The Yu Brother’s Case Book - S2: Book 3: Chapter 4

Once a person starts growing up, the world begins to change.

The past from when he was younger had already started fading into a kind of memory. The originally perfectly straight path had started to split into two.

He walked down the left then turned around to go down the right.

His memories of the rain and the scorching sun were beginning to cease from existence.

Once the tree and its roots were deeply rooted into the soil, it would stay there for eternity until the roots twisted and intertwined, weaving in and out between each other. Only then would one realise that it could no longer be freed.

After walking far enough, even the back silhouette would disappear.

***

Yu Yin’s two classes quickly finished the next morning.

After he sent a message to the email address written around Fish Jerky’s neck, he packed his backpack and left the classroom.

10:20 AM. There was still a while before the meeting time.

Just as he turned around the corner of the corridor to head into the school’s cafeteria to kill time, Yu Yin heard a cat’s cry.

He walked down the hallway somewhat dubiously, following the noise. When he turned into a corner of the school, he spotted the crowd of stray cats fighting again…Have there been this many stray cats on campus recently?

Moreover, the centre of the fight was still the same white cat with black stripes that he had seen previously.

Exactly whose cat is this?

Yu Yin directly chased away the group of strays with a shout. But unlike the previous time, the collared cat stayed in its place and stared at him warily.

“Whose cat are you?” Yu Yin crouched down, seeing that the cat didn’t seem to have any plans to leave. After some thought, he fished out the chicken jerky that he had been using to play with Fish Jerky this morning.

Surprisingly, the cat began to slowly approach him when it saw the chicken jerky. However, as it got closer, he could see that it was indeed a pet cat.

Yu Yin waved the jerky around in slight amusement as he waited for the cat to come to him.

The cat appeared to get slightly impatient by the human retreating backwards instead of putting the object down. It paced around, its eyes locked onto the jerky. At this moment, Yu Yin finally noticed that the cat’s eyes were different colours. One was blue and one was a gold-green; the eyes extremely clear and beautiful.

The heterochromatic-eyed cat meowed in annoyance. Then, after circling around twice, it suddenly walked up to Yu Yin’s side to sniff around. Yu Yin maintained his motionless posture, allowing the cat to smell around as it pleased. He was quite fascinated by it.

After suspiciously walking around in another small circle, the cat suddenly leapt out with a very fast speed. By the time Yu Yin reacted, the jerky in his hands had already been snatched away by the cat’s mouth. Moreover, the cat had already bounded far away, and once it was distant enough, it unhurriedly turned its head back to glance at Yu Yin like it was looking at an idiot.

Although Yu Yin really wanted to convince himself that he was imagining things, he was actually certain that he was being looked down upon by the cat.

No wonder it was being ganged up on by strays!

As he was evilly thinking of dashing forward to scare the cat, it suddenly put the jerky down and turned away to meow in a different direction.

Yu Yin raised his head to spot a man walking over from the opposite direction. The cat then grabbed the jerky in its mouth again and instantly jumped down onto the other person.

Seems like its owner then.

When the owner saw the cat gnawing on the jerky, he was somewhat astonished. He then spotted Yu Yin and the bag in his hands. “I apologise for the trouble my cat has caused for you.”

The man approached with the cat in his arms as Yu Yin stood up.

From what Yu Yin could gauge, the person didn’t look like a student. Rather, he was likely around his thirties, similar age to Yan Si’s group, and was wearing casual clothing. When he had been walking over, Yu Yin had noticed that his movements were not very smooth, hobbling slightly and going at a slower speed. Yu Yin had no idea if the man was injured or if it was his natural disposition.

“Not at all. You cat has been fighting with strays these past few days.”

When Yu Yin saw the cat now nestled in its owner’s arms, its tail flicking lazily as it ate the jerky, he felt the strong urge to strangle the cat.

“…It was doing so many bad things?” The owner paused for a moment before awkwardly giving a bitter chuckle. “Honestly speaking, it went missing these past few days. When I went on a trip two days ago, I left it at a friend’s home. In the end, the friend neglected to properly shut the door, and it ran out. This morning it suddenly came home by itself.”

“Ohhh, it’s good that you found it. Your cat is quite beautiful, so it’s likely it could get stolen.” Putting aside the cat looking down on him, Yu Yin truly thought the cat was extremely pretty from its eyes to its fur. It seemed like the owner took excellent care of it.

“Ahaha…this cat has a pretty bad temper. You didn’t get injured just now, did you?” The owner craned his head to scan the university student.

Yu Yin shook his head.

“How rare. Anyone that tries to touch it gets scratched, especially strangers. Ah, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Ye Huan En, I just moved in nearby recently.” Ye Huan En shook Yu Yin’s hand, then stroked the cat, causing it to meow as well. “This fellow’s called Chicken Jerky.”

“I’m Yu Yin…Wait a second, what is the cat called?!” Yu Yin froze in astonishment, wondering if he had just misheard.

“Chicken Jerky.” Ye Huan En pointed at the bag in Yu Yin’s hands.

This person truly did not have any talent at choosing names, but that wasn’t the point. Yu Yin grabbed the other person by the shoulder and seriously asked, “Could it be that you just happen to have a dog called Fish Jerky that is also missing?” At that moment, he belatedly noticed that the cat’s collar was identical to Fish Jerky’s.

“Huh, how did you know?”

“Your Fish Jerky is currently at my place.”

***

At 11 AM sharp, Li Zi Hong parked his car next to the university.

Nearly at the same time he shut off the engine, he spotted Yu Yin laughing and walking out with a stranger carrying a cat. Then Yu Yin waved good-bye and began to run over to the car.

“That person looks somewhat familiar.” Jiu Shen squinted from the front seat. Since the stranger had quickly turned to leave, Jiu Shen had not gotten a clear look and couldn’t recall if he had actually seen the stranger before or not.

“Li-dàgē…huh? Jiu Shen-gē is here too?” Yu Yin spotted the additional person as he approached the car window.

“Is that your friend?” Jiu Shen cocked his head to the side as he asked in curiosity.

“Oh, didn’t I mention we picked up a dog yesterday? It’s a crazy coincidence, but I just bumped into its owner, the one that was carrying the cat. But since Xiao Yu went to Fang Yi Xun’s place today, he brought the dog with him. So I told him to come pick up the dog from our place in the evening.” Yu Yin opened the door and automatically wormed into the back seat. Since he had agreed to meet Li Zi Hong today, he had taken the bus to school so that it would save him a trip of going back to get his bike. “We were just chatting about the dog. He’s a great person, and even said he could bring it over to play when he’s free. His house also has a bunch of games and exercise equipment, plus he even has a target for playing darts!”

“A great person indeed!” Jiu Shen instantly changed his mind.

“Do you want to eat first?” Li Zi Hong, who was responsible for driving, casually asked as he eyed the two passengers chatting.

“Ah Yin, do you want to eat first?” Jiu Shen asked the university student in the backseat. This trip would definitely go past lunchtime. Neither him nor the other two would probably want to chew on a bento box where the corpse had been discarded.

“I don’t mind eating on the car. Let’s go to the scene first.” Yu Yin knew that they were currently still working, so he quickly replied, “Ah, I remember there’s a place nearby that sells super huge riceballs. Let’s just eat those for lunch!”

Ten minutes later, they bought the riceballs and some soy milk and headed straight to the location of the abandoned corpse.

Since receiving Li Zi Hong’s call yesterday, Yu Yin had a constant, vague feeling that there was something wrong going on.

As he chewed on a riceball, he began to ponder over what exactly the two deceased wanted to do. They were urgent enough to keep him from sleeping in the middle of the night. He had been forced to evade his dad and uncle this morning to dispose of the pillowcase covered in bloody handprints this morning, eventually tossing it without incident.

If the dirt that had been presented to him was from this crime scene, perhaps he could find something there.

“Song Hui Chun. Cause of death was brain hemorrhage,” Li Zi Hong suddenly stated from the driver’s seat as they waited at a traffic light.

Jiu Shen, who had been eating a riceball next to him, nearly choked and coughed hard several times.

“Yeah, I know. Was slammed into a wall once, then into the ground seven or eight times, all with a great amount of force,” Yu Yin indifferently replied. “With basically no break in between.”

“Is that so…” It seemed like the perpetrator was undoubtedly a male. Li Zi Hong mentally noted this conclusion as he continued driving.

“Oh right, there seems to be a child too. I’ve heard the sound of music and a young kid.” Yu Yin added, “I think it should be a baby, it feels a lot like one.”

The matter of there being a baby had not yet been revealed outside. Li Zi Hong nodded to indicate that he knew. “What kind of music?”

“That one, I’m sure you’ve heard it before too. London bridge is falling down, falling down…” The tune was too nostalgic. Having heard it frequently as a child, Yu Yin had instantly recognized it.

“Understood.”

Jiu Shen really wanted to cry out in anguish about not talking about an unscientific topic while eating, but since it was related to a case, he could only suck it up and pretend he hadn’t heard the unscientific portion.

Shortly after this exchange of information, the car fell silent once again.

As Yu Yin scrunched up the empty wrapper after eating, the car drove into the area near the mountain.

Since this was not the first crime scene, the local officers had already collected their evidence and left. Only a bunch of garbage was left in place.

As this was Jiu Shen’s second time here, he gestured at where the abandoned body had been for Yu Yin as soon as they got off the car. “The dirt you gave me is from here, but it shouldn’t be from the surface. We gathered some deeper layers of soil, and based on the [sample] comparison, your dirt should be on the deeper side.”

“Mm.” Yu Yin nodded and took in a breath. With Li Zi Hong’s permission, he slowly made his way through the scene. It honestly didn’t have many references. There were tons of trash with an unshakeable stench and the obvious flies. When he walked over, he felt the bottom of his feet itch, giving him an extremely uncomfortable feeling.

In reality, he did not know what to do either. He wandered around and discovered that this mountainside space wasn’t exactly small. As his gaze swept across, he saw that the places where waste hadn’t accumulated were all covered in weeds, some even taller than humans.

“Need help?” Although slightly afraid, Jiu Shen shakily followed.

“Ah, I just want to take a look at the situation.” Before Yu Yin could continue forwards to search around, he abruptly heard a noise come from the grass, as if something huge was shifting around from there…Accurately speaking, the sound didn’t seem like walking, but rather something crawling towards them.

Jiu Shen clearly had not noticed the noise, standing behind Yu Yin while searching left and right for anything suspicious.

Yu Yin smoothly shifted to stand in front of Jiu Shen without him noticing and held his breath as he stared hard at the rustling grass. The first thing he saw was a hand.

The half-rotten hand covered in dirt reached out from the grass and pressed against the ground. With a clatter, a bone popped out. Then came a second hand that was equally decayed, followed by a pair of red eyes behind it.

Yu Yin did not know how to describe the tragic scene.

The partial body crawling out from the weeds had a devastating appearance. The blood and soil mixed together covered the entire rotted body. The two hands twitched in unnatural directions; every movement resulted in the bones piercing out from the decaying flesh, even carrying damaged chunks of flesh with it.

The red eyes were on an indistinct face that had rotted to the point where the roots of the teeth were clearly visible when the mouth opened and spat out dirt. The body crawled like a bug, its broken legs barely connected together by some skin.

The slightest movement gave off a dizzyingly foul order.

He watched the mouth continue its attempts to speak, but it only managed hissing sounds. A rope was tightly wrapped twice around the neck, the flesh at the neck already severed into two.

It must have been extremely painful to not even be able to breathe before dying.

The thing could not even count as having a human’s appearance. Its snapped limbs writhed against the ground in a terrifying way, but all he felt was grief.

Yu Yin forcefully wiped away the tears on his face, unable to speak.

Some people could kill with such unfathomably cruel methods.

He strode forwards without hesitation, not hearing Jiu Shen’s alarmed shouts. He passed by the thing on the ground and began to pull out the sharp weeds as he advanced without any doubts.

Then, he arrived at an area with practically no grass.

This place was similarly filled with trash that even included a large household appliance. The doorless refrigerator was filled with black water. The top was covered in bugs, the water wriggling with larvae.

He shoved the fridge aside and pulled away various garbage—

Finally, he saw a small section of rope sticking out from underneath the soil.

***

“Ah Yin, are you alright?”

Jiu Shen rushed over and asked in great concern as he shook the drops of blood from the cuts on his hands that the weeds had scratched out.

Yu Yin was still crouched on the ground when he used the back of his hand to wipe away his smarting eyes. “I’m fine…Jiu Shen-gē, is there some way this place can be dug up?”

Jiu Shen was silent for three seconds, having actually been frightened by Yu Yin’s appearance. Jiu Shen felt like a certain part of his brain had already stopped functioning, but he still stiffly nodded. “I-I’ll call for people to come over…” As he spoke, he made the call back to the station to request for support.

Yu Yin tugged at the rope that was deeply buried underneath the ground. He let out a sigh and stood up. “Where’s Li-dàgē?”

“Huh? Seems like he hasn’t caught up.” Jiu Shen turned his head to glance around, only now discovering that Li Zi Hong had unexpectedly not followed. Usually, this was one of those times where the prosecutor would immediately accompany them without a word.

“Probably—”

Bang!

Yu Yin had just started speaking when a great noise directly cut him off.

Almost reflexively, Jiu Shen immediately turned around to race back to the parked car. Yu Yin hurriedly ran after him from behind.

When they tumbled out of the grass, Jiu Shen spotted Li Zi Hong wrestling with a stranger in the distance. There was a metal baseball bat on the ground and a dent that had been smashed out on the hood of the car. The loud sound had come from there.

“Police! Don’t move!” Jiu Shen instantly shouted when he noticed the stranger gripping a butterfly knife.

The youth shot a hateful glare at the appearing interference. Instead of stabbing the knife at Li Zi Hong as planned, the youth let out a string of curses and swung the knife to force Li Zi Hong aside before turning to jump onto a motorcycle nearby and immediately pressing down on the accelerator to flee.

Jiu Shen ran a few steps but gave up on the chase soon after. He quickly called the headquarters to request for assistance and an interception.

“Are you okay, Li-dàgē?!” Seeing the red on Li Zi Hong’s hands, Yu Yin frantically rummaged through the car to look for any emergency products that could be used for bandaging.

“Don’t worry, the wound isn’t serious.” He had only been briefly slashed by the other person’s knife. Li Zi Hong inspected his right arm and saw that because his suit had blocked the way [of the knife], there was only a light cut about ten centimetres long. It was more unfortunate that the suit jacket and shirt had been destroyed like this. He had worn this outfit many times now, reluctant to change to a new one.

However, compared to the car, the clothing could be counted as a minor loss.

Li Zi Hong sighed as he glanced at the completely deformed car hood.

When Yu Yin and Jiu Shen had bounded off into the area earlier, he had originally planned on following behind. After he had finished parking, the attacker had suddenly swung the bat down before Li Zi Hong could tail the other two. Fortunately, he had reacted quickly to evade the bat. It was then slammed down onto the car a second time, smashing straight through the hood. However, because of the excessive force, the bat had ricocheted off, so the opposite party had switched to attacking with a butterfly knife.

Li Zi Hong was absolutely certain that they had not been followed on the road earlier. Moreover, there were no residences in this sort of area. Thus, he had been quite shocked by the abrupt appearance of an attacker.

“They should be flanking that person right now.” Jiu Shen stowed his cellphone away and pulled out his briefcase from the car, which he had merely brought out of habit. He hadn’t imagined it would come into use. “Prosecutor Li, have you offended anyone recently?”

“Perhaps I always have.” Li Zi Hong had been a prosecutor for so long that he had encountered similar attacks before. There were always people that hated those in law enforcement regardless of the results from the final sentence. A few of these people would transform their malice into action, attacking in an opinionated manner. He also had colleagues that had been shot before or beaten up to the point of hospitalization. There were even some that had received warnings about the safety of their wife and children as a result of dealing with major cases. Nobody could ever know when another person would pop up to cause trouble.

“Ah…this isn’t exactly a convenient patch-up.” Yu Yin found a bunch of Band-Aids, but seeing the other person shake their head, could only put the items back down for now. However, the wound really did not look deep, and the bleeding was quickly stopped.

Li Zi Hong gazed at the car that would likely have to be left at a factory for a period of time and began to contemplate whether he should borrow a car from a certain person that had claimed to be willing to go through water and tread on fire for a friend.

It was not long before local officers arrived to report on the situation. About another dozen or so minutes passed, and Ah Liu and Xiao Wu arrived with a handful of people to help.

“Luckily, Boss went out for a case investigation. Otherwise, you’d all probably be skinned alive,” Ah Liu signed as he glanced at Yu Yin, who was scratching his face to express that he was not guilty.

“I think I might still get skinned alive when I go back…” Jiu Shen was sure that he needed to get his fengshui checked now.

“What did you want to dig?” Xiao Wu asked curiously while scanning over the grass and the piles of garbage, wondering if there was still some issue with the case from yesterday.

“Ah, over here.” Jiu Shen led the people providing assistance over to their previous spot.

The other officers soon reported that they had captured the target without any issues and were temporarily detaining the youth at the local station until they returned.

However, under the police’s questioning, the other party had insistently denied any intentions, emphasizing that he had merely been passing by when seeing Li Zi Hong had rubbed him the wrong way because he hated people that wore suits, leading to the attack from a surge of irritation.

When Li Zi Hong hung up, there was commotion coming from Jiu Shen’s end.

“Found it!”

***

“So…”

Yan Si stared at the fresh – well, not actually fresh – newly arrived corpse and surveyed the friends in front of him. “Two bodies in the same location? Who found it first?” They had gone on a treasure hunt without telling him. He suddenly felt like he had been left behind. Everyone had gone out to have fun while abandoning him here alone.

“Yu Yin.”

“Ah Yin.”

Li Zi Hong and Jiu Shen replied with the same answer.

“Where’s the great master?” He had seen the corpse, the prosecutor, and the investigation officer, but not the psychic.

“He was brought home first.” Before coming here, the prosecutor next door had borrowed a car to make a detour and bring the person back to their house first. Jiu Shen coughed and said, “Ah Liu’s group is still searching the scene right now…”

Yan Si glanced at the rotten corpse that had been brought in, then looked at his former roommate seriously as he felt it was necessary to explain himself first. “You know, although I said I was willing to travel any distance for the sake of helping a friend, that doesn’t include dying from overwork.”

“What do you think?” Li Zi Hong passed over the nonsensical statement entirely, as the other person had to come to work anyways. As a result, he ignored the other’s discussion about friendship.

Yan Si sighed and pressed down on the untreated, decayed body. “Judging from this condition, the death should have been at least over a month ago. The nose and mouth both contain soil. I checked just now and there was some in the throat too. They were likely buried alive. I can bet you that there will be some in the stomach too.”

“I thought they were strangled to death.” Jiu Shen eyed the rope around the neck and pulled on his gloves. Although he wanted to go help collect evidence, the state of the corpse was honestly a bit terrifying.

The body that had severely decayed had its limbs broken. The joints at the wrists and elbows were all snapped, as well as the bones at the knees and ankles. There were quite a few ribs broken as well. When the body had first been revealed under the dirt, it had been contorted in an indescribable way. It would not have been an exaggeration to say that it had no longer been the shape of a human.

A few of the officers helping at the scene had run off to the side to vomit upon seeing the devastating sight.

“Looks like he was tortured severely before dying. Based on appearance, probably a brutal and merciless questioning via torture.” Yan Si did a brief evaluation of the rotten corpse’s state and discovered a number of wounds, as well as some depressions in the skull. “There’s a horror story that mentions that hanging a rope around the neck might not necessarily cause death…”

“There is a type of interrogation method via torture where the victim’s neck is tied with a rope that is pulled hard so that they are unable to breath. Then, before they die, the rope is loosened before being tightened again, repeating without end,” Li Zi Hong coldly interrupted Yan Si’s words. “That isn’t a story, it’s a truth.” Back when Li Zi Hong had still been quite young, the criminal had used this matter as a warning to intimidate him at a hearing. It was an extremely detestable method.

Jiu Shen rubbed his own neck that suddenly seemed to hurt a bit.

“Anyways, we’ll know everything once it’s cut open. Regardless of whether it was strangled to death or buried alive, the truth will be revealed after the autopsy.” Yan Si yawned as he resigned himself to continuing onwards. He sincerely felt like everyone’s overtime hours would break the records this year, and far surpassing the records of other units for that matter.

“Then-then I’ll come help in a bit.” Jiu Shen decided to mentally prepare himself first. He took a deep breath and declared, “I’ll be back in five minutes.”

Yan Si watched the investigation officer dash out and sighed. “Jiu Shen-xiǎodì won’t last like this. Scared of ghosts, scared of corpses…when will he finally toughen up his heart to become brave and fearless?”

“He is working hard to endure it.” Li Zi Hong shifted his gaze down at the dead body.

“With the face this rotted away, it was probably already swelled like a pig’s head before death. Once I finish things up, I’ll help you send a photo over for a facial reconstruction. Hopefully it won’t come out too ugly.” Yan Si grabbed the nearby camera and began his preparations to work.

Li Zi Hong shot a sideways look at his friend. After a moment’s thought, he said, “Could you send me the photo first?”

“You want to bring it to Xiao Dong-zai?”

“I want him to interact more with people, regardless of the method,” Li Zi Hong tacitly confirmed Yan Si’s question. He then stated indifferently, “Moreover, he undoubtedly has the skill to assist the police.”

“Xiao Dong-zai would probably smash something into your face and then break the door.” Yan Si was 300% convinced that such an event would occur. “Great Prosecutor, why do you care so much about Xiao Dong-zai? That brat can live quite comfortably even without us…”

Li Zi Hong sighed when he heard his friend’s grumble, knowing that Dong Feng actually detested these types of methods. “I was recently in contact with several officers that had undertaken the related cases that year, and also inquired about the whereabouts of the prosecutor fired at the time. I made calls, but both parties refused to speak about it, reluctant to explain the situation at the time.”

“The matter regarding his neighbour?” Yan Si paused for a moment before recalling that the joke neighbour incident had been handled by his former roommate, which meant this was another case. “Are you talking about the one from Xiao Dong-zai’s junior high school? When you investigated his background in the past, didn’t you say it was an unresolved case? Plus, it didn’t have any direct relation with Xiao Dong-zai. He was only one of the people that knew the deceased. There was proof that he had not been at the scene during the crime, and he had been eliminated as a suspect.”

“Yes, I applied for the case a while back and barely managed to receive it. Only after reading it through did I discover that the deceased’s mother had already passed away a few years prior. After her death, Dong Feng immediately left school. Although I don’t know if there is any relation, there are many suspicious points about the case. The personnel responsible for the incident at the time were all either fired or transferred to other units…” Li Zi Hong rubbed his forehead with a frown as he contemplated his next action.

Yan Si reached a hand out. “Autopsy report?”

“I’ll bring it to you next time.”

“Wow, working for nothing again.” Yan Si stretched his limbs, his expression clearly showing that he did not think the extra work was worth it at all.

“Wasn’t there someone that didn’t hesitate to cross a distance and abandon their vacation to run over for a good friend?”

“Sigh…” Yan Si rolled his eyes in exasperation in response before waving a hand and deciding to reaffirm a standpoint. “That type of thing can’t be called upon without limits.”

“That statement doesn’t hold any power at all coming from someone that had called me from overseas in the middle of the night to disturb me for two hours, when I had gone three days without sleep because of multiple hearings and overseeing several cases.” Moreover, Li Zi Hong was pretty sure this had not happened only once.

“Great Prosecutor, are you bearing a grudge right now?” There was no way Yan Si could have known the other person had been working so many hours back then. Plus, he had even asked if Li Zi Hong was exhausted, and the person now in front of him had answered, “It’s not bad” at first, which was why he had blessed his friend with his sharings of his new knowledge from overseas…Ok, maybe it did happen multiple times. My fault for worrying that my friend was lonely.

“To put it clearly, yes.”

“Bearing too many grudges will stunt your growth.”

“There is no such theory.” Li Zi Hong appraised their similar heights and raised a brow. “If there was, would you count as tall or short?”

When Jiu Shen returned from getting some fresh air outside, he just happened to see Yan Si’s deflated expression.

“What’s wrong with you guys?”

“Nothing, I was just intimately experiencing the feeling of a close friend putting blame on me.” Yan Si returned to looking grieved as he said, “My old roommate seems to be eager to get rid of me, which gives me sinister chills, a cold that penetrates through the heart…”

“Huh? Wha—? What is that?” Jiu Shen stared dumbly at the pair in front of him, feeling completely lost.

“Ignore him.” Li Zi Hong shook his head.

“In short, my old roommate is hostile and heartless and wants to leave once he’s tired of something. Men these days truly lack a conscience.” Yan Si sighed and weakly poked the corpse. “Hopefully you weren’t dumped too. Caring pals are really hard to find, so once you find them, you have to keep a firm hold on them. These are great and famous words, don’t forget to use them in the next life.”

“Are you working or not?!” Li Zi Hong was quickly reaching the limit of his patience.

“Yes, yes…after using me and kicking me away, you use me again…sigh…”

“…”

***

It was around seven when Yu Yin arrived home.

As soon as he opened the door, Fish Jerky immediately bounded out, excitedly waving its tail.

Before they had gone to the crime scene in the afternoon, he had texted both Yu and Yu Xia to inform them that he had found the dog’s owner and arranged for the owner to come pick up the dog at eight in the evening. That’s probably why Yu came home a bit earlier.

“I’m ho—”

Before he could finish speaking, Yu spotted a cat sitting upright on his family’s shoe rack, staring at him with an opinion of absolute disdain.

Yu stuck his head out from the living room and Ye Huan En walked out from behind.

“I arrived early, sorry for the inconvenience.” The dog and cat owner apologetically chuckled, “I wanted to check on Fish Jerky’s condition and unconsciously arrived very early. Luckily your younger brother was home.”

Yu Yin patted Fish Jerky and hurriedly walked into the living room. He immediately spotted the large box of cakes placed on the table that had likely been brought by the guest. “It’s fine, I’m sure Fish Jerky wants to go home as soon as possible too.”

“Speaking of which, it’s actually quite bizarre that Fish Jerky and Chicken Jerky would act so friendly towards you guys. I didn’t expect it since they usually don’t get close with strangers,” Ye Huan En said in slight astonishment. When he had entered and noticed that both cat and dog were not rejecting the unfamiliar surroundings, he had been quite amazed.

That cat’s manner right now counts as friendly?

Yu Yin was pretty sure he had not misunderstood earlier. The cat had clearly showed that it was looking down on humans just now. There wasn’t a hint of friendliness at all!

Yu Yin really wanted to retort back, but he instead sat down with the guest. Yu immediately helped pour them tea while Fish Jerky circled around Yu.

“But what a coincidence. I never thought I’d bump into their owner at school.” Yu Yin took the tea and spotted Chicken Jerky arrogantly walk in from the corridor, exactly like a queen walking down a red carpet. It them leapt onto the cabinet to nestle down on a high place, as naturally as if this were its own home.

“Yes, it really is an amazing coincidence,” Ye Huan En agreed. He then said, “But you really do have a lot of brothers in your family, I hope Fish Jerky hasn’t been bringing you too much trouble here.”

Yu Yin followed the man’s gaze and knew that he must have seen the family photo behind the glass cabinet. It was a photo with Yu Tong, Yu Xia, Yu, and himself that they had taken together. He coughed and replied, “The twins are my dad [and uncle]…”

Ye Huan En blanked out for a few seconds. He then awkwardly coughed, “Is-is that so. I hope we haven’t been causing a great inconvenience for your entire family then. But why hasn’t your father returned home yet?”

“Oh, they’re both police officers, so their work hours always change. Fish Jerky was brought back home by my uncle when he was out on duty,” Yu Yin answered as he glanced at the large dog lying next to the owner.

Ye Huan En froze for a moment when he heard this response. His expression shifted to a thoughtful one as he said, “No wonder…so that’s what it was.”

“?”

“Ah, I mean to say that your father must be working very hard to still be busy at this time.” Ye Huan En chuckled, then after some contemplation, asked, “Although this may seem very rude, may I ask if I could leave Fish Jerky and Chicken Jerky over here?”

“Huh?” Yu Yin and Yu started in unison.

“Sorry, sorry. What I mean is that I often have to spontaneously travel faraway or am not home for extended periods of time. However, Fish Jerky and Chicken Jerky don’t seem to like being left with my friend, and when they were previously left at a pet shop, they scratched the staff there. I think they seem to like you guys quite a lot, so I was presumptuously asking if you guys do not mind, could I leave them here next time? You can just leave them running around in the yard. Of course, I’ll cover all the expenses for food and other things,” Ye Huan En added in slight embarrassment as he patted the dog next to him.

“I don’t think there’s a problem, although I need to talk to my dad and uncle first.” He eyed Yu, who was still staring at the dog. Yu Yin figured that it wouldn’t matter, as Yu Tong and Yu Xia were not the type of people that would mind these types of things. They had taken in all kinds of things others had left behind before, so it was not a really an issue.

“Then I’ll thank you in advance…It’s getting late, so I’ll be heading home soon. Thanks once again for taking care of Fish Jerky.” Ye Huan En stood up and the cat atop the cabinet instantly jumped down, lithely landing on his back.

While seeing them to the door, Yu Yin grabbed some dog food and snacks along the way, bagging them and handing them to the owner to take. Ye Huan En kept insisting on paying them back, but Yu Yin rejected the offer. It wasn’t as if there were other animals at their home that could eat it.

Although only a day had passed [since the dog arrived], the house suddenly felt as if it was missing something when they left.

Yu Yin waved at the leaving car, shaking his head in faint amusement as he headed back inside.

Right before he shut the front door, an enormous shadow abruptly dropped down from right above him, smashing into the ground in front of his feet with a huge bang.

He jumped in shock and saw a muddy humanoid figure slowly crawling along the ground as its red eyes stared straight at him.

Yu Yin retreated several steps basically on instinct alone and hurriedly shut the front door. He then heard something bump into the bottom of the door, the thuds of collision repeating over and over.

“The prosecutor is already handling your case. They will try their best to help you.”

He did not know if it heard his words, but after another heavy thud rang from outside, everything quieted down.

Yu Yin exhaled and opened the door to see that there was no longer anything outside. A lump was writhing in the darkness, climbing out over the fence.

Tomorrow…tomorrow I’ll ask again.