Chapter 242: Heart Death, Panda, and Time's Chord.

Zhu Shoucheng on the bed reacted, with a ragged, hoarse snorting sound coming from his throat, like a pig with its hooves tied and unable to move.

Chi Xiaochi stared at him, "Mr. Zhu, why didn't you tell the police that I did it, didn't you see me?"

Zhu Shoucheng slanted two slit-like greenish-yellow eyes through the bandage, and his breathing became rapid.

"Ah, I forgot, there's no surveillance in that area, there's no way for you to prove that I hit you." Chi Xiaochi tsked full of regret, "What a shame, if you had gone to sue me, I would have been able to take this recording to the police, and this ......"

Chi Xiaochi took out a developed photo and flicked it in front of him.

The photo still smells like fresh developer water.

Zhu Shoucheng let out an "ah", both in pain and anxiety, but Chi Xiaochi had already retracted the photo and gently tapped it against his palm: "A respected teacher molesting a student in an alleyway late at night, such news is probably more worth gossiping about than the death of a good student who burglarized a building and fell to his death. This kind of news is probably more worth gossiping about than the death of a good student in a burglary, don't you think so?"

Zhu Shoucheng was even breathless and anxious, his body trembling lightly as the hot blood rushed towards his severely damaged brain in a Bo Bo, making him dizzy: "Ah... ah... ......"

Chi Xiaochi approached the bed and crammed all the worst information into his head: "What did you say? Teacher, speak louder, I can't hear you. ...... Where do you want me to post the picture? On the bulletin board at the front door of the school, or on the cell phones of all your colleagues, or maybe I'll make a few thousand flyers and hand them out to parents in front of your school? Let them see how your old, dying cow is going to eat the young grass?"

Saying that, he put the photo back into the book bag's compartment and put it away properly before turning his face, "I still have to take stock of how these two things will come in handy. Don't worry, I will take good care of them for you until you get well. How they are to be used, after that, I would love to hear your opinion."

As he spoke the last few words, Zhu Shoucheng's son came in with a large cup of hot water.

Chi Xiaochi then naturally changed the subject, "Mr. Zhu, take a good rest and get well soon. I will come to see you often."

He stood up, faced Zhu Shoucheng's son, and smiled, "Uncle, I'll leave first then."

Zhu Shoucheng's son's knowledge of the previous "burglary" case was limited to what his father had told him, and Zhu Shoucheng couldn't possibly tell his son what he had told the police, so that he wouldn't expose himself by questioning Chi Xiaochi, so he had a rather unfavorable impression of Chi Xiaochi: "Thank you for bringing your things. Xiaochi's impression of Chi Xiaochi was rather not bad: "Trouble you to bring something. But my dad he's badly injured right now, the doctor has said that he can only eat fluids, you'd better bring this apple back, so that it won't spoil ......"

Chi Xiaochi didn't push back and reached into the net, "Uncle, I'll take one. The rest can be made into apple juice and eaten in with the fluids. Apples are good for one's health, let Mr. Zhu eat more of them, he can live a long life."

Such a sentence, so that the bed Zhu Shoucheng anxious sweating, only suspect that the apple is poisoned, but there is no way to say, afraid that his son ran to the police station to report, so that the recordings and photographs were exposed, a headache as if the brain into a pounding garlic pounding.

And such a sweet mouth makes Zhu Shoucheng's son's impression of this child a few points better.

He sent Chi Xiaochi out the door and told Chi Xiaochi that he was very busy with his work and that he would hire a nanny to take care of his father if he still insisted on staying here. He also asked Chi Xiaochi to visit the house more often and take care of his father's health for him.

Chi Xiaochi smiled sincerely, "Definitely."

After seeing Zhu Shoucheng's son back to his room, Chi Xiaochi went to the nurses' station.

At the nurses' station, the little apple-cheeked nurse Fang Cai showed him the way is still there.

Chi Xiaochi's smile is so bright it shakes your eyes, "Sister nurse, thank you."

"You're welcome." Anyone likes a polite and good looking boy, and the little apple-cheeked nurse was no exception, as she plopped down on her own arm, leaned forward, and asked him, "So he can show you his homework?"

Chi Xiaochi scratched the back of her head in embarrassment, "I didn't think Mr. Zhu was really hurt that badly."

"Why would I lie to you." The little nurse shook her head, "He was injured like that, his head was so edematous that he couldn't see anything, and you said you wanted to show him his homework. Not to mention the words, the boss a living person in front of him hanging around he may not be able to see ...... clearly."

As we were talking, the emergency pager on the wall went off at first.

The little nurse immediately discontinued the small talk.

On the other side of the pager was the anxious voice of Zhu Shoucheng's son: "Come on! Come quickly! My dad is in bad shape!"

The young nurse hurriedly got up and went to check on the situation.

And with a big smile on his face, Chi Xiaochi turns away and brushes past the doctors and nurses who are running towards him.

He held up the apple and took a gentle bite.

The grainy texture of the apple skin and the fresh sweetness of the flesh blossom in layers between Chi Xiaochi's lips and tongue.

Chi Xiaochi knows everything.

After taking care of the blood on the iron bar, he roasted the surface of the bar from end to end with a lighter, went to a suburban dump, and threw it into a pile of garbage.

He checked the information and the recording cannot be used as direct evidence to prove that a person committed a crime.

Last night, he listened to the recording back and forth many times to confirm that, in addition to the little boy suspected of being covered by the mouth and nose of the whimpering sound, Zhu Shoucheng said the words, can be "borrowed gloves from the students" to excuse the explanation.

Then Chi Xiaochi won't give him any chance to explain himself to the public.

Since taking out the recordings will not substantiate his guilt, he will have to create a prison of his own to keep Zhu Shoucheng in.

He wants Zhu Shoucheng to rot this matter in his stomach, rotting into a cavity of bitter water, rotting into poison, which can only be stored until he poisons himself.

In order to shut Zhu Shoucheng up, Chi Xiaochi needed a prop more powerful than a recording to choke the old fox.

Therefore, he deliberately went to inquire from the nurse whether Zhu Shoucheng, who had just recently been removed from danger, could see clearly with his eyes.

After getting a negative answer, the things he had prepared would come in handy.

Sitting in the small garden of the hospital, Chi Xiaochi took the so-called "photo" out of her school bag.

It was a critical situation and he simply didn't have the tools to be able to do the shooting.

So he brought a photo from his own collection and borrowed a little bit of developer and applied it to the back of the photo, deliberately laying a spell on Zhu Shoucheng.

And there wasn't even a single person in this maze, it was a white field of snow.

Above the snow, two human figures holding hands were imprinted.

At that time, Lou Ying and Chi Xiaochi were thirteen and eleven.

One snowy day they came out to play and have a snowball fight with the other kids in the silo.

The two joined forces and were invincible.

After winning, Chi Xiaochi, who had rolled his head in the snow, was summoned by Lou Ying to come running up to him and crouch down, while Lou Ying brushed away the snowflakes from his head to prevent them from melting into his hair.

Chi Xiaochi looked up at him for a long time and called him softly, "Brother."

Lou Ying concentrates, "Huh?"

Chi Xiaochi said, "Brother, I want to roll in the snow with you."

Lou Ying's hand paused, and he said, helplessly and amusedly, "Childish talk. It's not like I've never seen snow before."

Chi Xiaochi: "I'll take it."

Lou Ying thought for a moment, "Well then, I'll hear the reason."

Chi Xiaochi's head is full of fantastically romantic ideas: "If we were two pandas, wouldn't we feel happy rolling from one end to the other together in the snow?"

Lou Ying : "Okay, you play the panda, and I'm the keeper who specializes in feeding pandas."

Chi Xiaochi justified, "No, it's silly to have only one panda."

In the end, the keeper compromised and agreed to be a giant panda who accompanied the baby panda in its foolishness.

Behind the silo, there was a large expanse of uncontaminated, flat snow, knee-deep enough for two people to toss and turn for quite a while.

As a result, Chi Xiaochi was a little embarrassed after a couple of tumbles, and rolled out of the snow to get up: "It seems really silly."

Lou Ying also rolled up out of the snow and wiped the snow foam off his mouth, "Silly."

Chi Xiaochi looked at him and harrumphed.

Lou Ying was a bit annoyed, "Still laughing at me, know what you look like."

Chi Xiaochi The little animal shook its head as fast as it shook its fur, shaking a large amount of snow off its head and face, "I don't know, I don't know."

Lou Ying got up, went back to the house, grabbed a repaired second-hand camera, aimed it at the two panda prints holding hands in the snow, and clicked the picture.

Chi Xiaochi wonders, "What's this for?"

Lou Ying replied with a smile, "It's a souvenir for the two pandas."

Chi Xiaochi walked out of the hospital and, instead of going back to school, went back to his home, to the spot where Lou Ying had fallen.

A few winters ago, they held hands and branded two figures in the snow.

In the not-so-distant summer, his body crashed to the ground, leaving a puddle of dark red blood on the ground, as well as a humanoid figure made of duct tape.

And in the present, Chi Xiaochi staggered out onto the snow-covered ground and collapsed on his back.

Snow permeated the back of his shirt while he lifted the photo he'd been cupping in his hand and pressed it against his fevered cheek, blocking out the light that shone onto his face.

On the back of the photo is Lou Ying's inscription after the photo was developed.

"On the Xth day of the Xth month of the Xth year of the Xth year of the Xth year of the Xth year of the Xth year of the Xth year of the Xth year of the Xth year, the big and little pandas left their mark."

Now, all that's left is a lonely panda, missing another.

Chi Xiaochi put the photo in his heart and mind while making the conception.

He wants to make full use of the recording and the "non-existent" photo to convince Zhu.

Chi Xiaochi will not take these things to the police, he wants to keep them to torment Zhu Shoucheng, so that he can learn what it means to be afraid, so that he can be immersed in the fear of being exposed at any time, and that his life will be worse than death.

He will still carry a weapon with him, and if Zhu Shoucheng dares to rob him violently or burglarize his house, he will kill him with his own hands, and then release the recording and put all the blame on him in light of what he did to Lou Ying.

However, things don't always turn out the way one wants them to.

Within a day of Chi Xiaochi's departure from the hospital, Zhu Shoucheng was given two consecutive critical care notices.

On the third day, Chi Xiaochi was notified.

Zhu Shoucheng is dead.

Maybe he killed him, maybe he scared him to death.

...... Who knows.

The police station was clueless about this vicious attack.

They couldn't find the murder weapon, the footprints were completely covered in snow, the little boy who had been coming home with Zhu Shoucheng a lot lately didn't know anything about the police's questions, his mother was unusually forceful, saying that it's none of my child's business, and even the victim himself failed to give a valid testimony before he died.

Considering the question of motive, Lao Dai called Chi Xiaochi, who had accused Zhu Shoucheng of sexual assault, for questioning.

But Chi Xiaochi, who had been trained by Lao Dai himself, had learned to flexibly use "I don't know" to answer all the questions, with a hint of surprise in his calm attitude, so that Lao Dai could not find a single mistake.

In the end, it was Zi Yu who really helped Chi Xiaochi get off the hook.

Zi Yu said that on the day of the murder, she met Chi Xiaochi on the road after school and took him back to her singles' dormitory, where she cooked him dumplings.

The low local crime-solving skills helped Zhu Shoucheng get off the hook, as well as Chi Xiaochi.

Zi Yu took Chi Xiaochi out of the police station without saying a word to him.

Since then, she has never seen Chi Xiaochi again, and even when she occasionally meets him on the road, Zi Yu pretends not to see him.

The ...... two people are as strange as two pieces of drifting weeds that have only rubbed shoulders.

One day after leaving the police station, Chi Xiaochi was stopped by a woman at the end of the school day.

She introduced herself, "I'm Gujin's mom."

Gujin, the name of the little boy Chi Xiaochi saved that day.

She took Chi Xiaochi to one of the best local restaurants and told him to order whatever he wanted.

"Gujin was so timid that he came home that day and told me everything." The woman spoke of it with a look of pleasure, "The old thing died well."

"Don't worry, son. I told Gujin to forget that incident completely and utterly, and in front of the police, no matter what they ask, say you don't know. Since you saved him, we can't be heartless."

Chi Xiaochi smiled, picked up a chopstick of vegetables and stuffed it into his mouth.

The dish followed the empty heart and fell into the bottomless abyss.

Revenge is indeed a thing that calls for pleasure, the only thing that is hard to resist is the emptiness of the heart after revenge, which is steeply drawn clean and blank to the extreme.

Zhu Shoucheng died too quickly, and when his life evaporated, a huge, hideous hole was revealed in Chi Xiaochi's heart.

This hole appeared the moment Lou Ying descended.

...... hurts.

It hurt so much he couldn't cry.

The guilt peculiar to those who have survived a great catastrophe fills Chi Xiaochi.

Every day when he opens his eyes, he wonders why I'm the one who's alive.

Why did Lou Ying fall down the stairs that day?

What if he did not seek help from outside but went to help Lou Ying?

What if he doesn't go to Zhu Shoucheng's home for tutoring?

......

The myriad of questions weaved a seamless web, turning into invisible air that wrapped him tightly in it.

Gradually, opening my eyes every morning became something that required a lot of courage.

It hurts. It's exhausting.

Is living such a sin.

Just as he had planned Zhu Shoucheng's death, Chi Xiaochi began to plan his own death in earnest.

He can't die at school.

Chi Xiaochi doesn't hate the school, and if he had jumped off the building or slit his wrists in the school restroom, knowing his parents, he would have claimed damages from the school without relenting.

He didn't want to die at home either. He didn't have that strong love-hate for his parents anymore, and home didn't mean anything to him, wasn't a place of hate or a place of peace of mind worthy of being a place to call home.

It's also bad to jump wherever and depreciate if you're in another location.

Later, he selected a bridge.

It should be nice to plunge off the bridge, fall into the water, and be carried away by the water.

In the next monthly exam, Chi Xiaochi came first.

No one could tell what he was feeling.

In the eyes of his classmates, he was no different than usual.

Someone coaxed, "College bully, buy dinner."

Chi Xiaochi smiles and says, "Definitely."

He did invite his close friends to dinner, and to avoid leaving them in the dark, Chi Xiaochi deliberately delayed for several days before climbing the bridge he had been watching for so long, late at night, when no one was around.

In the darkness, you can't see the water, you can only hear it gurgling.

Chi Xiaochi imagined that the river would take him to the nearest river, and he would go downstream, away from this suffocating place, wrapped up in the waves like a little rolling panda, rolling and rolling until he reached the person he wanted to see, and then lie down at his feet, hugging his trouser legs, never to leave again.

...... too tired.

Chi Xiaochi rejoices from the bottom of his heart at the thought of not having to struggle so much to get out of bed tomorrow morning.

He left a suicide note on his person and plunged into the rolling waves.

His suicide note consisted of only six words.

"I came. I abstained."

......

The strings of time's resonance are subtly shifted right here.

This is the story of Chi Xiaochi in a parallel world, and Chi Xiaochi has experienced it all, in every way.

He smashed Zhu Shoucheng s head on that snowy night, scared Zhu Shoucheng to death in the hospital, and also sat quietly on the guardrail by the bridge that night.

The only difference is that he didn't jump.

Just because, the original Chi Xiaochi suddenly remembered something.

...... What happens to dog meat when no one feeds it.

It has bad eyes and doesn't know it's dead. Does it spin around looking for him?

Could you be drugged with rat poison for screaming too loud?

By that, he thought of more.

Chi Xiaochi thought of Lou Ying's room, thinking that if she died, that room would be emptied and filled with baby items.

Who on earth could really remember Lou Ying and never forget him for the rest of his life but him.

Chi Xiaochi looked at the pitch blackness beneath her feet, lifted her legs and rolled back over the outside railing.

He walked home slowly, sleepwalking through the city in small steps, and eventually, came to the North Mang Cemetery.

Chi Xiaochi clumsily climbed over the fence, found Lou Ying's tombstone, and leaned on it with a sense of relief.

He gently brushed the back of his hand over the tombstone and thought, It's nice that Lou can't see me like this now.

In his mind, he would always be the willful, innocent, childlike brother, not a murderer with a calculating mind and bloodstained hands.

That's so nice.

......

After reading this world line, which was almost identical to everything he remembered, Chi Xiaochi put down his glass.

This body is too young to be stimulated by foreign liquor.

...... He's a little drunk.

So when a man stood in front of him with a slight gasp, Chi Xiaochi's alcohol-paralyzed nerves didn't allow him to react appropriately.

He looked up with a grinning expression, "There you are ......"

The visitor, however, could not help but embrace him directly into his arms.

Chi Xiaochi was confused by the hug.

The physical contact made him instinctively resist a little, but the familiar smell, the body heat, made him unconsciously lose his breath.

Chi Xiaochi was softly pressed into the man's arms, and was just about to speak when, with an occasional glance up, she saw an all-too-familiar figure at the entrance to the public school across the street--

Zhu Shoucheng and a short boy from the second year of junior high school step out of the school gate with a smile on their faces.

He looked at the boys with eyes that held a strange light that screamed sick.