NOS Chapter 30
by VolareSeeing that Yu Chunming’s face was not right, Guan Yao couldn’t help but ask, “Are you feeling unwell again? Forget it, I won’t talk to you anymore. Go back, go back and lie down.”
“It’s nothing.” Yu Chunming pressed his temples. “I just find it strange, and this person’s words can’t be trusted.”
“No one trusts him,” Guan Yao said. “We just did a urine test, and he’s a drug addict, a habitual opium smoker. Not a single word he says can be trusted. We just find it odd that he could think of pinning something like this on a policeman.”
Yu Chunming asked, “Are there surveillance cameras near Second Ma Road in District 10? Have you checked them?”
“Checked them already. The location he mentioned is a blind spot. Not a single figure to be seen,” Guan Yao replied. “I even asked him if he saw the police ID clearly. And you know what he said? He said all he saw on the police ID photo was a great beauty. Oh my gosh, Shu Wen was so scared she started to examine herself.”
Yu Chunming tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“Alright, you go back. Fang Wang and I are going to take him to the detention center. The amount of drugs he’s involved with is not small, he’ll likely get the death penalty,” Guan Yao patted Yu Chunming’s shoulder.
Yu Chunming didn’t reply. He obediently stood up, then opened his locked drawer, took out a neatly folded piece of stationery, and tucked it into his inner jacket pocket.
“I’m going back to the dorm,” Yu Chunming said.
“I’m telling you, you should go out and find a house sooner. That dorm is so drafty, how can anyone live there?” Guan Yao called out from behind.
Yu Chunming didn’t say a word, and with his head down he went downstairs.
It was morning, and the duty dormitory was empty.
Yu Chunming locked the door, bent down, and pulled his suitcase from under the bed.
Because the dormitory space was small, Yu Chunming’s few belongings were all neatly placed in the suitcase. And in this small suitcase, besides clothes and daily necessities, there was also an old-fashioned candy tin.
The candy tin was square, unable to hold anything big, but it was just right for fitting a good number of medium-sized envelopes of 165*102mm.
Yu Chunming unlatched the lid, refolded the stationery he had been carrying, put it inside, and let it lie with the remaining five letters, back into his suitcase.
After doing all this, he looked up and gazed out the window.
The temperature in Za Mu Er, after the snowfall, plummeted. At this time, a layer of white ice crystals had formed on the window, the snowflake-like patterns clearly reflected on the glass, and within them, faintly reflected Yu Chunming’s face.
He was calm, composed, as if—
As if those six letters were not “gifts” offered by a murderer.
“It doesn’t matter,” Yu Chunming murmured to himself. “I will catch you.”
His voice dissipated into the silent air.
That night, the cold wind howled. The snow that had slightly melted at noon refroze after dark, and the thin layer of ice under the eaves held the vague light from inside the house, looking like a pool of clear water from afar.
Guan Yao stood on the balcony, looking at the gray window, with a worried expression.
Guan Ning poked half her head out from inside the house: “Old uncle, what are you doing?”
“Nothing, cough, doing nothing.” Guan Yao touched his nose. “It’s so late, why aren’t you asleep yet?”
Guan Ning slid along the wall to Guan Yao’s side: “Old uncle, are you still angry with me?”
Guan Yao looked at her bright eyes and “poof” laughed: “What, going to admit your mistake again?”
Guan Ning pursed her lips, deliberated for a long time, and then said, “Old uncle, my living expenses for next month are gone, can you give me some more?”
“Living expenses…” Guan Yao knew that when this girl was being nice to him, it was never a good thing. He said speechlessly, “I gave you two thousand five last month. Can you really squander two thousand five in a month in Za Mu Er? And aren’t you interning? Don’t you have an internship salary?”
Guan Ning cried out “Aiya” and said, “Old uncle, internships don’t have salaries! We not only don’t get paid, but we also have to pay the hospital!”
“Still have to pay the hospital?” Guan Yao, distracted, was greatly puzzled. He immediately lost the mood to pay attention to how his niece was feasting so much that she could spend two thousand five in living expenses in a month.
“Of course,” Guan Ning complained. “Every day it’s like working while in debt. And in the end, they still give us a failing grade. What’s the point of going to school like this?”
“Want to drop out again?” Guan Yao narrowed his eyes.
“No, no, no, no,” Guan Ning immediately stood at attention. “I didn’t mean that.”
Guan Yao snorted, bent down, and picked up his phone: “Speak, how much do you want?”
Guan Ning thought for a while and replied, “One thousand, just give me one thousand this time.”
“One thousand?” Guan Yao glanced at the little girl. “Can you manage with one thousand a month?”
Guan Ning pouted and thought, then said, “In a couple of days, the hospital has intensive training. Wang Meng contacted us before she left, with food and drinks provided, but we have to go to the army, saying it’s an exchange with, uh, military nurses, to learn their battlefield bandaging techniques. I originally didn’t want to go, but, but…”
But she couldn’t go south anymore. She had also made a promise to Uncle Yu, and how could she not keep it?
Guan Ning had to say, “But I want to learn now. I asked my instructor to sign me up this afternoon.”
“Oh ho,” Guan Yao smiled. “You’ve changed your personality?”
“Yes, changed my personality!” Guan Ning blurted out. “When I learn battlefield bandaging techniques, next time old uncle you get injured, I can…”
“Stop, stop, stop!” Guan Yao flicked her forehead. “Can you wish me something good?”
Guan Ning blushed and smiled: “Uncle, did you transfer the money?”
“Transferred, transferred.” Guan Yao said irritably.
Soon, a “ding” sounded, and the money arrived.
On the other side, the same “ding” sound woke up Yu Chunming, who had already fallen asleep. He rubbed his head, which was throbbing with pain, and fumbled to pick up his phone.
In the darkness, Guan Yao’s pop-up window came into view. This person, who didn’t sleep in the middle of the night, had sent him a long string of messages and several scanned documents. Yu Chunming sat up, picked out a few useful ones, replied with a couple of sentences, and soon received a call from Guan Yao.
“Why aren’t you asleep yet?” he asked loudly on the other end.
Yu Chunming replied helplessly, “I was asleep, you woke me up.”
“Oh, is that so?” Guan Yao had no intention of feeling guilty. He said carelessly, “Did you see the list of old No. 2 Timber Factory workers I just sent you? Back then, that big fire burned down their archives department. The employee information we can find now is all from after the fire. For the people who worked at the No. 2 Timber Factory before that, I can only find the list.”
“Saw it.” Yu Chunming rubbed his eyes, turned and glanced out the window at the still howling wind. “Anything else?”
“Yes, yes, there’s something else.” Guan Yao cleared his throat. “In a couple of days… Guan Ning is going out for training, and I’ll be the only one left in this house. It’s getting colder, and our dorm… leaks wind. Why don’t you, why don’t you move over? There are many empty houses for rent in the Linchang Staff Family Compound. You can move over and check out the houses, and it’ll be convenient for visiting and such…”
Guan Yao’s voice became smaller and smaller, but Yu Chunming heard him more and more clearly. He smiled softly on this side of the phone, where Guan Yao couldn’t see: “Does the above also fall into the category of leaders caring for subordinates?”
“It does, why wouldn’t it?” Guan Yao wasn’t being stubborn, because to him, it just “belonged.”
“Okay,” unexpectedly, Yu Chunming agreed in one breath. “I’ll move over after Guan Ning leaves. Not too much trouble, right?”
“No trouble, what trouble?” Guan Yao inexplicably felt relieved. “I’ll help you move when the time comes.”
Yu Chunming raised the corners of his mouth.
He tentatively attributed all of Guan Yao’s abnormalities these days to the man suddenly realizing that his health was not good, and thus his desire for sympathy surged, or maybe Wang Meng had said some gossip in front of him, or maybe this man really was, as he said, trying to take a shortcut to get promoted. But no matter what, it was always better than that usual scowling look. Yu Chunming accepted it calmly, and even gladly.
He deliberately teased, “Does the leader feel that he mistreated me before, so he’s preparing to make amends?”
Guan Yao “tched” and said, “What kind of theory is that?”
Yu Chunming raised an eyebrow and smiled silently.
“Hey, I have a question to ask you.” Guan Yao didn’t know what he remembered. “Why did Meng Changqing think of notifying you this morning?”
Yu Chunming deliberately didn’t want to answer properly: “Why don’t you ask him and find out?”
“I asked him… I’m asking you now.” Guan Yao was really curious. Why, when something happened to Guan Ning, and everyone in the station was afraid they couldn’t stop him from losing his temper, would they notify Yu Chunming? What was that kid Meng Changqing up to?
Yu Chunming’s words had a deeper meaning: “He probably thinks I’m more suitable to be a leader than you.”
“What?” Guan Yao raised his voice.
But in the next moment, a “beep” sound came, and Yu Chunming swiftly hung up the phone.
“What do you mean more suitable to be a leader than me?” Guan Yao stared at his phone screen, which had already gone dark. “Why does this person want to climb over my head every other day?”
Whether Yu Chunming really wanted to climb over his head was hard to say, but Meng Changqing really suffered a big loss for it.
The next morning, as soon as his left foot stepped into the office door, he was yelled at by his master.
“Late again?” Guan Yao held a stack of documents, looking at the child who was still carrying a bag of buns in his hand with a blank expression. “How many times is this this month?”
“It doesn’t matter how many times,” Li Xiaotian added fuel to the fire from the side. “Anyway, our station’s performance bonus for this year has been fined to nothing. Even if Xiao Meng is directly absent from work until the Spring Festival, I don’t think it’s a big problem.”
“Did I ask you to speak?” Guan Yao glared at this person with a loose tongue.
Meng Changqing obediently apologized: “Master, I was wrong.”
“Too lazy to listen to your self-criticism,” Guan Yao waved his hand. “Pack your things, come with me to Qianjin Ping this morning.”
“Qianjin Ping?” Meng Changqing opened his mouth wide. “That place is so far away? Can we get back tonight?”
“If you can’t get back, you can sleep in a farmer’s pigsty.” Guan Yao picked up a cotton jacket and threw it at him. “Dress warmly, it’s cold in the mountains.”
How could Meng Changqing have any room to refuse? He could only put on his clothes miserably, put the buns in his mouth, and catch up with Guan Yao’s pace: “Master, what are we going to Qianjin Ping for? That place is so barren…”
“Task Force’s mission.” Guan Yao threw the car keys into Meng Changqing’s arms. “To collect evidence, return the wallet we found to the old man, and by the way…”
By the way, take a good look at Li Ying’s current living environment.
This was originally Yu Chunming’s mission, but his body was not well, and running into the mountains at this time, Guan Yao said he didn’t care, but he was worried in his heart. He took the matter on himself, and also took along his little apprentice Meng Changqing, who always wanted to stick his head into the Task Force’s actions.
However, Meng Changqing was not happy with this kind of task that required no technical skills and was tiring.
He sat in the car with a sullen face, turning the steering wheel while asking, “Master, does that Li Ying… really have any problems?”
“Not sure,” Guan Yao replied vaguely. “Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t.”
Meng Changqing’s eyes darted around, and he remembered the rumor he had heard from Shu Wen yesterday: “Master, yesterday Sister Shu Wen said that Li Ying, he is, is from that big fire…”
“That’s right, your Sister Shu Wen didn’t say anything wrong.” Guan Yao didn’t avoid the issue.
Meng Changqing was taken aback: “Master, no way, he’s really that person? I, I thought that person was dead a long time ago.”
“It would be too good for him if he died,” Guan Yao blurted out.
“What?” Meng Changqing was stunned.
“Nothing,” Guan Yao waved his hand, changed the subject. “Li Ying wasn’t burned to death back then. The source of the fire was the warehouse he was responsible for guarding. That place is close to the river fork. He had several burns on his body, but he didn’t die.”
“What happened later?” Meng Changqing asked timidly.
“Later?” Guan Yao paused. “Later, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and released fifteen years ago. I hadn’t retired from the army at that time, so I don’t know clearly, but your Sister Shu Wen knows that he registered at our station. But I’m not in charge of household registration or community affairs, so I’ve never dealt with him, and I only saw him once eleven years ago. This guy has aged terribly in recent years. I actually didn’t recognize him at first glance on the train. I didn’t realize it was him until I was organizing materials at the branch bureau.”
Meng Changqing was still kind-hearted. He asked cautiously, “Master, this Li Ying… was only guilty of arson by negligence back then, and he hasn’t made any mistakes since he came out. This case can’t be related to him, right?”
“If there’s no evidence, then it has nothing to do with him. If there’s evidence, then it has something to do with him. It’s not up to you and me to say,” Guan Yao pointed at Meng Changqing. “Drive carefully and stop asking around.”
Meng Changqing shrank his neck and was about to focus on the road, but then he remembered something again: “Master, this morning, just when I was leaving home, I saw Officer Yu.”
“What was he doing near your house?” Guan Yao immediately forgot his previous request and turned to ask. “You live on Factory Street, what does he have to do on Factory Street? His body isn’t well yet, why is he running around again? Didn’t you stop him and ask? Why didn’t you say anything at the station just now? Why didn’t he tell me he was going out when I sent him a message this morning?”
A pile of words stuck in Meng Changqing’s throat, and in the end, he only squeezed out one sentence. He trembled and replied, “Officer Yu said he was looking for someone, and asked me if I knew an old woman named Ai.”
The old woman named Ai was on the list of No. 2 Timber Factory workers that Guan Yao had sent him last night. Not only her, but her son was also on the list. However, the old woman Ai’s son, Ai Hua, was one of the victims of the 9.24 fire.
Walking into the Ai family’s door, the first thing that caught Yu Chunming’s eye was the portrait placed in the middle of the dining table. In the picture was a young man, handsome, with clear features, and high cheekbones.
“Sit,” the old woman Ai’s hair was gray, and she was hunched over, looking the same age as Li Ying.
Yu Chunming stepped aside to let Na Fei, who had just found the place, enter the house first.
“Auntie,” Na Fei called affectionately, “We’re here today because we want to ask you about something.”
“Sit, sit.” The old woman Ai greeted. “You’re here to ask about Ai Hua, right.”