You're just a locksmith! What are you doing catching swindlers at the start?

"Insulin needles are specialized, ultra-fine and ultra-short; this is a regular syringe."

He's lying.

"He's on drugs; he just injected himself and is incoherent."

Lin Zhou did not leave.

He leaned against the door frame.

He looked at the young man for about two seconds.

Then he spoke.

"Insulin."

His tone was casual.

It's like saying the weather is nice today.

The young man nodded.

The nodding motion was forceful, as if grasping a rope.

Lin Zhou took the tool bag off his shoulder and placed it on the shoe cabinet by the door.

He unzipped the zipper and rummaged through it, his movements neither fast nor slow.

Then he looked up.

"Do you want this lock cylinder or not?"

The young man paused for a moment.

He tightened his grip on the syringe behind his back.

"...What?"

"Lock cylinder,"

Lin Zhou pointed to the hole in the door.

"I just installed it, the one that costs 350. If you don't want it, I'll take it off. The locksmith fee—"

He took out the crumpled fifty-yuan note from his pocket, unfolded it, and waved it in his hand.

"Fifty, that's enough. Fifty for each lock-picking. I'll take the lock cylinder with me."

The young man's gaze moved from Lin Zhou's face to the empty hole in the door, and then back to Lin Zhou's face.

His lips moved slightly.

The syringe made a slight plastic sound behind him, deformed by his fingers.

"……want."

His voice was forced out of his throat.

"Do you need a lock cylinder?"

"want."

Lin Zhou nodded. He folded the fifty-yuan note again and put it back in his pocket.

"one thousand."

The living room fell silent.

The young man opened his mouth.

He squeezed the syringe tighter behind him, and a white crease appeared on the plastic tube.

"...What?"

"Lock cylinder, one thousand."

Lin Zhou's tone was flat, as if he were reciting a price list.

"You didn't want the 350 just now, now it's 1000."

"you--"

"Take it or leave it."

Lin Zhou returned those words to him verbatim.

His tone was exactly the same as the young man's earlier tone.

The young man's lips were trembling.

Then he lowered his head.

"……OK."

The voice was very soft, as if it were being spoken to oneself.

Lin Zhou nodded.

He turned around and took the new lock cylinder that had been removed from his toolbox.

It was copper-yellow, brand new, and had a dull sheen in the pale light of the energy-saving lamp.

He squatted down and aligned the lock cylinder with the hole in the door.

The movements are very slow.

First, the edge of the lock cylinder was inserted into the keyhole, paused for a moment, and then pulled out.

He held the lock cylinder up to the light and wiped away any non-existent dust with his sleeve.

It got stuck again, then paused for a moment.

His fingers rested on the lock cylinder, motionless.

The viewers in the live chat started to get anxious.

"What are you dawdling for, you three-second king?"

"Hurry up and install it, then leave."

"Wait, what did he do in front of the camera when he was taking the money?"

"I saw it too, his mouth moved."

"It's lip movements"

He meant—call the police.

He told the camera to call the police.

"I understand."

He was waiting for the police.

"The King of Three Seconds' dawdling is an art."

"Call the police immediately! Who's in the north of the city? Call 110!"

"I'm in the north of the city, I fought."

"I got it too."

"If tens of thousands of people call the police simultaneously during a live stream, won't the police think it's some kind of mass incident?"

"Whatever, let's just report it first."

Lin Zhou didn't read the comments.

He pulled the lock cylinder out again, changed the angle, and pushed it back in.

There is a locking tab between the lock cylinder and the keyhole that needs to be aligned. He deliberately misaligned the locking tab by half a millimeter, and it got stuck when he pushed it in.

It tried to exit, then pushed in again, and got stuck again.

A young man stood next to the coffee table.

The syringe was no longer held in his hand.

While Lin Zhou was turning around, he slipped the syringe into the drawer under the coffee table.

The drawer made a slight sound when it closed.

His right hand was empty, hanging at his side, his fingers still trembling slightly uncontrollably.

He stood there, watching Lin Zhou squatting by the door, repeatedly fiddling with the lock cylinder. His lips moved several times, wanting to urge him but not daring to.

Lin Zhou pulled the lock cylinder out again.

He squatted down, tilted his head to look at the lock cylinder's slot, and then muttered to himself, "This latch isn't right. Maybe I got the wrong model."

The young man's Adam's apple bobbed. "...Didn't you just put it on?"

"It's installed." Lin Zhou didn't even look up.

"We need to adjust it now. The tolerance between the latch and the keyhole is a bit too large."

He placed the lock cylinder on his lap and took a small file out of his toolbox.

I filed down the edge of the lock cylinder's groove twice.

The sound of a file scraping against metal filled the quiet living room.

He filed very slowly, stopping after filing twice to look at the light from the energy-saving lamp.

Scrape it a couple more times, then take another look.

In fact, that latch doesn't need to be filed at all.

He was just making the sound of metal rubbing together.

A sound that makes you think, "This worker is really working hard."

The young man took half a step toward the door.

His slippers made a dragging sound on the floor.

"How much longer?"

"Soon."

Lin Zhou put down the file and picked up the lock cylinder to examine it in the light.

He squinted, his expression as serious as if he were appraising an antique.

"The door frame is a bit warped. After the lock cylinder is installed, the latch and the keyhole don't align. If you force it in, it will jam after only a few uses."

Everything he said was true.

It's no wonder that the security doors in old residential areas, which have been used for decades, are warped.

However, the degree of deformation does not affect the installation of the lock cylinder at all.

It was off by less than 0.3 millimeters; when the lock cylinder was pushed in, it could be easily locked in with a little force.

He said these were exaggerations of the severity and delays.

The young man took another half step towards the door.

He was now only about two steps away from Lin Zhou.

Lin Zhou placed the lock cylinder on the door panel and then stopped.

He turned his head and looked at the young man.

"Is there a fire?"

The young man was stunned.

He stopped tapping his fingers.

"fire?"

"lighter,"

Lin Zhou took a cigarette out of his pocket.

It's held in its mouth.

"I saw several cigarette butts outside your door just now. There must have been a fire."

The young man watched him with a cigarette in his mouth.

I glanced at it for about two seconds.

Then he turned around, walked to the coffee table, squatted down, and took out a lighter from the drawer under the coffee table.

It's made of plastic, with a transparent shell, and less than a third of the liquid inside remains.

He walked back and handed him the lighter.

Lin Zhou took it.

He pressed the button twice to light it and brought it to the tip of the cigarette.

I took a sip.

He slowly exhaled smoke, which dispersed into a pale blue mist in the light of the energy-saving lamp.

He returned the lighter to the young man.

I took another puff.

The orange-red spark from the cigarette butt lit up briefly before dimming again.

The comments section went crazy.

"He's smoking."

"At the home of a drug addict, he asked for a lighter from the addict who had just finished injecting drugs and lit a cigarette."