The counselor carefully scrutinized Fei Du. For a moment she had seen a complicated expression of unspeakable irritation flash across the young man's face, which made him seem more than ordinarily young and lively. She was almost a little astonished by this.
Fei Du had been referred to Dr. Bai some years ago. His previous counselor had been her shidi (25), an expert in young people's problems. Before that he had gone through an unknown number of counselors; probably Fei Du himself didn't clearly remember how many. It sounded as though he was simply a difficult person.
When referring the patient to her, her shidi had naturally contacted her in advance. Dr. Bai had wanted to know what problem had brought this child to seek psychological counseling and also why his current counseling couldn't continue.
"In fact, I don't know what his problem is," her shidi had said. "He's pretty cooperative. If you ask him to say something, he'll talk about it. I've tried to discuss the problem of the lack of affection during his childhood, and his mother's unfortunate death, and so on. He doesn't evade anything, his manner is very sincere. When you don't have anything to say next he'll sometimes even very considerately hand you the next topic. Bai-jie, you understand, right?"
Dr. Bai had quickly heard his implication—the patient was uncooperative.
Dr. Bai had been working for many years. She had seen each and every type of uncooperative client: there were the ones who fabricated things during the evaluation; there were the ones whose relatives were forcing them, who persisted in thinking they didn't have a problem; there were also those who thought themselves very clever and tried to reverse analyze the counselor, and the process became a battle of wits.
A psychological counselor wasn't all-powerful. There would always be some people who, for various reasons, would never be able to build a relationship of mutual trust with the counselor, and the counseling would fail in the end. These patients were either referred to others or slowly gave up on psychological counseling and didn't come again.
Fei Du was, without a doubt, a special case among special cases.
He belonged to the type that fabricated at the initial evaluation, and moreover his fabrication was totally unassailable. He was also an engaging conversationalist during the sessions. He evaded very little. At first glance he even gave the impression of having nothing to hide. When he had been a little younger, he had already been very adept at self-control; if the conversation touched on a sensitive subject, he would display neither aggression nor defensiveness towards the counselor; his emotional feedback was direct from start to finish.
The only problem was that it was too direct.
Encountering keenly felt pain, the healthiest and most powerful person still couldn't maintain an inward intellectual calm from start to finish—after all, a mighty AI only needs to have its batteries charged; it doesn't need psychological counseling.
Dr. Bai used countless methods without being able to establish an effective doctor-patient channel of communication. She could only lay down her cards and acknowledge to him: "My level of expertise ends here. I may not be able to help you. If you believe you still need help, I can try referring you to a better counselor."
She hadn't expected Fei Du to refuse. Further, after going through over a month of treatment with no outcome, like someone with more money than brains, he had doubled the counseling fee, buying out the last two hours of Dr. Bai's schedule every Wednesday evening. And every time he came, he would very sweetly compliment, "I feel very comfortable here with you. It's really helping me."—If Dr. Bai didn't think she was old enough to be his mother, it was possible she would have gotten the wrong impression and suspected this little playboy was coming to try to pick her up.
There weren't so many things worth talking about in his ordinary life, so Fei Du would borrow a book from her, then come to return it the week after. He would discuss the borrowed book with Dr. Bai, just as if he wasn't coming for psychological counseling but instead was doing graduate studies with her. Very slowly, she found that although the effects were slight, this method could sometimes make him reveal a bit of his true ideas; though as soon as she tried to follow up, he would once again very cunningly avoid her.
He was like a person living sealed in a castle, surrounded on all sides by an iron fastness with only one clear window, from behind which he quietly observed the people outside. Only by remaining very composed could you make him cautiously open the window a crack.
Dr. Bai cautiously examined Fei Du, then asked him, "A friend?"
"A practical joker who bites the hand that feeds him." Fei Du ground his teeth lightly and put his phone back in his pocket. "I'll be going now. I'll come bother you again next week."
According to habit, Dr. Bai saw him to the door.
With one hand on the door, Fei Du signaled behind him with the other that there was no need to see him out. Then he suddenly remembered something and said, "Right, Dr. Bai, I suppose next week will be my last time coming. I thought I should tell you ahead of time so you could arrange to give the time to someone else."
Dr. Bai froze and automatically asked, "You feel that your problem has been resolved? You won't need to come again after this?"
Fei Du nodded. "Yeah, lately I've felt like I've slowly been moving on from where I started and sampling new modes of life. I'm very grateful for your help all these years."
Dr. Bai smiled bitterly. "But I still don't know where you started."
"It's enough that I know." Fei Du smiled at her. "We'll chat again next week."
The next morning, Yan City's much-bemoaned great traffic restriction continued.
As for one person, once again riding a jangling broken-down bicycle, looking like he was delivering take-out, some cat hairs still stuck to his pant leg, in this condition having an unavoidable encounter with his luxury-sedan-driving rival in love—
Who knows how another person would have reacted? Captain Luo, anyway, was habitually shameless; his psychological quality was sufficiently firm. His pedaling gave the bicycle the imposing bearing of an aircraft carrier; using the "foot brake," he stopped the bike by the side of the road and raised his chin at Fei Du. "Come to give charity to the comrades at the Traffic Police Team again, you local tyrant? In a while I'll have them give you a wholesale VIP parking ticket."
Fei Du unhurriedly opened his mouth to return fire. "I still get hit with a ticket when accompanying a friend's sister to cooperate with a police investigation? Captain Luo, your bureau truly won't attend to legitimate business if there's no way to make a profit off of it."
Then he looked the doors of the City Bureau up and down, the words "Tsk, how poor" clearly hanging on the corners of his eyes and the tips of his brows.
Luo Wenzhou looked behind him and saw a young man and woman get out of the car. The girl's eyes were red. Looking closely, there was some resemblance to Zhang Donglai.
Luo Wenzhou got off his "bike-shaped carrier." "Zhang Ting?"
Zhang Donglai had a little sister named Zhang Ting. Luo Wenzhou wasn't well acquainted with her—after all, she was a well-behaved young lady who didn't get tossed in little dark rooms in police stations for speeding like her useless big brother.
Zhang Ting was about to answer when the man next to her stopped her.
The man walked up, gave Luo Wenzhou a business card, and rushed to open his mouth before Zhang Ting could. "Hello, officer. I'm a lawyer. I have accepted the position of assisting the party Zhang Donglai. I'd like to understand something of the circumstances of the investigation from you."
Luo Wenzhou frowned, his gaze scraping over the lawyer's face. When he was neither speaking nor smiling, his countenance had a sort of haughty coldness.
Luo Wenzhou didn't move to accept the business card. He looked at Fei Du; Fei Du was leaning against the car playing on his phone as if the matter was no concern of his. Luo Wenzhou spoke past the lawyer to Zhang Ting. "Did you talk to your family about hiring a lawyer? Does your uncle know?"
Zhang Ting stared.
Without waiting for her to answer, Luo Wenzhou took the lawyer's business card and smiled hypocritically. "You came very promptly. Twenty-four hours haven't passed yet."
"In these circumstances, the sooner a lawyer gets involved, the better, isn't that right?" Not to be outdone, the lawyer gave him a fake smile in return. "We've come to safeguard the party's fundamental rights."
Just then, a weak greeting came from behind them: "Good morning, Captain Luo."
Luo Wenzhou looked around and saw Xiao Haiyang standing at the door hugging a stack of folders.—The day before he'd been brought to the City Bureau by Tao Ran; today, unexpectedly showing initiative, he'd come himself.
"Perfect." Luo Wenzhou looked at him and smiled. Pointing behind him, he said to the lawyer, "Why don't you go and speak to the person in charge of this case?—You there, go on."
Xiao Haiyang still hadn't come around from inexplicably having a lawyer thrown full in his face by Luo Wenzhou when the lawyer started pestering him with a string of questions. He was entirely bewildered. "Where…where's Deputy-Captain Tao?"
Luo Wenzhou smiled benevolently at him. "Tao Ran had some business at home to take care of. He asked for the day off. Xiao Xiao, this case is still your people's responsibility, after all. You'll be able to tell it best and clearest."
Having disposed of Xiao Haiyang and the lawyer, Luo Wenzhou grew serious and turned to Fei Du. "What's this all about?"
Fei Du raised his eyebrows. "I don't know. I'm just a driver who hasn't reached the legal age to marry, come to drop them off on my way."
Luo Wenzhou rolled his eyes at him, his gaze sweeping over to the stunned Zhang Ting. He got out his phone, clicked a few times, and pulled up a photograph of He Zhongyi. "I'll make this short. Have you seen this man?"
Presented without warning with a human face, Zhang Ting was startled into backing up. She instinctively hid behind Fei Du.
Fei Du raised his hand to block Luo Wenzhou's wrist. "Can't you be a little more polite to a young lady?"
"Zhang Ting." Fixing a look on Zhang Ting, Luo Wenzhou said in a quiet but severe voice, "This man was killed two nights ago. Your brother is under serious suspicion. This is a homicide inquiry. Every sentence of your testimony is essential. What are you doing hiding behind someone who has nothing to do with this?"
Zhang Ting trembled and clutched Fei Du's sleeve.
"It's all right." Bending slightly, Fei Du spoke next to her ear. "Tingting, tell the truth. Captain Luo thinks the same as I do. We both believe your brother can't be involved in this."
Perhaps taking some comfort from him, Zhang Ting hesitated a moment, then took the phone from Luo Wenzhou's hand. For a long time she couldn't calm down and nearly bit her thumbnail down to the quick. Then she nodded irresolutely. "The photograph doesn't look very like him…but I think I did see him. I have an internship at the Economic and Trade Center. One day I went downstairs to buy bubble tea and ran into a weird person."
She pointed at the photograph on Luo Wenzhou's phone. "It was this person. He stopped me and asked whether I knew someone called 'Fengniange.'"
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Author's Note:
(25) Typically used to refer to people in the same school (in this case younger students), and I'm keeping it untranslated to make my life easier later.