The news broadcasted across various locations in Huanan City.
At the very end of the broadcast, a report hotline scrolled across the screen in large, bold black letters.
When Ji Mingrui returned home that day, he tossed and turned before going to sleep, thinking that something felt off: if it was just to broadcast a news report, did they really need to drag it out for an entire day?
He felt this matter wasn’t that simple.
For something that could be wrapped up in half an hour, those two individuals could absolutely not spend most of the day fooling around.
He thought about it, picked up his phone from the nightstand again, and sent a message to Chi Qing: Were you two, by any chance, dating on the public dime during the day?
Xie Lin and Chi Qing were indeed not dating on the public dime during the day.
But by the time Ji Mingrui sent this message near midnight, the two of them were indeed doing some things limited only to lovers.
Given that Ren Qin had just lost a friend and was currently in a bad mood, it was even less feasible to give the cat back to her and have her find it another owner. That cat could only continue to be kept at Chi Qing’s house, with Xie Lin responsible for feeding it.
Xie Lin smiled as he faced the cat, which was baring its fangs and brandishing its claws, and poured cat food for it. Then, the cat watched helplessly as its owner, who had just stepped out of the bathroom, was pinned down on the sofa by this annoying man to have his hair blow-dried.
Xie Lin started out quite seriously blow-drying Chi Qing’s hair, his fingers sliding through the strands bit by bit, but as he kept going, things felt a bit out of place.
Chi Qing: “Where your fingers are pressing right now is my collarbone, not my hair.”
Xie Lin gave an “oh” and shamelessly said: “There is water on your collarbone too.”
Chi Qing: “……”
The man’s fingers, carrying moisture, traced all the way down along the pale, slender groove of his collarbone. Originally, there was no water on his collarbone at all; the water that got on it was entirely brought over from Xie Lin’s fingers as he nudged aside the T-shirt Chi Qing was wearing.
Chi Qing: “Do you even know how to blow-dry hair?”
Xie Lin: “I do, isn’t that what I’m doing right now.”
Xie Lin was not focusing on blow-drying his hair, so Chi Qing reminded him again: “Your hairdryer is pointed at my clothes.”
“Your clothes are wet too.”
“If your hand didn’t venture downward, it wouldn’t get wet.”
“……”
The cat ate the food in its bowl, occasionally lifting its head to look at the two of them.
Over this period, Chi Qing’s capacity for tolerance had increased in a straight line.
He didn’t actually make Xie Lin let go. When Xie Lin turned off the switch of the hairdryer, Xie Lin leaned down slightly and planted a kiss on the tip of Chi Qing’s ear.
“I used to quite like handling these cases,” Xie Lin said, his breath brushing against his ear as he spoke. “Now I feel being a consultant is so damn troublesome, there’s no time to date at all. Can’t killers pick a better day to murder people?”
Chi Qing rarely heard him use curse words, except for that first time he read his mind in the movie theater.
Chi Qing: “Did you just say ‘damn’ just now.”
Xie Lin emphasized: “A modal particle, showing that I care a lot.”
Just as Xie Lin finished speaking, the phone screen beside Chi Qing abruptly lit up, with the three words “Ji Mingrui” flashing on it.
“What did I just say,” Xie Lin glanced at those few words. “Can we just ignore him?”
Chi Qing: “No.”
After he got together with Xie Lin, his already cold attitude toward Ji Mingrui became even colder.
Before he tapped open the message, he thought Ji Mingrui had some official business, but the result—
Without Ji Mingrui mentioning “dating on the public dime,” the unreasonable fox spirit beside him would have just let out a curse word, but now he didn’t just want to curse, he also wanted to hit someone. He was already so busy that he literally had no time to date, yet he still had to be questioned by someone about whether he was dating on the public dime.
Before Chi Qing could figure out how to reply to this message using the fewest words, Xie Lin set the hairdryer aside, then extended his hand in front of Chi Qing and typed a line on the phone screen: Not during the day, but we are dating right now, do not disturb.
Chi Qing: “……”
Ji Mingrui, who received the reply: “……”
Even after getting off work, dating for the two of them was limited to eating together, pouring cat food, and then acting as a test sleeper in Chi Qing’s bed.
After testing it so many times, the extent to which Xie Lin teased him also grew more and more out of bounds. Before falling asleep, Chi Qing no longer needed to make any mental preparations; tacitly allowing another person beside him seemed to have already become a habit.
It was just that taking it a step further remained very difficult.
Xie Lin’s hand lingered at Chi Qing’s waist. After a long while, when he attempted to move further down, he was pinned down by Chi Qing’s hand.
【Aren’t you uncomfortable.】
【Shall I help you? Hmm?】
【Just helping you get it out, won’t touch anything else.】
Chi Qing used to reject these distorted inner voices, but never like this time, making him want to cover his ears so badly.
【Try it?】
“Get lost, not trying.”
Chi Qing’s vision was a blur.
He himself couldn’t remember what chaotic words he had blurted out: “……Try it next time.”
“When is next time.”
He vaguely heard Xie Lin asking by his ear.
The next day, Chi Qing was awakened by the alarm clock, thinking for a long time about what final sentence he had said to Xie Lin last night.
That cat crouched at the door looking very much like it wanted to come in, and tentatively extended one paw.
Chi Qing swept a cold glance over, and that paw obediently shrank back. Afterward, he remembered that what he said consisted of five words: “When the case ends.”
“……”
Was he drunk last night?
To actually blurt out such nonsense.
Chi Qing thought to himself that he originally found this case quite troublesome, but now he only hoped it would end a bit later.
But Xie Lin’s mood was completely different; he was exceptionally active in handling the case.
Although Xie Lin had been a consultant at the General Bureau for many years and had solved multiple cases since his reinstatement this year, his entire person just possessed a face that looked somewhat casual but was overly handsome. Usually, when investigating cases or doing things, he gave off a careless vibe—of course, sometimes he was also a bit crazy.
It was actually the first time seeing him so active and proactive in caring about the progress of a case.
“How many complaint calls came in today?”
“12 calls.”
“Have they been verified?”
“They’ve been verified. All 12 of these people don’t know about the video, they are all talking nonsense.”
Ji Mingrui interjected: “I also don’t know what these people are thinking, talking nonsense for no reason, taking up public resources, do they think we’re playing around with them?”
But even if said this way, the only thing everyone could do right now was to “wait.”
Wait for the suspect to become unable to hold back and take the bait.
But this suspect was very patient.
The first day, he didn’t appear.
The second day, he didn’t appear.
The third day…
……
The calls received were all fake information.
Just when everyone was almost about to give up, on the fourth day, the phone at the General Bureau rang.
The phone was right beside Xie Lin’s hand. He casually wanted to pick it up but was pressed down by Ji Mingrui: “Forget about you, the two of you, you and Chi Qing, picking up the phone just doesn’t sound like proper police personnel.”
Xie Lin raised an eyebrow: “Doesn’t sound like it? How proper.”
“You, proper?”
Xie Lin asked again: “Then what do we look like?”
Ji Mingrui pointed a finger at Chi Qing: “That master over there curled up on the sofa at the furthest linear distance from everyone looks like a killer, don’t laugh, you are not much better either, looking like a top host who just escaped from some nightclub.”
“……”
This call was ultimately picked up by the good student Jiang Yu. Jiang Yu spoke with clear and rounded tones: “Hello, this is the General Public Security Bureau report hotline. You can provide us with any clues you have.”
From the other side of the phone, a clear “bzz” of electronic static came through.
Only then did the voice of a person speaking appear.
Except the voice used a voice changer, making it sound unclear: “I have… their…”
Jiang Yu blanked for a moment: “What did you say?”
After he finished speaking, he covered the mouthpiece and used mouth shapes to say to the others, “He turned on a voice changer.”
Everyone stood up from their seats.
Turning on a voice changer meant—the probability of it being the suspect was extremely high.
The other side said it again, but it might be that the other side’s signal was poor, so it still couldn’t be heard clearly.
Not until the third time did they hear that strange voice using a voice changer say: “I have the video of them threatening her.”
This time it wasn’t a member of the public stirring up trouble.
The suspect had really come.
Following the prepared phrasing, Jiang Yu proposed a location to hand over the evidence in person.
The other party was very cautious: “Why should I meet with you?”
“Because there are some questions we want to ask you, such as how you obtained this video, and… do you understand some of their other situations?”
The other side fell silent for a while.
Finally, accompanied by static, the other side said:
“Give me an email address.”
“I will not meet with you.”
Jiang Yu tried his best to read out the email address as slowly as possible.
“Click.”
The call disconnected.
The technical team on the side traced and located based on the signal, took off the headphones, shook their head and said: “Location tracing wasn’t successful, the signal on his end was very weak, and the time wasn’t enough either.”
“No need to locate,” Xie Lin suddenly stood up, glancing at the watch on his wrist. “Right now it is 2:15 PM, the school requires class to start at 2:20 PM, that student is probably rushing to class.”
As soon as Xie Lin said this.
Everyone blanked out.
Jiang Yu was dumbfounded: “Class?! “
Ji Mingrui: “That… student?”
Su Xiaolan: “He is a student? In those few sentences just now, which phrase exposed it?”
That master curled up on the sofa at the furthest linear distance from everyone lifted his hand to tug at the black glove on his hand, keeping his eyes downcast, and said as if he hadn’t fully woken up: “The number.”
Chi Qing stood up as he spoke: “Exposed from the receiving number.”
“Yesterday’s news wasn’t a live broadcast, it was delivered by region.”
He continued: “We divided different viewing regions to distinguish the audience groups. That is to say, if you are a commuter squeezed in the subway, you would see a report hotline ending in 8006. If you are walking and shopping on the street, you would see another report hotline ending in 7199. Making divisions as much as possible according to the attributes of the crowd, leaving different numbers. This report hotline ending in 5815… if I remember correctly, is the school area. Although he didn’t expose it in the call, this call exposed the fact that the signal at the school he attends is not very good.”
Xie Lin and Chi Qing had a great mutual understanding, drawing a conclusion almost at the same time:
“So, he is currently right inside Huanan City, his gender is male, and his identity is a schooling high school student.”
“……”
How the hell does that even work?
Ji Mingrui felt that where he was staying wasn’t the General Bureau, but a detective movie filming set.
He finally knew what the two of them had spent so much time doing yesterday.
To be honest, even when seeing the city-wide advertisements on the way off work yesterday, he still maintained an unoptimistic attitude.
The other party was a person hiding behind the internet without any trace, even if he really took the bait, they might not necessarily find him. He didn’t expect these two from their General Bureau used this method to narrow down the scope of suspects within the entire Huanan City.
Moreover, the circle drawn was very precise.
Time pulled back to yesterday evening.
Night was about to fall.
Countless screens were broadcasting this urgent message.
Malls, subways, televisions, phone push notifications…
No matter when or where one walked, the familiar voice of the host could be heard:
“……the victim of the arson case, a certain individual surnamed Yu, is also connected to this case……”
In the school cafeteria, the aunts responsible for serving food stared at the small TV in the cafeteria, whispering to each other: “Oh dear, it’s really a sin, they are all kids, at such a young age, don’t know who did it.”
“……the police have preliminarily identified a suspect who was previously threatened by the three victims……”
The peak period for serving food had already passed.
A person stood in front of the slightly empty queuing window.
The cafeteria aunt stopped talking, and seeing someone coming to get food, her hand movements very skillfully scooped a spoonful of the remaining braised meat from these iron plates in front of her, saying with overflowing enthusiasm: “It’s the last bit, student, if you came any later you wouldn’t get to eat it. You study so hard, eat more.”
That person held the food tray with one hand, a tall and thin silhouette cast upon the window.
