Guan Zhiyan asked, "So? What is it you know?"
The woman felt Guan Zhiyan was pressing rather hard and eyed her with open suspicion—an attitude about as close to a real interrogation as it got.
"You two aren't police, are you?"
Zhou Xun let his gaze go loose and slid into an easy, familiar drawl. "Us? Cops? We just want to know what actually happened. If we go back today without the money, it's our heads on the block!"
He pulled off the small-time hoodlum act completely.
It was like being back before he'd ever met his mentor.
The woman said, "Well, that does sound urgent."
Zhou Xun asked, "This Li Tan—do you know where he lives?"
As he spoke he fished out a cigarette and offered it to her. While she was still weighing whether to take it, she saw the brand—it was no cheap stick. A man who smoked like this was no ordinary man.
She took it. "Where Li Tan lives, I couldn't say. I only know he's often after the woman downstairs too—her figure's better. She's had a hard life herself. Her husband, she says……"
Guan Zhiyan put on her police manner. "Hold on. Get to the point you're supposed to be telling us—"
Zhou Xun cut in at the crucial moment. "Easy, miss, no rush."
Guan Zhiyan didn't think she'd said anything wrong. Debt collectors wanted the point, not a rambling, crumpled-up monologue.
She turned away, annoyed.
Zhou Xun deployed his cigarette method on the woman again. Truthfully this was him at his most patient—on any ordinary day he'd have delivered a kick already.
What he didn't expect was that today the impatient one would be the other person. Whoever the anger was actually aimed at, Zhou Xun found himself remarkably calm.
The woman laughed. "Your girl there is more anxious than I expected. But everything I've said is true. Qiu Ning had even less standing than a mistress—as for Li Tan, I'd bet he's keeping four or five women in this building alone."
"Those women believe every word he says. I'm not exactly the sharpest tool myself, and even I could tell nothing he said added up." She took another drag. "Then again, they'd only just come to the big city. Fresh off the bus, falling for a smooth talker—that's normal."
At last she sighed and summed up what was wrong for them: those girls had all vanished—not a word from any of them for days now, except the woman downstairs.
"I half suspect this Li Tan of killing people." The woman glanced strangely around, then lowered her voice on purpose. "I know I'm talking nonsense. But something just feels off."
By now Guan Zhiyan had brought her gaze back to the woman, who was still smoking with a certain elegance in every gesture—her eyes, meanwhile, kept drifting toward Zhou Xun.
Zhou Xun wasn't hard to look at.
So being stared at was only natural.
Guan Zhiyan just asked, "Then—what's the woman downstairs called? Which unit on four?"
The woman snapped out of it and looked at her with irritation. "I don't like talking about that woman." A pause. "But…… 404. Even the number sounds unlucky."
Four and death were near-homophones; anything with double fours was considered cursed, bad luck. Old people were supposed to be the superstitious ones, though in truth it was mostly the young. The young reasoned: you live in an apartment for life—you can't spend the back half of it chained to a "four."
"Right. Thanks." Guan Zhiyan spoke fast, grabbed Zhou Xun by the wrist, and made straight for the stairs.
The woman watched the two of them go with the air of someone who had understood everything long ago, puffing away one drag at a time.
"Hey, why aren't you coming back?" A man's voice floated out from her room, sliding from loud to low. "Another man come looking for you, has there?!"
The woman stubbed out her cigarette with some reluctance and turned back inside.
"What other men would come looking for me? Someone came for that shameless woman next door, that's all—I did her a little kindness, that's all."
She was about to switch on the light when the man snapped at her: "Don't turn it on! Didn't I say—it kills the mood between the two of us?"
Snapping was the form; underneath, the tone was more scolding than angry.
The woman looked at him, helpless. She'd made good money off her trade, but this was the first time she'd ever brought a man home for it, and she couldn't help feeling a little shy—never mind that plenty of people in this building had their eyes on her fine figure.
She always smuggled people back at night.
Still…… this one wasn't bad.
Mask and all—nobody minded that sort of thing. Who quarrels with money? And he had paid handsomely to book her for the whole night.
She turned on the charm, climbed into bed, draped herself across his chest, the corner of her mouth curling up, and hooked his leg with her foot.
"You really…… give a girl no peace at all." The man ran a hand over her skin, drawing her along one touch at a time. "By the way—yesterday, when the woman next door heard us, why didn't she get up to have a look?"
The woman's face darkened. "What, you want her joining in on us?"
The man shook his head at once. "I wouldn't dare. I was just curious. I heard you two talking out there—the name 'Qiu Ning' sounded familiar to me."
At the mention of that name her mood soured: here was a man occupying her bed with his mind on someone else. All sweetness gone, she swept her stray hairs back and started showing him the door.
He read her fast. He caught her wrist lightly and said he had prepared a gift for her—a dress, selected with the greatest care. Chosen specially to please her. And of course, she was a woman who ate that up.
She'd had her eye on that bag since yesterday—the logo alone told her something good had to be inside. Now that he offered to show her, of course she was pleased—but she wasn't about to wear all that pleasure on her face. She climbed off the bed, all coy reluctance, and opened the bag with exaggerated care.
Inside, wrapped up, lay a black dress. It looked—familiar, somehow. The woman searched her memory hard: "Isn't this…… that Yishang dress that's been all over everything lately?"
Qiu Ning had one too—said Li Tan had given it to her specially, said it was a valuable gift. Then it turned out to be worthless the moment anyone looked twice.
So either Qiu Ning had been cheated, or there was something with her family—either way, who could say. The woman eyed the dress with faint contempt, then looked back at the man and concluded he was simply stingy.
"Ah…… does this really suit me?" She didn't sound pleased; rather, she looked down at him.
The man rose from the bed in nothing but his underwear, which somehow made him all the more vivid. The woman couldn't help a flush creeping up her face.
She coughed. "When do you want me to wear it?"
The man drew a card from the bag. "I want you to wear it when you come to me tonight. I'll spend what's left of my money to keep you through tomorrow. How does that sound?"
The first glance at that black card set her heart off again. She reached for it; he whipped it back, grinning at her. "Put it on…… let me see."
She said a coy "you're awful," turned, and without a moment's hesitation stripped off what she was wearing—barely sparing the man a glance—before slipping into the dress. His gaze swept over her figure, a nameless obsession in it, and his hand landed on her hip, feeling every inch, slow and thorough.
Her whole body shrank. She smoothed the dress back down; the man withdrew his hand, walked around to the front for a look, the corner of his mouth lifting. He murmured, almost to himself: "This figure…… exactly this figure……"
"Boss, you really think it looks good on me?"
She did think her figure was good. But the dress sat oddly somehow—chiefly because it looked cheap, and the price tag had been torn off besides.
It was creased all over from being worn, and it carried a very strange smell. Could it have been worn by another woman first, then saved for her? Her heart gave a lurch—and there, on the puff sleeve of the left arm, she spotted several drops of blood. She scrubbed hard; they would not come out.
She looked at the man with mounting impatience: "Why is there blood on this? You didn't steal it, did you?"
His interest evaporated. "I gave you a black card! Why would I steal someone else's clothes!" He pulled a cigarette from the bag and lit up straight away. "Don't you dare think that of me! If I've booked you for the day, you'll do as I say!"
The woman had her professional ethics. She murmured a small "fine."
For money, she could put up with it.
……
Meanwhile, the two of them were downstairs.
Downstairs was quieter than they'd expected—some residents out at work, others perhaps just back off night shifts sleeping it off—so both of them lightened their steps.
Mainly because, going up the first time, they hadn't thought about any of this.
Zhou Xun led. He knocked, far more softly this time, and a woman's voice answered from within—soft and sticky, the voice of someone who looked easily pushed around.
"Who is it?" She didn't open the door first.
The sound of fumbling thuds on the other side snapped Guan Zhiyan back to her senses; the woman must think they were dangerous. She thought for a moment and softened her tone: "Um…… I wanted to ask—do you know Qiu Ning? I had business with her, but I never managed to see her. I asked around, and a neighbor said you knew her."
"Mm…… I don't know any Qiu Ning." The denial came fast. "There is nothing whatsoever between her and me."
So that was that—Qiu Ning's name alone was not going to crack this one open.
Guan Zhiyan switched. "Then do you know Li Tan?"
The moment Li Tan's name landed, the woman inside promptly opened the door. Her first glimpse was Zhou Xun—she recoiled a step in fright, and only when the door swung fully open did she spot Guan Zhiyan.
The fright-drained color came creeping back into her face.
"Sorry, it's been a busy day." Guan Zhiyan leaned in, studying her. "Your name?"
While she spoke she had already taken in the whole room: shabby, worn—but an enormous cat lay asleep in a bed beside the sofa. Fat, clean, not a speck of disorder on it. Clearly well kept.
The woman set the clothes hanger she was holding on the table.
She rubbed her hands. "My name is Hu Yan. I've met Qiu Ning a few times."
A pause—and then it struck Hu Yan how much this question-and-answer felt like sitting face-to-face with an officer at the station.
She thought no further and just asked: "Are you two police?"