The intermediary store was open until eight o'clock, and Wang Shiqi stepped on the hurdle of 7:59 to push open the glass door, and bumped into Gu Tianqing head-on with his bag to get off work.

"Okay, go out for a drink, right?" He grinned and hooked the other party's shoulder, not giving him a chance to refuse in public: "There are some things I want to talk to you about." ”

Gu Tianqing looked at him with some vigilance, and the words "Are we very familiar?" were written in his eyes. Wang Shiqi had no choice but to lower his voice: "About your sister." ”

The other side had a pause, and his feet had been taken away by him.

To be honest, Wang Shiqi didn't expect to know so much.

At the barbecue stalls along the street, after three rounds of drinking, Gu Tianqing's ears were already red. Wang Shiqi asked him: "What does Hu Liqin have to do with you?" ”

"Didn't you already know? Slept in a relationship with the same woman. ”

"More than that." Wang Shiqi took the scanned copy and shook it in front of his eyes: "He has a death report of Li Weiwei in his hand, and Li Weiwei's death has nothing to do with your sister Gu Tianyu." Do you think just sleeping with the same woman will make him keep this? ”

"I ......" Gu Tianqing saw the piece of paper, the well-maintained mask seemed to be suddenly broken, he snatched it over and looked at it, his fingers trembling and crossed the cause of death column. Wang Shiqi wanted to take it back, but he was held down by his big hand, and he couldn't shake it in the slightest.

"Don't tell me Li Weiwei is your girlfriend, I won't believe it."

Gu Tianqing lowered her head, and her eyes suddenly turned red. He choked up for a moment before he spoke: "Doctor Hu, he blackmailed me. ”

This time it was Wang Shiqi's turn to be surprised.

"He heard about my sister from Meng Xue, and felt that this was a trick, he took this to ask me for money, otherwise he would make trouble and everyone around me would know."

Gu Tianqing said that when his sister had an accident, he was still a month short of turning 18 years old.

Originally, he thought he was an ordinary person in the world, a well-off family, both parents, grades were not up or down, hobbies were basketball and games, three or five friends around him, and there was a crush girl in the next class.

Except for the sister of a mother's sibling.

Twins are rare in their small town, and dragon and phoenix fetuses are even rarer. I heard from the neighbors that when the two of them were just born, the people upstairs and downstairs who watched the excitement broke the threshold, went in and out, and sent out dozens of red eggs, all wanting to be happy. Gu Tianqing himself was not impressed, and by the time he was in middle school, his home was already very deserted, and even his relatives didn't move around much. Mom said, "It's not good, it's just bad luck." He knew that it was Gu Tianyu who was taboo for others.

Gu Tianyu was born a minute before him, his pupils were dark and round, his nose was white, and he looked like a doll in a shop window—just on the surface. In fact, adults say that the two of them went to the wrong side when they were reincarnated, because my sister has been a problem child since she was a child, irritable, hyperactive, and disobedient, and he will only follow quietly, like a trembling puppy.

He likes such a sister, although she snatches his eraser and ruler at every turn, writes homework on a desk, crosses the elbow slightly, and the sharpened pencil will poke mercilessly, but the sister will also be good to him, since he was a child, no one has ever dared to bully him at school - he knows that he has a sister who is not easy to mess with. He and Gu Tianyu slept in the same bed until he was six years old, and he was used to the milky smell of laundry detergent on each other's bodies. After growing up, the room was separated, but Gu Tianyu still liked to climb to his side, his cold toes were stuffed into the middle of his calves, and then a burst of moisture exhaled in his ears: "I have sugar." Do you want? ”

He sipped the strong sweet taste of melon and fruit in the dark, turned around and touched the soft tips of his sister's hair, and listened to her slowly talk about who he liked and who he didn't like, like sharing the same nutrients and oxygen in **, such a mysterious sense of intimacy.

When did this happen? Gu Tianqing's memory is a little confused, four years old? Eight years old? Ten years old? In short, it won't be seventeen years old, Gu Tianyu has already been sent away at that time, and it won't be fifteen years old, because Gu Tianyu's "bad luck" happened at the age of fifteen.

This is what Gu Tianqing only knew after he grew up, through the neighbors and friends' parents to hide and patchwork rumors: Gu Tianyu killed a classmate.

In Gu Tianqing's memories, it was a summer camp in junior high school, and Gu Tianyu's class went to Lushan Lake Park. At the end of the afternoon free time, the number of people was counted, and only two girls did not come back.

One is Gu Tianyu, and the other is Li Weiwei, who suffers from a slight stutter.

Originally, they just thought that they were playful and forgot the time, but as the sky turned dark, the adults began to become anxious. The parents and teachers who were summoned by phone searched for a long time with flashlights, and finally found someone under the steps of the pavilion in the middle of the lake.

Gu Tianyu squatted on the last level of the cement stone steps, the hem of the pleated skirt dragged in the water, staring at his eyes, trembling uncontrollably, like a little beast with wet fur. She clutched another miserable white hand tightly in her hand, and the owner of the hand, "little stammer" Li Weiwei soaked face down in the water, and her body was already hard.

It was the most difficult night for Gu Tianqing's parents.

Some people said that they saw Gu Tianyu and Li Weiwei leaving together, and some classmates proved that Gu Tianyu usually liked to bully Li Weiwei in class, and Gu Tianyu didn't say a word for the next few days, as long as Li Weiwei's name was mentioned, he would let out a terrible scream.

The family beat and beat my sister, and in the end, because there was no direct evidence, they could only admit their mistakes and lose money. Gu Tianqing didn't know what was going on, he only remembered that his sister had been locked for several days, and then he couldn't help it and stole the key to her house in the middle of the night. "Sister...... He whispered, and it was unusually cold under his bare feet, like stepping on a huge ice floe. It was pitch black in his sight, and he couldn't see where his sister was, and he couldn't even feel the breath of the other party. In the end, he found her behind the curtain, Gu Tianyu leaned on the windowsill, his face was white by the moonlight, Gu Tianqing went over to pull her hand, his cold fingers stiffened, and he didn't even shake it back.

"Sister...... What's wrong with you......" Gu Tianqing's small voice was filled with anxiety, Gu Tianyu finally turned his face, his eyes were like two stones, there was no light in them, and there was no heat.

"Tianqing......" She looked at him, as if she didn't look at him at all, "If I kill someone one day, will you tell someone to come and arrest me?" ”

Gu Tianqing hesitated for a while, nodded vaguely, and shook his head again: "...... You won't. ”

"What if? What if I did? ”

"You won't."

"I will. I am. I killed someone. Are you going to tell the adults? Go tell the police? Will you? Will? ”

Gu Tianyu suddenly approached, and his thin fingers tightly clamped Gu Tianyu's shoulders: "Say!" You say! ”

Gu Tianqing had never seen such a Gu Tianyu, such a panicked, hesitant, and frightened Gu Tianyu. He was at a loss, and tears flowed almost uncontrollably: "But...... You—You're my sister. ”

“…… Yes, I'm your sister......" As if soothed by his tears, Gu Tianyu suddenly softened, she took Gu Tianqing into her arms and gently touched his hair: "You are not a bad person, how can I be?" ”

The next thing, Gu Tianqing was a little blurry. He remembered that when he woke up from Gu Tianyu's bed the next day, his sister was gone. There was a dry mark on his chest, probably Gu Tianyu's tears.

Mother said that Gu Tianyu couldn't stay in the current school, and other schools didn't dare to accept her, and finally Gu Tianyu was transferred to a secondary school with a very bad reputation, nicknamed "Labor Re-education Direct Promotion Class", where she quickly learned to fight and club. Mom and Dad began to reprimand her more and more frequently, but Gu Tianyu didn't cry anymore, and the last time he lay down next to Gu Tianqing, the strong smell of smoke on her body made him sneeze.

"I'm pregnant." She said. "Men are perverts."

Am I too? He asked with his eyes, Gu Tianyu sighed and put his head on his stomach: "You will always be my younger brother." ”

Is this the reason why Gu Tianyu was finally sent away? Gu Tianqing didn't know, he only knew that when he came back from school one day, his sister was gone, along with her room, her clothes, and the leather notebook on her desk, which had been pinched in her hand all the year round. My mother said that my sister was sent to a "growth center", and a friend introduced Gu Tianyu to a mental illness, and the treatment there could make her a normal person. Gu Tianqing didn't feel that his sister was abnormal, he felt that they were just afraid, afraid of outsiders' pointing and pointing, and afraid of Gu Tianyu himself, after all, they hadn't eaten at the same table with Gu Tianyu for so long, and Gu Tianqing was in charge of carrying it every day and sending it into the locked room alone.

I wonder if she will be bullied outside? Gu Tianqing said, she is so stubborn and so strong, can others take care of her? Anyway, I thought, when I get into college, I'd better go and get her back. Mom and Dad wouldn't say anything, no matter what, it was their only daughter and my only sister.

But before he could reach adulthood, Gu Tianyu was already dead. The cause of death was suicide by falling from a building due to bipolar disorder.

Mom and Dad indifferently accepted the death notice, there was no funeral, and after a simple cremation, the family re-entered the daily pace. Gu Tianqing was successfully admitted to the university, successfully passed his coming-of-age ceremony, and the family held a few tables for him in a seafood restaurant for his twentieth birthday, and all his relatives came, everyone smiled and blessed him with wine glasses, no one mentioned Gu Tianyu, as if she had never existed, just an illusion he fabricated out of thin air. - No, it is not. He wandered around the empty house blankly,—— not like that. Gu Tianyu, I know you're still there, so you just hide behind the heavy curtains, waiting to give me a hug.

However, the curtains were even removed and thrown away. "It's all old." Mom said vaguely, Zhang Luo wanted to turn this place into a study. The construction team chiseled so loudly that he could only cover his ears and escape. In the middle of summer in August, there seemed to be a fireball rolling in the air, he walked on the road, the sun above his head was shining, but he lost his sense of the world - the last side of his sister was the one he went down to see, the incinerator was separated by a glass, and there were two buttons, one red and one green, like a huge elevator. The worker wearing a mask walked over, nodded indifferently, lifted the face cloth and let him take a look, or two? Gu Tianqing didn't remember much, he was too focused on the action of looking, but blurred the subject being seen, only remembered that the puffy little face flashed, and then Gu Tianyu was sent into the silver-gray door. Next door was the same elevator, the same face cover, and there seemed to be an old lady lying on the gurney, kneeling on the ground when the incinerator was opened, wailing and crying. Gu Tianqing didn't cry, she only felt dizzy.

Waiting upstairs, the machine spit out a list, let him wait to call for the ashes, he turned his head, his mother was leaning against the counter to select the urn, the eldest sister of the sales was wearing a tight blue skirt, her belly was hooped out, and her blood-red lips flew up and down: "It doesn't matter if the box is not good, my own family will not blame you." However, what about your family is not a villain, and it is a girl, yin and heavy, and the soul is incomplete, you have to put a jade, a set of four, first press the four corners, so that you will be born, and you will not come back to you, and then put this fortune five blessings, to the family prosperous, only in and out, from now on the steady ......" There was a half-pack of melon seeds on the table, the eldest sister let it, and the mother also grabbed a handful and swallowed it, and the saliva stained the skin of the melon seeds shiny, and spit on the terrazzo floor with a faint reflection.

"It's okay because it's a child? It's okay because it's a girl? Ten years later, Gu Tianqing hid half of his face behind the wine glass and muttered to himself through the strength of the wine. In the end, he couldn't stop Gu Tianyu from being put into a cheap box, the urn was cold, just like her body temperature was slightly lower than that of ordinary people, and her mother put the high-priced and inferior jade into the depths of the box one by one, Gu Tianqing counted them, seventeen, just one year old.

She is still a month shy of turning eighteen. She'll never turn eighteen anymore.

***

"I don't really care, but my sister is dead." There was a little bit of water reflected in those slender eyes: "Can you let her go?" ”

Wang Shiqi was dumbfounded. He expected a scandal, but he didn't expect it to be so tragic.

"I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't have said it at this time, but I still have to ask: where were you last Friday and Saturday? With whom? ”

"Why ......"

"You said that Hu Liqin blackmailed you, and now the other person is dead." Wang Shiqi stood up: "You'd better have an alibi." ”

The corners of Gu Tianqing's mouth turned imperceptibly: "Of course." ”

***

It was already the middle of the night when he got home, Wang Shiqi opened the door and met Zheng Yuan's eyes head-on. He hadn't slept yet, he sat straight at the dining table, and when he saw Wang Shiqi coming back, he greeted him rarely: "I have something to show you." ”

He spreads out a blank sketchbook that looks like a botched performance art — a pale black patch of thin lines that crowds the pages under the cover of transparencies.

"What is this?"

"I took the fingerprints. It may not be that precise, but I've tried to make sure it's as complete as possible......"

"I know it's a fingerprint," Wang Shiqi interrupted him: "Where did it come from?" Whose? ”

"The phone call the suspect made to me came from a public phone booth, and I got through early the next morning, and asked the old man at the newsstand next door to help protect the scene, and it contained all the fingerprints I could find."

"You ......" Wang Shiqi felt that the headache returned, and he reflexively began to touch the cigarette, but found that his pockets were empty, and a dry sweet smell welled up in his throat - he had smoked a little too much recently.

In the end, Zheng Yuan took out a pack of cigarettes from under the coffee table and handed it to him. Wang Shiqi touched his fingers when he took it, it was cold. This made him a little unbearable to say what he said next.

"That's right, first of all, you don't have the right to collect fingerprints in public spaces as physical evidence, second, I can't help you do fingerprint comparison without filing a case, and finally, how can you be sure that the suspect is not wearing a glove?"

Zheng Yuan stared at him stubbornly: "At least you admit that there is a suspect now, right?" ”

“…… Okay, even if it's true, although it's likely that this suspect's crime was just a prank on you. Wang Shiqi rubbed his eyes and lit a cigarette: "Take 10,000 steps back and say, even if there are fewer people making public phones now, and more than a dozen people use a phone booth every day, if I really compare something, what are you going to do?" Do you chase it yourself? In what name? ”

Zheng Yuan stopped talking.

"I know you may have a special interest in kidnapping cases, and I trust your usual instincts, but trust is not unconditional, in previous cases, intuition was based on evidence, not ...... and not a personal experience as a victim. Wang Shiqi paused for a moment, thinking in his heart how to say it so that it didn't hurt his feelings so much. I think the current chain of evidence is too much to take for granted. The link to the clues itself is weak, and the suspect, if he actually kidnaps anyone, is clearly a clever perpetrator. ”

"But I think ......"

"I don't care what you think, these actions are absolutely wrong now. If you guess wrong, you're violating someone's privacy, and if you guess right, you're risking your own life. ”

Zheng Yuan snorted a few times, probably wanting to refute but couldn't say why, Wang Shiqi sighed: "Lao Zheng, have you been ...... lately?" Thinking about the previous thing again? ”

"I don't." Zheng Yuan avoided his gaze, "The doctor said that I have been stable and improving. ”

Wang Shiqi was unmoved: "You can watch me speak first." ”

"......" Zheng Yuan was like a balloon that had been punctured, and it deflated in an instant. Of course, he knew that he couldn't hide it from him, and they had known each other for more than ten years.

"I know it's hard for you to get past the previous trauma." Wang Shiqi spit out every word: "If someone is really victimized, of course the case will be solved, but your starting point is wrong now." ”

"You don't have to."

"But ......"

"I said, don't worry about it." Zheng Yuan suddenly threw away the booklet in his hand, and buried his face in the palm of his hand: "I'm not crazy, I'm very sober, I can help, I can still be like before, do you understand?" His voice was tinged with sadness: "But—but—"

But he was like a drowning man, using every piece of driftwood he could catch as a lifesaver. He forgot that he was in the ocean, that it was not enough to just float, that he needed a boat to cross him to the other side of liberation.

Find the "lakeside" is the boat.

"I know......" Wang Shiqi hesitantly raised his hand, as if to pat Zheng Yuan's head, but when he came to the end, he took it back: "I believe in you, okay." I promise you that no matter what you say, I will believe you unconditionally. ”

"It's not enough to believe."

"I will, I will—just, give me a little time—" Wang Shiqi was forced to the point that there was no way, Zheng Yuan stared at the bloodshot in his eyes, and his tone weakened: "It's me who has gone too far." ”

"Forget it."

"I'm sorry."

"No, I'm not blaming you......"

"I know." Zheng Yuan lowered his head: "But, I'm sorry. ”

Wang Shiqi sighed, turned around and hugged Zheng Yuan's shoulder.

"Don't say it. Who am I to forgive you? He sighed: "How did you forgive us when something like this happened?" ”

Zheng Yuan didn't speak again, he rested his chin on Wang Shiqi's shoulder, and no one moved. After a while, Wang Shiqi's voice came to Zheng Yuan's ears vaguely: "This ......"

"Huh?"

"This one looks familiar." Wang Shiqi took a step back, holding the booklet in his hand, and the open page was rudely folded, where there was an incomparably clear palm print, as complete as the moon in the Mid-Autumn Festival. It's just that there is a canyon-like trail in the middle of this moon, straight and narrow, wide at one end and narrow at the other.

- It was a scar. Wang Shiqi thought that not long ago, he seemed to have seen it on the palm of Gu Tianqing's hand over the cup.