Yin Wuwang didn't answer. He simply watched Dragon Brother in silence, waiting for the man to fill the blank himself.
Dragon Brother's gaze lingered on Yin Wuwang's face for several seconds. Then his shoulders loosened—his entire posture switching from "defensive" to "forget it."
"Yes. There was one, five years ago." He leaned back against the chair. "Surname Zhou. Zhou Wen."
Yin Wuwang's finger tapped his knee once, very lightly.
Zhou Wen.
The name entered this room as sound for the first time.
"Pretty girl." Dragon Brother's tone took on the texture of memory, as if reaching back across a long stretch of time. "Petite. Fair-skinned. Soft-spoken. When Chen Wan came to sign the contract, I saw her once—waiting for him downstairs."
He paused, the corner of his mouth hooking into an ambiguous arc.
"I even cracked a joke with him. I said, Xiao Chen, you've got such a pretty girlfriend—why not have her come work as a hostess at my bar? A month's tips could cover half a month's repayment."
Yin Wuwang's gaze darkened.
"How did he react?"
"He guarded her fiercely." Three words, and they carried a sliver of genuine feeling—Yin Wuwang could hear it; that wasn't performance. "I'd never seen him react that strongly to anything. Normally he was the most easygoing person you could meet, willing to negotiate on absolutely anything. But the moment you brought up that girl, he became someone else entirely. He said—'Dragon Brother, any terms are on the table. But Zhou Wen is off limits.'"
Yin Wuwang committed that sentence to memory in its entirety.
Ten million in debt. Five years of grinding repayment. Accompanying clients for drinks—and for more than drinks. He'd dismantled himself piece by piece to pay his mother's gambling debt, willing to sacrifice anything. Except Zhou Wen.
"What happened after?" Xie Qingyan asked.
"After that, the girl never showed up again." Dragon Brother shook his head. "About six months after the contract was signed, I suppose. I asked him offhandedly once—where's that pretty girlfriend of yours? His face went white in an instant—the kind of white that comes when something stabs you from the inside. Then he said two words: 'We split.'"
Dragon Brother's fingers tapped the armrest twice.
"I'm not brainless. 'Split?' Those eyes didn't look like 'split.'" He paused a beat. "Later I asked around the bar. Someone said the girl had apparently had some kind of episode. Lost her mind."
"Lost her mind?" Yin Wuwang repeated.
"I don't know the specifics. None of my business." Dragon Brother's gaze drifted toward the fish tank, watching those golden arowana glide through the water in their endless, silent circuits. "All I cared about was whether Chen Wan could pay on time. He could. Everything else, I didn't ask."
Yin Wuwang assembled this with the earlier fragments—Zhou Wen, Chen Wan's girlfriend, vanished five years ago. "Lost her mind"—if it was a psychiatric condition, she'd very likely ended up in a hospital somewhere. Chen Wan living in a hundred-square-foot studio, eating expired box lunches, selling himself to repay the debt, while simultaneously keeping everyone away from Zhou Wen.
He was protecting someone who no longer recognized him.
Yin Wuwang didn't linger on that thought. He glanced at Xie Qingyan—Xie Qingyan was writing rapidly in the notebook on his knee, the pen whispering across paper. Yin Wuwang sat close enough to catch the last three characters: "Psychiatric hospital" followed by a question mark.
Their lines of thinking were perfectly in sync.
Yin Wuwang was about to press for more details on Zhou Wen when Dragon Brother's tone shifted abruptly.
"Officer Jiang." He straightened, both hands bracing the armrests. "I've told you everything I should. Chen Wan's debts, the bar's operations, his personal affairs—I've held nothing back on anything you've asked."
His gaze went cold.
"But I have my limits. My business scope, my client list, Long Wei Group's commercial secrets—none of that has anything to do with Chen Wan's murder. I'd appreciate it if you two didn't cross the line."
This was an eviction notice.
Yin Wuwang looked into Dragon Brother's eyes. Every trace of courtesy had been stripped clean from his face, leaving only the honed, temperatureless edge of someone who'd spent decades operating in the gray.
"Director Long," Yin Wuwang didn't move, "after Zhou Wen's incident—did Chen Wan ever borrow additional money from you? For instance, money spent on Zhou Wen."
Dragon Brother's jaw muscle clenched—the briefest flash of involuntary tension. Without three thousand years of observational habit, it would have been invisible.
"I said," Dragon Brother's voice dropped half a register, "don't cross the line."
He tilted his head.
The two men at the door took a step forward in unison.
Yin Wuwang's spine didn't tense—the opposite. His body loosened. Like a blade in the instant before it leaves the sheath.
"Director Long, we are conducting a lawful investigation." Yin Wuwang's tone was neither light nor heavy. "The consequences of obstructing official business—I'm sure you know them better than I do."
Dragon Brother stared at him for three seconds. Then a chill passed through the depths of his eyes—suit yourselves.
"It's been a long day for you both. Xiao Wu, see them out."
The shorter, solidly built man—Xiao Wu—stepped forward and positioned himself at Yin Wuwang's flank.
"Gentlemen. This way, please." His tone was polite, but his hand was already rising, palm hovering toward Yin Wuwang's shoulder.
Before the palm made contact, Yin Wuwang moved.
He didn't stand. The seated posture, the turning angle, the speed of his hand—all completed in a single motion. His right hand closed around Xiao Wu's wrist, fingers locking into the hollows on either side of the wrist bone, pressing precisely on two tendons.
Xiao Wu froze.
His entire arm lost its strength at once, as if someone had pinched the switch on a power line. He strained to wrench his hand back, but those five fingers were iron bands—they didn't give a millimeter.
Yin Wuwang looked up at him, expression perfectly calm: "I said—lawful investigation."
The big man on the left reacted half a beat faster. He charged forward, right fist driving straight at Yin Wuwang's temple.
Yin Wuwang pushed Xiao Wu's wrist outward—precisely positioning Xiao Wu's body as an obstacle between himself and the incoming punch. The big man couldn't check his momentum; his knuckles grazed Xiao Wu's shoulder and struck air.
Only then did Yin Wuwang stand.
The speed at which he rose made Dragon Brother's breath catch. No explosive burst of tensed-then-released muscle—it was like a water level rising. Silent. Fluid. Effortless.
The big man adjusted his center of gravity and threw a second punch.
Yin Wuwang turned sideways. The fist slid past his ear, the pressure of displaced air ruffling the stray hair at his forehead. He caught the big man's forearm in the same motion, rotated his palm outward, and pressed down.
The big man's knees hit the carpet—guided by structural mechanics into the only posture that could relieve the searing pain shooting through his arm. He knelt on the floor, one hand bracing the ground, expression shifting from fury to blank bewilderment. He couldn't comprehend how he'd gone from standing to kneeling.
Xiao Wu rushed in from the side, rubbing his wrist. Yin Wuwang released the big man, sidestepped half a pace to clear Xiao Wu's path, and drove his right elbow backward—the point striking precisely into the nerve cluster beneath Xiao Wu's collarbone.
Xiao Wu grunted. His entire arm snapped back as if electrified, and he staggered three steps into the wall.
Silence.
From Xiao Wu's first reach to now—no more than six seconds.
Yin Wuwang stood beside the long table, breathing even, not a single new crease on his shirt. He flexed his fingers once—fighting without spiritual energy always felt slightly underwhelming, but this character's reflexes and physical conditioning were more useful than he'd anticipated.
[End of V2_Chapter 55]
Next: "Which Unit Were You With?"—"Sports Academy." (Dead Serious.)