Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I blinked, letting a faintly puzzled look cross my face.

“Wasn’t Mr. Fang the specially invited romance observer for the first episode? Did they change the rules?”

He smiled. “The production team checked just now and confirmed that what you said was true. That male guest dropped out. Nothing we can do about it, and I happened to be the one to fill in. Please take care of me.”

His palm was warm when we shook hands, and he carried a clean scent, something close to sunlit cedar.

I studied him without showing it.

Could someone like him really be the murderer who dismembered a young girl on a rainy night?

I became famous overnight, and after that, the male guests hardly dared speak to me. Some of them even went out of their way to avoid me, afraid I’d spot some flaw.

Only Fang Ningsheng stayed by my side like a gentleman.

The viewers went wild, and the bullet comments flooded the screen.

[Walking human lie detector. These overpaid celebrities better watch out.]

[Oh no… my brother said he’s afraid of women. Is that true?]

I asked on purpose, “Mr. Fang, aren’t you afraid of me?”

Our eyes met. The smile on Fang Ningsheng’s face never faded.

“Everyone has secrets. But if a secret isn’t fatal, why be afraid? Or does Officer Zhou not have secrets of her own?”

The comments section was full of praise for him:

[So open and aboveboard. No wonder he’s the industry’s gold standard. Whoever else’s career collapses, his never will.]

[Of course. Talent and character both. Can the entertainment industry even find anyone more perfect than him?]

I had watched the interrogation footage from back then.

Fang Ningsheng passed the most advanced polygraph test. When he was shown the photo of my little sister’s corpse, faced with that bloody, mangled mess of flesh, his emotional response had still been perfectly standard. I enlarged his pupils and analyzed every frame of the footage.

“His pupils didn’t dilate at all. He wasn’t afraid.”

But my colleague said I was being too sensitive. “I understand how you feel, but don’t go looking at every bush and tree as if it’s an axe thief. Subjective speculation is the biggest taboo in our line of work.”

But my instincts told me he was lying.

I would observe him slowly and look for evidence, if he really was the killer.

He wouldn’t escape my eyes.

The ratings for the first episode soared.

My addition gave this dating show a very unusual angle, and the production team struck while the iron was hot, setting the date scenario for the second episode as an “escape room.”

The run-down villa was splattered with bloodstains. Dim lights flickered on and off. Holding a clue card in his hand, Fang Ningsheng read aloud:

“This seems to be adapted from a real case thirteen years ago. This is the villa where the crime happened…”

I didn’t even need to look. “The Nancheng Family Massacre Case, right?”

“A suburban villa from thirteen years ago. A family of three was slaughtered. The production team must have recreated it from that case. Too bad the killer was never found.”

Fang Ningsheng gave me a helpless laugh. “Officer Zhou, you’re forgetting this is a dating show.”

…So?

Then I understood. With righteous resolve, I stepped forward and moved ahead of him.

“The people’s police will always protect everyone. Mr. Fang, you can rest easy.”

Fang Ningsheng pressed a hand to his forehead in resignation, and the livestream comments lost their minds laughing.

[Everyone else is fussing around with cheesy romance tricks, and these two are seriously solving a case. This is exactly what I came to watch.]

[Seriously, this is the first time I’ve seen the Best Actor talk this much to a woman.]

We went up to the second-floor bedroom, where the “corpse” of a man around thirty lay sprawled across the bed.

The production team’s mannequin looked startlingly realistic. Amid the guests’ rising and falling screams, I finished examining the scene.

“The killer only murdered; he didn’t steal anything. The male victim’s gold ring is still on his finger. That means the killer’s psychological profile is very unusual. He can kill, but he looks down on theft. He should have a relatively stable job, or he cares a great deal about his identity.”

Fang Ningsheng arched a brow. “Officer Zhou can read not just the living, but the dead too?”

“I minored in criminal psychology during undergrad. Mr. Fang, do you have any ideas?”

“Then I’ll embarrass myself by showing off a little in front of Officer Zhou.”

He walked over to the balcony. The female victim’s “corpse” was there.

“The crime took place around three in the morning. The family of three was asleep. After killing the child, the murderer came to the second floor. After killing the husband, he could clearly have dealt with the wife right there on the bed, but instead he dragged her to the balcony.”

I said, “What if the wife was trying to run away?”

“Even if she ran, she’d run downstairs, not onto a balcony piled with a washing machine and other clutter.”

“He dragged her here because of this, right?”

He pointed at the broken old streetlamp outside the balcony.

He closed his eyes and put himself in the killer’s state of mind. In that deeply magnetic voice, he said:

“By borrowing that light, he had enough illumination to appreciate the woman’s expression. This killer hates women. The other two weren’t his true targets. The real feast is always saved for last.”

Those few casual lines sent shockwaves crashing through me.

The detail about the streetlamp had gone unnoticed by the detectives back then. It might become an entirely new lead.

Seeing the seriousness on my face, Fang Ningsheng leaned closer, with a smile in his eyes.

“I recently took on a suspense film and studied a few courses for it. I was just talking nonsense. Officer Zhou isn’t going to take it seriously, is she?”

There was something teasing in his gaze, and my breath caught.

When I stared into the abyss, the abyss was staring back at me.

Just then, a female guest’s piercing scream interrupted our standoff. When we rushed over, my expression changed instantly. “None of you come any closer!”

The prop cabinet stood half open, and inside, shockingly, a woman’s corpse had been rolled up and concealed.

It was a female corpse, headless. Her feet were bound with tape, and the cervical vertebrae had been transected horizontally.

I almost immediately looked at Fang Ningsheng.

His pupils dilated naturally. The expression that flashed across his face in that instant was not panic, much less fear.

It was, in the purest sense of the word…

excitement.