That evening, after returning to the apartment, Xie Qingyan sat in the study, organizing all the information from the day while sketching out a logical framework for the case in his notebook.
Yin Wuwang set a cup of warm water on the corner of his desk, then leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed.
"Fuguang, don't you feel like this case has a strange relationship with Collapse Point Two?"
Xie Qingyan's pen stopped. "How so?"
"The original wrote Zhang Yunxiang as an impulsive murderer without reasonable motive, so the plot collapsed. But when the world was self-repairing, it didn't just crudely patch in a motive—it generated an entire mastermind behind the scenes." Yin Wuwang's tone carried a contemplative slowness. "This world's repair method is smarter than I expected. It's not just filling holes. It's growing."
Xie Qingyan glanced at him.
"And," Yin Wuwang continued, "the original version shown on TV had no 'woman.' She was added by the world. But she didn't just pop out of nowhere—she has a name, a motive, at least half a year of preparatory actions. This means when the world repaired the collapse point, it extended the timeline both forward and backward."
"You're saying," Xie Qingyan set down his pen, "the collapse points might be interconnected. Repairing Zhang Yunxiang's motive problem will bring out new characters and new clues, and those clues might point to other collapse points."
"Exactly." Yin Wuwang said.
Both fell silent for a while.
Distant traffic sounds drifted in from outside the window, occasionally punctuated by a horn or two. This city's nights were never quiet—always light, always sound, always people in motion. Completely different from nights in the cultivation world—where darkness meant true silence, only wind and the occasional wingbeat of passing spirit beasts.
Xie Qingyan picked up his pen again and wrote in his notebook:
Zhang Yunxiang → manipulated (6 months) → manipulator: female, identity unknown Night of incident: ZY knocked CW unconscious → fled → second person strangled CW with necktie Manipulator = second person? To be confirmed
Beneath the last line, he drew a horizontal line, then wrote a question mark.
"Tomorrow we start with Su Xiaoqing." He said. "Confirm whether the affair was real. If not, the manipulation theory is definitively confirmed."
Yin Wuwang nodded.
He watched Xie Qingyan's hand as it wrote. Yesterday, that hand had held a scalpel, dissecting the ligature furrow from the deceased's neck with millimeter precision. Now it held an ordinary ballpoint pen, recording the threads of deduction with equally precise handwriting.
Sword, scalpel, pen—Fuguang's hands looked beautiful holding anything.
He suppressed the thought and turned to leave the study.
"Get some sleep early." He said, waving behind him with his back to Xie Qingyan.
As he reached the doorway, Xie Qingyan suddenly called out.
"Wait."
Yin Wuwang stopped and turned.
Xie Qingyan sat at the desk, pen hovering above the paper, gaze resting on the line he'd just written—"Manipulator = second person? To be confirmed."
"Have you considered something?" Xie Qingyan's tone was level, as if commenting on the weather.
"What?"
"That woman spent half a year manipulating Zhang Yunxiang." Xie Qingyan looked up. "Half a year."
Yin Wuwang waited for him to continue.
"Half a year means she's extremely familiar with the bar's environment. She knows when Zhang Yunxiang comes to drink alone, she knows Chen Wan's shift schedule, she even knows the windows when Su Xiaoqing isn't around."
Xie Qingyan capped his pen and placed it on the desk. The soft click was particularly clear in the quiet study.
"This isn't something a random passing stranger could accomplish."
Yin Wuwang's expression shifted.
He thought of assassinations in the cultivation world—the truly dangerous killers were never the demonic cultivators who attacked openly. They were the ones who lurked beside you for decades, centuries, waiting until you'd completely let your guard down before striking.
"You mean—"
"She might have been there all along." Xie Qingyan said. "Right there at the bar. Or somewhere nearby. In some role that wouldn't draw anyone's attention."
The study fell silent for several seconds.
Yin Wuwang suddenly felt as though an invisible pair of eyes, somewhere beyond all that noise, was quietly watching something.
He walked back into the study, standing beside Xie Qingyan's desk, his gaze falling on the notebook. The lamplight cast long shadows across the pages, making the question mark at the bottom seem even more prominent.
"A woman who can approach drunk men without raising suspicion." Yin Wuwang said slowly, thinking aloud. "Who knows the bar's rhythms, the staff schedules, the regulars' habits. Who can be present without being noticed, remembered without being identified."
"Staff." Xie Qingyan said. "Or someone who's always around. A cleaner. A supplier. A neighbor."
"Someone invisible." Yin Wuwang murmured. "The kind of person you see every day but never really see."
Xie Qingyan looked up at him. In the lamplight, his eyes held that familiar analytical sharpness—the same look he'd worn when parsing through enemy formations in the cultivation world, searching for the weak point that would bring everything crashing down.
"Tomorrow," Xie Qingyan said, "when we look into the bar's records, pay attention to the background people. The ones no one thinks to mention."
Yin Wuwang nodded. "The most dangerous predators don't look like predators at all."
He straightened up, rolling his shoulders. "All right. Get some rest. Tomorrow's going to be a long day."
This time, Xie Qingyan didn't argue. He closed his notebook, set down his pen, and stood.
As Yin Wuwang turned to leave, he heard Xie Qingyan's voice behind him, quiet and almost contemplative:
"Yin Wuwang ."
He paused at the doorway, not quite turning around.
"Today in the interrogation room." Xie Qingyan's voice was neutral, but something underneath it was not. "You saw through all of that in one conversation. The manipulation, the timeline, the psychology."
Yin Wuwang half-turned, one hand on the doorframe. "Three thousand years of practice."
"Mm." A pause. "It was... well done."
Yin Wuwang stood very still for a moment. In three thousand years of knowing each other—as enemies, as reluctant allies, as whatever they were now—Xie Qingyan had never once complimented him directly.
Well done.
Two words. Nothing elaborate. Delivered in that same cool, even tone Fuguang used for everything.
But Yin Wuwang felt something in his chest do a strange, small flip.
"...Get some sleep, Fuguang." His voice came out rougher than intended. He didn't wait for a response, just walked quickly to his room and shut the door behind him.
Inside the quiet of his bedroom, Yin Wuwang pressed his back against the door and let out a long breath.
Well done.
He was three thousand years old. He had conquered half of the demon realm, survived countless assassination attempts, faced down the Sword Sovereign himself in the war that had nearly killed them both.
And two words from Xie Qingyan had just made his heart race like a teenager's.
Pathetic, he thought. Absolutely pathetic.
But he couldn't stop the smile that crept across his face in the darkness.
[End of V2_Chapter 15]
Next: Tomorrow's investigation leads to Chen Wan's apartment—and a life that didn't match the "warm guy" image at all.