Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 21

Chapter 21: Melting

Qin Luo never thought that answering this call would be as perfectly timed as the “last-minute rescue” montage technique.

She had just started hosting the opening of the aid society meeting, her phone on silent on the lectern. She was in the middle of her speech when “A110” flashed in her glasses.

The very cool little mute called her twice today?

It seemed that primitive phone calls were more effective than social media. Shen Yiyi preferred to communicate with her mouth rather than her hands.

Qin Luo’s eyes kept darting to the lectern. She cut the fluff and jumped straight to the opening remarks.

“Please welcome today’s keynote speaker, counselor Fei Yue.”

As she clapped, she grabbed her phone and hurried off the stage, not even bothering to greet Fei Yue, and headed straight backstage.

She hid in a corner and answered the phone.

“Hello?”

No one spoke on the other end.

Qin Luo didn’t know if the other person wasn’t speaking, if there was something wrong with her ears, or if China Mobile’s signal was so bad that it was trying to separate her from her true love.

She turned to face the corner, covering her ear with her hand. “Yiyi, what’s wrong?”

“It’s noth… ing. I dialed the wrong number.”

Qin Luo’s hearing was fine. She could hear the sobbing on the other end of the line, and the hoarseness in her voice. Shen Yiyi’s tone was like a glass of spilled water, having lost its clarity, the words forced out of her throat like ice shards.

Qin Luo still remembered what Shen Yiyi was like when she cried.

She remembered Shen Yiyi would hug her waist, leaning against the bed and crying muffledly, crying until she couldn’t walk, crying until she fell asleep. So even though she didn’t cry often, it was a vivid memory.

Her heart tightened, and she asked urgently, “Where are you?”

Shen Yiyi pressed her hand to her collarbone, trying to keep her sobs from interrupting the conversation. She didn’t want the other person to overthink it.

“Qin Luo, I really dialed the wrong number.”

Impossible.

Qin Luo’s intuition was very accurate. It was impossible for Shen Yiyi to make two meaningless calls to her. It didn’t fit the cool protagonist’s persona.

Qin Luo was convinced that something had happened to Shen Yiyi.

Besides, she had called the wrong number while crying. Who could she have called by mistake? Other than herself, she didn’t believe Shen Yiyi would be willing to call anyone else.

In her urgency, Qin Luo came up with an excuse. “I happen to have a question about the script for you.”

Even if the other person didn’t speak, Qin Luo persisted. “Is it convenient for you to give me your address? I’ll come pick you up. Have you eaten? Are you hungry?”

“No.”

Shen Yiyi spoke as if possessed, then immediately regretted her words. “I’m not hungry.”

The surroundings were quiet. The rapidly gathering black fog was blown away by Qin Luo. Her cold hands could feel the warmth returning, and the blood was no longer surging in her carotid artery. She was now dependent on this painkiller, as fearful of a relapse as a cholecystitis patient in the emergency room.

A relapse was a spiritual trial. She couldn’t bear a second one so soon.

“Yiyi.”

Qin Luo’s voice was gentle. “Let me come pick you up, okay?”

Shen Yiyi leaned against the entryway cabinet and closed her eyes. The totem pole was filled with candies. Eating them would suppress all the bitterness in her organs. To her left was a depiction of torment in purgatory, to her right, a statue of a goddess in paradise. It seemed she had no choice tonight.

“Okay.”

Qin Luo hadn’t expected Shen Yiyi to not put up any obstacles, to let her get her so easily.

“Wait for me. I’ll be there soon.”

Qin Luo was a woman of her word. No matter if Shen Yiyi lived across the Huangpu River, she would floor the accelerator of her sports car and get there as soon as possible.

But… before she left, she had to take care of the work at hand.

After hanging up, she immediately began to organize her thoughts. There was no filming after today’s aid society meeting, just a discussion. So the latter half of her book sharing could be replaced.

She had an hour. She had to find the closest person to take her place.

…Hmm, Liu Jia had flown to Xiamen this afternoon.

The other popular writers were either on business trips or were guests in the live-streaming department… Just as Qin Luo was looking for a suitable person in the company group chat, Zhan Luo came over.

“Sister Qin, did you have something urgent to attend to when you answered the phone just now?”

Qin Luo glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Zhan Luo was a volunteer at the aid society and had been there for several months. He was always the one handling matters related to the guests.

“Little Zhan, I have something urgent to attend to. Do you know any guests who can fill in for me? Can you help me out in a pinch?”

“You’re leaving?”

Zhan Luo was shocked. He looked down at his watch, then glanced at the 40 women sitting outside in the hall. “I know a lot of authors, but I’m not sure if they can get here so quickly. After all, they need to have something to say, and you’re the one who handles all that.”

“I have the content ready here. The notes are very detailed. As long as the person has a literary background, they can just read it.”

As Qin Luo spoke, she also sent a notice in the WeChat group, @all contracted authors of Logos: Anyone near the Wenming Building, please come and put out a fire immediately.

“Just read it?” Zhan Luo frowned. “Then… do you think they can do it?”

“I really have something urgent. They have to do it even if they can’t. Otherwise, just cut my part. Little Li will be in charge of hosting the rest, and I’ll make it up at the next aid society meeting.”

Zhan Luo heard the impatience in Qin Luo’s voice and immediately looked up.

He scanned Qin Luo’s eyes and felt a sense of unfamiliarity for a moment.

In his eyes, Qin Luo was a neutral color, with a plain appearance but clad in armor, sensitive on the inside but rational in her thinking. She always thought of a solution first when faced with a problem, never shirked responsibility, and always maintained her vitality. Delicacy and relaxation coexisted harmoniously in her.

She was a special woman…

Zhan Luo felt he was wrong and shook his head inwardly.

Logos was an inclusive company. There was no gender binary here. Everyone in the company had only one label: a burnt-out worker.

So he couldn’t say what kind of woman Qin Luo was. Qin Luo was a special boss and an interesting person.

But now, Qin Luo’s eyes were unfocused, her behavior erratic, and she was far from relaxed.

Zhan Luo didn’t want to see her in a difficult situation, so he volunteered, “Then you go ahead and get busy. I’ll help you handle it. You can trust me with the speech. We should be able to find someone in an hour.”

Hearing this, Qin Luo looked up and excitedly put her hand on Zhan Luo’s shoulder, patting it firmly. “Reliable!!”

Zhan Luo grinned foolishly at the praise. “I’m a volunteer at the aid society. It’s what I should do.”

“A raise. I’ll have Sister Jia give you a raise.” Qin Luo felt that Zhan Luo was a modern-day Cupid.

“Then be safe on the road.”

***

It took Qin Luo forty minutes to drive to the Tianhai residential complex.

She was stuck in rush hour traffic halfway there, which made her feel disheartened. Every ten seconds, she would check her phone for messages, afraid that when she got downstairs, Shen Yiyi would play the “unnecessary” and “closed door” trick on her. Then she would have no one to complain to.

But when she drove into the complex and saw Shen Yiyi standing obediently by the roadside, holding her laptop bag, she suddenly felt it didn’t matter.

So what if she was given the cold shoulder? She was willing to try three times if she had to.

Qin Luo adjusted the air conditioning in the car, sprayed some car fragrance, and stopped the car perfectly in front of Shen Yiyi, so that the white moonlight didn’t have to take an extra step. Then she unlocked the car.

When Shen Yiyi opened the door, the car’s interior lights came on.

Qin Luo grinned at her crush, but then immediately looked away.

Damn…

Shen Yiyi’s eyes were red from crying, the area around them swollen and pink, her double eyelids a mess.

This…

Qin Luo quickly glanced again, then pretended to adjust the air conditioning, quickly averting her gaze.

Shen Yiyi had achieved the “crying makeup” effect that Liu Jia had always wanted to create, and it was the kind of effect that would make a makeup novice feel ashamed of their skills.

To be honest, she didn’t want to see Shen Yiyi’s vulnerability.

Qin Luo still remembered what Liu Jia had said when she was doing her “crying makeup”: “Love appears in the small gaps in life. It is the compassion of love, both fleeting and fragile. But if you think about it carefully, the damsel in distress is a free sexual experience for the knight. What the princess holds is not a helping hand, but her own self-compression.”

Who wouldn’t love a broken person?

The observer becomes the projection of the strong, offering a helping hand to the suffering. But Qin Luo felt a sense of loss at this. She had lost a pair of shining eyes, her vitality extinguished, the strong wind intermittent, some flames seeming to have only their embers left.

She couldn’t wait for the interior lights to go out on their own. She reached out and turned them off. Only a little light from the streetlights and the moon shone into the car.

Qin Luo pointed to the passenger door. “There are tissues, wet wipes, and alcohol wipes on your right. Take whichever you want.”

As she spoke, Qin Luo also opened the passenger side storage compartment and took out a car trash bag from the box. She carefully tore off the adhesive part and stuck it in front of Shen Yiyi. “There’s also a trash bag here.”

Shen Yiyi looked down. The items in the storage compartment were still in their original packaging, arranged neatly according to her past habits. There was even a car trash bag specially prepared for her…

“Qin Luo, you don’t have to do this.”

Shen Yiyi didn’t dare to make eye contact and looked down at her hands on her lap.

Seeing that she was about to be distant and polite with her again, Qin Luo explained seriously, “I did buy these things for you, for your convenience. But it’s for your mysophobia, not for any other purpose. Just think of it as a gesture of friendship.”

“Thanks.”

Qin Luo quietly took a breath. “Are you hungry?”

Shen Yiyi’s phone was buzzing wildly in her bag, a continuous stream of notifications. It was usually messages from the case group chat. A forensic pathologist had to reply to messages from the department even when they weren’t on duty, so they couldn’t set it to do not disturb.

“I’m okay.”

Ding, ding—

“Then how about I take you home to eat? The restaurants outside are too noisy, and it’s not convenient to ask you questions.” Qin Luo said, her voice full of cunning.

Ding, ding—

The car was quiet now, and the two were talking. The random notification sounds were like drops of oil, disrupting the just-improving mood.

“Okay, sure.” Shen Yiyi felt that if it got any noisier, it would disturb Qin Luo. She quickly took out her phone and set it to silent, so much so that she didn’t even remember what she had just agreed to. “Sorry, the messages are too noisy.”

Qin Luo smiled and started the car. “It’s fine, it’s not noisy.”

Shen Yiyi quickly scanned the messages in the group chat. It was the group for case 708. Lin Puping had handed over the toxicology report of the suicide boy to the case-handling department. The lab had confirmed that the boy had taken an overdose of hallucinogens before his death and speculated that he had experienced an acute hallucinogenic effect, similar to HPPD symptoms.

At that time, his mind should have been severely detached from reality, experiencing things that didn’t exist, which had led to vomiting, dancing, running wildly, and taking off his clothes to go into the water.

This was basically consistent with the pattern of injuries she had determined from the autopsy. The external examination of the eyelids at the scene also proved that he might have had HPPD symptoms, but at that time, without the toxicology report, they weren’t one hundred percent sure about these eyelid reactions.

The boy’s death was confirmed to have no human involvement. After he went into the water, HPPD caused his body to have motor illusions, and he exhausted himself until he drowned.

The boy’s case was closed as an accidental drowning.

The case filing and pre-trial department re-combed the investigation chain of the hallucinogens and re-opened an investigation into the relevant personnel and the illegal drug production.

Shen Yiyi leaned back tiredly, slightly turned toward Qin Luo. Her head rested on the headrest, her hands clasped on her lap. Her frustration and humiliation were weakened at the sight of Qin Luo.

The shadow that she couldn’t defeat even with all her strength was easily beheaded by Qin Luo. Her willpower was stuffed with a lot of gentle cotton. The winding warmth supported her. Her body could relax. Her waterlogged spirit could finally be dried…

But she hadn’t told Lin Puping that she wouldn’t be back at the station to sign the papers tonight, nor had she called her roommate to say she would be home late. She didn’t want to face Li Siting’s urging for the time being. How should she explain the wrong call to Qin Luo? And she hadn’t replied to her dad’s message, nor had she gone to see her uncle and his family…

She had been so tired these past few days, but she could never get enough sleep, nor could she sleep deeply.

Qin Luo drove out of the complex steadily and glanced at Shen Yiyi. She had slumped over, her shoulders hunched together, and she was quietly taking root in the darkness.

Qin Luo came back to her senses and adjusted her glasses. A sentence unconsciously slipped out of her mouth, “The flavors of the world are a simple joy.”

In her daze, Shen Yiyi heard Qin Luo seem to be speaking. She squinted, her body not turning. “Hmm? What did you say?”

People are cutest when they are half-asleep and half-awake.

“It’s nothing. Go to sleep.” Qin Luo reached out and put on some meditative sleep music, adjusted the volume and the air conditioning, and then drove onto the elevated highway.

The traffic was heavy. Qin Luo was in no hurry to go home. She drove steadily along the lane. She remembered that it was the day to change her bedding anyway, and it just so happened that a mysophobe was gracing her with her presence. When fate arrives, no one can stop it.

If only she could hold her while she slept. She would rest her head on her arm, their backs nestled together. Her other hand would be on her waist, no improper movements, just holding her tightly in her arms, waiting for her to really fall asleep, to slowly sink into the plum rain season, for the night to eat them, to eat their silent breaths.

The car was parked in the underground garage for a long time. Qin Luo was handling company matters on WeChat and also comforting a shocked Liu Jia.

Liu Jia: [Little Li told me you ran off halfway?]
Qin Luo: [Something came up.]
Liu Jia: [Suspicious] [Even when there was an earthquake at the Xiaoshan donation ceremony, you didn’t react for half a day. I can’t think of anything else besides that Shen Yiyi business.]
Qin Luo: [Mm, it’s about her.]
Liu Jia: [.]
Qin Luo: [I’ve noticed something’s not right with Shen Yiyi. Which teacher at our psychological institution is particularly good at treating OCD? Help me make an appointment.]
Liu Jia: […You should probably go see one too.]
Qin Luo changed the subject. [I’m going back to Fengjiang in a couple of days. Are you coming?]
Liu Jia sent a photo of a hotel king-size bed. [Very busy, no time.]
Qin Luo opened the photo. On the bed was one of Liu Jia’s dresses and a pair of athletic shorts that didn’t fit her persona. Qin Luo took a closer look. It should be the athlete’s shorts.
Two seconds later, Liu Jia sent another message. [[Yay ✌] I won.]
Qin Luo angrily exited the chat and couldn’t help but turn to look at Shen Yiyi beside her.

Shen Yiyi looked so frail.

When she had touched her back in the conference room, she had felt her coldness even through her shirt. Since she was young, she had only ever shown her a tough exterior. She could never feel her clear pulse.

Qin Luo really couldn’t guess what Shen Yiyi was thinking.

She unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned over, wanting to grab the thin blanket from the back seat to cover her. It was still cool in the car, and a good cry was the most exhausting thing. What if she caught a cold?

But just as her hand, holding the blanket, got close, Shen Yiyi woke up.

No delay, no obstruction. In the small space, her hand landed on Shen Yiyi’s shoulder, and the blanket completely enveloped her.

Shen Yiyi was still on her side, and she turned her head to look at Qin Luo.

Damn!

She had regained that brightness.

Qin Luo paused in her leaning motion. Her vision went blank for a few seconds. She moved her eyes from her eyes, slowly down to the tip of her nose and her lips.

Qin Luo really couldn’t turn back now. The way Shen Yiyi was looking at her was dragging her into the scorching sun, the thick fog, a deserted island. How could a person who had fallen onto a deserted island leave? She couldn’t get out, couldn’t get out.

Qin Luo felt she had been poisoned. The poison apple she had eaten in high school still had residue in her body… She could only follow her instincts and lean toward this warmth.

The car fragrance was a catalyst, and the underground garage was a good place to kiss. An un-disinfected hand climbed onto the patient’s shoulder, the fingertips pinching her throat and then cupping her face. She slowly leaned in, seeing that the other was also watching her. She even heard Shen Yiyi’s response.

“Qin Luo…”