Silver Snow Line [Criminal Investigation]

"...Combining these points, the murderer may have been a policeman."
Xie Qingfei said: "Do you remember our previous inference? The murderer was a manual worker, agile, but he changed his job because of a leg injury."
"No, wait a minute," Lu Shaohui felt a little confused, "I can't quite accept it, let me think about it."

From this point, we can trace back the various doubts in the previous investigation process and find that they can be matched one by one. He is very familiar with the roads and buildings in the entire Tianning District, so he was able to lock on Kang Wenxia's home. He can always accurately avoid the shooting range of the surveillance camera, perhaps because of the experience accumulated in his years of work. His body shape, skills, and even his appearance that does not arouse suspicion will all contribute to his criminal process.

If he was not a policeman with rich criminal investigation experience, it would be difficult for him to handle the scene so flawlessly. But if he was a policeman, a law enforcer whose purpose was to fight crime... why did he become like this?

When Wei Cheng arrived, he saw the two men standing at the door, each guarding one side, as if they were competing to see whose eyebrows were more complicated.
He stopped in confusion and asked, "Do I have to scan the code to get in?"
Lu Shaohui gave him a smile that was uglier than crying, and said, "You've come just in time. It's getting late. Please send Captain Xie home. We'll talk about the rest tomorrow."
Wei Cheng looked at Xie Qingfei: "Shall we go?"
Xie Qingfei followed him in silence.

Lu Shaohui lowered his head again, raised his foot to look at the herringbone pattern on the sole of his shoe, and covered his eyes in frustration.

"This is the first time I hope that my judgment is wrong. If the other party is really..." Xie Qingfei said weakly, "Forget it. What did Pu Yu talk to you about? Did she cry about her difficulties and want you to persuade me to forgive her?"
Wei Cheng shook his head: "No, she said she knew she was wrong."
Xie Qingfei was slightly startled, then he smiled: "It's really rare."

"Pu Yu told me that the rescuers had determined the floor structure at the scene and that both Lei Heng and I could be rescued. No matter who came first or later, it would not affect the safety of the other person, so she asked people to rescue me first." Xie Qingfei said, "But there was a small explosive hidden in the mezzanine that had not been detected. Just after I was rescued, the second explosion occurred and Lei Heng lost a leg. Maybe it shouldn't be said in terms of causality, but for me, I can be the one who is rescued last, and I can bear the damage with him again, but he can't suffer misfortune after I am rescued because he was not chosen first."

The bare branches were covered with white snow, which bent the tree trunk. Xie Qingfei grabbed a slanting branch and pulled it down. The snow flakes fell off and the bent branch stood up again. If all suffering can be cured so easily, why can a man who once stood tall and upright only rely on a cane to stand up straight again?

Wei Cheng said: "Lei Heng may not think so."
"Yes, he won't blame me, because we are comrades who fought side by side, and we both hope that the other can live well, but..." Xie Qingfei felt that the snowflakes were still too cold, and her hands were shaking with cold, "We will both be in pain."
What bothered her even more was that if Lei Heng had been rescued first, she would not have been seriously injured to the extent that she needed to be amputated, judging from the position where she was pressed and the impact range of the second explosion. "Unexpected" and "it would not have happened", this sudden situation was characterized as an "accident", and Lei Heng became an unlucky person who was not favored by fate. She didn't know who to blame except to accept her fate.

Xie Qingfei couldn't hear any sound, so she could only ask Pu Yu to save Lei Heng quickly. Later, she found out that her request was not fulfilled and indirectly led to Lei Heng's tragedy. Of course, she had to question Pu Yu. In this matter, Pu Yu did have selfish motives. She didn't know there would be a second explosion. For her, the decision to save Xie Qingfei first was not wrong, but she said the wrong thing -

"You are my apprentice, I will definitely save you first. What's the point of you making a bunch of assumptions now? Even if I was faced with a choice between two options, I would choose you."

Wei Cheng recalled the scene that Pu Yu had described to him.

"Are you surprised? Is there anything you don't understand? You are more suitable to be a policeman than him, so if only one of you can survive, I will of course let you survive." Under Xie Qingfei's incredulous gaze, Pu Yu wrote down his thoughts and showed them to her. The monotonous words were colder than the words she could hear with her own ears.

"It turns out that in her heart, human lives are divided into different levels. I am very 'honored' to be considered as something valuable by her. She would be anxious if her own things were lost, so how could she have the leisure to retrieve irrelevant things?" Xie Qingfei said softly, "I just think it's too funny. She is so great that she can sentence someone to death without thinking about it. I really have never really known her."

"So what she said was quite right: there is no point in making assumptions after the fact. No matter what her reasons were, I can see that she was serious when she said these words, so I am not interested in making excuses to forgive her. That won't bring back Lei Heng's health."

Wei Cheng thought, this is really a deadlock that is difficult to break. Regardless of whether Pu Yu said something that rubbed salt into Xie Qingfei's wound or not, this thorn will always exist between her and Lei Heng.

"Lei Heng is more than just an ordinary colleague in my heart. I don't have many close friends, so I cherish my friendship with him, but it turned out like this." Xie Qingfei said dejectedly, "Even if he says he doesn't blame me a thousand times, I will still feel that his health is sacrificed for me. I can't convince myself."

Xie Qingfei didn't speak again for a long time. The two of them tacitly didn't drive and walked slowly in the quiet streets late at night.

A few snowflakes stopped on her long eyelashes. Wei Cheng suddenly leaned over and looked into her eyes.
Xie Qingfei's breath held.
His move was actually a feint to the east and attack in the west. The next moment, she was pinching her earlobe.
Xie Qingfei immediately covered his ears and brushed his palm across the back of his fingers: "What are you doing?"

"Does it hurt?"

"It doesn't hurt," Xie Qingfei said, then he remembered something and answered again, "I don't feel anything."

Wei Cheng stared at her in silence, and then grinned after a while: "That's right, I guess you don't feel as bad as I do." "Let's not talk about the fact that this happened many years ago, there's no need to mention it deliberately, even if I tell you, it won't change the results that have already occurred." Xie Qingfei deliberately said unhappily, "Are you dissatisfied with your usual good mood and want to find some trouble?"

She described her life-threatening experience as light as a snowflake, guessing that this person must have worried a lot along the way that she might die by accident.
Wei Cheng was indeed very scared, he even felt lucky that Pu Yu decided to save Xie Qingfei first.

"So you feel sorry for me." He sighed with emotion.
Xie Qingfei didn't choke him this time, and said seriously: "Do you understand now?"
Wei Cheng was stunned.
"Don't you really understand why you're worried about me? Do you have to see you as sad as I am to be satisfied?" Xie Qingfei said, "I'm not a sadist. I don't have these perverted hobbies. You hope I'm safe, and I hope you're happy. There's no contradiction. Or did you never expect a response from a heartless bad woman like me?"

"Wei Cheng, have you ever thought of asking me for something? Anything, as long as you ask."

"I..." Wei Cheng didn't expect her to say these words. He almost didn't dare to think deeply about what she meant. He paused for a moment, at a loss, and seeing the hot air coming from the store next to him, he slowly said, "I want to eat chestnuts. Buy them for me."
Xie Qingfei seemed to smile, and soon put a bag of freshly roasted chestnuts in his arms: "Now it's my turn, I want you to peel them for me to eat."
Wei Cheng couldn't help but say, "I was the one who did this job originally."
Xie Qingfei said: "Things are different now. Who knows if she is not your girlfriend and still has the qualifications to trouble you to do it yourself."
Wei Cheng stuffed a chestnut into her mouth: "Even when you were unknown and had no status, I never saw you eating less."
Xie Qingfei puffed his cheeks and snorted, "It seems like you have a lot of resentment about this."
"I have always been full of resentment. My generosity is the least noticeable of my many virtues."

Wei Cheng lifted the hood of her down jacket, and Xie Qingfei was immediately filled with snow. He was so angry that he chased after him and beat him. The naughty guy relied on his long legs to run several meters away in a blink of an eye, forgetting that the snow on the ground also had a temper. He slipped and lost his balance, and was hit on the shoulder by Captain Xie who came to catch him, and the two fell into the snow together.
Wei Cheng lifted her up by her armpits and placed himself on the ground. Xie Qingfei was stunned for a few seconds after hitting his chest, and when he came to his senses, he picked up a handful of snow and stuffed it into his collar. Wei Cheng was so cold that he begged for mercy, shouting that he was wrong, wrong, and wanted to fight back when he got the chance, but his criminal intentions had been predicted in advance, and his hands that were about to cause trouble were locked in front of him in time by Xie Qingfei.

"Do you dare to attack me again?"

She looked down at him condescendingly, with a smug smile on her eyes and eyebrows, her hair and face cast a golden light by the bright orange street lights. Wei Cheng found that his heartbeat was getting more and more intense, and the surging heat could almost ignite the ice and snow.
His Adam's apple rolled up and down, and he said in a deep voice: "I don't dare anymore."
Only then did Xie Qingfei let go of his hand.
Wei Cheng propped himself up and sat up, getting closer to her: "Then how are you going to punish me?"

His hair and eyelashes were covered with snow, and his Adam's apple was slightly pink under his cold white skin. Xie Qingfei blinked, and read a subtle hint of inappropriateness from his words. He quickly pushed him away and stood up, shaking off the remaining snow on his body: "I'll let you go this time."
Wei Cheng sighed in disappointment: "It turns out she is a lady who is kind and gentle to women."
"You are so shameless," Xie Qingfei heard someone compare him to Xiangyu for the first time. However, considering that Wei Xiangyu was indeed quite beautiful, Xie Qingfei raised his hand mercifully, "Then I order you to escort this lady home."
Wei Cheng raised his arm and gave her a hand: "Yes, sir."

We have already walked such a long distance, there is no need to take a taxi.

Wei Cheng followed Xie Qingfei around and saw the familiar iron gate in his memory. He asked curiously, "Have you moved back here?"
The apartment Xie Qingfei lives in now was bought after he graduated from college. He used to live in this old house. When he was in high school, Wei Cheng often found excuses to come visit him.

"We moved back two days ago," Xie Qingfei said, "Hehe is too energetic. The apartment is too small to accommodate him. He can do whatever he wants here."
Wei Cheng raised his eyebrows: "Haha, who is it?"
He was answered by a cat's meow.
As the iron gate was opened, Wei Cheng staggered when he was pounced upon by a huge leopard-print creature.

"Haha, that's the new name I gave it."

Wei Cheng was visibly shocked by the size of this "ferocious cat". Xie Qingfei watched with gloating, sighing: "It's been a long time since we last met, how come it still likes you so much?"
This time he didn't carry the masochistic cat around casually. He said speechlessly, "You'd better lock it up, otherwise the neighbors will misunderstand and report you for raising a leopard at home."
"Really? I think it looks more like a pig." Xie Qingfei opened the door, and the first thing he did was to replenish the little ancestor's food and fodder. "The monthly food expenses are killing me. When it grows up to the point where it's New Year, the owner of the pig farm will ask me for advice on how to raise it."

Haha, it seemed like it could understand human language. It meowed in dissatisfaction, jumped onto the shoe cabinet with its long legs, and squatted next to a courier box.

Xie Qingfei was stunned: "You can also pick up express delivery?"
After saying this, he felt that his idea was too far-fetched and glanced at the box curiously.
Wei Cheng asked: "What did you buy?"
"I didn't buy anything." Xie Qingfei didn't find the delivery slip on the box, so he cut the tape with a knife. "Except for you, few people know where I live..."
Her voice stopped abruptly.

Wei Cheng lowered his eyes and saw that there was a human hand in the box.

Xie Qingfei quickly calmed down and turned on all the lights at the door. The dazzling beams of light illuminated the dark corners of the box. The two saw that the flesh and blood at the broken ulna and radius were fresh, and this right hand, which was obviously a woman's, was well-maintained and painted with nude manicure. There was a familiar number carved on the back of the hand with a knife: No. 5.

(End of this chapter)