Two minutes later, Jiang Chengyi returned to the room.

Inside, Old Qin and Lu Yan were deeply engaged in conversation.

They were discussing children’s weak immune systems, and Lu Yan was introducing Old Qin to a certain medical consultation app. She explained that the app was jointly developed by several affiliated hospitals, offering not only expert online consultations from Monday to Friday but also abundant health care information for reference.

Just as Old Qin finished downloading the app, Jiang Chengyi sat down at the table and picked up his chopsticks. “I’m hungry, Old Qin. Let’s eat first.”

Aunt Liu’s cooking skills were exceptional. The dishes were both exquisite and delicious. Throughout the meal, Old Qin repeatedly praised the food’s “perfect combination of presentation, aroma, and taste.” With his presence brightening the atmosphere, Lu Yan’s appetite gradually improved as well.

After dinner, Old Qin sat in the living room for a while before taking his leave, noting it was getting late.

As soon as Old Qin left, Aunt Liu mysteriously appeared from somewhere and walked to the tea table to clear away the cups.

Her expression was peculiar – though her smile carried a hint of guilt, she couldn’t help but observe Lu Yan with interest.

Jiang Chengyi, returning from seeing Old Qin off, stood by the sofa looking at Lu Yan, and said without emotion, “Aunt Liu will help you get settled in a moment.”

Lu Yan, holding her tea, responded with a soft “Mm.”

After Jiang Chengyi returned to his room, Aunt Liu led Lu Yan to the guest room.

It was a spacious bedroom with warm lighting, white walls, and wooden flooring. Unlike the living room’s cold, stark style, this room was gentle and warm.

Aunt Liu took out clean slippers and towels from the wardrobe and handed them to Lu Yan. “Everything is new. Young Master Jiang usually lives here alone, so there aren’t many items for young ladies. If Doctor Lu needs anything, please don’t hesitate to ask me.”

Lu Yan smiled and thanked her.

Aunt Liu then showed Lu Yan where to find the bathroom, the air conditioner controls, and how to open the wardrobe before leaving.

After Aunt Liu left, Lu Yan took off her coat and sat quietly on the bed for a while before getting up to draw back the curtains.

The view from high up was chilling. The bustling street traffic below had shrunk countless times, appearing like ants at first glance.

Car lights flickered, countless points gathering into a silver dragon of vehicles, particularly moving against the vast darkness of night, reminiscent of the Milky Way falling to earth.

Drawing the curtains closed, she went to take a shower.

Last night’s events had been sudden, and her items were very limited. Besides toiletries and one set of pajamas, she hadn’t brought anything else. Even if the danger couldn’t be eliminated immediately, she should at least return to Nanshan Lane to get a change of clothes.

After coming out of the bathroom, she considered her next arrangements. Sitting on the bed, she called her mother.

On the phone, she lied about having to work overtime this weekend and being unable to return to East City.

Fearing her mother would make her sleepless, she didn’t mention a word about the events of the past few days.

Overtime was normal for Lu Yan, so her mother didn’t find it strange. She only carefully reminded Lu Yan not to stay up late and insisted that if she had next weekend off, she must come home for a visit before hanging up.

It was getting late. Lu Yan took out band-aids and her portable hand sanitizer from her bag treated the wound on her right hand and got into bed to try to sleep.

WeChat kept buzzing, so she opened it.

For work, she was in two WeChat groups: the formal “Anesthesiology Department Work Information Group” and a “Small Fry” group spontaneously created by the department’s young staff.

The “Small Fry” group consisted of young anesthesiologists and nurses. Having automatically blocked the department director and head nurse, many things that people didn’t dare say in the “Work Information Group” could be freely discussed here.

On this Saturday night, the “Small Fry” group wasn’t as quiet as usual, but rather bustling with conversation.

Scrolling up, she found nearly a thousand messages all about Wang Qianqian.

The most frequent commenters were the doctors and nurses who had more contact with Wang Qianqian.

After scrolling through the scattered messages for several minutes, Lu Yan extracted several key points:

Doctor X: Wang Qianqian had known her current boyfriend for less than three months. Setting the wedding date so quickly was probably partly to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend.

Nurse Y: Yes, Qianqian’s current boyfriend isn’t very ambitious and likes to play mahjong, but he’s good-looking and comes from money. Yes, yes, call me shallow if you want, but I’m so happy to see Qianqian giving that scumbag ex a taste of his own medicine.

Nurse Z: She loved her ex. After he dumped her last year, she nearly went crazy for a while and did many foolish things we’d rather not detail.

Nurse A: Don’t know if she harassed her ex and his new girlfriend, but Qianqian, though appearing gentle and harmless, is a bit obsessive and tends to get fixated on things.

Nurse B: Don’t know how they met, but she went on a trip and came back with a new boyfriend, like he just fell from the sky.

Nurse C: Qianqian has been acting strange lately. Most people get more excited as their wedding day approaches, but she’s been getting more depressed each day like she’s afraid of something. She’s been paranoid. Remember the head nurse talked to her about it, but she just said she was tired from wedding preparations and wouldn’t say anything else.

Perhaps she was too tired, but even gossip couldn’t pique Lu Yan’s curiosity. As she scrolled through the screen, her eyelids grew heavier and heavier until finally, the phone slipped from her hand onto the pillow, and she fell completely asleep.

Having not set an alarm, it was already past eight when she woke up the next morning.

After washing up, Lu Yan neatly made the bed exactly as it had been and made her way down the hallway.

Aunt Liu was setting up breakfast in the dining room. Seeing Lu Yan, she smiled and said, “Doctor Lu, you’re up! Come have breakfast.”

Lu Yan smiled back, “Good morning, Aunt Liu.”

Standing by the dining table, she looked around but didn’t see Jiang Chengyi, wondering if he had gone to the police station to work on Wang Qianqian’s case as he’d mentioned yesterday.

Seeing Lu Yan hesitating to sit down, Aunt Liu quickly said, “Doctor Lu, please don’t stand on ceremony. Young Master Jiang and I have already eaten. He probably had something at the bureau and left around seven. But Young Master Jiang is very dedicated to his work, even on weekends he often goes out to work on cases.”

While eating breakfast, Lu Yan remembered the messages she’d read before sleeping. Though unsure if they’d be useful, she took screenshots, planning to show them to Jiang Chengyi when she saw him.

With nothing to do after breakfast and uncertain if she could go out, she told Aunt Liu she’d be in the living room and sat on the sofa, logging into her academic account to look up research papers.

After making notes on her phone for over an hour, there was movement at the front door – someone had returned.

Aunt Liu was just bringing freshly squeezed juice to the coffee table and seemed surprised: “Young Master Jiang is back so early today? I thought he wouldn’t return until afternoon or evening.”

Lu Yan leaned slightly to look aside, and indeed it was Jiang Chengyi. After a moment’s hesitation, she stood up to greet him: “You’re back. Um, any progress with yesterday’s situation?”

Jiang Chengyi took a drink of water from Aunt Liu and replied, “It’s Sunday, so checking surveillance footage is inconvenient. We’ll have to wait until Monday.”

Which meant they still couldn’t go out freely for these two days.

Seeing him about to head to his room, Lu Yan quickly said, “Jiang Chengyi, I need to go back to Nanshan Lane.”

Jiang Chengyi stopped and turned to look at her.

She smiled slightly. “Please, my computer is there, and I have important materials to look up these days.”

After getting in the car and fastening her seatbelt, Lu Yan remembered the chat records. Before they started driving, she showed Jiang Chengyi the screenshots: “These are discussions about Wang Qianqian from colleagues in the department. I don’t know if they’ll help with your investigation.”

Jiang Chengyi took the phone and stared at the screen.

With each screenshot he scrolled through, his gaze would slowly move up and down.

It was the expression he wore when concentrating, during which his pupils would appear darker and more profound.

After a few seconds, Lu Yan turned her head and said slowly, “I’m not close to Wang Qianqian. The deepest impression I have of her was once during the night shift when she complained about getting lots of harassing phone calls, saying it was extremely annoying. But that was a long time ago – I only remembered it recently when I started getting harassing calls myself.”

Jiang Chengyi handed the phone back to her: “Show me those numbers that harassed you.”

Lu Yan silently opened her blacklist and after a moment, handed the phone back to him: “It’s probably some harassment software. They haven’t called these past two days though.”

Jiang Chengyi glanced at it, turned the steering wheel, and drove out of the garage: “Send me those screenshots too.”

They soon arrived at Nanshan Lane, parked, and went upstairs.

After entering the apartment, Lu Yan first poured Jiang Chengyi a glass of water, then went to the bedroom to pack.

Thinking she would only stay at Songshan Road for at most two more days, she just packed a simple suitcase. Though it looked substantial, it was quite empty with only a few pieces of clothing.

When she came out, Jiang Chengyi’s gaze fell on the suitcase, and his face briefly reddened.

However, he quickly stood up and walked to the balcony with a composed expression, appearing to seriously inspect the surroundings.

Lu Yan stayed inside to do some quick cleaning, collecting the snack wrappers Tang Jie had left on the coffee table. Just as she was about to throw them in the small trash bin by the sofa, something eye-catching caught her attention.

She froze, bent down to pick it up, and saw it was the butterfly sticker she had found at the door that night.

Jiang Chengyi came in at this moment and, seeing Lu Yan standing lost in thought, walked over and asked, “Are you done packing?”

Lu Yan put the sticker in a disposable plastic bag and handed it to Jiang Chengyi: “I found this outside my door the night before last. It looks like someone stuck it there temporarily. I don’t know if it was that woman who put it there.”

Jiang Chengyi frowned as he took it, looked at it silently for a while, then, noticing Lu Yan still watching him, put it in his pocket and said, “Let’s go.”

As they were approaching Yifeng Baiwan, Lu Yan remembered last night’s events and asked Jiang Chengyi, “Did you get a good look at the person following me yesterday? What did they look like?”

Jiang Chengyi’s expression remained neutral: “A man, tall and sturdy, probably someone with no fixed occupation.”

Lu Yan’s expression changed slightly: “A man?”

She remembered the woman in the black down jacket she’d seen on the subway last night and said uneasily, “Are you sure it was a man?”

Jiang Chengyi turned to look at her: “What’s wrong?”

They had just entered the complex when Jiang Chengyi’s phone rang.

Mother Jiang’s lively, cheerful voice came through: “Chengyi, look behind you.”

Jiang Chengyi looked back with his phone – behind them was a white sports car, and through its lowered window, a lady was waving her arm. Who else could it be but his mother?

Seeing Jiang Chengyi’s somewhat headache-stricken expression, Lu Yan also looked back and saw an exceptionally fashionable society lady who seemed familiar. Before she could confirm, another bright red TT drove up to the complex entrance but was stopped by security since they weren’t residents.

The driver immediately got out – it was Ding Jing, who smiled at the lady and said, “Oh, Auntie, what a coincidence!”

Mother Jiang looked at Ding Jing in surprise but quickly smiled: “Jingjing, you’re here at Songshan Road too?”

“Visiting a friend,” Ding Jing said something to the security guard and followed Mother Jiang’s car into the complex.