Municipal Public Security Bureau, Technical Division Laboratory.
Ding Qi had originally been leaning back in his chair, snoring lightly while waiting for test results, but someone had forcibly shaken him awake. Now he could only yawn as he processed the glitter particles He Shu had brought back on her hand.
“So you guys spent half the night club-hopping?” After hearing Zeng Yongjia’s explanation, he walked over to the microscope, looking distinctly displeased.
“No wonder your unit has it good. We forensic guys work overtime and get stuck in the lab. You go out watching people dance while we stare at machines and computer screens all day. My eyes are practically going blind!”
“Jealous?” Chang Bin grinned mischievously. “Then submit a report and transfer to field operations. We’re short-handed year-round anyway. If you’re willing to come, we’ll take you. Right, Captain He?”
Having just rinsed her hands nearby, He Shu nodded quite seriously. “Old Chang’s right. We’ve still got two vacancies. If you’re interested…”
“Hey, hey, hey!” Ding Qi quickly cut her off. “You want a technical specialist like me climbing trees and hopping walls with your team? I can tell you’re up to no good.”
Who didn’t know how dangerous Special Crimes work could be? Did they really think he didn’t know why there were two vacancies? One officer had taken two bullets over six months ago. After leaving the hospital, he had transferred straight into an administrative position. Another had suffered a broken forearm and several fractured ribs during a recent arrest operation and was still out on medical leave.
Someone like Ding Qi spent most of his time in an office. Sure, he was probably in better shape than the average person, but he wasn’t built to withstand that kind of punishment.
“I was just making a casual comment. Your entire department is the same from top to bottom. Never willing to take a loss.” The man sighed dramatically, but his spirits soon lifted again.
Pointing at the microscope in front of him, he said, “You people get to look at beautiful women. I’ve got this beauty right here. Well? Isn’t she gorgeous? The bureau just bought it for our department. It’s way more advanced than the old one. Just look at these lines, this curvature, this-”
“Stop, stop!” Zeng Yongjia interrupted with visible disgust. “How did you manage to make a piece of equipment sound so… weird? Just hurry up and finish our part. We’re planning to apply for a search warrant first thing when offices open. Don’t hold us up.”
“Rush, rush, rush. Special Crimes rushes me. Cold Cases rushes me. What do you think we are in the Technical Division, Nezha? Do we have three heads and six arms?”
Still grumbling, Ding Qi bent over the microscope. After examining the sample for quite a while, he finally straightened up. “It looks like the same type of glitter as the previous two samples. Once testing is complete, I’ll get the report out as quickly as possible.”
Then he waved them away. “You’ve all been up all night, haven’t you? At least you made some progress tonight. There’s still four or five hours before work officially starts. Go find a place and catch some sleep.”
“Thanks for the hard work.” He Shu nodded to him.
“No need to thank me. I’ve got the day shift off tomorrow. I’ll do my best to get it finished before I clock out,” Ding Qi replied. As he spoke, he waved them away impatiently. The message was clear: out with you all.
He Shu smiled slightly, nodded again, and led the others out.
Once everyone left, the Technical Division laboratory grew much quieter.
Ding Qi instructed one of his colleagues to run a composition analysis on the glitter particles. Then he wandered around the lab for a couple of laps, checking whether anything else needed attention. Finding nothing urgent, he sauntered back to his chair and sat down once more.
He felt as if he had barely closed his eyes when a knock, knock sounded on the desk. Letting out a couple of miserable groans, he gave up resisting and opened his eyes.
The moment he saw who was sitting half-perched on the desk in front of him, his expression changed. Looking rather distressed, he scratched his head, making several strands of hair on top stick straight up and giving him an oddly animated look.
“I swear, are all you homicide detectives on drugs or something? Every single one of you is absurdly energetic. What are you, owls?”
Slowly getting to his feet, he shuffled over to his computer, shoulders slightly hunched. He picked up a report, flipped it open to verify something, and tossed it onto the desk where the other man sat.
“I was overthinking it. Really, when have any of you ever let me get five minutes of uninterrupted rest during a night shift? Five minutes! Is that too much to ask?”
Ji Chen smiled and picked up the report. “The Night Runner case has been open for more than five years. We’ve finally caught the suspect, and all that’s left is your DNA report…” He flipped through the pages quickly. When his eyes landed on the percentage figure, he finally let out a breath of relief. The smile on his face became noticeably lighter. “Thanks.”
Closing a case made Ding Qi happy too. “Congratulations, Team Leader Ji. The four victims from the Night Runner case, along with their families, have been waiting more than five years for this day.”
Then he suddenly remembered something. “Your team isn’t the only one with good news. The Special Crimes Unit has made some progress too. Funny enough, it’s partly thanks to you. They went around investigating nightclubs near Zhenxiong Bay and actually found a lead.”
At those words, Ji Chen’s hand paused briefly. However, his expression remained unchanged as he put away the report. “So the people ‘harassing’ you earlier were from Special Crimes?”
“They pulled an all-nighter?”
Ding Qi looked at him strangely. “When has that ever been surprising for your crowd? Aren’t you sitting on my desk right now holding a report I wrote?”
“Looks like the Special Crimes Unit is running pretty smoothly despite the recent change in leadership.” Ji Chen spoke quietly, his gaze settling somewhere on the floor as though lost in thought.
“Not bad, actually. After dealing with her for the past couple of days, I’d say the new captain is genuinely capable. Honestly, she doesn’t seem any worse than those old veterans.” Ding Qi kept tidying his desk, then suddenly exclaimed. “Huh. Wait a minute.”
“I heard you’re supposed to know He Shu, aren’t you?”
“Weren’t you, Zeng Yongjia, and her all involved in the same selection trial for an assignment back then?” His expression suddenly turned gossipy.
After checking where the other two colleagues were, he tossed aside what he was holding and scooted closer. “People in Special Crimes are all saying that whenever Zeng Yongjia sees He Shu, he turns into a mouse spotting a cat. There’s got to be a story there, right?”
“Why don’t you ask Zeng Yongjia?” Ji Chen shot him a sidelong glance. Then he hopped down from the desk and patted Ding Qi on the shoulder. “Go home and get some decent sleep after your shift.”
Not getting the juicy gossip he wanted left Ding Qi somewhat dissatisfied. He muttered under his breath: “What if it’s something really embarrassing? Who’d be tactless enough to ask the person involved directly? I mean, I never asked you about those two broken ribs of yours…”
To his dismay, the man, who had already reached the doorway, apparently had exceptionally sharp hearing.
Ji Chen stopped in his tracks instantly. Then, slowly— very slowly— turned around. On the surface, his tone remained gentle as he asked: “What did you just say?”
“…”
At that moment, Ding Qi wished he could slap himself twice.
Ji Chen looked perfectly harmless right now, but they had worked together for years and knew each other well enough.
What man didn’t care about his pride? If Ji Chen ever found out that they had been privately gossiping about how he’d once had two ribs broken, things could very well turn deadly.
“Well… haha… hahaha…” His eyes darted everywhere as he forced out a dry, awkward laugh, refusing to meet the man standing in the doorway.
Seeing his reaction, Ji Chen didn’t press the issue. He withdrew his gaze and lowered his eyes slightly, concealing the turbulent emotions in them. Turning back around once more, he wore a faint smile that was difficult to interpret, hidden from everyone else’s view. Then he strode away.
Ding Qi hurried to the doorway and called after the figure as he walked down the corridor, guilt written all over his face. “Take care! Come by anytime when you’ve got time…”
…
“Ah, staying up this late really makes it impossible to sleep. Every time I close my eyes, all I see are those colorful nightclub lights. It’s killing me.”
Leaning back in his chair with his head thrown against the backrest, Zeng Yongjia let out a series of near-desperate groans.
Across from him, Chang Bin was sprawled in the exact same position. Without even opening his eyes, he frowned slightly and replied: “That’s not my problem. Ye Hao’s snoring is the real issue. It’s unbelievable.”
“It’s not the first time I’ve heard it, but somehow every time feels like a brand-new experience.”
In the Special Crimes Unit office during the pre-dawn hours, snores rose and fell from every direction. At that moment, some movement sounded near the doorway.
Turning his head, Zeng Yongjia called out weakly, “Captain He, instead of taking advantage of the downtime to get some rest, where’d you go?”
He Shu had not yet fully recovered from the conversation she had accidentally overheard in the hallway earlier. As a result, her reaction was slower than usual. After a few seconds, she shook the remaining water droplets from her hands. “Went to the restroom. Cleared my head while I was at it.”
“You two get some rest. I’m going to go over the known clues one more time.” With that, she headed toward the whiteboard.
“You can’t keep pulling all-nighters like this. Just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can ignore it. By the time you’re my age…” Chang Bin half-opened his eyes and launched into another lecture.
“Come on, Captain He knows what she’s doing.” Zeng Yongjia shot him a look. Then he shifted into a more comfortable position, closed his eyes, and let out a sigh so soft it was almost inaudible. “Besides, she’s always been this intense…”
By the whiteboard, He Shu had simply found a new place to stare off into space. She stood motionless for quite a while before finally moving again. The expression on her pretty face was unusually complicated.
Overhearing the conversation between Ding Qi and Ji Chen had not been her intention. She had simply gone to the emergency stairwell to relax her tightly wound nerves for a moment. By sheer coincidence, that staircase happened to be diagonally across from the Technical Division’s laboratory.
She casually picked up a marker from the conference table and pulled off the cap. Licking her dry lips, cracked from an entire night without sleep, she couldn’t help but think: He’s exactly the same as ever… No, actually, he’s even colder than he was a few years ago. His psychological defenses were stronger, his composure more complete. From head to toe, he seemed utterly flawless and impenetrable.
Sure enough, the scenario she had imagined, where he would hear some rumor or gossip and come looking for her about it, was never something that would happen to a man like Ji Chen. She wondered whether her old methods would still work on him at all.
The thought troubled He Shu only briefly. Quickly, she turned her attention back to the clues on the whiteboard. In one of the remaining blank spaces, she wrote: Phantom. Then beside it, she added: Dancer.
She stared at the board in silence for a long time.
At some point, dawn had fully broken outside. The office gradually came to life as people began moving around.
Finally, He Shu lifted her hand and drew a large circle around several of the entries on the board.
Rubbing his stiff neck and looking half asleep, Zeng Yongjia wandered over. After taking one look, he asked the obvious question: “Why did you circle all of those together?”
“I’ve got a few ideas,” He Shu replied. “But they’re still not fully formed yet.” She set down the marker and turned to look around at everyone.
“The timing should be about right. I’m going to check in with Ding Qi again. Once the search warrant comes through, we’re heading out.”
Author’s Note:
One day, Ji Chen cornered someone against a wall and asked, “I heard I had two ribs broken?”
He Shu: “…” 😶