Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 195: Chapter 85: "Hostage"_3

He was almost there.

This should have been a moment of relief, but Zhang Shutong froze in place again as a chill shot up his spine.

A set of footprints...

They weren’t his, of course...

Instead, there on the pristine, flawless snow, a set of footprints stretched out ahead of him.

Footprints!

The string in his mind snapped taut. He glanced around, but there was no one in sight. Zhang Shutong wasn’t shocked at finding signs of a person here, but rather at...

’Who was it?’

’What were they doing here?’

’Who would come to the side of Ring Mountain Road during a heavy snowstorm, walk up it, and head toward the villa at the very end?’

He didn’t even have time to catch his breath before he scrambled over to the footprints and crouched down.

The prints were indistinct and messy. He followed them back to their origin point at the entrance of the road, and then to their end... He checked again and again, making sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him due to fatigue.

The footprints simply vanished at the edge of the road!

’Did they get this far and turn back?’

’That must be it.’

In any case, he hadn’t seen any footprints on the first half of the path down, which meant the person hadn’t gone all the way up. That was the only good news among a sea of bad news. But why had they turned back?

’Scoping the place out in advance?’

Zhang Shutong frowned, still squatting beside the footprints.

He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the route:

’Someone stepped onto the entrance of Ring Mountain Road, walked in the snow for about two or three minutes—the steps were close together, meaning they weren’t slow—then they looked around at the edge of the road and finally chose to give up...’

’Wait, could it be...?’

A sudden idea struck Zhang Shutong, and he dialed Song’s number again.

"What’s up? Are you in the car?"

"Not yet," Zhang Shutong said quickly. "I just wanted to confirm something else. This morning, when the guy from the auto shop came to deliver the tires, did he get out of his car and walk for a bit?"

"I didn’t ask about that. Why?"

"I just found a set of footprints near the entrance, heading up the mountain."

Song seemed to realize something was fishy.

"Alright, hang on. I’ll ask him."

Zhang Shutong hung up and went back to studying the tracks.

He held his shoe over one of the prints and saw it was a little smaller than his own. He couldn’t remember his shoe size in middle school. ’A 39 or 40, maybe?’

Just then, his phone rang again. It was Song.

"I asked. He did walk a few steps up the snowy road. How else was he supposed to confirm the car couldn’t make it up? Stop overthinking things. We’re fine here..."

"That’s good to hear."

Zhang Shutong finally let out a sigh of relief.

His phone buzzed again. It was a text from his mom, saying she’d been delayed but would be there any minute.

He replied with a simple "Okay."

Zhang Shutong had been wondering. He had already run all the way down the mountain; even with the slow driving in the snow, she should have arrived by now.

’As long as she’s almost here, it’s fine.’

He returned to the mountain road and found a spot sheltered from the wind.

He thought about leaning against the stone cliff to rest, but then he remembered the jacket wasn’t his. He couldn’t just mess it up. It would be a hassle if he snagged it on a sharp rock and tore it, so he decided to just keep standing.

While waiting for the car, he didn’t hang up with Song. Instead, he asked, "How are things over on your end?"

"It feels a lot quieter now that you’re gone," Song Nanshan grumbled. "I’m just sitting in the living room watching TV. No one’s fighting me for the remote, so it’s actually pretty relaxing. The housekeeper went up to clean your room, and Qiumian seems to be in her own room... Oh, I just called to let her know you’d left. She just grunted and hung up. Why didn’t you tell her yourself, kid?"

Truthfully, Zhang Shutong didn’t know how to tell her either. He looked up at the sky. There were no clouds today, just a bleak, pale light.

"Let’s save the goodbyes for next time."

It was a cool line that had just popped into his head. He made a mental note to share it with Qingyi when he got the chance.

Song laughed and cursed good-naturedly.

"What’re you trying to be so cool for? No, wait, this isn’t even you trying to be cool..."

Whether it was cool or not didn’t matter. He really did want to save his goodbyes for next time.

And when next time came, he’d save them for the time after that... until this whole thing was resolved.

Just then, a horn honked in the distance. Zhang Shutong turned to see a black RAV4 slowly pulling over to the side of the road.

His mom was finally here.

Song heard the horn through the phone and also sighed in relief.

"You want me to say a few words to your mom?"

"Better not."

"Alright then. Your master is going back to watching TV. Call me if you need anything."

They hung up. Before Zhang Shutong could run to the car, a woman in sunglasses got out.

’Mom sure is brilliant,’ he thought. ’She knew to wear sunglasses when driving in the snow, while I only realized it after my eyes started to ache from running down the hill.’

Zhang Shutong was quite happy to see her. The last time they’d talked, he had regressed not long after. But no matter how many times he regressed, her meaning to him was always unique, something that time could not erode. ’Maybe this is the power of blood ties?’

So, he was happy and gave her a huge smile, but his mom was not.

"Why did you run down here by yourself without saying anything?"

The woman pushed up her sunglasses and glared at him.

"I was just... trying to get some exercise."

His mom couldn’t be bothered with his nonsense.

"Get in the car. Look at you, your pants are soaked. We’re going home to change your clothes first, you’re not going anywhere else. And whose down jacket is that you’re wearing? Gu Qiuyan’s? Hmm, it’s kinda ugly-cute..."

She bombarded him with a rapid-fire string of sentences, and Zhang Shutong raised his hands in surrender.

He obediently walked off the mountain path. No matter how cool a guy was, he could never act cool in front of his own mom.

Now that she mentioned it, he realized what a wreck he was: the down jacket was a size too small, his pants and shoes were soaked, and he was covered in snow from head to toe. He looked like he could be cast as an escapee from a mental asylum... not that he was saying the villa was a mental asylum.

Still, he had finally left that place.

The plan was moving forward smoothly. The price was being frozen stiff. He didn’t need his mom’s reminder to hurry into the car. Zhang Shutong slid into the vehicle, and the blast of warm air made him sigh in comfort.

’It feels so good to be reborn.’

The heavy car door shut out the cold wind. It was quiet inside, and his mom was surprisingly quiet too. Zhang Shutong had expected her to press him about the down jacket’s origin, or at least tease him and snap a picture for future blackmail.

But his mom seemed uninterested, only urging him to take off the jacket quickly.

’Good thing she doesn’t care.’

Zhang Shutong breathed another sigh of relief. Just then, his mom said suddenly:

"Take a look in the back. See anyone you know?"

As she spoke, the woman put her sunglasses back on, shifted into gear, and started a U-turn.

"What?"

He was fiddling with the zipper. The zipper on this jacket was also tiny, and it seemed to have gotten stuck. He couldn’t get it undone. Hearing his mom, Zhang Shutong lifted his gaze and instinctively glanced at the rear-view mirror—

The heater was blowing, filling the car with a faint scent of perfume. The tires SQUEALED as the car turned. A pendant with a red tassel dangled from the rear-view mirror.

At that moment, the tassel danced in the air from the heater’s vent.

But the air itself seemed to freeze solid.

There, in that warm, cramped space, he suddenly felt an incomparable chill.

Zhang Shutong stared blankly at the rear-view mirror, a wave of dizziness washing over him.

Reflected in the glass was a pair of indifferent eyes.

The girl named Lu Qinglian was sitting perfectly still, directly behind the driver’s seat.

’But why is she...’

’...in this car?’

His mind immediately flashed to the frozen snakes. They had been found in the villa’s courtyard, on Ring Mountain Road, on the car’s front windshield, and finally...

Finally... he opened his mouth, his fingers, still clutching the zipper, turning white from the force of his grip.

"You..."

Zhang Shutong whipped around, his eyes wide. The girl also turned her head slightly, her gaze as still as the water in an ancient well landing on him. He didn’t know if it was just his imagination, but it was as if he could see, on that face that rarely showed any emotion...

a faint, playful smile was forming.

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