Involuntarily, Huo Ranyin took a step inside.
When his foot crossed the metal strip sealing the room, the alert Ji Xun inside turned his head.
In an instant, the relaxed and bright expression on that face vanished. Dark clouds descended, washing away the flowing gold, and that scorching charm dissipated, leaving only a dull and boring laziness. Ji Xun once again hid himself beneath the ashes.
“Awake so soon?”
With a long stride, Ji Xun kicked the small blackboard in front of him towards the curtains. A deep, jade-green wave billowed, and the blackboard was decisively hidden, just like its owner.
Huo Ranyin’s gaze followed it.
The light had shifted from Ji Xun to the blackboard. It was covered, but the words written on it seemed to have absorbed enough light to emit a captivating glow from under the heavy curtains.
“There’s breakfast on the table outside,” Ji Xun said.
“Mm,” Huo Ranyin replied, not caring what was for breakfast.
“Eat first. After you’re done, I’ll drive you to Yi’an County,” Ji Xun said again.
“You’ll drive me?” Huo Ranyin’s gaze snapped back, and the points of light that had been on the blackboard seemed to fly back to Ji Xun. “What’s the plan after we get to Yi’an County?”
“Asking me?” Ji Xun was surprised. “What plan could I have? I’m just being a good person, acting as a chauffeur to take you to the county. Then I’ll just mindlessly follow you, shout ‘666’ when necessary, and wait for you to carry me to victory. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?”
“…”
The light was gone again.
Not only was it gone, it had been fed to the dogs.
Huo Ranyin was genuinely angered, he thought coldly.
He said nothing, but the micro-expressions on his face said it all.
Ji Xun, who had watched the whole thing, didn’t have the ability to read minds and couldn’t decipher Huo Ranyin’s specific inner thoughts. Thus, he could only guess… the police captain was severely sleep-deprived and was sullenly suffering from morning crankiness, on the verge of turning into a psychopath from bottling it up.
He decided to be a good person to the very end. Since he had already offered to drive the two-hour journey, he would let Huo Ranyin catch up on sleep in the back seat. It would also be a good way to pull the car back from the road to hell.
After finishing breakfast, they followed the navigation and had a smooth journey. By the time they reached Yi’an County, it was just around eleven in the morning.
Their first stop was the home of Lian Dazhang’s mother.
On Lian Dazhang’s household registration, there was only a mother; his father had passed away twenty-four years ago.
It was an old-fashioned five-story building. There were no proper compound walls nearby. The buildings were just built there, some horizontally, some vertically, in the style of the ’70s and ’80s when there was no overall planning and construction happened wherever there was empty land. In the large open space in front of the building, some areas that should have been green belts had been flattened to grow vegetables or paved with cement to create parking spots.
Lian Dazhang’s mother lived on the second floor. There was no doorbell, and the lightbulb in the hallway on her side had been removed, presumably to save electricity.
The apartment was very dilapidated, with hardly any furniture. A few chairs stood forlornly, one of which was crippled. The most conspicuous things were the cardboard and plastic bottles piled messily in a corner; the owner had a habit of collecting scraps. On the dining table, where a meal was already set, there was only one dish: plain green beans, without a sliver of meat.
By the time Ji Xun had scanned the room, the old lady who had opened the door had run out of patience.
She raised her head, her face a web of wrinkles, her eyes downcast, presenting a miserable appearance. Her back was especially hunched, making it seem like a large wok was hidden under her clothes, pressing her entire body down.
“Hello, are you Lian Dazhang’s mother?”
The old lady’s expression changed, and she waved her hands repeatedly. Her wrinkled face actually showed a flush of shame and anger. “I don’t know him, don’t look for me.”
The words Huo Ranyin was about to ask were stuck in his throat. His hand reached for his pocket, where his police ID was.
But before he could take out the ID, Ji Xun raised a hand and pressed down on the arm that had not yet emerged. He said loudly to the old lady, “Sorry, we might have the wrong person. Please carry on with what you were doing, Auntie.”
With that, Ji Xun pulled Huo Ranyin away.
Huo Ranyin followed Ji Xun for a couple of steps, away from the apartment, before speaking: “Why didn’t you let me show my police ID?”
“What’s the point of showing it?” Ji Xun said nonchalantly, looking around. “The son is rich while the old mother is poor. They’re most likely estranged. Instead of listening to her exaggerated complaints, it’s better to directly ask the well-informed neighborhood aunties. In a small county town, neighbors know more about conflicts than the people involved.”
“Is that so?” Huo Ranyin said. “What do you think of that auntie?”
He pointed about ten steps ahead. There, a figure in green clothes was crouching, almost blending in with the bushes. If it weren’t for a freshly permed head of reddish-brown curls, the fifty-year-old auntie would have been unnoticeable.
Fifty years old, fashionably dressed, and wandering around the neighborhood at mealtime.
She had time, life experience, and was likely willing to chat. She fit their requirements.
“Quick on the uptake, and sharp-eyed,” Ji Xun gave a thumbs-up.
They walked forward together. As they got closer, the auntie’s trendy dyed curls became even more conspicuous. She was using a chopstick to poke cautiously at the food in a white plastic box in the bushes, her expression grave as if she were investigating something.
Ji Xun observed for a moment, then struck up a conversation: “What’s wrong? Someone poisoning the stray cats?”
The crouching auntie was startled and turned to look at the two strangers, surprised. “How did you know?”
Perhaps because this scene was too much like a standard bystander question in a detective novel, the corner of Huo Ranyin’s mouth lifted slightly before he suppressed it. “He saw the notice posted on the wall. Didn’t your property management call the police?”
“How old are you? Have you never called the police before? The police wouldn’t care about this kind of thing,” the auntie said with a look of disdain.
“…”
Ji Xun laughed out loud unceremoniously. He waved his hand, signaling for Huo Ranyin not to cause more trouble, and continued to chat with the auntie. “Does this happen often? Every day?”
The auntie’s face was full of gloom. “It’s been many days, every day. We don’t see it during the night patrol, but it appears again in the daytime. It’s done sneakily, and often several boxes are left at once.”
“Is it always this kind of white congee with egg and cat food?”
The auntie probably hadn’t paid much attention to the details. She thought for a while before nodding heavily. “It should be. They all look more or less the same.”
Ji Xun proposed, “Auntie, how about this? I’ll help you catch the poisoner, and you can tell us about the Lian family that lives over there.”
“Oh—” The auntie looked at Ji Xun, a shrewd look on her face. “Of course. You help auntie, and auntie will help you.”
“White congee with a white egg, no seasoning. This is good for a cat or dog’s metabolism. This is someone who understands the habits of cats and dogs, and has likely owned one before. You didn’t catch them at night because this person poisons them early in the morning. This egg and congee are very fresh; the poisoner probably makes it along with their own breakfast every morning. Waking up early isn’t easy, so it’s a habit for them. Adding an egg to the congee is a strange move. So many boxes would use up a lot of eggs, and white congee with cat food is enough on its own. Why go to the extra trouble? Because in the poisoner’s eyes, eggs are as common a commodity as rice.”
“In summary, the poisoner is likely someone who has owned a cat or dog, runs a breakfast stall, and cooks white congee and eggs for people every day.”
A breakfast stall was locked to the railing just downstairs—the sign on it read: Tea Eggs, White Congee, Roujiamo.
It also had a phone number and a surname.
Ji Xun concluded, “By the way, the culprit’s surname is probably Chen.”
The surname Chen was written boldly on the breakfast stall’s sign.
The auntie was already stunned halfway through his explanation. After a moment, she slapped her thigh hard.
“You’re a genius detective! The Chen family’s cat seemed to have died half a month ago. It was scratched by a stray cat and couldn’t be saved. Their little granddaughter cried her eyes out and even got sick over it.”
“It’s nothing, it’s nothing, just a trivial bit of observation.”
Ji Xun said very modestly. He then hurried to help the auntie clean up the things on the ground before getting straight to the point.
“So, about Lian Dazhang, Lawyer Lian, and his family…?”
“Him? And his mother? Oh, she’s a ruthless one!” The auntie began her long tirade with this emotionally charged opening.
“Their family used to be pretty well-off, but then the father got cancer and became useless. His mother is so muddle-headed. You’d think with that kind of major illness there’s no hope, but she insisted on treatment, and they became poor because of it. Little Zhang was a well-known good student in our area when he was young. His mother insisted he drop out of school to use the tuition money to treat his father’s illness. And his father, on his deathbed, still wanted to use that money to prolong his life. We all advised her back then, don’t be like this, don’t be crazy, but she wouldn’t listen.”
The auntie sighed, as if she could feel the pain herself. “It was so pitiful. We neighbors couldn’t bear to watch. The child couldn’t go to school, had nothing to eat, and just revolved around a dying man every day. She wasn’t thinking straight, never thought about what she’d do in her old age. Later, I heard a teacher or someone else was kind-hearted and paid his tuition so he could continue studying. If he hadn’t, wouldn’t we have one less famous university student and lawyer?”
“Once her son became successful, she started showing off again, bragging to us every day about what a great lawyer he is, how amazing he is, and how he’ll help everyone get justice. Many of us believed her bragging and went to find Little Zhang for lawsuits, and let me tell you, the phone number wasn’t even correct! She was just lying. Her son doesn’t even pay attention to her.”
“She wouldn’t give a single cent for his schooling, and now she’s getting her just deserts—tsk. But this son is toxic too. We neighbors went and knelt down to beg him, and he still sent us away. That mother-son pair, like mother like son, they’re both toxic.”
After leaving the residential complex, Ji Xun frowned and pressed his stomach.
“Stomachache?” Huo Ranyin noticed. “Want to go to a pharmacy?”
“No, just hungry.” Ji Xun saw a noodle shop ahead. “Let’s eat first and chat.”
They had missed the peak dining hour, so the noodle shop wasn’t crowded. The cashier was staring into space behind the register, bored.
Two voices rang out at the same time:
“A bowl of noodles, extra spicy.”
“A bowl of noodles, not spicy.”
The one who wanted extra spicy was Huo Ranyin; the one who wanted not spicy was Ji Xun.
When the noodles arrived, Huo Ranyin’s bowl was full of heavy oil and spice, with rings of green chili floating in the bright red broth. Ji Xun’s was much plainer, with only a beef broth that had been simmering for a long time soaking the noodles.
Ji Xun looked at the two bowls of noodles that were clearly the same yet seemed to exist in different dimensions and couldn’t help but sigh, “Looks like we’ll never be able to eat from the same bowl in this lifetime.”
“Mm,” Huo Ranyin said. “You weren’t supposed to eat from the same bowl as me anyway. You should be eating with Captain Yuan. Coincidentally, Captain Yuan doesn’t eat spicy food either.”
Ji Xun failed to pick up a strand of noodles with his chopsticks and accidentally broke it.
Bowl, Yuan Yue, bowl.
Ji Xun shuddered violently. To avoid being suddenly disgusted again in the future, he decided to be direct.
“Captain Huo, you’re really curious about me and Yuan Yue. I have no improper thoughts about Yuan Yue. But you, on the other hand, paying so much attention to me and Yuan Yue… could it be that your real intentions are hidden, and you actually want to share a bowl with Yuan Yue?”
Huo Ranyin was also disgusted.
“Don’t talk nonsense. We have a proper colleague relationship. He’s not my type.”
“Then what is your type?” Ji Xun asked casually.
After asking, he saw a trace of hesitation flash across Huo Ranyin’s face, as if he himself wasn’t quite sure and was wavering.
“I can’t say it’s ‘like’,” Huo Ranyin said. “Only that I have a favorable impression… an admiration.”
An image flashed through his mind.
In the image, someone stood in the center of a crowd, surrounded by a multitude of stars. He was the sun, possessing endless light, power, and warmth. He scattered it wantonly, sharing it with those around him, and to him, it was but a drop in the ocean. The more he gave without reservation, the more he scattered, the brighter the light became, like a magnet, drawing all surrounding gazes to himself.
But the sun doesn’t notice the stars.
Especially not a dim star drowned out by the crowd.
“Sunny, reliable,” Huo Ranyin began to say. “Smart, willing to help, capable.”
“?”
A strange expression appeared on Ji Xun’s face.
“Isn’t that Yuan Yue?”
“…”
Huo Ranyin slammed his chopsticks down.
He couldn’t eat this bowl of noodles anymore.
