Chapter 8 – Hey, Someone’s Cutting in Line!
“You still dare to raise your head? You, lower your head!”
At 3AM, the doors of Su City’s WuMen Police Station opened and noisy sounds came out.
The drunk people who had been fighting, and the dumb bird who had crashed his car, were still there being noisy and loud.
In the corner, Lian Xi and Su Jiao were holding their heads with their heads lowered, obediently kneeling on the floor.
Lower your head and self reflect!
The old policeman had his hands on his hips and was pacing around in front of them. After walking a few steps he saw Su Jiao had raised his head and glared at him. “You still dare?!”
Su Jiao: “…..”
Wuwuwuwu…. What kind of damned situation is this?
Beside him, Lian Xi silently clutched his head: You can’t see me, you can’t see me…
The old officer stared at the back of these two young fellow’s heads. He looked for some time then hmphed and said, smiling, “Do you think police are idiots ah? Your online friends wants to commit suicide, is it? So tell me, who’s your online friend? Which program did you meet your online friend through? Was it Weixin, QQ or TanTan, MoMo?”
Lian Xi was surprised. Subconsciously, he lifted his head. “You actually know TanTan, MoMo?”
The old police glared at him. “You still dare to talk? Put your head down!”
Lian Xi: “…….”
The old policeman hmphed. “How can there be things we don’t know right now? Every month there’s people running here talking crazy about being scammed or catfished by someone online, and wanting to report them to the police. Your online friend wants to commit suicide? You actually managed to think of this! Which friend, where did they say they want to commit suicide? All you have is some DouYa ID, how the hell are we supposed to look? You say they want to commit suicide so we should just take your word for it?”
“You don’t have any chat logs, or phone logs.
“How did they tell you they want to commit suicide?
“Did they come to you in a dream?”
The two people: “….”
“All right, all right… it’s the middle of the night Old Li, what are you doing?” An old officer wearing casual clothes came over. Smiling, he pulled his colleague over. “These two young fellows probably just wanted to play a prank. By the looks of it, these two don’t seem like bad people. They’re both students from Su University, and one is still attending an advanced program.” He spoke to Lian Xi and Su Jiao, “Okay, you two stand up. As long as you know you’re wrong.”
The two people slowly stood up.
The old policeman glanced at them. His gaze was kind and his words were friendly. “Him being suspicious of you is normal. You guys don’t have any friend records or chat logs. Even if you had some other type of evidence it would be okay ah. But just based on words alone, saying that someone online wants to commit suicide, how can anyone believe you? Right now if you said that Andy Lau wants to commit suicide, should we just take your word for it and fly to Hong Kong?”
The old policeman being pulled said, dissatisfied, “Hei, Old Wu, why are you pulling me? These two kids ran to the police station in the middle of the night to pull a prank, why can’t I scold them a few times? I think these two deserve a good telling off!”
Old Wu smiled, “You two hurry up and apologize and say you won’t do it again.”
Lian Xi and Su Jiao said obediently, “We are wrong. We won’t do it again.”
After they wrote a letter of promise, the old policeman in plainclothes sent them out of the police station.
At the door, the plainclothes officer smiled and said, smiling, “You two ah, why did you not want to sleep in the middle of the night and decided to run to the police station to pull a prank?”
Su Jiao was just about to open his mouth when he was stopped by Lian Xi.
Lian Xi saw this officer looked kindly. His gaze calmly glanced at him a few times and the next minute he pointed at Su Jiao and said, “Actually my friend here is secretly in love with the person whose ID is Wanderer. He heard that that person is also from Su City and wanted to find an opportunity to meet him once. We are both Su City University’s students and really didn’t mean to pull a prank. Today we just rank a bit too much so it bolstered our courage, so we decided to try this dumb move.”
Su Jiao twisted his head and looked at Lian Xi: ????
****?! {An expletive, author just wrote it like this. I previously translated it as f*** but going forward I’ll just put **** as author did.}
Old Wu looked thoughtfully at Lian Xi and after a moment: “You also drank?” His nostrils twitched. “I can’t smell alcohol ah. Haha, okay, go home quickly ah!”
“We’re young and our livers are good, so it absorbs the alcohol quickly.” Lian Xi nodded. “Thank you, we’ll be going now.”
Seeing the back of these two young people as they walked away, the old officer walked over. “Captain Wu, what are you looking at?”
Su City’s Major Crime Squad’s Captain Wu Fang retracted his gaze. He looked at his old colleague, “I didn’t think I’d run into this kind of weird thing when coming to visit you today.”
The old officer laughed. “You’ve gone to the Major Crimes Squad so of course you don’t encounter these kind of weird, neighbourhood cases. Let me tell you, there’s plenty of weird and stupid things like this happening in my life all the time. Just before, the two of us played good cop and bad cop. Did you get any information out of them?”
“No.”
“That’s fine. Don’t think too much. In my opinion, these two guys just had too much to drink and are playing a dumb prank. I asked my colleague to check before and neither of them have any records. They’re totally clean. They’re both graduates of 211 University. If you still don’t feel assured, I’ll get someone to go ask around Su University tomorrow. One is still studying a graduate program there.”
Old Wu thought about it. “There’s no need. They’re not bad people.”
“How do you know?”
“An old policeman’s instinct.” Old Wu pointed at himself in the nose. “That’s right, come with me to check Wanderer’s house immediately.”
The old officer: “Ah, why?”
Old Wu: “I have a feeling that those two weren’t lying. Or at least that it wasn’t so simple as a prank.”
***
Of course Lian Xi and Su Jiao couldn’t hear the words being spoken at the door of the police station.
The two of them got into a DiDi and as soon as the door closed, Su Jiao exploded.
“****?! I’m secretly in love with that guy? I goddamn love girls okay! Soft girls! The kind with long hair!”
Lian Xi silently looked at him. He said, “I was just bluffing that old cop.”
Su Jiao was startled. “Ah?”
Lian Xi: “The two of them were playing good cop and bad cop. They looked like they were going to let us go, but if we said something we shouldn’t then they would still have arrested us at the door of the police station.”
When he said this, the driver of the DiDi glanced at them from the front seat.
Su Jiao wasn’t stupid. As soon as Lian Xi said this, he knew what he meant.
However….
“Why say that I’m secretly in love? Why can’t it be you?”
Lian Xi said, with an air of taking it for granted, “You lost at scissors-paper-rock.”
Su Jiao: “….”
****?!
Losing once meant being used twice??
Be a man ba!!
***
When Lian Xi proposed this idea, he knew from the get-go that there was a 90% chance of being scolded by the police officer. There was only a 10% chance that the officer was dazed from the late night shift and gave them what they wanted.
Of course, he had also considered the possibility that after the officer yelled at them, that they might go check on Wanderer. However the probability was still not high. Even if they did go, it wouldn’t have anything to do with them so he didn’t think about this further.
In reality, after the two of them left, Captain Wu and Old Li really got into a police car and went to look for Wanderer.
In modern society, it may look difficult to find someone however for a police officer, it was as easy as anything.
It only took a few minutes for the old officer to find Wanderer’s address on the internet.
When the two people got there, it was already 4AM in the morning.
Wanderer’s real name was Xu Lang. He lived in a very high class apartment building in Su City. The cost of an apartment here was several million dollars. Common people definitely couldn’t afford it.
Old Li opened the door of the car and said, “The internet is a really scary place. It’s been over ten years, but I still remember what happened to that female university student.”
Captain Wu looked at his old friend. “You’re talking about the case from Chuan Province?” {T/N: So the author uses shortened nicknames for places in China as I guess she doesn’t want to say the place outright. Su City is Suzhou and Chuan Province is Sichuan. I’ll use her shortened names in my translation.}
“Yes ah. The two kids tonight made me think of that case. That beautiful young woman that just got into university, she died just like that. I remember that girl was the same age as my daughter and they were born in the same year.”
Wu Fang didn’t reply. After some time he sighed.
The girl from Chuan Province was killed because of a human flesh search.
Sixteen years ago, someone posted on the internet that they had gotten a terminal illness. They wanted to see their heartless ex-girlfriend who dumped them one last time. This ex-girlfriend’s family was poor and the only reason she was able to go to university was because he was supporting her by working multiple jobs. But once this girl got into university, she looked down on him for being uneducated and dumped him heartlessly. He didn’t have any other thoughts, and only wanted to see her one last time before dying.
Once this post appeared, all the netizens exploded.
What kind of monster was this girl?
After just a few days, this girl’s family’s address, university information, QQ, email and even her dormitory address were all uncovered by netizens in an online flesh search.
Originally they thought that they were helping to show a white-eyed-wolf {T/N: An ungrateful person} some conscience, but who knew that when the guy really went to find the girl, he actually stabbed this female university student to death!
Actually there was never any terminal illness. He also didn’t work to pay for his girlfriend to go to school. Everything was invented by him so he could see his ex-girlfriend one more time.
At the time the internet was as developed as it was now, and it also wasn’t as complicated.
Nobody thought the ending would be like this.
Old Li: “We’re here, what an upscale neighborhood.”
The police car entered the Yuan neighborhood. The two officers got out of the car and entered the elevator quickly and found Wanderer’s penthouse apartment.
Keeping up his professional habits, Captain Wu’s hand pressed the clip around his waist.
Old Li walked forward and pressed on the doorbell.
It didn’t take long for the door to open with a ka-la.
Dazzling fluorescent light flooded out from inside. Both officers narrowed their eyes.
After they got used to the light, they saw the person standing inside the door.
His face was very white and his gaze was very numb. But without a doubt, this was definitely the person they had seen on the online police file.
Old Li took out his policeman’s identification. “We’re the police. Downstairs someone reported that they were robbed. Are you the homeowner?”
The man wearing the suit lowered his head and thought for a few seconds. He opened his mouth and his voice was stiff. He spoke word by word. “En, I am…. The… owner.”
Old Li frowned. He glanced inside the room. But it was dark inside and he couldn’t see a second person. He retracted his gaze and then it landed on Wanderer’s head where he could see a wound that had already scarred over. “What happened to your head?”
“Two days ago, got hit, it was hurt.”
Captain Wu suddenly asked, “You’re home by yourself in the middle of the night, why are you dressed so neatly?”
Wanderer’s head turned with a ku-chi-ku-chi noise. He looked at Captain Wu. After a few seconds he finally replied, “Just, got home, am… working.”
Captain Wu: “Do you mind if we come in to take a look?”
At this time someone opened the door that was behind Xu Lang’s back.
Old Li and Captain Wu opened their eyes wide, and their hands went to their weapons.
They saw a young man with dyed blonde hair come out from inside. Originally he was dazed from sleeping but suddenly saw the police. He immediately came wide awake and opened his eyes wide. “***k, what’s going on. Brother Lang, what’s this?” He ran over. “Hey, Officer Uncles, what happened? Is something going on?”
Old Li: “Your downstairs neighbour said they got robbed. So we are going door by door to ask.”
Blonde hair: “Ah? Robbed?”
Captain Wu: “What’s your relationship to the homeowner?”
Blonde hair looked surprised. But he obediently replied: “I’m a live streaming host. Brother Lang is my manager. I came to Su City these days to play around and so I’m staying at his house.”
Captain Wu took out his phone and asked, “What’s your name?”
Blonde Hair: “Er… why do you need to know so many details?”
Captain Wu raised his eyes: “What’s that?”
Blonde hair hurriedly raised both hands: “Wang QiQing. My internet name is Hydrogen. If you don’t believe me, feel free to check online. I’m really a livestreamer and I’m pretty famous. I’m not lying.”
Captain Wu: “Show me your ID.” After a pause he said to Xu Lang, “You too, show me your ID.”
Hydrogen: “I’ll go get it, I know where it is.”
Hydrogen hurriedly produced both people’s ID cards.
Captain Wu checked it and after ascertaining there was no problem, returned it.
Hydrogen carefully asked, “Officer Uncles, is there some kind of problem? We are good citizens, we haven’t done anything dodgy before!”
Captain Wu glanced at him. “Let me go in and have a look.”
After going in and checking, there really wasn’t a third person in the apartment. There also wasn’t anything strange. So Officer Li and Captain Wu left.
On the way out, Captain Wu looked at the stiff-faced Xu Lang. He said, “You should rest earlier and lock your doors carefully.”
Xu Lang slowly raised his eyes to look at him. His dark eyes were shadowed by the light.
He morosely made an “En” sound.
The door closed with a ka-da sound.
The two old policemen went down the stairs but both of them felt in their hearts that there was something not quite right.
Captain Wu sat down on the passenger’s seat and was silent for some time.
“Tomorrow I have a day off. During the day I’ll accompany you to come back here and take another look.”
Old Li nodded: “Okay. I have time in the afternoon. Let’s come together.”
Finally these two old policemen left.
Hydrogen let out a sigh of relief.
He had never before been under such stress. He was just a good-for-nothing high school dropout. If it wasn’t because he got famous doing live streaming, he would probably be working as a dishwasher at some restaurant.
Hydrogen said with a somewhat guilty feeling: “That scared me to death, Brother Lang. How come the police came? I thought something happened.”
Xu Lang didn’t reply to him. He just turned around and walked slowly towards his study.
Hydrogen looked at the stiff way he was walking and swallowed. However he didn’t know what to say. He could only say, “Brother Lang, since yesterday you’ve been working non-stop. You got hurt and so you should rest early!”
Xu Lang ignored him.
However after walking away a bit, Xu Lang suddenly stopped. He slowly opened his mouth and, as though there was something clutching his throat and he couldn’t breathe, he suddenly started gasping very loudly.
Hearing the sound Hydrogen walked over. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?”
But as he drew close, Xu Lang suddenly returned to normal.
Xu Lang looked at him: “No, nothing.”
Hydrogen: “….”
Rubbing the goosebumps on his arms, the blonde haired fellow said: “Then, I’ll go back to my room. Hey, Brother Lang, I’ve already bought my ticket and I’ll be going back to NanJing tomorrow.”
“Oh… okay…”
“I’m going back to my room now ah….”
After finally returning to his room, Hydrogen let out a breath of relief.
He didn’t think that the Wanderer who appeared quite normal on the internet, was in reality so strange like this.
He had been here two days and Xu Lang had worked two days non-stop!
“Doesn’t he sleep?” Hydrogen mumbled to himself. He yawned and lay back down on his bed.
Outside the room, separated by a wall.
Hydrogen didn’t know that Xu Lang didn’t go back to his study.
He stood outside Hydrogen’s room door, his head swinging left, then swinging right. The wound on his forehead no longer bled, however his lips became more and more bloodless. His breathing also became more and more frantic. In the darkness, there appeared a pair of hands appeared around his neck. It slowly took shape and fingers could be seen.
Dark clouds passed and moonlight came into the room and illuminated the girl that was riding his neck.
The girl’s hands were filled with blood. She bent her back and as though she were playing with a toy, choked Xu Lang’s neck.
She tightened her hands.
Then loosened them.
Then tightened them again.
“Hehehehehe…..”
“Why did you…”
“Break up me and Ah Qing ah….”
“He loves me ah.”
“I know, I know hehehehehe….”
The sly and ethereal laughter echoed through the high-rise apartment at 4AM in the morning.
***
The River of Forgetfulness, in the Underworld.
This was a road that was long and dark.
There was no origin and there was no end. Tired and numb ghosts made their way down the long and winding path.
Some of the ghosts had their heads lowered and didn’t make a noise. Others were crying bitterly.
But none of them went backwards. Just like the River of Forgetfulness which flowed onwards ceaselessly towards the Underworld, each of them went forward one by one.
Every ghost’s soul wasn’t the same.
Ghosts which had just recently died were very wispy. They looked like they would vanish just by being touched. But the ghosts which had been dead for a long time before finally reporting to the underworld were quite solid, almost like living people.
Chen JianJun had been dead for 23 years. Within this big group of ghosts, he stood out like a human who had accidentally gotten mixed up with them.
Suddenly, he stopped his steps.
His stiff neck lifted up with a ku-chi-ku-chi sound and he looked at the black sky above him.
Everyone was marching forward. If you suddenly stopped, the effect was very abrupt.
Other ghosts ran into Chen JianJun. He was squeezed left and right.
The ghosts which came to the Underworld had already lost most of their consciousness. Chen JianJun who got bumped was not quite sure what he was doing.
After a few moments he was knocked to the side of the path.
Chen JianJun looked down and saw there was a shortcut path that was glowing gold.
There was a flashing gold light in front of him. Suddenly his eyes cleared up a little.
With spirit, he took off on this short path.
Not less than half a day later, he walked past bridges made of gold, silver, jade, stone and wood, and for no good reason ended up at the Hall that was specifically used for judging the good or evil deeds a ghost had done in their life, separating them into levels and then sending them forth onto reincarnation!
There were two ghost officers guarding the doors, one on each side. They were chatting casually.
They were eyeing a group of ghosts in front of them.
“When did this group die?”
“The twentieth year of the Republic of China? Maybe the 23rd or the 24th.” {T/N: Something like 1935-1936 I think.}
“Ai, then the queue behind them is pretty long. They’re going to have to line up for ages.”
Chen JianJun’s scalp felt numb. He hurried to join this group of ghosts that were wearing clothing from the Republic of China.
But of course he was still discovered by the ghost officer. A ghost officer wearing a mandarin hat pulled him out. He exuded a terrible pressure that made Chen JianJun breathless. This ghost frowned and said, “What’s going on? Your clothes are not quite right ah. It looks like you’ve died in the last couple of decades. Did you cut in line?”
The other ghost officer took out a tattered notebook from the wall. He flipped through it: “Chen JianJun, died in 1997.
“How did you manage to cut in line?”
“En? It’s not cutting?”
“Ha?”
“Look this guy’s name has already been entered into the waiting area of the Hall of Reincarnation, if he doesn’t go in now it’ll be too late!”
“…..” The ghost officer was speechless. “How come these last few years, there’s always weird bugs here and there? Every little while, there’ll be someone cutting in line appearing. Aren’t there rules anymore? Before, things like this never happened.” {T/N: Bugs as in errors.}
The ghost officer let go of Chen JianJun’s clothing. Chen JianJun felt as though he’d be fished out from the water. If a ghost could sweat then he’d be soaking wet right now.
Behind him the two ghost officers were still grumbling to each other about how come these few years there were so many bugs appearing in the Hall of Reincarnations’ registry book.
After entering the Hall of Reincarnation, Chen JianJun was shaking like a leaf. On either side of the great hall’s door there stood a menacing looking Luohan, their terrifyingly evil aura suppressed an ordinary ghost like him so much that he couldn’t lift his head. He could only walk forward. After a moment he lifted both his hands and looked at his fingers.
A thin sliver of gold light spilled out from his fingers and dissipated into the air.
Chen JianJun was confused.
… Just what was going on?
Chapter 8 – Hey, Someone’s Cutting in Line!
“You still dare to raise your head? You, lower your head!”
At 3AM, the doors of Su City’s WuMen Police Station opened and noisy sounds came out.
The drunk people who had been fighting, and the dumb bird who had crashed his car, were still there being noisy and loud.
In the corner, Lian Xi and Su Jiao were holding their heads with their heads lowered, obediently kneeling on the floor.
Lower your head and self reflect!
The old policeman had his hands on his hips and was pacing around in front of them. After walking a few steps he saw Su Jiao had raised his head and glared at him. “You still dare?!”
Su Jiao: “…..”
Wuwuwuwu…. What kind of damned situation is this?
Beside him, Lian Xi silently clutched his head: You can’t see me, you can’t see me…
The old officer stared at the back of these two young fellow’s heads. He looked for some time then hmphed and said, smiling, “Do you think police are idiots ah? Your online friends wants to commit suicide, is it? So tell me, who’s your online friend? Which program did you meet your online friend through? Was it Weixin, QQ or TanTan, MoMo?”
Lian Xi was surprised. Subconsciously, he lifted his head. “You actually know TanTan, MoMo?”
The old police glared at him. “You still dare to talk? Put your head down!”
Lian Xi: “…….”
The old policeman hmphed. “How can there be things we don’t know right now? Every month there’s people running here talking crazy about being scammed or catfished by someone online, and wanting to report them to the police. Your online friend wants to commit suicide? You actually managed to think of this! Which friend, where did they say they want to commit suicide? All you have is some DouYa ID, how the hell are we supposed to look? You say they want to commit suicide so we should just take your word for it?”
“You don’t have any chat logs, or phone logs.
“How did they tell you they want to commit suicide?
“Did they come to you in a dream?”
The two people: “….”
“All right, all right… it’s the middle of the night Old Li, what are you doing?” An old officer wearing casual clothes came over. Smiling, he pulled his colleague over. “These two young fellows probably just wanted to play a prank. By the looks of it, these two don’t seem like bad people. They’re both students from Su University, and one is still attending an advanced program.” He spoke to Lian Xi and Su Jiao, “Okay, you two stand up. As long as you know you’re wrong.”
The two people slowly stood up.
The old policeman glanced at them. His gaze was kind and his words were friendly. “Him being suspicious of you is normal. You guys don’t have any friend records or chat logs. Even if you had some other type of evidence it would be okay ah. But just based on words alone, saying that someone online wants to commit suicide, how can anyone believe you? Right now if you said that Andy Lau wants to commit suicide, should we just take your word for it and fly to Hong Kong?”
The old policeman being pulled said, dissatisfied, “Hei, Old Wu, why are you pulling me? These two kids ran to the police station in the middle of the night to pull a prank, why can’t I scold them a few times? I think these two deserve a good telling off!”
Old Wu smiled, “You two hurry up and apologize and say you won’t do it again.”
Lian Xi and Su Jiao said obediently, “We are wrong. We won’t do it again.”
After they wrote a letter of promise, the old policeman in plainclothes sent them out of the police station.
At the door, the plainclothes officer smiled and said, smiling, “You two ah, why did you not want to sleep in the middle of the night and decided to run to the police station to pull a prank?”
Su Jiao was just about to open his mouth when he was stopped by Lian Xi.
Lian Xi saw this officer looked kindly. His gaze calmly glanced at him a few times and the next minute he pointed at Su Jiao and said, “Actually my friend here is secretly in love with the person whose ID is Wanderer. He heard that that person is also from Su City and wanted to find an opportunity to meet him once. We are both Su City University’s students and really didn’t mean to pull a prank. Today we just rank a bit too much so it bolstered our courage, so we decided to try this dumb move.”
Su Jiao twisted his head and looked at Lian Xi: ????
****?! {An expletive, author just wrote it like this. I previously translated it as f*** but going forward I’ll just put **** as author did.}
Old Wu looked thoughtfully at Lian Xi and after a moment: “You also drank?” His nostrils twitched. “I can’t smell alcohol ah. Haha, okay, go home quickly ah!”
“We’re young and our livers are good, so it absorbs the alcohol quickly.” Lian Xi nodded. “Thank you, we’ll be going now.”
Seeing the back of these two young people as they walked away, the old officer walked over. “Captain Wu, what are you looking at?”
Su City’s Major Crime Squad’s Captain Wu Fang retracted his gaze. He looked at his old colleague, “I didn’t think I’d run into this kind of weird thing when coming to visit you today.”
The old officer laughed. “You’ve gone to the Major Crimes Squad so of course you don’t encounter these kind of weird, neighbourhood cases. Let me tell you, there’s plenty of weird and stupid things like this happening in my life all the time. Just before, the two of us played good cop and bad cop. Did you get any information out of them?”
“No.”
“That’s fine. Don’t think too much. In my opinion, these two guys just had too much to drink and are playing a dumb prank. I asked my colleague to check before and neither of them have any records. They’re totally clean. They’re both graduates of 211 University. If you still don’t feel assured, I’ll get someone to go ask around Su University tomorrow. One is still studying a graduate program there.”
Old Wu thought about it. “There’s no need. They’re not bad people.”
“How do you know?”
“An old policeman’s instinct.” Old Wu pointed at himself in the nose. “That’s right, come with me to check Wanderer’s house immediately.”
The old officer: “Ah, why?”
Old Wu: “I have a feeling that those two weren’t lying. Or at least that it wasn’t so simple as a prank.”
***
Of course Lian Xi and Su Jiao couldn’t hear the words being spoken at the door of the police station.
The two of them got into a DiDi and as soon as the door closed, Su Jiao exploded.
“****?! I’m secretly in love with that guy? I goddamn love girls okay! Soft girls! The kind with long hair!”
Lian Xi silently looked at him. He said, “I was just bluffing that old cop.”
Su Jiao was startled. “Ah?”
Lian Xi: “The two of them were playing good cop and bad cop. They looked like they were going to let us go, but if we said something we shouldn’t then they would still have arrested us at the door of the police station.”
When he said this, the driver of the DiDi glanced at them from the front seat.
Su Jiao wasn’t stupid. As soon as Lian Xi said this, he knew what he meant.
However….
“Why say that I’m secretly in love? Why can’t it be you?”
Lian Xi said, with an air of taking it for granted, “You lost at scissors-paper-rock.”
Su Jiao: “….”
****?!
Losing once meant being used twice??
Be a man ba!!
***
When Lian Xi proposed this idea, he knew from the get-go that there was a 90% chance of being scolded by the police officer. There was only a 10% chance that the officer was dazed from the late night shift and gave them what they wanted.
Of course, he had also considered the possibility that after the officer yelled at them, that they might go check on Wanderer. However the probability was still not high. Even if they did go, it wouldn’t have anything to do with them so he didn’t think about this further.
In reality, after the two of them left, Captain Wu and Old Li really got into a police car and went to look for Wanderer.
In modern society, it may look difficult to find someone however for a police officer, it was as easy as anything.
It only took a few minutes for the old officer to find Wanderer’s address on the internet.
When the two people got there, it was already 4AM in the morning.
Wanderer’s real name was Xu Lang. He lived in a very high class apartment building in Su City. The cost of an apartment here was several million dollars. Common people definitely couldn’t afford it.
Old Li opened the door of the car and said, “The internet is a really scary place. It’s been over ten years, but I still remember what happened to that female university student.”
Captain Wu looked at his old friend. “You’re talking about the case from Chuan Province?” {T/N: So the author uses shortened nicknames for places in China as I guess she doesn’t want to say the place outright. Su City is Suzhou and Chuan Province is Sichuan. I’ll use her shortened names in my translation.}
“Yes ah. The two kids tonight made me think of that case. That beautiful young woman that just got into university, she died just like that. I remember that girl was the same age as my daughter and they were born in the same year.”
Wu Fang didn’t reply. After some time he sighed.
The girl from Chuan Province was killed because of a human flesh search.
Sixteen years ago, someone posted on the internet that they had gotten a terminal illness. They wanted to see their heartless ex-girlfriend who dumped them one last time. This ex-girlfriend’s family was poor and the only reason she was able to go to university was because he was supporting her by working multiple jobs. But once this girl got into university, she looked down on him for being uneducated and dumped him heartlessly. He didn’t have any other thoughts, and only wanted to see her one last time before dying.
Once this post appeared, all the netizens exploded.
What kind of monster was this girl?
After just a few days, this girl’s family’s address, university information, QQ, email and even her dormitory address were all uncovered by netizens in an online flesh search.
Originally they thought that they were helping to show a white-eyed-wolf {T/N: An ungrateful person} some conscience, but who knew that when the guy really went to find the girl, he actually stabbed this female university student to death!
Actually there was never any terminal illness. He also didn’t work to pay for his girlfriend to go to school. Everything was invented by him so he could see his ex-girlfriend one more time.
At the time the internet was as developed as it was now, and it also wasn’t as complicated.
Nobody thought the ending would be like this.
Old Li: “We’re here, what an upscale neighborhood.”
The police car entered the Yuan neighborhood. The two officers got out of the car and entered the elevator quickly and found Wanderer’s penthouse apartment.
Keeping up his professional habits, Captain Wu’s hand pressed the clip around his waist.
Old Li walked forward and pressed on the doorbell.
It didn’t take long for the door to open with a ka-la.
Dazzling fluorescent light flooded out from inside. Both officers narrowed their eyes.
After they got used to the light, they saw the person standing inside the door.
His face was very white and his gaze was very numb. But without a doubt, this was definitely the person they had seen on the online police file.
Old Li took out his policeman’s identification. “We’re the police. Downstairs someone reported that they were robbed. Are you the homeowner?”
The man wearing the suit lowered his head and thought for a few seconds. He opened his mouth and his voice was stiff. He spoke word by word. “En, I am…. The… owner.”
Old Li frowned. He glanced inside the room. But it was dark inside and he couldn’t see a second person. He retracted his gaze and then it landed on Wanderer’s head where he could see a wound that had already scarred over. “What happened to your head?”
“Two days ago, got hit, it was hurt.”
Captain Wu suddenly asked, “You’re home by yourself in the middle of the night, why are you dressed so neatly?”
Wanderer’s head turned with a ku-chi-ku-chi noise. He looked at Captain Wu. After a few seconds he finally replied, “Just, got home, am… working.”
Captain Wu: “Do you mind if we come in to take a look?”
At this time someone opened the door that was behind Xu Lang’s back.
Old Li and Captain Wu opened their eyes wide, and their hands went to their weapons.
They saw a young man with dyed blonde hair come out from inside. Originally he was dazed from sleeping but suddenly saw the police. He immediately came wide awake and opened his eyes wide. “***k, what’s going on. Brother Lang, what’s this?” He ran over. “Hey, Officer Uncles, what happened? Is something going on?”
Old Li: “Your downstairs neighbour said they got robbed. So we are going door by door to ask.”
Blonde hair: “Ah? Robbed?”
Captain Wu: “What’s your relationship to the homeowner?”
Blonde hair looked surprised. But he obediently replied: “I’m a live streaming host. Brother Lang is my manager. I came to Su City these days to play around and so I’m staying at his house.”
Captain Wu took out his phone and asked, “What’s your name?”
Blonde Hair: “Er… why do you need to know so many details?”
Captain Wu raised his eyes: “What’s that?”
Blonde hair hurriedly raised both hands: “Wang QiQing. My internet name is Hydrogen. If you don’t believe me, feel free to check online. I’m really a livestreamer and I’m pretty famous. I’m not lying.”
Captain Wu: “Show me your ID.” After a pause he said to Xu Lang, “You too, show me your ID.”
Hydrogen: “I’ll go get it, I know where it is.”
Hydrogen hurriedly produced both people’s ID cards.
Captain Wu checked it and after ascertaining there was no problem, returned it.
Hydrogen carefully asked, “Officer Uncles, is there some kind of problem? We are good citizens, we haven’t done anything dodgy before!”
Captain Wu glanced at him. “Let me go in and have a look.”
After going in and checking, there really wasn’t a third person in the apartment. There also wasn’t anything strange. So Officer Li and Captain Wu left.
On the way out, Captain Wu looked at the stiff-faced Xu Lang. He said, “You should rest earlier and lock your doors carefully.”
Xu Lang slowly raised his eyes to look at him. His dark eyes were shadowed by the light.
He morosely made an “En” sound.
The door closed with a ka-da sound.
The two old policemen went down the stairs but both of them felt in their hearts that there was something not quite right.
Captain Wu sat down on the passenger’s seat and was silent for some time.
“Tomorrow I have a day off. During the day I’ll accompany you to come back here and take another look.”
Old Li nodded: “Okay. I have time in the afternoon. Let’s come together.”
Finally these two old policemen left.
Hydrogen let out a sigh of relief.
He had never before been under such stress. He was just a good-for-nothing high school dropout. If it wasn’t because he got famous doing live streaming, he would probably be working as a dishwasher at some restaurant.
Hydrogen said with a somewhat guilty feeling: “That scared me to death, Brother Lang. How come the police came? I thought something happened.”
Xu Lang didn’t reply to him. He just turned around and walked slowly towards his study.
Hydrogen looked at the stiff way he was walking and swallowed. However he didn’t know what to say. He could only say, “Brother Lang, since yesterday you’ve been working non-stop. You got hurt and so you should rest early!”
Xu Lang ignored him.
However after walking away a bit, Xu Lang suddenly stopped. He slowly opened his mouth and, as though there was something clutching his throat and he couldn’t breathe, he suddenly started gasping very loudly.
Hearing the sound Hydrogen walked over. “What’s wrong, what’s wrong?”
But as he drew close, Xu Lang suddenly returned to normal.
Xu Lang looked at him: “No, nothing.”
Hydrogen: “….”
Rubbing the goosebumps on his arms, the blonde haired fellow said: “Then, I’ll go back to my room. Hey, Brother Lang, I’ve already bought my ticket and I’ll be going back to NanJing tomorrow.”
“Oh… okay…”
“I’m going back to my room now ah….”
After finally returning to his room, Hydrogen let out a breath of relief.
He didn’t think that the Wanderer who appeared quite normal on the internet, was in reality so strange like this.
He had been here two days and Xu Lang had worked two days non-stop!
“Doesn’t he sleep?” Hydrogen mumbled to himself. He yawned and lay back down on his bed.
Outside the room, separated by a wall.
Hydrogen didn’t know that Xu Lang didn’t go back to his study.
He stood outside Hydrogen’s room door, his head swinging left, then swinging right. The wound on his forehead no longer bled, however his lips became more and more bloodless. His breathing also became more and more frantic. In the darkness, there appeared a pair of hands appeared around his neck. It slowly took shape and fingers could be seen.
Dark clouds passed and moonlight came into the room and illuminated the girl that was riding his neck.
The girl’s hands were filled with blood. She bent her back and as though she were playing with a toy, choked Xu Lang’s neck.
She tightened her hands.
Then loosened them.
Then tightened them again.
“Hehehehehe…..”
“Why did you…”
“Break up me and Ah Qing ah….”
“He loves me ah.”
“I know, I know hehehehehe….”
The sly and ethereal laughter echoed through the high-rise apartment at 4AM in the morning.
***
The River of Forgetfulness, in the Underworld.
This was a road that was long and dark.
There was no origin and there was no end. Tired and numb ghosts made their way down the long and winding path.
Some of the ghosts had their heads lowered and didn’t make a noise. Others were crying bitterly.
But none of them went backwards. Just like the River of Forgetfulness which flowed onwards ceaselessly towards the Underworld, each of them went forward one by one.
Every ghost’s soul wasn’t the same.
Ghosts which had just recently died were very wispy. They looked like they would vanish just by being touched. But the ghosts which had been dead for a long time before finally reporting to the underworld were quite solid, almost like living people.
Chen JianJun had been dead for 23 years. Within this big group of ghosts, he stood out like a human who had accidentally gotten mixed up with them.
Suddenly, he stopped his steps.
His stiff neck lifted up with a ku-chi-ku-chi sound and he looked at the black sky above him.
Everyone was marching forward. If you suddenly stopped, the effect was very abrupt.
Other ghosts ran into Chen JianJun. He was squeezed left and right.
The ghosts which came to the Underworld had already lost most of their consciousness. Chen JianJun who got bumped was not quite sure what he was doing.
After a few moments he was knocked to the side of the path.
Chen JianJun looked down and saw there was a shortcut path that was glowing gold.
There was a flashing gold light in front of him. Suddenly his eyes cleared up a little.
With spirit, he took off on this short path.
Not less than half a day later, he walked past bridges made of gold, silver, jade, stone and wood, and for no good reason ended up at the Hall that was specifically used for judging the good or evil deeds a ghost had done in their life, separating them into levels and then sending them forth onto reincarnation!
There were two ghost officers guarding the doors, one on each side. They were chatting casually.
They were eyeing a group of ghosts in front of them.
“When did this group die?”
“The twentieth year of the Republic of China? Maybe the 23rd or the 24th.” {T/N: Something like 1935-1936 I think.}
“Ai, then the queue behind them is pretty long. They’re going to have to line up for ages.”
Chen JianJun’s scalp felt numb. He hurried to join this group of ghosts that were wearing clothing from the Republic of China.
But of course he was still discovered by the ghost officer. A ghost officer wearing a mandarin hat pulled him out. He exuded a terrible pressure that made Chen JianJun breathless. This ghost frowned and said, “What’s going on? Your clothes are not quite right ah. It looks like you’ve died in the last couple of decades. Did you cut in line?”
The other ghost officer took out a tattered notebook from the wall. He flipped through it: “Chen JianJun, died in 1997.
“How did you manage to cut in line?”
“En? It’s not cutting?”
“Ha?”
“Look this guy’s name has already been entered into the waiting area of the Hall of Reincarnation, if he doesn’t go in now it’ll be too late!”
“…..” The ghost officer was speechless. “How come these last few years, there’s always weird bugs here and there? Every little while, there’ll be someone cutting in line appearing. Aren’t there rules anymore? Before, things like this never happened.” {T/N: Bugs as in errors.}
The ghost officer let go of Chen JianJun’s clothing. Chen JianJun felt as though he’d be fished out from the water. If a ghost could sweat then he’d be soaking wet right now.
Behind him the two ghost officers were still grumbling to each other about how come these few years there were so many bugs appearing in the Hall of Reincarnations’ registry book.
After entering the Hall of Reincarnation, Chen JianJun was shaking like a leaf. On either side of the great hall’s door there stood a menacing looking Luohan, their terrifyingly evil aura suppressed an ordinary ghost like him so much that he couldn’t lift his head. He could only walk forward. After a moment he lifted both his hands and looked at his fingers.
A thin sliver of gold light spilled out from his fingers and dissipated into the air.
Chen JianJun was confused.
… Just what was going on?
