“We’re going to Chen Jiashu’s office.” Ji Xun stepped out of the corner, calling Yuan Yue while speaking to Huo Ranyin.
The call was connected quickly; Yuan Yue just happened to be on the road with his team, preparing to head over to Chen Jiashu’s mother, Mrs. Sun.
Perfect.
Ji Xun briefly arranged to meet Yuan Yue at Chen Jiashu’s office before hanging up.
By then, he had already gotten into Huo Ranyin’s car. Huo Ranyin hit the gas, and the vehicle shot forward like an arrow released from a bow string!
Chen Jiashu’s pharmaceutical factory was located in the suburbs, quite a distance from the city center, about a forty-minute drive. By the time the car arrived, the sun was slanting westward, casting thousands of brilliant rays. The crimson light spilled onto the deserted, cold concrete road, looking like unwashed bloodstains.
They quickly drove through and entered Chen Jiashu’s office.
Yuan Yue had already arrived; after receiving Ji Xun’s call, he hadn’t gone to see Mrs. Sun, but instead turned the steering wheel and brought the whole carload of people directly here. As soon as Ji Xun stepped inside, pairs of eyes glued themselves to him, as if he were a walking cryptogram—looking at him a couple more times would surely decode some mysteries.
“What did you discover?” Yuan Yue asked.
“No rush, let me look.” Ji Xun answered briefly, his gaze quickly circling the room.
The style of Chen Jiashu’s office was just like the square they had passed when entering—broad with a touch of bloodiness.
Here stood a full set of mahogany furniture: a large cabinet, a large desk, a large sofa, some fitness equipment, a statue of Guan Yu, and a large aquarium embedded inside the wall.
Ji Xun didn’t look at anything else.
He lifted a hand and pointed directly at the aquarium, plain and simple: “Tear it open. The thing we’re looking for is inside.”
Astonishment flashed across the faces of Squad One like lightning.
They had too many questions they wanted to voice, but the scene became so quiet that a dropped needle could be heard. Everyone stood frozen like statues for a second or two. Subsequently, the two criminal police officers closest to the aquarium stood up, walking toward it with a hint of hesitation:
“Captain Yuan?”
“Get it out,” Yuan Yue said in a deep voice.
A large glass aquarium was already heavy, and with the water and fish added, it became heavier still. But when everyone laboriously pulled the aquarium out of the wall and a leather notebook lying at the very bottom came into view, the hot sweat all over their heads turned into cold sweat. Someone cried out:
“How… how did you manage that? You actually found it!”
Ji Xun, like everyone else, stared at the notebook lying quietly at the bottom of the aquarium.
He didn’t speak, but only refuted gently in his heart:
It wasn’t me who found it…
It was Meng Fushan.
It was Meng Fushan, who had been lurking by Chen Jiashu’s side all along, who placed the thing here.
Meng Fushan understood that as long as I came here and saw the aquarium, I would definitely know that the item was hidden inside.
Yuan Yue took a step forward, grabbing the leather notebook in his hand. He paused for a moment, then flipped it open.
The pristine inner pages of this book seemed to possess an extraordinary stickiness, drawing pairs of eyes toward them across the empty space. But while everyone looked at the records inside, Ji Xun’s gaze shifted back to the aquarium placed on the floor.
Inside the transparent glass, the fish knew nothing, swimming leisurely along with the still-sloshing water, carrying Ji Xun’s thoughts back to the past—back to that winter vacation when Meng Fushan came to stay at his house.
During the first few days Meng Fushan arrived at Ji Xun’s home, Ji Yu wasn’t there. At that time, Ji Yu was in her third year of middle school with a heavy academic load; right as winter vacation started, she went to participate in an off-campus closed remedial class, needing to stay there for a week.
It just so happened that right after she left, they arrived.
During this week of life, his parents accepted Meng Fushan very well and grew very fond of him. This was mainly because Meng Fushan was extremely diligent; although his parents repeatedly told Meng Fushan that a guest didn’t need to work, Meng Fushan still maintained his habits from the Public Security University. He got up early at six o’clock in the morning, sweeping, mopping, wiping windows, and folding his blanket into a neat tofu block. When his parents woke up, they faced a spotlessly clean home, making them naturally overjoyed.
By the third day of Meng Fushan’s stay, his parents adjusted his room, changing the 1.8-meter large bed into two 1.2-meter small beds—one for him, and one for Meng Fushan. In this natural manner, Meng Fushan grandly became a small part of his family.
In the blink of an eye, Meng Fushan had been at his house for a week, and Ji Yu also returned from the remedial class, meeting Meng Fushan.
Meng Fushan greeted Ji Yu with his inherent cold detachment. This kind of detachment was sometimes like a needle, capable of stinging people who appeared around him and didn’t understand him.
But Ji Yu wasn’t stung.
His younger sister was always like this… so happy, so easy to please.
She waved with a smile, saying crisply: “Hello, Brother Meng! I always hear my brother mention you, and now I finally get to meet you!”
After this meeting, although under the same roof, the interactions between Meng Fushan and Ji Yu were limited, mostly consisting of a sentence or two at the dinner table. Their relationship wasn’t deep, but Meng Fushan didn’t dislike Ji Yu. According to Ji Xun’s observations, Meng Fushan already quite liked Ji Yu back then—the fondness of an older brother toward a younger sister.
It was just that the fondness of a cold person is like water flowing beneath ice, not clearly visible.
The change in things occurred on a later day.
By then, the Lunar New Year had passed. In the first lunar month, his parents packed their bags, waved goodbye, and left them behind to return to their hometown.
Only he, Meng Fushan, and his sister were left in the house.
It should have been the fourth day of the New Year. His sister went out to play with her classmates; that day, she wore an ivory-white dress, plain and elegant in the front, but with a large bow at the waist in the back, fluttering along with her light steps.
He saw his beautifully dressed sister out the door, but when evening came and she returned, the white dress was stained with mud and dust, along with a footprint that hadn’t been completely brushed off.
Yet compared to her disheveled state, her eyes were shining brightly, her face carrying a mixture of satisfaction and excitement.
Ji Xun still remembered his reaction at the time.
When he saw his sister’s appearance, his brain went bzz, and he stood up to scold her: “You little brat, you’ve grown quite bold, daring to go out and fight!”
His sister was startled.
But she wasn’t afraid of him at all, immediately talking back with righteous indignation: “What do you know? You scold me without knowing anything!”
Ji Xun was furious: “What is there that I don’t know? Didn’t you stand up for your classmate and get into a fight with her younger brother?”
“How do you know?” His sister was shocked. “Brother, did you stalk me?”
“Does this kind of thing even require stalking to confirm?” Because of his anger, Ji Xun’s speaking speed quickened. “There’s an abrasion on the back of your hand. The band-aid stuck over it is a limited-edition collaboration piece bought for collection, usually not used. Now that it appears on your hand, it couldn’t have been bought randomly from an outside pharmacy after getting hurt; it could only have been purposely brought out from home—this proves you anticipated getting hurt today. There’s half a dusty footprint on your dress, and the footprint looks to belong to an underage male—the basic information of the person you had a dispute with is also there. Consider further that you went out to meet a classmate today; you probably didn’t lie about this because I heard the phone call you made before going out. Your classmate didn’t really want you to go over, saying they had to stay home today, but you insisted on going. A home, an underage male—it could only be an older or younger brother. Families that give birth to a boy and then a girl mostly dote on the daughter, while families that give birth to a girl and then a boy mostly show favoritism—in short, this kind of deduction is very simple.”
“Brother, I was wrong.” His sister lowered her head in shame, half admiring and half placating him. “I shouldn’t have used a low-class word like ‘stalking’ to describe my smart brother…”
“Then do you know your mistake?” Ji Xun kept a stern face.
“I’m not wrong.” His sister puffed up her cheeks.
“You’re not wrong for fighting?”
“This isn’t fighting; this is acting bravely for a just cause.”
“With your amateur skills, what cause are you acting for, what bravery are you showing?” Ji Xun questioned back. “Call the police if something happens!”
“You said I was very powerful when you taught me self-defense techniques before!” his sister pointed out. “Besides, the police don’t handle this kind of family conflict easily either!”
“I lied to you.” Ji Xun was cold and ruthless. “You are weak.”
These words caused his sister to instantly puff up like a pufferfish, but Ji Xun was also furious, leading the two siblings to make a scene directly in the house. They argued first, and when that wasn’t enough, Ji Xun grabbed the feather duster used for dusting the bookshelves to threaten her.
His sister wasn’t intimidated by his threat.
Slipping away as fast as her feet could carry her, she swiftly grabbed Meng Fushan nearby, shouting “Brother Meng save me,” and used Meng Fushan’s body as a shield, playing hide-and-seek by circling around him.
Meng Fushan was thus innocently dragged into it.
This farce finally ended with Ji Xun bypassing Meng Fushan’s barrier, hitting Ji Yu several times with the feather duster, and then having his weapon snatched away by Meng Fushan with a warning glare.
His sister cried out of anger, rushing back to her room and slamming the door with a thunderous bang.
Ji Xun felt he had given his sister a sufficiently deep lesson this time, enough to make her understand that professional matters should be left to professionals. Thus, fifteen minutes later, he knocked on her door carrying injury medication.
However, the girl inside was still angry, shouting loudly: “I hate my smelly brother the most!”
Ji Xun kicked Meng Fushan.
Meng Fushan: “…It’s me.”
The shouting voice died halfway. Ji Yu sniffed, sobbing: “Sorry, Brother Meng, I wasn’t yelling at you. I’ll open the door right away.”
Ji Xun stuffed all the medication into Meng Fushan’s hands and slipped away himself.
The corner of Meng Fushan’s mouth twitched. Holding the medication, he was let inside by Ji Yu as she opened the door.
Later, when Ji Xun came out to drink water, he glanced casually toward Ji Yu’s room. Through the half-open door, he saw Meng Fushan and Ji Yu sitting opposite each other by the window, talking.
Inside the girl’s room, the colors were fresh.
They sat on a beige long-pile carpet, behind which were curtains like spring buds.
Meng Fushan had a round fried-egg cushion propped behind his back. He was still cold, maintaining that unapproachable look, but his head was slightly lowered as he meticulously used a cotton swab dipped in red antiseptic to apply it to Ji Yu’s scraped wound. He actually even heard Meng Fushan ask:
“Does it hurt?”
Ji Yu wasn’t crying anymore, but she still felt wronged, her nose and eyes quite red. She tugged at Meng Fushan’s sleeve while speaking, her voice very soft. Ji Xun only saw his sister’s lips moving but couldn’t hear what was said.
I should learn lip-reading in the future, Ji Xun thought while drinking water. It should be quite useful.
Putting on the airs of an older brother, he didn’t linger too long. The last scene caught by his peripheral vision was Meng Fushan lifting his hand, touching his sister’s fluffy crown, and giving it a rub.
After this incident, there weren’t many days left of the winter vacation. When he and Meng Fushan were about to return to school, Meng Fushan brought back a fish.
A pearl-colored betta fish.
The betta fish was placed in a square aquarium, with a layer of fine sand spread at the bottom and a pothos leaf floating on the water surface.
The leaf was a tender green, looking as fresh as if it had just been plucked from a branch.
The betta fish in the small aquarium was very energetic, darting back and forth in the tiny space most of the time. But there were also times when it would swim to the surface and flop onto the leaf, resting lazily on top like an amphibian.
At these times, its long white tail drooped down, looking like an unopened flower.
The little pet was quite charming, but it didn’t seem to be Meng Fushan’s style. Ji Xun asked: “Where did it come from?”
“From a broad water pet shop.” Meng Fushan said nonchalantly. “Its tail was injured in a fight with its own kind, missing a crescent-shaped piece, but it’s still full of spirit, holding its head high and chest out, looking very energetic. It resembles…”
“Resembles?”
“Does Ji Yu like fish?” Meng Fushan turned to say instead. “We’re leaving soon, I’ll give her a gift.”
Ji Xun shifted his gaze back to the fish in the aquarium. Having rested enough, it leapt from the leaf back into the water. Its agile body parted the ripples, its gathered skirt-like fins completely unfurling like a bud bursting into bloom.
This flower spun gently, spinning Ji Xun right back into reality.
They had already brought the account book back to the police station from Chen Jiashu’s office.
