Ji Mingrui sent a message.
– How is it.
Chi Qing replied: What do you mean how is it.
– Asking you how the apartment is. You should have started moving your things by now, right.
– Idol Jiang Yu said he had a vacant apartment over there and was just worrying about having no one to rent it to. As soon as I heard that, I thought, wasn’t this just a perfect coincidence? So I told him to hurry over so you two could talk it over. Isn’t this just perfect? You rent an apartment, he leases one out.
Although Chi Qing often wanted to end his friendship with Ji Mingrui for a variety of reasons, he had never been as serious about it as he was at this moment.
He took off one of his gloves, his finger touching the screen to type: How many years have we known each other.
Ji Mingrui: That’s a really long time, since high school…
After a slight pause of his pale finger, he continued sending: I think this friendship can end right here.
Ji Mingrui: ?
Meanwhile, Xie Lin was still leaning against the doorway looking at him: “Need help? I made an extra portion of breakfast, want to come in and sit for a bit?”
Chi Qing put away his phone: “You didn’t say the person living across the hall was you.”
Xie Lin seemed to know he would say this, and without any embarrassment, said openly: “If I told you, would you still have rented it?”
Chi Qing: “No.”
Xie Lin: “Then there you go.”
“…”
“We business people,” Xie Lin said, “in order to achieve our goals, can sometimes use some necessary means. Besides, I didn’t lie to you. The person across the hall is indeed quite nice. A distant relative is not as good as a near neighbor; we can look out for each other normally.”
Chi Qing recalled Ji Mingrui seeming to mention that Xie Lin had a business background in his family, it was just that his ambitions didn’t seem to lie there. That bit of family business was managed by dedicated personnel. He usually drove luxury cars looking idle and relaxed, occasionally went to see a psychological doctor, and liked to wander around murder scenes.
The psychological doctor told him to interact more with people.
But there is still a big difference between people and psychos.
Psychos don’t count as people. For the sake of his condition, it was best he didn’t get too close to a psycho.
“Don’t knock on my door. I don’t need a neighbor. A good neighbor should act like they’re dead,” although he could now hear those messy voices without touching, out of habit, Chi Qing still put that glove back on. “Otherwise, I will seriously consider breaking the lease.”
The movers had just finished carrying the last box of things. Before Chi Qing went in, he said: “Keep the breakfast for yourself to eat.”
Chi Qing stared for a while at the pile of appliances that had been touched by people and laid haphazardly in the moving truck. Then he took off his black gloves, solemnly changed into a pair of medical rubber gloves, and took out the disinfectant he had prepared long ago.
However, there wasn’t much left in the disinfectant bottle. Chi Qing shook the nearly empty bottle and had no choice but to search for the nearest store.
This residential complex was indeed very quiet, but quiet also meant that various surrounding amenities were a certain distance away. The few existing stores didn’t have disinfectant in their online delivery options either.
Resigning to his fate, Chi Qing had to make a trip out.
The phone navigation showed the nearest large department store was within a two-kilometer radius, right next to a bathhouse.
Ji Mingrui didn’t know what was going on with Chi Qing’s side. He had been investigating Zhou Bohao’s whereabouts lately. It was his first time participating in a life-or-death case like this. Although his level of participation was low, he was still on high alert.
He put down his phone, picked up his cup of instant noodles, and sat in the car eating. While eating, he looked at Zhou Bohao’s personal profile: “He’s a local. Yesterday when we interrogated that new girlfriend of his, she said he went to Xiajing. I keep feeling something’s wrong.”
That newly appointed girlfriend was the woman’s former best friend.
Last night, sitting in the interrogation room, she hemmed and hawed for a long time. At first, she said she didn’t know: “We’ve already broken up. Actually, when I was with him, I felt sorry for Zhenzhen…”
“You felt sorry for her, yet you still stole her boyfriend?”
“I struggled for a long time too,” she lowered her head and said. “When I first came to Huanan City, I was unfamiliar with the place and the people, and the work pressure was high. He said since I was Zhenzhen’s best friend, he could take care of me. It was me who couldn’t control myself.”
“You don’t know where he went, so during that voice call at 5 AM last night, the two of you were just silent to the air?”
“…”
“And you stayed silent for fifteen minutes. You’re quite good at keeping quiet.”
Through the car window, Ji Mingrui looked at the endless stream of people and the intersecting intersections, letting out a long sigh: “Then where could he have gone?”
“The suspect hasn’t been found yet.” Wu Zhibin stood by the window, on the phone with Xie Lin.
Xie Lin, alone facing two portions of breakfast, casually picked one and chatted with Wu Zhibin like talking about everyday matters: “When a person flees under these circumstances, they will either choose a city they are familiar with, or choose the train or flight with the schedule closest to their time of escape.”
“But he fits neither. He doesn’t know anyone in Xiajing City, and the earliest schedule to Xiajing City that night required a wait of four or five hours.”
Wu Zhibin: “You mean?”
Xie Lin broke the bread apart and voiced his guess: “Xiajing City should be an alibi they temporarily agreed upon that night. I don’t think he left.”
“The more panicked a person is, the less likely they are to leave their psychological safety zone. Only by hiding in familiar places can they know which shops don’t require an ID swipe and which places they can stay overnight for free. Hiding in an unfamiliar environment would actually increase the difficulty. So if he didn’t leave, he should appear in some venues that ‘don’t expose identity’ and are convenient for staying overnight.”
“Internet cafes, card and chess rooms, hair salons,” Xie Lin walked to the balcony with his breakfast. The weather was very nice today, the sun shining on him, plating him in a shallow layer of light. But at this moment, he substituted himself into the suspect’s thought process. The sunlight hit from the side, gathering into a half-shadow. He narrowed his eyes and said, “Or… a bathhouse.”
“Where would he go…”
As Ji Mingrui was thinking, the car window was knocked on from the outside.
Su Xiaolan was holding freshly bought bread in one hand, while the other hand maintained the motion of stuffing her phone into her pocket. After Ji Mingrui rolled down the window, she said: “Brother Bin said to narrow down the scope. We’re going to look for nearby internet cafes and bathhouses. Basically, look for places like this that don’t require ID swipes and allow overnight stays.”
The department store Chi Qing went to was a medium-sized supermarket. The interior space was very large, divided into several zones. Unlike the bustling department store, the bathhouse next door seemed quite deserted in broad daylight. The somewhat tacky neon sign at the bathhouse entrance was unlit, and you could catch sparrows at the door. Clearly, this wasn’t the bathhouse’s main business hours.
There were many people in the store. The voices in Chi Qing’s ears suddenly sounded as if someone had violently pressed the volume button up; various monsters and demons scrambled to drill into his ears.
“Oh my, you’re buying this,” an elderly aunt said. “It’s imported. My family uses this one.”
“Ah, is this good to use?” another voice rang out.
[Tch, showing off all day, opening and closing her mouth saying she only uses imported goods, thinking everyone doesn’t know her family’s life is actually a mess.]
By the shelf next to them stood a young couple. Someone greeted them from afar: “Haven’t seen you two in a long time. Accompanying the wife to buy things, huh. I really envy you. You can focus on work outside, while your wife takes care of the house in perfect order.”
“If you’re so envious, hurry up and find one yourself.”
[What’s there to envy? She doesn’t know how to dress herself up like before. All day long she just talks about trivial life matters, or else the child. Living with her is getting more and more boring.]
[…]
Chi Qing pulled up the zipper of his jacket that was stuck below his collarbone, pretending he didn’t hear anything, let out a breath, and continued walking forward.
These voices gradually weakened as the distance increased, and then new voices would ring out.
“Mom, Mom!” The voice was crisp and clear.
At the end of the aisle was the snack section. A little kid in ginger-yellow clothes was jumping hard in front of the shelf but still couldn’t reach the jelly on top.
Her mother was talking to someone else and didn’t have time for her: “Play by yourself for a bit, Mom has something to say to Auntie Wang.”
[But I really want that strawberry-flavored jelly…]
The child’s voice was pitiful. Even distorted, it revealed a sense of grievance, feeling like she could cry in the next second.
Chi Qing didn’t look at the girl at all the entire time, but he still paused when passing the shelf. He let go of the jacket zipper, raised his hand to lift the bag of pink jelly from the top shelf, and placed it on a lower shelf.
The girl froze. Her chubby fingers reached out and could grab the bag of jelly right at her eye level.
Holding the jelly, she could only see the cool black bangs of that older brother, and the black gloves that had just flashed over her head.
The girl hugged the jelly to her chest: “Thank you, big brother.”
“No need to thank me,” Chi Qing walked straight ahead. “I only helped you get it because you were too noisy.”
Amidst this chatter, Chi Qing finally found the shelf displaying disinfectant. He grabbed two bottles. Then, while paying at the checkout, he heard an urgent siren approaching from afar, followed by a voice he was very familiar with:
[This bathhouse doesn’t need an ID. Go in and search. Once I catch him, he’s dead meat. Even if I, Ji Mingrui, have to dig three feet into the ground today, I’ll dig him out.]
Chi Qing: “…”
Ji Mingrui valiantly and spiritedly slammed the car door shut. Turning his head, he saw his buddy appearing next to the bathhouse holding a plastic bag, having just finished checking out: “…”
Then a black sedan drove over from a diagonal angle behind them at a very slow speed, stopping beside his car. The window slowly rolled down. Xie Lin was wearing a pair of sunglasses today and greeted them from afar: “What a coincidence, you’re all here? Everyone’s quite gathered.”
Ji Mingrui wanted to ask this too.
He looked at Chi Qing, then at Xie Lin, thinking to himself, Why can we always run into you two in these highly suspicious places!
Do you guys specialize in running around in piles of suspects?!
Do you two know that you look way more suspicious than the suspects!
Ji Mingrui: “Did you guys… come to take a bath together?”
After parking the car, Xie Lin let out a laugh: “I don’t mind, you can ask him if he’s willing.”
Chi Qing lifted the plastic bag in his hand: “Do you think it’s possible?”
After saying that, he asked back: “Why are you standing there looking at me, aren’t you going in to catch the guy?”
Ji Mingrui: “Catch, we definitely have to catch the guy.”
Xie Lin followed him in. Before going in, he paused when passing Chi Qing. He didn’t touch him, but reached out, hooking a finger into the plastic bag in Chi Qing’s hand to pull him along: “Since you’re already here, come in and take a look. I haven’t shown you around the neighborhood amenities yet.”
The man hooked two fingers onto the bag. This action, done by him, always showed a bit of flirtatiousness.
The position Chi Qing was standing in now was away from the store and closer to the bathhouse. Some of the voices he could hear just now slowly faded, and some new voices surfaced in his ears.
He originally wanted to just walk away, but a panicked voice appeared among this pile of voices:
[Damn it, why are the police here? I just wanted to break up with her, I didn’t mean to kill her.]
[…]
The face of the girl from the bar suddenly appeared before Chi Qing’s eyes, and that “future” she would never have the chance to achieve.
In the end, enduring the endless voices in his ears, he didn’t make Xie Lin let go.
Like other bathhouses commonly seen on the roadside, the internal structure was divided into an upper and lower floor. The first floor was the lobby and bathing area, equipped with several sauna rooms. It was just that no one came to bathe at this time. The bathhouse was empty, with only un-tightened faucets dripping water. The tiles on the walls and floor bore sweeping marks from brooms due to their age.
“No one.” Ji Mingrui brushed aside the cloth curtain and walked out.
“The women’s bathroom is empty too,” Su Xiaolan said.
“I’ll go upstairs to check, you take the photo and ask around.”
Su Xiaolan took out the photo. Before she could speak, the bathhouse manager, who had been sizing them up since they came in, proactively said: “Our bathhouse operates completely legally, there are absolutely no problems.”
Su Xiaolan: “We are here to look for someone. Has he appeared here in the past few days? Have you seen him?”
The bathhouse manager quickly glanced at the photo: “Haven’t seen him. Are you done asking? You guys should leave quickly.”
Ji Mingrui came down from searching the second floor and shook his head at Su Xiaolan.
Receiving the signal, Su Xiaolan put away the photo: “We suspect he is related to a case… If there is any news about him, you can contact us.”
After Su Xiaolan finished speaking, she noticed that Xie Lin and Chi Qing were looking elsewhere.
The bathhouse only showed a front door, and it wasn’t clear where a back door might be. But the further they crossed the lobby, the clearer the voice became:
[I didn’t mean to kill her—]
[I didn’t mean to—]
Chi Qing suddenly asked: “Is there another door here?”
The bathhouse manager didn’t make eye contact with Chi Qing. He was so nervous his mind went blank: “No, whether there’s a door or not, haven’t you all seen? Our bathhouse only has this one main door.”
Xie Lin was looking at a very small employee break room to the side. There were two rows of lockers in the break room, a table in the middle, and a few plastic stools: “The breakfast on the table is still hot, not a bite taken, but the people aren’t here. May I ask where these people went?”
The bathhouse manager: “…”
It was perfectly normal to hire a few young and pretty massage girls in this kind of bathhouse, so the manager only wanted to send them away quickly. If they continued investigating, things would become very troublesome.
The bathhouse manager stood at the front desk. On the wall behind him hung a whole piece of ginger-yellow gold-stamped velvet cloth, looking like a backdrop wall.
When he spoke, his body turned slightly sideways, attempting to block it: “They might have gone out, uh, they’re all regular employees.”
The bathhouse manager was so tense that Chi Qing didn’t hear any other voices at first. However, as soon as this sentence fell, another voice finally rang out.
[He won’t discover the hidden door behind me, will he…]
“Sir, please step aside,” Xie Lin had also noticed the cloth and said, “Lift the cloth up a bit.”
“This is just a decorative cloth. The decoration style of our shop is like this, retro style. There is absolutely nothing behind it…” Halfway through the manager’s words, Xie Lin had already lifted the cloth. A hidden iron door appeared behind the cloth, and the manager let out an “Ai—”
Xie Lin raised an eyebrow: “Retro style?”
The manager: “If I said this door is actually because a Feng Shui master said installing a door in this position means guests will flock to the door, to get a good omen, and it actually can’t be pushed open at all, would you believe it?”
Xie Lin smiled and said: “Whether I believe it or not is hard to say before pushing it open, but with your mouth, being a manager in a bathhouse is quite a waste of talent.”
The hidden door led to the back alley. A group of girls wearing short skirts in the dead of winter were leaning against the rough limestone wall, either squatting or standing. They didn’t know the situation inside. Seeing the door pushed open without any preparation, they could only stand there awkwardly.
Ji Mingrui: “Did a person also run out just now?”
A girl nodded.
“Which way did he go?”
The girl extended a freezing finger and pointed to the alley entrance: “Just left.”
Chi Qing and Ji Mingrui were both unfamiliar with this area. The only person present who had lived in this area for many years, Xie Lin, wasn’t anxious at all upon hearing the person ran away: “Going out of the alley, there are only two roads. He can’t run far.”
Ji Mingrui: “Okay, the four of us will split up.”
Zhou Bohao was sprinting wildly on the street wearing bathhouse clothes and disposable slippers. Wearing so little in the dead of winter, the cold wind poured unimpeded down his wide collar. He thought that by not leaving any identity information, the police wouldn’t be able to trace him here for a while. But he forgot that “not leaving identity information” was in itself a crucial enough piece of information.
There were quite a few stalls on both sides of the alley, like a small morning market.
The crowd bustled, and the vendors continuously hawked their wares.
However, the man rushing out from the street corner broke the original order of the street. Ignoring the vendors blocking the way, busy fleeing, with a “crash,” he frantically knocked over several boxes of goods on a vendor’s cart.
Ji Mingrui chased closely behind: “Don’t run—”
Zhou Bohao was entirely focused on fleeing and couldn’t notice the pedestrians on the street at all. He left the original road and changed to another one. Just as he was about to duck into the stairwell of the residential building on his right, he accidentally bumped into someone.
“Damn it.” He cursed.
Because his head was lowered, he could only see the person he bumped into through a few rays of sunlight.
Xie Lin didn’t have any sense of tension when catching a criminal either. He looked more like he had just strolled over here: “Stop running. Instead of wasting your energy, why not go back and talk about what exactly happened that night.”
Zhou Bohao was panting heavily. After the initial chill passed, his whole body actually heated up. He probed by stepping back two paces. However, the distance between him, Ji Mingrui, and Su Xiaolan was only one street away. He had already been living wretchedly these past few days. The emotions accumulated over the days erupted at this moment. Like a trapped beast driven to a dead end, he clenched his five fingers into a fist, suppressing a roar in his throat, and the wind from his fist fiercely rushed toward Chi Qing—
Mainly because the position Chi Qing was standing in was easier to break through, just happening to block the stairwell entrance.
Chi Qing didn’t even blink, about to block the blow. However, the fist suddenly halted in mid-air.
“Just fight with me,” Xie Lin’s palm rested on Zhou Bohao’s wrist. Still maintaining that agreeable appearance, he even smiled politely when speaking, but the strength in his hand didn’t loosen in the slightest. “Don’t touch him.”
Zhou Bohao tried to break free, but found he was immobilized.
Xie Lin: “That young master has germophobia. Show some consideration for the patient.”
Chi Qing wanted to retort but found he couldn’t: “…”
Germophobia truly didn’t have an advantage in a fight.
The situation quickly settled. Ji Mingrui arrived on his heels, pulled out handcuffs from behind, and in two or three moves pressed Zhou Bohao, who had fled for days, against the wall. He handcuffed his hands behind his back, and the silver handcuffs locked with a “click.”
Ji Mingrui looked at Chi Qing: “Are you okay?”
The nearby residential buildings were too noisy. Amidst a wave of buzzing sounds, Chi Qing found that apart from the headache caused by the noise, he actually felt a trace of unnaturalness.
To him, this was truly a very unfamiliar emotion.
He couldn’t really pinpoint where the unnaturalness lay; it might have been Xie Lin’s sentence just now, “Don’t touch him.”
Chi Qing finally said: “I’m fine.”
“Scared me to death,” on the way back, Ji Mingrui didn’t hesitate to spill Chi Qing’s old stories. “I was afraid just now that if he threw a punch, you’d think hitting him back would dirty your hands.”
Chi Qing didn’t respond, but Xie Lin asked first: “Has he ever been in a fight before?”
Ji Mingrui: “Yeah. Back in school, a lot of people thought he ignored everyone and was super arrogant. They wanted to show him some colors, told him ‘Don’t leave after school.'”
“Hm?” Xie Lin signaled him to continue.
“And then after school he just left directly.”
Chi Qing completely didn’t remember this incident: “Did I?”
“You did. The next day they came over furiously and asked what you meant, didn’t they tell you not to leave after school.”
Ji Mingrui imitated Chi Qing’s speaking tone, coldly lifting his eyes: “I’m telling you to scram right now. Will you scram?”
Chi Qing: “…”
Ji Mingrui: “Then the guy came up swinging his fist. Do you know what he said?” Ji Mingrui took a huge gasp of air here, pausing very mysteriously before saying, “He said, ‘Wait a minute, let me put on some gloves.'”
“…………”
Inside Yongan Police Station.
Jiang Yu didn’t participate in the outdoor operation and was kept behind by Wu Zhibin to write reports. Hearing that the suspect was caught, he hurriedly put down his work and rushed toward the interrogation room. However, as soon as he went out, he bumped into Chi Qing and Xie Lin—two people who had nothing to do with the case but always managed to participate in it in various postures.
“Uh, you’re here to give statements again.”
Familiar statements, familiar scenes… familiar people.
Jiang Yu opened his notebook, preparing to briefly record statements for the two.
Unexpectedly, after Zhou Bohao was pressed inside, before even reaching the interrogation room, he confessed everything. He had dressed up very meticulously at the bar before, wearing a full set of earrings and necklaces. Now wearing the bathhouse clothes, he looked vastly different from his appearance at the bar.
The tip of Zhou Bohao’s nose and his limbs were freezing red. He lowered his head and said: “Comrade Police, I confess, I confess everything. I never expected to really be able to escape anyway.”
“When I met Zhenzhen, I was sincere towards her too. But distance grew between us, and she was often not by my side… It wasn’t something I could control for this kind of thing to happen. I know it’s bad of me… but I just made a mistake that all men in the world make.”
Ji Mingrui: “Don’t randomly represent us men. Your kind should go in the trash can, basically saying goodbye to the human category.”
Zhou Bohao asked: “Could I have a cup of water?”
Then, holding the hot water, he sniffled and said: “That night, Zhenzhen came looking for me, making a very ugly scene at the bar. I already had conflicts with the manager, and the manager directly told me to get lost. I lost my job. Even though I felt a bit guilty towards her, on the other hand, I felt how could she come to my workplace and make a scene?”
…
Chi Qing didn’t read any other thoughts in this person’s mind.
It seemed everything he said was the truth.
Zhou Bohao continued: “I indeed resented her in my heart. Of course, I also had a lot of things I wanted to say to her. I still have a bit of conscience, I wanted to apologize to her.”
“You have a conscience?” Su Xiaolan said coldly. “I really couldn’t tell.”
Zhou Bohao quickly glanced up at her: “I saw you escort her back, and then I waited for your car to drive away before secretly following her upstairs. Although she was quite angry when she opened the door, she still let me in. But we couldn’t reach an agreement. Her emotions were very unstable, she threw things at me, told me to get out, and even said that no matter where I went to work in the future, she would go make a scene and make it impossible for me to survive.”
The crime scene indeed had signs of a struggle.
But the more Xie Lin listened, the more wrong the expression on his face became.
“Do you think,” Xie Lin said, “under these circumstances, even if he developed murderous intent towards a woman he no longer loved but who threatened to entangle him, why would he choose to rape and kill her?”
Chi Qing wasn’t very clear on the case details, only knowing that the girl was dead: “What?”
“There is not a single characteristic about him that fits this type of criminal. His girlfriend didn’t cheat with someone else, nor was his masculine dignity unsatisfied over a long period. Of course, there are many other examples. In short, he doesn’t need to resort to this kind of killing method to seek some sort of thrill. It’s just an ordinary breakup dispute. At most, it would be manslaughter, or a crime of passion…” Xie Lin paused here and glanced at him, “You didn’t know that girl suffered rape before she died?”
Chi Qing remembered the sentence he had heard several times in the bathhouse:
[I didn’t mean to kill her.]
Not, mean to.
If it was rape followed by murder, why would he say he didn’t mean to.
The term ‘mean to’ sounds more like an accidental, uncontrollable mishap occurred.
At the office door, Zhou Bohao went off-topic: “Having done this kind of thing, I already have no face to see my family. I will confess everything and hope the law can see that I actively admitted my mistakes…”
“Get to the point.” Su Xiaolan tapped her pen on the table.
“Oh, I admit, my attitude at the time was bad too,” Zhou Bohao said. “I was suddenly blinded by anger. I really didn’t have that intention originally, I didn’t want to get physical with her, but she kept pressing aggressively, I…”
Su Xiaolan’s eyes were very red, enunciating each word: “So you raped and murdered her.”
“I—” Zhou Bohao dragged out the word ‘I’ for a long time, then stopped abruptly, dumbfounded. “What rape, rape?”
During these past few days and nights, Zhou Bohao had fled everywhere, exhausted. After being pressed into the police car and brought to the police station, he had already mentally pictured how he should spend the rest of his life in prison and how he would face his parents crying bitterly: “I just pushed her! Her head hit the corner of the cabinet and she fainted directly. The next day I heard people say she died. What rape?” Zhou Bohao suddenly raised his volume, his eyes wide open, “…I didn’t rape her.”
The three-person rookie team also froze.
Su Xiaolan: “?”
Jiang Yu: “Huh?”
Ji Mingrui: “What did you say?”
“Call that new girlfriend of his over again.”
Half an hour later.
A girl with long hair draped over her shoulders sat back in the seat she had sat in last time.
“When he called me at night, his voice was very panicked,” the girl said. “He said he pushed Zhenzhen down. The next day the complex was locked down by the police and Zhenzhen was already dead. He said he accidentally killed her, told me not to tell anyone, and asked me what to do.”
“…”
Based on Zhou Bohao’s testimony, the forensics department quickly issued an examination report: “He’s right. The head suffered an impact before death, but it wasn’t a fatal wound. The deceased should have regained consciousness after a while.”
“He thought he killed someone, so the killer wasn’t someone the deceased knew at all.” Ji Mingrui flipped through the documents. “But this doesn’t logically make sense. Why are there no signs of forced entry? The deceased didn’t order takeout, had no deliveries, and didn’t know anyone else in the city. How did he get in.”
At that moment, everyone realized that the nature of this seemingly simple home invasion murder case had suddenly changed.
All their previous deductions were completely overturned.
As a girl, Su Xiaolan imagined a scenario where she lived alone, yet someone could seamlessly appear in her room. She felt a chill down her spine.
Chi Qing never expected that buying two bottles of disinfectant could take a whole day.
He walked to the intersection carrying the plastic bags, and someone honked the horn at him twice. Having experienced the “driver” incident last time, Chi Qing realized that instead of wasting time fighting him, it was better to go with the flow, saving time and effort.
Besides, it was truly on the way this time.
Chi Qing was strictly business: “Take the order.”
Xie Lin took out his phone, accepting the second order of his driving career: “…Alright.”
This time the two didn’t say much on the road. Chi Qing endured the endless various voices from the past few days, enduring all the way to the complex’s underground garage.
While waiting for the elevator after parking the car, Xie Lin looked at the constantly changing floor numbers on the display screen and suddenly said: “Earlier at the bathhouse entrance, your friend never mentioned that he was there to catch someone.”
Chi Qing was originally leaning against the corridor of the elevator hall, his back against the wall, his hand hooking the plastic bag hanging low. His pupil color was deep, almost blending in with the black bangs on his forehead. Hearing this, he tilted his head slightly.
Chi Qing thought, Did Ji Mingrui not say it?
He had heard too many voices recently. It was hard for him to remember every single sentence, and he would occasionally forget which sentence came from the real world and which came from that chaotic, distorted pile of voices.
“A guess.”
Chi Qing didn’t expect Xie Lin to notice these details. He had realized since the cat killing case that this person looked smiling and welcoming, but was actually the hardest to fool. He said: “I know he’s investigating a case. At that time, it’s hard to have any other guess besides looking for someone.”
The elevator descended floor by floor.
“Pretty accurate guess.” This probing from Xie Lin came quickly and went quickly. After saying that, he seamlessly changed the topic, as if he never intended to get an answer from Chi Qing in the first place. He said, “The elevator is here.”
“Ding.”
The elevator arrived at the designated floor, and the doors slowly opened.
Chi Qing returned to his newly rented apartment and sanitized all the furniture completely.
Like usual, he didn’t turn on the lights much but kept the TV on. The entire living room took on a cool tone, with the cold blue light of the TV shifting and changing.
Even after changing residences, he still felt very noisy. It might have been that he heard too many voices during the day, and those voices were blocked in his ears, spiraling back and forth, giving him a headache.
Counting today, he had had a headache for several days.
After sanitizing, Chi Qing took off the rubber gloves and belatedly pressed the back of his hand against his forehead. Only then did he realize that the cold he caught after being rained on last time had lingered intermittently and never fully healed. Coupled with being busy outside for so long these past few days, he had caught a chill again.
Chi Qing dug the medical kit out of the sundries box, squinting against the TV light to check the expiration date marked on the cold medicine.
2020/6.
Long expired.
Chi Qing finally fell asleep on the sofa. Half-awake, he was woken up by a phone vibration.
[Xie Lin requested a voice call with you].
“Officer Ji asked me to help return the clothes you lent him last time,” after the call connected, Xie Lin’s affectionate voice sounded even lower at the end through the audio current, drawing it out slowly as he spoke. “I forgot when you got out of the car earlier. Are you home now?”
With just a few words from the man, the feeling of him being “not quite well-behaved” already rushed to the face.
It was just that Chi Qing had no mind to appreciate it right now.
Being sick always easily amplifies people’s various senses. Although his consciousness in some aspects was weakened, Chi Qing felt that the voices in his ears hadn’t stopped since a few days ago, but rather intensified.
Although there were few residents in this building, it wasn’t completely empty.
Chi Qing had no extra energy to discern what those voices were babbling about, including this phone call in his ear.
Xie Lin said a few more sentences on the other end of the phone and noticed Chi Qing had been delayed in responding.
“Can you hear me? Speak.”
“…”
“Did you drink alcohol?”
“…”
Finally, Xie Lin was silent for dozens of seconds. When he spoke again, he was already at Chi Qing’s door: “Open the door.”
“I’m afraid something happened to you. Get up and open the door. I’ll just take one look, hand you the clothes, and leave.”
Chi Qing wanted to say just throw the clothes away.
But thinking that if he said that, the other side would likely be relentless, he paused for a bit and finally said two words: “One look?”
Hearing the other side finally make a sound, Xie Lin sighed in relief: “If you’re willing, taking a few more looks is fine too.”
“…”
Then you’d better not look.
When Chi Qing opened the door, Xie Lin was still maintaining the posture of holding his phone. He had changed into a very thin sweater, a stark contrast to his daytime attire. This person already had a face that easily made people feel a sense of crisis, but after changing clothes, he surprisingly gave off quite a domestic vibe.
Chi Qing indeed only gave him the time of one look, taking the clothes through the crack in the door and preparing to close it.
“Wait a sec,” Xie Lin propped his hand against the door panel, not letting him close it. “Not feeling well?”
[If it wasn’t for the fact that you’re the boss’s daughter, I wouldn’t have married you… otherwise, with your arrogant temper, who could tolerate you.]
Some household in the building was frantically staging a family ethics drama in their minds again. Chi Qing was so disturbed by them that his reaction was half a beat slow. Only after digesting what Xie Lin said did he reply: “Noisy.”
“Noisy?”
Xie Lin realized he probably wasn’t saying he was noisy.
There were no other sounds in the building either. Listening carefully, there was only the sound of someone upstairs installing things, knocking and banging through the ceiling, which could barely be considered noisy.
Xie Lin momentarily forgot Chi Qing had germophobia. He released the hand propping the door, and very naturally placed his hands over Chi Qing’s ears, palms inward, muffling them lightly: “The people upstairs might be installing something. If you find it noisy, I’ll go up and check it out later.”
Chi Qing froze. He wasn’t wearing gloves at home, and out of habit, raised his hand wanting to pull Xie Lin’s hands down. However, the moment they touched, this ear-covering action indeed took effect.
“…”
The absurd, nameless ethics drama in the building came to an end, and the words that had piled up and constantly rung in his ears for the past few days scattered like birds and beasts. All the distorted voices entirely faded away.
