Restricted Area

In the second skirmish, Jiang Chijing suffered a crushing defeat.

He didn’t dare to fix his eyes on Zheng Mingyi, nor the house across the street. He didn’t know where to place his hands and feet; he didn’t even dare to touch Zheng Mingyi’s back.

He clearly had learned forty-eight sex positions just a moment ago, but he ended up being moved around by Zheng Mingyi like a marionette on strings.

Zheng Mingyi was more than willing to see a different side of Jiang Chijing. According to him, during their morning confrontation, Officer Jiang was as feral as a feisty wildcat, but when afternoon came, he’d become a fledgling still wet behind the ears.

Jiang Chijing really didn’t want to be this way; he also wanted to flaunt his ‘martial arts mastery’ and have a steamy war with Zheng Mingyi. But he was unable to muster any strength at the thought of Zheng Mingyi having long known of his voyeurism, leaving his body at the whim of Zheng Mingyi’s manipulations.

The final sprint was pure torture. Zheng Mingyi kept teasing him with dirty talk, getting him to be beside himself with shame even as his body hummed with pleasure. He was so close to begging Zheng Mingyi for mercy and letting him off.

“Jiang Jiang?”

On the bed, after it ended, Zheng Mingyi squeezed Jiang Chijing’s waist, whereas Jiang Chijing determinedly faced the wall, refusing to pay heed to Zheng Mingyi.

—This time, he was really hiding from reality.

If it were possible, Jiang Chijing was willing to abstain from voyeurism for a whole lifetime in order to keep Zheng Mingyi in the dark about this.

It was the same after being caught spying on the recreation room the last time. The post-trauma from the shock Jiang Chijing felt caused him to refrain from actively opening the monitoring interface for a long time.

This could very well be my retribution, Jiang Chijing thought to himself. Heaven is telling me that when I act against my conscience, there’d be a devil that comes knocking.

“Why are you ignoring me?” Zheng Mingyi flipped over, kissing Jiang Chijing’s shoulder blades. “I’ll stop teasing you. Don’t you want to know how I found out?”

Of course he wanted to know; he just didn’t want to speak to Zheng Mingyi. He believed that he had masked it quite well, so he truly couldn’t figure out how Zheng Mingyi discovered this.

If he had to come up with a reason, it could only be that Zheng Mingyi, coincidentally, was observing him as well. Otherwise, how could he have known that Jiang Chijing was spying on him.

Jiang Chijing turned his head by a very tiny margin, looking expressionlessly at Zheng Mingyi, telling him with his eyes: ‘Fess up.

Zheng Mingyi smiled and he slung an arm around Jiang Chijing’s waist, flipping him into his embrace, saying, “You moved here half a year ago, right?”

Jiang Chijing uncommunicatively hummed in affirmative.

Renovations were done before he moved in. With such a large disturbance, it was impossible for Zheng Mingyi not to know that a new neighbour had moved in.

“I didn’t notice you at first, because I personally don’t have any interest in community affairs,” Zheng Mingyi said.

Jiang Chijing knew this; Zheng Mingyi had always been unsociable, never participating in the community events. While Jiang Chijing wasn’t interested in these community events either, he normally wouldn’t turn down the community workers’ invitations.

“This lasted until a few months ago when I started to look into Wu Peng’s manipulation of the stock market.” Zheng Mingyi continued. “The investigative unit failed to find anything. But from that point onwards, I discovered that Wu Peng seemed to be targeting me, possibly having guessed that I was the information leak.”

Jiang Chijing finally developed a desire to talk to Zheng Mingyi. He lifted his chin, looking at him, saying, “Then what?”

“Then I found that someone had touched my computer and installed a bug in my office. I started to be very vigilant of my surroundings, even when I was at home.”

Understanding dawned on Jiang Chijing. “And so you…”

“So I discovered that there was someone across the road ‘monitoring’ me.”

Zheng Mingyi used the word ‘monitoring’ likely because he wasn’t sure of Jiang Chijing’s intent at that time. He assumed that Jiang Chijing was related to Wu Peng and was responsible for monitoring him from across the road.

Jiang Chijing was inadvertently amused. “I’ve got my own job. How can I be monitoring you?”

“I didn’t know that you were employed at first,” Zheng Mingyi said. “When I left for work, you were at home. When I got off from work, you were still at home. I thought that you didn’t leave the house at all, and this made me feel that the person living across from me was indeed keeping a watch on me.”

Jiang Chijing’s commute only took about ten minutes; he essentially left on the dot every day. On the other hand, Zheng Mingyi had to get to work in the city and left earlier than him every day; it was also late by the time he got home, so he naturally wouldn’t be around to see the times that Jiang Chijing wasn’t at home.

“But I moved in more than half a year ago, didn’t you find it weird?” Jiang Chijing said. “Even if I’m Wu Peng’s eyes, I couldn’t have started monitoring you from half a year ago, right?”

“I wasn’t sure if my opposite neighbour had changed, because I didn’t pay attention when you moved in.” Zheng Mingyi lifted a hand to pinch Jiang Chijing’s face. “I only discovered that there was this guy who lived across the street, who’d take a monocular to spy on me when he’d nothing better to do.”

Jiang Chijing batted away Zheng Mingyi’s hand, guiltily saying, “Are you a pervert? You knew that someone was ‘monitoring’ you but you still walked around topless on purpose.”

“Because that person across the street was a bit interesting,” Zheng Mingyi smiled. “The weekend that I discovered someone was monitoring me, I went to get groceries from the nearby supermarket and saw this ‘private detective’ actually help his neighbour carry milk.”

The neighbour that Zheng Mingyi mentioned should be the auntie that lived behind Jiang Chijing’s house. Her husband and children didn’t live with her, so Jiang Chijing would occasionally help her around a little.

The tone with which Zheng Mingyi spoke of this sounded like he found the incident comical. Jiang Chijing raised his brows, asking, “What, can’t private detectives help their neighbours carry milk?”

“Don’t you find it weird?” Zheng Mingyi said. “A man tasked to do surveillance on someone would actually go around building friendly neighbour relations. And you didn’t even notice me when I was at the supermarket; you really didn’t seem like a professional private detective.”

“Did you realise then that I wasn’t monitoring you?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“No. I only thought it was weird, so I started to observe you,” Zheng Mingyi said. “This was also why despite noticing that someone was monitoring me, I never pulled my curtains.”

With the curtains drawn, Jiang Chijing couldn’t see Zheng Mingyi. Accordingly, Zheng Mingyi couldn’t see Jiang Chijing as well.

However, to find out what the person living across from him was up to, Zheng Mingyi had kept his curtains open, letting the other person ‘monitor’ him.

“You can observe if you want to,” Jiang Chijing said discontentedly, “but why did you have to do the whole wearing-an-apron-while-topless stunt?”

It even misled him into thinking that he was taking advantage when it was only Zheng Mingyi setting him up. He could almost imagine that while he thirsted at the sight of Zheng Mingyi’s back, the other was smiling in amusement while searing the steaks.

“Because I discovered that the neighbour across the street wasn’t just a bit interesting.” Zheng Mingyi smiled. “He was very interesting.”

“How so?” Jiang Chijing never felt that he was an interesting person. Not only did he hardly read books, his taste in movies was also very pedestrian. If he really had to point out something, it would be that he had nice handwriting.

“Good-looking.” Zheng Mingyi gave an unexpected answer.

Jiang Chijing arched his brows, playing it cool. “Oh.”

“Also, a little cutie that likes to help others,” Zheng Mingyi continued.

“Who are you calling a little cutie.” Jiang Chijing said with a frown.

“In any case, I often saw you helping your neighbours,” Zheng Mingyi said. “I found it very weird that someone like this would be sent to monitor me, but I was slammed during that period and didn’t have the energy to look further into it.”

“You didn’t have the energy to look into it, but you’ve the energy to play spy games with me?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“It isn’t tiring to play games with you. It’s relaxing,” Zheng Mingyi looked at Jiang Chijing, saying, “That was the only form of entertainment I had during that period of time.”

Jiang Chijing caught the gist of it. During that period, Zheng Mingyi should have been under tight watch by Wu Peng and was on his toes the entire day. It was only when he went home in the evening that he could get a brief respite.

“Is it that fun to tease me?” Jiang Chijing said.

“Very much so, you’ve no idea how cute you are,” Zheng Mingyi said with a smile. “You’d be out in your yard, but as soon as I start boxing, you’d throw aside all of your gardening tools and charge upstairs to your bedroom.”

“Since when did I charge?” Jiang Chijing frowned, retorting, “I walked very solemnly.”

Zheng Mingyi burst into laughter when he heard the word solemn and it took him a long time to stop, wheezing. “Afterwards I contacted Guan Wei hoping to pass the clues I have to him, but Wu Peng warned me directly that day. I had a feeling that something would happen, so I went straight home from work.”

“It’s the day that I saw you boxing when I got home from work,” Jiang Chijing picked up where this was headed.

“Yeah. When I saw you come back from outside, I thought you went to see Wu Peng.”

Zheng Mingyi didn’t have the time to investigate Jiang Chijing’s background so only assumed that he was a hopeless pawn on monitoring duty. He didn’t think in the direction of voyeurism, because the chances of running into a voyeur living across the street were too low in reality, let alone considering the situation with Wu Peng. So even if Jiang Chijing showed signs of actually settling himself into the community, Zheng Mingyi would only believe that it to be part of his disguise.

“So you were boxing so intensely that day,” Jiang Chijing wanted to laugh all of a sudden, “because you thought that I was making a report to Wu Peng and was venting your anger at me?”

“Mm,” Zheng Mingyi affirmed.

“Who is the cute one, hm?” Jiang Chijing finally found a chance to pinch Zheng Mingyi’s face. “Your brain auto-filled so much that you even got unilaterally upset with me.”

“Then that night happened.” Zheng Mingyi wrapped his fingers around Jiang Chijing’s wrist, conveniently changing the subject. “I didn’t expect that you’d help me. It really threw me off.”

“I treat my neighbours well, why wouldn’t I help you?”

Jiang Chijing seriously didn’t expect that, without his knowledge, the sensual and cool neighbour living across from him was actually doing such complex mental acrobatics.

“So I spent a few days investigating you after that, then discovered that you actually had no connection to Wu Peng at all,” Zheng Mingyi said.

Jiang Chijing remembered that after that night, Zheng Mingyi had vanished. Now it appeared that he didn’t completely vanish, but was off looking into his background.

“The neighbour staying across from me for the past half-year has always been you. There was no switching out.” Zheng Mingyi said, “You’re a prison officer at Southside Prison and used to be a court stenographer at the courthouses. You don’t have any criminal records, and your family isn’t short on money. It’s unlikely that you’ll make a deal with Wu Peng.”

At this point, Zheng Mingyi paused before concluding, “Which also means to say that the person living across the street from me isn’t a private detective, but simply a little pervert that likes to spy on me.”

“Ahem,” Jiang Chijing awkwardly cleared his throat, blurring the focus of the discussion. “If you were to talk to the community workers more, you’d long have known that the person living opposite you has never changed.”

“True,” Zheng Mingyi said, “but I’m too lazy to talk to them.”

Another problem suddenly occurred to Jiang Chijing. He looked at Zheng Mingyi and asked, “So you’d long known who I was before you were incarcerated, but still kept teasing me in prison?”

Previously when Jiang Chijing went on a blind date and Zheng Mingyi exposed that he liked men, he couldn’t figure out where he had slipped up. And it turned out it was because Zheng Mingyi had long known that he was spying on him; if he didn’t like men, why would he excitedly run upstairs to secretly watch him boxing?

Also, when doing the psychological assessment, Zheng Mingyi asked him whether or not he liked doing it in the dark. This was actually a hint to him as well, because voyeurs liked to hide in the dark.

Apart from that, there was also the strawberry jam, the proximity of their houses, finding the surveillance on the recreation room, saying that he was an exhibitionist, as well as doing a rerun of the whole wearing an apron in nude just now…

Zheng Mingyi had been teasing Jiang Chijing all this while, just that Jiang Chijing didn’t realise it.

“It’s boring in prison; who can I tease if I don’t tease you?” Zheng Mingyi smiled.

“Amazing.” Jiang Chijing gnashed his teeth, sitting up. “I’m going to find the warden and have your special treatment revoked.”

Zheng Mingyi wrapped Jiang Chijing back into his arms. “Actually, I didn’t intend to enter prison at first.”

“Wasn’t that because you had no choice?” Jiang Chijing said. “Since you lost the game, that was the only road available.”

“That wasn’t my only option,” Zheng Mingyi said. “I could have temporarily gone into hiding, found a way to collect the evidence, or hired a professional lawyer so that Wu Peng couldn’t pin it on me so easily. In short, there were many roads that I could take back then. I didn’t consider conceding and entering prison like this.”

“Then why did you change your mind?” Jiang Chijing asked.

“Because of you.” Zheng Mingyi looked at Jiang Chijing and said, “After I got an understanding of you, I suddenly broadened my perspective, and thought that it should be very safe to stay by your side.”

“You…” Jiang Chijing froze. “…felt that I would help you?”

“Mm,” Zheng Mingyi agreed. “I did consider slowly revealing to you that I wasn’t guilty of the crime, but I didn’t expect that you were actually friends with Guan Wei. This saved me a lot of work.”

It was as Zheng Mingyi said. Jiang Chijing was willing to lend a helping hand to others. If he knew that Zheng Mingyi was wrongly accused, he would surely think of ways to help Zheng Mingyi.

Rather than potentially stepping into another trap when going on the run, collecting evidence with the status of a fugitive, or forcibly confronting Wu Peng with a lawyer, Zheng Mingyi decided to retreat in order to advance. By hiding in prison, at least he had someone to help him by his side; it wouldn’t be a lone battle.

Jiang Chijing pursed his lips and said, somewhat miffed, “So it turned out that entering prison was all part of your plan.”

“It was because you were there that I dared to enter prison.” Zheng Mingyi said, “People normally wouldn’t readily accept themselves being imprisoned, no?”

Please, you’re not normal…

Jiang Chijing abruptly thought of something. He asked, “Then where did you hide the clues you have?”

Zheng Mingyi didn’t answer. Instead, he kissed Jiang Chijing’s lips, and he said, “When shall we start the next round?”