden board and a few sheets of cloth as cover, and rough rooms with exposed wires everywhere. It had really been a year since Yan Chenli had seen such a normal room.

The room was very neat and tidy, it even had a meticulously arranged colour scheme. Brown quilts and bedsheets, beige wallpaper, thick coffee-brown curtains, and a dark wooden chair and desk, there was even a bar made out of painted wooden boards, with a coffee machine, a glass bottle filled with coffee beans, a bottle of whiskey, and two bottles of tequila arranged on top of it.

There was a neat row of ties inside the wardrobe, most with classic patterns like stripes and such. There were also earth-toned shirts, forest green, and brown suit jackets. The uniform colours of the clothes turned the wardrobe into part of the room’s decoration, unifying the whole room into a calm and reserved style.

There were a few large, dense books arranged on top of the desk, as well as notebooks and old-fashioned fountain pens. It was all serious literature, titles like “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, “Crime and Punishment”, “The Stranger”, and “Waiting for Godot”. There were many labels filled with writing wrapped around the covers, and one could tell the reader really enjoyed taking notes. In addition to this, there were also several hand-made leather notebooks already filled with handwriting.

Yan Chenli picked up one of the notebooks in the middle of the desk. The dark-brown leather was about as thick as a coin, and he could see from the side that about half of it was already filled with writing, since the book was getting a little deformed. There was a cord tying it closed at the side, but he didn’t open it, and put it back in its original place.

There was a photo frame sitting in the most eye-catching position in front of the desk, with a group photo inside. That was the first day they had arrived at Augustus, Yan Chenli and his small team had taken a group photo outside of the doors of the Tribunal. Yan Chenli was standing right in the middle of the image with the others crowding around him, and Shen Lu was in the farthest place on the upper-left corner, just barely able to squeeze into the shot.

Apart from this, there was an open paper box on the desk, inside of which was a Rolex watch in a box. The model was very familiar, it was just like the one Yan Cheni wore every day, but he had never seen Shen Lu wearing it.

Yan Chenli turned his head, looking at the neat and tidy room that had been arranged with the utmost care, and let out a soft sigh.

“…This guy, why does it look like he came here to settle down?”

Yan Chenli simply showered and collapsed onto the brown bed.

He closed his eyes and thought about everything he could remember regarding Shen Lu.

If he remembered correctly, Shen Lu was 42 years old this year. He was 30 years old when he joined Yinjiang’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation, he stayed in the Investigation Department for five years, after that he transferred to the Technical Department to be a Forensic Scientist for some unknown reason.

During the five years he was in the Investigation department, Shen Lu was never in the same operations team as Yan Chenli, and the only times they were in direct contact was during the departments’ team building dinners. But even so, Shen Lu always sat off to the side and never interacted with anyone, so he and Shen Lu were barely at the stage of knowing each other’s name.

In addition to this, there were other circumstances. Yan Chenli liked hanging out in the lively business district after work——to put it nicely, he could also use it as a spontaneous patrol——and he was very fond of watching the bustling crowd. Sometimes, when he was standing in a daze by the riverbank, he could occasionally see Shen Lu sitting alone inside the glass window of a coffee shop on the other side of the street.

Sometimes, their gazes would meet, and Yan Chenli would smile and wave at him, then Shen Lu would nod at him from across the street. On a few occasions, Yan Chenli would simply go into that cafe and sit for a while. He liked chatting with all sorts of people, and he really couldn’t refute the title of social butterfly.

Yan Chenli was used to having a healthy diet, his body was very susceptible to caffeine1, nicotine and alcohol, so he never touched any. He simply asked for a glass of iced water, and sat next to Shen Lu, chatting for a while. Although Shen Lu hardly ever opened his mouth, he could sense that at least Shen Lu didn’t find him annoying.

Every time nearing the end of their chat, Yan Chenli, who was used to taking care of his subordinates, would instinctively take out his car keys and say: “Let me take you back.”

After that, Shen Lu would not make excuses, he would just bluntly and straightforwardly refuse: “No. I can get back by myself.”

Yan Chenli always felt that Shen Lu was in a very subtle state between proactivity and indifference.

There were many young people in Yan Chenli’s team who were committed to swindling him out of his funds for team building activities. As long as there were no cases on hand, they would go to the hotpot, barbecue, and KTV every few days, much more often than the other departments. Shen Lu was reclusive by nature, and in no way looked like the kind of person who would enjoy these kinds of gatherings. He had really never seen him having fun at those dinner parties, but strangely enough, of all the team building activities at the Investigation Department, Shen Lu never missed a single one.

“If you don’t like these kinds of gatherings, you don’t have to force yourself to participate.” Yan Chenli thought something must have been wrong, so he couldn’t stop himself from specifically going to find him at the end of one gathering, “Don’t worry about not fitting in, they really just use these meals to play around, there’s no pressure.”

Shen Lu responded firmly: “No. I like them very much.”

But he still nested himself alone in a corner, engrossed in the glass of whiskey with a large ice ball that was cupped in his hands, which for a time made Yan Chenli wonder if the little devils under his command had engaged in workplace bullying behind his back.

Yan Chenli had always been very aware of his own charm. He knew his appearance and personality were very likeable, and he had always received extraordinary enthusiasm and kindness from many of those around him. However, this also led Shen Lu, who appeared the way he did, to seem unusual, particular, and very cold in comparison to everyone else.

If it weren’t for Yan Chenli’s confidence in his own judgement of human psychology, anyone else would long since have wondered if they were hated by Shen Lu.

After Shen Lu went to the Technical Department to work as a forensic scientist, he and Yan Chenli were even more distant.

The turning point to this came as a complete coincidence. Yan Chenli had been invited to launch a special peacekeeping operation in Augustus, and the Chief of the Bureau had confirmed the transfer orders. The night before he was set to depart, he was at the riverbank again, and saw Shen Lu sitting in the coffee shop on the other side of the street.

This operation was still in its experimental stage, and no formal cooperation had been reached with the Criminal Investigation Bureau. They couldn’t directly transfer people, so they were very short on manpower. When Shen Lu looked at him from the other side of the street, a strange feeling arose in Yan Chenli.

Yan Chenli suddenly felt that, as long as he invited him, Shen Lu would surely agree.

And it was true. Because the operation was still highly classified, Yan Chenli’s explanation and invitation was very vague. Yan Chenli couldn’t explain the place, the purpose, or the strategy, he could only repeatedly emphasize how great the danger was.

But Shen Lu simply looked at him with a slight feeling of surprise, not thinking much about it at all, and simply nodded and said: “Okay.”

Without knowing anything at all, Shen Lu instantly handed over his life.

But he wasn’t able to protect him.

Yan Chenli put the back of his hand over his eyes, closing them and letting out a deep breath.

He distinctly remembered every detail of that moment. In that moment, the sky was gloomy, and black clouds and nightfall had come down heavily at the same time. The northern wind blew up grit and dust, and the tree leaves rustled. The body in his arms gradually lost temperature, the breathing became weaker and weaker, and the blood from the gunshot wound under his palm no longer gushed out, solidifying on his hand.

Midway through, Shen Lu lightly touched his fingertips, but quickly backed away.

Yan Chenli spent the time it took him to rush over thinking about how he would explain things to the other man. He didn’t know how to say such cruel worlds like “I can’t save you” to a teammate who fought alongside him.

But Shen Lu didn’t say anything.

He didn’t protest, didn’t plead for help, didn’t even ask questions. Shen Lu simply watched him meekly, calmly and quietly waiting for death in his arms.

“If someone had to be sacrificed in your plan, I would rather that person be me.”

“Because you must know that I will never have any complaints regarding any of your decisions.”

Yan Chenli closed his eyes, he seemed to still be able to hear the last words Shen Lu spoke to him at the end of his life.

The severe bloodloss and lung injuries had rendered his breathing extremely unstable, but he spoke slowly and seriously, gathering his strength and clearly enunciating every single word.

“I’m honoured.” He said, “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

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1 Original text was censored at that word, so I just went with ‘caffeine’ since that’s what the context suggests. Top.