@crimsonfllower || starter call
Lan Wangji did not care for gambling. The many times he was invited for a drink at an indecently situated bar, Wangji found something else to do, refusing without leaving room for doubt. Slowly, the invitations fizzled out, and eventually the discovery of perfumed postcards ceased entirely. It all started as a prank, a jest from a neighbor Wangji believed was a permanent resident of his living room. Coasting from couch to couch, Wei Wuxian told him that a life of crime was not all that bad, to which Lan Zhan replied with a deathly glare and a threat to kick the delinquent out of his apartment. Much later, the cushions of his cream-colored couch lost the familiar dent of bent elbows as ringing laughter haunted his hallways like the breeze of autumn wind. Wei Wuxian disappeared without a trace. The next time they met, Lan Wangji was called as a witness to identify a body.
Lan Sizhui vanished ten years later under similar circumstances and Lan Wangji's crazed chase doubled its power, expanding the territory into rogue waters. There was always some kind of gamble involved and Wangji was left with bare evidence that led to nonfeasible leads. It wasn't easy to explain to the Chief of police that the bloody footprints of an identified suspect belonged to a random civilian gutted to throw police off the tracks of a real killer. At this point, Lan Wangji began to look insane and the investigator was forced to part from employing law enforcement to chase his suspicions to dead ends. This continued on for two more years with no sign of Sizhui or hints of hope to open up a cold case.
Cornered, Lan Wangji settled on hiding away in his incense-soaked office located at the edge of the polluted big city. He worked long after-hours without even once glancing at his wristwatch lying hidden underneath the cuff of an ironed, white suit jacket. A man of such earned dignity had no cigarettes tucked in his chest pocket or a decanter of whiskey. Instead, Lan Wangji coped by cradling a white rabbit in his lap, tracing its small spine mindlessly while it slumbered, rolled into a snowball. He began to nod off when the clock struck around midnight, far beyond the schedule Lan Wangji had been following for months. His phone rang, and he lethargically picked up after the third ring, peeling his eyes open. The screen lit up his exhausted face and slightly puffy eyebags a shade too dark against his pale face. The date on the top left of the display did not line up with what Lan Wangji originally considered to be the thirteenth before a Thursday. Instead, it was already Saturday.
The voice on the other side crackled with excitement that Wangji could not share given his current state. Skipping over conversational fillers, Wangji closed his eyes and let his ears pick up information that mattered the most:....I know it's late....we got news...anyway, he's at our station now...interview him...casino....known criminal activity. Lan Wangji hung up, snapping his eyes open to land his sharp gaze on a pair of keys. Before he fully shed the approaching limbo of unconsciousness, he was already speeding down the thinning highway to the center of the city. When his eyes could finally focus, he was in an elevator traveling downward into the basement where law enforcement liked to hold their cells and interrogation rooms. The police believed that psychologically weakening a detainee was for the benefit of gaining faster confessions. Lan Wangji opposed it, reminding authority of the presumed innocence. They never listened.
Accepting a half-hearted debrief from a sergeant who visibly had too much coffee, Lan Wangji marched toward the marked room where the lights were dimmer than the rest. The sergeant said something about the station switching to energy-saving lightbulbs but Wangji was far too familiar with enforcement's opinion of the detective. They sought to humiliate him even after months had passed since the last "waste of money mission", as they called it. Tossing his coat over his forearm, Lan Wangji pulled the doorknob of the polished interrogation room, sweeping it open with a stone expression landing against a single eye on the other side. A man seated in the chair was chained by his ankles and wrists like some prisoner. Snapping his head over to the meandering sergeant nearby, Lan Wangji demanded to know why the detainee was treated like a convicted felon. Sheepishly, the sergeant replied: "When you know whom you're dealing with, you will thank me", before retiring to the neighboring room where beyond the black glass others awaited. They treated these interrogations like a show and Lan Wangji always left the station with a migraine. Glaring back, the detective advanced, shutting the door behind him. He passed a glance over the other man, noticing a few finer details about him while grabbing the edge of the chair opposite of him and pulling it aside to sit in. Draping the coat over his lap, the investigator leaned back to refocus his attention. Only now did he realize that he rushed to the station under a preliminary belief that this man was somehow connected to Wangji's nightmares. Blinking, Lan Wangji started:
" State your name. Occupation. And the reason given to you for your arrest."
