The 18th bottle of Yu Yu Lao Yao liquor had appeared on my desk, while I lay sprawled on the floor of a room thick with stench and disarray, when a sudden knock echoed through the apartment.

I cracked open my eyes, blinking in confusion, certain I was still dreaming, but the knocking was urgent, heavy, and I could faintly hear someone calling out, "Brother Lei! Brother Lei!"

Xiao Cuo?

The realization hit me—this wasn't a dream. I stumbled to the door and yanked it open. Xiao Cuo immediately grabbed me, breathlessly exclaiming, "We found out! The killer has been caught!"

Dazed, I thought: Tricked again. This must be a dream. Just like in real life, I managed a faint smile for him. "Go on, just trying to cheer me up."

Xiao Cuo made a sound of surprise. "What a heavy smell of alcohol. You haven't been drowning your sorrows in drink these past few days, have you?"

He then wiped something across my face and uttered a strange syllable, causing my whole body to go rigid before I snapped awake.

"Xiao Cuo, what are you doing here? Have you found Xiao Xuan?" I shouted, fully alert now.

Xiao Cuo’s expression darkened momentarily, but a flicker of excitement remained. "You were right! You Qiulin is the murderer!"

What?

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. While I had suspected You Qiulin, it was only suspicion. It was like the jump from tadpole to frog—a long process in between—but suddenly the tailed tadpole had become a four-legged killer. It sounded like an absurd tale for the ages.

Had I plunged into layers of dreams?

At that moment, the Xiao Cuo in my dream continued, "After receiving your text, Elder Jiang secretly sent men to investigate the disappearance of You Qiulin's wife. They found a freezer in his office. Inside, they discovered the decayed flesh of his wife. This man is utterly depraved, hiding his wife's remains in a freezer. Meanwhile, that male student from Jia Da provided us with an unexpected lead. According to his recollection, Li Yalian and Shi Yingjie attended a reception hosted by Gu Hengming Modeling Agency during the holiday. Our investigation showed Ou Jinglan was also present, and we found You Qiulin’s name on the guest list. Following that thread, we conducted covert surveillance and finally uncovered evidence of You Qiulin's murders. He is a monstrous serial killer, targeting every woman he desires, dissecting them into pieces."

Hearing his account, I felt as if I had truly woken from a dream, a dream in which I was definitely not the protagonist.

Suddenly, a thought struck me, and I asked, "Why was You Qiulin at that reception?"

"He was accompanying a woman named Zhang Hemei. We investigated her; she’s clean."

My heart was dealt a heavy blow—Zhang Hemei, that mysterious woman!

Had she sensed You Qiulin's secret? Did she know she was in danger, which is why she told me that story? Yet, two questions still plagued me:

First: Why didn't she report it to the police, choosing instead to confide in me? Second: Was that story truly about You Qiulin?

For the first question, I desperately wished the answer was because I was handsome, but even I knew that was nonsense, the kind of nonsense even a ghost wouldn't believe.

For the second, if the story was about You Qiulin, how did Zhang Hemei know he kept his wife's rotting flesh in his office? It wasn't as if he told her himself, surely?

These were two questions without answers, but I pushed them aside. My sole focus was Xiao Xuan.

I wasn't a spirit or a demon, so Xiao Cuo's usual methods for dealing with such entities wouldn't apply to me. I instantly recognized the sorrow in his eyes—a familiar yet rare sadness—and my heart leaped into my throat.

"You’ll have to know sooner or later, but as a police officer, these things are unavoidable…"

I didn't let Xiao Cuo finish. I lunged, clamping my hand around his throat and slamming him against the wall, screaming hoarsely, "No! No, nothing is unavoidable! What happened to Xiao Xuan?"

Xiao Cuo struggled, gasping out, "Her... her body was found the day before You Qiulin was arrested, but her head wasn't recovered…"

My world shattered like glass struck by a heavy stone, instantly covered in hideous cracks before collapsing entirely. A thunderbolt exploded inside me, blasting me to pieces, my ashes scattering across the sky.

Aargh!

A wolf-like howl tore from my throat. The alcohol accumulated in my system turned into razor-sharp knives spinning violently, but I no longer felt pain.

My eyes were bloodshot, consciousness abruptly failing, and I pitched forward, dead weight.

Three days later, at the White Crane Hall of the Funeral Home in Chang'an Cemetery, Anyin City, sorrow hung over everyone like heavy leaden clouds. Principal leaders of Anyin City and all executives from the Municipal Bureau attended Xiao Xuan’s memorial service. However, because her head was missing, her body could not be draped with the national flag and laid among flowers like other martyrs. She rested silently in the black coffin, disturbed by no one, harmed by no one further.

I stood there like a soulless husk, an animated corpse. From start to finish, I heard nothing, saw no one. I simply stood alone, quietly keeping vigil by Xiao Xuan’s side, hearing her sweet calls of "Senior Brother," wandering with her through our shared dreams.

Since You Qiulin's guilt was established, I returned to my post, donning the police uniform once more. But I had forgotten the meaning of it all. I used to believe being a cop meant quelling violence and maintaining peace. Now, unable to protect the one I loved most, what good was I?

I don't know the time. I sat in my office, my beard grown out like wild weeds, the lingering fumes of last night's binge still on my breath. Through the haze of smoke, the cigarette in my hand nearly burned down to my fingers, yet I stared blankly out the window, as if a door might suddenly appear there, open, and Xiao Xuan would walk through.

Smoking was strictly forbidden in the office, at least creating such a suffocating mess was. But my wastebasket already held over twenty cigarette butts, all smoked this morning. The air inside could have choked a dozen mosquitoes, yet no one intervened. Even Zhang Jiewei, the famously strict team leader, paid me no mind, allowing me to continue my work as an insect exterminator.

They all knew that Xiao Xuan’s death was the falling of my sky. So, until I managed to hold that sky up myself, they chose to completely ignore my descent. But I failed to realize that the most important part of a person's life is the future; I remained hiding in the shadow of the past, drunk and lost.

Just then, Zhang Jiewei approached, carrying a cup of tea. He was as unreadable as ever, his thoughts completely obscured. But I didn't want to know them anyway.

Hiss. The cigarette end finally burned my knuckle. I hadn't noticed until the sudden, sharp jolt of pain shot straight to my central nervous system. My hand reflexively flung out wildly. The cigarette, directionless for a moment, carved a bright arc through the air before landing precisely in Zhang Jiewei’s teacup with a sizzle. The ember extinguished, sodden with water, it floated in the cup like a bloated yellow worm, emitting sickening black and white dust.

I expected Xiao Cuo, Gao Jianning, and Feng Siyan—who had generally ignored me—to finally look up. Instead, they looked toward Zhang Jiewei, their eyes holding the same pleading request.

Zhang Jiewei, however, seemed not to notice the yellow insect floating in his tea. His face was like the shaded side of a mountain, reflecting no gaze. He maintained his measured, official police stride, entered the small office, and decisively shut the glass door with a snap. Then, we heard the sound of running water.

In the past, such an incident would have thrilled me. But now, it made no difference, as if it hadn't happened. Because the moment that cigarette left my finger, its fate, and the fate of anyone connected to it, ceased to matter to me. I only cared that it had burned my hand.

I had become selfish, callous, unlike my former warm-hearted self. I felt a cynical bitterness, an aversion to everything, an urge to flee and disappear, to become the loneliest person in the world.

The three outside glanced back at me, then quickly lowered their heads, as if a second look might trigger a volcanic eruption.

But I wasn't a volcano; I was an iceberg. They feared their gaze would freeze onto me, trapping them, which is why they dared not look.

In that hazy stupor, the telephone on my desk suddenly rang. I remained unresponsive, still in the same state, but Xiao Cuo, agile as a monkey, hopped over two desks and snatched up the receiver. "Hello, this is the Municipal Bureau's Special Operations Office. How may I help you?"

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