Ji Chenjiao slammed on the brakes, the “screech” audible even from the corridor.

Passing team members cast inquiring and curious glances—did Teacher Ling piss off Captain Ji again?

Ling Lie adjusted his hoodie, which had been pulled askew, met Ji Chenjiao’s shocked gaze, and said, “Oh, if it’s not the ‘weight’, then it must be the ‘lightness’.”

Ji Chenjiao hooked his arm around Ling Lie’s neck, covered his mouth, and gritted his teeth against his ear. “In a public workplace setting, why are you making dirty jokes?”

Ling Lie blinked, feigning innocence. “Did I say something? Are you uncultured? Don’t you know there’s a book called The Unbearable [Lightness] of Being…”

As more and more team members looked over, Ji Chenjiao quickly interrupted, “I know!”

Ling Lie pushed him away in dissatisfaction and began straightening his clothes again, like a cat whose fur had been ruffled by a human and was hurriedly licking it smooth.

Seeing him like that, Ji Chenjiao felt both angry and amused. He hooked his index finger around the hoodie’s drawstring and gave it a gentle tug. “I bought that for you, you know.”

Ling Lie looked up, his face written with: Pure, Harmless.

The tip of Ji Chenjiao’s heart felt an inexplicable itch.

The temperature had been dropping lately. Ling Lie didn’t have many thick clothes, and the quality of what he did have was worrying, so Ji Chenjiao had dragged him out to restock his wardrobe.

Although Ji Chenjiao hadn’t reached the level of being vain, he was quite accomplished in fashion coordination. After his styling efforts, Ling Lie transformed from a tacky young man into the Municipal Bureau’s newest fashion icon.

Today, Ling Lie was wearing a snow-white hoodie and jeans. It looked simple, but it required a certain level of attractiveness to pull off, and it suited Ling Lie perfectly. However, what nearly made Ji Chenjiao pass out from anger was that before leaving this morning, Ling Lie had been rummaging through boxes and cabinets. When asked, good lord, Ling Lie was looking for oversleeves!

Blue oversleeves with white flowers!

Ji Chenjiao’s vision went dark. “Are you going to tie an apron on too?”

Ling Lie actually pondered this, resting his chin on his right hand, brows furrowed. “It seems… I should…”

Before the man could actually go get the apron, Ji Chenjiao dragged him out the door.

So now, Ling Lie wasn’t wearing oversleeves, and he was acting timid, constantly lifting his arms to check his sleeves.

Ji Chenjiao dared to buy white because he wasn’t afraid of Ling Lie getting it dirty. He just hadn’t expected that Ling Lie, who was usually so energetic and blustering, would go most of the day without getting a single speck of dirt on his clothes.

The two noisily returned to the office. Ling Lie rushed to the mirror, pulling at his hood to inspect it carefully.

Ji Chenjiao: “What are you doing?”

Ling Lie: “Checking to see if it was defiled by dirty paws.”

Ji Chenjiao: “…” Wasn’t he the one who touched Ling Lie’s hood?!

After inspecting it, Ling Lie patted his chest in relief. “Good, good.”

Ji Chenjiao couldn’t hold back. “Xia Xiaodou, could you be any more annoying?”

Ling Lie looked at him sincerely. “I cherish the clothes my boyfriend gave me, what’s it to you?”

Ji Chenjiao was instantly struck in the heart.

Ling Lie continued, “How much I cherish them shows how deep my love for him is. People like you who don’t have boyfriends to buy them clothes wouldn’t understand!”

Ji Chenjiao felt a current of air rushing up from his feet; he felt like he was about to float away. He forcibly suppressed it and coughed. “Who… who says I don’t have a boyfriend?”

Ling Lie said, “Captain Ji, you have a problem with reading comprehension. Was my main point ‘boyfriend’? It was ‘boyfriend buying clothes’! My boyfriend buys me clothes; what can your boyfriend do? Your boyfriend only knows how to make you angry. You lose, don’t you?”

Ji Chenjiao: “…”

His soul was chugging and puffing steam like a steam engine.

Ling Lie chattered on, “Sigh, the Captain of the Major Crimes Unit is a dummy, how will cases ever get solved?”

Ji Chenjiao felt like he was back in the days when he first met Ling Lie, with this annoying creature chanting in his ear all day long—The Major Crimes Captain is no good, doesn’t know this, doesn’t understand that, how will he clear Mr. Ling’s suspicion?

The memories of his dead bachelor days suddenly launched an attack!

Ji Chenjiao thought, Fine, humans shouldn’t argue with cats.

After muttering, Ling Lie grinned and sprawled onto Ji Chenjiao’s desk. The two looked at each other across the desk.

The Municipal Bureau had a dress code, though the Major Crimes Unit was relatively lax. Due to mission requirements, everyone could wear plain clothes in the office. But including Ji Chenjiao, as long as plain clothes weren’t mandatory, they would still wear uniforms according to the rules. So Ling Lie, the only one who always wore casual clothes, stood out conspicuously.

“Little Ji, you bought me so many clothes because you wanted to see me wear them at the bureau, right?” Ling Lie’s eyes were bright, like a beam of light, instantly illuminating Ji Chenjiao’s little scheme clearly.

Ji Chenjiao rested his forehead on his right hand, pretending to do eye exercises, but actually blocking his line of sight.

“Hahaha—” Ling Lie whispered. “Show-off. As the captain, you’re embarrassed to wear private clothes every day, so…”

Ji Chenjiao warned in a low voice, “Malicious speculation about colleagues is prohibited!”

Ling Lie didn’t stop. “So you dress up your boyfriend every day.”

Ji Chenjiao: “…”

Ling Lie shook his head and laughed on the table. Ji Chenjiao couldn’t maintain his fierce expression at all; it broke in a few seconds, and he laughed along with him.

“Now you don’t cherish your clothes?” Ji Chenjiao said. “You’ve rubbed black marks on your sleeves.”

Ling Lie lifted his hands to look, let out a pained “Awooo,” and Ji Chenjiao was even more amused.

“You, as the captain, why don’t you have work matters in your brain during work hours?” Ling Lie pointed to the rules and regulations on the wall, scolding fiercely. “And you were caught red-handed by a leader of the Special Action Team. It would be unjustifiable not to punish this severely, right?”

The word “severely” (or heavy/weight) made Ji Chenjiao think of the “unbearable weight of life” Ling Lie mentioned earlier. The two exchanged a glance, both realizing that “colored waste” (dirty thoughts) was surging in the other’s mind.

Ji Chenjiao quickly controlled himself. “Alright, if we keep this up, we really will be violating regulations.”

Ling Lie squeezed over to Ji Chenjiao’s monitor. “Yong Huihao and Tang Qi briefly went missing. What do you guess they went to do?”

Ji Chenjiao was used to this person entering work mode in a split second, and he also became serious. “Frankly, I don’t have a lead yet. I can only link it to ‘Floating Light.’ Since last year, ‘Floating Light’ has been spreading ‘Snow Child’ step by step within our borders. Perhaps they were tools in this process. But Yong and Tang were too ordinary. I can’t find any common ground between them. Why would ‘Floating Light’ choose them?”

Ling Lie said, “Didn’t you analyze last time that Tang Qi might have used ‘Snow Child’ before he died?”

Ji Chenjiao nodded. “It’s a pity we didn’t do a toxicology test at the time.”

Ling Lie: “If the deaths of these two people are indeed related to ‘Floating Light,’ could it be that ‘Floating Light’ is conducting random experiments on the population?”

“Random experiments?”

“Think about it, ‘Snow Child’ is essentially a drug. I feel that ‘Floating Light’ doesn’t intend to profit from selling ‘Snow Child,’ but rather wants to use ‘Snow Child’ as a tool for their true purpose.”

Ji Chenjiao crossed his arms in thought. “The former is the behavior of drug traffickers; the latter, because it is unknown, might be even more dangerous.”

Ling Lie said, “Exactly. Since it’s an experiment, they need as many types as possible. This could explain why Yong Huihao and Tang Qi had nothing in common—they were randomly selected to begin with.”

Ji Chenjiao said, “But no trace of ‘Snow Child’ was detected in Yong Huihao’s body.”

Ling Lie grabbed his hair. “Then why on earth is it?”

Ji Chenjiao’s expression grew slightly solemn. The key to solving the problem likely lay in last November. When Yong Huihao and Tang Qi disappeared, no one called the police. If the police hadn’t repeatedly dug for clues about them, their disappearances wouldn’t have been remembered by anyone.

This is actually a characteristic that easily attracts crime.

Nearly a year had passed; the chance of the Technical Investigation Team finding the truth was slim to none.

“By the way, a lot of people have gone missing this year too.” Ling Lie searched for news on the computer as he spoke. “But they’re all in other cities. Brother Qi even said our security is good.”

Missing person cases happen all the time. Many don’t attract attention until they turn into murder cases. It wasn’t that there were no missing person cases in Xiarong City recently, just that they hadn’t made the news like in other cities.

The news mentioned that students from a technical school in a certain city went on an autumn trip, and five did not return; two ordinary missing person cases in another city were found by police to involve former high school classmates; at a chemical plant in another city, three migrant workers didn’t come to work after the holidays…

The reason these missing person cases made the news was their specific nature: they were all group disappearances. Ji Chenjiao stared at the screen, his gaze gradually darkening.

Did they have anything to do with “Floating Light”?

Suddenly, his vision was blocked, and something rough but warm pressed against the center of his brow. Ji Chenjiao snapped back to reality and found it was Ling Lie’s finger.

Ling Lie rubbed Ji Chenjiao’s eyebrows, smoothing them from the center outward, chanting a “spell”: “Our Little Ji is frowning again. May the hand of the boyfriend bless him not to wrinkle into a little old man.”

Ji Chenjiao: “…”

After teasing Ji Chenjiao, Ling Lie went to the mirror to tidy up his appearance again.

Ji Chenjiao asked, “Going out?”

Ling Lie said, “Yeah, buying some stuff.”

Ji Chenjiao asked casually, “Buying what?”

Ling Lie lectured, “Dating is about equality. Please do not interfere with your boyfriend’s personal freedom.”

Ji Chenjiao’s skull felt like it was on fire. Why is he escalating this to a matter of principle?

Ling Lie was the freest person in the Major Crimes Unit, unbound by those rules and regulations. At most, he was only restrained by Ji Chenjiao. But Ji Chenjiao had just been thoroughly roasted by him and had already ceased fire.

Ling Lie took the subway to the commercial center in the Southern District. Skyscrapers stood like a forest there, malls clustered together, and crowds surged whether it was a weekday or a holiday.

Ling Lie walked into one of the malls and headed straight for a jewelry store. The salesclerk greeted him enthusiastically, asking what he would like to see. He circled the glass counter twice, his eyes lighting up when he saw a dragon-patterned ring.

The salesclerk praised his taste, taking it out to measure against his hand.

“Sir, you seem destined for this ring. Why not take it?”

Ling Lie: “Thank you, I need to shop around.”

Salesclerk: “…”

Ling Lie went to browse other stores. Jewelry stores had quite a few dragon-patterned accessories, and before long, Ling Lie was dazzled. He now fully agreed with Ji Chenjiao’s assessment of him—Your professional excellence is built on the foundation of a negative score in aesthetic appreciation.

“Sigh…” Ling Lie got tired of looking and sat in the atrium eating a McDonald’s ice cream cone.

He was a bit annoyed; impulsiveness was a bad thing. Why did he suddenly have the whim to buy jewelry for Little Ji today?

Yes, Little Ji bought him a lot of clothes, while he had only given Little Ji socks, oversleeves, old-man tank tops…

He should have done some research before coming to buy; then he wouldn’t be flying blind like this.

But after finishing the cone, Ling Lie thought: I’m already here. It would be unjustifiable not to spend some money, right?

Returning to the jewelry counter, after comparing three stores, Ling Lie bought the largest dragon-patterned ring.

The salesclerk beamed: “Thank you for your patronage, please come again!”

Ling Lie walked out of the mall carrying the exquisite box. Checking the time, he was too lazy to squeeze into the subway, so he went to the taxi stand to queue. After waiting a few minutes, a taxi stopped. A man appearing to be in his fifties got out of the car. Their eyes met, and the man nodded kindly.

Ling Lie got into the car. In the rearview mirror, the man stopped after walking a short distance and looked in the direction of the car. Until the car turned a corner and vanished from his sight, he also vanished from the rearview mirror.

Ling Lie returned home like a thief and breathed a sigh of relief finding Ji Chenjiao hadn’t returned yet.

He had been momentarily swept up in the excitement today and spent a huge sum to buy a gift for Ji Chenjiao, but when it came time to give it, he suddenly felt shy.

Taking advantage of Ji Chenjiao’s absence, he quickly stuffed the box into the wardrobe in the guest bedroom.

When Ji Chenjiao came back, he felt Ling Lie was acting a bit off. Not only did he just make a bowl of egg fried rice to fob him off, but he also put in too much salt.

“Xia Xiaodou, what bad thing did you do behind my back?”

“What ‘what bad thing’?”

Risking another lecture on principles, Ji Chenjiao asked, “What did you go buy?”

Ling Lie looked left and right. “Didn’t buy anything.”

“Oh?” Ji Chenjiao continued to stare.

Ling Lie sighed, speaking earnestly, “I didn’t want to say it. After all, happy things are harmful to the body.”

Ji Chenjiao’s eyelid started twitching.

Ling Lie walked to the sofa, lifted the small blanket, and picked up the bag buried underneath.

Inside that bag were unmistakably certain consumables.

Ling Lie: “We ran out, so I restocked.”

Ji Chenjiao almost choked on his fried rice.

Ling Lie came back to rub his back. “See? You insisted on asking. Being so impatient, now you’ve choked.”

---

While Ji Chenjiao and Ling Lie were bickering at home, Xi Wan worked overtime a while longer to wait for her husband to pick her up.

Zhou Xiaofeng was on field duty near the Municipal Bureau today, so he could pick Xi Wan up on his way back. The two chatted in the car for a while before the topic shifted to Xu Jiang.

“Xu Jiang is still suspended. We all think this thing is very fishy.”

Xi Wan asked, “Is someone intentionally targeting Xu Jiang?”

“Targeting him might not be the main point; the cases he handled in the past are the main point,” Zhou Xiaofeng said. “You know, he used to be a prosecutor. Those who fell into his hands basically got heavy sentences. Now that something has happened to him, rumors are spreading that there were problems with his cases too—criminal defense lawyers are naturally a head shorter than prosecutors, so they’re uniting to pit the defendants against him.”

Xi Wan frowned. “How could it be like that?”

“It’s too normal,” Zhou Xiaofeng said. “With Xu Jiang’s personality, he was prone to offending people to begin with. And when he was a prosecutor, he was truly fierce, always aiming for the maximum sentence. Who knows how many people want him dead—lawyers, defendants, and other related parties.”

Xi Wan said, “But there were no problems with the cases themselves.”

Zhou Xiaofeng said, “In this current climate of public opinion, don’t you understand? First, stain you with a spot of dirt. Whether the spot is real or not, exaggerated or not, they just seize on the idea that there’s a problem with your character. Then with a sweep of the hand, everything you’ve ever done becomes problematic.”

Xi Wan asked, “So what will happen?”

Zhou Xiaofeng shook his head. “I don’t know. Xu Jiang’s attitude is also very firm; he refuses to admit any problems with his case handling or prosecution process. They might give him the cold shoulder treatment. His personal future will definitely be affected.”

---

At night, the autumn wind blew harder. The water in Xiarong University’s landscape lake rippled continuously. There were fewer people memorizing by the lake than in previous days. Waves hit the narrow embankment, splashing the moss wet.

After nine o’clock, students finishing classes or evening self-study walked toward the dorms one after another. When passing the landscape lake, they all saw a person walking slowly along the embankment.

“Weird, going to the lake island this late?”

“Is there an event on the island tonight?”

“How is that possible? It’s almost winter. Going there to drink the northwest wind?”

“Maybe they’re going for a ‘wild battle’ (hooking up outside)?”

“Tsk tsk, that’s actually possible!”

The students discussed it, changing the topic after passing that section, and no one chased after him to see what the person actually wanted to do.

By ten o’clock, some of the streetlights around the landscape lake turned off, and those memorizing texts had all returned to the dorms. At this time, only students studying overnight or science students doing experiments would pass by the lake. The lake water surged, submerging a small section of the embankment.

Zhang Chunquan sat on a small stone stool on the lake island, facing the vast water. The moon couldn’t cast a complete shadow on the water; that round disk was constantly torn apart by the waves, just like the torn corpses he had seen.

After a long time, he stood up, his eyes blank and lifeless. It was as if there were countless threads in the air pulling his body, dragging him to the water’s edge.

He turned around and looked at the Study Bridge he had walked countless times, connecting the teaching building and the dormitory. Under the streetlight, only one student walked by hurriedly.

The person did not look toward the lake island.

He withdrew his gaze and looked once more at the moon’s corpse in the lake. A few seconds later, he leaped into the lake.

Thump— A loud sound in the night. The student on the Study Bridge stopped and looked into the lake, seeing only a pool of rippling waves.

He watched for a moment, then quickened his pace toward the dormitory.

---

Two days later, the police station received a report from Xiarong University: Zhang Chunquan, a junior in the School of Materials Science, was missing.

College students “going missing” was too common for the police station. some went on solo trips, some went to hotels with lovers, and some didn’t want to attend class and went back to their hometowns without a word.

The police station was right next to Xiarong University and had handled countless similar reports. Several times, the person returned on their own before an investigation could even begin. They thought this time would be similar, but a symbolic investigation by the beat cop revealed something was wrong.

Zhang Chunquan’s hometown was in a small city. His parents were workers, and he had an older sister. The family wasn’t well-off, and he lived on financial aid. But this hadn’t made him inferior; on the contrary, he was sunny and enthusiastic. Whether in class or clubs, he never refused anyone who needed help. His grades were also good, ranking in the upper-middle tier of his department.

But for some unknown reason, after the start of this semester, his personality changed drastically. He was unwilling to talk to people, hid in corners during class, quit all club activities, and when not in class, he either stayed alone in the library or hid somewhere unknown, returning to the dorm only around lights-out.

His classmates and roommates all felt he was acting abnormally. At first, they worried something had happened at home, but when they asked, he wouldn’t say. One roommate, who was very close to him, went to ask other students who had stayed at school over the summer if he had encountered anything bad while working a summer job.

The students who stayed said they didn’t know, and added that they hadn’t really seen him during the summer either.

This was strange. Zhang Chunquan had stayed at school over the summer, claiming he was working to earn money, but why hadn’t he returned to the dorm?

Whoever asked Zhang Chunquan, Zhang Chunquan wouldn’t answer.

His classmates’ patience was gradually worn thin by him. Fine, if you treat our concern like dirt, then we won’t care about you either.

In this way, Zhang Chunquan became invisible in the School of Materials Science. People stopped discussing him and stopped gathering around him. Only a social butterfly like Xiao Mi would occasionally chat with Zhang Chunquan.

“The second to last time I spoke to him was by the lake.” Although Xiao Mi was a social butterfly, she stuttered in front of the police. “We were memorizing texts there. He seemed to be memorizing too. After we finished, we walked back to the dorms together.”

“He was weird that day. He said he was memorizing, but it didn’t really look like it. He just stared at the lake surface in a daze. I asked him what he was thinking, but he wouldn’t say. Later, on the way back, I recommended a novel I was reading to him, and he said he’d read it when he got back.”

“The last time I spoke to him was during a public elective class. I asked him if he had read the novel I recommended. He didn’t want to talk to me.”

The beat cop searched Zhang Chunquan’s dorm. His clothes were mostly still there; his backpack, textbooks, stationery, and laptop were all there, as well as a very exquisite dagger. What he had taken seemed to be only his phone and meal card—things one would definitely carry even if not leaving the campus.

The police station was very concerned about Xiao Mi’s statement that “Zhang Chunquan stared at the lake water in a daze.” In the subsequent interviews, more and more students mentioned seeing someone walking on the embankment toward the lake island around nine o’clock on the night of November 20th.

It had rained last night, and the embankment was submerged. Looking from the shore, the lake island was completely cut off, surrounded by lake water.

The beat cop had an ominous guess and quickly looked for more witnesses. None of them had seen clearly who it was, but one student said with a pale face, “I… when I was going back around ten o’clock, I think… I think I heard the sound of someone falling into the water.”

The beat cop hurriedly asked, “Did you see anything?”

The student shook his head. “No, no. I was the only one on the bridge at the time, and I couldn’t see anyone by the lake either. I looked for a while, didn’t see anything, and I… I felt a bit scared, so I left quickly.”

The embankment was submerged, so they could only look for footprints by the lake. But many people passed by the lake every day; footprints overlapped with footprints, making them hard to identify.

The beat cop quickly asked the school for a boat. The boat was used for sightseeing in spring and summer and had been stored away after autumn arrived. The cop rowed to the lake island and collected footprints. Among them was a set walking toward the water, with no corresponding return footprints.

A search operation was launched immediately. The police station requested frogmen support from the sub-bureau. That night, a male corpse was salvaged from the lake.

After identification, the male was confirmed to be the missing student, Zhang Chunquan.