"Han-ge." Xie Qingyan's voice came through the receiver.
Yin Wuwang blinked.
Not because of the name itself—ever since "Han-ge" had been established, Xie Qingyan only used it when other people were around. But right now Yin Wuwang was standing alone at the entrance of the property management office, with nothing but rain for company.
Then he heard the background noise on Xie Qingyan's end. Voices—not directed at Xie Qingyan, but other people's conversations overlapping with the low hum of equipment.
There were people near Xie Qingyan. Probably the lab, or a common area near the offices.
So he was using the performance name. Not "Yin Wuwang," but "Han-ge."
But wait.
Xie Qingyan calling Yin Wuwang "Han-ge"?
Yin Wuwang's brain looped back and corrected itself—no, that was wrong. Yin Wuwang was Jiang Ye, and Xie Qingyan was Shen Han. "Han-ge" was the name Yin Wuwang used for Xie Qingyan when they were performing for an audience. If it was the other way around—Xie Qingyan calling Yin Wuwang—it should be—
"Ye-ge." Xie Qingyan called again, a thread of impatience in his tone. "Are you listening?"
Yin Wuwang snapped back to attention.
Ye-ge. Xie Qingyan had called him Ye-ge.
This was new. Before, in front of NPCs, Xie Qingyan either called him "Jiang Ye" or simply launched into business without using any form of address. The two syllables "Ye-ge"—he had never used them.
Probably because they'd always been face to face before. With expressions and body language doing the heavy lifting, there was no need to rely on a name to manufacture intimacy. But over the phone, where only voice existed—if someone nearby was listening, a flat "Jiang Ye" and a warm "Ye-ge" produced entirely different effects.
Xie Qingyan was performing. And performing with professional precision.
Yin Wuwang shifted the phone to his other ear and tamped down on the entirely inappropriate heat rising in his throat.
"Listening," he said. "You found something?"
"The fibers from the ligature furrow—I sent them to the trace evidence lab." Xie Qingyan's pace was faster than usual—not rushed, but excited. The kind of excitement that stayed below the surface, detectable only by someone who knew him well enough to hear it. "Results just came back. The fiber composition is a polyester-mulberry silk blend, sixty-forty ratio, dyed using a high-temperature high-pressure disperse dye process."
Yin Wuwang knew nothing about textiles, but he knew Xie Qingyan wouldn't recite a string of meaningless parameters over the phone.
"Meaning?"
"This blend ratio and dyeing method are commonly found in mid-to-low-priced men's neckties." Xie Qingyan said. "I had Old Sun run a comparison at the forensics lab, cross-referencing all clothing fibers collected from the crime scene. Chen Wan's clothing contained zero tie-related fibers—he didn't wear ties. Every employee confirmed it."
Yin Wuwang was already following his train of thought.
"What about Zhang Yunxiang?"
"The inner pocket of Zhang Yunxiang's suit jacket from the night of the murder had fibers that were an exact match to those found in the ligature furrow." Xie Qingyan paused for a beat. "It was his tie."
Yin Wuwang stood in the rain, phone pressed to his ear, for three full seconds.
Zhang Yunxiang's tie.
On the night of the murder, Zhang Yunxiang had worn a suit—he'd met a client during the day and put on a tie. By the time he was drinking at the bar, he'd probably found it stifling and pulled the tie loose, stuffing it in his pocket or draping it around his neck. Then he'd charged into the back alley and beaten Chen Wan, and during the struggle, the tie slipped off his person.
He'd been too panicked fleeing the scene to notice he was missing a tie.
And then—the person waiting in the shadows had picked up that tie from the ground.
"She didn't bring a weapon," Yin Wuwang said.
"No." Xie Qingyan's tone steadied, settling back into the cool, measured frequency he used when working a case. "The killer had no pre-prepared ligature on hand before acting. She saw Zhang Yunxiang leave, approached Chen Wan, found a tie lying on the ground—and made a spontaneous decision."
Yin Wuwang recalled Xie Qingyan's analysis from the day before in the evidence room—the killer had switched hands mid-act, lacked sufficient physical strength, and compensated with body weight.
If it had been a spontaneous decision, that explained the lack of technique—she hadn't practiced strangling someone with a tie. She had simply seen an opportunity.
An unconscious man on the ground. A tie lying beside him.
"This changes the entire nature of the case," Yin Wuwang said. "Previously we assumed she'd planned the murder from start to finish—spent six months manipulating Zhang Yunxiang, prepared a weapon, waited for the right moment, carried out the kill herself. Four steps, each one locked into the next."
"But now it looks like only the first two were premeditated. She manipulated Zhang Yunxiang, and she was waiting for an opening. But she didn't bring a weapon. She arrived at the scene, saw that Zhang Yunxiang had knocked Chen Wan unconscious and fled, saw a tie on the ground—and in that instant, she decided."
"The strangulation was an unplanned escalation," Xie Qingyan picked up. "She made a spontaneous choice at the scene."
The background noise on Xie Qingyan's end dropped away suddenly—he'd probably walked to a quieter corner.
"One more thing." His voice lowered. "I went back through Zhang Yunxiang's case file. His personal belongings inventory doesn't include a tie."
"What do you mean?"
"When he was taken into custody, his registered personal effects were: suit jacket, phone, wallet, one set of keys. No tie."
Yin Wuwang connected the logic: "He didn't even know it was missing."
"He didn't." Xie Qingyan's tone was certain. "A man who'd just beaten someone, who thought he'd killed a person, who was terrified out of his mind as he ran from that alley—he wasn't going to notice that his pocket was one tie lighter. And based on his confession—he had absolutely no idea Chen Wan was strangled to death. He thought the wine bottle was the whole story."
Rain fell on both ends of the phone line. On Yin Wuwang's side, it was the dripping from the awning at Emerald Lake Gardens. On Xie Qingyan's side—probably the window.
"I'll be back at the station in about half an hour," Yin Wuwang said.
"Okay."
The call should have ended there. But Xie Qingyan didn't hang up.
Two seconds of silence. Yin Wuwang didn't hang up either.
"How did things go on your end?" Xie Qingyan asked. His tone had already shifted from the earlier "Ye-ge" register back to the plain, unadorned mode he used when it was just the two of them. The background noise was almost gone—he'd probably moved somewhere completely private.
"Xu Ruolin was home the night of the murder. Access records and vehicle logs both check out."
"Alibi confirmed?"
"Preliminarily. Still need cell tower positioning for final verification." Yin Wuwang paused briefly. "But the tie fibers you just found push her suspicion down a level. If the killer picked up the tie and acted on impulse at the scene, then she had to have been there. Someone at Emerald Lake Gardens couldn't have done it."
"Mm."
Another second of quiet.
"Drive safe," Xie Qingyan said.
Three syllables, delivered at the exact same pace as when he'd said "ligature furrow"—fast, steady, stripped of anything extra. But Yin Wuwang caught a different temperature in those words. Not much—like a stray wisp of warm air drifting through the autumn rain. Faint enough to ignore.
But he didn't ignore it.
"Will do," he said.
The call disconnected.
Yin Wuwang slipped his phone back into his pocket and stood under the awning for a while. The mist of rain drifted in and settled on the backs of his hands, cool against the skin.
He replayed the call. Ye-ge. The way Xie Qingyan had said it—two degrees softer than "Yin Wuwang," one layer closer than "Jiang Ye." If you didn't know he was performing, anyone who'd heard it would have assumed it was a nickname worn smooth by years of use between a real couple.
Maybe it was precisely because it sounded so natural that it threw his heartbeat into disarray.
Yin Wuwang drew a deep breath, stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, and stepped out into the rain.
[End of V2_Chapter 43]
Next: The Case Reshapes Itself—and the Killer's Portrait Gets Darker