Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 145: Chapter 60: "Tattoo

Eight years?

"She’s dead?" he blurted out, too frantic to care about losing his composure. "I... I really can’t remember now," he rambled. "My head’s a mess. I’m not trying to act crazy... When did it happen?"

Ruoping stared intently at his face.

"It was our last year of middle school. What is wrong with you?"

Zhang Shutong was completely stunned.

It wasn’t just because of Gu Qiuyan’s death.

’But if Gu Qiuyan died in our last year of middle school, then who did I see in the graduation photo?’

Zhang Shutong frantically fished the photo out of his pocket. He wanted to say, ’Look, isn’t this girl in the red scarf Gu Qiuyan? It’s not like something paranormal happened, right?’

He’d noticed the red scarf earlier when he was looking at the photo in the car. The girl’s chin was tucked into it, showing only the upper half of her face. Because he subconsciously assumed Gu Qiuyan had been saved, he hadn’t looked too closely, spending most of his time trying to make sense of his own predicament. But now, pulling out the yellowed, blurry old photo once more, he discovered that the face in the third row wearing the red scarf...

Wasn’t Gu Qiuyan at all!

It was a girl he had never seen before!

’Wait, what the hell kind of joke is this...’ Zhang Shutong’s brain completely shut down. In a flash, a thousand possibilities flooded his mind, so many that his thoughts seemed to grind to a halt. ’Did this timeline’s Gu Qiuyan just... vanish? Was she replaced by someone else?’ A chill ran down his spine. ’But Ruoping definitely said her name. Why?’

He clutched the photo and asked frantically,

"Then who is this?"

"A transfer student," Ruoping said, her expression growing even more bizarre. "It’s like you have... what’s it called... amnesia or something."

"A transfer student?"

"She transferred in not long after Gu Qiuyan passed away."

Zhang Shutong stared at the photo again, and only then did he notice something odd. Graduation photos were taken in the summer, so why would a normal person be wearing a wool scarf? He squinted, and finally made out that it wasn’t a scarf at all, but a gauze wrap.

"Then... then when exactly did she die?"

"It was on that day. How could you forget that?"

"What day was that?"

"December 9th. Early Sunday morning," Du Kang chimed in. "The same day we caught Zhou Ziheng and his father."

Zhang Shutong shot to his feet, knocking over his cup. Scalding water splashed onto his arm. A reflexive jerk went through his limb, but then it was as if he couldn’t feel the pain at all. He just raised his voice.

"Early Sunday morning? Are you sure it was early Sunday morning?"

A wave of dizziness washed over him. The hall’s dim lights suddenly seemed to glare, making him nauseous. He confirmed again that he hadn’t misheard. Yes, early Sunday morning, not early Monday morning—

But that meant Gu Qiuyan died on the night between December 8th and 9th, the exact moment the reset was triggered. ’But that’s impossible... Didn’t she go home?’

’Her family’s two bodyguards picked her up. She called me from her room after her shower and said she’d made plans to treat us to dinner on Sunday. So how could she have been murdered during the night?’

Zhang Shutong’s stomach suddenly lurched. He threw himself back onto his stool with a crash that made the people around them turn to look.

His face twisted as he forced two words through his teeth. If what he suspected was true, he’d never forgive himself.

"The... nanny?"

But Ruoping shook her head.

"Then who was it?"

"No one knows," she said softly after a long pause.

Those three words seemed to sap all of Zhang Shutong’s strength. He reached for his pocket, wanting to find his pack of cigarettes and light one... but the searing pain in his arm reminded him he had other things to deal with. Numbly, Zhang Shutong took off his windbreaker. Ruoping handed him a napkin. He knew he should thank her, but he couldn’t speak.

Beneath the windbreaker, he wore a navy sweater over a thermal undershirt. He rolled up the sleeve of his sweater, then the sleeve of the thermal shirt. He instinctively took the napkin and pressed it to his arm, but his hand froze mid-action.

’My arm isn’t my arm anymore... No, that’s not right. My arm is different from before. Vastly different.’

His forearm was more muscular, and on the inside... was a tattoo. Zhang Shutong froze again. ’When did I get this? Did the me in this timeline not only live like a complete mess, but also let himself go to ruin?’

But he’d had more than enough shocks for one day. Zhang Shutong glanced at the tattoo in silence. He didn’t want Ruoping and Du Kang to see it, though they undoubtedly already had. Better to cover it up. He wiped the water from his clothes and was about to pull his sleeve down when Du Kang suddenly stopped his hand.

Du Kang’s eyes were locked on the tattoo, and his voice was full of a complicated mix of emotions as he spoke.

"So, you never gave up on finding that person, even after all these years..."

"The person who murdered Gu Qiuyan."

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