The restaurant was dead silent, except for Wu Zhi, who had returned from the restroom after throwing up from disgust, only to hear the three of them still discussing the human face.
Wu Zhibin: “Why did the killer skin off only the face?”
Xie Lin: “I don’t know, there are too many possibilities. Not wanting the victim’s identity to be discovered is one possibility. There are other possibilities too; for example, many criminals like to keep ‘trophies’ after committing a crime, and these ‘trophies’ mostly come from certain parts of the corpse.”
Chi Qing pointed his chopsticks at a side dish near the edge of the table and said, “Maybe like this sausage, it’ll be air-dried and turned into human leather to hang up at home for appreciation.”
Wu Zhi: “…”
Wu Zhi chose to slowly back out of the private room again, retracting the foot he had just stepped inside. “Um, I’m going to the restroom again. Wait, no, actually when I was in the bathroom just now, I got a call from a friend. I should get going, my friend is still waiting for me.”
Xie Lin waved at him and, as the host, asked politely, “Are you full? If not, why not have a few more bites of sausage?”
Wu Zhi: “I’m full. My stomach is churning, it’s about to overflow.”
After Wu Zhi left, Wu Zhibin finally said, “…So it seems this really wasn’t Yin Wanru’s doing.”
They had investigated Yin Wanru. A major star of her popularity had a fully packed schedule every day and spent most of her time under the public eye. On the day of the incident, she wasn’t even in this city; she had flown to Lin’an City, over a thousand kilometers away, for a charity organization event. There were videos of her boarding the plane that day online, as well as photos from the charity event.
She couldn’t possibly know a cloning technique, nor could she instantaneously travel back and forth across a distance of over a thousand kilometers.
Moreover, she had no reason to take such a huge risk to kill her bed partner. That was much more serious than secretly having an abortion.
Xie Lin asked, “Have you checked Luo Yu’s background information?”
Wu Zhibin: “We went to check right after Yin Wanru mentioned him. He’s six years younger than Yin Wanru and joined the company two years ago. Seeing that he was good-looking, Yin Wanru took the initiative to develop a relationship with him, and the two privately exchanged resources. The company originally planned to package him and debut him as an idol. He was currently still in the trainee phase, but then this happened.”
Combining this with the torn-off human face, Xie Lin caught the keyword in this string of information related to faces: “Good-looking?”
Wu Zhibin pulled out the photo he had just retrieved.
In the photo was a young man… rather than using the word “man” to describe him, “boy” would be more fitting. The person in the photo looked about eighteen or nineteen years old, handsome and fresh-faced, with bright eyes and eyebrows. If he were still normally attending school, he would undoubtedly be the extremely popular type in class.
“Passable,” Xie Lin said.
Wu Zhibin felt that the young man was clean-cut and indeed very handsome: “Looking like this is only passable?”
Xie Lin: “That’s his fault.” Xie Lin pointed at Chi Qing.
Chi Qing put down his soup spoon. The stack of photos on the table hadn’t affected his appetite in the slightest. He returned a “none of my damn business” look.
“Facing my assistant’s face every day,” Xie Lin said, “has raised the upper limit of my aesthetics. It’s hard to think of how good-looking this trainee named Luo is.”
Wu Zhibin: “…”
After Luo Yu’s identity was confirmed, Zhang Feng’s death became increasingly complicated and confusing. A female star secretly getting an abortion, a peeled-off human face, an SD card, a paparazzo falling to his death… What kind of connection actually existed between all these keywords?
Xie Lin finally said, “Perhaps all the answers lie in that missing human face.”
But where were they supposed to find that missing face?
“Right now, we can only first investigate the people around Luo Yu and Yin Wanru,” Xie Lin said. “And that doctor. The conversation I had with him in the hospital wasn’t much, maybe there are still omitted details.”
That doctor wasn’t stupid either. Since he dared to expose Yin Wanru’s secret, he had long been prepared. Because his career development at this hospital had been limited over the years, he originally had plans to go abroad. After Xie Lin left, he started booking plane tickets and packing his things, ultimately getting arrested on the spot by the police at the international airport.
Wu Zhibin took the lead, chasing the doctor through the international airport on crutches for over ten minutes. His speed was incredibly fast, practically a medical miracle.
Out of consideration that their general bureau consultant had a broken leg, Wu Zhibin very thoughtfully sent him a message:
—We caught him. I’ll send you the interrogation video. Since your leg is inconvenient, you don’t need to make a special trip over.
Xie Lin replied: The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black.
—Don’t lump me in with you. Although my legs are inconvenient, I’m not like you, hanging off your assistant all day long… how embarrassing.
Xie Lin not only didn’t feel embarrassed, but on the contrary, he felt it was a pity.
He had recovered a bit better these past few days and could walk on his own keeping his plastered leg stiff, just a bit slowly. He had just finished taking a shower and was sitting in his study, holding a fountain pen between his fingers as he replied to Wu Zhibin: You actually just reminded me.
Wu Zhibin: Reminded you of what?
What was this kid saying out of nowhere?
—Reminded him that if he didn’t need to go to the main bureau this time, he wouldn’t be able to find an excuse to hang off his assistant.
Xie Lin didn’t say this out loud.
Xie Lin typed a line on the screen with his fingers: Never mind, I’ve already received the video, talk later.
An extra video file appeared on the computer desktop screen in front of Xie Lin.
It was already night, and the black silhouettes of trees swayed outside the window. He wasn’t sure if Chi Qing had gone to bed yet. He exited the chat window with Wu Zhibin and clicked open Chi Qing’s. Chi Qing’s profile picture was just as pitch-black as the person himself; nothing could be seen clearly. Only when enlarged could one vaguely tell that it seemed to be a very blurry rainy scene.
The shooting angle was from indoors looking out, but the lights inside were clearly off, so the rain was captured as a blurry mess.
Xie Lin pondered what excuse he should use to call Chi Qing over.
He finally looked at the desktop speaker next to the computer. He let go of his pen and held the speaker, studying it for a moment.
Chi Qing’s biological clock was always very punctual when he wasn’t in an out-of-control state. He closed his eyes, and just as he was about to fall asleep, a “ding” sounded by his ear, appearing exceptionally clear in the quiet room.
“…”
The moment Chi Qing opened his eyes, he thought to himself: Hopefully the person messaging him actually has something important instead of just having nothing better to do.
—Are you asleep?
—There’s something I need to watch, but the computer speaker is on the very top shelf of the cabinet. It’s inconvenient to grab.
Chi Qing unhesitatingly typed three English letters on the keyboard (GUN – scram), but he stared at those two lines of text for a moment before expressionlessly deleting the three letters and getting out of bed.
Xie Lin always managed to hover right between “having something important” and “having nothing better to do,” making it take extra effort when people wanted to curse at him.
In the end, he could only reply with one sentence:
—Have you ever thought that it might be quite inconvenient for others too?
Xie Lin quickly replied.
—Others?
—You don’t count as “others” to me.
—…
Might as well block him.
Now when Chi Qing entered Xie Lin’s house, he would just knock on the door symbolically before punching in the password and walking right in himself. After entering, he looked at the black speaker on top of the bookcase, fell silent for a moment, and suddenly asked, “Do you think I look like an idiot?”
The large bookshelf in Xie Lin’s study had eight shelves counting from top to bottom. It was filled with a dazzling array of all sorts of books, ranging from criminal investigation studies to finance textbooks, mixed with two books on the history of philosophy from who knows where, sufficient to show how well-read the owner of the bookcase was. But none of this was the point right now. Chi Qing clearly remembered that when he came over two days ago to help him grab a book he “couldn’t reach,” the speaker hadn’t been up there.
Xie Lin had been too busy making up excuses just now, forgetting Chi Qing’s photographic memory and his sensitivity to details: “I can explain.”
Chi Qing set the speaker on the table, tapped it, and said, “You want to say it sprouted legs on its own?”
“…”
Xie Lin rarely did such intelligence-lowering things. He must have been possessed today, as he couldn’t even justify this logical chain himself: “The cleaning lady came during the day.”
“Oh,” Chi Qing said, “The cleaning lady specifically moved the speaker from beside the computer up onto the bookshelf.”
Knowing Chi Qing didn’t like the room too bright, Xie Lin had only turned on a single spotlight. He spoke with his back to the light, the backlit angle making his whole person appear darker. Pinching the thin ring between his fingers, Xie Lin said, “It didn’t sprout legs, and there was no cleaning lady. I just wanted to ask you to come over.”
The atmosphere in the room was very strange.
Chi Qing couldn’t say why it was strange. He originally had many sarcastic things he wanted to say, but at this moment, he couldn’t utter a single word.
Moreover, he didn’t look into Xie Lin’s eyes.
This atmosphere lasted for less than a minute. Xie Lin broke the silence at the right time, smoothly dissolving Chi Qing’s current “discomfort” without batting an eye. After plugging the speaker into the computer, he tapped the spacebar with his index finger. The keyboard let out a crisp sound, and then the video on the computer screen switched from paused to playing.
“I’m asking you to work overtime,” Xie Lin said, “…to watch a video.”
“…”
There was a sofa chair in the study. Although it wasn’t as wide as the one in the living room, it was more than enough to seat two people.
The grayish-blue fluorescent glow of the video cast a faint light on the two of them.
On the screen, the doctor was recounting the process of his surgery on Yin Wanru: “When she came, it was exactly the sixth week. She’s thin, so her belly wasn’t very noticeable. The sixth week is also the best time for an abortion. She had considered everything long ago, just so that nothing would go wrong…”
“…The surgery went very smoothly.”
“What about the aborted child? How did you dispose of it?”
“Normally, it should be uniformly handed over to the hospital for cremation. But this surgery of mine wasn’t done according to hospital procedures, so there was no way to hand it over to the hospital. Ms. Yin asked me to help her dispose of it.”
“I put the fetus in a plastic bag and found a place to bury it.”
“Where did you bury it?”
“Just… buried in the woods behind the hospital.”
“But we didn’t find the corpse of the fetus in the place you mentioned.”
The monitor’s picture quality wasn’t good, and the distance was far. Even narrowing his eyes, Chi Qing could only see the doctor’s blurry facial outline and the way he suddenly sat up straight.
Afraid they wouldn’t believe his statement, the doctor hurriedly said, “Really, I’m not lying to you. Also, it rained a few days ago… it’s highly possible it was dug up by stray cats and dogs in the woods.”
“Rewind and play it again from here.”
At the same time Chi Qing said those words, Xie Lin, sharing his thoughts, pressed the spacebar a step ahead.
—”But we didn’t find the corpse of the fetus in the place you mentioned.”
—”It rained a few days ago… it’s highly possible it was dug up by stray cats and dogs in the woods.”
“If it rained,” Xie Lin said slowly and methodically, “or if it was dug up by stray cats and dogs…”
Chi Qing picked up the sentence: “…then it should be even easier to find.”
Rain, at times, was actually a medium that exposed a killer’s criminal actions. In many buried corpse cases, it was because of heavy rain that the bodies finally saw the light of day again. Therefore, within a short period, even if the two situations he mentioned occurred, it would be impossible to find absolutely no trace of the fetus at the scene: for example, there would be a high probability of finding torn, bloodstained plastic bags nearby.
