The rain was still falling, rolling off the eaves and sliding past the streetlights, with a drop landing on Li Xuan’s hand. The summer rain was surprisingly cool. Li Xuan searched for keywords related to Sheng Min’s injury and found a slew of news articles. The common excuse was that he had injured himself while practicing dance.
The most recent was a blog post from a few days ago, written by a fan of Sheng Min, judging by the profile picture and ID.
“Since my baby got injured, he hasn’t performed on stage. What kind of dance was he practicing that day! It made my baby unable to dance again!” The post tagged Sheng Min, ending with a bunch of crying emojis, along with a video of Sheng Min dancing from his trainee days.
Li Xuan opened the comments, where fellow fans agreed. Then there was one comment that said: “What injury? It’s all an excuse! He just doesn’t want to dance. He really thinks he’s a good actor? He looks down on idols. Wasn’t he the first one to take on acting roles in the group? The group broke up so quickly, and he played a part in it. He wants to be both an idol and an actor! My poor idol was only trying to focus on the stage, but was dragged down by this teammate.”
The comments escalated into an argument, reaching over a hundred replies, with people defending their Idols and throwing insults at each other.
The glow from the phone screen hurt his eyes, so Li Xuan closed it after a while.
It was just over a year ago, Li Xuan thought. What was he doing then? He had just opened an internet cafe, attending classes, doing various freelance jobs, writing code, and putting up with Li Mingge and Shu Xin.
He had done many things and met many people, but Sheng Min wasn’t one of them.
If only he had met him sooner… If only Sheng Min had known him earlier… But there are no “ifs.” Time was the cruelest thing.
“Ge,” he had been standing too long, and Yang Xu nervously called out to him from behind, “Don’t think about it anymore, don’t be sad. It’s all my fault. If I hadn’t fallen asleep that day……”
“Stop crying. Wait a moment,” Li Xuan said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he returned to his desk and powered on his computer. “Let me focus on my work for now.”
….
Yang Xu fell asleep while waiting and was woken up by Li Xuan.
“Do you have Qin Zhengchen’s contact info?” Li Xuan’s eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion.
“I have his WeChat,” Yang Xu said seriously. “I blocked him a long time ago.”
“His phone number?”
“I have it.”
“Give it to me.”
Li Xuan used his computer to bring up Qin Zhengchen’s number, confirmed he was awake, and once Qin Zhengchen answered, Li Xuan played a mechanical sales audio, making it sound like a spam call. After only two lines, Qin Zhengchen hung up.
Li Xuan immediately sent a message, also altered as a spam text. When the recipient received it, the sender would appear as “a certain bank,” with a message saying that a large sum had been transferred to their account, and they needed to log in to online banking for facial recognition verification. The message included a link to the online banking site.
“Ge, is this really the bank’s link?”
Yang Xu curiously looked at the screen.
“Don’t click it,” Li Xuan said.
“Oh, okay,” Yang Xu withdrew his hand but asked again what it was.
It was just a fake page Li Xuan had made. If clicked, a software would be silently installed on the phone. Li Xuan didn’t respond but continued working. Yang Xu nervously glanced at him and then asked, “Do you think Qin Zhengchen will click it?”
They didn’t have control over the situation, and Yang Xu knew asking was a foolish move. But Li Xuan calmly replied, opening another program on the desktop, “He will.”
He looked really tired, his eyes bloodshot, and his voice was slightly hoarse.
“Ge, you should sleep for a bit,” Yang Xu said, not understanding what Li Xuan was doing, but feeling that he should rest. “Are you going home later? I can give you a ride.”
“I’ll go home,” Li Xuan said, resting his head on his hand and closing his eyes wearily. Yang Xu thought he had fallen asleep, but after two or three minutes, the computer suddenly made a beep, and a device code appeared on the previously blank software interface. Li Xuan opened his eyes instantly and sat up straight.
“You can go home first. If you can’t wake up early tomorrow, don’t come to the set. I’ll give you a day off,” Li Xuan said, cracking his fingers as he spoke. His face still looked pale, but his eyes were as cold as stars. It seemed like the brief rest had been enough to restore his energy.
“Ge, I’m not tired, and I’m not sleepy,” Yang Xu said, stifling a yawn.
“Even if you’re not tired, you should go home,” Li Xuan said, his expression neutral, eyes fixed on the screen while his fingers quickly typed commands. “Don’t worry about me. I need to be alone for a while.”
The computer screen was filled with numerous windows, running various commands. Li Xuan turned off the lights, holding a cigarette between his fingers. The darkness helped him stay calm and focused, with only the dim light from the screen illuminating his face. Breaking into a phone wasn’t difficult for him; however, remotely controlling the phone and retrieving information without being detected wasn’t something simple software could accomplish. Even for him, writing a program from scratch would take at least two days.
Fortunately, Qi Boyuan had something similar—he’d been rebellious throughout high school, and apart from hacking into school systems, he had done many odd things.
Li Xuan contacted him and made some temporary modifications. While he didn’t consider himself an expert in hacking, having never put too much effort into it, the result was working well.
The computer hummed softly, like a bee buzzing. Li Xuan had successfully retrieved all the information from Qin Zhengchen’s phone.
He was lucky, as he found what he needed in the encrypted photo album.
The rain had stopped, and the night was nearing its end.
Li Xuan deleted the traces of calls and messages, remotely uninstalled the software, and left only a location tracking plugin. Qi Boyuan had been careful, but Li Xuan reprocessed it to ensure it wouldn’t be detected.
After finishing all of this, he grabbed the cup of water Yang Xu had poured for him before leaving; it had long since cooled. He drank the entire cup and smoked two more cigarettes while reclining in the chair. After a while, he sat up again, slowly lowering his fingers to touch his ankle.
Was the healed ankle the same as before? What did it sound like when it broke? Could it be restored? Or would it always carry the marks of the fracture, like shattered porcelain?
Sheng Min’s skin was very pale, almost translucent in the sun. But even so, Li Xuan couldn’t see through the skin to the bones, nor could he tell if it was covered in fractures.
He withdrew his hand, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled. Then he reached into the first drawer of his desk, took out a spare card, inserted it, and opened the voice-changing software before dialing a number.
No one picked up. Li Xuan hung up and dialed again. On the third try, the call was finally answered.
It was noisy on the other end, the sound of cards shuffling almost drowned out the voices.
“Shut up, damn it! I can’t see while I’m on the phone!” a gruff man’s voice shouted impatiently, then yelled into the receiver, “Who’s this?”
Li Xuan’s Adam’s apple moved, but he didn’t speak immediately.
“Say something! Are you mute…?” The man’s raspy voice had little patience, cursing and about to hang up.
“Skinny monkey,” Li Xuan called out his nickname.
“Who the hell are you, calling me that…”
“Don’t remember me?” Li Xuan scoffed. “Has your ribcage healed?”
“You…” The man known as Skinny Monkey was stunned, as if in disbelief. After a while, he finally spoke again, still shocked, “Nineteen?”
