“Women don’t have that kind of explosive power,” Fang Si Ting said. “This is misleading information.”
“Anyone who can disguise themselves this well has to be the killer,” Bai Zhu said as he clapped his palm.
“Speak with evidence. The top priority is finding him for questioning.”
The hotel staff had all been questioned thoroughly, but Xiao Fen noticed that the black-clad men had not left. Instead, they continued to watch him, the cleaner.
The Pursuit Team must have realized that the killer had entered the changing room but hadn’t changed clothes.
So, as long as they kept eyes on the hotel staff, even if the Action Team’s Vice Squad Officers couldn’t spot anything off, Fang Si Ting would easily lock onto him with a glance. It was only a matter of time.
Before they could take further action, Xiao Fen grabbed his bucket and rag and headed to the restroom outside the restaurant.
Sure enough, a black-clad man followed him. He pretended to use the toilet, watched Xiao Fen diligently wash the bucket, mop, and rag, then left the restroom—but still loitered outside in the hallway.
Five minutes later, when he heard no more running water from inside, Xiao Fen went in and found the man gone, leaving only the cleaner’s jacket and pants behind.
Xiao Fen had already hidden the suit he’d worn that day in the restroom.
“Suspicious person spotted in the restroom by the third-floor restaurant.”
Xu An’s groggy voice came through all the Vice Squad Officers’ earpieces. “That guy slipped out of the toilet and went into the stairwell.”
The hotel stairwells had no cameras, but Xiao Fen quickly noticed hurried footsteps from both above and below, closing in on him. He helplessly pushed open the safety door and ran out again, pretending to be an ordinary guest as he emerged.
But only a few people in the entire building would choose to take the stairs, and Fang Si Ting had already narrowed it down to the few who did.
Xiao Fen used the stolen master card to randomly swipe into a room and went inside.
“Boss,” Xu An quickly checked. “A man in a suit and glasses is very suspicious. He lives on the 19th floor too, took the elevator to the restaurant with Lu Jin before, went to the back kitchen, then inexplicably appeared outside the restaurant. Now he’s on the 8th floor.”
At that moment, Fang Si Ting’s leather shoes stepped onto the 8th-floor tiles.
“Which room?”
“Not sure. The camera angle missed it—just one of the middle rooms.”
Fang Si Ting pulled out his badge and master card. As he asked Xu An which one, his gaze caught the door hanger swaying slightly not far away.
He approached and saw the door was closed but unlocked.
He slowly opened it. The curtains were drawn inside, making the light dim.
No one was there, but the bathroom light was on.
He slowly approached the bathroom. No one.
He went in and suddenly yanked open the adjacent sauna room.
The person inside gasped, whimpered, and hurriedly covered their face with a towel.
Fang Si Ting immediately closed the door.
“Boss, did you find the killer?” Bai Zhu ran in after him and saw his odd expression. “What’s wrong?”
Fang Si Ting tapped his knuckles against his lips and coughed.
Bai Zhu tried to barge in, but Fang Si Ting held him back.
The person inside was steaming in the sauna.
He was naked, sitting at an angle with his back to the door. Amid the rising white mist, his sweat-slicked shoulders gleamed, his snow-white arms round and even. They shrank slightly in fright.
His plump, greasy buttocks were squished out of shape from sitting, his milky white back thin and slender, his fragile shoulder blades faintly visible in the light and shadow.
His head hung low, his spine curved in a soft arc, beads of glistening sweat trailing down, pooling in the dip of his narrow waist before flowing into the crevice.
The hazy steam blurred the view, the dim light muting the throat, creating an indescribably alluring scene.
He had unwittingly intruded on a lady.
His footsteps halted abruptly on the way out.
Why had he thought it was a woman?
A normal woman would have screamed and covered her chest first thing upon seeing a strange man barge in.
But this person hadn’t let out a woman’s shriek or a man’s instinctive cursing. Instead, he’d blocked his face with the towel, as if more afraid of others seeing what he looked like.
Fang Si Ting’s heart tightened. He turned back into the room and opened the bathroom door again.
The sauna door stood wide open. On the floor lay a pile of discarded suit, shoes, and socks. Under the long wooden bench was a man passed out cold—the room’s actual guest.
He’d been tricked.
That person had been changing clothes then—that had been the perfect chance to grab him!
A faint, penetrating fragrance lingered in the steam.
“What smell is that?” Bai Zhu sniffed, a bit unaccustomed to it.
“Cliff Cypress,” Fang Si Ting said, his voice heavy and muffled in the sauna room, as if dripping with water.
He walked to the bathroom window and looked out. The person was long gone.
He didn’t know that directly above and to the side, Xiao Fen—wearing a bathrobe, back pressed to the wall, barefoot on the outdoor air conditioner unit outside the window—stood watching.
His Live Stream Chat viewer count had broken 1.2 million.
【No wires—if he slips and falls, this show will go legendary.】
【Shut your stinking mouth.】
【Stop looking down, Brother Fen. Watching from your first-person view, I’m about to faint in front of my screen.】
【Does no one think Fen Treasure just deliberately lured someone in for seduction?】
【What are you on about? He was just too rushed and forgot to lock the door. Almost got caught—my heart’s been pounding.】
【But Fang Yama has a room card. Even if he locked it, they could’ve come in.】
【How’s his luck this good?】
【Luck? This is skill.】
The Live Stream Chat erupted in argument, then unified in screams.
Xiao Fen’s body dropped. His hands clamped onto the 8th-floor balcony edge, arm muscles bulging, veins standing out under his pale skin. With a fierce pull, he flipped neatly back into the bathroom.
【Those arms—hugging me would be effortless.】
【Sister, show some restraint. We’re all Fen Treasure’s mom fans.】
【I’m a guy.】
【???】
【When did our treasure get so manly?】
【What happened in that sauna room? What did Fang Yama see that made him close the door and let Brother Fen go after one look?】
【Definitely seduction—who steams naked otherwise?】
【Damn camera, damn Program Crew—show us! AHHHH!】
【Get lost! My Fen Treasure is sweet and sensible—he’d never do that.】
【My treasure has finally grown up.】
“Little Fire Seeds, that was a dangerous move just now. Please don’t imitate it.”
【Giving us too much credit.】
Xiao Fen shook out the collar of his bathrobe and walked out of the bathroom.
The room was empty now. He opened the closet and suitcase—the clothes from the guest he’d knocked out were still there. He picked an inconspicuous outfit, put it on, and left the room.
The moment his figure appeared on camera, Fang Si Ting’s earpiece exploded with Xu An’s “Holy shit.” “We just searched that room—how did you all miss him?”
They had just sent the now-awake guest downstairs, where he’d recognized the Program Crew and cheered excitedly, giving them a headache from the noise.
Fang Si Ting told Xu An to keep eyes on him and led his team to close in from above and below.
Reports kept coming through the earpiece.
“Suspect headed to the 13th floor.”
“Suspect sighted on the 17th floor.”
“Suspect figure on the 5th floor.”
“Suspect also on the 19th—5th floor, confirm identity. How is he in two places at once?”
The Vice Squad Officers ran up and down the floors nonstop but could never catch him.
They knew there was someone like this in the hotel, but they only ever glimpsed a shadow—like an omnipresent ghost sharing their air, yet forever out of reach.
Fang Si Ting heard the new lead in his earpiece at 6:26 a.m.
The Program Crew reminded them that five hours had passed since the victim’s time of death. The Pursuit Team had less than two hours left to crack the case and catch the killer.
Peng Xiaoxiao had finally spent three and a half hours to finish the sketch: a clean, pretty young man.
【She’s a god—this looks exactly like Fen Treasure!】
【Xiaoxiao, my goddess!】
【Big beauty, leave my Fen Treasure some underwear at least.】
【But didn’t you make Fen Treasure look too fierce? He’s very gentle.】
【This is painted with a killer’s expression—those crazy, scary eyes. Fen Treasure isn’t like that.】
【Have you not seen him kill Lu Jin? It’s exactly the same.】
【That guy who said handstand spinning shit—come demo it live.】
“What’s this guy’s background?”
Xu An spun his swivel chair around, hunching in it with his face half-hidden behind the monitor. “Xiao Fen, 23 years old, an artist under an entertainment company owned by Lu Corporation. Debuted over two years ago but barely took any gigs. Honest personality, even cowardly. Doesn’t socialize well. No online activity for over half a year. He doesn’t go online much himself, stays holed up. Very few traces online or off. Got cyberbullied end of last year, but no fame, so barely anyone knew.”
“Like a split personality. With acting this good, he should’ve blown up already,” Tang Shen said, clicking his tongue.
“Maybe it’s two different people. Could it be,” Peng Xiaoxiao hesitated, “we got the wrong direction? The great actor is someone else?”
In the first-floor yoga meditation room, Fang Si Ting paused at Peng Xiaoxiao’s doubt in his earpiece. He watched the Action Team’s Vice Squad Officers rush into a classroom and drag out a middle-aged man moments later.
This cleaner always slipped away under their noses, great footwork, highly suspicious behavior. But their original goal was just to question him.
What if he was just a smokescreen to stall for time?
He waved them off, letting the middle-aged man go.
“How’s the room card check?” Fang Si Ting asked.
Tang Shen shook his head. “Not from this hotel—Agate Hotel. Called them. The guy staying there these days is a foreigner, no connection to Boss Lu, Xiao Fen, Ou Yu, or anyone from the Program Crew. So I kept checking fingerprints on the scene evidence. Not done yet.”
“That new lead you mentioned?”
Tang Shen excitedly sent the test report to his phone. “The black tape binding Ou Yu had Ou Yu’s own fingerprints on it.”
Lu Jin, the victim, had gone to the main live stream room and sat down. Seeing the Pursuit Team’s analysis on screen, he fumed. “So what about fingerprints? It’s a frame job!”
“Didn’t he say he passed out? How’d he tape himself?” The others were shocked too.
“Recap everything,” Fang Si Ting said. He suddenly tensed and rushed into the yoga room—the middle-aged man from before had vanished.
Even the calmest gaze darkened.
Upstairs, Tang Shen and the others hauled in a blackboard.
“1:18 p.m., the cleaner—Xiao Fen—entered the room. 1:25, Ou Yu knocked and went in. 1:29, front desk got a call to send two outfits to the room in an hour. 1:31, Xiao Fen came out. After that, no one else entered or left except that server.”
“Assuming the cleaner did it, why kill Lu Jin but not Ou Yu? That would’ve been easy. Ignoring the surveillance sketch and real-life personality, based on the crime scene profile, this guy’s ruthless—kills without blinking, clean and efficient, no mercy, total confidence in his actions. Arrogant and proud. No way he’d spare Ou Yu,” Peng Xiaoxiao said.
“I have another theory.” Tang Shen stepped to the blackboard, marker in hand. “What if the cleaner really was just called to clean? Think about it—why did Lu Jin call for two outfits in their sizes an hour later, right after Ou Yu entered?”
Peng Xiaoxiao’s eyes widened.
Bai Zhu blurted out, “They got something going on?”
In the main live stream room, Lu Jin’s face flushed red, then turned ashen.
