And the second story arc takes off! Trust Bo Jinyan and Jian Yao to have to work while on a date! Hmmm . . . could it be that this new case is linked to Fu Ziyu"s mysterious woman? And, perhaps . . . something further?

(I have to confess, I have no idea whose monologue starts off this chapter. Anyone wants to guess whose voice it is? Downright creepy, whoever it is.)

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Chapter 28

When he died, it was very poignant.

Just as he had always yearned for.

He was the most beautiful man I had ever seen. He had hair that was blacker and more supple than any girl"s, and he reportedly took very good care of it on a daily basis. His skin was so delicate that one whisper of wind against it would have torn it. When I touched it, it felt smooth and tender, like gelatin.

His most beautiful feature was his eyes. Clear and deep, like limpid autumn water*. Even someone like me, who lacked romantic feelings, would be moved and excited by just one glance into his eyes.

*T/N 秋水 (qui shui) – autumn water; a traditional description of a lady"s beautiful eyes.

However, he was too beautiful, and also, too proud. As a result, he was always unable to get along with other people.

n.o.body liked him. Apart from the men who wanted to bed him, or the ladies.

However, he never let just anyone touch him.

After he had died, fresh blood poured out from his pale, thin, weak chest.

I saw the blood tint the sea.

As if recording the sin and evil of our generation.

Desire is sin, and to go with the flow is evil.

Thus said the Master.

I lifted my head and looked at the vast expanse of blue sky. Below the stage were a few scattered audience members. They were watching my strong and vigorous appearance, and were continually raising their mobile phones to take pictures.

I hefted my sword onto my shoulder and looked down at the cement floor, but it was like looking at a field littered with corpses. I looked at the concubine opposite me. Her eyebrows were as black as umber, and her purity was like fire. A red dress concealed her snow-white, delicate body. She shyly walked over and presented me with a gla.s.s of he huan wine*

*T/N 合欢酒 (he huan jiu) – 合 = marriage, match; 欢 = joyous; lover; 酒 = wine. 合欢酒 refers to the gla.s.s of wine that is shared by both husband and wife in a marriage ceremony. An old wedding custom is to have 2 gla.s.ses of wine tied together with red silk thread. The spouses will exchange gla.s.ses and drink the wine.

I laughed heartily, just like a real general.

Although, in reality, I am just a programmer who is about to start work at a small company, on stage, I can be a celebrated general*.

*T/N 一将功成万骨枯 (yi jiang gong cheng wan gu ku) – this is a line from the poem《》by Tang dynasty poet, Cao Song (曹松). Literally, a general"s fame (一将功成; 一 one; 将 = general; 功成 = fame, achievements) rests on the bones (骨枯) of thousands (万 = 10,000) of soldiers i.e. one needs the sacrifice and bloodshed of thousands of soldiers to be considered a "great" general. (See )

After thinking about it, actually, we are not all that different. Just a thousand small things can force us to give up our dreams.

However, I also really like this world where dreams can be created.

I accepted the wine gla.s.s, exchanged gla.s.ses with her, and drained the gla.s.s in one gulp.

After this, I should carry her in my arms, thus ending this cosplay show which has been unable to attract a large crowd.

I couldn"t move.

I felt a severe pain in my chest and abdomen. As if my deepest blood vessels had been attacked and ruptured. I heard my gasping breaths amidst the sound of the audience snapping pictures, I grasped my throat and badly wanted to throw up.

When I raised my head to look, her face was the same colour as mine. She was holding onto a nearby table for support and her eyes were terrified, like mine.

"In the water . . ." I rasped, and fell to the ground.

She collapsed too.

Thereafter, everything became hazy.

Amidst the haze, I seemed to hear the audience cheering.

I really wanted to curse them, f**k it, this is not playacting, it"s real.

We were really being poisoned to death. We were dying on the stage we loved, the last stage we were performing on before renouncing our dreams.

After some time, I could hear the startled exclamations of my colleagues backstage, as well as the clamour of the audience.

Later, I heard nothing at all.

While Bo Jinyan, Jian Yao and Fu Ziyu were searching the area around the low buildings, they noticed the activity beside a small stage not too far away.

"What"s happening over there?" Jian Yao looked in that direction.

Fu Ziyu was the first to run over there. At this time, any movement of gra.s.s due to the wind was enough to alarm him.

Bo Jinyan and Jian Yao chased after him.

They never thought that they would see actual dead bodies in this place. And, two of them, at that.

It was already evening and most of the visitors had already left the stadium. This small, temporary stage outside the stadium still attracted a sizeable number of people. Several cosplayers in period costumes, all looking sh.e.l.l-shocked, stood beside the corpses. The audience members were whispering to one another as they stared at the two bodies on the ground, afraid to go any closer.

Fu Ziyu quickened his pace and rushed to the bodies. He checked the breathing and pulse of both the man and the woman, then shook his head at Bo Jinyan.

Bo Jinyan said to Jian Yao, "Raise the alarm." After that, he crouched beside the bodies to scrutinise them, at the same time instructing the three cosplayers next to him, "Just stand there; don"t move and don"t touch anything."

The audience resumed whispering.

A female cosplayer burst out, "Are they dead?"

A boy asked, "Who are you all?"

After Jian Yao called the station, she took out her police identification card and showed it to them. "How did this happen?"

The third boy, with a trembling voice, replied, "We"re from the same group . . . Just now, they were performing, and suddenly . . . this happened."

Jian Yao found some tape and quickly cordoned off the entire small stage and its immediate surroundings. More and more onlookers gathered until it seemed the tension would boil over. Fu Ziyu"s professional instincts took over as he seemingly put Han Yumeng on the back burner for the time being. He carefully examined the bodies, and said softly to Bo Jinyan, "My initial suspicion is that they were poisoned by x.x.x*, and they died instantly."

*T/N Ding Mo doesn"t name the poison!

Bo Jinyan stood up and swept a look over the surroundings. His gaze first rested on the faces of the three cosplayers and finally landed on the crowd surrounding them.

At this time, the ill.u.s.trious Deputy Head of the Special Crimes Unit (Criminal Psychology) of the Ministry of Public Security, Fang Qing, was visiting a movie set in the suburbs of Beijing.

However, the situation seemed a little different from what he had antic.i.p.ated.

He had deliberately discarded his usual jacket, as Jin Xiaozhe had disliked it, calling it old-fashioned. He had even gone shopping the day before, bought a new T-shirt and styled his hair. This morning, while looking in the mirror, he felt exceptionally high-spirited, and went off to buy a bouquet of baby"s breath. He took a bus, transferred to the subway, then took another bus, finally reaching the supposed location of the film shoot.

Unfortunately, he did not expect the tight security around the filming location which kept idlers like him at bay.

It"s true, apart from him, there were at least a hundred "fans" outside the cordoned-off area. They were mainly young girls, but there were also quite a few men. They loudly shouted Jin Xiaozhe"s name, all the while waving banners and raising their flower baskets in the air. If there was even the slightest movement at the filming location in the distance, it was enough to stir them into a frenzy of screaming and shouting.

Fang Qing might have been the tallest person there, but he was clearly a fish out of water. Several young girls looked at him and giggled while commenting that he was still really handsome. Another girl struck up a conversation with him, asking "Uncle, are you also a "golden fan"?"

Fang Qing shot her a glance. What "golden fan", he was the "golden master" (i.e. her husband), ok?

His original plan had been to sneak quietly into the back of the filming location, hide behind the "nanny van*" and surprise Jin Xiaozhe when she had wrapped up filming for the day. Looking at the situation now, this plan was not going to work.

*T/N 保姆车 (bao mu che) – literally, "nanny car" or "nanny van". This tends to be a 7-seater SUV used as a form of transport for a celebrity and his or her entourage (stylist, manager etc). Have a look at the example above and see if you can recognise the celebrities ?

It was not that he had not considered using his police identification. With that, he was certain he would be able to forestall the "small" security guards and breach the location. However, Jin Xiaozhe had always detested him being overbearing, so he was hesitant about doing this.

Finally, he left the crowd and found a spot in the shade. Squatting down, he held the flowers in one hand and smoked a cigarette with the other.

His wife was really "hot".

Irritated, yet wanting to laugh. Looking up, he could vaguely make out the cameras set up on the patch of vacant land, and some human figures. Just this and nothing more, yet it was enough to make a man"s heart warm and satisfied.

After mulling over it for a while, he took out a pen and paper from his pocket, wrote a note, and stuck it among the flowers. Then, he quietly went in search of a security guard who looked honest, coaxed and pestered him, slipped him a hundred yuan, and handed him the flowers with instructions to place them in Jin Xiaozhe"s "nanny" van.

The security guard agreed after some back and forth shoving of the flowers.

Just as he hopped onto the bus going back to the city, Fang Qing received Jian Yao"s phone call. "Got it. I"m on the way." Hanging up, he turned back to look, but he only saw crowds and buildings; he could not make out her supposed location.

It was almost dark when the crew finally called it a day and a group of them returned to the "nanny" van. The a.s.sistant let out an exclamation of surprise and said, "Why is there a bouquet of baby"s breath here?"

The manager laughed and said, "I wonder which crazy fan quietly sneaked this in here, and how he or she knew that our Xiaozhe loves baby"s breath the most."

"There"s a note here," the a.s.sistant pointed out.

"Throw it away," the manager said, "there"s nothing interesting in it."

A hand as pale as jade took the note. After a moment, it was placed in a pocket.

The Special Cases Unit, as well as the city"s criminal investigation team, rapidly gathered at the scene.

"The basic facts of the case have been ascertained," reported the officer in charge of the  on-site investigations. "The two deceased are Lu Ji and Rong Xiaofeng. Together with their friends Xu Sheng, Jiang Xueran and Wen Xiaohua, they were members of an anime society. They are all graduates of Nan Hua University. Today, they were partic.i.p.ating in the Animation Convention"s cosplay performance. The poisoned water that Lu Ji and Rong Xiaofeng drank came from their society"s studio. The incident occurred very suddenly. Lu Ji and Rong Xiaofeng were in the midst of performing on stage when they drank the water and died instantly."

"Where is the studio?" asked Fang Qing.

"It"s in the north corner of the animation park."

"Seal it off immediately."

"Yes."

"What about fingerprints?"

"The wine gla.s.ses were commonly used items from the studio. From the preliminary forensic investigation, the only fingerprints on the gla.s.ses were those of the two deceased. We have not yet finished checking all the other areas for fingerprints."

"Take fingernail clippings from the three of them as well as the two deceased and send them for a.n.a.lysis."

"Yes."

The investigators at the scene got to work in a methodical and orderly manner. The curious onlookers were also gradually dispersed.

An Yan sat to one side, compiling the surveillance recordings to see if any camera at the plaza had managed to record the entire incident. Fang Qing strode to Bo Jinyan"s side and asked, "What do you think?"

"The culprit is not an outsider." Bo Jinyan remarked dispa.s.sionately.

Fang Qing nodded. "The killer was familiar with the setup in the studio, familiar with their work habits, and even with the flow of the performance."

"What I"m thinking at the moment is . . ." Bo Jinyan said, "the direction the case is taking is so obvious even from the start, the killer is either particularly stupid, or . . . very confident, and able to escape our detection."

Startled, Fang Qing raised his head and followed Bo Jinyan"s gaze to where Xu Sheng, Jiang Xueran and Wen Xiaohua were being interrogated by the police. The three of them had already removed their makeup. Xu Sheng was a tall, thin, ordinary-looking girl. She also looked as if she was slow of speech. Her cosplay persona had been a female mage. Jiang Xueran looked intellectual, with gold-rimmed gla.s.ses, and appeared to be the calmest of them. His cosplay persona had been a n.o.ble from ancient times. Wen Xiaohua was smaller in size, and also darker in complexion. He appeared to be the most fl.u.s.tered; his face, as he answered the police officer"s questions, was flushed.

At this point, Bo Jinyan noticed that Jian Yao was standing some distance away with her back towards them, motionless.

He walked over. "What is it?"

Jian Yao lowered her mobile phone, her heart beating faster.

Just now, when she had called the police, she had been in a great hurry, and thus had not opened the text message she had received.

She handed him the phone, her eyes dark and grave.

Bo Jinyan took the phone and quietly looked at it, then raised his head to look at her.

Jian Yao shook her head slowly, indicating that she did not know who had sent her the text.

Bo Jinyan turned around and tossed the phone to An Yan. "Check it." An Yan caught the phone and glanced at it, and was shocked into stillness. Beside him, Fang Qing craned his neck to look at the phone, and shortly looked up at Bo Jinyan and Jian Yao.

"You definitely cannot go to the animation convention"

Was this a warning, or a challenge?

Jian Yao said, "Jinyan, I"m very confused. This . . ."

"There"s no need to be confused." He placed his hand gently on Jian Yao"s shoulder. "Behind all the doubtful and puzzling points, there will be clear and distinct reasons. Even though they may overlap and be built upon each other, we only need to start from the here and the now, and ferret out the truth one step at a time."

Translator: shl

Editors/ Proofreaders: Anks

Pictures courtesy of Anks