Chapter Text
I.
The problem with being best friends with a genius is that you never quite know what they are thinking. Xiao Jingyan has been best friends with Lin Shu ever since he crawled over to the crying baby Lin Shu and knocked him over. Baby Lin Shu apparently stopped crying as soon as his back hit the soft blankets. It was probably due to shock, but their mothers have been telling that story with varied exaggeration for nearly thirty years.
‘I thought you wrote about murdering people, not actually murder them.’
Lin Shu narrowed his eyes at him.
‘I asked you here for your professional opinion, not useless commentary.’
Jingyan sighed and walked slowly around the living room, inspecting everything his eyes landed on, starting with the objects closest to them. Lin Shu watched him, it was as if he was seeing every crack in the paint, every ornament on display for the first time.
‘I hope you’re not expecting me to help you bury the body.’
‘I would have called Lin Chen if I wanted to bury the body.’
Jingyan nearly snorted.
‘So,’ Lin Shu said, trying to sound nonchalant, ‘how much trouble do you think I am in?’
‘There’s a dead body in the middle of your living room, what do you think?’
‘I suppose you’d better call it in,’ Lin Shu said after a moment, resigned.
Jingyan did.
They moved to the kitchen and drank tea in silence as they waited.
Lie Zhan Ying was the first to arrive. Always diligent and serious, he looked slightly confused standing there on Lin Shu’s doorstep.
‘Sir?’ He asked when Jingyan opened the door.
‘You’d better come in. Forensics haven’t arrived yet, so be careful.’
The apartment became more crowded after that. Lin Shu remained in the kitchen, sipping his tea, while Jingyan tried to take his statement.
‘I already told you what happened.’
‘Tell it to me again, I need to take a formal statement.’
‘I woke up. I walked into the living room. I found the body.’
Jingyan nearly snapped his pen in half. Lin Shu’s expression was somewhat amused.
‘Do you recognise the man?’
‘His face looked very beaten and swollen, but no, I don’t think he’s familiar.’
‘When you came home last night, did you see anyone else in the apartment?’
Lin Shu’s lips twitched slightly, as if he was holding back laughter.
‘I don’t know, when you dropped me home and came in for some water, did you see anyone else in the apartment?’
‘I mean after I left!’
It was as if he enjoyed making things difficult for Jingyan.
At some stage during their ‘interview’, Jingyan noticed one of the rookie officers loitering at the kitchen doorway.
‘Are you Mei Changsu?’ he squeaked at Lin Shu when Jingyan asked him to speak up or go away.
Lin Shu nodded with a smile.
‘Oh my god. Sir, it is such an honour. You are my favourite author! I am your number one fan!’
Lin Shu smiled that practiced, patient smile, signaling that he was now fully in his professional ‘Mei Changsu’ mode. ‘Mei Changsu’ was a pen name that he had chosen years ago when he published his first detective novel. The novel was extremely well received and Mei Changsu found fame when it was adapted into a television series.
But when Lin Shu smiled like that, Jingyan felt like he was at one of Mei Changsu’s book signing events.
‘Thank you very much. I’m very honoured a respectable officer like yourself is a fan of my work. Your Inspector here keeps telling me that my crime scene descriptions are all wrong.’
He glanced at Jingyan. Jingyan could tell from the light in his eyes that Lin Shu was trying not to laugh. The cheek of the man!
Meanwhile, the rookie uniformed officer looked torn between defending his literary idol and wanting to keep his job. Jingyan decided to put the boy out of his misery.
‘Don’t you have something to be doing?’
Lin Shu laughed as the boy scurried away.
‘No tact at all. I always wondered how your colleagues and subordinates deal with you, you buffalo.’
Jingyan ignored the name-calling. He’d gotten used to it, having been friends with a smartass for most of his life.
‘Come stay with me,’ he said instead. ‘Your apartment is a crime scene. You can’t stay here anymore.’
‘I could go back to my father’s house…’ Lin Shu started. Jingyan looked somewhat offended at the suggestion.
‘-but then I probably won’t be able to eat cheap, poisonous takeaway every night like I would if I stayed with you.’
‘I’m not forcing you to stay with me!’ Jingyan said defensively.
Lin Shu laughed. ‘Where would you be if you didn’t have me to save you from yourself?’
‘I don’t eat takeaway every night.’
‘Well you won’t with me there.’
‘Fine!’
‘Fine!’
They grinned at each other. Somehow, whenever they banter or argue, they never fail to turn into five year old kids.
Lin Shu packed a light bag and took the passenger seat of Jingyan’s car. He only needed to pack a few changes of clothes. He was perfectly comfortable with using anything and everything that was in Jingyan’s apartment. Sometimes he really felt like they lived in each other’s pockets.
He must have been staring blankly ahead, lost in his thoughts, because the next moment, there was a warm hand on his own. He turned to meet Jingyan’s serious expression.
‘I won’t let anything happen to you. You know that, right?’
Lin Shu smiled, a genuine smile that carried the warmth all the way from his chest.
‘I know.’
Lin Shu might know, but apparently no one else did. Jingyan decided to make a stop at the police headquarters before driving home to drop Lin Shu off. What he failed to appreciate was that Lin Shu’s father was the deputy Police Commissioner and half of the more senior officers at the headquarters had watched both of them grow up.
He didn’t even make it to his desk before he noticed his phone was vibrating. He stared at his phone; apparently, he had missed six calls already without even realising it. The current call was from his mother. He answered hastily.
‘Mother –‘
‘Jingyan, why have you arrested Xiao Shu?’
‘What?’ Jingyan asked.
Lin Shu moved closer so that he could also press his ear against the phone.
‘You father mentioned that he heard from someone that you arrested Lin Shu and that he is now at the station.’
‘I haven’t arrested Xiao Shu!’ Jingyan cried, and then remembered not to raise his voice at his mother. ‘I needed to drop things off at the headquarters, he’s only with me because he’ll be staying with me for a while.’
‘Oh,’ his mother said and he could hear her laugh quietly, and then she said:
‘He is welcome to stay with us. Of course, you are, too.’
‘It’s alright, mother,’ he said, ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘Your mother loves me more,’ Lin Shu said with a grin when he ended the phone call.
Jingyan didn’t respond because Lin Shu had always been the favourite, especially after his car accident. He glanced at Lin Shu who was walking next to him. For months during their teenage years, they had all feared that he couldn’t be able to walk again. But Lin Shu was the most headstrong and clever person Jingyan knew. His recovery had been less of a miracle and more the result of Lin Shu’s pure determination.
‘So if I had actually murdered someone, would you have arrested me?’ Lin Shu asked.
Jingyan could feel a headache coming on. For a smart person, sometimes Lin Shu would ask the most stupid questions.
‘You wouldn’t murder anyone.’
Lin Shu smiled at him.
‘But if I did, would the Commissioner’s son, infamous for his straight law abiding ways, arrest me?’
Jingyan sighed, face heating up.
‘I said I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.’
He was met with silence for a moment and then:
‘I didn’t hear that, say it again?’
Jingyan turned and was faced with Lin Shu’s playful expression. What a smug bastard, he thought. His best friend was a smartass and a bastard, and there was nothing he could do about it, because Lin Shu was also the most important person in his life.