Playmates, kindly whitelist the website to support the site or turn off adblocker!
A Lunatic Says He Loves Me: Chapter 33
Chapter 33: Cat 1
After a long while, the unbearable pain gradually subsided. Han Rong let out a deep breath, wiped the cold sweat from his forehead, lifted the blanket, and got out of bed to boil some hot water to warm himself. As he passed through the living room, he noticed Ji Yan sitting alone, holding a stuffed cat, his back looking lonely and desolate as he watched TV. The light from the screen cast an eerie, ghastly glow on his face.
Han Rong glanced at the TV, which was showing the currently most controversial drama, My Paranoid Lover, starring Ji Yan’s cousin, the popular actor Gu Wei. Since Gu Wei’s profile resembled Ji Yan’s by seventy percent, at first glance, it seemed like the character imprisoning his girlfriend in the show was Ji Yan.
As Han Rong drank hot water, he tutted, “It really is unlucky to be loved by a lunatic.”
Ji Yan asked, “Would you fall in love with such a paranoid person?”
Han Rong shrugged. “If I got Stockholm Syndrome, I might fall in love with him.”
Ji Yan’s voice suddenly softened, as if he were defending the character in the drama, or perhaps objectively stating a fact from a psychiatrist’s perspective. “He just wants to hide his lover, to have her all to himself, not letting anyone else share.”
“I know. But aside from satisfying his selfish desires, did he ever ask for the other person’s opinion? Did he ever care about his lover’s feelings? Is his lover willing to be treated this way? In the end, he only fulfilled his own love.”
“Feelings are mutual. Unless the other person is also forced into becoming a lunatic, it’s all in vain.”
Ji Yan didn’t respond, seemingly hugging the stuffed cat tighter. The toy was quite old, possibly as old as Han Rong, already beyond mending, with threads fraying everywhere, looking rather pitiful.
Han Rong ruffled Ji Yan’s hair and said with a smile, “What’s so fun about something fake? Tomorrow, I’ll pick a real one out of the trash for you. Actually, why not now? Let’s go!” He quickly dressed, then dragged Ji Yan out the door and headed straight to the community’s garbage dump.
Usually, the property manager would pile up the trash here to be taken away the next morning. Many stray cats would come at night to scavenge. Han Rong turned on his phone’s flashlight and started calling “kitty, kitty, kitty” randomly. Whether it was a coincidence or not, he suddenly heard a faint “meow” in response.
“Did you hear that?”
“Yeah.” Ji Yan nodded and walked straight towards the sound, bent down, rummaged through the trash for a while, and then picked up a palm-sized silver American Shorthair kitten. The kitten had half a fishbone in its mouth and looked very delicate, with big, round eyes that seemed a bit bewildered.
Han Rong felt his blood boiling with excitement. He rubbed his hands together, “Who threw away a stack of cash here? Quick, pick it up, pick it up! It’s my family’s now!”
Ji Yan fearlessly cradled the little fellow in his arms, showing no expression on his face but his eyes were filled with tenderness. Han Rong followed beside him, occasionally teasing the cat. “What should we name her? Let me think.” He lifted his head and happened to see the bright moon, recalling the poet Li Shixian’s solo moonlit drinking, and clapped his hands. “I wish to get drunk and sleep, shall I come with a Qin tomorrow? Let’s call her Qin! Qin, little sister~”
Ji Yan bent down to check the still dazed silver American Shorthair’s limbs. “It’s a male.”
Han Rong shook his head repeatedly upon hearing that. “Male? Then Harp won’t do, it’s too feminine!” He thought carefully for a moment and said, “I like watching Detective Conan, so how about we call him Conan!”
“Meow!” The silver American Shorthair meowed, whether in agreement or disagreement was unclear.
The two returned to the apartment. Han Rong took Conan straight to the bathroom to bathe him. Ji Yan went to the kitchen to gather things for him to eat, including some chicken thighs, and after boiling them together with carrots until they were soft, he chopped them finely and mixed them with rice.
Conan’s actual age shouldn’t be young. When eating cat food, he wolfed it down, apparently malnourished, making his small stature apparent.
“Lucky you.” Han Rong said with a grin, “This guy looks exactly like your stuffed cat. From now on, he’ll replace your stuffed cat!”
Ji Yan didn’t say anything, silently watching Conan lick his paws. He looked a bit aggrieved, as if he had something “bitter to say.” Han Rong suddenly felt a bit dictatorial, “Don’t tell me, this discarded stuffed animal is irreplaceable in your heart.”
Ji Yan pursed his lips, gazing softly at Conan, and said softly, “You are the one who cannot be replaced in my heart.” He turned to look at Han Rong and raised his eyebrows.
Han Rong leaned in to kiss the clean, delicate corner of Ji Yan’s eye, smiling and saying, “Baby, you’re so beautiful!”
Ji Yan looked exceptionally obedient, saying, “As long as you like it.”
Han Rong laughed, peach blossoms fluttering in his eyes. “If you were a girl, we’d have been married long ago, Our kids would already be able to buy soy sauce 1 Hey!” Suddenly, there was a fluffy bundle in his arms.
“Meow!” Conan, full and content, was dissatisfied with being ignored. He jumped into Han Rong’s arms, extending his claws to playfully scratch his clothes, thoroughly enjoying himself.
Ji Yan slowly approached, reaching across the fluffy bundle, wanting to kiss Han Rong. Suddenly, a paw appeared out of nowhere, covering Han Rong’s mouth in an unromantic manner. And so Ji Yan kissed Conan’s paw like that.
“Huh?” Han Rong raised an eyebrow in surprise and joked, “Seems like it doesn’t like you.”
The usually taciturn Ji Yan opened his phone and pressed the voice playback button. The mechanical Google female voice spoke in a chilling tone, “To make cat stew, first beat the cat, then put it into an iron pot…”
“Meow!” Conan, with his tail held high, jumped off the ground and quickly fled, trembling, hiding under the sofa.
“Oh my god!” Han Rong laughed so hard he fell back into the sofa, rolling around. His voice intermittently asked Ji Yan, “How old are you?”
Ji Yan lifted him up around the waist and headed towards the bedroom, calmly saying, “Apart from being younger than you, I’m older than you in every other way.”
“Oh! I, Han, admit defeat!”
The next day, Ji Yan took Conan to the pet hospital for a check-up. Meanwhile, Han Rong was intercepted early in the morning by Bald Head Ling waiting at the entrance of the community, and was directly taken by the official bus to the police station.
Compared to his appearance in the dream, Ling Feng had matured somewhat, his demeanor markedly different. The youth in the dream had clean short hair, resembling a bright and studious student, while the real-life Bald Head Ling looked fierce and intimidating, like someone collecting protection fees for a gang.
Seeing him, Han Rong felt a mix of emotions for a moment, his gaze towards him also conveying some ambiguous meaning. Ling Feng, feeling uncomfortable under his scrutiny, kept his eyes on the road, steering and changing the topic, “The victim whose tongue was cut out is called Pianzi 2 Zhang, frequenting major underground gambling dens, a con artist; the one hanged in the woods is Lin 3 Qin, a blabbermouth who liked to incite conflict who made a foul atmosphere at home; and the butcher stabbed with a random knife is called Zhurou 4 Qiang, running a meat shop on Cai Deng Street. Through witness interviews, we found connections between these three. Pianzi Zhang and Lin Qin were regulars at Zhurou Qiang’s.”
Han Rong remarked, “So the killer must have frequented Zhurou Qiang’s shop or lived nearby.”
Ding Ding asked, “How can you be so sure?”
Han Rong replied, “In geographical profiling, there’s a saying: criminals often choose areas they are familiar with for their first crime.”
Yuan Fei asked, “To make it easier for themselves?”
Han Rong responded, “Geographical profiling experts can model the crime scene to infer the criminal’s hiding place. Unfortunately, I haven’t specialized much in this area. I can only suggest increasing the search intensity around the residential buildings near Zhurou Qiang’s meat shop.”
Ding Ding said, “Actually, the boss has already identified a suspect—Lin Qin’s stepson, Qin Jiadong.”
“Qin Jiadong just graduated from a technical college this year. He’s lazy and unemployed, always freeloading at home. Last summer, he got addicted to online gambling, and by winter, he had switched to offline gambling, accumulating a huge debt. According to Lin Qin’s neighbors, Qin Jiadong often demanded money from home and frequently quarreled with Lin Qin. Lin Qin even had her husband, Qin Liang, cut off ties with Qin Jiadong. Lin Qin’s house is right across from Zhurou Qiang’s meat shop.”
Yuan Fei added, “Due to a city beautification project in Xuezhou, most neighborhoods on Cai Deng Street have been equipped with surveillance cameras. We pulled the footage from the 72 hours before the crime around the meat shop.”
Han Rong’s expression changed slightly, “You don’t expect me to watch it with you, do you?”
“What else?” Yuan Fei looked at him innocently, “We can’t read micro-expressions. Maybe we’ll find the real culprit in the footage!”
In the video room, Bai Xinhuai was fiddling with the DVD player. The families of the three victims refused forensic autopsies, opting for early cremation. Bai Xinhuai had to analyze photos taken by colleagues from the Public Security Command Section. When she saw Han Rong and the others enter, she nodded in greeting and pressed the play button.
Around 8 PM the night before the crime, the meat shop was about to close. Lin Qin, returning from work, bought a piece of meat. After purchasing, she didn’t leave immediately. She seemed to be occupied with something on her phone. After a while, she started to walk away. At this moment, Zhurou Qiang pulled down the shutter, grabbed his bag, and naturally walked alongside her.
Han Rong asked, “Were they going the same way?”
Ding Ding explained, “Zhurou Qiang’s home is above Lin Qin’s.”
Lin Qin lived on the seventh floor, and Zhurou Qiang lived on the eighth floor. They entered the stairwell without exchanging a single word. Just as Bai Xinhuai was about to play the next segment of surveillance footage, Han Rong interrupted firmly, “Rewind it.”
They watched the footage of Lin Qin and Zhurou Qiang walking together again. After repeating this three times, Ding Ding couldn’t hold back any longer and asked, “What did you see?”
Han Rong asked, “What do you think their relationship is?”
Yuan Fei replied naturally, “Shop owner and customer!”
Han Rong shook his head and explained, “A foreign anthropology PhD categorized human interactions into four types of distances. The first is the ‘public distance’ between strangers, ranging from 3.7 to 7.6 meters. The second is the ‘social distance’ for formal business interactions, ranging from 1.2 to 3.7 meters.
The third is the ‘personal distance’ for independent individuals, ranging from 46 centimeters to 1.22 meters. When strangers enter this range, you feel very uncomfortable, like a wild animal whose territory is invaded, causing an inexplicable irritability. Only those who make you feel secure can enter this range, which is the fourth ‘intimate distance,’ reserved for lovers, family, and close friends, ranging from 15 to 44 centimeters. How far apart do you think Lin Qin and Zhurou Qiang are?”
Ding Ding estimated, “About 30 centimeters. That’s already within the intimate distance!”
Han Rong, with a confident expression, stated, “The relationship between Zhurou Qiang and Lin Qin is not ordinary.”
Author’s Note:
Cats name might change.
Translator NotesIf you're enjoying the story don't forget to support the author! You can also support me on KOFI for site maintenance, raws purchase or as an energy boost~
Join discord to get notified whenever a new chapter is uploaded since I'm incapable of keeping up with a schedule~