Chapter Text
Zhao Yunlan yawned loudly and stretched his limbs in a catlike manner. As he gradually emerged from his deep slumber, he started opening his eyes, lazy and unhurried, but squeezed them shut against the assault of the bright sun streaming inside the room through the windows, disappearing under the covers while he recovered from his temporary blindness. A few seconds passed while he waited for his brain to catch up with his body, and he thought back on the previous day—and then last night’s events—which had followed him into his dreams.
Shen Wei had come over and then… and then...
Feeling a goofy smile forming on his lips, Zhao Yunlan rolled onto his side and buried his burning face into the pillow, unable to hold back the scream that spilled out of his mouth. The last thing he had expected was for the professor to show up at his door late at night like a model out of a magazine, but when he had seen him, his feelings had welled up in him to the point where they had been physically painful to contain. He had acted on a whim then, but his advances had been well received by Shen Wei… more than well, actually. Zhao Yunlan still couldn’t believe that he had finally cracked.
As he pondered this, Da Qing poked his head through the doorway, giving him an inquiring look. “What’s up with you?”
“Nothing. Go away, cat. Let me reminisce in peace,” Zhao Yunlan retorted as he tried to control his grinning.
“What ‘reminiscing’? Shen Wei left an hour ago,” Da Qing said incredulously, shaking his head at his boss’ silliness.
Unfazed by the other’s rationalization, Zhao Yunlan merely smiled to himself and closed his drowsy eyes, hugging the pillow that had been occupied by Shen Wei’s head and trying to sniff out any leftover trace of his smell. “I just wish that he’d woken me,” Zhao Yunlan whispered to himself wistfully.
“He probably had a class to get to,” Da Qing reasoned. “You should follow his example... We need your help back at HQ.”
“Is it the serial burglaries?” Zhao Yunlan asked, and Da Qing nodded to confirm the fact. “How are those our jurisdiction? They’re just ordinary burglaries,” he wondered, biting his thumb in contemplation.
“Except there’s nothing ordinary about them. Get dressed, the guys are expecting us. I’ll tell you everything on the way.”
While he was heading out, Zhao Yunlan glanced sideways at Shen Wei’s apartment facing his own. None too surprisingly, the door was shut without any light filtering underneath that could have indicated that he was home. Zhao Yunlan had half a mind to tell Da Qing to go on ahead so that he could walk over there and knock, just to make sure that Shen Wei was doing okay, and that things between them weren’t going to become weird, but Da Qing was right: Shen Wei held lectures on Tuesday mornings, so he had probably gone already. This must be the reason why he had left without a word, rather than because he was ashamed, or worse still—because he had regrets.
There are things about me you don’t know, he had told Zhao Yunlan the night prior. Well, Shen Wei certainly was very mysterious, but Zhao Yunlan had decided to trust him and wait for Shen Wei to open up to him of his own accord. It wasn’t his place to poke around Shen Wei’s past if the latter wasn’t up for it, and Zhao Yunlan didn’t want to risk what they were—and could be—just to satisfy his curiosity. Shen Wei would come to him when he was ready.
All in good time… All in good time.
******
Three days later.
Outside of Shen Wei’s office, it was easy to tell by the distinctive sounds of shuffling and footsteps, interspersed with snatches of conversation, that teachers were getting ready for class. Shen Wei was one of them, stepping out into the hallway with thick piles of graded exam copies in arm, and bolting the door behind him. Bowing in kind to Professor Li who offered him a radiant smile as she walked past, Shen Wei started heading the other way towards his own classroom, and glanced cursorily at a group of first-year girls chattering to the side. The students’ faces seemed familiar enough, though Shen Wei knew for a fact that they weren’t his, since he taught the more advanced courses this semester.
As he passed by, Shen Wei overheard their conversation despite himself: they were talking about a friend of theirs whom they hadn’t heard from in two days, making speculations about the reason for her absence. Shen Wei didn’t pay too much attention to this, for the girl could have been sick or have gone away to visit her family. In fact, this kind of thing happened all the time. And so, he would have kept going without a second glance, were it not for what came after.
“Maybe nothing’s wrong, but I feel uneasy while those rumors are going around,” said a petite girl with close-cropped chestnut hair, hugging herself with her arms as if she was getting chills from some unspoken menace.
Rumors…? What rumors?
Shen Wei halted his step, pretending to straighten the stacks of papers in his arms as he listened in.
“Yeah,” agreed her friend, whose long jet-black hair reached past her shoulders. “I wish they’d just tear it down already… that place gives me the creeps,” she added with a shudder.
What was this all about? Shen Wei couldn’t contain his curiosity anymore, and so he had to ask, not to mention that if students were at risk, it was his responsibility as a teacher to look into the matter. Shen Wei cleared his throat to get the group’s attention. “Excuse me,” Shen Wei addressed the young women, who finally registered his presence and greeted him politely. “I don’t mean to pry, but what are these rumors you were referring to?” Shen Wei inquired.
The chestnut-haired girl spoke on behalf of her peers, who seemed intimidated at being spoken to directly by Shen Wei.
“Professor… it’s like this,” she started. “Word has it that students have been disappearing near the old science building.”
Shen Wei froze, feeling his chest tighten at the words, though his impassive expression showed nothing of his trouble.
I knew I should have taken care of this, thought Shen Wei as his stomach churned with a mix of uneasiness and guilt.
“I see,” Shen Wei answered with a warm smile, willing his voice to remain steady and controlled. Thanking the students succinctly, he continued on his way, feeling their quizzical stares follow him as he disappeared down the corridor.
What predicament Zhao Yunlan and he had wound up in that night was no coincidence, Shen Wei was now certain of it. The two of them hadn’t spoken since, largely due to the fact that Shen Wei had gone to great lengths to avoid the Chief of the SID. At the time, Shen Wei had been grateful not to own a phone through which he could easily be reached, though now it seemed like he would have no choice but to face Zhao Yunlan and consult with him about the best course of action, since they had both witnessed the building’s singularities and almost fallen victim to its powers themselves.
It wasn’t that he didn’t desire to meet with him—the man never left his mind—but he didn’t know how to approach the recent development in their relationship, especially while Zhao Yunlan was still unaware of his true identity.
Shen Wei’s pupils glanced up at his arrival, and the flow of their conversations died instantly as they sprang to attention.
Shen Wei held back his smile. This year’s cohort were truly good kids, and he was grateful for their discipline.
“Good afternoon, everyone. If you would please open your manuals on page 261,” Shen Wei began as he walked up to the whiteboard and erased the faint leftover traces of marker from the previous class on molecular microbiology. Whether he planned to use it or not, Shen Wei liked to start his lectures with a clean slate, both literally and figuratively, but it seemed that was a trait some of his colleagues did not share with him. Once he was done, Shen Wei turned to meet rows upon rows of highly-focused expressions and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped himself short when he noticed that two of the seats were empty. It’s strange for those two to miss class. Shen Wei mused, frowning, then saw that his students were still watching him intently, pens hovering above paper so as not to miss a word that he said.
“Has anyone seen Ouyang An and Zhou Chunhua today? Perhaps they are ill?” Shen Wei asked his class, and his students turned to confer with each other, before shaking their heads in the negative at their professor. “Class representative Jin, please ensure the two of them are up to speed before next week? Thank you. As for today’s lesson—”
Before Shen Wei could finish his sentence, a blood-chilling scream erupted from outside of the building, and Shen Wei’s students spun around on their chairs and gazed out of the window in search of the cause for the commotion, whispering excitedly amongst themselves. “Alright, alright... please stay calm,” Shen Wei called, before turning towards a spirited and reliable-looking young man sitting in the front row, four seats from the right. “Mister Jin, you’re in charge: I’m leaving the class in your hands. Please make sure that no one—and I repeat, no one—steps outside no matter what,“ he instructed, and the class representative gave a resolute nod to show that he had received the message loud and clear.
Having said that, Shen Wei made for the exit and slipped out of the classroom, dark wisps of black smoke forming around his hand as he applied a self-dissolving protective ward to the door to prevent students from going out.
Shen Wei exited the new science building in quick strides, bracing himself for whatever awaited him beyond, and headed towards the origin of the scream which had now subsided into small sounds of panic and agitated speech.
When Shen Wei’s footsteps took him in front of the Three Maidens, the professor stopped dead in his tracks, for the university’s famous monument had undergone a drastic change. Not only did the plinth of the statue seem to have shrunk and twisted onto itself, but at the foot of the statues now stood a fourth one, bearing the shape of a modern-age college student clutching a bag in her hands, her expression one of sheer terror. The incident must have just happened; surely someone would have noticed it, had it been there before.
Which meant that the perpetrator might still be around…
Upon closer look, Shen Wei found that the girl's stone body was melded into the Maidens as one grotesque creation.
In front of the monument, a male and a female student were huddled close together on the ground, as if they had stumbled backwards from shock, and not been able to move from there since.
Shen Wei swiftly made his way over to the pair, crouching down to meet them at eye-level. “Are you okay?” He asked.
The young man, who had his arms around his female peer, turned towards Shen Wei with horror etched all over his face. “Professor. She was with us an hour ago. How could this have happened,” he cried, covering his mouth as if from nausea.
“This isn’t your fault. Don’t blame yourself.” Shen Wei said gravely, putting a soothing hand on his shoulder.
It wasn’t like there was anything he could have done, either...
Unfortunately, Shen Wei did not have the ability to bring back the deceased.
Even if I could have gotten her out, she’d likely have suffocated to death already… Poor thing, Shen Wei thought gloomily.
As these dark thoughts raced around in his mind, Shen Wei caught sight of a teacher that he didn’t know hobbling over in small, dragging steps, most likely having been alerted by the disturbance. “...Aiyo! Professor, these two are in my class. Thank you for your help, but I’ll take over from here,” the wizened, frizzy-haired woman rasped as she put her hands protectively around the frightened youths and helped them to their feet.
Shen Wei bowed his head respectfully and picked himself up, getting ready to go back to his classroom to check on his own students, when he sensed a surge of energy nearby.
A shadow came over Shen Wei’s features, which had turned ice-cold.
Dark energy.
******
“This is the fourth one we get this week,” Da Qing commented in cat form, from his perched spot high atop the back of the leather sofa in the main room of the SID headquarters. “Same as the last one: the door was still locked when the owners returned, and there was not a single fingerprint anywhere... How the meow did they do it?” The cat wondered, plopping down ungracefully on top of Zhao Yunlan’s sprawled form and taking all the wind out of him.
“They could have staged the whole thing to make money off of insurance claims,” Lin Jing offered without looking up from the game he was engrossed in on his mobile phone, his glasses balanced low on his nose threatening to fall off.
Zhu Hong scoffed derisively at the ludicrous idea.
“Hmph. Only you could possibly think of something like that,” she deadpanned, while stretching out her perfectly manicured fingers to admire her glossy ruby-red nails, and smiling appreciatively at her handiwork.
“Maybe it’s a close relative who had the keys or knew where they were hiding them and put them back after,” suggested Wang Zheng as she settled down gracefully onto a seat at the table and reached out for the bowl of popcorn made using Lin Jing’s personally engineered machine, taking a handful of kernels and popping them into her mouth.
Suddenly, Guo Changcheng who sat quietly on his chair spoke up.
“W-What if, say…” Guo Chancheng hesitated, wanting to share his hypothesis and be helpful to the team, yet afraid of saying something foolish. “...a locksmith is getting into patrons’ houses using doubles?”
Zhao Yunlan livened up at this, sitting up on the couch after dropping Da Qing unceremoniously onto the floor. “Eh? That’s an interesting theory, Xiao Guo,” he praised, grinning at the rookie, while Chu Shuzhi discreetly gave the boy a thumbs-up and a proud smile to acknowledge his contribution. “So far-fetched it just might be true.”
Da Qing, who had turned into a human, picked himself up from the ground and brushed the dust off his denim overalls, giving his boss the evil eye. “I mean, how else could you get inside? Unless you could walk through the walls, that is.”
“Through the walls…” Zhao Yunlan repeated pensively, scratching his bearded chin. “...Why does that sound so familiar?”
Of course, Zhao Yunlan hadn’t forgotten about his unfortunate trip across solid brick; the circumstances surrounding that incident were especially fresh on his mind, even if his team hadn’t been made aware of them. Not only had he not had the chance to brief his people about it, but all he had were hunches at best—some of them involving Shen Wei. Given the importance that the professor was rapidly taking on in his heart, he didn’t want to make any hasty decisions, nor did he want to wrongfully implicate him. The more he got to know him, the less likely it appeared that Shen Wei’s intentions were bad, even if Zhao Yunlan knew without the shadow of a doubt that he wasn’t telling him the full story.
“Lao Zhao,” Da Qing called, snapping his fingers in front of his eyes. “Are you still with us?”
“I… need to talk to Shen Wei,” Zhao Yunlan announced suddenly, springing to his feet. Then, his face fell when he remembered that Shen Wei had been noticeably absent for days, and that he hadn’t been able to get a hold of him. Despite his increasingly desperate attempts—getting up at the crack of dawn and listening for the sharp sound of the lock unbolting, the faint creaking of the door, and the soft thumps of the professor’s polished oxford shoes hitting the floor—the moment Zhao Yunlan peeked his head out of his own apartment, Shen Wei was already gone. And so, he had not exchanged a single word with him since that night, much less glimpsed his handsome face, despite the fact that they literally lived across from each other... which was saying something.
As he was brooding over this, Zhao Yunlan’s mobile phone suddenly rang, and he fished inside his pocket to retrieve it, squinting at the characters displayed on the screen. It was an unknown number.
Zhao Yunlan almost killed the call without picking up, but he had… a feeling.
“Yes, Zhao Yunlan speaking? Who is this?” Zhao Yunlan’s eyes widened as the person on the other end of the line was both the man that he had been thinking about instants ago, and the one less likely to ring him up.
Not that he minded in the least.
“Aiya… Professor Shen, is that you?” Zhao Yunlan asked pleasantly, while gesturing frantically at his team to quieten down when they all started talking to each other at once. “Where are you calling from? I thought some sleazy salesman wanted to sell me something,” he quipped, his crinkling eyes turning into little half-moons as he laughed at his own joke, but he quickly changed his voice into a serious tone when he heard Shen Wei’s explanations. “Hold up, what? At school? Wow, are you okay...? ...You’re unharmed?... uh-huh… uh-huh… sure, I’ll be right over,” Zhao Yunlan finished, promptly hanging up and stashing his phone in his pocket, before turning to meet the questioning looks of his crew.
“There’s been a death at the university. Shen Wei says he may have stumbled upon a suspect so I’ll head over there now. Lao Chu—I’ll need your arms in case we meet some resistance. Let’s go,” he said, motioning for Chu Shuzhi to follow.
****** END OF CHAPTER 1 ******