NOS Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Fish Cliff Island (1)

The helicopter landed on the rooftop of the First Affiliated Hospital of Medical University. Songlan was experiencing a light rain, and the sky was still dark. The entire city was still immersed in the night.

Yu Chunming woke up once during the journey, but quickly fell asleep again. However, just as the medical staff were preparing to wheel him into the operating room, he suddenly woke up again and grabbed Guan Yao’s hand, which was holding onto the bed railing.

“I’m here,” Guan Yao said, bending down.

Yu Chunming’s eyes were somewhat unfocused. He couldn’t quite see who was standing in front of him, but the familiar aura that rushed towards him eased his heart.

“Don’t be afraid,” Guan Yao stroked his hair. “Because of the gunshot wound, the fragments in your back have shifted. We need to do a minor surgery to remove them. Just take another nap, and you’ll be fine when you wake up.”

Yu Chunming obediently closed his eyes.

He didn’t know how long he slept. During that time, he seemed to see the glaring surgical lights overhead, swaying figures, and hear chaotic crying. But most of the time, the world was dark, and the surroundings were incredibly quiet. He felt as if he were sinking into an ancient well, and his body grew colder and colder.

“Jiang Xin?” a woman called out.

Yu Chunming suddenly opened his eyes and looked back.

A young girl in a long red dress was standing in the lush green cornfield under the spring sunlight. She was holding the hand of a boy of about half her height, humming a beautiful tune.

Where were they going?

“Where are we going?” the boy asked, looking up.

The young girl smiled. She seemed to be in a good mood, so her words were also very gentle. She said, “We’re going for a spring outing, to Jin A Lin Mountain for a spring outing.”

Distant Jin A Lin, vast Jin A Lin, my hometown Jin A Lin…

The young girl sang and danced. She stood among the reeds and cattails, gazing at the birches and firs on the ridge, chasing after the southward-bound train, and bathing in the golden light.

Yu Chunming’s originally fluctuating heart suddenly calmed down. He closed his eyes and allowed himself to fall into the Ning Nie Li Qi River flowing north, sinking into the still-cold river water of early spring. He forgot where he came from and where he was going. He stopped his feet, as if he was also preparing… to stop breathing.

“Jiang Xin!” Another voice called out to him.

Yu Chunming’s spirits lifted, and the surrounding river water suddenly receded. He turned around and saw a boy of thirteen or fourteen running over, panting.

“Jiang Xin, where did you go?” the boy called out. “I’ve been looking for you for a long time. You’ve been here all along, why didn’t you say anything?”

Yu Chunming’s eyes grew hot, and he lunged into the boy’s arms.

Soon, a warm aura enveloped Yu Chunming’s entire body. He sniffed, and tears welled up instantly.

“Don’t cry,” the boy said softly. “Did Auntie Jiang beat you again? Look at the bruises on your arms. Come on, let my grandma put some medicine on you.”

“Okay,” Yu Chunming grabbed the boy’s arm tightly. “You must never leave me behind.”

“Why would I leave you behind?” the boy said with a smile. “Grandma made sauerkraut dumplings and told me to bring you home for dinner!”

Yu Chunming also smiled. He followed behind the boy, watching the slender figure gradually lengthen, watching the thin shoulders gradually broaden, watching the immature boy gradually grow into a tall and handsome man.

He asked, “Guan Yao, do you still remember who I am?”

The man turned his head, his eyes seeming to hold pity. He replied, “Of course I remember.”

The rain stopped, but the sky was still overcast.

Guan Yao leaned by the window, watching the puddles of water below the inpatient building.

“They said they were going to repair the road last year, but now it’s almost the end of the year, and the ground below is still full of potholes. Look at the mud on my pants,” a nurse who came to hand over the shift complained softly outside the ward.

The head nurse also chimed in, “Yesterday, when my daughter came to bring food, she almost fell.”

At this moment, an old man with a radio, pushing a wheelchair, walked by. He exclaimed “Ayyo!” and sang along with the opera excerpt on the radio about famous ministers of a certain dynasty: “A thousand miles of long river sends withered bones, and ten thousand acres of setting sun bury deceased officials…”

Ee-yah, ee-yah.

After a while, the old man changed another line of humming: “The west wind whistles and blows through iron armor, and the hero’s green blood dyes his green shirt!”

“The hero’s green blood dyes his green shirt…” Guan Yao repeated unconsciously.

The nurse standing at the head of the bed recording data looked at him with some surprise: “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Guan Yao shook his head. He walked closer, looking at the person who seemed to be awake but was actually unconscious, and asked, “He doesn’t pay attention to me when I talk to him, why do you have to keep waking him up?”

“We have to wait until the anesthesia is completely over before he can sleep,” the nurse glanced at the watch. “There’s still an hour.”

“Okay…” Guan Yao moved the chair back and sat next to Yu Chunming, and before those eyes had a tendency to close again, he poked his arm. “Don’t sleep, don’t sleep.”

Yu Chunming didn’t listen and continued to close his eyes.

“Don’t sleep, wait a little longer.” Guan Yao directly reached out and pulled at his eyelids.

Yu Chunming’s eyelids were thin and his eyelashes were long. Guan Yao felt itchy after fiddling with them a few times, and then wanted to touch his earlobe.

But just then, the ward door opened with a “creak,” and Wang Zhen rushed in anxiously, yelling, “Chunming, Chunming, how are you?”

Guan Yao “whooshed” and retracted his hand, straightened himself up, and answered in a low voice, “The anesthesia hasn’t worn off, he’s not fully awake yet.”

Wang Zhen breathed a sigh of relief, took off his coat, rubbed his hands to warm them up, and then walked closer: “I heard from Teacher Wang that he was in critical condition yesterday afternoon?”

“Yeah,” Guan Yao nodded calmly. “He had a massive hemorrhage during the surgery, and his heart stopped for five minutes, but fortunately, they managed to resuscitate him.”

Wang Zhen carefully glanced at Guan Yao’s overly calm expression: “You’ve been watching over him all this time?”

“There’s also a caregiver, who’s gone to eat now,” Guan Yao replied.

Wang Zhen touched Yu Chunming’s cold hand and looked at his half-open eyes: “Can he hear me if I talk to him?”

“Yes, but he won’t pay attention to you,” Guan Yao said, standing up and gently patting Yu Chunming’s cheek. “Your master is here.”

Wang Zhen leaned in expectantly.

However, as Guan Yao had said, Yu Chunming didn’t even blink.

“Could he be stupid?” Wang Zhen asked anxiously.

Guan Yao was calm: “It’s said that general anesthesia can indeed affect a person’s IQ.”

“Really?” Wang Zhen was shocked.

Guan Yao raised his eyebrows and tucked Yu Chunming’s hand, which Wang Zhen had pulled out, back into the quilt.

Wang Zhen cleared his throat guiltily and sat on the small sofa: “My apprentice is so smart, how could he become stupid? I still have several new leads waiting for him to help me sort out.”

Guan Yao paused, turned to look at him: “Leads? Songlan has found new leads?”

Wang Zhen “tsked” and beckoned Guan Yao over: “Remember that Yang Xiaowei we talked about last time? We found her.”

Yang Xiaowei, the boss of Huacheng Tianyun Metallurgical Factory, used to work at the No. 13 Ulrich Street bar fifteen years ago, and was allegedly He Wang’s girlfriend.

Wang Zhen said, “Just yesterday morning, the police from the Jiangwen Branch found her in a beauty shop downstairs from her house. Come, take a look at the photos.”

Guan Yao took the folder Wang Zhen handed him.

The first page of the folder contained a recent photo of Yang Xiaowei, and at a glance, Guan Yao frowned instantly.

“She, doesn’t she look a bit like…”

“Jiang Min,” Wang Zhen said immediately.

Guan Yao looked at him in disbelief.

Wang Zhen continued, “We also found Yang Xiaowei’s student photo from twenty years ago, when she had just graduated, and she looks completely different from now. She confessed that she had undergone multiple plastic surgeries, and her current face was sculpted by a plastic surgeon from the Second Affiliated Hospital of Medical University.”

Guan Yao was somewhat speechless.

Wang Zhen was also quite emotional, and he said, “The day before yesterday, you sent me a message saying that Chunming was sure that the suspect who shot him in Beilin Village was Qian Guowei, and I didn’t quite believe it. I didn’t expect the evidence to come so quickly.”

“Is this considered evidence?” Guan Yao hesitated.

Wang Zhen took out a stack of documents from his bag: “That piece of evidence is indeed a bit far-fetched, but this morning, the forensic doctor from the province sent back the message that the DNA test results of the missing woman Wang Xi came out. Guess who it matched with?”

“Who?” Guan Yao asked.

Wang Zhen raised his eyebrows: “The severed finger found in He Wang’s house in the Songlan 6.13 dismemberment case last year.”

Guan Yao shuddered: “Severed finger? The severed finger found in He Wang’s house?”

This was an unprecedented major discovery. The identity of the victim, which had been impossible to determine for the past year, was finally about to come to light?

“Yes, it can be considered settled,” Wang Zhen nodded. “In the past few days, we first confirmed the father-daughter relationship between Wang Xinsheng and Wang Xi, and also confirmed through interviews and investigations that Wang Xinsheng went missing around June last year. And this morning, we finally determined that Wang Xi is likely to be dead.”

Guan Yao pressed his forehead, his mind in a mess.

He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in many days, so it was difficult to sort out the various new leads that were intertwined at this time. He asked blankly and helplessly, “Does the severed finger in He Wang’s house belong to the same person as the dismembered corpse in the auto repair factory?”

“This… cannot be verified at the moment,” Wang Zhen said regretfully. “The explosion at the auto repair factory destroyed the waste pool and the corpses that had already been salvaged. If it weren’t for Han Chen and Chunming surviving, we wouldn’t even have known that the surface of one of the dismembered corpses had the key words ‘Za Mu Er, District 11, Number 35’ written on it. But…”

Wang Zhen changed the subject: “However, if Han Chen’s memory and Chunming’s judgment are correct, the dismembered corpse in the auto repair factory should belong to a man. They saw obvious male genitalia at the time. But the explosion occurred during the salvage process, so we can’t rule out the possibility that there was more than one victim in the auto repair factory’s waste pool. The possibility is very high.”

“Man? More than one victim…” Guan Yao suddenly had a bad feeling.

Sure enough, Wang Zhen then said, “Given the time of Wang Xinsheng’s disappearance, his father-daughter relationship with Wang Xi, and the connection between He Wang and Yi Jun, we can now speculate that the deceased in the auto repair factory is very likely to be Wang Xinsheng himself.”

Guan Yao stared at the information at hand, silent.

Wang Zhen sighed, “Moreover, yesterday afternoon, when Teacher Wang called me, one of my officers happened to have found Xu Wen’s relative. She is Xu Wen’s full sister. She went out to work early and moved back to Songlan with her children six years ago. She is very willing to cooperate with the investigation, so I directly applied to the province for her kinship identification with Wang Xi. However, this kind of aunt-niece relationship is more difficult to identify and needs to be done by a specialized institution. The experts explained a lot to me about STR typing, genome sequencing, and so on. I don’t understand, but in general, the accuracy is not as good as paternity testing and can only be used as a reference.”

Guan Yao nodded sullenly.

“Also,” Wang Zhen took out a train ticket from his jacket pocket, “You have to go to Huacheng with me tomorrow. You can’t refuse me this time. It’s serious business.”

Huacheng? The location of Tianyun Metallurgical Factory?

Wang Zhen knew what Guan Yao was thinking, and he smiled, mysteriously saying, “Officer Guan, haven’t forgotten Ge Xiaopei, have you? The suspect who claimed to have worked in Huacheng and sent a letter to Chunming last year.”

Guan Yao’s eyelids twitched: “I remember, does he have any other problems?”

Wang Zhen chuckled, “After I interrogated Yang Xiaowei yesterday, I checked the map of this Tianyun Metallurgical Factory and found that the internet cafe where Ge Xiaopei claimed to have worked is in the urban village next to this metallurgical factory. It’s very close, no more than fifteen minutes on foot.”

This clue instantly excited Guan Yao, and he immediately took the ticket: “No problem, I can go, but…”

“Don’t worry about Chunming,” Wang Zhen stretched his head to look at his apprentice, who was still wide-eyed and even more energetic than before, and then smiled, “I found two people to take care of him, who will be more attentive than Officer Guan.”

As he spoke, he looked out the door, “Why aren’t they here yet?”

“Who?” Guan Yao wondered.

Wang Zhen grinned, and the next second, someone outside shouted anxiously, “Where’s my brother? Is my big brother in this ward?”

The person who came was Yu Huan, whom Guan Yao had met. She was the daughter of Deputy Director Yu, Yu Chunming’s younger sister.

But this time, Yu Huan was followed by an unfamiliar face, who was tall and thin, fair-skinned, and wearing glasses, looking very cultured, completely unlike the fiery Yu Huan. Who knew that Wang Zhen would say—

“Old sister, old brother, Yu Huan, Yu Chang,” he introduced. “These twins are Chunming’s younger brothers and sisters.”

“Uncle Wang! Officer Guan!” Yu Huan called out.

The clamorous girl had just finished shouting when she rushed to Yu Chunming’s bed. Then, Guan Yao clearly saw that the person who had just seemed to be listening to the case quietly closed his eyes.

That’s right, an hour had passed, and it was time to sleep.

Guan Yao touched the tip of his nose and greeted Yu Chang, “Come on, younger brother, sit down.”

Yu Chang didn’t say a word. He lowered his head and sat silently on the sofa.

“The old brother doesn’t like to talk,” Wang Zhen worded cautiously, “He’s more… reserved.”

Yu Chang pursed his lips, but his eyes kept glancing at Yu Chunming.

Over there, Yu Huan leaned over the bed and called for a long time, but she couldn’t wake up the person who was either pretending to sleep or really asleep, so she had to give up reluctantly. She asked, “What part of my brother is injured?”

“Head,” Wang Zhen blurted out.

“Head!” Yu Huan exclaimed, staring at Yu Chunming’s head for a long time, “This head isn’t wrapped up, is it?”

“Mom said it was his right shoulder,” Yu Chang, who had been very quiet just now, suddenly said, “Bullet wound.”

“Bullet…” Yu Huan was still scared, “Za Mu Er is such a small place, how can there be shootings?”

“Yeah, Za Mu Er is such a small place, how can there be shootings,” Guan Yao also sighed, he stepped forward to help Yu Chunming pull up the blanket and checked the hanging bottles on the IV rack, “Who could have predicted this kind of thing?”

Yu Huan looked up at Guan Yao, and then blinked thoughtfully.

Wang Zhen quickly said from the side, “Xiao Guan, they’re both here, hurry back and get ready, our car leaves tomorrow morning.”

Guan Yao stood still.

Yes, his own younger brother and sister were here, so what need was there for an outsider like him to keep watch here? Since the work at hand wasn’t finished, then he should focus on work.

But Guan Yao still stood there, unwilling to move, as if he was waiting for something.

Sure enough, half a minute later, Guan Yao’s hand drooping by the bed felt a hint of coolness.

This was in a place invisible to others, Yu Chunming gently squeezed his ring finger.

[Author’s Note]

Actually, they can’t be together so quickly yet. The straight man (who thinks he is) Guan Police Officer’s magical brain circuit still has to go around…

PS: Regarding Wang Xinsheng and Wang Xi, you can check Chapters 46~50.