Chapter 72
Lin Langyi leaned against the headboard, half-drowsily waiting for information, afraid of missing any unexpected developments. But Cheng Yanjin, who had promised to report back to her as soon as there was any progress, seemed to have disappeared halfway through the journey in the police car, showing no reaction whatsoever.
On the contrary, Yuan Chuyu, although he did not show up all night, kept thinking about what was happening here. After Lawyer Yuan had a brief conversation with Bian Shu and relayed the situation to him, he told her in detail.
Although Lin Langyi is usually relaxed when no one is home, she hasn't been as at ease for a while now, probably because of the listening device incident in the study.
So she turned off all the lights, hid under the covers, and made a phone call to Yuan Chuyu.
In the dead of night, without hesitation, he answered the phone immediately, as always not speaking rashly first.
As soon as Lin Langyi lay down, she couldn't stay awake. Her eyelids were drooping and she was feeling sleepy, and her consciousness wasn't very clear.
She buried half her head in the blanket, trying to find some sense of security in this enclosed environment.
She spoke incoherently about Chi Shu being taken away by the police, and then thanked Yuan Chuyu in a jumbled way for noticing that something was wrong with Chi Shu.
Finally, she said, "Chi Shu seems to know that 1702 is also related to you. Why don't we separate for the time being?"
With her phone and head hidden under the covers, any sound could be amplified several times over, but she couldn't hear anything from the other end of the phone.
She even vaguely thought that she could no longer hear his breathing.
“I,” Yuan Chuyu took a deep breath, seemingly struggling to organize his thoughts, “Chi Shu wouldn’t know that I haven’t been to the 17th floor during this time, you know that, right?”
Lin Langyi rolled over: "But he'll probably test me. I sent Cheng Yanjin to the police station with Chi Shu. I wonder if Chi Shu will say anything."
The breathing on the other side stopped again, like a heart submerged in water. Even the most intense beating would be swallowed up by the vast expanse of water, and you couldn't feel the weight of the heart through the screen.
He said softly, "You're not reminding me, you're telling me..."
"I just—" Lin Langyi was about to speak with her eyes closed, but he interrupted her without saying a word.
"It's late, go to sleep." He repeated the same sentence incoherently, "It's too late, get some rest, okay?"
Without waiting for her to say anything, Yuan Chuyu decisively hung up the phone first.
Lin Langyi turned to the side, holding her phone to her ear. She heard only a busy tone on the other end. After a couple of seconds, she took the phone down and put it aside.
...
Cheng Yanjin didn't return until nearly 4:30. After entering the room, he still moved very quietly, for fear of waking the people inside.
But Lin Langyi had already fallen asleep, so she didn't know exactly when he returned.
After all, he hadn't replied to her messages, so she naturally stopped waiting and decided to focus on getting some sleep.
Cheng Yanjin's casual T-shirt clung to his back in patches of sweat, making him feel uncomfortable.
He tugged at his collar and walked past the bedroom without stopping, not going in to see her as usual, but going straight into the bathroom.
He locked the bathroom door from the inside, then grabbed the collar of his shirt from behind his neck with his hands behind his back, bent down, and pulled the shirt off from the collar.
He carelessly tossed his clothes into the laundry basket, turned on the tap in the sink, and silently poured the rushing water over his head, drenching himself completely.
His arms were pressed down on either side of the sink, his wrists hanging down, his eyes wide open and expressionless as he watched the water in the sink swirl into a small vortex before flowing into the drainpipe.
The water on his head flowed into his eyes, making them sting and painful, but he didn't blink, letting his vision go from clear to blurry.
He had climbed up and down that building across the street several times, but he had forgotten which floor Chi Shu had come down from, so he could only run around like a headless fly.
11th floor? 17th floor?
At that moment, all his attention was focused on Lin Langyi, so he didn't notice the elevator floor number change at all.
His climbing the stairs was laughably foolish. Wandering in the stairwell in the middle of the night, he looked like a drunkard with a mental problem. He walked back and forth through those identical corridors until he was sweating but his palms were ice cold.
It was as if he was trapped in a nightmare, running up and down, with only the same layout in front of him. He was like a trapped beast in the fog, not knowing where his destination was or where the end was.
He couldn't find it, he simply couldn't find it. He couldn't tell which household was suspicious, or which household seemed suspicious in every way.
The more he walked and looked around, the more he felt a tightness in his chest, as if he were running a long-distance race in a state of exhaustion and had reached his limit. Every step before reaching the extreme point was like walking on the edge of a knife. The increasingly thin air and the physical breaking through his will gave him a sense of impending death and loss of control.
How can we believe what Chi Shu says?
How can someone of his low character be trusted with any credibility?
They even implied that there was another room across the street used for keeping mistresses... Utterly absurd! Yuan Chuyu—
Yuan Chuyu!
How could he?
Water got into Cheng Yanjin's ear, but he didn't lift his head. He reached around with one hand and slammed the tap shut.
Strands of wet hair clung to both sides, and the small streams that formed eventually turned into dripping remnants.
He slowly raised his head to look in the mirror, water dripping down his neck and onto his body.
He stared silently at himself in the mirror, paused for a moment, then suddenly raised his arm and slapped himself hard.
The slap, delivered with all his might, was ten thousand times harder than when Lin Langyi hit him.
Blood immediately gushed from her nose, mixing with the wetness on her face and spreading like paint into water.
Cheng Yanjin swallowed hard, braced his hands on the table, and looked up at the messy handprints on his cheeks and the bright red blood gushing from his mouth and nose.
As he looked at these things, it was as if he were looking at a stranger. He seemed oblivious to the pain, his brows and eyes remaining heavy and expressionless.
The same name appeared repeatedly in the mouths of different people, each time seemingly with conviction, yet also with ambiguity, leaving him alone with uncertainty and confusion.
The saying "three men can make a tiger" has planted a terrifying seed in his heart, even if he no longer believed it.
Cheng Yanjin stared at his reflection in the mirror, his gaze as cold as ice, as if he were not looking at himself, but rather at a mortal enemy with whom he had a deep-seated blood feud.
It's his fault.
It's his fault for doing wrong things before, it's his fault for having a hysterical episode that dragged Yuan Chuyu into this, and for feeling good about himself that everything was under control, thinking that everyone was like a chess piece without any senses, able to perform their duties in an orderly manner.
Cheng Yanjin slowly clenched his fist, extended his thumb to wipe the blood that had flowed down his chin, then used the back of his hand to push against the faucet, rubbing his two fingers together to clean it under the rushing water.
The bright red liquid was washed away by the water, becoming lighter and lighter until it disappeared completely. He hung his head, repeatedly wiping away the blood and rinsing it off until finally the bleeding stopped.
This time, no one put an ice pack on him, and no one held his face and gently blew on it to ask him if it hurt.
This time, there was no think tank to offer him advice, no opportunity to gather for comfort or to share a common hatred of the enemy.
He wanted one person, and only one person, to dig out the truth bit by bit.
*
Lin Langyi was woken up by something when she woke up in the morning.
The blanket was pulled down halfway, with half of it falling to the ground. A large clump of something was squeezed into the back half of the bed, also curled up between her knees.
Her thighs were clamped down, and hot breath sprayed onto her skin. Her still-unconscious mind dissipated before she could regain her senses.
She couldn't help but let out a soft moan, instinctively trying to close her legs, but someone, anticipating her move, tightened their fingers and pushed her outwards, making it impossible for her to escape even a fraction of an inch from beginning to end.
Lin Langyi finally caught her breath, bent down slightly to the side, reached down, and tried to pull out the person who had suddenly appeared under the blanket.
Cheng Yanjin grasped her groping hand, spread his fingers so that their fingers intertwined, then climbed up from behind the bed and touched her face, asking, "So you just woke up? Your enthusiastic reaction just now made me think you'd been awake for a while."
Doing hormonal work early in the morning can really make you feel refreshed. Lin Langyi watched him turn to the side to rummage through the bedside table for a T-shirt, put it on skillfully, and then turn back to reach out and lift her waist.
As she turned her head, she was startled to see the swollen handprint on his cheek, which immediately extinguished all her sexual desire.
Good heavens, what kind of criminal record is this? Did she do it?
No, was she really that ruthless at the hospital yesterday?
The night has passed, and instead of getting better, it seems to be getting worse.
The main issue is, what will people think of her if she goes to work with that face?!
"Wait, wait, wait!" Lin Langyi's waist was easily lifted by him with one hand, and with a slight pull, it bumped into his hard muscles, inseparable. "What's wrong with your face? It wasn't this red after I put an ice pack on it yesterday, was it?"
Cheng Yanjin's reaction was so indifferent that it was as if the slap mark wasn't on his face. He ignored it, instead focusing on looking down at the distance between them. Then, he placed one hand under her lower back and lifted her up, before pressing down on her and silencing her with a kiss.
He has always been fierce and ruthless like this. He grabbed her and wouldn't let her run away. When she finally couldn't say anything anymore, he uncontrollably switched to another one.
The romantic moment was interrupted when her phone rang. Cheng Yanjin told her to answer it, but she was already sweating on her neck and didn't care.
Helpless, he straightened up and, without stopping, reached out his long arm and grabbed her phone from the bedside table.
It was an unfamiliar number. Cheng Yanjin suddenly realized, "Ah, it's the breakfast I ordered. I just jotted down your number."
He held the phone to her ear as if to answer, but Lin Langyi shook her head desperately to resist and pushed his hand back. However, Cheng Yanjin shamelessly slid his finger and answered the call.
Her instep clenched, and he, provoked by her, pressed his raised arm back down. After a pause, he suppressed his voice and said into the phone, "Just leave it at the door, thanks."
He hung up the phone quickly, and just as Cheng Yanjin was about to lean down again, he suddenly remembered something, clicked his tongue, and said with annoyance, "I forgot to write down the house number when I wrote down the address."
He hesitated, asking if he should call back, but Lin Langyi quickly snatched the phone away, saying she would never do such a thing again.
She quickly unlocked the phone, intending to send a message to the person who had just made the call.
Cheng Yanjin suddenly exerted force, perhaps annoyed that she was falling too far, and even pulled a pillow under her waist. The angle changed, and her mind went blank. She gripped her phone and pressed the back of her hand to her lips, trying to stop the chaotic sounds that were spilling out.
The phone, still lit up, was snatched from someone's hand.
He said mercifully, "Never mind, I'll edit the text message."
Lin Langyi had no objections and was even eager to pass this hot potato to him, while she could just lie back and relax.
The light from the phone illuminated his deep-set brow bone. Cheng Yanjin held the phone in one hand, while supporting it with the other. The sound of typing came intermittently; he was typing a text message far too slowly.
Cheng Yanjin glanced at her silently, then quickly looked away and focused on his phone.
Contact records, text messages, food delivery app addresses, and then WeChat...
The tips for checking phones that I told Guo Yan's wife after the skateboarding competition ended up being used on myself.
Cheng Yanjin pursed his lips.
Perhaps fearing she might become suspicious, he maintained a good rhythm in his movements. After all, they had been together so many times that they were already quite familiar with each other, so it wouldn't be difficult for him to please her if he wanted to.
He was constantly on edge, both afraid that she would discover his little tricks and, like someone scouting ahead on a battlefield, afraid that he might actually step on a landmine and be blown to pieces.
The double pressure made it hard for him to breathe, and he couldn't bear the possibility of her gaze on him. In desperation, he simply turned her over.
Lin Langyi uttered a short syllable... "One or two of them like to use this trick."
With his back to people and his eyes hidden, Cheng Yanjin finally felt a little safe. He didn't dare to dawdle anymore and quickly went through all the records on various software.
There was nothing there.
It wasn't the kind of spotless cleanliness that comes after a thorough cleaning; the records on the phone were all normal conversations during work hours, with no private interactions between the two.
No other addresses in Dingpu Community appeared on food delivery apps or shopping apps.
The entire round of examinations finally put his heart at ease. Each of the ropes tightening around him had cut into his flesh, causing him excruciating pain, as if he were being torn apart.
Cheng Yanjin breathed a deep sigh of relief, put down his phone, bent down to hug her, kissed her shoulder blade, and then tenderly pressed his sweaty cheek against her shoulder blade.
His gaze was fixed on the side wall, unfocused.
Once a seed is buried in the soil, it is not covered up; it only delays the time it takes for the seed to germinate and grow.
He found that he could no longer completely relax because of this acquittal.
He wanted to try again with Yuan Chuyu.
Try this guy, the brother he trusted implicitly since childhood.
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