How Qi Junyang managed to get rid of the hotel staff while wearing dirty work clothes remained a mystery, and Zhuang Zhuoyi had no intention of digging into it. After leaving the hotel, Sun Chen was dispatched to find Xiao Liu, while Zhuang Zhuoyi tossed the car keys straight to Qi Junyang. “Drive to the scene and take a look.”
Along the way, Zhuang Zhuoyi chatted as if making casual conversation. Qi Junyang remained tight-lipped, gazing quietly out the car window, only offering responses when directly questioned about the case. For instance, Zhuang Zhuoyi asked him, “How long does it take to get from your residence to Beach Number Five? Estimate it for me.”
“One hour on foot, twenty minutes by car.”
“What about running at full speed?”
“That depends on who is doing the running.”
“Let us start with me.”
Resting his chin on one hand, Qi Junyang cast a sidelong glance at Zhuang Zhuoyi’s physique and stated, “You would need forty minutes.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
Seeing him open his eyes wide with a look of stubborn disbelief, Qi Junyang, seeking to avoid unnecessary trouble, answered candidly: “Your explosive burst of speed is decent, but you lack endurance. You could only run for twenty minutes at most, and the remaining ten minutes would be spent hailing a cab to get here.”
Not a word of it was wrong. Zhuang Zhuoyi was exceedingly satisfied with his analysis, though the premise of his starting point was flawed. Had it been him, he would have driven from the very beginning instead of foolishly running back and forth.
Then again…
Zhuang Zhuoyi smiled and asked, “What about you? If you were the one running, how much time would it take you?”
To this question, even after the car came to a halt on the embankment of Beach Number Five, Zhuang Zhuoyi received no reply.
The spot where the body had been discovered was at least three hundred meters away from the embankment. Dropping vertically from the embankment was a flat, high wall standing roughly six meters tall. Glancing at the distant flight of stairs, Zhuang Zhuoyi felt that walking all the way around to descend to the beach was a sheer waste of time. Yet jumping down seemed a bit too high, did it not?
“Junyang, I want to get down there. Do you have any brilliant ideas?” Zhuang Zhuoyi teased.
A gentle sea breeze picked up, stirring the shock of white hair that his cap failed to conceal. Qi Junyang seemed to recall something, staring blankly out at the distant expanse of the sea. Zhuang Zhuoyi’s voice shattered his equilibrium, stirring an innate impatience within him. “There are stairs over there.”
“Taking the stairs is so tiring, and my stamina is not…”
Before Zhuang Zhuoyi could finish his sentence, Qi Junyang suddenly reached out and shoved him square in the back!
Ah—!
The elegant young master performed a textbook freefall landing directly onto the sandy beach. Scrambling up immediately, the furious curse lingering at the tip of his tongue was abruptly choked back. Standing atop the embankment with his head lowered, the man caught the bright sunlight illuminating the lower half of his face beneath the brim of his cap. His slightly pursed lips, straight nose, and resolute coldness radiated a stern severity that made it impossible to tear one’s gaze away.
Zhuang Zhuoyi turned serious for once. “You do not need to come down. Return to the business hotel. Run back!”
A chilling, barbed glare burned intensely in the man’s eyes. Though the cap’s brim shielded this freezing hostility, Zhuang Zhuoyi standing below still experienced the distinct discomfort of being pinned under a fixed stare. He could not back down, nor could he show weakness; he had to meet it head-on.
“Did you hear me? Run back. Call me once you arrive. Do not use the front entrance; use the north gate.”
Qi Junyang hesitated visibly before turning and bolting away. At the same time, Zhuang Zhuoyi glanced at his watch to note the exact time.
Left alone on the beach, Qi Junyang studied the marks left in the sand from his own tumble before sitting down nearby to sink into deep contemplation.
According to the clues uncovered by the police, his older brother had fallen asleep around 01:00 AM after having relations with Wen Chen, and Wen Chen could not have departed prior to that. Assuming Wen Chen left the room at 01:30 AM and his time of death was 04:30 AM, where had Wen Chen gone during those intervening three hours?
The corpse was not entirely clean, and a ligature mark encircled the neck. Photographs revealed that the mark ran symmetrically along the sides of the throat, passing beneath the angles of the mandible and extending upward and backward toward the occiput—a classic hanging mark.
Yet why was Wen Chen’s cause of death poisoning rather than strangulation? Did this not suggest that after leaving the hotel room, Wen Chen had gone somewhere else and met someone?
This was a premeditated murder, meaning the killer would never perform redundant actions. Every extra entanglement added an extra layer of risk. Therefore, that ligature mark unquestionably had a very specific significance.
As he pondered, his hand instinctively brushed against his own neck, as though attempting to replicate and feel Wen Chen’s ligature mark.
And then there was this beach. Zhuang Zhuoyi lowered his hand, glancing left and right while meticulously recalling the police files. The crime scene investigation yielded a very strange result: there were no footprints surrounding the body. How, then, had the victim appeared on the beach? Even had the victim walked there independently, footsteps belonging to the deceased ought to have been left behind.
Approaching the problem from a different angle, what if the beach was not the primary scene of death, and the killer had simply dumped the body here afterward? That explanation failed as well; even a body-dumping would leave behind scuff marks and abrasions along the edges. Much like when he had just been shoved down by Qi Junyang, there should be impressions left by the torso and limbs along with skid marks from the buffering impact. Yet the crime scene photographs of the corpse and its surrounding area were far too pristine, looking precisely as though a gigantic pair of claws had clutched the body and lowered it slowly onto the sand from mid-air.
The bizarre ligature mark on the victim’s neck and the footprint-less beach made this case increasingly intriguing.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that the ringing of his phone startled him. Spotting an unfamiliar number, he figured it was Qi Junyang and felt a surge of profound astonishment. Pressing answer in a hurry, he blurted out, “Did you take a cab?”
“I ran here.”
“It took me ten minutes to drive from the business hotel to this place, and you ran it in twelve minutes?”
“Is there a problem?”
Listening to the calm voice on the other end, Zhuang Zhuoyi felt a wave of stifled frustration. “Watch out for traffic police!”
Standing by the north gate of the business hotel, Qi Junyang froze, then asked earnestly, “Does that count as speeding?” An uninhibited burst of laughter echoed from Zhuang Zhuoyi over the phone, and only then did he realize he had been played. His voice grew several degrees colder. “Is there anything else?”
“Do not be upset, do not be upset. Wait right there, I will come pick you up shortly. Oh, and do not even think about running off.”
Turning back around, Zhuang Zhuoyi pulled out a pre-prepared tape measure and calculated the distances between the corpse, the embankment, and the shoreline to evaluate the probability of various scenarios.
Perhaps because Qi Junyang took the instruction to “wait” quite seriously, when Zhuang Zhuoyi rushed back to the north gate of the business hotel, he searched for quite a while without finding a trace of him, and his calls went unanswered. Growing somewhat annoyed, the young master stood by his car and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Junyang? Junyang? I am here to pick you up. Stop being so shy, will you? Come out now.”
Passersby turned their heads in curiosity at Zhuang Zhuoyi’s shouts, while Qi Junyang, who had simply felt thirsty and stepped across the street to buy a bottle of water, returned only to find Zhuang Zhuoyi standing there making a public spectacle.
“Junyang, just come out already. Wearing work overalls looks so dreadful. It was my fault earlier; I should not have pushed you so hard. Next time we will take it easy, alright?”
As ill luck would have it, he was the only person on the entire avenue wearing work overalls, and the surrounding onlookers instantly realized who “Junyang” was, pressing their hands over their mouths to suppress giggles.
Bastard! He did that on purpose! If he didn’t show up immediately, heaven knows what else this scoundrel might blurt out. Amidst the muffled titters of the bystanders, Qi Junyang closed in at lightning speed and grabbed Zhuang Zhuoyi by the collar!
Zhuang Zhuoyi felt a dark shadow accompanied by a gust of wind rush toward him, and in the blink of an eye, he was shoved into the vehicle. Reclining halfway in the driver’s seat, he gazed smilingly at Qi Junyang’s gloomy visage. “See? Coming out right away would have saved all this trouble. I told you before, you can never escape the palm of my hand. Once you are targeted by me, you have no choice but to accept your fate, much like a vicious wild beast that must obey once leashed. How does that saying go again? ‘When under a low roof, one must bow…'” Before he could finish his tedious chatter, Qi Junyang abruptly raised his hand and slammed his fist against the car door window. The grating sound of shattering glass instantly drowned out Zhuang Zhuoyi’s nagging provocations. Staring down at the pale-faced Zhuang Zhuoyi, Qi Junyang issued a stark warning: “Do not court your own death.”
That murderous intent was entirely genuine, and Zhuang Zhuoyi broke out in a cold sweat for a split second. Watching Qi Junyang after the threat, he acted as though nothing had happened, casually walking around to the other side of the car, sliding into the passenger seat, closing the door, and buckling his seatbelt with steady movements. The rapid alternation between tension and release flooded him with exhilaration, akin to walking a tightrope across a ten-thousand-meter cliff—perilous, thrilling, dancing on the razor’s edge with his blood pumping at maximum capacity.
Zhuang Zhuoyi could not help chuckling. Settling himself properly, he flicked away a few precarious shards of broken glass, closed the door tightly, and started the ignition.
With no windshield remaining, Zhuang Zhuoyi drove at a sluggish pace. Having learned a lesson from the stark disparity in their physical strength just moments ago, he finally ceased his incessant nagging. Yet bowing his head in defeat was simply not something Zhuang Zhuoyi was capable of doing.
“You seem rather volatile.”
True to form, he was stirring up trouble once again.
“I tell you, Junyang, being this volatile—is it a calcium deficiency or a lack of affection?”
“…”
“I have seen plenty of people like you. Working in my line of work requires interacting with all sorts, mostly cunning individuals who desperately wish to conceal their flaws. Sometimes, a bit of violent persuasion is necessary, just like what you did a moment ago.”
Whether this renewed stream of chatter successfully reignited Qi Junyang’s temper was impossible to track, primarily because the other man maintained a steadfast silence. Believing he could push his luck further, Zhuang Zhuoyi grew increasingly grating with his remarks. Finally, the aloof Qi Junyang snapped, turning his head in an instant to glare fixedly at him. In the next second, Zhuang Zhuoyi’s expression dropped cold, his eyes devoid of emotion as he looked at Qi Junyang as though staring at a corpse.
It was as though Zhuang Zhuoyi had transformed into an entirely different person, coldly and ruthlessly delivering a warning: “So, let this be clear to you: by my side, you will rein in that vicious temper of yours. Should you ever become my weakness, I will send you to the netherworld with my own hands. Do not assume violence is the only way to take a life.”
Sensing a genuine, lethal threat, his primitive defense mechanisms had automatically engaged. Qi Junyang finally understood why he occasionally wished to eliminate Zhuang Zhuoyi. Ending Zhuang Zhuoyi’s life would be as effortless as crushing an ant. Yet for reasons unknown, he had been entirely subdued by the man before him! The muscles in his tightly coiled arm slowly relaxed. Retracting his hand to shove it back into his pocket, he averted his gaze once more. “Few people are capable of provoking my anger.”
Compared to the previous skirmish, the current atmosphere crackled with even greater tension. Just as a prolonged, heavy silence threatened to take root, Zhuang Zhuoyi shattered the quiet once again. With an upbeat tone, he declared, “It seems we have reached a consensus. Allow me to treat you to a meal to celebrate our powerful alliance. Do you prefer spicy food or sweet food? Neither of those work for me, and I dislike sour or salty flavors either. Let us go with something light, though plain food always tastes tasteless.”
Qi Junyang thought to himself: You might as well just fast.
In the end, the meal never happened. Zhuang Zhuoyi received a phone call from Xiao Liu and hurried back home in haste.
Stepping through the front door, Zhuang Zhuoyi glanced backward to ensure the heavy door was locked securely behind them. A wicked smirk curved his lips. “I genuinely did not expect you to follow me back here. Had you truly wished to leave, I could not have stopped you.”
Was this what they called enjoying the spoils while feigning innocence? Qi Junyang gazed apathetically at the man before him.
Constructing a logical and satisfactory explanation for himself had not been difficult, particularly since he had already begun plotting the moment he listened to Zhuang Zhuoyi’s self-introduction. In hindsight, even that boastful introduction had likely been a deliberate, purposeful maneuver on Zhuang Zhuoyi’s part. Consequently, Qi Junyang stated flatly, “I can help you, but strictly limited to this single case. In return, you must help me.”
“Oh?” Zhuang Zhuoyi smiled. “With what?”
“Fabricate an identity for me. From birth certificates to social security documentation and beyond, forge a completely legal identity for me.”
Narrowing his phoenix-like eyes, Zhuang Zhuoyi extended his hand without a moment’s hesitation. “Deal.”
The other party treated the gesture with utter indifference, striding loftily into the living room. That left Zhuang Zhuoyi standing ignored, experiencing for the very first time the sensation of being thoroughly given the cold shoulder.
Well, well. I have met arrogant people before, but never anyone more arrogant than myself. This Qi Junyang is truly formidable! Maintaining a facade of gentlemanly poise, Zhuang Zhuoyi was secretly formulating an entirely separate set of calculations in his mind.