Muchuan and Xiang Wan

Xiang Wan felt a broken spider web looming above her head.

Standing in front of a pile of messed up spider silks, someone requested her to clear it strand by strand.

That someone was Bai Muchuan, the detective whose working style was “a little nervous” in Xiang Wan’s novel.

In order to complete the task of publishing the next chapter before dawn, Xiang Wan got herself a cup of coffee.

Thereafter, she sat in the office of the 720 Special Task Force, feeling refreshed and energetic.

The office was brightly lit that night.

There were a lot of detectives who was working late into the night just like her.

Xiang Wan could feel the hardship of the detectives, as well as gaining a first hand experience of how a detective works. Hence, when she wrote this part of the plot, she could do it with ease.

…

Tac! Tac! Tac!

Tac! Tac! Tac!

The sound of the keyboard was like a calming spell. Xiang Wan’s heart calmed down slowly.

When she encountered hesitation halfway through writing, she would look up at Detective Bai who sat opposite her.

She would ponder for a while and continue to write.

…

On Bai Muchuan’s computer, there was a simulated relationship diagram.

There was the relationship between the characters, clues, and case-reasoning extensions…

From time to time, there would be people going up to him and whisper something. He would acknowledge them with an “okay” before instructing them what to do, then he would continue to ponder over something.

The two of them were less than two meters away, sitting opposite each other. They were busy with their own thing, just like the rest of the people in office.

…

It was 3 a.m. in the morning.

Xiang Wan stretched her body outwardly as she prepared to write the last sentence as conclusion of the chapter.

“Fang Yelan said there would be a press conference at 9 a.m. in the morning to report the progress of the case. Could it be that he had a conclusion in his mind about the case? Rong Xiaonuan did not know that and dared not ask as well. She could only devote her brain and body to her novel…”

Upon completion, she vet her story one more time and felt satisfied with herself.

After the document was sent to Bai Muchuan, she suddenly felt a whim to send him an SMS.

Xiang Wan: “Detective Bai, is your unit recruiting external consultants?”

Bai Muchuan: “?”

He glanced over casually and replied to the text.

The office was very quiet, so the two of them had tacitly chosen to message each other.

She exchanged glances with him while pursing her mouth and continued to text.

Xiang Wan: “I noticed a problem, I’ve never written a case so fluently and insightful before. I have to admit that a good story is related to real life, any artistic creation divorced from the foundation of reality lacked of soul. I think I’ve found the cause of my failure… So, I hope to have the opportunity to come into contact with real life criminal cases and the life of a detective…”

Bai Muchuan: “Is the police force the market place?”

Xiang Wan: “… Of course not.”

She had a feeling that she had asked for the moon!

She curled up the corners of her mouth with a rueful expression.

Xiang Wan: “Oh yes, has Detective Bai ever heard of ‘Second Young Master Mu’? The legendary mystery fiction author, he’s my idol… His work is wonderful. The cases are written profoundly yet clear, the logic and reasoning is impeccable, just like reality. I feel that he is that type… a mystery fiction author who can crack cases. Unfortunately, he seldom updates his novel. He has written the same book for three years and still not yet finished…”

In the beginning, Xiang Wan waited for updates everyday and looked forward to the end of her idol’s novel. But now… she no longer hoped for Second Young Master Mu to end his book.

She was worried that her lazy idol would not start a new book if the current book ended.

After all, her lazy idol only managed to write around two million words in three years; Xiang Wan had good reasons to believe that he would stop writing a new book.

And if the worst happened, she would lose a source of inspiration!

Bai Muchuan tilted his head to glance at her. This time, he did not choose to text her but directly made a comment in her face. “You have too much free time.”

It was not that loud but Xiang Wan felt really embarrassed about it.

This was because she felt that he was not interested to engage in a conversation, and she was the only one who went on babbling about.

She coughed and tried to find an excuse to get out of the situation. “I’m exhausted. Talking can help perk me up!”

“This paragraph is good.” Bai Muchuan soon finished reading the chapter and expressed his affirmation toward the two chapters she had written. “However, it’s too emotional!”

“Huh?”

“The subjective conjecture can only be thrown away when you judge without emotion.”

“But I’m a romance and mystery fiction author.”

A romantic novel without ever-changing emotions; only rigid and solid reasoning logic. Who will want to read that?

Xiang Wan wanted to hear more advice from Detective Bai. Nevertheless, when he sent back a slightly modified document, he did not say a single word to her.

“… I’ll update then?” asked Xiang Wan.

“Yes.”

…

After Xiang Wan published the chapter, she looked at Bai Muchuan who was sitting in front of the computer, looking solemn and seemingly busy with something. She didn’t want to disturb him so she opened her review and comments page.

The now tepid novel “Murder The Dream Guy” had recently gained a lot of new readers.

Some of them were even male readers.

They objectively expressed their views—the novel was written poorly.

At the same time, they were also amazed at the latest two chapters she updated. They commented that the author adopted a novelty direction in writing as she obviously knew about Zhao Jiahang’s case and deliberately “borrowed the real life case to make conjectures”. The details of the case was written vividly. The characters seemed to come alive as if they had a soul. Regardless if the author was right on mark for the case or not, at least the author was very creative.

Most of the comments were positive.

There were also a small number of people with dark thoughts who still held the belief that the author herself was the murderer or prime suspect. They felt that the author was plotting something big. Someone said that the author must be crazy over pretty boys as the words used to describe the striking, gorgeous Officer Gu Yusheng were filled with romantic desires—that led to the comment section being flooded with numerous replies which stacked one after another. If the replies to the comment were buildings, that comment would have been a really tall building.

“So, are we shipping Rong Xiaonuan and Gu Yusheng?”

“…Why do I feel that the ‘wise and brilliant’ Detective Fang Yelan is sexier and appeals more to me? I ship FangRong.”

“FangRong? Why not ship [1]Fang Tai instead? Rong Xiaonuan is so idiotic and cute, Officer Gu should be the best match for her, okay?”

Xiang Wan continued to look at the comments. “…”

The readers of romance fiction were really adorable.

They could actually come up with a romance plot by themselves from a complicated and confusing homicide story; their mind must be full of pink bubbles…

The book reviews and comment section was booming with activity.

However, this was considered “fake” popularity as the current sensation and liveliness was because of the criminal case.

The curious masses had brought along traffic, however, the number of new subscriptions to her novel “Murder The Dream Guy”—was still dismal!

No choice. If one did a random search on the internet, one could find a lot of pirated sites. She could not stop anyone from reading her latest updates from a pirated website. Furthermore, the readers who read pirated material did not have any guilt in doing so. Such was the social environment, although upsetting, she could do nothing about it.

Huang He happened to see Xiang Wan yawning when he came into the office. “Teacher Xiang, you’re tired?”

People were accustomed to addressing those who deal with literature as “teacher”. Huang He only came to understand online Chinese literature upon coming in contact with the case. Thus, he followed this practice of addressing Xiang Wan as Teacher Xiang.

However, as an author who had written three books—three of which did terribly—and now on her fourth book, she felt she was not so worthy of that form of address.

She smiled as she shook her head, feeling embarrassed as she rubbed away her tears from the yawn.

“Are you so busy every day?” she asked.

“Not really,” Huang He chortled, “in a year or so, we’ll still get some days off occasionally.”

“…”

Is that deadpan humor, Detective Huang?!

Xiang Wan saw Huang He walking up to Bai Muchuan and tried to speak in a murmur. “Boss, your family sent supper over!”

According to Xiang Wan’s observation, the actual detectives were rather different from what was portrayed in movies and television dramas. She saw that the detectives were all males. So far, she had not seen a female detective that was on Bai Muchuan’s fieldworks team.

When a bunch of men gathered together, they would just make do with their daily meals. They would eat everyday at their canteen or order takeouts, even Detective Bai who owned a seven-digit limited edition watch, was no exception to that.

Therefore, when Nanny Li came into their office with piping hot supper, the whole office of 720 task force was seething with excitement.

With the exception of Detective Bai though…

He remained on his seat and swept a gloomy glance across the office. “Is this still an office?”

As soon as Nanny Li heard this, she knew that Young Master Bai was unhappy. However, he did not severely reprimand the act as the supper was meant for everyone after all.

“Young Master Bai.” Nanny Li wanted to explain when a girl behind her carrying a container of food spoke up all of a sudden.

“Little uncle, I’m the one who wanted Nanny Li to bring me to your office. But I… Grandma arranged for me to come here.”

The young girl was slim, graceful, and pretty. She seemed to be around 17 or 18 years old. She wore an adorable pink dress with a big cartoon bear print on the chest, as well as a pair of small sandals. Her sweet, tender appearance was as if she was a young bird who had broken out of its shell. She had a clean, schoolgirl aura.

She was facing Bai Muchuan as she spoke, but her eyes were sizing up the only woman in the office—Xiang Wan.

Then she continued shyly, “Grandma heard that little uncle brought little aunt home. So she specifically send me to have a look…”

Little aunt? Cough! Cough!

Xiang Wan knew that these people might have misunderstood, so she looked at Bai Muchuan out of reflex.

If the “little aunt” that the young girl mentioned was herself, both Detective Bai and herself had been wronged.

Should I explain about this? she thought.

But if she explained now, wouldn’t everyone know that she had stayed for a night at Detective Bai’s place?

…

[1] Fang Tai – Fotile is a Chinese manufacturer of high-end embedded kitchen appliances. The company name reads as ‘Fang Tai’ in hanyu pinyin. Fang Tai also means “Mrs Fang”, so as to gain rapport with female customers as they specialize in selling kitchenware.