Ling Lie’s tied-up hair had come a bit loose. As he was re-tying it, he said, “One of the duties of a temporary worker is to be admired by the leader.”

Ji Chenjiao pressed a hand on top of his head, messing up the hair he had just neatened.

Ling Lie yelped, “Hey, hey! How dare you, temporary worker, offend your leader!”

Ji Chenjiao said, “Then go ahead and call the police.”

The two horsed around for a bit until the archive administrator, hearing the commotion, came to see what was happening. Ji Chenjiao quickly resumed his gentlemanly posture, while Ling Lie’s hair remained a mess.

After the administrator left, Ling Lie squatted on the floor looking for his hair tie, his mouth still running. “Look at you, disgracing the Xiarong City Serious Crime Squad all the way in Feng City. If Captain Xie and Brother Liang found out, they’d be furious.”

Ji Chenjiao found the hair tie first. Ling Lie reached for it, but Ji Chenjiao wouldn’t give it to him.

Ling Lie: “?”

Ji Chenjiao: “Come here, I’ll tie it for you.”

When Ji Chenjiao did something he wasn’t good at, he looked clumsy and by-the-book. Tying hair, such a simple task, was something he had never done before, so he did it with extreme concentration. The result of this concentration was Ling Lie yelling, “Captain Ji, are you just jealous that I’m better looking than you?”

Ji Chenjiao looked at Ling Lie’s head, quite satisfied with his hair-tying skills. Ling Lie usually just tied it back loosely and messily, which was completely disorderly. He had tied it for Ling Lie in a neat, medium-high ponytail, the kind worn by the girls who gave the most proper salute at a flag-raising ceremony. It looked much more spirited than how Ling Lie usually tied it himself.

And this spirited young man was ungrateful.

Seeing that the spirited young man was about to undo his handiwork, Ji Chenjiao quickly stopped him. “Don’t move.”

“You’re just jealous of me, that’s why you’re torturing my hair like this. You’ll be happy when I go bald!” Ling Lie pointed out fiercely.

Ji Chenjiao was about to argue, but he saw that Ling Lie’s eyes were red and the corners were pulled up by his taut scalp, almost turning them into fox eyes. Only then did he ask, doubtfully, “Is it really that tight? Does it hurt?”

Ling Lie seized the opportunity to pull off the hair tie, frantically massaging his scalp. He wouldn’t let Ji Chenjiao touch his hair again.

Ji Chenjiao watched him tie his hair back in the old way. Comparing it to the spirited young man from a moment ago, he thought, forget it, he looks good even when he’s not so spirited.

They took some of the files with them. Ling Lie asked, “How do you think we should investigate this case?”

Ji Chenjiao: “Aren’t you the leader?”

Ling Lie: “The leader is testing the temporary worker.”

Ji Chenjiao didn’t answer immediately. Although he had handled countless cases, opportunities to directly investigate a cold case were rare.

While the Serious Crime Squad often investigated cold cases, like in the previous few instances, it was usually because a new case naturally led them to an old one. With a new case came new clues.

But investigating a cold case directly meant there were no new clues, and old clues diminished with the passage of time. Imagine, if it wasn’t solved back then, seventeen years later the crime scene is gone, people’s memories are flawed, new forensic techniques can’t travel back in time, and there are no new leads. How could solving a cold case be easy?

The Xia Rong City Criminal Investigation Division had a cold case team, on the same level as the Serious Crime Squad, but they mostly assisted other departments. Although they were tasked with solving cold cases, leaders like Xie Qing knew it wasn’t something that could be solved just by wishing it.

Ji Chenjiao’s gaze landed lightly on Ling Lie. Over the past few days, his understanding of Ling Lie had deepened, and he understood what Wei Zhiyong meant to him. Ling Lie was determined to solve the paper house case in Feng’an County. Since he had taken the “temporary worker permit” from the Special Operations Team, he would naturally do his best.

“First, let’s go to Feng’an County and find the families of the two victims. I know that in some cases, the killer isn’t found at the time of the crime because they are very cautious and hide themselves perfectly. But after more than a decade, especially when the investigating officer has passed away, they might think they’ve gotten away with it and let their guard down, revealing a flaw,” Ji Chenjiao said. “Both Tan Fabin and Bi Jiang were killed in their own workshops. Judging from the method, it’s highly likely the killer wasn’t a transient murderer, which means they are hidden among the people they knew.”

Ling Lie clapped his hands symbolically twice and started looking up routes from Feng City to Feng’an County on his phone. Ji Chenjiao glanced over and said, “I’ve driven on this highway before.”

Ling Lie looked up. “Hm?”

Ji Chenjiao had just remembered it himself. He actually had some history with Feng City. During the summer break between his junior and senior years, the Public Security University had an internship program. At that time, he hadn’t come to Xiarong City yet but was assigned to Feng City by lottery along with many other students.

There weren’t many internship locations; he remembered only four. And that internship wasn’t like his later one in Xiarong City. The former’s purpose was still learning, so the university chose locations for them where there were active cases.

That year, or rather, in the three years prior, several towns under Feng City’s jurisdiction had experienced successive cases of villagers being brainwashed and illegally engaging in the transportation and trade of prohibited drugs. Feng City set up a task force, and by the time Ji Chenjiao and his group of students joined, the investigation was already in its final stages.

Thinking of this, Ji Chenjiao felt as if he had suddenly grasped something, and his expression changed abruptly.

And Ling Lie, hearing him talk about that case, also had a slight change in his expression.

When Ji Chenjiao first met Ling Lie, he felt something familiar about him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Later, he attributed it to the fact that both Ling Lie and Yan Xi possessed an unusual acuity when facing cases, one that was close to that of a criminal.

Later, when Ling Lie appeared in drag during the Dan Jin case, that sense of familiarity became even more pronounced.

But it wasn’t until now, when Ji Chenjiao remembered the case from that summer, that he suddenly seized upon it—Ling Lie seemed to have been an undercover agent in that operation!

Ji Chenjiao’s stare made Ling Lie feel a little uncomfortable for once. He reached out a paw to cover Ji Chenjiao’s eyes. “Can a temporary worker just look at the leader whenever they want?”

Ji Chenjiao grabbed Ling Lie’s mischievous hand. “You remembered long ago? It really was you?”

Ling Lie blinked a couple of times. “What?”

The case Ji Chenjiao had just mentioned was the first mission he undertook after officially becoming a member of the Special Operations Team.

But he never expected that Ji Chenjiao had also participated in that mission. Ji Chenjiao seemed to recognize him, but he wasn’t playing dumb just now; he genuinely had no impression of Ji Chenjiao.

Huh? He suddenly thought of a policeman with a face covered in camouflage paint. He was very young. Later, he heard from Xiao Yu’an that he was a student from the Public Security University, there to learn from a real combat mission.

Was that Ji Chenjiao?

This sudden recognition made both of them fall silent, lost in their own thoughts—

The cases happening in the rural areas of Feng City initially didn’t attract much attention. It was just a series of disappearances and deaths in some families. The missing were all adult men. The local police station’s investigations were fruitless, and they assumed they had gone off to do illegal work. The deceased showed no signs of injury or criminal activity. The families refused autopsies, so they were cremated and buried according to local customs.

This continued until one year, a young man who had attended university returned home, noticed various abnormalities, and reported to the police that his father’s accidental death might be related to his mother.

The Feng City Municipal Bureau had actually already been monitoring the successive disappearances and was formulating a plan. After receiving the young man’s report, they immediately went to several related villages to investigate and preliminarily found that there might be cult activities in these villages. The municipal bureau felt that they couldn’t completely solve the problem with local police forces alone, so they reported the situation to the Special Operations Team and requested support.

When Ling Lie learned the case was in Feng City, he volunteered. Xiao Yu’an sent him over.

It was March then, a sunny spring. He clearly remembered that his contacts were all from the Feng City Municipal Bureau; there were no Public Security University students.

As the investigation deepened, clues emerged one by one. Due to the prevalence of ghost and spirit culture and a thriving funeral industry in the area, many villagers already believed in the concept of the underworld. Someone with ulterior motives instilled in them the idea of reincarnation, tricking the men into transporting illegal drugs to other places, while the women were sold for trade. In the heavily affected villages, this had already formed an industrial chain. People would voluntarily keep secrets, and without evidence, the police couldn’t take coercive measures against them.

For a time, the police were at a loss as to how the criminal organization was exploiting these villagers.

In April, the Special Operations Team locked onto a funereal singing group called “Light of the Night.” According to their activity patterns, the group had appeared in all the villages where disappearances and strange deaths had occurred.

“Light of the Night” had a singing group and an instrumental group. Its founder was a kind-faced middle-aged man known as Uncle A, who had legitimate businesses under his name. The Feng City TV station had even interviewed him. He said “Light of the Night” was established for his deceased wife, who loved to sing. He wasn’t by her side when she passed away, so from then on, he wanted songs to accompany those who had just died.

Without infiltrating “Light of the Night,” it would be difficult to obtain key evidence and dismantle them in one go. But going undercover was not a simple matter. At the time, “Light of the Night” was recruiting female singers. The Special Operations Team had female members, but their righteous temperament made them easy to expose.

Ling Lie had been Xiao Yu’an’s “ghost” for three years, his temperament blending seamlessly with that of a hooligan. With some makeup and dress-up, he became the nail driven into “Light of the Night.”

The organization’s screening process for new members was very strict. They wanted people from poor backgrounds who had been harmed by society, either themselves or their families. Ling Lie claimed to be from a smuggling village, had failed to leave the country, and his parents were drowned at sea by local law enforcement. He had been lucky to survive.

He was good-looking, and after makeup, he had a unique charm. His singing voice was clear and loud, and he was well-received from his very first performance. Uncle A’s right-hand woman, Aunt Shen, took a liking to him and often kept him by her side.

At the end of April, a villager tried to leave the organization and attacked Aunt Shen with a knife. Ling Lie deliberately waited until the last second to “sacrifice” himself to stop it. After that, Aunt Shen trusted him even more.

Ling Lie gradually figured out the operating model of “Light of the Night.” First, they would frantically brainwash new members, inciting their hatred and making them spontaneously unite for the organization’s use. Then, whenever a family in a village had a recent death, they would be invited to sing funereal songs, using this opportunity to instill the concept of life, death, and reincarnation into the grieving family members, and find opportunities to get their targets to take drugs, thereby controlling them in the long run.

These corrupted villagers would then spontaneously recruit others in the village. The organization was very particular about its locations, avoiding cities and better-developed counties, and specifically targeting backward villages, using spectacular performances, inflammatory language, and addictive drugs to bring them under their control.

Once addicted to the drugs, the organization could command the villagers at will. Uncle A had a legitimate pharmaceutical company, and some of the healthier villagers were taken there, nominally to work, but actually to be test subjects for drugs. Another group of villagers became so-called “salespeople,” spreading the organization’s drugs to more villages.

Uncle A and Aunt Shen would sometimes personally visit the villages to give motivational speeches. The villages would be completely sealed off, and the villagers would be as frenzied as at a pyramid scheme rally. The organization would also continuously distribute gifts, step by step igniting the villagers’ madness.

Ling Lie remained undercover until July, finally waiting for the organization to hold its so-called “mid-year sacrifice” in Xiaofeng Village. All important cadres, including Uncle A and Aunt Shen, would be present. This was the best opportunity to take down “Light of the Night” in one fell swoop. Ling Lie sent back the information, and to avoid alerting the enemy, he did not leave ahead of time.

The Special Operations Team and the Feng City police made detailed plans. The Public Security University students who had just joined the operation all volunteered to participate.

Although they were all elites from the university, they were still a group of kids without real combat experience. Ji Chenjiao and the others were not assigned the task of infiltrating Xiaofeng Village to launch the attack but were on standby outside the village.

Even without an actual mission, the students were very serious. They changed into black tactical gear, put camouflage paint on their faces, and focused intently on the movements inside the village.

Under Ling Lie’s guidance, the Special Operations Team quickly brought the scene under control. Uncle A, Aunt Shen, and others were arrested on the spot, but some villagers and mid-level members of the organization escaped into the woods outside the village during the chaos.

The operation commander wanted to deploy team members from the village to search the woods, but Xiao Yu’an suddenly remembered the students on standby. “Let the university students go. They’ve been preparing for a long time.”

The commander disagreed. “They are still students.”

Xiao Yu’an smiled. “Captain, you and I were once students at the university too.”

The commander’s expression tightened slightly. Xiao Yu’an added, “They’re about to be seniors; it’s time for their first combat mission. Besides, who can be spared from the village?”

The students on standby received the search mission, each one excited. They split up to act, and Ji Chenjiao went deeper and deeper into the woods.

Suddenly, he saw a glimmer of firelight ahead. Looking closely, he saw a tall, long-haired “beauty” sitting on a rock.

The moonlight was bright that night, and it was an open area in the woods. The “woman” was wearing an ice-blue gauze dress, barefoot, her flat leather shoes tossed to the side. Her hair fell to her waist. As Ji Chenjiao looked at “her,” “she” lazily held a cigarette and looked back at him.

Ji Chenjiao immediately raised his weapon. The “woman’s” gaze was calm, with a hint of a smile. She took a final drag, extinguished the cigarette, put the butt in a small metal box, and bent down to put on her shoes.

The university students were not authorized to know the identity of the undercover agent. Ji Chenjiao thought the “woman” was an escaped “Siren”—the organization’s general term for female singers.

He cautiously approached the “woman.” The “woman” cooperatively raised her hands. They walked from the brightest spot in the moonlight into the shadows, and then from the shadows into the lights of the village.

Upon regrouping with the Special Operations Team, Ji Chenjiao learned that he hadn’t brought back a “Siren,” but the undercover agent who had sent back a large amount of important intelligence.

For a moment, his cheeks burned with shame. He was glad his face was covered in camouflage paint, so the other person couldn’t see his embarrassment, and if they ever met again, they wouldn’t recognize him.

There were other search tasks at the scene. Ji Chenjiao turned to leave. The undercover agent seemed to have received a mission as well. As he left, he looked back at him and smiled, curving his lips.

It was truly a beautiful face. Ji Chenjiao was stunned. The undercover agent mouthed the words “thank you.”

After the operation, Ji Chenjiao inquired about that undercover agent, but not just anyone could look up members of the Special Operations Team. By the time the university students left Feng City, Ji Chenjiao had not seen that undercover agent again.

Years passed in a flash. He was no longer the immature student who mistook an undercover agent for a criminal. That insignificant experience was gradually forgotten, but now he dramatically discovered that the undercover agent was standing right in front of him.

The atmosphere suddenly became delicate.

After a long moment, Ling Lie suddenly smiled. “Xiao Ji, your ears are red.”

Ji Chenjiao said sternly, “Nonsense.”

“They really are red! And your face is red too! You really are a little brother!”

“…”

Ling Lie’s hands were mischievous. He made a move to check the temperature of Ji Chenjiao’s cheeks but was slapped away. Ling Lie rubbed his paw and muttered, “You were cuter when you were younger.”

Ji Chenjiao’s eyebrow twitched. “You found out long ago?”

Ling Lie confessed, “No, but following your reaction, isn’t the truth obvious?”

Ji Chenjiao felt a pain in a wisdom tooth that hadn’t hurt for a long time. It was one of the few embarrassing moments of his police career, and the person involved was now his semi-colleague.

“Actually, I owe you for that time. Otherwise, this undercover agent would have been done for back there,” Ling Lie said.

Ji Chenjiao was surprised. “Why?”

“Didn’t you notice I was injured back then?” Ling Lie said. “When the operation started, the organization already knew I was the mole. I had no gun and escaped, injuring my leg. Why else do you think I was just sitting there?”

Ji Chenjiao recalled that the “woman’s” legs did seem to be inconvenient. She walked slowly and needed his support. At the time, he thought it was some kind of trick by the “Siren.” To speed things up, he had even carried the “woman” on his back for a stretch.

The person on his back was very light, her bones sharp. But it was only now that he realized how shockingly thin Ling Lie had been at the time.

“I even said thank you to you,” Ling Lie asked. “Did you not hear me?”

Ji Chenjiao nodded with a wooden face. He had heard it, but at the time, he didn’t know the undercover agent was thanking him for saving him.

“You’ve clearly forgotten.” Ling Lie waved a hand in front of Ji Chenjiao’s face, then suddenly wrapped his arms around Ji Chenjiao’s neck.

“?”

“Then I’ll thank you again.”

After speaking, Ling Lie stood on his toes and kissed Ji Chenjiao on the forehead.

It was an intimate touch, like a careless joke, but Ji Chenjiao’s pupils suddenly contracted. All the sensation in his body seemed to rush to his forehead, and his ears were filled with the sound of a fervent heartbeat.

“You…”

Ling Lie pursed his lips and said seriously, “I gave my first kiss to Xiao Ji.”

Ji Chenjiao frowned. His relationship with Ling Lie had already been getting a bit out of control recently, and now Ling Lie had caught him off guard again.

Ling Lie smiled. “Why do you look so fierce?”

Ji Chenjiao touched his forehead. His heartbeat gradually calmed. There was one thing he couldn’t lie to himself about—when Ling Lie kissed him just now, the sudden surge of excitement was not because he disliked it.

“Hey, you’re wiping it,” Ling Lie said. “Was that your first head?”

“…” What the hell is a ‘first head’?!

---

On a hot summer day, Ling Lie and Ji Chenjiao drove from Feng City to the scene of the old crime, Feng’an County.

Outsiders arriving in this small county for the first time would inevitably feel a sense of fear, as the streets and alleys were filled with props for white affairs (funerals). An entire street lined with flower wreaths and paper effigies was eerie even during the day.

The car stopped in front of the former courtyard of the first victim, Tan Fabin. The courtyard had been torn down and rebuilt and was now another private workshop.

This street was in a prime location, with convenient transportation, and was the best place in Feng’an County for business and “feng shui.” Although the Tan family’s courtyard was gone, the traces of reconstruction showed that the scale of the Tan workshop had been more than double that of the surrounding workshops.

The white affairs business usually had more customers in the morning. In the afternoon, the artisans worked in their workshops, while those watching the shops would chat or play cards in groups in the courtyard.

Ling Lie pretended to be an outsider and walked into the Tan family’s former courtyard—one side of the courtyard was now owned by the Zhou family, the other by the Wang family. The middle-aged men playing cards sized him up, feeling he didn’t look like a customer.

“What are you here for?” one of them said.

Ling Lie took out his livestreaming stand and introduced himself as a cultural streamer, here to participate in this year’s “Ten Thousand Ghosts Parade the Island” event in Fengchao County and to gather material from Feng’an County, the home of white affairs.

Small business owners nowadays knew about online promotion. Hearing that Ling Lie was a streamer, they immediately became enthusiastic, pouring him water, offering sunflower seeds, and leading him to tour the workshop.

Ling Lie chatted with them for a while, getting to know about seventy to eighty percent of Feng’an County’s history, before he said, “I looked up news online before I came and heard that Feng’an County once had a genius of white affairs named Teacher Tan, who was later murdered. The online reports were vague. Brother Zhou, Aunt Wang, can you tell me about it?”

Brother Zhou and Aunt Wang were the current owners of the courtyard. They exchanged a glance, and Brother Zhou said, “Then you’ve come to the right people. Where you’re standing now is the Tan family’s original territory.”

Ling Lie immediately showed a curious and excited expression.

Brother Zhou and Aunt Wang took turns telling the story of the case, which was consistent with what Ling Lie had seen in the case file at the municipal bureau. Then, they started talking about Tan Fabin’s family.

Tan Fabin took over Old Master Tan’s mantle in his teens. Although the Tan family had long been one of the best white affairs family workshops in Feng’an County, the family line was thin. Tan Fabin was the only child of his generation, his father had died early, and Old Master Tan was getting old and his health was deteriorating.

But Tan Fabin had a distant younger brother, adopted from relatives, named Shen Wei. He was a few years younger and was also learning the craft.

In his twenties, Tan Fabin made the Tan workshop the number one in the county, with about thirty workers. But Tan Fabin didn’t seem to want his younger brother to be in this line of work and sent him to study elsewhere.

When Tan Fabin was murdered, Shen Wei was in his twenties, still a graduate student in medicine.

Speaking of Shen Wei, Aunt Wang was very emotional, praising him for his righteousness. When the police failed to find the killer back then, Shen Wei took a leave of absence from school and returned to his hometown, insisting on investigating, asking everyone he met. Many of the Tan family’s relatives had been leeches on Tan Fabin. As soon as Tan Fabin was gone, those people started thinking about dividing up the inheritance.

Shen Wei had a classmate who was studying law. Sister Wang couldn’t remember his name, but his surname seemed to be Fu. Shen Wei asked his classmate for help, using legal articles and reasoning to protect Tan Fabin’s inheritance.

Shen Wei did not use it for himself; all the money was spent on chasing the killer. The moment he heard a clue about the killer’s whereabouts, he would go, neglecting his studies for it.

After several years of this, Shen Wei finally gave up. The Tan family was left with a desolate courtyard. Shen Wei wanted to sell it, but potential buyers all tried to lowball the price, saying someone had died there and it was a “murder house.”

Brother Zhou and Aunt Wang couldn’t bear to see it and pooled their money to buy the courtyard at a normal price. Shen Wei left Feng’an County, only returning to burn paper offerings on Tan Fabin’s birthday each year.

Ling Lie asked, “So where is Shen Wei now?”

Aunt Wang sighed. “Him? He was supposed to be a doctor, but those things delayed him. Last time I went to the city for a doctor’s appointment, I found out he opened a restaurant outside the Third Hospital, specializing in cooking for patients and their families.”

Ling Lie suddenly remembered that a few days ago when he and Ji Chenjiao went to the Third Hospital for a check-up, the place they ate at seemed to be called “Old Shen’s Lunch Box.”

Aunt Wang added, “By the way, Shen Wei and Xiangli look out for each other now. It’s better for Tan Fabin to have two people who think of him than to be completely forgotten.”

“Xiangli?” Ling Lie said the name and found it familiar. The case file mentioned a Chen Xiangli, who was Tan Fabin’s girlfriend. If not for the murder, the two would have married at the end of that year.

Aunt Wang said, “Xiangli, ah, she’s also working at the Third Hospital now, as a caregiver. Because of Tan Fabin, she has never married.”