Chapter Sixteen: The Sense of Boundaries

“Hmm?” Ning Shuyi was lost in thought and only realized he was asking her something after a moment. She recalled how she hadn’t said anything that day, yet Huo Yan had seen through her intentions. Instead of answering him, she asked in return, “Why do you ask? How do you know I live alone at home?”

“I guessed,” Huo Yan answered honestly. “You’ve been getting calls from your family every day lately—your mother asking about things at home, whether you’re resting well and so on.”

“That day, how did you figure out that I deliberately didn’t want Zhao Dabao and Luo Wei to handle those people upstairs for me?” Ning Shuyi didn’t deny it.

“By your eyes and expression,” Huo Yan replied without hesitation. Clearly, this was a question he had already answered in his mind. “You were standing downstairs, watching coldly, observing how those people reacted when facing Zhao Dabao and the others. When you saw they weren’t intimidated by them, you secretly breathed a sigh of relief.”

“Your gaze is quite sharp!” Ning Shuyi exclaimed sincerely. Several people were present back then, yet he was the only one who could see through her true feelings with a single look.

Huo Yan gave a faint smile and asked her, “Why didn’t you take advantage of the fact that your family was home that day to let those clearly petty thugs learn a lesson? You deliberately sent your parents away afterward? Was there a plan?”

“Sort of,” Ning Shuyi didn’t deny Huo Yan’s guess. “The lease on the apartment upstairs is about to expire, and those people will soon be cleared out. I was afraid that at such a critical moment, those thugs might go on a final rampage. If they caused havoc upstairs, my parents, who are getting older, wouldn’t be able to handle it.

“As for me, living alone at home doesn’t matter. It’s only a few days, and at worst, they’ll just make some noise to startle people unexpectedly. I’m busy at work during the day and don’t come home, so it won’t affect me. At night, I just use earplugs, and the disturbance is halved—no big deal.

“The end is in sight. That day, I didn’t want those people to be genuinely scared into submission, because then all the previous effort would be wasted.

“The process of renting out my dad’s place this time, along with the subsequent troubles, all felt a bit suspicious. So I wanted to let things unfold naturally to see how the situation would ultimately develop.

“After all, it’s not yet time, and I can’t jump to conclusions about people’s intentions. The best approach is to leave the stage open for them to perform fully. Only when their plan is clearly succeeding and a great victory is assured should the real purpose be revealed.

“At that point, it will be easier to judge and not wrong an innocent person.”

Huo Yan listened attentively, his expression fixed ahead, silent.

Ning Shuyi glanced at him, surprised by his sudden quietness. After all, he had been the one to initiate questions about her recent days, and she had responded openly. Why had he now fallen silent?

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Don’t you have any other questions?” she asked curiously.

Huo Yan shook his head. “No.”

A moment of silence followed.

“If those people upstairs trouble you, let me know anytime,” he added.

Ning Shuyi had been puzzled earlier but now understood. She smiled and remarked, “How do you manage to have such a good sense of boundaries?”

Huo Yan shook his head again, this time without a word.

Seeing this, Ning Shuyi didn’t press further.

The car moved along silently for a while. Then Huo Yan cleared his throat and said, “Your sense of boundaries is good, too.”

Ning Shuyi burst out laughing softly and nodded. “We’re even then!”

Huo Yan couldn’t help but smile, his usually stern features softening.

When they returned to the police station, it was rush hour, and traffic was slow. By the time they reached the office, both were famished. They quickly packed two boxed meals and went upstairs. Huo Yan finished his meal in a few bites and went off alone to inquire about the progress of the body’s “extraction.”

Ning Shuyi stayed in the office to confirm the personal details of Deng Qingrong and her son Chang Junchao.

Her colleagues had already obtained Chang Junchao’s household registration information earlier, and since Deng Qingrong’s registration was linked to her son’s, she had both records on hand.

This mother and son were registered outside the province. Although after talking with long-time residents near the crime scene, Deng Qingrong had given Ning Shuyi the impression of someone in her late sixties, nearly seventy, the registration information confirmed she was only fifty-five this year.

Both mother and son held residence permits for W City. Originally, the household registration included Chang Junchao’s father, Chang Rong, but he had passed away seven years ago, and his record was duly canceled.

Chang Junchao had no criminal record or any negative history, and neither did his mother.

Ning Shuyi noticed that Chang Junchao’s residence permit record showed no changes of address. Previously, they had lived in another district of W City. However, it was difficult to verify how long they had lived at that prior address, since it was registered when residence permits were first issued. Whether they had lived there before that was uncertain.

The change occurred about seven years ago—roughly when Chang Junchao’s father passed away.

Digging deeper, Ning Shuyi found that before that, the family had a temporary residence registration elsewhere—not in W City, but in a neighboring province.

Chang Junchao attended middle school in that city, but by high school, he had moved to W City.

Interestingly, his elementary school wasn’t in W City, nor in the neighboring province where he attended middle school, but in a completely different city in another province altogether.

Elementary school in one place, middle school in another, high school in yet another... Could this be the legendary “Three Moves of Mencius’ Mother”?

Ning Shuyi nearly laughed at her own thought, finding it ridiculous.

Chang Junchao’s education ended with high school graduation; he didn’t attend university. Afterward, he had a steady job for a time but seemed to change jobs more frequently in recent years.

Could it be that Chang Junchao wasn’t as steady and honest as the old neighbors claimed? Was his frequent job hopping an attempt to avoid someone or some trouble? Could this suspected family massacre be linked to that?

These questions lingered in Ning Shuyi’s mind as she reviewed the files.