It was a good day.
The sun was not too hot, not too cold. The temperature was not too high, not too low. The wind was not too strong, not too light. A perfect day for doing anything.
So thought the man standing outside a large shopping mall, under a giant movie promotional billboard.
He was tall with long legs, approaching forty. His skin, long exposed to the sun, was tanned a swarthy black. The elbows and knees of his clothes were worn and faded. As he held them in his arms, it was obvious this was a man who did manual labor, of average means, and short on cash.
This man, unremarkable in every way, had thoughts as barren as his appearance. He thought in a jumbled, fragmented way:
Should I watch the movie first, or run the errand first?
This movie looks really good. If I run the errand first, I won’t have time to watch it.
Maybe I should watch the movie? It’s only two hours long.
But the thing in my hand is too heavy. Maybe I should just run the errand first.
He made his decision, but he still couldn’t bear to leave the movie behind. His gaze lingered on the promotional text on the billboard—”Comparable to Korea’s Memories of Murder, more thrilling, more sinful, a murderer’s confession”—for a long while before he reluctantly tore it away.
He picked up the canvas bag at his feet and walked towards the high-end residential complex not far from the billboard.
He first saw the security guard in the guardhouse. The guard’s smart and energetic appearance made him feel a twinge of envy.
I originally wanted to apply for a security guard position here, but unfortunately, I wasn’t selected.
I can only be a plumber, coming in to fix the pipes.
He signed his name and ID number in the logbook at the security office and walked inside with his bag. The elevators in the complex were strictly controlled and required a key card. He went through some trouble and finally managed to get to the target floor via the fire escape.
The thirty-third floor.
He took a deep breath, took off his jacket, and sat down in the stairwell like an exhausted dog, panting with his mouth open and tongue out for several minutes to cool down. Only then did he put his clothes back on, pick up his bag, and knock on the door of apartment 3303.
“Who is it?” a voice came from inside.
“Property management,” the man said calmly. He had a gentle, honest face. “Here to inspect the natural gas pipeline.”
The door opened. A bald homeowner in his early fifties stood behind it. The deep nasolabial folds on either side of his nose made his mouth protrude, giving him a caustic look. “Why wasn’t there any advance notice for a pipeline inspection? Take off your shoes before you come in. Don’t track your dirty shoes inside… What’s that smell? Where’s your work ID?”
“One moment, sir. I’ll show you my work ID,” the man said submissively, unzipping his bag and reaching inside.
When his hand came out, it held a sharp knife with a cold, piercing glint, aimed at the bald homeowner’s chest and abdomen.
The caustic expression on the bald homeowner’s face turned blank, and the blankness then condensed into large clumps of fear. His teeth chattered uncontrollably, clacking like a blind constantly buffeted by the wind.
“You, you…”
“Don’t be afraid, Boss Zhao,” the man said, his face still gentle. “I’m not a robber. Let me introduce myself. My name is Xin Yongchu, from Yi’an County. You should still remember Yi’an County. It was your lucky place. When you were working on a construction project in Yi’an County, you were just a small worker. After the project in Yi’an County ended, you suddenly had money to do business, became the owner of a food factory, driving a luxury car, living in a mansion…”
“This, this money, it’s my savings from many years,” Boss Zhao was streaming with tears and snot at some point. “It’s not what you think, it’s really not…”
“What do I think it is?” Xin Yongchu asked. His knife moved closer, and Boss Zhao could only retreat step by step. The door was kicked shut by Xin Yongchu’s foot. He forced Boss Zhao into a dining chair in the dining room and tied him up with a nylon rope.
Then he put the knife aside, opened the bag he was carrying, and took out a video camera and a tripod.
He set up the equipment in the room, adjusted it for a while, and after confirming that the camera was working properly, he turned back to Boss Zhao. “Now the camera can record everything. Boss Zhao, don’t be nervous. As long as you answer my questions properly, you will be fine. What I want to ask is… 22 years ago, in Yi’an County, did you use a hammer to smash the head of Tang Zhixue, Accountant Tang? Besides you, there was another person at the scene. Who was that?”
…
Half an hour passed.
Xin Yongchu had tried several methods, but he still couldn’t pry open Boss Zhao’s mouth.
Boss Zhao was slumped in the chair. His pant legs were wet, and there was a puddle of yellow liquid at his feet. He wasn’t clean either; his forehead was broken, and blood and sweat covered his face. He was like a slug, limply slumped in the chair, half-dead.
“It wasn’t me, I didn’t… The case of Accountant Tang was closed long ago. It was a transient criminal…”
Xin Yongchu was a little tired.
He walked over to the camera, adjusted the angle, and said to himself, “Actually, I don’t want to do this. I know that if Accountant Tang were still here, he wouldn’t want me to do this either. But anyway… what needs to be done has to be done, right?”
He took two steps back. The camera showed his trembling hand holding the knife.
He bowed to the camera, a full 90 degrees, for two minutes.
Then he turned, covered Boss Zhao’s mouth, and plunged the knife deep into his heart. Xin Yongchu saw Boss Zhao’s eyes bulge out in that instant, his face flushing red. The man struggled violently under his hand like a fish out of water, struggling as if to break the chair and snap the ropes. But this struggle was just a final flicker of life. In less than a minute, his precious life drained from his body. He stopped, motionless, his eyes gradually losing their light, turning a stiff, dead white…
He was dead.
The job was done. Xin Yongchu started packing up his things and checked the time.
“Huh?” he mumbled. “Seems like there’s still time to watch the movie?”
After Ji Xun finished explaining the whole story of the case, the coffee in front of Xia Youqing remained untouched.
She had been like this when Ji Xun arrived, sitting here alone for who knows how long, stirring a cup of black coffee that had no trace of heat, like bitter medicine.
During the narration of the case, Xia Youqing remained quiet. Her expression was once blank, her face like a white porcelain mask—beautiful, exquisite, empty, and lifeless. Until he said that sentence.
—”Lei Lei was very happy. She felt she had saved a pregnant woman, saved an unborn child.”
This sentence was like a stream from the fountain of life, pouring into Xia Youqing’s body.
The woman, who had been silent and still, suddenly turned her face away and stared fixedly out the window. Ji Xun followed her gaze and saw a light box advertisement for a mother and baby store hanging in front of an elevator. On it was a cute, smiling baby wearing a bear costume.
The sunlight shone on her face, illuminating her cheeks. Her eyelashes fluttered, and a teardrop rolled out. It pulled the white porcelain mask on her face down with it. It fell to the ground and shattered into pieces.
“It’s over,” Xia Youqing finally said.
Ji Xun thought so too. This was the first case he had participated in in three years. It was overly long and had too many branches. Even though he had slept soundly all day yesterday, it felt as if he hadn’t slept at all. In his dream, Huo Ranyin was still pulling his hand to his chest, telling him to guess again.
His thoughts, which had been sluggish for three years, were unusually active amidst his exhaustion. Tang Jinglong’s social connections wove a spiderweb in his mind, with Meng Fushan at the center, laughing at him for caring so much about some random drug addict on the street.
It wasn’t until Xia Youqing said those words that he finally felt a sense of release from the case.
No matter what, it was over.
Perhaps the result was not entirely satisfactory, but this was the truth, the precious truth.
Afterward, Ji Xun accompanied Xia Youqing upstairs to browse for baby products in a mother and baby store. This was the first time Xia Youqing had set foot in such a place, the first time she had seriously considered what she would need after giving birth to the child.
People are fragile, but also strong. As long as you have felt hope once in your life, hope will plant a seed in your heart and be passed on like a torch.
Just as the women passed it to Xi Lei, just as Xi Lei passed it to Xia Youqing, and just as Xia Youqing would pass it to her own child.
The mother and baby store in the mall was quite large. A walk through it, and half an hour was gone.
Xia Youqing had already returned with a full load. As for Ji Xun, he was standing at the entrance of the shop, struggling over two different flavors of toddler biscuits in red and blue packaging.
This mother and baby store was conveniently sandwiched between two mobile phone shops. His phone was lost, so he had to buy a new one. It was great that there was a phone shop right in front of him. The bad thing was, there was more than one, forcing him to choose between two different shops with the same function.
This was a huge problem for someone with choice paralysis.
He decided to use the red and blue toddler biscuits to help him decide. If he went to the left to buy a phone, he would buy the red carrot-flavored biscuits; if he went to the right, he would buy the blue blueberry-flavored biscuits.
His finger hovered back and forth between the two packets of biscuits, until—
“Ji Xun?”
Yuan Yue’s voice came from behind. He turned around and saw Yuan Yue just stepping out of the mall’s scenic elevator.
“…”
Without hesitation, he turned and walked away. He hadn’t taken two steps before he saw Huo Ranyin on the escalator.
They were trapped, front and back.
Ji Xun was in a dilemma.
“What are you guys doing here?” Ji Xun spoke first to seize the initiative.
“The case is solved, so the department is giving out movie tickets as a bonus. The cinema is here. But what are you doing here?” Yuan Yue asked, surprised.
“Um… my phone is lost, so I came out to buy a new one. You’re just in time. Help me decide, left or right, which store should I go to?” Ji Xun said to Yuan Yue, while sneaking a glance at Huo Ranyin.
Huo Ranyin looked at the mother and baby store, then at him, and then, at his leisure, raised an eyebrow.
This guy, don’t tell me he’s guessed it.
Ji Xun sidled through a gap to Huo Ranyin’s side and said in a low voice, “The movie is about to start, your subordinates have all gone in. What is Captain Huo dawdling here for? Why don’t you hurry up and go watch the movie?”
“No rush,” Huo Ranyin also said in a low voice. “The drama outside is more exciting than the one inside. You walk a tightrope quite beautifully, and your luck is also very good.”
“…”
Huo Ranyin had figured everything out. But Yuan Yue, on the other hand, hadn’t noticed anything and readily agreed to Ji Xun’s request. “That’s simple. The movie is about to start. Come watch it with us, and we’ll decide after it’s over.”
This guy, there’s a reason he still hasn’t won the beauty’s heart.
“Not watching, what’s so good about it?” Ji Xun refused flatly. “It’s just a third-rate script with a big gimmick. A waste of time, not worth watching. I don’t even need to go into the cinema to guess the general plot—”
It was a popular movie.
As showtime approached, more and more viewers arrived, waiting to enter. Amidst the jumble of various smells, a scent of blood suddenly hit Ji Xun’s nose.
His voice slowed down. Following the scent, he looked and saw, in the flowing crowd, a fleeting large black carry-all bag.
