CH 16

Chi Qing didn’t notice the few glances that Wu Zhibin gave him; he was so sleepy that he only wanted to go home and sleep, but someone just had to bump into him.

“Get in the car.”

Chi Qing didn’t even lift his eyelids: “You’re really annoying.”

The temperature was lower at night; Xie Lin had a black coat draped over his shoulders, one arm propped on the car window. Although it was almost one o’clock at night, the man was indescribably exquisite from the strands of his hair to his fingers, sweeping his gaze over with slightly raised eyes: “If you let me send you home, I won’t annoy you.”

Chi Qing called a car on an app on his own.

There really weren’t many cars available; it took approximately two and a half minutes before a private car driver accepted the order, however the information page showed that this was a novice driver, the current number of orders received being 0.

And as soon as this novice driver took the order, it showed that ‘the vehicle has arrived.’

All of the information linked together, it was clear who the car owner was, no need to compare the license plate number.

Chi Qing finally lifted his eyes to look at him: “……You took the order?”

Xie Lin stretched out the hand that was resting on the car window, grabbed the phone, turned the screen of the phone to face him, responding to his previous ‘Since you like to drive people home so much, why don’t you change jobs and become a driver’: “What you said was reasonable, so I changed jobs and became a driver, now can I drive you?”

“……”

“Canceling the order is also useless; as long as you ask for a car, I can accept it right now.”

Chi Qing exited the car calling page, and after searching in the settings, he found that the car calling app didn’t have a function for blacklisting drivers.

If he walked from here, by the time he got home it might already be light out.

Chi Qing could only grant this novice driver his first order.

Xie Lin closed the notification that someone nearby had called a car on the car calling app, speaking like a normal person: “Dear passenger, please fasten your seat belt.”

The road was unobstructed at night, Xie Lin also actually drove steadily, so there were practically no bumps or sudden speeding up along the way.

Chi Qing could be considered satisfied with the driver’s skills, but there was one thing, the driver spoke too much.

Xie Lin: “You don’t usually drive?”

Chi Qing: “Troublesome.”

Not only was driving troublesome, but getting a driver’s license is also troublesome.

Avoiding places with lots of people was self cultivation for those with mysophobia.

“Officer Ji said just now that you’ve studied acting for four years,” Xie Lin asked while waiting for the traffic light, “Your disorder, are you able to have a partner next to you when you’re acting.” Afraid that if there was even the slightest touch, this scene wouldn’t be able to be filmed.

Chi Qing didn’t shy away from it; not only did he not care about being spot on when talking to other people, but he was also the same when it came to himself: “So I haven’t made any progress on this track at all.”

“……”

Chi Qing exhausted his last bit of patience: “Are there any more questions, concentrate on driving after asking.”

“There’s still one.”

As they passed the traffic light, Xie Lin spoke: “In the psychiatric clinic from before, you mentioned ten years ago.” He didn’t know why Xie Lin was sensitive towards the phrase “ten years,” a casual remark, yet he remembered it until now.

When Xie Lin said this, his fingers rested on the steering wheel, yet in the end he still didn’t ask: “……Nothing, go to sleep.”

Chi Qing was actually already very sleepy. He fell into a half-dreaming, half-awake state after replying to Xie Lin. After closing his eyes, a pit of darkness appeared in his vision,  the words “ten years ago” suddenly resonating in his ears. He didn’t open his eyes, but his crow feather-like eyelashes twitched.

“Bin-ge, you went to headquarters just now?”

On the other side, Wu Zhibin went out in a hurry, meeting the curious gaze of the three-member team when he came back.

Wu Zhibin made an “en” and said: “Went to the General Administration to check a file.”

Ji Mingrui took charge in reporting the Li family’s situation: “All reports regarding Li Kang have been submitted; the case has been handed over to other departments already. It’s just that Li Kang’s father is still trying to claim that this was just an accidental injury; he’s unwilling to hand his son over.” After Ji Mingrui quickly finished the report, he then asked, “What file did you go to the General Administration to check, is there some major case lately?”

Without waiting for Wu Zhibin to speak, Jiang Yu and Su Xiaolan already pulled a chair up for him.

Wu Zhibin didn’t know whether to laugh or cry: “Usually when I ask you guys to do something I’ve never seen you guys be as active as when you’re listening to a case.”

Looking at them, Wu Zhibin often thought of himself when he first became a policeman, which was also why he insisted on being transferred down to lead this group of newcomers. He couldn’t beat them, his voice seeming to pass through the cruel and old years as he spoke: “I just thought of…… a case from ten years ago.”

“The facts about the case, you guys have probably heard it all.”

Wu Zhibin wasn’t sure how much Ji Mingrui knew about Chi Qing; since it was in the archives, the encryption level was still at the highest level, and the victim’s information had to be kept strictly confidential. He omitted the key figures, just roughly saying: “The serial kidnapping case from that year caused a sensation throughout the entire city. The victims were all children between ages 10 to 15, the children continuously disappearing.”

“I know this case,” Su Xiaolan said, “My mother even specially bought me a watch with a tracker for me to wear to school, not even letting me go out to play with classmates on weekends.”

Ji Mingrui said sadly: “As someone of the same age, I also wore that kind of watch, even if it was ugly, I wouldn’t take it off.”

Jiang Yu: “Me too……”

Due to the kidnapping case, digital watches with tracking were extremely popular for a brief period. During that time, there might have been some people who didn’t wear school uniforms at school, but absolutely no one would forget to wear a watch.

This also reflected from an outside perspective how impactful the case was.

Su Xiaolan: “The police later seemed to find a connection between the kidnapped children; they were mostly children with good grades, who participated in competitions and won prizes. In short, their names appeared in newspapers and magazines after they won the prizes.”

Ji Mingrui: “That I have an impression of; when I failed a test that time, my mom didn’t scold me for the first time. She even patted my head and said ‘looks like being dumb has its benefits.’”

Jiang Yu, who had been a good student since he was young, had an entirely different experience: “I…… won the model student award that year. My mom almost went crazy, unable to sleep every night. She thought that the next one might be me. She woke up in the middle of the night and told me she figured it out, telling me not to compete for the model student award next year. Saying all these things was just for show anyway.”

“……”

However the three of them were only teenageres at the time, their only impressions of the case being the digital watch they had to wear and the panicked and out of control public opinion. They vaguely remember that the case was solved, the culprit arrested, then along with the long time and countless trivial things about growing up, the events were sealed in their memories.

Ji Mingrui had no clue that his good friend was the survivor of that case, asking: “Did something happen with the case?”

“The case was very strange,” Wu Zhibin fell silent for two seconds, then revealed, “No one knows thus far how the person kidnapped these children, what happened to those children during the kidnapping, and why only two children survived in the end. And regarding all these unsolved things, the higher-up didn’t let people continue to investigate, so the case was closed like this.”

“The strangest thing is what the culprit said at the trial; he said ‘you can’t kill or catch me.’ The day he was executed, he died smiling.”

“Because that sentence at the trial was heard, it aroused a lot of public opinion. Some people questioned whether the police had arrested the wrong person, and there were some people who suspected there were more than one culprit…… But no more victims appeared half a year later, the public opinion gradually subsided. Up till now, ten years have passed, and there is still a small group of people who believe that the real culprit has not been caught.”

The previous information about the case was familiar to the general public, having been what Ji Mingrui and the others personally experienced when they were students, but it was, in fact, the first time they heard the “internal” information that followed.

Ji Mingrui seemed to envision that strange scene with those words.

— “You can’t kill or catch me.”

Chi Qing had a dream in the car.

He was sitting at the trial in the dream. The man’s voice was low and hoarse, causing infinite reverie upon uttering a terrifying sentence. As soon as the words were spoken, everyone was shocked, an outburst of violent discussions erupting around him.

The scene changed suddenly, changing into the hospital room.

He awoke in the hospital room, opening his eyes with a splitting headache.

The whole world was filled with strange voices. He watched the surrounding medical staff rushing around in and outside of the room. The nurses approached him, opening and closing their mouths. Everyone was talking, but the voices that he heard didn’t seem to come from reality.

He could make out the nurse saying, “You’re awake? How do you feel?”

However the only sound that appeared in his ears was ringing; accompanying the continuous ringing, there was a distorted voice saying: [The old man in the ward just now was really annoying, ringing the bell eight hundred times a night, annoying me to death.]

Doctor: “Can you hear me talking? Can you hear me?”

Chi Qing didn’t know what the doctor was saying, he could only hear one thing: [Don’t let there be a condition following a previous disease…… Dr. Wu should do this himself, what if I’m blamed for this, I can’t explain it clearly.]

[……]

Countless distorted voices continuously poured into his ears.

Finally, the doctor wrote on paper: You have symptoms of temporary deafness, but tit should be temporary. Don’t worry. You said before that you heard a weird sound, it might be an auditory hallucination. You should theoretically not hear any sound right now.

During the three months when he was deaf, Chi Qing could read the thoughts of others without relying on touch— as long as they were within a certain range, as long as that person was opening their mouth to speak at the moment, he would be able to hear it.

At first, he wasn’t sure if it was really someone else’s thoughts or his own imagination.

In the world narrated by the distorted voice, happiness could be fake, sadness could be fake, even love could be fake.

Three months later, the hearing loss disappeared.

The distorted voice also disappeared with it. Chi Qing thought that his illness was all but cured, until he accidentally touched the nurse’s hand the day he was discharged.

[I’m so busy to the point that I didn’t even have time to eat, that old man rang the bell again……]

Chi Qing saw himself talking to the nurse in the dream.

“Thank you,” he heard himself say, “Are you free right now, I’ll treat you to lunch.”

The nurse smiled: “I really haven’t eaten yet, thank you, but I still have work, I have to go take a look at the room next door.”

Chi Qing dreamt this intermittently.

Overwhelming voices, secrets in the heart, unspeakable desires, the truth hidden under the surface. He told himself, he has to wake up.

Not long after this thought appeared, Chi Qing felt something delicate touch his face.

Chi Qing was woken up by this; when he opened his eyes, he could see Xie Lin’s impeccable face even if it was enlarged. The car was dark, with only half of the man’s face illuminated by the faint street lights outside and the light projected by the electronic display inside the car.

Xie Lin stood outside the car door, leaned over, extremely close to him: “Just about to call you.”

Only then did Chi Qing realize what had fallen on his face just now was Xie Lin’s hair hanging down.

“Dear passenger,” Xie Lin smiled, his nose bridge very high, his eyelashes unfairly long, and the voices from Chi Qing’s dream faded away, “we’ve arrived.”

The author has something to say:

At this rate I might be able to make a time loop

This way I can go back to the day when I was able to ensure ten and contend eight……