Inside the General Bureau’s conference room, the materials had been prepared in advance.
A rookie from the general brigade, responsible for bringing in mineral water, secretly observed the situation in the conference room from the corner of his eye while setting down the water.
Thus, the general brigade rookie saw the young man—who had been personally welcomed in at the general brigade entrance by Bureau Chief Yuan—sitting in the conference room. Everyone else was in police uniforms, but he wore a very casual black shirt. In the midst of a solemn atmosphere, he smiled and said “Thank you” when receiving the water.
After finishing delivering the water, he closed the conference room door as he went out.
Quite a few people were gathered outside the conference room, seemingly doing their own things at first glance. But as soon as they saw him come out, the people pretending to print things at the printer stopped pretending, and several people quickly gathered into a huddle.
“What exactly is the situation?”
“It seems, they say it’s a consultant they invited over.”
“…Consultant? Does he study psychology? Doesn’t look like it.”
“Don’t know, seems his surname is Xie.”
“Consultant, surname Xie,” someone connected these two keywords and was shocked, “Xie Lin?!”
The people in the General Bureau were very sensitive to the word ‘Xie’. Although they didn’t recognize the face, they were thoroughly familiar with the name and the deeds.
They weren’t like Ji Mingrui and Su Xiaolan, who wouldn’t know who it was when “Xie Lin” was mentioned.
From the time they entered the General Bureau—no, even earlier, as long as they had learned about the old case from ten years ago, it was impossible not to have seen the name Xie Lin.
If Xie Feng was the textbook-level rising star of the Criminal Investigation Unit back then, then Xie Lin, who began participating in case investigations at the mere age of fifteen, was like an existence with cheat codes enabled.
To this day, on the last page of the yellowed old case files in the headquarters’ archives, the list of all personnel involved in the case would definitely feature three words—Consultant: Xie Lin.
These rookies had only heard of Xie Lin’s name. No matter how shocked they were, it was merely the shock of seeing a rumored figure. But those who had participated in the old case many years ago were different. Seeing Xie Lin walk back into the conference room, separated by a set of blinds, the veteran detectives momentarily thought they were seeing a scene from ten years ago.
Inside the conference room.
Many things had changed over these ten years. For example, the old-fashioned, always-grayish projection screen with poor color rendering in the conference room had been replaced by an LCD screen with technological advancements, automatically connecting to the main computer.
Bureau Chief Yuan had white hair at his temples that could no longer be covered. The male detective sitting next to him looked to be only in his thirties, but carried quite a few merits on his shoulders.
When introducing him, Wu Zhibin spoke with some hesitation: “This is Captain Yang, you should have an impression of him. Among the batch of people who joined the general brigade back then, he and your brother were the two most highly regarded. After your brother left… the position of general brigade captain…”
Xie Lin didn’t speak.
Revisiting the old place ten years later, many things had changed.
Just like the person who sat in that position ten years ago would never come back.
But there were also some things that hadn’t changed, such as the eight characters on the white wall of the conference room: Enforce the Law for the People, Establish the Police for the Public.
“The deceased Xue Mei, after forensic identification, it is confirmed that her time of death was earlier than Yang Zhenzhen’s. She was murdered approximately a month ago.”
The LCD screen displayed a crime scene photo of the freezer; the scene was shocking to behold.
“Although the killer ultimately disposed of the bodies differently, we compared several fatal wounds on the victims,” the slide switched to the next page. “The back of the head, chest, and waist/abdomen. These fatal wounds are very similar, and Xue Mei also suffered sexual assault before she died.”
“According to the landlord’s recollection, when she brought people to open the door with a spare key, neither the door nor the windows showed any signs of being forced. This indicates the killer didn’t need to use forced entry methods to enter the victim’s room. This point is also the same as the Yang Zhenzhen case.”
While the presenter was giving the summary report, Xie Lin didn’t speak the entire time.
Xie Lin sat towards the back, where the light from the LCD screen couldn’t reach him. The blinds beside him were also drawn. The Xie Lin who had entered “case mode” inexplicably made it almost impossible to associate him with the Xie Lin who had just smilingly accepted the water.
He seemed to really like looking at pictures of crime scenes, arranging the bloodiest few photos together according to the time of the crime.
Xie Lin leaned against the back of his chair, using two fingers to twirl the ring on his other finger a few times. It wasn’t until the presenter stopped and looked at him that he shifted his gaze away from the crime scene photos and said: “I’m listening, you continue.”
“We investigated everyone closely related to Xue Mei. Xue Mei’s daily life was very simple, just a straight line between two points. The only conflict might be that she and her boyfriend were breaking up a month ago. But her boyfriend has no suspicion of committing the crime, because he wasn’t in the city the entire month. He went out to clear his mind with friends, saying he wanted to calm down and reconsider their relationship, so he didn’t contact her for a whole month. We confirmed his train tickets, hotel check-in spending information, and surveillance footage. He indeed wasn’t in this city a month ago.”
This once again ruled out people close to her.
“We currently still cannot determine how the killer managed to leave no traces of breaking in…”
After understanding Xue Mei’s case well enough, Xie Lin asked: “What’s the situation with the cases in Xiajing City?”
The detective in charge of the report said: “There are two unsolved cases in Xiajing City, occurring last August and last December respectively. Due to a lack of clues, plus the victims were both tenants, and the time they were discovered was separated by a very long period from the time of the crime… so this case just…”
Everyone present had already heard the information the presenter spoke of.
Yet Xie Lin peeled out the clues they had overlooked: “So all four victims were people who didn’t have close ties with their families. Since Yang Zhenzhen’s murder until now, if the police hadn’t contacted her family, she might have been like Xue Mei, disappearing for a month without anyone noticing. The killer isn’t necessarily someone close to them, but definitely someone who understands their situation. In other words, it should be relatively easy for him to obtain the victims’ personal information through some means.”
“…?!”
Xie Lin fully demonstrated to them what it meant for the difficulty of a case to be its exact breakthrough point.
The fact that a period of time passed between the victims being murdered and being found indeed increased the difficulty of solving the case. But thinking about it from another angle, this could simultaneously become a clue left by the killer.
In one stroke, Xie Lin narrowed down the killer’s criteria when choosing ‘prey’: “He specifically targets females living alone outside, and investigates these women’s family backgrounds. It’s even highly likely—his nature of work makes it very easy for him to do this. Because under normal circumstances, it’s impossible to achieve the goal of having a stranger female divulge her family situation to you through normal social interaction. Still in Xiajing City last December, his work highly likely has a high degree of variability and mobility.” Sensing the atmosphere in the conference room was too solemn, Xie Lin flipped past a page of the file spread open in front of him and said, “…Of course, this hypothesis isn’t absolute. If it were me, perhaps I could do it.”
“…”
There’s no need to show off your personal charm at this time.
Wu Zhibin fell into deep thought after listening. Picking through a pile of documents, he finally pulled out a photo. The man in the photo had a buzz cut, single eyelids, and looked a bit fierce: “He is Xue Mei’s neighbor, works in the logistics industry. When we went to canvass him that day, he acted very unnaturally.”
The meeting ended with a single word Bureau Chief Yuan finally spat out: “Investigate.”
After the meeting adjourned, Xie Lin unscrewed his mineral water bottle cap. Taking out his phone, which he had previously set to silent mode, he opened his WeChat list, wanting to see if a certain person had sent him a message.
Chi Qing was clearly not the type of person who would frequently send messages to others. Unless it was truly excessively noisy, he generally wouldn’t proactively poke Xie Lin.
Xie Lin proactively sent over a greeting.
– Patient, do you need treatment today.
The other side didn’t respond for a long time.
Xie Lin moved his fingers again, typing down two lines.
Wu Zhibin saw this scene: “Who are you sending messages to.”
Xie Lin smiled: “Someone you’ve met, the one who wears gloves all day and won’t let people touch him.”
Wu Zhibin: “You’re still in contact with him?”
This sentence actually revealed quite a bit of information; the attitude was unsupportive.
Xie Lin: “What?”
Wu Zhibin realized his slip of the tongue: “Nothing… I just feel this person looks quite strange.”
“That apartment across from me was empty after I bought it, so I rented it to him a while ago.” Regarding the evaluation “strange,” Xie Lin actually agreed: “He is quite strange. Covered in ailments, who knows where they came from.”
This sentence from Xie Lin seemed like complaining, but Wu Zhibin tasted some extremely subtle intimacy from it.
Xie Lin took a gulp of water, tightened the bottle cap again, and stood up saying: “I’m leaving. I’ll come again tomorrow when you interrogate that neighbor.”
Wu Zhibin was the last to leave the conference room.
The rookie detective coming in to clean up saw him: “Brother Bin, haven’t left yet.”
Wu Zhibin snapped out of his daze: “Ah, leaving right away, thanks for your hard work.”
What he was sitting there thinking about just now was that old case from years ago. There were actually two victim information sheets in the file folder. When he flipped through it last time, he only stopped on the second to last page. The photo attached to the second to last page was a teenage Chi Qing.
He didn’t continue flipping backwards, because he knew very well what was on the last page without looking—the last page had a photo attached in the same position, and the person in the photo was Xie Lin from ten years ago.
Wu Zhibin didn’t know what kind of fate existed between these two. He was surprised that the only two survivors from the old case back then had actually bumped into each other again after so many years. The result of Xie Lin’s psychological questionnaire back then was high risk. Then what about that Chi Qing?
Wu Zhibin thought of the intriguing six words in the file: ‘Long-term tracking recommended’.
…Would he be a normal person?
On the other side, because he slept quite well yesterday, Chi Qing rarely had the mood to place an order on a grocery shopping APP. After the vegetables, fruits, and a box of frozen steak were delivered, he prepared to cook and eat.
He rarely cooked, mainly because cooking was very troublesome. Chi Qing picked out a few knives from the knife block and set them aside for use. After meticulously wiping the knives clean, he took out a pair of rubber gloves from the drawer and put them on to avoid direct contact between his fingers and the ingredients.
The curtains in the room were drawn tight, and the lights were off.
A piece of bright red steak lay flat on the wooden cutting board.
Chi Qing picked up the knife, the silver-gleaming tip sinking into the meat. His hand was very steady, slicing down bit by bit, the cut surface exceptionally smooth.
The phone screen beside the cutting board lit up, illuminating this scene.
– Xie Lin has returned to headquarters!!!
*- Headquarters! Headquarters Consultant!*
*- Did you know about this? I’m so envious, I’m living under a lemon tree today.*
Sender: Ji Mingrui.
Only after finishing cutting the meat did Chi Qing take off one of his rubber gloves.
– Why do I need to know.
Ji Mingrui: Could the speed at which you reply be any slower? What are you doing?
Chi Qing replied with two words.
– Cooking.
– …
Ji Mingrui had once had the privilege of seeing Chi Qing cook a few times; just thinking about it made his hair stand on end.
Honestly speaking, it was a bit perverted.
Actually, cutting meat is clearly a very domestic task, but when Chi Qing did it, it was just very different. Gloomily holding a knife, specifically wearing rubber gloves. Although he knew his buddy did this because he had germophobia—the sense of ritual was too heavy, so heavy it made it hard not to overthink.
Moreover, every cut he made was very slow, so slow it seemed he was carefully savoring it… In short, after seeing it once, he rubbed the goosebumps rising on his arms and found an excuse to go back.
Chi Qing didn’t chat much with Ji Mingrui. Backing out of the chat box, he saw a few unread messages in the list.
– Patient, do you need treatment today.
This sentence was closely followed by two more:
– Not replying to me.
– Running away after sleeping with me?
