When the No. 52 bus arrived, Cheng Liao was contemplating whether to get on or not.
If she didn't, she could walk two stops and then take the subway; but before she could finish thinking about what would happen if she got on, she was already pushed onto the bus.
Squeezed in with others, Cheng Liao managed to find a relatively spacious spot.
However, this "relatively spacious" spot had a rotating platform underfoot, and whenever the bus changed direction, the platform would move the passengers along with it.
Cheng Liao gave this spot a name—Dynamic Zone.
As soon as she stepped on it, Cheng Liao was almost spun into a split, but fortunately, a man across from her caught her arm.
From Cheng Liao's viewpoint, she could just see the emblem on his elbow, embroidered with intricate designs on a silver-grey background, typical of a certain Italian luxury brand's understated elegance.
Cheng Liao could recognize this brand thanks to Cheng Yi's luxury brand training last night. When Cheng Yi got excited, she even pointed out a copperplate magazine for her to see.
"Look, this is the new collection for early summer. Cleanse your eyes that have been polluted by those three-for-50-yuan deals."
The male model in the magazine had his collar half-open, revealing a tantalizing glimpse, which almost dazzled Cheng Liao's eyes, prompting her to argue with Cheng Yi—
"Black isn't good, it absorbs light."
Unlike the male model's revealing look, the man's shirt buttons were fastened all the way up, giving off a conservative yet slightly restrained vibe.
Clinging to his arm, Cheng Liao stood up and, looking up, realized that he was a whole head taller than her. His light blue disposable mask covered most of his face, leaving only his eyes visible.
Narrow, moist eyes.
It's said that people these days like to have the inner corners of their eyes surgically opened to make them look long and charming, but the downside is that when they widen their eyes, they become three-whites eyes. Cheng Liao carefully examined his eyes; they were naturally narrow, with an upward curve at the corners, creating a lingering, unspoken allure.
There was a near-icy calmness in his gaze as he withdrew his hand and turned his head to look at the bus wall.
Feeling slightly embarrassed, Cheng Liao thanked him and turned around to pick up her phone, sending a WeChat message to Cheng Yi:
"Eyes, I just saw a pair of particularly beautiful eyes!"
In matters like these, Cheng Yi's reply was always prompt:
"Show me the picture, show me the truth."
Cheng Liao discreetly glanced back, only to find that it was nearly impossible to take a sneaky photo from this angle, so she turned back and messaged Cheng Yi:
"I can only describe them in words."
Cheng Yi's response was concise and to the point:
"Ugh."
The bus's TV was broadcasting a short news update:
"The 4th Chess Sage Tournament will be held in Hangzhou on the 12th of this month. Renowned Go masters Xie Hanzhou and Sheng Jingchu have both confirmed their participation. This will be the first public match between the mentor and apprentice, drawing much attention to the outcome."
In the footage, Sheng Jingchu briefly appeared on screen, causing two girls in front of her to scream, "Yuanbao, our Yuanbao!"
"Yuanbao" was the nickname given to Sheng Jingchu by his fans. Sheng Jingchu won the Tianyuan Go Championship at the age of 16, earning the title "Tianyuan." Tianyuan refers to the central point on a Go board, symbolizing the North Star surrounded by constellations, so "Yuanbao" can be translated into modern Chinese as "King Baby," or in English, "Babyking."
Sheng Jingchu had just won the championship at the China-Japan-Korea Go Tournament, ranked 63rd on the Forbes list, making him the highest-earning Go player in the country. His Baidu search index had been the highest for two consecutive weeks, and he had 30 million followers on Weibo.
Most importantly, Sheng Jingchu's assistant, Xiao Qi, had just refused Cheng Liao's request to interview Sheng Jingchu.
Being refused was expected; Sheng Jingchu never accepted interviews from the media. On average, her colleagues had been rejected more than four times. As the youngest intern in the department, Cheng Liao was honored to experience a breakthrough of zero.
With this interview falling through, Cheng Liao was clearly going to be severely scolded by her team leader.
Cheng Liao had a rule for emotional stability: whenever something upset her, she would immediately find something to make herself happy.
She lit up her phone again and opened Xu Chi's WeChat Moments.
Xu Chi was abroad, and there were only a few posts in his Moments. The most recent one was a shared news article predicting the future of the internet, with a brief comment: "Quite good."
Subtracting the time difference between the two countries, the western time zone had finally entered a new day, and Cheng Liao timed it perfectly to send Xu Chi a WeChat message, just four simple words:
"Happy Birthday."
She edited another message but found the hint at the end too obvious. After some thought, she decided not to send it but couldn't bring herself to delete it.
Maybe the phone was right next to him, but a few seconds later, Xu Chi replied with a smiley face.
Cheng Liao could almost imagine how Xu Chi looked when he replied, squinting his eyes slightly to adjust to the light from the screen, choosing an emoji with one hand, then casually tossing the phone next to the pillow and lazily turning over, waiting to check it again after he woke up.
Cheng Liao kept looking at the emoji Xu Chi sent back, her lips curling up unconsciously. The driver suddenly slammed on the brakes, and she couldn't help but lurch forward, crashing hard into the shoulder of a middle-aged passenger across from her. The middle-aged passenger rubbed his shoulder, ignored Cheng Liao's apology, and hurriedly moved towards the back door, squeezing through the crowd to get off the bus.
As the bus restarted, the crowd inside loosened up a bit. Cheng Liao was just about to change her position when she heard a sharp cry from within the bus: "My wallet, my wallet!"
Everyone turned their heads to see a young girl at the front of the bus, slumped slightly, clutching her bag with one hand and her chest with the other. Her voice already carried a note of tears as she said, "This is the money for my father's medical treatment."
The passengers all felt sympathetic. An older woman went over to support her and even helped her search through her pockets again.
The driver watched for a moment through the rearview mirror, then picked up the loudspeaker.
"Passengers, please cooperate; no one should get off the bus for now!"
The driver locked the front and rear doors and drove straight to the nearest police station.
After the bus stopped and the doors opened, the passengers disembarked one by one under the supervision of the police, though some passengers grumbled, "How long is this going to take? I've got things to do."
The lead officer was a tall, thin man. He first reassured everyone, then asked, "Whoever took it, it's not too late to come forward now. Our policy is leniency for confession, severity for resistance."
Everyone looked around at each other, but no one spoke up.
The small police station, along with the household registration department, had only two floors. The ground floor was crowded with a group of teenagers causing trouble. After some discussion, the officers decided to have everyone cooperate with the search in the courtyard.
Cheng Liao only had a backpack with her, containing a pen, a notebook, and a few odds and ends. After checking her bag, she secretly glanced behind her.
The man in the mask was standing right behind Cheng Liao. He was holding a paper bag and casually rifled through it with one hand, his brows furrowing slightly before he pulled out a red wallet.
"Here it is."
His manner of handing it over was distinctive, with his middle finger on top and index finger below, offering it flatly.
The girl who had lost the wallet brightened at the sight and rushed over to grab it, only to find that the wallet now contained nothing but a few store discount cards.
The crowd's gaze immediately locked onto the man, filled with surprise, suspicion, and, for some, the thrill of watching a spectacle.
After a moment of silence, he said, "You can check the bus's surveillance cameras."
The driver shook his head helplessly: "The surveillance is broken; I just reported it for repair yesterday."
The girl, almost certain now that he was the thief, clung to his sleeve, pleading, "Give it back to me, please?"
He took a step back to avoid her grasp, his tone indifferent: "I didn't steal it."
Cheng Liao believed he wasn't the thief, though she couldn't explain why—just a gut feeling—so she couldn't help but speak up in his defense: "I was on Wangjiang Road, and he was standing behind me the entire time."
She couldn't remember which stop the girl had boarded at, but she was pretty sure she hadn't seen her when she got on.
The girl, her eyes red from crying, glared at Cheng Liao and scrutinized her from head to toe: "You two are in cahoots, aren't you? Why should I believe you when you're just saying it?"
The masked man responded, his voice low but unwavering: "Because of my memory."
He spoke slowly: "At 2:03, you boarded the bus at the West Station. From the door to where you stood, you passed by nine people," his gaze swept over the group, "seven of whom have already gotten off. The remaining two are still here, one of whom is this elderly man." He pointed to an old man at the end of the line.
"And the other is a child." His eyes briefly landed on a boy about eight or nine years old before returning to the girl. "You had a long ride and weren't in a hurry to get off, so you moved further inside."
The girl’s lips moved slightly, but she didn’t deny it.
The elderly man, whom he had pointed out, was quick to defend himself: "It wasn't me."
The child also protested, confused: "I didn't steal any money!"
The man shook his head: "It wasn't you. The elderly man didn’t move because of his leg, and the child didn’t move because his position allowed him to watch the bus’s TV easily."
The crowd looked over at the old man and noticed that his left foot was indeed slightly lame.
"And it wasn’t any of the seven who already got off."
"These seven got off at the Commerce Building stop. The No. 52 bus has 25 stops in total, and West Station and Commerce Building are peak stops."
"This money is very important to you, so you must have been watching it closely when you boarded. The wallet was most likely stolen at the Commerce Building stop."
"After the Commerce Building stop, seventeen people got off through the back door, five of whom passed by you. Among them were two young women. Normally, a thief would get off at the next stop after stealing the money, but these two women didn’t get off until the third stop after Commerce Building, so they can probably be ruled out..."
"The remaining three people got off at the next stop: a middle-aged woman and a teenager around seventeen or eighteen. Neither of them acted suspiciously. But there was one person..."
He paused before continuing, "This person boarded at the Commerce Building stop and got off after just one stop. The distance between the two stops is easily walkable."
When the girl heard him say that the thief had already gotten off, she froze for a few seconds before rushing at him again, accusing, "You're lying! It was you!"
Her eyes flashed with a new realization, "If it wasn't you, why are you covering your face?"
Cheng Liao couldn't help but correct her, "Miss, covering his face doesn’t necessarily mean he stole the wallet. While covering one's face might be a sufficient condition for suspicion, it’s not a necessary one. Inferring theft just because he’s covering his face is a logical fallacy."
The girl, at a loss for words, looked to the nearby police officer for help.
"There are surveillance cameras near the stops. We can check them to see if what you’re saying is true." The tall, thin police officer was skeptical and posed a question, "Someone as observant as you—how did you not notice an extra wallet in your bag?"
This was a difficult question to answer, and the man fell silent.
The passengers, who had almost been convinced by his words, now found new doubts. His hesitation only increased their suspicion, and even Cheng Liao felt anxious on his behalf.
"What’s there to hesitate about now? Just explain it already," Cheng Liao urged.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he responded calmly, looking directly at Cheng Liao, "At the time, I was looking at her phone."
From where he was standing, he could easily see the messages on Cheng Liao’s phone.
Cheng Liao quickly recalled the messages she had sent and blushed furiously when she remembered the one she sent to Cheng Yi.
His tone remained steady, but his eyes were sincere. "I apologize."
Then, turning to the tall police officer, he added, "It concerns her privacy. I can only repeat it to you."
The tall police officer took a few steps away from the group, motioning for him to follow. Cheng Liao and the girl who lost her wallet instinctively followed, but the girl was stopped by another officer. Since Cheng Liao was directly involved, she wasn’t stopped.
"The longest WeChat message wasn’t sent. I can repeat it for you."
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