Chapter 77

At first Fei Du was rather shocked, but he quickly relaxed. Secure in the knowledge of his safety, he embraced Luo Wenzhou. "Well, Mr. Policeman, what would you dare to do to me?"

Fei Du undoubtedly had a beautiful pair of eyes, especially when he smiled, his irises refracting light in several layers. The gradations of a natural human eye couldn't be replicated by even the highest grade of contact lens; it was a miracle of the accumulated accomplishments of hundreds of millions of years of slow evolution, containing the most complex and changeable moods and desires, the subtlest and most tortuous emotions, like a mustard seed in a fantasy novel, the whole world in a grain of sand.

Evidently, Fei Du's "mustard seed" had an indestructible outer shell.

Luo Wenzhou gazed at him from close up. His throat moved. Then, without saying a word, he tore open his collar. The movement was rather rough; shirt buttons scattered over the floor. With his skin exposed to the slightly cold air, a layer of gooseflesh rose on Fei Du's neck. The tattoo on his chest was revealed. It was a beast that seemed about to open its mouth and eat someone.

Luo Wenzhou's gaze swept over it, and he paused slightly. "I remember last time at West Ridge, that was a different picture. Did it wash off?"

Fei Du was touching him now and then, taking petty advantage, magnanimously letting him look. "Supposedly the nanotechnology that simulates a real tattoo is more waterproof than a synchronized swimming team's mascara, but of course that's just false advertising, so I would advise you…hss…not to lick it."

Luo Wenzhou's lightly calloused fingers closed on Fei Du's neck, forcing him to lift his head. Fei Du didn't mind at all, as if what had fallen into Luo Wenzhou's hands wasn't his own precious throat but a tie bought at a street stall that he would let someone tear apart without regretting it.

Luo Wenzhou looked loftily down at him. "Why didn't you get a real tattoo? Afraid of the pain?"

Fei Du nodded calmly. Before his nod was finished, Luo Wenzhou suddenly drew his hand tight. With his airflow suddenly strained and a most vital place squeezed, Fei Du gave a momentary physiological shudder, but Luo Wenzhou could feel that the pulse in his carotid artery was as calm and steady as a flat line, not speeding up at all. Fei Du even forced out a trace of a smile towards him. "I can't…tell if…you like this?"

"If your breathing is obstructed for a minute, there will be an unbearable burning pain in your lungs. Then you'll begin to feel dizzy due to lack of oxygen, and your eyes will start to fill with blood. Your brain, which hasn't fully evolved, will be panic-stricken and cut off other life functions, disregarding the consequences in its attempt to survive. Your limbs will be numb and powerless. You'll lose your ability to resist, start to be unable to feel your body. Your muscles will spasm. Within a few minutes you'll die." Luo Wenzhou abruptly released his neck. "It'll be a rather ugly death, too.—You're afraid of pain, but you aren't afraid of that?"

Fei Du seemed to know how to avoid choking. When Luo Wenzhou released him, he didn't instinctively gasp for breath, only gently moved his neck, carelessly saying, "It's another sort of exper…"

"You aren't afraid I'll do anything to you," Luo Wenzhou interrupted him, pressing a hand behind his ear, "aren't afraid I'll use force, aren't afraid I'll hurt you. When I squeezed your neck, your heart rate didn't even increase. Why? Do you trust my moral character too much? Huh?"

Somewhat astonished, Fei Du laughed. "What, I can't trust you?"

Luo Wenzhou expressionlessly gave an "oh." "If you trust me so much, then answer a question for me—I remember your dad threw that ashtray away. Did you buy one exactly like it, or get the old one back?"

Fei Du hadn't expected that he'd make this kind of sudden thrust halfway through a perfectly nice flirtation. His pupils contracted slightly. At such a short distance, there was no way to hide even such a slight alteration from Luo Wenzhou's eyes.

"Why? Because you're still investigating her death?"

Fei Du immediately pushed him away. Luo Wenzhou had been prepared. The moment he pushed him, he encircled Fei Du's shoulders and pressed down, familiarly using the moves he'd normally use to arrest a criminal on Fei Du, easily twisting his hands behind his back, kneeling on the couch with one knee to trap his legs.

Fei Du struggled a few times and found that no effort would get him out of this position—of course, given his battle abilities, even if his effort had been enough, it still wouldn't have been much use against an expert.

President Fei, a gentleman who used his words and not his fists, had no opening to resist. He could only ridicule. "Captain Luo, if you don't want to put out, then just say so, and we can be friends. I think using force doesn't look very good…"

At this point, his complaint abruptly came to a halt.

Because Luo Wenzhou had suddenly bent down and kissed him on the forehead.

Fei Du: "…"

Luo Wenzhou not very gently stroked his rumpled hair, clearly seeing panic flash across Fei Du's face.—It really was strange that a playboy who could flirt a person into a fantasy, who was equal to anything, would panic like a child someone had confessed their feelings to for the first time because a person kissed his forehead.

It was as if he'd never known warmth in his life.

For some reason, this bit of panic made Luo Wenzhou's heart throb more distinctly than Fei Du's earlier seductive arts. His throat moved slightly. He had a strong impulse to kiss Fei Du again and resisted only with difficulty, slowly relaxing his hold.

"You aren't afraid I'll hurt you, you'd hand over your body and your life to me without a care, but you're afraid of me asking a few immaterial questions," said Luo Wenzhou. "Is telling the truth for once harder for you than dying?"

Fei Du quietly maintained his calm, neither answering nor acting up.

"In fact, I also have a suspicion I've never been able to let go of. If I tell you about it, will you listen?" Luo Wenzhou said suddenly.

Fei Du didn't respond, and Luo Wenzhou paid him no mind, starting to relate. "When I'd just graduated, I thought I was destined to do great things. When I had nothing else to do I liked to go online to read those 'However-many Great Unsolved Cases' posts, follow the blind analysis of falsehoods concerning the facts of the cases as though it was the real thing. Sometimes when I had an opposing view, I'd get into fights with people. In the end, I came to the same conclusion about each case—that the people who talked about these things online were all stupid cunts.

"At the time, transmigrating into the Qing Dynasty and marrying a prince was all the rage among girls. Sometimes I'd hear my female classmates discussing it and I'd think, if I were going to transmigrate, I'd go back to the Victorian era to ferret out Jack the Ripper."

Captain Luo had weathered a thousand storms; his face was extremely thick. He exhibited his stupid inglorious past without a single care. The odd thing was that Fei Du didn't take the opportunity to make any sarcastic comments.

"The outcome was that after I started work I discovered that it wasn't like that. The city had a policy just then that anyone just starting out had to spend a year doing grassroots work, so I went to a local police station for experience." Luo Wenzhou waved a hand in front of Fei Du's eyes. "Do you know what a little cop at a local police station is responsible for?"

Fei Du looked up at him.

"Things like keys locked into houses, lost dogs, little brats knocking each others' teeth out in a fight, the tenant upstairs springing a leak… Everyone and their mother comes to you with their trifles. The biggest thing we'd be responsible for was catching a few pickpockets. The only thing that could be called a 'case' was your family's business, and it seems my handling wasn't all that satisfactory. I did that for a year and thought that if I had to do any more I'd hang myself, so I simply dragged Tao Ran to test into positions at the City Bureau—and in fact we got in afterwards because I called in some connections."

At this point, Luo Wenzhou himself shook his head. "But then it wasn't any better at the City Bureau, with everyone knowing you were a fastidious but incompetent child of an official. I'd get reprimanded every day, especially by Lao Yang. He'd say all kinds of ugly-sounding things, make me do anything no one else was willing to do, as if he had some grudge against me. Every day I was mistreated, and every month I'd get my bit of wages that wasn't enough to buy cigarettes with. I forced myself to stay for half a year. I had my letter of resignation all printed and was about to send it up when Lao Yang told me to come with him to get in touch with an informer. We were investigating a prostitution gang.

"That kind of gang will usually be somewhat of an underworld nature. Many girls had been abducted and coerced by them using all kinds of tricks. Lao Yang was talking to the informer when, all of a sudden, a girl with her face all bloody ran out. There were two guys with sticks and switchblades chasing her. The girl was crying and calling for help as she ran, and everyone around was acting like they'd seen it all before. The hot blood rushed to my head and I ran over to fight them. When I'd shaken them off, another crowd appeared."

Luo Wenzhou spread his hands. "Have you ever stirred up a hornet's nest?"

"…Why would I want to stir up a hornet's nest?" said Fei Du.

Luo Wenzhou sighed rather pityingly. "Then I'm afraid you can't understand the situation we were in—but even though we got into a gang fight, we did save the girl. Lao Yang got cut on the backs of his thighs and his back to shield me, and broke a kneecap. In the end, even though I'd made such a mess, he didn't reprimand me first thing afterwards. He even said that although I was unreliable, there was something of a policeman in me. Maybe he'd reprimanded me so much I'd developed Stockholm syndrome. I was totally overcome at hearing an occasional good word. I went home and tore up the letter of resignation, and from that time on I became the old man's devoted dog."

Fei Du's expression softened, even showing a trace of a smile.

"But that isn't the important point of this story." Luo Wenzhou dropped his purposefully entertaining playful tone, his voice becoming grave. "The important point is, the injury to Lao Yang's knee remained. He was also fat. The older he got, the worse it got. He was more accurate than the weather forecast when it was about to rain. Whenever he could avoid taking the stairs, he absolutely wouldn't take the stairs. But when he gave up his life in an underpass crossing a street on the way home from buying groceries at the market, there was clearly a pedestrian crossing fifty meters away."

Middle-aged and elderly people who had problems with their legs and feet were all conscientious about avoiding sky-bridges and overpasses, even if it meant a little extra walking. Yang Zhengfeng had been going home from the market. Outside of work, the old man's greatest hobby had been strolling through the market and going home to cook. He walked that route every few days. It was impossible that he wouldn't stay on the sidewalk every day, insisting on challenging his knee's endurance.

"Why would he take the underpass?" Luo Wenzhou said quietly in the utterly silent living room. "The place where the wanted criminal was hidden was far inside. There was no way a person outside could have seen him. I couldn't understand it. I even quietly investigated Lao Yang's phone records from that time—nothing. There was nothing. The records of the phone he had on him were very clean. Aside from the phone call he'd made requesting backup, for some days before there wasn't even a suspicious telemarketing scam call."

"On the way home from buying groceries, an old police officer encountered a wanted criminal and called for backup," said Fei Du. "What else?"

"There was an eyewitness," said Luo Wenzhou. "Lao Yang only had some celery and a bag of ground meat on him. He was totally unarmed. He didn't act rashly at first. Only because an old lady walking her dog passed by and somehow disturbed the wanted criminal, and he saw that a bystander was in danger, did he charge ahead."

"And the wanted criminal?"

"The wanted criminal's mental state was irregular. We couldn't get any answers out of him. We investigated the eyewitness, and there were no issues. The surrounding residents confirmed that the old lady lived nearby and walked through there every day to walk her dog in the park across the road."

Coincidence, unassailable cause and effect, an old criminal policeman dying for a just cause. It was a perfect accident—

"I mentioned this suspicious point at the bureau," said Luo Wenzhou. "My colleagues and superiors all cooperated to investigate and collect evidence, and in the end we came up empty-handed. You know, when someone dies a violent death like that, their friends and relatives often can't accept it, often imagine a hypothetical murderer, so there's a direction for them to vent their grief in…"

Fei Du responded, "Just like me back then."

"Like you back then." Luo Wenzhou suddenly grabbed his hand. Fei Du subconsciously pulled it back, but the man gripped it tighter. "After that happened, I dimly sensed that perhaps there was some basis for you to question the outcome of your mother's case so fiercely, but, Fei Du—"

Luo Wenzhou looked up at him. "You can remember her forever, never abandon your search for the truth, but you can't trap yourself inside it. Actually, what I forgot to say to you that day…"

Fei Du used a bit of strength, forcefully pulling his hand away. "The cause of her death isn't what's trapping me."

Luo Wenzhou froze.

"It's not that." Fei Du shook his head and averted his gaze, staring at the ashtray on the table. He was silent for a long time. As if using up the last of his strength, he forced out, "I know how she died… It's not that."

If a soul could sweat, Luo Wenzhou would have been drenched. He'd really used up everything he had to pry Fei Du's mouth open a crack. He hurriedly followed up, "You know how she died?"

Fei Du firmly clenched his teeth, as tense as a string about to snap.

Luo Wenzhou was about to say something milder when Fei Du abandoned his guest in the living room, wordlessly standing and walking straight to a bedroom on the second floor.

Luo Wenzhou was about to follow when his phone suddenly rang. Frowning, he picked up. "Tao Ran, what is it?"

"I think you know about the fire at the Dong house? It's been put out, and we've gone in now," Tao Ran said quickly. "The fire was set deliberately. Someone lit some kind of paper product on fire and threw it onto the couch, then left.—There's a camera installed across the corridor from Dong Xiaoqing's house. It got a frontal shot of the person. Male, about a meter seventy-five, tightly wrapped up, not even showing his face."

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