Chapter 85
There was more than half an hour before the start of work and the three of them were talking by the flower bed outside the news agency building.
Lin Yi told Ren Li the details he’d seen in the time rewind. “A stray cat. Cen Qian pressed three numbers on his phone.”
On the first night, Lin Yi met Cen Qian who lost one leg to save a cat. It proved that Cen Qian liked cats a lot. He even had one at home, although he couldn’t take good care of this little orange one.
Ren Li thought about it. “He was there because of the cat.”
Lin Yi guessed as much and after an ‘en’, he said, “There were trash cans nearby and stray cats in the city, if they’re not fed, they usually dig through the trash to find food. Cen Qian probably knew there were a lot of stray cats in that area, so he appeared there.”
Ren Li asked, “But why at night?”
Lin Yi said, “There are people during the day. Cats are very vigilant and won’t show up.”
This was just barely plausible enough to explain Cen Qian’s appearance.
Ren Li acknowledged this and asked again, “Which three numbers?”
“I didn’t see the specific numbers he pressed.” Lin Yi said: “But there aren’t many three number possibilities. 120, 110, 119, 114 and 122. There’s no need to consider the last three. 114 is directory inquiry. 122 is for traffic accident reports. Cen Qian shouldn’t have dialed 119, 114 or 122 at this time. Then it can only either be 110 or 120. But Cen Qian didn’t go through with the call in the end. ”
“He must have thought of something as he was dialing so he gave up. This shows that the number he was dialing might have impacted himself.” Lin Yi placed himself in Cen Qian’s shoes. He said, “Then It can only be 110.”
Ren Li: “He wanted to call the police?”
Lin Yi: “Yes.”
Ren Li thought for a while and finally said a long sentence, “Because he wanted to feed the cats or for some other reasons, he appeared in this alley. Then he witnessed a murder. After the murderer left, he thought about calling the police. The reason he didn’t is…for fear of getting into trouble.”
Qin Zhou said, “He has already gotten himself into trouble before.”
This past had been turned into a time rewind for the participants to witness with their own eyes, which proved that Cen Qian was obsessed over and couldn’t let go about what had happened.
An obsession to this degree…
Qin Zhou continued: “Even in that alley, Cen Qian must have seen Shunxi’s face and Shunxi too had sensed Cen Qian’s presence. That’s why the Manhattan circles we’d drawn using the locations of Shunxi’s crimes led us to Cen Qian’s house. Shunxi has been looking for Cen Qian all this time to complete the murder.”
This could also explain why Cen Qian’s windows were covered with newspapers. He didn’t want to be seen by the murderer.
Qin Zhou glanced at Lin Yi. “Therefore, there are two possible Rules of Death.”
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.
Qin Zhou knew that there was no need for him to continue on. Lin Yi probably already guessed it and after a couple minutes, Ren Li would have thought of it too.
Ktf olgra qbrrlyif Eeif bo Gfjat: Gblcu cbatlcu ab rjnf Jfc Hljc.
Pc tlr olgra alwf gfklcv, Olc Tl tjv gfrmefv Jfc Hljc. Ccv veglcu ijra cluta’r alwf gfklcv, cba bcis vlv Itbe Hl ojli ab rjnf Jfc Hljc yea yfmjerf bo tlw Jfc Hljc yfmjwf Vteczl’r ajgufa.
Pc batfg kbgvr, la kjr atf qjgalmlqjca ktb tjv qea Jfc Hljc lc vjcufg.
This belonged to Cen Qian’s Rules of Death.
The second possible Rule of Death: Having your face seen by Shunxi.
In the time rewind, both Qin Zhou and Lin Yi had seen Shunxi, but Shunxi hadn’t found them. The only one who’d been found was Zhou Qi.
Just like the old dorm man who despite not being the protagonist of the Rule World, also had his own Rules of Death, this one belonged to Shunxi’s Rules of Death.
Although it was impossible to determine which Rule of Death had killed Zhou Qi, the direction of their exploration has become clear.
And that was to find out what had happened to Cen Qian after he became targeted by Shunxi. The main line of the 4-4 Rule World must be what happened to Cen Qian.
Though the method was very simple, this was the formula Qin Zhou was best at.
Lin Yi nodded in agreement.
Of course, the main plot wouldn’t be that easy to figure out. What they needed to find now were the triggers of the time rewinds.
The time rewinds could be regarded as Cen Qian’s obsession. The existence of the cat evoked Cen Qian’s memory; so they have to find more things like the ‘cat’ and the ‘press release’. They then go back in time to find the entire main plot of the 4-4 Rule World.
For now, they had to leave things here. It was already 9 o’clock and it was time for them to go to work.
In the meeting room, the editor-in-chief was already seated, looking at the three of them like a headmaster looking at tardy students.
Maybe it was due to Qin Zhou and Ren Li’s influence but Lin Yi was showing signs of becoming an over-fried youtiao. He walked into the meeting room without blushing, without his heart beating fast. He pulled out a chair and sat down.
After sitting down, Lin Yi noticed that they were now missing another person.
The one missing was Jiang Wang, the one who’d been singled out by the editor-in-chief at the meeting yesterday.
The remaining five participants were all pale faced. Feng Wan kept looking at Qin Zhou with a hesitant expression. She seemed to have something to say to Qin Zhou, but since the editor-in-chief, the NPC, was still here, she had to hold back.
After Qin Zhou and Ren Li sat down, Qin Zhou took out the press release.
If the editor-in-chief wanted to make trouble, he was going to use this press release fabricated by Zhou Qi and hand it in.
But the editor-in-chief didn’t, he even skipped past the reprimands. He spoke quickly and to the point. “Shunxi has escaped from prison.”
Everyone else in the meeting room was taken aback.
Lin Yi and the three of them were even more alarmed than the other five participants. They had just speculated that Shunxi might be targeting Cen Qian and now Shunxi had escaped from prison.
“This is an exclusive piece of news. Although it’d been submitted to us anonymously, I have already confirmed that he was the same person who’d submitted the photo of Shunxi.” The editor-in-chief said, “Now, I want you to use the IP address and find who our secret source is and get Shunxi’s photo.”
The IP addresses given to them by the editor-in-chief were very accurate. Not only the province and city, it even led them to the very street.
Jiang She Road, section 1…
This was near Cen Qian’s address.
The three of them were silent, saying nothing. After the editor-in-chief explained the task, he left in a hurry. Qin Zhou asked Feng Wan, sounding somber, “What happened to Jiang Wang?”
This was exactly what Feng Wan wanted to tell him. “Yesterday, it was Jiang Wan and I who went to the police station. Our plan was to pretend to report a crime in order to infiltrate the police station. Otherwise, we would not make it past the door. We did get through and while we were there, we overheard some news. The police station was worried that Shunxi might escape, so they sent Shunxi to a stronger prison.”
“So we immediately went to the prison to join the others. But the ones who’d originally gone to the prison also heard the same news from the prison. There’s some distance between the police station and the prison. Worried that Shunxi might escape en route, they were keeping Shunxi at the prison for the time being.”
“We are planning to head back to the police station but it was already getting dark so we didn’t dare go there anymore. We went back here, planning to sleep and then head back to the police station at dawn before work started.” Feng Wan said, “When we got back here, the door to the office was locked. We asked the security guard on duty to open it, but the security guard refused, saying that it was the editor-in-chief’s order and he would not let us in unless the editor-in-chief agreed.”
Another girl chimed in, “It was getting dark and we didn’t dare stay outside, so we asked the security guard to contact the editor-in-chief.”
Lin Yi asked curiously, “Were you about to get in touch with him?”
Feng Wan and the girl nodded at the same time. Feng Wan said, “We did but the editor-in-chief rejected our request. Even when we lied to him and said that we got information about Shunxi and had to work overtime to write the press article, the editor-in-chief wouldn’t agree. And since he wouldn’t agree, the security guard wouldn’t let us in. What’s more, the editor-in-chief was very agitated on the phone, saying, yeah… he said that there was a company spy among us and Shunxi’s photo had been stolen by the company spy; that he wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.”
Qin Zhou took a pen in his hand and kept spinning it.
Lin Yi waited for Feng Wan to continue, Feng Wan said, “We really didn’t know where else to go. So Jiang Wang got a wire hairpin from somewhere asked us to cover him. He used the hairpin to unlock the door.”
Lin Yi already had a guess in his heart. The wire hairpin must have been the trigger for a time rewind.
“Where did the wire hairpin come from?” Qin Zhou frowned. He’d warned them not to touch anything here.
The girl who just spoke raised her hand weakly. “It’s… it’s mine.”
Qin Zhou looked at her.
Because the wire hairpin belonged to another participant, Jiang Wang used it without any misgivings.
“After we went in, we went to sleep, waiting to go to the police station at dawn.” Feng Wan lowered her head, “I didn’t know Jiang Wan would die come dawn.”
Ren Li asked, “Where’s the corpse?”
Feng Wan replied, “It was taken away by the security guards.”
Ren Li got up and walked out of the meeting room to find Jiang Wang’s body. Lin Yi also stood up, planning to go with Ren Li. Jiang Wang’s body was very important. First, it might help them determine the Rule of Death and secondly, they needed to get the wire hairpin that triggered the time rewind.
The meeting had already delayed them. If the body was disposed of it would make things worse.
“If you want to survive, stay here and don’t run around. And most especially don’t hold anything in your hands when you sleep.” Qin Zhou chased after the two after leaving the others with this sentence.
The five participants in the meeting room could only watch Qin Zhou leave, looking at each other in blank dismay.
When Qin Zhou caught up with Lin Yi and Ren Li, Ren Li had already found Jiang Wang’s body in the dumpster downstairs. He got the wire hairpin from Jiang Wang’s hand.
The corpse was stabbed through the throat with a sharp knife. The width of the wound was as wide as Shunxi’s knife. Jiang Wang must have run into Shunxi in his time rewind.
“President.”
Ren Li handed the wire hairpin to Qin Zhou. “I can go tonight.”
Barring any incidents, they would be going into this time rewind tonight to find out what had happened.
Qin Zhou frowned, staring at the wire hairpin in his hand.
Lin Yi didn’t say a word, quietly waiting for Qin Zhou’s arrangement.
After a while, Qin Zhou raised his head. “It’s too slow.”
They were always a step behind the dead. It was too slow.
Moreover, it was hard to guard against the items that trigger the time rewinds. If they only determine one trigger item every day and get one piece of time rewind content, they’d be going at the same pace as the participants dying, which was too slow.
Moreover, they didn’t know what Shunxi breaking out of jail meant. Being slow was the same as waiting for death.
Ren Li said, “What’s the president’s plan?”
Qin Zhou said, “Find two more trigger objects. Each of us will go into one time rewind tonight.”
Gosh, maybe my theory’s wrong but then what’s with the way Lin Yi’s been singled out with that opening scene that never happened in real life and the false relationship between him and CQ.
It’s possible that everything that happens in the time rewinds has an effect on the present beforehand (damn time travel headache) but something about this isn’t sitting well with me.
Same. I think what I don’t like is the idea that everything is predestined in this world (according to that timey-whimey idea) or that the world is able to predict the situation before it happens, (who will go into a time-rewind, and what actions they’ll take). It makes everything feel hopeless, like the people in the 4-4 world have no initiative. But the time travel effect is likely to be real right? Because this world is the origin of the mc’s parents timey-whimey issues….. 💀
! Completely forgot about the parents time issues. Now I like this arc even more!
Impatiently waiting 😣
İf I remember correctly, in the opening scene, Lin Yi had a knife which he had thrown to television. The murder weapon is also a knife.
I read opening scene again, I think there is a lot of clues there. Lin Yi says ‘in the end I am the only one left’, rather than this being a fake scene, this scene may come near the end of 4.4 monster arc.
Thank you for the update ❤️💯