Everyone else had already taken their seats; the only remaining empty spots were the two right by the door.
If Chi Qing had any choice at all, he would never sit next to this psycho.
Chi Qing raised his chin slightly and said to Ji Mingrui, “You, come out.”
“?”
“Switch seats.”
Ji Mingrui had just tricked Chi Qing into coming and was afraid of retaliation. He hurriedly said, “It’s really troublesome for me to get out of here.”
“Look, I’ve got people on my left and my right,” Ji Mingrui reasoned. “Plus, Jiang Yu and Xiaolan would really hate to see me go.”
Jiang Yu: “…”
Su Xiaolan: “…”
It’s just a seat. We’re just eating, you can eat sitting anywhere. No one hates to see you go.
Chi Qing had no choice. After he sat down, Xie Lin didn’t say much else, merely quietly taking away the glass of lemon water sitting in front of him.
Chi Qing lifted his eyelids and shot him a glance.
Xie Lin explained, “It’s cold.”
Chi Qing withdrew his gaze.
Like a lingering ghost, Xie Lin appeared in his line of sight again less than twenty seconds later. The man’s hand, holding a glass cup, placed a steaming cup of water in front of him. He had poured fresh hot tea into Chi Qing’s empty cup and handed it over. “I could tell when you were standing at the door talking just now—you have a bit of a cold. Have you taken your temperature?”
Chi Qing always felt that this man couldn’t maintain his decent, human-like state for more than two sentences. His next sentence would probably be something like, ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have pinned you to the floor the other day’ and so on.
So he took the opportunity to cut the topic off: “Thank you, but there’s no need for you to worry about it.”
Su Xiaolan rarely saw Chi Qing without his gloves. People were always full of curiosity about things they rarely got to see. Sitting across from Chi Qing, she couldn’t help but steal a few extra glances at those hands.
The finger bones were slender and long, looking almost blindingly white under the glare of the incandescent lights.
Chi Qing was actually looking down at his own hands as well. Firstly, because he felt uncomfortable not wearing his gloves; even though the temperature of the water cup was perfectly controlled, he still felt it burning his hands. Secondly, because Xie Lin was sitting right next to him, reminding him of something that he wasn’t sure was a coincidence or not.
Xie Lin’s hand was resting right beside him. The man’s knuckles were distinct, his wrists lean, and his fingertips were tapping carelessly on the tabletop.
He still maintained that posture, listening to Ji Mingrui and the others chat.
Ji Mingrui was sharing his investigation experience from earlier today: “I went to Bianmin, and that kid told me only two people had come to buy knives…”
Chi Qing twitched his fingers, moving them away from the side of the cup, thinking to himself: Was it really just a coincidence that I couldn’t read him last time?
Perhaps it was just that in that precise moment, Xie Lin simply wasn’t thinking of anything.
How could a person have no inner voice?
Chi Qing actually wanted to test whether last time was truly a coincidence.
But just as his fingers curled slightly, moving away by a millimeter, they quickly pressed back against the cup.
Obviously, his germophobia wouldn’t allow it.
…
To touch or not to touch—this was truly a very difficult decision.
Under the watchful eyes of the public, with so many pairs of eyes at the dinner table, the psychological burden was invisibly magnified.
Chi Qing hesitated for a long time, but Xie Lin’s hand moved first.
He swiped his phone to check the time, then let his hand drop to his side, not placing it back on the table.
Xie Lin’s hand was resting against the layers of the dining table’s tablecloth. This was a very concealed position; no one would notice any movement under the table.
For the first time in his life, Chi Qing’s curiosity about a person gradually began to overshadow the discomfort brought on by his germophobia.
And so, a few minutes later, Chi Qing reluctantly and with complicated feelings released his grip, quietly letting his hand drop down. He let it hang at roughly the same position as Xie Lin’s, the backs of their hands almost touching. Then, restraining himself, Chi Qing extended a single finger to touch the back of Xie Lin’s hand.
Rather than calling it a “touch,” the word “poke” would be a more accurate description.
After poking him, Chi Qing waited for a few seconds, but the distorted voice didn’t come.
Beside his ear, there was only the sound of Ji Mingrui’s endless chatter.
“You two are really something. The only two suspects turn out to be you guys—I was absolutely dumbfounded when I walked out of Bianmin…”
Suppressing his discomfort, Chi Qing poked again.
A moment later, he poked a second time.
Since he could only rely on feeling, this time his fingertip angled slightly lower, landing right on the knuckle of the finger where the man wore a ring. The thin silver band radiated a fine, dense chill. Chi Qing rubbed a bit further down, finally touching that spot of warmth.
For a germophobe, there was absolutely no such thing as ‘unfamiliar the first time, familiar the second.’
Fighting the urge to wipe his hand, Chi Qing waited a bit longer.
But still, nothing happened.
Ji Mingrui was still going: “…Never mind you two catching each other, I wanted to arrest both of you and hand you in to close the case.”
Ji Mingrui’s voice was real, mixed with the clatter of tableware as the waiter cleared plates. He could even hear the faint sound of car horns from the street outside the window.
But aside from that, there was nothing else.
For a fleeting second, Chi Qing’s mind went blank.
—He really couldn’t read Xie Lin.
Even though Chi Qing had been very careful to minimize the surface area of contact, poking twice like this was already his limit.
Moreover, after poking him, he felt like he must have been crazy to do such a thing.
Having finished his test, he was just about to use a wet wipe to clean his hand when he looked up and saw Xie Lin’s face turned slightly toward him.
Xie Lin had clearly been watching him for a while. Like an animal indulging its prey to scurry around recklessly right beside it, he watched Chi Qing’s expression—one that clearly showed he didn’t want to touch him, yet was haphazardly poking the back of his hand anyway. He waited until Chi Qing withdrew his hand before asking aloud, “What are you doing?”
“…”
Chi Qing was silent for a moment.
“The tablecloth was crooked.”
Xie Lin emphasized, “You were touching my hand, not the tablecloth.”
Chi Qing: “I bumped into it by accident.”
Xie Lin gave a very insincere “Oh,” dragging the syllable out, as if to say, Fine, say whatever you want, you already touched it anyway.
Chi Qing: “…”
“But really, very few people buy this knife. Who knows how long it’ll take to sell those last two left on the shelf,” Ji Mingrui concluded his thoughts on his visit to Bianmin today. As he made his final summary statement, he finally noticed the opposite side of the table. “—What are you two chatting about?”
However, Xie Lin didn’t respond to him as he usually would, nor did he continue bickering with Chi Qing. He suddenly asked, “How many knives did you say were left on the shelf?”
“T-two.”
After saying that, Ji Mingrui noticed that Chi Qing was also suddenly looking at him.
He vaguely felt that something was wrong: “Is there a problem?”
The two “suspects” who had bought knives exchanged a glance.
Suspect surnamed Xie asked: “When you went to buy the knife, how many knives were left on the shelf?”
Suspect Chi answered: “Five. I bought one, leaving four.”
Xie Lin: “Then I bought one, and the sales records only showed the two of us. In that case, there should be three knives left.”
Around eleven o’clock that night, when a group of people flooded into the Bianmin Convenience Store, the little boy was already accustomed to people coming in to ask questions.
He didn’t even wait for Ji Mingrui to speak, smoothly stating, “Uncle Police Officer, no one bought a knife today.”
Ten minutes ago, upon hearing Xie Lin and Chi Qing’s deduction, Ji Mingrui had abandoned the team-building dinner just as all the dishes were finally served, grabbed his jacket, and sprinted out.
“Think carefully. Who else came in on the day it rained?”
After the police sealed off the crime scene, the killer had lost his tool, so he had come here.
It was very late that day, and it was raining, so there definitely couldn’t have been much foot traffic.
“People you know count too, they might not necessarily have come to buy things. Think carefully, can you remember anyone?”
The little boy stopped scribbling and crossing things out in his workbook and said, “Uncle Li.”
“Uncle Li?”
The little boy: “He’s Xiaokang’s dad.”
The little boy pulled out a phone, dug around in the old device for a long time, and finally found a group photo. It was clearly taken when the two families took their kids out to play. Pointing at one of the men wearing work clothes in the photo, the little boy said, “That’s Uncle Li.”
The man was wearing gray work clothes; his irises were brown and somewhat cloudy.
Staring at the photo, Ji Mingrui’s memory instantly flashed back to the day Granny Wang lost her ancestral wood carving: “How could it be him?”
“This Uncle Li’s full name is Li Guangfu. He came to Huanan City to work in his early years, engaged in plumbing and drain unblocking, but he does clerical work, primarily responsible for dispatching personnel. He has two sons; his youngest was just born this year and isn’t even one year old yet,” Su Xiaolan, who had returned to the police station a step ahead, pulled up Li Guangfu’s personal information immediately.
The man in work clothes found himself sitting inside the police station for the second time.
He absolutely hadn’t expected to make a repeat visit: “What is it this time? Yes, I really did go there that night. Is it a crime for me to go to the convenience store on a rainy day?”
Ji Mingrui: “What did you go to the convenience store to buy?”
“I took the day off and didn’t go to work that day. An appliance broke at home, so I went to the convenience store to buy a screwdriver.”
“Did you only grab a screwdriver?”
“I also bought a pack of cigarettes. What exactly is the matter here? I’m still in a rush to get home.”
A screwdriver and cigarettes.
They both matched the accounts; he truly hadn’t lied.
On the other side, due to holding crucial information, Xie Lin and Chi Qing—who had been forcibly dragged here to “assist” with the investigation—were sitting on the left and right respectively.
Xie Lin opened the case files again. “There’s only one copy, want to look at it together?”
Compared to this case, Chi Qing actually cared more about this psycho whose mind he couldn’t read time and time again. He intentionally or otherwise glanced at Xie Lin’s hand.
Although Xie Lin always looked careless and nonchalant, his observational skills were exceptionally sharp. Even though his gaze was clearly still fixed on the case files, he raised his hand and waved it in front of Chi Qing’s eyes.
Xie Lin offered his hand toward Chi Qing, bringing his lean hand right in front of his face.
Chi Qing: “What are you doing?”
“Giving you my hand,” Xie Lin said. “It looked like you didn’t poke it enough when we were eating.”
“…”
