“Romance? I’ve never heard her mention it.” Facing the police officers who had just pushed open the door, the slightly plump convenience store girl looked completely dumbfounded.
“Probably not… I’m not really sure, but I’ve never heard her say she had a boyfriend.”
Approaching evening, Ren Qin was preparing to clock out when she, too, was left stunned.
Looking at her two downstairs neighbors who were the last to walk into the room, a harrowing realization surfaced in her heart. Clutching a cleaning rag tightly, she asked, “Did she… did something happen to her?”
For Ren Qin, this wasn’t her first time inside a police bureau.
Neither experience had been pleasant.
Because no one knew better than her that sitting on this ordinary wooden chair meant someone had died. Suppressing her racing heartbeat, she said, “Because communication was difficult for her, Lanlan didn’t usually talk much. When I chatted with her, we sometimes had to rely on typing; she would type out whatever she wanted to say in her phone’s notes app.”
“She was a very simple girl, and she was the first good friend I made when I came to Huanan City.”
“Yesterday was her day off. She casually mentioned to me that she was going to watch a movie, and she seemed exceptionally happy about it. That movie was finally being re-released after several years. Just like all the other film fans, she had been waiting for it all this time.”
Yu Lan’s social circle was incredibly simple: friends, colleagues, and her younger brother. Yet, after questioning everyone around her, absolutely no one knew who she had been planning to go on a date with that day.
That person had mysteriously concealed every trace of their existence.
Yu Lan’s death made this case—which was already incredibly difficult to solve—even more convoluted.
If it weren’t for the sibling relationship between her and Yu Yang, no one would have suspected that this arson case had anything to do with the Honghai murders.
In fact, detective investigators from other teams actively voiced their objections: “Even if the victim of the fire is the older sister of a Honghai student, that still doesn’t prove a connection to the Honghai case, does it? There’s no necessary correlation no matter how you look at it. Without substantive evidence, all of this is just your subjective speculation!”
By this time, it was already late into the night.
After a long, exhausting day, Chi Qing and Xie Lin were preparing to head home.
Outside, the wind was howling relentlessly.
Xie Lin draped his coat over Chi Qing’s shoulders. Just as he pushed open the glass door, he caught the detective’s objection, causing his hand on the doorframe to pause slightly.
He remembered this particular investigator.
Back when a round-table meeting was held to discuss whether Xie Lin should be allowed back into the bureau as a consultant, this man had been the very first to disagree.
“Investigating cases isn’t based on intuition. No matter how well you can deduce a killer’s psychology—”
The investigator paused for a moment before continuing, “In short, without evidence, the killer wouldn’t even have a motive, and the victim profiles are entirely different. I believe the fire was just an accident and shouldn’t be merged into this investigation.”
Sensing that the conversation was taking a bad turn, Su Xiaolan tugged at the investigator’s sleeve: “It’s very late, let’s head home. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
By the time Xie Lin turned around, his facial expression had already smoothed out. He looked exactly as he always did. Chi Qing had noticed that aside from when they were completely alone, this man wore the exact same expression whether he was casually greeting someone, crawling out from under a bed to confront a killer, or slamming his foot on the accelerator to ram into a target—he was always smiling, his slightly upturned eyes curving downward.
“Who says there is no evidence?” Xie Lin asked with a smile.
Amidst the collective stun of the room, Xie Lin pointed to the photographs pinned to the white wall outlining the connections between the personnel. He tapped on Wang Yuan, Jin Hongbo, Ma Hui, and Yu Lan respectively: “A ‘date’ is the common characteristic shared by all of these victims.”
“—A date?”
“Before Wang Yuan died, he had just gotten a fresh haircut. When Jin Hongbo left the internet cafe in the dead of night, he specifically bought a pack of chewing gum,” Xie Lin stated. “As for Ma Hui, the reason he was in the restroom was that he wanted to change out of his school uniform; he was wearing an entire outfit underneath it.”
When Ma Hui was discovered in the restroom stall, his trousers were half-pulled down, revealing a pair of black pants underneath.
At the time, everyone had assumed it was merely because of the cold weather, so no one had paid much attention to the two layers of clothing.
“And Yu Lan goes without saying. One look at her tells you she was headed out to meet someone—wearing a dress that would leave her freezing and carrying lipstick for touch-ups. This is the true connection between them: they were all lured out by someone on the pretext of a date, only to be murdered.”
As Xie Lin’s casual, matter-of-fact words echoed through the room.
Several fragmented scenes materialized before everyone’s eyes, each victim occupying their own distinct frame.
The school bell rang. Wang Yuan touched his new haircut, deliberately avoiding his classmates as he slipped away toward the small grove.
Ma Hui stayed behind very late. Once everyone else had left, he headed to the restroom alone to change his clothes for his date.
Inside the internet cafe, Jin Hongbo played his game half-heartedly, his eyes constantly darting to the time in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Then, at a specific moment, he took off his headphones, stood up to buy a pack of chewing gum at the front desk, and walked out.
…
And finally, Yu Lan.
Filled with anticipation, the young woman walked into the commercial building near the movie theater.
Who was it, and what kind of methods did they use to lure them all out?
Xie Lin hadn’t betrayed any underlying emotion while speaking, and Chi Qing hadn’t removed his gloves to touch his hand, but intuition told Chi Qing that Xie Lin wasn’t nearly as “mild-mannered” right now as he appeared on the surface.
After all, back in the movie theater, Xie Lin had similarly smiled warmly while telling the people nearby to be careful, even though his inner thoughts had been laced with a dark, violent edge.
Thus, even though Xie Lin drove him all the way back, keeping his speed exactly the same as usual.
Chi Qing could still tell… he was in a rather foul mood.
Chi Qing had never comforted anyone in his life. After a long silence, he asked, “What do you want to eat tonight? I still have a few steaks in my fridge.”
Xie Lin’s bad mood was his own to deal with; he didn’t want it to affect Chi Qing. “It’s fine, I’ll just order some takeout when we get back.”
“Cooking is too much trouble for you anyway,” Xie Lin teased lightly. “You have to sterilize and wipe down every single utensil before using it.”
Chi Qing: “…”
Xie Lin: “By the time we actually get to eat, it’ll practically be a midnight snack.”
In the end, Xie Lin escorted him to his door. Leaning in close, he lifted the coat from Chi Qing’s shoulders, draping it over his own arm, and naturally bent his head down to press a soft kiss against Chi Qing’s forehead: “Sleep early. Night.”
After tidying up and taking a shower at home, Chi Qing retracted his hand right before pushing open his bedroom door.
Xie Lin hadn’t turned on any lights, sitting alone in the pitch-black study.
He himself couldn’t predict when those dark emotions would surge up, nor when they would recede.
Ever since he resumed his role as a consultant, the voices of skepticism around him had never truly ceased.
He was long accustomed to wrestling with the darkness entirely alone.
Just as Xie Lin slowly closed his eyes, attempting to reconstruct the exact emotion the killer possessed when committing the murders, a familiar knock on the door pulled him back to reality.
After knocking, Chi Qing inputted the familiar code—the same password from the day of the kidnapping—and opened the door to step into the room: “I’m coming in.”
Only Chi Qing could adapt perfectly to this unlit environment without finding anything amiss about it.
Following the hallway, he walked to the entrance of the study, staring at Xie Lin across the pitch-black space where one couldn’t even see their own outstretched hand.
Despite the profound darkness, the two of them could still capture the outline of each other’s pupils.
After a long pause, Xie Lin asked, “Why did you come over?”
Chi Qing took a few more steps forward.
Xie Lin caught the scent of body wash drifting off him.
He heard Chi Qing’s voice say: “I came to… try again.”
Both of them knew exactly what this “trying” referred to.
Chi Qing couldn’t fall asleep in his own room, and changing locations didn’t help matters.
Xie Lin’s room was still somewhat unfamiliar to him.
When one couldn’t sleep, it was easy to end up doing other things. Before long, Xie Lin’s fingers had slipped beneath his clothing, slowly tracing their way up the man’s slender spine.
Xie Lin: “Since neither I nor you can sleep… why don’t I help treat you for a bit?”
Chi Qing: “You call this helping me?”
Xie Lin replied with absolute solemnity, “Mm, helping you. Haven’t you noticed you don’t freeze up as much anymore?”
“…”
“Should I go a bit lower?”
Chi Qing desperately wanted to yank the blanket up to cover his face.
The ring on Xie Lin’s finger pressed icily against his lower back, forming a sharp contrast to the warmth of the man’s fingertips.
Xie Lin didn’t continue to tease him. After a short while, he withdrew his hand and asked, “You ran over here in the middle of the night just to try this with me?”
Chi Qing pressed the tip of his nose against the edge of the blanket. The man didn’t smoke; the fabric carried the scent of laundry detergent mixed with a hint of the cologne he habitually used, making it feel soft, as if he were being held in an embrace. “No. I just saw that you weren’t very happy, and for some reason, it made me unhappy too.”
Xie Lin froze slightly.
He was entirely certain that he hadn’t touched Chi Qing’s hand from the moment they left the police bureau until now.
For the first time, Chi Qing truly seemed to possess mind-reading abilities. Noting his daze, he added: “Even though I didn’t touch your hand, I just felt… that you’re unhappy right now.”
Xie Lin found it difficult to describe the sensation swelling in his chest.
A person who never cared about others’ feelings.
A person who couldn’t read emotions to save his life was actively trying his best to capture his mood simply because he cared.
Looking into Chi Qing’s eyes, Xie Lin felt that if he stared any longer, he would be completely pulled in. He suddenly reached out, yanking the blanket covering Chi Qing’s nose further up until it completely obscured his eyes.
Xie Lin murmured softly, “I’m giving you a chance. Go to sleep right now, otherwise you might not get to sleep at all tonight.”
This time, Chi Qing actually kept his eyes closed, drifting off to sleep roughly half an hour later.
The next day, the two headed to the Main Bureau to work on the case as usual. The weather was quite pleasant, though they had left the house a bit late, landing them squarely in a massive rush-hour traffic jam. Once the flow of cars finally began to disperse, they turned into a street roughly three kilometers away from Guangyuan Middle School, where Chi Qing spotted a familiar silhouette by the roadside.
“Hold on,” Chi Qing said, looking at the side-view mirror. “Isn’t that Officer Su?”
Su Xiaolan was standing under the blazing sun, inspecting her car by the pavement. Su Xiaobo was squatting nearby, clutching an English vocabulary handbook: “Auntie, I’m going to be late for school. Can this car still run or what?”
Su Xiaolan: “Just hail a cab. The car probably has a mechanical failure, I need to call a tow truck…”
Before her words could land, the honk of a car horn cut her off.
Turning her head, the window of the car beside them slowly rolled down, revealing a brooding face: “Need a hand?”
Su Xiaobo climbed into the back seat with practiced familiarity.
His English vocabulary handbook was still stuck on the very first page.
Chi Qing’s ears were practically growing calluses from hearing it: “Can you change the page for once?”
Su Xiaobo: “I haven’t finished memorizing this page yet.”
Chi Qing was genuinely curious: “Did they test your IQ when you enrolled?”
Su Xiaobo: “…”
As they drove along, they passed a movie theater located near the school.
The theater storefront wasn’t particularly large, and promotional posters for the re-released classic film stood prominently at the entrance.
The line, “In this lifetime, you must take the person you love to see it once,” an advertising slogan coined spontaneously by the audience, had been adopted by the production company and plastered directly onto the promotional poster.
Chi Qing cast a brief glance at it.
In the back seat, Su Xiaobo was chattering away, insisting that he merely had a lopsided academic profile rather than a low IQ.
Chi Qing: “If a person who can’t even recite the multiplication tables tells you they just have a lopsided profile and are merely a bit weak in math, what would you think?”
Su Xiaobo choked, then shot back, “You can’t make analogies like that. I know how to recite the 26 English letters!”
Chi Qing let out an “Oh” and remarked, “With an IQ as obvious as yours, there really is no necessity to get it tested.”
Listening to their bickering, Xie Lin was thoroughly entertained.
Su Xiaobo’s momentum weakened, but he still grumbled incessantly, “Well, there’s a reason I can’t force it into my head. I’ve been really miserable lately. My girlfriend and I broke up.”
Xie Lin arched an eyebrow: “You actually had a girlfriend? Your school’s regulations are so strict, the teachers didn’t catch you?”
Su Xiaobo: “Of course it wasn’t a relationship at school. It was… someone I met online while playing games.”
Reaching this point, he added, “You absolutely cannot tell my aunt. This is a little secret between us men.”
Su Xiaobo let out another long sigh: “Because I’ve been swamped with studying lately and didn’t have time to chat with her, our feelings faded. When I logged on a few days ago, she broke up with me.”
Su Xiaobo had been secretly engaging in puppy love, which was why he had been glued to his phone all this time. Ever since the rumors of the ‘Underachiever Killer’ emerged, he had focused entirely on his studies, only to suffer a miserable breakup.
The troubles of this high school boy were certainly unique.
Xie Lin was about to tease him with a few lines when his foot suddenly hit the brake, pulling the car over to the side of the road. It was as if something had violently clicked in his mind:
“…An online relationship?”
