Chapter 44 The Gift "I will hate you."
The locator's signal disappeared in a shopping mall.
Xie Shijin opened his browser and looked up the shopping mall. There were many posts online warning against it, saying that the mall was poorly managed and on the verge of bankruptcy.
Cheng Shiyun rested her head on his hand: "What is Guo Renyi doing here?"
If a son is threatening suicide, he couldn't possibly have gone shopping.
"See Feng Yue," Xie Shijin said. "Feng Yue has contacted Guo Renyi."
Cheng Shiyun had said that Feng Yue was timid. When he came to her door that morning, Feng Yue's fear and helplessness didn't seem fake. After he left, Feng Yue would definitely contact Guo Renyi to discuss countermeasures, and they might meet in the underground parking garage of the mall, just like last time.
The locator will only fail if there is no signal in the underground parking garage.
Half an hour later, the small red dot reappeared on the phone screen, and Guo Renyi went to the city hospital.
Xie Shijin locked the door and went downstairs.
He didn't take the bus; he took a taxi to Lushan International.
"Hiss~ What if someone's in the villa?"
Even in broad daylight, Cheng Shiyun still felt that this was too risky.
Xie Shijin continued walking, saying, "The nanny should be at home."
"You're still going even though there are people around?" Cheng Shiyun's face darkened. "Are you going to walk right into a trap?"
Xie Shijin didn't disguise himself to avoid the surveillance last night, which made Cheng Shiyun feel... he didn't seem afraid of being discovered.
She was puzzled, but Xie Shijin only said, "If there's no one around, who can testify that I didn't break into the house?"
During summer vacation, there are no valuables in the school office, so thieves can only steal tables and chairs, causing no real loss, and are generally not held responsible.
Residential properties are a different matter. Unauthorized entry into a residence is a crime in itself. If something is missing from a villa, no matter what it is, he is the prime suspect.
After registering his name and phone number at the security office, Xie Shijin went to Guo Renyi's villa.
The nanny was making soup at home when she suddenly heard someone ringing the doorbell.
Upon opening the door and seeing the familiar young man, the nanny paused, "...Teacher Xie?"
Xie Shijin's cat bit Guo Xuan's eye, causing him to go blind. Qian Juan cried so much that she almost went blind herself. For days, Qian Juan has been making phone calls, pulling strings to pressure the police, insisting that Xie Shijin deliberately let the cat hurt people, and demanding justice for her son.
However, the evidence currently held by the police is insufficient to convict Xie Shijin, and the case will likely have to be dropped quickly.
Guo Xuan was injured, and Xie Shijin was also dismissed. Faced with the young man who suddenly appeared at the villa's door, the nanny was very puzzled: "Is there something you need, Teacher Xie?"
Cheng Shiyun clung to him, listening to his lies.
Xie Shijin raised his eyes: "Principal Guo asked me to come and get some things."
The young man had delicate, refined eyebrows and a tall, slender figure. He stood outside the door with a calm and deep expression, lying without batting an eye, leaving no trace of his deception.
"Oh, I see..."
In the morning, the nanny overheard Principal Guo at the hospital saying that he was going back to the school to present scholarship certificates to the students.
Qian Juan also had a fight with Guo Renyi, hysterically yelling, "Xiao Xuan is still lying in the hospital, and you still want to give an award to the murderer who hurt your son?"
Principal Guo looked helpless at the time, saying that the scholarship was decided by the school leaders through joint discussion, and it was not something he could decide on his own to cancel.
In the end, the couple parted on bad terms.
"Then please come in."
The nanny, unsuspecting, stepped aside to let Xie Shijin in.
Xie Shijin stepped inside and asked, "Where is Principal Guo's study?"
"The study?" The nanny pointed upstairs. "Go up to the second floor, turn right, and it's the innermost room."
Xie Shijin nodded and went upstairs.
The nanny suddenly asked, "Teacher Xie, do you have a key?"
Principal Guo's study is usually locked, and she is not allowed to clean it.
"Yes," Xie Shijin said.
The nanny nodded, wanting to go upstairs with him, but Xie Shijin suddenly stopped and turned around to remind her calmly, "Aunt Lin, the food in the pot is going to burn."
No sooner had she finished speaking than the nanny smelled something burning. She slapped her thigh and exclaimed, "Oh dear! My stewed pig liver!"
Goji leaf and pork liver soup can nourish blood and improve eyesight. She also had to go to the hospital to deliver food to Guo Xuan that evening.
The nanny hurried back to the kitchen and got busy.
On the second floor, Xie Shijin took out a set of keys.
—Guo Renyi left it in the office last night, and he took it.
Xie Shijin observed the shape of the keyhole and picked out a key from the key chain that had the most similar tooth pattern.
He inserted it into the keyhole and turned it; the door opened.
After closing the door, Xie Shijin scanned the corners of the room; there were no security cameras.
Cheng Shiyun poked her head out from his collar to get some fresh air, hissing and complaining, "It's so hot."
Snakes are extremely sensitive to temperature changes. The study faces the sun, but the windows were closed. When the afternoon sun shone in, it turned the room into a sauna, making it unbearably hot and stuffy.
She looked listless from the heat as soon as she came in.
Xie Shijin frowned slightly. He didn't feel hot at all. Cheng Shiyun's body temperature was five or six degrees lower than his. She was like a portable air conditioner wrapped around him.
"I'll hurry."
There weren't many things in Guo Renyi's study. The only places to hide things were the drawers of his desk and the bookshelves that took up an entire wall.
"Could my phone have already been disposed of?" Cheng Shiyun asked.
Murder to cover up a crime and destroying evidence are usually linked together; that's how it's written in novels.
If her death was indeed related to Guo Renyi, wouldn't Guo Renyi have left himself with leverage by keeping her phone with him?
Xie Shijin opened the drawer and said, "That possibility cannot be ruled out."
"The police used technical means to locate your phone and found that it was last seen on Xuezi Road, after which it disappeared. There are two possibilities in this situation: either it was turned off or it was damaged."
Xie Shijin had read Guo Renyi's statement, in which the man had altered his testimony.
At the time of the incident, the tabby cat's keychain was hanging on Cheng Shiyun's phone. If the intention was to destroy the evidence, Guo Renyi would have no reason to destroy the phone but keep the keychain. The only possibility is that the man did not know that the keychain belonged to Cheng Shiyun, which is why he kept it with him.
There are indeed quite a few contradictions.
But one thing is certain: Guo Renyi lied.
He gave the keychain to Cheng Shiyun on her birthday, so Guo Renyi couldn't have found it on the school playground in June.
Why did he change his story after learning the keychain belonged to Cheng Shiyun? What was he trying to hide? Cheng Shiyun's death.
I searched all the drawers of the desk, but found nothing.
Cheng Shiyun felt somewhat frustrated.
Xie Shijin glanced at the time and frowned.
Five minutes have passed.
Soon, the nanny should come to her senses and call Guo Renyi.
"Want to rest for a while?" he asked in a low voice, turning his head to the side.
Cheng Shiyun buried her head in the crook of his neck, her voice muffled: "...Am I that useless?"
Okay, it really is useless; it can't be heated or cooled down.
Cheng Shiyun said, "I didn't do anything, why should I rest? You continue, don't worry about me."
"good."
Xie Shijin continued searching, flipping through the books on the bookshelf one by one.
A thin layer of sweat beaded on the boy's forehead, but his expression remained increasingly focused.
As Cheng Shiyun watched, she suddenly became somewhat lost in thought.
Cheng Shiyun had never held much hope of finding out the truth about her death, and was even pessimistic.
While the Municipal Public Security Bureau was comforting Xie Shijin, she was also comforting herself. In two years, she had searched for all the clues she could find, and those that she couldn't find had probably been destroyed long ago.
Xie Shijin is working so hard to save his own life, so why should she just sit back and do nothing? She has to help too!
She couldn't open the cabinet or flip through the books, but there were no hard and fast places to hide her phone. She wanted to do what she could to make things easier for Xie Shijin.
The little snake rustled and crawled down his leg.
Xie Shijin lowered his head, a puzzled expression on his face.
"Hiss~ You go ahead and do your thing, don't worry about me."
After being adopted by Xie Shijin after turning into a little snake, Cheng Shiyun hadn't crawled on the ground much. Xie Shijin would either hold her or squat down to talk to her. For the first time, she realized how wonderful it was to look up at him.
She could only hit his knee when she jumped! How awful!
After feeling inferior, Cheng Shiyun realized that being short had its advantages. She could squeeze under the desk, under the cabinet, anywhere, leaving no corner untouched.
Xie Shijin raised his hand and took down a history book, about two fingers thick, from the bookshelf.
Yichuan No. 7 Middle School does not allow students to bring cell phones, but some people always defy the rules. In order to avoid being discovered, they use all sorts of ingenious methods to hide their phones. Some hide them in garbage bags, while others dig a hole in a dictionary and hide their phones inside.
Before becoming a teacher, a teacher was also a student.
"Cheng Shiyun," Xie Shijin called softly.
"hiss?"
The little snake, its head covered in dust, crawled out from under the bookshelf.
Xie Shijin took out the item embedded in the spine of the history book.
It's not Cheng Shiyun's phone.
"This is... a USB flash drive?" Cheng Shiyun asked in surprise.
A 256GB USB flash drive.
Xie Shijin said, "I found it in a book."
"In the book?" Cheng Shiyun examined the USB drive in his hand for a while and asked curiously, "Why does it need to be hidden, and hidden so well? Is there something particularly important inside?"
...
Downstairs kitchen.
The nanny relit the casserole dish that had been turned off and started simmering a new pot of soup.
After finishing her work, she thought about it again and again and felt that something was not right. Even Director Qian was not allowed to enter Principal Guo's study. Would a student be allowed to enter?
She took out her phone, ready to call Guo Renyi and ask him.
As soon as she opened her contacts, the nanny heard footsteps coming downstairs.
"Teacher Xie?" The nanny came out of the kitchen.
Xie Shijin had already walked into the living room. His gaze fell down as he glanced at her phone screen, and he politely greeted her, "Aunt Lin."
"Yes," the nanny responded, then asked, "What did Principal Guo ask you to come back for?"
Xie Shijin said, "A USB flash drive."
Cheng Shiyun, who was wrapped around him, was speechless.
So honest!
What if the USB drive contains something Guo Renyi doesn't want to do? Would Guo Renyi, in a desperate situation, resort to violence against him?
After watching the boy walk out the door, the nanny turned on her phone, hesitated for a few seconds, and then dialed Guo Renyi's number.
To her surprise, the man flew into a rage, his roar piercing her ears: "He went into the study? Did he say anything to you? Didn't I tell you long ago that no one is allowed in the study?!"
The nanny held her phone, barely daring to breathe: "No, didn't you send Teacher Xie?"
On the other end of the line, the man took a deep breath; his suppressed breathing sounded chilling even through the screen.
The nanny had never seen him so angry before, and asked tremblingly, "Principal Guo, should we call the police...?"
"Call the police?" The man's voice suddenly rose, his teeth clenched fiercely, "Call the police for what?!"
Should we call the police to arrest him?!
If the contents of the USB drive are exposed, he'll be locked up for life!
"Principal Guo?" The nanny was so frightened by his tone that she almost lost her mind.
The man lowered his voice and ordered, "You don't need to worry about this. Don't call the police."
...
Throughout the journey, Xie Shijin gazed out the window, his brows furrowed and his face shrouded in shadow, as if he had something on his mind.
In the taxi, the driver picked up other passengers along the way. The car was noisy and unfamiliar, and Cheng Shiyun, despite having many questions, didn't dare to speak.
Upon arriving at the entrance of the residential area, Xie Shijin did not get out of the car, but instead asked the driver to take her to the Second Hospital instead.
Then came another long drive, the air thick and stuffy, the ride so long that Cheng Shiyun was almost going crazy.
The red light came on, and the driver slammed on the brakes at the intersection: "Young man, there's a traffic jam ahead. If you're in a hurry, walking might be faster."
Xie Shijin nodded, paid, and got out of the car.
It was already dusk, and the traffic on the road was heavy, with a hot wind blowing.
The office workers who had just finished get off work looked tired, scrolling through their phones like zombies, walking hurriedly and having no time to pay attention to anything around them.
Cheng Shiyun wrapped her arms around Xie Shijin's wrist, touched his left hand, then climbed onto his shoulder, peeking out a little to ask him, "Can you get the stitches removed from your hand now?"
Xie Shijin had twelve stitches in his left palm; the wound had healed and formed a thick scab.
His fingers are beautifully sculpted with distinct bones and fair skin; it would be such a shame if they were scarred.
However, Xie Shijin said that he has a tendency to form keloids, so there is nothing that can be done; even scar removal surgery may leave scars.
Xie Shijin said, "That's fine."
His voice sounded muffled and suppressed after not speaking for a long time.
"Is it being demolished today?" Cheng Shiyun thought he came to the hospital for this reason.
He shook his head: "Go see Ni Jiaqi."
Ni Jiaqi jumped from the second floor and injured his leg. He was hospitalized at the Second Hospital, and Xie Shijin has not yet visited him.
Cheng Shiyun felt her breath catch in her throat, and suddenly, the heart-wrenching feeling of being unable to do anything but watch him get hurt swept over her again.
As if she had guessed something, she remained silent for a few seconds, but couldn't help asking, "Are you going to give me to Ni Jiaqi again?"
A corner of my heart suddenly collapsed.
She always felt that Xie Shijin was hiding something from her. A suspicion that needed to be verified lingered in her mind, like a slow, agonizing death.
Xie Shijin said, "I'm just going to see him."
"Really?" Cheng Shiyun pressed.
"real."
Cheng Shiyun didn't believe it.
"Don't you want to see him?" Xie Shijin noticed her resistance and pursed his lips, saying, "If you don't want to, then don't go."
A few seconds of silence followed before Cheng Shiyun spoke softly, "...Go."
When Ni Jiaqi left last time, she saw that his legs were covered in blood. She wondered if he had broken any bones or how serious they were.
Cheng Shiyun gritted her teeth and warned, "But don't tell Ni Jiaqi that I've turned into a snake."
She instinctively wanted to say, "I don't want to leave you," but the words took a different turn, and she said stubbornly, "Ni Jiaqi is definitely afraid of me and can't take good care of me. I don't want to go with him."
"If... if you give me to Ni Jiaqi like you did last time."
Cheng Shiyun said seriously, "I will hate you."
It's not dislike, it's hatred.
A sudden, sharp pain shot through his chest, a dense, throbbing pain, as if a thousand fire ants were gnawing at his heart.
She climbed up to his sleeve and examined the wound on his palm closely.
Xie Shijin raised his hand, staring at her small face, gradually becoming lost in thought. Then he raised his eyes and smiled: "You're not some gift that can be given away casually, so how can you say you're giving it away?"
Cheng Shiyun hissed and flicked her tail.
The little snake twisted and turned.
It was twisted into a bow in the boy's hands.
"That's it!"
...
The boy, carrying a ribbon, went to the small supermarket near the hospital.
The small supermarket has a wide range of businesses, selling not only snacks and drinks, but also flowers, fruit baskets, and health products.
Xie Shijin bought a fruit basket and paid by scanning a QR code.
More than two hundred.
These fruit baskets are all show and no substance; they contain very few kinds of fruit, and what they do have are common fruits. Apples that cost eight yuan a pound are sold for double the price just by changing the packaging.
Cheng Shiyun wrapped her arms around his wrist and muttered that it wasn't worth it: "Why buy such an expensive fruit basket? Ni Jiaqi doesn't even like fruit."
The elevator was crowded, so they took the stairs up.
The boy climbed the steps and said, "Here, have some."
"Snakes don't eat fruit," Cheng Shiyun hissed. "I eat human flesh!"
Second inpatient department, 12th floor.
There was no one accompanying him in the ward. Ni Jiaqi lay alone on the bed, with two pillows behind his back, half-sitting and scrolling through his phone.
His lips were pale. After watching two videos, he threw his phone on the bedside table, looked out the window, and appeared depressed and listless.
The door was ajar, and Xie Shijin pushed it open and entered.
Hearing the noise, Ni Jiaqi looked up, recognized the person, and his face instantly darkened: "Who let you in? What are you doing here? Are you here to laugh at me?"
Xie Shijin glanced at his leg in a cast, picked up the fruit basket, and walked over: "What did the doctor say?"
"I won't die, don't worry about me." Ni Jiaqi's eyes were bright, with a hint of sarcasm.
The illness made his eye sockets appear sunken, and his cheeks were terribly thin, somewhat resembling the boy Xie Shijin remembered who had followed Cheng Shiyun since elementary school.
Xie Shijin asked, "Where are your parents?"
I went to work and hired a caregiver to look after him. The caregiver went downstairs to buy food.
"None of your business." Ni Jiaqi didn't want to explain much to him, her attitude full of resistance and perfunctoriness. "If you're here to laugh at me, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I'm fine, I can be discharged tomorrow."
"You can go now."
Xie Shijin put down the fruit basket and turned to walk towards the door.
Hearing the door close, Ni Jiaqi thought he had left, but when he looked up, Xie Shijin not only hadn't left, but had also turned the lock cylinder and locked the door from the inside.
Ni Jiaqi's pupils constricted sharply, and the anger in his chest surged to the top of his head: "Are you crazy? I told you to get lost!"
"roll!"
"Xie Shijin, can't you understand human language?"
He roared, but couldn't even get out of bed, so it was obviously a lie to say he could be discharged immediately.
Once he had calmed down a bit, Xie Shijin asked him, "Do you want to see Cheng Shiyun?"
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Author's Note: [Sprinkling flowers][Sprinkling flowers][Sprinkling flowers]
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