Surveillance, Rain All Night

It was rare for Shen Zhengning to be rendered speechless by a single sentence. He was silent for a full five seconds, stunned, not knowing which word to start his rebuttal to Yuan Hang with. In the end, he could only nod: "Alright."

Yuan Hang looked like he wanted to say something but held back, sighing in the cold wind: "Seriously, Zhengning, with the possibility you've raised, I almost want to try harder to find evidence of Ye Tongsheng's suicide..."

The problem was getting more and more complicated, changing from a single perpetrator to a joint crime, and involving a suspect who "theoretically could exist" but had never shown any trace before. The problem was also simple. It wasn't that Yuan Hang didn't believe him, but police resources were limited and couldn't withstand their repeated trial and error.

That sigh, faintly tinged with difficulty and persuasion, fell on his shoulders like light snow. It didn't make him feel the chill of having cold water thrown on him—perhaps his heart was cold to begin with, and he had only imagined it to be burning hot. Thinking this, Shen Zhengning couldn't help but let out a low, self-deprecating laugh.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Laughing at myself, for being pushed and shoved from behind, for awkwardly taking ninety-nine steps without ever facing my true thoughts," Shen Zhengning said. "Looking at it this way, when a person becomes hypocritical, they can even deceive themselves..."

He was clearly obsessed with the puzzle, yet he always deflected with, "It's just my speculation, it doesn't matter if you accept it or not." He claimed to like a "safe and stable job," yet insisted on wading through deserted wild woods.

"Huh?" Yuan Hang grew more and more confused. "Wait, what the hell? Weren't we talking about the case? Why has it suddenly turned into a session of criticism and self-criticism?"

"It's nothing, I'm just randomly criticizing myself," Shen Zhengning said casually. "Although this speculation sounds incredible, it might be a breakthrough in the case. Give me a chance to verify it. I'm considered an important witness in the case, so I should be able to participate in identifying people in the surveillance footage, right?"

Yuan Hang: "...It's not impossible." He looked at Shen Zhengning with some hesitation and asked uncertainly, "But haven't you always... always been quite avoidant of directly participating in cases?"

Shen Zhengning's eyes shifted slightly. He gave him a silent glance, then looked forward again, his smile as ethereal as the night wind brushing over the river. "Your intuition can be really sharp sometimes. No need to be so euphemistic. You can just say 'evading.'"

His pocket buzzed. Shen Zhengning made an "apologies" gesture, took out his phone, and saw a message from Zhuang Mingqi: [Are you going to solve a case with Yuan Lestrade again, great detective? It’s fine, tonight I’ll introduce my name to every guest—Abandoned Watson.]

It was strange. Zhuang Mingqi, with his extremely picky, petty, troublesome, clingy, and inexplicably fragile glass heart, probably accounted for the entire family's share of internal friction. In the past, when he was around, Shen Zhengning had no time to pick at his own faults. Now, with thousands of miles between them, his half-joking, half-jealous remark could actually make Shen Zhengning stop his sharp and harsh self-analysis.

It was as if he was truly as good as he imagined and described himself to be, someone who was trusted and relied upon with all one's heart.

He typed with one hand, quickly replying to the message: [Focus on your work first, great designer.]

From Yuan Hang's perspective, Shen Zhengning seemed to almost melt into the night along with his black overcoat. Only the profile of his face, outlined by the faint light of his phone screen, remained clear. Stripped of the buffer of details, his bone structure was so distinct it was almost severe, like a perilous peak and steep cliff washed clean by rain, possessing an unshakeable and solitary austerity.

Yuan Hang: "So, what were you evading?"

Shen Zhengning put away his phone and also let out a light breath, the puff of air dissipating like smoke. "Actually, this idea didn't just come to me as I was walking over today. I thought about it a few days ago, but I didn't contact you."

"It's easy for me to just run my mouth, but how would you have the time to verify everything? The police have their own way of doing things, and it's not my place as an outsider to meddle... with reasons like these, I convinced myself to give up the annoying habit of getting to the bottom of things and pointing fingers, to be someone who knows when to quit while they're ahead. I've already provided the police with important evidence, I don't need to create more trouble for myself. It satisfies my vanity without my having to bear any negative consequences."

If he hadn't met Zhuang Mingqi, who was being choked by the ropes of his past; if Yuan Hang hadn't uncomplainingly done so much repetitive work; if Ye Tongsheng hadn't given him what could be called a divinely inspired trust... he would not have become so deeply involved in this criminal case that should not have been open to an ordinary person.

Now, after he had proposed a possibility that even Yuan Hang found outrageous, there was no one left to push him forward from behind.

To go further, he would have to rely on himself, using a magnifying glass to find clues in the cracks between floor tiles, picking up the scattered threads from the past to weave them into a rope. He had to get up from his armchair, walk out onto the dusty streets, and directly face the real world hidden behind the exquisite screen of "deduction."

"Then why did you change your mind?"

Shen Zhengning told a deadpan joke with a look of indifference: "Because I realized you still hadn't figured it out, so I thought, maybe I should just do it myself."

"..." Yuan Hang flared up in minor anger. "Am I that useless in your eyes?!"

"It's more like Comrade Officer's proactive and enterprising work ethic has reformed a slacker like me," Shen Zhengning placated him perfunctorily. "This time, it's my turn to desperately find evidence to convince you. How about it? Do you feel like a liberated serf who's broken into song?"

Yuan Hang stroked his chin. "Not sure. Be a little more humble, and I'll try to feel it out."

Shen Zhengning: "..."

·

"These are the two surveillance clips of Gao Qihui from the street corner and the underground garage cameras on the night of the incident."

In the office, Yuan Hang gave his chair to Shen Zhengning and stood hunched over the desk, clicking open a video. "You're more familiar with this road than we are. See if you can spot anything suspicious."

Shen Zhengning didn't reply, already completely engrossed in the surveillance video. 'Top students get in the zone so fast,' Yuan Hang thought. He turned to pour him a glass of water, but when he picked up the thermos from the cabinet, there was only a little bit sloshing at the bottom. He figured this wouldn't be over quickly, so he turned his head and said, "You keep watching. I'm going out to get some water."

After saying that, without waiting to see if Shen Zhengning had heard him, he took the kettle and ambled off to the hot water room.

By the time Yuan Hang returned to his office, humming an off-key tune and pondering where to go for dinner, Shen Zhengning had already shifted into a less tense, more relaxed posture, leaning back slightly. His gaze, however, remained sharp and focused. "Do you have the surveillance video of Ye Tongsheng in the park on the night of the 25th?"

"Yes, I saved it. Let me find it for you." Yuan Hang asked, "Did you see anything in Gao Qihui's footage?"

Shen Zhengning still had a contemplative expression. He shifted his gaze to the computer screen, silently watching the park surveillance video play. He watched it to the end, then dragged the progress bar back to the beginning, and suddenly let out a "Hmm?"

"What is it?"

Instead of answering, Shen Zhengning asked, "I remember you said Ye Tongsheng's jacket was never found in the end?"

"That's right," Yuan Hang said. "He didn't have a backpack, and his pants pockets only contained two milk candies. We speculate that his important personal belongings were in his jacket pockets, especially his phone. That's a big problem."

Ninety percent of a modern person's information can be found on their phone; it's practically a "personal ID" in the truest sense. If Ye Tongsheng's phone hadn't disappeared, many of the problems currently plaguing them could be easily solved.

"Milk candies?" Shen Zhengning asked. "What brand? When were they produced? Were there fingerprints?"

Yuan Hang broke out in a cold sweat and started rustling through the case files, feeling as if he'd just invited his superior back to the office. "It's that red kind, Wangzai Milk Candy. Here, this is a photo. The production date is June. The wrapper wasn't damaged, and the candy inside was tested and came back fine. Let me see about fingerprints... The surface area of the wrapper is small to begin with, plus it was soaked in water. There was only half a partial fingerprint, and it didn't match anyone."

Shen Zhengning's fingertips rested lightly on the spacebar as he said thoughtfully, "If there really was a third person at the scene, is it possible this person used Ye Tongsheng's phone to post that 'Sorry' Moments update, faked the scene to look like a suicide, and for some unknown reason, deliberately took Ye Tongsheng's jacket?"

Yuan Hang raised an objection: "It's also possible Ye Tongsheng struggled out of his jacket while drowning and it sank to the bottom... Besides, even if the killer wanted to fake a suicide, couldn't they just throw the phone into the water? Why take the whole jacket? Wouldn't that seem unnatural?"

"Because he couldn't bet that you wouldn't dive in to retrieve the victim's belongings." Shen Zhengning unconsciously furrowed his brow. "To post on Ye Tongsheng's Moments, he first needed to unlock the phone with Ye Tongsheng's fingerprint, then open WeChat, type, and send. You can't operate a touchscreen phone with gloves on, so his fingerprints would inevitably be left on the screen. He couldn't precisely wipe off only his own fingerprints, and wiping the whole thing clean would be even stranger. Who would deliberately wipe their phone screen before committing suicide? So the phone couldn't be thrown away; it had to be taken and destroyed. The same logic applies to the jacket. It might have had some of his biological traces on it."

"There's another consideration. He might have taken the jacket to hide what he really wanted," Shen Zhengning said. "Don't forget, we've been to Ye Tongsheng's home. His door doesn't have an electronic lock, it has a regular key lock. That means besides his phone, his pocket must have at least contained his house key."

Yuan Hang sucked in a sharp breath with a "hiss" and rubbed the goosebumps on his arms. "Why do I feel like you've been telling ghost stories all night."

"There's something even spookier. Look here." Shen Zhengning captured a small section of the screen and maximized the brightness and clarity. "There's something heavy weighing down each of Ye Tongsheng's jacket pockets. The shape on the right is a phone. The one on the left is cylindrical. Can you tell what it is?"

Yuan Hang squinted, trying to make it out for a long time. "This shape... a glasses case? Does Ye Tongsheng normally wear glasses?"

"He's not nearsighted," Shen Zhengning said flatly. "He's one of the few programmers at the company who doesn't wear glasses."

"Something else happened on the night of the 25th," he said, using the mouse to draw a circle on the deep blue sky in the video. "It started raining after eight-thirty. Because visibility was reduced and there was heavy foot traffic, many people were holding umbrellas, so the upper halves of their bodies were mostly obscured. It's not that Ye Tongsheng wasn't captured in the subsequent surveillance footage, but that he couldn't be identified."

"There's a very lucky coincidence. The cylindrical object in Ye Tongsheng's pocket is very likely a Capsule Umbrella. It was a perk given out during our company's team-building event last year. And in the surveillance footage from the street corner, Gao Qihui was holding the exact same kind of umbrella."