This was a bright, clean, and spotless house.
The lady of the house was busy as usual, washing clothes, tidying dishes, making beds, wiping floors and furniture… After her house chores were done, she finally opened the door to a bedroom with a small rabbit nameplate.
Inside was her daughter.
Her daughter, who had been hearing-impaired since birth and was now just five years old.
The bedroom was as neat and clean as the rest of the house.
Even the windows, which were the easiest to collect dust, looked brand new, as if they had just been wiped clean.
The five-year-old girl was lying on the floor, absorbed in looking at a picture book, completely unaware of her mother’s entry.
Of course, she couldn’t hear any sound.
The mother walked up to her, came into her daughter’s line of sight, and then knelt down to embrace her.
The daughter let her hug her obediently. She could never approach her daughter from behind; that would startle the unprepared child, causing her to struggle violently and hurt herself.
She held her daughter.
The child still carried the sweet scent of milk. The daughter initially continued to look intently at the picture book, but soon, as if two hearts gently collided across their chests, the daughter raised her hands. Her small hands wrapped around the mother’s thin waist.
Over her daughter’s shoulder, she looked at the large mirror embedded in the bookcase.
The mirror reflected a woman with sallow cheeks, thinning hair, and a wizened figure.
It reflected her—Wei Zhenzhu—a woman whose very name sounded old-fashioned.
She hugged her daughter tighter. The child couldn’t turn her head to see her tear-filled eyes; the child couldn’t hear with her ears, nor could she hear her murmur to the mirror:
“Changchang, your father has a new person he likes. I saw that woman… that woman… she’s so beautiful.”
“I saw the car she drives… the clothes she wears… I saw her lightly tapping your father’s face with her wallet.”
She was arrogant, yet voluptuous, and contemptuous.
She was different from all the married women she knew.
Isn’t marriage just like this? All the dreams of girlhood shatter on the wedding day. A woman enters the world of firewood, rice, oil, salt, and domestic chores. Once the child is born, she becomes a mother, and she no longer needs… s*x.
The word felt like a branding iron, making her shiver and tremble. Not only was she too ashamed to say it, but even thinking about it felt like committing a sin of unchastity.
She, and everyone she knew, was like this.
After the child was born, couples invariably slept in separate rooms, with almost no further contact.
But that person, that person was different.
The way that woman moved carried intense sexual suggestion. She was like a seductive, twisting snake, revolving around her husband. And her husband, whom she thought she knew so well, her husband who was always cold-faced when confronted with such matters, suddenly changed his expression and broke into a smile—a fawning, docile smile.
In that instant, she suddenly understood.
A woman might not need se-x, but a man cannot go without it.
A man not needing se-x was only because the woman he was with no longer held any attraction for him. Lying beside him, she was merely like a corpse, a dead piece of flesh, a repulsive mass reeking of decay.
Her phone suddenly lit up.
A message from her husband.
The husband said: “Have a business engagement. Won’t be home for dinner tonight.”
Her gaze lingered on the phone screen, then moved away. She knew where her husband was going. Her husband was going to “her” place.
She had secretly followed him. She knew “her” name, and she knew “her” residence.
“Her name is Gao Shuang…”
“Even her name is so beautiful…”
The woman in the mirror muttered to herself, her thoughts confused. Her face showed no jealousy, no anger, only an increasingly deep envy.
Perhaps only a woman like that deserved to be loved.
Mo Nai had fled to another city, and Ji Xun and Huo Ranyin were officially off the hook.
They didn’t waste any more time, simply turning back to head home, and then parting ways.
Ji Xun went home to sleep. This time, perhaps because his fatigue had crossed a threshold, he slept soundly, only waking up on the fourth day of the Lunar New Year.
He stared blankly at the ceiling for a while, let out a long yawn, and looked around, searching for Huo Ranyin’s presence—as if the man would suddenly pop out of a corner of his apartment.
Of course, Huo Ranyin didn’t pop out.
The man was probably in his own bedroom, sleeping soundly.
It’s terrifying that I’ve gotten so used to Huo Ranyin forcing meetings on me that I feel strange not seeing him now. Ji Xun muttered to himself, pulled out his phone, and scrolled through his WeChat Moments.
Huo Ranyin’s Moments page was desolate, without any activity. Since adding him on WeChat, Ji Xun’s own Moments had received replies from Huo Ranyin, but he had never seen Huo Ranyin actively post a single update. In this respect, the other man was exactly like Yuan Yue.
But today, the sun came out from the west. Yuan Yue had actually posted to Moments. It was posted late last night. Although it was just the system’s default shocked Minion emoji, it still shocked Ji Xun.
He sent a message to Yuan Yue: “Why the sudden Moment post?”
At nine in the morning, Yuan Yue replied instantly. No matter what time he went to bed the night before, his biological alarm always woke him up at six in the morning, without fail: “Ji Xun… I don’t know if it’s just my imagination… but I think I saw Qingqing… I really think I saw her!”
Oh, it’s already the third day of the New Year, and you’re just noticing? You’re slow enough. It’s not just a matter of being too involved to see clearly. I don’t know how we managed to work together so seamlessly in the past. Ji Xun mused heartlessly while looking at the chat box.
“How did you see her?”
“Last night before bed, I felt someone lingering outside my door. I wasn’t too bothered at first, but the door cracked open a bit, and I thought I saw Qingqing. Then I chased after her…” Yuan Yue’s message stopped there.
Ji Xun didn’t need him to continue. He had already guessed what Xia Youqing had done.
Clearly, Xia Youqing was going to great lengths to avoid being caught by Yuan Yue.
She specifically chose the time when late-night visitors are gone to peek… Xia Youqing probably hadn’t gone far; a heavily pregnant woman couldn’t go far. She was likely hiding in the adjacent hospital room. But a person like Yuan Yue would never knock on someone else’s door in the middle of the night to bother them.
Hmm, it’s quite possible that Xia Youqing is staying in the room next door. Given her personality, asking the doctor to arrange a bed is very likely.
The closest distance between them might just be a single wall.
“Why don’t you install a camera, or check the surveillance footage?” Ji Xun suddenly had a lapse of good Samaritanism, trying to help.
“…That wouldn’t be allowed, would it?”
“Oh, then keep dreaming. You can have anything in a dream,” Ji Xun rolled his eyes.
“…”
The conversation was basically over. Ji Xun tossed his phone aside, got up to wash and dress, preparing to go out for breakfast.
It was the fourth day of the New Year. The city was returning to its normal state. The residential complex had become lively. Children ran about, waving sparklers. Aunts and grandmothers who rose early for grocery shopping were already returning home with bags of vegetables.
Even at the main gate of the complex, someone was distributing flyers, soliciting business, and trying to stop Ji Xun:
“Free trial at the gym! Free trial at the gym!—Sir, come take a look? We open tomorrow.”
Ji Xun walked past expressionlessly.
The person handing out flyers was about to look for the next target, but then watched the man who had walked past suddenly back up.
The flyer person: “…”
Ji Xun: “Give me one.”
The flyer person: “Hey!”
Ji Xun: “Opening tomorrow?”
The flyer person cleverly responded: “The activity room opens tomorrow; coaches return after the Lantern Festival. We’re currently having a grand opening promotion: recharge 1,000 to get 2,000. 2,000 gets you a one-year membership. We also have the 8,888 Supreme VIP private coaching service! The location is just two streets away, a five-minute walk!”
Ji Xun pulled out his phone.
Scanning the QR code, paying, spending 8,888—all in one smooth motion.
He glanced at his phone again, specifically at Huo Ranyin’s profile picture, and thought to himself:
All talk and no action is useless. Only by spending money can the goal of exercising be truly implemented.
Throughout the day on the fourth, neither man sent a single message to the other.
As night fell and the city lights came on, Ji Xun sat at his computer desk, quite pleased with the fifteen thousand words he had churned out that day. However, reaching that word count had exhausted his inspiration. He had been staring blankly at the computer for fifteen minutes, unable to write another word.
His attention began to wander. Some thoughts drifted to the drum kit in the study—he hadn’t played the drums in days. Others drifted to his phone. He had been staring at the dark screen for a long time, still waiting for a message from Huo Ranyin.
…Forget it. If he hasn’t messaged, he hasn’t.
Anyway, besides the case, they have nothing to talk about… Wait, no.
Shouldn’t Huo Ranyin be discussing why Mo Nai randomly sent a package to his relative?
Ji Xun pondered. The fact that the other man hadn’t messaged all day suggested zero interest in the case. Well, it wasn’t his jurisdiction anymore.
All in all, they still had no case.
Tsk…
Ji Xun picked up his phone, slid the screen open, and sent a message to Huo Ranyin. If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain: “Do you have plans tomorrow? I’m free. How about exercising together? Mountain climbing or the gym, either is fine. I’m a distinguished member with a one-year VIP service.”
Huo Ranyin appeared quickly. Even across the screen, a sense of arrow-like sharpness pierced Ji Xun without mercy: “Ji Xun, are you experiencing writer’s block and trying to escape writing, which is why you’re asking me out?”
Although the other man couldn’t see him, Ji Xun subconsciously coughed, guiltily glancing at the document where the cursor was still blinking.
“No way,” he replied to Huo Ranyin. “I messaged you not because I have writer’s block. It’s because I wanted to talk to you. You haven’t sent me a single message all day.”
To gain the upper hand in a conversation, one must master the skill of skillfully blaming the other person.
Ji Xun was well-versed in this technique.
“No case,” Huo Ranyin replied.
“Do we have nothing else to talk about besides a case?” Ji Xun immediately countered. “Didn’t we agree to get to know each other deeply?”
“…”
Huo Ranyin replied with an ellipsis. In a place Ji Xun couldn’t see, in Huo Ranyin’s home, the man sitting on the balcony raised a hand and pressed his forehead, suppressing a flash of annoyance at himself.
Spending the whole day watching my phone and hoping for a case to appear… seems a bit silly.
“Climbing,” he replied with the two words.
On the screen, Ji Xun’s profile picture cheerfully jumped out with a line of text.
“See you tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll pick you up,” Huo Ranyin replied.
They did meet the next morning on the fifth.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t on the way to climb a mountain, but on the way to a crime scene.
A murder occurred in Huaiyi Residential Complex in Ning City. The victims were a couple, the husband named Zhuo Cangying, and the wife named Gao Shuang. Both were suspected dead. Mo Nai’s fingerprints were detected at the murder scene.
