"Yun, I saw you again today."
Zhang Shutong was instantly silent.
He could instinctively separate the meaning of each word. For example, the name "Yun" was the name of Teacher Song's girlfriend, and this diary must have been written after his girlfriend died, because a rough man like Teacher Song wouldn't have the habit of keeping a diary. Also, Teacher Song said he saw her again... but did he really see her, or was it a dream?
Zhang Shutong looked at the date at the end.
December 16, 2008.
"As expected."
He said to himself.
Zhang Shutong had talked to his best friends when he was on the IV drip that night. Ruoping said that Teacher Song suddenly ran out because he had seen someone, but he knew that the other person had no acquaintances on the island at all.
Only Zhang Shutong himself knew that it would have to be a person, and a dead person at that, to make Teacher Song so flustered.
—A dead person coming back to life.
Therefore, this terrifying thought had surfaced in his mind at the time, but Teacher Song had been in a coma and he couldn't get any more conclusions.
The only thing he didn't expect was that Teacher Song saw his ex-girlfriend so early. By his calculations, it was exactly four years ago. Zhang Shutong's heart suddenly went cold, because this meant that the other person had just attended his girlfriend's funeral not long ago.
How many years had this matter been buried?
Some things that were once vague were now connected in his mind. Let's make a simple deduction.
Teacher Song saw his deceased ex-girlfriend after lunch today.
Teacher Song chased after her and then got into a car accident.
Teacher Song knew that he was protecting Gu Qiumian.
The first thing Teacher Song did when he woke up was to ask him to take Gu Qiumian away from the villa and to make sure she was out of danger.
So, who was that murderer?
Was she related to Gu Qiumian's death?
Perhaps the answer was self-evident.
The real clues were indeed hidden in this small room.
Zhang Shutong quickly flipped to the next page of the notebook.
He now urgently needed to confirm if the woman Teacher Song saw was really his ex-girlfriend.
Because there was a precedent; he had seen a "fake Lu Qinglian" at the edge of the restricted area.
The second page of the diary had a picture taped to it. The picture was yellowed and very blurry. He looked closely and found that the picture was taken secretly. The car's steering wheel was visible at the edge of the frame, so it must have been taken from inside a car.
And the woman in the picture was the short-haired woman. She was standing on a piece of barren land with weeds. The date was January 1, '09.
"Is that you?"
That was Teacher Song's inscription.
The third page.
It was still a photo, but this photo only showed a back view. The back view was also of a short-haired woman.
But it was obvious that this woman's clothes were different from the one in the previous picture. Zhang Shutong had no time to distinguish the differences in their height and body shape, because Teacher Song himself seemed to have been unable to. So the entire page was left blank.
The inscription was January 3rd.
The fourth page:
"I saw you again, but you still ran far away like you did before."
This page didn't even have a picture. Maybe she disappeared too suddenly to be captured.
The fifth page:
"I went to the police. I'm really going crazy from this torment. Is that person really you? If it were, it would be so great. But I personally saw your body being buried... I hope everything goes well."
January 4, 2009.
The sixth page:
"The search results came out. The police said I was heartbroken and was having hallucinations. I also thought about telling your parents, but they still refuse to see me. It's my fault that I didn't send you back that night."
January 11, 2009.
Zhang Shutong was surprised. He suddenly remembered that time at the police station. Teacher Song was an old acquaintance of a police officer with the last name Wang. Teacher Song said, "Thank you for your trouble with what happened back then," and the police officer said, "Don't take that matter too seriously. You have to let go eventually..." Before, Zhang Shutong didn't understand what they were talking about. Now he had the answer.
It turned out that Teacher Song really did go to the police to find his deceased ex-girlfriend.
The next page:
"I have already decided. I'm quitting my job in the city and settling on this island. My parents don't really understand, and the principal also talked to me, trying to persuade me to move on, but they don't know what I saw. Of course, even if they did, they wouldn't believe it. Heh, who would believe that I saw a person who has already passed away?"
February 1, 2009.
The next page:
"The work has been handed over. This is the place where you grew up. You said your favorite thing was to walk by the lake. You also said there was a temple on the mountain. I haven't had a chance to go yet. I've been driving around looking for you these past few days."
February 3.
Zhang Shutong flipped another page. This time, he finally found something. A yellowed photo was taped to the yellowed paper. It was a side profile of a short-haired woman. He looked closely and saw that it seemed to have been taken in the city.
"My decision was the right one. Although I haven't caught up to you this time, I will get to the bottom of this one day. You're still alive and waiting for me to find you, right?"
February 10.
"Today is a holiday. I drove around the island five times."
February 15.
"You seem to have suddenly disappeared, Yun."
February 20.
"I have memorized all the roads on the island."
February 25.
"You have completely disappeared from my life."
March 1.
"Maybe it really was a hallucination."
March 5.
"But I don't believe it."
March 10.
Zhang Shutong flipped faster and faster until he found a new photo.
The photo was blurry. He looked closely and found that it wasn't the environment that was blurry, but the subject of the photo itself.
And the woman was not the short-haired woman from the previous photos. She had long hair. Normally, Teacher Song wouldn't put an irrelevant woman in his diary, but his note said:
"Who are you?"
April 4.
Zhang Shutong quickly flipped backward. This time, there was no photo, but two sentences:
"I might be going crazy."
"But if I'm not crazy, who are you?"
Zhang Shutong's mouth silently opened.
He flipped back to the previous page and looked at the woman again. There was only a side profile.
A deceased woman became another person. Were they the same person...
He had no time to think more. He just instinctively flipped to the next page, desperately wanting to know when Teacher Song last saw his girlfriend. However, the content of the new page was this:
"It has been three years."
The inscription was December 12, 2010.
Zhang Shutong was a little surprised. He had thought that a thick diary like this would continue by year and month, but it skipped directly to '10. In other words, in that year and a half, the man had found nothing.
So what was the final outcome?
He simply didn't flip through the middle content. Instead, he skimmed through the pages with his fingertips. He flipped quickly and read quickly, but other than the man sometimes expressing the bitterness in his heart, there were no new discoveries.
The mysterious woman seemed to have disappeared completely.
He even flipped to the last few pages. The dates on the last few pages were in November 2012, just a month ago.
Zhang Shutong closed the diary. He digested the information, thinking of the long-haired woman who had fought with Lu Qinglian, the footprints in the snow, and the villa that he had studied many times and considered impregnable.
The villa was surrounded by a fence with an electric grid on top, more than two meters high.
Lu Qinglian had judged that with the woman's skills, it was almost impossible for her to climb over the two-meter-high fence.
He had found the number 2004 on the stone monument outside the villa, so the villa was at least built eight years ago.
Aunt Wu, the nanny, had said that only the faces of Gu Qiumian's family were in the gate's system.
But the murderer still got in quietly, even though she couldn't fly or disappear into the ground, and she didn't have any special abilities like bone shrinkage.
He then remembered Gu Qiumian's mysterious disappearance.
He remembered...
The long-haired woman he saw in the family photo in the villa.
The woman was beautiful, in her thirties. Her eyes were very similar to Gu Qiumian's, but she had a melon seed-shaped face.
Gu's mother had long hair and was smiling gently in the photo, making people feel good about her at first glance.
And the time the family photo was taken was—
Zhang Shutong had never met the murderer, and the only person who had was Lu Qinglian, but she had already returned to the sofa when the family photo was hung.
Who did Teacher Song really see?
Was it really.
His.
Ex-girlfriend?
It was December 8th. The man got into a car accident.
And just yesterday, on December 7th, the man had just seen that family photo and patted his shoulder with a sigh. It seemed to be the first time he had seen Gu Qiumian's mother.
Zhang Shutong shivered.
He suddenly understood everything.
He understood why Teacher Song wanted him to take Gu Qiumian away from the villa immediately, and he also understood why he was always vague when talking to Du Kang. He even understood why the other person gave him the final choice.
He finally remembered the photo the senior sent him eight years later. The camera captured a long-haired woman. Because of the angle, it only captured her long hair, but not her clothes or face.
He didn't think much of it, because he had seen Lu Qinglian go to the villa before, so he thought it was Lu Qinglian, whether she was real or fake. But Zhang Shutong had never thought that the long-haired woman photographed that morning—
Was Gu Qiumian's mother.
He also knew that Gu Qiumian had low blood sugar. She never locked her door when she slept. She always wore that red scarf, which she regarded as a precious memento left by her mother. She would cry sadly if he even stepped on it.
Zhang Shutong finally figured out what happened that morning on December 9th. He gently closed his eyes and could even reconstruct the cruel process. A girl woke up from her sleep. She was groggy and her mind was not clear. In the night, under the moonlight, she saw that face that haunted her dreams. She might have cried with excitement or confusion and rushed over, and then...
Zhang Shutong was no longer willing to imagine more.
He only knew that the girl's bright life ended there. She saw her mother who had passed away many years ago, but she would never see tomorrow again.
Zhang Shutong looked at the time again. Now, on December 8th, at 11:40 p.m., that woman was on her way to the villa.
No wonder the other person would go to the villa. The villa was the best place to strike. The defense he once considered impregnable was just a thin piece of paper in the other person's eyes. In the original timeline, only Gu Qiumian and the nanny were left in the villa, and on the cold timeline, there were two sleeping bodyguards.
And now.
Because of his influence, more security had come to the villa. There were more bodyguards. They were armed and were keeping watch in the living room day and night.
That's right, Lu Qinglian had once said that the woman would never be a match for so many bodyguards. Zhang Shutong believed her judgment.
Gu Qiumian would not die.
But the question was...
Was this matter.
Really.
Really.
Over?
He had come back to this snowy night from eight years later and had finally seen what was hidden behind this eight-year-old case.
No wonder Gu's father didn't want to make the murderer of his daughter public. All the information was sealed. Maybe they couldn't find her, or maybe they did... and found that the murderer had a familiar face.
His wife had killed his daughter.
What an absurd truth.
Zhang Shutong clenched his fists unconsciously.
He had always thought that his mission was complete as long as he protected Gu Qiumian's life, but at this moment, he realized that just protecting her life was not enough. What would happen if he let things develop on their own? The woman would successfully break into the villa. The bodyguards would successfully subdue the murderer. Of course, it might not be a smooth process. There would be a fierce fight. Maybe she would be seriously injured, or maybe she would be killed. Then Gu's father, who was also in the villa, would approach the woman under everyone's protection and see her face.
In fact, Zhang Shutong was not very concerned about the big boss's emotional journey. He first thought about what would happen if he told Gu's father about this in advance. Then he remembered the gun and the bullet hole in the temple.
So that's how it was...
What would happen if he stayed at the hospital? He would take Gu Qiumian back to the villa. When dawn broke, the two of them would ride a bicycle, relieved that they weren't discovered. But how could they be discovered? It would be a miracle if they were, because the people who cared about her had already left that night.
"She hasn't had a good life these past few years."
In fact, it was more than just not being good. Perhaps in Gu Qiumian's eyes, if she hadn't chosen to believe him and snuck out of the house, none of these things would have happened.
Zhang Shutong also noticed the photos all over the room. Regret was the most useless and saddest thing. You could hate heaven, earth, and your enemies, but none of it was as powerless as hating yourself. You could only sit in a daze in the middle of the night with a broken heart.
She would also have regrets, wouldn't she?
Logic told him that he should tell Gu Qiumian about this now and then have Gu Qiumian tell her father. A woman with murderous intent would break into the villa in a few dozen minutes, and he would have to hope that Gu's father was strong enough to clear the area and deal with a body before Gu Qiumian came back.
But Zhang Shutong didn't dare to bet.
He had already used one extra chance.
But who knew how many more chances there would be?
His head started to feel dizzy again. Zhang Shutong sat on the bed, panting softly.
He seemed to have an answer in his heart, but now it was even difficult for him to walk, let alone run, so he gave himself thirty seconds to calm his breathing.
Zhang Shutong suddenly thought of Teacher Song. At this moment, Zhang Shutong also suddenly understood what Teacher Song was going through. Why did he quit his job and come to this small island? Why was he always driving that Ford Focus around aimlessly? Why didn't he have any friends on the island?
For four whole years, the man measured this land with his car wheels. The car kept him company, and so did cigarettes, until the car reeked of an ingrained smell of smoke.
He looked at this neat room and wondered what the man did on all those countless nights. If you made a mess of your room, you would at least have a floor full of garbage to keep you company. But if you kept it neat, all you had was loneliness.
Song Nanshan said he saw a reflection of his past self in him. He probably understood him, but Zhang Shutong had never truly understood him. Or rather, no one had ever truly understood him. In other people's eyes, he was a talented young man who had fallen from grace, a lunatic, a lovelorn man who had fallen into hallucinations because of a broken heart. But only the man himself knew that he had hidden a secret in his heart for four years, just to give himself an explanation.
Because no one would believe this kind of thing. So you could only hide it in your heart and wander the roads alone in your car.
Zhang Shutong subconsciously reached for his phone, but he pulled out a hard card instead. He looked closely and saw that it was a gas coupon. The car's glove compartment was filled with this kind of thing. Who knew how much gas he had burned in four years? The man had also told him that he had to keep something from those four years, so he hadn't thrown away these gas cards. Zhang Shutong had once been confused about how a box of waste paper could be proof. Now, looking at the words "3 yuan off" on the card, he realized that this was a man's collection of medals.
Even though he had achieved nothing.
Zhang Shutong couldn't think anymore. He only felt a deep sense of fatigue. There were still fifteen seconds on the countdown. He simply lay back on the bed and gently closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he happened to see a photo at the foot of the bed.
The photo was placed in a spot where it would definitely be seen before going to bed. It was a picture of a short-haired woman holding a cotton candy at an amusement park.
Amusement park...
Zhang Shutong knew that the woman had gotten into a car accident on the very night she finished playing at the amusement park. The man hadn't sent her home, and thus missed a lifetime.
And what was he thinking when he looked at this photo every night?
He had been going at it for four days, from Wednesday to Saturday, and was on the verge of collapsing. But the other person had been going at it for four years.
But now he was lying down, and that car was also on the verge of being scrapped. Zhang Shutong had seen pictures of the inside of the car from the ambulance. The airbags had all exploded. That Bulbasaur toy had naturally not survived. Its head and body had separated. But Zhang Shutong still remembered Teacher Song saying that the toy was glued on by his girlfriend, and if it hadn't been glued on so tightly, he would have thrown it away long ago.
In fact, it was that woman he had never met who was stuck in his heart.
Zhang Shutong decided to spend one extra second to do something important. He picked up the notebook again and flipped to the last page. He hadn't looked at it closely before, but at this moment, he wished more than anything to know what was written on it.
Before, he had used it to vent the thoughts and bitterness in his heart:
"Today is a holiday. I drove around the island five times."
"You seem to have suddenly disappeared."
"I have memorized all the roads on the island."
"Maybe it really was a hallucination."
"But I don't believe it."
"I might be going crazy."
"But I'm still going to keep looking."
He had been looking for four years, and in the end, all that was left was this one simple sentence:
"Yun, I'm already 28 years old this year."