"I, a neighbourhood police officer from the local police station, have not been transferred to the Serious Crime Division due to my outstanding achievements in my work, have I?" Yu Yan sat on a plastic chair in the pet store, his face dumbstruck. "My main job right now should be to prevent the residents of this neighbourhood from setting off fireworks or firecrackers illegally, pour my heart and soul into the end-of-the-year thief-catching season, and also work hard to find the culprit of the high-rise burglaries from a while ba- ah! What's this!"

Before he could finish speaking, a hairless cat leaped out of Qiao-Qiao's hands and onto the tabletop like a bolt of lightning. A pair of large eyes peeked out, studying Yu Yan.

Yu Yan leaped three feet into the air. "What's this? It looks so scary! An alien?"

The hairless cat angrily meow-ed at him.

Yu Yan said in shock, "Fuck, this buddy here sounds like a motor!"

The National Railway Administration had already announced the start of the year-end Lunar New Year migration. The usage of the pet-boarding service at the pet store also increased in tandem. Yu Yan's shout started off a chorus of cats and the dogs, the barks and meows coming from upstairs and downstairs, all of them raising their voices together with him. It was basically a disaster.

Qiao-Qiao ran over angrily and carried the hairless cat to the cat bed. She turned her eyes to look at Yu Yan and swiftly made a string of gestures in sign language.

Gan Qing translated at the side. "She said that this is a beautiful lady and that you should apologise to her."

"What, a female cat? Why does a female cat sound like that? Are you sure it's not a lady pretending to be the big bro?" Yu Yan said, then turned towards Gan Qing. "Wait a minute, how do you know what she's gesturing? You can even understand sign language?"

Gan Qing said modestly, "A little. I threw in some guesses."

Yu Yan gave her an incredulous look. Just like how he did not understand why he, as a neighbourhood police officer, had to risk his life fighting criminal rings, he did not understand why she, as someone who "knew a little" of everything, had to lower herself to "babysit" a little scam shop.

"But just 'You saw it' is not enough to draw any conclusion. It was pitch dark, what if you saw wrongly? Even if you did not see wrongly, it might not have been a person inside," Yu Yan said to the mute girl, Qiao-Qiao. "It could be a cat or a dog—those cheap meats sold by the roadside stalls that come from illegal small manufacturers, a lot of them use stray cats and dogs as the source ingredient. There are people who specialise in gathering them… Of course, this is also illegal. That's why the person riding the three-wheeled cart had a guilty conscience and said those words on the phone that you overheard. There's nothing suspicious about that."

Qiao-Qiao could not refute him. She pursed her lips and did not make a sound.

Seeing that she was young, Yu Yan patiently explained to her. "Furthermore, for missing cases that end in death like Old Madam Lin's, we wouldn't be able to determine at the start whether it was accidental death or intentional murder, the forensic doctors would definitely need to perform an autopsy. There's no way we would just believe what they said. The result of the autopsy proved that Old Madam Lin died from heart failure. Otherwise, do you think I don't want that bullshit qigong master to wear his seat out in prison? Because of him, I was nearly beaten up by a gang of hoodlums!"

At this point, Gan Qing lifted her head to look at him.

"There's nothing I can do," Yu Yan spread his hands at her. "The ones who organised the assault on the police were those few unlicensed cab drivers. Old Madam Lin's death was because of her own anger and is considered accidental… Speaking of which, there's a stronger connection between that and the hallucinatory drugs that Paradise group made her take blindly. The qigong master and his gang could at most be slapped with a 'privately concealing a body' offence."

Yan Hao was not used to cutting into a conversation in front of so many people. He turned his head to look out the window at the street outside. Old Madam Lin's son had walked far away following the street, and was no longer within sight.

"It was right that you stopped the two of them from telling the old lady's family this," Yu Yan sighed and said to Gan Qing. "A family member dying in unclear circumstances, no one can accept it willingly. At this time, you can tell him any baseless rumours and he will believe it. If, for a moment, he can't think clearly, who knows what he'll do."

Qiao-Qiao hurriedly stretched out a hand and made some gestures. Gan Qing lightly held her wrist.

"Death from heart failure can happen in many ways, " Gan Qing said. "The autopsy can only prove the cause of death but it's difficult to determine what triggered it, isn't it?"

"Hmm?" Yu Yan questioned.

Gan Qing said, "For example, I see someone who is so worked up that something seems wrong with them but not to the extent that they're dying. Not only do I not call the ambulance, I also stop them from leaving and even do something to trigger them further. In the end, I literally scare her to death. How would you judge that? For example, like this-"

As she spoke, she suddenly reached out and swiftly jabbed Yu Yan a few times. Yu Yan's heart thumped; half his body was numb.

He couldn't move!

Yu Yan was stupefied. This was the legendary "hitting the acupoints"!

"It's not that amazing." Gan Qing seemed to know what he was thinking. "It just numbs you for a bit. Use your strength and try to move, and it'll be fine."

"Ah?"

He exerted his strength to move the spots Gan Qing had hit just now. Indeed, he could move again and he realised that the feeling of being nailed down was just a psychological effect.

"Most people don't have the strength to hit the acupoints," Gan Qing said. "Furthermore, during a fight, no one will obediently stand still and let you jab all you want. In reality, this so-called 'hitting the acupoints' can't cause any harm so it also won't leave any marks on the body. But it should be enough to frighten an old lady who's seventy or eighty years old."

Want money? Dream on.

You can't move, can you? We are even going to bury you alive. Let's see where you can go and ask for money.

Yu Yan was momentarily stunned. "Wouldn't that really be murder?"

"Not everyone will be condemned by their own conscience after killing a person. There are those who only care about which method of disposing the body is the least risky." A cat came near Gan Qing and she petted its head. "The amount of money Old Madam Lin wanted was too large, enough to go on the news. Elderly people like them can risk their lives to create a ruckus for the sake of their coffin money. If they really let her spread the fuss until it became big, it would be too troublesome. Inversely, it would be easier to handle if she was dead. They can wait for the storm to be over, then drag the body somewhere far and throw it on some rubbish pile somewhere. When someone finds it, it'll just be handled as a homeless elderly dying from sudden death.

Yan Hao couldn't stop himself from asking, "Th-Then what should we do?"

"There's nothing we can do. If that is really the case, then Traveller's Sect must have people who specialise in disposing bodies," Gan Qing said coldly. She turned to ask Qiao-Qiao. "Did you see clearly what the person riding the three-wheeled cart looked like?"

Qiao-Qiao shook her head. No, he was wearing a helmet.

"That's the specialised 'street cleaner.' Even if he's captured on CCTV, you won't find out who he is. The three-wheeled cart must be well hidden now and there won't be extraneous marks on the body. Travellers' Sect are jianghu veterans. It's not so easy to get anything on them." Gan Qing stood up. "Also, don't carelessly talk about what we discussed today. Did you hear what Officer Yu said? The situation is unclear, it might bring greater harm to the bereaved family."

Both Yan Hao and Qiao-Qiao stared at her.

"That's enough, this is just my impartial view. Don't look at me like that, you're making me feel like I'm sullying someone's pure, unstained soul." Gan Qing waved a hand, then thrust her hands into her pockets and walked out of the pet store. The hairless cat opened its eyes wide and stared at her retreating back, and let out a wheeze.

"Wait!" Yu Yan, who had just said that he only handled catching petty thieves, caught up to her. "Gan Qing, if there really is a possibility that what you said happened, we will investigate to the end!"

Gan Qing looked up at the gloomy sky and smiled at him. "Sure, good luck."

Yu Yan said, "You have past conflicts with Travellers' Sect. I, too, have past conflicts with them. In the future, why don't we all discuss together how to handle them? Lanchuan told me that you're leaving…"

Gan Qing finally felt her head aching slightly. "Does Little Master Yu want to be my manager? I haven't made my debut and he's already publicising my itinerary far and wide."

Yu Yan said, "The kidnapping incident when he was young left a huge impact on him. All these years, he could not forget the matter. He even filled a sketchbook with drawings of you as the model."

"Drawings… drawings of what?"

"Ai, this is too awkward. I feel like I'm being a matchmaker." Yu Yan took off his police cap and ran his hand through his short hair. "Teacher Meng-Meng, even though your anti-Mercury retrograde charm isn't very effective, I'm already used to getting new ones from you on a regular basis-"

Gan Qing interrupted him softly. "Officer Yu, you have investigated me, haven't you?"

Yu Yan was instantly speechless.

Gan Qing unhurriedly turned her head around. Under the stark white light of the streetlights, her face didn't have much colour. There was a small crack on her dry lips and one of her eyebrows was slightly raised. All of a sudden, she was no longer the friendly and cute "Teacher Meng-Meng." She kept her voice very low. "You've seen my file, you know what I did in the past. You still plan to keep me in your neighbourhood?"

For a moment, Yu Yan could not say anything.

Gan Qing drew in a breath of the bitingly cold northwest wind. Suddenly, she recalled what happened many years ago.

It was also a freezing cold winter's day. She walked on the road in a miserable state, the cold wind blowing on the wounds on her body until she could not feel them anymore. Blood dripped with every step she took. The scariest of all was the knife wound on her right arm—it seemed to pierce right through the girl's arm and her entire sleeve looked like it had been dredged out of a pool of blood. Near Mudpool Backlane, she collapsed onto the ground.

When she regained consciousness, her wound had already been cleaned. She realised that she was lying on her own little bed. There was a glass of hot milk on the bedside table.

Gan Qing stared blankly at the milk that had steam rising from it for a long while. Then, all of a sudden, she threw off her blanket and leaped up and limped out of the room in a rush. "Shi-"

"Gan'er!"

Gan Qing twisted her head around and her gaze swiftly turned dull. "...Uncle Meng."

"Quick, go back to your room." Meng Tianyi kept his voice low and pushed her into the room. "I didn't dare send you to the hospital. I got your aunt to help you bandage your wounds. What on earth happened? Where did you go? What did you do? How did you get so badly injured?"

Gan Qing acted like she had not heard his questions. After falling silent for a while, she asked, "Where's my shifu?"

Meng Tianyi looked like he was in a dilemma."Your shifu is now… Mm, he asked me to look after you."

"Oh, I get it. He doesn't want to see me," Gan Qing said detachedly. "He didn't throw me out on the streets because he's afraid I'll cause trouble for him, isn't it? He purposely brought me back while he hid himself away?"

"What are you saying? Who on earth did you fight, my ancestor! Can you speak the truth for once so that your Uncle Meng knows what's going on? It's against the law to injure people. It wasn't easy for your shifu to let you study in Yanning. You're in Year 3 of senior high already. Take the exam, enter university and become an educated person, nice and steady, isn't that good? You skip school every day, get into fights and face disciplinary actions. You also don't study properly, the school even wants to expel you now! In that case, your life will be ruined. Why can't you be sensible… Hey, where are you going? Come back here!"

Meng Tianyi grabbed the girl's shoulders in a fluster but the injured Gan Qing slipped out of his hands like a fish. In just a few steps, she had reached the door. The bandages around her right arm fell to the floor.

"Gan Qing!" Veins bulged out on the corner of Meng Tianyi's forehead. He took a letter from his pocket and held it high. "Your shifu wrote this himself. If you still refuse to be sensible, then you can bear the consequences yourself!"

On the red seal of the envelope was written: My humble respects to all my ancestors of the sect of Wan Mu Chun.

A shifu would only write such a letter themselves when a disciple broke a sect rule and was ousted from the sect. The letter would be offered up to the masters of the sect to formalise the breaking of the master-and-student relationship. If Wei Xiao wasn't living in seclusion, he should even spread the news of the relationship severance far and wide so that all his allies and enemies would know that this disciple Gan Qing had nothing more to do with Wan Mu Chun from then on.

The young Gan Qing seemed to want to burn through that red paper with her eyes. She stared at the letter in Meng Tianyi's hand for a long time. "For who's sake… For what did I do this? I… He wants to break ties with me?"

"Your shifu let his anger get the better of him." Meng Tianyi thought he had scared her into submission. He coaxed her, "You too… Hey, Gan'er! What are you doing?"

Meng Tianyi turned pale with fright. He saw Gan Qing bring down the tip of her knife and slice open her already-injured arm like she was cutting open a delivery package. Blood splattered onto the door frame. Her arm fell limply by her side.

The pain was so great that veins bulged out on the corner of her forehead. She sucked in a breath and said slowly, pausing between each word. "Then, I will return this to him… let this be a clean break."

Meng Tianyi ran after her but the girl had already disappeared from sight. All she left was a trail of blood.

"I did." Yu Yan spoke suddenly, drawing back Gan Qing's attention. "When you appeared in Travellers' Sect territory the other day, your actions were really not like an ordinary person. I investigated once I got back… and I've also told Master Lan."

Gan Qing was stunned.

"Yu Lanchuan took the day off today, did you know?" Yu Yan asked. "I've known him for so long. He has only taken a day off once when his younger brother was kidnapped. He's… afraid that you'll leave."

Gan Qing seemed to realise something. She followed his gaze to look over and saw a very low-profile small black car stopped at the intersection not far away. It looked vaguely familiar… She seemed to have seen this car at other places today!

Gan Qing looked down and fished out her phone, and saw that there was an unread message. The real estate agent she had an appointment with earlier sent a message to apologise, saying that the haunted house that she had been wavering over whether or not to rent had been rented by someone else at a high price.

Gan Qing lowered her phone. She strode over to the car and knocked on the window.

The window wound down, revealing Little Master Yu's face.

"You're fighting me for a haunted house? And even offered a high price? You're really…" Gan Qing couldn't help swearing, then turned to leave. Yu Lanchuan quickly got the car moving and tailed her silently from a few meters away.

Gan Qing came to an abrupt stop. Yu Lanchuan immediately followed suit and braked. He was like a stray cat winding around her heels and refusing to leave.

The two of them locked gazes for a while. Yu Lanchuan's throat twitched. He watched her nervously.

Gan Qing said, "A haunted house that no one has wanted for 800 years was taken care of just like that. If I had known earlier, I would ask the agent for a commission!"

Yu Lanchuan was caught off guard by her tirade. After a while, he realised something and smacked the steering wheel hard, his lips turning up uncontrollably into a smile.

Half a month later, it was the New Year according to the old calendar. A pair of Spring Festival couplets were hung up at No. 110, large and red. Old Mr. Zhou was also finally discharged and returned home safe and sound. Zhou Beibei finally knew the truth of what happened to her family's apartment. She cried her heart out, perhaps because her hopes had turned to nothing or perhaps because her heart ached for another reason.

However, at the very least, she had now broken free. She no longer watched the stock market every day and no longer became anxious at just the slightest whiff of trouble in the market.

Yu Yan brought news that the crackdown targeting MLMs and scams in the city was about to start… However, after that experience, these elderly people who had been rescued all became staunch fighters for materialism. They wouldn't fall for new tricks anytime soon.

Even though Han Dongsheng's promotion prospects were as dismal as ever, even though Han Zhou's exam results still failed to meet the passing line, even though Liu Zhongqi was still waging a desperate battle against English, even though Yu Lanchuan's year-end bonus was less than expected…

However…

They were still here. They still had to welcome the new year.

Carrying New Year's goods with her, Gan Qing arrived at that old apartment block and as usual, delivered them to the old lady living alone that she had been taking care of secretly.

Before she left, she looked deeply at the funeral portrait of a woman that hung in the living room.

That woman's surname was Chen and her name was Juan^[1]. Because she could not bear being abused by her husband, on a lonely and hopeless night, she had stabbed her drunk and unconscious husband eleven times with a knife. She had been sentenced to life imprisonment.

After six years behind bars, she died of illness in prison.

Her greatest wish had been for there to be someone to look after her old mother… the person who did not have the ability to live independently, the person who single-handedly pushed her past the point of no return.

Gan Qing remembered that she had been a very gentle woman.

— END OF BOOK 3 —

T/N:

[1] "Juan" 娟 juān is a female name and also a name commonly given to female victims of violent crimes in China.