Chapter 13
Chapter 13
“Time’s up. But I can give you another ten minutes. We can’t run over this time.”
“Otherwise, you’ll put me in a difficult position.”
It wasn’t that Zhao Xiuming was unwilling to be frank or explain his thoughts.
They would only reject what he said. Rather than forcing help on them, he might as well respect their right to choose their fate.
Just as now, after he’d suggested using scent to guide the three-headed monster,
Assistant Li deduced his intention. “You plan to leave me with Zhou Qingyan while you go place the clothes.”
“Instead of saying it outright, you’re guiding my thinking. You don’t want to waste time proving yourself or convincing me.”
“You’ll leave regardless. The only difference is whether you take the clothes and help us.”
Zhao Xiuming nodded, puzzled. “I can hardly beg you to let me help you.”
“Then I’d have to prove that I’m right, that it’ll work, that I mean no harm, and that it all requires your approval.”
He let out a breath, utterly sincere. “But I really don’t care that much about you.”
Zhou Qingyan listened with mounting alarm. Pressing her lips together, she said, “Can’t you be on our side, Zhao Xiuming? Can’t we all go back together?”
He looked up with a smile, little emotion in his eyes, trying not to seem so cold. “Going back to reality or staying here makes no difference to me.”
She was close to tears. She was genuinely frightened. “Zhao Xiuming, do you…?”
“Do you like it better here?”
“You seem so happy now. So much livelier. As if life here suits you.”
“You’d rather stay here than go back to the outside world, wouldn’t you?”
His smile faded. He seemed puzzled. “You don’t seem to like it here.”
Zhou Qingyan grew agitated. “Of course I don’t! Who would like this place? One wrong move and you’re dead. You could even turn into some hideous monster.”
“It’s too dangerous. There are strange things everywhere.”
“Why would anyone like it? Zhao Xiuming, you… Are you unhappy outside? Do you want to stay because your life out there is bad?”
“But however bad it is, at least it’s a normal world.”
“If your life isn’t good, study hard. If you don’t have much money, work hard to earn more. Life will get better. Not here. This place is too absurd.”
She worried he would become enthralled by this place and refuse to help. Then she and Assistant Li would be even more isolated and powerless. She wanted to persuade him to return to reality.
“You’re very capable here. You handle everything easily.” She tried to calm herself. “But it’s all coincidence. You said yourself you couldn’t be sure things would go according to plan.”
“What if your plan doesn’t work? What if it fails?”
Zhou Qingyan saw nothing wrong with her argument. Zhao Xiuming didn’t dispute it.
He wanted to explain something, but then he remembered: his hometown was an anomaly instance, but Zhou Qingyan was different.
She was the second female lead in a romance novel. She wasn’t like him.
His expression grew strange. “You think the outside world is… normal?”
“Would you like me to tell you a few truths?”
She let out a shriek and clapped her hands over her ears.
“Don’t tell me,” she said, her voice trembling. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“Don’t tell me anything. I don’t want to become as abnormal as you.”
For a moment, Zhao Xiuming was at a loss. She had noticed something was wrong, after all. She simply didn’t want to admit it, get involved, or trouble herself to think too deeply.
Sometimes, knowing nothing was better than being fully aware. At least it didn’t hurt.
Assistant Li watched from the side and silently shook his head at Zhao Xiuming.
He’d clearly anticipated this. That was why he hadn’t told Zhou Qingyan everything after they left the emergency room.
Under her hopeful gaze, Zhao Xiuming spread his arms again and tilted his head, soothing her. “I respect your choice.”
Only then did she smile through her tears. But her smile soon froze.
Because his “respect” meant only that he wouldn’t keep telling her the truth. It didn’t mean he would stay.
Zhao Xiuming returned to his original air of cool, languid detachment. “Take off your clothes. You have five minutes.”
Assistant Li took off his white coat, then the shirt beneath it.
Zhou Qingyan turned away. Finding alcohol in a corner of the break room, Assistant Li used a torn strip of bedsheet to wipe himself down and mask his scent, then handed his shirt to Zhao Xiuming.
He put the white coat back on unhurriedly and reminded Zhou Qingyan to spray herself with alcohol, too.
Prompted by Assistant Li, she masked her scent while looking toward Zhao Xiuming.
He was leaning against the wall. Noticing her gaze, he smiled.
For some reason, she remembered the scene at the hot pot restaurant, when Zhang Xueya had pinched his cheek after being exposed.
Zhang Xueya must have noticed that he’d changed even then. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so startled that she’d reached out to check for herself.
They watched Zhao Xiuming leave. The break room door was locked again.
Assistant Li didn’t look worried. He looked thoughtful.
“What do we do now?” Zhou Qingyan asked.
“Make as little noise as possible,” he said succinctly. “And wait.”
“For what?” She didn’t understand.
He explained as he organized his thoughts. “I have a theory. I think Zhao Xiuming has the same one.”
“I thought Zhao Xiuming was behind it all. That he abducted Zhang Xueya and Zhehan.”
“And with your testimony, he must have something to do with it.”
“I didn’t know instances existed. I didn’t know how to kill anomalies.”
“But set all that aside. Judging only by what happened in the real world, I was reasoning with incomplete information.”
Learning that anomalies existed supplied the missing information and made things fall into place.
“Zhao Xiuming has been trying to convey the truth all along. He doesn’t say it outright because he has no proof.”
“We wouldn’t believe him anyway.”
Just as Zhao Xiuming had suggested, his actions weren’t difficult to understand if they followed his reasoning.
If he had said at the university, or even while being abducted, that horror instances existed,
Assistant Li wouldn’t have believed him, let alone the university officials and police.
Zhou Qingyan being sent to a psychiatric hospital was the best proof of that.
Not only would Zhao Xiuming have been treated as mentally ill, he would have been unable to clear himself of suspicion.
With the Li family’s methods, they would also have found a way to torment him, making his situation worse.
“Zhao Xiuming is in a strange state. He accepts the existence of horror instances and understands them to some extent.”
“The specialty food he brought from home is useful. And he interacts closely with that mysterious biker.”
Assistant Li hadn’t missed the way he’d looked at the biker, as though he’d found an interesting toy.
The thought that had briefly flashed through his mind was gradually becoming clear.
His explanation turned into a murmur to himself. “That means Zhao Xiuming isn’t the only one who knows anomalies exist.”
“Zhang Xueya comes from the same place as him. Do you think she might know, too?”
Think about it carefully. It wasn’t the mysterious man’s abduction that had brought Li Zhehan to the hospital.
It was Zhang Xueya needing an abortion.
“So.” Looking uncomfortable, Assistant Li delivered the cruel conclusion. “Perhaps you were let out because the person who really wanted to let you go…”
“Was Zhang Xueya.”
“Your best friend.”