Chapter 17

It was only when Lu Shimiao looked at the bill on her phone that she understood Lin Tingting’s reminder to pay the utilities wasn’t out of kindness.

She just wanted her to foot the electricity and water bills for the entire floor.

No, she had to settle this.

She couldn’t let these people spend another cent of Lu Yuan’s money.

Clutching the bill, she walked briskly back to the shared apartment. Lin Tingting was still sitting in the living room watching TV and didn’t turn her head when she heard her come in.

“I’ve paid the bill. Please transfer the money for the water and electricity to me.” Lu Shimiao walked up to Lin Tingting and got straight to the point.

Lin Tingting frowned, crossed her arms, and kept her eyes glued to the television, pretending not to hear.

“Please transfer the water and electricity fees to me.” Lu Shimiao raised her voice.

Lin Tingting didn’t budge an inch.

Gritting her back teeth, Lu Shimiao’s anger finally boiled over.

She took a big stride to the television and turned it off. She turned around and stared at Lin Tingting like she was staring at a criminal.

“Transfer the utility fees to me.” She said every word deliberately, even adding in English just in case the other was pretending not to understand.

“What are you yelling for? I’m not deaf.” Seeing Lu Shimiao growing increasingly out of her control and even daring to lose her temper in public, Lin Tingting rolled her eyes and screamed back, “I didn’t tell you to pay for the whole floor. How do we know you aren’t trying to scam us by paying more?”

“You don’t know how much electricity you used? Can’t you afford to pay this little bit?” Lu Shimiao’s heart was burning with fury, her voice getting louder.

Lu Shimiao had never quarreled with anyone growing up; even losing her temper was an extremely rare sight.

She adhered to her personal principle: Do not get angry at all things, observe the worldly affairs with a Buddha-like heart.

Her school nickname was: Iron-faced Bodhisattva.

In middle school, a male deskmate, wanting to see Lu Shimiao lose her cool, spent an entire semester putting fake cockroaches in her desk cubby. All he got in return was Lu Shimiao’s disdain and eye-rolls. In the end, she sat with him coldly for half a semester without saying a single word.

At graduation, the male deskmate came to hug Lu Shimiao with a bitter smile: “My biggest wish in life is to see who could make you truly furious, the kind where you erupt like a volcano.”

Lu Shimiao replied: “Unless I reincarnate into a gas stove, no one can make me easily lose my temper.”

It wasn’t that she loved silence, cold violence, or bottling things up.

Mainly, it was the overwhelming oppressive control from her mother, the financial bigwig Qiu Wen, that left her with no outlet for her rage, and she feared that venting might cause even more trouble, making her a naturally timid top-scoring student.

In short, this was the first time she had activated her mockery skill.

After all, once a balloon stretched to the bursting point is released, it can only let go of all restraint and shoot straight up.

“If you can’t afford it, you can just tell me.” Lu Shimiao pointed at Lin Tingting, mimicking the passive-aggressive tone Lin Tingting usually used when speaking to her, and said in a falsely sweet voice:

“You can say: ‘Little Lu, I can’t afford the electricity bill, can you help me pay it?’”

“As long as you ask, I’ll consider it charity.” Lu Shimiao spread her hands, her expression still indifferent, “But if you don’t ask, then go get your phone right now and scan the code to transfer the money.”

“We’re all adults here. It’s not like I’m a few years younger than you. Just because I’m a Mainlander, does that mean you don’t have to follow the rule of law?” As she spoke, Lu Shimiao grabbed her own shirt and jabbed her finger at the “PC” initials on it.

“Or do you think that I, a police cadet, haven’t studied the ‘Laws of Hong Kong’?”

The other roommates, who had already gotten off work, pressed their ears against their doors upon hearing the commotion outside, especially An Xi’er, who lived right next door to Lu Shimiao. She simply stuck her head out to watch the spectacle.

Lin Tingting was stunned speechless by Lu Shimiao’s barrage of words. She sat on the sofa, mouth agape, her face a mixture of shock and embarrassment.

“I, an exchange student from the Mainland Public Security University, am a publicly funded personnel of the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Independent Prosecution Department. You can keep messing with me, and if it comes to that, we can go to the Hong Kong External Affairs Office to deal with the trouble.”

“Or, we can go talk to the police. That way, it looks like calling the police would be just as convenient for me as it is for you. Do you need that? I can call our instructor right now.” Lu Shimiao raised her phone, showing the other party the contact list for the Superintendents from all departments of the Police Academy.

The first contact, starred and pinned: Forensic Science Division, Criminal Investigation Department — Xue Tong

Second: Operations Flying Tigers Unit — An Xinran

….

…

Lu Shimiao took back her phone. “So… give me the money.”

After she said this, she took a deep breath, straightened her hair, and felt a great sense of release in her heart.

“You… you’ve gone crazy.” Lin Tingting rattled off a string of curses in Cantonese. Just from the sound, anyone could tell she was swearing.

Looking at Lin Tingting’s twisted face, Lu Shimiao simply launched into a stream of Shanghainese curses and started cursing right back.

“You dumb cunt. Stupid asshole. Bastard.”

Lu Shimiao had never spoken such vulgar Shanghainese before. It was her first time using it, and she wasn’t quite used to it; she even mispronounced some syllables.

She consoled herself internally: Anyway, no one else could understand her. Who cares if her Shanghainese was correct or not?

The curses from both sides grew louder and louder. Lin Tingting even stood up, but Lu Shimiao wasn’t afraid. Even if a fight broke out, the other would be the one at a disadvantage.

In terms of combat ability, she had at least ranked first in grapple scores back in the Mainland.

“Stop fighting.” An Xi’er, truly unable to watch any longer, rushed out of her room.

She stood between the two, reaching out to pat Lin Tingting’s back, and comforted her in Cantonese, “Don’t be mad. It’s not worth it with a kid.”

Lu Shimiao looked at An Xi’er and said in a deep voice, “You also remember to pay your utility bills.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll definitely pay them.” An Xi’er turned her body, winked at Lu Shimiao, signaling for her to go back to her room quickly.

In the three weeks they had coexisted, An Xi’er had kept well out of Lu Shimiao’s way. Now, in this situation, she was willing to step in, break up the fight, and smooth things over, which was a help. Lu Shimiao didn’t want to disrespect An Xi’er’s goodwill, so she had no choice but to turn around and go back to her room.

Before leaving, she looked at Lin Tingting: “Transfer the utility money to me by Friday.”

Walking into her room, Lu Shimiao sat on the bed and took continuous deep breaths.

All those breaths that had been locked and imprisoned in the bottom of her heart surged out through her nostrils. The pent-up frustration accumulated over years was now completely released.

Turns out, losing your temper felt pretty good.

She looked at everything in her room. The piece of wall that Lin Tingting had knocked a hole in last time was still bare. The guy next door who was harassing her… this was no place to stay. But she just hadn’t figured out how to ask her father for money…

She had already overspent her calculated exchange budget for the past few days. Although her family was wealthy, she couldn’t just let it be wasted like this.

Thinking this, Lu Shimiao sat down at the head of her bed, ready to grab a pen and cross-check her spending ledger.

As soon as she sat down, she felt something was off.

…Wait.

Why did it seem like the cup and the lamp on her bedstand had been moved?

She had a habit of reading at night, so the lamp was always placed at the spot closest to her hand.

The water cup was made of glass. Afraid that she might knock it over when turning on the light at night, she always placed it close to the corner of the wall, about two fist-widths apart from the lamp.

But now, although the lamp’s position hadn’t changed, the water cup was much closer to the headboard.

Although Lu Shimiao didn’t have obsessive-compulsive disorder, she had a superhuman memory, and she was a police criminal investigation major. Ever since she started learning trace examination, her daily professional sensitivity was extremely high.

Startled, she stood up in shock, her eyes searching for the slightest clues of disturbance in her room.

The drawers…

The drawers had been rummaged through.

She never used the three drawers by her bed.

But today, the bottom drawer was pulled out two centimeters more than the middle one.

A teacher from the Mainland’s Public Security Trace program had taught her that in a crime scene, the chance of a lower drawer being fully closed is smaller than an upper drawer. So at a burglary scene, special attention should be paid to the drawer positions.

Since she never used these two drawers, they had clearly been tampered with.

She glanced at the wardrobe and found no abnormalities for now.

Footprints…

Lu Shimiao turned off the bedroom light, squatted on the ground, and used a monochrome light from her flashlight to glide over the surface at a low angle.

At the door, two faint footprints appeared, different in size from her own.

The traces were subtle, with blurred edges, and most of them had been destroyed when she entered, but they were still discernible.

The front pressure was heavy, with little toe push-off, and the rear pressure was heavy. It was likely the gait of someone between 25 and 35 years old.

The foot size was slightly larger than her own, with an estimated height of over 172 cm…

A name flashed rapidly through Lu Shimiao’s mind — An Cheng.

Collapsing onto the floor, the feeling from this afternoon, being sexually harassed, came rushing back. She felt so disgusted she could peel off her own skin.

Look for cameras.

Look for recording devices.

Lu Shimiao had no time for delicate emotions. Right now, she just needed to quickly clean up her room and make sure she wouldn’t suffer any other harm.

With the monochrome light, she fumbled around the pitch-black room: bedhead, under the bed, bathroom, power strips, computer, wardrobe, pillows…

Lu Shimiao spent almost the same amount of time as she would on a public security trace examination finals project, turning the room upside down.

Thankfully, she found no cameras or recording devices.

Sitting on the bed, Lu Shimiao stared at the door lock, unable to calm down for a long time.

This room of hers was no longer safe. But before she could find a new place, she had to ensure she changed the password every day and performed a security check on the room.

And… she had to catch this person.

Lu Shimiao took out her phone and opened Taobao, quickly searching the website for what she needed…

It wasn’t until nearly midnight that she dragged a chair against the door, lay down on her bed, and finally fell asleep.