Chapter 771: Chapter 411: The Final Move—Attacking the Heart!

Back then, when Mr Li was in charge of the Criminal Investigation Unit, Jiang An was still a fledgling rookie cop, full of hot-blooded passion.

And now, after years of storms and tempering, He had long since grown into a backbone of the force, someone trusted throughout the entire bureau and capable of handling things on His own.

As the current captain of the criminal investigation team, Jiang An had cracked numerous major and important cases over the years, accumulating extremely rich experience in real combat.

He had also demonstrated outstanding talent in crisis negotiation in multiple vicious hostage-taking and suicide intervention cases.

So Jiang An took the megaphone and drew in a deep breath.

He knew very clearly that facing this man on the verge of emotional collapse, with a hostage in his hand, any single misstep in his words could inflame the situation.

The most crucial thing right now was to pierce through the other man’s heavy psychological defenses and awaken that faint, perhaps not yet completely extinguished, desire to live deep inside him.

Only by letting him see hope in staying alive again, letting him feel the warmth of being understood, could there possibly be a chance to find a breakthrough.

Thus reversing the crisis and saving that innocent life.

After taking the megaphone, Jiang An did not speak immediately.

He lifted his foot and walked forward several meters. At this moment Wan hurried up, lowered his voice and urgently reminded him, "Mr. Jiang, be careful! You can’t get any closer!"

Right after that, Wan handed him a pistol, wanting him to tuck it at his waist just in case.

Jiang An waved his hand, his expression calm: "No need. I received systematic training in grappling and close combat at the police academy. In terms of hand-to-hand, he may not have the upper hand."

"Besides, I’ve got you all behind me, and snipers watching from four directions. Don’t worry."

With that, Jiang An gave Wan a slight smile, turned, and continued walking forward, his steps steady and resolute.

After walking nearly twenty meters, he had already raised the megaphone, ready to speak, but realized he was already quite close to the other man, so he simply lowered the megaphone.

"Hello, I’m Jiang An, captain of the Criminal Investigation Unit of Jiangcheng City."

The man lifted his bloodshot eyes and glanced at him, his tone still filled with thick hostility: "I don’t care what department you’re from!"

"Get a car ready for me now, have everyone withdraw a kilometer away, I’m taking this man with me."

"Otherwise, you can just wait to collect his corpse!"

On hearing this threat, Jiang An did not let himself be led by the nose, nor did he rush to refute or issue orders.

Instead, he slowed his tone even further, his voice almost like a private conversation between two men: "We’re both men, I get how you feel."

"No one ever set out wanting things to go this far."

Unexpectedly, with just this one simple sentence, the hostility on the man’s body seemed to instantly fade a little.

He stopped roaring and just stared fixedly at Jiang An, as if trying to find some flaw on his face.

Catching this fleeting opening, Jiang An continued steadily, "A lot of people don’t understand—why would a tragedy like this happen?"

"Why would something so awful befall an entire family?"

"But from the traces at the scene, I can tell this: when you acted, it wasn’t with the intention from the start to have everyone die."

"You probably just wanted to talk to Zhang Qian, and never truly meant to push things to a point of no return."

He paused briefly, carefully observing the subtle changes in the other man’s eyes.

Seeing the man stay silent, Jiang An continued, his tone more certain: "The one you really meant to target might not have been anyone else."

"Zhang Qian’s father’s death should have happened because he was fiercely trying to stop you at the time, and in your state of extreme emotional loss of control, you accidentally caused that outcome."

"As for Zhang Qian’s mother and younger sister, the forensic examiner’s preliminary judgment is that they died of carbon monoxide poisoning, not from your direct actions."

"From this point of view, you’re not the ’heinous butcher, slaughtering the innocent’ they say you are."

Hearing this, the man’s previously taut body trembled slightly, his eyes suddenly reddened, and tears almost burst out.

Ever since that case occurred, outside accusations had been like countless sharp knives, repeatedly stabbing into his heart that was already riddled with wounds.

He had clearly only personally ended two lives, yet everyone pinned the deaths of all four family members entirely on him.

They kept cursing him as "cold-blooded and cruel," saying he "deserved to rot in the eighteenth level of hell."

During those days and nights on the run, he couldn’t help repeatedly going through those comments; with each line he read, his heart felt torn open once more.

Yet he had no way to explain, nowhere to pour out his side of the story.

Now, suddenly someone said the word "understand" to him; those two syllables were like a shaft of faint light shining into his closed-off, pitch-black inner world.

Even the previously taut, on-a-knife-edge atmosphere seemed to ease a little; the knife he was clutching so tightly in his hand also loosened in his grip without him realizing.

But he still forced himself to hold on to that last bit of stubbornness, rasping back, "So what if that’s true?"

"I killed someone anyway. Sooner or later I’m dead!"

"Even if I have to die, I’m taking someone down with me!"

Before the words had fully left his mouth, the hostage locked in front of him instantly panicked, crying out in terror, "Bro, don’t pick me... I’m begging you, don’t pick me!"

Catching that faint, easily missed flicker of wavering in his tone, Jiang An immediately seized the chance to push further: "Let’s go back to what we were just talking about."

"Why did I start by saying ’I understand you’?"

"Because I know you love Zhang Qian deeply, so deeply you’re even willing to go underground to be with her after she died, isn’t that right?"

"Yes! That’s exactly what I’m thinking!"

The man practically roared this sentence, his voice soaked in despair and obsession.

Jiang An nodded slowly, his tone still steady: "But Zhang Qian is gone."

"By taking an innocent person hostage now, you’re destroying someone else’s family—and at the same time, you’re defiling that love you had for Zhang Qian."