“Splash—”

The torrential rain poured down. Raindrops smashed against the car windows, dampening the gloomy sky. Pedestrians on the street hurried back and forth under their umbrellas. The sound of the rain was constantly mixed with honking horns, and the vehicles crawled slowly forward amidst the noise.

The radio broadcast the weather condition: “The thunderstorm has been going on since yesterday until now. The average rainfall this month has exceeded historical extremes. There is waterlogging on the roads. Citizens are advised to be extra careful when traveling.”

“Let’s hope there hasn’t been an accident up ahead,” the driver stared at the wipers swinging back and forth. After listening to the broadcast, he said impatiently, “Who knows when this rain will stop. This road is already congested enough as it is—”

At this point, he tilted his head slightly backward, saying to the figure sitting in the back seat, “Your destination… is the police station?”

Leaden clouds obscured the sun, and the light inside the car was dim.

The figure sitting there moved a little. His head was lowered, his hands clasped and resting on his lap. The crossed leg was wrapped in black jeans, and he wore a pair of leather boots on his feet. The simply tailored military boots were stained with a few drops of rainwater.

The man hadn’t made a single sound since he got in the car. The destination was marked on the ride-hailing app’s online order.

He had slept for a while after getting in and had just woken up. Stray hair over his forehead covered his eyes. Sitting there, he seemed to be swallowed by the darkness, half of his body blending into the dim light. From the rearview mirror, the driver could only see a section of a pale, sharp jawline.

A few seconds later, a merciless sentence came from the back seat.

“Just drive your car.”

“…”

During their brief exchange, the traffic conditions hadn’t improved in the slightest.

The driver realized this passenger was not easy to get along with and was clearly more interested in leaning back and continuing to sleep than making small talk. He didn’t speak to the passenger anymore, only secretly wondering to himself: Running to the police station at this hour… sigh, did he commit a crime?

---

Meanwhile, at the Yongan Police Station, South China Branch.

The words “Strict Law Enforcement, Enthusiastic Service” were displayed on the wall, with the national emblem placed in the middle. However, such majesty could not suppress the chaotic scene currently taking place in the station—a man in his forties was being hauled into the office area by two beat cops, one holding each arm.

Beat cop: “Behave!”

The man struggled wildly, refusing to cooperate. When his struggles proved futile, he began to cling to the door handle in a death grip. Even though his upper body had already been dragged through the door by the cops, his legs remained planted to the spot like stone pillars. He howled at the top of his lungs, “You can’t arrest me without evidence!—Is this how you handle cases? Let me go, I’m going to file a complaint against you!”

The man was wearing a grey work jacket with pockets that looked like two square patches. The sneakers on his feet were quite new, but his cloudy brown eyes revealed a strong plebeian, street-smart vibe.

The newly minted beat cop Ji Mingrui came in from behind. As he entered, he casually reached out and hauled the man all the way in. “No evidence?!” He pulled out a chair, waited for the man’s shoulders to be pinned down so he sat obediently, and only then slammed a transparent evidence bag onto the desk.

Inside the evidence bag lay an old, silver cell phone.

Ji Mingrui: “You left your phone in their living room while you were stealing from their house, and you still dare to say there’s no evidence?!”

The man’s howling came to an abrupt halt: “…”

Ji Mingrui: “Or do you want to claim this phone isn’t yours? That somewhere in this world, there is another person who has your wife’s phone number saved and also calls your wife ‘Wife’?”

The man fell completely silent: “……”

Ji Mingrui continued to ask, “Where did you hide the stolen item?”

“…”

Half an hour later.

A female police officer walked out from the next room. “It’s a complete mess on my end too. The neighbor, Granny Wang, has been crying for ages. She says that wood carving is an ancestral heirloom of their family and is incredibly important to her, urging us to find it right away.”

“He still won’t confess?”

Ji Mingrui was very tall and looked quite sturdy, with thick eyebrows and large eyes. He had just graduated from the police academy this year to become a beat cop, throwing himself into all sorts of neighborhood conflicts and arguments. After graduating, he discovered that working at the local police station couldn’t even be considered ‘solving cases’; it was more like being a mediator.

Today this family is getting a divorce, tomorrow another family is violently beating a mistress because of an affair…

Ji Mingrui took a deep breath. No one expected a wood carving could drag on for so long. “He hasn’t said. He hemmed and hawed, claiming he forgot. How can you forget where you hid something yourself?! I originally made plans to have dinner with a friend tonight. Looking at the situation, when he gets here, I’ll only be able to treat him to instant noodles. Knowing his rotten temper, who knows if he’ll dump the noodle cup over my head.”

The female officer turned her head to look at the torrential rain outside the window, thinking to herself that making plans for dinner in this kind of weather was weird enough.

The interrogation continued.

Halfway through, the neighbor, Granny Wang, couldn’t wait any longer. She pushed the door open and charged into the battlefield, making the office scene even more chaotic.

When the old lady started cursing, she didn’t lose out to the youngsters in the slightest. Though her movements were trembling, her voice was full of vigor.

The “mediator”, Ji Mingrui, had a massive headache from all the noise. Just as he was trying to pacify Granny Wang’s emotions, the glass door of the office was knocked twice. “Mingrui, someone is looking for you, says he’s your friend.” Finally, the person relaying the message added, “His name is Chi Qing.”

Ji Mingrui was overwhelmed and couldn’t spare a second. Without turning his head, he replied, “He’s my friend, tell him to come straight in.”

Because the scene was so chaotic, no one noticed that a few minutes later, someone closed his umbrella and walked through the corridor. The tip of the transparent long-handled umbrella pointed down, and the man’s originally slightly wet leather boots had been wiped clean with a neat freak’s obsessiveness. Subsequently, a hand wearing a black glove pushed the door open.

The black glove tightly wrapped around the fingers, making the knuckles look exceptionally slender.

—If the scene in the station had been even slightly calmer, this hand wouldn’t have been so easily ignored, and would have probably drawn a very high rate of second glances. After all, in daily life, it’s rare to see someone deliberately wearing gloves when going out.

Chi Qing had been stuck in traffic for over half an hour. When he pushed the door open, Granny Wang was vigorously cursing in the local dialect.

“You little bastard—!”

The man in the work jacket retorted, “Don’t think I can’t understand just because I’m from out of town! Are you cursing at me?!”

Ji Mingrui said, “You don’t have the right to speak here! You have the nerve to talk, huh? Do you know the nature of your actions is extremely malicious? How could you steal your neighbor’s ancestral wood carving? Do you know that wood—” The mediator Ji Mingrui, out of a desire to pacify the victim, scolded the man for a bit, but then turned to the granny: “What material is that wood?”

Ji Mingrui thought to himself that it should have some value, which could be used to bluff the guy.

Neighbor Granny Wang hurriedly said, “It was wood we chopped in the mountains ourselves. Aiyo, it’s been passed down for three generations.”

Ji Mingrui: “…”

“Ahem… Hear that? Wood passed down for three generations,” Ji Mingrui tapped the desk with his finger. “Its value cannot be measured with money. Where exactly did you hide it?!”

While the group was still arguing endlessly over the wood carving, only the female officer—who had stepped aside to get a cup of water for Granny Wang—noticed that the “friend” who had just entered was sleeping on the corner sofa all by himself. His figure lay on his side on the sofa, his long legs curled up.

Due to the limited angle, she didn’t see what the person looked like, only noticing the man’s dangling half-wrist.

…It’s a miracle he can sleep with it being this noisy.

An extremely simple dispute, a single wood carving. Ji Mingrui used all the interrogation tactics he had learned in the police academy over the years. Alas, the man in the work jacket across from him remained completely impervious to reason, refusing to return the item for some unknown stubborn reason. “I already told you, I left it outside when I went out to buy things just now. I threw it away! I don’t even know exactly where I threw it. If you go dig through the trash cans, you might still find it. I’ve already thrown it away, so how do you expect me to give it to you? Worst comes to worst, I’ll just compensate you with some money. How much money could this piece of wood possibly cost me?”

Ji Mingrui cursed his mother inwardly.

The clock hands passed eleven.

The rain outside the window was still falling.

Seeing that he had gained the upper hand, the man in the work jacket rolled his eyes around. “Is there anything else? Since we’re done chatting, you can let me go now, right?”

For a moment, no one knew what to say.

Just as they were at a stalemate, a voice broke the peace: “It’s been raining continuously for two days.”

Everyone looked toward the sound and saw Chi Qing sitting up from the sofa as he spoke. Since the incandescent light was right above his head, he raised a hand to half-cover his eyes, taking a moment to adjust before continuing, “You went out to buy things, yet there’s not a single speck of mud on your shoes. If I were you, I wouldn’t use an excuse so full of loopholes.”

He hadn’t actually been able to sleep much just now. The office was too noisy, and half-awake, he had heard almost all the details of this neighborhood dispute.

The man in the work jacket subconsciously shrunk his feet back.

He hadn’t gone out at all.

This sentence popped into everyone’s minds simultaneously, like a clap of thunder.

Ji Mingrui froze for a second, then said, “If he didn’t go out, that means the item is in his house.”

Chi Qing stood up. He still looked like he hadn’t fully woken up, his eyes half-squinted, giving off an aura of impatient waiting.

He pointed across the air at the evidence bag. “May I take a look?”

Everyone immediately noticed the black gloves on his hands—the phone was a touchscreen, and because he needed to swipe to check it, Chi Qing slowly and methodically took off his right glove before picking up the phone, revealing a hand that seemed to have not seen the sun year-round, one that could be described as deathly pale. The knuckles were slender, and the skin was so white that the faint blue veins dormant underneath were almost visible.

That hand held the phone for no more than ten seconds before quickly setting it down.

What caught people’s attention wasn’t just that hand. Aside from Ji Mingrui, who had faced Chi Qing’s face year-round and was already used to it, it was hard for the others to digest the visual impact brought by this face.

The female officer, who was very close to Chi Qing, snapped out of her daze and realized she had been staring at him blankly for a long time. With delayed realization, her face burned red.

It was an extremely beautiful but slightly decadent face. Perhaps because the hair over his forehead was too long, or perhaps his complexion was simply too pale, but his lips were as red as if they had been stained with blood. Although the man’s features were beautiful, his expression was weary, and he carried a sort of languid, decadent aura.

Chi Qing seemed very accustomed to this kind of gaze. He only dropped one sentence: “Rather than asking him where he hid the item, it’d be better to call his son over and ask.”

Ji Mingrui was confused: Son?

How did his son get dragged into this?

What does this have to do with his son?

Wait, how does he know he has a son?

However, upon the mention of his son, the man became agitated. Unlike his unreasonable agitation from earlier, this time his eyes widened. He shot up with a swoosh, making a move to snatch the phone. “If you want to interrogate me, then interrogate me, why bring up my son!”

Ji Mingrui raised an eyebrow, sensing something was wrong: “Sit back down and behave!”

“My son has nothing to do with this!”

In his desperation to snatch the item, the man in the work jacket accidentally touched Chi Qing’s hand, which hadn’t fully retreated yet.

In the instant they touched, an extra layer of sound appeared in Chi Qing’s ears. This voice sounded as if it were separated by a membrane, transmitting into his ears with a slight distortion. It was as if two men in work jackets were speaking in his ear simultaneously, yet the distorted sentence was completely opposite to what he was saying out loud:

[I can’t let them know that it was my son who stole the item. If this matter gets out, how will others view Xiaokang? He’ll be gossiped about by neighbors and classmates…]

In the end, he didn’t manage to snatch the phone away. Ji Mingrui seized the phone and began to flip through it again, following the app that Chi Qing had just opened.

On the browser, the web searches over the past month were all the name of a certain children’s cartoon. In the call logs, there were barely any call records for the past half year, showing absolutely no trace of work contacts or adult life. As for the photo album, there weren’t many photos. Most were old pictures, with very few new ones. The most recent one happened to be taken today; it was a blurry smear of black and white flashing past, extremely out of focus, like an accidental shot.

—This replaced old phone was clearly no longer being used by the man.

Then who was using it?

“Under normal circumstances, how do people handle the old phones they replace?” Ji Mingrui seemed to be asking a question, but actually provided the answer himself. “They give them to other family members to use. If they have children—most people save them for the kids to play with. Do you want to return the item to the old lady yourself, or should we go find your son and ask him personally?”

The man lowered his head, knowing that the matter could no longer be covered up.

As Ji Mingrui was continuing to press for details, the female officer next to him pointed at the glass door: “Your friend went out.”

Ji Mingrui only took one glance. “He went to wash his hands.”

Female officer: “Huh?”

Ji Mingrui knew Chi Qing’s “eccentric” bad habits like the back of his hand. While keeping his head down to record the case details on paper, he said, “Him, total germaphobe. If someone touches him once, he can wash his hands three times. Didn’t you see he’s been wearing gloves ever since he walked through the door?”

“His germaphobia is that severe?”

“More than severe,” Ji Mingrui put down his pen and pointed at the trash can with the tip. “When I first met him in high school, I wanted to help him take out the trash, and accidentally touched his hand. He directly dumped the trash can over my head. We almost didn’t become friends. That’s how terrifying germaphobia is.”

“Since you’re so familiar with him now, he wouldn’t still do that, right?” The female officer found this quirk quite interesting and laughed.

Ji Mingrui: “I asked him that question too. He said that out of respect for a friend, he’ll hold it in for three seconds, and if he can’t hold it anymore, then he’ll dump it.”

“Did he also go to the police academy? Where is he working now?” The female officer asked the question everyone in the room wanted to ask.

“No, he went to a film academy, completely unrelated,” Ji Mingrui knew exactly what they were surprised about. “Although it’s a pity, my buddy here really didn’t join the police force—don’t you think he’s super impressive, almost as if he can read minds?”

The female officer nodded.

“…It was the same when we were in school. It seemed like he always knew what other people were thinking,” Ji Mingrui said, then waved his hand. “Just kidding. How could something like mind-reading exist in this world—”

At the end of the corridor, the restroom.

Chi Qing stood in front of the mirror. His hands were dripping wet, and his knuckles had been drenched until they seemed completely devoid of warmth.

He looked silently at himself in the mirror.

Through the mirror, the same scene was reproduced face-to-face. Through the reflected image, it was as if the world had also been split into two.

Only he himself knew that the brief moment earlier wasn’t an auditory hallucination. The distorted voice had truly and slowly crawled up from the depths of his brain, murmuring eerily: [I can’t let them know that it was my son who stole the item…]

Chi Qing lowered his eyes, and finally dried his hands as if nothing had happened.