【WTF, where the hell is Shen Li?!】
【He’s been off-camera for 20 minutes now. Shouldn’t the production team go look for him?】
【Yeah, it’s pitch black out there. This rundown village doesn’t even have streetlights. Shen Li’s leg is still messed up—what if he tripped and fell somewhere?】
【The production team is so irresponsible. Are they just not gonna say anything??】
【I’m dizzy. They had the camera on Shen Li, and suddenly they cut to Yang Zhiqi… You guys are ruthless.】
【20 minutes! We want to see Shen Li. We don’t want to listen to Yang Zhiqi’s multi-level marketing pitch! Why are you ignoring us?】
As the protests in the netizens’ comments grew louder, the expression on Liu Jinci’s face started to falter.
She glanced at the director, then at the newly updated teleprompter, forcing a smile as she spoke up to explain.
“Alright, the production team has seen the viewers’ demands. Here’s the deal—um, the director asked me to explain it to everyone: Shen Li has already left the security booth at the strawberry farm. We’re expecting him back at the cabin around 22:40. Also, to address why there’s no footage of Shen Li right now.
“Our live variety show has to balance screen time for all the guests within a reasonable range. Today, the fixed camera on Shen Li has already captured nearly nine hours of him, which is over the limit. The road back is too dark for mobile shooting, so we temporarily pulled his camera.
“Once Shen Li gets back to the cabin, we’ll resume filming him.
“Thanks for your concern and love for our guests. Shen Li is perfectly safe right now, so please don’t worry.”
Liu Jinci let out a long breath once she finished speaking.
The production team’s script was pretty solid, virtually airtight. She read it straight off the prompter, and sure enough, the real-time barrage in the discussion section calmed down. Netizens started spamming 【All good as long as he’s safe】 and 【Why didn’t you say so earlier? Just explain next time】, drowning out the few questions like 【So what’s up with that white Santana?】 in a sea of copy-pasted replies.
Meanwhile, Shen Li himself was sitting in the passenger seat of that white Santana, cradling a plastic bag of steamed buns. He ate them in silence, one after another, while keeping an eye on the phone in his lap.
It was Qian Xingzhi’s phone.
Qian Xingzhi sat beside him, his gaze also fixed on the phone screen.
Shen Li’s fingertip slid steadily across the screen, not too fast—about four seconds per page.
“You’re scrolling that fast. You actually remembering it all?” Qian Xingzhi’s hand rested idly on the steering wheel as he chatted with Shen Li.
Shen Li gave a distracted “Mm,” barely responding, and kept scrolling, fully absorbed in reading the PDF.
Then Qian Xingzhi added, “Tch, with a brain like yours, why didn’t you aim for Qing University or the police academy…”
“—Quiet.”
Shen Li cut him off, muting Qian Xingzhi’s headset mic for him. He paused on the phone screen, studying the page intently for a moment. His brows furrowed slightly, a hint of puzzlement in his eyes, as if he were pondering something.
After a beat, he asked Qian Xingzhi, “On page 31 here—this evidence. Isn’t it a bit thin? Does it really prove anything?”
Qian Xingzhi wasn’t sure which one he meant at first. He leaned over to peer at the phone, and his expression shifted. Even though he knew Shen Li well, he was still amazed by his cop instincts and lightning-fast reactions.
“It’s not enough yet, no.”
Qian Xingzhi’s playful demeanor faded, his brows knitting as he grew serious. “Today I took the victim there, and that’s exactly what they grilled her on. It’s been too long. Any traces the perp left are long gone, impossible to verify. Finding witnesses is like fishing for a needle in the ocean.”
Shen Li paused mid-bite, his cool features darkening further. His tongue pressed hard against his canine, his gaze sharpening like a blade.
“So that girl, Xiao Ting—she still has no idea who assaulted her three years ago?”
Qian Xingzhi nodded slightly in confirmation.
Shen Li narrowed his eyes, his stare knife-like. He said nothing, resuming his steady scroll through the documents. He popped another bun into his mouth more slowly now. Qian Xingzhi didn’t disturb him anymore, just occasionally glancing at Shen Li in the rearview mirror.
Shen Li hadn’t changed.
He was just like he had been back in high school: once he focused, the world around him faded away. A steady, quiet poise seemed to manifest on him instantly, coating his already striking looks with a dazzling, non-aggressive brilliance.
Qian Xingzhi figured anyone who glanced at Shen Li like that would be hopelessly glued to the sight.
“You’re done. You did a great job.”
Shen Li stopped at the end of the PDF and gave Qian Xingzhi an unsparing assessment. He picked up a fresh bun and turned to Qian Xingzhi for confirmation. “You’ve been collecting this for a full three years. How did it start? Why did you want to investigate?”
“At first, it was my new drama’s crew. The casting director was privately pressuring young actors to drink with him. One drunken girl slipped and drowned. The crew wanted to hush it up, paid off the family to settle it quietly.” Qian Xingzhi paused. “I heard about it and kept tabs. Later, Xiao Ting came to me, desperate, no way out. She asked to borrow money to go back home—she was broke.”
Shen Li’s expression remained impassive, but a complex emotion flickered deep in his eyes at that. “And you gave it to her?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“I thought she was just some young kid working gigs on sets, wanting to quit and go home. I had no idea she was connected to the case, so I just loaned her the fare.”
“Did she actually go back home?”
“Yeah.” Qian Xingzhi glanced out the car window. “At first, I thought the drowned girl had just gotten wasted and it was an accident. But then shooting got delayed, and I had someone poke around. Word slipped from the WCC side—that girl was murdered, not an accident. A bunch of bad luck followed, investors blamed it on the jinx, and the project never shot.”
Shen Li had already read all this in the documents.
But hearing Qian Xingzhi lay it out like casual conversation still stirred a faint indignation in his chest.
Tiny like a spark, but real—and flammable.
Qian Xingzhi’s magnetic, chilly voice paused, then continued.
“By then, it was too late. The body had been cremated. They’d destroyed the evidence and bought off the family. As a detective, you know better than anyone—these cases have zero grounds for prosecution. I had people file reports back then, but they all sank without a trace.”
Shen Li’s stomach churned with nausea at that.
His appetite vanished.
“So three years ago, you basically stopped acting to chase this down?”
“Kind of, not really.” Qian Xingzhi’s eyes darkened. “The entertainment industry is a massive fame-and-fortune pit. Giants like WCC, rotten to the core. Unless you topple them completely, cases like this will keep happening. To clean out a black hole like that, you have to hit them where it hurts: their profits. Those Weibo exposés at best take down one of their cash cows.”
Shen Li got it now, which explained why Qian Xingzhi’s PDF was packed with pages—mostly evidence on WCC Group’s tax evasion, organized prostitution, stock manipulation, and financial crimes. The original rape-murder case boiled down to Xiao Ting’s testimony as a fellow victim.
Shen Li hadn’t expected Qian Xingzhi to go this far before reading the file.
…
Would the Qian Xingzhi from before have put in this much effort?
Shen Li wasn’t sure.
He just felt like, these years since the divorce, he really didn’t recognize the man anymore.
“Who’s handling the case?”
“Lao Yu. They’re forming a task force today—Lin Jie should be on it too. If you want updates, ask her.”
“Mm.”
Shen Li nodded thoughtfully, forcing down another bite of bun with some effort. He wasn’t sure what he was thinking when Qian Xingzhi said, “Can you still eat? If not, don’t force it.”
Qian Xingzhi always spotted his discomfort first.
Shen Li’s stomach was acting up again. He eyed the half-eaten bun, frowning stubbornly. “…It’s fine. Just a bit left. Wasting it would be a shame.”
“Here.”
Qian Xingzhi’s large frame leaned in abruptly. He snatched the bun with a swipe, his warm, dry palm brushing Shen Li’s handback by accident. Shen Li yanked his hand away. Qian Xingzhi seemed oblivious to the distant reaction, offering no comment. He just popped the half-eaten bun into his mouth naturally, crumpled the plastic bag, and stuffed it into the door pocket. As he started the car, he mumbled around the bite.
“It’s 10:35. I’ll drop you back first.”
Shen Li had no objection, murmuring a soft “Mm” in response. From the rearview mirror, he watched Qian Xingzhi’s profile and the way he ate the bun. Memories of their shared past flooded back effortlessly.
Qian Xingzhi had never minded eating his leftovers.
He just hadn’t expected it to still be the same after the divorce.
After devouring that PDF he’d itched to read all day, Shen Li finally took an interest in Qian Xingzhi’s motives.
If Qian Xingzhi had joined the show to expose WCC, he should’ve handed the materials to the police beforehand. Wait until the case was officially filed and public, then drop it on the show.
Why this timing?
Start the show, then rush the filing?
“Why didn’t you file earlier?” Shen Li turned his face, shifting his gaze from the mirror straight to Qian Xingzhi himself.
Qian Xingzhi’s sharp, prominent nose was half-lit by the lights outside the window, his stunning features looking especially captivating—like someone stepped right off the screen.
“Ah.”
Qian Xingzhi let out an “Ah,” pondering for a long moment without giving a straight answer.
Shen Li understood. He didn’t want to say. So Shen Li didn’t press, turning his gaze to the window instead.
His brows furrowed deeper.
Qian Xingzhi had changed.
Before the divorce, there had never been secrets between them.
The strawberry farm wasn’t far from the cabin. Even at Qian Xingzhi’s cautious 20 km/h, it wouldn’t take ten minutes.
Shen Li truly wished Qian Xingzhi would drive a little faster—at the very least, not crawl along like a tractor. This inexplicable silence was already stifling him to the point of suffocation.
Then Qian Xingzhi’s voice broke through, somewhat muffled, shattering the quiet.
It seemed he was finally answering that question Shen Li had thought he would ignore:
“If I had gone ahead early…”
Qian Xingzhi’s voice trailed off again, falling silent.
After three or five seconds, Shen Li made an encouraging noise:
“Mm?”
Only then did Qian Xingzhi continue. “If I’d reported it ahead of time, your master definitely wouldn’t have let me drag you into this and turn the show into a love reality show.”
It was an answer Shen Li had never even considered.
“…What do you mean? What does this have to do with my master?”
“You know him. He’s a one-man show, stubborn as a mule, with control issues through the roof.” Qian Xingzhi sounded irritated as he slammed on the brakes, his voice edged with frustration. “If he’d known in advance, do you think I could’ve pulled off turning this program into a love reality show?”
Shen Li: …?
Shen Li averted his gaze, a touch sensitive, his brows furrowing deeper. He recalled the two kisses Qian Xingzhi had planted on his cheek the night before last—and that mention of remarriage. A tangle of emotions stirred in his chest.
He hadn’t yet figured out how to broach the subject when Qian Xingzhi slapped the steering wheel, yanked up the parking brake, and refused to spare him another glance. His tone turned icy, as if those earlier words had come from someone else entirely:
“You’re home. Get out.”
Just like a rideshare driver shooing a passenger who’d dared to light up a cigarette inside the car.
Shen Li: .
Fine.
Shen Li said nothing more. He placed Qian Xingzhi’s phone in the central console on the left side, then reached to unbuckle the seatbelt across his chest. Suddenly, the phone erupted in a frenzy—over ten messages in rapid succession, beeping louder and more insistent than a police siren, exploding like a hand grenade.
Shen Li instinctively glanced over.
The notification bar was going wild, flooded with updates:
[Lian Xiaoqi: [Image]]
…
[Lian Xiaoqi: [Image]]
Over twenty of them.
They looked urgent.
Shen Li froze.
Qian Xingzhi rarely kept in touch with costars after wrapping a shoot.
He’d never seen an actor bombard him with messages like this.
Qian Xingzhi hurriedly swept the phone back with a large hand and gave it a quick glance.
As he pressed the screen dark, he also switched it to silent.
He offered no explanation to Shen Li whatsoever.
Shen Li’s gaze darkened. His throat bobbed as he shot Qian Xingzhi a glance, brows pinched. Then he got out, slammed the door, and walked away without a backward look.
He didn’t even say goodbye.
Qian Xingzhi watched his retreating back, sniffing as if something felt off.
But the phone kept vibrating nonstop. Whoever was on the other end was going berserk, firing off message after message.
Qian Xingzhi unlocked the screen and opened the chat. The images were all stickers of a little rabbit unleashing a torrent of curses: Fuck (a plant).
The text below was the same two lines, copied and pasted over and over:
[It’s 22:41. Does your phone not have a clock or what? [smile]]
[Give me back Shen Li give me back Shen Li give me back Shen Li give me back Shen Li give me back Shen Li]
