Shen Wei had seemed determined not to speak much, but evidently this was a final straw. Brows furrowed, he said, “Smoking and drinking are bad for your health, and Officer Zhao is still so young. It’s best to do such things in moderation.”
Zhao Yunlan smiled but didn’t respond. Hidden by the cloud of smoke, his expression was impossible to make out. Fine ash fell from the cigarette’s tip; intentionally or not, some of it landed on Shen Wei’s shadow. Zhao Yunlan’s gaze swept across the floor, and then he wafted the smoke back toward himself. “In our field, day and night run together sometimes. It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but that does make it easy to develop bad habits.”
It seemed Shen Wei wanted to say something else, but as the words reached his lips, he bit them back forcefully. When he spoke again, it was on another topic entirely. “There aren’t many departments on the old campus, so there isn’t much faculty presence. On all eighteen floors here, only the south-facing offices are in use. Most of the other rooms are empty. Turn here and you’ll reach your destination.”
Mold and moss liked to grow in lonely, empty corners, but so did other things.
For whatever reason, the looping hallway of the building didn’t have curved corners; instead it had abrupt sharp angles, which were a huge taboo in feng shui. Superstition aside, it was visually jarring, and anyone approaching a turn had no view at all of what was around the corner. If two people happened to be walking toward the same corner from opposite directions, they would be on a collision course.
Shen Wei led the way, Zhao Yunlan followed closely behind, holding the cat, and Guo Changcheng brought up the rear. As they came toward a corner, Guo Changcheng had the sudden feeling that something was about to lash out of those dark shadows. He could no longer pay attention to the conversation, focused only on that corner ahead. There, dim light shone through a window that was open at a very uncomfortable angle. Its lattice shadow spread across the floor in a stark delineation of light and darkness.
At the edge of that shadow, Guo Changcheng noticed something moving, as if a person were hidden there and stealthily poking their head out. And then…a shape like a hand emerged!
The shadow hand’s fingers suddenly splayed wide, making a fierce grab for Shen Wei’s feet.
Shen Wei appeared oblivious, but Zhao Yunlan grabbed his arm and dragged him back half a step.
“Right, I just remembered something,” Zhao Yunlan said, tapping some cigarette ash into the shadow. The shadowy hand recoiled as if burned. “Where is my mind? We got this case in a rush, so I need to speak to the chancellor or their administrative assistant about what the school needs to do to cooperate. Would you be able to help us get in touch?”
Now, finally, Shen Wei looked at him. The corners of the professor’s eyes gently tapered into a line, slender and elegant, like a delicate brushstroke trailing off. The way his gaze slanted out through his glasses verged on seductive, in an otherworldly way.
He could have stepped out of a supernatural tale, like a scholar who stole the heart of a female ghost and whose image she’d lovingly captured in ink. In such stories, even if the subject of the portrait was as clear as the moon and as smooth as jade, this image of them would still inevitably be tainted by the artist’s sinful aura.
Shen Wei looked down, smiling shyly. The dark seductiveness had evaporated. “You’re right. I really can’t be of any help here, and I might even be a hindrance. The offices on the southern wall are all the math department. You can just go in and inquire. I’ll go speak to the chancellor.”
“Thanks.” Zhao Yunlan extended the hand he’d been keeping in his pants pocket and shook Shen Wei’s hand with a smile. After an unremarkable goodbye, he waved Guo Changcheng along and strode arrogantly into the office area, intern in tow.
For some reason, after a few steps, Guo Changcheng looked back.
Shen Wei had yet to take even a single step from the spot. He’d removed his glasses and was absentmindedly wiping them with the corner of his shirt. In the dim hallway, his shadow stretched out, long against the floor, looking lonely and dejected. The eyes that had so determinedly avoided Zhao Yunlan were now fixed on his back.
There was a dark distance in that intense gaze. His expression held both a sort of restrained yearning and an affection that was almost palpable…but at the same time, there was deep, crushing pain.
Out of nowhere, Guo Changcheng got the feeling that the man had been standing there for thousands and thousands of years.
Shen Wei watched Zhao Yunlan until he turned the corner, then finally noticed Guo Changcheng looking at him.
A polite smile spread across the young professor’s face. He put his glasses back on, as if donning a nonchalant facade. He nodded at Guo Changcheng in acknowledgment, then disappeared into the elevator, as though everything Guo Changcheng had seen was only the misconception of an apprehensive young intern.
“Director Zhao, that man, he…”
“Haven’t you realized that, wherever this is, it’s not the math department?” Zhao Yunlan interrupted. He reached out to wipe the heavy dust on a windowsill, carelessly rubbing the dust between his fingers. “We’re being taken for a ride,” he said evenly. “Do you think it’s a coincidence? Or did that Shen-laoshi do it on purpose?”
Perhaps because Zhao Yunlan looked relatively young, or perhaps because his attitude had been easygoing and warm the entire time, Guo Changcheng gathered up enough confidence to ask, “Then why did you let him go? If he brought us here on purpose, why…”
With one hand holding his cigarette and the other back in his pocket, Zhao Yunlan turned and looked at Guo Changcheng through the swirling smoke. Guo Changcheng’s mouth snapped shut.
“He’s an ordinary human—I checked. You’re new, so it’s okay if you don’t understand these things. We’ll teach you as you go.” Zhao Yunlan’s voice lowered. “In this country, we basically have the same authority as our colleagues in other departments. Even without proof, we can interrogate citizens, ask them to cooperate, suspect them, or even lawfully detain them and bring them in for questioning. But there’s one thing above all that: we absolutely do not have the right to keep an ordinary human in a dangerous situation. If anything happened to them, the consequences would be more than anyone could bear.”
His tone wasn’t harsh—quite the contrary. He was speaking very gently. Perhaps it was the shadowy frigidity of the hallway that made Guo Changcheng shiver.
Zhao Yunlan had already turned away. “As you can probably imagine, the cases that come to us don’t often go through the usual public prosecution procedures. Under certain circumstances, we have the right to deal with those particular wrongdoers on the spot. That kind of authority can be a dangerous thing, so there are rules we must abide by. Do you know what the first one is?”
Guo Changcheng shook his head slowly, then realized the other man had his back to him and hadn’t seen. He flushed in fresh embarrassment.
“Whether dealing with a human or a ghost, without conclusive proof, you must assume they are innocent.” Zhao Yunlan seemed to have eyes on the back of his head. Having answered his own question, he patted the black cat’s rump. “And you, Big Dumb Fatty—what was all that earlier? You were sucking up like a stupid dog!”
The black cat swiped rudely at him and jumped out of his arms, then strode aggressively to stand in front of them. “I just think there’s something strange about that Shen-laoshi. I’m not sure exactly what it is, but being close to him makes me very comfortable.”
“You also feel comfortable when you get close to wandering ghosts, and you especially love hiding dried fish in subterranean caves where corpses were hidden,” Zhao Yunlan pointed out icily.
“You know that’s exactly what I mean, dumbass human,” said the cat disdainfully with a fwip of his tail.
Guo Changcheng had no idea how to respond.
The hallway grew dimmer as they walked, as if they’d entered a dark, endless tunnel. Zhao Yunlan reached for his lighter. It lit with a flick, and the small flame danced restlessly, silently ripping a tiny hole in the boundless darkness. His smile had disappeared. In the firelight, his face had an unhealthy pallor, making him seem tired, but his gaze was intensely focused—darker, in a way, than what surrounded them. A rotting smell came up from the depths of the darkness. Guo Changcheng couldn’t help covering his nose.
“I hate circular halls like these,” Zhao Yunlan said softly. “I hate everything that circles around and around—life and death, again and again, unending.”
Hearing that stretched Guo Changcheng’s nerves as far as he could bear. And then there came a cracking sound, one that immediately made him think of the sound of a gun being cocked on TV. Before he could even ask, he felt the sudden sensation of a light exhalation over the back of his neck. He jumped.