In his twenty-plus years of life, Xie Lin had only encountered one person in this world who simultaneously fit all these adjectives.
Xie Lin got up, rested his hand on the back of the front seat, gestured for the detective to move aside a bit, and leaned in to look at the rearview mirror.
The rearview mirror reflected many people, the street bustling with pedestrians, but he still locked onto a familiar face in one second—his suspicious neighbor from across the hall was mingling in the crowd, wearing a black hood, his skin blindingly pale in the sunlight, and his red lips pursed. He looked not only suspicious but also like he was in a rather bad mood.
“…”
The detective’s surname was Liu, and Wu Zhibin called him Xiao Liu. Xiao Liu was extremely dedicated and maintained a high state of alertness for a long time. He emphasized again: “He really followed him the whole way!”
Xie Lin finally said: “Got it.”
The buzz-cut guy was getting closer and closer to their current position. Xie Lin sat back down, resting his hand on the rear door handle, ready to move at any time: “You guys take that one. Leave this person to me, you don’t need to worry about him.”
The closer he got to the entrance of the Tianrui complex, the slower the buzz-cut guy’s footsteps became. He carefully and cautiously observed his surroundings for plainclothes police officers, hesitating as he waited for the most suitable and least conspicuous opportunity to slip into the complex with the flow of people.
The weather was cold. The buzz-cut guy rubbed his hands together and exhaled a puff of smoke.
After looking around, the flow of people at the entrance of the Tianrui complex had also increased. He no longer hesitated and sped up his pace.
However, he didn’t manage to get very far. The door of a sedan parked by the road, which he had ignored from the very beginning, suddenly opened—
Officer Liu “bounced” out of his seat with lightning speed. His movements were clean and neat, the timing grasped perfectly. He pressed down on the suspect’s shoulder, pinning him firmly against the car window, and handcuffed him from behind: “Police! Don’t move!”
The buzz-cut guy didn’t have time to react at all. The instant the car door suddenly opened, he was just about to turn his head and run, but he couldn’t run away at all.
Chi Qing had followed the buzz-cut guy the whole way, attempting to hear something more. However, ever since that vague “I… her,” the buzz-cut guy hadn’t had any more mental activities regarding Xue Mei. All his attention was focused on whether there were police nearby.
Chi Qing got annoyed halfway through following him. The surroundings were too noisy, packed full of voices squeezed together, making it impossible to hear clearly. He also had to specifically pick out the buzz-cut guy’s voice from among these sounds, paying attention to the pile of nonsense in his mind:
[Fuck, there shouldn’t be anyone, right…]
[Wait a bit more, it’s not safe yet. Wait until there are a few more people later.]
[…]
The entire time it took for the buzz-cut guy to be arrested was no more than five seconds. Chi Qing had been following behind him at a leisurely pace, and in these five seconds, he had absolutely no time to react.
The people in the car didn’t give him a chance to react either—at the exact same time the front door suddenly opened, the rear door lock clicked open with a ‘clack’. Immediately after, his wrist was grabbed tightly, and he was yanked into the car.
Chi Qing subconsciously reached out his right hand, which was originally stuffed in his jacket pocket, but relying on just one hand, he couldn’t resist at all: “…”
In the end, Chi Qing’s entire back was pressed against the back seat of the private car, and his hood slipped back in the process. His field of vision cleared up, and only then did he see clearly who had pulled him in.
Xie Lin was leaning over him, not only immobilizing his hands but also pressing down on his legs to prevent him from thrashing about. It was a very professional apprehension posture: “It seems we really are quite fated. To think we could even bump into each other like this.”
Chi Qing’s fingers were slender, and his black gloves had slipped half-off during the struggle. Xie Lin’s palm happened to press right on top of them.
Chi Qing’s ears suddenly quieted down, leaving only the sound of Xie Lin’s voice.
Being pinned down by someone like this was not very pleasant.
But the quietness was truly quiet.
Weighing the options, the magnitude of Chi Qing’s struggling lessened: “Passing by.”
“You always stay indoors with your door shut all day,” Xie Lin said. “What kind of passing by is this?”
Chi Qing explained: “Came to do an apartment handover, the lease contract with the former landlord officially expired.”
Xie Lin: “So you just finished the handover and came out?”
Chi Qing silently agreed.
Xie Lin: “Then that makes even less sense. Why didn’t you just catch a cab straight back from the complex entrance? It’s not convenient to catch a cab on this road.”
In fact, Chi Qing wasn’t clear on whether it was convenient to catch a cab on this road, because he indeed didn’t need to walk the distance of two extra streets to specifically catch a cab at the entrance of the Tianrui complex.
Just as his ears had quieted down.
Chi Qing’s brain was spinning rapidly, attempting to react to the current situation in the shortest possible time. From the corner of his eye, through the still-open car door, he saw a pharmacy among the row of shops along the street. He was just about to say he came to buy medicine—and Xie Lin conveniently knew about his cold medicine being expired at home.
However, Xie Lin immediately added: “Of course, the most important thing is—the road is so wide, and you normally wish you could keep a distance of two meters from people. Why were you sticking so close to Xue Mei’s neighbor?”
Chi Qing: “…”
Wu Zhibin, sitting in the front row and having heard the entire process: “…”
This tone didn’t sound like interrogating a suspect, but rather like acting jealous out of a lover’s rivalry.
But it was hard to say how much of these words was true and how much was false.
If he was led astray by Xie Lin’s extremely natural words and placed the focus of the topic on “Why were you sticking so close to others,” he would easily implicitly admit that he knew early on that the buzz-cut guy had a connection with Xue Mei.
Chi Qing didn’t fall for the trick.
He coldly and indifferently asked: “What Xue Mei’s neighbor?”
Xie Lin looked at him. After a long while, the strength in his hands loosened.
But loosening up was one thing, Xie Lin had no intention of letting him get out of the car: “You still have to take a trip with us.”
After Officer Liu caught the person, he shoved the buzz-cut guy into the back seat, ultimately returning fully loaded.
There were three people in the back seat. Xie Lin sat in the middle, with a suspicious individual sitting on his left and right respectively.
Twenty minutes later, inside the General Bureau interrogation room.
Besides the buzz-cut guy, there were three other people sitting in the not-so-spacious single room.
Wu Zhibin sat across from him, Officer Liu was responsible for taking notes, and Xie Lin was responsible for… observing.
Xie Lin wasn’t in a hurry to ask questions. He swiped a pack of cigarettes from Wu Zhibin. He got glared at by Wu Zhibin while swiping it, but he ignored it, pulled one out, and handed it to the buzz-cut guy: “Don’t be nervous, want a smoke?”
The buzz-cut guy seemed to have a rather introverted personality. His back was hunched, and his quite tall frame looked somewhat cramped sitting there. He didn’t seem to be good at interacting with people.
The buzz-cut guy took the cigarette and couldn’t help asking: “…How did you know I wanted to smoke.”
Xie Lin: “You have a very heavy smell of smoke on you, and you’ve been constantly rubbing your hands under the table.”
The buzz-cut guy’s nicotine addiction was indeed acting up. When a person is nervous, they need nicotine to distract their attention.
Only then did Xie Lin ask the buzz-cut guy his first question. He pointed outside the glass window: “That guy outside, do you know him?”
The buzz-cut guy looked in the direction Xie Lin was pointing and saw a strange man wearing a black hood sitting in the hallway: “…?”
Although the buzz-cut guy was nervous, he couldn’t help wondering in his heart: Who is this guy?
“Don’t know him,” the buzz-cut guy shook his head. “Never seen him.”
“Never seen him?”
“I’m certain. This guy looks pretty weird. If I had seen him before, it’s impossible I wouldn’t have an impression,” the buzz-cut guy said.
“…”
After smoking a cigarette, the buzz-cut guy grew bolder and asked again: “Did he commit some crime? It has nothing to do with me though, I really have never seen him before.”
“…………”
The ‘pretty weird looking’ and ‘suspected of committing a crime’ Chi Qing sat on the bench in the hallway, his patience exhausted.
His phone had been in his jacket pocket the whole time. It was just that he didn’t want to take off his gloves, so he didn’t have the habit of constantly playing on his phone.
Chi Qing sat for a while, and the phone in his pocket vibrated slightly.
– I’ll take you back later.
Chi Qing took off his gloves. He had been out for too long today, passing through two residential complexes and sitting for half a day in a densely populated place like the General Bureau. He hadn’t even finished typing the line “I’ll go by myself,” when Ji Mingrui, who happened to come to the General Bureau to deliver documents to Wu Zhibin, passed by.
Ji Mingrui had originally already walked past a distance. Vaguely noticing a particularly familiar figure in the hallway, he backtracked all the way back: “Chi Qing?”
“Why are you here,” Ji Mingrui asked. “What are you running to the General Bureau for when there’s nothing going on, did something happen?”
What kind of inseparable, wonderful fate exactly existed between this brother of his and public security?
Chi Qing didn’t know how to explain, so he brought out those two words again: “Passing by.”
“…”
Ji Mingrui was holding documents in his hand: “I’m delivering some documents to Brother Bin, don’t leave just yet, I’ll come out as soon as I’m done.”
After Ji Mingrui went in, several minutes passed before he came out.
By the time he came out, he basically understood the entire situation in the interrogation room.
Despite Chi Qing being so annoyed his head hurt, thinking of the sentence he had read, he still calmly and collectedly asked: “That guy inside, is he a suspect?”
Ji Mingrui was very simple-minded. Having been busy all day, he sat next to Chi Qing to drink some water, didn’t think much, and spilled the beans: “That guy inside, Xue Mei’s neighbor. You know about Xue Mei right, the one who was hidden in the refrigerator by the killer for two months. Currently don’t know if he’s a suspect yet, but it’s pretty weird, he’s been hiding everywhere since Xue Mei died.”
“He now admits that he likes Xue Mei, and had used some methods to pester her before, so he was afraid of being troubled by the police.”
Inside the interrogation room.
After the buzz-cut guy finished smoking a cigarette, he slowly said: “Xue Mei was very beautiful.”
“From the first day she moved into this building, I noticed her. She was wearing a floral dress that day, with her brown curly hair draped over her shoulders. She prepared gifts for all the neighbors on the same floor… She was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, especially when she smiled.”
Wu Zhibin used a declarative sentence: “You liked her.”
The buzz-cut guy didn’t deny it: “Yes, I did like her.”
Wu Zhibin: “You said you were afraid of us coming to your door because you had pestered her before. How exactly did you pester her?”
While Wu Zhibin was asking questions, Xie Lin was swiping on his phone.
The buzz-cut guy also had obvious dark circles under his eyes. The canvassing records Ji Mingrui had just handed over showed that the buzz-cut guy was usually quite a homebody. When he wasn’t at work, he was rarely seen going out: “I… sent all kinds of private messages to her social media accounts. She didn’t know it was me and even reported them. After an account was banned, I would just open a new one to add her.”
The buzz-cut guy didn’t explicitly say what exactly “all kinds of private messages” were, but based on the extent of being reported by Xue Mei, everyone silently understood: This guy is probably a creep.
“Just these?”
“Just these…” The buzz-cut guy’s speech only became urgent at this point. “I really haven’t done anything else, Officer. I didn’t kill her, how could I possibly kill her.”
After Wu Zhibin finished listening, he turned his head wanting to ask Xie Lin for his opinion, only to find he was still swiping on his phone: “…”
After finishing the preliminary interrogation, the few of them retreated to the monitoring room next door.
In the monitoring room, they could see the scene inside the interrogation room through an entire wall of one-way glass, and they could also chat, but the other party couldn’t see or hear them.
Wu Zhibin looked at the glass and asked Xie Lin: “How many points out of ten do you think the credibility of this statement is?”
Xie Lin’s finger slid slowly across his phone screen, and he said absentmindedly: “Four or five points. Not necessarily lying, but also not necessarily confessed everything.”
Wu Zhibin finally couldn’t bear it anymore: “You’ve been looking at your phone for ages, what exactly are you looking at.”
Xie Lin said: “Nothing, just sent a text message to my tenant telling him to wait a bit.”
Wu Zhibin: “…”
Is this an attitude for handling cases!
“Don’t be anxious, I haven’t finished speaking yet,” Xie Lin slid halfway, and his finger finally paused on the screen, not continuing to slide down. He flipped his phone over, pointing the screen at Wu Zhibin: “…And I’ve also been scrolling through Xue Mei’s alt Weibo account.”
On the phone screen, Xue Mei’s alt Weibo account was called “Want to eat plums.” She only had thirteen followers. Like most girls, the majority of her Weibo posts were retweets of wishing posts, along with many beauty and makeup recommendation posts.
There were quite a few original posts as well—complaining about work and clients, sharing snippets of life. There were happy ones and inexplicably depressed late-night ones.
Xie Lin had already scrolled past many of Xue Mei’s posts. The place he paused at was a very brief sentence.
Late one night over two months ago, Xue Mei wrote on her alt Weibo account: I always feel as if someone is constantly watching me.
“Just opening an account to harass her—is there a need to be that worried about the police coming to his door? This explanation is rather far-fetched. But the fact that he mentioned harassment shows he has that kind of intent towards Xue Mei. So I suspect…” Xie Lin paused slightly here. “He shouldn’t have just simply harassed Xue Mei and that’s it.”
On the other side.
In the hallway, Ji Mingrui was also just talking about the “pestering” part: “Too creepy, how could he send that kind of message to a girl!”
Chi Qing didn’t respond.
Because among the countless distorted voices, he caught a sentence: [I wonder if the police will believe what I said…]
Inside the interrogation room.
The buzz-cut guy happened to be speaking, complaining of his innocence to the empty room: “I really didn’t do anything, you have to believe me!”
This distorted voice was the same as the voice when he brushed past Chi Qing not long ago.
Chi Qing recognized this as the buzz-cut guy’s voice.
So he tried his best to concentrate his attention, eliminating and filtering out other sounds to listen to what exactly that voice was saying.
The interrogation room and the place where Chi Qing was sitting were only separated by a short corridor and a door.
Chi Qing heard it a bit clearer this time. Due to the speaker’s unstable emotions, the distorted voice sounded exceptionally eerie: [I can’t let them find out, can’t let them find out I’ve been… her.]
He didn’t miss it this time.
The original sentence for “I… her,” turned out to be—
[I’ve been constantly peeping at her.]
The sky outside gradually darkened. The sun slanted to the west, and the afterglow of the setting sun shone on the four characters of “Tianrui Complex.”
Inside a certain building, a room locked down by the police had no one entering or exiting.
To avoid losing evidence, everything in the room was very carefully preserved exactly as it was.
This was Xue Mei’s room.
The walls of the room had long become somewhat mottled, and on the section of the wall directly facing the bedroom, there was an extremely inconspicuous oval-shaped mark—because it had already been plugged up again with the same building material, making it very hard to notice that there had once been a small hole in the wall.
