Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 156: Chapter 65: "Vertical Pupils" (2)

He was dazed for a moment, but it passed quickly. Zhang Shutong immediately walked up the steps and bent down to check for the hidden key. As expected, it was gone.

Pushing open the rooftop door, he found himself in a place closer to the sky. Fine snowflakes danced in the air as they fell, covering the concrete floor in a thin layer of white. A girl with a high ponytail sat alone on the edge of the rooftop. She had her head tilted up slightly, watching the falling snow.

A few white flakes landed on her silky dark hair, then melted away.

The world seemed to grow desolate.

Zhang Shutong stopped in his tracks. He remembered that this girl would later remain on this small island, almost entirely alone, until the end of her life.

But he didn’t have much time to reminisce. The girl turned her head as if by reflex, then looked away again when she saw it was him.

"You were looking for me?"

Lu Qinglian always spoke in that same detached tone.

This simple question, however, sparked more thoughts in Zhang Shutong. ’In the past, I’d thought Lu Qinglian was pretty narcissistic. I just came up here to space out for a bit; what made her so sure I was looking for her?’ That was why he had shaken his head and said it was nothing.

But hearing the exact same words now made him ponder for a moment. ’Why would Lu Qinglian ask that?’

’Back then, I chose "it’s nothing." What if I do the opposite this time?’

So he nodded and said that yes, there was something.

"If there’s something, please say it quickly," the girl said, putting down her chopsticks.

In truth, Zhang Shutong hadn’t figured out what to say. Many of the details involved the future and were hard to bring up, but he was more or less used to it by now. He started with the dream gambit.

"I had a dream last night..."

"I’m not interested in your dreams. Is there anything else?" Lu Qinglian was completely unaccommodating. "If not, please don’t disturb my meal."

"..."

Zhang Shutong was taken aback. ’Honestly, I really can’t remember how I ended up hanging out with her in the second semester of ninth grade. Did we have a competition to see who could say less?’

"Actually, you’re the one who needs something from me, right?" He couldn’t be bothered to pretend anymore. "After school yesterday, you said you had something important to tell me. Then you followed me to go fishing that night. The whole time, you were watching me, intentionally or not. Why?"

Who would’ve thought the girl would just start playing dumb. She asked, feigning confusion:

"Zhang Shutong, do you have a crush on me?"

"No."

"If not, then why are you being so presumptuous?"

Zhang Shutong knew that if he answered, ’I’m not being presumptuous,’ he would fall right into her trap. He would get into an endless back-and-forth with this penguin, and only after leaving in a daze would he realize she hadn’t actually said anything at all.

"Cut the act," he said, exasperated. He walked to the edge of the rooftop and sat down beside Lu Qinglian, leaving some space between them. "I’m the one who got a copy of the rooftop key made. You’re the one who came looking for me yesterday. I came here today just to get a clear answer to this question. Is that explanation enough?"

"Zhang Shutong, you’re a little smarter than I thought." Sure enough, she had even dropped the "classmate" from his name. Her entire demeanor grew more mature.

"So what’s the answer?"

"No comment."

"Can I interpret it this way," Zhang Shutong suddenly asked, "that you’re looking for me not because I’m a classmate, but because it’s related to the ’Temple Priestess’ identity?"

’In my view,’ he thought, ’of the three tattoos, the snake represents the Cyan Snake Temple and the small figure represents the Temple Priestess. I still haven’t figured out the last one, that irregular, strange circle.’

’At the very least, the first two designs together meant: investigate the girl in the Cyan Snake Temple.’

He thought the question was sharp enough to leave any normal person speechless, but he simply saw Lu Qinglian nod faintly.

"For now, you can understand it that way."

It almost felt like a fool had willingly delivered himself to her doorstep.

Zhang Shutong resisted the urge to bite the inside of his cheek. He furrowed his brow.

"I don’t understand what you’re hiding."

"No comment."

"So I guessed right just now?"

"You can understand it that way."

Zhang Shutong sighed silently.

’Looks like my approach is still wrong.’

He glanced at the aluminum lunchbox in the girl’s hands. He remembered they had gotten along quite well last time, chatting for a while about "hard-boiled eggs."

He had thought that by only chatting about trivial daily matters in the past, he had missed important clues. That was why he went straight to the point this time, only to be repeatedly stonewalled.

After all, when he ran into her on Saturday night, she had personally said, "I need to talk to you." ’Why wasn’t she giving me the "no comment" treatment then?’

’So our relationship isn’t close enough?’

He decided to try making small talk with Lu Qinglian. Mustering his patience, he asked, "What are you eating?"

"Food."

"You have a way of shutting people down."

"I’d say it’s because your question is stupid," Lu Qinglian said calmly, picking up a clump of rice with her chopsticks. "Or have you never seen rice before?"

"I meant, your meal looks pretty plain."

"It’s fine."

"I have some leftover dishes in my bike’s basket. Want some?"

"No need."

"How about some milk tea, then?" Zhang Shutong offered it to her. "An apology."

"An apology?" She frowned slightly.

"For interrupting your meal," he said. ’It’s actually for leaving you on the island,’ he thought.

But Lu Qinglian didn’t touch the milk tea. It stood forlornly between them.

Zhang Shutong tried again. "Do you want to go fishing again sometime? Ruoping would really miss you."

Lu Qinglian just shook her head.

"Then how about we grab dinner together after school tonight, with the others?"

"Thank you, but I have other things to do."

Even just trying to force conversation, Zhang Shutong couldn’t think of anything else to say.

This was the first time he’d ever met a girl like this, who rejected everything he asked.

It seemed impossible to find anything that interested her.

Zhang Shutong was out of things to say. He really didn’t know how to talk to girls.

Just then, however, Lu Qinglian asked:

"What are you investigating?"

Zhang Shutong froze.

"Last night, when you heard the police officers on patrol, your reaction was too extreme. The same goes for how you reacted to those two poachers."

Lu Qinglian turned her head to look directly into his eyes, her own filled with indifference.

"Zhang Shutong, you’ve been beating around the bush this whole time. Why don’t you answer my question first—

"What are you investigating?"

"Er..."

He suddenly felt that the girl in front of him had become familiar.

No, "girl" wasn’t even the right word. Though her face and age were that of one, Zhang Shutong was once again overcome by a strong sense of déjà vu:

The beautiful woman who would be framed in black and white eight years from now had reappeared before him. Her eyes were as still as an old well, without a single ripple of emotion.

For some reason, it made Zhang Shutong think of a snake. It stays perfectly still before striking, but that doesn’t mean it’s slow. It’s just hiding, waiting for you—its prey—to reveal a weakness, and then it delivers a fatal blow.

Lu Qinglian was indeed very much like a snake. "They" were both cold-blooded creatures.

Zhang Shutong knew that last night, right after he’d returned, he hadn’t thought too deeply about the murder case. He was constantly on guard against the killer, thinking it might be the police, then the poachers, which was why he’d been on high alert.

No one had ever thought of or noticed this about him. It would be a lie to say he wasn’t surprised. But Zhang Shutong immediately wondered, ’What would happen if I told Lu Qinglian the whole story right now?’

’Doesn’t this perfectly tie into the previous problem? I just so happen to be missing something that interests Lu Qinglian.’

Maybe this was how two "cold-blooded" people like them could reach an understanding. Besides, Lu Qinglian was a good fighter. It might create a strange chemical reaction.

It felt as if the future was about to be decided in this very moment.

Just then, a snowflake suddenly landed on his eyelash, making Zhang Shutong blink hard. He looked again at Lu Qinglian’s eyes, which appeared a faint amber in the light... ’Wait, her eyes.’

’The circle... could it represent an eye?’

It was an irregular circle—more of an oval, really. Otherwise, Ruoping wouldn’t have joked about it being a turtle shell. Only now did Zhang Shutong realize that it really did look like an eye.

The inside of the circle was blank. Empty. If it was an eye, then it was a vacant eye.

’A snake, a small figure, and a vacant eye.’

’What were these three images together trying to say?’

Zhang Shutong swallowed the words he was about to say. In the end, he just made a joke to Lu Qinglian.

"Sorry, I have no comment either."

He stood up, ready to leave, and said to Lu Qinglian:

"Drink the milk tea."

With that, Zhang Shutong turned around, his smile gone. He pulled out his phone and found his mom’s number—she worked in geological survey on the island. As he pulled the rooftop door closed, he felt he had a new lead for his investigation.

The door swung shut, separating him from the wind and snow outside, and from the girl whose words didn’t match her age.

The stairwell grew dim again. As Zhang Shutong walked down the stairs, a voice seemed to drift through the door as if from another world. It was like a self-directed murmur, its intended audience unknown:

"If you don’t want any ’accidents,’ you’d best stop prying into my affairs."

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