Chapter 65: Original Intention

Jiang Hai City First Prison.

The air was filled with a mixed smell of disinfectant and cold steel, pungent and utterly lifeless.

Qin Zhixia leaned on a cane; the thick plaster on her right leg made each step extraordinarily difficult.

On the cold visitation glass, her pale, forlorn face was reflected. Those eyes, once sharp as knives—her Crimson Phoenix Eyes—were now shrouded in an irrepressible bewilderment.

She looked at herself in the glass—a lame failure.

"Creak—"

The iron door opposite opened, and a figure in gray prison garb was brought in by a guard, sitting at the other end of the glass.

The moment she saw that person, Qin Zhixia's pupils contracted sharply.

Was this still the majestic, awe-inspiring father from her memory?

In just a few days, Qin Yongchang's black hair had turned mostly white, as if all his vigor had been drained; he collapsed, his once-straight spine now hunched like a deflated balloon.

He lifted his head, his cloudy gaze falling on Qin Zhixia; seeing the plaster on her daughter's leg and her wan face, this man of iron will, who had been steadfast his whole life, began to shudder violently.

His lips trembled, and his eye sockets instantly reddened.

"Zhixia..."

Qin Yongchang picked up the receiver, his voice hoarse beyond recognition.

"Dad... I'm sorry... sorry to you... sorry to Mom..."

Remorseful tears rolled from the wrinkled corners of this man's eyes.

Qin Zhixia silently picked up the receiver and placed it to her ear.

She didn't cry; she just silently gazed at the man opposite, completely broken, her heart numb.

"I lost."

She spoke, her voice soft yet carrying a fatigue of being utterly shattered.

"Not just the failed arrest—everything... has been lost."

She recalled the ruthlessness of the Ninth Division, Lin Fan's eyes half pure, half vengeful, and her own helpless humiliation when her knee was easily crushed.

"My beliefs, my perseverance... now look like a joke."

A self-mocking curve appeared at the corner of Qin Zhixia's mouth.

"Some people are right: my justice is merely arrogance and naivety built on the identity of \"Director Qin's daughter. \" I thought I could uphold order, but I can't even protect myself."

"Now I no longer have that identity." She looked at Qin Yongchang, her eyes hollow: "Dad, I seem... not to know how to stand up, nor even whether the ground I stand on is right."

Each word of hers struck like a small hammer on Qin Yongchang's heart.

He looked at his daughter's bewildered, painful state, his heart feeling as if cut by a knife.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but swallowed it back.

After a long while, he let out a long sigh filled with bitterness.

"Yes, actually what they said... makes sense."

Qin Yongchang's voice carried an unprecedented defeat.

"You are indeed naive. But... it's because I, as your father, was even more naive, thinking I could protect that naivety of yours for a lifetime, and thus always be proud of you."

He stared at the ceiling, his gaze sinking into distant memories.

"When I first became a police officer, I was just a low-ranking patrolman. Once, to chase a pickpocket, I ran from the street to the alley's end—three whole blocks—until my lungs felt like they'd burst."

"When I pinned him to the ground, I was exhausted like a dead dog, covered in mud. But when I returned the wallet to that old lady who had lost her money and was near tears, she grabbed my hand and kept thanking me. That look... I've remembered it my whole life."

A nostalgic, pure smile appeared on Qin Yongchang's lips.

"Back then I felt that the whole meaning of being a police officer lay in that look."

He paused, his voice growing ever more somber.

"Back then I had nothing, just came from the countryside, my pockets cleaner than my face. So I feared nothing, my mind set on a single purpose: to live up to this uniform."

"But later... as my rank rose, power grew, and worries multiplied. I began to fear—fearing loss of what I had, fearing backing the wrong side, fearing... letting you and Qin Yu suffer injustice."

"My original intention, at some point, was corrupted by power. I forgot that eager youth who ran three blocks for a wallet, and became someone... I myself look down on."

Qin Yongchang's gaze returned to Qin Zhixia, filled with endless regret.

"Zhixia, Dad's path went wrong and reached a dead end. But you... you can still start anew."

"Start anew?" Qin Zhixia lifted her bewildered eyes.

"Yes." Qin Yongchang nodded heavily, looking at his daughter, his eyes filled with a resolute, all‑or‑nothing determination: "You now, aren't you just like I was back then—completely without anything?"

Without anything...

Without anything?

These four words, like a lightning bolt tearing through darkness, thunderously split the fog and chaos in Qin Zhixia's heart!

She recalled Chu Che in the café, his all‑seeing eyes fixed on her as he spoke those cruel yet true words.

"Your purity, your justice, stem from your privilege."

"When you lose all this, what remains?"

Yes, what does she have left now?

Her father had fallen, the family's protection gone.

Her standing in the police force plummeted, making her a target of ostracism and humiliation.

The skill and will she prided herself on were easily crushed by a youth.

Her materialist worldview, held for over twenty years, was completely overturned by the "Weird."

She indeed... had nothing left.

But...

"Having nothing, paradoxically enables one to give everything..."

Qin Zhixia whispered, repeating that sentence over and over.

A strange, powerful force slowly rose from the ruins deep within her heart.

Yes......

Because she had nothing left, there was nothing more she could lose.

She was no longer Director Qin's daughter, no longer needing to bear her family's honor and disgrace, no longer needing to compromise for the sake of so-called position and worldly affairs.

She was no longer the innocent officer sheltered in the ivory tower; she had personally witnessed the world's corruption and madness.

She was simply Qin Zhixia!

A Qin Zhixia who had crawled back from hell, possessing nothing!

Chu Che said, this world is sick, it needs a "shepherd" to establish new rules.

She once thought she was a guardian of order, but now she realized what she guarded was merely a sheep pen already rotten to the core!

She no longer wanted to be the gatekeeper of that sheep pen!

She wanted to become the shepherd!

In her own way, she would root out those wolves in human skin and build an order truly worth protecting!

"Click!"

Qin Zhixia, leaning on her cane, suddenly sprang to her feet.

Despite the sharp pain in her right leg making cold sweat break out on her forehead instantly, her spine straightened rigidly at that moment.

In her Crimson Phoenix Eyes, the extinguished flames reignited, burning fiercer than ever before.

That light was sharp, resolute, even tinged with a hint of madness!

She looked at Qin Yongchang, stunned on the other side of the glass, and, despite that cold barrier, bowed deeply.

This bow was a farewell.

Farewell to the naive, arrogant self who lived under her father's wings.

This bow was also a rebirth.

Welcoming a Qin Zhixia forged in despair, possessing nothing yet fearing nothing!

"Dad... I think I know what to do now."

Qin Yongchang saw the familiar yet unfamiliar light in his daughter's eyes, first feeling heartache, then a complex smile mixed with pain and relief slowly spreading across his wrinkled face.

He knew his daughter had finally found her own path, a thorny road leading to light.

As a failed father, the last thing he did for his children was finally correct.

Qin Zhixia straightened up, said nothing more, turned, leaned on her cane, and stepped firmly step by step back the way she came.

"Tap...... tap...... tap......"