Very pretty. Wearing gloves. Older brother.
Jie Lin’s eyebrows twitched slightly.
He almost instantly recalled the way a certain someone looked when he pushed open the door and entered the psychological consulting room.
Perhaps due to his slender physique, he still inadvertently gave off a hint of youthfulness. He was indeed beautiful, with exquisite features and a gloomy, deep gaze. The ink-like black of his hair contrasted sharply with the color of his lips, and black gloves wrapped around his long, slender fingers as he sat across from him.
“Is he about this tall?” Jie Lin raised a hand and measured near his own temple. His tone didn’t sound like he was interrogating a suspect, but rather like he was searching for a lover who had been missing for years. “He is indeed quite pretty. Very pale skin, wears black gloves, doesn’t like to talk much, and doesn’t really like other people touching him.”
The little boy nodded.
Jie Lin: “His hair is a bit long, about down to here, covering his eyes. He’s pale all over, except his lips look like he’s wearing lipstick.”
Jie Lin described him in such detail that through this description, the little boy felt as if he were seeing that pretty older brother who bought the knife all over again.
The little boy nodded so hard he looked like an animated emoji, his head bobbing like a garlic pounder: “That brother was a bit fierce. I wanted to help him bag his things, but he wouldn’t let me touch them.”
Jie Lin highly agreed: “He does have a bit of a bad temper.”
The little boy: “Are you looking for him? Do you guys know each other?”
Jie Lin left the snacks he had just paid for on the counter, taking only the serrated knife. Without the slightest realization that his words were inappropriate for children, he pondered and said, “You could say we know each other. I’ve touched his hand.”
The little boy: “?”
“The snacks are for you. Go back to your homework, kiddo.” Jie Lin didn’t say any more. Before leaving, he reached out and patted the little boy’s head. “Study hard.”
Jie Lin pushed the door open and went out. The sky outside had turned completely dark, and the air felt a bit stifling, as if it was going to rain again.
Meanwhile, Ji Mingrui was still holding the serrated knife Chi Qing had used to cut bread, examining it over and over. He recalled the corpses found at the scene today and tried to use Chi Qing’s bread to simulate a corpse for a reenactment: “The killer used exactly this kind of serrated knife. He probably started from here, like this, and went down with one slash, slitting the cat’s throat—”
Chi Qing: “…”
Ji Mingrui looked up and asked Chi Qing, “Right? It should be exactly like this. What do you think?”
Chi Qing was waiting for his hot milk in the microwave, watching the countdown timer. “I think perhaps I should find a friend with a more fully developed brain and intellect.”
Ji Mingrui was so immersed in the case that it took him a few seconds to react.
By the time he realized it, Chi Qing was already holding his milk, heading back to the living room to continue watching some baffling romance TV drama.
Over the next few days, Ji Mingrui plunged headfirst into endless work, so busy he didn’t even have time to check his phone. Granny Wang insisted on sitting in the police station office every day, crying out for her “Nannan”: “As long as the killer isn’t caught, I won’t leave! I’ll stay right here! My poor Nannan—”
Besides continuing the search for the killer, there were various other emergency calls to handle every day.
“Hello? Is this 110? I want to break up with my girlfriend, but she’s threatening suicide. What should I do?”
“…” Ji Mingrui’s head felt like it was splitting in two. “That girl is fine, she just wants to threaten the guy. When I came back, I swung by Haimao again. I’ve watched all the surveillance footage, and it captured nothing. I also asked around the convenience store. There are so many residents in the compound, and with insufficient evidence and information, there’s no way to lock onto a target. And it rained again…”
The rain was an extremely unfavorable factor.
In the past, when Ji Mingrui wanted to be a criminal detective, he only imagined them looking majestic and invincible. This was the first time he caught a glimpse of the cruelty of the profession. A murder had clearly happened right in front of his eyes, yet he was completely helpless.
He and Su Xiaolan worked together to bury several unclaimed stray cat corpses in the compound’s woods. They picked a patch of grass that would get sunlight whenever the sun was out.
No clues, no way to lock onto a suspect, nothing at all, yet one living, breathing life after another had left this world… The cat corpses were merely a microcosm. More sigh-inducing, cruel cases were probably still like the cat corpses buried deep in the woods, rotting silently, never to see the light of day, never to find the truth.
Su Xiaolan was also noticeably much quieter these past few days.
The three of them in the rookie group were responsible for this cat killing case. Only Jiang Yu was continuously flipping through the crime scene photos while eating instant noodles, his finger slowly tracing something on the desk.
When Ji Mingrui passed behind him, he lightly smacked him with a file folder: “What are you tracing? I’ve been watching you trace for ages.”
Jiang Yu slurped the remaining noodles into his mouth: “I’m looking at the knife marks.”
Ji Mingrui couldn’t understand: “You’ve been looking at them for days and you still haven’t had enough? Did you figure something out?”
Jiang Yu shook his head honestly: “No.”
After shaking his head, he added: “I just find it really strange. That day, my idol carefully looked over every cat corpse, and his fingers traced along the knife marks just like this…” He said, demonstrating for Ji Mingrui. “Like this.”
Jiang Yu used his fingertip to slowly trace the direction of the knife marks, just like Jie Lin had done that day.
Ji Mingrui and the others might not have noticed such small details, but Jiang Yu, harboring an excessive amount of attention toward his idol, had keenly caught these minute actions.
Jiang Yu scratched the back of his head: “He seemed to really care about these knife marks… What was he looking at?”
Ji Mingrui pondered it as well, and finally said very frankly: “I have no idea what goes on in the minds of geniuses. After all, when I was fifteen, I was still sobbing bitterly over failing to woo the girl from the next class.”
Jiang Yu: “…”
Ji Mingrui returned to his desk. While waiting for his instant noodles to steep, he finally had a few minutes of free time to check his phone.
He sent a message to his good bro, seeking some comfort: I’ve been so busy lately.
His good bro quickly used concrete action to wake him up.
-If you’re busy, don’t text me.
-…Listen to what you just said. Are you even human?
Ji Mingrui fired off two more messages in a row: What are you doing today?
After a while, the other side, cherishing words like gold, rewarded him with two words.
-Follow-up appointment.
Staring at these two words, Ji Mingrui peeled back the lid of his steaming instant noodles, thinking to himself that his bro really was working quite hard to cure his germaphobia.
Today, the psychological clinic was open for business as usual. This was the second time Chi Qing had stepped foot in this place.
“Welcome—Hello, Mr. Chi.” The receptionist had already memorized Chi Qing’s name. She stopped what she was doing and smiled, “Please wait in the reception area for a moment, I will go notify Dr. Wu.”
Chi Qing cracked his knuckles through his gloves, frowning as he glanced at the reception area full of cats.
He really didn’t want to stay in the same room as these furry things.
The reception area was the same as always.
A few empty seats, a few cats sleeping on their stomachs. One cat even seemed to recognize him and let out a “Meow” at him.
Chi Qing shifted his gaze a few degrees to the side, only then realizing that compared to these furry things, there was someone even more annoying sitting in the reception area.
Jie Lin was sitting on the right sofa, flipping through a magazine. He seemed to have been sitting there for a long time. When he lifted his eyes to look at Chi Qing, it gave off the illusion of “I’ve been waiting for you for a long time.”
He closed the magazine, his eyes curving into a smile: “We meet again, Mr. Chi.”
Chi Qing: “…”
Why was this psycho here too?
Did he forget to check the almanac before leaving the house today?
Chi Qing ignored him and found the furthest empty seat. The two sat on the left and right, separated by more than half of the reception area.
Someone like Jie Lin, who could instantly pick up on even the most subtle hints, now acted as if he couldn’t understand his intentions at all. He leaned forward to put the magazine back on the coffee table, then quite naturally changed seats, closing the distance between them: “I didn’t expect you to have an appointment today too. It seems we’re quite fated.”
Chi Qing said: “Our understanding of the word ‘fated’ might have some discrepancies.”
Jie Lin rarely hit a wall. Out of habit, he poured Chi Qing a glass of water: “You seem to have a lot of grievances against me.”
Chi Qing didn’t deny it: “You can be a bit more confident.”
“Hmm?” When he uttered this syllable, he dragged out a somewhat ambiguous trailing note.
“Drop the ‘seem to’.”
“…”
Jie Lin wasn’t angry. Still smiling, he slowly pushed the glass of water resting on the table over.
His facial features might be charming and flirtatious, but his jawline was sharp and severe, the corners of his eyes long and slender. If not for the expression in his eyes diluting that sense of distance, people might easily overlook the fact that he actually wasn’t an easy-to-approach type.
Near where Chi Qing sat, a sleeping cat was sprawled out. Groggy from sleep, the cat wanted to get up and shift spots to continue sleeping. However, before its paws even touched the armrest of the sofa next to Chi Qing, Chi Qing issued a remote warning: “Don’t come over.”
Cat: “Meow?”
Chi Qing: “Don’t sleep here.”
Cat: “Meow woo?”
Chi Qing: “Even if you come over, I will throw you right back.”
Cat: “…”
One human and one cat miraculously exchanged a few words across the species barrier.
The cat finally gave up the idea of moving its nest, flicked its tail, and ran away.
Jie Lin leaned to the side, watching them like he was enjoying a show: “You don’t like cats?”
He remembered their last meeting; Chi Qing didn’t have a single cat hair on him. At the time, he casually remarked, “You probably don’t like cats,” and Chi Qing hadn’t refuted it.
This meeting undoubtedly confirmed that guess.
Chi Qing didn’t want to hear another spiel like ‘Cats are so cute, why don’t you like cats?’. He replied: “I don’t like cats, and I especially don’t like wasting breath on people I’m not familiar with.”
After Chi Qing spoke, he noticed the hand Jie Lin used to grip the glass water cup. Just as he was about to say “No need to pour me water,” he saw the cup of water suddenly change trajectory. The water in the cup spilled, without any deviation, squarely onto his glove: “…”
“Sorry about that,” the instigator pulled out a few tissues and handed them to him. “I didn’t hold it steady. Wipe it off?”
Chi Qing tried to endure it, but failed. His germaphobia flared up, and he had no choice but to take the glove off. He didn’t take the tissues Jie Lin offered, but while wiping his hand, he realized the person next to him seemed to have been staring at his hand the entire time.
Last time, Jie Lin only took off one of his gloves, and now he finally saw the other one—there was a very obvious knife cut on the man’s slender finger joint. His skin was so pale that even an inconspicuous mole could be seen clearly, let alone a wound about one centimeter long.
The knife had clearly slipped into the pad of the finger accidentally. The wound was visibly thicker than a normal knife cut; it wasn’t from an ordinary fruit knife.
Jie Lin pointed at the wound: “Hurt yourself while cutting something? How could you be so careless?”
During the process of wiping his hand, Chi Qing seriously pondered one thing.
No matter how exquisite this Dr. Wu’s skills were, or how many successful cases he had, he really ought to consider switching to another clinic.
