Non-Police

The curtains were still drawn. Xu Qinghe walked out wrapped in Ji Zizhong’s bathrobe and swiftly pulled the curtains open.

“Don’t look. Come over and put this medicine on me.” Ji Zizhong fetched the medicine box from the room, took the medical oil and raised her chin at Xu Qinghe who was leaning against the window, and motioned her to come over. Xu Qinghe obediently sat on the edge of the bed, reached out her hand, but when looking down, she saw the bite marks left on the side of Ji Zizhong’s neck.

“Sorry… I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t hold back.” She carefully touched Ji Zizhong’s neck. The bite marks were no longer clear, but they still left a noticeable blushing red on Ji Zizhong’s fair neck.

Ji Zizhong tilted her head indifferently, grabbed Xu Qinghe’s fidgety hand and locked it firmly in front of her. She held up the medicated oil and warned her: “Don’t move around or I’ll give you the same type of bite mark later.”

“You also have a wound here, let me rub it for you too.” Xu Qinghe stretched out her hand to let Ji Zizhong apply the greasy oil on it. After applying the oil, Ji Zizhong even drew circles around the wound carefully for better absorption.

Seeing Ji Zizhong’s serious face under the sunlight, Xu Qinghe suddenly thought of something and asked her abruptly: “Officer Ji, have you ever been in love before?”

“No,” Ji Zizhong answered without raising her head, as her hands continued to move. After applying the medicine on Xu Qinghe, she smoothly wiped the medicated oil from her fingers on her wrist, as if she didn’t intend to continue this discussion.

“Oh,” Xi Qinghe replied, wondering if she had offended her by saying something wrong. She quietly snuck a glance at Ji Zizhong’s slightly cold cheeks and hurriedly moved to follow Ji Zhizhong’s example, grabbed her hand, and applied the medicine on Ji Zizhong: “Let me help you.”

Ji Zizhong spread her hands without saying a word and watched Xi Qinghe’s movements quietly with mixed feelings in her heart, but soon the complicated feelings in her eyes faded away, replaced by a strong surge of hatred.

This is Xu Qinghe, Xu Zeyuan’s daughter. Ji Zizhong silently thought to herself.

“Okay.” Xu Qinghe let go of Ji Zizhong’s hand and took a soft towel from the side to wipe her hands. Her half-dried hair still draped behind her head. When she turned around to apply the medicated oil, she rubbed Ji Zizhong’s fingers calmly.

She’s a police officer, so naturally her fingers were a bit rough, and calluses had formed where she frequently held her gun for too long. But Ji Zizhong’s hand was even rougher than hers. Even the palm of her hand had calluses on it.

Did Ji Zizhong have practice as an amateur? With shooting or martial arts? Or maybe both? How come she couldn’t remember that Ji Zizhong had such skills?

She looked at Ji Zizhong’s back with some suspicion and made up her mind to check her profile after she returned to the police station, otherwise she always had this slight feeling of unease around her. But… she saw Ji Zizhong beckoning her with a hair dryer and shook her head… She actually doubted her colleague, boss, friend, and fuck buddy, how could she!

The two of them just ate something simple to fill their stomach. Xu Qinghe couldn’t wait to go to the police station to find some information, though Ji Zizhong grabbed her and pressed her down on the bed with a sullen face: “Go get some rest, we’ll talk tomorrow.”

Xu Qinghe tried to resist a bit, yet when she saw the dour expression on Ji Zizhong’s face, she nodded and shrank back into the quilt.

After she turned off the lights, Ji Zizhong went out to call and ask for time off. She tidied up their clothes and walked carefully back into the room, stopping to sit at the desk to stare at Xu Qinghe’s sleeping face.

There was a slit in the curtains and the bright light from outside shone on Xu Qinghe’s cheek. The scene was gentle and beautiful. Ji Zizhong leaned backwards in her chair with her long legs crossed, watching the person’s long eyelashes tremble slightly in the light. She was somewhat jealous. Even the sunlight favors you more, Xu Qinghe, she sighed mockingly.

Ji Zizhong was engulfed in the dark corner of the room, the atmosphere around her was so depressed until she finally couldn’t bear it any longer and stepped forward, lightly placing her fingertips on Xu Qinghe’s cheek. Then she couldn’t help but lie down into the wrapped quilt, her palm wrapping around Xu Qinghe’s waist and gently caressing it.

For the first time in her life someone said that they wanted to protect her, but that same person was someone who hurt her. Ji Zizhong bit her lower lip. In front of her eyes Xu Qinghe’s face was magnified countless times and her soft breathing lingered in front of them. Ji Zizhong just emptied her mind and let herself sink into this warmth for a short while.

It wasn’t until late afternoon before the two of them woke up. Xu Qinghe checked some information on her phone and discussed the case with Ji Zizhong for a while. She felt still puzzled about the medal; Ji Zizhong had no clue either. The only outcome that they could just barely consider a positive one was that the secretary actually survived. They were so far the first victim to survive K.

Captain Liu and his team passed the information about the secretary’s interrogation to Ji Zizhong, who was looking through it carefully at her computer. Xu Qinghe came over with her milk, bent over the table and complained with dissatisfaction: “Why didn’t Captain Liu send this to me, I’m also involved in this!”

As Ji Zizhong pushed the computer along her desk towards Xu Qinghe, she made room for her, smiled and tapped on the screen. “Did you forget that I’m your boss, Officer Xu?”

“Okay, okay. Look, be serious!” Xu Qinghe instantly regained her composure, squeezed herself in next to Ji Zizhong and began to carefully browse the content of the document. The interrogation report didn’t reveal any useful information. K should have snuck into the secretary’s residence in the middle of the night, and when he woke up, the two of them were already tied up by K.

Xu Qinghe skimmed through it two or three times, propped her chin up and asked Ji Zizhong: “Can you draw a rough facial composite of K or something?”

Ji Zizhong glanced at Xu Qinghe with full interest: “Tell me more.”

“First, K should be female[1]. Although I couldn’t tell from the voice, I could somehow sense it. Second, she should be professionally trained and have some strong anti-reconnaissance skills, probably a practitioner of some special ops profession. Third, do you think she could have been provoked by something? They say method reflects character. K treats her victims so cruelly like she’s a very perverted person.”

[1]

Ji Zizhong was amused by her “pervert” remark, and after thinking about it, she nodded her head and agreed with her: “Indeed, K seems to be a big pervert. Maybe she has her own way of choosing her victims, but we don’t know yet.”

“Let’s find out tomorrow. Go brush your teeth and get ready for bed.” Closing the computer, Ji Zizhong drank up the warm water from her cup and went to bed.

After that, for the next two weeks, Xu Qinghe was lying around in the casefile room, going through all the case files that her father had handled. She had made up a lie and disclosed that information to Captain Liu, and now the whole team was looking into this matter but they never found anything.

“There are so many cases! It’s impossible to see which ones are related to K…Huff—!” Xu Qinghe let out a long sigh and flopped down on the desktop to wail: “I’ve sorted out the past serial murder case files as well, but none of these have anything in common. Man.”

Ji Zizhong was sitting on the side looking at a certain case file. When hearing Xu Qinghe, she closed it with a snap. These files, including the one in her hand, were all clean and concise, nothing suspicious. There could be ones that were deleted or lost.

“Let’s search again, there’s no rush.” Ji Zizhong put the file down and rubbed her forehead.

“I think I need to go back to my old house.” Xu Qinghe tapped on the desktop with a clear sound. She explained to Ji Zizhong: “That’s the house I used to live in with my dad. I haven’t been back there for a long time, but everything’s still there. My dad had the habit of keeping a diary so I need to go back and look for it to see if I can find any useful clues.”

“Do you want me to go with you?” Ji Zizhong asked after a moment of contemplation.

Xu Qinghe put the file away and shook her head, “No need, I’ll just go by myself.”

She hadn’t been home for a long time. For her, it was a place with countless beautiful memories, but the better the memories, the more reality hurt. A person can’t just live on memories alone. Every time Xu Qinghe saw those things in the house, she’d remember her happy days she’d spent with her parents, but these days were gone now.

Since she couldn’t rid herself of these emotions, she had no choice but to avoid her home as much as possible. So she rented an apartment near the police station and only went back to clean it on every anniversary of her parents’ death.

But… Xu Qinghe remembered Ji Zizhong’s profile that she viewed that day. Her access was partially restricted, so she could only see some basic information. Ji Zizhong was the same as her, the column about her parents was completely empty. She did try to ask her about it, but Ji Zizhong just avoided the topic and described it as an “accident”, so she didn’t pry any further.

Xi Qinghe thought that she could think about this matter again later. Now, the most important task is to find out the relation between Xu Zeyuan and K.

When Ji Zizhong heard Xu Qinghe’s refusal, she just shrugged her shoulders, put the file away and walked out, glancing at Xu Qinghe who knew nothing about it. After a few seconds though she put away that little pity, and her dark eyes were as calm as the sea.

Xu Qinghe pushed the door open, but even after closing the doors and windows tightly, a thin layer of dust had fallen onto the room. After wiping the photo of her parents on the table, Xu Qinghe hurried to Xu Zeyuan’s room and took down five or six thick old diaries from the bookshelf.

The pages of the diaries were all old and yellowed, and two of them had faded plastic covers. The handwriting was a bit scribbly with a hint of Xu Zeyuan’s typical sharpness. He had written so many words in one stroke for decades[2].
 

[2]

The diary was full of family matters, with a few cases mixed in from time to time. As she reminiscenced about the past, Xu Qinghe’s eyes became red again, and teardrops hung in the corner of her eyes until they dropped onto the diary.

Just when she had just wiped the tears away from the corners of her eyes, there was a sudden knock at the door. It was almost eleven o’clock and the surrounding area was quiet, so the sudden knock really startled Xu Qinghe. Cautiously she walked over and pressed herself against the door, lowering her voice and asking: “Hello, can I help you?”

“Are you Miss Xu? There’s takeaway for you,” the man outside the door replied to her. Looking through the spyhole, the man was wearing a neatly tailored delivery uniform. With the bag in his hand he looked at his mobile phone to answer it.

“Takeaway?” Xu Qinghe frowned, “I didn’t order any takeaway. Did you deliver it by mistake?”

“There’s no mistake. The address is written here. Is your name Xu Qinghe?” The man scratched his head, looked at the phone display and repeated, “did a friend order it for you? I’m running out of time, so please take it. If you’re worried, I’ll leave it at the door. You can get it when I leave, okay? I have another meal to deliver, so I need to hurry up.”

“Yeah I’m Xu Qinghe, but…”

Before she could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by the man, “That’ll do, I’ll leave it at the door. You can get it for yourself later.” After saying that, the man ran out without looking back, seemingly really in a hurry.

Quite baffling. Xu Qinghe looked back at the room and there was a yellow light peeking out from the half-closed wooden door. Nothing was wrong. After thinking about it for a while, she decided to go back and continue reading the diary. On the desk, the diary was still open, a few tears had begun to stain the paper, and the heat from the cup of tea was slowly drifting upwards.

After taking a sip of tea, Xu Qinghe focused on reading the diary again.

As time passed, the tea leaves had already begun to settle on the bottom, yet Xu Qinghe felt heat rising from beneath her, making her face flush with agitation. When she took a sip of the long cooled down tea, the heat flooded in even faster, and she felt like her whole body was melting in the room.

Only then did she realize that something was wrong with her. She took out her phone and tried to call 120[3], but the signal was blocked, so she couldn’t make a call, no matter what.
 

[3]

Xu Qinghe staggered towards the door, and before she could take two steps, her legs gave out and she fell on the ground. The soreness like an ant bite spread from her belly in waves, and she leaned against the door panting with beads of sweat seeping from her forehead.

She was hovering on the edge of consciousness, the emptiness almost consuming her. Xu Qinghe lifted her arm and bit down hard on her wrist, but the pain only brought her momentary clarity. Within seconds, a stronger desire was wracking her, and as soon as she closed her eyes, it was as if she could hear her body screaming under a sea of desire.

Help—

She sat down on the ground filled with self-loathing, tilting her head slightly and panting heavily. Her body got warmer and warmer, sweat falling into her eyes and blurring her vision. She could only instinctively tear at her clothes roughly.

Just before she was about to go mad with lust, the lazy voice with a smile suddenly came to her ears, “It’s been a long time, Officer Xu.”

“Do you need help?”

The author has something to say:

This chapter’s plot is important, eh? It reveals quite a lot. Some of the guys in the comment section suggested that we should get into aphrodisiacs （　´艹｀）.