Chapter 71: Thirty-Seven
Shoutout to nyanmaru for the commission!
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X was sleeping in the bedroom. The window was half-open, with the sea breeze mixed with fine rain.
In the dream, it was raining, with a damp scent in the air. On the old street, a puddle reflected the old residential buildings, and a schoolboy ran past…
Splash.
Little gray shoes stepped into a puddle, splashing water and shattering the reflection of the old building.
In the misty rain curtain, the little boy ran into the building.
***
The dark corridor. Little Shiyu climbed to the third floor and heard intense arguing from upstairs.
Dad was back!
Little Shiyu immediately rushed to Room 404, where h*ll was behind the mottled green iron door.
“How dare you mention divorce to me? If it weren’t for me covering for you when you stole on the bus back then, you’d have been dead in some prison long ago! When I had money from doing business, you were eager to be with me. Now you dare to disrespect me and ask for a divorce?”
“I should have known your despicable nature! I’d rather spend a few years in prison and come out! “
“Pa—”
A loud slap.
“Say that again? Don’t you itch if I don’t hit you for a day? You d*mn slut!”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of heads repeatedly hitting the wall, cups shattering, dragging, and then Mom’s screams…
Little Shiyu rushed in and stopped his over-six-foot-tall father.
“Don’t hit Mom!”
He stood in front like a rice ball in front of a carriage, but was kicked away:
“Get out of the way!”
The toe of the shoe kicked into his stomach, and Little Shiyu was kicked away, hitting the corner of the table. His bleeding mother struggled to get up from the ground:
“Why are you hitting a child!”
“He’s my son, who else should I hit if not him?”
The big hand lifted Little Shiyu up, punching and kicking before throwing him on the ground.
Little Shiyu curled up in the corner, hitting his head against the wall, the shattered cup pieces piercing his back. His father, over six feet tall, stood before him like an insurmountable mountain.
“Xie Shiyu… Xie Shiyu…!!”
Something warm flowed down his head. Little Shiyu’s hands, holding his head, loosened slightly, his delicate palms stained with blood.
His mother rushed over to hug him:
“How can you hit him like this! What kind of person are you to hit such a young child! Ah—”
She was grabbed by her hair, pulled over, and then beaten:
“So what if I hit him? Do you dare to call the police? Will you? Let the police see how much stolen goods you have at home. Go ahead! You d*mn woman, if you ever dare mention divorce again, I’ll kill you!”
The torn screams and beatings exploded in Little Shiyu’s ears, the sound of things being thrown, shattered glass teacups, overturned tables and chairs…
His mother hugged him tightly, curled up into a ball.
“It’s so noisy—”
Outside Room 404 of Little Shiyu’s family, the door of Room 403 opened, and a drunken man shouted:
“Keep it down! If you can’t stand it, go get a divorce! It’s disturbing the peace, are you sick?”
The aunt from 401 was leisurely walking in the hallway, holding a handful of melon seeds:
“Oh, quarreling again. They fight from head to toe at the bed’s end.” The aunt from 401 cracked a melon seed, watching the scene at the door of Little Shiyu’s house like she was watching a drama:
“Look at all this fighting, and they’ve been doing fine for so many years.”
***
“You’ve let the neighbors know about the divorce?”
The 190cm husband had a terrifying gloom on his face.
Her head bleeding from being beaten, she began to tremble conditionally.
“I can’t let it slide today without teaching you a lesson!”
He reached for the belt.
In utter despair, Xie Shiyu’s mother looked at the kitchen chopping board, where there was a kitchen knife chopping meat.
“Mom.”
Little Shiyu felt something immediately and pulled his mother.
Even if his mother, less than 160cm tall, and already beaten, joined forces with him, they couldn’t possibly beat his father, who was nearly 190cm tall and in his prime. If they tried to grab the knife now, they might end up being killed by his father directly.
[Children under fourteen are not held criminally responsible]
In the library, Little Shiyu happened to come across a book on legal knowledge, which left an indelible mark in Little Shiyu’s mind, even if he had to do it…
He couldn’t involve his mother.
The belt swished through the air, leaving skin torn and flesh exposed. Little Shiyu’s father, in the throes of a drug-induced rage, became increasingly volatile, making the terrifying h*ll seem endless, enough to make one wish for death.
Battered and bruised, Little Shiyu was once again kicked into a corner. He clutched his stomach as he fell to the ground, the tungsten lamp in the house casting a dim yellow light. He blinked and looked at the knife on the kitchen chopping board, the blood from his head wound congealing on his eyelashes.
The gleaming blade, stuck in the board, reflected a scene of a woman being brutally beaten in the living room.
Bang—
After beating the mother and son, the father took all the money in the house and stormed out, slamming the door behind him.
***
X woke up from his dream.
The succulent he had planted on the windowsill fell down, the porcelain pot shattering into several pieces with a loud crash. The rain-soaked sea breeze blew the curtains.
X got up, sat in the wheelchair, turned it around, and closed the window.
His head was throbbing faintly. The vivid buildings and scenes in the dream were clear, but upon waking up, he couldn’t remember anything. However, the endless beatings and arguments made him feel uncomfortable even now.
It seemed that his childhood… wasn’t good.
X had originally imagined a childhood filled with curiosity about nature, with a relatively ordinary family background, observing swallows with his best friend downstairs at home, a beautiful childhood like that.
X found a piece of paper and tried to write down the fragments he could remember from the dream, so he could discuss them with a psychologist later, maybe to recover a little more.
Many things in the dream he couldn’t remember upon waking up, except for: his father abusing his mother, his mother being physically weak and badly beaten, and him being too young to fight back.
And…
When his mother rushed over to protect him when he was being beaten, she called his name:
“…”
X held the pen, its tip against the paper, like a student taking a Chinese test, recalling a poem, clearly memorized, but unable to remember the last line.
His mother called him:
“… Yu”
It seemed to be three characters, something something Yu.
X wrote “玉” (yu) on the paper…
It could also be “宇” (yu)? Boys also often use this character…
If it could be in the third tone, then “羽” (yu), “雨” (yu) also had some possibility.
X drew a question mark next to the character “宇” (yu). He silently read it several times in his mind… it didn’t seem quite right, “玉” (yu) seemed more like it.
He circled “玉” (yu) and opened the input method, searching for all the characters with the fourth tone “Yu”:
欲、遇、狱、郁、愈…
Speaking of which,
X suddenly remembered, Chu Feng’s deceased husband was named: Xie Shiyu.
Coincidentally, it was also three characters, with the ending “Yu” in the fourth tone.
—What a coincidence.
***
“If you don’t eat, it’ll get cold.”
Raindrops pattered against the window, making a rustling sound. Chu Feng, sitting at the piano, snapped out of his reverie.
“What are you daydreaming about?”
In the game, the thirteen-year-old character Xie Shiyu, who had just washed his hands and returned, stood cutely in front of Chu Feng, towering over him.
Twenty-nine-year-old Chu Feng looked at Xie Shiyu’s hands.
The cute teenager, still in school, wearing a blue and white middle school uniform, with freshly washed hands, long fingers, palms pristine white, clean as could be. No one could possibly associate…
Chu Feng thought of the doodles on Xie Shiyu’s ugly rabbit notebook in junior high school: 正正正正正正正丅
Thirty-seven strokes, along with a drawing of a knife.
The usual guess was that maybe it was stabbed thirty-seven times…
But Chu Feng suddenly came up with an even more terrifying hypothesis when he saw Xie Shiyu in front of him.
Xie Shiyu did it on the day he came to his house to play, right after it ended, he received his call, and hurriedly came over in the pouring rain to accompany him.
Sixteen years later, Chu Feng couldn’t be sure exactly which day Xie Shiyu came to his house to play.
That kind of rainy weather, in the city where he lived since childhood, was usually in the spring and summer, from April to June.
Chu Feng remembered that on June 1st, he was forced by his mother to participate in the provincial piano competition for Children’s Day, so the piano teacher didn’t come because of the heavy rain that day, and he went to call Xie Shiyu to come over. In this way, the event must have happened before June 1st.
That day, Mom was away on a business trip, and Dad was teaching at school, so during the heavy rain, he simply stayed at the school. His parents didn’t work overtime on weekends, they would definitely be at home looking after him. So, eliminating the weekends.
Sixteen years ago, back when May Day was still a seven-day holiday, it also ruled out May 1st to May 7th. During Qingming Festival, their Chu family relatives would go together to sweep the tombs, so Qingming Festival was also ruled out.
On some day in the remaining months of April and May, Xie Shiyu…
***
“Chu Feng.”
“Hmm?”
“Is my egg fried rice not good?” The thirteen-year-old character Little Xie suddenly approached, “You’ve been daydreaming.”
Chu Feng snapped out of it, seeing Xie Shiyu’s enlarged face in front of him. Little Xie reached out and flicked a grain of rice from the corner of his mouth: “Rice grain.”
Chu Feng: “…”
Little Xie: “Do you want me to eat it?”
“No!”
“Oh.” Little Xie silently placed the grain of rice on the table, teasingly glancing at Chu Feng, “You’re still blushing at your age? Aren’t we already married?”
Chu Feng: “Marriage is something for the future, during junior high school we’re just friends.”
Little Xie: “Oh, more than friends, less than lovers?”
Chu Feng picked up a small bite of egg fried rice with his chopsticks:
“I’m thinking about something very important right now, please don’t interrupt my train of thought.”
Xie Shiyu: “What are you thinking about?”
Chu Feng savored the taste that he couldn’t experience in reality, and sighed softly:
“…What else can I think about?”
—Just thinking about you.
***
“Excuse me, did a major… incident happen 16 years ago?”
While playing with his food, outside of the game, Chu Feng was eating the Yangzhou fried rice delivered by Lin Lan and calling the Municipal Criminal Police Archives.
Although it was a long time ago, this information was not too important, but to access it, one needed some connections.
Chu Feng didn’t have anyone in the public security system, and although Lin Lan knew some senior brothers who were police officers, it was still difficult for an outsider to access the files of the Municipal Bureau.
Chu Feng had no choice but to turn to his grandfather, the former director of the Municipal Finance Bureau, whose relationship with the director of the Public Security Bureau was quite good.
His grandfather answered the phone with a sigh and rebuked his grandson:
“Aren’t you supposed to be managing the company left by Little Xie?”
Chu Feng: “Yes.”
“How come? Isn’t Little Xie’s company big enough? Not enough for you to manage? I see those CEOs working their butts off every day, and here you are, idle, thinking about changing careers to become a police officer? And looking into a case from sixteen years ago?”
“I…”
“Enough! I’m old now, I don’t care what you’re doing. But Chu Feng, you still need to look forward, you know what I mean by that.”
Chu Feng: “…Yeah.”
“If you like men, then you like men, find a guy with a good personality and live a good life. Don’t keep daydreaming all the time, making us elders worry.”
“…Yeah.”
“I heard your mom has been looking at several potential partners?”
Chu Feng immediately replied, “None of them seem quite right.”
“Nonsense! Your mom said you don’t even want to meet them!”
Chu Feng moved the phone a bit away from him. His grandfather’s online irritable tone continued:
“If you don’t meet them, spend some time with them, how will you know if they’re suitable or not? I see your mom is still worrying about you. If you want the information, I’ll make a call, but next time your mom introduces you to someone, you have to at least meet them once. Understand?”
Chu Feng: “…”
“This is a condition, I’m not getting soft in my old age.”
“…Got it.”
“Ah, Chu Feng, it’s not that we’re forcing you to go on blind dates. If you can live well on your own, we don’t have any objections. But look at how you’ve been taking care of yourself these past two years since Little Xie left.”
Chu Feng had no reply.
After a while, his grandfather sent him a phone number, telling him to call directly.
The administrator of the Municipal Criminal Police Archives:
“Um… you want the… from sixteen years ago, those are all paper records, too long ago. What kind of case are you looking for? A major case… like drug trafficking? Smuggling? Or…”
Chu Feng paused: “A murder case.”
“A murder case, ah, there were quite a few of those… Can you come over? Because these paper files are sealed, it’s inconvenient for us to scan them into electronic files to send to you. You can come over and take a look yourself.”
“Okay, thank you, I’ll be there tomorrow.” Chu Feng paused again, and finally asked his own terrifying speculation:
“Sixteen years ago, was there… a murder and dismemberment case?”
***
“Oh! If you’re talking about a dismemberment case, then I know! That case… was quite terrifying, with very few clues, and it was suppressed at the time and not reported by the media.”
Chu Feng: “Did they… catch the killer?”
“They did! Of course they did! At the time, everyone thought it was going to be an unsolved case, the killer was too clean. But in the end, they found a crucial piece of evidence and solved the case directly! The responsible detective got promoted several times and is now transferred to the provincial department…”
The administrator of the archives assumed that Chu Feng would definitely ask him: Who was the killer?
He got up to find the information about the killer, prepared to read it to him, but unexpectedly, on the other end of the phone—
Chu Feng didn’t care anymore about who the arrested killer was, he just asked:
“I want to ask, how many pieces were the victim’s body cut into?”
The administrator on the other end was stunned.
He didn’t expect Chu Feng to ask such a question, and the information about the killer in his hand became useless for a moment:
“Um, wait a moment, let me check again… Um…”
Chu Feng tightened his grip on the phone, feeling the warmth emanating from his palm.
After a moment, the voice on the other end replied:
“Thirty-seven pieces.”
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