Chapter One: Midnight Negotiation

Bright Café stood in the heart of Nanlin City’s busiest commercial street—a favored haunt among the city’s cultured white-collar crowd.

It was half past ten at night. In the quiet hall on the café’s second floor, Li Changqing, a twenty-four-year-old detective in a trench coat, rested his sparse-bearded chin on one hand, while the other lazily stirred the coffee before him with a spoon.

One circle, two circles, three circles...

No one could say how much time passed until the bald, middle-aged, and rather portly proprietor, Gao Mingyong, sitting across the table, could no longer contain his impatience. Li Changqing spoke at last, his tone detached, “Mr. Gao, whether it’s solving a case or fighting a lawsuit, if an employer’s concealment of the facts causes reputational or financial loss to the detective or lawyer they’ve hired, compensation can be very steep.”

“Detective Li, you go too far! If I’ve hired you, that means I trust you completely. Why would I withhold any relevant information?”

“Is that so…”

Li Changqing abruptly stilled his stirring, pressing his chin upward with his hand. There were dark circles beneath his half-lidded eyes, as if he were about to nod off.

With no others in the hall, the silence grew all the heavier.

After a long pause, Gao Mingyong let out a sigh and ruefully rubbed his balding head. “Detective Li, you’re a clever man. I’ll speak plainly—yes, to cut costs, I have been adulterating our second- and third-grade coffees. Nearly half the grounds are actually from three cheap brands out of Alatanbang.”

“But, this is an open secret in the industry—it’s not just me. I can swear on my life that my café’s rate of adulteration is by no means the highest in all of Nanlin! As for the premium and first-grade coffee, I’ve never tampered with it. That naturally includes the cup before you—”

A sudden fit of coughing wrenched through the air, cutting off Gao’s confession. Only after a long moment did Li Changqing regain his breath, his pallor worse than before.

“Detective Li, are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Old ailment. Thank you for your concern.”

Li Changqing fished a small white plastic bottle from his coat, shook out a few grains of raw glutinous rice, and swallowed them with sips of coffee as if taking pills. After a while, color returned to his cheeks. He patted his chest and smiled lightly, “This premium Leopard Dung Coffee does taste excellent.”

Ignoring Gao’s bemused expression, Li Changqing pulled a file from his briefcase and slid it over. “I’ve been busy lately, so let’s not waste time. Here are my findings since taking your case—please have a look. This is no simple prank. The women’s hair and fingernails your patrons have found in their coffees are not the work of your staff or your competitors. As for who is responsible…”

He stopped, gesturing for Gao to read the report first.

Confronted suddenly with the truth, even Gao Mingyong, who prided himself on his composure, found himself shaken.

Bright Café’s business had always been brisk, but lately, strange objects had been turning up in customers’ coffees, seriously affecting sales. Surveillance yielded nothing; he began to suspect an insider or a rival’s sabotage, so he’d hired a detective. This detective wasn’t well-known but reputed to be good with tough cases.

Gao picked up the stack of reports. The instant he flipped it open, his hands started to tremble.

Displayed starkly on the first page:

Victim: Chen Haoran, male, 77, resident of 13 Old Street, Nanlin City. On February 4, 2018, suffered a prolapsed rectum due to diarrhea, then developed sepsis. Cause unknown. Strong suspicion of accidental ingestion of a psychoactive sedative.

Victim: Shen Zhenzhu, female, 19, second daughter of Shen Si’er, a wealthy merchant from Xianglan City. On November 11, 2019, died in a collision with a truck after running a red light at high speed. Autopsy strongly suggests driving under the influence of drugs.

Victim...

Li Changqing’s voice was calm. “For most people, factor shell powder only causes addiction and dependence. But if a chronically ill person with a weak constitution ingests too much at once, it can cause confusion, heart failure, even total collapse of the immune system. All these victims, without exception, were in Nanlin City before falling ill—and all drank coffee at your shop.”

“Moreover, I have a lab report here. I had a friend at the academy test ten samples of your café’s various grades over the past week—five contained traces of factor powder, including the first-grade coffee you just insisted was unadulterated.”

Here, Li Changqing’s tone sharpened. “Mr. Gao, adulteration leading directly or indirectly to a customer’s death is a serious food safety incident. Is factor powder also an ‘industry secret’?”

“And if the police decide to call it poisoning… then money alone won’t resolve the matter!”

He looked intently at Gao. “One price—fifty thousand Lang coins. Write a confession, turn yourself in to the Food Bureau, admit to adulterating your coffee, and vow never to do so again. I’ll help you resolve this incident.”

“Fifty… fifty thousand Lang coins?!”

“Detective Li, this is robbery!” Gao’s face was livid. “I admit to the adulteration, but I’ve never heard of factor powder killing people! Your agency is fairly well-known in Nanlin, you shouldn’t be extorting your clients with baseless accusations. If word gets out, your reputation will suffer!”

Li Changqing seemed unfazed by Gao’s indignation. Calmly, he stood, took up his soft felt hat, and patted it. He pulled out his chair, saying coolly, “Actually, the most troublesome thing here isn’t the adulteration. The problem is—the women’s hair, teeth, and fingernails are materializing in the coffee without a trace. The entire process, from brewing to serving, is fully surveilled with no suspicious activity. So… the only logical explanation left is—well, Mr. Gao, you started hustling at fifteen. You must have seen many strange things in your time…”

He placed the felt hat on his head, picked up the cane leaning against the wall, walked to the stairs, and looked back with a final word: “Though our negotiation failed, I will still honor our confidentiality agreement. I will keep this matter secret for you, Mr. Gao. For your own sake, I hope you act wisely from here on.”

Watching Li Changqing’s figure disappear through the window into the street, Gao Mingyong sank into a chair, his expression dark and uncertain.

Bright Café had always enjoyed brisk business, but recently, the bizarre objects found in customers’ coffees had severely damaged its reputation. After fruitless surveillance, Gao suspected either an insider or a rival’s sabotage, so he’d sought out a detective—not a famous one, but reputedly skilled at solving unusual mysteries. Now, it seemed, the man had ignored the culprit and instead unearthed Gao’s own misdeeds—and had the nerve to threaten blackmail. Gao was both angry and regretful—he cursed his stinginess for hiring a lesser-known agency on a whim.

He’d been extorted…

Duang—Duang—Duang—

The midnight chimes echoed distantly. Gao Mingyong shook himself from his thoughts, resolved to hire a reputable detective agency for a new investigation first thing in the morning. Having made up his mind, he collected the coffee cups left behind and carried them to the kitchen.

On the silent kitchen counter, a freshly brewed cup of coffee stood alone.

“Xiao Li?!”

Gao glanced about; under the white fluorescent light, the kitchen was empty. The staff member Xiao Li, who’d stayed late, was nowhere to be seen.

It shouldn’t be Xiao Li—he’d sent him home at ten.

Or maybe it was a prank from the Lombardo Tea House across the street? That madwoman was always dumping dirty water onto his side of the street at night…

With a scowl, Gao steeled himself and approached the cup. The rising steam carried a tempting aroma, and for a moment he almost wanted to drink it.

Lifting the cup to his lips, Gao suddenly recalled something and his face darkened. He slowly set the cup down and poured the coffee into the sink. As the brown liquid swirled away, several dark red women’s fingernails bobbed to the surface, and beneath them, a tangle of long black hair.

Clang—

Gao’s whole body jolted, the cup slipped from his grasp and shattered on the floor.

“Who’s there—”

“Show yourself!”

Rage surged up from nowhere. He strode over to the knife rack, grabbed two cleavers, and shouted hysterically, “Come out if you dare! What dirty tricks are you playing behind my back?”

“Damn it, get out here—”

He didn’t know how long he kept shouting before the kitchen fell silent again.

Suddenly feeling drained, Gao sullenly replaced the knives—though he kept one on him—and left the kitchen, heading to the storage room on the third floor, now his temporary bedroom.

He switched on the light, tossed the knife on the coffee table, and turned the TV volume up to the maximum. After washing up and changing into a robe, he sipped some tea and watched a variety show. Not bothering to turn off the lights, he finally switched off the TV and went to bed.

Restless, he tossed and turned, counting sheep to lull himself to sleep. Just as drowsiness crept in—

Shhhh… shhhh… shhhh…

Startled, Gao looked up to see the television flicker on, the screen filled with static snow.

“Damn it, the TV’s broken? When it rains, it pours…”

He spat, reaching for the remote on the bedside table. But the static grew erratic, and Gao turned his head to find the screen flickering with black-and-white images—sometimes a woman from decades past brushing her hair in front of a mirror, sometimes lines of text swirling unpredictably, sometimes a river with a figure standing in the water, their head draped in cloth…

After a while, the signal stabilized. The image fixed on a well, unmoving.

“What the hell is this? Tomorrow I’m complaining to the station.”

He spat again, only to realize something about the well on the screen seemed off—

Wait—

From within the well, a pair of hands suddenly emerged, followed by a woman in white, her long hair veiling her face, crawling out.