Translator: Reina Editor: Killian
Lu Xia’s fingers tapped on the window sill rhythmically. His brows were slightly furrowed and he pursed his lips occasionally to try to moisten his dry lips.
Sun Zheng didn’t interrupt Lu Xia who was deep in thought. He peered at the darkness behind the glass panels, also contemplating the current situation.
“We… can probably deduce the relationship between Liu Qin and the former dean,” Lu Xia muttered to himself. “Liu Qin is a yin-follower. Although I don’t know where this group of people are from, it has to be an extremely remote place. Can we assume that there would be some differences in Liu Qin’s living habits and so on, due to this?”
Sun Zheng nodded noncommittally. Aren’t most of your “reasoning” not based on guesswork anyway? There is no way to prove if you’re right or wrong at this point, so you can think whatever you want…
“Combined with Liu Qin’s situation in the hospital, she has always been excluded. This could be because she came from a remote area. She couldn’t adapt well here, couldn’t get along with others…all of these are conceivable reasons.” Lu Xia’s tone changed, “But, look, there is one person who treated her differently.”
“Chen Zhiwen?”
“Yes. Judging from the notes they sent back then, their relationship should be quite good, but it seems that they were only good friends. For Liu Qin, this might have been her first friend, no, maybe Chen Zhi Wen was her first love…”
Sun Zheng raised his eyebrows, as if he finally became interested.
“Yeah, if he was her first love, and only love, then all of this will be easy to explain.” Lu Xia looked as though he had just made a huge discovery. “Liu Qin had been in this hospital for as long as Chen Zhiwen was. We don’t know how Chen Zhiwen treated her, but he became the dean, married a wife, had children, and lived a life of success and satisfaction. On the other hand, Liu Qin was a silly woman, choosing to stay by his side here until she was forty or fifty and remaining unmarried…not even fearing loneliness…”
Sun Zheng smiled, but this smile seemed to be without any emotion. “How was she not afraid of loneliness? Didn’t she have a cat?”
“Oh, a cat, yes, her only companion was that cat. She talked to the cat, walked with the cat, seeming as though she was leading a happy life, but thinking about another person while looking at her cat would only make it more bitter and lonesome…” Lu Xia sighed. “And that cat, too, left her later.”
Sun Zheng’s gaze involuntarily drifted to the place behind them where they had opened the floor tiles. A cat becomes a human, and a human becomes a cat. Had this woman Liu Qin entertained such a crazy thought before?
It would be nice if the cat suddenly turned into him one day.
It would be nice if he suddenly became this cat one day and stayed with me.
Sun Zheng’s body trembled. Was this cat’s body, were the four bones which were buried here, engraved with this kind of thought?
Did she ever imagine that one day, her cat would actually become a person? But even then, that person was still not the person she was hoping it to be…
“After the cat died, she buried its four bones together with those notes under a floor tile. She guarded it nervously every day like it was a treasure.” Lu Xia continued to frown and filled in the missing blanks in Liu Qin’s story, “She got the pot of plants because she was good friends with the dean, and put it beside the spot. Though, is there something weird about the cat bones?”
“This Liu Qin, could it be that she,” Sun Zheng paused, as if a little embarrassed to continue. “Could it be that she knows black magic?”
Lu Xia glanced at him, nodding hesitantly. “That would make sense. It would explain why my brother was so nervous when he first saw the cat bones? He must have recognised something, since he said that these four cat bones were to seek marriage, then presumably these four cat bones must have a strange effect.”
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.
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While unconsciously stroking the tape recorder, Lu Xia continued to analyse. “My brother saw the weirdness from Xiao Tian’s incident, and after investigating Liu Qin for so long, he finally found where the source of the problem was. With these four cat bones, he would have realised that Liu Qin knew black magic and…his premonition is very accurate. The problems with this hospital must have something to do with its senior management.”
So he and Yan Yang buried so many clues in advance and left so much evidence. If everything went well, they would bring up all the evidence to take action against the hospital after solving the problem…
However, these tapes have been kept for so many years until now, and the hospital’s problems were still unsolved after so many years—Could it be…did something go wrong halfway? So, they failed to retrieve the evidence in the end, and could only leave the clues to those who came later?
How did the current dean find out about these materials and these people? Did he have a connection with Chen Zhiwen too?
“If Liu Qin was instructed by Chen Zhiwen…” As Lu Xia spoke, he gradually noticed the ominous premonition rising in his heart and stopped his movements, his lips trembling slightly.
Lu Xiaoyun, don’t scare me… I have high expectations for you, very, very high…
As a brother, you never ever played with me when we were younger, didn’t let me copy homework, your stories were not interesting, never invited your friends over, and never brought a beautiful girlfriend back to make me envious. This is the only aspect of you which I can admire. You must not let me down…
No, of course not, Lu Xia shook his head, as if he wanted to get rid of this idea. Of course he wouldn’t doubt Lu Xiaoyun’s abilities. This point was never wrong in the past and present and will never be wrong in the future either.
“What do you think Chen Zhiwen instructed Liu Qin to do?” Sun Zheng waited for a long time for Lu Xia to finish his sentence, and couldn’t help but ask when the other man showed no signs of finishing his statement.
Lu Xia came back to his senses. “What if Liu Qin could really perform black magic, I said if, and Chen Zhiwen took advantage of this and asked her to do something which would cause problems with the chasm in this hospital?”
“What would that achieve? Don’t tell me it could bring people back to life?” Sun Zheng was not convinced.
“I didn’t say that, but it’s not as though it is impossible. If we connect the operation performed by the dean back then. Ugh, it would be great if we were in the archives now. These materials should be easy to find,” Lu Xia said, feeling a twinge of regret at being unable to solve the mystery right in front of his eyes. “However, the important thing to do now is to continue listening to the tape, and find out how to escape from this place.”
He took out the tape, flipped it over, then surveyed the area again vigilantly. There was nothing that caught his eye yet, but the cold feeling on his feet seemed to be climbing up.
He thought of Liu Qin who was related to this incident, and complained, “Liu Qin, this woman. Such a detestable person would have their pitiful sides too.”
“Detestable?” Sun Zheng raised his voice, “Is Liu Qin really detestable? She didn’t do anything wrong at the start.”
Lu Xia hit the play button, and the tape started to spin. “I admit that her starting point was not wrong and she might just be used, but…”
Sun Zheng quickly continued speaking as if he hadn’t heard Lu Xia’s reply. “Why must any group of people, even if there are only three of them, always reject another person and outcast them?”
“Because,” Lu Xia hesitated. “Even though civilised society encourages differences…”
Sun Zheng glanced at him, and a hint of twisted amusement appeared on his face. “Civilisation is just a skin that people put on. Do you know why they hide behind it?”
For the first time, Lu Xia noticed the cool indifference from deep within Sun Zheng’s smiling eyes. He closed his mouth, not answering.
“Because of fear.” Sun Zheng’s smile did not falter. “There is no greater weapon than fear and shame. Because the other person is different from himself so he became afraid. Because of fear, he uses rejection to make the other person feel ashamed for their differences.”
Lu Xia averted his gaze. His eyes stopped on Sun Zheng’s clenched fist, which was so tightly clenched that the fingers on the small black handprint on his wrist almost seemed stretched out.
Lu Xia couldn’t help but want to cover the terrifying handprint. He reached out. grabbing Sun Zheng’s hand.
Almost immediately after feeling the soft warmth against his hand, Sun Zheng’s clenched fist gradually relaxed.
The tape also started making its familiar light hissing sound.
“I’m sorry,” Sun Zheng’s tone softened. “I said too much, let’s listen to what your brother and the others have to say.”
Lu Xia gently withdrew his hand.
“Mn.”
.
The hurried footsteps of two people sounded in the empty corridor.
Judging from the situation on the first side of the tape, the two of them should be on their way back from the laboratory.
With the pace of the owner, the recorder was swaying from side to side and even brushed against his clothes from time to time, making a loud and unpleasant sound.
“Lu Xiaoyun,” the person holding the recorder couldn’t curb his curiosity after all. “Where is Suiyin?”
There was a rare pause in the footsteps of the person next to him.
“Tell me, where is Suiyin? Which province? Yunnan? Jiangxi? Liu Qin’s accent should be from the south…” Yan Yang didn’t give up asking. “Being so secretive, what’s so special about that place? Even if you can’t get there by an aeroplane or by a train, a car’s got to be a viable option, right?”
“Suiyin,” Lu Xiaoyun’s deep voice came from the other end of the tape. “That’s the closest place to the Chasm of the Earth.”
“Th-The Chasm of the Earth?”
(Lu Xia and Sun Zheng turned their heads almost at the same time to ask something, yet when their gazes met, both of them hesitated to speak.
How could he know about that whatever chasm of the earth thing…the two were thinking at the same time.
“According to what you said before, every city has a chasm, right?” Sun Zheng finally asked.
“That’s right.”
“Then what is this… Chasm of the Earth?”
Lu Xia shook his head, showing a pensive expression again. “My guess would be that, it would be the closest place to the Underworld.”)
“I don’t know where it is, because no one I know has been there and came back.” Lu Xiaoyun continued on the other end of the tape.
“There’s actually something that you don’t even know? Then how did you know that she was a yin-follower as soon as you saw the cat bones? If no one ever came back from that place, then how did you know it exists?” As soon as Yan Yang recovered from the shock, his tone was immediately filled with suspicion.
“Liu Qunfang’s grandfather once saw a record about Suiyin in a chasm in Jiangxi.” Lu Xiaoyun answered him surprisingly directly this time.
“In a chasm in Jiangxi? Is there a record?” Yan Yang exclaimed in surprise, swallowing his saliva. “Then, what should we do?”
Lu Xiaoyun did not speak.
“Why are you staring at me… Do I look like I know how to deal with those yin-followers…” Yan Yang stammeringly brushed off Lu Xiaoyun’s silence.
“If we lead the problem to her, she will solve it for us,” Lu Xiaoyun answered, his voice echoing low in the corridor, as calm and unshakable as the darkness of the night.
“I understand!” As if he’d received enlightenment from Lu Xiaoyun’s words, Yan Yang’s tone became excited. “We have to set up a trap for her, making her think that she is also in the predicament of this hospital. To save herself, she will naturally have to reverse all the things she set up!
“Not on her.”
“Then on who?”
“Chen Zhiwen.”
(“Chen Zhiwen.” Lu Xia bowed his head and muttered at this point, almost at the same time as with Lu Xiaoyun. Liu Qin’s most important thing is Chen Zhiwen, and that’s why they had to set the trap for her by using Chen Zhiwen.
Sun Zheng could see a glint of excitement from Lu Xia’s profile. Lu Xia was eagerly anticipating something, and this same kind of excitement seemed to be radiating from his elder brother too.
Sure enough, the two brothers had the same blood flowing through them. In such an extreme situation where even life cannot be guaranteed, they could still be excited in the face of unknown mysteries and puzzles.
Maybe this is why at this moment, Sun Zheng saw from Lu Xia, the faint but indelible bright brilliance of the stars at night.)
This is Lu Xiaoyun’s declaration of war against Liu Qin. This is also the first time that Lu Xia and Sun Zheng regained the sense of initiative and control ever since they entered the chasm.
Lu Xiaoyun was paving the road to the exit for them.
I understood absolutely nothing/hj 😃
Hmm… so the dean is problematic and the mastermind of all this unsualness of this hospital’s chasm?