Early in the morning, people were already coming and going in the parking garage at regular intervals.
Liang Lie sat inside his car without immediately starting the engine. He lowered his head and buried his face against the steering wheel, remaining completely motionless.
The anger that had surged straight to the top of his head was finally beginning to subside, gradually transforming into a painful feeling he desperately didn’t want to face.
If Chu Xuanyi had even the slightest respect for him, if he genuinely cared about his feelings even a little, he would never have done something like that.
Suddenly, Liang Lie slammed his forehead against the steering wheel.
The horn blared loudly, startling a passerby who had just been walking in front of his car. The person turned around and looked toward the driver’s seat.
Liang Lie immediately felt as though the other person had seen something they shouldn’t have. He hurriedly started the engine and drove out of the parking garage.
Before he started living with Chu Xuanyi, Liang Lie had eaten almost all his meals outside. When he spotted the breakfast shop he used to frequent near the entrance to his residential community, he noticed that it was still open, so he got out of the car and bought two steamed buns. He took a couple of bites, only to discover that something was wrong. The buns used to taste pretty decent, so why had they suddenly become so unappetizing?
He forced himself to finish stuffing the buns into his mouth. For some inexplicable reason, he suddenly remembered why he had agreed to move in with Chu Xuanyi in the first place.
After his adoptive parents disappeared, Liang Lie had spent a long time drifting through life in a daze. He hadn’t just stopped eating at regular times; there were even periods when he couldn’t clearly remember how he had managed to get through each day. Eventually, his standard for living had been reduced to a single principle: as long as he didn’t die, that was good enough.
When he and Chu Xuanyi had first confirmed their relationship, Liang Lie had thought that Chu Xuanyi was absolutely perfect, without a single flaw. Even if he had to work overtime until midnight, he would still rush over just to see Chu Xuanyi for a little while.
Once, after finishing work at two in the morning, he had still driven to Chu Xuanyi’s residential building. He had originally intended to go upstairs and see him, but it was already so late that he was afraid of disturbing Chu Xuanyi’s rest. In the end, he had simply stayed in the car and fallen asleep.
When he woke up, Chu Xuanyi was sitting in the front passenger seat, staring at him without blinking. Before Liang Lie could even react, Chu Xuanyi sneezed several times in quick succession. Only then did Liang Lie notice that it was pouring outside.
Chu Xuanyi asked him why he was sleeping in the car. Liang Lie lifted the jacket that had been covering him and reached out with his cold hand to take Chu Xuanyi’s hand. He had originally intended to give him a gentle kiss to show his affection, but before he could do so, he lost control and sneezed again, spraying a mess of snot all over Chu Xuanyi’s hand.
Liang Lie froze in embarrassment.
Chu Xuanyi, however, didn’t seem to mind in the slightest. Instead, he clasped Liang Lie’s hand in return, leaned closer, and pressed his forehead against Liang Lie’s. Then he said, “You have a fever. The weather has turned cold, so why didn’t you put on another layer of clothing?”
“I forgot.”
In truth, he hadn’t actually forgotten. He simply hadn’t paid any attention to the matter in the first place. Although autumn had already arrived, he had taken a shower at the station and come out wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts.
Chu Xuanyi lowered his head and looked at the exposed section of Liang Lie’s legs. Just then, Liang Lie’s stomach suddenly growled. Chu Xuanyi shifted his gaze toward his abdomen and asked another question. “Why didn’t you eat dinner tonight?”
Liang Lie couldn’t remember why he hadn’t eaten that evening. Perhaps he had been so eager to see Chu Xuanyi that he had wanted to finish his work and get off duty as quickly as possible. Without thinking much about it, he answered instinctively, “I forgot.”
Chu Xuanyi looked at him as though he were afraid Liang Lie would eventually manage to starve himself to death if no one took care of him. Then, without any warning, he said, “I want to live with you.”
By the time morning came, Chu Xuanyi had already moved into Liang Lie’s home.
From that day onward, Chu Xuanyi began preparing the clothes Liang Lie would wear each day. He made breakfast before Liang Lie even got out of bed, and no matter how late Liang Lie returned home, Chu Xuanyi was always still awake.
Even now, things were exactly the same.
But as their passionate romance gradually settled into the ordinary routines of everyday life, Liang Lie increasingly felt that Chu Xuanyi had never truly fallen in love with him.
To Chu Xuanyi, he seemed little more than a bed partner who happened to share his home. Chu Xuanyi went to such lengths to take care of him simply to ensure that his bed partner remained in good condition and could continue to serve his needs.
No, sometimes Liang Lie even felt that he was worth less than an ordinary bed partner. At least other people could chat with their partners about their lives and work afterward. But whenever Liang Lie tried to talk to Chu Xuanyi, all he ever received in response were one or two perfunctory words.
The more Liang Lie thought about it, the more irritated he became.
By the time he drove into the station, he still hadn’t gotten out of the car. Instead, he picked up his phone and opened the chat with Chu Xuanyi. He typed out the words Let’s break up, but no matter how long he stared at them, he couldn’t bring himself to press send.
In the end, he deleted the message.
“Liang Lie? Why aren’t you getting out of the car?”
Someone knocked on his car window. Liang Lie hurriedly put his phone away and turned his head. Seeing that it was their captain, he opened the car door and stepped outside.
Their captain was named Lian Lijie. He studied Liang Lie’s face carefully before asking, “What’s going on with you? I told you to go home and rest. Why are your dark circles even worse than they were yesterday?”
Liang Lie immediately remembered the phone call from the previous morning. Afraid of running into the colleague who had called him, he instinctively glanced around, his gaze wandering from side to side. Distracted, he replied, “It’s nothing. I kept dreaming about the cases last night, so I didn’t sleep well!”
Lian Lijie believed him. He had also been plagued by nightmares for several days because of these cases. His expression immediately turned serious, and he didn’t ask any further questions. Instead, he entered the elevator with Liang Lie and headed upstairs.
When they reached the office, Liang Lie finally saw the colleague who had called him earlier. The man had been on the night shift, and when he saw Liang Lie, he didn’t say anything unusual. His expression and gaze were exactly the same as always.
Only then did Liang Lie finally allow the tension that had been wound tight throughout the journey to ease.
“Everyone’s here. Meeting, now!”
Lian Lijie announced it loudly, and everyone who had just arrived for work immediately headed to the conference room.
“At five-thirty this morning, the father of the victim from the second suicide case came forward with some information. He said that his son had visited the neurosurgery department at Shenghe Hospital for a consultation about a month ago. After returning home from the appointment, the deceased began acting as though he were in a trance. He would often mutter things to himself when he was alone.”
This was the lead that the colleague on duty the previous night had received. Afterward, he had checked the medical records at Shenghe Hospital and discovered something unexpected: all the other deceased had also visited the same hospital for medical consultations recently.
Chu Xuanyi was a doctor at Shenghe Hospital, and, as it happened, he worked in the neurosurgery department.
Liang Lie had only just begun wondering whether Chu Xuanyi might somehow be connected to the cases when Lian Lijie continued speaking.
“All five victims visited the neurosurgery department, and every single one of them was treated by the same doctor.”
Chu Xuanyi’s profile appeared on the projection screen. His enlarged identification photograph was so striking that everyone in the conference room seemed to forget to breathe for a brief moment.
Someone immediately blurted out, “Holy shit, that guy is ridiculously handsome! Only our Captain Liang could compete with him!”
“Stop talking nonsense.”
Lian Lijie reprimanded the colleague who had spoken, then turned his gaze toward Liang Lie. “Liang Lie, do you remember this Dr. Chu?”
Liang Lie sat motionless, staring ahead in a daze.
At this point, Chu Xuanyi was the only connection among the five deceased. If someone really had been manipulating them behind the scenes and driving them toward suicide, then Chu Xuanyi was the person who aroused the greatest suspicion.
An image of Chu Xuanyi’s face involuntarily surfaced in Liang Lie’s mind. No matter how he thought about it, he simply couldn’t believe that Chu Xuanyi was the kind of person who would encourage others to take their own lives. Besides, those bloody and brutal methods of suicide weren’t something that could be accomplished merely by persuading someone to do it.
However, the image in his mind abruptly shifted to the cold, perfunctory manner in which Chu Xuanyi had responded when Liang Lie had brought up the cases.
A sudden wave of panic rose in his heart.
Impossible. Chu Xuanyi is simply someone who doesn’t pay much attention to other people’s affairs. There’s no way he would do something like this, and he has no motive for doing so.
Liang Lie tried desperately to convince himself of this.
According to proper procedure, as Chu Xuanyi’s boyfriend, he should have recused himself from the investigation to avoid any conflict of interest. But if he brought up that possibility himself, he would have to admit his relationship with Chu Xuanyi in front of everyone.
In other words, he would have to come out.
“Liang Lie? What are you thinking about?”
Lian Lijie spoke again, and Liang Lie finally turned to look at him before answering, “I remember him. With a face like that, how could I possibly forget?”
Four years earlier, Lian Lijie had been transferred to their detachment to serve as its captain. The first case he had taken over was a vehicular manslaughter case, and Chu Xuanyi had been a witness to that incident.
The first time Liang Lie had met Chu Xuanyi had been when he went to take Chu Xuanyi’s statement.
Lian Lijie had evidently recognized Chu Xuanyi as well. He continued, “This Dr. Chu… I remember he wasn’t particularly easy to deal with. Take Xiao Yang with you to the hospital and have a chat with him. See how he reacts.”
Liang Lie hesitated. He wanted to suggest sending someone else instead, but just as he decided to speak, Lian Lijie cut him off before he could even open his mouth.
“You’re the only one who can go. Back when we handled that case, he was only willing to talk to you. We still don’t know for certain whether he’s connected to these recent cases, so you should be fine. I trust you.”
For a brief moment, Liang Lie wondered whether Lian Lijie knew about his relationship with Chu Xuanyi. Considering Chu Xuanyi’s personality and the way he treated people, however, what Lian Lijie said wasn’t entirely unreasonable. Although Chu Xuanyi could be perfunctory even with him, someone else might not even receive the courtesy of a perfunctory response.
And so, after the meeting ended, Liang Lie still took Xiao Yang with him to Shenghe Hospital.
Shenghe Hospital was a private hospital, and its two flagship departments were neurosurgery and cardiac surgery. Chu Xuanyi was the youngest genius doctor in the neurosurgery department, and his reputation preceded him. It was hardly surprising that patients would go out of their way to book appointments with him.
When they arrived at the hospital, Liang Lie parked the car but then sat there in a daze without moving. Xiao Yang opened his door, then turned back to look at him and asked, “Captain Liang? What’s wrong?”
Liang Lie hurriedly unfastened his seat belt. “It’s nothing. Let’s go.”
Chu Xuanyi wasn’t seeing outpatients that day. Liang Lie took Xiao Yang upstairs and went straight to Chu Xuanyi’s office.
Chu Xuanyi’s assistant led them to the office door. However, when they were still two steps away from it, she seemed unwilling to approach any closer. She stretched out her arm and knocked on the door cautiously from a distance.
“Dr. Chu, there are some police officers here to see you.”
No one knew what Chu Xuanyi had been doing inside. They could hear footsteps moving back and forth several times before they finally approached the door. Then it opened, and Chu Xuanyi’s perfectly proportioned figure appeared framed in the doorway.
He was wearing a white coat that had almost no defined cut or shape, yet his physique made it look like a beautifully tailored trench coat. Beneath it, he wore his usual impeccably neat black shirt, with two buttons undone at the collar, revealing glimpses of his muscles and collarbones. His entire presence radiated an irresistible, almost lethal charm, as though he could drive anyone who looked at him to the brink of infatuation.
Yet when he spoke, his voice sounded as though he were addressing someone standing eight hundred meters away.
“What is it?”
His assistant suddenly shuddered, so startled that she even forgot to breathe. Ordinarily, she rarely looked directly at Chu Xuanyi. It wasn’t because he had ever done anything to her or treated her badly. Rather, she instinctively felt an indescribable sense of fear in his presence, something she couldn’t quite explain.
At that moment, however, she slowly raised her head and looked at him. To her, Chu Xuanyi seemed like the arrival of spring after the frozen permafrost of Siberia finally began to thaw. It was the first time she had ever looked directly at that exceptionally handsome face, and in an instant, she completely forgot what she had intended to say.
Chu Xuanyi, however, paid absolutely no attention to her. His gaze passed over her and settled on Liang Lie standing behind her.
“Are you looking for me, Officer?”
Liang Lie didn’t notice anything unusual about Chu Xuanyi’s behavior compared with how he usually acted. He simply took out his identification in a professional manner.
“Hello, Dr. Chu. We’re from the Criminal Investigation Detachment of Tonghua District. We’d like to ask you a few questions regarding a case.”
Chu Xuanyi glanced briefly at his identification before shifting his gaze to Liang Lie’s face.
Liang Lie wasn’t sure how Chu Xuanyi would respond, but given his usual cold and perfunctory attitude, he assumed Chu Xuanyi wouldn’t ask too many questions.
As expected, Chu Xuanyi didn’t ask anything at all. He simply stepped aside to make room at the doorway and said, “Please come in.”
Liang Lie carefully observed Chu Xuanyi’s reaction from the corner of his eye as he passed him and entered the office.
They had been together for four years, yet this was the first time Liang Lie had ever visited Chu Xuanyi’s office. The place was completely different from what he had imagined.
The office was spacious and exuded the refined elegance characteristic of a private hospital. Chu Xuanyi had always enjoyed buying all sorts of strange little objects, and their home had already been filled with the various odds and ends he had collected.
Yet here, there was hardly a single personal belonging to be seen. Liang Lie even began to wonder whether Chu Xuanyi had merely borrowed the office temporarily.
“Officer Liang, please have a seat.”
Chu Xuanyi followed Liang Lie over and gestured toward the sofa by the window.
Xiao Yang followed cautiously behind Liang Lie, secretly observing Chu Xuanyi from the corner of his eye the entire time. In person, Chu Xuanyi was even more handsome than he had appeared in his photograph.
However, ever since Chu Xuanyi had first seen their captain, his gaze hadn’t left Liang Lie for even a moment. Xiao Yang felt that something about the situation was strange, but the distant, unfamiliar manner in which the two men interacted didn’t make it seem as though they knew each other.
Could it be that he thinks our Captain Liang is handsome?
Liang Lie was already accustomed to Chu Xuanyi looking at him, so he didn’t notice anything unusual about the man’s gaze.
He sat down, and only then did Chu Xuanyi take a seat opposite him. In the tone of someone speaking to a complete stranger, he asked, “May I ask which case Officer Liang is investigating?”
Liang Lie was astonished that Chu Xuanyi had actually taken the initiative to ask a question. He wasn’t sure whether Chu Xuanyi knew the rules of their detachment and was deliberately helping him avoid any suspicion of a conflict of interest, or whether he simply didn’t want their relationship to be acknowledged in public.
Suddenly, Liang Lie realized that despite being together for four years, they seemed never to have acknowledged their relationship in front of anyone else.
Don’t think about irrelevant things.
Liang Lie cleared his mind of those useless thoughts and, just as formally as Chu Xuanyi had addressed him, took out his phone and showed him a photograph of the deceased.
“Do you know this person?”
Chu Xuanyi studied the photograph carefully before answering with absolute certainty, “No, I don’t.”
The person Liang Lie had shown him was the second victim, a third-year medical student who had swallowed razor blade fragments in her dormitory. Half a day had passed before anyone discovered what had happened, and by the time she was rushed to the hospital, it was already too late to save her.
After her death, another patient who had shared her hospital ward posted the incident online. Because the manner of her death was so shocking and horrifying, the news quickly spread across the entire internet.
Liang Lie wasn’t sure whether Chu Xuanyi genuinely didn’t recognize her. After all, Chu Xuanyi had never even shown much interest in what Liang Lie did outside the home. It was entirely plausible that he wouldn’t remember a patient he had treated or might not have seen unrelated news circulating on the internet.
Liang Lie changed the subject and asked, “Dr. Chu, where were you at seven o’clock in the evening on May eighteenth?”
“I was waiting for my boyfriend to come home. He promised me that day that he would return early, but he never came back. I cooked dinner and waited for him for a long time, and when I called him, he didn’t answer either-”
“I’m not asking about your boyfriend!”
Liang Lie couldn’t understand why Chu Xuanyi had suddenly become so talkative at a time like this. What was more, he had inexplicably started bringing up his boyfriend. Liang Lie cleared his throat awkwardly before continuing with his questions.
“She made an appointment with you on May second. Half a month later, she committed suicide by swallowing razor blades. Did you notice anything unusual about her at the time?”
“I don’t remember. I only remember that it was raining that day and my boyfriend came to the hospital to pick me up.”
Liang Lie couldn’t remember ever going to pick Chu Xuanyi up on that particular day. He felt that Chu Xuanyi was deliberately making trouble for him. Furrowing his brows, he glared at Chu Xuanyi in warning.
“Don’t answer questions I haven’t asked. I don’t need to know anything about your boyfriend.”
Chu Xuanyi’s expression appeared unchanged, but his eyes instantly seemed to sink into an abyss, turning terrifyingly dark.
However, he didn’t let Liang Lie notice. Lowering his gaze, he simply replied, “Okay.”
Liang Lie watched the crown of Chu Xuanyi’s head as the latter lowered it, his hair forming a small swirl at the back. He couldn’t help wondering whether he had been too harsh in his tone. But he was investigating a case, after all. If Chu Xuanyi hadn’t kept bringing up irrelevant matters, Liang Lie wouldn’t have spoken to him like that in the first place.
Besides, was Chu Xuanyi genuinely unaware that he was under suspicion, or was he actually connected to the cases and deliberately answering this way to disrupt the questioning?
Liang Lie decided to show him the photographs of the other deceased as well. “Do you remember any of these people?”
Chu Xuanyi examined the photographs just as carefully as before. After looking through them, he asked in return, “Did these people also make appointments with me? And then they committed suicide?”
“Yes.”
Liang Lie was relieved that Chu Xuanyi had finally started using his brain. He watched him closely, hoping to determine whether Chu Xuanyi had merely guessed the connection or had already known about it.
However, Chu Xuanyi’s eyes reflected nothing but Liang Lie’s face as he spoke. “It has nothing to do with me. Go to the underground passage opposite the hospital’s north gate at six this evening. You should be able to find the clues you’re looking for there.”
“What do you know?”
Liang Lie immediately tensed up. Yet Chu Xuanyi answered without revealing the slightest hint of anything suspicious.
“To get to the subway station, you have to pass through the underground passage opposite the north gate. Judging by the times these people visited the hospital and underwent their examinations, they should all have finished their appointments and left the hospital at around six in the evening. Some of them were students, so they probably wouldn’t have driven themselves. The one thing they might all have in common is that they took the subway after leaving the hospital.”
Liang Lie silently observed Chu Xuanyi.
Even though he was considering breaking up with Chu Xuanyi, his instinct was still to find a way to exclude him from any connection to the cases. He believed that Chu Xuanyi couldn’t possibly be involved.
If he started from the assumption that Chu Xuanyi wasn’t a suspect, then this deduction did make a great deal of sense. However, Chu Xuanyi sounded far too certain when he explained it, which only made Liang Lie wonder whether he genuinely knew something.
His gaze sharpened as he asked, “If you remember everything so clearly, why did you say you didn’t remember just now?”
“Looking at the photographs reminded me. I only remember things concerning my boyfriend. If you hadn’t reminded me, I wouldn’t have thought of it.”
“I told you to stop bringing up your boyfriend.”
The words escaped Liang Lie’s mouth before he could stop himself. He then stood up and said, “Thank you for your cooperation, Dr. Chu. We’ll stop here for now. We’re leaving.”
Xiao Yang was confused. Was that really all? But Liang Lie had already turned around and walked away, so he hurried after him.
Before they could leave, however, Chu Xuanyi moved faster than Xiao Yang and got ahead of them.
He walked around to block the doorway and addressed Liang Lie. “Officer Liang, when this case is over, would it be possible for me to invite you to dinner?”