The showerhead dripped sporadically, the steam from the hot water blurring the frosted glass of the shower door with a layer of moisture.
Xin Hexue tilted his head back, sweeping his hair behind his forehead and revealing a smooth brow.
The shower area was a wet-dry separated space, with the frosted glass door dividing the mirrored sink area for brushing teeth from the showering zone.
The faucet at the sink that wouldn’t tighten properly and the leaking pipe, once repaired, indeed no longer made the faint, eerie sounds of water as before.
Xin Hexue wiped the water from his face.
Did He Qinghong hear those dungeon-related details he discussed with Yu Xingzhou?
Xin Hexue wasn’t sure if the game had a function to automatically block key dialogue for NPCs.
But the other party had agreed to help him look for Zhou Liao’s whereabouts in the coming days.
Based on Xin Hexue’s understanding of Zhou Liao from their brief time together, it was unlikely for this man to go out and not return overnight, or to leave without a word to her.
Xin Hexue thought of the unpredictable assassinations he had experienced previously in S City.
It was highly possible that Zhou Liao had been assassinated, and his life or death were unknown.
Combined with the new third question that appeared on the identity card…Who is the executioner wearing a sheep’s skin hiding among the flock?
Xin Hexue only reasonably suspected the neighbor next door.
While He Qinghong was repairing the pipes, he had squatted down to observe closely. He Qinghong held the tools in his left hand…the man was left-handed. The web between his thumb and index finger had pressure marks, and the first knuckle of his index finger had a layer of callus.
Xin Hexue had used guns before; he was especially familiar with handguns from his time as a guide, so he noticed those marks immediately.
The location of the calluses on He Qinghong’s hand, taken together, seemed to be caused by the repeated force of pulling a trigger.
The other party’s lean, strong muscles, even though concealed by long black clothing, revealed clues after he removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
Although he was an idle, unemployed young man, he was clearly different from those frail men who hid indoors all day wearing thick-lensed glasses.
Xin Hexue had tried writing He Qinghong’s name directly on the test question on the back of the identity card.
The ink of the handwriting was quickly absorbed, and the score didn’t change at all.
It wasn’t necessarily that the answer was wrong.
Rather, answers based on guesses would be judged by the system as blind guessing and not counted.
So…
He had to catch He Qinghong red handed.
Xin Hexue slowly let out a breath.
The pouring hot water rinsed the white foam from his body and hair. Suddenly, he felt that his vision was somewhat blurry.
Was it from being in the steam for too long?
“Wuuu…wuuu….”
A faint, mournful crying sound.
The slight effects of paranoia made Xin Hexue’s nerves several times more sensitive than usual.
The slightest unusual movement would send a sudden shiver down his spine.
He listened intently for a while.
It was probably the wind blowing into the ventilation pipes outside Ju’an Building.
Xin Hexue hung the showerhead back on its cradle. After leaving the hot water, he suddenly felt cold and damp all over, as if the moisture from the floor was seeping into the seams of his ankles and climbing upward.
Strangely, the shower switch below was already pressed down, but the showerhead was still dripping water, and a faint red color was spreading in the puddle on the floor.
Xin Hexue had no choice but to take it down again and try flicking the switch once more.
Water sprayed out from the showerhead, and warm, red liquid drenched Xin Hexue’s hands.
Xin Hexue’s breath hitched, and he swiftly pressed the shower switch down.
The liquid was like someone’s wrist artery had been slit. After the water flow stopped, the bloody, viscous fluid dripped thickly through his fingers.
“Drip.”
It felt like a sharp needle was hammering against his brain, and the pain caused Xin Hexue’s eyelids to spasm for a moment. When he looked again, the red color had disappeared; what had just gushed from the showerhead was merely clear, hot water.
Just a hallucination brought on by paranoia.
His tense nerves relaxed a little.
He would ask He Qinghong to come repair it tomorrow.
Xin Hexue reached out, took a towel from nearby, and wiped the water from his hands. Even though it was just a hallucination, the feeling of the sticky blood seemed to linger on his hands, making him rub the rough texture of the towel over his palms somewhat neurotically.
His focus suddenly stopped on the shower switch.
The switch controlling the showerhead output was a rotatable push valve. When fully closed, it stood perpendicular to the floor, shaped like an inverted large water drop, with a smooth plated surface that distorted reflections even more than a funhouse mirror.
Even though the human image was distorted, the colors were distinct.
A dark figure was standing behind him.
It was extremely close, and its hands were resting on his shoulders.
Xin Hexue turned around abruptly.
There was nothing; the surroundings were still the narrow, cramped bathroom.
He steadied his mind and realized he had mistakenly seen the outline formed by mildew stains and dirt on the wall as a human figure.
“………Mistaking the reflection of a bow in a cup for a snake.”
Xin Hexue let out a breath.
He finished up, walked out of the shower room, and threw his clothes into the laundry basket.
Condensed moisture trickled down the mirror above the sink.
The dark figure remained motionless, hunched on the young man’s back, quietly closing the shower door after him.
The room with the lights off had a stale smell, a lingering dampness that wouldn’t go away.
It was usually the time his biological clock would have him asleep, but Xin Hexue tossed and turned, unable to sleep.
The soles of his feet kept feeling cold. The spacious double bed seemed impossible to warm up no matter how he lay, and wind kept seeping in through the gaps in the quilt.
On the first day of Zhou Liao’s disappearance, Xin Hexue began to miss him a little.
Mainly because there was no one to warm his feet anymore.
The spring mattress made slight noises when he turned over. The more he tossed and turned, the more awake he became. Eventually, Xin Hexue had to stop and force himself to close his eyes and sleep.
Perhaps he would feel warmer once asleep.
…..
A puddle of black, mud-like substance slipped in through the gap under the door.
It struggled to enter this home, not forgetting to use its mouthparts to grip a piece of silk cloth and drag it in from outside.
The soft cloth had accompanied it on its long journey and was already dirty.
“Ji ji……”
It needed washing.
It slowly crawled towards the water source like a snail without a shell.
To replenish its energy, it had eaten several very annoying people along the way, which gave it the strength to crawl all the way here from the garbage dump.
The person next to Mother was the one it most wanted to eat.
Not because he was tasty, but because that person had attacked it.
With a black weapon that shot out stones.
Those three stones had hurt it a lot.
So, given the chance, it would definitely eat this person.
In fact, humans weren’t the optimal choice on its genetically inherited diet. Applying human logic, they were like appetizers, unable to provide substantial nutrition like meat.
It didn’t yet understand that the emotion it felt towards that person was called hatred.
The sound of gurgling water came from within the shower room.
It extended two tentacles, rubbing the silk cloth.
By observing humans along the way, it had learned through imitation that this behavior was called washing, and things that were washed were “clean.”
So it washed itself clean too.
Although they would eat anything, even consuming its own kind, clean and hygienic food often tasted better.
Following its instinct, it came to the front of “Mother’s” bed.
When those people dug it out from the mother body, it wasn’t time for it to be born yet.
It should have still been nurtured inside the mother body.
So, now it needed to go back.
“Mother…”
Please eat me, put me back in your belly………
Mother didn’t respond.
The little monster tilted its non-existent head.
It was okay, it could feed itself to Mother.
………..
A long shadow crawled out from under the bed, standing upright like a piece of thin paper, motionless by the bedside. Its form was hunched, almost just a shrunken skin, its fat long gone.
Blood vessels like a web crisscrossed in its pitch-black pupils.
Each eye moved rapidly, finally focusing intently on the person in the bed.
Xin Hexue’s eyes were firmly closed. As if he had felt cold before falling asleep, he covered himself with a thick quilt, but then felt hot in the middle of the night and his legs emerged from under the covers.
The lines of his calves were slender, his skin smooth and fair, and his ankle bones were slightly prominent with a faint pink hue.
The charred figure standing by the head of the bed reached out a hand, but stopped, suspended in mid-air.
Some unknown threat made it dare not act rashly.
Moonlight broke through the window, and the black shadow drifted and floated back under the bed.
……..
When Xin Hexue woke up, he found he had developed a high fever.
The weather had been damp and windy these past two days; he might have caught a cold.
The chills and fatigue last night were a warning. He should have taken a dose of fever-reducing powder with water before bed last night.
After sleeping through the night like that, the symptoms had only worsened.
He went to look for the fever-reducing powder in the drawer under the TV cabinet.
Xin Hexue remembered putting it there.
But after searching around, he only found some unusable miscellaneous items.
Where did Zhou Liao put the medicine kit?!
The fever in his forehead made his temper a bit worse. His bare feet felt cold on the floor, so Xin Hexue reluctantly returned to the bedside, put on his socks and shoes, and casually opened the second drawer of the bedside table.
………How did it get here?
Was Zhou Liao sleepwalking when he organized things?
Perhaps he had put it there himself, but when sick, vulnerable patients are particularly unreasonable.
He would blame all of today’s bad luck on Zhou Liao until the man returned home to apologize to him.
“Expiry date: 1990/4/1.”
It had expired at the beginning of the month.
A vein twitched at Xin Hexue’s temple.
It was all Zhou Liao’s fault, even more useless than K.
Zhou Liao should come back, because he would give him his dismissal notice in person.
Xin Hexue let out a breath of hot air. His throat felt like it was on fire, and he felt extremely thirsty.
Shuffling in his cotton slippers, he poured water from the teapot into a cup. A cup of cool water went down.
Suddenly, Xin Hexue’s face turned pale. He rushed into the shower room, learning over the sink as he began to retch.
Having eaten nothing last night, he only vomited a little of the cool water he had just swallowed.
The running water from the faucet washed away the mess. He cupped his hands and scooped up some water.
Xin Hexue realized he must eat something, and also buy new fever-reducing medicine, or simply go see a doctor.
The laundry basket still held yesterday’s clothes, and the water in the teapot was from the night before.
Xin Hexue closed the apartment door.
…….
The atmosphere of the Qingming Festival hadn’t completely passed yet.
The stairwell still held the heavy scent of incense and smoke. Every few steps of the narrow alleys was yellow paper money that had drifted down from above and had been dampened by puddles. Some were even caught on the spider-web-like electrical wires crisscrossing overhead.
Xin Hexue pulled his coat tighter around him, coughing softly.
The time was still early.
The morning market street in the Walled City was bustling with figures. Adults were busy lifting the metal shutters of small shops. Breakfast stalls had already started their steaming, bustling business earlier. Children who had finished breakfast were being dragged by adults, crying and throwing tantrums, not wanting to go to school.
“No! Don’t want to go to kindergarten!”
A child stood on the street, wailing loudly, while a father stood helplessly nearby holding the child’s backpack.
“Alright, alright, if we don’t go now, Dad will be late for work.”
Xin Hexue walked past them on the adjacent street, and stopped in front of a congee stall.
He looked at the menu on the wall that was stained yellow with seepage. A slightly cool spring breeze blew through the streets and alleys, and a piece of paper that had come loose from a bulletin board on the street fluttered and landed near Xin Hexue’s ankle.
“Hmm?”
Xin Hexue bent down to pick it up.
[Nanwan Walled City Flowers Kindergarten Recruitment Notice]
[Nanwan Walled City Flowers Kindergarten, rooted in the city wall for many years, has always provided a warm and happy preschool environment for the children of our neighbors. Due to development needs, we now sincerely invite caring and passionate kindergarten teachers to join our big family!]
[Job Position: Kindergarten Teacher]
[Job Content: Responsible for the daily teaching work of the kindergarten, leading children in activities such as games, crafts, singing, and maintaining communication with parents.]
[Recruitment Requirements: 1. Height 177cm, 2. Proficient in violin, 3. Resides in the Walled City and already married, 4. Female preferred.]
Xin Hexue browsed the overly detailed recruitment requirements and narrowed his eyes slightly.
He folded the recruitment notice twice and stuffed the paper into his coat pocket.
Xin Hexue entered the congee stall. The tables and chairs were simple. He found a seat in the corner and sat down, “Boss, one order of century egg and lean meat congee.”
…….
A large signboard reading “Western Doctor Gu Mifeng” stood outside the door, but the red wooden door was tightly closed.
Three photographs were pushed from one end of the table to He Qinghong at the other end.
“Here. New target.”
The organization’s newly developed informant did not look like a doctor.
Floral shirt, permed brown curly hair, a pair of narrow phoenix eyes hidden behind sunglasses perched on a high nose bridge.
Long legs were crossed and resting on the tabletop, the leather shoe uppers gleaming. His whole body leaned back against the chair, swaying slightly.
He Qinghong’s gaze swept over the man, suppressing the disgust in his eyes. He used two fingers to press down on the photos and slide them into his area, then lowered his eyes to glance at them.
Gu Mifeng seemed to be lounging on a balcony recliner sunbathing, his fingers tapping idly, “I heard the middle one was brought in by Number Seven, right here in this Walled City. They want you to pay more attention.”
Number Seven was Zhou Liao.
Seven, Eight, and Nine were foster sons adopted by the leader in the same period back then.
Number Eight died, and now Number Seven is also dead, leaving only Number Nine alive.
He Qinghong looked at the middle photo.
He had seen it before, in the newspaper placed in the taxi.
The photo was clearer than the one in the newspaper; the eyebrows and eyes were almost all visible.
A violin rested on the young man’s shoulder and neck, his face soft and gentle, eyelashes lowered, casting a light shadow.
“He is currently the highest priority.”
Gu Mifeng reminded.
After speaking, he glanced at the beige plastic clock hanging on the wall.
“Ah……it’s time to go buy groceries.” The long legs were withdrawn from the table. Gu Mifeng stood up and stretched leisurely, “That’s it. You do your thing, I’ll do mine.”
He took a keychain out from a drawer.
Among that bunch of keys, there was also a small accessory.
The reason He Qinghong noticed it was because that accessory didn’t make logical sense.
An acrylic pendant, shaped like a Q-version snow-white long-haired cat, but with angel wings.
He Qinghong didn’t follow cartoons; perhaps it was a character from some wildly imaginative, exaggerated children’s animation.
Gu Mifeng twirled the keychain, “I need to lock up.”
He Qinghong didn’t say a word and simply turned to leave.
“Knock knock.”
A light cough came from outside the red wooden door.
A young man with a pale complexion and pitch-black hair falling to his collarbones glanced again at the signboard outside. When he coughed, the corners of his eyes carried a feverish, flushed look from illness, “Excuse me, is Doctor Gu Mifeng in?”
“Hmm…? Mr. He, are you sick too?”
He asked in surprise.
He Qinghong met Xin Hexue’s gaze, suddenly clenched the three photos in his hand, and instinctively hid them in his pocket.
“…… Yes, I caught a cold.”
He Qinghong shifted his gaze away and moved his steps, but of course, he couldn’t successfully block Xin Hexue like that.
Gu Mifeng’s voice rang out, the tail end of his tone slightly raised as he walked out from behind the desk.
“So you two know each other?”
Xin Hexue didn’t understand why he said “so,” as if this man in the floral shirt, permed hair, and black sunglasses knew both He Qinghong and also knew him.
But he searched his memory and couldn’t recall a similar appearance or attire.
Surprisingly, He Qinghong moved to Xin Hexue’s side and, in a protective or perhaps possessive manner, wrapped his arm around his waist.
“Sorry.”
Xin Hexue heard a whisper, low enough that only they could hear each other.
Then, He Qinghong said, “Yes, we are….in love.”
Gu Mifeng raised an eyebrow, his eyes behind the sunglasses shifting from Xin Hexue to He Qinghong, and asked with interest, “Do those people know?”
Has Number Nine stepped into the same river as Number Seven?
Should he report this upwards?
Receiving He Qinghong’s implicitly threatening look, Gu Mifeng curved his thin lips into a smile, “What I heard doesn’t seem to be like that. Isn’t this Madam already married?”
Xin Hexue’s gaze wandered over the two men, his face calm.
He even cooperated, sounding somewhat apprehensive, “Qinghong…”
Feeling the body heat from the person beside him, He Qinghong tightened his jaw, “Right, so we’re having an affair.”
Gu Mifeng: “…”
He laughed with understanding.
“Since it’s so lively, do you mind if I join?”
Gu Mifeng acted as if he didn’t see He Qinghong’s darkening expression and strolled over to Xin Hexue’s side, “Madam, don’t be nervous, I’m not greedy. Since there are seven days in a week, I only need the last two days of the weekend to spend time together.”
