Chapter 17

Sometimes, Ning Qiuyan wondered if he was special to Guan Heng.

Whenever such a thought crossed his mind, he was startled by his own wishful thinking. He was just a blood donor; even though he had privately agreed to some terms with Guan Heng beyond the official agreement, it was more like a promise.

Before him, and after him, there might be other donors like this arriving on Du Island.

Yet, when he was on Du Island, spending time with Guan Heng, he genuinely felt he was special.

Otherwise, why would Guan Heng treat him as if he mattered so much?

But after returning to Wutong, all those feelings would fade away like smoke.

He knew clearly that he was just an ordinary person among the masses, no different from anyone else.

Even more than after his first trip to Du Island, after his second return, Ning Qiuyan felt a strong sense of disconnection. He had only stayed on Du Island for two or three days, just a weekend, yet he felt as if that place was his reality.

The coastline of Du Island, the fir trees, the rolling hills.

The vast buildings, the pale blue lake.

And that abandoned lighthouse.

Each of them appeared in his longing.

Life in Wutong, for Ning Qiuyan, had instead become something that felt like a past life.

One day, Su Jianzhou asked him if he had been unhappy recently.

“Did something happen to you on Du Island?” Su Jianzhou asked. “You’ve been talking a lot less lately, and you’re often lost in thought.”

Ning Qiuyan said no.

Su Jianzhou added, “If you’re worried about something or troubled by something, you should tell me.”

Ning Qiuyan couldn’t bring himself to tell Su Jianzhou that he was thinking about Guan Heng.

He was hopelessly missing Guan Heng.

Long ago, Ning Qiuyan had already known about his own unique sexual orientation, but it wasn’t until he had a dream about Guan Heng that he understood what it truly meant.

It was just too unrealistic.

If not for the matter of blood donation, he and Guan Heng would never have had any connection in this life-they were people from two completely different worlds.

He knew that after the last blood donation, he would go to Sujing, a thousand miles away from Wutong, for university, and Guan Heng would remain on Du Island, in the world that belonged to him. They would never meet again.

His feelings for Guan Heng were obvious.

Ning Qiuyan didn’t have enough experience to handle this kind of yearning that was destined to never be fulfilled.

He simply couldn’t help but think of Guan Heng at many trivial moments, and sometimes in moments of sudden anxiety or urgency.

*

Wutong had completely entered the depths of winter.

The New Year was approaching.

After Ning Qiuyan had stayed at Su Jianzhou’s home for about half a month, the serial murder case was finally declared solved. On the night Su Jianzhou brought back inside news, the story finally aired on the news.

They sat on the carpet in front of the sofa, eating instant noodles and watching the news.

There were as many as five victims, all dying from major arterial bleeding. The methods were inhumanly cruel, and the motive was shocking. The news broadcast obscured many of the gory images that might disturb viewers, and instead showed close-ups from the suspect’s interrogation.

He was a sallow, thin middle-aged man who looked honest and meek.

When questioned by police, his answers were incoherent, but he openly confessed to the crime of biting the victims to death.

The official report stated that the suspect had severe schizophrenia and delusions, often imagining himself as a beast who had to tear apart prey to survive. He often followed passersby at night looking for opportunities to commit crimes, and the innocent victims were entirely chosen at random.

Ning Qiuyan put down his chopsticks. “That’s not right.”

Su Jianzhou: “What do you mean?”

Ning Qiuyan asked, “Didn’t you tell me all the victims had donated blood? How could that be random?”

“Oh, that. It’s been checked out,” Su Jianzhou said. “The male and female victims were a married couple. They donated blood together, and the killer entered their home. Another victim lived near the hospital and happened to have donated blood during a voluntary drive. But the last two victims had never donated blood, so the police ruled out targeted killings.”

At that moment, the news broadcast the ID photo of a victim whose family could not be contacted, and for whom no valid information had been found.

Of course, the ID was fake.

Ning Qiuyan was stunned for a few seconds before quickly recalling, “I know him!”

Su Jianzhou asked in surprise, “How would you know him?”

The man who had been alive just recently had died a brutal death. Ning Qiuyan felt a little nauseated, his face turning pale. “Not really know-just saw him around N°.”

The man in the TV photo was clearly the same hoodlum Ning Qiuyan had seen at the Underground Plaza.

Later, Ning Qiuyan realized that the man had tried to sell him drugs at the time, which explained why he had tried to run when he saw someone who looked like a police officer. He also knew that if not for the appearance of someone from Du Island that night, he probably would have been robbed by that group of hoodlums.

After that, Ning Qiuyan never saw that hoodlum again, and didn’t expect he had already been killed.

Su Jianzhou was saying something beside him.

But Ning Qiuyan kept looking at the suspect on the news, suppressing his discomfort, and a thought came to him: could this case be far from as simple as it seemed?
He remembered that when he went to Du Island, Guan Heng had once said that with current technology, the case would be solved by next month at the latest.

Now it was already the next month, and sure enough, just as Guan Heng had said, the case was solved.

But Guan Heng had also said that whether or not they could catch the culprit was another matter.

For some reason, Ning Qiuyan felt that Guan Heng knew something, or rather, that Guan Heng could see through the hidden truths behind these cases better than he could.

Ning Qiuyan wondered, what if the murderer wasn’t actually the “schizophrenic” shown on TV?

Then, what exactly killed those victims who died with grievances unresolved?

“Hey,” Su Jianzhou interrupted his thoughts, “didn’t you hear what I just said?”

“Hmm?” Ning Qiuyan snapped back to reality. “What?”

Su Jianzhou adjusted his glasses, sounding annoyed: “What are you thinking about?”

Ning Qiuyan still seemed lost in thought, his gaze unfocused, and what he said made no sense to Su Jianzhou.

He murmured to Su Jianzhou, “Do you think there are Vampires in this world?”

“Vampires?” Su Jianzhou was taken aback. “Are you saying the murderer is a Vampire?”

Ning Qiuyan shook his head. “Just asking. From a doctor’s perspective, do you think it’s possible for Vampires to exist?”

Su Jianzhou chuckled. “Of course not. The kind of immortal, invulnerable bodies you see in movies simply can’t exist, and no one could possibly sustain all their bodily functions just by drinking blood. It’s completely unscientific.”

Ning Qiuyan’s eyelashes fluttered, as if he’d been convinced.

Su Jianzhou thought it was just a whimsical thought of a young man and said, “What I was actually asking was, after all that’s happened, are you still going to work at N°?”

“I am.” Ning Qiuyan replied. “Now there’s even less to worry about, isn’t there?”

*

As the New Year approached, N° started up some activities and regained its former lively atmosphere, making it desperately in need of staff.

Ning Qiuyan was staying at Su Jianzhou’s place, so Lu Qianque sent people to deliver ingredients and recipes there. When Lu Qianque contacted him, Ning Qiuyan had told him he was planning to go back to N° to help out, and Lu Qianque hadn’t objected.

That meant Ning Qiuyan had Guan Heng’s tacit approval.

What was it like when Guan Heng and Lu Qianque communicated?

Did he rest every day during the day?

At night, did he stand by the window with a glass in hand, admiring the snowy scenery outside?

On the bustling streets of Wutong, Ning Qiuyan pulled his scarf up to cover his mouth and nose, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat.

Waiting for the traffic light alone.

Crossing the street alone.

Sometimes he would have auditory hallucinations, thinking that Guan Heng was calling him, and he would hurriedly put down whatever he was doing to grab his phone, ready to hear Guan Heng call his name on the other end.

Unfortunately, apart from the last time, that never happened again.

Ning Qiuyan wanted to stop feeling this way.

But one early morning after work, as he sat on the roadside railing, listening to music and drinking milk, he saw a figure in black hidden in the shadows at the mouth of an alley.

The person stood there quietly.

When they noticed Ning Qiuyan looking over, they took a step back.

Silent and wordless.

“Hey!” he shouted, “It’s so cold, you should go home. I’m fine!”

His eyes were actually heating up.

A few seconds later, the person stepped forward again and, across the quiet street, said to him, “Don’t mind us. Just pretend we don’t exist.”

Then they melted back into the shadows.

After that, Ning Qiuyan would occasionally leave two or three bottles of hot milk from N° by the roadside-he didn’t know how many of them there were. He had asked, but they never spoke to him again.

Wearing a thick down jacket, the milk bottles clanked together in his roomy pockets.

Whenever he did this, he didn’t feel so lonely anymore.

One day, Ning Qiuyan’s phone finally rang.

Lu Qianque switched to calling him, saying he was going to deliver ingredients for the second half of the month, and on the phone said, “You should go home, Little Puppy.”

Ning Qiuyan: “…”

So when would this nickname finally disappear?

Lu Qianque laughed and said, “Go home. Don’t always stay at a single friend’s place. Be a good, obedient kid.”

When Ning Qiuyan returned home, he found the place already piled high with supplies.

The door lock wasn’t broken, and nothing was missing from the house. He had no idea how Lu Qianque managed it.

Among the supplies were not only ingredients but also many daily necessities, and among them was a New Year’s gift Lu Qianque had personally bought for him: a silly hug pillow sewn with two hugging arms.

At the very end, Ning Qiuyan found a rectangular cardboard box.

He opened it and was stunned on the spot.

Inside was a guitar case, and in the case was the black classical guitar he had played in Guan Heng’s room last time.

There was also a note in the box.

On it were bold and elegant characters-he had never seen anyone write so beautifully.

[Use it to play even more beautiful melodies.]

A small line was added below: Didn’t touch your puzzle. -Guan.

The date was half a month ago.

Guan Heng had sent him a New Year’s gift half a month ago.