Huo Qingjun's room was poorly lit. The only small window was covered by a curtain that looked like a tattered rag. A military cot, picked up from a second-hand market, squatted by the water-stained, mottled wall like a malnourished prisoner, draped with a damp, moldy bedsheet. The room's furnishings were a mess. Books were scattered all over the floor under the plastic table, most of them related to criminal law and mathematics.

“Someone made a special trip to mourn him,” Shi Shanyan's shoe tip avoided the flower petals at the door, “and they brought lilies.”

Yan Junxun's gaze was drawn to the wall behind the plastic table. It was covered in draft papers, all filled with math problems done by Huo Qingjun. Yan Junxun took a few steps closer, careful not to touch the papers. Tilting his head slightly, amidst the densely packed math problems, he saw words written with either a messy or neat hand—

I was framed.

This was Huo Qingjun's only annotation on his drafts. Regardless of the size of the characters, he had written them with great force. The nib of the fountain pen had pierced the draft paper, and blobs of ink stained the math problems black. He seemed to be trying to prove his innocence like a madman.

“Welco—” A mechanical voice suddenly came from the cot. It only managed one word before dissolving into “zzzt” static. A few seconds later, it continued, “You're back.”

By Huo Qingjun's pillow, Shi Shanyan saw an excessively old little robot. It had a hat on its oval head and was nestled against the quilt, repeating, “You're back.”

“A little toy that was phased out a hundred years ago.” Shi Shanyan watched the little robot for a moment, then asked, “Do you live here?”

The little robot's goggle-like electronic eyes blinked hesitantly with a faint light, following its system design to reply: “Yes, I live here. This is my home.”

“It's quite cool,” Shi Shanyan paused, “Where's your dad?”

“I don't have a father.” The little robot couldn't comprehend the change in human tone. It said on its own, “Teacher, welcome home.”

This type of robot first appeared to teach children how to speak. They could perform the simplest information recognition and carry on some level of conversation with children. Later, they were replaced by intelligent systems and were already considered collectors' antiques in developed areas like the Light Rail and Guangtong. They were very small, only a little smarter than an ordinary dog.

The little guy had been well taken care of by Huo Qingjun. Apart from being old, its limbs were clean. It couldn't tell who Huo Qingjun was, simply treating anyone active in the room as Huo Qingjun. It had no aggression or alertness, only able to chat with people based on its outdated data analysis.

As Shi Shanyan conversed with the robot, the sound effects of the man next door playing games could also be heard clearly. Yan Junxun was surrounded by the two sounds, and coupled with the fact that he couldn't see out the high window, it made him feel uncomfortable.

The killer had never been here.

Yan Junxun found no trace of her here; only traces of Huo Qingjun.

The window had never been opened; it must have been sealed shut from the start. On the table was Huo Qingjun's uncapped fountain pen, and the textbook pinned beneath it was undisturbed. On the collapsed pile of books by Yan Junxun's leg, there were no other footprints, only Huo Qingjun's.

Why didn't she come in?

She couldn't find a reason.

No.

'If she wanted to come, she would have found a way,' Yan Junxun thought. 'She is very persistent with her targets, and also very persistent about their living conditions. She patrols like a queen; this is all her territory. But she never came to Huo Qingjun's home. It wasn't that she didn't know where Huo Qingjun's home was, she just didn't want to come.'

“What songs can you sing?” Shi Shanyan asked the little robot at this point.

“I can't sing,” the little robot said. It sluggishly raised an arm and pressed one of its ears. “If you want to listen to music, I can play it for you.”

Shi Shanyan played along, “Let me hear it.”

The little robot went still. Five seconds later, Shi Shanyan and Yan Junxun heard the sound of rain. The sound was damp and dense, soaking their ears. It made the skin under Yan Junxun's t-shirt cry out in alarm; he really couldn't adapt to this kind of humid environment. But the sound of the rain was persistent. It pattered against puddles and washed over streams, like a dense forest breathing. It was a sound meant to aid sleep.

The little robot would only choose to play the music with the most loops, which indicated that Huo Qingjun often needed to fall asleep to the sound of rain. It seemed he wanted to soak his body until it molded in this dim, damp room. He was eking out a meager existence in this remote, dilapidated crack in the world. His life had no firelight, no sun, only rain.

“Turn it off,” Yan Junxun said, suddenly turning his head.

He felt very unwell, sticky all over, as if he were already lying on that cot. As he spoke, he saw the corner of the quilt on the little robot, which had been tucked in on the day Huo Qingjun disappeared.

Huo Qingjun had covered it with the quilt, perhaps even patted its head, and then walked out, tucking his unbound draft papers under his arm.

“Goodbye, teacher.”

The little robot waved to him as usual.

Goodbye, teacher.

Huo Qingjun walked out into the sound of rain, and then became dismembered pieces of a corpse soaking in a drainage ditch. Yan Junxun clearly remembered every detail from the file. Just as Shi Shanyan had said, the killer had stripped off Huo Qingjun's clothes. She wasn't very skilled at dismemberment. She pushed Huo Qingjun onto the same spot where she had executed the previous two people and held his body down matter-of-factly. She even wore rubber gloves for cleaning.

But the cutting with the blunt instrument didn't go smoothly; the pieces of flesh were handled terribly.

'It shouldn't be like this,' Yan Junxun thought quickly.

This was her third victim. She already knew where to start, yet she had handled Huo Qingjun's body the worst.

Huo Qingjun might have still been alive then. He wasn't completely dead. He struggled.

Yan Junxun's breathing hitched. The damn sound of rain in the room was still playing, and he felt as if blood had splattered onto his face. The sound of messy scribbling echoed on the blackboard in his mind, and the game sound effects from the man next door crashed into Yan Junxun's thoughts like a swarm of locusts. Yan Junxun switched constantly between the blackboard and his imaginary scenes, like he was squatting on a construction site watching a black-and-white film, his entire mind overloaded with information.

'It's so fucking noisy!'

Yan Junxun wanted to grab the man next door by the collar, slam his head against the table, and turn off his game.

'Don't bother me, don't fucking bother me!'

Yan Junxun chanted silently, his words laced with gritted-teeth fury.

The time turned to exactly six o'clock. The rumbling of the Light Rail transport crashed over them like a landslide, the heavy transport vehicle making the entire area tremble. The pile of books under the plastic table collapsed completely. The sound of the passing Light Rail swallowed all other noise like a tidal wave.

The killer finished off Huo Qingjun on the dismemberment table.

Too easily. She must have used something to help her. She wouldn't fight him head-on; she had a way to keep him from fighting back.

The cap of the fountain pen on the plastic table was shaken off. Its nib hit the thick draft paper, the ink spreading like a pool of black blood.

Huo Qingjun's blood flowed all over the table, but the killer didn't care. Of course she didn't care; it was like this every time she dismembered a body. She was just displeased. In her crimes where she was the “man,” she had never encountered resistance. This was the first time. She had to teach Huo Qingjun a lesson.

Only Huo Qingjun's body parts were bitten by dogs.

Chen Xiulian carefully identified the fly in the corner. Not wanting to kill the innocent, she gently flicked the fly's wing, knocking it off the grinding machine.

The fly fell stiffly to the ground. It was already dead.

“There's been too little rain this month,” Yang Yu said, pulling off her rubber gloves and fanning herself with her hand. “The sun's so hot you can't even go outside. My son, with his spoiled attitude, complains about the heat every day. He hasn't gone out to work at all this month.”

Chen Xiulian sat up straight, watching the coke transport vehicles enter the park through the glass. She said, “You should stop taking care of him. Let him earn his own food money.”

Yang Yu wiped the sweat from her temples with the back of her hand. She had cut her hand while working this morning and hadn't had time to tend to it; the blood had already coagulated into streaks. She was so tired she could barely straighten her back, sighing, “If I don't take care of him, who will? Having a son is like having a debt collector. He stays at home doing nothing, and I have to support his wife and child.” She looked at Chen Xiulian. “I'm so old, I won't be able to keep working for much longer.”

Chen Xiulian silently watched the transport vehicles for a while. They crawled on the ground like ants. She said, “Even if you worked ten more jobs, you still wouldn't be able to support him.”

Yang Yu complained to Chen Xiulian every day. Her son had driven the coke transport vehicle a few times at the beginning of the year, but after summer started, he quit completely. He now lay at home playing games all day, yelling for his mom when he was hungry. When his wife was in labor, in so much pain at home she was about to pass out, he still remained planted in front of his game.

“My life is so bitter. My husband died young, and my son is a debt collector. I'm in my fifties and still cleaning toilets for people.” The more Yang Yu spoke, the more aggrieved she felt, hastily wiping her eyes with her hand. “Usually, if I say a few words to him, he gets annoyed and becomes picky about everything. His wife doesn't dare to speak up either. If she even agrees with me a little, she gets beaten.”

“Didn't your daughter-in-law just give birth?”

“Aiyo, when he's been drinking, he doesn't care about any of that,” Yang Yu said, a bit of un-wiped dust caught in the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes. She sniffled. “I have his wife sleep with me at night.”

Chen Xiulian said nothing.

After a while, Yang Yu stood up and said, “That case in Puli Residential Community looks terrifying. Good thing we never worked over there. I wonder when they'll catch the person. The Supervisory Bureau came to Punctual Cleaning today to check personnel and attendance records, which caused a big delay. I haven't finished my work on that side yet. I'm going to go tidy up now. Wait for me, and we can leave together.”

Chen Xiulian nodded, watching Yang Yu walk away. At dusk, the indoor rest area was mostly empty. The drivers were all outside settling the number of coke transport trips with the weigh station recorder. She had already settled hers before eating.

Chen Xiulian turned on her screen. The page was on Liu Chen's live news feed.

Liu Chen was closely following the Supervisory Bureau's investigation progress. He and Jiang Lian hadn't come to an agreement, so today he had specifically criticized the Supervisory Bureau's attitude on his homepage. The comments below were all very agitated. Chen Xiulian didn't want to read them. She switched to Liu Chen's fan chat room, where the case was being hotly debated.

Snow in May: [The case will be solved]

Ferry Boat: [?? Do you have inside information?]

Snow in May: [The Supervisory Bureau has an expert Profiler working specifically on this case]

Rising Journalist Liu Chen: [Oh, I heard that too, but no one has revealed this expert's name yet. Do you know? I can pay.]

Snow in May didn't reply. He seemed to be weighing the pros and cons. A few minutes later, he typed: [He has quite a background, I don't really dare to say it here. Reporter Liu, want to meet? I can give it to you for free]

Liu Chen didn't answer. He must have sent a private message.

Chen Xiulian never spoke here. She didn't much like chatting with strangers; that was something her husband loved to do. She also didn't care who the Supervisory Bureau's expert was. She just wanted to hear the cheers.

“Fuck you,” her husband He Zhiguo's voice rang in Chen Xiulian's ears again, as if he were yelling right next to her ear, “You've gotten yourself into trouble! Just wait until you're arrested!”

Chen Xiulian pressed her lips together tightly.

“Hurry up and kill all the dogs, the house stinks so bad it could kill me!” He Zhiguo's spit was practically spraying on Chen Xiulian's face. “I fucking told you to throw it in the boiler, but you just had to feed it to the dogs!”

“Shut up,” Chen Xiulian's expression was slightly savage as she repeated in a low voice, “You fucking shut up!”

Her shadow was solitary on the ground.