Actually, Ru Meiqi didn’t have any intention to kiss this furry and sticky bear at all. She had only wanted to threaten him by yanking down his collar, but a certain shameless someone just seized the opportunity and slipped his palm behind her nape and pulled her closer.

Before Ru Meiqi could register what was happening, a dry and soft touch brushed against her lips. She was startled and her eyes widened as Jin Renguang’s face enlarged in front of her. The familiar scent of his cologne rushed to her nose and it subconsciously made her feel relaxed.

Jin Renguang obviously detected the changes in her body as he chuckled and let her go, but not before giving her lower lips a lick for the last time.

“…bastard.” Ru Meiqi murmured under her breath.

“Yes, I am.” He admitted readily but added, “I am an exclusive bastard tailored just for you.”

Jin Renguang pulled away and whistled as if he hadn’t just taken advantage of Ru Meiqi and sneakily ate her tofu. “So, let’s talk about business, shall we?”

Ru Meiqi glared at his shamelessness. “Who is the one that went off topic just now?”

“Is it me?” Jin Renguang chuckled without the slightest bit of guilt. “Well, sorry but I’m not sorry.”

Ru Meiqi sucked in deep breath as she tried to practice enlightenment and patience as to how people should cherish each other and killing was prohibited by law. Evidently, she had gotten used to his shameless and crude behavior throughout the years and only treated the earlier accident as being licked by a Tibetan Mastiff[1].

“You asked me to give her a look and see if there’s something wrong with her,” Ru Meiqi started. “Well, let me ask you some questions first. Do you suspect that she has something to do with the criminal?”

Jin Renguang shrugged and if he wasn’t acting rogue, the aura he exuded was enough to pressure the whole room. As they talked seriously, his eyes glinted with sharp light. “Think about it. A wanted criminal, chased by police for almost a year, kidnapped a sixteen years old girl and let her go in the end. The question is; why? Why did he let her go? Do you believe that a high school girl could escape his clutch when a laborer couldn’t? No. So, the conclusion is; he let Butterfly go himself. He let her escape after confining her for three months. For what?”

Based on his experience catching criminals for years, the first thing that popped up in Jin Renguang’s mind was suspicion. He didn’t treat Shi Nian as a victim but as a potential suspect that had to be investigated thoroughly.

Conquer and defeat. Trick the tiger out of the mountain.

As long as the criminal managed to lead their investigation askew, he had succeeded.

But of course, it was all our Captain Bear’s baseless speculation. That’s why he hadn’t discussed this with anyone else but her.

Ru Meiqi pursed her lips, her mind deep in thought. “No, I am 90% sure that she doesn’t have anything to do with the suspect.” Jin Renguang didn’t know it, but when Ru Meiqi first saw Shi Nian, her heart instantly softened for some reason she didn’t know of.

Furthermore, the girl looked too innocent to be true, almost foolish and silly.

“What do you base it on?”

“Her eyes.” Ru Meiqi lifted her blank eyes and stared at Jin Renguang. “When she looks at me, they are full of acceptance and dependence even though she didn’t know me before. She has a trusting personality and you’ve investigated it yourself, her life is full of school and jobs, she doesn’t even have time to have fun like the other highschoolers her age. Have you asked about her social relationship with her colleagues? How about it? What did they say about her?”

Jin Renguang: “Same conclusion. Quiet, hardworking, honest and earnest.”

Ru Meiqi hummed, clearly she had expected that. But it made Captain Jin more confused. “Then, why did the criminal let her go? He couldn’t have predicted that she would lose her memory right? He clearly knew that if she remembered, he would be in great danger. Based on how he did the killing, he couldn’t have taken such a huge risk.”

“Or maybe,” Ru Meiqi said slowly. “He knew that she would not remember.”

Jin Renguang’s pupils dilated. “What do you mean?”

But Ru Meiqi didn’t want to divulge anything more. She clamped her mouth shut and ordered, “Prepare the meeting. There’s something I want to say to all of you.”

***

In the spacious conference room filled with all the members of the SCI squad, Ru Meiqi stood at the head of the long table surrounded by detectives twice her size. The room was dark and the only source of light came from the screen that showed the data of all the victims.

After she was done introducing herself with one concise sentence of “Hello, my name is Ru Meiqi, I am a criminal psychologist”, she instantly got into the point. “Let me tell you my initial profiling. Male, age 20-25 years old, height about 1.7 to 1.8 meters, slender, good looking, looks gentle when he smiles, has a high education, economically stable, socially eloquent, a local resident of City S and has a history of mild to severe case of OCD. Over.”

The whole room descended into deadly silence.

Jin Renguang tried hard to suppress the curve of his lips. He really liked her like this, confidently talked about her discovery like a proud Siberian cat, her petite body emitted an aura that no one could compare.

He knocked on the table to snap his comrades out of their stupor. “Any questions?”

Instantly, the silence turned into uproar. They had never met criminal psychologists before nor were they familiar with how they worked. Furthermore, the way they solved cases solely relied on hard evidence, witnesses and motives, that’s why they were stuck for ages.

They could accept the part when she said he had a high education and a rich bastard, but good looking, gentle when he smiles, a local resident of City S and has OCD? Furthermore, his age and his height?! How could she know that?

Damn it, was she a psychic?!

[1] Tibetan Mastiff is one of the largest breed of dogs lol, it is our Captain Jin’s spirit animal