Winter Time Rendering

Her expression didn’t seem fake.

Zhang Shutong observed her for a moment. It seemed the woman belonged to the second faction.

Similar to the owner of the Lake Fish Restaurant: resentful, but not to the point of open confrontation.

To be honest, at this point, he could basically rule out the milk tea shop. The killer wouldn’t just forgo their revenge to go work for Father Gu at the mall. In the eyes of the extremist faction, that would be no different from surrendering.

But Zhang Shutong had gone through a lot of trouble to find a target that fit the criteria. To be safe, he made one last check:

"Then why does your husband still work at the mall?"

"I don’t know what he’s thinking. I’ve tried to talk him out of it several times. You can make a living anywhere, but he insists on going there, having to suck up to them every day. Doesn’t he find it demeaning? But what can I do if he won’t listen?"

The woman was adding tapioca pearls. When she finished speaking, she tossed the metal spoon onto the counter, where it landed with a sharp CLANG.

"Your husband isn’t bothered by the Gu family?" Zhang Shutong asked, feigning surprise.

"Of course he is! He curses them to high heaven, especially after he’s had a few drinks. I guarantee he’ll start cussing them out, and he even gets our son to join in. I tell our boy not to be like his dad, but he doesn’t listen either."

The woman put a hand on her hip and grumbled:

"That little rascal. If I can’t control him, I’ll just let him be."

’Seems like every middle-aged woman has a habit of complaining about her own kids,’ he thought. ’My own mom is an exception, though.’

But even as she said it, she didn’t seem to take it too seriously. It was as if cursing the Gu family was a God-given right, and it would be strange *not* to. The fact that they hadn’t gotten physical already proved how magnanimous they were.

This reminded Zhang Shutong of Li Yipeng. It was hard to imagine a child growing up in this kind of environment wouldn’t be affected.

Only one question remained: was this woman’s husband the mastermind he was looking for, the one from "six minus one"?

No matter how he looked at it, it seemed like a stretch.

Zhang Shutong was pessimistic.

Unless the man was lying to his family about "working" at the mall and was actually off doing something else.

But that still didn’t explain why he worked at the mall in the first place, and Zhang Shutong couldn’t just assume he had ulterior motives based on that alone.

Or perhaps there was another possibility: the killer from the original timeline, spooked by the early arson incident and afraid of getting caught, had canceled this weekend’s operation.

But as he had told Qingyi before, their capabilities were limited. If they started trying to guess the killer’s state of mind, the possibilities were endless.

The killer might have canceled the plan after seeing a warning shot, or they might have canceled because they got diarrhea from drinking cold water this morning. It was even possible they never intended to act today at all...

That was why trying to guess at "possibilities" was pointless.

Instead, he had to use reverse logic—

No matter how many possibilities existed, Zhang Shutong’s job was to eliminate them all until only one remained:

The killer would definitely act today, Saturday, December 8th.

It might be a case of drawing the target after shooting the arrow, but without a target, he couldn’t conduct an investigation at all.

Otherwise, they would just be running in place.

He had a rough idea of the situation now. His head aching slightly, he pulled out his phone, ready to start checking more shops with Ruoping.

Meanwhile, the milk tea he’d ordered was almost ready. The large cup was filled to the brim with pudding and tapioca pearls; only the crushed Oreo topping was left to be added.

Just then, he heard the woman turn and shout toward the back:

"Stop staring at that computer and bring me the Oreos—"

Her husband was out, so the person she was talking to could only be the "son" she had just mentioned.

The woman called out a few more times before there was any movement from the storage room behind her.

A cloth curtain covered the storage room’s entrance. A hand reached out from behind it, passing a large tub of Oreos to the woman.

Zhang Shutong’s gaze shifted from the hand to the large tub of Oreos, his expression thoughtful.

’So that’s how it is...’

All the clues were coming together.

’Maybe I really do have a special connection with Oreos.’

"Where in the mall does your husband work?" he asked suddenly. "I might have run into him."

"Oh, him? He’s in the supermarket, at one of the cooked food stalls."

As she spoke, the woman finished making the drink. She placed the cup in the sealing machine and smiled.

"Next time you want some pig’s head meat or pig’s ears, just go find him. Tell him the ’milk tea shop’ sent you, and he’ll cut you an extra-large portion."

"Thank you, ma’am."

Zhang Shutong smiled as well.

Now, he just had to confirm one last thing.

The operation was officially entering phase three.

...

"What did Shutong say?" Feng Ruoping asked, watching Qingyi stare intently at his phone. A new message had just come in a second ago.

The two of them had just left the mall and were deciding where to go. Qingyi’s bicycle was gone, and hers—a typical ladies’ bike—was too small and would struggle to carry two people. So, they were just wandering around the area aimlessly.

After all, Shutong’s instructions had been to "remain on standby."

’"Remain on standby" probably just means we can’t go anywhere for now,’ she thought, feeling a little helpless.

The girl was getting tired of this. She had come out today excited to go shopping, so how had she ended up just loitering on the street?

The scene before her was bleak. People came and went in a constant stream. She felt it was impossible to find the so-called "killer" in this vast sea of faces, no matter how brilliant Shutong’s mind was.

They should have just listened to her from the start and gone to the police station.

’It’s not like the few of them are more competent than the police, right?’

But just as she had that thought, things seemed to take a new turn.

Qingyi suddenly turned off his phone screen.

"We have to go back."

"Don’t tell me someone forgot something..." Feng Ruoping said, exasperated.

’Or is this related to that "The operation is entering phase two" message he sent in the group chat earlier?’ she wondered. ’Boys are always so dramatic and childish.’