The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

At the edges of his blurred vision, he seemed to glimpse many unfamiliar faces in the darkness.

There was clearly no way he should’ve been able to see anything in the complete dark, yet those pale faces were so prominent that they were branded deeply into his mind.

A woman he had never seen before pointed at him.

…This time…I’ll pay you back first…

Yu Yin awoke with a start and realised that he had unknowingly nodded off.

The hands of the nearby clock had only shifted about five minutes.

“Do you want to go back and rest first?” Xiang Zhen Rong asked while sitting down next to him and passing over a cup of coffee. “His condition has stabilised. There’s no need to feel too worried now that his life isn’t in critical danger.”

After bringing Dong Feng to the hospital, it turned out that out of either luck or misfortune, he had surprisingly not swallowed too much seawater. The fact that he had only suffered external wounds and a drop in body temperature astonished the doctor as well, who could not figure out how it was possible. In any case, after notifying Dong Feng’s guardians, they continued to hold him under observation until he regained consciousness.

Once the students that had followed them over confirmed Dong Feng was out of the woods, most of them were brought back by Wei Jun to rest. They also discussed who would stay behind tomorrow and who would continue through the trip.

“No, it’s fine.” Yu Yin wiped his face as he sipped the now cold drink to clear his mind. Next to him, Yu was flipping through a magazine that he had procured from somewhere.

“I talked with the guesthouse. Fortunately, there aren’t many people residing there at the moment, so the owner arranged for us to continue staying there. If our numbers aren’t too large, we should be good.” Xiang Zhen Rong took the coffee cup back and tugged at his collar. “Weird, I feel like this place is super hot for some reason.”

“Haha…I guess it’s the fire.” Yu Yin glanced at the figure with a completely disfigured face crouching next to the chair. He could pretty much guess where the heat was coming from.

“What fire?” Xiang Zhen Rong blinked blankly.

“Nothing, you must’ve misheard.” Yu Yin couldn’t be bothered to explain. He watched that thing slowly walk away into the pitch-black corridor before shifting his attention away. “I’m going to wash my face.”

He put down his coat and followed the guide lights in the darkness to turn into another deep and long hallway.

Without him noticing, the sounds around him had disappeared. Aside from the sound of the flickering lights and his own footsteps, there was no other noise.

He did not encounter any other people as he walked. The corridor was filled with tightly shut doors to numbered wards.

Hundreds of numbers passed by his eyes. Finally, he came to a natural stop in front of the last door. When he pushed it open, a rotten stench wafted out from inside.

The sight before him was a very typical ward. On the table inside the neat and tidy room, there was a cup of freshly brewed tea that was still emitting white steam.

He lowered his head to see several clothes that had been pushed aside by the door.

Then he shut the door.

When he turned around, the door across the way was now open.

This was their room at the guesthouse.

The dull, yellow light of the guesthouse room appeared quite warm in the night. A woman with a hidden face sat by the window.

She shifted her head slightly, and her long hair struck the window with a soft thud.

Before closing the door, he eyed the clock on the cabinet that indicated it was 3:10.

Then, water was suddenly dumped onto his face out of nowhere.

“Who sleeps more deeply than the injured patient?”

Yu Yin’s eyes snapped open to see the person lying in the sickbed placing a glass back down.

Since Dong Feng had grabbed onto various rocks in his struggle after falling into the ocean, his fingers and palms were severely wounded, and the medical personnel had carefully bandaged everything. It seemed like he would be unable to do any fine carving for a while.

“…Did I fall asleep again?”

He rubbed his forehead and yawned. The sky outside the ward was a very deep blue without a blemish.

“No, you didn’t fall asleep.”

The person sitting on the bed pointed at the clock on the cabinet that indicated it was 3:10.

Because you haven’t even woken up.

***

After a beat, Yu Yin opened his eyes.

The surroundings were filled with human noise. Although it was a bit sad to say, he was long accustomed to these sounds and the distinct odour hospitals had.

“For you guys.”

Xiang Zhen Rong gave them bags of breakfast he had brought back from outside. “You’ve been awake the entire night. Eat some food first.”

Yu Yin let Yu eat first while checking his phone to see that Li Lin Yue had sent him a text.

Some of the group back at the guesthouse had already finished preparing to continue with the rest of their trip. Only a few of their closer acquaintances were staying behind, and were currently explaining how they had found the corpse to the police.

In reality, there wasn’t much to say about it if the police did not press about the paper boats. It was obvious that the very rotten corpse had been washed up by the ocean. It had nothing to do with them, who had merely been visiting.

But they probably will still ask about the paper boats…haha…

He had no idea Dong Feng had released so many paper boats.

He stared at the basically ruined lump of coloured paper next to him which had distinct burn marks. The paper had been stuck on Dong Feng while pulling him up, and Yu Yin had later asked Xiang Zhen Rong about it to discover they had bought quite a bit at the downtown bookstore.

You actually could have just been honest and told me. You didn’t need to do these things by yourself.

With that large amount…you were probably folding them since the start of vacation, weren’t you?

Yu Yin held the icy, wet coloured paper in his palm, his heart filled with complicated emotions.

He did not even know the use of this method Fang Yi Xun had told him about. He had merely wanted to test it out in his free time so that his classmates’ trip wouldn’t be affected. He had never imagined Dong Feng would be even more fixated on this matter than he was.

“Don’t worry too much. Didn’t the doctor already say he’s out of the danger zone? He’ll be fine once he wakes and they do another round of examinations.” Xiang Zhen Rong bit into a hamburger, then removed the bun in surprise to discover an apple slice inside. He continued to eat it while he said, “Li Lin Yue and the others will handle the situation over at the guesthouse.”

“Mn, I know.” Yu Yin was not concerned about that; he knew that evil woman would resolve it. He just felt that the nice trip had…

Yu pressed a milk tea into Yu Yin’s hands and softly said, “It’s unrelated to you.”

Yu Yin rubbed Yu’s head and silently sipped the hot drink as he contemplated that string of bizarre dreams.

The other party seemed to always relay the time “3:10”, but this had not been when Dong Feng had encountered trouble. Nothing else had happened at 3:10 during the past few days…Could it be that woman’s time of death?

This felt very possible.

As he was making guesses, a nurse walked over to them. “That fellow student of yours has woken. His mother went on the earliest flight here and should be arriving soon. Would you like to go in first to check on him?”

They followed the nurse, who explained that he was staying in a special care ward due to his family’s arrangements. This made Yu Yin remember that his dad and Jiu Shen had somewhat mentioned Dong Feng’s background before, though he hadn’t imagined Dong Feng’s parents to arrange something like this so quickly.

The nurse helped them open the door for them to see the large single ward. After stepping inside, they spotted the window with its curtains pulled open. The sky outside was a deep blue and seemed as though it was wiped clean; there wasn’t a single cloud.

This coincidence made Yu Yin instantly feel goosebumps form on his skin.

“These are his replaced clothes.” The nurse handed the large filled bag covered in condensation to Xiang Zhen Rong, then gave them simple instructions on what to take note of before walking over to adjust the IV drip and machinery.

Dong Feng, who should have been weakly lying on the bed, was unimaginably sitting up. Moreover, since his usual complexion was quite pale, at a quick glance, he…didn’t seem particularly different. It was just that his energy was terrible, his hands were covered in bandages, and there was a sizable piece of gauze on his face. There were a long cut underneath, seemingly from having bumped into foreign matter in the ocean.

Yu Yin recalled that the wound had been bleeding non-stop when they had pulled Dong Feng out from the water. At the time, they had been busy performing emergency rescue and hadn’t paid much mind. Only now while looking at the extent of the treatment did he realise just how big the wound was. “Are you okay?”

Dong Feng wordlessly lifted a hand with a somewhat protesting gaze.

“…Just obediently recuperate for a while. You can wait until you’re healed before carving and all that.” Yu Yin ignored the look that was clearly saying “See what happens when I come out with you guys” and he coughed before somewhat awkwardly and apologetically saying, “Fortunately you’re fine. But how did you fall into the ocean?”

Dong Feng tilted his head in thought for a brief second before slowly replying, “Don’t know.”

“Don’t know?” Since Dong Feng’s attitude was so matter-of-fact, Xiang Zhen Rong couldn’t help but ask in astonishment from where he stood on the side, “What do you mean?”

“No memory, can’t recall. In short, I don’t know. Do you need any more explanation?” Dong Feng scoffed as he bluntly responded with a frail voice.

“He might have suffered shock from falling into the sea. Short-term memory loss is normal. Just rest up; you might soon regain your memories,” the nurse kindly said before taking her leave to carry out other duties.

Seeing that Dong Feng looked like he might collapse at any second, Yu Yin could only give up on pressing further for now. However, he was a bit bothered by the wound marks on Dong Feng’s neck, which seemed like strangulation from the scarf. Perhaps it had been caused by the scarf wrapping around too tightly after falling into the ocean, but something also felt off.

“Let me look.” Yu noticed Yu Yin’s line of sight and turned Dong Feng’s hair away from his neck. However, his hands were immediately pushed away by Dong Feng.

“Don’t touch me.” Dong Feng shot a fierce glare in warning, then fell back and yanked the blankets over his head, refusing to be disturbed again.

As it was unlikely they could get any answers, Yu Yin and the others had no option but to retreat for the time being. They would have to wait for Dong Feng to recuperate first and could deal with the rest once his condition improved.

After shutting the door, Yu Yin turned his head to spot Yu asking for the bag of wet, soaked clothing from Xiang Zhen Rong. It contained the coat and scarf that Yu Yin had lent to Dong Feng.

Yu removed the scarf and coat to inspect them briefly before stuffing them back into the bag.

“Is something the matter?” Yu Yin noticed something was up with Yu, but the latter only responded with a shake of the head and nothing else.

Afterwards, Dong Feng’s mother rushed over and greeted them. Then, under Xiang Zhen Rong’s urging, they temporarily returned to the guesthouse. Despite their lingering concern for Dong Feng, they had to make a trip back sooner or later, so they took this opportunity to leave.

Before going, Yu Yin left his cellphone number with the woman, who directly gave him a high-grade business card in return.

Then Xiang Zhen Rong brought them back to the guesthouse.

***

“You guys are still in the same room.”

Upon returning to the guesthouse, Li Lin Yue–who had settled everything–told them, “Pin Si, Jia Jia, Zi Xin and I are together, in the room next to yours. Zhen Rong, Ah Yuan, Wei Jun, and Xiao Zhong are in the one across. We’ve extended our stay for two more days; the owner said she had other bookings in two days. If we need it, she can help us arrange a place at another guesthouse nearby that is super cheap.”

While Li Lin Yue had stated over the phone that there were not many staying behind, it was nearly half when summing them together. Most that remained were close friends, while Zi Xin had been a bit interested in Xiao Zhong and was trying to better understand them as fellow students from a different major.

“I’ll pay for the lodging costs lost…”

“It’s fine, everyone already agreed to pay themselves. We weren’t forcing anyone to stay, and everyone else that wanted to continue having fun all left.” Li Lin Yue cut Yu Yin off and flashed a thumbs-up. “Just count it as returning the favour from last time when you specially came down to help, OK?”

Knowing that she was intentionally phrasing it this way for him to not bring up money again, Yu Yin simply nodded. “Thanks.”

“Dumbie.” Li Lin Yue swatted her friend’s head, then gave some desserts she had bought nearby to Yu. “By the way, when the police dragged up that corpse yesterday, Ah Guan’s bunch said it was female.” As someone with repellant feelings of disgust towards dead bodies, she naturally did not take her time to carefully appreciate it. The guys had boldly gone to take a look, then proceeded to vomit from disgust.

“I figured it was.” Living humans evidently weren’t the only things that had come ashore on boats; there were also various existences with their own objectives. Yu Yin massaged his temples as he felt a dull wave of pain.

“Then…”

A series of knocks on the door interrupted Li Lin Yue.

“Ah Yin, come out for a moment.” Ah Guan’s voice was behind the door. Yu Yin opened to see the other person staring at them with a strange expression. “Someone’s here.”

Yu Yin followed Ah Guan’s vision and immediately knew the reason for that expression.

The little boy from the mother-and-son duo from before was now standing in the guesthouse courtyard with an anxious look. His hands were tightly gripping his clothes like a small animal that felt extremely uneasy for having trespassed a forbidden area.

“Where’s your mommy?”

As they approached, they heard Meng Pin Si voice this question from where she was crouched next to the boy. However, the boy only bit his lip, refusing to utter a word. When he spotted Yu Yin’s group, his expression suddenly turned relieved, and he bounded over to grab onto Ah Guan’s pants.

“Where’s your mom?” Ah Guan picked up the child and directly placed him on the table while asking.

“In the hotel,” the child swiftly gave a clear answer. It seemed he had a good impression of Ah Guan.

“Then what did you come running over here for? Don’t you live very far away?” Under the pressuring stares of everyone else, Ah Guan could only continue questioning for everyone else.

“Dàgēge brought me here, I just walked and it didn’t take long.”

“What Dàgēge?” Ah Guan furrowed his brows.

The boy pointed at Yu Yin and replied, “Gege knows.”

“Let’s not go into what Dàgēge for now.” Yu Yin waved a hand in dismissal for Ah Guan to skip this topic.

“Fuck!” Ah Guan let out a curse after realising what the thing they weren’t supposed to go into was. He turned back to face the boy, “What did you come here to do?”

The boy tilted his little head to earnestly consider this. His face looked puzzled, uncertain of how to explain.

Yu Yin patted Ah Guan for him to move aside as he spotted that black shadow reappear. Then he pressed down on the boy’s shoulder and lowered his tone, “What do you want to do? Wei Qi Xin?”

“Huh? Isn’t his name…”

“Sh!” Li Lin Yue yanked Ah Guan back and raised her pointer finger.

“Wei Qi Xin, cut the act. I can see you.”

Seemingly reacting to Yu Yin’s words, the boy’s lowered face slowly lifted up. The eyes on his pale face were red, forming a fierce expression that was clearly different from just moments ago. A few of the girls were instantly startled and hurriedly retreated in fear.

Burn her to death.

The boy silently opened his mouth to form a sinister grin.

“…Quick, call that hotel!” Yu Yin whipped his head around to see Xiang Zhen Rong already calling on a cellphone. When Yu Yin shifted his gaze back, the boy’s eyes rolled to the back of his head and he powerlessly collapsed on the table.

Despite the fact that they ought to take care of the child, the boy’s eerie display had frightened the girls from getting close. In the end, Li Lin Yue casually carried the child back into a room to rest.

A moment after notifying the hotel, Xiang Zhen Rong called again. The other end informed him of the consequences.

“Although they didn’t really believe it, the hotel did send someone up. In the end, they found that the woman’s room seemed to have a wire catch on fire, setting the carpet ablaze. Because she was in deep sleep, she didn’t notice. The alarm in the room had apparently been malfunctional yet hadn’t been reported. The woman had also put up the chain lock, so the hotel staff shouted outside her door for ages without her waking. Eventually, they broke down the door to charge in and extinguish the fire.” Xiang Zhen Rong stowed his phone away while telling them this. “She should be fine, though she was still sent to the hospital.”

“Holy shit,” Ah Guan blurted with unclear implications.

“Let the police know the kid is over here.” Yu Yin asked about the name of the hospital and found that it was different from Dong Feng’s, as he had expected. Yu Yin checked the distance; it required going a long distance.

“Then let’s head over later. We should sort out Dong Feng’s belongings and bring them over first.” Xiang Zhen Rong shrugged; he somewhat disapproved of the woman.

“Or we could drop by Dong Feng’s instead.” This was Wei Jun’s first time encountering such a bizarre situation, so he was clearly a bit exhilarated. “We don’t have anything else to do anyways.”

“Thanks, but Dong Feng is still pretty rejecting towards people, so we’ll just go.” Yu Yin seriously believed that if Wei Jun’s group went, they might really be thrown out. Moreover, they would be thrown out in an extremely uncivil manner for sure. Speaking of which, Dong Feng seems to get along better with Xiang Zhen Rong, which annoys me a bit.

“Why don’t we head over to that woman’s place then? We can bring that brat back with us too.” Ah Guan suggested, “The others are free to go do whatever they want to do. Even better if we come back to a grand feast~”

“Screw you, Ah Guan!”

Yu Yin and Yu ignored the fact that Ah Guan was being ganged up on by the others and they directly returned to their room to gather belongings.

After finishing with the clothes, Yu Yin subconsciously glanced at the clock on the cabinet. Just as he had seen it on their first day, it was a very ordinary, old-fashioned clock. There was nothing special about it.

Currently, it was calmly carrying out its ceaselessly repeating operations as usual.

That woman had been sitting by the window at the time, with her face towards the cabinet.

Yu Yin somewhat experimentally sat on the armchair next to the window to see if he could figure anything out. But he did not find any clues, and Yu stared at him with a weird look.

“…Sigh.”

Nothing.

As he relaxed, he naturally dropped his head to fall against the window with a dull thud.

In that instant, through the corner of his eye he glimpsed a black figure stuck up against the other side of the glass right next to his head. Wide, ashy eyes were pointed straight at him.

Shocked, Yu Yin instinctively tried to jump up. However, the back of his clothes seemed to be yanked back forcefully, resulting in him heavily crashing back into the seat.

The startled Yu immediately charged over and pulled him away from the chair.

Because of his determination, Yu exerted quite a large amount of strength, causing both of them to stumble and fall. At virtually the same time, Yu Yin heard a loud bang. The hefty armchair that had been pulled back and forth flipped over with them.

“Sorry, sorry, are you hurt?” Yu Yin rolled aside and hurriedly scrambled up as he apologetically looked at Yu, who had become his cushion.

Yu shook his head and patted his wrinkled clothes.

While Yu Yin pulled the other up, he turned in preparation to fix the chair upright. Suddenly, he felt something sticky next to the leg of the armchair. Upon closer look, he discovered that it was a piece of gum. He instinctively wanted to let out a curse of annoyance, but he noticed the other half of the gum underneath the bottom of the chair seemingly had something else stuck onto it.

When he plucked it to take a closer look, he found that it was a very tiny TF card that was almost entirely covered by the gum. As there was only a miniscule corner showing, it would have been easy to miss without paying attention.

Yu Yin turned to say something, but before he could utter a word, a ziploc bag was passed to him. He silently stuffed the gum and memory card inside, then threw it into his bag to hand it over for acquaintances to deal with later.

Once he finished this, he stood and discovered that a layer of condensation had formed outside the window. The consolidated droplets left long trails as they slid down and came to a stop at the edge of the sill.

“…This is enough for now.”

***

When they left the guesthouse a second time, Jia Jia caught up with them and handed over some food for them to bring over.

Then Xiang Zhen Rong continued to very loyally act as a driver to bring them back to the hospital.

However, they were directly refused entry this time. Before they could even go inside the ward, they encountered Dong Feng’s mother. The woman had given them a beautiful smile while telling them that the injured patient inside was currently in deep sleep, therefore requesting for them to please not disrupt.

Hence, Yu Yin could only hand the prepared belongings to the woman.

“Oh right, Dong Feng wanted to give you this.” The woman pulled out a sealed kraft paper envelope from her briefcase and said in confusion, “After you left, he wanted me to give him paper and wouldn’t let me see what he wrote. That child…”

Yu Yin accepted the envelope that was tightly sealed. At the moment, he had no idea what Dong Feng wanted to give him either, but he could tell it was extremely important and not something intended for others to open.

“I’ve asked people to help take care of Dong Feng here, so you students don’t need to keep rushing over here. Just let him get more rest.”

Although her smile was very kind, Yu Yin could clearly sense the unwelcome aura the woman gave off…That’s not surprising though. We brought her child out, and he nearly ended up disappearing at the bottom of the sea. I doubt any parents would be happy about that.

Honestly speaking, it’s already pretty good that his mom isn’t beating us.

“Sorry…”

It seemed that they could only leave for now so as not to make Dong Feng’s guardian unhappy.

Right as Yu Yin was about to let Xiang Zhen Rong know, Yu suddenly tugged at his clothes and said with a lowered head, “Can I…stay behind?”

“Huh? But…” Yu Yin was a bit surprised. He hadn’t imagined Yu to actively voice such a request. After thinking this, he forcibly steeled himself to ask the woman, “I’m sorry to ask this, but could my little brother stay here temporarily? They’ll just talk a bit after Dong Feng wakes. He won’t give you any trouble.”

As expected, these words caused a faint expression of annoyance to flash on the woman’s face, though it was quickly concealed by a smile. “Alright. If you don’t mind, we can all eat dinner together at night.”

Yu Yin knew that this was just being said out of courtesy, so he simply expressed his thanks, then meaningfully told Yu to call them once he met up with Dong Feng. Yu Yin left after that.

When he entered the hallway, he spotted Xiang Zhen Rong buying snacks from a vending machine, who was surprised that Yu Yin had come out so quickly. Upon hearing the reason, he did not say much more and the two took their leave first.

Upon confirming the two had left, the woman let out a sigh.

“Ahh, seriously, that foolish child Dong Feng was right after all.” The woman’s warm smile immediately switched to a somewhat exasperated expression as she looked at Yu and shook her head. “Oh well, you can go in first. I’m going out to buy some food for Dong Feng nearby, so I’ll have to trouble you to look after him for now.”

Yu nodded, took the luggage, and pushed the door open.

His premonition was right–Dong Feng was not asleep inside the ward at all. Rather, he was holding what was likely his mother’s cellphone to contact someone unknown. The moment he spotted Yu enter, he put the phone down.

Yu placed the luggage down and went straight over to the bedside to take a seat.

Dong Feng picked at the bandages around his hand and sighed. “I knew you’d be stubborn.”

Yu raised a hand, but after some thought, placed it down and slowly asked, “Who was it?”

He had confirmed that the traces on Dong Feng’s neck had been caused by strangulation from an external force coming from behind. This was different from having the scarf twist around after falling into the ocean. And although there was nothing evident from the jacket, both ends of the knit scarf had fallen loose from the damage of being forcefully tugged. Yu was completely certain that the scarf had been perfectly intact when Yu Yin had lent it out; these signs all indicated that the person on the bed had not fallen into the ocean by accident, but had more likely been due to an attack, or the attacker had directly pushed him in.

“I don’t know. I already said I don’t remember. I probably slipped and fell in the dark.” Dong Feng stared at his fingers in disinterest as he casually replied.

Yu narrowed his eyes. From his seat, he could see under the crack of the tightly shut door a human silhouette standing outside.

“So careless?”

As he spoke, he placed both his hands on the bed and slowly gestured with his fingers.

Who attacked you?

“Who knew the tide would rise so quickly.”

Some angler.

“That’s your problem, you should have been aware.”

Why you?

“How could I have been aware, who would’ve noticed.”

Dong Feng coldly smirked without using his hands to respond.

Yu stared at the other person for half a beat before suddenly shooting up from his seat and walking over to the cabinet next to the door, as though to place the luggage inside. He spotted the silhouette under the door dart to the side, seemingly trying to evade.

Don’t know, don’t remember; denial, rejection…but he told me it was an angler.

He spun around to face Dong Feng with a faint glare and soundlessly mouthed–

You clearly remember everything.

Dong Feng expressionlessly met his visitor’s gaze without replying.

If it had simply been an attack on Dong Feng, there was no need to feign ignorance in such a way. He could probably use certain methods to directly drag the attacker out.

Speaking of anglers…

Yu abruptly recalled the angler that had interrupted their dispute last time.

At the time, the person’s light had suddenly lit up to point on them without warning, so the hotblooded crowd of students hadn’t noticed the approach.

That person had not been stopping them.

Rather, he had been identifying them.

Then…

The true attack target was actually Yu Yin.

That was why Dong Feng would not say anything.

Seeing realisation dawn on Yu’s face, Dong Feng smiled slightly as he lifted his finger wrapped in white bandages up to his lips.

“He does not need to know.”

***

“What’s that bag?”

As Xiang Zhen Rong started the car, he intentionally asked about the item that Yu Yin was holding while sitting in the front seat.

“Let me see…ah.” He opened it and found that the contents were roughly ten pages of paper covered in small writing. They were not completely filled, with each section being quite short. When Yu Yin pulled them out to take a closer look, he immediately realised Dong Feng’s intention.

This was the later continuation of those journal entries that Dong Feng had written from memory.

Yu Yin seriously hadn’t imagined Dong Feng could somehow remember this matter in that type of condition. He was honestly feeling all kinds of complicated emotions now, and had the strong urge to grab Dong Feng and shout, “Take proper care of yourself before writing”…

The handwriting was even slightly deformed from shaking.

“If it’s really important, then look it over first. Since he rushed to give it to you, it must be a bit urgent.” Xiang Zhen Rong parked the car in front of a nearby convenience store. “I’ll buy drinks.”

“Mn.”

Yu Yin read the continuation written on the papers after hearing the other person leave the car and lock the doors.

He could sense a gaze pointed at him from behind.

A chilling glare fixated tightly on him.

This time, Yu Yin properly tied the amulet around his neck, ignoring the shadow of a person sitting there and glaring at him from the rearview mirror. In a single breath, he swiftly read the papers.

I dare you to try and burn the paper!

He had found everything strange from the beginning. The other party clearly had no reason to act maliciously towards him; he had zero connection with that mother-and-son pair aside from that brief crossing in paths. In fact, he didn’t even know who they were or what hotel they lived in. If this ghost wasn’t constantly bothering them, they wouldn’t even know about any of this…it could probably crush or burn its hated people to death smoothly without a hitch, completing the deed in a quick few minutes.

Yet it had run over to stir up a fuss with them.

Yu Yin did not believe there was a need to purposely warn them through vicious actions.

From another perspective, if the woman had died earlier, he wouldn’t have bothered wasting his time to offend a stranger.

After reading the first paper, he placed it off to the side. Almost instantaneously, it turned a crimson colour so that the words were completely covered, vanishing from sight..

Xiang Zhen Rong was currently waiting inside the convenience store for the clerk to prepare coffee for them. However, it appeared that the two clerks were still handling other consumers, scrambling to meet their requests.

The owner of this journal had previously done similar tasks as well.

Because he had been raised by a single father, he had worked odd jobs since a young age to earn a bit of money for himself.

He would always be working during the breaks throughout high school, saving the funds he needed to attend university bit by bit…this was all stuff that Yu Yin had previously read. But beyond anyone’s imagination, the result of this hard work was his father getting into a car accident and suffering serious, unrecoverable injury.

Thus, this money ended up being used for funeral arrangements.

None of this was too difficult; there were many, many more people that were more pitiful than him…but he still felt miserable.

That was why, on his first day back to work, he had not chosen to humbly repeat apologies when a customer had yelled at him about a malfunctional photostat that would not print what they wanted. Instead, he directly responded with the other party’s selection mistake, and right as he was about to inquire if they needed assistance, he was instead rejected with an angry “Don’t treat me like an idiot”.

Of course, the customer had been furious.

His colleagues had frantically apologised to smooth things over, and the manager had come out to say sorry as well. Yet the customer’s indignation could not be extinguished as they continued ranting about how they had used every kind of photostat before.

After that, he had been fired.

Then, he had changed jobs, and changed jobs again…constantly switching from one to the next.

Because he needed to attend university, needed to pay rent, needed to bear the burden of his own living costs, needed to continue surviving.

HIs coworkers were all great; everyone was considerate towards each other.

The boss was always a smooth talker, the customers were never wrong.

For the satisfaction of the customers and the boss, they had to act as subservient as dogs, unable to protest against even the most senseless matters.

Life was filled with angry shouts. He could not tolerate living with constant arguments, and even his last drop of desire disappeared entirely.

Nov 30

I’m tired.

The last page.

There was nothing else that followed after that.

Yu Yin finally knew what Dong Feng had insisted on him reading through all the entries. Indeed, they had to be read.

He raised his head to see the youth in the rearview mirror close his bloodred eyes and vanish into thin air.

The papers scattered across the car had returned to their original colour, the text reverting back to their original appearance.

“Sorry, I had to wait a while. Something seriously ridiculous actually just happened inside, you’ll definitely think it’s hilarious. The customer before me actually went nuts on the clerk because they couldn’t buy a limited edition chocolate. I really wanted to ask if they’d die from not eating it…Really, people these days.” Xiang Zhen Rong opened the front door and entered the car with two cups of hot drinks. He then closed the door and shook his head in slight amusement. “It’s a bit chilly outside, drink this first.”

“…Zhen Rong-gē.” Yu Yin placed the cup down and began to dial his home phone number so that he could tell the busy Yu Tong or Yu Xia about some things and request for their help.

“What’s up?”

“Let’s go to the other hospital.”