Xu Huaisong, who had scored eighty-two points, was made by Ruan Yu to recite legal provisions for an entire week while she watched over him.

For seven consecutive days, their nightly pre-sleep activity was sitting shoulder to shoulder on the bed, a mountain of books pressing down on their laps, as she quizzed him through the provisions one by one.

Though in the end, it usually concluded with Ruan Yu growing utterly bored from listening and dozing off in his arms.

One day, a week later, Sister Zhang called and asked whether he wanted to join her on a visit to Su Shi to investigate the Zhou Jun case.

The case had been in the prosecution phase for nearly ten days. Zhang Ling and Chen Hui had been making successive visits to several key individuals connected to the case during this period, and this trip to Su Shi was to conduct an in-depth background investigation on the defendant.

As someone who had been Zhou Jun’s classmate during his youth and a neighbor from the same district, Xu Huaisong’s participation would, to a certain degree, help improve the cooperation of those interviewed and allow them to gather more information favorable to the defendant.

So he did not hesitate, and asked Zhang Ling about the departure time.

Ruan Yu was sitting beside him revising a script, and had caught bits and pieces of the conversation. When he hung up, she leaned over and said, “Can I come with you?”

Xu Huaisong glanced at her sideways. “Going on a business trip just to have you watching me recite legal provisions?”

She gave him a look of utter disdain, the kind that said he didn’t know a good thing when he saw it. “Don’t I know Su Shi pretty well too? I’m trying to help.”

Xu Huaisong smiled. “No meetings scheduled for the next couple of days?”

Ruan Yu checked the meeting schedule that Huan Shi had arranged. “Not until the day after the day after tomorrow.”

Huan Shi’s meeting frequency during this period was generally once every ten days or so. Since that evening when she had crossed paths with Wei Jin and Sun Miaohan at the apartment building, she had not gone into the office at all, and had been revising the script remotely the entire time.

However, having learned that the film might fall through, her enthusiasm had inevitably taken a hit, and her work efficiency had dropped considerably.

Seeing her bent over the script revisions with little interest, Xu Huaisong took her along with him to Su Shi the next day.

Chen Hui drove, while Zhang Ling sat in the front passenger seat and briefed Xu Huaisong in the back: “As mentioned before, the key reason the client mistakenly believed that the victim had taken her own life to get back at him was a photo of a slashed wrist that she had posted in her social media moments one month before her death. I investigated this matter and confirmed that the photo was downloaded by the victim from an online platform. In other words, the victim had not actually engaged in any extreme behavior.”

“Regarding this point, the prosecution may raise the following questions: First, the client and the victim had been in a romantic relationship for one year and three months — there is no reason he would not have recognized her wrist. Second, given that the victim’s wrist bore no scars, how had she managed to conceal this from the client for the following month?”

“However, according to the client’s account, his first reaction upon seeing the photo was one of complete panic — he did not look closely at all, and the photo was deleted shortly afterward. The victim then kept her wrist wrapped in bandages for quite some time, after which she began wearing a watch. He did not think his girlfriend would deceive him, and he truly never verified the matter.”

At this point, Ruan Yu drew a sharp breath through her teeth.

“Hmm?” Xu Huaisong turned his head toward her.

Ruan Yu thought for a moment and said, “I’ve been imagining the psychology of both the victim and the client, but it’s just speculation with no real basis.”

Knowing that her imagination ran wilder than anyone else’s in the car, Xu Huaisong felt it was worth hearing. “Go ahead,” he said. “Investigation has always been a process of bold speculation followed by careful verification.”

“The client cheated on the night of his argument with the victim, when he was drunk. And the victim posted the slashed wrist photo on the morning after the client’s infidelity — is that correct?”

“That’s correct.”

“Then I think that perhaps, before the victim posted the photo, she already knew that the client had cheated. Or more precisely, it was precisely because she had found out about the infidelity that she posted the photo — she was trying to use guilt to keep him bound to her, fabricating the slashed wrist incident.”

“Afterward, she and the client reconciled as if nothing had happened. She thought her method had worked. But then that day in the car, she saw the messages between him and his one-night stand again, so she completely broke down on the spot.”

“And the client, driven by the guilt of his infidelity, very likely had been subconsciously unwilling to confront the victim’s supposed scar all along — so he never actively verified it. Or even if he had tried, the victim had managed to cover it up.”

Zhang Ling was quiet for a moment before saying, “But what evidence is there to support these inferences?”

That, Ruan Yu did not know. She was a romance author who had arrived at this conclusion through her imagination of romantic psychology — it could be said to be entirely plausible — but gathering evidence was the lawyer’s specialty.

Xu Huaisong thought for a moment. “Did the victim have any female friends she was close to during her lifetime?”

“Two university roommates.”

He nodded. “Once we’re in Su Shi, Sister Zhang, you go and contact those two. Xiao Chen and I will proceed as planned and visit the area around the client’s place of residence.”

Ruan Yu went along with Xu Huaisong to the neighborhood near Zhou Jun’s home.

Zhou Jun’s former address had been in the same district as Ruan Yu’s family home and Xu Huaisong’s grandmother’s house. After that area was demolished, he had moved into the simple resettlement housing here.

Because the resettlement housing was out in the countryside with inconvenient transportation, both the Ruan and Xu families had chosen not to take it at the time, opting instead for monetary compensation.

Chen Hui carried a briefcase and a planning schedule, moving busily about, leading the two of them from the front.

Over the course of the entire day, the three of them visited five households together.

The sixth person they needed to interview was a mutual friend of Zhou Jun and the victim. His family’s circumstances were modest, and he worked at the market. When the three of them arrived at his home in the evening, his wife told them he was still out selling fish and had not come home. They called several times but got no answer, likely because the market was too noisy for him to hear his phone.

Xu Huaisong looked down at his wristwatch.

Since this was their last household, Ruan Yu guessed he did not want to drag things out too late, and suggested, “Why don’t we just head to the market then?”

If a girl like her had no complaints about being tired, Xu Huaisong and Chen Hui naturally had no objections either. They drove to the market.

The two men in their tailored suits were completely out of place amid the atmosphere of fish-gutting and meat-cleaving at the market. After stepping out of the car, they both froze at the entrance, momentarily at a loss for how to proceed.

It was Ruan Yu, who frequently did the grocery shopping and cooking, who was perfectly at ease. She peered inside, pointed toward a row of freshwater and aquatic produce stalls, and said, “Should be over there.” With that, she led the two men through a row of meat stalls.

Just as they were about to pass the meat counter, a empty beverage bottle came rolling and clattering along the ground toward them.

Xu Huaisong pulled Ruan Yu aside with a “Careful,” and as the words left his mouth, a middle-aged man in a sweat-soaked undershirt walked over, bent down, and picked up the bottle, dropping it into a plastic bag.

The plastic bag was already stuffed full of empty beverage bottles — it looked as though they were being collected to sell for cash.

In the countryside, such a sight was not unusual. But just as the three of them were about to move around him, the middle-aged man raised his head and stared blankly at Xu Huaisong. Squinting his dull-looking eyes, he stuttered, “Xu… Attorney Xu?”

Xu Huaisong blinked twice. He seemed to be searching through his memory for this person, but could not place him for a moment. After a brief pause, he spoke with polite phrasing: “Hello.”

The other man, overcome with agitation, loosened his grip — the bag of bottles clattered and scattered all over the floor. He moved to shake Xu Huaisong’s hand, then stopped when he looked down and saw his own filthy, grimy palm.

Xu Huaisong was puzzled. “You know me?”

“Attorney Xu, you don’t remember me? Ten years ago, you handled a lawsuit for me…”

Xu Huaisong was taken aback. How could he possibly have handled a lawsuit for anyone ten years ago?

Then, after a moment, it slowly dawned on him: “Perhaps you mean my father?” He furrowed his brow slightly, studying the man’s features carefully. “Mr. Jiang?”

Jiang Yi stared blankly. “Oh — so you’re Attorney Xu’s son. I got confused…” He smiled sheepishly. “Right, how could anyone grow younger as the years go by — though you really do look just like your father…”

Ruan Yu was completely bewildered. She looked at Xu Huaisong.

Xu Huaisong’s gaze rested on Jiang Yi for a long time before he asked, “And how have these years been for you?”

He picked up the plastic bag. “Pretty good. I’ve been doing pretty well. And your father?”

Xu Huaisong was quiet for a moment before saying, “He’s doing pretty well too.”

At this point in the conversation, someone outside the market tossed an empty beverage bottle into a trash can — a loud clang rang out. At the sound, Jiang Yi turned his head, exchanged a quick farewell with Xu Huaisong, and ran out to retrieve it.

Xu Huaisong stood in place, lips pressed together, silent for a long time.

Ruan Yu and Chen Hui dared not ask anything either — until they heard the voice of a middle-aged woman from the freshwater stall up ahead: “Look at this world! The killer is doing just fine, and the lawyer who defended the killer is doing just fine too — what kind of world is this!”

With that, she picked up the basin she had just used to slaughter fish and flung a ladleful of water in the direction of the three of them.

Xu Huaisong swiftly pulled Ruan Yu behind him.

The bloody water splashed onto the toes of his shoes. He said nothing, and told Chen Hui, “Let’s go. We continue the investigation.”

By the time they came out of the market, it was already dark. Xu Huaisong and Chen Hui had finished their work successfully, but Zhang Ling was dealing with family and friends on the victim’s side — a far more complicated situation. She had spent the entire day on it and had only managed to make contact with one person so far, without having learned anything of use.

Chen Hui said, “I’ll take you and Brother Song back to Hang Shi first, then come back for Sister Zhang tomorrow.”

Xu Huaisong looked at Ruan Yu. “Why not stay the night at my place?”

“Is your mother home?”

“She is.”

Having Chen Hui make the round trip would really be too much trouble, but showing up at the Xu family home without any preparation would also be too abrupt. Ruan Yu thought it over and said, “Then let’s just find a hotel.”

Xu Huaisong nodded, told Chen Hui to stay and accompany Zhang Ling, and together with Ruan Yu, picked a place to eat dinner. After they finished eating, they searched the map on their phones and found a hotel within a few hundred meters, so they walked there leisurely.

With no one else on the quiet pedestrian path, Ruan Yu was finally able to ask: “The person we ran into at the market — was he the defendant in that murder case ten years ago?”

After the encounter with Jiang Yi, Xu Huaisong’s mood had remained low. He gave a quiet “Mm,” and after a moment said, “Only thirty-three years old. When the incident happened back then, he had just graduated from Su Shang University — he might have had a brilliant future ahead of him.”

Ruan Yu was taken aback.

Looking at the man they had just seen, she would not have been surprised if someone told her he was forty-three.

To think that ten years could age a man in the prime of his youth into something like that.

Doing pretty well? Who would believe that.

Ruan Yu frowned. “What kind of case was it, exactly?”

“A rape and murder case.”

Ruan Yu drew a sharp, cold breath.

Xu Huaisong patted her on the head. “Let’s not talk about it — you’ll be frightened.”

The two of them arrived at the nearest hotel and checked in.

Perhaps because something was weighing on his mind, Xu Huaisong was distracted throughout, and Ruan Yu, still rattled from hearing the words “rape and murder,” followed numbly behind him up to the room in a daze.

So it was only when they swiped the card and opened the door that the two of them realized — this hotel seemed to be somewhat unusual. A bathroom with transparent glass walls, a large mirror covering the entire ceiling, and all manner of furnishings arranged around the room that resembled gym equipment.

It seemed they had somehow… wandered into quite a remarkable sort of establishment.

Author’s Note: Heaven knows that this story about accidentally walking into a love hotel is something I personally experienced back in my student days. 🙂