Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 150: Chapter 63: "Faceless" (2)

"What about me?" Qingyi pointed to himself, wondering why the "real man" himself wasn’t mentioned.

"You weren’t even there."

"Whoa, so Qingyi is the most heartless one of us all," Du Kang declared dramatically.

Qingyi shook his head. "No way. Let me drop a fun fact on you guys: dreams are the opposite of reality. I must have been the one who made a grand entrance."

It really felt like he was fifteen or sixteen again.

And just like that, they started bickering over a dream he had casually made up. Laughing and arguing, they returned to their table. No one paid any mind to what he meant by "long time no see." They probably figured the four of them would never drift apart. Even after they grew up and started working, they would still meet up often. To them, a "long time" was a few weeks at most.

Then they asked what everyone was like in the dream. Zhang Shutong said that Du Kang had taken over his family’s restaurant, and Qingyi was working overtime at his company every day. Hearing this, both of them were dismayed. Du Kang clutched his head. "What? I’ve always wanted to go out and make my own way in the world! Why would I stay on the island?" Meanwhile, Qingyi sighed, believing that working overtime was very unmanly.

Ruoping was the most satisfied of them all—after all, she was the only one with a car. Recalling what she was like, Zhang Shutong decided to flatter her. "You’re the most successful one among us. You started your own company and became a bonafide businesswoman."

Only then did the three of them remember to ask, "Shutong, what about you?"

Zhang Shutong fell silent for a moment before saying, "I died right after the party." Ruoping kicked him, annoyed that he’d say something so unlucky at their victory celebration.

Zhang Shutong changed the subject, waving the piece of paper with the drawings in front of them. "Take a good look," he said, half-joking. "If you see these anywhere, let me know."

"Yeah, yeah, we know..."

"Wait, I’ve seen the first one," Du Kang said suddenly.

"Where?"

"Isn’t that just an earthworm? We dug some up a few days ago to go fishing."

Zhang Shutong sighed in exasperation. "It’s a snake. This is a stick figure. And the last one is..." He trailed off, stuck.

"An earthworm, a stick figure, and a turtle. There, that makes perfect sense," Ruoping laughed again. "I think you’ve been fishing too much."

As they spoke, the four of them raised their bottles of Nutrition Express and toasted again. Zhang Shutong listened to their idle chatter, but his mind was on other things.

He had been focused on the killer’s identity, but now he remembered the photo the upperclassman had sent him.

’The surveillance camera’s image quality was terrible, and the angle was high and to the side, so it only captured the person’s long hair.’

’Normally, I wouldn’t have thought much of it, but on Saturday night, on my way home, I happened to run into Lu Qinglian as she was heading out.’

’She said she was going for a walk, but she was actually moving very quickly.’

’She was heading south, in the direction of the Gu Family Villa. Assuming she really went to the villa, what was she doing there?’

’And the timing doesn’t add up. I ran into her a little after 8 PM. It would take an hour at most to walk to the villa, but the photo was taken in the early hours of Sunday morning. There’s a gap of several hours. Where did she go in between?’

’Besides, she said she had something to tell me and asked me to meet her at the temple the next day. In the "cold-blooded" timeline, what did she end up telling me?’

’I started hanging out with Lu Qinglian during the second semester of my fourth year of middle school. Was that related to what she said?’

’In short, the failure of the "cold-blooded" timeline was not only because I’d identified the wrong killer, but also because I hadn’t paid enough attention to Lu Qinglian.’

’I originally thought she was murdered eight years later, so I didn’t pay much attention. But looking at it now, from the snake tattoo and the photo of the temple on the phone to the picture the upperclassman sent at the last second, all the clues point to Lu Qinglian.’

He didn’t have any clear leads yet, but Zhang Shutong had established his next course of action:

Besides keeping an eye on Gu Qiuyan, he also had to investigate Lu Qinglian.

Then there was what the upperclassman had said: in the old case file, the motive for killing Gu Qiuyan was to stop her father from developing the island.

Judging by the results from both the original timeline and the "cold-blooded" one, the killer had indeed achieved their goal.

’Killing Gu Qiuyan was the same as stopping Father Gu from developing the island, but why not just go after Father Gu himself...?’

As he was pondering this question, he saw Du Kang suddenly glare unhappily at something behind him.

He turned to look and saw that a boy had entered the Lake Fish Restaurant. The boy raised an eyebrow tauntingly at Du Kang, and the two of them locked eyes.

’It’s him.’

Zhang Shutong remembered him. This underclassman was one of his "peers"—a fellow lackey. He was scouting ahead for the main group that was coming to party today, and for some reason, he had ended up clashing with Du Kang.

’Those two are truly fated, huh?’

Later, when it was time to pay the bill, Zhang Shutong had run into this boy. The kid had acted like a fighting cock, dead set on competing with him over something, which was why he’d left a rather deep impression.

’Since this boy still showed up, that means—’

The next moment, the curtain was pushed aside, and a small boot stepped inside.

The owner of the boot was a girl. She was still wearing that red scarf and was wiping the dampness from her hair. Her expression was a bit cold, but this time, Zhang Shutong knew it was because she was in a bad mood. He watched Gu Qiuyan walk in—and even though he knew she had to be alive, he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief.

’It’s strange,’ he thought. ’Just a moment ago, I was racking my brain for clues about the killer, so focused I didn’t even hear what my best friends were discussing. But now, I’ve suddenly relaxed a little.’

’If I could, I’d pull her over right now and ask her about her family’s nanny and bodyguard.’

But Zhang Shutong knew things were different now. A lot of things hadn’t happened yet, and his relationship with Gu Qiuyan was at a pretty low point... Right, he was a "traitor," and because he’d exchanged a few words with Ruoping that morning, she was now giving him the cold shoulder.

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