Chapter 32 His Identity is Revealed (It's Really Revealed) With each day he lives, he gets closer to her…
Police officers swarmed over, loudly asking what had happened and who had called the police.
Ni Jiaqi was stunned.
He released Xie Pingxue, who was nearly strangled to death, and grabbed the boy who was fleeing in panic.
"Xie Shijin, what did you call this cat just now?"
Ni Jiaqi heard this and Xie Shijin named the cat Cheng Shiyun.
He grabbed Xie Shijin by the collar with both hands and roared, "Who the hell told you to name the cat that?!"
"Who gave you permission to name the cat that!" Ni Jiaqi gritted his teeth and repeated, "Do Uncle Cheng and the others know? Do you even know how to spell the word 'respect'?"
Xie Shijin lifted his eyelids, revealing clear black and white pupils.
“Cheng Shiyun…”
The boy's dark pupils slowly moved to Ni Jiaqi's face, and he murmured, "She's not dead...she's back."
"But I... lost her again."
He spoke slowly, enunciating each word clearly, but Ni Jiaqi couldn't understand a word he was saying. He looked at him strangely and said, "You've got heatstroke and your brain's gone haywire..."
He also personally witnessed Cheng Shiyun's cremation. When she was brought out, there was only a handful of ashes left, which were placed in an urn and buried in Songshan Cemetery.
What does "not dead" mean?
"What do you mean she's not dead? What do you mean she's back?" Ni Jiaqi found him very strange and grabbed him, not letting him leave. "Xie Shijin, explain yourself clearly!"
The piercing sirens, the police's questioning, and Xie Pingxue's cursing were like a bucket of boiling water poured into his ears.
Amidst a buzzing sound.
It's like slow motion.
Ni Jiaqi saw the boy's lips opening and closing.
"This cat."
"...It's Cheng Shiyun."
Ni Jiaqi stared at his lips, feeling that every word uttered from his mouth was extremely eerie.
He seemed not to have heard clearly, mechanically asking in confusion, "What?"
Xie Shijin, holding the cat, pushed him away: "Get out of the way."
Ni Jiaqi stumbled from the push, then belatedly repeated his words: "That cat, it's Cheng Shiyun..."
How could that be?
How could that be?
Is Xie Shijin crazy, or is he the one who's gone mad?
A person can turn into a cat. Does Xie Shijin think he's an idiot?
Idiot...
At Songshan Cemetery, Xie Shijin said that the cat called him a lunatic.
Xie Shijin suffered heatstroke and collapsed at home. He sent Xie Shijin a text message calling him an idiot.
That cat would tap him on the head all the time.
More and more images flashed before his eyes like a slideshow.
“You have an older sister who also likes to call me crazy…and an idiot.”
...
"Why are you looking at the cat? Did the cat type those words?"
...
Can you understand cats?
...
It wasn't Xie Shijin who scolded him, it was Cheng Shiyun.
Ni Jiaqi seemed to have been struck by lightning, and froze on the spot.
Cheng Shiyun has turned into a cat.
When did Cheng Shiyun come back?
Why did Cheng Shiyun go to Xie Shijin instead of coming to him?
The police officers nearby handcuffed Xie Pingxue, who was still acting erratically, and came over to ask him, "Who called the police? What is your relationship with the person with the knife? Come with us to the station."
"Cheng Shiyun, Cheng Shiyun..."
Ni Jiaqi suddenly opened his eyes wide; Cheng Shiyun seemed to be injured.
The policeman called out to him, "Young man?"
"Get out of my way!"
Ni Jiaqi chased after him downstairs.
The streets were crowded, and he chased after Xie Shijin for quite a distance, but he still couldn't see her.
He stood there bewildered for a while, suddenly feeling disconnected from the world, unsure of which direction to go. Just as he was about to take out his phone to find the nearest pet hospital, he suddenly heard a screeching of brakes.
Ni Jiaqi suddenly turned around, and the crowd gasped in surprise. On the zebra crossing not far away, someone rolled a considerable distance away.
Black hair, white clothes, long sleeves.
"grass!"
He took off running.
The driver rolled down the window and yelled, "Are you blind?! Didn't you see the red light?! Are you in such a hurry to get yourself killed?!"
The boy knelt on the ground, repeatedly touching the ground with his hands, looking anxious as if he were searching for something.
No one dared to approach. Ni Jiaqi was also startled. Xie Shijin's hands were covered in blood, but he seemed oblivious, only stroking the cold ground with his fingertips. The scene was indescribably eerie.
"Xie Shijin, what are you doing?" Ni Jiaqi pulled him up. "Where's Cheng Shiyun?"
Xie Shijin looked up: "Gone..."
His face was ashen, his pupils unfocused, as if his soul had been ripped from his body.
He said, "Cheng Shiyun has disappeared."
"Gone?" Ni Jiaqi was stunned. "Weren't you holding her the whole time? How did she disappear?"
“She just disappeared,” Xie Shijin said. “I was carrying her when I came over, and she was gone.”
He was running the whole way, running very fast, trying to get Cheng Shiyun to the hospital as quickly as possible. When he passed this traffic light intersection, he was hit by a car.
He fell down, and when he got up and looked down, the cat in his arms was gone.
In his hand, there was only the key he had given to Cheng Shiyun.
...The red string broke.
He gripped the key tightly.
"Young man, are you alright?" The driver who hit him was a little scared. "Let me call an ambulance for you..."
The car owner initially thought he was alright because he had stood up, but then he panicked when he saw that his hands were covered in blood.
Ni Jiaqi gritted his teeth, cursed, and walked heavily toward the car.
Seeing his fierce gaze and menacing demeanor, the car owner hurriedly tried to roll up the window.
With a loud bang, Ni Jiaqi reached out and forcefully blocked the rising car window, asking, "Where's Cheng Shiyun?"
The car owner was startled: "What, what Cheng Shiyun? I don't know her!"
"The person you just bumped into!"
"I didn't hit anything!" the driver said. "Don't try to scam me! I have dashcam footage! I didn't even touch him!"
Ni Jiaqi said, "Take it out and let me see it."
"What are you looking at?" the car owner asked, bewildered.
Ni Jiaqi roared, "Dashcam!"
"Officers!" A police car pulled up to the side of the road, and several officers got out. The driver, as if seeing a lifeline, shouted, "Officers, you've finally come!"
When Yang Shengnan arrived after receiving the news, the car owner had already been dragged out of the car by Ni Jiaqi.
The car owner poured out his grievances.
After reviewing the dashcam footage, Ni Jiaqi clenched his fists tighter and tighter, feeling like he wanted to kill someone: "You didn't hit anything?"
"He ran a red light?"
The video shows Xie Shijin crossing the zebra crossing in the last few seconds of the green light. When she reached the middle of the road, the red light came on, the car started moving, and although the driver braked suddenly, she was still hit.
The driver desperately tried to explain, "I... I only started moving when the light turned green, I didn't run a red light. He suddenly ran over, what could I do... I only bumped into him... He's also responsible."
"Alright, Xiao Liu, take the driver to the traffic police to make a record. You two..." Yang Shengnan then looked at the two disheveled teenagers, both of whom had injuries of varying degrees, "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and go to the hospital."
Inside the police car, the pale-faced teenager repeatedly watched the video.
The video is blurry and has some frame drops.
Xie Shijin paused the video and rewound the progress bar several times, but still couldn't notice when the little tabby cat in his arms had disappeared.
He was holding her so tightly that he didn't even realize she had disappeared.
It seems she had a premonition that she would leave.
So tell him not to be sad or upset.
Ni Jiaqi grabbed his collar and pulled him in front of him, gritting his teeth as he asked, "When did Cheng Shiyun come back?"
Why did you keep it from me?
"Why?!"
"Xie Shijin, speak!"
The phone slipped from Xie Shijin's hand and hit the bottom of the carriage. Xie Shijin looked up and said, "I killed her."
Why did I come back to find him? Why did I save him?
Two years ago, he couldn't save her.
Two years later, he killed her.
...
Yichuan City Police Department.
Inside the interrogation room.
Yang Shengnan looked at the middle-aged man across the interrogation table: "Name."
"Xie Pingxue".
Yang Shengnan lowered her head and wrote down: "Age".
Xie Pingxue said: "46."
Yang Shengnan stopped writing, picked up the transparent plastic bag on the corner of the table: "This knife is yours, right? What are you doing going to Xie Shijin?"
"Officer, I want to go home, is that not allowed?" Xie Pingxue's tone was very innocent.
"You went home with a knife?" Yang Shengnan raised an eyebrow, her tone suddenly becoming more serious. "Go home to stab your own son?"
"Officer, it's not as serious as you say. I just had a little argument with him; it's a domestic dispute."
During his two years in prison, Xie Pingxue dealt with the police every day, but he showed no remorse. On the contrary, his ability to distort the truth has improved: "An honest official doesn't interfere in family matters. I'm disciplining my own son, and that's none of your business."
“The Qing Dynasty has been gone for over a hundred years. What kind of upright official doesn’t have family troubles? This is a society ruled by law now,” Yang Shengnan said coldly. “All I know is that you committed armed robbery, and the amount involved is 7,900 yuan, which fully meets the sentencing standards for robbery.”
"Robbery?!" Xie Pingxue was utterly astonished and retorted, "Who robbed me? I took my son's money, is that robbery?! How can a father taking his son's money be considered robbery!"
"The law doesn't care whether you're a father or a son," Yang Shengnan said. "As long as it's with the intent of illegal possession, using violence or coercion to seize other people's property is robbery, no matter who it is!"
"Just wait to go to jail."
Xie Pingxue had previously served two years in prison for the crime of provoking trouble. He has only just been released and is already causing trouble. He has a criminal record and is a repeat offender, so the court will punish him severely. He won't be out for at least five years.
When Xie Pingxue heard that he was going to go back in, he started to act like a rogue: "I didn't steal it! He gave it to me himself!"
“He had money but wouldn’t give it to me, that’s why I argued with him! That 7,900 was the money he was supposed to give me as a filial gift, it was his own choice! How is it robbery for me, as his father, to take the money that is rightfully mine?”
"I carried a knife for self-defense, but who knew he would be so stubborn? I accidentally cut myself during the scuffle! Is that robbery? You're making a mountain out of a molehill, turning a domestic matter into a criminal case!"
With irrefutable evidence, his attempts to deny it are futile.
Yang Shengnan closed the notebook and opened the door to the interrogation room.
The corridor was dimly lit. I had barely taken half a step when I saw Xiao Liu hurrying up to greet me.
Yang Shengnan glanced at him, not stopping in her tracks: "What is it?"
Xiao Liu followed behind her and said, "Master, Xie Shijin came to the station this afternoon and said he found a clue in the 712 case..."
Before he could finish speaking, Yang Shengnan reached out her hand to him.
Xiao Liu was stunned for a moment, and subconsciously shrank back.
Yang Shengnan rolled her eyes at him, annoyed: "Take a statement."
"Oh, oh!" Just as Xiao Liu was about to take out his notebook, he suddenly remembered something and looked up again. "I was just about to tell you that someone jumped off a building in Lijing Garden this afternoon. I went to the scene with Brother Li and the others, and then... I lost my notebook."
Yang Shengnan's face darkened, and she could barely contain her anger.
Xiao Liu shrank his neck and quickly said, "But I remember everything he said!"
He's not very good at anything else, but he has an excellent memory. He can recite everything he's seen word for word.
After hearing his explanation, Yang Shengnan took a deep breath: "What about the keychain?"
Xiao Liu reached into his pocket: "Oh no!"
...
Yichuan City Hospital.
Emergency Department.
Xie Shijin's left hand was cut by a fruit knife; the wound was long and stretched across his palm.
The doctor had just finished stitching him up and wrapped the wound with gauze, instructing him: "Don't get the wound wet, don't do strenuous exercise, and don't clench your fist or grasp heavy objects. Come back to the hospital in fourteen days to have the stitches removed."
Ni Jiaqi is in much better condition, except for a small cut on his cheek.
"You have a scrape. Just apply some medicine when you get home."
Ni Jiaqi, carrying the bag of medicine, said, "Thank you, doctor."
As the two walked out of the emergency room, they saw a middle-aged couple walking towards them, looking travel-worn.
"Jiaqi," Ni's mother greeted him first.
Ni Jiaqi was stunned for a moment: "Mom and Dad, what brings you here?"
"Why didn't you tell us about something this serious?" Mr. Ni's brows furrowed, his tone reproachful, but his gaze softened as he looked at his son's bandaged cheek. "How did it get like this?"
Ni Jiaqi scratched his head: "It's nothing serious, you guys go back first."
Ni's mother grabbed his arm: "Aren't you going home? What are you doing so late?"
“Find Cheng Shiyun,” Ni Jiaqi said.
"……What?"
“Cheng Shiyun is back,” Ni Jiaqi repeated. “I’m going to go see her.”
Ni's mother stood there, her eyes instantly reddening: "Son, what nonsense are you talking about? Yunyun has been gone for two years."
"I knew you wouldn't believe me."
Ni Jiaqi twitched the corner of his mouth. If he told them that Cheng Shiyun had turned into a cat, his parents would probably send him to a mental hospital overnight.
"You all go back, don't worry about me."
He carried a plastic bag of medicine and walked past them toward the roadside.
Mr. Ni called out to him, "Come back!"
With outsiders present, Mr. Ni's voice turned serious as he pulled Ni Jiaqi back, saying, "Haven't you made enough trouble yet? She's been dead for so long, how long are you going to keep this up?!"
On the day Cheng Shiyun died, there was a torrential downpour. Apart from eyewitness testimonies, the police had no clues, and the investigation was once at a standstill.
During that period, Ni Jiaqi stopped going to school and attending classes. He followed the police around, but they couldn't find any results. He even acted impulsively and smashed more than a dozen suspected cars, paying seven or eight hundred thousand yuan in compensation.
Ni Jiaqi turned around abruptly, his eyes red, and said, "It wasn't your daughter who died, so of course you think this is all a hassle!"
"How can you talk like that, child!" Mother Ni stomped her foot angrily, tears streaming down her face. "Yunyun... we watched her grow up from a little girl, we loved her just like our own daughter, how can we not be heartbroken?"
“Hypocritical,” Ni Jiaqi said in a low voice.
"What did you say?"
Ni Jiaqi raised his head and said fiercely, "I said, you are all hypocrites."
Two days after Cheng Shiyun died, Ni's parents advised Cheng Jinghua to grieve in moderation.
Later, Ran Hongyin suffered a mental breakdown, and the couple even advised Cheng Jinghua to give up investigating the driver who caused the accident. They said that the dead are dead, and the living should learn to let go.
lay down.
The two words that could have torn a piece of his heart were so easily uttered.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her smiling face. For two years, every night as he fell asleep, he prayed that she would come to him in his dreams; how could he let go?
“If I were the one who died, Cheng Shiyun would still keep searching.”
Ni Jiaqi got into a taxi and drove off.
Ni's mother: "Jiaqi!"
"What are you chasing him for? Where can he go if he has no money?!" Mr. Ni said angrily. "He's never suffered since he was a child. He'll be back in a couple of days."
Ni's mother clutched her chest in distress.
She turned around. The lights at the emergency room entrance were dim, and that thin figure was still standing there.
In the deep darkness of the night, the wind blew from behind, penetrating Xie Shijin's body.
His blood-stained clothes were whipped about by the bleak night wind, like a tattered flag.
Ni's mother slowly walked towards him and said softly, "Xie, I'm asking you for a favor..."
Xie Shijin's eyelashes blinked very lightly.
The slightly out-of-focus pupils slowly refocused.
In the gradually clearing field of vision.
He saw that the middle-aged woman's eyes were full of tears, and he heard her pleading voice trembling with sobs.
She said, "Don't talk to him about Yunyun anymore."
After Mr. Ni's business succeeded and Mrs. Ni resigned from her teaching job and moved out of the teachers' apartment, she had less contact with the Cheng family, and their relationship faded. Only the two children remained in touch.
When Cheng Shiyun got into trouble, the Ni family provided both financial and practical assistance, which was more than enough.
"The aunt only has one son."
“If anything happens to him, Auntie won’t be able to survive either.”
"From now on, please don't contact him about Yunyun's affairs anymore... okay?"
"Please, Auntie."
...
Three days later.
The boy in apartment 602 next door noticed that the fruit he had hung on the doorknob of apartment 601 yesterday hadn't been touched.
"Dad, is something wrong with Brother Xie?" the little boy asked his father when they got home.
The night Xie Pingxue came to see Xie Shijin, it was Xie Pingxue who called the police. He did it very promptly and was even praised by the police.
His dad works on construction sites and often doesn't get home until 1 or 2 a.m. His dad would drop him off at the apartment across the street. Xiao Xie's grandma is a great cook, and she not only lets him eat there but also asks Xiao Xie to help him with his homework.
Over time, the two families became acquainted.
When his maternal grandmother passed away, it was his father who told Xiao Xie what to do when an elderly person passed away in Yichuan.
Xie Shijin hadn't left the house for three days in a row, so the man couldn't help but worry and knocked on the door: "Xiao Xie, if you're alright, say something."
"Xiao Xie?"
"I'm Uncle Lin..."
He knocked harder several more times, but no one answered.
What should we do?
Ever since his grandmother passed away, Xiao Xie has been acting strangely, giving the impression that... he might not want to live anymore.
While the man hesitated about whether to call the police, a boy came up from downstairs.
Ni Jiaqi had been wandering outside for three days and had nowhere else to go. Dragging his tired body upstairs, he saw the father and son in apartment 602 looking helpless.
His heart skipped a beat, and he quickly walked over to ask, "What's wrong?"
The little boy recognized him and hurriedly said, "Brother Xie hasn't come out for three days, and he won't answer the phone!"
Ni Jiaqi twisted the doorknob twice: "Xie Shijin, open the door, or I'll smash it down!"
"Thank you, Shi Jin!"
Ni Jiaqi cursed a couple of times and started looking for something to bang on the door.
The man brought over the hammer he used at the construction site, and Ni Jiaqi raised it high, about to smash it down.
The door opened.
The boy inside the door had black hair that covered his eyes, deep-set eyes, and dark circles under his eyes. Apart from being a little thinner, he looked the same as he had a few days ago.
As Ni Jiaqi breathed a sigh of relief, he asked reproachfully, "You were home... why didn't you say anything?"
Xie Shijin turned around. His movements were slow, even somewhat sluggish, as if only his physical instincts were at work, and every movement required all his strength.
Ni Jiaqi glanced at his ears and noticed that he wasn't wearing a hearing aid.
Ni Jiaqi followed him inside: "Why aren't you looking for Cheng Shiyun? What are you doing hiding in the house?"
Cheng Shiyun has been missing for three days. He's been running around like crazy, searching everywhere she might have gone. But Xie Shijin is hiding at home, avoiding everyone.
However, the next second, all his words got stuck in his throat.
Several medicine bottles were scattered haphazardly on the living room table.
Agomelatine, duloxetine... and some other unnamed medications.
Several medicine bottles were empty.
Ni Jiaqi was furious.
Boundless anger.
He knew Xie Shijin didn't want to live, but he didn't expect him to be so impatient.
So cowardly, so irresponsible.
"Do you want to die?"
Ni Jiaqi let out a heavy sigh, then walked to the kitchen, grabbed a fruit knife, walked up to Xie Shijin, and handed the knife to him: "Taking medicine is too slow, and you might not even die. It's too much suffering. Stab him here!"
He pointed to his heart: "I died instantly, very quickly."
"Go ahead and stab me, I absolutely won't stop you!"
The man from apartment 602 was terrified and rushed forward to stop him: "Young man, don't be impulsive! Let's talk this out, don't pull out a knife!"
"Stab me!" Ni Jiaqi roared, "Didn't you want to die? Why are you scared now?"
He yelled until his voice was hoarse, and his eyes were frighteningly red.
The man was terrified: "Xiao Xie, say something!"
Xie Shijin moved slightly.
It seems like they said something.
"What?" Ni Jiaqi asked.
Xie Shijin lowered his eyes, making it impossible to see his expression. Only his lips moved, emitting a very soft sound that was almost swallowed by the air.
Ni Jiaqi didn't hear him clearly. He grabbed Xie Shijin by the collar and pulled him up, saying, "Speak louder!"
Xie Shijin was pulled up and looked up. His eyes were bright, like a flame burning in the deep sea, and he met Ni Jiaqi's eyes.
He looked straight at Ni Jiaqi, his voice not loud, but every word was clear.
Repeat each word clearly.
I want to live!
He didn't want to die.
He just wanted to give it a try...
Let's see if Cheng Shiyun will suddenly appear at his doorstep when he's on the verge of death, just like last time.
Come and save him, just like before.
But he tried twice, and Cheng Shiyun still didn't come back.
He didn't know where Cheng Shiyun had gone.
Unlike Ni Jiaqi, he didn't grow up with Cheng Shiyun. He didn't know where she liked to go as a child, or what secret hideouts she had. Everything about her was hearsay.
All he could do was wait.
Like countless mornings and nights before, he followed them from a distance, waiting for a moment when Cheng Shiyun would turn around and notice him.
He awaited Cheng Shiyun's return to his life.
If Cheng Shiyun doesn't come back...
He won't die either.
He said, "I want to live."
"Live one day at a time."
"With each day I live, I get one day closer to her."
-----------------------
Author's Note: I'll be back tomorrow, don't worry! [kiss]
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