The 80s Female Detective's Guide to Self-Preservation [Criminal Investigation] - Chapter 21

Chapter 21

With the first major case closed, Xia Qiuyuan looked at her calendar, which was a messy blur of “overtime” scribbles. It was already March.

The weather in Lingnan had become even more fickle. You’d wear a thick coat at dawn, strip it off by breakfast, sweat through the afternoon, and pile the layers back on when leaving the bureau at night. Lately, the station had been a revolving door of ex-convicts returning to crime; between “ideological education” sessions and paperwork, Qiuyuan’s head was spinning.

Finally, she had a scheduled day off. She missed the modern holiday system.

She was dead to the world in her bed until the cries of a Koel bird—starting low, ending high—erupted from the branches outside. Wo-oh! Wo-oh!

“Trying to wake the dead?” she muttered, clutching her pillow. Why did this bird have to be in heat on her only day off? Not only was it a sonic assault, but the bird’s persistent “calling for a mate” felt like a personal jab at her own single status.

Qiuyuan could cook, but she hated the effort. Brushing her teeth, she debated: rice noodle rolls and zongzi, or a hearty bowl of beef ball soup?

She stepped out of her apartment, and at that exact moment, the door next door swung open.

Xia Qiuyuan: “…”

Her hand moved faster than her brain. She reflexively tried to pull her door shut, hoping if she couldn’t see Qin Yu, Qin Yu wouldn’t see her. Yesterday, she had been desperate for a day off; now, she envied Xia Sui for being at work. At least at 7:00 AM, the hallway was a safe zone.

The old iron door slammed with a loud clang that echoed through the corridor. Qiuyuan winced and prayed: Keep walking. Keep walking. Don’t come over.

Knock. Knock.

The door was a trendy style—an iron frame with a pane of reinforced glass. It was meant for safety and light, but the designer clearly hadn’t accounted for the “social death” probability it created.

Qin Yu wasn’t heading to the experimental fields today. She was wearing a custom-made cheongsam with a blue Shanhai pattern and white jade buttons rimmed with gold thread. Half of her black hair was pinned up, while the rest cascaded over her shoulders in elegant waves.

She waved through the glass, her voice slightly muffled. “Officer Xia! What a coincidence. I didn’t expect to run into you this morning.”

Qiuyuan licked her dry lips. She had no choice but to open the door. “Can I help you?”

“Nothing specific,” Qin Yu said with a beaming smile. “I just saw you opening your door and wanted to say hello. Though your door slammed much faster than my greeting. I thought we might head downstairs together.”

“It’s… windy,” Qiuyuan lied. They both knew it was an excuse, but social etiquette demanded the farce.

“True. The hallway windows are loose. It’s like a wind tunnel in here,” Qin Yu said, gracefully providing the exit. But she didn’t let go. “Are you heading out?”

“Breakfast.”

“Perfect! I haven’t eaten either,” Qin Yu chirped. “You don’t mind if I join you, do you?”

Xia Qiuyuan: “…”

She couldn’t exactly un-put-on her shoes and run back to bed. She had to commit.

As they walked, Qiuyuan felt a nagging sense that an invisible force was tethering her to Qin Yu. No matter how she avoided her, the “Butterfly Effect” seemed to keep pulling them into the same orbit. She knew that in detective work, avoiding a lead never brought a “Happy Ending.”

Yet, her instinct told her to push Qin Yu away. In reading the original owner’s diaries, she had sensed a complicated intimacy. Her avoidance was rooted in one simple fact: I’m really not gay.

The woman was stunning, yes, but Qiuyuan preferred a life sentence with criminal investigation over a romantic entanglement.

Qiuyuan glanced at Qin Yu’s expensive silk dress and steered her toward a humble braised Laifen (thick rice noodle) shop. The shop used a secret ancestral sauce—salty-sweet and rich—mixed with crushed five-spice tea eggs. At a few yuan a bowl, it was a reward for a day of no work.

If only Qin Yu weren’t sitting across from her.

The shop was clean, but it was a “fly restaurant”—rough tables, high turnover. Qin Yu, in her handmade silk, looked entirely out of place, yet she sat with a poise that made the plastic stool look like a throne at a Michelin-starred restaurant.

Qiuyuan found herself wondering: If the original owner and Qin Yu were lovers, how many barriers—class, money, society—did they have to break? Did the original owner hang herself because of this impossible love?

“Hmm?”

A shadow crossed Qiuyuan’s vision. A slightly rough paper napkin touched the corner of her mouth.

Qiuyuan froze, staring at Qin Yu. What is happening?

“I have a bit of a cleanliness obsession,” Qin Yu said nonchalantly, pulling her hand back and tossing the napkin into the trash. “There was something on your face. It was distracting me.”

“Oh… right.” Qiuyuan’s ears, hidden under her hair, turned a shade of crimson. Her hands fumbled with her chopsticks, making a dozen useless movements before finding her bowl again.

She knew Qin Yu was doing it on purpose, but she couldn’t say a word. Beautiful people had “privileges” in Qiuyuan’s world.

Fearful of another “attack,” Qiuyuan stopped focusing on her food. She kept glancing up to monitor Qin Yu, leading to a series of awkward eye-contacts. Qiuyuan’s gaze started to drift—she was never this nervous when staring down a murderer.

Suddenly, a faint, pungent, foul odor drifted past them, followed immediately by the scent of cheap, floral soap.

The mixture of smells made Qiuyuan frown. She looked toward the source: a woman in plain, patched clothes holding the hand of a young girl.

The shop owner leaned out from the kitchen. “A rare guest! What brings you and the little one all this way for noodles?”

“She was begging for them,” the mother said softly. “I’m sending her back to my mother’s place in a few days, so I thought I’d treat her once.” She reached out to pat the girl’s head but hesitated and pulled her hand back.

“Won’t she miss school?” the owner asked. “The usual?”

“No, my brother will teach her.”

The owner smiled knowingly. “Ah, right. Your brother was brilliant in school. If it weren’t for… well, eat up! I’ll throw in extra braised chicken legs today.”

The woman smiled, seemingly unbothered by the owner’s unfinished sentence. “Say thank you to the Auntie, sweetie.”

To any bystander, it was a picture of a loving mother and child. But Qiuyuan’s nose was screaming.

Qin Yu finished her bowl. “That’s a very strong Osmanthus essence.”

“Yeah,” Qiuyuan agreed.

“It smells like the ‘Little Golden Flower’ brand,” Qin Yu noted. “My junior in the lab loves Osmanthus and keeps several bars there. The high-end ones use real extracts, but this one… this is pure industrial chemical fragrance.”

Qin Yu looked toward the mother and daughter. As the owner brought the noodles, the mother flinched away nervously. She stood up, went to the sink, and began washing her hands, face, and neck with an intensity that bordered on the religious.

“In the lab,” Qin Yu whispered, her voice dropping, “we use soap like that to neutralize chemical reagents. We focus on the hands, the face, and the neck…”

Qiuyuan’s eyes sharpened. “Exactly like what she’s doing?”

“Exactly.”

The two of them watched the woman in silence. When the woman began to turn toward them, Qiuyuan and Qin Yu called for the bill at the same time, avoiding the woman’s gaze. The small incident seemed like a pebble dropped into a vast lake—disappearing without a trace. Or so it seemed.