And so, as the statement-taking progressed, it turned into two “suspects” filing complaints against each other.
Xie Lin: “You also just happen to have a cut on your finger.”
Ji Mingrui: “Mr. Xie here brought up a highly similar cut on your fingertip—Comrade Chi Qing, please explain.”
Chi Qing held up the finger that had turned red from repeated wiping. “I cut it while slicing bread.”
Looking at the familiar cut, Ji Mingrui immediately realized what injury this was and raised his hand. “This injury, I can testify to this injury. I was there. He was using a serrated knife to cut bread the other night. The knife was brand new; the price tag hadn’t even been peeled off. I can be a human witness.”
Xie Lin clearly hadn’t expected the cut to have such an origin.
Xie Lin: “Be more careful next time you cut bread.”
Chi Qing completely ignored him.
Chi Qing filed another complaint: “Besides the knife he was holding at the scene, he should have another knife on him.”
“I saw it in his car, wrapped in a plastic bag.”
Ji Mingrui: “…?”
Taking this statement was turning into an absolute fever dream for Ji Mingrui.
Ji Mingrui turned back to Xie Lin: “Alright, now Comrade Chi has raised a new point of suspicion. May I ask, Mr. Xie, what is the deal with that knife?”
“I found a clue, so I went to the store to ask around,” Xie Lin said. “Bought it while I was at it.”
Good lord.
Ji Mingrui had previously only guessed that the two of them had likely sneaked into the primary crime scene at the same time and just happened to bump into each other.
He hadn’t expected that they had already crossed swords several times, or that they had discovered so many suspicious points on each other that overlapped with the case.
Looking at the finalized statement, he muttered to himself in awe, “…I really can’t blame you two for tearing each other’s hair out and dragging each other into this tonight.”
Chi Qing & Xie Lin: “What did you say?”
Ji Mingrui didn’t dare make a peep: “N-nothing.”
The three-person team had a heavy workload the following day. For some reason, their Brother Bin had been triggered by something and suddenly started taking the cat-killing case very seriously. Generally speaking, while the impact of this kind of case was vile, it usually didn’t warrant such close scrutiny. Especially since the police station still had piles of unfinished work to deal with.
“Hello? Police? My girlfriend is threatening to jump off the building again, and it looks real this time!”
Ji Mingrui: “…”
Why haven’t you two broken up yet.
Ji Mingrui had just returned from a canvas in Haimao that morning when Wu Zhibin walked by and handed down a new task: “Transfer that call to Team One. Go take a look at the Bianmin Convenience Store, ask around again. Be thorough with your questioning this time.”
Ji Mingrui transferred the call. “We already went there last time, do we really need to go again?”
Wu Zhibin pondered for a moment and said, “Go again. There might be something wrong with this case.”
“…Something wrong?”
Jiang Yu’s desk was right next to Ji Mingrui’s. Pasted to the top right corner of his computer monitor was a photo of the dead cat. He would glance at it every day while eating; according to him, it was to get in sync with his idol’s thought process sooner.
Wu Zhibin reached out, peeled the photo off, and tapped his finger on the wound on the cat’s chest. “What do you make of this wound?”
Ji Mingrui: “This stab directly pierced the internal organs. The killer obviously wanted the cat dead, right? But while I don’t know why they stabbed just above the heart, wouldn’t stabbing the heart directly kill it faster—”
Before he could finish saying, “Maybe it was just a more convenient angle to strike slightly higher,” Wu Zhibin spoke with a seriousness he had never heard before:
“Then have you considered that the placement of this stab exactly matches the location of a human heart?”
Now, it wasn’t just Ji Mingrui who was shocked; Su Xiaolan and Jiang Yu also froze simultaneously.
“This… could also just be a coincidence.”
“Yes. But the person who pointed out this coincidence is the same person who, in that family annihilation case ten years ago, completely deduced the killer’s state of mind during the crime using nothing but a few crime scene photos. He overturned the ‘vendetta’ conclusion that everyone had accepted. And before the killer was brought to justice, everyone back then also thought his deduction was very likely just a coincidence.”
The person he was talking about was Xie Lin.
Ji Mingrui set off for Bianmin Convenience Store.
Police officers had been going in and out of this small, inconspicuous shop one after another.
The parents weren’t at the store today. Ji Mingrui only saw a young boy. He showed his badge: “Don’t be afraid, I’m a police officer.”
The little boy glanced at him, not dropping his guard in the slightest: “Mom says our store abides by the law and doesn’t sell expired goods.”
Ji Mingrui: “This isn’t an issue with your store. I’d like to see your sales records for the past month.”
Pulling up the records, Ji Mingrui found that in the past month, there had only been two transactions for serrated knives.
He checked the shelves again; there were two identical knives left.
Ji Mingrui bent down, leveling his gaze with the little boy, and asked, “Two people came to buy this type of knife. Do you remember who they were?”
The little boy thought about it and said, “There were two very good-looking older brothers.”
Ji Mingrui: “…”
Don’t tell me it’s the two motherfuckers I’m thinking of.
“We didn’t extract any fingerprints from the various pieces of physical evidence brought back from the crime scene,” Su Xiaolan said that afternoon as she returned to the office holding the analysis report. “Well, that’s not entirely accurate. If you must talk about fingerprints, there are some… but they were all left when your idol touched the knife handle.”
She looked pointedly at Jiang Yu as she said this.
Jiang Yu: “Then it absolutely cannot be my idol!”
After this incident, Su Xiaolan had gained a deeper understanding of Chi Qing and Xie Lin. “I know, and I read the statement. If we didn’t already know them, their various behaviors would be more than enough to solidify their status as suspects.”
Having returned from Bianmin, Ji Mingrui felt mentally exhausted as he chimed in, “And the two of them look way more like suspects than actual suspects do.”
Equally exhausted, Su Xiaolan expressed, “…I strongly agree with that conclusion.”
As they spoke, one of the two suspects walked down the police station corridor, pushed open the door, and appeared at the office entrance. This suspect stood in the doorway, swept a glance around the room, skipped past Jiang Yu—who had suddenly sat bolt upright and was furiously typing gibberish with his head down—and leisurely strolled over to stop in front of Ji Mingrui: “Officer Ji, do you have some time right now?”
“Sorry to trouble you all yesterday, I’d like to treat you to dinner tonight,” Xie Lin checked the time. It was currently two hours past normal clock-out time. “I figured you’d be working overtime tonight. Me coming at this time isn’t too early, is it?”
He had changed into more casual clothes today. The sweater made him look more approachable, though the collarbones peeking out from the neckline remained intriguing. After a night of festering, the umbrella mark on the side of his neck had become exceptionally conspicuous—a thin, cat-scratch-like streak extending all the way to his collarbone.
Ji Mingrui was surprised that he was this considerate. Jiang Yu blinked furiously from the sidelines. Getting the hint, Ji Mingrui said, “No trouble at all. Uh, this time is perfect.”
After saying that, he couldn’t help but glance at Xie Lin again.
Actually, back when he listened to Jiang Yu’s introduction of who Xie Lin was, he hadn’t felt much.
It wasn’t until Wu Zhibin’s few words at noon today that he felt as if he had truly peered past the man’s careless facade and glimpsed what lay beneath the skin.
Xie Lin approached the dinner invitation very gradually, making it seem entirely natural and not the least bit offensive when he proactively brought up Chi Qing later: “Your friend… is he free?”
Ji Mingrui: “Friend? You mean Chi Qing?”
Ji Mingrui fell silent for a moment after asking.
Honestly, given Chi Qing’s personality, he felt it was highly unlikely he’d come out.
Xie Lin clearly understood this very well too, and specifically added, “Don’t mention me. I’m afraid he won’t come out if you do.”
Chi Qing was getting ready for bed when he received the call. He had a blanket draped over himself. Having been caught in the rain last night, his forehead felt a bit hot, which made his already cold tone sound even colder: “Not free.”
Ji Mingrui: “…Is this how you treat your friends?”
Chi Qing: “What do you want.”
Ji Mingrui: “Nothing, just wanted to grab a meal with you.”
Chi Qing: “…”
Seizing upon Chi Qing’s momentary silence, Ji Mingrui intensified his assault: “I’ve been under so much stress at work lately, you know. Every night when I open or close my eyes, all I see are those cats. I don’t know when their grievances will be cleared, or when the killer will be brought to justice—”
“…”
“I’m under so much pressure, and right now I just want to have a meal with you. Can’t you satisfy even this tiny request.”
The call disconnected.
Chi Qing hung up on him directly.
Ten seconds later, Chi Qing sent over a single word.
- Address.
Calling it dinner was a stretch; this meal was clearly better suited as late-night supper.
The restaurant wasn’t far from Chi Qing’s place. Many of the patrons were working adults who had just finished night shifts and come out to socialize; the smell of smoke and alcohol was heavy. Xie Lin had booked a private room on the second floor. Just as the dishes were half-served, Chi Qing arrived, looking highly perfunctory.
His perfunctoriness specifically manifested in the fact that he wasn’t even wearing gloves.
Normally, if he wasn’t going somewhere crowded and was meeting someone familiar, he wouldn’t wear his gloves every single time in private.
Especially with Ji Mingrui.
He was too familiar with Ji Mingrui, and the guy’s thought process was so simple that he didn’t even need to use his mind-reading to know what he was thinking with just a glance.
Chi Qing had his hands stuffed in his jacket pockets, wearing a half-hearted expression that clearly screamed, “I’m just here out of obligation and I’m leaving after sitting for a bit.” It wasn’t until the waiter led him to the private room door that he saw clearly the group of people sitting inside: “…”
Chi Qing: “Explain.”
Ji Mingrui: “Well, didn’t expect everyone to be pretty free tonight, so we just happened to put together a table?”
Chi Qing mercilessly prepared to turn around. “I’m leaving.”
“Leaving as soon as you get here.” Before Chi Qing could completely turn around, someone held him down from behind. That person’s hand rested on his shoulder, the voice coming from just above and behind him as he spoke. “I was the one who told him not to tell you. I knew you definitely wouldn’t come if he did. I wanted to treat you to dinner to apologize. Care to do me the honor?”
The first two sentences actually sounded decently human.
But after Xie Lin released his grip, his gaze lingered on Chi Qing’s wrist, and the words that came out of his mouth weren’t so proper: “…I was a bit heavy-handed yesterday. It looks like your wrist is red from being tied up.”
Hearing this, the three-person team naturally looked over.
Last night, after Chi Qing wiped his hands, he had put his gloves back on because there were too many people in the office. With the gloves on, nothing could be seen. It was only today that they noticed the faint marks on his wrist. The bind marks from the tie intermittently wrapped halfway around, going from the slender wrist bone to the inner side of the wrist.
Chi Qing: “…”
Whether his wrist was red or not, he didn’t know.
But his fist was definitely hardening.
