Roya was dead.
Just as he had told Lin Yuhsia, aside from the people at the funeral, very few actually felt any sorrow over it. Some even opened champagne in the streets to celebrate openly.
His funeral was not lavish.
Still, Wei Yenwu, Wen Yue, and other members of the Guard Department all attended and bowed their heads in silence.
But among everyone present, the ones who truly felt grief for his death were only Jiu, Ch'en Hui-chieh—who could not even fully explain why—Wei Yenwu, Wen Yue, and Lin Yuhsia and the Rat King, who remained hidden in the shadows.
When word spread that Roya's funeral was being held, and that he had died fighting criminals, Lungmen's citizens and gangs alike all cried out that Heaven had finally opened its eyes. They practically felt that some benevolent deity had at last collected this scourge.
Even many officers in the Guard Department openly agreed.
After Roya's death, Jiu became his successor exactly as expected.
Ch'en Hui-chieh, in turn, stepped into Jiu's old position and finally became a proper senior officer in her own right.
By all appearances, that should have been good news.
But Ch'en couldn't feel happy at all.
Was the Roya who had bought her time with his life that night really the same Roya everyone had cursed and despised in life?
On the second day after his burial, his grave was vandalized.
People smeared graffiti on it, threw trash, vegetable scraps, and rotten eggs, pasted insulting messages over it, and some even treated it like a public toilet.
Only after the Guard Department put up a warning sign did things get somewhat better.
Only somewhat.
On the third day, Ch'en learned that she was one of Roya's heirs.
Because he had no family, he had left his belongings to his friends.
For the first time, she went to Roya's home—
a Guard Department dormitory unit of less than forty square meters.
His life had not been refined in any sense.
A secondhand computer.
A Guard Department-issued mug.
The desk, chair, bed, and bedding that came with the room.
Only a few sets of clothing.
No luxuries.
Nothing that could truly be called valuable.
Only then did it occur to Ch'en that Roya had worn the standard Guard Department uniform more often than anything else.
It was as though, for him, life only needed to be barely livable.
"These are...?"
Ch'en stopped in front of a locked cabinet. She took out the key Wei Yenwu had given her, remembering his words:
"If you want to know what kind of person Roya was, then see for yourself."
She opened the cabinet door.
"Medicine?"
There was no pile of cash or gold bars inside.
No classified files.
No special devices.
Just a cabinet packed full of medication—
painkillers, sedatives, hallucinogens, anesthetics.
This was the first time Ch'en had realized that there were this many different kinds of drugs meant to suppress pain.
And it struck her then that when Roya went to that black clinic, maybe he really had only been going there to buy medicine.
But this...
this was treating medicine like daily meals.
"That was one month's supply."
Lin Yuhsia's voice came from the doorway.
Ch'en turned and looked at the childhood friend she had grown up beside.
It had been Lin Yuhsia who carried Roya's body back to Lungmen that night.
And it had been Lin Yuhsia who cleaned his grave yesterday.
The cheap silver pendant hanging from Lin Yuhsia's neck made it easy enough to guess—
she was the Zalak woman the private investigator had reported seeing with Roya so often.
"Starting half a year ago, he needed to take this much every day just to suppress the pain."
Lin Yuhsia took the clothes from the drying rack with practiced ease, as though she were in her own home, and began packing things away.
"He didn't leave much behind. Other than his Guard Department salary, he had almost no savings. Handle the rest however you want."
"At night, he went on missions with you... Then Uncle Liu..."
At last, Ch'en understood the implication.
Lin Yuhsia was the Rat King's daughter.
The Rat King controlled the slums.
That meant Roya and Lin Yuhsia had been partners.
Which meant she knew much more.
"He didn't want you to know." Lin Yuhsia's answer was flat. "People change. Lungmen developed too fast. Too many eyes were fixed on it. He even complained that you caused him a lot of extra trouble too."
She folded the clothes away, ready to leave, but after a moment she looked back at the dazed Ch'en.
"He told me once that he had always wanted to say thank you to you in person. On that rainy night, if it hadn't been for the fried rice and a little loose change you gave him, he probably would have died in that trash heap."
"Then why didn't he tell me? Why didn't he tell everyone?"
"Because he couldn't."
Lin Yuhsia's voice turned colder.
"He said he was a trash bag. And a trash bag's only ending is to be thrown away together with the garbage once it's full. Lungmen needed a deputy chief like that."
Ch'en stood there, lost.
She didn't understand.
At this point, it was painfully obvious that Roya was not the bastard everyone had believed him to be. He should never have been hated like that.
He certainly shouldn't have continued to be despised even after death.
So why had he chosen to become that kind of person?
"There are some things you don't need to understand." Lin Yuhsia's voice cut like a blade. "In any case, now you'll never have to worry about seeing that disgusting fiancé of yours again."
That single line struck Ch'en directly in the heart.
She couldn't respond.
Because someone really had congratulated her that way.
"The clinic, the school, and the orphanage in the slums—part of all of them belonged to Roya. They're yours now too.
"Ch'en... get ready. Lungmen without Roya won't be as beautiful as you think."
Carrying Roya's things, Lin Yuhsia left without once looking back.
The moment she had seen Ch'en, she had been so furious she had wanted to punch her in the face.
But she restrained herself.
For the sake of Ch'en, who truly had known nothing.
And for Roya's sake.
She didn't have the luxury of drowning in grief for the dead. She knew exactly what the consequences of Roya's absence would be, and that meant she had to start preparing for what came next.
Back at the Guard Department, Jiu still didn't quite feel the reality of having become Deputy Chief.
She had sat in Roya's chair countless times before.
She had handled Roya's work countless times before.
Only now did she finally understand why.
"Report, Deputy Chief. Yesterday's report."
"Leave it here."
Jiu responded listlessly. After the subordinate left, she took out the batch of files Roya had once told her to throw away.
She knew exactly what was in them.
And she intended to pass them to Ch'en Hui-chieh later.
Since she had just assumed office, her main task today was to sort through what Roya had left behind.
But she quickly discovered there was barely anything to sort.
Roya had left almost nothing.
Apart from the drawer full of pain medication so plentiful it made her scalp tingle.
Jiu had always known, for a long time now, that Roya must have had difficulties no one saw.
But only now did she realize she might still have imagined too little.
And she found herself thinking of Wei Yenwu and the Rat King.
How would those two powerful men regard Roya's death?
"Why would Ursus Emperor's Blades target Hui-chieh?"
"Hard to say. Koschei is dead, but Roya once said a centipede dies hard. The whole thing is strange from start to finish. What a waste, though... Roya shouldn't have died."
Wei Yenwu's fingers tapped lightly against the chessboard.
He still remembered what that boy had looked like on the night he had first proven his worth.
"He was more unafraid of death than anyone," the Rat King said as he moved a piece, "and at the same time more desperate to live than anyone. I had already planned to marry Yuhsia to him. What about you? You still don't intend to make his deeds public?"
"There's no need. Even if we did, it wouldn't matter. People have already fixed Roya in their minds."
At this point, no amount of evidence could change the fact of Roya's death.
Nor would it change Lungmen's ugly impression of him.
"The people of Lungmen will never thank Roya." Wei Yenwu stared at the board but could not focus on the game at all. "But time will prove everything he did for Lungmen."
The Rat King knew exactly what he meant.
The people of Lungmen believed that with Roya gone, clear skies had finally arrived.
But with Roya gone, the little games the gangs and other forces played in the shadows would only grow more frequent.
Neither Wei Yenwu nor the Rat King could do what Roya did.
Lin Yuhsia couldn't either.
None of them could plant fear permanently into the bones of those people the way Roya had.
In that sense, Roya was irreplaceable to Lungmen.
As time passed, the city might never fully descend back into the same old chaos—
but it certainly would not remain as peaceful as it had been.
At the very least, no one should expect gangsters to keep bowing politely to officers forever.
The people of Lungmen would never thank Roya.
But Wei Yenwu and the Rat King both knew it would not take long before they understood why the city had been able to maintain that level of peace for an entire year.
"Let's stop here. I really can't concentrate any longer."
"Same."
Without Roya—the worst chess player among them—it somehow all felt incomplete.
Wei Yenwu and the Rat King ended the game there.
The Rat King still had to go home and comfort Lin Yuhsia. He knew his daughter truly had feelings for Roya. He had originally thought Roya ending his engagement to Ch'en would be a good thing.
He had never imagined it would end like this.
Wen Yue walked over and gently took her husband's hand.
She knew that Wei Yenwu was grieving Roya's death as well.
He let out a long sigh.
"They say scourges live for a thousand years. If only he really had been one."
Out on the wasteland, wind swept over yellow sand and struck Roya's face.
Suddenly, he felt wetness on his cheek—
as though something were sliding across it.
That strange sensation made him open his eyes.
And then—
"What a huge dog!"
-------
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