Ji Mingrui had left a message for Chi Qing the night before, and early in the morning, he was jolted awake by the slight vibration of the phone placed beside his pillow.
He had turned it over and over in his mind, still worried about Chi Qing’s psychological state—though this person’s psychological state could never really be considered healthy to begin with, it was, after all, his first time in love, and Ji Mingrui, as his brother, was worried to death.
So before going to sleep at night, he had painstakingly searched the internet for a few anti-jokes and sent them over to Chi Qing.
At 1:40 AM.
-Sleeping yet?
-Did you know, a long, long time ago there was a person…
-Hahahahahahahaha! Isn’t this story super cold?
-I spent ages looking for one that cold, ordinary jokes aren’t worthy of your temperament.
The reply Chi Qing gave him in the morning consisted of only four words and a question mark.
-Are you very bored?
Ji Mingrui wasn’t originally a light sleeper, but when he was out on missions, he often needed to keep his eyes on suspects constantly, unable to let his guard down no matter how tired he was, so he was exceptionally sensitive to this kind of sound; he woke up with a start instantly, flipping upright out of bed in a single motion to dial a call through to Chi Qing: “You’re heading out so early today?”
Chi Qing was currently walking along the empty, deserted street toward a 24-hour convenience store: “Buying some things.”
“Heading out at this hour to buy things?!”
“Fewer people.”
“…”
True enough.
He hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet, so one could well imagine that there really were very few people on the street.
“What are you buying?” Ji Mingrui asked again.
Chi Qing: “New gloves.”
The glove stock at home was running critically low, and combined with the bad weather these past few days, the gloves remained damp even after hanging to dry for two days; he wanted to take advantage of the morning hours when there weren’t many people to buy a few pairs of new gloves.
After Chi Qing finished speaking, he hung up the phone, pulled up the hood at the back of his jacket, and while sizing up the gloomy sky, he cast a glance at a private car’s rearview mirror as he passed it parked by the roadside, spotting a stealthy figure following behind him.
That person was covered up even more tightly than he was.
A hat, a mask, head lowered, hands thrust into jacket pockets, a gaunt build, with a few strands of frizzy hair poking out from the hat.
“Welcome—”
Chi Qing pushed open the convenience store door, at the same time looking back discreetly, and found that the person had already crossed past the grocery store and walked far away.
On the other side, it wasn’t convenient for Xie Lin to send too many messages to Z, so he could only pretend to be detached and reply with a single question mark.
-?
But there was no response from the opposite side.
After this query was sent out, it sank like a stone into the ocean.
That Z would target Chi Qing was entirely outside his expectations, and also outside the scope of the entire plan; Xie Lin didn’t really want to be friends with him, so he couldn’t fully perceive what this friend actually meant to Z—much less know what a pathologically morbid demand this was.
Aren’t we good friends?
Plunge with me down into the deepest part of the abyss.
You are my best friend.
And you can only have me as your one best friend.
These past days, no matter how clearly Z described his own experiences of killing to him, Xie Lin had never felt that the people Z had personally killed weren’t actually many; rather, Z mostly enjoyed the thrill of others killing under his instigation, which brought him even greater pleasure—he didn’t need to lift a finger to hold power over others’ life and death.
Go kill someone.
Don’t you hate him? Why endure it?
Kill him.
…
Z had also spoken to him about the situation when killing that person near the church; that night, the man was out for a night run, and Z had pressed down on his neck from behind, leaning against the side of the man’s neck to whisper: “Don’t move, if you move blindly you’ll run into my knife.”
As he spoke, he viciously drove the knife into the man’s body.
Xie Lin knew he ought to continue staying in the room right now, and that it was best not to act rashly.
But he couldn’t stay put.
Where was Chi Qing right now?
Was he doing okay?
What on earth did that person want to do?
Too many thoughts surged up all at once.
Just as he finished getting dressed and was preparing to head out, the computer, which had been silent for a while, gave a “beep.”
The grey avatar lit up once more.
Z: I changed my mind.
Xie Lin faintly sensed that the words following this were somewhat unusual.
Sure enough.
Z: You go kill him.
Z: We are friends, aren’t we? The person I want to kill, you go help me kill him.
The opposite side was still “typing.”
Z: Let me see.
Z: I’ll give you twenty-four hours. After twenty-four hours, I want to see his corpse.
L: Twenty-four hours?
Z: Is that too long?
Z: Since you know each other, it should be very easy to approach him, right?
Xie Lin had revealed his current state in his chats with Z—that there was no turning back, that he had been suppressing his true inner desires all along, assisting the police in solving cases yet never being trusted by them.
With these preconditions added to Z’s self-confidence and arrogance, Xie Lin didn’t know whether Z held any wariness toward him right now.
Looking at it now, there was, because this was very clearly a test.
Twenty-four hours to kill a person was certainly not considered short.
But the problems Xie Lin faced right now were many; he couldn’t expose his true purpose in approaching Z, he had to maintain this friendship with Z, and at the same time… he also had to protect Chi Qing’s safety.
Xie Lin clicked open the social software and stared at Chi Qing’s chat box in silence for a very long time.
He wanted to protect Chi Qing, but he forgot one thing.
Chi Qing was never the type of person to hide behind him.
Chi Qing was his backup.
Just as Xie Lin sent over the sentence “Let’s meet up tonight,” Chi Qing replied with six words: Old place, see you at the bar.
The bar wasn’t an old place at all.
On the contrary, Chi Qing couldn’t drink alcohol at all.
He deliberately said the bar just to tell him that he knew this meeting was unusual, and that he had read the meaning behind the words “meet up.”
Although the bar wasn’t an old place, Chi Qing’s sentence also drew a clear location for Xie Lin; they had indeed been to a bar together, and in that bar, they had encountered the tenant case victim who was murdered not long after returning home.
At that time, Chi Qing and Xie Lin weren’t familiar with each other yet.
The two of them frequently tested each other, wanting to figure out the other’s background. Xie Lin would lean in front of Chi Qing from time to time, and each viewed the other as looking far from normal.
At that time, they didn’t know yet that these cases were like a black vortex, drawing them deeper and deeper, and the further forward they walked, the more they faced an even more unfathomable dark abyss.
The two hadn’t met again since that hasty encounter.
In the evening, before heading out for the appointment, Chi Qing stood at the entryway for a moment, and then without a second thought, stripped off the new gloves he had bought that morning from his hands.
The police station.
Because of Chi Qing’s identity, as well as the fact that he had met Xie Lin once last time, the police were keeping tabs on Chi Qing’s movements at all times while tracking down Xie Lin.
Hearing that Chi Qing was going out to a bar, Ji Mingrui’s first reaction was that it felt abnormal: “A bar?”
“What is he going to a bar for? He can’t drink, he never goes to bars.”
Su Xiaolan, who was off to the side, also found it strange, but she quickly found a perfectly reasonable explanation: “…Could he be in a bad mood? If he’s in a bad mood, it’s still highly possible he’d go drink.”
“When people hit an emotional setback, they always do some things they usually wouldn’t do; it’s actually quite normal.”
Ji Mingrui glanced at the time.
“Drinking at six o’clock? This hour is a bit too early.”
Usually, bars start opening up around eight in the evening; going over at six meant there would basically be no one there.
Su Xiaolan: “Fewer people at this hour.”
Jiang Yu also said: “Yeah, a bit later and there will be more people, which isn’t Assistant Chi’s style.”
Ji Mingrui: “…”
Reasonable and supported by evidence. Unarguable.
His brother, a guy suffering an emotional setback who runs off to drown his sorrows but still has to pick an hour with fewer people due to severe mysophobia.
But even though it was put that way, what needed to be checked still had to be checked.
Ji Mingrui sat in his seat for a moment, picked up his car keys, got up, and headed out the door: “I’ll go follow and take a look.”
Even in the evening, the lights inside the bar remained dim.
After pushing open the door from the outside, it felt as if one had stepped straight into the dead of night.
Chi Qing picked a corner to sit down. People around came and went, and the bartender and server were chatting at the front counter: “What is that case of drinks doing sitting in the warehouse?”
“Ah, that one, it’s expired. The boss told us to take it to the back door and dump it.”
“…”
After he had been sitting in the corner for nearly half an hour, a waiter brought over a glass of blue alcohol: “Sir, this is a drink sent to you by the gentleman behind you.”
Chi Qing looked at the glass of alcohol and said: “Thank you.”
The glass was placed in front of him, but Chi Qing didn’t touch it.
But he knew that Xie Lin had already arrived.
Behind the spot where he was currently sitting, there was another two-seater square table; when he took his seat, that square table had been empty.
Now someone was sitting right there, the two of them back-to-back.
Neither turned around.
Chi Qing drew his hand out from where it was tucked in his sleeve, resting one hand on the frosty glass, while the other hand crept backward discreetly; his fingertips first brushed against the man’s sleeve before slowly shifting downward, coming into contact with the man’s equally cool knuckles.
He had never once anticipated hearing that distorted voice as much as he did now.
And so, the chaotic and clamorous sounds around his ears receded in an instant, leaving behind only one sentence—
[He wants to kill you.]
Xie Lin briefly explained the current situation, at the same time voicing his plan:
[There is a folding pocketknife in my left pocket. In a moment I will pretend to make a move on you; once you get the knife, stab it toward me. There’s a police post not far ahead; run in that direction, that way it won’t be convenient for me to keep pursuing you.]
After he finished speaking, Chi Qing’s hand still didn’t let go.
The man’s slender fingertips lingered on Xie Lin’s finger joints as if filled with attachment.
Xie Lin didn’t pull away either.
After a few seconds, the distorted voice reappeared by Chi Qing’s ear.
[There is one last thing.]
[I miss you very much.]
