After drinking, the man inserted the water bottle into the side of his backpack, pulled up his hood to cover his head, and walked out of frame. Even this small gesture seemed identical to Yin Feng’s habitual movements to Chen Feng.

They put down the phone.

Chen Feng asked, “Should we look for other surveillance footage? Or I can call Guan Jun up directly.”

But Yin Feng remained silent for a moment before saying, “No need.” He raised his eyes to look out the window, his pitch-black eyes filling with mockery and coldness.

Chen Feng’s heart skipped a beat: “Master Yin?”

Then he heard him say, “That person wasn’t me.”

Chen Feng was startled: “How is that possible…”

Yin Feng looked at him, his gaze colder than the night itself: “Even if I don’t remember, I can still recognize myself. No one knows me better than I do. Although that person’s physical movements and many small details were deliberately mimicking me, and the imitation was almost perfect, that person wasn’t me. Everything about him was wrong—I can sense it.”

Chen Feng felt a chill rising from the depths of his heart, and exclaimed, “Then who could it be?”

Yin Feng appeared extremely calm, leaning back in his chair with a composed expression. Yet Chen Feng sensed an inexplicable loneliness and desolation about him. For some reason, this perception suddenly flooded Chen Feng’s heart.

Yin Feng didn’t pursue the question of who that person might be. He simply said, “Voice messages, texts, surveillance footage… all can be faked to avoid arousing your attention and retaliation. Chen Feng, after I went to Guizhou, perhaps not long after, I had already fallen into their hands. What caused my loss of intelligence and memory might not have been Gu Tiancheng’s supposedly clever car accident, but something else. Only when I was reduced to an almost mentally disabled state did they discard me.”

——

Night had fallen deep, and Yue Mingxu no longer needed to personally monitor Luo Yu. At the police station, she had seen colleagues’ reports that Luo Yu had remained well-behaved under police surveillance today. After handling some other cases, she finally dragged her tired body out of the police station in the deep winter as the first lights were coming on.

Walking into the night, she looked up to see snow beginning to fall from the sky. In a few more days, it would be Chinese New Year.

She suddenly remembered thinking, several days ago, that she wouldn’t be spending New Year alone this time—she would be with Yue Yingjun. She had imagined how lively it would be with him and Chen Feng, with elaborate formal dinners and tacky candlelight meals. On New Year’s Eve, two people in mutual love would surely stay up all night together.

But now, standing alone, Yue Mingxu watched the fine snow falling from the sky with an expressionless face. She reached out her hand to catch a snowflake, watching it melt instantly. She stared at it blankly, feeling something indescribable in her heart.

Her phone rang in the vast night filled with falling snow.

She stared at the name “Yin Feng” on the screen for a moment before answering, her voice carrying a weariness she didn’t even notice herself.

“What is it?”

“What’s wrong?” he asked instead. “Very tired?”

This Yin Feng’s perceptiveness was incomparable to that former simpleton. Yue Mingxu collected herself: “Skip the small talk, what is it?”

The man on the other end fell silent for a moment, then said, “Could you come to my home for a moment? I’ve made some important discoveries about them.”

The word “home” slightly stung Yue Mingxu’s heart. But her tone remained perfectly normal: “Fine, I’ll be there in 20 minutes.”

He said, “Good, I’ll be waiting.”