I watched quietly, waiting for Ye Shiwen to sip his drink before speaking up. No matter what, it was rude to interrupt others.
“Yi Shiwen, did you injure your arm recently?” I asked.
Ye Shiwen was shocked and subconsciously pulled the sleeve on his right hand. “Your eyesight is pretty good. Yeah, it’s just a bruise I got while playing basketball.”
Zhang Yan immediately cried out, “Oh, you play basketball too? I loved watching Slam Dunk as a child. It makes me think guys who play basketball are so cool!”
Ye Shiwen smiled. “I’ve been playing since junior high. I’m good at this move called the three-step dunk.”
Zhang Yan continued, “Wow, the three-step dunk! I really want to see it. That move must be very cool!”
I laughed. I got them where I wanted them to be. I naturally couldn’t talk to him about poetry and songs, since that was not my field.
Like the modern coroner, it was not only necessary for me to examine a dead body, but also to recognize the wounds of the living. Therefore, I knew a lot about various injuries. The injury on his arm was obviously not a bruise.
I sneered. “But weren’t you hurt by chemicals? Which team is playing basketball with sulphuric acid?”
Xia Mengmeng grinned, and Ye Shiwen gave me a look. “What are you studying?” he asked.
“Applied electronics,” I replied.
“Applied electronics?” Ye Shiwen snorted. “And you try to act like you’re Sherlock Holmes!”
Dali suddenly burst into laughter. Everyone at the table stared at him. Dali explained, “Well, you see, my bro here usually loves reading detective novels.”
I glared at him, afraid that he would leak my involvement with the police. The cases I had worked on were all confidential, so it would be stupid to brag about them.
Ye Shiwen crossed his arms and said, “Detective novels, huh? Then why don’t you show us your tricks?”
“What do you mean?”
“Aren’t the detectives in the novels very good at observing? You observe me and tell me what you see.”
“What’s there to observe about you? You’re just a college student.”
Ye Shiwen sneered aloud, “So that’s all you have? Just a few words!”
It was infuriating to be looked down on by the likes of Ye Shiwen. I used my Cave Vision and examined him all over. Fortunately, the bar was quite dark so the changes in my eyes were not so conspicuous.
“You are 175 cm tall and weigh about 60 kilograms. Your right eye is more near-sighted than your left eye. You like to play games. When you were a child, you fell on a bicycle and your right leg was broken. You just broke up with your girlfriend a month ago. You were with her for a long time. Your parents are divorced, and you lived with your mother from an early age. Also, you’d better smoke less, I think your lungs are a little sick.”
The two girls were evidently impressed with me, but Ye Shiwen suddenly stood up and pointed at me. “You... Why did you investigate my background?”
“What’s there to investigate about you? You’re not interesting to me at all.”
Xia Mengmeng grinned, and Ye Shiwen’s face turned white.
“I don’t believe that you can see from my body that my parents are divorced and that I just broke up with my girlfriend! There’s something fishy about you!”
“You mean to say that I was right about everything?” I asked.
Ye Shiwen made no answer. It seemed that I hit the nail on the head. I waved my hand and said, “Sit down. I’ll slowly explain everything to you.”
In fact, what I had observed from him, i.e. his height, weight, and fracture of the right leg were basic knowledge from the old books. I didn’t want to tell them about my ancestors’ writings, so I just glazed over the facts. As for Ye Shiwen breaking up with his girlfriend, it was very simple. The chemical corrosion wound on his right arm was left by the process of tattoo erasing. Judging from the depth, it probably occurred a month ago.
From the vague traces, it looked like three words. What else could it be if there were three words on the arm? Most probably it was a person’s name. But why should it be erased? I came to the conclusion that he broke up with his girlfriend a month ago, and this girlfriend must have been with him for a long time.
As for the divorce, I admit that I cheated, because he had just chatted with Xia Mengmeng too much that he did not notice a text message on the phone. The number was named ‘stepdad.’ Of course, there was also the possibility that the father had died, so I had two choices, and it just so happened that my guess was right.
Ye Shiwen’s face burst red. He bit his lips and muttered, “What a boring little trick!”
I smiled and sipped my drink. Ye Shiwen narrowed his eyes at me and yelled, “Don't stare at me!”
“Are you afraid of me?” I couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re joking! Why should I be afraid of you?” Ye Shiwen lit up a cigarette and was about to smoke.
I interrupted him, “Can you smoke outside, please? There are two girls here?”
Ye Shiwen groaned, stood up and went out.
Zhang Yan urged me to observe her. She was emitting a pungent smell of perfume. I didn’t want to talk to her at all. However, in order to help Dali, I gritted my teeth and played along with her. After listening to me, she started calling me a ‘Great Detective.’
After that, Dali chatted with Xia Mengmeng for a while. Xia Mengmeng was a very silent girl. When others talked to her, she listened politely. I was watching her on the side, and felt that she was a quiet girl who put a barrier around herself from others. Did Dali have a chance with a girl like that? I didn’t know, and I had done all I could.
At about nine o’clock, Dali proposed to go to a karaoke place. There was a reason for that—he was amazing at imitating Jay Chou. It was his biggest strength. But, alas, Xia Mengmeng refused, “It’s too late. Let’s do that some other time.”
Zhang Yan was enthusiastic, though.
“Come on, Mengmeng! It’ll be fun! I haven’t sung karaoke in a long time!”
Ye Shiwen had just been attacked by me, so he didn’t say anything. I wondered if Zhang Yan seemed to be a bit interested in me.
Then Ye Shiwen suddenly said, “The karaoke places near the college are all lousy. It’s better to go to one in the city. I have a car. I can drive all of you there!”
Zhang Yan’s eyes lit up. “Wow, you have a car?”
“So are we going or not?” asked Ye Shiwen.
“Yes, yes!” Zhang Yan nodded. “Come on, Mengmeng! Let’s go!”
And so the matter of going to sing karaoke was settled. I had a feeling that Ye Shiwen and Zhang Yan were suitable for each other. One had a huge ego, and the other liked to boost his ego.
Xia Mengmeng reluctantly agreed. I naturally had to go too. We all went into Ye Shiwen’s car, which was a BMW. It seemed that his stepfather was very rich.
In order to give Dali a great opportunity, I took the initiative to grab the front passenger seat so that they could sit in the back. Ye Shiwen gave me a look, and deliberately smoked in front of me along the way. The sacrifice I made tonight was really too big!
On the way, Ye Shiwen whispered to me, “Why are you out here with us if you’ve already got a girlfriend?”
“I just felt like singing karaoke. Is that so strange?”
Ye Shiwen snorted. “Don’t think that Dali is the only one who can ask for help. Do you know what kind of friends I have? Some own nightclubs, and some sell ecstasy pills. Who are you compared to them?”
“Well, if I call my friends, they’d round your friends up and throw them in jail.”
I smiled faintly at him.
Ye Shiwen laughed. “Can you brag about something more believable? You think I would believe that a student like you know the police?”
“Doesn’t matter if you believe it or not, because it’s true.”
“Sure!” Ye Shiwen jeered sarcastically.
“I really do know the police.”
“If you do, I will call you ‘father!’”
“Deal!” I readily agreed.
Ye Shiwen’s face suddenly changed. He was afraid that I really knew one or two policemen. He added, “Those low-ranking officers and the traffic police don’t count though!”
“Don’t worry, all the police officers I know are from the criminal division.”
Ye Shiwen burst out in laughter again. “That’s just bullshit!”
Of course, this was what I said, but I was not going to call Huang Xiaotao just to settle a bet with an obnoxious rich guy I just met. But what I never expected was that I actually saw her that night...