Sleazy Han was renting an apartment in an old part of the city, which was surprising, considering the kind of car he had been driving. The SUV pulled up to the apartment building, an old concrete structure that looked as if it had given up on life decades ago.

Liwu squinted at the peeling paint and muttered, "If his car was a garbage dump. this place is probably a landfill. Why the hell was he living somewhere like this. And why do such buildings still stand in this city? I thought my husband made everything shiny and new."

He Xiao Yi replied with a grim look, "Don’t jump to conclusions. Appearances can be deceitful, and my system is already detecting deceit. As for your husband, he can only develop public land or land private citizens sell. The people who live here are holding on to their buildings as if they have gold mines in the basements. I read about it in the paper. Coincidentally, sleazy Han was the one that wrote about it." He sighed. "I can’t believe that I am now calling him sleazy Han like the rest of you."

They stepped out of the car, and adjusted their trench coats. As they climbed the stairs, Liwu crossed her fingers. This was not the time for her bad luck system to act up. Falling down the stairs was not her ideal way of meeting the lord of the underworld.

"You still flinch when someone says first class systems." He Xiao Yi looked back at her. "Still hate it?"

Liwu rubbed her hands together, this building was as cold as the snow outside. "It is discriminatory. I don’t know how my system is ranked, I never checked."

"First class." He replied with an amused smile, "I checked."

They made it to apartment 1E, Liwu grumbling about the abnormal lack of elevators, claiming the landlord was punishing the residents. Two police officers were sitting outside, and yellow tape was blocking out anyone that randomly trespassed. "Remove the tape, the house is not a crime scene."

The two officers nodded, and one pushed the door open.

To the dismay of the detectives the apartment was silent. It was immaculate. Minimalist. Pale yellow wallpaper, bare shelves, a single brown sofa that looked untouched. No clutter, no socks, no old food, no crumpled papers, no pictures on walls. It was as if nobody lived there at all.

Liwu blinked. "Did we walk into the wrong one?" 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

One of the police officers shook his head. "It’s the right apartment detective."

"Well, was it robbed or did forensics move everything before we arrived?" She gestured around.

The officer, standing stiff replied, "No ma’am, nothing was moved. This is how it was when we opened the door."

He Xiao Yi was quiet, reading the conclusions of his system on a virtual screen visible only to his eyes. [Inconsistency detected. Subject vehicle: Unhygienic, chaotic points to a disorganized mind.

Subjects residence: Sterile, minimal, devoid of personal imprint, points to a calm mind.

Probability of staged environment: 97%}

He spoke aloud, voice dry. "He did it deliberately. He made his car look like a swamp while the apartment is a monastery."

Liwu snorted. "Maybe he lived in the car and rented this place to have a physical address and bathroom. Most cars don’t exactly come with showers and toilets. If you ask me, the car was for impressing women. But judging by its state, I doubt he impressed many with those socks and old inside inside."

The searched. Cupboards were empty. The fridge was barren except for a single can of beer. The bathroom was spotless and Liwu took a picture for Linlin. She tapped the sink, squeezed toothpaste from a tube. "It is spotless. Who lives like this?"

"People with housekeeping." He Xiao Yi replied, shaking the bathroom curtain for any concealed evidence.

Liwu rolled her eyes. "That thin transparent curtain is not hiding anything." She stepped forward, and her bad luck system struck. Her foot got caught on the edge of the rug she had leaped over when entering the bathroom. It sent her sprawling with a yelp. "Shit, I should have expected this."

He Xiao Yi sighed, helping her up. "You trip over rugs more than any animated dog in a movie or sitcom character in existence."

But as Liwu pushed herself off the rug, she noticed something odd. The rug had shifted, revealing a loose floorboard beneath. Curiosity sparked. She pried it open and there it was! A folder that was folded into a square shape and tucked neatly into the hollow space.

"Ha!" Liwu grinned, waving it triumphantly. "Bad luck for the win. No wonder my system is first class, it is a treasure hunting system in disguise."

He Xiao Yi raised an eyebrow. "Or you are just clumsy and got lucky. What do you have there?"

They moved to the living room, laid the folder on the table and opened it, unfurling it like the petals of a flower hiding a treasure within. Inside were documents--names, dates, photographs. And then the shock: The identity of the novel based killer from the case sleazy Han had brought them.

It was a woman!

The evidence was meticulously compiled for each case. And a draft article already prepared tittles: The Bureau’s Greed For Glory Leads To Blunder: How I Found The Real Killer.

Liwu’s jaw dropped. "Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch. That Son of a bitch!!!" She screamed. "I knew he was holding something back, so it was this. He brought us a case he had solved and he was setting us up for failure. He was waiting to be crowned the hero. I knew that dirty rat was up to no good."

He Xiao Yi’s system sent a judgement. [Subjects motive: Self aggrandizement.]

He flipped through the papers in the file to the end. "This has nothing to do with the six men he was surveilling. I don’t know if we have gained anything here. You were right, he was chasing more than one story."

Liwu gathered the papers in the folder carefully and declared, "I hate reporters. None of them can be trusted. They always think they are the protagonist of every story, like heroes in movies."

He Xiao Yi chuckled softly. "At least your bad luck has saved the day, in a way. Now, we can rule the novel killings out."

Liwu thought of her butt that was still sore. "Don’t romanticize my suffering. The day is not saved. We have to take this file back to bureau. Let the chief choke on it and wrap things up while we figure out what is actually going on here. Either sleazy Han has gotten himself into trouble, or he is off playing hero. I don’t think I like either option."