The dinner was coming to an end. Tang Xin sat beside Fu Xueli, occasionally standing up to refill drinks for those around her.
The investor for the new film, surnamed Fang, was over fifty but still energetic and in good health. After a few drinks, his speech remained proper, and he spoke and listened with composure.
Today marked the end of filming for the crew. Director Cen was in high spirits from drinking. He lit a cigarette and said, “After shooting in these mountains for so long, I’ve grown tired of all the flowers and trees. I find the sharp edges of city life more flavorful.”
As he spoke, his glass was refilled. Director Cen waved his hand, “Once the film passes review and we arrange the promotional schedule, I need to take a good vacation. I’ll travel with my wife and daughter to relax.”
Someone at the table joked, “These days, it’s rare to find a man like Director Cen who cares so much for his wife. How admirable.”
When the topic shifted to this, the younger people at the table couldn’t escape being teased about their relationships. However, most people sitting at this table were influential figures in the industry, so there were few crude jokes.
The young male actor next to her was flustered by the questions. Fu Xueli swirled her wine glass, focusing on the bubbles floating inside, not actively participating in the conversation.
She had been made to drink quite a bit and was tipsy, but still conscious, just with a slightly foggy head. She quietly waited for the dinner to end.
In Shanghai in April, the air still carried a biting chill. The city’s night remained ablaze with lights, with distant white lights and neon signs from skyscrapers merging under the dark sky.
As soon as she got in the car, Fu Xueli kicked off her high heels, took off her coat, and leaned back in her seat, suddenly relaxing.
Tang Xin closed the car door, turned to fasten her seatbelt, and told the driver they could leave.
“Turn off the sound,” Fu Xueli said.
Hearing this, the driver gripped the steering wheel, turned off the music with one hand, and glanced at the woman curled up in the back seat.
She was slouched loosely against the car window, resting her head, with her delicate eyes and brow tips drooping, eyes half-closed.
Her brown, slightly curled long hair was casually and messily spread out, and her gray wool dress with its smooth texture hugged her curves perfectly. The extremely narrow sparkling trim made her skin look extremely white.
She was truly beautiful, the kind you couldn’t take your eyes off.
“That Mr. Fang, he made his fortune in real estate years ago. I heard his background isn’t very clean. He seems to quite admire you, otherwise it wouldn’t have been so easy for us to get Director Cen’s resources. You should have said goodbye to everyone when we left, it wasn’t very polite.”
There were only four people in the car. The assistant Xixi sat in the front passenger seat, and the driver was focused on driving. Tang Xin sat next to Fu Xueli, fiddling with her phone while chattering away, also selecting photos to post on social media.
No one else spoke.
Fu Xueli had started as a model, initially spotted by Tang Xin. She was abroad at the time, and within two or three days, the contract was settled, and Tang Xin swiftly signed her.
Later, when she returned to China to develop her career, Fu Xueli gained some popularity through a hit web drama. However, in the past few years, although she maintained a presence, she remained neither hot nor cold. It wasn’t that she wasn’t good-looking; on the contrary, she was famous solely because of her beauty. She had no particular persona, just pure feminine charm, alluring yet aloof, lacking in warmth, with a cold beauty.
But her extremely striking appearance limited her range of roles, making it easy to attract fans but also haters.
In the entertainment industry, minor popularity comes from promotion, major popularity comes from fate, so there’s no use in rushing. Fu Xueli was a promising talent with a unique quality, so the team always took a steady approach, trying not to let her rely on scandals for attention or to grab eyeballs.
The car passed under an overpass, shadows sweeping by one after another. Outside, it had started raining at some point, the wipers slowly scraping across the windshield, left and right.
“Have you been listening to all I’ve said?” Tang Xin turned her head.
“Sister, please let me be quiet for a while.” Her head was about to explode. Fu Xueli was very tired, her whole body exhausted, just wanting a moment of peace. She was drowsy and too lazy to say another word.
They had been filming all night yesterday, then set out early in the morning, traveling all the way from Xiangshan to Shanghai. The entire day had been spent on the road. After enduring the dinner, she was completely drained.
The rain grew heavier, and there were fewer and fewer people on the road. The wind beat against the trees, and the car drove with its yellow headlights on, enveloped in the rainy mist, speeding along.
“Screech!”
As they passed an overpass intersection, an oncoming truck brushed past them. The driver gripped the steering wheel and slammed on the brakes.
The tires made a harsh noise as they scraped against the ground. The car came to an abrupt stop by the roadside, throwing everyone forward.
“What happened? Did we have an accident?!” Tang Xin, startled, held onto the back of the seat and quickly asked.
“No, there… there seems to be someone lying on the road up ahead…”
The sharp sound of police sirens broke the silence of the deep night. 321 West Beining Road, at the entrance of the People’s Park overpass, was cordoned off with police tape.
The heavy rain had lessened at some point. Police officers guarded the police line, stopping the crowd of onlookers trying to push in. Several police cars were parked nearby, with both criminal police and reporters present.
The deceased was a young woman, her face unclear in the shadows. She lay on her back, half-naked, on the ground, her head covered by her dress. Rainwater mixed with blood, giving off a hot, fishy smell, spreading across the concrete. There was too much blood to tell where the wound was. The victim’s black hair, separated into several strands by the bloody water, stuck to her arms. She had already stopped breathing.
“Control the scene for me, prevent secondary damage, and disperse all unrelated personnel!” A middle-aged male police officer shouted angrily into his walkie-talkie.
He caught his breath. “Who called the police?”
“I did,” Tang Xin answered immediately. She looked away, holding back the urge to vomit.
Liu Jingbo’s brows furrowed tightly. He nodded, noticing a black car parked not far away, with someone still sitting inside. He peered over, “Who’s still in the car? Tell her to come out.”
“Well, she’s not feeling well. Is it okay if she stays in the car, officer?” Tang Xin asked, trying to negotiate.
First of all, there were quite a few reporters who had rushed here after hearing the news. If Fu Xueli, a public figure, was photographed at the scene of an accident, she would surely be criticized again…
“What illness? This little rain won’t freeze her to death! This is a very serious homicide case. What kind of attitude is it to sit in the car? Xiao Wang, go and call her out for me!”
“The deceased really has nothing to do with us, officer. We were just passing by and—”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Liu Jingbo impatiently interrupted the driver. “Now, just answer what I ask, no need for so much nonsense.” He turned and asked a female police officer next to him, “How long until Old Qin and the others arrive?”
“Look, aren’t they here already?”
Tang Xin followed their gaze and saw a group of people dressed like doctors.
They wore masks, pushed through the noisy crowd, showed their IDs, bent down to cross the police line, and walked towards them.
They were all wearing white coats, looking clean and out of place in the crowded, dark, rainy night.
The leader was a tall young man. He opened his investigation box, crouched down silently next to the body, put on gloves, and lifted the white dress covering the victim’s face.
Fu Xueli sat in the car, looking outside. A police officer was standing there. He shone a flashlight into the car, then knocked on the window.
“Miss, please step out for a moment to cooperate with our recording.”
As the car door opened, the wind rushed straight into her neck. She shivered from the cold, opened her umbrella, and pressed down the ribs to cover her face. Her red high heels touched the ground.
Due to the heavy rain, mud and stones had mixed, destroying most of the scene’s traces. The rain was still falling, making many investigative tasks impossible to carry out.
Fu Xueli followed slowly behind the young police officer, keeping her head down and carefully hiding her face under the umbrella to avoid being recognized by passersby. There were many shallow puddles along the way, and despite walking slowly, her calves were still splashed with mud.
Xixi held the umbrella for Tang Xin, listening to her constant complaints, “I don’t know how late this will go on. Getting caught up in this mess, what rotten luck. And we can’t even leave yet, we’ll have to go to the police station later to give statements. I have an important contract meeting early tomorrow morning, damn it.”
They were standing next to some bushes. As Tang Xin was speaking, she suddenly stopped.
“It’s like this, we have a few questions we’d like to ask you. It’s related to a homicide case, so we ask for your patient cooperation with our work.”
Tang Xin smiled awkwardly, but her gaze lingered on the silent man standing next to Officer Liu.
He wore only a thin blue police uniform inside, with an ordinary white coat over it, and a badge pinned to his chest, nothing else. The hem of his coat occasionally fluttered in the wind, seeming unaware of the cold on such a night.
Xixi had been afraid of doctors since she was young, let alone someone who dealt with corpses daily without blinking. She remembered how he had examined the body earlier without changing expression, and couldn’t help but feel a chill run down her spine. She took two steps back.
“Around what time did you arrive at the scene?”
He noticed her small movement but remained unmoved.
This man’s voice had a unique, cold quality like an ice wire, reminiscent of an ice-cold beer on the table. Although calm and steady, without waves, it was highly recognizable.
This voice…
Fu Xueli’s hand tightened on the umbrella handle. The lingering effects of alcohol in her brain made her reactions slow. She thought she was having an illusion.
“Around eight o’clock or so.” Xixi tried hard to recall, answering carefully, looking at the person taking notes nearby, afraid of saying something wrong.
“Did you move the body?”
“I don’t think… we did.”
“What do you mean you don’t think?! Just tell me exactly what happened, be honest and straightforward. Think before you speak, don’t give me—” Liu Jingbo clearly couldn’t contain his temper and started scolding.
“Alright, alright.” Someone nearby tried to calm Liu Jingbo down.
Xixi was frightened, stuttering and almost crying, “I did touch… but I was trying to check if she was breathing… I really… really didn’t know she was already dead.”
“Mm, no need to be nervous. Please continue.”
The young man’s thick black eyelashes lowered as he took off the rubber gloves on his hands. His gestures carried a kind of absentminded cleanliness.
When he asked questions, although he had no particular expression and even lacked eye contact, he gave off an intangible aura. This man was truly the kind whose temperament surpassed his appearance in sophistication.
At this moment, the sound of rain suddenly increased, becoming loud and clear, with raindrops crashing onto the umbrella surface. Fu Xueli’s hand gripping the umbrella handle tightened as she controlled her breathing and slightly stretched out her neck, moving the umbrella upwards.
The rain blurred her vision. The tall young man turned his head slightly, raising one hand to his ear, about to pull down his mask. Fu Xueli saw his exposed eyes.
His features were restrained, like the starlight in the early morning at a street corner, or like a demon from hell.
He was holding a black umbrella and also saw her, but his gaze only lingered for a second before sliding past indifferently.
It was a cold and ordinary look, like looking at a stranger, revealing no emotion.
She was stunned, probably for a minute, before coming back to her senses and calling out his name in disbelief, “Xu Xingchun?!”
Fu Xueli’s face, usually only seen on television screens in every household, immediately attracted everyone’s attention when revealed, their eyes widening suddenly.
Tang Xin raised an eyebrow, her expression unchanged as she glanced between the two. The others present were all slightly surprised.
Wow, a celebrity!
Despite this greeting, Xu Xingchun’s reaction was quite bland, which made the atmosphere instantly awkward.
Others quietly and carefully examined Fu Xueli. She was wearing high heels, with black laces wrapped around her thin, white ankles. Her skin was snow-white, delicate and smooth. With her arms folded, wearing red lipstick, her whole body seemed to emit light, and the scent of mint and lavender could be smelled from several meters away. With such a noble appearance, how could these blood-licking police officers possibly interact with her?
This sudden reunion, without any warning or buffer. On this chaotic and dirty rainy night, he was gentle and cold, pure and clean, impeccably dressed.
Fu Xueli’s brows furrowed tightly, her right thumb pressing hard on the second joint of her index finger.
The rain kept falling, cascading down around them, hitting the muddy ground at their feet, creating tiny, fleeting water flowers. Xu Xingchun turned his gaze away, distant and indifferent. After two seconds of silence, his eyes moved from her bitten, blood-red lips, then slowly raised his lashes.
After a long while.
“Long time no see,” he said impassively.
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