Xie Lin had just gotten home. He tossed a fresh stack of crime scene photos he’d brought back from headquarters onto the coffee table in the living room, then undid the hidden buttons of his overcoat with one hand while keeping his phone to his ear with the other. Rather than rushing to ask Ren Qin for details, he first made sure she was safe: “Before you say anything, answer me one question. Are you somewhere safe right now?”
Those words settled her nerves like a reassurance. Ren Qin had locked herself in and was hiding in the small staff break room at work. “Safe. I’m at work right now.”
Only then did Xie Lin pick up where she’d left off. “What happened? You said someone was watching you — who?”
Ren Qin’s fingers dug into the back of her phone. She recalled the terrifying sight through the peephole last night, and the black umbrella-holding figure she’d seen across the street just a little while ago. For a moment she didn’t know what to say. If she told him that the upstairs neighbor, Mr. Chi, was a psycho who’d been lurking outside her door at three in the morning… would Mr. Xie even believe her?
While she was still thinking, a customer walked into the shop.
Ren Qin could only say hurriedly, “Can I come to your place after work later? I’ll explain everything then. A customer just came in.” Afraid that Xie Lin might refuse, she lowered her voice and added quietly, “…I’m a bit scared.”
Xie Lin deliberately kept his tone soft and low to comfort her, which made his voice sound even more… evocative than usual. “Of course. What time do you get off? I can drive over to pick you up if that’s easier.”
Ren Qin couldn’t bring herself to trouble him with that. “No, no, I’ll take the subway. It’s just a few stops.”
Ren Qin drifted through the rest of her shift in a daze. In the staff room afterward, she changed out of her uniform and only noticed in the mirror how worn-out she’d looked lately. Her hair was a complete mess, so she let it down and retied it, holding the hair tie between her teeth as she carefully smoothed it through her fingers, then gathering it all together and fastening it back.
As she tilted her head slightly in the mirror, she caught an accidental glimpse of something on the back of her neck: a faint red mark, barely visible, like an insect bite.
“…”
The evening rush-hour subway was packed. Ren Qin had her earphones in the whole way, crowded along to her stop, then walked quickly toward her residential complex with her canvas bag in hand.
It wasn’t too late yet. Around nine o’clock, there were still quite a few people out walking in the complex.
Every few steps, Ren Qin paused to look left and right under her umbrella, only continuing forward once she was certain she didn’t see a particular figure that made her heart seize up.
After about three to five minutes of walking, the familiar building number came into view. She couldn’t quite tell whether the sight of those numbers made her hold her breath or release it. With complicated feelings, she climbed the steps, folded her umbrella, and the rainwater scattered across the floor tiles with the motion.
It was cold out. Ren Qin stamped her feet and bent forward to press the elevator button.
In her hurry, she only noticed after pressing it that the elevator had been on its way up. The doors had just closed, but received the new command and slowly slid open again.
Ren Qin always had a habit of apologizing — any time she thought she might be inconveniencing someone, she’d say sorry out of reflex. She began on cue: “So sor—”
The “ry” lodged in her throat like a fish bone, the simple syllable refusing to come out.
“…”
Chi Qing was standing inside the elevator. His gloved finger rested on the “door open” button to keep it from closing before she got in. He was looking straight at her, and those strangely, unsettlingly red lips parted to produce five flat words: “Why aren’t you getting in?”
Ren Qin’s expression looked like she’d seen a ghost. “…”
He was wearing the same long trench coat as the one she’d seen him in at noon. Up close, she could now make out a ring of fine, elegant dark embroidery along the cuffs. His gloves were a different style too — black leather, which gave him an even harder, colder edge. He had military-style boots on his feet. The tip of a clear umbrella rested against the floor.
Come to think of it, why did he wear gloves every single day?
Was it really just because of his germaphobia?
A thought surfaced in Ren Qin’s mind, sending a chill through her: wearing gloves means never leaving fingerprints behind on anything.
Ren Qin wanted to step back, but cold sweat soaked her spine, and her feet felt like they’d been filled with lead.
And yet she had no choice but to force herself to look calm.
— I can’t let him notice anything. I especially can’t let him find out that I already know everything.
Ren Qin wrenched a smile onto her face with great effort. “I… just remembered I forgot something. You go on up.”
Anyone else would have seen at a glance how strained that smile was — it was barely a step removed from crying. But the person in front of her was Chi Qing. Chi Qing couldn’t tell the difference between a real smile and a fake one. He didn’t have that most basic ability to read emotions, and didn’t think twice about it. “Oh.”
Seeing that he wasn’t going to push the matter, Ren Qin quietly exhaled in relief.
Then, in the next second, she heard the man in the elevator call out to her. “Miss Ren.”
“…” The stiff smile on Ren Qin’s lips nearly crumbled. “Yes?”
Chi Qing had firmly kept in mind that his most important goal for the day was to remind the downstairs neighbor, this Miss Ren, to install a security camera with an alarm function at her front door.
If things really were as he’d heard that night, then Ren Qin had a very high probability of being the next victim.
Chi Qing’s fingers curved slightly around the umbrella handle as he chose his words carefully. “Have you ever thought about… someone possibly entering your home in some way at night and standing at the head of your bed, silently watching you?”
“And you’d have no idea any of it was happening. You wouldn’t even know he’d been there. While you slept in the dead of night, he might use your bathroom to shower, go through the things in your room, even share your bed with you. And then his hands would press down on your neck,” Chi Qing’s fathomless dark pupils didn’t waver in the slightest as he laid out the facts of the case, attempting to stir her sense of self-preservation. “One morning after one such night, you might never wake up again.”
“…”
Nine thirty.
When Xie Lin opened his door, he was met with Ren Qin’s panic-stricken face.
Whatever his deductive abilities, it was hard to determine what could have happened in the span of just twenty-four hours that had left Ren Qin in such a state. “Miss Ren?”
Xie Lin and Chi Qing lived on the same floor. Ren Qin hadn’t dared take the elevator and instead crept up through the emergency stairwell, keeping her eyes fixed on the door directly across from Xie Lin’s the whole time, terrified that Chi Qing might suddenly open it.
Over the phone at noon, Ren Qin had said only “someone is watching me.” Standing before Xie Lin now, it had become: “I think… I’m in serious danger right now.”
She gripped her canvas bag tightly, her voice shaking. “Can I come inside first?” she asked urgently.
Xie Lin blinked, then stepped aside. “Of course, come in.”
Once inside, Ren Qin couldn’t help but notice how thoughtful Xie Lin was — she’d only mentioned in passing at noon that she might come by that evening, yet a fresh pair of slippers had already been neatly set out in the entryway.
It was her first time in Xie Lin’s home, and it wasn’t quite what she’d imagined. She’d expected his place to match his personality somehow, but the color palette was actually quite cold — expanses of sophisticated gray. It looked expensive, but it didn’t have the warmth she’d pictured.
Though that wasn’t entirely surprising. Mr. Xie did have a way of projecting an unexpectedly distant quality at certain moments.
“You’re extremely tense right now,” Xie Lin said. “Sit down first. I’ll get you some water.”
Ren Qin slipped the canvas bag off her shoulder and hugged it against herself as she sank into the sofa. “Thank you.”
“Tea or something cold?”
“Just plain water is fine.”
“Alright,” Xie Lin picked up a disposable cup from the side. “It’ll be a moment — nothing’s heated up yet. I’ll get you something warm.”
Left alone in the living room, Ren Qin couldn’t control the way her eyes darted around. Her gaze moved from the ceiling light, to the balcony, then finally landed on the coffee table in front of her — only then did she notice that there were several rows of photographs laid out on it.
At first glance, she couldn’t tell what they were showing. She made out a trash can and a black plastic bag beside it.
She knew she shouldn’t be going through someone else’s things. But something subconscious picked up a scent of danger, and before she could stop herself, she reached out and picked up one of the photos. Only when she held it closer did she make out the small red flecks of blood on the black plastic bag, and the pale flesh-colored something peeking out from inside it…
It was… it was a severed human hand.
Ren Qin’s eyes flew wide open. The dark grime packed beneath the fingernails of that severed hand in the photo was visible in vivid, terrible clarity.
She picked up the other photos from the coffee table and looked through them one by one. Each image was more grisly than the last — all of them showing human body parts, flesh and tissue hacked beyond recognition, blood dried to a blackish-red. A living person reduced to a pile of rotting, ruined meat, with intestines pulled from the body mixed in among the dismembered limbs.
On the backs of the photos were handwritten annotations, which appeared to be in Xie Lin’s handwriting.
The man’s penmanship was beautiful — sharp-edged and fluid — but the words written on the backs of the photographs were chilling, like the confession of a killer: Specifically chose a pointed blade for the pleasure of killing with a single strike in the shortest possible time. First cut: slash the throat. Second cut: pierce the heart…
But even after the final cut, the hatred could not be fully relieved. So the saw was raised again over the corpse.
The sensation of sawing through flesh back and forth was deeply satisfying. Human skin and muscle bloomed open like crimson flowers. The bone made a beautiful sound as it broke.
…
Ren Qin scanned through the lines one by one. After finishing, her brain went blank for a moment, as though she no longer recognized the words she’d just read.
After a long pause, she quietly set the photos back down. Her mind was still buzzing.
Then a familiar voice sounded beside her. A voice that, before all of this, she might have quietly daydreamed about. Now hearing it sent a current through her entire body. The hair on the back of her neck standing up, she turned to look at Xie Lin and found him holding a cup, smiling at her. “Your water. The temperature should be just right.”
Ren Qin’s soul and body had parted ways entirely. His smile made her skin crawl. She couldn’t remember a word of what she said next. “Ah… thank you, that’s a nice cup. Very pretty.”
Xie Lin raised an eyebrow slightly. “The cup?”
Ren Qin’s palms were sweating. “Yes, it’s so clear — like crystal, it is. And there’s a pattern on it too, heh… heh heh.”
Xie Lin glanced at the stack of photos. He’d been busy with the water and wasn’t sure whether Ren Qin had seen them. She had seemed off ever since she walked in the door, clearly in an extremely tense state of mind, so he genuinely couldn’t tell whether her current reaction was normal or not. “Just something I picked up at a home goods store. If you like it, I can check if there are any more.”
Ren Qin: “No, no, I was just — just saying it for the sake of saying it.”
Regardless of whether Ren Qin had seen them, the photos on the table definitely needed to be put away. After handing her the cup, Xie Lin bent forward and picked up the photographs. He was dressed casually at home — a V-neck sweater, clean and soft-looking, which considerably blunted the natural “charming rogue” energy he carried. The way he handled the photos was oddly gentle; his fingertips passed lightly over each one. Ren Qin noticed that Xie Lin’s expression didn’t change in the slightest — not even the slight smile on his lips faded.
“…”
To Xie Lin, crime scene photographs were nothing remarkable. They were things he’d been looking at since childhood. He’d seen worse. Starting from middle school he could discuss dismemberment techniques and the stages of decomposition in bodies submerged in water over summer while eating a meal, chatting with Xie Feng all the while.
Still, it was probably better for a girl not to look at this sort of thing.
Xie Lin was just about to say something to Ren Qin when she set down her glass, her voice more unsteady than when she’d arrived: “My friend just texted saying she’s coming to pick me up. I have to go.”
Xie Lin held the crime scene photos in one hand and asked, “Your friend?”
Ren Qin had only just moved to Huanan City — she had no close friends here at all — but she forged ahead anyway. “Yes, a coworker from the shop.”
“…” Xie Lin gave her a contemplative look. “But didn’t you say your coworkers don’t get along with you well?”
“…”
She never should have complained about her coworkers at dinner.
“She’s new,” Ren Qin clung stubbornly to the word ‘friend.’ “She… just started yesterday. We hit it off immediately.”
As she spoke she kept edging backward, and by the time she’d finished her sentence she’d already retreated to the door. She quietly reached behind her with one hand, feeling for the door handle. The moment she finished speaking, she yanked the door open and bolted before Xie Lin could get a word in.
Xie Lin stood staring at the door that had just slammed shut, genuinely at a loss.
He’d always had a natural ease with people and an innate talent for reading them, but this was the first time in his life he’d encountered someone he simply could not figure out.
He still didn’t know what Ren Qin meant by “being watched” or “being in danger.” But by the time he pulled the door open and stepped out after her, she had already taken the elevator down.
— Where are you going?
— You never told me what happened. Who’s watching you?
— Please reply when you see this.
The moment Ren Qin stepped out of the elevator, she received a string of WeChat messages from “Xie Lin.” She hadn’t slept the night before and had spent the entire day in sustained, unrelenting fear. At this moment, she finally broke down.
Ding.
A new message arrived.
— Miss Ren, you forgot to change your shoes. Your shoes are still at my place.
Among her unread messages was also one from Mr. Chi, sent thirty minutes ago.
— Think carefully about what I said in the elevator just now.
Wearing disposable slippers entirely unsuitable for running, Ren Qin ran the fastest she ever had in her life. The words from those messages seemed to transform into serpents, coiling after her relentlessly. Her thoughts spun wildly: the two people upstairs might have completely different personalities — one cold as ice, the other all smiles — but both of them were psychos.
Calling Xie Lin had been walking straight into a trap.
Ren Qin felt like the protagonist of a horror game right now. A “good person” had kindly offered to take her home to safety, only for her to arrive and discover it was the wolf’s den all along. She was caught between them on both sides, danger lurking everywhere.
What had ever made her naively assume that Xie Lin and the neighbor across the hall were friends because Xie Lin didn’t know Mr. Chi’s true nature?
Why had she assumed Xie Lin was one of the good guys?
No matter how good-looking Xie Lin was, no matter how naturally endearing his every move, Ren Qin could not convince herself to keep trusting the man.
There were plenty of men in the world. There was only one of her.
“Right now, immediately, find somewhere with a lot of people. See if there’s a 24-hour convenience store nearby.” Ren Qin, taking no chances with her own safety, called her best friend as her very first priority. Following the voice on the phone, she ran into an unlit convenience store. “Find a corner to sit in. Make sure you’re not facing the door or any glass windows. Find somewhere you won’t draw attention.”
Ren Qin couldn’t form proper words, only releasing faint, formless sounds. “…Okay.”
“Listen to me. Call the police.”
Her best friend was panicking too, but she knew she had to appear calm right now. If she fell apart alongside Ren Qin, Ren Qin’s state would only get worse. Once Ren Qin had sat down, she spoke slowly and deliberately, one word at a time: “It’s come to this — if it has to come out, it comes out. You have to call the police. Have them properly look into those two people upstairs. Something is definitely wrong with them both. You just said the one with the surname Xie had slippers ready at the door before you got there? Think about it — that obviously means he’d been waiting for you for a long time. They could very well be habitual criminals, the two of them working together to target girls like you who live alone.”
“We can always move somewhere else. We can always find a new job. Rent deposits and employment are both worth less than your life. Now. Right now. Call the police.”
Ten PM. Yong’an Police Station.
Ji Mingrui was sitting at his desk organizing documents.
Their new unit was assigned all sorts of miscellaneous work — they were like bricks, moved wherever they were needed. Because their jurisdiction overlapped with the Yangyuan and Tianrui cases, and because they’d had direct contact with Yang Zhenzhen, the first victim, they were responsible for some of the related outreach work.
When there were no outreach assignments, they still had to be at the station answering calls, patiently fulfilling the role of mediator.
“Officer, what do I do, my girlfriend’s doing it again, she’s—”
“Threatening to hurt herself again, is it?”
“She’s — oh, it’s you, Officer. I guess I don’t need to explain then. You know how this goes.”
“Here we are again. I’ll be honest with you — the fact that you two haven’t broken up after all this time means you’re actually pretty well-matched. Have you considered just getting married? Your relationship has certainly weathered its share of hardships,” Ji Mingrui said, eating instant noodles while fielding yet another call from a familiar member of the public. “And that way your girlfriend won’t keep threatening to hurt herself every time she thinks you’re going to leave her. Solve the problem at the root.”
“…”
Ji Mingrui finished chatting with his “old acquaintance,” and the telephone on his desk jangled immediately.
He wiped his mouth and picked up. “Hello, you’ve reached Yong’an Police Station.”
The moment he finished speaking, a rapid, anxious string of breathing came through on the other end. “Hello, I — I need to report something. I live at Yuting Residential Complex, Building 8, Unit 802. I just moved in two weeks ago. I’ve found… I’ve found that the two residents living directly above me may be the killers behind the two recent serial murders.”
Ji Mingrui sat bolt upright.
