Chapter 69: Ugly Bunny Notebook
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Outside the window, rain was drifting down, and the post-rain evening breeze was cool. Chu Feng leaned on the small balcony of his bedroom, holding a cigarette between his left fingers and his phone in his right hand, chatting with X.
The phone buzzed twice:
“I don’t remember.”
X replied to Chu Feng:
“I probably wasn’t a legal worker.”
That makes sense. Chu Feng raised an eyebrow. It’s unlikely that a legal worker in China would have anything to do with a shipwreck like X encountered. However, if it was a lawless person, involved in smuggling somewhere, and then caught up in a shipwreck, that would sound somewhat related.
After a moment’s pause, it seemed that X on the other side also sensed Chu Feng’s suspicion.
“Losing my memory is real.”
X added:
“I’m not lying to you.”
X carefully selected a meme from the group of regulators across the ocean:
Golden Retriever puppy eyes, staring at you sincerely.jpg
“…”
Chu Feng imagined X’s tall figure looking somewhat pitiful, and his lips curled slightly.
The cigarette, with a tiny red dot, glowed in the night. Chu Feng raised his hand, took a puff, exhaled a smoke ring, dispersing it into the fresh post-rain breeze.
“Cousin! Are you smoking again?”
Lin Lan, resembling a dog’s nose, was sitting in the living room playing games and barking like a puppy at the smell of smoke.
Pretending not to hear, Chu Feng hid on the small balcony of his bedroom, isolated from the world, continuing to smoke while typing a reply to X:
“I’ll trust you this time.”
“But your guess of 13 is interesting. I’ll check it later. Let’s chat again later~”
X: “Sure.”
“If you guess it right, remember to treat me to a meal.”
Chu Feng: “OK.”
He agreed readily, but in his heart, Chu Feng didn’t really care about treating X to a meal.
Firstly, X’s guess of 13 might not be accurate. Secondly, it might take forever for X to come to City H in China to meet him.
In the real world, people are busy with work. Most people work overtime, have limited annual leave, and X, working for a game company far away in the Pacific island country, would not easily be able to come to China. Chu Feng was just being polite during their chat.
He exited WeChat and put his phone in his pocket. Leaning against the railing of the small balcony, cigarette in hand, he looked at the city’s night view for a while.
The cigarette was the brand that Xie Shiyu liked before. The familiar smell of smoke surrounded Chu Feng like warmth, accompanying him to gaze at the lights of the city.
Chu Feng smoked quietly. If he entered the Dream City game, there would be countless Little Xies willing to accompany him to see the lights, experience the warmth of their bodies, and feel more intense love, never feeling lonely.
But after all the indulgence ends, when he takes off the game headset and has to face reality, it’s like being plunged into an icy sea and suffocating in pain.
In the game, Little Xie is one hundred percent real, indistinguishable from reality, but in his heart, he knows it’s fake, like a sophisticated imitation. Chu Feng knows very well that under those identical appearances, there’s not the flesh and soul he once loved, but carefully crafted lines of code.
Virtual is virtual after all, and reality is still reality. The cold reality is as terrifying as the deep sea, making Chu Feng feel uncomfortable to the point of suffocation, wanting to escape quickly, and the only way is to put on the game headset again, enter the Dream City, and quench his thirst.
Chu Feng remembered the dark days two years ago when he first learned of Xie Shiyu’s death. Now he’s learned to wait quietly alone with the old things left by Xie Shiyu. Whether it’s a cigarette he used to love or an old shirt he wore, he calmly remembers him.
The night started to rain again, and the bright raindrops flew diagonally across the light, reflecting an orange glow. Chu Feng finished smoking, turned back into the bedroom, laid down on the bed to rest, and reached out to hug the large black cat plushie in the quilt.
The fluffy touch, against his body, brought comfort.
This large cat plushie was a gift from Xie Shiyu on their sixth wedding anniversary. Chu Feng liked it very much. At that time, he slept with it every night, not holding Little Xie anymore. Xie Shiyu got angry and put this large plushie into the closet.
After Xie Shiyu’s death, Chu Feng took out this large black cat again, dressed it in Xie Shiyu’s old shirt, hid it in the quilt, and slept with it every night instead of Xie Shiyu.
On the king-size bed, the large black cat, wearing Xie Shiyu’s gray shirt, stared blankly with its black eyes, quietly accompanying Chu Feng.
“Cousin?”
Knock, knock, Lin Lan knocked on the bedroom door:
“Are you smoking again? Auntie is calling on WeChat, asking me how you’ve been lately.”
Chu Feng: “Tell her I’m doing great.”
Lin Lan opened the bedroom door, saw that Chu Feng wasn’t smoking anymore, and crawled into the bed, like a round cocoon, seemingly wanting to sleep early.
Strange. Lin Lan wondered why his cousin was going to bed so early today.
Normally, Chu Feng stays up very late, sometimes smoking, most of the time playing games, sleeping with Xie Shiyu in Dream City, having breakfast in the game the next day, and then returning to reality around noon.
–The food eaten in the game is virtual. The brain waves can feel the joy of food, but the stomach in the real body hasn’t actually eaten anything. This is very bad for the stomach in the long run.
Sleeping in the game also results in poor sleep quality, as the brain waves are always connected to the game headset, and the brain in the real body never gets proper rest.
Lin Lan could see that although his cousin’s body in reality wasn’t in serious trouble, his physique was far worse than before. He often had headaches and fatigue. Now he’s only twenty-nine years old, and there’s no sign of any serious illness yet, but accumulating another ten or twenty years, who knows what he’ll become.
When Brother Xie was alive, he took very good care of Chu Feng.
Lin Lan was feeling somewhat sad, and suddenly, Ding Ding Ding!!
The screen lit up with a WeChat profile picture, with the note: Auntie.
–Chu Feng’s mother directly video-called him on WeChat.
Lin Lan looked up at his cousin, and Chu Feng gestured for him to answer.
“Hello——”
Lin Lan: “Hello, Auntie!”
After exchanging pleasantries with Lin Lan, Auntie immediately turned the conversation towards Chu Feng:
“Let Chu Feng listen to the phone.”
Lin Lan handed the phone over, and the camera happened to capture Chu Feng in the cocoon of the quilt. Chu Feng, pretending to be sleepy, turned his head:
“Mom.”
“Oh, being so obedient today, going to bed so early?”
“Yeah.” Chu Feng: “Mom, if you have something, just message me on WeChat. Why call Lin Lan?”
“Heh, don’t think I don’t know you? If I call you, you’ll have time to prepare in advance and try to deceive me! Calling Lin Lan can catch you off guard.”
Lin Lan thought to himself, even if she called me, cousin would have foreseen it.
“Mom wants to ask you, tell me honestly, are you still smoking?”
Chu Feng remained unfazed: “No, as I said last time, I quit.”
“I don’t believe you. Lin Lan, tell me, is your cousin still smoking? Don’t be afraid of him, Auntie will be the judge for you.”
Chu Feng didn’t speak, just glanced lightly at Lin Lan.
Lin Lan, feeling like a trapped hamster, had to lower his head:
“Auntie, cousin is very good, he hasn’t smoked.”
Auntie exclaimed: “Not smoking is already an improvement. What about the game? Are you still playing that Dream City game?!”
“Not much.” Chu Feng shamelessly lied, then glanced at Lin Lan again.
Lin Lan, with a stiff neck, lied: “Uh, uh, cousin only… plays games on weekends to relax.”
“That’s okay. It’s okay to play only on weekends, but not every day!”
Chu Feng: “Yeah.”
Hearing Lin Lan’s testimony, Auntie seemed to finally feel relieved. She scanned her son’s bed with the camera, and frowned when she saw the photo wall:
“Feng Feng, why are you still sticking these photos? Didn’t I tell you, out of sight, out of mind? If you don’t see it, you won’t think about it. It’s best for you to move out of that house. You have so many properties in your name, can’t you just pick a new one to live in?”
Chu Feng didn’t comment, just made some noises of acknowledgment.
“Sigh, I’ve said these words hundreds of times, but you just won’t listen. Why do you always like to hang yourself on a dead tree, just like a withered tree.”
Chu Feng still didn’t speak, just made a sound of acknowledgment.
Lin Lan felt a bit awkward on the side.
Auntie seemed to sense it too. Her son was almost thirty years old, scolding him in front of Lin Lan, a younger generation, wasn’t very good. She changed her tone:
“Alright, alright, I won’t say anymore. Hang up, take care of yourself, eat your meals on time, you’re already so grown up…”
“Okay.” Chu Feng responded: “I have meals on time, Lin Lan supervises me.”
Lin Lan: “… Yeah.”
Auntie: “Then I’ll feel relieved. Hanging up.”
“Wait a moment.” Chu Feng asked his mom: “Are the calcium pills from last time finished? Do you want me to buy some more from abroad?”
“Oh, no need, your dad and I are very healthy, what do we need calcium pills for…”
Chu Feng listened to his mom for a while before saying goodbye.
The meaning of his existence now is to not leave his parents behind, to see them through to the end, and then he can end his life without any worries.
As soon as Lin Lan put away his phone, he saw Chu Feng jump out of bed.
“Cousin, aren’t you going to sleep early?”
“Is there time to sleep?” Chu Feng checked the countdown of the “Dream City” system on his phone: there were still 60 hours left.
This was the weakest Little Xie in the entire city, nearing the time of death.
If he couldn’t find the highest-level Little Xie before this time, this weakest 10-year-old Little Xie would die.
“So cousin, do you have any leads?”
“Thirteen years old.”
Chu Feng looked at the photo wall beside the bed.
Thirteen years old, the first year of junior high school.
In the photo, he and Xie Shiyu stood side by side on the playground of the junior high school, the sky of the sports meet was as blue as a Studio Ghibli animation.
Sports meet…
Chu Feng stared at this photo, suddenly noticing something.
Prizes were often given out at sports meets. And the most common prize during student days was notebooks.
Behind him and Xie Shiyu, there were scattered tables and chairs.
During the sports meet, the playground was usually filled with tables and chairs. Each class would be allocated an area, and everyone would move the tables and chairs over for the convenience of watching the games or for participating students to rest.
Chu Feng took the photo and observed it carefully. On the closest table to him and Xie Shiyu, there was a stack of notebooks and yellow-red certificates. The cover of one of the notebooks was pink and white.
Pink was the base color of the notebook cover, and white was the pattern. Chu Feng opened the magnifying glass function on his phone and focused on the photo—
Lin Lan also leaned over to look and after a while said:
“Hey cousin, this pattern looks a bit like a rabbit!”
Chu Feng naturally noticed it too, one rabbit ear was higher than the other…
Ugly rabbit.
Chu Feng frowned, he seemed to have seen this ugly rabbit somewhere…
“Cousin, this is Mio Rabbit, don’t you recognize it?”
Chu Feng: “…?”
Lin Lan: “It’s a stationery brand. They distributed many notebooks like this during our junior high and high school celebrations. I couldn’t finish using them, so I ended up throwing them away.”
Chu Feng suddenly remembered. During their university celebration, the student union also bought a bunch of these notebooks, and the same ugly rabbit was drawn on the bottom right corner of the pages, produced by the same company.
And the paper note written by 24-year-old Dr. Xie also had an ugly rabbit drawn on the bottom right corner.
Bang—
“Hey? Cousin? Where are you going?”
Lin Lan saw his cousin take the photo and rush out of the bedroom, diving into the study.
Chu Feng immediately opened the drawer in the study. There were several ugly rabbit notebooks inside.
He took them out one by one.
Last time, when he and Lin Lan discovered the paper note thrown by Dr. Xie in the trash in the “Dream City” game, he saw an ugly rabbit with uneven ears drawn on the bottom right corner of the note, so he remembered the notebooks he and Xie Shiyu received during college.
At that time, Chu Feng found these ugly rabbit notebooks in the study. One of them was used by 24-year-old Dr. Xie, with traces of a torn page inside, graffiti on the back of the notebook, and a beautiful checkmark by Xie Shiyu.
But besides this one, Chu Feng saw graffiti on other notebooks too, but at that time, he was eager to find out the secrets of 24-year-old Dr. Xie and didn’t pay much attention to the other graffiti.
Even if he noticed it, without any clues, he couldn’t interpret the meaning of those graffiti.
Now, Chu Feng checked each ugly rabbit notebook one by one. He had a deep impression of the notebooks from the university celebration because he remembered complaining to Xie Shiyu about the ugly rabbit drawn on the inner pages. So, he initially assumed that all these ugly rabbit notebooks were distributed during college and were used by Xie Shiyu for graffiti.
But was it possible… that some of these ugly rabbit notebooks were actually distributed earlier?
——Many things in the house were previously organized by Xie Shiyu, and Chu Feng didn’t pay much attention to trivial things like having a few ugly rabbit notebooks at home.
Soon, Chu Feng found it among these ugly rabbit notebooks, a pink-based notebook with a white ugly rabbit pattern on the cover!
He compared it with the photo.
The notebook in his hand, and the notebook placed on the table during the junior high school sports meet: pink base, white rabbit, ears of uneven lengths.
Exactly the same.
The notebook distributed during the junior high school sports meet, one wouldn’t keep it and move it to the marital home.
Unless… the things written on it were very important to Xie Shiyu.
Chu Feng immediately opened this notebook and carefully flipped through it page by page.
Swish, swish.
The quiet flipping of pages echoed in the study.
Most of the pages were blank, suddenly—
Chu Feng’s hand stiffened, stopping.
On this page of the notebook, there was something written:
正正正正正正正丅
Chu Feng counted, a total of thirty-seven lines.
37
Chu Feng couldn’t figure out the significance of this number. He continued to flip through, carefully examining every page of the notebook, not missing any corner.
Dr. Xie didn’t necessarily graffiti in the center of the notebook; it could be drawn in some obscure corner. If he didn’t pay attention, it could easily be overlooked…
When he flipped to the last few pages, Chu Feng saw something.
Two small graffiti drawings, drawn in the bottom left corner of the notebook, made Chu Feng’s whole body cold.
It was a knife.
And a beautiful checkmark.
With one hand holding the notebook and the other holding the photo, Chu Feng’s palms began to sweat slightly.
In the photo of the sports meet, 13-year-old Xie Shiyu smiled innocently, like an ordinary junior high school student.
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