Chapter 34

Chapter 34

Except… wasn’t that footstep a bit too light? Before Nan Mu could give it much thought, he heard the study door handle being turned from the outside. The person pulled the door open.

As the door swung wide, the beam of a flashlight swept across the study floor.

Logically, once the door was open, the person should have walked right in. But for some reason, the figure at the door seemed to freeze. Nan Mu didn’t dare peek out; after all, moonlight was streaming through the study window, making it far less dark than the hallway outside.

He looked up in confusion and saw the curtains opposite him swaying in the breeze-a result of the air convection created when the door opened.

Nan Mu’s mind exploded with a realization. To ensure he had an escape route, he had opened the window behind the curtains earlier. That was why they were swaying now.

If the person outside had carefully observed and checked the state of the house before entering Su Yu’s home… if they were cautious enough, they likely realized the house had been tampered with.

Realizing he might have been exposed, Nan Mu’s body reacted faster than his brain. Almost the instant the flashlight beam flickered away, he lunged forward, throwing himself at the dark shadow in the doorway. The person outside clearly realized something was wrong and turned to flee, but they hadn’t expected Nan Mu to be so fast. Caught mid-turn, they were knocked back several steps by the force of Nan Mu’s collision.

Once he had pinned the target’s position, Nan Mu immediately clamped his right hand firmly around their neck. This would restrict their airflow, sap their strength to resist, and-most importantly-prevent them from screaming.

Having landed the initial strike, Nan Mu was about to follow through with an elbow strike to the solar plexus to completely neutralize the threat when his nose caught a sudden, faint scent of white flowers.

The movement to strike the heart faltered. Two images flashed through his mind in rapid succession.

-The little boy looking up and saying, “A tall, thin girl wearing a baseball cap. I couldn’t see her face clearly, but she had a really nice floral scent on her.”

-Wen Miao leaning in close to him, her hair sliding off her shoulder as he caught the sweet, clear scent of flowers from her tresses-like a gentle wind blowing through a forest after the rain, soft and ethereal.

His elbow instinctively loosened its grip. The person he was restraining lost their support and slid weakly to the floor, breaking into a low, muffled cough.

“Wen Miao?”

The figure in the darkness stiffened. Then, she fumbled for the flashlight that had fallen to the floor. The beam wobbled for a moment before shining directly into Nan Mu’s eyes.

Nan Mu instinctively raised a hand to shield his vision. Then he heard Wen Miao’s voice, slightly raspy and filled with utter disbelief. “Nan Mu?”

Wen Miao, who had sent a message a few hours ago saying she was going to wash up and go to bed: “…”

And Nan Mu, who had claimed at the hospital a few hours ago that he wasn’t feeling well and needed an early night: “…”

They stared at each other in the dark before silently looking away at the same time, both swallowing the question of why the other was there.

…

The person downstairs seemed to have heard the commotion. Nan Mu heard sounds drifting up from below, followed by a man’s voice cautiously calling Wen Miao’s name in a low tone.

Nan Mu instinctively pressed himself against the wall and made a shushing gesture toward Wen Miao.

Wen Miao let out a few soft coughs, got up from the floor, and stepped out of the study. She greeted the man outside, and the two exchanged a few hushed words. A minute later, Wen Miao returned to the study and closed the door.

“Wen Xin?” Nan Mu asked first, relaxing slightly.
“Yeah,” Wen Miao nodded.

They stared at each other, and another silence stretched between them.

“Why are you here?” Nan Mu and Wen Miao suddenly blurted out at the same time.

They both paused, and silence fell over the room once more.

Finally, Wen Miao was the first to break the quiet. “Fine. Since we’ve both been caught, we might as well lay our cards on the table.”

“Lay… cards?” Nan Mu asked, confused.

“I know you’re not Nan Mu.”

It felt as if a bolt of lightning had struck him from the sky. Nan Mu’s mind went completely blank. He heard his own voice, sounding strangely like it belonged to someone else, as he stammered back, “I… I’m not Nan Mu?”

Wen Miao arched an eyebrow and added, “Or rather, you’re not the Nan Mu of 2022.”

This revelation was like a clap of thunder on a clear day, and Nan Mu felt a sudden chill run down his spine.

His throat tightened. He watched Wen Miao’s eyes, which were shining in the darkness, and it took a long while before he managed to squeeze out a sentence. “How… how did you know?”

Upon hearing his words, a look of ‘I knew it’ crossed Wen Miao’s face. She toyed with the flashlight in her hand. “Where should I start? How about the first time I met you?”

“The first time?”

“Yeah. That time in the Biology Research Lab in the Chongjing Building.”

Nan Mu looked shocked. “You figured it out back then?”

“Of course not that quickly,” Wen Miao said with a light laugh, leaning against the wall as she began her explanation. “It was only when I looked back on it later that I realized that was probably the first time. At the time, I just thought you were acting a bit unusual; I didn’t actually think that much of it. After all… people’s states of mind are always changing, aren’t they?”

“Then when did you first become suspicious?”

Wen Miao thought for a moment. “Probably during your confrontation with the motorcycle. The moment I saw you rush toward it, a strong intuition suddenly rose in my heart…”

This reminded Nan Mu of when Wen Miao had analyzed the Motorcycle Man’s behavior for him at the hospital.

He couldn’t help but marvel, “In such a short amount of time, your mind processed all of that?”

“I didn’t think about much,” Wen Miao lowered her head and chuckled softly. “After all, it was just a suspicion then. I just felt like you had completely subverted my image of you.”

“Image?” Nan Mu smiled faintly, his tone carrying a hint of flirtation and mischief. “May I ask what your image of me was?”

The night breeze stirred the curtains, and moonlight spilled through the gaps onto him. In the darkness, his eyes were more brilliant and dazzling than the starlight in the sky. It seemed that because the veil he needed to hide behind had been pierced, even his gaze had become bold and burning.

Wen Miao felt scorched by his gaze and looked away awkwardly, trying to pull the conversation back on track. “When most people encounter a speeding vehicle, their subconscious reaction is to dodge. Many people might fantasize about how to fight a high-speed vehicle, but that’s just a fantasy. When you’re actually there, in the middle of danger, betting your life on whether you can take the opponent down, the reality is that the body’s instinct to seek safety and avoid harm is much faster than the human brain. To overcome the body’s spontaneous reflex and analyze exactly where the opponent is driving, when you need to accelerate, and then start jumping and attacking… it’s almost impossible without training.”

Nan Mu suddenly remembered something he had overlooked at the time.