Profiling

April 5, Qingming Festival.

Puddles on the road reflected the sign for Taipei Road Funing Garden. Raindrops pattered down, sending ripples across the water, while the occasional speeding car splashed through, scattering broken sprays everywhere.

It was Friday. It was only just past 7:30 a.m., but the streets were already bustling, and the little shops along the roadside were opening for business.

Beside the guardrail, a boy stood beneath a tree, yawning.

He couldn't have been more than seventeen. His black hair fell in a messy tangle, partly obscuring his eyes. His face was handsome, with sharp, sculpted features.

"Thirty years old, lawyer."

"Forty-two, coal magnate."

"Fifty-seven, surgeon."

"Twenty-five, dance streamer."

"Twenty-one... male escort!"

Gu Jianlin's mind wandered as he watched the passing pedestrians out of the corner of his eye, just trying to kill time.

His words seemed completely random, but the pedestrians passing by all gave him strange looks.

Some were baffled, others looked at him as if he were crazy, and a few eyed him with suspicion. The last one in particular—a handsome man dressed in gaudy clothes—looked shocked and angry. He spat in disgust and hurried away.

"Psycho."

Gu Jianlin didn't care, as if the insult hadn't been aimed at him.

He checked the time. The cemetery should be opening soon, so he picked up his bags and prepared to leave.

Just then, his phone chimed with a WeChat message.

"Lin, I'm heading back to our old home in Jiaoxi with your Uncle Su today. I sent you a thousand yuan on WeChat. Don't forget to visit your dad's grave, and don't buy flowers inside the cemetery. They're ridiculously expensive. All right, Mom's getting on the bus now. You only got out of the hospital recently, so come home early and rest."

A woman's voice played through the phone. Then came a thud, and the message abruptly ended.

"I didn't think Mom would remember."

Gu Jianlin spoke softly.

He put away his phone, nodded and smiled at the elderly security guard by the entrance, then went inside.

The guard watched the boy enter. He was wearing the uniform of Fengcheng No. 2 High School and carrying a large backpack. He had a suitcase in his left hand and several big bags of offerings in his right. He was clearly a boarding student.

A typhoon had swept through the night before, bringing all transportation in the city to a halt. For safety reasons, the school certainly wouldn't have let anyone leave.

Fengcheng No. 2 High School was the best in the city, with a top-tier education, but it was more than thirty kilometers away. The boy had come so early that he must have left school first thing in the morning.

The guard sighed to himself.

He'd worked at the cemetery for more than ten years, witnessing the changing times.

The more advanced society became, the more human warmth seemed to fade.

These days, fewer and fewer young people came to visit their family graves. Of course, that wasn't their fault. Life was hard. People were either working nine to nine, six days a week, or seven days a week, leaving early and coming home late. When they finally got a day off, they deserved to rest at home—even playing video games would do.

In all his years there, this was the first time he'd seen a child come alone to visit his family's graves. It was a rare sight.

Gu Jianlin had no idea what the guard was thinking. He was simply used to making sure everything got done.

Years ago, his father had brought him here every Qingming Festival to pay respects to their family. They always came at this time. If they arrived even a little later, the streets would be clogged with traffic, and the entrance would be packed with people inching forward.

So his father would wake him before six every year. Back then, he'd always been reluctant to get up.

Now his father was gone, and his mother had long since started a new family. He was the only one left at home.

When his parents divorced, their relationship had already turned sour.

He'd thought that once his father was gone and his mother had moved on with her life, she would soon forget all about her ex-husband.

He hadn't expected her to remind him to visit his father's grave.

Gu Jianlin shook his head with a wry smile and followed the narrow path he remembered up the slope. The cemetery grounds held many graveyards. His father's grave was in Section 13 of the West District, beside a little fountain. It was easy to find.

A black Mercedes was parked at the cemetery entrance. The driver's-side window rolled down, revealing a man with dark circles under his eyes.

The man was in his forties, wearing a police uniform. He sat silently in the car, smoking, then waved out the window and yawned.

"Little Gu, over here."

Gu Jianlin froze. "Detective Zhou? What brings you here?"

Two young detectives sat in the back seat, holding flowers.

His father had been a profiler on special assignment for the police. Outside work, he didn't have many friends. If anyone would come to visit him after his death, it would be his colleagues on the force.

Profiling meant analyzing a criminal's methods, the arrangement of the crime scene, and other characteristics to sketch out the offender's mindset.

From there, a profiler could build a picture of the offender's race, gender, age, occupation, appearance, personality, and more, then predict what he might do next.

Profilers were a great help in solving cases, so his father had been highly respected by the police.

"How many times have I told you? Just call me Uncle Zhou."

Zhou Ze leaned against the car window, smoking, and sighed. "I've known your dad for more than twenty years. A lot of the cases I handled were solved thanks to his profiles. Besides, whenever you had time off lately, you'd come hang around the station looking for me. I figured I might as well come to you for once."

"Here," he added, pointing behind him. "These are the young detectives your dad mentored. You know them, right?"

"Little Gu's so devoted to his dad that he's been coming to the station every day. Of course we know him," the two young detectives said with a laugh.

Gu Jianlin nodded slightly in greeting.

Detective Zhou was a senior officer at the Fengcheng City Police Department, with important responsibilities and a demanding schedule. Sometimes he couldn't make it home for half a month. Gu Jianlin hadn't expected him to make a special trip.

"Sorry for causing you so much trouble lately."

Thinking of how he'd been going to the station every day and bothering them, Gu Jianlin felt a little apologetic. "You didn't have to come if you were busy. You two were so close that my dad wouldn't blame you."

"It's no trouble."

Zhou Ze shrugged, opened the car door, and got out, stubbing out his cigarette. "I had to come see you, didn't I? He only had one son. I need to make sure you're taken care of. Speaking of which, how's your injury healing?"

Gu Jianlin touched his forehead. "It's all right. The doctor said I was fine when I left the hospital."

"Good. When we found you, your dad was already gone, and you were unconscious and covered in blood."

Zhou Ze studied his face, looking somewhat relieved. Then he sighed. "The doctor said that even if you survived, you might have suffered brain damage. So you need to get plenty of rest. You've got time off these next few days, so stay home. Don't keep going to the police station."

"I know."

Gu Jianlin thought back to the car accident four months ago and the hazy, disoriented stretch that had followed.

It had felt like a nightmare, and even now, he still hadn't woken up from it.

Zhou Ze patted his shoulder in consolation. "Come on, don't just stand here. Let's go see your dad. No need to wait in line for flowers. I had someone bring them for you."

Gu Jianlin pressed his lips together and nodded.

He'd often heard older people sigh about life's unpredictability, about how people met and parted so quickly that by the time they saw each other again, everything had changed. Time slipped away without anyone noticing.

He hadn't understood it back then. He was young, after all.

But now he did.

Gu Jianlin had never imagined that the next time he saw his father, four months later, the grass on his grave would be half a meter tall.

·

·

Five graves stood in a neat row, from left to right.

His grandfather, grandmother, second uncle, third uncle, and father.

The portraits engraved on the tombstones showed them all looking peaceful.

At least his mother was still alive and well. Otherwise, he really would've started out as an orphan.

The whole family was dead, and their power was boundless.

Gu Jianlin glanced at a small patch of empty ground at the end of the row. It looked like the perfect spot for him.

If he ever kicked the bucket, he could be buried there.

Then the whole family would be together again.

Gu Jianlin set down his suitcase and followed the ritual he remembered. He took flowers and offerings from his bags and laid them out in front of each tombstone, then knelt and clasped his hands together in a gesture of mourning.

It was all just like every other Qingming Festival.

Except this time, there was another tombstone.

One more bouquet of flowers to buy.

One more person to miss.

Zhou Ze silently lit a cigarette. His best friend had died young, and he was heartbroken.

The two young detectives also felt the loss. Professor Gu had been the best profiler in Fengcheng City, helping solve many major cases over the years. And now he'd died so young.

The only consolation was that Professor Gu had left behind a devoted son.

But the very next moment, they heard the boy muttering under his breath.

"You were a psychology professor. You could've had a high-paying job, but instead you became a profiler for the police. The pay was low, and you were always traveling. Wherever there was a case, there you were. What were you thinking?"

"In the end, you barely saved any money, and you died anyway. Mom was right about you. Apart from being good-looking, you didn't seem to have any other redeeming qualities. But I didn't realize that I'd turn out the same way when I grew up."

"When you started this job, I told you to buy more insurance. You were bound to make enemies, and you might not live to a ripe old age. If you bought enough insurance, at least I'd be better off if you died. But you had to believe Sun the Half-Immortal, that fortune-teller downstairs, when he said you'd live past eighty. And look what happened. You died at forty."

"Later, I went to confront Sun the Half-Immortal and demand my money back. He said he was only half-immortal, so his fortune-telling was only half right. I asked him which half he'd gotten right. He said he'd gotten half your lifespan right. Even if he refunded me, he could only give me half my money back."

"If you're really dead, show me some sign and take Sun the Half-Immortal downstairs with you. I made a deal with his son. I'll buy him a few big insurance policies too. Once he's gone, we'll split the payout."

"You were so superstitious. You wouldn't want to die without anyone burning paper offerings for you, would you?"

Gu Jianlin laid out the offerings in portions, one for each grave. But when he got to his father's, he did things differently.

He took out an apple, bit into it, then put it down.

Next, he pulled out a bread roll, took a bite out of it, and tossed it onto the grave.

Then there was a grilled fish. He'd eaten it down to the bones, but he set it out anyway.

The detectives stared at the boy as he greedily stole offerings from his father's grave. What a way to honor the dead.

Zhou Ze couldn't help commenting, "Little Gu, you're here to visit a grave like everyone else, so why are you so different?"

Gu Jianlin looked up. It was already past eight, and a few groups had trickled into the cemetery.

All around him, people were weeping. Wherever he looked, there were silent faces.

At first glance, they all seemed heartbroken.

"What does normal look like, then?"

Gu Jianlin glanced at a woman leaning over a tombstone and wailing. He said calmly, "Like that?"

Zhou Ze followed his gaze and sighed. "She's really heartbroken. Every family has its own troubles."

The tombstone was shaped like a rockery. A woman in her prime knelt in front of it, clutching a portrait and sobbing as if her heart were breaking. Her family stood behind her, watching in silence, their expressions numb or sorrowful.

"Heartbroken?"

Gu Jianlin said evenly, "But she looks pretty happy to me."

Zhou Ze blinked. "Happy? When did she smile?"

It was Qingming Festival, after all. Anyone in their right mind would know better than to laugh at someone's grave, unless they were looking for a beating.

"My dad used to say you shouldn't judge people by appearances. Grief can be faked, too."

Gu Jianlin glanced over again and shook his head. "The person in the grave was her husband. His tombstone says he was born in 1970, so he was fifty-two this year. This woman's no older than twenty-four. She came to visit her husband's grave dressed to the nines, with heavy makeup and designer clothes from head to toe. Her bag alone is worth eighty thousand."

He paused. "The man in the grave was rich and married a young woman. She didn't love him, so his death was good news for her."

Because she could inherit a fortune.

Zhou Ze stared at him, then laughed. "So you're still practicing your dad's profiling? Profiling takes a lot of life experience and knowledge. You can't learn it overnight. Besides, that doesn't prove anything. Maybe she's his daughter."

Gu Jianlin said nothing. He had plenty of reasons.

For instance, the men standing behind her had all called out "Dad" in front of the tombstone. They were clearly the dead man's sons.

But the problem was that the woman didn't look like them at all.

And the men's eyes were full of hatred and disdain whenever they looked at her. They clearly didn't get along.

There was a pale mark on the woman's ring finger where a ring had been, but she wasn't wearing her wedding band today.

The perfume drifting over on the breeze, the brands of her clothes and bag, the way she'd walked earlier, her flirtatious manner...

Of course, none of those details mattered on their own, and none of them proved anything.

Gu Jianlin said the woman was smiling because he had truly seen her do it.

In his eyes, the woman clutching the tombstone was trembling all over, her mouth slowly stretching into a grin as she suppressed a gleeful laugh. She was doubled over, laughing. Her face was beautiful enough, but when she smiled, she looked like a snarling demoness.

"Ha."

"Hahaha!"

"Hahahaha... Hahahaha!"

Her laughter was grating.

Normally, someone laughing so maniacally should have drawn the attention of everyone nearby.

But the truth was, neither her family standing behind her nor the people around them seemed to notice anything strange.

Gu Jianlin was already used to it.

Of course they couldn't see her.

Because this was the scene he'd profiled.