Jiang Xiaoyu tiptoed his way to Luo Xi’s doorstep. He didn’t rush to knock but instead stood outside, ears perked up, listening for a moment.
The TV inside was blaring pretty loudly. Not only did it drown out any other sounds, but his sneaky behavior also drew suspicious stares from a nearby auntie who was about to head out to dump the trash.
Jiang Xiaoyu awkwardly straightened up and quickly raised his hand to knock. A young voice came from inside: “Who is it?”
Before Jiang Xiaoyu could reply, the door swung open. Their eyes met, and both sides looked a bit surprised.
The one who opened the door appeared young, with brown hair and wheat-colored skin. His looks weren’t particularly striking, but he had some cute freckles on his face. His eyes were dark and dewy, giving off a healthy, youthful vibe—like an energetic high schooler full of enthusiasm.
“You’re…?” Jiang Xiaoyu asked.
The question was a bit backwards. After all, from their current positions, Jiang Xiaoyu was the visitor, yet here he was asking who the person inside the house was.
The young man’s face flushed red. Like a startled rabbit, he didn’t reply and just darted back into the house.
Luo Xi came over just then, holding a bunch of flowers he hadn’t finished trimming. “Who is it?”
Jiang Xiaoyu stared at his unfocused eyes and waved a hand in front of them. Seeing the man furrow his brows and say, “If you’re not gonna speak, I’m closing the door,” he finally spoke up: “It’s me, Jiang Xiaoyu.”
Luo Xi’s fine brows relaxed, and he smiled like a gentle breeze: “Officer Jiang? What brings you here?” His movements were a bit clumsy as he felt around the edge of the table and set the bouquet down. Then he bent over, hand outstretched, probing for the shoe cabinet near the entrance. He pulled out a pair of disposable slippers and placed them on the floor. “Come on in. Perfect timing—my little brother from back home is visiting today. Why don’t you stay for lunch with us?”
Jiang Xiaoyu slipped on the slippers and followed up on his words: “Your brother?”
Luo Xi hummed in affirmation. “The one who just opened the door.”
Jiang Xiaoyu casually scanned the room without a change in expression, helped Luo Xi to a chair, and asked, “He looks pretty young. Doesn’t he have school today?”
After sitting, Luo Xi reached out across the table a few times, found the flower stems and scissors, then groped for a vase. He measured the vase’s height against the stems to decide where to cut, chatting with Jiang Xiaoyu all the while: “He just looks young. He’s already over nineteen. He didn’t get into university, so his parents sent him here to help me out.”
There wasn’t anything off about that explanation. Jiang Xiaoyu swept the fallen leaves and clippings into the trash bin for him and asked, “What about Abu? Haven’t seen him around.”
“Abu was picked up by the Guide Dog Training Center this morning. It’s their annual intensive training. He’ll be back by evening.”
Jiang Xiaoyu watched as Luo Xi carefully inserted the trimmed stems one by one into the vase. In a soft voice, he asked, “Oh? So he went to the training center?”
Luo Xi’s lips curved into a nice smile. “Yeah, what a shame. I was planning to make braised pork ribs for lunch—Abu loves those. But he won’t make it in time for the fresh ones today. I’ll make some for him tomorrow.”
With that, he stood, picked up the vase, and slowly made his way to the coffee table, feeling along as he went. His movements were a half-beat slower, probably because he couldn’t see.
But Jiang Xiaoyu, watching his back, felt a chill creep from his feet all the way up his body.
Jiang Xiaoyu remembered the Labrador telling him that it had started out as just a regular dog, trained bit by bit by Luo Xi into a guide dog. It had never undergone any formal training. Back then, he’d been so surprised that he’d looked up the state of guide dogs in Ginkgo Country—shocked by how few there were. He’d even thought about training the strays at home into guide dogs.
But now, Luo Xi was saying Abu came from the training center.
He stood by the table for a long while, so long that Luo Xi noticed something and asked worriedly, “Officer Jiang, what’s wrong?”
Jiang Xiaoyu steadied himself and said, “Nothing. Just thinking about Jiang Fei’s case.”
At those words, Luo Xi’s brows furrowed even more, tinged with concern: “Still no leads? It’s been a while since it happened. Any suspects?” Realizing he’d asked too much, he quickly added, “Sorry, I forgot the police can’t disclose case details to civilians.”
Jiang Xiaoyu ignored it and asked directly, “After clashing with you that day, did Jiang Fei say where he was going?”
Luo Xi shook his head in difficulty. “No. He stabbed me and then ran off. That was the last I saw of Jiang Fei. You know the rest—Abu went out for help and ran into you.”
Luo Xi sounded frank, his tone gentle. Jiang Xiaoyu thought, yeah, that made sense. It was just his suspicions acting up. How could he suspect Luo Xi as the killer? He had no time or motive for the crime.
That was what his mind was telling him, but suddenly, the jade token at his neck turned ice-cold. His foggy mind snapped clear. He gripped the jade token and shot to his feet, alert: “What did you do to me?”
A flicker of surprise crossed Luo Xi’s refined face. In just two or three seconds, a hint of a smile tugged at his lips: “Weird. It didn’t work?”
Jiang Xiaoyu’s mind cleared completely, and he suddenly remembered his last visit here. He wasn’t the type to get along easily with people—how could a single meal make him feel so comfortable around Luo Xi? Feel like they were friends?
His whole body went on guard as he backed toward the door. “You’re not blind. Last time I was here, you caught the knife mid-swing. I’d completely forgotten about that. Who the hell are you? Is this your ability?”
Luo Xi saw there was no hiding it anymore. His previously unfocused eyes quickly regained their sharpness. With a troubled expression, he said, “Trouble. You figured it out.”
Just as Jiang Xiaoyu had quietly pulled out his phone to call the cops, the young man burst out from the room, looking panicked: “Officer Jiang, it really has nothing to do with my master! That scumbag really wasn’t killed by my master!”
Luo Xi looked utterly defeated. He pinched the bridge of his straight nose and patted the sofa beside him. “Abu, come here.”
Jiang Xiaoyu had already hit the alarm button. Steadying himself now, he said, “So you really are Abu.” He’d overheard the Teddy downstairs and started suspecting the Labrador was a shapeshifter. Especially after the Ye Lian incident, he knew the shapeshifter files hid a system with info they couldn’t access.
But he’d learned from past mistakes not to blurt it out. Instead, he asked, “Shapeshifters are all registered. Why aren’t you in the police database?”
Luo Xi started to speak, but Abu got feisty and covered his mouth: “You shut up! I’ll explain myself!”
Luo Xi looked helpless, kissed Abu’s palm, and stood. “Alright then. Your master will go make you some food.”
Luo Xi headed to the kitchen. Jiang Xiaoyu’s nerves stayed taut. Abu’s face was full of apology: “Sorry, Officer Jiang. I lied to you. Actually, after I found out you could turn into a cat, I wanted to tell you I could turn into a dog too. But I was afraid it’d cause trouble for my master, so I kept quiet.”
Jiang Xiaoyu was wary of Luo Xi, but he couldn’t muster any defenses against Abu. Sitting on the sofa edge, he told Abu, “Turn back into a dog first, then we’ll talk.” That way Luo Xi wouldn’t understand if he overheard.
Abu didn’t get it but obeyed anyway, instantly turning into a creamy-white Labrador.
Jiang Xiaoyu repeated the question. Abu woofed once in reply: “Because I started out as a human. Around ten, I got a high fever and suddenly turned into a dog. I panicked—my family all ran off, leaving me alone like this. That’s when I met my master, who was resting in the countryside. I’ve been following him as a dog ever since.”
“So not only do you have no shapeshifter registration, you don’t even have human identity records?” Jiang Xiaoyu asked.
Abu nodded. “Yeah. At first, master thought I was just a regular dog. His eyes were already bad by then—he could barely see. So he took me in. Life after that was pretty good. As a human, no one wanted me and I was always starving. As a dog, I had food and shelter. Master was great to me, so I decided to be his eyes.”
Jiang Xiaoyu glanced up at Luo Xi, now bustling energetically in the kitchen without his pretense. He asked, “Then how come he can see now?”
Abu got mad at that: “He’s a jerk! He’s had his sight back for over a year but never told this dog! Even found himself a scumbag boyfriend! Made this dog so worried!”
Jiang Xiaoyu recalled Luo Xi mentioning he’d met Jiang Fei after arguing with Abu. He’d wondered back then how anyone argues with a dog. Now it clicked. He pressed: “What did you and Luo Xi fight about back then? Enough that Luo Xi went out and met Jiang Fei?”
Abu got all riled up again, grabbing a nearby throw pillow in his mouth and thrashing it fiercely: “Because he’s an old pervert! When I was eighteen, he caught me shifting back to human form! Then he—he wanted to do that kind of thing with me…”
Jiang Xiaoyu was baffled. “That kind of thing?”
Abu barked loudly: “Mate!”
Jiang Xiaoyu was thunderstruck, his brain nearly grinding to a halt: “But… you’re a dog??”
It was hard to imagine seeing shame and annoyance on a dog’s face. Abu said, “I have a human form, okay! Anyway, I disagreed, so he picked a fight with me, went out drinking, and then met that scumbag!”
Tears actually welled up in Abu’s eyes as he spoke. “Old rogue! Big liar! He said he liked me, but then found someone else to be his boyfriend! He just wanted to piss me off! He just wanted to mate with me!”
Abu cursed a few more times, then couldn’t hold back and shifted back to his human form. Naked, he dashed straight into the kitchen and pounded Luo Xi’s back twice. “Bastard! Shameless!”
A crack finally appeared on Luo Xi’s calm and composed face. He quickly glanced around, grabbed a nearby tablecloth to wrap Abu up, then turned to Jiang Xiaoyu and said, “Sorry you had to see that.”
Jiang Xiaoyu was covered in black lines, finding the situation’s development too bizarre… He had clearly come to investigate a case, not to watch a lovers’ quarrel. He said gravely, “Let’s get back to Jiang Fei’s case.”
Abu, wrapped in the tablecloth, grew anxious again upon hearing this. “Jiang Fei’s death really has nothing to do with my master!”
But Jiang Xiaoyu remained wary and no longer took their words at face value. He asked Luo Xi, “Was the injury on Jiang Fei’s head from your argument?”
Luo Xi was about to answer when Abu blocked him. “Don’t lie anymore. I’ll take responsibility for my own actions!” He turned to face Jiang Xiaoyu and said, “The injury on that scumbag’s head was my doing. When I went out to report to the police, I had just reached the stairwell when I heard him on the phone on the stairs leading to the rooftop. His back was to the stairs, so I quietly snuck up and pushed him down.”
He said steadily and resolutely, “I injured him, but I didn’t kill him. After pushing him down, I panicked too, but thinking of my master’s injury, I still left him there and ran out to report to the police. By the time I came back, he was already gone…” He paused, his classic droopy dog eyes growing wet. “I won’t deny what I did; I’ll take responsibility. I was also the one who blinded that driver’s eyes!”
Luo Xi’s face turned cold upon hearing this. He pressed Abu’s head into his chest and scolded, “What nonsense are you spouting? What driver?”
Abu, eyes red, pushed him away. “I don’t want to lie anymore! And I don’t want you finding someone else to take the fall for me by dating that scumbag!”
Jiang Xiaoyu gave the two time to argue. After watching Luo Xi coax Abu, he asked, “Was your knife wound really inflicted by Jiang Fei?” The knife had landed perfectly, avoiding any internal organs—not something one could believe easily.
After he asked, Luo Xi showed no reaction, but Abu exploded. Protecting his master, he said, “What do you mean by that? Master was hurt like that! How can you ask such a thing?”
Luo Xi patted Abu’s head and softly comforted him before saying, “Of course it was him.” He curved his eyes, half-hiding the light in them. “However, the reason he stabbed me was because I gave him a little mental suggestion. I wanted to shake him off, but he kept using the fact that Abu injured that driver as leverage to blackmail me into continuing to act as Yang Guo’s gun. The simplest way to resolve it was to have him injure me.”
This guy was ruthless. To cover for Abu’s assault, he roped in Jiang Fei as the fall guy. And to ditch Jiang Fei, he chose to get himself stabbed.
Abu, hearing Luo Xi say this, filled with disbelief in his doggy eyes. “How could you hurt yourself like that!?”
Luo Xi cooed softly, “This was the fastest way.”
This time, Jiang Xiaoyu interrupted them. He asked, “Are you a shapeshifter?”
Luo Xi laughed helplessly. “My ancestors carry box jellyfish transformation genes, but unfortunately, I didn’t fully inherit them. I only have a bit of toxin. Just a bit, but enough to plant mental suggestions. The last time you came, you saw me take the knife, and I worried it would cause unnecessary trouble, so I used a little suggestion on you too. Sorry.”
The police, who had already arrived outside, were knocking on the door. Jiang Xiaoyu asked his final question. “Did you kill Jiang Fei?”
Luo Xi said solemnly, as if making a vow, “No. After Jiang Fei left, nothing that happened to him had anything to do with me.”
His expression didn’t seem fake. Before the Ji Wangan and Jiang Fei cases, Jiang Xiaoyu might have truly believed him. But after those two cases, he had learned how good people’s acting skills could be, that dogs could lie too, and that there were secret files in the world that ordinary police couldn’t access.
He calmly opened the door. As the police outside surged in, he said to the two, “The rest will be thoroughly investigated by the police.”
Luo Xi smiled gently and kissed Abu’s forehead. “Of course. I’ll cooperate fully.”
