Dangerous Personality

w what happened during the kidnapping case.
I just know that before we still had Xie Feng, and now Xie Feng isn’t here and there’s no one who can keep him in check.
If we invite him in, could you control him? Who’s capable of controlling him!?”

 

–

 

Xie Lin was completely unaware there was also an “old friend” at the scene; at that moment, his attention was captured by the thin paper caught in that silver Scottish Fold’s claws.

 

He pulled off that half-piece of thin paper, bringing it closer to take a look, discovering that it was a price tag from a kiosk shop with a white background and red border.
It was already crinkled beyond recognition, and after it had been soaked in blood you could only vaguely see a “person” radical.

 

(t/n: the “person” radical is the one that looks like this 人 or this 亻.
It’s super common, so basically, on its own the writing on this tag is not very helpful)

 

–

 

“Are there really people who can break cases at fifteen?”

 

“Does that type of person really exist? Apart from the Detective Conan anime—I still find it hard to believe.”

 

When Ji Mingrui got off work, he drove directly to Chi Qing’s apartment.
His main reason for going to Lord Chi’s home was because it was on the way; Chi Qing’s apartment was not even two kilometers away from the Haimao xiaoqu.
As soon as he got in the door he collapsed onto the sofa, lying there and questioning his life.

 

Ji Mingrui flipped himself over on the sofa, lying sprawled out on his back.

 

Ji Mingrui continued to lament, “It's so over the top, what was I doing when I was fifteen!”

 

Chi Qing, “Buying height-raising shoe inserts.
Begging me to let you copy my homework.”

 

Ji Mingrui, “……”

 

Chi Qing continued, “Chasing after the girl in the class next to ours, and when you failed you cried for an entire hour, and then you wanted to wipe your tears on my shirt, so after you finally managed to stop crying, getting beat up by me made you start up again.”

 

Ji Mingrui, “…………”

 

Chi QIng, “Do you still want me to help you remember.”

 

Ji Mingrui instantly sobered up, “There’s no need, thank you.”

 

Right as Chi Qing was speaking, he was slicing some bread.
The open-style kitchen was icy cold without any smoke from cooking.
There wasn't that much kitchenware in his home, although there was an abundance of knives.

 

Ji Mingrui realized the light inside the room was poor, standing up to turn on the lights, “What kind of nocturnal animals are you, not even afraid of cutting your hand in the pitch darkness.”

 

The room that was dimly lit before was filled with brightness in an instant.

 

Chi Qing was startled by the flash of light, and the hand that was holding a knife to slice bread suddenly paused.

 

The shimmering silver blade deviated from its course, piercing directly into his finger.

 

Chi Qing, “……Do you have a death wish today.”

 

As Ji Mingrui apologized, he went to look for the first-aid kit, “It was my mistake.”

 

But before he had found the first-aid kit, he saw Chi Qing looking at the blood seeping out of his finger without any kind of a reaction, only dully bringing his finger up to his mouth, the blood instantly melting at his lips.

 

Ji Mingrui wanted to say you really are the reincarnation of a vampire, but his gaze unintentionally drifted over to the knife in Chi Qing’s hand.

 

It was a serrated knife.
The tip of the knife was long and thin, the blade arced in a curve.
The teeth were like a row of sharp canines, sparking with piercing cold rays of light.

 

—”The cross-section of the wounds aren't level; they have the traces of a sawing motion.”

 

—”They’re most likely from a serrated knife.”

 

Chi Qing, “What’re you looking at?”

 

Ji Mingrui locked his gaze on the knife in Chi Qing’s hand, “When did you buy that knife, where did you buy it, can you let me see it?”

 

Chi Qing didn’t ask why.
He flipped the knife around so that the tip was pointing at himself, and offered the handle to him.

 

And it was precisely the motion that caused Chi QIng to realize there was still a price tag he hadn’t had the chance to tear off stuck to the handle.
He tore off the tag in passing and said, “Roughly last week, by the street.”

 

The xiaoqu Chi Qing lived in wasn’t far from Haimao; a lot of the large-scale supports were shared within the district.
Ji Mingrui received the knife, looking and looking again, “You still remember which store?”

 

Chi Qing, “Bianmin Grocery.”

 

A rainbow fart came out when Ji Mingrui opened his mouth, “Sometimes I really admire that outstanding memory of yours……”

 

(t/n: 彩虹屁/ ‘rainbow fart’ – simply too great of a phrase to not translate directly lmao.
Refers to a fan offering fancy flatteries/praises to their idol)

 

Chi Qing took the tag he’d just torn off and stuck it to the back of his hand.
Ji Mingrui lowered his head to glance at it, and saw the grocery’s name “Bianmin” printed on it with a white background and red border, “……”

 

(t/n: the name of the store is written 便民.
The first character 便 has the ‘person’ radical on the left 亻)

 

–

 

Ding-a-ling—

 

The doorbell of an ordinary grocery five hundred or so meters away from Haimao rang.

 

Xie Lin glanced around the shop.
It was narrow and small, and from inside to out the decorations were all out-dated; all the furnishings were in the style from ten or so ago.
Even the price tags stuck to the products persisted with that old-fashioned type of habit from then until now.

 

Within a radius of two kilometers, the only shop that stuck such labels to their products was this grocery.

 

The door of the grocery entered into the snack area; the price stuck to the bags of potato chips was￥6.

 

This convenience store’s name was printed on a rectangular tag using characters with a blue background.

 

The section for kitchen supplies was further inside; Xie Lin grabbed a few bags of snacks as he walked in that direction.
On the inside, a dazzling line-up of kitchenware was arranged.

 

A few types of paring knives were arranged on the second layer of the shelf.

 

Because there were fewer uses for serrated knives, they couldn’t compare to the flat and smooth edge of the best-selling paring knife.
Thus, they were put in the innermost position, and there were still four left.

 

The owner of the grocery wasn’t present; the front counter only had a young boy resting his upper body on the counter doing homework.
He seemed to be accustomed to helping his family watch the store; when he saw that somebody wanted to check out, he put down his pen and started calculating the bill with a practiced motion.

 

A hand tapped on his homework book, “Kiddo, you picked the wrong answer for question three.”

 

The young boy glanced at the visitor.

 

Xie Lin picked up a pencil from off to the side and wrote down a simple formula on the draft.
After he finished writing, he spoke again, “Can you answer this question for gege—has anyone come to buy this type of knife recently?”

 

The boy took the snacks, looking at the serrated knife that was being bought and thinking for a moment, then saying, “Yeah.”

 

“A pretty gege with gloves on.”

 

________

 

木瓜黄’s author’s note:

Chi Qing: ?

Thrilled to receive a suspect

 

Translator notes:

Jiang Yu (姜宇, jiang1 yu3):

姜: a surname.
Shares the same character as ‘ginger’ in simplified Chinese, but I believe is just a surname in traditional

宇: ‘the universe’

 

Xie Feng (解风, xie4 feng1):

解: the same Xie as Xie Lin (unsurprisingly haha)

风: ‘wind’