“I'm telling you, I'm not the kind of person who jumps to conclusions.”
Lin Xiaoyu said this to her notebook.
It was about eight at night, nearly an hour past her usual quitting time.
There were only a few people left in the office. Every now and then, the sound of a keyboard came from behind the cubicle partitions.
This was the third time she'd opened the notebook that week. The first two had been while waiting for the elevator, because she was afraid she'd forget the details she'd just thought of.
She sat at her desk with one leg crossed over the other, the notebook spread across her knees. The edges of the cover had gone fuzzy from being flipped through so often.
There were eleven points in total. The ones she'd circled in red were circled so hard the paper was almost punctured.
She held the notebook upright, looking as serious as if she were reporting to someone, even though there wasn't anyone beside her.
She'd loved watching reruns of detective shows since she was little. She'd always felt that her powers of observation were better than everyone else's; she just hadn't had a chance to prove it to anyone.
Now she'd finally found her opportunity. She was determined to make the most of it.
She picked up her ballpoint pen, clamped it between her teeth, and flipped back to the first page, preparing to read everything aloud to herself again and bolster her courage in the process.
First: he never drinks anything cold.
Last month, an iced Americano had sat on his desk all afternoon until the ice melted completely. He hadn't taken a single sip. In the end, she was the one who poured it out.
Back then, she'd asked him why he'd ordered it iced if he wasn't going to drink it. He'd said casually that he'd meant to take a sip, then forgotten about the rest.
Later, he switched to a warm Americano, claiming that his stomach wasn't doing well. Lin Xiaoyu had even handed him a packet of stomach medicine. Thinking back now, he hadn't used it at all.
She'd believed him at the time. Now she felt like an idiot.
Second: whenever he sits down, he unconsciously tugs at his shirt hem.
He did it every time, and not gently either, as if he were afraid the moment he sat down, the chair would flip his entire shirt up.
Once, he pulled so hard that one of the buttons nearly popped off. His face went white, and he clamped down on the button so quickly it was almost inhuman.
Third: his phone case is pink, but he has a layer of black film stuck over it.
She'd once asked if he'd bought the wrong one. He'd said yes, he had—but the film was applied so smoothly and neatly, without a single bubble at the corners, that it looked more like he'd put it on deliberately.
Later, she'd secretly asked the owner of the phone shop downstairs. In five years of business, he said, he'd only seen that combination of case and film a handful of times.
Fourth: before going into the men's restroom, he first stands outside and listens to see if anyone is inside.
Once, Lin Xiaoyu deliberately followed him and watched him stand at the entrance for a full three seconds before pushing the door open. She'd counted those three seconds with the stopwatch on her phone.
Fifth: whenever the director calls his name, he takes half a beat to react.
It happened every time. Yin Che had to call him twice before he looked up. His expression was like the name had only been temporarily loaned to him.
Once, she called him three times before he came to. When he finally looked up, he was still saying something under his breath, like someone had just shaken him awake.
After reading those five points aloud, Lin Xiaoyu felt her voice trembling.
Of the eleven points, these five were the ones she was most confident about. Even she thought the evidence for the other six was flimsy, and she didn't dare bring them out to scare anyone without proof.
She flipped to the last few pages. She didn't have the energy to read the remaining six tonight, so she decided to save them for tomorrow and continue scaring herself then.
She stared at the five points for a long time before deciding to formally reason out a conclusion. After all, she considered her observational skills top-notch. She was only missing the final push.
She turned to a blank page and decided to seriously list a few possibilities, using a rigorous attitude to spout complete nonsense.
Hypothesis one: Zhou Yuen was actually the director's illegitimate son.
She pulled out her phone and opened the calculator. Director Yin Che was thirty-one, and Zhou Yuen was twenty-five. No matter how she compared the two numbers, there was a six-year difference.
She calculated it twice. The conclusion was that the director would have been only six when she gave birth to him. This hypothesis was completely impossible mathematically.
But she still wrote it down, on the grounds that maybe they'd been switched at birth. Besides, babies getting switched at birth happened all the time on television.
She drew a question mark beside it, then an exclamation point, and felt that this made her look very logical.
She tried drawing a simple family tree beside it. Halfway through, she realized all the lines had tangled together, so she crossed out the entire thing and started over.
She read the hypothesis aloud once. The more she read it, the more believable it sounded—believable enough that she managed to fool herself.
Hypothesis two: he was a spy sent by the head office, specifically undercover to investigate Director Yin Che.
She debunked this one herself in under ten seconds. A spy wouldn't even steal three of the company's ballpoint pens to take home and stockpile.
Besides, she'd never once seen him peek at anyone's computer screen. How could a spy be this useless?
She added a note: If he really was a spy, he should at least steal something valuable. Stealing ballpoint pens was just too pathetic.
Hypothesis three: he owed money to an underground lender and was hiding from his creditors, to the point that he wouldn't even drink anything cold because he was afraid of spending an extra dollar.
Even as she wrote it, she thought it was a stretch. The convenience store charged the same price for an iced Americano as a hot one. He wouldn't save a cent.
She even imagined a scene of him being chased through the streets, and laughed so hard at her own invention that she almost dropped her pen.
She circled this one in red too, pressing so hard she nearly snapped the pen tip.
Hypothesis four: he was actually a twin, and the two of them took turns coming to work.
She remembered one morning when he walked in with a slightly unfamiliar look in his eyes, as if he wasn't entirely sure where his own desk was. At the time, she'd assumed he hadn't slept enough.
Her hand paused as she wrote this one down. Something felt strange, but she couldn't put her finger on what.
She stared at the line for nearly ten seconds. The longer she looked, the more it made sense, like one corner of a puzzle had suddenly clicked into place.
Her pen hovered above the words. She hesitated for two seconds.
Then she crossed it out—quickly and viciously, leaving a deep mark in the paper.
There was only one reason: That would be way too much trouble. Who would do that?
She read all four hypotheses from beginning to end once more. By the time she finished, she was laughing at herself, and her laughter sounded especially loud in the empty office.
She turned the notebook upside down and shook it twice, as if that could shake the strange thoughts right out of her.
She closed the notebook, put the pen back in the cup, and decided that tonight's investigation was over. She'd fight again tomorrow.
By then, most people had already left the office. Only a few lights remained on, and the distant sound of the cleaning lady's cart came from the far end of the hallway.
Zhou Yuwei planned to finish the last section of the proposal tonight.
The draft on her screen was already on its third revision. The cursor blinked at the end of the final line, waiting for her to type one more word.
The coworkers at the neighboring desks packed up and left one after another, their footsteps disappearing at the elevator.
Lin Xiaoyu dragged over a chair and sat beside her, holding a convenience-store coffee. A few water stains from the line she'd just stood in still clung to the cup.
“How much longer?”
Lin Xiaoyu asked, though she wasn't looking at the screen. She kept sneaking glances at Zhou Yuwei instead.
“Half an hour.”
Zhou Yuwei answered casually. In her mind, she thought that this half hour was probably the most honest thing she'd said all day.
“You look kind of off lately. Have your hours been all messed up?”
Lin Xiaoyu launched her first probe, staring intently at Zhou Yuwei's face for any sign of a crack.
“I've been editing late.”
Zhou Yuwei's tone was so flat that there was no opening to exploit. She casually tightened the letter spacing on the screen another notch.
Lin Xiaoyu nodded and didn't pursue the subject. She looked down and swiped through her phone a few times, but less than ten seconds later, she looked up again.
“Hey, Zhou Yuen.”
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever have, you know, the kind of problems only girls have?”
Zhou Yuwei's mouse stopped in midair. Sixty possible answers flashed through her mind in an instant, and each one sounded more dangerous than the last.
She crossed out all sixty in her head, leaving only the safest answer—the one least likely to cause trouble.
“Are you talking about parking spaces?”
Lin Xiaoyu froze. Her coffee nearly spilled, the cup wobbling once before she steadied it.
“What kind of problem is a parking space?”
“There are never enough motorcycle spaces.”
Zhou Yuwei said it with utter seriousness, never taking her eyes off the screen. Inside, she was already applauding herself. This evasion was textbook-level.
Lin Xiaoyu looked at her like she was watching someone pretend to be clueless with extraordinary sincerity.
“Forget it.”
Lin Xiaoyu took a sip of coffee, deciding to abandon this round of questioning, then casually offered to help staple the stack of documents beside them.
She reached for the stapler on the desk, handling it with the familiarity of something from her own home. Neither of them said another word.
Watching her walk away, Zhou Yuwei suddenly remembered that the last time Lin Xiaoyu had borrowed the stapler, the two of them hadn't said much either.
Zhou Yuwei lowered her head to the screen. The corners of her mouth lifted despite herself. It was the second time that day she'd laughed over the same little thing.
She continued adjusting the letter spacing. The screen's glow shone across her face. The thought, That was too dangerous. I can't say anything else, repeated three times in her mind before she slowly calmed down.
She formatted the final paragraph and hit Save. The little loading icon spun for two seconds before stopping.
Lin Xiaoyu had already carried the stapled documents back to her desk, humming a song that was nowhere near the right tune.
Zhou Yuwei lowered her head and changed a few more words. The time on the screen was already approaching ten, and the office was so quiet that the only sound left was her typing.
At ten that night, only a few scattered lights remained on in the office. The copier's standby light blinked on and off.
Zhou Yuwei stood up with her mug. She wanted to fill it with water in the break room to wake herself up and clear her head.
As she approached, she heard a faint clinking sound from inside, like a spoon tapping against the side of a cup.
She pushed open the break-room door. The refrigerator door was open, its white light making the whole space look unnaturally pale.
Yin Che stood in front of the refrigerator with a cup of pudding in her hand, a spoon still in her mouth.
Cold air drifted out of the refrigerator, making the stretch of space between them suddenly seem much more obvious.
They stared at each other for two seconds. Neither moved first. Even their breathing grew quieter.
For those two seconds, Zhou Yuwei's mind went completely blank. She nearly forgot to keep her fingers tight around her mug.
Yin Che moved first. She pulled the spoon from her mouth. Her face showed no expression, and her movements were unhurried.
“This is mine.”
Her voice was as flat as if she were discussing some piece of business that had nothing to do with her.
“I know.”
Zhou Yuwei heard herself answer, her voice half a note lower than usual.
She turned and left immediately, walking so quickly that some water sloshed out of her mug and splashed onto her sleeve without her noticing.
She didn't look back. Her heartbeat pounded hard and fast all the way to her desk.
She set the mug down with a fairly loud clunk, making the person at the neighboring desk look up at her.
The coworker leaned over and asked if she'd been scared by a ghost story. She shook her head without explaining.
She stared at the screen, unable to take in a single word. The blinking cursor seemed to be urging her to make some kind of decision.
She told herself that she hadn't seen anything just now. After repeating it twice in her head, she barely managed to convince herself to finish up and go home.
She drank all the water. She even swallowed the last few drops from the bottom of the mug in one gulp, as if that could wash away those two seconds.
The next morning, Zhou Yuwei walked into the office right on schedule. She hadn't even set her bag down properly.
Lin Xiaoyu had already arrived and was busy organizing something at her desk. She only tossed out a casual greeting when she saw Zhou Yuwei come in.
Zhou Yuwei set down her backpack and was about to sit when her eyes landed on an extra item on the desk.
A pack of sanitary pads. A little desk dust clung to the wrapper, making it look as if someone had put it there first thing in the morning.
A sticky note was pressed on top. The handwriting was Lin Xiaoyu's—quick and messy, with all the strokes running together.
“Don't mention it.”
Three words, with no signature. She knew at a glance who had written them.
The edge of the note was ragged, as if it had been torn from some notepad without much thought.
Zhou Yuwei stared at the note for a long time. Her thoughts went around and around, yet she couldn't put together a single sentence.
She looked at those three words again. The handwriting was slightly wrinkled where it had been pressed into the paper, as if Lin Xiaoyu's hand had been trembling while she wrote.
She turned toward Lin Xiaoyu's desk. Lin Xiaoyu was looking down and busy with something else, never once raising her head.
Zhou Yuwei reached out to put the pack of sanitary pads in her drawer, but stopped halfway.
Her fingertips hovered in midair, frozen in place.
The office air conditioner hummed as usual. No one urged her to make a decision.