Yan Qing took a cab to the entrance of a residential compound. The driver was stopped by security before they could enter.

“The residents here are all wealthy — taxis aren’t allowed in. Miss, you’ll have to get out and walk,” the driver said.

Yan Qing looked up at the compound’s gate. The entrance was grand and ornate, with gilded characters reading “International Mansion” emblazoned across it.

She’d heard colleagues mention this place before. It sat on the most prestigious street in S City, surrounded on all sides by high-end office buildings and luxury shopping centers. Apparently, you could see the wide expanse of the Pu River from your own living room.

As the driver had said, everyone who lived here was either very wealthy or very well-connected.

After Yan Qing got out of the cab, a security guard naturally moved to intercept her. “Miss, are you a resident here? I’ve never seen you before.”

Yan Qing thought to herself that a high-end compound truly came with high-end service — the building had at least a hundred residents, and the security guard had apparently memorized every one of their faces.

“I’m with the police,” Yan Qing said, producing her credentials. (Note from author: A censored term is being used here, not a typo — this will occur again throughout the story.)

The guard took one look and immediately stepped aside. “Officer, please — right this way.”

“Could you take me to Building Eight?”

“Of course, of course.” The guard was fully cooperative.

“Officer, two police vehicles arrived earlier and went to Building Eight as well. May I ask what happened there?” the guard said curiously.

“I’m sorry, there’s some information I’m not able to share with you.”

“Understood, understood.” The guard nodded quickly.

Two police cars were parked at the base of Building Eight. Vehicles were not permitted inside the compound, so the two cars stood out conspicuously. A small crowd of onlookers had already gathered around them, with two officers stretching yellow police tape.

“Step back, please. Everyone step back.”

An officer in glasses was managing the crowd. His gaze swept sideways and landed on Yan Qing striding toward him.

“Hulu! Hulu! Your mentor’s here!”

The young man called Hulu came running out immediately. “Mentor! Mentor! Over here!”

His name wasn’t actually Hulu — it was Hu Lu, his father’s surname being Hu and his mother’s surname being Lu, which combined to form Hu Lu. Colleagues at the station had teased him about his name so often that the nickname “Hulu” — meaning gourd — had stuck. Hu Lu didn’t mind; people had been calling him that since kindergarten.

“Old Fan was just asking — said you’d be here soon.” Hulu handed over a pair of gloves and shoe covers.

Yan Qing slipped on the shoe covers. “What’s the situation inside?”

“Pretty bad,” Hulu said, his face full of sympathy. “A family of three. Two of them are dead.”

As they spoke, Yan Qing and Hulu stepped into the elevator together. “Any survivors?”

“Yes,” Hulu said. “Their daughter.”

The scene of the incident was on the top floor of Unit 2, Building Eight — a duplex apartment with combined upper and lower levels totaling over two hundred and thirty square meters.

“This family must be really loaded. The price per square meter here is over a hundred thousand — and they’ve got two hundred and thirty-plus square meters.” Hulu ticked off the numbers on his fingers. “My God, that’s more than I could earn in several lifetimes.”

Yan Qing glanced at him with a look of amusement. “That depends on what you do in those lifetimes. If you’re still a cop, ten lifetimes won’t be enough.”

Hulu rubbed his nose. “Mentor makes a fair point.”

Mid-conversation, the elevator stopped at the fifth floor.

One floor, two units. One apartment door stood open, with several officers busy inside.

“Teacher Yan’s here.” Old Fan was the deputy captain of the criminal investigation unit. He’d been on the force for over twenty years, and years of outdoor exposure had left his face a deep, dark bronze — yet his teeth were remarkably white, flashing brilliantly whenever he smiled.

“Captain Fan, what’s the status inside?”

“The scene inspection is nearly finished. Once the team clears out, Teacher Yan can go in.”

Yan Qing nodded and took her toolkit from Hulu.

“Let me brief Teacher Yan on the household first,” Old Fan said. “I took a statement from the neighbor across the hall just now. It was a family of three. The husband is Fan Wenzhi, a university professor. The wife is Lin Yuqin, a senior executive at a publicly listed company. Their daughter is Fan Mingming, a third-year student at S City’s Third Senior High School — seventeen years old this year.”

“A university professor and a corporate executive — their social circles must be quite complicated.”

“Exactly, and that’s what makes this such a headache. I’ve already sent people to S City Industrial University and the company to collect evidence.” Old Fan scratched his head, then glanced at his watch.

Yan Qing asked, “Are you waiting for someone?”

“Yes.” Old Fan said with an air of mystery. “Waiting for our captain.”

Only then did Yan Qing remember — the very first message she’d received that morning had been from Hulu, reminding her about the welcome dinner for the newly transferred captain tonight and urging her not to be late.

The captain hadn’t even arrived yet, but the case had shown up first.

“Teacher Yan, you can go in now.” Xiao Bai from the forensic examination team came out. “We’re basically done.”

“Great.” Yan Qing picked up her toolkit and led Hulu into the scene.

“This place really is huge — two floors!” Hulu looked around in all directions. “And the interior design is so luxurious. Oh — the TV is as big as the wall. This is basically a home cinema.”

“Look at the bodies first,” Yan Qing said, giving him a helpless glance. “You’re not here on a tour.”

“Mentor, you can’t let your whole life revolve around corpses. You have to notice how differently wealthy people live. Oh, oh — even the bathroom tissues are Louis Vuitton. If someone gave me a roll, I’d be too afraid to use it — I’d hate to waste something that precious.”

Mid-monologue, a knock landed on Hulu’s head. “Get to work.”

The incident had occurred on the lower level of the duplex. In the ground-floor living room, one body lay collapsed near the floor-to-ceiling window. At the base of the staircase leading to the upper floor, a female body lay slumped face-down.

“So awful,” Hulu muttered, shaking his head repeatedly. “The body is so pale — she must have bled nearly dry.”

Forensic inspection boards covered the living room floor, but extensive bloodstains were still visible. The blood had spread along the floor tiles of the living room all the way to the bathroom doorway. The entire scene was saturated with the nauseating stench of iron.

Yan Qing directed Hulu to examine the female body while she moved to the male body.

“Mentor, how’s yours looking?” Hulu called out.

“Cause of death is essentially confirmed,” Yan Qing said. “The victim’s heart was punctured, resulting in acute cardiac tamponade.”

“Same here,” Hulu replied. “In addition to the fatal stab wound to the heart, there are multiple additional stab wounds on the victim’s body, though none of them were fatal.”

Yan Qing nodded. “The perpetrator was clearly capable of killing with a single blow — so why inflict additional wounds after the fact?”

“It’s starting to look like a revenge killing,” Hulu speculated.

“Don’t jump to conclusions. Have someone transport the bodies back to the station for autopsy first.”

“Understood, Mentor.”

Hulu went outside to find someone while Yan Qing turned the body over, carefully examining the shallower wounds present on the corpse.

“Has the time of death been established?”

The sudden voice from behind startled Yan Qing. Her instinct was that it was Old Fan, but the voice was somehow familiar in a way Old Fan’s wasn’t. When she turned around, a figure appeared before her — not quite familiar, yet not entirely unfamiliar either.

The latter, because they had only just met.

“Shi — Shi Ting?” Yan Qing said in surprise. “How did you get in here?”

Faced with Yan Qing’s wide eyes, Shi Ting said, “Don’t worry. I didn’t follow you here.”

Yan Qing felt her cheeks warm. She had indeed thought exactly that — but she quickly realized something was off. Even if he had followed her, the people outside would never have let an unrelated civilian through the police line.

“Allow me to introduce myself.” Shi Ting extended a white-gloved hand. “Shi Ting, newly appointed captain of the criminal investigation unit at S City’s Pujiang Police Bureau.”

Yan Qing blinked in surprise, then the pieces fell into place. So the person Old Fan had been waiting for was him.

She started to extend her hand, then noticed her gloves were covered in blood. She retracted it with an embarrassed smile. “Yan Qing, forensic pathology.”

“I look forward to working with you, Teacher Yan.”

“The honor is mine.” Yan Qing waved her hand quickly.

“Has the time of death been confirmed?”

“Yes.” Yan Qing pointed to the body. “Based on rectal temperature and lividity patterns, both victims died at approximately two o’clock in the early morning of the second. The exact determination, however, will have to wait for the autopsy results.”

“I’ll go take a look upstairs.”

“Please.”

Yan Qing watched Shi Ting head up to the second floor. Looking at his retreating figure, she suddenly felt a wave of awkwardness. Half an hour ago, they had been sitting across from each other on a blind date. Half an hour later, they were colleagues.

The world really was small.

Though judging by his age, he must be around the same as her — mid-to-late twenties, certainly not past thirty. To make captain at such a young age was unprecedented in all of S City.

Whether he was genuinely that capable or simply well-connected remained to be seen.

“Mentor, all set — we can go now.” Hulu’s voice came from outside.

“Coming.” Yan Qing gathered her toolkit and stepped off the inspection boards and out of the scene.

Once Shi Ting reached the second floor, he found a female officer speaking gently with a young girl. Old Fan had brought this officer in from the local precinct especially — the criminal investigation unit was wall-to-wall men, and the concern was that the girl would be too frightened to say anything before they’d even started.

“Don’t be afraid, little one. Tell me everything you saw,” the female officer said, her voice soft and soothing. “The more we know, the faster we can catch the killer. You don’t want the person who hurt your parents to go unpunished, do you?”

The girl named Fan Mingming wiped her tears and looked up — right at Shi Ting coming up the stairs. Her eyes brightened involuntarily, her gaze locking onto him.

Shi Ting glanced at her once, then lifted his eyes to survey the room around him.

Unlike the room of an average teenage girl, Fan Mingming’s bedroom contained no warm pink tones or dolls. Instead, it was packed with towering stacks of study materials and a collection of musical instruments. Despite the room’s generous size, these two things filled every available space.

Fan Mingming’s desk was almost entirely buried under study materials, and a dozen or more study schedules were pinned to the wall.

“You’re in your third year of high school?” Shi Ting asked suddenly.

Fan Mingming nodded quickly.

“The workload must be intense.”

Fan Mingming nodded again.

The female officer said, delighted: “I was asking her questions for ages and she wouldn’t even nod. You’ve barely said two words.”

“You were the one who called the police?” Shi Ting continued.

Fan Mingming nodded once more.

“Your parents were killed at approximately two in the morning. What were you doing at that time?”

“Doing homework,” Fan Mingming answered obediently.

The female officer felt a pang of genuine sympathy. Students these days really did have it hard — still working at one or two in the morning.

—