The preliminary on-site investigation was over. The body was to be transported back to the police station, and some physical evidence was gradually being brought out of the house.
Among the evidence was a bird, alive, in a cage. It was a Java sparrow, pure white with just a touch of red on its beak.
The delicate cry Ji Xun had heard when he saw the body was from this bird. As the police carried it out of the house, Ji Xun noticed that the birdcage was filled with an excessive amount of food and water, which spilled as the police moved.
This was clearly not the style of the neat and meticulous deceased woman.
This birdcage had been tampered with by the killer.
The killer had killed a person, spared a bird, and even added enough food and water to ensure its survival.
Cruelty and compassion were once again starkly contrasted, only this time the contrast was exceptionally ironic.
He went downstairs to find Xia Youqing.
Downstairs, people were discussing Xi Lei’s matter. Amidst the rustling whispers, besides shock, there was also regret. They seemed to know the dead woman very well; everyone was talking about her politeness, kindness, and helpfulness.
A very gentle woman had been murdered.
The crowd had already begun to curse the killer.
Ji Xun saw Xia Youqing. She hadn’t left and was with the other residents of the community, watching the body being carried into the car.
The sky was bright, the sun was big, and it was also cold.
She held her belly, standing stiff and numb. The little bit of spirit she had when they first met in the morning had disappeared, as if an invisible opening had appeared in her body, and the vitality that sustained her was gradually slipping away through this opening like grains of sand.
Ji Xun’s expression changed slightly. He pushed through the crowd and walked quickly towards Xia Youqing.
A series of complaints came from the surroundings. Ji Xun apologized repeatedly but did not slow his pace. When he finally reached Xia Youqing’s side, the pregnant woman lost her last bit of strength and slowly collapsed.
A period of chaos followed.
Calling an ambulance, arranging for an examination, handling the admission.
Xia Youqing woke up once in the middle of it all. Ji Xun tried calling her name twice, but the woman appeared sluggish and numb. She just stared blankly ahead for a while before slowly closing her eyes again.
The female doctor accompanying them was very unhappy. “Why is the pregnant woman’s mental state so poor? Don’t think that maintaining nutrition during pregnancy is enough. A pregnant woman’s prolonged depression will affect the fetus’s development. In severe cases, it may damage the fetus’s health and intelligence! What problem can’t be solved properly that you have to have a conflict during pregnancy?”
Then she changed her tone and said reluctantly, “We have a promotional policy here. When the wife has a prenatal check-up, the husband can also have a free physical examination. No charge, purely free! If you need it, go to the information desk to inquire.”
Ji Xun felt that in the eyes of others, he had gone from being a “scumbag” to a “peerless super scumbag.” He was once on the verge of taking out his phone to call Yuan Yue, but in the end, he gave up.
He sat on the hospital’s companion chair, put on his headphones, listened to music, and played games, waiting for Xia Youqing to wake up again.
The sky gradually darkened. When the light in the room went from bright to dim, Xia Youqing, lying on the hospital bed, opened her eyes blankly. Ji Xun put away his phone to avoid the cold white light of the screen from irritating Xia Youqing’s eyes.
“You’re awake? You fainted in the community, and I took you to Sunshine Hospital—I saw a tissue with the hospital’s logo in your bag and guessed this is the hospital you usually come to.”
“Lei…” Xia Youqing’s lips moved, her voice as faint as a wisp of wind. “Xi Lei…”
“Huo Ranyin is investigating. The person you met at my house today is named Huo Ranyin. He’s the new captain of the Second Criminal Investigation Unit, just appointed these past two days, and is now in charge of this case. He’s not an easy person to deal with.”
Ji Xun paused here for a moment.
“In the field of criminal investigation, the harder a person is to deal with, the stronger their professional ability usually is. You don’t need to worry too much for now. Perhaps the case will be solved before you’re even discharged from the hospital.”
The woman’s unfocused pupils focused on Ji Xun’s face.
“Ji Xun…”
“Have a glass of water,” Ji Xun said, helping Xia Youqing sit up and handing her a glass of water.
Xia Youqing took the water and took a sip. Some color returned to her dry lips.
“…I’m sorry.”
This apology surprised Ji Xun.
Xia Youqing’s face still held a trace of dazed fatigue. “I was a little too hasty during the day. I know you and Yuan Yue just have a good relationship. What I said… was just to provoke you. I don’t know who else to turn to now. Maybe it would have been better to just call the police, but Lei Lei was my last friend. I thought… Ji Xun, I think you are more trustworthy.”
Ji Xun had originally wanted to mention Yuan Yue, but now he couldn’t bring himself to say it.
He knew clearly about Yuan Yue and Xia Youqing’s affairs, while others only had a vague idea.
It was probably around April last year. Yuan Yue was on a mission when an AIDS-infected suspect bit a piece of flesh from his neck. He then fell from a high platform during the struggle and broke his leg. At that time, Yuan Yue and Xia Youqing were on good terms, and precisely because of that, he didn’t dare to let Xia Youqing know about these things. So Yuan Yue called him, and he went to take care of Yuan Yue, while also helping him hide it from his family and Xia Youqing.
Later, Xia Youqing found out anyway, and it became him and Xia Youqing taking care of Yuan Yue together.
This incident had clearly frightened Xia Youqing. While taking care of Yuan Yue, Xia Youqing had always hoped that Yuan Yue could step down from the front line and take on a more stable job on the second line.
Come to think of it… the reason Xia Youqing had made this request was originally from the bureau’s leadership.
When Yuan Yue was recovering from his injuries, the bureau’s leadership came to visit. While showing concern for Yuan Yue’s leg injury, they also made similar, vague suggestions.
He knew Yuan Yue. As long as he had a breath left in him, Yuan Yue would not want to leave the front line. This man naturally had a chivalrous heart. If he wasn’t reviewing cases and case files, searching for clues to solve cases every day, he would feel uncomfortable all over.
During that time, Yuan Yue was in great pain, from Xia Youqing, from the bureau’s considerations, and from himself.
He didn’t know if he had also been infected with AIDS.
No one knew.
He couldn’t refuse his girlfriend who had stuck by him at this time.
He promised Xia Youqing that he would move to the second line.
Later, the test results came back. Fortunately, Yuan Yue was not infected with AIDS. At the same time, the leg he had broken in the fight had also recovered well, without any lasting problems.
After receiving the two test results, Xia Youqing was exceptionally happy. Yuan Yue was also happy, but his happiness was always tinged with a bit of melancholy.
A few days later, Yuan Yue dragged him out for a night of drinking in silence.
Later, the news from the bureau also came down. Yuan Yue would remain on the front line and would also be commended for his merits.
You can’t wrap fire in paper. Xia Youqing soon found out that Yuan Yue had proactively submitted a report strongly requesting to stay on the front line.
She smashed everything in Yuan Yue’s house, slammed the door, and disappeared.
As Yuan Yue’s brother, Ji Xun had always known Yuan Yue’s heart and couldn’t blame him for anything. It was a natural thing for him—even if Yuan Yue had hesitated and softened in the middle, in the end, he would only make one choice.
But for Xia Youqing, Yuan Yue had indeed cheated her, no ifs, ands, or buts.
When she was four years old, her parents divorced. Both promised to love her and take care of her, but in just one year, they both formed new families and had new children. Neither of them wanted her anymore.
She started boarding at school in elementary school and worked odd jobs during winter and summer vacations in middle school. Sometimes it was fine if the boss didn’t pay her, as long as they could give her a place to live. She grew up like a weed until now.
She hated everyone who lied to her.
“Youqing, if you don’t want to be with Yuan Yue anymore, why,” Ji Xun asked carefully, “didn’t you have an abortion?”
“The pregnancy is not going well. If I have an abortion, I might not be able to have children for the rest of my life,” Xia Youqing said concisely.
Ji Xun had nothing more to say.
Xia Youqing looked at him again. Her eyes, which should have been bright, were now bloodshot and filled with bewilderment.
Her black hair snaked on the bed, covering her body. She was as thin as a piece of paper.
“Ji Xun, you will help me, right?” she murmured softly. “I’ve been thinking and thinking, I’ve been thinking about who else I can ask for help. Maybe it would be better to just call the police… Ji Xun, I finally thought of you. It’s so strange, I thought of you. We haven’t even talked much. I really shouldn’t have come to trouble you. But it seems… I can’t find anyone else anymore.”
Outside the window was a moon, round, with a colored halo around it.
Perhaps it was because of the moon’s halo that his eyes were also blurred. Xia Youqing’s face blurred, becoming another face that was more familiar, younger. That delicate face was like a flower to him.
That familiar face was also looking at him, bewildered and helpless.
She stood alone, with nothing left, her face full of sorrow, crying and pleading with him.
A gust of wind blew in from the window.
Whoosh—
The flower withered, flying away like sand.
Xia Youqing’s pale face reappeared.
The hesitation in his heart turned into a tremor. Ji Xun took a deep breath and pressed his temple. “Tell me about your friend.”
Xia Youqing’s eyes lit up, and spirit was injected into her shell.
“Xi Lei—” she said two words. They hadn’t known each other for long, only two or three months, but there was a lot she wanted to say. What she wanted to say the most was the time when she and Xi Lei had just met.
She licked her chapped lips.
“Ji Xun, do you know why I chose this hospital? Because I met Xi Lei here…”
That day, she was in the obstetrics and gynecology department of the hospital. The doctor sitting opposite her had a blurry face. She had already forgotten what he looked like, but every word he said was unusually clear:
“It’s over 14 weeks. You can only have an abortion. Why didn’t you come earlier?”
“You’re already 30. It’s the age to get married. Discuss it with your boyfriend and keep it.”
She came out of the hospital in a daze and came to the side of the road.
The coming and going vehicles converged into a mottled torrent. She stood outside the torrent, gradually feeling a numbness creeping into her heart.
She had long since cut off contact with her parents. She had resigned from her company because of Yuan Yue’s matter.
She had also fallen out with Yuan Yue.
Now, even if she wanted to abort a fetus, she was powerless.
What else can I do?
She asked herself, and towards the direction of the torrent, she took a light step. Her raised foot had not yet landed when a strong force grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
She stumbled back. The fog cleared, and a woman shorter and thinner than her grabbed her arm.
The other person was so petite, but her strength was unusually great. Her arm felt as if it were clamped in an iron ring, unable to move.
That woman had very long hair, tied up in a high, neat ponytail. Her skin was dark and yellow, her lips were full, but her eyes were small. She was not beautiful, but she gave a very good impression. Perhaps it was the blush on her face, or the sparkle in her small eyes, that gave an impression of vitality.
Her bewildered eyes looked into those sparkling, bright eyes.
“Be careful,” the person said. “You look a little tired. What’s your name? My name is Xi Lei.”
Xi Lei!
Ji Xun had finished listening. He asked again, “Does Xi Lei usually post on her Moments? Is there any information about her boyfriend on it?”
Xia Youqing looked at him, bewildered. “You suspect Zeng Peng?”
Ji Xun was noncommittal. “The situation at the scene looks like a crime committed by an acquaintance. He’s a major suspect.”
“She does post, but not much. Mostly about work,” Xia Youqing said, opening her phone and handing it to Ji Xun.
Ji Xun took it. The situation was as Xia Youqing had said. Xi Lei mostly posted about work, and she posted with a certain regularity: she would post a celebratory message when a pregnant woman gave birth smoothly, and another one after the baby’s full moon. This one would have a photo, sometimes of the mother holding the baby, sometimes of the baby alone.
The total number of these children was about seventeen or eighteen, but there were both boys and girls, which did not match the dolls in Xi Lei’s house, which were all girls. The two should be unrelated.
Thinking this, Ji Xun scrolled through and found Xi Lei and her boyfriend among these messages, as well as a repost of a recruitment notice for the Dolphin Bar, from half a month ago.
The Dolphin Bar, and the Raccoon Bar where he played drums, were less than two hundred meters apart in a straight line.
“One more question,” Ji Xun asked before leaving. “What’s with the dolls in Xi Lei’s house?”
“I’m not too clear about that,” Xia Youqing shook her head hesitantly. “I was also scared when I first saw them. I asked Lei Lei later, but she just smiled. She didn’t do anything strange usually, just treasured them and would take them down to wipe them from time to time…”
“Dolls without eyes should be custom-made. Do you know where she ordered these dolls?”
“She mentioned it to me once. Let me think…” Xia Youqing racked her brains. “I think it was a carpenter called Master Lu?”
The bar street in Ning City was always the last place in the city where the lights went out.
It was a place of dazzling lights and bustling crowds. Even in the dead of winter, it presented a scene of spring warmth and rich wine.
When Ji Xun arrived at the Dolphin Bar, he happened to see two police officers in uniform talking to the bar manager.
Ji Xun did not go up to join in the excitement. He took a small detour and came to the back door of the bar. He often frequented this area and knew all the terrain, and he also knew where the back door of the Dolphin Bar was.
At the back door of the bar was a small alley for dumping trash. As bright as the front was, this place was dark and obscure. Stray cats and dogs, from who knows where, occupied the trash cans, their yellow-green eyes piercing him. They were less like living creatures and more like biological surveillance cameras, monitoring everything without a sound.
Ji Xun passed by these, counting one, two, three in his mind.
There were police at the front door. If Zeng Peng was at the Dolphin Bar, if he had a guilty conscience, then…
With a “clang,” the back door of the Dolphin Bar opened, and a man wearing a baseball cap, slightly overweight, not short, and visually quite substantial, walked out.
This man was quite tall, but he was hunched over, his head lowered and his shoulders hunched. He walked with a slight stagger, a tragic figure bent by the cruel society. He came face to face with Ji Xun.
The alley was deep, with only the distant lights and the sparse moonlight in the sky.
The darkness was a good camouflage, creating a safe distance between people.
Just as the two were about to pass each other, as luck would have it, a passing car shone two high beams, illuminating both of them at the same time.
Ji Xun looked at the lowered baseball cap and said out of the blue, “Zeng Peng?”
The man’s body trembled. He didn’t turn his head. He was carrying a large black plastic bag in both hands and heading towards the trash can in front.
Ji Xun said again, “Xi Lei.”
The car lights moved away, and darkness closed in again.
As light and dark completed their exchange, the man in the baseball cap put down the trash bag in his hand. As he bent down, his clothes lifted, revealing his waist.
In the darkness, a cold light flashed. It was the tip of a knife!
The cold tip of the knife brought with it a scorching heat. The heat did not come from outside the body, but from within.
The rising temperature ignited Ji Xun’s blood, and the boiling blood was cooking his bones. In that instant, he could feel his own breath, and even his breath was filled with the taste of rust.
