Ji Mingrui wrote down the first line: “You two were out wandering around all day, and you even went to a psychology clinic.”
“To give him an opportunity to make his move,” Xie Lin answered.
“He’d been tailing you since morning?”
“Most likely. We spotted his car.”
Ji Mingrui turned to Chi Qing:
“When he died, why did you open the umbrella?”
Chi Qing: “To avoid the splatter.”
“…”
However absurd the reason, it still had to go in the report.
Ji Mingrui recalled going to pull the security footage at the complex gatehouse with a newer colleague, who had stood there with his mouth hanging open. Ji Mingrui had been obliged to explain: “These two may not look entirely normal, but they are absolutely not suspects. Not suspects. I’ll say it again — not suspects. Get that look off your face.”
After running through the basic facts, Ji Mingrui asked the most important question: “Where is the SD card now?”
“My place,” Xie Lin said. “In the study safe. The combination is the same as my front door code.”
Ji Mingrui looked at him blankly. “And who would know what your front door code is.”
Xie Lin pointed at Chi Qing. “He does.”
Ji Mingrui: “…”
Wu Zhibin reached over from behind Ji Mingrui and patted his shoulder, indicating they should go retrieve it now.
Once Wu Zhibin and Ji Mingrui left, the only people remaining in the ward were the two parties who had been at the scene — who had, not long ago, fought side by side in an elevator.
Chi Qing felt an inexplicable awkwardness. He rarely came to hospitals. They weren’t exactly a source of fond memories for him, though after so many years it wasn’t that he actively resisted them — he simply wasn’t comfortable in the role of visitor.
On the way in, he had passed other wards. People inside were fussing over their patients with warm words and fruit knives, carefully peeling things for whoever was in the bed.
After standing beside Xie Lin’s bed for a while, Chi Qing attempted something in the vicinity of warm words, and after considerable effort produced: “Good that you’re still alive.”
“…”
“I won’t be cutting you any fruit,” Chi Qing continued. “I haven’t washed my hands. Unsanitary. And there are no disposable gloves here. If you want fruit, order a delivery.”
Xie Lin had been changed into a hospital gown. The sleeves were folded back with precision in two neat cuffs, and the collar had been arranged to fall open exactly at the collarbone — making the best of limited materials, somehow conjuring an unexpected suggestion of tailored “uniform” energy.
Xie Lin had been watching Chi Qing’s eyes the entire time he spoke. Then, without warning, he smiled.
Chi Qing couldn’t identify what exactly had been funny, and then heard Xie Lin say: “…Thank you.”
He smiled and added: “If anyone else said that to me, I’d probably ask them to leave.”
He was smiling because Chi Qing had said all of it with no ulterior motive — earnestly, even. If Wu Zhi had said those same words, he would have assumed it was sabotage. But Chi Qing was different. There was something genuinely entertaining about watching him work so hard to produce what amounted to a string of backhanded remarks.
Xie Lin smiled a moment longer, then braced one hand against the bed and said: “Give me your hand.”
Chi Qing didn’t know what he was after, but extended his hand anyway.
Xie Lin wanted to check his injury. After examining it carefully, he found nothing too serious beyond some redness around the wrist bone. When he finished, he spread his fingers and measured the width of Chi Qing’s wrist. “Your wrists are too thin.”
Chi Qing withdrew his hand. His skin was pale, and the red showed up sharply against it, like a bruise left by someone’s grip.
“I’d advise against saying anything that makes me regret pulling you up.”
The mention of it brought Xie Lin back to what the security footage hadn’t caught.
The camera had cut out when the elevator fell. The footage from the security room ended precisely at the moment of the drop.
But the situation for both of them after the fall had been far from good. The injury to his leg had been far worse than he’d expected — the figure had struck with full force, and after managing to hold on and jump down to keep fighting, then climbing back up to the top of the elevator car, he’d had virtually nothing left. He hadn’t had the strength to pull himself out through the elevator doors on his own.
Xie Lin had, for one moment, considered the worst outcome: “You don’t have to hold on. There’s a real chance you’ll fall with me.”
And Chi Qing had only pressed out two words: “…Shut up.”
Suspended in the dark shaft, his senses narrowing down to almost nothing, the only things that had remained clear were the hand holding him and the words that reached him: “I won’t let go.”
He could still hear them clearly now.
On the other side of things, Wu Zhibin retrieved the SD card without difficulty and immediately handed it to the technical department for decryption. Zhang Feng, as a professional paparazzo, had understood the importance of protecting his information. People in that line of work, after getting hold of significant material, would sometimes contact the celebrity in question or a rival party to negotiate — usually managing to extract a tidy sum in exchange for silence.
“We’ve finished decrypting the SD card,” Wu Zhibin said the following day when the group reconvened, holding a stack of documents. “There are quite a few photographs on it. Most were taken in very low light and are difficult to make out. Analysis is still ongoing, but I’ve had them all printed for you to look through.”
Zhang Feng had taken a large number of photographs, mostly covert shots. Working on the principle that getting anything at all was good enough, he hadn’t given much thought to angles or lighting. On top of that, these celebrities in their off-hours, without makeup, looked remarkably unlike their polished on-screen selves — short of a dedicated fan, almost no one would be able to identify them at a glance.
For homicide detectives who spent their careers at crime scenes rather than following entertainment news — who couldn’t have told you who was currently popular in the industry — the pile of blurry photographs produced nothing but confusion.
…What even was any of this.
Pitch dark, indistinct, and half of them were taken from behind. A completely different world.
Chi Qing happened to be in for a follow-up that day. His wrist looked alarming after the swelling overnight, though there was nothing seriously wrong — he’d still been pushed to come in.
It was only his second visit, but the doctor remembered him distinctly: on the first visit, after the doctor had said “I’ll put it back in place,” the patient had looked at him and asked: “Do you have rubber gloves?”
The doctor had said: “This is an orthopaedic clinic. We don’t use blades here. Gloves aren’t generally needed for consultations.”
Chi Qing had looked down and thought for a moment. Then: “In that case, could you just tell me how to do it, and I’ll do it myself.”
The doctor: “…”
The photographs pulled from the SD card made a thick stack — twenty or thirty in total, mostly taken at night, with only a few daytime shots among them. Fortunately, the date of each shot was stamped in the lower right corner.
Chi Qing scanned through them. “Focus on the ones with the latest timestamps.”
Xie Lin agreed: “Zhang Feng died not long after his SD card was swapped. We can’t rule out the possibility that he was working multiple stories at once, but in most cases, after uncovering something that significant, the more likely move is to keep following it and see where it leads. And based on who he was staking out that day — several of the film’s lead actors — we can narrow the initial pool of suspects to those names.”
“But,” Wu Zhibin said, “the final photograph is a shot of someone in disguise, taken from behind.”
The photograph with the latest timestamp showed a figure who had just stepped out of a car — clearly a woman, though little else was discernible. The wind must have been strong that night; she had her coat pulled tight around her, head down, walking forward. Not far ahead of her was one of Huanan’s better-known private hospitals: Huanan Tianhai Hospital.
Xie Lin: “I’ve been to that hospital.”
Chi Qing: “Never heard of it. Is there something particular about it?”
Xie Lin: “Does being extraordinarily expensive count as particular?”
“Check-up fees run close to ten thousand,” he said. “Wealthy people go there for something to do. Wu Zhi’s father, for instance — once a quarter, every quarter.”
Chi Qing said levelly: “You do seem like you have a lot of free time.”
Xie Lin: “…”
But the mention of wealthy people jogged something in his mind. “Hand me my phone.”
“?”
“There’s someone who might be able to identify the person in this photo on sight.”
Wu Zhi was at a luxury car club, about to take his beloved “darling” out for a run on the mountain road. Life as a second-generation rich kid was monotonous — so when Xie Lin’s call came through out of nowhere, he picked up: “Hello?”
He heard Xie Lin say from the other end: “Time to pay your dues.”
Wu Zhi: “What?”
Xie Lin: “I’m sending you a photo. Tell me who’s in it within five minutes.”
Chi Qing hadn’t initially understood why Xie Lin was going to that Mr. Wu he’d met once at a bar for something like this.
Wu Zhi protested on the other end: “Wait, what five minutes, I don’t even know what this is–“
Xie Lin: “Female celebrity.”
Wu Zhi’s protest stopped dead at those two words.
“Five minutes is too long,” Chi Qing then heard Wu Zhi immediately revise, “two minutes is plenty. If I know her name, I can recognize her — disguised as a man, I’d still spot her immediately. I may be useless at everything else, but this I can genuinely do. It’s the last shred of dignity we idle rich have.”
Chi Qing: “…”
Wu Zhibin: “…”
Ji Mingrui, standing nearby: “…”
Wu Zhi was as good as his word. In under two minutes his call came back: “Yin Wanru. Absolutely her. Height 168, weight 46kg, measurements match by eye, hair comes to the chest, and there’s a mole on the left side of her neck.”
“…”
What kind of human microscope was this man.
Xie Lin: “Yin Wanru — you’re certain?”
“Impossible to be wrong. It’s like if you sent me a random photo taken inside a bar, I’d know which one it was — you could photograph a single bathroom tile and I’d recognize it,” Wu Zhi said with complete confidence. “I used to have a thing for her. That time I called you wanting to talk about finding new love and you ignored me — that was what I was calling about. Just never managed to get anywhere with her. Anyway — what’s she done?”
Xie Lin: “Nothing, just a case that may have some connection to her. You’ve paid your dues. You can hang up.”
Wu Zhi: “Hey–“
Xie Lin ended the call. Wu Zhibin immediately said: “Mingrui, take Jiang Yu and the others — go find her now!”
Chi Qing found himself thinking that the name Yin Wanru sounded strangely familiar. Not just from seeing it in the credits that time at the cinema, and not just from hearing Su Xiaolan mention it over dinner — it was from somewhere earlier than either of those.
He worked through the possibilities and arrived at the answer quickly: he had heard it during an episode.
Celebrities really do have dangerous careers these days. She always seems so bright and cheerful on variety shows — you’d never guess she had psychological problems. Speaking of which, someone who came to our clinic for a consultation…
The psychology clinic.
The day he had eaten Dr. Wu’s chocolate liqueurs.
He was still turning this over when Xie Lin reached out and waved a hand in front of his face.
Chi Qing came back to the room.
Xie Lin said: “Help me to the bathroom.”
Chi Qing: “?”
“I,” Chi Qing repeated his words back to him, “help you?”
The phrase what are you dreaming about was essentially written across his face.
Xie Lin had a cast on his leg — the leg didn’t work, but his hands were perfectly functional. Without giving Chi Qing a chance to respond, he reached up and draped an arm over his shoulder. “Strictly speaking, this injury has quite a bit to do with you.”
Chi Qing looked at him darkly. “Are you trying to say I stabbed you?”
“You didn’t stab me, no. But when he jumped down from above, I was worried he’d hurt you — that’s why I took the hit. And as for the fracture, that was also from rescuing you,” Xie Lin said. “You were pinned under him. Your life was in danger.”
Chi Qing: “…”
Xie Lin looked at him, and concluded: “So you tell me — don’t you owe me something?”
Author’s note: The SD card encryption is a fictional detail — a lot of this is made up. So much for my Sherlock Holmes dreams.
