The next day, Cheng Lele needed to return to the cinema to confirm the New Year’s program. Because the Christmas event set such a high bar, the New Year’s activity naturally required some careful thought. Last time it was a big fire stir-fry; this time she wanted to slow-simmer on low heat. She invited the magician whose techniques she had observed last time to perform some impromptu small magic tricks for customers five minutes before each showing. She also put some thought into the movie tickets. She spread out the tickets for the three-day holiday in advance and randomly stamped them with different seals. Different seals could be exchanged for New Year gifts, and single customers could also choose whether they were willing to watch a free movie together with a stranger who got the same seal in the future. For this, Cheng Lele needed to implement the details again—matchmaking had to be done, but privacy also needed protection. This would generate many communication costs, so she needed to train the staff once more.

Chen An didn’t want to disrupt Cheng Lele’s normal life rhythm, so he gave himself an extended vacation, postponed his schedule in the provincial capital, and focused on staying by Cheng Lele’s side to protect her.

Cheng Lele spent the entire morning writing training materials for “Q&A.” Whatever Chen An said to her got a half-beat delayed response, and after that half-beat delay, she’d reply with an “mm.”

Chen An had nothing to do at the cinema, so he placed an order at the imported supermarket in the north part of the city for various fruits, snacks, appliances, and flowers.

After receiving the delivery, Chen An first arranged the flowers and plants, then organized the power cords for the coffee machine and juicer. After tidying everything up, he sat beside Cheng Lele and concentrated on peeling grapes.

After peeling a bowl of grapes, he moved on to peeling pine nuts.

The office was filled with a lived-in atmosphere. Staff members came in and out in relay, watched with peripheral vision, then went out to whisper to each other and supplement various details.

“Manager Cheng doesn’t even bother to eat the peeled grapes herself.”

“Right, she has to be fed.”

“Someone even has to catch the grape seeds she spits out.”

“Completely a useless person who only knows how to open her mouth.”

Then they unanimously praised Manager Cheng for her excellent husband-management skills.

Close to noon, just as Chen An finished cleaning up the pine nut shells he’d peeled on the table, Tang Xin’s call came through.

“Boss, knowing you’re anxious, I’ll report to you first what the investigation company fed back to me. Wan Shengmu was paralyzed a year ago after a drunk driving accident that fractured his spine; Qin Rui was sent to a drug rehabilitation center three months ago for mandatory isolation treatment; Qin Wenfeng has a shell company under his name but is actually unemployed. In the past year, he’s been quite close to a fifty-year-old woman named Shen Tianlan.”

One phone call cleared all three people Chen An suspected most in his heart.

“Boss, do you need me to focus on any of them?”

Chen An held the phone and walked outside: “Qin Wenfeng came into a windfall a few years ago. Have someone check if there’s anything fishy. If there is, just report it as a good citizen.”

In the afternoon, Cheng Lele needed to train staff in batches in the general manager’s office.

Being bounced around between different service staff was the worst customer experience. She required that all staff, whether they were responsible for this activity or not, must be clear on the details.

Chen An originally wanted to sit in a corner and observe, but after being asked to turn off his phone on-site, he tucked his tail and went to sit in the general office.

Uncle He sent a WeChat message saying they had retrieved the dashcam footage. Unfortunately, the electric scooter captured had no license plate, and the perpetrator wore a helmet the entire time, so no face was captured—there wasn’t much useful information. They had also reviewed Chen An’s driving times in Taixi these past few days and found no suspicious tracking vehicles.

Similarly, the surveillance footage Ma Bao had just retrieved from the north city shopping center showed that person wearing the mascot suit the entire time.

They planned to start from the source of the mascot suit and camera. Taixi didn’t have a concentrated electronics market—the shops were quite scattered. Fortunately, there weren’t many places locally that rented second-hand mascot suits. Uncle He mobilized several local partners and planned to divide forces to investigate.

“As long as it wasn’t purchased online, following this lead should yield results quickly. But if it was purchased online, it will take some time,” Uncle He said.

The whole day brought nothing but bad news.

The training in the general manager’s office next door ended. The staff, probably at Cheng Lele’s invitation, flooded into the office to mooch food and drinks.

Because Chen An had behaved too much like a henpecked husband in the morning, his sense of authority in the staff’s hearts plummeted.

Shen Dafeng could even joke with him: “Brother-in-law, not seeing you for three days feels like three days.” After speaking, his hand mischievously grabbed several peeled pine nut kernels and popped them in his mouth.

The cinema staff were mostly women. While sharing snacks, several of them huddled together looking at their phones, studying the dance Cheng Lele performed on Christmas Eve.

Shen Dafeng said: “The ready-made teacher is right here, and you’re still seeking far when near is available, watching TikTok videos? The camera shakes so much it’s nauseating.”

Cheng Lele, chewing on a dried sweet potato strip, said: “You want to learn? Come, I’ll teach you. Just five minutes.”

As she spoke, she stood up, walked in front of them and called out the beat: “One two three four, here open your hands, walk your feet forward…”

The three or four girls who wanted to learn excitedly followed behind, dancing and gesturing.

Jumping to the middle, a bespectacled employee shouted: “Ah, I love this little frog movement the most. So classic. That day I did it several times following along.”

Another big-eyed cute girl said: “I think the one before is cooler, leg sweeping forward in a circle—”

A nearby employee said: “That’s because you didn’t come on Christmas Eve. The little frog movement is easy to learn. Many people on-site followed along jumping this one. You jump along twice and you get hooked. Now when I hear this music, I can’t help but want to raise my hands up.”

The big-eyed cute girl said: “You can’t tell from the video.”

“That’s why performances have to be seen live. Recording it loses that meaning.”

“Let me try.”

Chen An watched that group of employees all raise their hands up together. In a flash of inspiration, a thought suddenly struck him.

He took out his phone and sent Uncle He a WeChat message:

[That day at the shopping center entrance, he made an interactive gesture from the live performance toward Cheng Lele.]

[No matter how widely videos spread online, the interactivity is greatly weakened.]

[Only someone who jumped on-site would take that gesture as a memory point and naturally perform it.]

Uncle He replied quickly: [You mean that person was at the cinema live that day?]

Chen An: [Are there any shops near the north city shopping center that rent or sell mascot suits?]

[There’s one about two kilometers away. They mainly operate through online channels, but the offline storefront isn’t small either—you can search for it on maps.]

Chen An quickly connected his guessed points into a line: [I’m guessing the cinema performance that day gave him inspiration. Then the next morning, he went to buy the panda plushie and camera for modification. That item isn’t large—it can be carried in an electric scooter’s rear storage box.]

[In the afternoon, he might have gone to the shopping center to deliver food, ran into us, got a spontaneous idea, searched for nearby markets that rent or sell mascot suits, went directly there to rent or buy a set, then returned to the shopping center.]

[The underground parking lot of the north city shopping center hasn’t opened yet. All cars are parked in the paid lot across from the plaza. The closest exit is the west gate. He only needed to wait there like a hunter by a tree stump to run into us.]

[Uncle He, you should first go investigate that mascot shop in the north city.]

Uncle He replied: [We were about to investigate that shop anyway. I’ll give you news shortly.]

Then Chen An went to the surveillance room.

The surveillance room was an extremely cramped space partitioned off from a corridor, stuffed full of the box office system’s mainframe, UPS, and telecommunications equipment. Chen An stood there screening frame by frame.

This person’s purpose in coming to the cinema was to watch Cheng Lele. He knew Cheng Lele would be walking around everywhere on Christmas Eve and definitely wouldn’t waste time watching a movie in the theater for several hours. So there was a high probability he would stay in the lobby the whole time. Therefore, as long as someone in the lobby never entered to watch, they should be a suspect.

Unfortunately, surveillance video was very laborious to review. The glow stick balloons created some visual obstacles, and the foot traffic that day was very dense—at a glance, it was all a mass of heads. Moreover, according to pandemic control requirements, every customer wore a mask, making them indistinguishable by the naked eye.

Chen An exported all the camera footage involving the lobby and waited quietly for news from Uncle He’s side.

Not long after, Uncle He called: “Your guess was right. I asked the boss here. A few days ago, they did sell a set of second-hand panda mascot suits. Because it was purchased with cash, the boss couldn’t make change at the time and wanted to transfer via WeChat or Alipay, but was refused. The boss even had to find someone to break larger bills, so he still has an impression of him.”

“Did he see his face?”

“There’s surveillance but it doesn’t mean much. He wore a helmet and mask the whole time. The boss doesn’t remember any facial features either. But the boss said that person couldn’t understand Taixi dialect—he’s an outsider.”

“An outsider?”

“Not Huang Tiangou. This person is thin and tall.” Uncle He sighed. “Do you have good news from checking surveillance on your end?”

Chen An said: “Working on a method.”

In earlier years, Chen An had invested in a company that primarily researched identity recognition. He sent the video to the CTO there and asked him to help see if, from a technical angle, they could confirm that everyone present had entered the theaters.

The CTO said they only needed to identify everyone’s uniqueness and calculate people’s paths. Current identity recognition methods were very rich—masks blocking faces were no longer particularly big obstacles. As long as video clarity was sufficient, with different angle versions cross-supplementing information, plus the investigation volume wasn’t large, there should be results quickly.

Before dinner, the CTO sent a WeChat message: [Everyone entered the theaters in succession, except these people:]

Following were individual face screenshots. Chen An identified that these three or four people were all old cinema employees. Chen An had just heard them speak dialect in the office—very easy to rule out.

The CTO added very rigorously: [Those actors wearing mascot suits and made up as clowns are not within the recognition scope.]

This sentence was really like an aphorism containing God’s perspective in a detective novel. It seemed like enlightenment. Chen An intuitively felt he was just one step away from the truth. He locked his phone screen and asked Cheng Lele for the phone number of the person in charge of the dance performers on Christmas Eve.

Cheng Lele was checking movie popularity on Maoyan and asked: “What do you need this for?”

“A friend who runs a restaurant saw that day’s video and said he also wants to invite them to perform once.”

Cheng Lele didn’t suspect anything and generously gave the number, saying mentioning her name would get a discount.

“Also the clown performer’s.”

Cheng Lele frowned: “I had Shen Dafeng find someone. Ask him for it. But there are quite a few like this on the market—you don’t have to use that specific person.”

Chen An nodded: “I need to make a few calls in the general manager’s office. You—sit here obediently and don’t run around.”

“Why?” Cheng Lele looked at him strangely.

“I ordered roses. You need to sign for them in person later.”

It was the first time Cheng Lele heard of sending flowers with advance notice: “Little Ge, I feel very surprised. Thank you!”

“You’re welcome.” Chen An walked to the general manager’s office, first ordered a large bouquet of roses, then called that person in charge of the street dance club.

The other end of the phone was a girl.

Chen An identified himself as a cinema employee and got straight to the point, asking whether there were any outsiders on the team that performed at the cinema that day.

After hearing this, the girl said displeased: “Do you guys still have regional discrimination? Excluding outsiders?”

“Pandemic prevention requirements. Required to fill in supplementary materials.”

The girl’s attitude cooperated a bit: “Just two. Me and Jingjing. We’re both from the Northeast.”

“Jingjing is a girl?”

“What else?”

“Were there any last-minute substitutions that night?”

The girl didn’t know Chen An’s identity and thought he was just a cinema employee. She shouted: “Big brother, we do technical work. You pull a random person over for me to watch jump two steps—can they jump smoothly? Think it’s Zhao Si who just stretches his legs and it’s done?”

Chen An’s accent was almost led astray by her. He said thank you and hung up.

Chen An hadn’t put his focus on the dance performers anyway. After all, that was a group collaborative project—outsiders couldn’t easily mix in. He walked out of the office, strolled around, and pulled Shen Dafeng, who was hiding in the break room eating corn chips, to the general manager’s office.

“Are the corn chips good?”

“Good.”

“Those are what I bought for your sister.”

“Brother-in-law, we’re all family—why talk like we’re two separate families? What’s yours is my sister’s, and what’s my sister’s is—” Under Chen An’s death stare, Shen Dafeng swallowed his words: “Still my sister’s.”

He wiped his hands: “Brother-in-law, why did you mysteriously call me here?”

The general manager’s office had just been used as a training venue. There were quite a few chairs inside. Chen An pulled one over and sat in front of Shen Dafeng: “You contacted the clown performer on Christmas Eve?”

“Mm.”

“Name, contact information.” Chen An said crisply.

Shen Dafeng said: “Then I need to log into our official Weibo backend. We post all our recruitment information on the official Weibo. I had already set on one performer, but two or three days before Christmas Eve, he sent a private message to the official Weibo and gave a very low price.”

Chen An handed him his phone: “Log in now.”

Shen Dafeng entered the account information and pulled up that day’s private message records: “It’s this person.”

Chen An clicked into that person’s Weibo. It was all automatic system reposts—looked like a zombie account. He took a screenshot and sent it to Tang Xin, having her find technical personnel to check the most recent login IP address.

“Is there a resume?”

Shen Dafeng sensed something unusual from the serious, silent atmosphere: “No resume. It’s just a few hours of part-time work—really doesn’t require someone to make a resume.” He paused and pointed at the chat records: “But I had him come to the cinema for an interview.”

“When? Where in the cinema?”

Shen Dafeng stood up nervously: “Interviewed in the lobby. Two days before Christmas Eve. Wednesday afternoon around three o’clock.”

Chen An said: “Go to the surveillance room to check records.”

Shen Dafeng said submissively: “Brother-in-law, did something happen? When that person came that day, his face was covered in greasepaint. He said he’d just finished working at another place and hadn’t had time to remove his makeup. He brought balloons and things and performed a bit for me. I thought his skills were fine and the price was cheap, so I hired him.”

“Didn’t keep an ID photocopy?”

“He didn’t bring it that day. Said he rushed over from another gig, and his phone, wallet, and everything were all left at the previous venue. Seeing him like that, I told him to hurry back and get his bag, and to just submit it when he came to perform.”

Chen An pinched the bridge of his nose: “By Christmas Eve you were too busy and forgot, right?”

Shen Dafeng showed a guilty expression: “If he wants to get paid, he definitely has to come submit it. Otherwise finance can’t settle accounts with him either.”

Chen An was speechless at this pig teammate Shen Dafeng.

Tang Xin sent a WeChat message saying this zombie account’s IP address showed an overseas location—the other party might have used a VPN to log in.

Chen An put away his phone and asked Shen Dafeng: “He’s an outsider?”

“I’m not clear about that either, but he doesn’t have our local accent.”

Chen An’s string of interrogations made Shen Dafeng somewhat unable to sit still. He asked anxiously: “What exactly happened, brother-in-law?”

“Call me President Chen.” Chen An said coldly.

Shen Dafeng deeply felt he’d caused a big disaster. He imagined he might have let a wanted murderer escape. Now he just needed uniformed officers to come over and shine a white light on his face.

The clue that had finally appeared was about to break. Chen An rubbed his face: “Shen Dafeng, concentrate and think carefully—did that person have any obvious characteristics, or any gesture or habitual movement that left a deep impression on you? Whatever you think of, you can say.”

Shen Dafeng was startled by Chen An’s solemn entrustment of important responsibility. While desperately recalling, he muttered: “Hair, hair is black, a bit long. Eyes seem to be black. Nose was painted red. Mouth was quite big, but I think clown mouths are all big. Ears, I really have no impression of ears. Neck, neck—”

Shen Dafeng suddenly shouted: “Right, right! At the most prominent part of his Adam’s apple, there was a very large red mole. That day the cinema heating was on high. His clown outfit wasn’t breathable, and he broke out in sweat all over, so he unzipped a bit. I saw him constantly swallowing, thinking he was hot and thirsty. I wanted to get him water, but he refused. But he kept swallowing dryly, and the red mole on his Adam’s apple kept bobbing and bobbing. It made me particularly uncomfortable watching. I definitely won’t remember wrong.”

Chen An pinched his temples and searched his brain’s database. He was very certain he had seen someone with a red mole on their neck, but where?

Taixi’s economy wasn’t particularly developed—locals made up ninety percent. Outsiders here should be a very conspicuous group. And this was an outsider who had intersections with both Cheng Lele and him.

After limiting the search terms, Chen An obtained the search results almost effortlessly.

Tongda Cinema Chain. Tong Zhe.

Tang Xin’s report on the Tongda investigation materials included Tong Zhe’s resume, which had a one-inch photo.

He sent a WeChat to Tang Xin, having the investigation company send over all the materials and photos about Tong Zhe from the last investigation, down to the smallest detail.

While waiting, Chen An instructed Shen Dafeng to keep it secret from Cheng Lele. Shen Dafeng knew his own work was derelict. Before there was Cheng Lele tearfully executing Huang Wei—even if Chen An didn’t say so, he didn’t dare spread it around. He didn’t even take the corn chips and hurriedly left.

Five minutes later, Chen An received Tong Zhe’s information package.

A top science student who graduated from a 211 university, from an impoverished family, worked multiple jobs during college, with a solitary and paranoid personality. In Huang Tiangou’s workplace bullying, Lele was the only person who stood by his side. Perhaps he fell in love with Lele at that time, or perhaps even earlier. Because his personality wasn’t likable, Lele was very likely the only colleague in their department who treated him well. However, Lele left headquarters because of her, so he blamed himself, felt inferior, pitied himself, and developed this liking into a pathological delusion.

A story of the farmer and the snake. Fables all blame the farmer for being foolish, but in the real world, snakes don’t paste labels on their heads. They disguise themselves as victims and lurk by your side, making them impossible to guard against.

The saying goes, “Strike the snake seven inches from its head,” but with just the hidden camera charge alone, you couldn’t even hit the snake’s tail.

Perhaps heaven sensed something. Not long after Chen An sent Tong Zhe’s photo and identity information to Uncle He, he received an overseas call from Greece. When he answered, he thought it was a friend in Europe calling, but the voice on the other end had prolonged duration and rapid breathing. He immediately understood this was a virtual number packaged with disguise software.

He immediately pressed the record button.

After discovering his hidden camera had been found, a normal person should also panic. The best approach would be to lie low, but this time, Tong Zhe was much more rash than Chen An imagined.

After Tong Zhe’s “hello” processed through a voice changer, Chen An first asked: “Are you the person who sent the panda?”

“Yes.”

“How do you prove it?”

Due to nervousness, Tong Zhe’s speech was a bit fast: “I have inappropriate videos of you and her.”

Chen An asked calmly: “What do you want?”

“I want one hundred thousand.”

Chen An wasn’t surprised at all. Half a year ago, when the person who liked him stood up for him, he would bite back to keep his own rice bowl, forcing her to lose her career. This time, he would similarly betray his original intention for his own interests. Moreover, he had already taken the first step on the criminal path—subsequent psychological barriers wouldn’t be as great.

During Chen An’s silence, the other party had already started raising the price: “The longer time drags on, the more money I want. Now I want two hundred thousand.”

Two hundred thousand. Chen An didn’t have time to ask legal counsel what sentencing category two hundred thousand fell under in the crime of extortion.

“I need to see the video first.”

“Three hundred thousand.”

“I don’t make deals with people who have no sincerity.”

“Four hundred thousand.”

Chen An was almost deliberately stalling: “I suspect you’re bluffing.”

“Five hundred thousand.” The other party was like a pricing robot.

Actually, from this starting price, Chen An judged that Tong Zhe didn’t understand his real identity. After the incident, time was tight—he very likely just got hold of Starlight Cinema’s internal directory and knew he was the cinema’s general manager.

“Five hundred thousand is too much. Can it be cheaper? Since this is a transaction—”

“President Chen, you have no regard for your lover’s reputation. As punishment, I want one million.”

“Isn’t one million too much? Besides, how do you guarantee you won’t leak it again after receiving the money?”

“Besides trusting my character, you have no other path. Tomorrow at noon, twelve o’clock, I’ll contact you. Don’t put a tracker in the money bag, and don’t report to police. You know the consequences.”

After speaking, he unilaterally hung up the phone.