Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 168

Chapter 168: The Red Silk · La Soie Rouge

Shen Yiyi was flipping through the documents that Liu Jia had copied, carefully checking every order. Just then, Shen’s father had come home from buying groceries.

“Jiajia is also here.”

Liu Jia had originally been slumped, but she had immediately straightened her back when she had seen Shen Qinwen. She was amused by her own subconscious action and thought to herself: This is discipline. This is the indelible authority of a teacher in my childhood memories.

“Uncle.”

“Jiajia is here. Let’s have lunch together.” Shen’s father greeted her. As he passed the living room, he glanced at the documents and, seeing the words “printing factory” on the cover, he immediately stopped. “Is there any news?”

Shen Yiyi nodded. “Does your college write its own university textbooks?”

Shen’s father put the groceries on the floor and recalled carefully. “Yes.”

“I remember it was around 1990…”

At that time, the state had promulgated the “Regulations on the Management of the Introduction of Foreign Intelligence,” and then the Ministry of Education had proposed a strategy for the modernization of the textbook system, encouraging universities to introduce foreign experts to participate in curriculum design and textbook writing.

After 1993, major universities had begun to implement and promote curriculum reform.

To cater to international education, many universities had introduced new textbooks edited by foreign scholars. For a prefecture-level city like Fengjiang, the colleges could only seize this kind of opportunity for the achievements of the experts.

Therefore, during that period, Fengjiang University, in order to compete for resource quotas, had contacted many foreign research institutes to be affiliated with them, and had introduced American-Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwan experts, as visiting scholars or short-term cooperative professors to write the curriculum.

Shen’s father recalled that that period was just when Shen Yiyi was growing up. He had often missed many parent-child activities because of overtime. He waved his hand impatiently.

“At that time, the policies issued by the Ministry of Education were varied. Either the academic year system was changed, or the credit system was changed, and there was also the Mandarin system… And they always thought that foreign culture was good, and that textbooks should be modernized and internationalized—”

“Textbooks, Dad, talk about textbooks!!” Shen Yiyi reminded her father that he was off-topic.

Shen’s dad turned a corner. “Right, it was at that time that universities could write their own textbooks. The education system was competing for this quota, and Fengjiang University had gotten two quotas, so many leaders were looking for opportunities to be on the editorial board, or to be the editor-in-chief, even if it was just a minor role.”

Shen’s father looked down in grievance. “Your dad just didn’t have this ability.”

Shen Yiyi quickly flipped through the materials and finally found the printing notes for the textbooks submitted by Fengjiang University around 1997. Sure enough, in the material procurement of the second quarter, the printing instructions for the materials had filled in the ba12 stabilizer.

Shen Yiyi took a deep breath and closed the materials. “Dad, can you find those textbooks, and the list of the people who wrote them?”

***

Fengjiang University, founded in 1958.

Its original name was Fengjiang Normal College. In the early 1980s, there was a wave of university mergers. To promote the development of prefecture-level cities, the province had merged the normal colleges, finance and trade schools, and industrial colleges of several nearby prefecture-level cities to form a comprehensive university, and had approved the land to build the current Fengjiang University.

Because the family compound and the back door of the school were only two streets apart, Shen Yiyi would often go with her mother to wait for her father to get off work. But ever since the Shen family’s incident, Shen Yiyi had erased the memory of the family compound. Her impression had stopped at the two tall plane trees at the entrance, and besides that, the car usage rate of the family compound.

Now the family compound had been demolished and had become a commercial street in the university town. The narrow road in front of her house and the vegetable market had also become an overpass and a Lianhua supermarket.

During the Spring Festival holiday, there were not many people at the school.

Shen’s father had found an old leader to explain the situation and had found the person in charge of the school history museum. The group of people did not have a festive and joyful expression on their faces. Instead, they were gloomy.

“This is it.”

The person in charge of the school history museum had rummaged through boxes and cabinets and had taken out a textbook. The color was different from Xu Meng’s red dress. The only wisp of red on the cover of the textbook was a faint purple.

Qin Luo read it word for word. “Art and Color Perception.”

Shen Yiyi asked, “Is this the original print?”
“Yes, the original of the first edition.”
“But a few more batches were printed later. It will take me a few more days to find them.” The administrator pointed to the mountain of boxes behind him and said helplessly, “I’m afraid I can only find them for you after everyone comes back to work after the holiday.”

Shen Yiyi had an apologetic look on her face. “I’m sorry to have disturbed your rest. Can I borrow this book to take a look?”
“Borrow it…

“The administrator hesitated and looked at Shen’s father, then smiled. “You can have your dad leave his ID card as a deposit.”

***

On New Year’s Eve, Jiang Yan had also come to the Shen family’s house.

Originally, Qin Luo had been busy helping Shen Yiyi contact institutions and handle relationships and had had no time to go home. So she had discussed it with Shen’s father and had had her mother come over for New Year’s Eve.

Ever since their daughters had come out, the two elders had kept in touch. They had even gone on a trip to Beijing together during the screening of Her Kill, so their relationship was not unfamiliar, and they got along well.

But both of them had a unique desire for control over the kitchen. Just one fish had caused the two elders to have a fierce argument.

“Braised.”
“Steamed.”
“Young people all like to eat braised.”

Shen’s father was stubborn. He pushed Jiang Yan out of the kitchen. “You should change your taste. I’ll just cook. You can go out, go out.”

Jiang Yan, who had been kicked out, was not convinced. She knocked on Shen Yiyi’s door. “Yiyi, do you like to eat steamed?”
“Oh, I’ll eat whatever Auntie makes.” Shen Yiyi was flipping through a textbook, trying to confirm if there was anything worth paying attention to in this textbook. She had no mind to listen to the two elders’ argument.

Jiang Yan had gotten Shen Yiyi’s support and had returned to the kitchen. “You really don’t want to steam it?”
“I know, I know.” Shen’s father was used to living alone and did not like to be told what to do. He had sighed a few times and had seen that Jiang Yan had no intention of leaving. He had no choice but to take out the soy sauce bottle. “I’ll make it braised.”

Jiang Yan was shocked to see Shen Qinwen mixing the sauce. “That’s vinegar.”
“Is this vinegar?” Shen’s father did not believe it. He picked up the soy sauce bottle and took a closer look. It really was vinegar. He waved his hand awkwardly. “It’s all because of your random instructions. Can you go and sit outside?”

Jiang Yan was unwilling to be suppressed by Shen’s father. She walked back to the living room and said to the passing Qin Luo, “If you have time, you should take him to get a pair of reading glasses. There’s something wrong with his eyes.”

Qin Luo was startled by the loud voice and whispered, “Mom, can you be a little more polite when you’re eating at someone else’s house?”

Jiang Yan naturally understood social etiquette, but she did not want to be too polite in front of Shen’s father. She also did not want Shen Qinwen to think that she was a pushover. What if Qin Luo was bullied in front of this old man?

“When you’re old, you have to admit defeat. I also wear reading glasses. If you can’t even tell the difference between soy sauce and vinegar, what will you do in the future?”

Qin Luo was too lazy to get involved and went into the bedroom with the fruit.

“What are Auntie and my dad arguing about?”
“Something about getting glasses.”

Shen Yiyi was confused and looked up. “Why get glasses?”
“Hey, don’t worry about this little thing.” Qin Luo did not want to be interrupted by this trivial matter. She pointed to the textbook. “How’s the textbook? Did you see anything?”

Shen Yiyi shook her head.

The textbook was for the art department, and the content was all outdated. Shen Yiyi had already transcribed the list of the writers and would check it later. At present, there was nothing particularly noteworthy about the content of the textbook.

“It’s fine. We’ll find it slowly.”

Shen Yiyi looked up and saw the tired look on Qin Luo’s face, and her voice was also a little hoarse. For a moment, she felt a pang of heartache.

To accompany her back to Fengjiang to find clues, Qin Luo had been having work meetings in between. She had gotten up in the middle of the night to cook a late-night snack. Just now, Qin Luo had had to deal with the emotions of the two elders several times a day, and now she had to smile and comfort her that it was fine.

Shen Yiyi patted the stool and gestured for Qin Luo to sit down and rest. “It’s been hard on you.”
“Seeing me caught between the two of them, you know to feel sorry for me?” Qin Luo was particularly susceptible to this. The corners of her mouth lifted slightly, and she was secretly happy.

“Yes.” Shen Yiyi nodded, reached out and took off Qin Luo’s glasses, and then pressed her fingertips on Qin Luo’s temples, gently rubbing. “I’ve seen you frowning a lot recently. Are you having a migraine again?”

The bedroom was warm and comfortable, but the kitchen was still noisy.

Qin Luo leaned back in her chair, enjoying her girlfriend’s special care. The pressure on her shoulders was completely dissipated by Shen Yiyi’s massage. “Oh my, it’s so comfortable. I feel like I could die without any regrets even if I were to be annoyed to death by them.”

Shen Yiyi was massaging, and her thoughts had returned to the case. Her gaze swept over the lamp and finally landed on the textbook.

Suddenly—
Her hand paused.

“Why did you stop?”

The abrupt stop made Qin Luo open her eyes. She saw Shen Yiyi staring at a certain spot, her brow furrowed.

She followed Shen Yiyi’s gaze. Her glasses were on the textbook. The light from the table lamp passed through the glass lenses and was refracted onto the cover.

The originally dull red suddenly showed a subtle color.
It even had a hint of dark brown.

“Did you see that?”
Shen Yiyi asked in a low voice, “The original red actually changed because of the refraction of this small lens…”

Qin Luo was also stunned. She bent down and looked through a certain angle of refraction. The color of the textbook cover had indeed changed. “It’s become darker, like a burnt edge.”

“The glasses.”
Shen Yiyi picked up Qin Luo’s glasses.

This pair of high-end brand glasses frames, besides being ridiculously expensive, had no highlights.
But this pair of custom-made lenses of Qin Luo was different.

“Huh?” Qin Luo looked at her own glasses with a blank expression. “What’s wrong? Is there a problem with the glasses?”

Shen Yiyi looked at Qin Luo.
But her gaze passed over Qin Luo’s shoulder and landed on the shadow standing behind her.

“I think…”

A memory flashed through her mind. The leather gloves were holding her face, and the two were looking at each other, but she could not see his eyes clearly.

That was not a mane hat.

Shen Yiyi was in a daze and froze in her memory. She reached out and put the glasses in Qin Luo’s hair, just as Qin Luo usually wore her sunglasses.

And so the shadow standing in front of the wall had changed.
The mane hat on its head had collapsed, and the upright part had become the temple of the glasses.

“I remember now.”

Shen Yiyi jumped up from her chair. “He was wearing glasses. He was wearing glasses. He had a special pair of glasses.”

Qin Luo put on her glasses again. She took the textbook and opened the first page.

We try to interpret the true meaning of color with the eyes of science. In the vast color spectrum, it is both the most direct expression and the most elusive phantom.
Because we can never see its true color.