True Face - The Moon Doesn't Sleep, Neither Do I

After the banquet ended and he returned to the hotel to wash up, it was already almost 11 PM. Zhuang Mingqi couldn't sleep no matter what. He had an itch to bother Shen Zhengning, but was also afraid of truly disturbing him. So, in a rather obvious attempt to cover up his intentions, he took a picture of the moon outside the French window, sent it on WeChat, and added the caption: Moon.

Shen Zhengning's reply came quickly: Thanks, I can tell. No need to specifically type that one word.

Zhuang Mingqi swiftly pressed "Voice Call." A moment later, the call connected. The other person's teasing, smiling voice sounded in his ear, mixed with a slight electronic crackle, carrying a lazy magnetism: "Good evening, astronomer."

The facial muscles that had been coolly relaxed all evening finally showed a tendency to contract and lift. In contrast were the other muscle groups and bones supporting his frame. Zhuang Mingqi, like a piece of cooked spaghetti, gradually went limp and slid smoothly into the sofa by the window, complaining quite unreasonably, "Why did your mind-reading fail now of all times!"

Shen Zhengning knew perfectly well what was going on but pretended to be obtuse: "Mind-reading? What's that, never heard of it."

Playing this kind of suggestive game with a smart person was difficult if they refused to play along. Zhuang Mingqi secretly ground his teeth and decided to be direct: "It's because the moon is so beautiful that I thought of you... what about you?"

He still chickened out in the end, not daring to ask the second half of the sentence, 'Did you miss me?'

"What about me?" Shen Zhengning continued to play dumb, speaking in a very unromantic way, "It's cloudy here, there's no moon."

There was no "the moon is beautiful tonight," nor a "sharing this moment from afar." This person was the epitome of unromantic. Zhuang Mingqi listlessly drew out his voice, "Oh—alright then—"

"What's with that sound," Shen Zhengning said, holding back a laugh. "What, you don't miss me if there's no moon?"

Zhuang Mingqi: "..."

Dejected for less than a second, he was immediately placated by the mind-reader's words. He cleared his throat reservedly, "Ahem, just a random thought. When did you get home? Did you find anything new looking at the surveillance footage for Officer Yuan?"

"A little something, but we still need more evidence. Yuan Hang is watching the footage like his life depends on it, so it'll be a while before we get results." Shen Zhengning beckoned to Silver, who had walked into the room at the sound of his voice. The Samoyed trotted over, wagging its large, feather-duster-like tail, and rested its head on his knee. Shen Zhengning commanded, "Come on, Silver, sing a serenade for your father."

Silver confidently took the mic, belting out a song in its raspy little voice, "awoo," "awoo," its voice even cracking at the end. Zhuang Mingqi felt as if he had heard heavenly music and was temporarily deafened. He clapped like a seal on his end, shouting "bravo!" while lowering his voice to ask secretly, "Why did it suddenly start singing?!"

Shen Zhengning laughed for a good while before saying, "Silver and I watched the livestream of the banquet entrance for a bit, and it's been making this sound all night. It might be yearning for its father's great career."

Zhuang Mingqi pondered for a moment and came to a solemn conclusion: "Indeed, making a Samoyed a police dog is a bit much for it. It should pursue the arts instead."

Shen Zhengning: "Hmm?"

Zhuang Mingqi quickly changed the subject. After asking about Shen Zhengning and Silver's day, he started prattling on about his own day of walking around as a decorative vase.

He didn't know why he had suddenly become so talkative at a time when he should have been feeling tired. From sharing celebrity gossip to complaining about the banquet menu, no matter how trivial the sentiment, there was always someone on the other end of the phone listening patiently, occasionally responding with a laugh in their voice, never letting his words fall on deaf ears... Zhuang Mingqi knew very well that he wasn't the type of person who could recount daily trifles in a vivid and witty manner. He wasn't even an "interesting" person, but this call was flowing unimpeded, just as he wished.

The person who would applaud a puppy's awooing was also considerately looking after him. He felt he was beginning to understand why a puppy would voluntarily rest its head in its owner's outstretched palm.

"Zhengning, are you going to sleep?"

He probably had no idea that he was acting exactly like Silver when its favorite toy (specifically, a slipper) was taken away. Shen Zhengning smiled silently. Due to a light sleepiness, his voice was even lower and softer than usual, "Yeah, Silver is already snoring. You should go to sleep too."

"Good night then, to both you and Silver."

"What about you, king of avoiding sleep?" There was an indulgent helplessness in Shen Zhengning's sudden laugh. "Aren't you tired after running around all day? Are you going to keep watching the moon, or do you plan to watch the sunrise directly?"

"Well, I can't fall asleep even if I force myself," Zhuang Mingqi said softly, almost like he was whining. "I'll just find something to pass the time."

"Shh, it's okay, go lie down." A low, light voice flowed through the receiver, like white waves washing onto a sandy beach, gently soaking into the boundless night. "I'll hang up after you fall asleep."

The late morning light of a clear late-winter day shone through the not-fully-drawn curtains, casting itself upon a messy desk covered with files, a water cup, and an ashtray. When Dai Lin passed by the office, a casual glance revealed half a body sticking out from under the desk, which scared him so much his soul nearly left his body. "Yuan Hang?!"

"...Huh?" Yuan Hang wasn't sleeping deeply. His mind was too full of things, and even his dreams were fragmented. The sound gave him a jolt, and he sat up ramrod straight like a reanimated corpse, asking dazedly, "What's wrong?"

"You have the nerve to ask!" Dai Lin pressed a hand to his pounding heart and strode over to kick the simple bed he had fashioned out of chairs. "How many times have I told you, if you need to sleep, go to the duty room! Don't you have any idea how scary it is for you to lie here like this? I almost thought you'd died from overwork!"

Yuan Hang, with a messy bird's nest of hair, tumbled off the chairs, grinning cheekily with no sign of remorse. "Aiya, Captain Dai, don't be mad. I won't, I won't. I definitely won't do it again."

Dai Lin casually pulled open the curtains and the window, letting the fresh, cool air sweep away the stuffiness in the room. "Go wash your face. What were you staying up late studying last night? Still wrestling with the Ye Tongsheng case?"

"There's a lead in this case!" Yuan Hang's eyelids, which had been drooping with sleepiness, instantly snapped open. He quickly dug his mouse out from a pile of files and clicked open a video. Like a salesman offering samples on the street, he eagerly showed him the surveillance footage. "It wasn't a waste for me to pull an all-nighter for this. Take a look at this!"

The sudden downpour caused a slight commotion among the tourists. Umbrellas of all colors, like lotus leaves on a river, squeezed together and drifted slowly toward the exit. The upper bodies of the pedestrians were obscured by the umbrellas in the footage, but the few clips Yuan Hang had selected were like a director's shots, following a fixed and clear route all the way from the bustling night market to a tree-lined path, and finally to the bus stop outside the park's north gate. Amidst the crisscrossing figures, an umbrella tilted up slightly, and the damp, hazy glow of a streetlight happened to illuminate half of the person's face underneath.

Because of the detective-novel-like code, the subsequent emergence of the Gao Qihui case, and Yuan Hang's own stubborn persistence, this young man's face was not entirely unfamiliar to Dai Lin.

—Ye Tongsheng.

What surprised him was not only that Yuan Hang had actually found a needle in a haystack, but also the freeze-frame on the computer screen that looked like a still from an old movie: Ye Tongsheng was standing on the sidewalk, head slightly raised, holding an umbrella in one hand and raising the other, waving goodbye to a little girl on the bus through a rain-streaked window.

"Who are the child's parents? Did you get a clear shot of their face?"

"I did," Yuan Hang said, his face a picture of complexity. "Right here."

An enlarged view of a young woman's face appeared on the screen. Dai Lin sighed with a strange feeling and said, "Quickly find out her identity and contact her to come to the bureau for questioning. This is really... sigh."

Now he finally understood why they hadn't found Ye Tongsheng during the first round of surveillance checks: besides objective factors like darkness, rain, and obstructed views, it was also because Ye Tongsheng had been acting alone from the moment he left home until he reached the park market. It was clear he wasn't meeting anyone, so the police's focus had been on tourists who were by themselves. No one had expected that after leaving the park market, Ye Tongsheng would become part of a group of three, and that his companions would be a woman with a child, forming the "safest" configuration of a family of three in that setting—a family unit was the first thing investigators would rule out during screening.

"Captain Dai," Yuan Hang's expression was as if he had just chewed on a whole lemon. He stammered, "Um, this woman, and this child, there's no need to investigate. I already know her identity."

Dai Lin turned his head in confusion. "Hmm?"

Yuan Hang asked, "Do you believe that 'you can't have a story without coincidences'?"

"Do I need you to be a storyteller for me?" Annoyed, Dai Lin reached out and swatted him. "Cut the crap and spit it out!"

Yuan Hang flinched from the slap and could only confess honestly, "This woman came to our bureau to report a crime before. She's the victim who used the Juquan App to buy medicine, had her information leaked, and was scammed by telecom fraudsters."

Dai Lin: "..."

"This is too much of a coincidence," he said, looking at Yuan Hang with bewildered uncertainty and murmuring, "You can't have a story without coincidences."