While A Shui was still reeling from the rank of the man who had appeared, Chen Huijie felt his phone vibrate.
Pulling it out, he saw:
March 11th, 9:14 PM. R.I.P. May the dead rest in peace. (Event canceled)
Then he glanced at the current time.
9:12 PM.
I see.
So once the "past" is changed, the relevant memo reminder is canceled.
Nodding in understanding, Chen Huijie also noticed that the pink app was now trembling faintly, as if trying to prompt him toward something.
"Ugh…"
But the groan behind him drew his attention away from the mysterious app for the moment.
Turning around, Chen Huijie severed the ropes binding A Shui and used his true qi to gently lower him to the ground. Looking up at the man in front of him, A Shui felt an overwhelming sense of safety surge through him. The breath he had been holding finally released, and he fainted.
At that moment, the shriek of police sirens pierced the air.
The arriving Guard Department officers swiftly sealed off the area, and floodlights swept away the darkness. Through the broken window, Chen Huijie saw Swire charging toward the place with a meteor hammer in hand, her team behind her.
Ah. That familiar golden hair. That familiar customized uniform. Those familiar black silk boots. That familiar steel meteor hammer…
Seeing it, Chen Huijie couldn't help feeling a little nostalgic.
Ever since Swire left the Guard Department to inherit the family business, he had not seen her dressed like this again. He kind of missed it. Though if he really wanted to see it, all he'd need to do was say the word—she'd never refuse him.
After all, they were childhood friends. The kind close enough that one look from him and she'd know he was short on funding again.
Still, in the future they had spent more time apart than together. Even Lin Yuhsia, his other childhood friend who had remained in Lungmen, was someone he had not seen for months. Swire, who was forever flying around to handle business, even less so.
Now that he thought about it, before all this, he had never realized Swire could be that career-minded. It wasn't just that she herself worked non-stop—every time they met, she would prod at him openly and indirectly alike, telling him to work harder and become Chief of the Guard Department sooner.
"Hng…"
A sudden stab of pain made Chen Huijie rub his chest.
This "old friend" was coming by more and more often lately. But after this business, he could find somewhere to close his eyes for a while and the pain would ease. Then he'd go get some medicine from a doctor and be as good as new again.
"Don't move! Police!"
The door crashed inward.
Swire's lion's-roar shout hit so hard it practically rattled the dust off the walls, and Chen Huijie instantly felt that yes, the flavor was exactly right.
"Squat down! Can't you hear me, you bastard?!"
Swire took the only standing figure in the room for a gang member and charged forward swinging her meteor hammer, ready to strike. But after taking two steps and adjusting to the dim light, she abruptly realized the scene did not match her expectations at all.
Never mind how the gangsters had been subdued—why was there a Superintendent standing here?
"S-Sir!"
Swire hurriedly withdrew her weapon and snapped a salute. Chen Huijie nodded and began giving orders to the other officers.
"Medical team first—take care of this officer. The one on the wall won't die yet. Bring the rest back to headquarters and separate them. Wake them up one at a time and interrogate them one at a time."
After giving the instructions, he dusted off his hands and turned to Swire.
"All right. Mission complete. You can withdraw."
"Yes, sir… um, Superintendent—was it you who called me just now?"
She snapped another salute almost automatically, then asked the question she had been holding back.
When she got word that A Shui's cover had been blown, she had immediately gathered her people to rescue him. But on the way, she had received a call from an unknown number. The caller had told her A Shui had been moved to the abandoned district, and that she was heading the wrong way—then simply hung up.
Swire hadn't hesitated long before changing course.
Partly because the caller had dialed her personal number, which almost nobody in the Guard Department knew.
And partly because…
Well, how to put it?
The tone had felt absurdly natural.
Like someone at home calling you to dinner.
You didn't stop to wonder whether the dinner was real or fake.
That was why she had been willing to bet on it.
Now, however, standing in front of this man, her head was full of question marks.
He did look strangely familiar—very much like that lung-and-intestines dragon Chen Huijie—but she was sure she didn't know him. And as for a Superintendent in the Guard Department…
Since when had someone like this appeared?
"That's right. It was me."
Chen Huijie nodded and started walking outside while speaking in a calm tone.
"My phone seems to be broken. Couldn't make a call, so I had to use a payphone."
It was a lie.
Back on the rooftop, he had already discovered that his phone had no signal at all. But he hadn't cared much. A phone from the future ending up in the past—some kind of glitch was only natural. Once things stabilized, he could deal with it slowly.
"Still, Swire, you really went too far."
Stepping outside the ruined building, Chen Huijie looked over the glaring floodlights and silently counted the personnel present. Then he said with helpless disapproval:
"You pulled out every duty team to save one person. The duty superintendents should never have approved that. So what was it—did you throw money at the problem? Or did you have the superintendents locked up?"
"Uh… ah…"
"Looks like both."
"Superintendent! The slums are complicated—if we came in with too few people, it would've been impossible to rescue anyone!"
Swire shot back stubbornly.
"This was an emergency measure. Would you really rather let a fellow officer die because of all those messy regulations? And speaking of which…"
Squinting at him suspiciously, she added:
"You look awfully unfamiliar, Superintendent. Mind if I see your identification—ow!"
Chen Huijie expressionlessly flicked her forehead.
"That's enough out of you. You know perfectly well whether I've got identification or not."
Of course he didn't.
He did carry his Superintendent's badge and identification on him—but at this point in time, he was supposed to be off traveling the world, not serving in the Guard Department. Which meant that piece of identification was, technically, fake.
Still, if he went and said a word to his uncle later, fake would soon become real.
But to Chen Huijie, Swire's "official business" attitude carried a rather suspicious shade of needling sarcasm.
How had he managed to offend her in this timeline? Was it because he hadn't mailed her souvenirs in too long?
Well, that wasn't really his fault. The last thing he'd sent her—a woven bamboo craft—she had called tacky and mocked him for ages, saying he had no idea what suited her tastes. So naturally he had decided to wait until he found something more appropriate before sending anything else.
And since he never had found anything suitable, he never had sent anything.
Yuhsia, on the other hand, was better. She accepted everything he sent and had even dedicated a whole room just to storing those gifts.
"Mmph…"
Rubbing her forehead, Swire shot him an irritated look.
This Superintendent had absolutely no sense of boundaries. They had barely met, and he was already flicking her on the head.
And yet…
How to put it…
It felt weirdly natural.
Familiar.
Like an old friend she had known for years.
So familiar she couldn't even get properly angry.
Aaah—! What is wrong with me?!
Swire clawed irritably at her hair, then finally looked him dead in the eye and demanded outright:
"No really—who are you? Aaaagh!"
The question had barely left her lips before the man in front of her produced an expression of utter bafflement and lightly began chopping the top of her head with the side of his hand in a rapid series.
"This is too much, way too much, way too much. I went away to study, not to get plastic surgery. And now you're pretending to be strangers with me? Let me tell you, I—hm?"
The rest of Chen Huijie's words died mid-sentence.
He noticed that Swire was sneaking glances at him with a thoroughly awkward, thoroughly confused expression.
That small, lost look in her eyes did not seem fake.
The smile on Chen Huijie's face slowly disappeared.
He pointed at himself and asked seriously:
"You really don't remember me?"
"I really don't know you."
Swire could hear the unease in his tone now, and for some reason it made sweat break out down her back. But in the end, all she could do was lift her head and stare blankly back at him.
Chen Huijie opened his mouth, then found he had nothing to say.
At that moment, he vaguely realized that this transmigration might not be as simple as "going back to the past."
"Back to the Guard Department first. No matter what else happens, the Guard Department cannot be left empty."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, Chen Huijie gave the order softly.
Swire thought he had a point and immediately began calling for the officers to prepare to withdraw.
Just then, the roar of an engine approached.
Chen Huijie turned—and saw a small scooter barreling toward them at shocking speed.
He recognized the rider instantly.
Hoshiguma.
His old subordinate.
But just as the scooter braked, a black shadow suddenly sprang from behind Hoshiguma and lunged straight at Chen Huijie with vicious fury!
-------
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