Since the day I last saw Zhan, when he held a gun to my face in front of the agency and told me he was going to kill me, a year and a month have passed. A lot of time in which a lot happened. Only one thing did not. That Zhan kills me!

In the meantime I have a small network of people I can actually trust and who keep their eyes open for me. Especially in the Agency. And thanks to Mr. Chou, I have other people, someone in my mother's prosecutor's office. Several police officers. Agents from other agencies. Hairdressers, bakers, shoe salesmen. A jeweler and even some government officials. But also some men who live in what they call the shadow world. I call it the underworld.

We even have a journalist on our side who published a coded ad every week that I'm sure only Zhan can understand. Because in doing so, we use a secret code that Zhan and Mr. Chou came up with at the time. But no matter how many times we posted the ad, so far Zhan had never responded. Until now!

A week ago, we received a response from Zhan in the same way. He wrote in his secret code, "Come and find me." I laughed, because finally he seemed to come out of hiding. And just two days later, I received on Zhan's cell phone, coordinates. Mr. Chou and I followed those coordinates and they took us all over Yiling.

We crisscrossed the place, got to know places here we didn't know before, including a sauna we didn't know about before, and finally the last coordinate led us back to our starting point. Mr. Chou laughed out loud when we found ourselves at the front door of our secret hideout. "Oh yeah, I knew he was good. He's even better than I expected him to be. He showed us today that he knows exactly where we are and what we are doing. Smart fox."

Proud like a father because his son had surpassed his expectations, Mr. Chou walked ahead to our hiding place with a grin. Wooseok looked at us questioningly and wanted to know if we had met Zhan. I shook my head and said, "No, we haven't. But he showed us that he knows where we are."

The next moment, the monitors in our base camp went crazy. They flickered, showed noise images, and then a video recording of Zhan appeared on all the monitors. "Hello friends, did you miss me? Sure you did, you've been begging for me to contact you in the newspaper for months. How did you like your walk today? How was the sauna? You should have seen the look on your face. Oh yes, as you can see, I'm standing in front of your hideout right now. Well chosen, but not good enough for me. I'll move on then. Oh Yibo, I haven't forgotten about you. Don't worry, I'll deal with you in time."

Then the video ended and the monitors returned to normal. Mr. Chou could hardly contain himself with joy and kept praising how much Zhan had exceeded his expectations. I, on the other hand, ran outside to see if I could still see Zhan anywhere.

God what kind of special agents, investigators are Mr. Chou and I if we don't even realize that we were being followed all along by the person we were looking for?

Wooseok couldn't even find the backdoor that Zhan took to hack into our network. So much for impassable firewalls. Ha, don't make me laugh. Zhan doesn't seem to find the firewall as impassable as we do. But it was good at that moment to see that he was okay. He looked as good as ever. I was reassured that he hadn't let himself go.

Then came today. Mr. Chou came from his shopping and brought the new newspaper. In it we found an advertisement from Zhan. He wrote, "If you want to settle your bill, find me where we met." I was amazed and thought, well then, this will probably be my last day alive.

The weird thing is, I wasn't even scared as I got ready that evening, put on my favorite clothes and thought, if I'm going to die today, at least I'm going to die in my favorite clothes. Those clothes that I bought when I first came here to Yiling. Those clothes I wore when I first met Zhan in the bar.

Before I left for the bar, Mr. Chou and I talked briefly about what should happen if I really didn't come back. I explained to him that he should then take the evidence collected so far against my mother and bring it to Special Agent Jackson. However, he should then also give copies of it to the media. 

We have now gathered enough evidence against my mother that we can definitely use against her and that she can't talk her way out of. So far, however, we have kept this evidence back just in case we need leverage against her in case she goes after Zhan again.

Mr. Chou hugged me again before I left, saying, "I guess I'll see you again tomorrow. Zhan won't kill you just like that. He's just starting to play now. So I'm not saying goodbye to you, I'm just saying, see you tomorrow."

I believed back then when I came back to Beijing that Zhan had already opened the games then, but that was just my imagination, maybe my wishful thinking. I wanted to see Zhan again so badly that I must have imagined everything at that time.

Since I didn't have far to go to the bar, I walked. I sat down at the counter and waited. I ordered a beer and kept an eye on the front door. An hour passed, it got dark outside, another hour passed and the first guests left while new ones came. But there was no sign of Zhan. Had he led me around by the nose again this time and is now watching me laughing from a safe hiding place?

Now that the bar always closes at midnight during the week, there wasn't much time left when I looked at the clock. It had already been 11:35 pm. I assumed that Zhan would not come, finished my beer and wanted to pay. The bartender, however, shook his head and said, "No, it's all on the house for you today."

"And who decided that?" I asked.

"I got a call from the owner of the bar and he told me to give you whatever you want today, he pays for everything."

"And you're just telling me this now? I've been pouring myself three beers for three hours. I could have gotten really drunk instead." I complained as I put money on the counter anyway.

I left the bar, I turned around to the door to close it, when I suddenly felt someone poke something in my neck and I passed out.

When I woke up again, my eyes were blindfolded. But I was free. I heard two men whispering to each other, shortly after a door and then someone pushed me onto a chair. "Stay seated or I'll have to tie you up after all. You don't want that do you?" Said the man in a rough voice. I shook my head.

After a few minutes I heard the door again. I could hear the man's footsteps leaving the room and someone coming into the room. And as this person came closer to me, I noticed his unmistakable scent of sandalwood. I needed no further clues to know that this person was Zhan.

I immediately stood up and took off the blindfold. Zhan stood behind me and held a gun to my head. Again! I said, "Pull the trigger if it makes you feel better. Or wait until I explain everything to you and then pull the trigger."

"Why would I want to listen to any explanations? Do you think I believe my enemy?" Zhan asked me.

"So we're still enemies?"

"Archenemies."

"I don't like that Zhan. I never..."

"You never what? Betrayed me?"

"I..."

"I know you're going to tell me you had no choice, it was about your family. You didn't want your mother to go to jail."

"Yes, I did. But that doesn't mean I was trying to betray you. I never investigated you either."

"I know. But that doesn't matter to me, you know? I should have treated you like an enemy from the beginning. If I had, my name wouldn't be in your agency's database right now."

"I can make sure your name is deleted."

"Oh yeah, and what are you going to do with all those who know my name?"

"If you want, I'll kill them all."

"Oh really? Mhhh, and what if I don't give a shit and just want to shoot you?"

I turned around to face Zhan and looked him in the eye. The barrel of his gun was pointed at my forehead. I pushed the barrel down and said, "If you're going to kill me, you better shoot me in the heart. Then I'm guaranteed to die."

"I can shoot you a hole in your forehead and it will have the same effect."

"Do whatever you want Zhan. But grant me one last wish."

"You expect me to grant you one last wish? Where are we? At make a wish?"

"Honestly Zhan. If you don't grant it to me willingly, I'll just take what I want."

"And how are you going to do that?"

"I'd be happy to show you." I grabbed his gun and was able to take it to me. I pointed it at Zhan and said, "You know Zhan, I've had a gun held to my head just like that before. Since then, I've done a lot of training to learn how to get out of a situation like that."

"So what are you going to do now?"

"What do you think Zhan?" I pushed Zhan back to the wall next to the door and locked the door.

"What are you up to?"

"You'll see in a minute Zhan. Do you really think I would just die like that without saying goodbye to you properly? You don't think I don't realize that you missed me as much as I missed you? That you want me as much as I want you? You want to kill me? Why didn't you do it? Why? I'll tell you Zhan. You're as addicted to me as I am to you."

"You're talking total bullshit Yibo."

"Oh yeah? Then why did you let me disarm you so quickly and without a fight?"

"Who says this is my only weapon?" Asked Zhan, holding a knife to my stomach.

"Well come on Zhan. Stab. Do what my partner failed to do back then. Kill me and kill everything that connects us."

"What is supposed to connect us?" Zhan wanted to know.

I threw the gun on the ground and grabbed Zhan's knife by the blade. I looked deep into his eyes and said, "Stab Zhan. Hurt me like I hurt you. I am here. I'm not fighting back."

"You really think I won't?"

"Oh I think you would. But, Zhan, I know you don't want to do it. You're not a cold-hearted killer. Besides, do you remember what you said to me when I asked you what if we weren't on different sides?"

"Of course I remember that. But what does that have to do with anything now?"

"Simply everything Zhan. For you, I'm on your side. For you, I left the Agency. For you, I broke with my parents. For you, I would do anything! Just anything!"

"Why?"

"It's simple, Zhan. Because, I love you. I love you so much that I would willingly let you kill me just to make you feel better."

"You're crazy."

"Yes. I'm crazy. I'm crazy about you. I love you like crazy."

"And I'm supposed to believe that now or what?"

"Zhan, look into my eyes. I'm not lying to you." He still held the knife to my stomach, I felt the how blade cut into my hand and blood came out of the wound. But I didn't let go. I couldn't let go.

"Do you want to lose your fingers?" Zhan asked, putting his hand on my hand that was still clutching the blade. There was a sharp pulling pain that went through my hand at that moment. But only because Zhan pulled the knife back. He held it to my chest and I smiled.

"Do it Zhan. Because you're the only thing I live for now anyway." I said. I pushed Zhan's hand aside with the knife. I touched his cheek with my uninjured hand and added, "As long as I live, I won't give up on you and keep hoping that one day you'll forgive me."

"That will never happen."

"Yes Zhan, it will. Either if you accept my love and you allow your feelings for me. Or else, when you kill me." I said and kissed Zhan. I took his knife from his hand and threw it to the ground. I pulled Zhan to me in my arms and kissed him. "I love you Zhan." I whispered and continued kissing him.