Silent Testimony - Chapter 9

The bright moon hung high, and the night was warm. Unknowingly, the small figure to her right leaned over, and her breathing gradually became even. Li Hewei drove the Beetle directly into the underground parking lot on the second floor of Diyuan International, parked in a space, and turned off the engine. She unbuckled her seatbelt and turned around. Tao Ling, currently asleep, was furrowing her brows, even in her sleep.

Sensing that the temperature in the car was gradually rising, Li Hewei raised her hand and gently patted her thin shoulder, her voice clear and gentle. “Wake up.”

“Hmm?” Tao Ling opened her hazy eyes, looking around. “Sister Wei, where are we?”

“We’re going to my place tonight.” Li Hewei wasn’t stupid. She knew Tao Ling was deliberately hiding her situation. In such hot weather, how could she sleep well without air conditioning?

Tao Ling didn’t want to bother her and hesitated. “But…”

“But what? Is it a problem to stay at your sister-in-law’s house?” After Li Hewei said it, she suddenly wondered if she had miswired something in her brain. She distinctly wanted no involvement with Tao Yang and was glad that Tao Ling didn’t call her ‘sister-in-law’ every day, yet now she was referring to herself as the sister-in-law.

Is she craving the sister-in-law role?

…

Tao Ling’s ears felt inexplicably hot. “I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”

“I have disposable underwear at home, plus two or three pieces of clothing with the tags still on.” Li Hewei didn’t like the style of the summer clothes the original owner had recently bought, and they had been languishing in the closet ever since.

Tao Ling muffled a nod and followed her out of the car.

The elevator was enclosed, and the air was not circulating. Li Hewei tried to make conversation. “Have you ever been here before?”

“No.”

They really didn’t interact privately at all, which explained their awkwardness when they were together. Logically, given Tao Ling’s personality, she should have gotten along well with the original owner. How did the current situation come about?

The elevator stopped on the ninth floor. They exited and turned right, walked to unit 902, and Li Hewei typed in the password to open the door. Before they could go in, Cheng Yingqiu was already there to greet them. “Sister ordered takeout. Hurry and eat.”

She handed slippers to Tao Ling, and once Tao Ling had changed her shoes, she pulled her inside. “Barbecue, Sichuan maocai, duck necks—we have everything.”

Li Hewei walked to the kitchen to get water and complained, “I asked you to buy dinner. Why is it all food that doesn’t fill you up?” At the dinner table earlier, she noticed that neither of them had eaten much, so she had asked Cheng Yingqiu to arrange something in advance.

“Doesn’t fill you up? How is that possible?” Cheng Yingqiu smiled brightly, opening the takeout containers one by one and arranging them on the small solid wood coffee table next to the sofa. She thrust a pair of chopsticks at Tao Ling. “Eat! Don’t save it for her.”

She looked up, shrugging with a smile. “Sister, 132 yuan.”

“Accept the red envelope.” Li Hewei sat beside Tao Ling, sending her a 150-yuan red envelope on her phone, with the note: [18 yuan for the effort.]

[Thank you, boss.]

Li Hewei put her phone away, noticed Tao Ling’s hesitant movements, and said softly, “Eat.”

“Tao Ling, hurry up and eat. She’s your sister-in-law, she should pay.” Cheng Yingqiu nudged her arm with her elbow. “Even if she divorces your brother later, she’s still your supervisor or friend. It’s perfectly reasonable for her to treat you to a meal.”

“Okay.” Due to their warm reception, Tao Ling felt a flush in her heart. With countless thoughts surging, she didn’t want to dampen the mood. She picked up her chopsticks and said gently, “Thank you.”

Cheng Yingqiu munched on a duck neck and said, “Sister, let me tell you, I added Qiu Wan on WeChat today.”

Li Hewei: “Work-related?”

“Ah.”

“And then?” Li Hewei picked up a slice of fatty beef roll, blew on it, and slowly put it in her mouth, a movement contrary to her previous fiery bluntness.

Cheng Yingqiu took a sip of chilled soda water. “I applied to be friends at noon, and she didn’t agree until 3 PM. Do you think she was deliberately ignoring me?”

“Also, when I went to her provision store to buy water, what was her expression? She totally didn’t want to see me.”

“Really?” Li Hewei had been communicating with Qiu Wan privately recently and thought the other woman was quite agreeable and seriously responsible for her work.

Cheng Yingqiu nodded vigorously.

“When did you go to buy water?”

“Around noon.”

Li Hewei analyzed the situation. “Team Leader Qiu pulled an all-nighter. She was probably catching up on sleep then. Who would give you a nice look if you wake them up?”

“So, she passed my application at 3 PM because she was still sleeping?” Cheng Yingqiu pondered. “After adding her, she seemed pretty normal. We’ve already agreed on an interview time, and she even actively asked about the details.”

“Stop letting your imagination run wild.”

“Fine.” Cheng Yingqiu glanced at Tao Ling, who wasn’t saying anything, and asked her, “Hey, are you familiar with Qiu Wan?”

Li Hewei was puzzled. “Why are you so curious about Team Leader Qiu?”

Cheng Yingqiu’s smile deepened. “Just assume I love gossip naturally, after all, we knew each other before.”

“We rarely interact normally, so no, not familiar,” Tao Ling answered. “However, Sister Xiaoting is the team’s busybody, so I’ve heard some stories about Team Leader Qiu from her.”

Cheng Yingqiu rested her chin on her hand, eager to listen. “Tell me.”

“Team Leader Qiu went to work at the grassroots level in a rural town right after college graduation. At twenty-nine, she led a team to assist the Serious Crimes Team in solving a major case, earning a personal third-class merit citation. The following year, she was promoted to deputy station chief. Her reputation is well-known. This year, our Deputy Director Liu personally invited her over from the police station to specialize in serious criminal investigations.”

“The Serious Crimes Team only has her and another female colleague who is on maternity leave. So, she’s single-handedly managing about twenty arrogant male colleagues. She’s truly outstanding.”

Cheng Yingqiu burst out laughing. “Arrogant—Tao Ling, that’s a perfect description!”

No wonder Qiu Wan had to communicate with their department personally. It turned out the colleague previously responsible for the liaison was on maternity leave.

“That’s all I know.” Tao Ling put down her chopsticks, indicating she was full.

“Eat two more duck necks. They’re delicious.” Cheng Yingqiu gave her gloves, took off her own, drank two mouthfuls of water, and exclaimed, “Spicy, the spicier the better.”

With their hunger and thirst satisfied, Li Hewei led Tao Ling to the small bedroom opposite the workshop. “You’ll stay in this room.”

“Okay.”

Li Hewei brought over a high stool and carefully stepped onto it. Tao Ling helped steady the stool while Li Hewei took an air-conditioning blanket from the top shelf of the wardrobe and tossed it onto the large bed behind her.

“The central air conditioning is set to 26∘C. You shouldn’t be cold,” Li Hewei slowly climbed down and returned the stool to its original position.

Tao Ling, grateful for her thoughtfulness, said repeatedly, “Thank you.”

Li Hewei asked her, without any particular reason, “How many times have you said ‘thank you’ tonight?”

“I…”

“Try to say it less often in the future.” Li Hewei didn’t know why, but she disliked Tao Ling’s overly polite language. It wasn’t revulsion, but it made her feel uneasy.

“Thank…” Tao Ling quickly corrected herself. “Okay.”

Silly.

Li Hewei walked to her own room and returned two minutes later with clothes and disposable underwear.

Tao Ling took them and heard her say, “You’re a bit shorter than me, so the white short-sleeved shirt can be worn as pajamas.”

“The avocado-colored shirt can be worn tomorrow. Paired with your white pants, it should look good.”

Tao Ling nodded. “Mmm, I understand.”

“Go shower after Yingqiu comes out. The shower switch turns left for hot water.” Without waiting for her to speak, Li Hewei turned her back, straightened her right arm, waved it over her shoulder, and said, “Good night.”

“Good night.” Tao Ling watched her retreating figure, feeling a warm current pump from her heart, slowly spreading throughout her body.

It had been a long time since anyone had cared for her so much. It seemed the last person was also her.

Will the Sister Wei who recovered her memory still be like this?

Will I have to lose this warmth one day in the future?

Tao Ling bit her lip lightly and withdrew her gaze.

Li Hewei walked out of the master bedroom after blow-drying her hair, saw no one in Tao Ling’s room, and guessed she was in the bathroom. She then turned and went to the workshop.

It was a little past 10 PM. The investigation on Qiu Wan’s side still hadn’t made progress. Deputy Director Liu personally called her, asking if she could reconstruct the deceased’s original face, even if only 50 percent similar.

Li Hewei agreed, saying she would give it her all. She closed the workshop door, sat upright in front of the easel, staring at the few completed drawings from the afternoon, deep in thought.

“Sister Wei, during my six-month internship, my supervising teacher was busy and didn’t have time to mentor us, so when I ran into thorny cases, I would look for case files myself.”

Case files, reference, analysis. The conversation Li Hewei had with Tao Ling about the internship while driving that afternoon flashed through her mind, and inspiration struck. She opened her computer, logged into her work account, used her credentials to retrieve old archives, and printed out photos of several victims before death and photos of their bodies after the bloating state, pasting them onto several easels.

The visual impact was intense. She took a deep breath, concentrating fully, looking for angles, the changes after skin tissue bloats, the comparison of wrinkles…

The pencil flew across the paper. Li Hewei, tall and slender, stood in front of the easel, sometimes writing furiously, sometimes closing her eyes in thought, and sometimes bending over to add two more strokes. She quickly sketched one, found the subtle discrepancies, and continued to draw.

“He should be wearing glasses.”

Tao Ling had appeared behind her at some point and spoke without warning.

Li Hewei was big-hearted and didn’t startle at her sudden intrusion. Instead, she focused on the case itself. “How can you tell?”

“There’s an indentation on his nose bridge. Because the body was submerged and bloated in the river water, the skin wrinkled, making the indentation less obvious.”

“Alright. Go rest,” Li Hewei turned around, picked up the pencil again, then seemed to think of something and turned back. “Why are you here if you’re not sleeping?”

Tao Ling’s thin lips were slightly pursed. “Sister Wei, your clothes accidentally fell on the floor and got wet…”

“It’s fine. We’ll just wash them tomorrow.” As Li Hewei spoke, her eyes landed on Tao Ling’s hand and suddenly widened. When she was getting clothes earlier, she seemed to have left the underwear she planned to wear the next day on the bed and had taken it along with the rest to give to Tao Ling…

“Uh, just put that there,” she pointed to the sofa by the door.

Tao Ling put the underwear down, exited the room, and closed the door, her movements swift and seamless.

Why is she blushing? She’s straight!

I didn’t even blush, Li Hewei raised her hand to touch the side of her own face. It was slightly hot.