Chapter 26: My first kiss went to this guy

Translator: Abo Dammen

☆

Case Two: Dance of the Night Charm

The meeting time was limited. With about ten minutes left, Zhen Li began recounting the events of twenty years ago.

Zhen Li’s wife was named Si Lei, also a cosmologist.

Both were early members of the Progressive Society. Initially, the Society’s goal was to promote social development, which was why it attracted many experts and scholars. 

But as the Progressive Society continuously grew, becoming synonymous with an elite group, many from the privileged class also sought to join, solely to gain a prestigious title.

These people contributed nothing to society; they only had money and power. Originally, the Progressive Society’s regular roundtable meetings discussed global issues. After these privileged classes joined, the routine meetings turned into socializing, eating, drinking, and having fun.

The Society’s focus was no longer human well-being, but the interests of the privileged class.

Not only that, but some, under the guise of the Progressive Society, funded children’s education, but in reality, were satisfying their own predilection for child molestation. 

Si Lei heard some rumors from her friend who was a middle school teacher, about students encountering bad things when meeting their sponsors. She wanted Luo En to take the matter seriously, but Luo En was perfunctory in his attitude.

“Later, she put aside her work and investigated herself. She discovered that Luo En had tacitly allowed these things,” Zhen Li sighed, his thin face etched with the hardships of time. “Luo En founded the Progressive Society precisely to build a good reputation for himself, to help him integrate into high society. Later, with the privileged class and him shielding each other, he became even more arbitrary and unscrupulous.”

“Are you saying no one else knew about this?” He Yixun asked.

Even if you could silence one person, you couldn’t silence everyone. 

Xu Pei couldn’t help but think of the flowers and candles piled outside the estate. It was hard to reconcile the widely respected judge with the person Zhen Li described.

“The head of the News Agency is a member of the Progressive Society. Do you think ordinary people could know these things?” said Zhen Li. “The day before Si Lei died, she contacted a young journalist wanting to expose Luo En’s true face. The result was that she was hanged in her apartment, and I became the murderer who killed her…”

The meeting time was strictly enforced. Not a minute extra was allowed.

Zhen Li didn’t have time to explain the case details clearly, so He Yixun had to use his authority to access the electronic file from the police system. The file was classified as confidential. If He Yixun weren’t a senior superintendent, accessing it would have been difficult. 

Printing out the electronic file and placing the pages one by one on the coffee table—for a murder case, the number of pages was pitifully small. He Yixun looked at the testimony, Xu Pei looked at the crime scene photos, and the two quickly pieced together the case.

Of course, according to He Yixun’s principles, this file shouldn’t be shown to unauthorized outsiders. However, Xu Pei himself existed outside the rules. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t an individual within this society, so letting him see it didn’t matter.

“So, Zhen Li came home from outside, saw Si Lei hanged from the ceiling fan, tried to go out for help, but found the door locked from the inside. While he was frantically pulling the door handle, the journalist Si Lei had contacted arrived with the police. The door suddenly opened, and the police caught him red-handed.”

After summarizing, Xu Pei picked up the milk tea beside him. 

Usually, Professor Xu preferred coffee while working, but out of curiosity, he had opened the food delivery app and discovered this place actually had the magical combination of Tofu Pudding Milk Tea, so he couldn’t resist ordering one.

Naturally, he used Officer He’s card.

“Si Lei’s posture suggested hanging, but the forensic examination found the ligature marks on her neck didn’t match the characteristics of hanging. It was likely someone strangled her first, then hung her up,” He Yixun said, looking at the forensic report in his hand, but his attention was on Xu Pei beside him.

“But how did the police confirm the killer was Zhen Li?” 

The milk tea in the cup was almost finished. Xu Pei noisily sucked a few more times through the straw.

Seeing him casually place the takeaway-cup-sleeve-clad milk tea cup on the corner of the coffee table, He Yixun immediately picked it up, intending to throw it in the trash.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Xu Pei snatched the milk tea back. “I haven’t eaten the tofu yet.”

The straw wasn’t good for sucking up the tofu pudding, so Xu Pei simply peeled off the sealing film, tilted his head back, and poured the tofu into his mouth. Unfortunately, some residual milk tea remained in the cup. As he poured, the liquid trickled from the corner of his mouth down to his chin. 

So sloppy.

He Yixun frowned.

He really couldn’t understand how a professor at a national research institute, as Xu Pei claimed to be, could be so clumsy and careless.

Seeing him place the milk tea on the edge of the coffee table, He Yixun was afraid he might accidentally knock it over and stain his carpet. Pulling out a tissue, he pressed it against the corner of Xu Pei’s mouth, suppressing the impulse to drag Xu Pei off to wash his face. “Wipe your mouth clean.” 

It wasn’t that he wanted to wipe Xu Pei’s mouth for him, but if he didn’t stop that drip of milk tea, it would flow onto Xu Pei’s neck and stain the t-shirt he was wearing, which happened to be He Yixun’s clothes.

“Thanks.” Unaware that he was being looked down upon, Xu Pei got up from the carpet. “I’m going to get a glass of water. This milk tea is so cloying.”

He Yixun: …..

Then why did you seem to relish every drop? 

Ding-dong. The doorbell suddenly rang. It was the property manager delivering a package.

After unpacking the cardboard box in the entryway and neatly stacking it outside the door, He Yixun handed the contents to Xu Pei. “Here, your pajamas.”

Originally, He Yixun hadn’t planned to buy pajamas for Xu Pei, since there was no telling when Xu Pei might leave, and buying them would be a waste. But given that Xu Pei always walked around his home with his legs bare, and He Yixun found his sloppiness disagreeable, he had still bought him a set of pajamas.

“What’s the need?” Xu Pei put his water glass down on the dining table, picked up the pajamas, and looked them over. “I could just wear your clothes.” 

“Try them on,” He Yixun urged.

Xu Pei went to the full-length mirror in the bedroom, took off the loose t-shirt he was wearing, leaving only his white underwear. He knew He Yixun wouldn’t peek, so he wasn’t particularly shy. He put on the pajama pants first—brown on the top half, white on the bottom, a somewhat strange color scheme. Then he put on the pajama top, which was white in the front, blackish-brown in the back, white sleeves, with a hood sporting two long ears…

The more Xu Pei looked, the more something felt off.

He swiveled his head to look at He Yixun in the living room. “Why do I feel like I’m a dog?” 

“Does the size fit?” He Yixun didn’t look up, focused on the files on the coffee table.

“This is a Beagle, isn’t it?” Xu Pei came over to stand in front of He Yixun, protesting, “Why am I a Beagle?”

“Aren’t you?” He Yixun finally looked at Xu Pei, gave him a quick once-over, and looked rather satisfied. “Seems the size fits.”

“When have I destroyed the house?” Professor Xu refused to accept this. “At most, I’ve just frequently dirtied your clothes.” 

These past few days, He Yixun came home every day to find himself seeing black. He had told Xu Pei to keep things tidy around the house. Although Xu Pei did try to clean up, it basically never met He Yixun’s standards.

Too lazy to bring that up again, He Yixun changed the subject. “The reason Zhen Li was identified as the murderer was that upon seeing the police, his first words were, ‘My wife was killed by someone from the Progressive Society.’ But in subsequent interrogations, based on his own account, he hadn’t checked Si Lei’s body and couldn’t clearly explain how he knew at a glance that Si Lei was already dead.”

This was like a group of people entering a room, seeing someone lying in a pool of blood. Before anyone has confirmed whether the person is dead, if someone immediately starts mourning, that person is most likely the murderer.

“Wasn’t it because of preconceptions?” Xu Beagle sat back down on the carpet, picked up a gruesome crime scene photo, and tried to simulate Zhen Li’s state of mind. “He knew Si Lei was investigating the Progressive Society, so when he came home and saw Si Lei hanging from the fan, his first reaction was that Si Lei was dead, and the killer must be from the Progressive Society.” 

“That’s how he explained it, but the jury didn’t accept it,” said He Yixun. “Because according to the neighbor’s testimony, he and Si Lei had had a fierce argument. He didn’t clearly explain what they were arguing about, so the jury leaned towards him having a motive for murder.”

“That is indeed a doubtful point,” Xu Pei agreed. Then, he handed the evidence page he was holding to He Yixun. “Also, look here. There was a tied trash bag at the scene, placed by the door, not yet taken out. It contained shards from a broken glass. Zhen Li said it broke the night before, but there was a damp paper towel underneath the shards, not yet dry, indicating he was lying.”

“He later explained that he remembered incorrectly,” He Yixun supplemented.

“Right, but this is strange. The towel not being dry suggests the glass broke recently—most likely broken during Si Lei’s struggle. If Zhen Li didn’t clean it up, did the killer clean it up?” Xu Pei analyzed. “The act of cleaning up the glass, I can only think it was to stage it as a suicide. What do you think?” 

He Yixun thought for a moment. “Agree.”

This also fit Si Lei’s state of death. If not for the forensic examination, it did indeed look very much like a suicide.

“So, the killer staged it as a suicide. Did they not intend to frame Zhen Li?” Xu Pei was puzzled. “Then what about the door lock?”

The biggest doubtful point in this case was what Zhen Li claimed: someone had locked the door from the outside. 

On this point, Xu Pei was inclined to believe Zhen Li wasn’t lying, because if he were really the killer, he could have just left; there was no need to put on this act at all. But the weird thing was, the journalist and police who arrived first did nothing, saw no one, and the door suddenly opened from the inside.

On one hand, assuming the killer didn’t intend to frame Zhen Li and just left after staging Si Lei’s suicide, then what was the deal with the lock?

On the other hand, assuming the killer did intend to frame Zhen Li, then why specifically clean up the broken glass at the scene?

And why not take out the trash? 

Both hypotheses seemed difficult to fully explain.

“The door lock and the glass are probably the key,” He Yixun said, frowning.

“Mm.” Xu Pei nodded seriously. “So, actually, there are still many unresolved doubts in this case. But because Zhen Li was the prime suspect and had a motive, the jury found him guilty.”

“Let’s visit the scene tomorrow. That old building is still there,” said He Yixun. 

“Okay,” Xu Pei said. “I suspect there was a special device on the door lock.”

Just like the tricks Ma Jing used to play, perhaps there was some device that could automatically lock the door from the inside and then automatically unlock it.

After discussing for so long, Xu Pei was extremely thirsty. He casually picked up the water glass next to him and took a sip, only to find He Yixun suddenly fix his gaze intently on the glass in his hand.

“What’s wrong?” Xu Pei quickly put the glass down. “Did you have a new idea?” 

He Yixun took a deep breath, suppressing the irritation in his heart. “This is my glass.”

Uh.

Xu Pei looked. It really was.

Because he’d been abruptly pulled away to try on the pajamas, the water he’d fetched from the kitchen had been casually placed on the dining table and was still sitting there quietly. And the glass in his hand clearly showed two sets of lip prints overlapping, obviously a glass He Yixun had used. 

“Sorry, I thought it was mine.” Knowing He Yixun minded these things, Xu Pei’s first reaction was to apologize.

However, He Yixun’s reaction made Xu Pei feel somewhat annoyed. “Take it and wash it clean.”

It was as if he was utterly disgusted that Xu Pei had touched his glass.

To be reasonable, Xu Pei had already apologized. If He Yixun didn’t want to drink from it after Xu Pei had used it, then so be it. What was there to make such a fuss about? 

If anyone should mind, it was Xu Pei, who had drunk from a glass He Yixun had used.

“We’ve already kissed, what are you being so finicky about here?” Professor Xu’s rebellious spirit reignited. He deliberately refused to do as He Yixun said.

He Yixun was silent for a moment, then asked, “Kissed?”

“Making out,” Xu Pei said deliberately. “The act of mutually exchanging oral microbiota.” 

Originally, because of the glass incident, He Yixun’s face had fallen. But upon hearing Xu Pei’s description, he suddenly became curious. “You define our previous interaction in the bathroom as making out.”

Wait. Xu Pei was already wary of the curiosity-prone Student He.

And what was with this summary? What did he mean, Xu Pei defined it as making out?

Wasn’t it a fact? Whose tongue tip was chasing and sweeping around Xu Pei’s tongue? 

Professor Xu’s assertiveness instantly weakened. “What else would it be?”

“You stated beforehand that we were merely dealing with an emergency, not engaging in intimacy,” said He Yixun. “I considered it me helping you with treatment. You considered it us making out.”

Xu Pei: “……”

He really shouldn’t have brought this up. 

“You’d better correct your perspective, Professor Xu,” He Yixun advised.

Damn it.

My first kiss actually went to this guy. What lousy luck. Pei.