Chapter 73 Innocent Love, Sinful Love...
City Library West Gate Bus Stop.
Traffic was congested after get off work, and Chen Zhenzhu's little motorcycle hadn't come out yet; she was still waiting in line to get on.
It was only four bus stops away, and there was a bus lane. Chen Zhenzhu was far behind at the back of the line, pondering what Mai Hai had said.
A secret base that nobody knows about?
That must be the location of the ceremony.
Mai Hai, determined to save Fu Shengnan, disobeyed orders and told her what had happened, as the situation had become extremely urgent.
Chen Zhenzhu entered the bus and moved towards the back of the bus with the flow of people, trying to stand near the rear door.
"Sister Pearl?" A clear voice called out to her from the side, its face full of surprise, "I was going to look for you at the Criminal Investigation Team, but I didn't expect to run into you here."
Shen Zhenzhu never expected to meet Fu Panxia on the bus. Fu Panxia was wearing a gray-white shirt with a dark blue, old-fashioned suit jacket over it, which fit the stereotypical image of a math teacher.
"You were looking for me?" Shen Zhenzhu squeezed through the crowd to sit next to him. Fu Panxia stood up and gave her seat to an elderly woman who was boarding the bus behind her.
"What a beautiful person, both inside and out." The old woman couldn't help but look at the refined and elegant Fu Panxia, then glanced at Chen Zhenzhu and gave her a sideways look.
Shen Zhenzhu was utterly wronged. It was clearly someone behind her who pushed her as she got on the bus. And this person, supposedly beautiful inside and out, how could she still be so bad at judging people?!
Seeing that she was feeling aggrieved, Fu Panxia assumed she had been jostled and walked to the side to shield her from the people around her, saying in a low voice, "It's my birthday today, and I'd like to invite you to a nice place to eat."
Shen Zhenzhu couldn't possibly miss such a golden opportunity. With her big, bright eyes, she said, "Thank you for inviting me, but I haven't prepared a gift for you yet. There's a shopping mall up ahead; how about we go over there and I pick out a gift for you?"
Fu Panxia shifted her body slightly, letting the people getting off the bus move to the back. Seeing that Shen Zhenzhu readily agreed, she said with a cheerful expression, "Let's get off at the next stop. I'll go get my car first. You don't need to buy me a gift; I want to ask you for one." As she spoke, her gaze swept over the top of Shen Zhenzhu's head.
Chen Zhenzhu felt a tightness in her head, scratched her head, and looked back in bewilderment.
Fu Panxia smiled and said, "My car is at the repair shop over there. I was going to drive to pick you up. Actually, it was a bit difficult to ask. The gift I wanted was the ceramic flowerpot I gave you last time. I made it myself, but I can't make it anymore. I wanted to ask you to give it back."
"Oh, this? I was going to return it to you even if you hadn't said anything. Actually, we have regulations that prevent us from taking even a needle or thread from ordinary people. Besides, I know that artistic inspiration is fleeting. As a great painter once said, no two eggs are exactly alike. Since you like it, let's go back. It's still in my mom's shop."
“Okay,” Fu Panxia said. “I’ll take some shrimp balls back with me. There’s a little girl over there who really likes your shrimp balls.”
“No problem!” Shen Zhenzhu readily agreed on the surface, but she was on high alert, thinking that her “sister” was either one of the victims or the one she had seen in the Heavenly Eye’s retrospective.
The second stop is Labor Park, which is adjacent to White Pagoda Temple. There is a car repair shop not far away.
Shen Zhenzhu followed him to the entrance of the auto parts store and waited.
"Teacher Fu, is that your girlfriend? She's really beautiful." The mechanic drove out his Santana and teased Chen Zhenzhu, who was standing in the distance, "You're really something, how far have things progressed between you two?"
Teacher Fu, who is usually easygoing and can joke around, said seriously, "Don't talk nonsense. My love for her isn't as dirty as you think!"
The repairman, a grown man, turned pale after being yelled at. Out of consideration for the customer, he silently calculated the bill and didn't say another word.
"Where are we going later?" Chen Zhenzhu asked as she fastened her seatbelt in the passenger seat, not having heard their conversation.
Fu Panxia didn't intend to speak at first, but after Shen Zhenzhu's persistent coaxing, she opened her mouth and said perfunctorily, "A lakeside villa, you'll definitely like it."
Excluding small artificial lakes and scenic lakes, Liancheng doesn't have many natural lakes. Places like Xishan Lake, Lingshui Reservoir, Jinlong Temple Lake, Tangli Lake, Daxu Lake, and Songshushan Lake are few in number. However, under such tight conditions, finding a suitable location for the ceremony was beyond Chen Zhenzhu's ability to determine on her own.
"We'll have to have some fun then. Hey, why is there no signal?" Shen Zhenzhu said with a happy face but a bitter heart, "Then I'll page Uncle Wu and ask him to do the overtime work. I'm not going back."
Fu Panxia originally didn't want her to contact the criminal investigation team, but when she heard that she was planning to work overtime to avoid being discovered by the criminal investigation team, Fu Panxia had no choice but to say, "Okay, just send a page. I didn't invite them and I don't want them to know."
“I know you prefer peace and quiet; cultured people like you don’t like noise,” Shen Zhenzhu said slyly. “I won’t say I’ll go with you.”
Fu Panxia finally relaxed and focused on the road, listening to Chen Zhenzhu say, "The signal is bad, I'll dial the automatic number. Hey, do you know what number to use for 'going home'?"
Fu Panxia frowned and thought for a moment before saying, "I don't know, I only know that '119' means 'call back immediately'."
Shen Zhenzhu's beautiful almond-shaped eyes darted around and she said, "It should be '4131'. Who cares if it's right or wrong, let's just go with it."
Fu Panxia saw out of the corner of her eye that she had indeed pressed "4131". She then simply hung up the mobile phone. Her mind raced, calculating Morse code or other code forms, but none of them matched the "SOS" message. She was reassured that it was the numerical code for "going home".
The Santana drove back from Labor Park to the commercial street of Tiesi 2 Village, where there were still a few tourists sightseeing at this time of year.
Uncle Lu squatted on the ground painting the fire hydrants, trying to extend the hours of his side job of taking photos so he could earn some extra money.
Yuan Jiangxue's shop was busy. The two young women had good taste, but their bargaining skills were still lacking. Yuan Jiangxue must have made a lot of money this time. She chatted with them animatedly.
Shen Zhenzhu got out of the car intending to get the gift from the counter herself, but Fu Panxia immediately followed her out of the car, not giving her a chance to interact with others alone.
Shen Zhenzhu noticed that he was staring at her, but she still calmly greeted Xiao Li, who came out to carry the tray.
"Is this it?" Shen Zhenzhu came out carrying a square box, smiling as she said to Fu Panxia, "It's heavy and hard to carry, so I've been keeping it under the counter."
Seeing that she hadn't opened the package yet, and that it was exactly as it was given to her, Fu Panxia's smile towards Shen Zhenzhu faded slightly: "It's it, shall we go?"
Chen Zhenzhu stood in front of the counter, facing the kitchen, and called out, "Sixth Sister, Xia and I are going to eat, you don't need to wait for me."
Upon hearing Shen Zhenzhu mention her, Fu Panxia urged anxiously, "Let's go quickly."
"Oh." Shen Zhenzhu walked in front, while Fu Panxia followed behind, carrying the square box, staring intently at Shen Zhenzhu's movements.
Xiao Li saw this from behind, frowned, and went into the kitchen to say to Shen Liuhe, "Why are the two of them acting so strangely?"
After Shen Zhenzhu got into the car, Fu Panxia locked the car door, let out a soft breath, and said to Shen Zhenzhu with a relaxed expression, "Do you want to open it and take a look?"
Shen Zhenzhu also wanted to know what he was up to, insisting on getting the gift back. So, in front of him, she tore open the fancy wrapping paper and brought out a European-style ceramic basin with a human face on it.
The earthenware basin is about the size of a human head, with the area above the forehead empty. If something is planted in it, the plant that grows can serve as the hair of the earthenware basin.
"I've seen ceramic basins made with small animals on the market, but this is the first time I've seen one made with European beauties." Chen Zhenzhu examined the ceramic basin and saw a pair of amber eyes embedded in it, which seemed to have a shimmering luster like cat's eye stones: "These eyes are so realistic, like real human eyes."
"Thank you for the compliment. I enjoy drawing and sculpting in my spare time, and I often dabble in these unconventional methods," Fu Panxia said jokingly. "You don't think I'm neglecting my duties as a math teacher, do you?"
Shen Zhenzhu tightened her grip on the ceramic basin. While waiting for the traffic light, Fu Panxia handed her a bottle of soda from the side of the door, opened it, and placed it in front of Shen Zhenzhu: "There's still an hour's drive left. Have some soda first. I know you like lychee flavor."
"Thank you." Chen Zhenzhu took the soda bottle, and since there was nowhere to put it, she simply stuck it into the ceramic basin.
"If you don't drink, you'll run out of steam." Fu Panxia put on her glasses and started the car.
Chen Zhenzhu lowered her head and bit the straw.
"Sister, drink up!" Fu Panxia urged in a tone that didn't belong to "Fu Panxia" at all: "If you don't drink, you'll run out of steam."
Shen Zhenzhu's pupils dilated rapidly, a physiological preparation her body made to quickly respond to a threat, an automatic and unconscious reaction to a state of tension.
She turned her head without making a sound, smiled at Fu Panxia who was driving calmly, and said, "Okay."
Fu Panxia's Adam's apple, hidden under her shirt collar, bobbed nervously. Seeing that Chen Zhenzhu hadn't noticed "Fenfen's" uncontrollable interruption, she slowed her breathing and continued driving.
To avoid arousing her suspicion, Fu Panxia minimized her conversations on the way to the outskirts of the city.
If someone could see him directly in front of him, they would surely notice that his left eye was fixed on the street and pedestrians, while his right eye was strangely turned towards the direction of the sunken pearl, trembling oddly.
Fu Panxia was worried that "Fenfen" would alert the enemy, and she was fighting with "Fenfen" for control of half of her body. She also had to drive, so she couldn't keep an eye on Shen Zhenzhu for the time being.
"I'm a little carsick." Chen Zhenzhu closed her eyes; the passenger seat of this Santana made her particularly uncomfortable. What made her even more uncomfortable was the brief flashback she saw from the ceramic pot's "eyes."
"I'll call you when we're almost there. Open the window and let it air out." Fu Panxia stopped the car at another traffic light, and over Shen Zhenzhu, she eagerly rolled down half of the car window: "It's not time to sleep yet."
"I know, I'll take a nap first." Shen Zhenzhu leaned back softly in the seat and closed her eyes, seemingly unaware of his trembling fingertips.
You drank so much?
When Fu Panxia saw that Shen Zhenzhu's soda bottle was half empty, he slammed on the gas pedal, and the Santana sped towards his secret location with Shen Zhenzhu in tow.
......
Taking advantage of Fu Panxia's distraction, Chen Zhenzhu quickly poured the soda by the door.
She saw "lakes," "rituals," and "maiden" in the amber-faced person's eyes...and those eyes were truly human.
This was a failed resurrection ritual; Fu Panxia had failed to resurrect Fenfen in the same place three years ago.
Because she only has one pair of eyes, Shen Zhenzhu can only see one scene. Fu Panxia, wearing a black cloak, kneels on the ground, frantically holding the pieced-together body and wailing. The young body, stitched with gold thread, is perfect but lifeless, limp in Fu Panxia's arms, unable to offer any warmth in return.
"Something must be wrong, something must be missing!"
The ritual implements were a chaotic mess, and the blood of some unknown animal had seeped into the lake. The towering flames were filled with his meticulously calculated formulas. The full moon was starless, the lake lifeless and devoid of fish; in Fu Panxia's world, it seemed as if all life had been cruelly stripped away by the gods, leaving him to linger and wail in a desolate world.
Then the scene rotates, and in the blink of an eye, these eyes are embedded in a ceramic basin, standing in the bookshelf, watching Fu Panxia, three years later, personally hand her sister Fu Shengnan a cup of "hot milk" on a September day.
Unsuspecting, Fu Shengnan drank the milk and soon fell into a coma.
***
Shen Zhenzhu slowly opened her eyes and looked at the road far away from the city.
"Are you feeling better?" Fu Panxia asked, turning the steering wheel and glancing at Chen Zhenzhu, who was yawning. "We're almost there."
The drug in the soda wasn't very potent. Only after she drank the second dose would she be able to let him do whatever he wanted while she was fully conscious.
He was very satisfied with Chen Zhenzhu's cooperation. Away from the hustle and bustle of the city, he gradually lowered his guard. With "Fenfen" obediently huddled in the corner, he said in a relaxed tone, "Someone like Sister Zhenzhu, who grew up in love and is liked and respected by her colleagues and friends, probably wouldn't understand people like us who don't have many friends to celebrate our birthdays, right?"
Chen Zhenzhu rubbed her eyes in a mock manner, shrank her neck as she watched the passing roadside scenery, rolled up the car window and said, "I also like to enjoy time alone, to be able to talk to myself and face myself."
Fu Panxia looked over in surprise, and seeing that Shen Zhenzhu was not joking, she said in confusion, "I didn't realize you liked being alone."
Shen Zhenzhu said, "Although humans are social animals, sometimes it is quite comfortable to stay quietly in one place. Perhaps that is when we are truly ourselves."
Fu Panxia agreed with her words. Thinking that Shen Zhenzhu would soon become a part of "Fenfen", she spoke to her more gently: "There are also people who live in seclusion. There are usually reasons for this. I don't know about others, but for our Fu family, it's because of illness or mental illness."
Shen Zhenzhu exclaimed in surprise, "Mental illness? Is it hereditary?"
Fu Panxia said nonchalantly, "It's hereditary, but not everyone inherits it. My sister was lucky and didn't inherit it, but I was unlucky. I was found to be a little abnormal when I was seven. But not many people noticed because my mother's condition was much more serious than mine. She would only think that I was possessed by a ghost because my situation was completely different from hers. Every time she had an episode, she couldn't control her violent impulses. In the words of rural people, she was a 'violent madwoman,' but in fact, she was schizophrenic. She always had the illusion that others wanted to harm her and attacked people."
It was rare for Fu Panxia to bring up himself, so Chen Zhenzhu followed up by asking, "Have you been to see it?"
Fu Panxia turned another corner and drove up the mountain road, saying as she drove, "There's nothing I can do even if I see it. The only one who can calm her down is me."
He didn't say how a child could calm his ailing mother down. He smiled and said, "My dad had a lot of social engagements. When my mom was feeling well, he would take her out to socialize. When she wasn't feeling well, my dad would take her to our old house and tell everyone she was 'recuperating.' Later, the recuperation period got longer and longer, and our whole family ended up living in our old house. My dad went out to work and earn work points, and my older sister, around ten years old, went to work illegally at the quarry with the adults. I stayed with my mom. Oh, and there was a younger sister who was three years younger than me back then."
"I've never heard you mention having a younger sister before." Chen Zhenzhu said with a sudden realization, "You said there would be a younger sister waiting for you later, could it be her?"
Fu Panxia said cheerfully, "That's right, she must really like you." Then, another word escaped her lips: "Like!!"
Chen Zhenzhu pretended not to hear, closed the car window tightly, and turned around: "What did you just say?"
Fu Panxia said naturally, "I didn't say anything. I just remembered how desperate I felt every time I saw my sister leave home when I was little, thinking I would never see her again. And when I was little, I was playful and didn't want to study, I only thought about drawing, and I was always getting beaten. I really envied my sister for being able to leave them. I begged my sister to take me with her, but my sister, like my parents, advised me to study hard and cherish the opportunity to study. She didn't understand what I wanted at all, she thought I was enjoying a life of luxury at home."
Hearing his increasingly urgent tone, Shen Zhenzhu feared he might do something rash and turn the steering wheel off the cliff. She gripped the handrail tightly and tried to persuade him, saying, "You must have had some good memories from your childhood, right?"
Fu Panxia smiled and said, "Of course! Every time my mom brought out delicious food from someone else's wedding banquet, it was the thing my sister and I looked forward to the most. The most memorable one was one summer when my mom brought out braised pork. Where could a country kid like me get such a big piece of braised pork? We didn't have any money at home, and it was a rare treat to have meat. I stole some meat and fed it to Fenfen, telling her not to cry. Who knew that after eating the meat... after eating the meat, Fenfen really stopped crying. Before long, she became my shadow, and my brother and I were never separated again. My parents almost beat me to death, but I don't regret it."
Although Fu Panxia spoke lightly, Shen Zhenzhu could tell from her description that it was the incident where he mistakenly fed his sister rat poison. His childhood was marked by continuous beatings and abuse, and it turned out that his second personality had emerged so early.
"Sister Pearl, you are an excellent detective. I want to ask you, what kind of adult would mix rat poison into braised pork and place it where a hungry child can reach it?"
Chen Zhenzhu lowered her eyes and had to say, "Perhaps I don't want children anymore."
Fu Panxia smiled strangely, then burst into laughter. Santana trembled at his laughter: "They bet I would steal food too, but they didn't expect that I couldn't bear to eat it and gave it all to Fenfen. I didn't eat a single bite, hahaha, if I had even eaten a bite, things wouldn't be like this today."
"Why would they do that?" Shen Zhenzhu asked.
Fu Panxia drove the Santana onto the lakeside road. The bumpy road brought him back to his senses. He sighed heavily and said, "My sister has had intellectual disabilities since she was a child and can't study. I don't like studying either. I want to pursue art. We are both defective products. It's normal for us to be destroyed."
“This is not normal at all; this is murder.” Shen Zhenzhu found the root of Fu Panxia’s contradictions and looked at him, saying each word clearly, “You are not wrong; they are the ones who are wrong.”
Fu Panxia twitched the corners of her mouth and parked the Santana next to a wooden villa by the lake. Night had fallen, and the mountain birds were emitting piercing screams.
"No, I was wrong, but I don't regret it." As he got out of the car, he said calmly, "By the way, there's someone waiting for you here. Guess who it is?"
Shen Zhenzhu had already anticipated this, but she shook her head and said, "I don't know."
Fu Panxia said with mixed feelings, "I really thought you were very smart and could guess my purpose."
Shen Zhenzhu said, "I'm afraid of being wise all my life but foolish for a moment."
Fu Panxia ignored her, one side of his lips curling up. He covered that side of his face with his hand and turned his head away so that Shen Zhenzhu wouldn't see it: "My sister Fu Shengnan is here too. Congratulations, Section Chief Shen, the missing persons case has been solved."
Shen Zhenzhu was far from happy. This wasn't a missing person case; it was a serial murder case, and a truly bizarre one at that.
"She's here too?" Shen Zhenzhu said, feigning delight. "How did you find her? I need to ask her where she went. We need to hurry up and close the case when we get back."
"Wait until you see her and ask her in person." Fu Panxia opened the front door of the villa. From the outside, the villa garden looked no different from an ordinary vacation villa.
When Fu Panxia opened the door, Chen Zhenzhu smelled a strong, pungent odor of formaldehyde, similar to a mixture of alcohol and bleach, but much sharper.
Chen Zhenzhu waved her hand in front of her nose: "Did you burn plastic?"
Standing by the door, Fu Panxia said casually, "The smell disappears when you get to the backyard. It's probably because the garbage station in the distance is illegally burning garbage again."
Even the smell of low-concentration formaldehyde brought tears to Shen Zhenzhu's eyes. Inside the villa, the police boots creaked on the wooden floor.
"There's nothing here? Isn't it supposed to be a birthday celebration?" Chen Zhenzhu asked, looking around the empty villa.
Fu Panxia took off her suit jacket and hung it on a hanger. She walked towards the kitchen and said, "My sister has set everything up in the backyard, and three other friends are waiting for you."
He casually took a bottle of milk from the refrigerator and handed it to Chen Zhenzhu: "The taste will be much milder after drinking this, give it a try?"
"Thank you." Shen Zhenzhu took the milk and followed Fu Panxia forward. While he wasn't looking, she spilled some milk in the corner by the door.
Fu Panxia turned around and saw that Chen Zhenzhu's eyes were filled with tears and she had drunk half of her milk. She reached out to help her up and said, "Are you a little tired? There is a bed in the backyard where you can lie down for a while and wait for the banquet to begin."
To keep the brain fresh, it must be kept functional before it is removed. Fu Panxia led Chen Zhenzhu to the ceremony site she had set up in the backyard, not noticing that she was humming a nursery rhyme the whole way.
A curtain in the backyard blocked Chen Zhenzhu's view. She sat on the single bed and said curiously, "Your family's banquet is very interesting."
Fu Panxia suppressed the urge of "Fenfen" to lift the curtain and find Fu Shengnan. She turned her head and saw that Chen Zhenzhu had drunk a lot of milk again, with a milky white mark around her lips.
Fu Panxia looked at Shen Zhenzhu with affection as she slowly became drowsy, and gently stroked her forehead with one hand, saying, "Are you hungry? We'll be eating soon, and you can eat all the good things that Fenfen loves."
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Author's Note: Pearl: What is he saying to me?! [Scared]
***
See you tomorrow, there's a red envelope coming! [Let me see]
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