Zhao Yunlan gently extricated himself from the crime scene in the kitchen to the relative privacy of the apartment's bathroom. The building was from an awkward, transitory time of accessibility regulations, and thus boasted a bathroom large enough for a wheelchair to turn around in, had its user somehow managed to scale the gravel yard, lack of elevator, and high thresholds that characterized the trip to the fifth-storey room.
The apartment's dead owner had added an ostentatious bathtub to occupy much of the available space. On the rim of that bathtub Zhao Yunlan set the incense holder and lit incense, then waited. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then, the smoke abruptly thickened into a haze. The lights flickered, and the Black-Cloaked Envoy stepped out of a portal.
“What do you bring to me now?” he asked.
Okay, the Emergency Backup Envoy. Shen Wei must be holding a lab or something. Zhao Yunlan did his best not to sigh. “A locked room murder. Jing Yisan didn't report to work today and didn't answer his phone, so the police eventually broke down his door. Due to the ... unusual manner of death, the SID was called to investigate.”
Ye Zun inclined his head in a very bad mimicry of his brother. “Show me.”
Zhao Yunlan poked his nose out first to ensure only the SID crew was present – explaining the Black-Cloaked Envoy to the regular police force was not something he planned on ever doing – and then led Ye Zun out to where Lin Jing was poking at the corpse and Da Qing was taking a nap. At least Chu Shuzhi wasn't here to get suspicious about the discrepancies in his beloved Envoy's behavior.
“Lord Envoy!” Lin Jing called out. This made Da Qing wake up with a start, and they wasted a few precious minutes doing the greeting dance with a cat caught napping on the job by the one person he didn't want to notice his slacking.
“The body is over there,” Zhao Yunlan said into the first gap in the conversation.
“I see,” Ye Zun said. He extended an arm and probed with dark energy, then walked around the corpse and prodded it with his boot. “He is dead,” Ye Zun declared.
“Yeah, uh, we figured that out already?” Lin Jing offered. “What happened to him?”
“He is not from Dixing, but ate a local delicacy nonetheless.” Ye Zun drew himself to his full height and affected an imperious expression that did not match Shen Wei's interpretation of the Black-Cloaked Envoy at all.
“You guys eat rocks?” Lin Jing asked.
“Magma,” Ye Zun corrected him. “Now, you shall have to excuse me, I have more important matters to attend to.”
“Bye, Brother Black!” Zhao Yunlan called after him as he bowed with an unnecessary flourish and disappeared into a portal. Probably to complain to Shen Wei.
“The guy ate magma?” Da Qing asked.
“It'd explain the damage – all that hot rock going down the throat and solidifying into ... that,” Lin Jing said, gesturing at the ruptured, half-melted stomach that had leaked out its rocky contents.
“Well, let's finish up here and head back to base,” Zhao Yunlan said.
“...so, that's how the guy died. Do you know how it could've been done? Teleportation powers?” Zhao Yunlan asked
Shen Wei actually put down his kitchen knife and squinted at Ye Zun. “People eat magma?”
“Of course!” Ye Zun scoffed. “It's a traditional delicacy.”
The twins then proceeded to have an argument about Dixingian cuisine and whether it made sense for anyone to eat magma. Zhao Yunlan sighed. Ordinarily he'd be enthused about his very pretty boyfriends having an intense discussion, but now his mind was too consumed with details from the case.
Someone had killed Jing Yisan. The fact that it had been done with a traditional Dixingian food made Zhao Yunlan suspicious.
His phone buzzed. He scrolled through Chu Shuzhi's report from the interview of Jing Yisan's colleagues. Foodie, one of the entries read.
“Hey, Ye Zun,” Zhao Yunlan said, interrupting the argument. “Have any famous chefs gone missing from Dixing lately?”
The culprit turned out to be a grandmotherly Dixingian who'd only come to the surface a few days ago. “I'm sorry, I- I really didn't know that humans couldn't eat magma cake!” Hai Li sobbed. “I knew they didn't have powers, but I've fed it to my powerless relatives as well and they've been fine!”
“It's alright,” Zhao Yunlan soothed her. “I know you are proud of your cooking and wanted to share it with us humans, but we can't appreciate it. It's best for everyone if you go back to Dixing. Make some extra cake for your grandchildren for me, would you?”
Hai Li nodded and wiped the tears out of her eyes. “Yes, Lord Guardian. I'm ready to return, Lord Envoy.”
Shen Wei, clad in full Black-Cloaked Envoy regalia, had the exact same expression on her face as a person might have when hearing about something their most idiotic relative had done. He'd worn it ever since he'd heard about the magma-based cuisine. “Very well,” he sighed, then opened a portal to Dixing with all the exasperation of a third-generation emigrant hearing about the backwards traditions of the motherland.
Zhao Yunlan still had to wait for Shen Wei to return and write the closing report, but Ye Zun was almost certainly plotting a threesome and Shen Wei had promised to make food suitable for human consumption. His life was great. And for the Jing Yisan affair: case closed.