Lucas sat across from them. He hadn’t expected to be called back, and even less expected such a bizarre question right off the bat. He frowned almost imperceptibly and asked, “Why are you asking this?”
Xie Lin’s eyes curved into a smile, and he spoke in an incredibly easygoing tone: “In our line of work, we need to understand the criminal’s psychology. That way, if we encounter similar crimes in the future, we’ll have a better grasp of the perpetrator’s intent. That’s why I specifically asked to speak with you.”
Lucas: “……”
Xie Lin: “When you put Luo Yu’s face into the pot, the oil must have already been hot enough to start smoking, right? When you put that face in, did you use chopsticks?”
“I…” Lucas hesitated for half a second, unsure whether to answer yes or no.
Xie Lin looked more like someone who had actually fried a human face than Lucas did. He tapped his fingers on the table and said, “I guess you probably used your hands. Because holding it allowed you to recall the thrill of peeling it off his corpse piece by piece. By the way, didn’t you feel incredibly satisfied when you peeled off his skin? Watching someone who had been basking in the glory of that face in front of you now reduced to a piece of unsightly leather.”
Lucas clearly hadn’t considered this angle; he was stunned by Xie Lin’s interpretation.
Was the person sitting in front of him a consultant, or a convict dragged in from another interrogation room?!
After a long while, Lucas shook his head and said, “No, I didn’t have any particular feeling. It was my first time doing something like that; my mind was a total blank. By the time I regained my senses, it was already done.”
Xie Lin watched him for a long time before saying, “Nothing at all?”
Lucas noticed that the consultant sitting opposite him had beautiful eyes—long and narrow, with light-colored irises. But under that stare, he felt as if he were being slowly sucked into an unfathomable vortex.
He couldn’t help but clasp his hands together, his fingers digging into the skin between his thumb and index finger: “No. Mr. Xie, your imagination is far too vivid.”
In the observation room.
Wu Zhibin hadn’t understood what Xie Lin was trying to do at first, but hearing this, he began to see a glimmer of intent.
Wu Zhibin leaned forward, pressing close to the glass to get a clearer view of the situation in the room. He muttered, “Something’s wrong.”
“I think so too,” the criminal police officer beside him nodded. “Consultant Xie is definitely acting strange. If it weren’t for the fact that he has a rock-solid alibi—”
“……”
Wu Zhibin rapped the officer on the head and scolded, “I meant the suspect is acting strange!”
In the room separated by a pane of glass.
Xie Lin suddenly laughed. Even as he spoke such horrifying words, his tone remained light and casual, as if they were discussing the weather: “You loathed him so much that you cut his corpse into so many pieces, yet you felt nothing while doing it—did you really kill him?”
“……”
The interrogation room fell into a brief silence.
A few minutes later, Chi Qing broke the silence. He nodded slightly and commented to Xie Lin: “Listening to you, it sounds more like you killed him.”
Xie Lin: “……”
Clearly, Lucas couldn’t answer questions about the psychological state of a killer. That line about his “mind going blank” was an unavoidable attempt to dodge the subject.
Crimes of passion like this are usually accompanied by agitation, excitement…
So, it wasn’t necessarily Lucas who fried Luo Yu’s face, and it wasn’t necessarily him who committed the deed.
This realization gave everyone a massive headache. The suspect they had worked so hard to capture didn’t seem to be the mastermind. Who was he covering for? What other secrets was he hiding? And how much of the story about his jealousy toward Luo Yu was actually true?
The fog they had just started to clear was gathering again, and the situation was becoming tangled and confusing.
When they received the call from the General Bureau, Ji Rui was still searching for evidence in Lucas’s rented apartment. While rummaging through cabinets, he was shocked to hear the news from the Bureau: “What? He might not be the killer?!”
Ji Rui looked at the sinister Buddhist shrine in front of him, covered in countless talismans, and fell silent: “If it’s already gotten to this point, if it’s not him, then who could it be?”
However, Chi Qing held a different opinion: “It’s not that complicated. There are many things about Luo Yu that are hard to explain, but he is still the person closest to the truth. Why not work backward: why did he suddenly report Luo Yu missing?”
As they walked out, they discussed the case.
Chi Qing had gotten used to the environment at the General Bureau; although crowded, it was orderly and not too noisy: “A person has motives for everything they do. If this matter had absolutely nothing to do with him, what was his motive for reporting it?”
Someone who had no direct connection to the case could have stayed out of it, yet they chose to report it at that specific moment and even handed over the evidence to “admit” to everything. Who was the person they were trying to protect?
People came and went in the corridor. Wu Zhibin nodded to acquaintances as they passed and said, “The interpersonal relationships in their circle are truly complex. Many things aren’t things you can just investigate; they take time.”
People in that circle were long since trained in anti-surveillance skills to deal with all-powerful paparazzi. They were so well-packaged that they hid even their true selves, let alone the messy interpersonal webs that could cost them their careers.
As they walked, Xie Lin’s arm remained draped over Chi Qing’s shoulder. His leg wasn’t broken that badly, and after recuperating for several days, he had no problem walking on his own, so he wasn’t really putting much weight on Chi Qing.
Chi Qing walked with an expressionless face. Although he always said Xie Lin should walk by himself, he would still slow his pace when they were actually walking together.
Perhaps because they had seen the two of them together so much, the accompanying police officer got the illusion that Chi Qing was capable of normal human contact, completely forgetting that when the guy first arrived, he wouldn’t let anyone touch him.
The officer went to hand over the case file, but before his hand could touch Chi Qing’s shoulder, Chi Qing avoided him as if he had eyes in the back of his head: “……”
After dodging, Chi Qing asked: “What are you doing?”
At the same time, Xie Lin shot a sidelong glance at the officer.
Xie Lin: “Why are you trying to pat him?”
The officer didn’t expect such a minor action to draw warnings from two people: “…Uh, the documents.”
Though Xie Lin had a cane in one hand and the other arm on Chi Qing’s shoulder, he still struggled to free a hand: “Thanks. Don’t touch him. Just give the files to me.”
Officer: “Sorry, I saw you guys like this and thought Assistant Chi was feeling better.”
Xie Lin held the file folder and said: “He’s not better. But I’m the only one allowed to touch him. You guys should be careful.”
“……”
Even if it were true, it sounded incredibly like he was showing off.
Chi Qing turned his head away: “Say less; no one will think you’re mute.”
Xie Lin: “I’m just stating facts.”
They had planned to go to the conference room to go over the case in detail, but halfway there, Chi Qing went to the restroom.
He didn’t touch anything; his palms were just slightly sweaty—perhaps because Xie Lin had been leaning too close and talking nonsense, or maybe the air conditioning in the General Bureau was turned up too high. After washing his hands and reaching into his pocket to put his gloves back on, he felt, through the fabric, the pearl earring he had brought from Lucas’s home.
Chi Qing hooked it with his finger and pulled it out.
He temporarily pushed aside the thought that “he only felt hot because Xie Lin was too close; it’s a natural human reaction” and looked closely at the earring.
The style was very common. He remembered that when Yin Wanru first came in, she was wearing a pair of large diamond studs that looked like high-end jewelry. These female celebrities had many brand endorsements and wouldn’t just wear random things. This earring didn’t look like it had a specific designer brand; it looked more like a common item bought at a handmade goods shop.
Therefore, the initial speculation was that this woman might not be a celebrity at all.
Chi Qing looked at the earring and recalled the words of the masked person before he died:
[…It’s a celebrity, I don’t remember what her name is.]
A portrait of a lesser-known female star in the industry appeared in Chi Qing’s mind. After putting his gloves back on and clutching the earring in his palm, he walked out and bumped into another team in the hallway.
Because Lucas was being re-interrogated, Yin Wanru’s manager had also been brought in for a second round of questioning.
Chi Qing swept a glance over the manager’s back. He noticed her posture was actually quite good; she had maintained her figure deliberately, and she seemed to care deeply about her image—after being detained for several days, she was still groomed and neat from head to toe.
Chi Qing asked casually: “Where’s Yin Wanru?”
The officer at the back of the team replied: “She went home after giving her statement.”
Chi Qing nodded to acknowledge this. Just as he was about to return to the conference room, he saw the team ahead turn a corner. After the angle shifted, the manager, who had been facing away from him, was now in profile. The distance between him and the woman wasn’t great. Chi Qing saw a necklace around her neck, so he stopped and squinted his eyes.
Just as he was looking, a familiar weight suddenly pressed onto his shoulder. Xie Lin had come out to get water and was still holding a bottle of mineral water. He leaned in, whispering close to his ear: “What are you looking at?”
Chi Qing said: “I didn’t pay attention to her last time. Looking closely now, Yin Wanru’s manager isn’t bad-looking, and she’s very particular about her appearance. What did she do before becoming a manager?”
Xie Lin recalled the thick stack of files he had just flipped through in the conference room: “Her? She joined the company a long time ago. She started off signed as an artist too, but she never really made it. The company leadership thought she had other skills, so they groomed her to be a manager. That was a long time ago. The time she spent as an artist is almost negligible; not many people know about it… You suspect it’s her?”
Chi Qing did suspect her.
Thinking about it, the timing of Lucas’s appearance was exactly when they started looking into Yin Wanru and her manager. She was likely afraid they would keep digging and wanted to divert their attention. Once the guy surnamed Lu took the fall, no one would suspect her—in the whole affair, she was the one least likely to trigger any association.
She had taken the fall for Yin Wanru regarding the hospital incident and had already been staying at the General Bureau—the safest place is indeed the most dangerous.
If he hadn’t seen her on the corridor while going to the restroom today, Chi Qing would never have thought of her. Her presence was just too weak, and she was already in the General Bureau, in a state of “arrest.”
…If it really was her, then this person’s chess-playing was incredibly patient.
Chi Qing clutched the pearl earring in his hand and said: “Whether it’s her or not, one test will tell.”
Yin Wanru’s manager sat in the interrogation room, answering each question as it was asked.
She was very cooperative.
Chi Qing watched her through the blinds, noting that her hands were always folded—a relatively relaxed posture.
The re-interrogation lasted over ten minutes, and there was no conflict throughout the conversation.
Finally, the officer sitting opposite the woman put down his pen, closed his record book, and signaled that she could get up and leave with the officer next to her.
Before the woman left, she bowed slightly. Judging by the movement of her lips, she seemed to say: “Thank you for your hard work.”
Given her job, she could be so composed even in her current situation—or perhaps it was precisely because her performance was too composed that it seemed eerie.
The woman pushed the door open and walked out. She followed the path she had come by, but when she passed a corner, someone suddenly called out: “Hello.”
She stopped and turned back to see a black glove, with a pearl earring lying quietly in the palm.
The owner of the black glove said very casually: “You dropped something. I just picked it up off the floor.”
Chi Qing spoke naturally, without any emotion, and precisely because there was no emotion, it carried no hint of a “trap.”
A person’s instantaneous reaction cannot be faked, and he had appeared so suddenly that he hadn’t given her time to prepare a reaction.
The woman clearly recognized this earring. She first said “Thank you,” then her hand froze in mid-air as she belatedly realized she hadn’t been wearing earrings when she left today.
…
To be sure, she pinched her earlobe.
There was nothing on her earlobe.
After a long while, Chi Qing looked at her and said: “It really was you.”
The corridor they were standing in was L-shaped. The hallway extended out behind Chi Qing, and the surrounding officers were moving in a rush; it was so quiet that you could hear a pin drop in their corner.
The woman was already wearing handcuffs, and the clothes issued by the General Bureau were plain. All she had to do was walk down this corridor, and she would have been able to walk away unscathed from the two major cases of illegal detention and Luo Yu’s death under another, relatively minor charge.
But she was just a few steps short.
The second she brushed past Chi Qing, she had been stopped.
She had subconsciously looked at the earring she usually wore and said “thank you.”
