Rain had always been a medium for exposing killers’ criminal tracks. In many buried body cases, it was due to heavy rain washing away the mud piles that the corpses finally saw the light of day. Therefore, within a short period, even if the two scenarios the doctor mentioned had occurred, it would be impossible for there to be absolutely no trace of the fetus at the scene: for example, there was a high probability of finding a tattered, blood-stained plastic bag nearby.
That night, a row of people gathered in the long-abandoned woods behind the hospital. The detectives held searchlights, turning over every inch of the woods. The beams of the searchlights shot straight out, passing through the dense trees and illuminating the weed-choked bushes.
The area was desolate and unkempt, and even the trees grew in a listless, sickly manner.
It was currently two o’clock in the morning.
Xie Lin’s remark about “staying behind to work overtime” had become a reality.
Although Chi Qing liked dark environments and such deserted places, it didn’t mean he was willing to stay up at two in the morning, standing at a body burial site while supporting someone with a broken leg.
Soon, to speed up the search, Chi Qing was also handed a flashlight. “Assistant Chi, you and Consultant Xie go search over there.”
“…” Chi Qing looked at the flashlight and said, “You call this working overtime?”
“?”
“This is clearly exploitation.”
Xie Lin stretched one arm across and draped it over Chi Qing’s shoulder. The coat Chi Qing wore was loose, and occasionally Xie Lin would brush against Chi Qing’s smooth, warm nape. Xie Lin moved his fingers and said, “How can maintaining social order be called exploitation? The people will thank you, and I will thank you. I’ll treat you to a meal tomorrow.”
Chi Qing pushed aside the grass in front of him and bent over to slip inside. “Not bothering me would be the best way to thank me.”
In the end, they found nothing in the woods.
Several pits were dug, and everywhere that could be dug was turned over. They even dug up two or three dead rats, but they didn’t see the black plastic bag or the fetus’s remains that the doctor had mentioned.
— “Nothing here,” someone called out.
— “Nothing here either,” a second person said.
— “Same here. I did find a plastic bag, but it’s for trash.” The beam of a third searchlight swept across the area.
“…”
The hospital administrator stood at the edge of the woods waiting for them. He felt cold and creeped out, rubbing his arms and constantly checking the time.
Xie Lin: “Let’s go. We won’t find anything here. Let’s go chat with the security guard.”
Seeing them approach, the security guard, knowing he could soon get off work, sounded impatient: “Done searching?”
“I told you guys earlier—there’s nothing here. But you didn’t believe me and had to search anyway.”
“Exactly, we told them earlier, but they still troubled you to stand here for so long. It’s really out of line.” Xie Lin very naturally excluded himself from the “they” group, acting as if he wasn’t the one who had proposed re-checking the scene two hours ago.
Hearing this, the guard’s expression softened.
Xie Lin then asked at the right moment, “Sir, how long have you been working here?”
“Almost twenty years. I’ve been here since the hospital opened.”
“Do you hear cats meowing when you’re on night duty?” Xie Lin pressed.
“Never,” the guard said. “There aren’t any residential areas nearby, so no one feeds them. Stray cats generally don’t gather behind our hospital.”
After the group searched for a while, they returned to the car.
One detective remarked, “It really is strange. We searched everywhere and found nothing.”
Sitting in the back seat, Chi Qing looked out through the black privacy-tinted window. Before the car started moving, he saw the long street outside.
There weren’t many shops on the commercial street opposite the hospital, and at this hour, they were already closed for the night. As Chi Qing looked, he realized the scene before him was exceptionally familiar—perhaps it was a coincidence, but the spot where their car was parked overlapped perfectly with the location where the photo in the SD card had been taken.
Zhang Feng had pressed the shutter exactly at this spot. At the time, he hadn’t known that this would be the closest he would ever get to death.
The next day, in the main bureau’s conference room.
The face-peeling case was treated as a separate case, but because the victim’s identity was linked to Zhang Feng’s case, photos of both crime scenes were displayed simultaneously on the screen. On the left was a bloody head missing its facial skin, the exposed nostrils looking like two dark bloody holes; on the right was a photo of the scene where Zhang Feng fell to his death.
Due to the specific identities involved, these two cases had been merged.
“Eliminate all impossibilities, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” Xie Lin sat below, staring unblinkingly at the two photos. “The dead fetus Yin Wanru aborted was likely taken by someone, and the secret of Zhang Feng’s death is also related to it.” After he finished speaking, he tilted his head slightly and asked the person beside him, “—Are you really sleepy?”
Compared to the two photos on the screen, the entire conference room’s attention was focused on the person sitting next to Xie Lin.
Or, more accurately, on the back of his head.
Chi Qing was currently slumped over the conference table, catching up on sleep. He and Xie Lin already looked out of place sitting in the conference room to begin with. With him sleeping on the desk, anyone who didn’t know better would think the main bureau was hosting some sort of tutoring class where a “student” was openly sleeping in class.
It had been past 3 a.m. when he and Xie Lin returned last night. Due to his germaphobia, Chi Qing had showered before going to bed, and after coming back from outside, he had to shower again. By the time he finished cleaning up and got into bed, the sun was already coming up.
And as luck would have it, the main bureau held its meeting early in the morning.
Chi Qing didn’t answer him. The conference room was too noisy, and despite lying down for a long time, he couldn’t fall asleep.
He was also wondering, Who would take it?
What did they want a dead fetus for?
To eat the placenta to cure an illness?
…
However, Xie Lin mistakenly assumed he was annoyed right now. So, just as Chi Qing began to ponder, Xie Lin’s hand gently covered his ear, just like the first time he had moved in across from this guy.
The conference room wasn’t actually noisy.
In such a serious environment, no one was whispering; everyone was discussing official matters. The windows and doors were tightly shut, and the noise from the hallway outside couldn’t get in.
Nor did he lose control like last time.
Chi Qing suddenly opened his eyes.
He realized that the same person doing the same action could produce completely different effects.
The last time Xie Lin did this, he had felt quiet.
This time, however, he felt the noise in his ears had grown louder. It was as if accompanied by a buzzing sound from nowhere, tangling his current thoughts into a mess.
After the two cases were merged, the detectives’ workload became heavy. They had to investigate the social networks of both people and find the connections between them.
“Who are we interrogating this afternoon?” Xie Lin kept his hand in place and asked in a low voice.
The detective responsible for the report on stage opened his work manual and rattled off names like a menu: “Yin Wanru’s best friend outside the industry—she’s the only one who knew Yin Wanru was pregnant—as well as the victim’s roommate, manager, aunts, uncles…”
“Alright, you guys go ahead with the interrogations.”
“Huh?” The detective paused. “Aren’t you joining us?”
Xie Lin said, “Me? I also need to go interrogate someone.”
The detective was confused. “Who?”
Who was he going to interrogate?
And shouldn’t interrogations be done at the bureau?
Disrupted by Xie Lin’s hand, Chi Qing sat up. Looking very much like the kind of student who didn’t pay attention in class but could answer every question, he suddenly threw out a name: “Zhang Feng.”
“Interrogate Zhang Feng?”
—How could they interrogate Zhang Feng when he was already dead?
Half an hour later, a hand wearing a black glove pushed open the closed rooftop door on the top floor of the commercial building.
Xie Lin was still standing on the stairs leading to the roof.
The elevator only went up to the floors open to the public in the mall. The rooftop was normally closed, and to get there, one had to take the emergency stairs after reaching the top floor. Halfway up, because Xie Lin talked too much, Chi Qing had refused to continue supporting him.
“You’re really not going to help me?” Xie Lin asked from behind him.
“Hold onto the wall yourself.”
“…”
Dead people cannot speak.
But death can.
A person wouldn’t just inexplicably fall to their death in a completely unrelated place.
Yin Wanru was clearly just one part of his so-called ‘earth-shattering scoop’. If he hadn’t come that day because of Yin Wanru, then standing on such a tall building, what was he trying to capture?
The two of them stood on the rooftop. This commercial building was very tall, and the biting cold wind blew into their collars, feeling as if it could sweep a person away.
Standing up high provided a wide field of vision, and many things could be seen. In front of them were several high-rise buildings and several commercial shops along the street. Looking down, there was dense traffic and pedestrians, and the sound of car horns was incessant.
What exactly did he want to capture?
Chi Qing looked at these buildings, lowering his eyes to gaze at the street where Zhang Feng fell to his death. The bloodstains on the street had long been washed clean.
Wait.
Fell to his death.
“Where did he fall from?” Chi Qing asked suddenly.
Xie Lin pointed beside him. The originally loose railing had already been replaced. “From here, the third section counting from left to right… There are no surveillance cameras installed on the roof, but according to the staff, the day before the incident, the railing was still—”
Xie Lin couldn’t finish his sentence because halfway through, he saw Chi Qing walk to the edge of the third section of the railing. Spreading his index fingers and thumbs into an “L” shape and putting the two “L”s together, his black-gloved hands formed a frame.
Then, Chi Qing leaned his upper body entirely outward in a death-defying posture.
If the railing he was leaning against came loose like it did on the day of the incident, he would immediately fall just like Zhang Feng did, especially since he didn’t have even one hand holding onto the railing to steady his body right now.
“You—”
Xie Lin wanted to ask if he was looking for death.
But just as the word “You” left his mouth, he realized what Chi Qing was doing.
“No matter how much he tried to make the fall look like an accident, it’s still far from a perfect crime,” Chi Qing’s gaze passed through the frame formed by his fingers, a frame just like the lens of Zhang Feng’s camera. “Why would the killer know for sure that he would make a dangerous move at this exact spot?”
“Because only by doing this could he capture what he wanted to photograph.”
This thing couldn’t be captured by just standing normally by the edge of the roof.
Through the frame formed by the two “L”s, Chi Qing watched the scenery before him slowly change. The crowded long street below was moved out of the frame, replaced by another street branching off from it.
That street was hidden in the quietest area. Only a few shops were open, and many were still vacant.
Although the railing had been replaced, Chi Qing leaning his whole body outward was still too dangerous. As he tried to lean out further, Xie Lin grabbed the hood on his back and pulled him back.
Chi Qing said, “I see it.”
Xie Lin: “Can you give a warning before you do something next time? My heart almost stopped just now. Are you messing with me on purpose?”
“…”
“You’re the only one who knows how to play reverse psychology. Did you think that move just now was super cool too?” Xie Lin’s focus wasn’t on what he saw at all. “Do you have a death wish? What if something happened?”
It was the first time Chi Qing had ever been scolded so thoroughly. “Can’t you just ask what I saw?”
After calming down, Xie Lin said, “Fine, then tell me, what did you see?”
Chi Qing: “A shop.”
The only thing that required completely leaning out to photograph was a shop at the very end of that street.
The glass door at the entrance of the shop was painted with many red symbols, winding like snakes or wriggling worms, in bright colors. The interior decor was primarily ginger yellow and red. It was a very distinctive Thai amulet shop, and its name was “Thai Pavilion”.
