Ashes And DustCh29 - Someone Is Watching

Edited by musk


Residential instance world Vkdz8C

Zhai Xiaoyi held a bag in his arms and watched as Yang Meili pulled out various objects from inside, only to pull them apart one by one before putting them back.

The four of them stood at the corner of the street, all staring at the painfully slow process of searching for money.

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‘You guys don’t just stand around here, think!’ Yang Meili was not only busy fumbling around the inside of the bag, but took the initiative to ask the others, ‘Where would you hide your spare change..’

‘Why didn’t you think of that back at the flat, huh? Is it really necessary to do all this right now..’ Yu Qinyan grumbled, but he still reached to look through his pockets. CRXguQ

He found a single crumpled up banknote and showed it to the others with a grin. ‘This is something, isn’t it? Although..’ He scrutinized the note closely, ‘I’ve never seen money like this. What currency is this?’

Wei Cai also found a handful of coins in his pocket, as well as a used bus ticket. ‘This.. It should be the currency of the world we’re in.’

Zhai Xiaoyi’s pockets were completely empty. He held the bag for Yang Meili with one arm as he tapped along his pockets, but could only shake his head at the end.

On the other hand, Yang Meili finally pulled a worn-out wallet out from the bag. Inside were several similar notes to the one in Yu Qinqan’s hands as well as others of different colors. She spoke as she smiled, ‘This should be enough, no?’

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Wei Cai hummed approvingly as he put the coins back into his pocket, and Zhai Xiaoyi nodded too. ‘Let’s go in and check the prices first. It should be enough.’

Yu Qinyan stopped them again before they stepped inside and asked, ‘Wait, wait a moment. Do we even have any plans as to what to buy?’

Wei Cai went around the arm he held out and spoke as he held the door for them, ‘That’s right, let’s try to go for cheaper stuff, alright? The money in the wallet might be all that we have for however long we’re staying. No matter how much it’s worth, it is best to try to keep a low profile..’

They separated once they stepped inside to save time. The sky was already gradually darkening outside the store, and the lack of a crowd inside along with the bright lights overhead succeeded in creating a unique atmosphere. 7cOmuv

Together with the faint rap music that played from the speakers, it seemed to be enough to soothe the four into relaxing their tense nerves for a moment.

Zhai Xiaoyi walked down the aisles, stopping from time to time to inspect one or two products closely. It was apparent that the world’s currency wasn’t a strong one

Each of the products cost several hundreds of it, and Zhai Xiaoyi was starting to feel rather unsure about the situation they were in. He didn’t remember the exact amount of money he saw in the wallet, but it shouldn’t be too much counted like this, ah. What could they even buy with only that much?

Wei Cai had other matters on his mind. He circled the aisles closest to the counter, but he couldn’t see any employees nearby. ld6mDi

He watched the other customers around himself from the corner of his eyes, but didn’t find anything peculiar about them. As he turned around a corner, he ran into Yu Qinyan who held a bunch of packets in his arms, and for a moment he didn’t know what to say.

Noticing his questioning gaze, Yu Qinyan held up one of the packets to show him with wide eyes. He put it back on top of the pile in his arms and asked, ‘You’re not buying anything? Right, instant noodles should be fine, no? Everything is so expensive here..’

Wei Cai showed him a stiff smile as his gaze flew over their surroundings for a moment. After confirming that no one was in their range of audibility, he replied in a low voice, ‘It isn’t that I don’t want to buy anything but that I’m looking for Qi Cheng. It should be his shift right now, but there’s no one at the counter.’

Yu Qinyan took a step backwards and leant over to see the front of the store, confirming that there indeed was no one behind the counter. He thought for a moment before handing the packets to Wei Cai one by one. eq6KJd

He explained, ‘Go and see. Maybe there’s one of those bell things on the counter? I’ll go knock on the staff’s door. Right,’ He dug deep into his pocket, but the only thing he found was still the single banknote from before, ‘You can buy like two of those with this.’

He gave the bill to the other, carefully folding Wei Cai’s fingers around the money before he showed him a thumbs up and left for the back door.

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Wei Cai felt rather helpless, but he still headed over to the counter with the pile of instant food in his arms. He placed them down at once, then started to arrange them according to color, then switched them according to size..

There was no bell on the counter, nor anything else he could use to call the cashier, so he had no better plan than waiting things out. He threw a gaze behind his back only to see Yu Qinyan look around before the other slipped inside the private corridors of the shop. UksVKP

‘…….’ Was this the so-called ‘asking around’? Forget it ah, it’s not like he hadn’t seen worse.

Wei Cai rested his palms on the counter, letting his gaze wander around the interior of the shop. He hit two fingers to the cold plastic a couple times as he observed the situation on the other side of the counter.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

There were chewing gums. He narrowed his eyes as he sized up the boxes. There were ones with menthol.. Then strawberry flavored ones and the kind that tasted like watermelons as well as others.. This truly was too big of a range to choose just one.

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But it really was too expensive in this world. Then what should he get..

He settled on gum with the original flavor. It wasn’t as good as the chocolate, but it should still be fine, no? There was no nostalgia, but at least it was cheap.

His eyes wandered back towards the employee’s photos. It was nothing but a bunch of teens with acne and one or two middle aged men and women. He soon lost interest and the tapping of his fingers resumed. LpQjt4

As he was just about to turn and look in the direction Yu Qinyan left in, he suddenly noticed movement from the corner of his eye. Of course, seeing people in a convenience store would normally not be anything out of the ordinary, but this seemed like a different case..

There was someone standing on the other side of the glass wall, staring inside the shop, watching the people inside. Wei Cai felt a numbing feeling travel up his back as he looked into those eyes.

The person himself was standing just far enough from the lights for anything but the direction of his gaze to be discernible. He stared inside unwaveringly, his gaze wandering around the shop before fixating on a person in a certain aisle.

Wei Cai stepped closer, sporting a blank expression as he knocked on the window. He watched as the person’s line of sight fell on him before waving. 39tRVu

The man outside, ‘………’ He took a quick step backwards, fading into the darkness of the evening.

Wei Cai clicked his tongue annoyedly, but didn’t plan on going out to question the person. Although the possibility of the events from just now being plot related was extremely high, he wasn’t as hard-working as to not want to wait things out.

There was a loud crashing noise from the direction of the staff corridor. Wei Cai looked over just in time to see an employee escort a worn-looking Yu Qinyan out.

Yu Qinyan grinned at him as he was led away and eventually kicked out of the store, saying, ‘I told you I’d figure it out!’ s50qnU

The cashier who was told to send him out, ‘……..’

Wei Cai, ‘……….’ He sent an apologetic look towards the employee. ‘I knew nothing about his plans..’

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The cashier only shook his head as he stepped behind the counter and started ringing up the items. ‘It’s fine, it was me who wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I apologise. Eleven packs of instant noodles and one gum. Will that be all?’

Wei Cai nodded, but then he remembered that it hadn’t only been the two of them in the store.. Yang Meili just happened to leave the safety of the taller aisles, and her figure fell into Wei Cai’s line of sight. wiVgsP

‘Hey, would you mind coming over!’ He didn’t mean to yell, but his voice still sounded much louder in the tranquility of the store than he had intended.

Yang Meili was startled by the yell, but still walked over. ‘What do you need?’

‘Are you done? What do you want to buy? It’d be great if we could wrap this up.’

‘Wrap it up? Going back so soon?’ Yang Meili felt confused. If it wasn’t for the fact that they barely had any leads she would have understood, after all wasting time in instances would be an expensive mistake. It was just that they really didn’t have anything.. 9ki32C

‘Ah? I wasn’t talking to you. Yeah, a medium bag is enough.’ Wei Cai accepted the bag from the cashier, and poured the coins from his pockets onto the counter. ‘This should be enough, no?’

The cashier yet again, ‘………..’

Yang Meili, ‘………..’ No, she really didn’t have anything to say. It was true that they needed to use up the coins though.. She chose not to intervene.

The cashier could only collect the coins one by one and count them as he put them away. As he looked down at the last few on his palm, he coughed. Feeling rather awkward he put them away as he said, ‘It’s still not enough..’ 6dxbKm

Wei Cai, ‘………’ He looked at Yang Meili as if he was asking for help.

Yang Meili had no other choice but to pull out the wallet and ask the young boy, ‘How much more do you need?’

‘Four hundred and fifty. Thank you, I hope you’ll have a great day.’ The cashier accepted the money and looked around to see if there were any more customers he needed to attend to. After making sure that no one else needed help, he basically fled back towards the staff lounge.

Yang Meili stared at Wei Cai accusingly, but the man looked around as if he didn’t even notice it. ‘Are we done? Where’s Zhai Xiaoyi?’ QziKtI

Zhai Xiaoyi, who had been mentioned, just happened to walk out from one of the aisles. He lifted his head and smiled at the two, ‘Did you guys find anything good? I couldn’t find anything that wasn’t horribly overpriced..’

Wei Cai nodded coincidently, ‘Everything is way too expensive. Yu Qinyan found some noodles though. That’s gonna last for a couple of days at least.’

Yang Meili couldn’t bear listening to him anymore. ‘Can we go? We’re already like this..’

Wei Cai agreed easily and the three of them left together. Yu Qinyan had been waiting outside for some time now, and he walked over when he saw them come out. ‘Already done?’ SkGI4e

Wei Cai nodded, ‘We bought the noodles you found, everything that had to be done should be done. Although, I can’t help but feel that I’ve forgotten something..’

Yang Meili heard him, and spoke dismissively. ‘If it’s forgotten, just leave it be. Whether it was actually important, we’ll find out later anyway.’

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

Zhai Xiaoyi agreed, ‘It’s probably not too important if you forgot.’ He then spared a look at his own stomach. ‘Right, it’s already this late and we still haven’t eaten anything today.’

‘We’ll eat after we get back.’ Wei Cai swung the plastic bag around in his hand as he showed it to him. ‘But before that, we have to advance with the investigation.. Do you guys think we’re really worthy of eating with this little progress?’ jkH2PT

‘I don’t want to be a crow’s mouth but we only have so much.. If we don’t make any progress we’ll have to take up side jobs! Can you all even imagine what that would be like.’ Wei Cai frowned.

Yu Qinyan replied, ‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll look around before then. Where do you want to go?’

‘It would be great if we could find the woman from today morning and have a nice chat with her. I still think there are things she can tell us about.’ Wei Cai scratched his head as he thought before looking at Zhai Xiaoyi, ‘The two of you checked all of the floors, right? We don’t want to overlook anything.’

Zhai Xiaoyi was about to reply, but Yang Meili was faster than him. ‘We checked everything except for the attic, the ground floor and the basement. We can go and look around at least two of those tonight.’ E71Vly

Zhai Xiaoyi nodded, ‘It’s only those three. Do we separate?’

Wei Cai thought that was a good idea. ‘Yeah, the two of you go to check the ground floor and the basement. We’ll go up to the first floor and the attic later.’

‘Are you sure?’ Yang Meili had a sudden idea, ‘I think I should go to see the woman. We’ve talked already and she might open up more easily if I’m there too. Since you’re the one who wants to question her, it should be the two of us who go, no?’

Yu Qinyan hummed. ‘She’s right indeed. Just go then, we’ll see what we can find.’ He looked at Wei Cai, asking for his opinion, and the other agreed. LeMdY5

‘Sure, sure. We’ll meet in our apartment at most..’ He stared down at his wrist that had a worn-looking wrist watch around it, ‘In two hours the latest. If someone isn’t there, the others go looking for them. Understood?’

The others nodded in unison.

They had already reached the residential building in only so long, and the four of them split up.

Yang Meili and Wei Cai headed upstairs to see if they could find the old woman first. hqHE21

It was already late into the night. After turning a light switch on, the stairway slowly lit up. The lighting was just as dim and useless as the screenplay had described. The faint light of the street lamps proved much more useful at illuminating the corridors.

The two of them didn’t speak much as they went to knock on the apartment’s door.

Even after multiple tries, no answer came.

Wei Cai didn’t make any plans beforehand, and he was forced to improvise in such a situation. Soon, the door opened in front of them. Eq6wAp

Wei Cai gave a halfhearted smile and gestured towards the inside of the apartment, ‘Ladies first.’

Yang Meili, ‘……….’ Was it really supposed to be ‘ladies first’ even in such situations?

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

She didn’t mind it too much though, after all she did indeed know the layout of the flat more than Wei Cai. Back when she sat down with the old lady to talk, she had the chance to size up the room, which she naturally did not want to miss out on.

The inside of the apartment didn’t look much different than in the morning. Yang Meili walked around the room only to stop in front of a shelf that was covered with dozens of photo frames. Qealru

She looked at them for a moment, but couldn’t recall what felt different about them. She looked back at Wei Cai who busied himself with examining the dining area.

She spoke lightly, ‘A carpet is missing.’

The man turned around to inspect the spot she was pointing at. He hummed as he crouched down to look below the cabinet next to it.

Yang Meili saw that he was already in the process of searching the floor, and didn’t bother with him anymore. She chose to walk into one of the bedrooms instead. 1JDgxr

Earlier that day, she could only look around in the living room and the kitchen area, as she didn’t want the old lady to become suspicious. Now she finally had the chance to investigate the other rooms too.

It appeared that the room she chose wasn’t the woman’s bedroom, but that of someone much younger. The room didn’t have an excessively childish air, on the contrary, the place was extremely clean and void of any unnecessary furniture. The only thing that hinted at the age of the owner were the schoolbooks that lay on the otherwise empty desk in a tidy stack.

There really wasn’t much to see. A simple, wooden bed occupied all the space in front of the window. The neatly made sheets had a light layer of dust on top of them. With a closer look, the desk could be determined to be covered by it. It was apparent that this room was not under use at the moment.

Other than the bed and the desk, the room really didn’t have much furniture. There was a dresser and a chair, both of them the same wooden color. Although the window was closed, the long white curtains still fluttered lightly as if moved by an imaginary breeze. JQbaUx

Yang Meili shuddered. She didn’t think there would be anything interesting to see in this room, no, it probably wasn’t an interesting place at all.. She chose to leave, shutting the door behind herself quickly.

Although she had already arrived back to the living room, she could still feel the bone penetrating cold. She shook her head, and tried to focus on the task at hand instead.

She looked around in the living room, but couldn’t see Wei Cai anywhere. She could call for him, but on a second thought they weren’t that familiar with each other. She wasn’t one to enjoy bothering others without reason.

She chose to look around the kitchen area once more. The man had probably just left to check the other two rooms, that was all. n 40Ez

She caught sight of a sliver of light coming from under the cabinet. She crouched down, and reached underneath it, only to pull a photo frame that had its glass shattered. Her fingers were bleeding slightly, it appeared that she had managed to grasp the broken glass as well.

She cursed silently as she inspected the photo. It seemed like something she had seen before..

She remembered that Wei Cai had already searched this area thoroughly. There was no way that he hadn’t noticed the photo on the floor.

Why was it still there then? Could he have put it back to avoid suspicion? No, there was no need to care about such subtle details. Then.. ZNjCtO

The only reason she could imagine was the instance of the photo being accidentally kicked under the cabinet. But still, why would Wei Cai place it on the floor where he could easily step on it instead of the kitchen table or the counter?

She stood up with the photo still in her hand. She walked over to the shelf she had noticed before, and placed the broken frame amidst the ones in a way better condition before taking it back.

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It had been there when she visited in the morning.. Which meant that it had been broken and kicked under the cabinet in those past few hours. If it had been done by the woman, she didn’t believe that she would treat the photo in such a way..

The only possibility was that someone had been in the flat between the two instances she visited here, broke the photo and even possibly took a carpet.. All of this was way too suspicious. zbSeGw

She looked down at the photo again, her gaze lingering on the faded features of the young child. She couldn’t help but feel that they seemed familiar..

Then she looked up, only to come face to face with the same features, except, on a somewhat more mature face.

Only, this person didn’t smile, and raised his hand to show a cloth steeped in an unknown liquid, pressing it to her nose and mouth instead swiftly.


The author has something to say: 2TD75S

Authors who simply write whatever they want, three thousand or even more words a day and even trust their own skills to directly post it.. I have a lot of respect for them is all I can say.

Also, authors who focus on only one storyline throughout an entire novel.. I cannot understand them. I could never do that! The world is full of people, you know, people who are going around and doing things at all times. So how can I not mention those things when the butterfly effect is so very real?

Often, events aren’t even caused by the leads themselves, even more often they have nothing to do with their existence at all, and sometimes the reasons behind these sideplots are even more interesting than the main storyline.

AAD has a lot of  additional storylines, ones that have almost nothing to do with the actual plot. It’s because I, as a writer, find it simply too boring to write about only one thing. The world is so colorful and full of people.. So why pretend it’s not? It’s better to show it as I see it. tpnam9

Another thing. 

I’ve decided to rebrand myself. This will include changing my alias and whatnot. Also, the synopsis of the novel has been updated. Check the new version out on the novel page.

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1 comment

  1. Wait so the grandson killed her? Or is there still another unknown? And also Wei Cai also got chloroformed?

    Thanks for the chapter <3