The Answer

Under that kind of pressure, given An Zhi’s personality, there was almost nothing she wouldn’t do.

After turning things over in her mind the previous night, she would have realized that the solution to the problem of Wen Yiqian, this apparent psychopath, had been sitting right in front of her all along.

Before she had driven him home, she had already sent that email to the station.

Whatever happened to her after that, Wen Yiqian would be the first suspect, no question.

But then he had revealed his so-called true colors without actually making a move, and he had spotted her recording almost immediately.

That left An Zhi with nothing: no grounds to investigate him, and a situation she had made worse for herself by trying.

Unwilling to be anyone’s victim, she had one remaining option: make herself disappear.

With Wen Yiqian as the prime suspect, the full weight of the investigation would land on him.

And if this so-called high-IQ criminal showed even the smallest crack under that pressure, his cover would unravel.

As a police officer, An Zhi had the skills to avoid cameras. Slipping away from surveillance and staging her own mysterious disappearance wouldn’t have been beyond her.

It was an unorthodox move. If it came to light, she would lose her badge and likely face criminal charges.

But if it worked, she would at least be free of the threat hanging over her.

With that chain of reasoning in place, it became possible to narrow down where she was hiding by working from her psychology.

Having pulled it off, An Zhi would be feeling a complicated mix: fear, anxiety, excitement, and pride.

Fear and anxiety were a given.

The excitement came from doing something that crossed every rule she had been trained to follow, and from the knowledge that if it worked, the crushing pressure Wen Yiqian had put on her would finally lift.

The pride came from having come up with the plan at all.

And in that state, there was one thing she would want more than anything else: to watch Wen Yiqian get taken away in a police car.

That moment would mean the plan had worked. It would mean she had outmaneuvered him.

If she missed it, she would regret it for the rest of her life.

That made it almost certain she had chosen to hide somewhere close to Happiness Residential Complex.

There was also something to the idea that the most dangerous place is often the safest.

The investigation would be focused on the route between the complex and her home. No one would think to look for her back where she had started, slipping past the cameras to double back.

She might be hiding within a few dozen meters of the police’s own perimeter.

The only spots within close sightline of the complex entrance were the two buildings directly across the street.

One was an office building: busy, loud, and blanketed in surveillance. Nowhere to hide.

The other was a hotel. The very hotel Wen Yiqian was standing in.

The risk of exposure was real, but given An Zhi’s tastes, the odds of her hiding somewhere comfortable rather than crouching in some grimy corner were considerably higher.

“Checked out half an hour ago?” Wen Yiqian’s brow creased slightly.

If An Zhi had been here the whole time, she would have had a clear view of Wen Yiqian strolling out of the complex and driving away.

What would she have made of that?

Had she sensed he might be closing in and moved first?

If so, where would she have gone?

Half an hour ago. He turned the timing over carefully, feeling something didn’t quite add up.

He checked his phone and worked backward through the numbers.

Then it clicked, and everything fell into place at once.

Of course. He let out a quiet breath.

Oddly, figuring it out didn’t bring any particular satisfaction. What he felt instead was a bone-deep tiredness.

Part of that was the lack of sleep.

But more than that, it was the relentless pressure of the morning: one thing after another, his brain never given a moment to rest.

Wen Yiqian moved to the guest sofa in the corner of the lobby, sank into it, and rubbed his temples.

The strange thing was that now he understood what had happened, the feeling that came through most wasn’t anger or frustration. It was relief.

Last night’s recklessness, and everything that had followed from it, had backed An Zhi into a corner and left her with no good options. That was on him.

Compared to her actually being taken by some psychopath, this truth was almost comforting.

At least he didn’t have to worry about that foolish woman getting hurt.

In his novels, the male leads were unrepentant egoists. Any slight against them was repaid with interest, and readers loved them for it.

He was built differently.

Even An Zhi, who had caused him all of this trouble, he could only see as someone who had made a stupid decision.

She annoyed him. He didn’t want her dead.

He had always assumed that kind of cold decisiveness was the bare minimum for a protagonist worth writing about.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Every male lead he had ever put on the page could pull it off without thinking. He alone, apparently, could not.

“I really am not cut out for this role.” A wry smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. “She put me through all of this, and I still can’t quite bring myself to expose her.”

He slid lower on the sofa and patted his own cheek. “That’s not principle. You just like looking at her. Pathetic.”

“If I were actually the male lead from the book, none of this would even register as a problem.”

“For him, something like this would be entertainment, not a headache.”

“Will I ever get there?”

“Then again… he’s just a character I made up.”

After rambling to himself for a while, Wen Yiqian stretched out on the sofa and let his eyes close for a few minutes.

With both things weighing on him resolved, the tension in his chest had loosened considerably.

An Zhi wasn’t in danger.

He wasn’t going to prison.

Everything else could wait.

Finding An Zhi and putting an end to this mess was going to be a lot simpler than he had feared.

“Time to bring this farce to a close.” Wen Yiqian pushed himself up off the sofa and stretched.

(End of Chapter)