The repairman gave Xia Songluo a nod of acknowledgment, walking toward her as he pulled on a black dust mask.
He didn’t put on the hotel slippers she’d set out, instead pointing to a stack of disposable shoe covers on top of the shoe cabinet nearby, as if asking whether he could just wear those instead.
Xia Songluo only then remembered—the water pipe had burst, and the bathroom was practically turning into a waterfall, so cotton slippers were out of the question. “Just go straight in, no need for shoe covers.”
He acted as if he hadn’t heard her, still grabbing a pair of disposable shoe covers and sitting down on the shoe bench.
Throughout, he kept his head lowered, avoiding eye contact with Xia Songluo.
Lanshan Estates had butler service, and Xia Songluo had heard from the butler that because he was mute, this young man was introverted and prone to feelings of inferiority, unable to communicate much.
Afraid of troubling the homeowners, they hadn’t originally planned to use him, but they’d found he was highly skilled, had low demands, and was especially hardworking.
And now, with the push to support disabled workers, they’d kept him on.
Xia Songluo figured that “low demands” was the real key point—knowing how stingy their property management company was, the salary they offered had to be depressingly low.
Once he’d put on the shoe covers, Xia Songluo turned and walked inside, crossing the living room and heading up the spiral staircase. “It’s on the second floor.”
When she reached the bathroom door, she stopped and leaned against the wall.
The repairman followed behind her and took off his shoe covers.
Xia Songluo assumed he’d toss them on the floor by the doorway, then put them back on when he came out.
Instead, he pulled a small resealable bag from his work pants pocket, neatly folded the shoe covers, tucked them inside, and put the bag back in his pocket.
Then, carrying his toolbox, he walked into the bathroom.
Inside, a lavender-scented aromatherapy candle was still burning, and the round bathtub’s bathwater hadn’t been drained yet—the surface piled high with foam.
Xia Songluo didn’t go in, just stood outside the door watching him work.
Fixing pipes wasn’t interesting to her, so with nothing better to do, she found herself staring at the repairman.
If she remembered correctly, this young man had never been to her place before.
The first time Xia Songluo had seen him was over at the property management office.
Back in the summer, the central air conditioning in the main lobby had broken down—probably a tough job, since the engineering department was all gathered together for it.
The area had been cordoned off, and as Xia Songluo walked around one side, she happened to glance over and noticed one repairman who seemed to exist on a different plane from the others.
They were all wearing the same work uniforms, all dirty and dusty-faced, but he just stood out somehow.
Probably it was because he was younger and had a better height and build that made people look twice.
“Ding-dong.”
The doorbell rang again.
“My friend’s here, I’ll go open the door first,” Xia Songluo said, knowing it was Jin Zhan.
Since a guest was arriving, Xia Songluo personally went out to the courtyard and opened the front gate.
At the entrance, Jin Zhan stood holding a briefcase with a mail tube inside, his expression stern, not saying a word—just fixing her with a pair of dark, slightly scrutinizing eyes.
Xia Songluo felt a chill run down her spine but didn’t speak either.
Under the glow of the eave light, the two of them stood there like wooden posts for a while before Jin Zhan finally looked away and stepped into the courtyard.
Xia Songluo closed the gate and followed behind him like a guest, trailing his long strides as he headed into the house. Seeing how formidable he looked, she didn’t dare remind him to change his shoes.
By the door sat a pair of hotel slippers, which Jin Zhan assumed were for him, and he paused to change into them. As he did, he said, “Miss Xia, I’ve found the Jiang Hang you were looking for—he’s a Malaysian Chinese...”
"Lawyer Jin," Xia Songluo cut in. "Hold that thought. I have a repairman at home fixing the water pipes, and I need to go help him."
Jin Zhan had been ready to fire off a whole barrage of questions, but now he faltered, thrown off. "Didn't you say you were home alone? And you knew I was coming over to discuss something urgent—you picked this exact moment to call a repairman to fix your pipes?"
"You called, and right after, the pipe burst. That wasn't exactly in my control. What was I supposed to do—wait for you to come fix it?" Xia Songluo gestured toward the curved sofa in the living room. "Have a seat. It'll be done in no time."
With that, she jogged up the spiral staircase, just as the repairman was coming down.
Xia Songluo paused on the steps. "All fixed?"
The repairman made a twisting motion with his hand, signaling that he needed to check the main water valve first.
Xia Songluo stepped aside, watching him head into the kitchen to turn the valve, then back up to the bathroom upstairs. After checking, he turned around and gave her a thumbs-up.
Before leaving, he even cleaned up the bathroom floor for her.
She walked downstairs with him and noticed Jin Zhan still standing near the entryway shoe bench, his expression sour.
The repairman had to pass by Jin Zhan to get out, so he gave a polite nod. Jin Zhan, though irritated, had his manners—he nodded back.
Xia Songluo's front door was a double-leaf design, fairly wide, but as the two tall men brushed past each other in the doorway, the space seemed to shrink, noticeably tighter. Both instinctively angled their bodies to the side.
Then the repairman stepped out, pulling off his shoe covers as he went, and opened the yard gate to leave.
Jin Zhan stepped fully inside and closed the door behind him. "Miss Xia, any other distractions left?"
"I'm sorry, please have a seat." Xia Songluo extended a very proper invitation.
That's more like it. Jin Zhan sat down on the sofa.
Xia Songluo sat beside him. "What were you saying earlier? Jiang Hang is a Malaysian Chinese?"
Jin Zhan loosened his tie. "Miss Xia, you have no idea how to treat a guest, do you? I came all this way, and you can't even offer me a cup of tea?"
Xia Songluo found him incredibly fussy. She handed him a bottle of water. "I don't drink tea, and I don't know how to brew it. The tea set belongs to my father. If you want some, you'll have to make it yourself."
Jin Zhan was genuinely thirsty. He took the water in one hand and, with the other, opened his email app on his phone and held it out to her.
Xia Songluo was confused. "What?"
She looked down—and a gruesome crime scene photo suddenly popped up on the screen, scaring her so badly she nearly threw the phone across the room.
She immediately looked up at Jin Zhan. "What is this?"
Jin Zhan said, "Calm down. Keep reading."
Biting back her strong sense of discomfort, Xia Songluo continued swiping down through the phone.
Below the photos, everything else was in English. She looked up again. "I can't understand this. I only know a few simple words."
Jin Zhan was mid-sip of his water and nearly choked to death.
Damn—he'd forgotten. She only had a high school education. Not only had she flunked math, but her English was terrible too.
Jin Zhan took the phone back and pointed at a table in the email. "Jiang Hang was born in Hong Kong. At age five, he immigrated with his wealthy merchant parents to Malaysia, settling in Kuala Lumpur..."
Xia Songluo said, "In my stereotypical thinking, rich merchants usually immigrate to Western countries like Europe or America. Why Southeast Asia?"
Aside from Singapore, Southeast Asia didn't seem all that safe, in her mind.
"That's not the point," Jin Zhan told her not to change the subject. "The point is, his profession isn't a cop—he's a wanted murderer! At eleven years old, he killed five people in a single night, including his own parents! You tell me, is that even human?"
Xia Songluo's pupils contracted sharply.
Jin Zhan briefly summarized the contents of the email and asked her, "Got it?"
Xia Songluo was skeptical. "Are you sure you didn't get it wrong? The odds of finding someone with the same name, same birth date, same birth year, and same birth month—though small—aren't zero."
Jin Zhan closed the email. "But I also gave out one more piece of information: he's connected to law. Among all the Jiang Hangs with the same name, same birth date, and ties to the legal world, the hacker could only find this one."
She had thought he was an undercover cop, but he turned out to be a convicted fugitive.
Well, a fugitive could still be connected to law—there was no flaw in that logic.
Xia Songluo was baffled. "But what does he have to do with me?"
He'd been on the run for over a decade, probably hiding out in some lawless corner of Southeast Asia.
As the saying went: "One river links six nations—rich men never enter the Golden Triangle, but the desperate always brave the Mekong."
Jin Zhan finally said it with a sinister air: "I suspect that in the future, I might offend you in some way, and you'd set up a scheme to ruin me."
Xia Songluo: "..."
This guy had some serious paranoia.
She shifted her gaze to a decoration in the living room and pointed at it. "Lawyer Jin, believe me—if my anger toward you were worth wasting three precious feather stamps, then in the future, you'd already be chopped to pieces by me. Why would I bother setting up a scheme?"
She added another line: "When you did your background check, you only looked at my academic grades. Didn't you check my athletic record?"
Jin Zhan followed the direction of her finger and saw a wooden sword stand holding a blunt-edged, unsheathed Tang Dynasty sword.
Above the decoration hung a spotlight, casting a cold, conical beam of white light that enveloped the slender blade, its gleam icy and sharp.
Jin Zhan involuntarily felt a chill run down the back of his neck.
Seeing the change in his expression, Xia Songluo explained, "Don't worry—this is a protective talisman my father went to great lengths to acquire for the house. It's not for fighting."
"Besides, my dad doesn't let me play with swords."
Jin Zhan pulled himself together, puzzled by his own alarm. "Does Mr. Xia believe in such things?"
Xia Songluo nodded. Otherwise, she wouldn't have suspected the pigeon in the first place.
Jin Zhan took the bronze message tube out of his briefcase. "Whatever the reason, this letter cannot be delivered. I'm returning it now, and you'll tear up the stamp immediately. I can't deliver letters for a murderer, and I can't let you tip off a criminal."
Xia Songluo didn't take it. "I still think you've got it wrong. Don't you couriers investigate before delivering letters? Did you just take my word for everything?"
On the way over, Jin Zhan had already thought through this. "I may be thorough in my work, but not every courier is as meticulous as I am. In the future, the colleague who helped you send that letter was negligent—got Jiang Hang's identity wrong. That's a serious mistake, which is why my pigeons couldn't lock onto him."
Too irresponsible. He didn't even know where to file a complaint.
It had cost him so much time.
Xia Songluo still refused to take the tube. She wasn't some lovestruck fool—she refused to believe she'd fall for a murderer, no matter how charismatic he was.
If he wasn't her lover, then could he be her future enemy?
Would Jiang Hang hurt her? So writing a warning letter in advance, to avoid danger ahead of time?
Then Xia Songluo should have sent it to herself, not to Jiang Hang. What was the point of sending it to him?
She couldn't figure it out at all.
The letter cylinder was right in front of her eyes. Xia Songluo was about to speak when her gaze flickered slightly. “Lawyer Jin, why are the characters on this letter cylinder glowing?”
Jin Zhan glanced at it, then held the cylinder up. Only then did he notice that the line with the recipient's name was faintly glowing with a reddish light.
The letters were glowing?
When had they started glowing?
“See? This is the proof.” Jin Zhan's mind worked fast, and he pointed at the glowing letters to scare Xia Songluo. “You looked at this cylinder this afternoon. Once I pull up Jiang Hang's information, the letters turn red. Green means harmless, red means dangerous. That means Jiang Hang really is an extremely dangerous person. Tear off the stamp now, or I'll treat you as his accomplice and tip off my Interpol friends in advance.”
Xia Songluo was somewhat intimidated by him, hesitating. “The cylinder can judge the recipient's character? Really?”
Jin Zhan shoved the cylinder into her hands. “Do you think I'm a human generator, that I could make the letters glow?”
The moment “magic” entered the picture, Xia Songluo's thoughts got a bit muddled. “Could you give me a few days to think it over carefully?”
Jin Zhan was firm. “No.”
Xia Songluo compromised. “One day.”
Jin Zhan had rich experience in negotiations. He sensed that pushing her harder might backfire, so he also gave ground. “I'll give you one night to think it over. I'll come back tomorrow morning.”
He stood up, picked up his briefcase, and turned to leave.
Xia Songluo called out, “The letter cylinder!”
Without looking back, Jin Zhan said, “Keep it with you tonight. If you've made up your mind, tear off the stamp as soon as possible.”
Xia Songluo asked again, “How did you get here?”
“Cab.”
Xia Songluo stood up. “Take my car back to the city. It's hard to get a cab around here, and you're coming back tomorrow anyway.”
Jin Zhan paused mid-step, turned around, and said, “Thanks, then.”
By the time they reached the garage, Jin Zhan was already regretting it.
Xia Songluo's car was a frozen berry pink Panamera. With his height, he couldn't even stretch his legs straight sitting in it.
As soon as the car drove out of the neighborhood, Jin Zhan started trying to call his parents, hoping to ask them why the letter cylinder had glowed.
Honestly, he really didn't want to make that call.
He could already imagine his mother's sneering voice coming through the receiver: “We told you to study hard, but you insisted on going off to raise pigs.”
Unfortunately, the signal in the mountain village was too poor to get through.
As expected, Jin Zhan dialed the landline of a nearby neighbor instead.
When it connected—
“Great-grandpa, it's me, Jin Zhan.”
On the other end, an aged voice: “Who?”
Jin Zhan hadn't been back in years. “Ermao, little Jin from the Jin family next door.”
“Oh! So it's Ermao! I heard you've made something of yourself, donated a school to the village. A feng shui master said long ago that our village sits on blessed land, and sure enough, a golden phoenix has flown out of it.”
Jin Zhan hadn't heard the nickname “Ermao” in a long time. His eyelid twitched. “Great-grandpa, please pass a message to my parents. I need to reach them urgently. Ask them to call me back as soon as they can.”
Though he said “neighbor,” they were nearly half a mountain apart. It would take a while.
...
Xia Songluo sat in the living room holding the bronze letter cylinder, her mind a complete mess.
When she glanced at the clock, it was already half past ten. She turned off the lights and went upstairs.
Passing by the bathroom, she remembered she hadn't run the bathwater yet. She went in to turn it on, but spotted a phone lying quietly on the countertop.
She couldn't tell what brand it was, and the screen had a few cracks. It must have been left behind by the repair guy.
Xia Songluo picked it up and dialed the property management office again with her own phone.
Before the call connected, the doorbell rang.
Xia Songluo casually threw on a jacket and went to open the door: "Here to pick up your phone?"
The repairman took it from her hands and nodded his thanks repeatedly.
Xia Songluo smiled and said, "Looks like you're not much of a phone person. Me, if my phone disappeared for five minutes—other than when I'm sleeping—I'd feel all out of sorts and notice right away."
The repairman let out what seemed like a soft chuckle. He wasn't wearing a mask, but his hands moved rapidly in front of his face, making gestures.
Xia Songluo's eyes were completely fixed on his hand signs. She couldn't understand them at all, but she smiled along politely, wished him a good night, and then closed the door.
The faint smile on his face quickly faded. He turned and walked away, unlocking the phone.
His fingers, roughened with calluses, slid lightly across the screen. From the background-running apps, he swiped out a recording software with a "voice enhancement" feature enabled.
He pulled a pair of Bluetooth earbuds from his pocket and put them in.
A stretch of audio, poor in quality but clear enough to catch some key phrases, flowed into his mind.
He listened with total concentration to the two people arguing. The content was so unexpected that his pace involuntarily slowed with each step, until he finally stopped under a dim streetlamp.
He turned slightly and looked back at the villa behind him to the right.
Hard to say whether it was coincidence or bad luck.
Xia Songluo, restless and distracted, had opened the door again after closing it and was standing on the doorstep, letting the cold wind blow over her.
Her gaze drifted aimlessly around, unconsciously following whatever moved, and eventually landed on the back of the mute repairman.
She watched him slow down, stop, turn to look back—and his gaze met hers dead on.
Under the streetlamp, Xia Songluo not only got a clear look at his face, but also didn't miss the slight look of surprise on it.
Her instincts told her there was something off about this mute repairman.
