Book Synopsis
Book Tags
Donation Rankings
Comment
0 Comments
You May Also Like
墨書 Inktalez
Three days had passed since the last case, and Jiang He felt as if he were sitting on pins and needles. He hoped that Old Shao would call him with news of a new case, but even the tenant downstairs, Shui Xinlan, had noticed something was off with her landlord.
Shui Xinlan had been renting the place for several months. When she first came to view the apartment, the neighbors all described Jiang He as a strange person, warning her that she would regret living there and should be willing to pay a little more elsewhere. However, the proximity to the school and the low rent offered by Jiang He made it hard to resist.
What Shui Xinlan didn’t know was that the reason for Jiang He’s low rent was that previous tenants could hardly tolerate his eccentricities and chose to break their leases to move out. Yet for some reason, Shui Xinlan had managed to stay for several months, setting a record for the longest tenancy.
She couldn’t quite understand why she tolerated Jiang He, who seemed to go mad upstairs every night, tormenting Sow and leaving the place in disarray from time to time.
At that moment, Shui Xinlan was watching Jiang He as he stared at his phone.
Jiang He had been fixated on his phone screen for several hours now. Shui Xinlan couldn’t comprehend what was going on with him; in the past, his phone had been little more than a decoration. There had been times when no one called him for an entire month. If it weren’t for a scam call that came in, that record might have lasted even longer.
As she recorded notes on her own phone, she said, “Jiang He, you’ve been staring at your phone for so long that your record is about to update again. You watched it for three hours straight yesterday; today you’re nearing three hours already. Just hold on for five more minutes!”
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
Jiang He seemed not to hear it at all, continuing to stare intently at his phone while Shui Xinlan kept glancing at her watch, hoping he could hold out for another five minutes.
The doorbell rang insistently for four minutes straight. During this time, Shui Xinlan’s phone buzzed repeatedly, but neither of them moved. Finally, Jiang He gave up on staring at his screen and walked toward the door. Despite her phone ringing for so long, hers hadn’t made a sound.
Jiang He couldn’t estimate when Old Shao would call because the timing of a murder case was always uncertain.
Shui Xinlan felt a bit annoyed and deleted her notes from her phone. “If you’d just waited one more minute, you could have refreshed your record.”
As he walked toward the door, Jiang He replied, “Such records are meaningless; they only take up space on your phone. For instance, recording when you first had dinner with your boyfriend or your fastest time running a thousand meters—or even how many times Sow howls in one night—none of these things serve any purpose in your life.”
He opened the door and couldn’t understand what was meaningful about such actions. Shui Xinlan loved documenting everything, no matter how trivial it seemed; she always found joy in recording it. However, Jiang He wouldn’t stop her from doing so any more than she would oppose his behavior.
Shui Xinlan retorted, “Not everyone is like you! Not everyone has perfect recall…”
“Xinlan,” said a young man at the door. “Who is this uncle?”
Standing at the door was a clean-cut young man in a white shirt, the boyfriend of Shui Xinlan from university. With the new semester approaching, he had repeatedly expressed his desire to live with Shui Xinlan, but she had not agreed to his requests. Although Shui Xinlan was not particularly conservative, she felt that the pace was too fast, considering they had only been together for a few months.
Shui Xinlan walked over and playfully slapped Jiang He on the back, making a “thud” sound. “This is Uncle Landlord, and this is my boyfriend, Zhang Jibu.”
Zhang Jibu looked at the disheveled Jiang He and immediately felt that he was not a good influence.
He adopted a somewhat assertive tone. “Hello, I’m Shui Xinlan’s boyfriend.”
The words “boyfriend” carried significant weight.
Shui Xinlan sensed that Zhang Jibu was feeling jealous, but she didn’t want to address it directly. Instead, she simply looked at Jiang He, who seemed oblivious to Zhang Jibu’s underlying meaning. He merely nodded in acknowledgment and regarded Zhang Jibu.
Zhang Jibu was dressed in a clean white shirt and simple jeans, wearing a basic watch worth a hundred yuan on his wrist, while his feet were clad in expensive Adidas sneakers costing over a thousand yuan. Nevertheless, it was indeed a typical student outfit. Jiang He didn’t say much; he stepped aside and walked out.
As Jiang He exited, he pulled out his phone to check the screen, still waiting for Old Shao’s call.
Shui Xinlan called after him, “Make sure to record the time! Let’s see if you can break the record.”
Zhang Jibu frowned, looking displeased. “You seem quite concerned about him. What’s his name?”
“Jiang He,” Shui Xinlan replied. “Why are you asking? Stop being so jealous.”
In the meantime, Shui Xinlan glanced at Jiang He’s retreating figure, wondering what he was thinking.
At that moment, Jiang He was preoccupied with thoughts of Old Shao. However, there was still something they needed to do together, which puzzled Jiang He. What could be so important for Old Shao?
Indeed, Old Shao had something crucial to attend to—something even more important than solving the case. Old Shao needed to find out who the hacker was that had infiltrated their system. This hacker had managed to breach their system without any of the technical staff noticing and had quickly sent over the communication between Song You and the murderer. This was not something an ordinary hacker could accomplish.
However, based on this person’s actions, it seemed that the hacker did not oppose the police. Without this hacker's assistance, tracing the mobile signal would be slow and cumbersome; finding the content of the calls would be nearly impossible. Old Shao believed in utilizing exceptional talents for his own purposes; if this hacker were on their side, tracking down victims or gathering information would become almost effortless.
Old Shao had hoped that the bureau would send someone down before, but in this era, the age of the internet, such talents were truly scarce. He once had a hacker partner, but that partner had already gone abroad with another associate to enjoy retirement, while he still had to keep busy here.
However, today, he managed to call this old friend back.
“Shaoshilin, at your age, you still drag me over here. You’re exhausting me,” Mary said, looking at her old friend who still seemed full of energy. She felt quite pleased inside, but her words were sharp.
Old Shao chuckled and replied, “To get this done, I still need your help, Mary. By the way, where’s Dezi? Didn’t he come with you?”
Mary shook her head. “You know how it is; when you’re young and working in the armed police, you’re always catching people and going undercover. I’m covered in scars now. When we were young, we didn’t think much of it, but now I have all these ailments. When he heard about your situation, he wanted to come along too. I practically snuck out; my son is keeping him busy, haha!”
Old Shao sighed lightly. “Time flies; we’ve all grown old. The last time I saw your son, he was just a little kid. Now he’s almost an adult, right?”
Mary rolled her eyes. “He’s seventeen this year! Don’t even go there. Remember when you came to France and stayed at our place? You kept telling him stories about our cases when we were young; you completely fascinated him! He insists on returning to China to attend police academy after he turns eighteen. It’s driving me crazy.”
“Dezi actually supports him,” Old Shao added.
Mary scoffed. “You know Dezi’s character well enough. When he was young and undercover, how many times did he not see the second sunrise? He made so many enemies back home that we can’t even return now. And now he wants my son to live that kind of life? Dream on! Enough about that; let’s talk business.”
Old Shao shook his head helplessly. He could imagine that with Dezi's temperament, he would definitely encourage his son to become a police officer. With a criminal investigator like himself and a father who was in the armed police teaching him, if he really went down that path, he would certainly become an impressive officer.
“Twenty years ago, you were one of the best hackers around. You haven’t lost your skills over the years, have you?” Old Shao asked.
Mary smiled and said, “It’s my only hobby.”
Old Shao clapped his hands together. “That’s good! Then go to Shangxi City and help me track down a hacker.”
“When did you start dealing with hackers?” Mary asked in confusion. “Isn’t there a dedicated cyber police for that?”
Old Shao shook his head. “If I’m not mistaken, this person is as crucial to the current project team as you were to the special task force decades ago; they can save us a lot of trouble.”
"Looks like you've found another talent," Mary said as she walked ahead. "Whoever it is, give me two days, and I guarantee I'll find out what color underwear they're wearing."
Old Shao couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia as he looked at Mary's hair, which had started to turn gray, yet her demeanor was still youthful.
"We're getting old; this world ultimately belongs to the young," Old Shao gently suggested. "Your son is at the age where he should be going to college. Why not let him attend a police academy here? With his abilities, it won't be a problem. I can help arrange the entrance exam."
"No!" Mary firmly refused.
Old Shao continued, "Then why not let him come and learn from me? It's vacation now, and there's still about a month before school starts. He could treat it like a summer camp."
"No," Mary still disagreed.
"You weren't like this before; weren't you the one who advocated for freedom?" Old Shao shook his head.
"I wasn't a mother back then," Mary countered.
Comment 0 Comment Count