At this point, the assumption that ‘Mo Nai’s semen was smeared on the underwear as evidence of r*pe, framing him as a r*pist to take the fall’ was practically screaming to be made.
“Ha, does this perhaps signify that Mo Nai is an innocent and good person?” Ji Xun muttered to himself. “No, that seems a bit too subjective and could easily affect the judgment of the Zhuo Cangying and Gao Shuang annihilation case. Besides, are there really that many good people in the world? All the good people get wrongfully imprisoned? This is a blatant mockery of our judicial system… Of course, the most crucial point is that this kind of plot is just too cliché. I don’t even need to write it to know it would be a total flop!”
Huo Ranyin had immense tolerance for this side of Ji Xun. He didn’t reprimand him for spouting nonsense this time, only offering a slight correction:
“No, this only proves that the chain of evidence for the past conviction was insufficient. It reminds us that Mo Nai’s se-men on the underwear does not equal Mo Nai is the r*pist.”
Ji Xun raised an eyebrow. “Then let’s use the process of elimination. 1. Mo Nai is a r*pist, details to follow. 2. Mo Nai is not a r*pist, which has the following possibilities: A, the se-men was put on the underwear voluntarily by him; B, the se-men was put on the underwear involuntarily; C, the se-men was put on the underwear involuntarily but with his tacit consent. By the way, was Song Tingfeng’s DNA on the underwear? Was it confirmed to belong to Song Tingfeng herself?”
“No, only Mo Nai’s was tested.”
“…Why don’t you call our colleagues in Liucheng first and ask them to rush a test before we make further deductions? Otherwise, we’ll talk ourselves hoarse with all the possibilities.”
Huo Ranyin used his other hand, the one not held by Ji Xun, to awkwardly reach across his body, pull out his phone, and make the call. He was concise, hanging up after only half a minute of conversation. He then said, “No need to consider it from that angle. The only ones who could have access to Mo Nai’s se-men would be Mo Nai himself or someone close to him.”
“Himself, his buddies, a hookup partner… hmm, if his buddy was gay, the last two could be combined. Oh—and there’s also using sleeping pills or something to knock him out and get the se-men. How bizarre. A man can’t get an erection when drunk, but has no problem getting one while asleep on sleeping pills.” Writers are always prone to tangents. While discussing the case, Ji Xun didn’t forget to offer a comment or two. “The direction of the investigation is very clear, but unfortunately, this case is nine years old, which has added countless obstacles…”
However, no matter how many obstacles there were, an investigation was unavoidable.
Mo Nai was still being held at the station, and his interrogation was left to the professionals.
As for the buddies and hookup partners—they would probably have to start the investigation at Liucheng University.
At Liucheng University, Mo Nai had once worked at a hand-pulled pancake stall and pretended to be a university student, even getting a campus girlfriend—the victim Song Tingfeng’s roommate, Cheng Xiang.
After graduating and going to graduate school, Cheng Xiang went to the capital to work, which was quite a distance from Ning City. Following the principle of proximity, they didn’t head to the capital to find Cheng Xiang first, but went to Liucheng instead.
Liucheng was close to Ning City, only a one or two-hour drive, and even closer by high-speed rail, just a thirty-minute trip.
This time, they weren’t carrying guns, so they opted for the high-speed rail for convenience. However, just before entering the station, a small incident occurred. A young couple approached them, holding a basket of various small items, and pleaded softly:
“Sir, could you scan a QR code? If you scan a code, we’ll give you a small item. This is our task; if we don’t finish, our pay will be docked.”
“No, thank you,” Huo Ranyin refused clearly.
“Ah…” Ji Xun wasn’t so firm. The departure time was still a while away. Surrounded by the young people, he wavered for a moment. This wavering was immediately noticed by the girl, and more pleas followed.
Ji Xun, in a daze, scanned three or four codes, fulfilling their request. Amidst the beaming faces of the two young people, Ji Xun rummaged through their small basket and found that, apart from tissues, it was all girls’ items like rubber bands and hair clips.
They already had tissues, and carrying so many more was pointless.
After rummaging for a while, Ji Xun pulled out a small chick-shaped hair clip with a spring and asked Huo Ranyin, “Want it?”
H Huo Ranyin looked at Ji Xun as if he were an idiot.
“Alright then.” Ji Xun shrugged. “If you don’t want it, I do. It’s quite cute.”
With that, he lifted his hand and clipped the hair clip onto his own forehead. He then walked through security and onto the train with this clip on. As soon as the train started moving, the little chick on Ji Xun’s head began to sway, pecking at his hair like a chick pecking for rice.
Huo Ranyin: “…”
Ji Xun played on his phone. “The person I just scanned approved me. Huh, it’s a cosmetic surgery business. Pushing a cosmetic surgery hospital on a man? Do I need this? Why not something like cigarettes, alcohol, tea, or sneaker reselling…”
But since he was idle anyway, and it was a full half-hour ride, Ji Xun started chatting with the other party.
Things like, is this cosmetic surgery a hospital or a beauty salon? Are there any recent promotions? What are the main services and star products? Any success stories? Which professional doctors and senior experts do you have? Where is it located? Can you send a picture of the project list for me to see? Is there a video of the indoor environment for a more direct understanding?
Ji Xun’s fingers flew across the screen, firing off one question after another. In contrast to his rapid-fire, whatever-comes-to-mind questioning, the cosmetic consultant on the other end of the phone seemed less than professional.
“You know,” Ji Xun asked Huo Ranyin with a playful tone, “how can a micro-business salesperson not have memorized their materials? And if they can’t memorize it, why not just send a link to their promotional material?”
“Inadequate training,” Huo Ranyin said. “Of course, it could also be—”
“A scammer among scammers,” Ji Xun finished. “There are tons of scammers in micro-businesses, but they’re usually quite good at bluffing. It’s rare to see one with no relevant posts on their social media, who stumbles over their materials, isn’t proactive in chatting, and takes forever to reply to a question.”
“So what’s the point? To steal my social media and personal information for some kind of loan scam? But I’ve already cleverly hidden all that,” Ji Xun asked, puzzled.
“You’re still chatting so enthusiastically even though you know he’s a scammer?” Huo Ranyin asked Ji Xun, speechless.
“Isn’t it boring?” Ji Xun said. “After chatting for ten minutes or so, he’s already helped me with my game tasks by clicking ‘friend assist’ for free several times. I’m helping to drain a scammer’s energy, doing my small part for social order.”
“So I should be thanking you?” Huo Ranyin said with a hint of sarcasm.
“Ah, you’re welcome,” Ji Xun said. He tilted his head, and the little chick on his head twisted along with him. Its chubby body swayed from side to side, even bending the hair on top of Ji Xun’s head a little.
Huo Ranyin: “…”
He tried his best to control his gaze and not to glance over there.
Ji Xun suddenly lowered his head again, and the chick on the hair clip swooped down fiercely and, smack, crashed into his hair.
Huo Ranyin: “…”
He raised a hand in frustration and pressed it against his eyes.
“Ha, he’s started replying to me quickly,” Ji Xun said, looking at the chat history on his phone, and spoke excitedly to Huo Ranyin. “Do you think he just added a real beauty consultant on the spot, copied all my questions over, and then copied the answers back from them, completing a whole series of nested doll behaviors?”
Huo Ranyin gave a vague grunt in response.
In truth, whatever Ji Xun was saying didn’t register in his mind at all.
He was only thinking about one thing right now.
He’d rather be wearing that chick clip himself.
With Ji Xun wearing it, it was just… too cute. He couldn’t tear his eyes away.
The half-hour train ride passed in a flash. As they were about to get off, Ji Xun was a little regretful. If the ride had been a bit longer, the scammer on the other end would have probably topped up his phone credit for him.
“If he really had topped it up, it would be my turn to handcuff you,” Huo Ranyin added with a half-smile.
“Cuff me, cuff me, cuff me,” Ji Xun held out his hand directly. “After you cuff me, you can lead me around.”
Huo Ranyin grabbed the hand directly and led him forward.
The two arrived at Liucheng University. Thank heavens, the pancake stall where Mo Nai had worked was still open, and the owner was the same one from back then, only now ten years older, having gone from middle-aged to elderly.
He had a deep impression of Mo Nai.
After Huo Ranyin showed his police ID, he immediately opened up.
“Sigh, that business with Mo Nai caused such a huge stir back then. Never mind nine years, I won’t forget it even on the day I die. That kid was smart and good-looking, but how should I put it… he wasn’t grounded, his ambitions were too high. After watching all the prestigious university students come and go for a long time, he became vain. And after mixing with a bunch of bad friends, he became a completely different person.”
Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin exchanged a look.
The key figure they had analyzed earlier had appeared.
Good buddies—Mo Nai’s bad friends.
“What kind of people were Mo Nai’s friends?”
“They were students from the university,” the pancake stall owner said with certainty. “They were all quite rich, always lending Mo Nai their campus cards, school uniforms, class schedules, and whatnot. That’s how Mo Nai was able to pretend to be a Liucheng University student and get a girlfriend from the school. Honestly, if you ask me, young men should focus on building their careers. Why be in such a hurry to fall in love? If he had bought a house and settled down here in Liucheng, then dealt with his personal matters, wouldn’t everything have been smooth and natural?”
The pancake stall owner’s words were a mix of disdain and regret.
He was qualified to say so. During their earlier chat, Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin had learned that this owner had also come from the countryside to make a living in Liucheng. He had run this pancake stall at Liucheng University for twenty years. In those twenty years, saving up a few yuan at a time, he now owned three properties in Liucheng and had even sent his child abroad to study.
What could Ji Xun say to such an inspirational role model? He could only sigh and say, “Badass.”
Why bother writing novels? Wouldn’t selling pancakes to buy houses be a better life?
“I didn’t really like Mo Nai’s girlfriend at the time,” the pancake stall owner said again. A witness’s testimony is always like this, saying whatever comes to mind. The two didn’t interrupt but listened patiently. Perhaps a clue was hidden in this kind of trivial exchange. “You could tell she was a girl from a good family, that Mo Nai wasn’t good enough for her. Every time he and Mo Nai appeared on the snack street here, Mo Nai would be the one bustling about, carrying things and buying snacks. The young lady would take one bite of the snacks and then not eat anymore, throwing the rest to Mo Nai, not caring if he could finish it or not, just leaving it for Mo Nai to deal with. When she walked in front, she wouldn’t even glance back. Honestly, if I hadn’t known they were a couple, I would have thought she was a young miss and he was her attendant. The other young lady was much better, the one called, called… what was her name, Meng?”
After all, it had been nine years, and the owner couldn’t quite remember the name.
But this keyword immediately set off alarms for Ji Xun. He said, “Qi Meng?”
The owner was still trying hard to recall.
“A deaf-mute girl?” Ji Xun added another keyword.
“Yes, yes, yes!” The owner instantly remembered. “A deaf-mute girl, I think she was a family member of a worker at the construction site nearby. That little girl, you could tell she liked Mo Nai. She would come over to help Mo Nai with his work from time to time. Even though she had some problems, I’m telling you seriously, even able-bodied people weren’t as efficient as she was. That girl was really a good kid for settling down with. It’s a pity Mo Nai didn’t like her, he couldn’t see all her good qualities, sigh…”
This was the entirety of the pancake stall owner’s memories.
Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin also got a photo from him, a photo of Mo Nai and his friends. Perhaps Mo Nai had left such a deep and sorrowful impression on the owner that he had kept this nine-year-old photo until now.
“Qi Meng liked Mo Nai. Mo Nai liked Cheng Xiang. Cheng Xiang looked down on Mo Nai. Mo Nai looked down on Qi Meng. And both Qi Meng and Song Tingfeng jumped off a building, one after the other.”
After leaving the pancake stall, Ji Xun remarked with emotion.
“You say Mo Nai went to jail for r*ping Song Tingfeng, and in the nine years inside, he missed Qi Meng so much that he broke out of prison just to visit her grave. Either he belatedly realized after she died that she was the missed love of his life, or his heart is filled with guilt.”
“And finally…”
Ji Xun looked at the photo in his hand.
There were four people in the photo. Three Liucheng University students had their arms around each other’s shoulders. Mo Nai sat in the corner, a faint smile on his face for the camera. Back then, he seemed to have a reserved and silent demeanor.
His clothes were clean and tidy, and the Nike sneakers on his feet were shining white. In comparison, the three people next to him were more disheveled; their shoes were dirty, and their clothes weren’t particularly neat or clean.
Looking at the photo alone, it was Mo Nai, the fake university student, who stood out more than the three real ones.
But after hearing the owner’s commentary, when Ji Xun looked at the photo again, no matter how he looked at it, he felt that Mo Nai seemed out of place with the other three.
Family background, education, money, status. Intangible yet tangible things lay between these four people, and also lay between Cheng Xiang and Mo Nai.
“It’s hard to tell from men’s clothing. If the owner hadn’t said those three were rich, I wouldn’t have been able to judge that from their clothes in the photo. But once he said it, even a single dirty thread on them seems to be trying to prove to me that it’s very expensive—it’s like a filter has been applied. If even I am like this, what would the Cheng Xiang of back then have thought after being reminded of Mo Nai’s hidden true identity?”
Ji Xun spoke to himself.
“The possibility of love turning to hate is quite high, isn’t it?”
“Money and status are one kind of colored filter; love is another. Both are filters, with no inherent superiority. But the emotions they trigger and the forms in which those emotions are expressed are not entirely the same,” Huo Ranyin analyzed rationally. “From the owner’s description and the fact that Cheng Xiang decisively broke up with Mo Nai after learning the news, it seems Cheng Xiang wasn’t blinded by love—of course, the specifics of how it was can only be judged after meeting and questioning her.”
“…” Ji Xun didn’t answer for a moment.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Thinking of you.”
A trace of confusion crossed Huo Ranyin’s brow.
Ji Xun turned to smile at him. “Thinking of the advice you once gave me. Not to let love cloud my reason.”
They both thought of that night.
The dark night, a glass of red wine on the table, a tender affection that felt like warm yellow light flowing over their skin.
“Not love,” after a moment, Huo Ranyin’s lips curved into a slight smile. “Hormones.”
