Chapter 8

At this moment in the office, Wen Sibao saw Xu Tiannan arrive and immediately said to Li Mengxue, “Mengxue! Wudi! You two, quickly gather all the files and leave!”

After assisting in that previous case, Li Mengxue didn’t have much of a favorable impression of Xu Tiannan. During that case, she was the one who collected the fingerprints, and she had a brief encounter with Xu Tiannan. Yet, in just those few minutes, he seemed to have some kind of magic, seeing right through her feelings for Wen Sibao that she kept hidden deep inside.

Li Mengxue was now very nervous, afraid that Xu Tiannan would once again read her inner secrets. She hurried to pack up the files and prepared to leave, but her hands, trembling with anxiety, accidentally dropped the documents all over the floor. As she bent down to pick them up, she realized Xu Tiannan had already picked them up and handed them to her, looking at her with a mischievous grin and saying, “Hello! Sister Mengxue!”

“Hello, hello…” Li Mengxue didn’t want to stay a second longer. She replied perfunctorily and was about to leave, when she heard him call out to her from behind.

“011326!”

“Here!”

Li Mengxue responded reflexively, simply because he had called her Police Badge Number. Xu Tiannan looked at her with a sly smile and said, “Sister Mengxue, I already told you last time, Wen Sibao is the most repressed and boring man I’ve ever met in this world. If you end up with him, the probability of your marriage entering its dull phase early is as high as 83%. I suggest you think carefully about it!”

“Wha… What nonsense are you talking about!” Li Mengxue’s face flushed red with embarrassment. She was about to retort when her apprentice stepped in front of her. Although Xu Wudi knew Xu Tiannan was formidable, he was the only one in the entire division who didn’t take him seriously. He stuck out his neck and said, “Hey! Do you know where you are? You can’t just barge in without knocking!”

Xu Tiannan replied with a smile, “Of course I know. This is the Criminal Investigation Division, the place where bad guys are caught.”

Xu Wudi deliberately raised his voice, “If you know, then get out! We’re about to head out on a mission to catch someone! Don’t get in the way!”

Xu Tiannan looked at him with interest and asked, “Oh? Aren’t you a forensic doctor? Why are you going out on a field arrest mission?”

Xu Wudi was always boastful, and now he put on an even more heroic tone, “Tch! Clearly you haven’t seen much of the world. When I was catching bad guys, you probably didn’t even know where you were!”

“Is that so?” Xu Tiannan feigned surprise. “I thought you were just an intern forensic doctor who lives alone, has no girlfriend to cook for him, rides the bus all year, eats junk food, and is often scolded by Li Mengxue!”

Xu Wudi was startled-every word hit a sore spot. He turned to look at Li Mengxue, his eyes full of grievance, as if questioning why she had told so many of his secrets to someone else.

Li Mengxue nervously waved her hands and whispered to Xu Wudi, “I never told him anything about you.”

Xu Wudi always believed what his Master said. Since Li Mengxue said so, he was convinced and immediately raised his voice at Xu Tiannan, “Hey, hey, hey! Where did you come from, you charlatan? You talk as if you know me so well! I’m telling you, your tricks won’t work on me!”

“Enough nonsense! Let’s go!” Of course, Li Mengxue knew Xu Tiannan wasn’t a charlatan, but a true expert who could deduce a series of clues from someone’s behavioral details. She was afraid he would say something else, so in her panic, she grabbed her apprentice and tried to leave the office. But it was too late-Xu Tiannan blocked Xu Wudi’s way and quickly said, “Little brother, there are clumps of unwashed shower gel on your neck from last night, which means you live alone. The pores on your nose are clogged and red from external pressure, indicating you eat greasy junk food all year round, and further proving no one cooks for you. You’re right-handed, but there’s a fresh food oil stain on the pocket of your right pant leg, which means you don’t drive but take the bus to work. The tobacco stains on your teeth and the half-smoked cigarette sticking out of your pocket show you’re a heavy smoker. The cigarette burns on your police uniform sleeve, contrasted with your pristine forensic work coat, indicate your Master, Li Mengxue, forbids you from smoking in the forensic lab. Even when you go out for a smoke, you have to take off your work coat, probably because if you bring the smell of smoke back into the lab, your Master will scold you. So, putting all these clues together, it’s not hard to see that you live alone, have sloppy habits, no girlfriend, and are often not well-liked. Am I right?”

Xu Wudi’s face turned beet red, feeling as if he’d been stripped naked in broad daylight. Little did he know, this was a feeling his Master and Wen Sibao had already experienced many times before.
Li Mengxue, who was unfazed by strange things, had no intention of letting Xu Tiannan continue speaking. She forcibly dragged Xu Wudi out of the office, and even after the two had walked quite a distance, Xu Wudi’s indignant voice could still be heard shouting, “Master, let go of me! I want to go battle that guy! Let me go…!”

After they left, Wen Sibao nervously said to Xu Tiannan in a low voice, “Tiannan, who told you to come to my office! You know very well that our Squad Leader doesn’t like you!”

Xu Tiannan, however, looked completely at ease, as if he were at home. He sat on the desk, hooked his arm around Wen Sibao’s shoulder, and said, “Like it or not, we’ll all have to face it sooner or later, right? But as for you… I was wondering why you haven’t contacted me for so long, turns out you’re holed up here having an office romance with Sister Mengxue?”

Wen Sibao’s face flushed red and he stammered, “You-you-don’t talk nonsense! There’s nothing going on!”

Xu Tiannan continued, “If I count, I’ve met your junior Sister twice now. Just now, I think I accidentally discovered one of her secrets.”

Wen Sibao’s eyes widened, “Wh-what? You’ve only met her twice, and you can deduce some secret?”

Xu Tiannan nodded, and in a voice only Wen Sibao could hear, whispered, “From my observation, it seems that Li Mengxue has a bit of a thing for you.”

“Re-really?” Wen Sibao immediately became excited. “How did you notice?”

Xu Tiannan said, “Do you remember when we were working on that case a while back, you were often hanging around with Murong Shui, even making some crude and ambiguous jokes?”

Wen Sibao thought for a moment, “Hmm… I think that did happen, but what does that prove? I totally treat her like a guy.”

After saying this, Wen Sibao looked at Murong Shui, “Sorry, I just speak my mind.”

Murong Shui pursed her lips and smiled, “It’s fine, you old rascal.”

Xu Tiannan said, “Exactly! When Sister Mengxue saw you joking around with Murong Shui like that, she probably misunderstood and thought you liked that type. So today, she deliberately wore height-increasing shoes. Didn’t you notice she was almost as tall as Murong Shui?”

With this reminder, Wen Sibao finally recalled carefully, “That… seems to be the case.”

“So, because of that misunderstanding, Sister Mengxue thought you liked tall girls like Murong Shui, so she wore height-increasing shoes today.”

Wen Sibao still seemed skeptical, “Are you sure?”

Xu Tiannan smiled, “If it were just this one thing, I wouldn’t be sure. But I have another solid piece of evidence that your junior Sister likes you. Want to know?”

Wen Sibao was already caught up in the conversation and nodded eagerly, but Xu Tiannan changed the subject, “In that case, help me with something.”

Wen Sibao immediately became wary, “What is it? What do you want?”

Xu Tiannan patted his shoulder and said casually, “Relax, I won’t make you do anything against your principles.”

After that, Xu Tiannan had Li Xianglan recount the story of her missing sister. But after listening, Wen Sibao looked troubled, “This is a tough one! Technically, her sister is still texting her, so there’s no way to prove it’s a missing person case. It’s understandable that the Police Station hasn’t filed a case.”

Li Xianglan became anxious when she heard this. She stepped forward, grabbed Wen Sibao’s clothes, and pleaded, “Officer, I’m sure the person sending those texts isn’t my sister! If you don’t believe me, bring that bad kid Chen Jialuo here and confront him! I beg you… please help me! I really have nowhere else to turn!”

“Sister Xianglan, don’t worry,” Wen Sibao patiently tried to reassure her. “Young people these days love to have fun. Maybe your sister just went out with a close friend?”

Xu Tiannan couldn’t help but laugh. Wen Sibao asked, “What are you laughing at?”

Xu Tiannan said, “Your thinking really is on the same wavelength as Murong Shui.”

Wen Sibao and Murong Shui said in unison, “Huh? What do you mean?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Xu Tiannan stifled his laughter and didn’t explain further. After whispering a few words to Li Xianglan, he asked her to wait outside the office.

Wen Sibao had seen many people unable to file a case for various reasons-some had lost money, some had suffered injustice, some had lost loved ones. All of them tried every possible way to seek help here; some even refused to leave the Public Security Bureau if their case wasn’t accepted. But this woman, Li Xianglan, was sent away by Xu Tiannan after just a few words, and this behavior left Wen Sibao puzzled.
After Li Xianglan left the office, Xu Tiannan pulled Wen Sibao to sit down together and explained, “Brother, I know it’s really hard to handle cases that can’t be filed, so I brought her here today just to let her give up. After all, you’re a people’s police officer, and as your friend, I can’t cause you trouble, right?”

Wen Sibao looked Xu Tiannan up and down after hearing this, squinting his eyes, “Why do I feel like your words sound different coming from you? Xu Tiannan, what are you really here for today?”

“Hey! No, no, you’re overthinking it!” Xu Tiannan put on a relaxed expression. “It’s just that I haven’t seen you in a while and wanted to check in. And since I was here, I thought I’d help that Li Xianglan lady give up too. After all, I’m just a regular university teacher-solving cases is your professional territory.”

“But I feel like you’re acting a bit strange today…”

Before Wen Sibao could finish, Xu Tiannan interrupted, “Stop! No more useless talk. Do you want to know about Li Mengxue or not?”

With that, Wen Sibao immediately changed his attitude and whispered, “Mm, mm, mm! Go ahead!”

Xu Tiannan, as if deliberately showing off, didn’t rush to explain. Instead, he picked up his phone and started texting on his own. Only after Wen Sibao urged him several times did he slowly sit up, pick up Wen Sibao’s phone from the table, flip it over, and reveal a phone case with a snarling monster on it. He smiled and asked, “This phone case was a gift from Li Mengxue, wasn’t it?”

“Huh? How did you know?”

Xu Tiannan replied, “Because when I came in earlier, I saw Li Mengxue’s phone had the same style of case.”

Wen Sibao was puzzled, “How could that be? I remember her phone case was a girly one, right? Mine’s a green-skinned monster. What’s the connection? Besides, when she gave me this case, she said it was a freebie from her online shopping, and if I didn’t like it, I could just have it.”

“You…” Xu Tiannan sighed, tapped a few times on his phone searching for something, and then a webpage popped up on the screen-the title was the most popular online game CP ranking of the past two years.

Wen Sibao was even more confused, “Why are you showing me a game? And what’s CP?”

Xu Tiannan patiently explained, “It’s not your fault you don’t know. After all, you’re at the age where you soak goji berries in a thermos. I won’t bother explaining the game itself-you wouldn’t get it anyway. Let me focus on CP. Hmm… In words you can understand, it’s ‘couple.’ Got it?”

“Couple?” Wen Sibao’s eyes widened. Suddenly, he saw a striking couple’s photo on the ranking list. The grinning green-skinned monster was named ‘Thrall,’ exactly the image on his phone case. Next to Thrall was a blonde, blue-eyed human girl holding a staff, named ‘Jaina.’ Wen Sibao was all too familiar with this image-it was the design on Li Mengxue’s phone case. Clearly, this CP told a cross-species love story.

Seeing this, Wen Sibao’s heart pounded wildly, his excitement barely contained. “This, this… Is this real?”

Xu Tiannan nodded, “That’s right. So Li Mengxue already switched your phone cases to couple’s designs without you knowing. If I had to guess, your next step is couple’s watches, and after that… Well, I don’t need to teach you, do I?”

Wen Sibao had always liked his junior Li Mengxue, but because of his own shyness about relationships, they’d always kept things ambiguous. The simple words “I like you” had never been spoken by either of them. Hearing this analysis now, he was thrilled, but Xu Tiannan’s next words sent his heart plummeting.

“You!” Xu Tiannan suddenly became serious, took apart Wen Sibao’s phone case, and a national ID card clattered out.

“How many times have I told you! Don’t! Don’t! Don’t keep your ID card in your phone case like a middle-aged man! Can’t you act a little more like a sunny young person? I’m warning you-if you keep this up, Li Mengxue will get tired of you sooner or later, believe it or not!”

“Uh…”

Wen Sibao’s excitement lasted less than half a minute before his mood turned heavy. He picked up his ID card, looked it over, and finally stuffed it into his newly replaced work badge.