Criminal Investigation: After Dawn - Chapter 4

Chapter 4

What the doctor said… what the doctor said had what to do with him? He wasn’t Xie Xuning’s wife.

Could it be that just because he lost a single wager, he had to take care of this jinx’s three meals a day and daily life?

Fang Xiting’s single misstep became an eternal regret, and he cursed under his breath. Yet he found himself utterly helpless against the man who had entered his single-occupancy bedroom without permission.

His home featured an open kitchen, and a single glance over revealed the frequently used items, the refrigerator also meticulously decorated with fridge magnets. Because he held high requirements for quality of life and possessed a picky palate, he wasn’t like Xie Xuning, who used boiled cabbage and could swallow even pig slop.

But it was also a fact that the man’s stomach and intestines were not good and required nursing. As criminal investigators, they especially had to run to crime scenes and go on field dispatches, making their three meals irregular. Plus, this fellow Xie Xuning was used to being lazy and careless, never cherishing his own body, frequently brushing things off with instant noodles outside of work.

Fearing that he would get gastric bleeding and enter the hospital again, Fang Xiting suppressed the urge to pour all the chili oil into his bowl. Turning around to pull open the refrigerator door, he took out the chicken broth he had brewed in advance yesterday to heat up as the soup base.

Thawing over a low fire in the earthenware pot, a thick, fresh, and fragrant aroma quickly diffused all around, slowly drilling into Xie Xuning’s breath.

Taking advantage of his busyness while his back was turned, the man finally found an opportunity to seriously look around. Aside from the originally warm log-style decoration and a few pink-and-white gradient Esperance roses inserted in a crystal vase, the one who attracted Xie Xuning the most was still Fang Xiting himself.

The youth had red lips and white teeth, his appearance not having changed much, a perfect proportional enlargement. Beneath his thick, soft black hair, half-hidden yet revealed, were pinkish-white ear tips like an elf’s. Because he had just woken up and hadn’t changed out of his pajamas, a loose navy blue T-shirt was draped over his body, his clear and slender figure swaying back and forth inside the empty hemline. Especially that waist, he feared he could wrap it with a single hand…

“Eat.”

The man’s mind was wandering, and just as he was losing himself in thought, he was pulled back to reality by Fang Xiting’s ice-cold tone.

The youth lacked romantic sensibility, the bowls and chopsticks being heavily clapped onto the dining table, with steaming white smoke still rising from the noodle soup.

Xie Xuning sat over in a slow and unhurried manner, watching Fang Xiting also carry a dining tray to the opposite side of him. It was just that the dining habits of the two displayed a relatively large variance; he himself had Chinese hot noodle soup, while the opposite party had whole wheat toast paired with fruit jam.

Xie Xuning completely abandoned the reason that Fang Xiting hated him to the point of being unwilling to even eat from the same pot of noodles. Instead, he asked from a unique angle: “You’re not eating noodles? Cooked specifically for me?”

Fang Xiting bit his bread impatiently, not even bothering to raise his eyelids: “Isn’t this what you wanted to eat yourself?”

He wasn’t polite upon entering the door, opening his mouth to order the dish as if this place were a noodle shop downstairs. It was simply laughable.

The opposite party’s white eyes were about to roll up to the sky, yet Xie Xuning’s heart was still delighted.

That man thought: “So it’s just because I wanted to eat it, he would also specially light the fire to make it for me!”

Clearly saying with his mouth that he hated me to death, in the end, wasn’t he still secretly worried about my body? His own breakfast of toast with jam could be made in three minutes, yet because of a single sentence from me, he was willingly ready to fuss around for over ten minutes just to cook a bowl of chicken broth noodles?

It seems my weight in his heart is still…

Xie Xuning rubbed his chin, his mood turning joyful. He buried his head to eat with “hoof-hoof” sounds, quickly finishing a bowl of noodle soup with a golden, fresh, and fragrant soup base.

Meanwhile, Fang Xiting ate slightly slower, and when he stood up to clear the tabletop, he smoothly took away the bowl and chopsticks in front of him as well.

The little fellow had ten slender fingers, his wrists thin and white, and his well-proportioned knuckles even gave off a faint pink hue. Xie Xuning inadvertently caught a glimpse of that hand, and his full-bodied male hormones nearly failed to be suppressed. He had to mobilize his entire logic and reason to refrain from grabbing that hand and holding it in his palm to stroke it finely.

Sitting upright before the dining table, the man had already held hands with the person countless times in his heart. He tried hard to press down his impulsive emotions, slowly exhaling the urgent fire in his chest; even just thinking about the opponent’s small hand, he felt it would be good to touch.

It wasn’t until Fang Xiting cleared the bowls and chopsticks, returned to the second-floor bedroom, and changed into his clean work police uniform that the two arrived together at the underground parking lot.

Xie Xuning consciously pulled on his seatbelt, then used his finger to wipe the display stand of his solo graduation photo. Fang Xiting didn’t throw this thing into the trash can, which was a tacit admission that the opponent’s personal item was permitted to appear within his own spatial scope.

With his mind this obvious to such an extent, he still dared to say he didn’t have feelings for him?

The man held back from laughing, yet his good mood could not be suppressed, an emotion like his tail was about to tilt up to the sky crazily spreading outward.

Fang Xiting thought he was sick, rolling his eyes sideways, lazy to pay him heed.

It just so happened that there was a red light on the turning road at that time, and they were stuck in the traffic flow.

Xie Xuning suddenly leaned over: “Classmate Fang Xiting, after work yesterday, did you secretly calculate the suspected vehicles loaded with dismembered body chunks at home for the whole night?”

The two of them had spent too long together, understanding each other excessively well. Even without witnessing it with his own eyes, merely relying on mental imagery, Xie Xuning could completely restore the picture of Fang Xiting leaning over his writing desk, seriously analyzing and burying his head to calculate bitterly.

Sure enough, that fellow cast a cold eye over, his lips tightly shut, absolutely refusing to answer.

Xie Xuning was long accustomed to his conventional method of cold-treating him whenever he threw a tantrum. Thus, sticking his fingers into his clothing pocket, he proactively pinched out a folded piece of white paper, shaking it before his eyes: “I know you definitely calculated it, I calculated it too, and I wager our obtained answers match, do you want to bet?”

Bet, bet, bet? Knowing only how to bet? Betting is never-ending, right!

Fang Xiting snatched the slip of paper Xie Xuning used to provoke him in one go: “Bet what?”

The man was prepared long ago, extending his index finger: “One month of breakfast, I’ll personally come to your door to eat.”

A mere breakfast, Fang Xiting sneered with disdain, smoothly fishing out a slip of paper from his own pocket as well and smashing it onto that man’s face.

Xie Xuning caught it with his hand smilingly, his gaze unmoving, only staring tightly at him. Until Fang Xiting opened it to confirm the contents, the corners of his lips subconsciously tilting up, Xie Xuning also smiled along with him: “How about it?”

Inside the contents of both slips of paper, “2, 3” were written in black ink, these two suspected vehicles that might have collected the dismembered body. Once the scope narrowed down, it undoubtedly greatly alleviated the difficulty of advancing the subsequent case.

Fang Xiting and Xie Xuning rushed to enter the office punctually before 8:30.

The detachment was plagued with major and crucial cases, everyone’s nerves tightening up, with busy clamors all around in every direction. At that time, both sides led their respective groups, the office areas separated by less than five paces.

Fang Xiting had just taken his seat, having no time to enjoy half a second of peace, when he heard that Xie Xuning’s group had grown noisy again.

“It’s already been two days, and you still haven’t confirmed the victim’s identity?”

“The police station has no matching data, and those who suddenly went absent without cause in the factories, you don’t even know how to check them one by one?”

“The search scope has been singled out and given to you, the answer fed right to your mouth and you still can’t swallow it?”

“If it can’t be found within 24 hours of the case, can’t you push the time forward by three days?”

A person like Xie Xuning lacked patience; he wasn’t of a character to explain every single matter down to the finest detail. His speech always possessed a strange habit of stopping at the right moment, liking to let people guess, feeling that saying too much and having to explain was truly an exertion.

Fang Xiting was long used to it, watching him be impolite to everyone just like when he was a child—he deserved to be single. Even when explaining a problem he wouldn’t do it properly; opening the book and feeling it was simple, he would continuously question people back, his grades seemingly about to ascend to heaven.

When Yu Heng ran over clutching data, his gaze continuously sized up the direction where Xie Xuning was located and his group members who were lining up to be scolded.

The newcomer sat down in trepidation: “Their Deputy Chief Xie is so fierce.”

“Fierce?” Fang Xiting didn’t think so, merely disliking that fellow for being annoying. Behind him, the two groups were making a chicken-flying-and-dog-jumping racket, yet only the group members on his own side took after him—quiet.

Yu Heng stuck out his tongue, not daring to continue venting, deeply fearing that some day he would fall into Xie Xuning’s hands. He hurriedly shifted the topic, holding a pen and paper to say to Fang Xiting: “Deputy Chief, according to your arrangements, I have already found the detailed residential addresses of those 36 sorting workers from the Lanhu Landfill.”

The matter was told to Yu Heng via text message by Fang Xiting last night before going to sleep. He hadn’t arranged any troublesome tasks; neither was he a hateful deputy chief who lacked human kindness and wantonly squeezed ordinary police officers’ private rest time. Merely contacting the plant area’s personnel manager to request the other party to extract residential addresses based on entry information was a matter that a single phone call could solve.

Fang Xiting took out the Yunjing urban layout map he had prepared in advance, spreading it across the desk. First, according to the body-dumping area Xie Xuning analyzed yesterday, he carefully circled it out with a red pen, and then together with Yu Heng, marked the addresses of these 36 people on the map one by one.

Fang Xiting: “Out of 36 people on the assembly line, only 4 don’t live in the West City District?”

The remaining 32 were all within the body-dumping area point carved out by Xie Xuning; this was highly unlikely to be a coincidence.

Fang Xiting tightly pursed his lips, fully concentrated, and followed the walking paths of the suspected No. 2 and No. 3 vehicles that he and Xie Xuning calculated were extremely likely to have carried the dismembered remains. Then, within the affiliated lines, he circled out 6 households once more.

At that time, seeing the map distribution, Yu Heng naturally believed that those 4 households far away from the body-dumping area had already completely cleared their suspicion. But unexpectedly, Fang Xiting very cautiously instructed: “Go check why these 4 people live so far away.”

“Ah?” People not within the crime area also need to be investigated?

Yu Heng was surprised, but didn’t dare to ask much. Fortunately, Fang Xiting wasn’t Xie Xuning; he happened to be that person who had to explain every single matter down to the finest detail.

“To my knowledge, the Lanhu Landfill has been built for over thirty years and has never relocated.”

“Early employee recruitment naturally should have attracted people close by. A commute of over two hours between residential address and workplace is strange in itself.”

“Not to mention that subways and buses are so convenient nowadays; working across districts computes to dozens of kilometers.”

“If it were placed twenty or thirty years ago, in an era where riding a bicycle was considered a luxury, who would exert that much effort to run this far to come to work?”

Yu Heng felt it was reasonable, immediately picking up the phone to carry out a detailed screening of these four people once more. But unfortunately: “These four people also lived in the West City District in the early years, it’s just that later on due to various reasons, such as the son getting married and needing to change to a larger house, or the daughter feeling that the conditions in the West City District were too poor, so they added money to exchange the house to the main city district, etc.”

It turned out to be accidents, and sorting garbage was not some easy livelihood. When children are successful, they naturally are also unwilling to let their parents suffer these hardships again. It’s just that the older generation is used to hardships; having done a job for a lifetime, suddenly letting them give it up is naturally also a difficult matter. Under the condition that the plant area provided dormitories, having a single day off once a week and tossing around for a few hours to go home once was indeed acceptable.

Fang Xiting bit the end of his pen, thinking it was reasonable after reflecting, and didn’t stress over it. With a large stroke of his pen, he directly crossed these four people out of the scope of suspicion.

“Tingting, time to eat.”

Because he was too serious in analyzing the details of the case, it wasn’t until the noon lunchtime that Fang Xiting suddenly realized that the noisy clamor behind him had vanished from the detachment office at some unknown time.

A colleague saw him searching with his eyes, so informed him: “Deputy Chief Xie heard that their group couldn’t find the source of the corpse for two days, and was angry enough.” “After scolding everyone one by one, he just personally led the team out to search.”

With Xie Xuning’s character, tossing around today would definitely result in starving for another two meals. At least when following him out on missions, he could eat a piece of bread under his watch. The stomach that was built up with so much suffering…

Fang Xiting had just felt worried, his brows knitting tightly, when he suddenly realized his concern had crossed the line. Besides, whether Xie Xuning was dead or alive had what to do with him? Next time that bastard entered the hospital, it was absolutely impossible for him to follow along to take care of him.

Fang Xiting gnashed his teeth, trying hard to recall all sorts of unpleasantness in their interactions, attempting to mobilize inner resentment. Yet the burning hotness flushing up on his cheeks was somehow completely out of control…

After finishing lunch in the cafeteria, everyone returned to the office, seizing the time to catch a small afternoon nap. Then, within the not-so-large office area, things began to turn busy and noisy again.

The police had already carved out the general body-dumping point, and subsequently extracted surveillance footage from various points of vital road sections. Fang Xiting led Yu Heng, guarding before the computer to watch for a whole afternoon, and by ten o’clock at night, his eyes were nearly blind.

As the highest-ranking deputy chief on the field, after greeting everyone to pack up and go home to rest, Fang Xiting remained in the municipal bureau parking lot, sitting alone in his car in a daze for a long time. To be precise, staring at Xie Xuning’s graduation photo in the car console display stand, in a daze for a long time.

Xie Xuning was actually very handsome, rugged and rogue-like, his figure tall and straight, a sense of male aggression that grew wildly hitting one right in the face. From childhood to adulthood, the girls who liked him… and boys were not a small number.

Thinking of that man, Fang Xiting’s heart suddenly felt irritated for no reason, forcibly stopping his brain from continuing to think downward. With one stomp on the gas pedal, he rushed out of the parking lot, and just as he was about to reach his doorstep, a heavy rain fell.

The carpet laid out before Xie Xuning’s dorm door was clean and tidy, a scene showing that he hadn’t returned home yet at first glance.

Fang Xiting held a portion of instant Oden in his hand, the kind Xie Xuning most loved to use to brush off three meals, thinking to himself that he wasn’t truly crazy, right. Why did he buy this thing? Could it be that if Xie Xuning was at home, he still had to have the thick skin to tell the person: “This was given to me by the boss when passing by the convenience store downstairs, but I don’t really like to eat it, so I smoothly brought it back to give to you?”

If it weren’t for the fact that a slap to the face would hurt, Fang Xiting would definitely have to slap himself awake today. A thing that could clearly be thrown away in the corridor trash can, he specially ran downstairs. Pulling out the fish balls one by one, then breaking them into small pieces, he fed them all to the stray cats and stray dogs in the pavilion.

By the time he turned back home and finished washing up, the emotion of worrying about Xie Xuning that had suddenly popped up was finally pressed down by more than half with great difficulty. As a result, just as he was preparing to turn off the lights on the first floor and return to the second floor to summarize today’s case information before sleeping, his fluffy gray slippers had just stepped onto one tier of the wooden floor when a burst of urgent knocking on the door came from the entrance vestibule.

Fang Xiting had an intuition that Xie Xuning had returned, and he hurriedly pulled open the door.

“Fuck! Fuck! A downpour right over the head, almost didn’t drown your father.”

“Damn it, froze me to death, where’s the hot water, is the water heater turned on?”

It was precisely the end of February, the temperature still hovering between 0 and 5 degrees, capable of breathing out white vapor even when wrapped in cotton clothes outside. Although the heating at home had never been cut off, Xie Xuning, who had bad luck and had just hurried home from the rainstorm night, entered the door wrapped in a full body of cold frost.

The other party urgently wanted to take off his clothes to take a shower, his fingers shivering. Fang Xiting lost his wits for a moment, not even having time to ask him what happened before watching that man panic-strickenly rip off his soaked, ice-cold outerwear and enter his own bathroom without any politeness.

“Sorry, lost my keys, borrowing your home to rinse a hot bath.”

It was fortunate that the man explained a sentence before closing the door, only then making this sudden farce appear not that absurd after all. So he had lost his keys; in such cold weather, having to quickly wash a hot bath to prevent a cold was also a matter of no choice.

Xie Xuning’s soaked clothes and pants were thrown onto the floor, still seeping with water. Fang Xiting considered that the coat also had to be taken to the washing machine to dry a bit before it could be worn tomorrow, so he reached out to pick it up for him. As a result, with a “clank” sound, a cluster of heavy objects fell out, and Fang Xiting bent down to pick up that cluster of keys: “…”

He looked at the tightly closed bathroom door, and listened to Xie Xuning cursing “fuck” here and “fuck” there, “fucking” until his ears turned burning hot. At that time, the lie was exposed; according to the feuds of the two, the normal practice should be to first drag the showering man out from the bathroom, and then throw him, his wet clothes, as well as that cluster of “lost” keys all out.

But Fang Xiting’s heart beat very fast.

When Xie Xuning finished washing and came out, he discovered that a set of clean pajamas had already been placed at the bathroom doorway, along with a towel to wipe water stains. The lights in the first-floor living room were all turned off, and a bedside lamp was slightly lit on the second floor, the light very dim.

He nervously reached out to touch his pants that had been drenched by the rain; the cold air had drilled into his body, and the keys were still there. The man hadn’t been discovered, easing his mind, and intentionally clamored a couple of sentences: “You couldn’t even help me clear up a bit?” “The clothes are just thrown here, if you don’t worry about me, you at least have to worry about what to do if this floor gets soaked and wet by the water.”

There was dead silence upstairs, not responding.

Xie Xuning looked around with a guilty conscience, confirming nothing was amiss. Hiding his house keys well again, he put the clothes into the washing machine, clicking the wash plus dry mode.

His footsteps were light and slow, cautiously going up to the second floor, discovering that Fang Xiting had already covered himself with the quilt and fallen asleep. But that little person without a conscience was considered slightly having a bit of conscience, not thinking to let him sleep on the sofa, but instead using a thickened mattress beside the bed to cleanly lay out a floor bed for him.

Xie Xuning held his pillow and lightly lay down, the man smoothly turning off the bedside lamp, the bedroom instantly falling into silence. Fang Xiting lightly turned his body over at that time, a subtle rustling sound entering his ears, the opponent’s slender waist appearing like it was rolling onto his body.

Xie Xuning’s heart was simply about to explode.

The man instantly felt his scalp go numb, his heart rate accelerating, his breathing also turning urgent. He clearly hadn’t done anything, yet it was like he had done everything. If he didn’t suppress his heavy breath with all his might, he feared it would alarm the opposite party, worrying that his secret would be discovered by someone.

Fang Xiting’s not-too-large single bed, the coral fleece duvet cover also fell down a bit along with the turning over. Xie Xuning raised his eyes, and within the pitch-black room, lending a sliver of weak light from outside the window, caught sight of half a section of wrist Fang Xiting revealed from within the bedsheets. Delicate, white, fingers with slender knuckles. It was like dotting right onto Xie Xuning’s heart.

The man stared at that hand for a long time, nearly about to forget to breathe. But the mood of wanting to be close was difficult to suppress; he boldly extended his fingers, testing back and forth in the air several times. Finally, with two fingers lightly touching, the tip of his heart fiercely trembled, so he hurriedly pulled it back.

Pressing hard against his chest to slow down his tense emotions, perceiving that the opponent had no reaction, he then boldly wrapped around and upward again, then tightly holding it.

Ambiguous in the stolen time, taking advantage of when the two fingers interwined, Xie Xuning’s entire body was as if passing an electric current.

It was truly fucking thrilling to death!

Merely like this could make his own scalp go numb with thrill. He truly didn’t dare to imagine one day, if he could sleep onto this bed…

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