Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Wen Tangtang’s lab was not in the same location as the other two, so the three of them split up halfway there.
Once Wen Tangtang had left, Wen Miao pulled Gu Zhishu’s phone and the slip of paper Nan Mu had given her out of her pocket and handed them to Wen Xin.
Wen Xin took the note, turning it over several times. It recorded several timestamps, but more importantly, the handwriting on the note was not Wen Miao’s.
He pondered for a moment. “Is there anything else I should be aware of?”
“No,” Wen Miao said after a moment’s thought. “I tried to open the phone, but it’s password-protected. Anyway, the key points are written on that note. Look through it first to see if there are any useful clues, and we can discuss the specifics later.”
It seemed Wen Miao had no intention of telling him exactly how she had obtained the phone and the note.
“Mhm,” Wen Xin replied absentmindedly, stuffing the note into his pocket. He then turned the conversation toward their research.
Wen Miao breathed a small sigh of relief. This was exactly why she hadn’t taken the items out while Wen Tangtang was around. Tang Tang was far too curious and would insist on getting to the bottom of everything. Given Nan Mu’s current state, Wen Miao truly hadn’t decided how to tell them yet.
Wen Xin was different from Wen Tangtang; if she didn’t volunteer the information, he wouldn’t pry.
***
With the phone in hand, cracking the password and accessing the accounts and software was a simple task for Wen Xin.
Fortunately, Gu Zhishu’s social life had been simple. Especially after falling ill, his life had mostly consisted of commuting between home and the hospital, making his chat logs relatively easy to investigate.
Just as Gu Zhiyu had said, aside from his parents, the only people Gu Zhishu chatted with frequently were Su Yu, Zhaodi, and someone with the username “Overnight View of Chang’an Blossoms.”
“Who is this ‘Overnight View of Chang’an Blossoms’?” Wen Miao asked curiously.
While his fingers flew across the keyboard typing code, Wen Xin explained, “Recovering data is easy enough, but if you want to identify who this person is through their social media account, I’d have to hack into the developer’s company. Stealing customer data from the internal servers of such a well-established company is no easy feat.”
“Is it risky?”
“Yes,” Wen Xin paused. “Very.”
Wen Miao scrolled through the chat history between Gu Zhishu and “Overnight View of Chang’an Blossoms.” She found that most of their conversations revolved around books; they seemed like fellow bibliophiles.
Wen Miao remembered Nan Mu telling her that Gu Zhishu had a habit of reading and writing book reviews every week.
She scrolled through the contact list and noticed that Gu Zhishu and the other person frequently exchanged books. She had Wen Xin log into Gu Zhishu’s delivery tracking system and, sure enough, found that “Overnight View of Chang’an Blossoms” had sent a package to Gu Zhishu not long ago.
From the shipping records, they found a sender’s address and a contact number.
No. 78 Lijiangbei Street, Lin’an District.
Wen Miao copied the address onto a sticky note. “I’m going to check this place out. You keep digging and see if there are any other suspicious characters.”
“You’re going alone?” Wen Xin turned to look at her. “What if that person is the killer? It’s too dangerous.”
Wen Miao looked Wen Xin up and down, hesitating for a moment. “I’ll find someone to go with me.”
Wen Xin felt a strange sense of insult. If she had just said she didn’t need him, or that there was someone more suitable, he could have accepted it. But why did she have to size him up first before deciding to find someone else? It was as if he were some kind of weakling.
“Are you sure that person is stronger than me?” Wen Xin asked with a dark expression.
“No.”
Wen Xin’s mood brightened slightly. Perhaps that person had a specific skill set, like interrogation techniques.
But Wen Miao quickly added, “I just feel like he won’t be any weaker than you.”
Wen Xin: “…”
Dammit!
***
“Wait? What did you just say?” Nan Mu cleaned out his ear, looking incredulous. “Where did you say ‘Overnight View of Chang’an Blossoms’ lives?”
“No. 78 Lijiangbei Street, Lin’an District.” This was the second time Wen Miao had repeated the address. “What’s wrong with that place?”
“That place…”
Nan Mu’s voice cut off abruptly. Just as Wen Miao began to wonder if there was a problem with her signal, Nan Mu’s voice crackled through the line again. “Forget it, wait for me there! Do not go near that place until I arrive!”
Nan Mu arrived at Lijiangbei Street in Lin’an District shortly after.
Unlike other places that changed with each passing day, Lijiangbei Street from ten years ago seemed like a place trapped within a barrier, looking almost identical to the place he had walked through in 2032.
Crowded alleys were packed so tightly with vendors’ tricycles that the roads were impassable. Various items were strewn about in a messy fashion-vegetables, fruits, roasted nuts, and snacks-while the cries of hawkers rose and fell in succession.
Every so often, a few young children would burst out of an alley, their chasing and playing drawing gasps of alarm from adults, followed immediately by a never-ending stream of scolding.
Nan Mu wove through the vast, cluttered labyrinth of alleys, finally finding Wen Miao, who had been lost within them, and joined up with her.
“My god, the house numbers here are a mess,” Wen Miao said, her head spinning from the search. “Why is 77 after 67, and then 93 after 77? What kind of logic are these numbers following?”
House numbers in “villages within the city” were notoriously chaotic. They had been numbered in order once, but over time, old houses were renovated and kept their original numbers, some were rebuilt on different foundations and moved their old numbers with them, and in other cases, two brothers might share a single building that, after renovation, resulted in two households using the same house number… It was the definition of disorder.
As the two of them walked and asked for directions, they ended up circling the same sections of the road several times.
Gradually, Nan Mu realized the alleys he was walking through were becoming increasingly familiar. A powerful sensation washed over him, as if guided by fate: it was as though destiny had led him back to this place again in 2022.
Three buildings with their own small courtyards stood brand new before him.
There were no peeling exterior walls, and no rusted iron gates that creaked at the slightest push. This was No. 110 Lijiangbei Street.
…
Standing at the entrance, Nan Mu heard a young couple arguing inside the courtyard.
“Go where? Jing City? Are you joking? The house was just finished less than a year ago! And now you’re telling me we’re going to Jing City? What about this house?”
“I don’t want to go either, but the company insists on expanding the market there. What do you want me to do? Do you want us to live in two different places?”
“…Then where would we live in Jing City?”
“The company assigned us a dormitory… I swear, we’ll buy a house as soon as we get there… Besides, Dabao is about to start school. The educational resources in Jing City are better, and the company promised to help us settle our residency status…”
“Then what about this house?”
“Let’s entrust it to an agency to sell. Once it’s sold, we can use the money to trade up for a better place in Jing City.”
“But this is the ancestral home!”
“If we don’t sell, how many years would we have to work to afford a down payment in Jing City? We can handle a bit of hardship, but what about Dabao?”
…
“Are you… looking to sell the house?”
Startled by the voice behind them, the couple in the courtyard turned around to find a pair of young people.
The male owner frowned. “Who are you? What are you doing standing at someone else’s front door?”
The female owner tugged at her husband’s sleeve, knowing their argument must have been overheard. “We haven’t decided to sell yet. We were just talking.”
She gave a polite, perfunctory smile and then closed the door.
The gate shut in front of Nan Mu, but he already knew what the couple’s choice would be.
In the end, they would choose to sell this house.
“What’s wrong?”
Wen Miao stood behind Nan Mu. She felt that ever since they entered Lijiangbei Street, his mood had been strange and he seemed restless.
Nan Mu looked back at Wen Miao and saw the clear worry on her face.
He forced a smile. “It’s nothing. Let’s keep looking.”
“No need to look anymore.”
Seeing Nan Mu still looking dazed, she raised her hand and pointed across from No. 110. “That’s No. 78.”
Nan Mu looked up and saw the house number hanging on the opposite building. It clearly read: No. 78 Lijiangbei Street.
This place was separated by only a single street from the house Wen Xin used to store his instruments.