Shen Yi was so sleepy she could barely keep her eyes open. “I don’t think that’s it.”
She was buried in the sofa cushions, half her face sunk into them, and explained to her mother in a muffled voice, “He left after getting a call from his family… It sounded like they were pressuring him to go home.”
Wen Ya paused. “Huh? His sharp-tongued mother and vicious father?”
Shen Yi hesitated for two seconds, then nodded lightly.
Wen Ya sat down beside the sofa and reached out to smooth the unruly hair from her daughter’s forehead. She didn’t look particularly worried. Instead, she seemed somewhat thoughtful.
She had actually enjoyed the time she’d spent with Shen Sixing, even though he was a very strange person.
He claimed to be a police officer, but she hadn’t seen him go to work for more than a few days. He spent all day holed up at home in front of his computer, and he had only recently come of age. With that slovenly, devil-may-care attitude of his, he was about as far from the words “public servant” as one could get.
Come to think of it, both of them were full of inconsistencies.
But this kind of life was enjoyable, wasn’t it?
Why had he run away?
“Could his family be frightening?” Wen Ya guessed, her fingers tapping idly against her knee.
Shen Yi couldn’t resist giving Wen Ya a tiny spoiler. “Dad’s family… is kind of like one of those wealthy, powerful families.”
Oh.
Wen Ya naturally understood that rich families were full of complications. And in a family like that, no one—man or woman—could ever be completely free.
“I didn’t expect his background to be so twisted and complicated.” Wen Ya smiled. “That makes things even more interesting.”
She had originally thought Shen Sixing was simply an ordinary, kindhearted police officer.
But now Shen Sixing had run off because of a phone call from his family, making the whole thing much more interesting instead.
A normal person who discovered that their live-in partner might be a man with an extraordinary secret would have run for the hills. But Wen Ya felt only a long-lost sense of freshness and excitement.
The thrill was similar to the first time she had successfully completed a mission.
When warm blood had spilled into her hands, she hadn’t felt afraid. Instead, she had laughed.
After that, Wen Ya searched around the house a few more times and discovered a large number of listening devices.
She dug them out from beneath the living-room plants, above the kitchen light fixture, and from all sorts of other places—more than a dozen of them in total.
The smallest one was hidden behind an electrical outlet cover. It was even smaller than her fingernail.
Wen Ya held the tiny object up to the light and examined it. Then she exerted a little pressure with her fingers, and in an instant, the listening device was crushed to pieces.
“So he’s a little rat who likes to eavesdrop?”
Wen Ya arranged the devices one by one on the coffee table, lining them up in perfect order like an exhibition of spoils.
She stroked her chin, deep in thought.
“Mom, what do we do next?” Shen Yi asked as she looked at the listening devices. Her face fell, and she finally understood where Shen Ruxu had gotten her habit of wanting to cover herself in listening devices.
How creepy.
Wen Ya bent down and leaned close to her daughter’s ear. Her voice was soft, as though she were sharing an amusing secret.
“Mommy’s going to take you rat hunting.”
At the Internet café, Shen Sixing suddenly felt a chill run down his back.
He lay facedown on the desk, his face buried in the crook of his arm, with only half the back of his head exposed.
The noisy sounds of the other customers filled his ears.
Keyboards clattered. Game audio leaked from headphones.
Half-asleep, Shen Sixing closed his eyes, planning to make do at the Internet café for the night before figuring out another escape route.
…
“Mom, how are we going to find him?”
Wen Ya walked down the street holding Shen Yi’s hand. One large figure and one small figure moved through the streets in the early hours of the morning.
Before they left, Wen Ya had enthusiastically put Shen Yi in a little coffee-colored cape and a plaid beret.
Together, they looked like a pair straight out of a detective movie.
Also known as The Eight-and-a-Half-Year-Old Detective Daughter.
Whenever Shen Yi ran, her little cape swayed back and forth. She lowered her head to look at her outfit and felt a little embarrassed.
Wen Ya took out her phone and dialed a number. She got straight to the point.
“Look into someone for me.”
A hoarse male voice came from the other end, lazy and languid. “Look into what?”
“A person. He disappeared about four hours ago. He had a suitcase, a slight stoop, and he looks…”
Wen Ya let out a soft hum. “Like a duck that hasn’t woken up yet.”
“That description is way too abstract. Send me a photo.” The person on the other end fell silent for two seconds. “What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
“Help me kill someone.”
“Deal.”
…
It took less than three hours to find where Shen Sixing was hiding.
When Wen Ya led Shen Yi into the smoke-filled Internet café, the boy in the corner was lying facedown on a desk, the back of his head toward the entrance. He was sleeping so deeply that he didn’t even notice anyone approaching.
Wen Ya stopped in front of his desk.
Then she slapped the tabletop.
With a loud smack, the entire desk shook.
Shen Sixing looked up, his eyes still clouded with sleep and instinctive irritation.
He raised his gaze and met Wen Ya’s eyes.
His entire body froze.
The cold expression had not yet vanished from his face. It was stuck there, rigid and unmoving.
Then, visibly, he softened.
For all his world-weary disdain, Shen Sixing had always possessed a very strong instinct for self-preservation in front of Wen Ya.
Almost reflexively, he sat up straight and folded his hands on the desk. His clear, youthful voice suddenly became syrupy.
“Wife~~~”
The last word rose at the end, so ingratiating that it made one’s skin crawl.
Shen Yi silently took half a step backward.
He looked just like Grey Wolf from the cartoons.
Whenever Red Wolf stood behind him holding a frying pan, Grey Wolf called out exactly like this—with the same fawning look and obsequious tone.
Wen Ya remained unmoved.
She reached out and gently tugged at the curl hanging over his forehead. Her grip was so light that it didn’t hurt at all.
“Have you been monitoring me this whole time, Shen Sixing?”
With her other hand, she threw all the little devices she had brought onto the desk.
The listening devices scattered across the tabletop with a series of tiny clinks, glinting faintly in the dim light of the Internet café.
Shen Sixing’s gaze fell on the objects. The smile on his face remained unchanged, but the light in his eyes dimmed.
He quickly put on an innocent expression and tried to keep pretending.
“What are you talking about? I don’t know anything.”
“Why would you suspect someone as kind and honest as me?” Shen Sixing clutched his chest, his face filled with wounded disbelief, though the usual ingratiating curve still lingered at the corners of his mouth. “Am I really that unworthy of your trust?”
Wen Ya said nothing. She merely raised an eyebrow, her gaze slowly shifting from his innocent-looking face to the row of listening devices on the desk.
So far, she hadn’t seen even the slightest trace of honesty in him.
His moral boundaries were vague, he had no sense of responsibility, and he would run off without a second thought.
Following her gaze, Shen Sixing looked at the devices on the table as well. The faint curve of his lips gradually disappeared.
When he met Wen Ya’s eyes—eyes that were far too sharp—he felt his stomach tighten. It was as though a wad of cotton had lodged itself in his throat.
The air fell silent for several seconds.
Then Shen Sixing suddenly stopped acting.
The ingratiating, submissive expressions, tinged with a hint of coyness, gradually peeled away from his face.
It was like removing a mask that had been stuck there for a long time.
What remained in the end was nothing but indifferent coldness.
