Someone Under the Bed

“What would I get out of joining?” Wen Yiqian asked carefully.

“Everything you want, within easy reach.” The woman’s voice carried a particular warmth of the persuasive kind.

“And what would I have to do?”

“Only what makes full use of your talents.” Her eyes stayed on him, steady and unhurried.

“Talents?” Wen Yiqian looked genuinely confused.

“Your talent for crime.” She said it as a simple fact.

Wen Yiqian’s eye twitched slightly. “What happens if I say no?”

“You have nothing to worry about on that front. Even if you decline, Mask won’t come after you.” She smiled.

“Then I decline,” Wen Yiqian said immediately.

He had received the Model Student award every single year of his academic life. Joining a criminal organization was not something he could make his conscience accept. If he weren’t worried about retaliation, he would have called the police already.

“I see.” The woman’s expression shifted to something that looked almost like genuine regret. “Since that’s your choice, I won’t push.”

She reached into her clothing, produced a business card, and held it out. “My contact. If you ever reconsider, reach out anytime.”

A criminal organization handing out contact information this openly was either extraordinarily bold or extraordinarily confident.

They had no fear of being reported.

Wen Yiqian looked at the card in his hand. Bright red. Just a string of digits. In the upper right corner, a small illustrated fox, no name anywhere.

“I should introduce myself.” The woman seemed to notice him searching the card. A small smile appeared.

She brought her left hand out from behind her back. In it was a fox mask.

She lifted it to her face and held it there, her eyes visible through the cutouts, watching him with something that made the air feel slightly colder.

“Fox,” she said quietly.

Wen Yiqian stood there for a moment.

“Late nights are bad for the skin. I need my rest.” Fox lowered the mask, touched her cheek lightly, and gave him a smile that landed somewhere between playful and unreadable. “The offer stands whenever you want it.”

By the time Wen Yiqian had gathered his thoughts, she was already walking away. He watched her figure grow smaller in the darkness until it disappeared entirely.

“What is happening to my life.”

He let out a slow breath and rubbed his face.

In a single day, both the police and a criminal organization had extended an invitation to him.

Li Weiguo’s side was manageable: a straightforward man, someone Wen Yiqian could refuse without consequence.

The Mask seemed completely unbothered by his refusal. They had simply left a way to reach them, as though they were entirely certain he would come around eventually.

The truth was he didn’t want to join either.

The police consultant position had genuine appeal, but he knew what he was: a man who had been improvising from the start. Walk into a professional environment and he would be found out within a week.

The criminal organization was worse. Even setting aside the question of his conscience, he probably didn’t have the talent they imagined. And if he joined and they eventually saw through the act, the way out was unlikely to be a polite goodbye.

Both sides had decided he was some kind of criminal prodigy. Only he knew the truth: he was a fraud, and either door led to the same ending.

Without the skill for the work, don’t take on the job.

Wen Yiqian sighed. Too much had happened, and his thoughts were knotted.

He found himself, oddly, missing the feeling of being in character. No fear. Complete certainty. His mind moving faster than it ever did otherwise.

When he found that state, it was like the thing martial arts novels described as a moment of transcendence, the self falling away entirely. Sometimes he even forgot who he was, lost completely in the skin of the novel’s male lead.

He made it home and stood in front of his door, looking at it with a resigned expression.

The lock was broken: Li Weiguo’s doing from that morning’s raid. Fortunately only the lock, not the door itself. Replacing a door would have been a different category of problem entirely.

There was nothing worth stealing inside anyway. It was too late to call the landlord. He would deal with it tomorrow.

He wedged a stool against the door and set a glass on the edge of it. If anyone pushed the door open from outside during the night, the glass would hit the floor and wake him.

Satisfied with this arrangement, the thoroughly exhausted Wen Yiqian washed up quickly, lay down, let his thoughts drift, and was asleep before he knew it.

…

The fatigue of the previous two days carried him well into the morning. When he finally woke, the sun was already high.

He sat up slowly, wiped the corner of his mouth, and stared at the bright window with unfocused eyes.

The third day since transmigrating, and it felt like the first real moment of stillness he had been given.

The most pressing problem now was simple: he was broke.

A few dozen yuan to his name. Not enough for a proper meal.

The Outstanding Citizen prize money would come eventually, and a few thousand yuan might keep him going for a month or two at most. Without a stable income, things would get difficult quickly.

The one piece of good news was that the original occupant had paid three years of rent upfront. That was at least one large expense he didn’t have to think about.

“A job.” Wen Yiqian scratched at his disheveled hair. “Being poor in real life was bad enough. I’ve transmigrated, I’m the protagonist: why am I still sitting here worrying about money?”

He exhaled. “What can I even do? The only thing I know is writing.”

Writing novels. Inside a novel.

Even just thinking about it felt wrong in some way he couldn’t quite articulate.

He dropped the idea immediately. With his output, real life had barely kept him afloat. In this world it would be worse.

“Surviving really isn’t simple,” Wen Yiqian said to no one in particular.

Nothing useful came to mind. Manual labor was probably beyond his physique. He sat with the problem for a while and got nowhere.

His stomach made its position clear. He got up to wash his face and figure out food first.

He did not notice the figure lying beneath his bed, eyes cold and still.

While he was in the bathroom, the doorbell rang. He dried his face quickly and went to check.

The stool and glass were undisturbed. Whoever it was had come to the door, not through it.

He looked through the peephole and recognized the face immediately. He moved the stool aside and opened the door. “What are you doing here?”

It was the lean young man from the electric bike chase.

“Hi, I realize I never properly introduced myself: Xiao Yuan.” He looked genuinely pleased to see Wen Yiqian. “I got your address from the police. Sorry for showing up without warning.”

“Wen Yiqian.” Wen Yiqian smiled with a touch of embarrassment. “Sorry about before. I told you I was a police officer.”

“Don’t worry about it, really.” Xiao Yuan waved it off. “The police explained everything. I know you’re actually a private detective.”

His expression warmed into something close to admiration. “Getting to ride along with you on a real pursuit: honestly, it was an honor.”

(End of Chapter)