The Overthinker

“A grown man still playing in puddles?”

A familiar voice came from behind.

Wen Yiqian turned and saw An Zhi standing a short distance away, car key in hand, watching him with an amused expression.

He scratched his head and smiled awkwardly.

“It’s late. The captain was worried you wouldn’t be able to get a taxi, so he asked me to drive you home.” An Zhi held up the key.

“Thanks for the trouble.”

Without another word, An Zhi pulled the car around.

Wen Yiqian thought for a moment and reached for the rear door.

“Sit in the front,” An Zhi said flatly.

Wen Yiqian moved to the passenger seat without arguing, and the car pulled away.

In terms of quiet, law-abiding streets, Ditan City had Gotham City beat by a wide margin.

Residents rarely ventured out at night. At just past one in the morning, the roads were empty, with almost no one in sight.

The inside of the car was equally still.

Still enough to be uncomfortable.

“Do you know where I live?” Wen Yiqian finally asked, unable to take the silence any longer. She showed no sign of asking for his address.

“Don’t you live in the same building as Xu Xuanmei?” An Zhi glanced at him with the look she reserved for people stating the obvious. “Happiness Residential Complex. I know the way.”

“Right, good then.” Wen Yiqian nodded, grumbling quietly to himself.

Was getting sprayed with a bit of saliva really such a catastrophe?

Did it warrant this level of sulking?

Women really were like two entirely different people before and after you got to know them.

Wen Yiqian decided he was still too naive.

An Zhi had seemed beautiful and warm earlier: someone he had found genuinely appealing. Now she just seemed petty and exhausting.

“You don’t have to play dumb in front of me,” An Zhi said, eyes fixed straight ahead.

“Uh…” Wen Yiqian ventured carefully. “Are you calling me stupid?”

“I’m complimenting you on being clever.” Her expression didn’t shift. “Anyone who personally dealt with two psychopaths in a single day is far from stupid.”

She turned her head and gave him a look that was almost a smile. “Not just clever, actually. A little too clever.”

“And yet someone that clever insisting on acting foolish and confused.”

“That can only mean it’s an act.”

Wen Yiqian’s frown deepened, unease settling in. “Are you sure you’re not calling me stupid?”

“Stop pretending.” An Zhi’s tone was dry. “Wearing a Mask all the time must get tiring, doesn’t it?”

Wen Yiqian went quiet for a moment and finally understood.

An Zhi had disappeared into her own chain of deductions and wasn’t coming back out.

In her mind, both incidents today had been meticulously orchestrated by Wen Yiqian from the start.

He was the mastermind: a high-IQ criminal with a particular fondness for playing the fool.

“You’re overthinking it,” he said after a pause.

He had no idea how to convince her that he genuinely was just a simpleton.

The car stopped at a red light.

“You may have handled both cases without leaving a trace, but I’ll be watching you.” An Zhi turned to look at him directly. “Don’t let your guard down for even a second. Otherwise, I’ll tear that mask off myself.”

Watching her, thoroughly lost in her own fantasy, Wen Yiqian finally remembered her character profile.

Spoiled, princess complex, and a full-blown delusion disorder.

The delusion disorder had been written in specifically to make her wildly overestimate the protagonist at every turn, imagining someone already formidable as something even more terrifying, generating suspense and dramatic irony throughout.

Which was why An Zhi, through the pure power of her imagination, had constructed an elaborate portrait of Wen Yiqian as an off-the-books high-IQ criminal.

The male lead in the novel had genuinely been something like that. The current Wen Yiqian was just a fool.

Helpless as he felt, he knew perfectly well that with someone like her, the more you explained, the more fuel you added to the fire.

So he said nothing, closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and feigned sleep.

An Zhi had no intention of letting that stand.

To be precise, she was trying to needle him into slipping up, hoping to find a crack in the armor of this supposed high-IQ criminal.

For the entire ride, she didn’t stop talking, and not a single thing she said was normal.

Absolute torment.

By the end, Wen Yiqian was covering his ears, half-delirious with exhaustion. “Please, just stop. Have mercy.”

For the first time in his life, he understood how a truly beautiful woman could also be utterly unbearable.

At last, they arrived.

The car pulled up outside Happiness Residential Complex.

Wen Yiqian unbuckled his seatbelt and reached for the door handle, only to find it locked.

“Do you know why I said all that?” An Zhi fixed him with an unnervingly steady gaze.

“No,” Wen Yiqian said, deciding cooperation was the fastest way out.

“Yes, you do,” An Zhi said with certainty.

“I really don’t.”

“Stop pretending. You already know.”

He genuinely wanted to argue, but assaulting a police officer wasn’t something he had the nerve for.

He scratched his head, thought for a moment, and offered tentatively, “You want to use yourself as bait to draw out my true nature?”

“Exactly.” An Zhi’s expression said: caught you. “I’ve said more than enough today for you to see me as a loose end. The moment you can’t resist making a move against me, everything comes out into the open.”

“You haven’t already sent some email saying that if anything happens to you, I’m the one to blame, have you?” Wen Yiqian said, more tired than anything else.

An Zhi’s expression flickered.

He had said it offhandedly, with no real expectation of being right.

He pressed his palm to his forehead. “You’re not recording this conversation on your phone right now, are you?”

“Hm. Clever after all.” An Zhi pulled her phone from her pocket and stopped the recording.

“I…” Wen Yiqian swallowed the words he actually wanted to say. “Unlock the door. I want to go home and sleep.”

Click.

The moment he heard the lock release, Wen Yiqian pushed the door open and got out, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. He had been genuinely afraid she would find another reason to keep him there.

“It’s only day one and you’ve already shown this many cracks. At this rate, I might catch you sooner than I thought.”

An Zhi’s voice followed him from inside the car.

Wen Yiqian stopped walking. He took a slow breath. Even a saint has a limit, and he was far from one.

He rubbed his exhausted face, turned around, and walked back to the driver’s side window.

The window rolled down. An Zhi looked up at him with a small smile. “Something to say?”

Wen Yiqian leaned against the door frame, lowered his head until his mouth was close to her ear, and dropped his voice to something low and deliberate.

“Since you want to know so badly, I’ll tell you.”

“That’s right. Both cases today were my design from the start.”

“Those so-called psychopaths are nothing but my playthings.”

(End of Chapter)