Captured By The Cold Detective (BL)-Chapter 98: Blind Beast

In that photo, He Juan and the male foreigner were standing face-to-face, talking, in a certain port with the background of cargo ships behind them. He Juan was wearing a pristine white suit, with a dark blue suit jacket draped over his shoulders, his hair was similar in length as now. He had a casual, almost languid smile on his face; seven parts indifference and three parts cordiality. It was evident that this was not their first meeting. Instead, they looked more like... business partners or something.

He Juan stared at his own face in the photo and felt like he could not recognize himself. He had never seen this foreigner before in his life, so the only possibility was that this photo... had been taken before he lost his memory.

More than seven years ago. The life He Juan thought he had lost forever.

This was the first time he had seen a photograph of himself from the past. Alas... never had he expected that it would be under this kind of situation.

He Juan tried to open his mouth to say something, yet his throat was locked up. His fingers were stiff, and it took him a while to register that the muscles on his whole body were tensed. He squeezed the words out of the hollow of his throat, sounding raspy and unpleasant even to his own ears. "Xieren, I..."

I... what? Exactly what could he say at a time like this?

Su Xieren regained his composure quickly as though the previous distress he showed was merely a mirage. Obviously, he had prepared himself very well before He Juan arrived – no, he had been preparing himself since he first retrieved the box that the deceased Zhao Xinya left him. Even back in the café, he had always carried this dilemma, and it was not until now that he made up his mind to confront He Juan head-on.

He tapped his finger on the contract. "Li Mingzhao’s name is written clearly on the paper and the other party is a group called... Xuanlong[1]. Have you heard of it?"

—Xuanlong.

He Juan was certain he had never heard of this group before, yet as soon as Su Xieren said it, an unspeakable sense of repulsion and disgust crawled on his skin, almost distorting his face in a split second. His memory might have failed him, but not his instinct. Deep in his soul, he knew this name so well that his body could show such a strong reaction even with his memory loss.

The truth finally dawned on him.

Ah, I really knew them in the past...

"Judging from your reaction, this photo should have been taken before your accident, right?" When He Juan stiffly nodded, he continued, "Da-ge, I have known you for seven long years. I won’t be so arrogant to claim that I know you inside out, but at least I know what kind of person you are. Da-ge, you have left the past behind you. Don’t you think that... it’s similar to making a clean break?"

He Juan pressed his lips tight as his gaze lowered to the photo once again. That’s right. Logically speaking, if the foreigner was someone involved in the criminal acts of child trafficking, then He Juan who was with him... should be the same. He Juan could come to his conclusion, and so could Su Xieren.

Once again, just like the moment when he was arrested as the prime suspect of Miss Zhao’s murder, He Juan felt as if his soul was detached from his body and saw through everything in the third’s perspective. He felt oddly calm as he analyzed everything that had happened for the past few days.

No wonder... No wonder Miss Zhao had slammed the door on him when they first met. His photo had been in Miss Zhao’s possession. She must have thought that he was colluding with CEO Li and moved into the apartment to target her. Everything suddenly clicked in place in He Juan’s mind. No wonder Miss Zhao wrote his name as her dying message. He Juan had just moved into the apartment for a few short days, and then someone suddenly came with a malicious intention to her door...

She must have assumed that... the one who wanted to kill her was... He Juan!

A laugh suddenly escaped He Juan’s throat, breathless and hoarse. He could not bring himself to lift his head and look into Su Xieren’s eyes, not after what he had found out. "Xieren, you have solid evidence... The one who wanted Miss Zhao’s death must be CEO Li. I have no idea what kind of relationship the two of them have, but... if you bring this to the police, then CEO Li will not be able to escape..."

Then why? Why did Su Xieren choose to keep the evidence and show him instead? Was it out of the friendship between the two of them? Was Su Xieren afraid that... if he handed the evidence to the police, then He Juan would be implicated as well?

But then, even if he was brought to the police...

He Juan suddenly recalled the moment when he was brought into the interrogation room for the first time. Back then, Mu Yuze told him how they could not find any record of him in the database, not even a simple footage from the surveillance camera. At that moment, He Juan did not think too much about it, but now, he felt chills running down his spine, one that was so intense it was as if he was submerged into a freezing cold lake in the peak of winter.

—Even if he was brought to the police, they would not be able to find anything about him. Because everything in this past had been wiped clean, just like his memory.

It was truly as if... He Juan’s entire existence was a secret which should not have been exposed to the world.

This time, He Juan perceived a chink in his armor and a flood of panic and fluster surged in, sending waves of nausea from his churning stomach up to his constricted throat. As bile rose to the base of his tongue, He Juan abruptly stood up and disregarding Su Xieren’s alarmed cry, he rushed to the bathroom and retched on the sink. There was nothing he could vomit out other than acid gastric juice as he had not eaten breakfast before coming here in a hurry.

"Da-ge, are you okay?!" Su Xieren appeared behind him and patted his back, a concerned furrow on his brows.

Through his blurry vision, He Juan glanced at the Beta and saw his genuine concerned demeanor. Why...? Why did Su Xieren’s attitude toward him remain unchanged even after he knew all of that? Even after he knew that... He Juan might have something to do with his girlfriend’s death?

He Juan screwed his eyes shut and gripped the edge of the sink so tight that his knuckles turned white. His entire body was shivering lightly, and a burst of pain pierced into the back of his skull. He felt like he had been transported back to seven years ago, when he had just woken up for the first time.

He had no idea who he was, where he was, and who the people around him were. Carrying numerous fresh and bleeding wounds on his body, he stubbornly kept the pain within him and showed a defensive and aggressive reaction to the world, treating everyone as enemies who were out to get him.

He was so lost, so afraid, so untethered... without anything that bound him to this world, he felt like he would fade out of existence just by the slightest breeze. He was akin to a blind wild beast trapped in a thorny cage. The more he struggled, the stronger the force that pulled him down toward the abyss, with the darkness filling in through every pore on his body. It took him a few good years of counseling before he could get himself out of that dangerous mind frame.

Yet in a blink of an eye, he was thrown back into that endless nightmare.

And this time, it was even worse than that. 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

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[1] Xuan = dark, black, mysterious // Long = dragon