When Xie Lin sent the message to Chi Qing, he was sitting inside Wu Zhibin’s office.
The two were sitting face-to-face, except Xie Lin was the one sitting in Wu Zhibin’s office chair. His entire posture was relaxed as he leaned back. On the computer screen in front of him, crime scene photos were playing in a slideshow. He looked at those photos, his facial expression completely unchanged.
Normally, when he acted like this, it indeed made people feel a strong sense of approachability.
But right now, he was facing photos of a crime scene, yet sitting in that office chair, it seemed as if he had merely found a random place to take a midday nap.
The office doors and windows were tightly shut. No one had noticed that Xie Lin had come over at noon today carrying a lunchbox to deliver food to Wu Zhibin, and then the two had quickly swapped positions in the office.
Using this midday nap posture and demeanor, Xie Lin watched for a while before speaking slowly: “Are the autopsy results out?”
Wu Zhibin: “They’re out. It’s confirmed that the deceased suffered sexual assault and sexual abuse before her death. There are signs of a struggle indoors, but the killer didn’t leave any DNA. We are currently investigating everyone with social ties to the deceased one by one. Other related reports are still undergoing testing; the fingerprint comparison results should be out tomorrow.”
Wu Zhibin continued: “She had an argument with her boyfriend that night. When we went looking for her boyfriend today—we found that the man had already fled overnight.”
“Her boyfriend is named Zhou Bohao, a bartender at a bar. The two met while working in Kangyang City in the past. Zhou Bohao still had two months left on his lease, but he didn’t even ask the landlord for his deposit. He packed up some clothes and ID documents, and all his contact methods are unreachable.”
Anyone hearing this would immediately think of the words “absconding to avoid punishment.”
However, Xie Lin wasn’t in a hurry to jump to conclusions.
Wu Zhibin: “Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” Xie Lin’s gaze landed on the girl’s bare feet, then quickly moved away. He stood up as he spoke, “It’s just that there’s one detail I’m rather concerned about. Why were her slippers placed so neatly beside the bed? She doesn’t look like she got into an argument with someone; rather, it looks like she was… killed while sleeping in someone’s embrace.”
“If it was the killer…” As Wu Zhibin spoke to this point, he suddenly paused.
The crime scene was a complete mess. The killer would have no reason to specially arrange a pair of slippers.
Xie Lin said: “I’ve finished looking at all the materials. I still have things to do, I need to head out for a bit.”
With this “behind-the-scenes consultant” Xie Lin coming over for a trip, no one realized he was here to help analyze the case.
Over these past few years, even though Xie Lin had long since left the Criminal Investigation Unit and no longer held the position of consultant, Wu Zhibin still called him to help participate in certain cases.
Looking at Xie Lin, Wu Zhibin saw past his current appearance to the teenage boy in the school uniform from all those years ago, sitting in the conference room surrounded by the crowd. As times changed, he could only continue participating in cases in this hidden manner.
At the General Bureau, many people deeply respected him, because over these ten years, he had repeatedly solved numerous headache-inducing major cases.
Every time he heard such a compliment, Wu Zhibin would recall the situation the very first time he sought Xie Lin out for a case.
The crime scene of that case was extremely familiar, immediately reminding people of that “family annihilation case” from many years ago; it was highly likely a copycat crime. Xie Lin had already entered university at the time, and relying on that face of his, he remained a prominent figure on campus.
They had just finished an English class at the time. Xie Lin was leaning against the wall in the corridor, surrounded by twos and threes of girls.
Wu Zhibin remembered how sharp he was. Amidst the talking and laughing, he quickly lifted his eyes and cast a glance his way from afar.
“Looking for me?” After the girls dispersed, Xie Lin walked over.
“There’s a case…”
“I’m no longer a consultant,” Xie Lin interrupted, “and I won’t participate in case investigations anymore.”
“Moreover…” Xie Lin pointed to himself, “Haven’t you heard them say it? I failed my psychological evaluation.”
“I am a police officer. When I handle cases, I rely on evidence,” Wu Zhibin said. “The same goes for people. If a conclusion can be drawn about a person based solely on a single evaluation, I do not accept such an evaluation result.”
Wu Zhibin snapped out of his daze and glanced at him: “Who are you waiting for a reply from? I just saw you staring at your phone for a long time.”
Xie Lin was indeed looking at his phone. The impervious one hadn’t replied at all, but Ji Mingrui had replied earnestly: He’s at the entrance of the Tianrui residential complex, waiting for the agent.
So Xie Lin picked up his overcoat and said, “I have some things to do, I’ll be going now.”
“?”
Hooking his car keys around his finger, Xie Lin pushed the door open and walked out: “Going to snatch a client from a real estate agent. If I don’t go now, that client might run off with someone else.”
Half an hour later, Chi Qing stood in the living room of a certain rental apartment with a cold face. The environment at Tianrui Complex was passable. This rental apartment was about one hundred square meters, and the living room layout was spacious. The agent had strictly filtered according to his requirements and introduced: “This apartment is really quite nice, one elevator for two households. The landlord has rented it out a few times before, and put a lot of thought into renting it out this time. The furniture in the living room and bedroom is all newly bought, and the rent is also fairly reasonable…”
The reason for his cold face wasn’t because of the agent, nor was it because there was a problem with the apartment.
It was because there was an extra person in the living room who shouldn’t be here.
“The furniture is newly bought,” Xie Lin walked a few steps around the living room, as if he were the one renting the apartment. “But there are scratches on this wall, and there are some issues with the floor too. This rent isn’t considered reasonable, is it?”
The agent: “…Uh, this, well, it has been rented out before, so it’s inevitable that there are some signs of use.”
Xie Lin: “My place doesn’t have any.”
When Xie Lin said this, the person he was looking at was Chi Qing: “First-time rental. Not to mention the furniture, even the floorboards are completely brand new. Except for the renovation workers, no second person has ever stepped on them. Ready to move in with just your bags.”
Chi Qing already had a headache from all the noise, and seeing him now made his head ache even more.
“What are you doing here.”
Xie Lin: “If I don’t come snatch you away, am I supposed to wait until you sign the contract with him?”
Chi Qing: “…”
This was probably the first time the agent had encountered this kind of situation too. Standing in the living room, he was clearly somewhat at a loss.
When Chi Qing first met the agent at the complex entrance, he noticed it was a different face from the one on the “Anjia” app. Before he could even ask, the agent proactively said, “Brother Zhou Zhiyi had something come up last minute, so he asked me to bring you to view apartments. Don’t worry, I’m super familiar with this area too.”
Besides that sentence, Chi Qing had also heard another: [This is my first time in this area. I haven’t fully memorized the layout features Brother Zhou instructed me on. Later, if he asks me what amenities are around, I won’t be able to answer. And how much was the rent again? Six thousand or seven thousand? Who knows what Brother Zhou actually has going on that he couldn’t get away from. If this deal goes through, does it count as mine or his?]
This agent bro, who had been pulled in last minute to show a client apartments, never expected he’d actually meet a rival.
The agent bro gritted his teeth: “How about this, I’ll try to fight for a discount with the landlord for you. There should still be about five hundred in bargaining room.”
Xie Lin: “You can drop it by five hundred?”
The agent let out an “Ah.”
Xie Lin: “I’ll drop it by a thousand.”
The agent: “I…” He couldn’t drop it any lower. If he dropped it any more, the landlord might come over and beat him up.
The agent thought bitterly in his heart, Are you sure you aren’t just playing with me?
Having achieved preliminary victory in snatching the client, Xie Lin took it a step further, proactively introducing: “The environment at my place is good. The most important thing is that it’s quiet. The unit downstairs is empty with no one living there…”
Chi Qing hadn’t absorbed a single word of the nonsense Xie Lin spouted earlier, but this time, catching the word “quiet,” his expression finally loosened a bit.
Chi Qing: “Quiet?”
Xie Lin realized that after talking for half a day, he seemed to have finally hit the nail on the head.
The vacant apartment Xie Lin owned was about five or six kilometers away. Crossing the old city district over a distance of five or six kilometers brought them to a place with a good environment and a lower population density. Right next to the residential complex was a large park.
The surrounding environment was indeed quieter than where Chi Qing originally lived. After all, over there, three residential complexes were crammed into one small block, directly multiplying the foot traffic by three.
There was no problem with the apartment. Just as Xie Lin introduced, it was a new apartment and it was quiet. The distorted voices in his ears instantly plummeted.
Except for the landlord being rather unsatisfactory, there truly were no flaws to be picked with this apartment.
Chi Qing made his decision and began laying out his demands: “First, the rent will follow the market rate. There is no friendship to speak of between you and me, so there’s no need for a friendship price.”
“Second point,” Chi Qing paused slightly here. “What’s the situation with the apartment across the hall?”
He had been inside for nearly fifteen minutes without hearing a sound; the people across the hall were probably not home today.
If it turned out a whole big family lived there, his ears wouldn’t be able to handle it.
“Across the hall, huh,” Xie Lin pinched the ring between his fingers, giving it a twirl, and said, “…Only one person lives across the hall. He’s quite well-mannered, a very nice person, and couldn’t possibly be noisy.”
Signing the lease contract didn’t take much time, and finding a moving company to pack things up and move only took a day.
Chi Qing stood by the door wearing his black gloves, preparing to wait for the movers to finish bringing everything in before using disinfectant to sanitize every single thing that had been touched. Just as he lowered his eyes, wondering if he had enough disinfectant, the lock on the door across the hall opened with a “click”—
The “well-mannered and very nice” person across the hall was wearing a sweater, leaning against the doorway looking at him. The man’s brows and eyes were affectionate, the corners of his eyes slightly upturned. He seemed to have just woken up, his hair still a bit messy.
Xie Lin: “Morning.”
“…”
Looking at the person across the hall, Chi Qing began trying to recall what exactly was written under the lease termination clause section of that rental contract.
