Chapter 430: I Am a People's Police Officer of China, Badge Number 032855 |
“Go!”
On the massive screen, Jiang He let out a low roar.
He grabbed Lei Zhong by the collar, with such force it threatened to tear the fabric.
The two of them stumbled toward the side door.
Director Jiang Wen was using an extremely daring filming technique here — a handheld long lens following shot.
No stabilizer.
The cinematographer shouldered the dozens-of-pounds camera and sprinted with the actors.
The image shook violently, even drifting in and out of focus.
But that very instability created a sense of authenticity.
Footsteps.
The explosive crack of bullets smashing through wooden boards.
All the sounds mingled together, hammering against the temples of the Hall Four audience.
“Boom—!”
A stray bullet detonated at their feet.
The shockwave, mixed with gravel and splinters, slammed into them.
Jiang He did not hesitate.
When the explosion went off, he used his back to shield Lei Zhong.
“Pfft.”
The sound of shrapnel tearing flesh.
Even though he wore a bulletproof vest, the force at such close range still contorted Jiang He’s features.
He fell into the muddy water, then sprang up the next second.
“Uncle! This way!”
Jiang He’s face was covered in blood; it was impossible to tell whether it came from the recent spray or his own wound.
He dragged a dazed Lei Zhong and rushed into a secret passage leading to the back mountain.
Inside Hall Four.
The girl in the front row eating popcorn gripped her companion’s arm so hard her fingernails dug into flesh.
“What’s he thinking…” the girl said through tears, “The police are here, so why is he still saving that drug lord?”
In the last row.
Old Zhao stared intently at that not-very-wide figure on the screen.
“For trust.”
Old Zhao’s voice was hoarse.
“Only by risking his life at this moment would Cha Cai bring him into the core area, into that true deathtrap.”
“This kid… is gambling with his life.”
The scene shifted.
The meth lab.
The reactor kettle still roared, but the steel leviathan had already become a prison.
Narcotics officers’ footsteps closed in from all directions.
Jiang He dragged Lei Zhong, weaving through the maze of pipes.
Suddenly.
“Crack—”
A snapping sound came from above.
A burning crossbeam, its support compromised by the explosion’s aftershock, came crashing down.
In a flash.
Jiang He moved.
He hurled himself onto Lei Zhong, violently pushing him aside.
“Bang!”
The crossbeam slammed squarely onto Jiang He’s back.
Even through the screen, the audience could hear the brittle snap of bone.
A prop blood pack burst under the pressure.
“Blood” stained Jiang He’s back.
“Ah He!!!”
Lei Zhong screamed as he scrambled up.
He looked at the young man pinned beneath the beam.
In those killer eyes, terror suddenly flared.
Jiang He was still struggling.
He shoved against the beam, veins bulging in his neck.
“Go… Uncle… go…”
Even now, his cries still urged him to run.
Lei Zhong’s eyes reddened.
He charged over, forcibly lifted one end of the beam, and pulled Jiang He out.
Then, recklessly, he hoisted Jiang He onto his shoulders.
They turned and ran.
“I’ll take you! Uncle will take you!”
Lei Zhong shouted as he ran, “We’ll go to the Golden Triangle! We’ll live well! No one touches my son!”
The scene was painfully ironic.
A heinous drug lord carried the undercover who wanted his life, enacting a “father’s kindness and son’s filial piety” amid hail of bullets.
At last.
Light appeared ahead.
They burst out of the tunnel.
But what awaited them was not a way out.
Wind.
A strong wind.
Ahead lay a bottomless cliff; below, the angry river thundered and roared.
Behind them, the black silhouettes of narcotics officers had already sealed off every retreat.
A dead end.
This was the endpoint Jiang He had mapped out.
Lei Zhong put Jiang He down.
He looked at the impassable path before them, then glanced back at the approaching officers.
Suddenly, he laughed.
A mad, desperate laugh.
He took a black remote from his pocket.
His thumb hovered over the red button.
“Come on!”
Lei Zhong screamed at the SWAT team, spitting as he roared,
“Don’t come any closer! I’ve buried mines under this whole compound! If you don’t want to die too, back off!”
The SWAT officers halted.
No one dared bet on a madman’s rationality.
At that moment.
An accident occurred.
This was not a scripted mishap, but a real accident on set.
During the scene, a nearby demolition charge used to build atmosphere shorted out and detonated early.
“Boom!”
The shockwave, mixed with dirt and rock, violently knocked down Jiang Ci, who was closest.
On the big screen, the audience saw clearly.
Jiang He was flung by the blast and slammed heavily onto the rubble.
“Pfft—”
A mouthful of blood burst out.
It was not prop blood.
It was real internal bruising from the shock.
Jiang Ci’s face went ashen.
The intense pain contorted his features.
Director Jiang Wen, watching from behind the monitor, did not call for a stop.
Because he saw Jiang Ci’s eyes.
That look said: Don’t stop.
Jiang He struggled on the ground twice but could not rise.
He lay prone, gasping in great uneven breaths.
Lei Zhong froze.
He assumed this, too, was part of the “play.”
The grief of seeing his “son” injured erupted even more genuinely.
“Ah He…”
Lei Zhong opened his arms, turned his back to the cliff, his expression exuding a morbid tenderness.
“Come here.”
“If you can’t leave, then don’t leave.”
“On the road to the underworld, Uncle won’t be alone.”
The wind howled.
It whipped Lei Zhong’s clothes into a frenzy.
Hall Four fell silent.
Chu Hong covered her mouth.
She trembled.
As a mother, she realized.
That mouthful of blood just now wasn’t acted.
It was real pain.
On the massive screen.
Jiang He moved.
He planted his hands on the ground, his nails digging into the mud, and little by little pushed himself up.
Unsteady.
He lifted his head.
His face was smeared with blood and dirt, and held a deathly pallor.
But he smiled.
As if a thousand-pound burden had been lifted, he saw the long-missed light.
He reached to his waist.
Lei Zhong thought he was going for some token; his eyes grew even more expectant.
But.
He drew out a gun.
A golden Glock.
Jiang He gripped the gun with both hands.
Though his body still trembled from the pain, those hands were rock-steady.
The black muzzle.
It aimed steadily at Lei Zhong’s brow.
The smile on Lei Zhong’s face froze.
Jiang He’s back slowly straightened.
That bandit aura of a henchman that had clung to him for two whole years,
at this moment, was swept clean by the mountain wind.
He looked at Lei Zhong.
There was no so-called “father-son affection” in his eyes anymore, only judgment.
Even with blood still dripping from his lip, his voice remained clear and precise, cutting through the wind, cutting through the big screen.
“I am a People’s Police officer of Hua Country.”
“Badge number, 032855.”
In the last row.
“Swoosh!”
The sound of fabric rubbing.
The group of viewers specially invited by Jiang Wen straightened reflexively.
Hands that had been resting on their knees pressed tight against pants seams.
That badge number.
It was the language they knew best.
On the screen.
Jiang He stepped forward.
The gun did not move an inch.
With the last of his strength, he enunciated each word:
“Cha Cai.”
“You are under arrest.”
An undercover officer, after surviving death nine times over, crawling through over seven hundred nights and days in the mud,
yelled out the name that reclaimed himself.
Lei Zhong’s expression collapsed.
The bewilderment, anger, and incomprehension of being betrayed by someone so close twisted his face.
He stared at the muzzle.
Then he looked at Jiang He’s eyes—clear to a terrifying degree.
“Police…”
Lei Zhong murmured, then burst into a piercing, agonized howl.
“You’re a cop?!”
“You were a cop all along?!”
…
“Then every time you called me ‘Uncle’ these past two years… was it all an act?!”
“Every time you saved my life… was it all for today?!”
Jiang He did not answer.
His hand trembled; it was a physiological reaction at his limits.
“Bang.”
That was a gunshot in Jiang Ci’s heart.
It was also the sound of everyone’s tear ducts in Hall Four rupturing.
Chu Hong could no longer hold back.
She watched the son standing tall on the screen, and tears burst forth like a dam breaking.
She remembered the badge number.
032855.
That was Jiang Yanjun’s badge number.
Back then, beside the unfinished letter home, that badge had been placed.
So it turned out.
You wore it.
You truly polished it bright.