Chapter 7: Suspicion

We meet again, Mr. Chi.

A pretty. Gege. With gloves on.

Xie Lin’s eyebrows raised slightly.

In an instant, he remembered how a certain someone looked when he pushed open the door to the psychology consultation room.

Maybe it was because he had a slight figure, but his body still unconsciously let off the energy of a teenager. He was indeed pretty, bearing an exquisite countenance. The look in his eyes was deeply melancholy, the inky black colliding with the color of his lips, and black gloves encased his slender fingers as he sat across from him.

“Was he about this tall?” Xie Lin lifted a hand and gestured around his own forehead. As he spoke, he didn’t sound like he was questioning a suspect, instead sounding as though he was searching for a lover who had been missing for many years, “He is indeed very pretty. His skin’s very pale, wears black gloves, doesn’t really like to speak, and also doesn’t really like being touched.”

The young boy nodded.

Xie Lin, “His hair’s kinda long, roughly to about here, covering his eyes. His whole body is pale from top to bottom, except for his lips which look like they have lipstick on them.”

Xie Lin went into too much detail: from this description, the young boy seemed to be seeing that pretty gege who’d come to buy a knife for a second time.

The young boy nodded his head exactly like the sticker ‘nodding like pounding garlic,’ “That gege looked kinda scary. I went to help him bag his stuff, but he wouldn’t let me.”

(t/n: you can see the sticker at the bottom of this chapter (I couldn't add a gif here haha))

Xie Lin rather agreed, “His temperment’s not the best.”

The young boy, “You’re looking for him? Do you guys know each other?”

Xie Lin left the snacks he’d paid for on the counter, only taking that serrated knife. Without a thread of awareness that some things aren’t suitable for children, he muttered to himself, “You could say we know each other, I’ve groped his hand before.”

The young boy, “?”

“The snacks are for you, keep doing your homework, okay kiddo?” Xie Lin didn’t say much more. Before he left, he lifted a hand and gave the boy a pat on the head, “Study hard.”

Xie Lin pushed open the door and left. It was already completely dark outside and the air felt a bit heavy, seemling like it was going to rain again.

At the same time, Ji Mingrui was still holding the serrated knife Chi Qing had been using to slice bread, turning it back and forth in his hand and inspecting it carefully. He recalled the corpses they’re discovered at the crime scene today, attempting to use Chi Qing’s bread to stand in for a corpse, imagining a recreation of the scene, “The murder’s weapon was a serratted knife just like this one. He must’ve come from here, like this, cutting open the cat’s throat with the swift motion of his knife—”

Chi Qing, “......”

Ji Mingrui lifted his head, asking Chi Qing rhetorically, “Right, it must’ve been like that for sure. What do you think?”

Chi Qing was heating up milk in the microwave, waiting on the microwave’s countdown, “I think it’s probably a good idea for me to exchange you for a friend whose intelligence is more robust.”

Ji Mingrui was immersed in the case, and a good few seconds passed before he responded.

When he finally responded, Chi Qing had already taken the milk and was returned to the living room to continue watching that inexplicable romance-type TV program.

The next few days, Ji Mingrui jumped head-first into neverending work, so busy he didn’t even have spare time to check his phone. Wang-a’po insisted upon sitting in the office of the police station every day calling for Nannan, “For every day the murder isn’t caught, I’ll wait here one day without leaving. Oh, my poor Nannan—”

Other than continuing to search for the murderer, there were also all kinds of calls to the police that had to be dealt with.

“Hello? Is this 110? I want to break up with my girlfriend, but she’s threatening me with suicide. What do I do?”

(t/n: 110 is the emergency line for police in China)

“......” Ji Mingrui felt like his head was going to split in two, “That girl’s fine, just wanted to threaten her man, that’s all. On the way back I stopped at Haimao for a bit. The surveillance footage has all been watched, but it didn’t catch anything. I also went to the convenience store to ask some questions. So many people live in that xiaoqu, and yet there’s still not enough information or evidence. There’s absolutely no way of locking on to the perpetrator. And it rained again too……”

The fact that it had rained was an extremely unfavorable factor.

In the past when Ji Mingrui thought about becoming a detective, everything he imagined was of a mighty and all-powerful awe-inspiring authority. This was his first time getting a glimpse of the cruelty of this profession; a murder case was clearly happening before his eyes, but he was helpless to do anything about it.

He and Su Xiaolan had worked together to bury the corpses of the stray cats nobody had a claim to in the woods of the xiaoqu. They chose a spot where as long as there was sun, sunlight would shine on the grass.

They had no clues, no way to lock onto the suspect, nothing at all, but the vivid lives that had left this world one after the other……The cat corpses were just a microcosm; there were likely even more horribly cruel cases that to this day were just like the silently rotting corpses of the cats buried in the depths of the woods. Unable to wait for the dawn to come, unable to wait for the truth to be uncovered.

These past few days, Su Xiaolan had clearly been more quiet and withdrawn.

Their little group of three newcomers was responsible for the Cat Killing Case, but only Jiang Yu was sifting through the crime scene photos as he ate instant noodles. His fingers were drawing slowly over the tabletop, though it was unclear what exactly he was drawing.

As Ji Mingrui passed behind him, he used a file folder to give him a slap, “What’re you drawing, I've been seeing you drawing for so long.”

Jiang Yu sucked the rest of the noodles into his mouth, “I’m looking at the cuts.”

Ji Mingrui couldn’t understand, “Have you not looked enough over the past few days? Did you find anything?”

Jiang Yu shook his head honestly, “No.”

After he shook his head, he spoke again, “I just think it’s strange. That day, when my idol carefully examined every cat corpse, his finger was drawing along the cuts like this……,” as he spoke, he demonstrated for Ji Mingrui, “Just like this.”

Jiang Yu used the tip of his finger to follow the path of the cuts, just like Xie Lin had done that day.

Ji Mingrui and them had probably overlooked these types of small details, but Jiang Yu carried an excessive interest in his idol, keenly detecting these types of tiny actions.

Jiang Yu scratched the back of his head, “It seemed like he cared a lot about these cuts……What was he looking at?”

Ji Mingrui followed him in contemplation, then finally said frankly, “I dunno what goes on in geniuses’ heads. I mean, when I was fifteen I was still weeping bitterly because I failed at getting the girl in the class next to mine.”

Jiang Yu, “......”

Ji Mingrui went back to his desk. As he was waiting for his instant noodles to cook, he finally had a few minutes free to check his phone.

He set his a message to his good friend, looking to be comforted: I’ve been so busy recently.

His good friend gave him a reality check that sobered him up.

Chi Qing: If you’re busy then don’t message me.

Ji Mingrui: ……Listen to yourself, are you even human?

Ji Mingrui sent two messages in a row: What’re you doing today?

After a moment, the other side gifted him with three sparing words.

Chi Qing: Follow-up appointment.

Ji Mingrui looked at those three words as he took the lid off his steaming cup of instant noodles, thinking to himself that his friend was truly putting in a lot of effort into curing his mysophobia.

Today, the psychology clinic was open for business as usual. This was Chi Qing’s second time treading foot in this place.

“Welcome—Hello, Mr. Chi.” The receptionist already remembered Chi Qing’s name. She paused at the work she was doing, a smile showing on her face, “May I ask you to first wait in the waiting room for a moment, I’ll let Doctor Wu know you’re here.”

Chi Qing pinches the joints of his fingers through his gloves, frowning as he glanced at the waiting room that had cats everywhere.

He didn’t really want to be in the same place as that group of furry things.

The waiting room was the same as always.

A few seats, a few cats sleeping on their bellies. One cat seemed to recognize him, sending a meow meow in his direction.

Chi Qing’s line of sight shifted to the side a few degrees, and only then did he realize that compared to the group of furry things, something even more annoying was sitting in the waiting room.

Xie Lin was sitting on the right side of the sofa flipping through a magazine, seeming like he’d already been sitting there for quite a while. When he lifted his gaze and saw Chi Qing, he gave off the illusion of “I’ve been waiting for you.”

He close the magazine, smiling, “We meet again, Mr. Chi.”

Chi Qing, “......”

Why is this nutcase here too.

Did I forget to check my fortune before leaving again.

Chi Qing passed him over, finding the furthest available seat. They sat on opposite sides, with more than half of the waiting room between them.

Xie Lin was the type of person who could immediately parse out an implicit meaning no matter how deeply it was hidden, but at this moment he seemed not to understand Chi Qing’s intention. He leaned over and put the magazine back on the coffee table, naturally moving seats, pulling in the distance between them, “I never thought you’d also have an appointment for today. It seems like fate is bringing us together.”

Chi Qing said, “We seem to have different understandings of fate.”

Xie Lin rarely met a target that bit back. He poured Chi Qing a customary glass of water, “You seem to have a strong opinion about me.”

Chi Qing didn’t deny it, “You can have more self-confidence than that.”

“Hmm?” He pulled out the end of the syllable into a bit of a suggestive lilt.

“Get rid of the ‘you seem to.’”

“......”

Xie Lin wasn’t mad, slowly pushing forward the glass of water resting on the table with that same smile on his face.

Although his features were elegant and refined, the outline of his face was quite severe, the ends of his eyes were long and thin; if it wasn’t for the expression in his eyes diluting that feeling of distance, this would make people overlook the fact that he actually looked rather unapproachable.

A sleeping cat was lying near the seat Chi Qing was sitting in. In the haze of sleep, that cat wanted to shift its position and continue sleeping; however, before its paws had even gotten close to the sofa armrest next to Chi Qing, Chi Qing admonished it from a distance, “Don’t come over.”

The cat, “Meow?”

Chi Qing, “Don’t sleep here.”

The cat, “Meow meow?”

Chi Qing, “Even if you come over, I’ll throw you back.”

The cat, “......”

One person and one cat had a miraculous exchange that transcended species.

That cat finally gave up the idea of moving, and ran away with a waving tail.

Xie Lin was leaning somewhere off to the side and watching the fun from the sidelines, “You don’t like cats?”

He recalled the first time they’d met. Chi Qing’s body was free of cat hair, and at that time he’d thrown out the comment “you most likely dislike cats.” Chi Qing hadn’t protested at all.

Meeting this time, he had confirmed this guess without a doubt.

Chi Qing didn’t want to hear any arguments like ‘but kitties are so cute, why don’t you like kitties?’, “I don’t like cats, and I especially don’t like exchanging nonsense with people I don’t really know.”

After Chi Qing said this, he noticed the glass of water in Xie Lin’s hand. Just as he was about to say “you don’t need to pour water for me,” he saw the trajectory of that cup change at the last moment. The water in the cup splashed exactly onto his gloves, “......”

“Sorry, sorry,” the culprit pulled out a few tissues and passed them over, “I didn’t hold it steadily, let’s dry it off?”

Chi Qing tried to bear it, but in the end he couldn’t. His mysophobia flared up and he could only pull off his gloves. He didn’t take the tissues Xie Lin passed over, but when he was drying his hands he realized that the person next to him seemed to be staring at his hands.

The last time Xie Lin only pulled off one of his gloves, and now he was finally seeing the other—there was an obvious cut on the man’s thin, delicate finger. His skin was so pale that even an unremarkable mole was extremely easy to see, not to mention a cut that was a centimeter or so long.

The knife had clearly sliced his finger on accident. The wound was clearly much rougher than a typical cut; it wasn’t from a normal paring knife.

Xie Lin pointed at that cut, “Did you cut yourself when you were chopping stuff, how were you so careless?”

As Chi Qing was drying his hands, he was earnestly thinking something over.

Even if Doctor Wu’s skill was this exquisite, and no matter how many successful cases he’d had, he ought to consider changing clinics.

________

木瓜黄’s author’s note:

?(?ω?)? uwu