When Meng Zhao arrived at his uncle’s house, he raised his hand to knock. Meng Ruoshu got up and opened the door, her face bare and expression lazy: “Brother, why are you just getting back? I’m starving. Eating after eight at night makes you gain weight, you know?”
His aunt Song Ning got up and went to the kitchen: “Xiao Zhao’s back, I’ll go get dinner.”
Meng Zhao changed into slippers at the entrance: “You guys haven’t eaten yet? Didn’t I tell you not to wait for me?”
“Your status is so high, how could we not wait for you?”
Although Meng Ruoshu complained verbally, her expression looked very happy. "Hurry up, hurry up, my mom cooks fish so well. Why aren't you even a little bit anxious?"
Meng Xiangyu, sitting on the living room sofa watching TV, stood up when he saw Meng Zhao return. "Stop complaining about your brother. Your brother is just busy with work."
"Got it," Meng Ruoshu walked to the kitchen to help Song Ning serve the meal. "Big busy man."
Song Ning’s fish was indeed exceptional. A large braised carp was almost too big to fit on the 14-inch fish plate, sprinkled with bright green scallions that immediately whetted the appetite.
"How’s Zhou Yan’s case going?" Meng Ruoshu asked while picking bones from her bowl. "Why did that nanny want to kill him? Was he really the ringleader of that school bullying incident?"
Meng Zhao washed his hands and sat down. Before he could speak, Meng Xiangyu interjected from the side, "Do you think your brother would tell you the inside story of this case?"
Meng Ruoshu stuffed a big mouthful of rice in and mumbled, "I’m just curious."
Meng Xiangyu then asked Meng Zhao if work had been busy these days and reminded him to be careful. Meng Zhao nodded as he ate.
Meng Zhao’s mother, Meng Jing, was a police officer who died in the line of duty when Meng Zhao was six. Because of this, when Meng Zhao wanted to apply to the Public Security University, Meng Xiangyu was firmly opposed. Later, Meng Zhao secretly changed his application and was admitted early, and only then did Meng Xiangyu find out. But since it was already done, he didn’t say anything further.
Because of his sister’s death, Meng Xiangyu never fully trusted Meng Zhao. Whenever they had the chance to eat together, he never forgot to remind Meng Zhao to stay safe.
After the meal, Meng Zhao got up to help wash the dishes but was pushed out of the kitchen by Song Ning. Meng Ruoshu was pushed out along with him.
Meng Ruoshu took two pieces of xylitol gum, one for herself and one for Meng Zhao. When Meng Zhao received his, he asked, "Did you throw away the notebook I gave you in high school?"
"Huh?" Meng Ruoshu was completely indifferent about study materials. "I forgot about it long ago."
"I didn’t throw it away," Meng Xiangyu said. "They’re all in the cabinet under Xiaoshu’s bed. Your textbooks and materials, I haven’t thrown any of them away."
"Xiaoshu, go find that notebook for me," Meng Zhao said to Meng Ruoshu.
Meng Ruoshu was already lying on the sofa, one slipper off and the other wobbling on her toes. "I’m not going. You go yourself."
"Hurry up and go," Meng Zhao adopted the tone of a deputy squad leader. Ever since that incident with Meng Ruoshu, he hadn’t stepped into her room again.
"Go help your brother find it," Meng Xiangyu chimed in.
"You’re so annoying," Meng Ruoshu reluctantly got up from the sofa, pushed open the door to her room, and began rummaging through her things.
More than ten minutes later, Meng Ruoshu came out holding the notebook, handed it to Meng Zhao, then plopped down on the sofa. "Brother, you graduated years ago. Why do you still need this notebook? High school textbooks have probably been revised by now."
"There’s something," Meng Zhao said, flipping through the notebook, which was filled with Lu Shichen’s handwriting.
The slender, somewhat messy handwriting revealed a hint of unmasked arrogance and carelessness.
Compared to this notebook, the handwriting on the clue summary was neater and more serious. Although the writers’ attitudes differed, there was no doubt both sets of handwriting belonged to Lu Shichen.
After chatting a bit more with Meng Xiangyu, it was getting late. Meng Zhao stood up, greeted everyone, and prepared to leave.
"Xiaoshu, go see your brother out," Meng Xiangyu called to Meng Ruoshu.
This time, Meng Ruoshu didn’t complain. She got up and went to the entrance to change shoes. Song Ning came out of the kitchen holding a bag of trash and handed it to Meng Ruoshu. "Take out the trash on your way."
"I’ll do it," Meng Zhao reached out to take it.
Song Ning refused. "No, no, let Xiaoshu do it. You’re driving; if your hands get dirty, it’s hard to clean. Drive slowly on the way."
Meng Ruoshu took the trash and went downstairs with Meng Zhao. "Brother, have you been on any blind dates recently?"
"No, why?"
"Oh, nothing, just caring about you," Meng Ruoshu said with a smile. Actually, she was trying to gather information for her good friend Xu Yan—Xu Bureau’s daughter—but couldn’t be too obvious.
Going down another floor, Meng Ruoshu asked again, "Brother, you look like you have something on your mind."
"Anyone without worries is a fool," Meng Zhao glanced at her.
Meng Ruoshu took the hint. "Hey, why are you insulting me?" Then she quickly remembered her mission and pressed on, "Tell me what’s bothering you. I’m a beauty and relationship influencer with two million followers. I know everything."
"Oh, you gained more followers?" Meng Zhao caught the hint in her words and gave her a token compliment.
Meng Ruoshu studied art. A couple of years ago, a cosplay makeup video of hers went viral, and she embarked on the path of a beauty influencer. The young girl had already achieved financial independence.
Meng Zhao wasn’t ready to tell her about Lu Shichen yet, but suddenly thought her female perspective might help analyze Lu Shichen’s unpredictable personality.
"Tell me," Meng Zhao stopped by his car.
"If there’s a person who usually seems very cold, like a robot, occasionally annoying, nine out of ten things they say irritate you, but behind your back they do one or two surprisingly humane things, what do you think that person is thinking?"
Meng Ruoshu blurted out, "That person definitely likes you!" She felt she had grasped the key point of tonight’s conversation and eagerly added, "What kind of girl is so wild that she even dares to annoy you?"
Meng Zhao looked at her with an expression that was hard to explain. "He’s a guy."
Meng Ruoshu gasped. "Brother, you’re into both genders!"
Meng Zhao was utterly speechless. He shouldn’t have tried to involve Meng Ruoshu in analyzing Lu Shichen.
Seeing Meng Zhao’s helpless look, Meng Ruoshu calmed down and became serious. "There’s another possibility."
"Hmm?"
Meng Ruoshu said solemnly, "He’s manipulating you."
Meng Zhao: "…Let’s just go home."
After sending Meng Ruoshu off and watching her throw out the trash and return to the hallway, Meng Zhao finally opened his car door and got in.
Driving home, Meng Zhao washed up and looked at the open notebook and the clue summary beside it.
One was messy, the other neat. Lu Shichen was truly hard to figure out.
Meng Zhao picked up the notebook, which recorded different types of problems and the optimal solutions for each.
Meng Zhao remembered that when Lu Shichen left the classroom, he actually intended to throw that stack of books into the trash bin behind him. But at that moment, the girl in front turned around, took the top notebook of Lu Shichen’s, and started flipping through it. "Can I borrow this? I’ll return it after I’m done."
"No need to return it," Meng Zhao said at the time.
Even so, a few days later, the girl returned the notebook, by which time Meng Zhao’s anger had mostly subsided.
"This notebook is amazing. A genius is truly a genius," the girl whispered mysteriously to him. "Don’t lend it to others."
Was it really that amazing? Meng Zhao had originally planned to toss the notebook casually, but those words changed his mind.
He looked at the simple black leather notebook and recalled Lu Shichen’s condescending expression.
Lu Shichen had already gone abroad. They would never meet again in their lives. What was the point of holding a grudge against him unilaterally? Meng Zhao told himself.
If he was treated like a stray dog, so be it. Didn’t stray dogs have the right to struggle to live? There was no need to care about a mad dog who had disappeared from his world.
With this mindset and the belief of "to master this skill, one must first castrate oneself," Meng Zhao opened Lu Shichen’s notebook.
As the girl had said, Lu Shichen’s notebook was indeed impressive. Compared to math teachers who taught whichever problem came up, a method aimed at top students, Lu Shichen’s compilation of exam-type problems was more targeted for a weak student like Meng Zhao.
Moreover, Lu Shichen’s solutions were often more concise and clever than the teacher’s explanations.
Thus, during the rest of senior year, this notebook helped Meng Zhao a lot—not only to overcome the hurdle of math but also to have energy left for other subjects.
Later, he gave the notebook to Meng Ruoshu, helping her transform from a pure academic struggler to barely passing the art college entrance exam, which was a great achievement.
Because of this, when he met Lu Shichen again twelve years later, Meng Zhao found he had become somewhat immune to calling him a "stray dog."
Meng Zhao flipped through Lu Shichen’s notebook and noticed that, like Zhou Yan’s diary, the title page was folded into a pocket. But back then, he never thought to take it out and look.
Could there be something written there? Meng Zhao pulled out that page from the pocket.
Though it was just a fleeting thought, when he saw there really were words on it…
At that moment, Meng Zhao was slightly stunned.
The bottom right corner of the paper hidden in the compartment was written with the words—"Strive to become a good adult."
The handwriting of this sentence was more careful than that on the notebook, and more similar to the handwriting on the paper recording the clues.
Lu Shichen, Meng Zhao stared at that line of words and thought, is this still the Lu Shichen he knows?
It seemed to have rained outside when he fell asleep. Back in his student days, Meng Zhao actually quite liked the rain, but in these years as a criminal investigator, whenever he encountered a rainy night, he developed a sort of occupational hazard, always feeling that criminals would take advantage of such nights that easily conceal crimes to commit offenses secretly.
That night, he hardly slept well. Sometimes he dreamed of a drunken Zhou Yan staggering through that old residential area, sometimes he dreamed of Zhao Yunhua stepping wrong and falling to the bottom of the building, and sometimes he dreamed of the high school Lu Shichen leaning close to his ear asking if he knew the meaning of "food offered reluctantly."
It wasn’t until the sky outside turned gray and showed signs of dawn that he truly fell asleep.
This time, he dreamed of the day Meng Xiangyu’s second trial ended and his wrongful accusation was cleared.
It was a day in December, the day of the first snow of winter.
At the moment the judge declared Meng Xiangyu not guilty, both Song Ning and Meng Ruoshu cried. Song Ning silently shed tears, while Meng Ruoshu cried almost breathlessly.
After more than two years of running around everywhere, Meng Zhao thought he had grown up. He tried to hold back his tears like an adult, but when he saw the old, handcuff-free Meng Xiangyu standing before him, he couldn’t help but shed tears.
When they left the courtroom, the family wiped their tears. Meng Ruoshu’s stress-induced mutism suddenly improved; she reached out to catch snowflakes and said the first sentence since the incident: "It’s snowing."
Her voice was hoarse and not very fluent, but it was enough to make Meng Xiangyu and Song Ning so happy they almost jumped for joy.
Meng Xiangyu was elated and bent down to pick up Meng Ruoshu. Usually resistant to any contact with the opposite sex, Meng Ruoshu surprisingly showed no fear and instead giggled.
Meng Zhao was laughing too, perhaps because he hadn’t laughed for a long time, and when the corners of his mouth lifted, he felt his stiff face finally relax.
Then he saw Lu Shichen across the road.
Lu Shichen was looking at him, his gaze unblinking, no different from when he looked at the dog in the middle of the road, without any emotion, more like observing some caged animal.
Yes, observing. Suddenly the word popped into Meng Zhao’s mind. Saying indifferent wasn’t quite right; Lu Shichen was more like an outsider observer, showing no joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness.
What was he thinking at that moment? This thought appeared in Meng Zhao’s mind, then he opened his eyes and woke up.
This was not a dream, he realized, this was what actually happened that day.
