By the time Su Miaoyi snapped out of it, the man was already far in the distance.
She looked at the dilapidated building in front of her, and once she collected her thoughts, she ducked into an alley.
When the man looked back for her, she was already out of sight.
After slipping into the alley, Su Miaoyi waited two seconds before slowly peeking out.
She watched the man turn at the mouth of the alley up ahead.
Su Miaoyi was fairly familiar with the area. She considered where the man might be headed after entering the alley.
Instead of daring to follow him directly, she took a detour, circling around from the back of her own alley.
She set her cat carrier on an old chair by the road. As she walked deeper into the alley, she pulled out her phone and looked up Zhuang Yanzheng’s number.
’Who would have thought? I saved it in the wee hours of the morning, and it’s already coming in handy today.’
The phone rang for a while before connecting. "Who is this?"
"It’s Su Miaoyi." Su Miaoyi instinctively lowered her voice. Her breath was unsteady from walking.
"What happened? Where are you?" Zhuang Yanzheng could tell from her voice that something was wrong.
Su Miaoyi said, "I’m in the Old District. I just saw the man with the mole at the end of his eyebrow, and when I looked into his eyes, I saw a vision of him killing someone."
"Are you safe?" Zhuang Yanzheng asked immediately.
"I’m safe," Su Miaoyi whispered. "Hurry and get the local police over here. I’m afraid if I call them myself, they won’t believe me."
"Give me your exact location," Zhuang Yanzheng said.
Su Miaoyi told him the exact location and then asked, "Is your WeChat account linked to this number?"
"Yeah."
"Got it." Su Miaoyi hung up as soon as she finished speaking.
On the other end of the line, Zhuang Yanzheng didn’t even have time to tell her to be careful.
He and Qi Feng had just left Xia Zhenghong’s house.
He immediately called the local police station...
As for Su Miaoyi, she hung up and immediately added Zhuang Yanzheng on WeChat.
Once he accepted her request, she shared her location with him.
Then she put her phone away.
The Old District was full of illegal structures.
At first, the authorities tried to manage them, but since the area was never redeveloped, they gradually stopped bothering.
All the alleys used to be interconnected.
Now, some had been sealed off with newly built walls.
Su Miaoyi checked to make sure no one was around, then took a running start and vaulted over a wall.
Whether at the orphanage or later in the Old District, she had climbed her fair share of walls, so she was quite practiced.
After getting over the wall, she hid beside a flowerbed behind a residential building.
She crouched down, using the flowers for cover as she peered out.
Soon, she spotted the man.
The man’s eyes darted around as he walked, and then he entered an apartment building.
Su Miaoyi waited two seconds, then quickly pressed herself against the wall and moved toward the entrance, listening for the sound of footsteps going upstairs.
She listened intently until she heard a door open.
’Five floors total, four apartments per floor...’ Su Miaoyi calculated in her head. She then found a corner with a good vantage point and messaged Zhuang Yanzheng a more precise location.
Zhuang Yanzheng replied: [Get to a safe place.]
Su Miaoyi sent back an "OK" sticker.
The police from the local station arrived quickly.
Three police cars parked on the perimeter of the apartment building.
Su Miaoyi ran out to meet them.
An officer looked at her. "Su Miaoyi?"
Su Miaoyi nodded.
"The municipal bureau gave us a heads-up," the officer said.
Su Miaoyi didn’t waste any words, getting straight to the point. "Fourth or fifth floor, west side of the building. I didn’t dare follow too close, so I’m just guessing based on his footsteps."
"Right." The officer, assuming she was from the municipal bureau, didn’t think twice. He stationed men at the building entrance and on the fourth and fifth floors, then led a team upstairs.
A few moments later, Su Miaoyi, still downstairs, heard shouts of "Freeze!" and "Don’t move!"
Nearby residents slowly started to gather and watch the commotion.
The officers posted outside maintained order.
Soon, the police descended with a man in custody.
The moment she saw the man had been apprehended, Su Miaoyi breathed a sigh of relief.
Before being pushed into the police car, the man gave her one last look.
When their eyes met again, Su Miaoyi saw nothing.
The man was taken away, and the police cars drove off.
Su Miaoyi headed back, retrieved her cat from the other alley, and continued on her way home.
She told Zhuang Yanzheng what she had seen in her vision.
She also told him the vision took place in a single room, though she didn’t know the exact location. This meant the overpass wasn’t the primary crime scene.
After relaying this to him, she put her phone in her pocket.
It wasn’t until she met up with her aunt and uncle and had been chatting for a long while that she pulled out her phone and remembered she hadn’t turned off the location sharing on WeChat.
She quickly turned it off.
’Good thing he’s a cop and not a bad guy,’ she thought. ’Otherwise, he would have known where I live.’
...
Su Miaoyi stayed at her family’s home for three days. Each morning, she woke up early to help her aunt and uncle sell vegetables.
Cheng Yong stepped away for a moment. When he returned, he was holding two grilled sausages and an ice cream bar. "Here, Miaomiao."
"Thanks, Uncle," Su Miaoyi said, taking them.
Cheng Yong gave Ge Yu an ice cream bar and had one himself.
"It’s so hot today, you should go home and rest," Ge Yu said.
"I’m fine." Su Miaoyi, clad in a sun-protection jacket and a sun hat, replied, "I’m not hot."
"She rarely gets to come home for a visit. Look at you, trying to shoo her away," Cheng Yong said.
"You’re a real piece of work. Getting on in your years and now you’re trying to sow discord," Ge Yu retorted. "It’s a scorching day, the girl is here helping out, she’s tired and hot, and you don’t feel the least bit sorry for her?"
"You’re the one sowing discord," Cheng Yong said. "Of course I feel sorry for her!"
Su Miaoyi just smiled, watching from the side.
The two of them didn’t quiet down until a customer came to buy vegetables.
Su Miaoyi helped two sets of customers, then pulled out her phone and opened her writer’s assistant app.
For the past three days, she’d been using the computer at home to write.
The novel she was currently writing was doing much better than her previous ones. With more readers came more comments, naturally.
Su Miaoyi replied to a few of them.
When she saw someone standing in front of the stall, she put her phone away. "Hello, what can I get for you?"
She looked up as she spoke and her eyes met Zhuang Yanzheng’s.
Su Miaoyi: "..."
Zhuang Yanzheng watched her. She was wearing an oversized sun hat, forcing her to tilt her head way back just to look at him.
It was sweltering, and a few glistening beads of sweat dotted the side of her face.
After they stared at each other for a moment, Su Miaoyi flipped up the brim of her hat, glanced cautiously from side to side, and whispered, "Is there a case nearby?"
"No," said Zhuang Yanzheng. "I came to find you."
Su Miaoyi breathed a sigh of relief. "How did you know I was here?"
"Location sharing," said Zhuang Yanzheng.
Su Miaoyi: "..." She had been at this very stall when she’d turned it off.
"What do you want? Am I a suspect again?" Su Miaoyi asked in a hushed voice.
"No." Zhuang Yanzheng glanced at Cheng Yong and Ge Yu, who were both staring in their direction. "I need your help with something."
"Oh." Su Miaoyi’s eyes twinkled. "Today’s vegetables are very fresh. Why don’t you see what you’d like?"
Zhuang Yanzheng just looked at her.
Su Miaoyi flashed a picture-perfect customer-service smile. "What can I get for you?"
Zhuang Yanzheng glanced down at the produce. "You can just pick some things out for me."
"You got it," Su Miaoyi chirped. "One moment, please."
She weighed out a bit of everything, and Cheng Yong and Ge Yu came over to help bag it all.
Su Miaoyi tallied it up. "That’ll be three hundred and two. I’ll round it off for you... let’s make it an even four hundred."
Zhuang Yanzheng let out a dry laugh. "Do you know what I do for a living?"
Su Miaoyi suddenly felt like she was about to be slapped in handcuffs and hauled away. She cleared her throat. "Three hundred. And I’ll throw in two tomatoes for free."