Chapter 55 Chapter 55 You came here for Elio. ...
Silence fell. Under the trio's unanimous gaze, the long-ignored customer returned to his booth and ordered a cup of coffee.
“That seems like a long time ago,” he recalled.
"Eight years ago," Smith said.
He released his grip on Elio's shoulders and embraced him instead. The boy didn't stir or utter a word, but his wide, unblinking eyes fixed on the diner across from them, a look of eager anticipation. He waited anxiously for the revelation, his fingers growing cold uncontrollably as he clutched at his trouser leg beneath the table.
Another, smaller, but warmer hand covered the back of his hand under the table. Elio froze for a moment and turned his head away. It was Tim's hand.
"Were you here?" Tim didn't look at Elio. As if he didn't notice Elio's nervousness, he asked the diner seriously, "Just like what happened today, you were sitting here and witnessed the whole process of the car accident?"
"Yes, kid," the diner said slowly, taking a sip of coffee. "It was a rare sunny day, not a drop of rain... I was sitting here, eating my chicken sandwich. When the police car came honking from over there, I looked up to see what was going on..."
“Police car?” Elio interrupted. “There was another police car?”
"It was chasing another car," the diner glanced at him, "trying to stop it. But it didn't. They were chasing each other and came out from around the corner. Then I heard a loud gunshot. The police car rolled down its window and shot at the tires of the car in front. It was hit and slid and swayed on the road. Finally, the police car that was chasing it knocked it upside down and crashed into here."
The diner tilted his head toward the shattered window. Only Smith followed his gaze and glanced in that direction; Elio sat there, his eyes gradually drifting away as he stared at the diner, his face slowly turning pale.
No one spoke for a moment. The other customers in the restaurant finished their meals one after another, greeted the owner, and passed by the quiet table in a lively manner.
Here, the world of a boy who searches for the truth about his parents' death is silently crumbling.
Perhaps realizing this, the diner absentmindedly reached into his jacket and touched the cigarette case. But after looking at the two children opposite him, he casually reached out and placed his hand on the table.
"What happened next," he said, "you can probably guess."
Tim frowned, silent. Smith turned his head to look at the glass window again. Only Elio suddenly stood up. He bumped the table, causing the coffee mug to spin innocently on the surface. But he seemed to feel nothing, and just kept asking the diners, "Why were the police cars chasing them? Why are they dead, but I'm still alive? Why didn't anyone tell me all this?"
His questions were very impolite, but the diners looked at his tearful eyes and answered his questions one by one with rare patience.
"They robbed the bank near Chinatown," he said. "When the car flipped over, green bills flew out of the back seat and everyone was scrambling to pick up the money. Then, we all smelled a smell from the gas tank and heard a baby crying. The police officers who caught up with them rushed in while the tank was just smoking and hadn't exploded yet, and took the crying baby out... Then, before they could save more people, it exploded. As for why no one told you..."
"No one should tell you this." He looked at Elio. "No one should tell a child that his parents are criminals who reaped the consequences, unless he insists on pursuing an imaginary truth. If I remember correctly, the child was later sent to an orphanage, and orphanages in Gotham usually have strict curfews - you shouldn't be here, child, especially at this time. Now, you should go back."
Elio bit his lip, his expression changing rapidly. He stared with red eyes, tears rolling down from them; there were a few times when he seemed to want to speak, but in the end he closed his mouth, walked out of the booth without saying a word, and rushed into the deep night without looking back.
Tim stood up soon after. Elio's silhouette quickly faded into the night. Tim glanced hesitantly at Elio, then at the diners sitting there. Finally, he gritted his teeth and decided to chase after him.
'He is such a good boy,' the voice of the magic ring lingered in Smith's ears again, 'I really wish he had been with you when you were 'investigating' the truth. But then again, you would rather you had never investigated the cause of your parents' death, right?'
'Indeed,' thought Smith, 'I wish I had someone with me when I discovered this. It would have made me feel better, but who knows? I might have been even more irritated, because I'd been expecting a conspiracy behind my parents' deaths... This was the beginning and the end of it all.'
He didn't need to chase after him to know where his younger self, Elio, had gone. He would wander the streets of Gotham and then return to the orphanage alone in the night wind, as if nothing had happened.
Nothing had happened. He had not stubbornly explored the cause of his parents' death, nor had he despairingly learned that they were bank robbers who died on the way to escape. Nor had he sworn in tears under the dark night of Gotham that he would never become like them.
Never be a criminal.
"Yet you still chose this path." The Ring sighed with regret.
It thought this would hit Elio hard.
Isn't it? After all, he has embarked on a well-worn path, wandering in the shadows behind the law, not understood, not believed. He tries to do good, but the sins of the past will always follow him. He will never be a good person, unable to resist the fate imposed on him, nor can he freely choose the path he wants to take.
Behind the mask, Smith suddenly laughed silently.
The Ring's coaxing ceased abruptly. 'What are you laughing at?' it asked suspiciously.
"I should thank you for sending me back ten years, back to the past I least want to face." Smith said lightly, "Oh, the past I least want to face after what happened in the hospital. Because I suddenly found that there were some holes behind this story - and I was too young and too excited to find those superficial holes."
'What?' asked the Ring, bewildered.
The diner, who knew nothing about the conversation, sat there without moving. He took a sip of coffee slowly, but when he put down his mug, he found Smith still sitting there, staring at him quietly.
The diner raised an eyebrow, "I thought you were with those two kids."
"I am," Smith said, "so I have some questions for you."
They looked at each other.
The owner behind the counter tapped away on her calculator with one hand and scribbled in her notebook with the other, preparing for this sudden disaster. Since she hadn't driven away the diners and Smith who had stayed, she wasn't in a hurry to close the shop tonight. There wasn't a "door" to close anyway. She would only sigh occasionally and glance at the two men still sitting by the window with a puzzled look, wondering why the atmosphere between them seemed so tense.
Of course she could see it. She was in business, and recognizing other people's emotions was one of the most important lessons. Even if she didn't necessarily understand it herself, she was certainly smart. That was one of the reasons she didn't rush to ask them to leave, because she was keenly aware that the atmosphere between them was subtly shifting, gradually transitioning to...
The situation is tense.
"Listen, you faceless brat," the diner suddenly laughed and knocked loudly on the table. "Don't think that just because I answered that poor kid's question, I'll answer yours. I'm not a professional storyteller, you understand? Now I'm going home to bed, and you'd better do what you should do and stay out of this business."
He took out a cigarette, lit it, and put it in his mouth. Smith did not stop him. The diner took a deep breath and blew out a comfortable smoke ring. He stood up and brushed off the dust on his clothes. Small pieces of glass fell down. The diner turned his head away without paying much attention, and finally said to Smith, "I will keep an eye on you. After dawn, I hope the welfare home will cancel the missing child alarm."
Smith sat there, looking at him. The diner raised two fingers, pointed at his eyes, and then pointed at Smith condescendingly, quite vividly interpreting what he had just said, "staring at you." But just as he was about to turn and leave, he heard a slow voice behind him.
"I'm still wondering why he happened to meet the witness from back then as soon as he got here," Smith tapped the table thoughtfully. "And that witness was so kind-hearted that he was willing to tell him about what happened back then. It was all such a coincidence, even for a ten-year-old, it was all just the right coincidence."
The diners stopped.
"He didn't realize it, but I did," Smith said. "You weren't looking at me. You were looking at him."
The diner's back remained motionless. Smith carefully observed his reaction, then slowly reached into his clothes and grabbed the gun hidden there.
"Or rather, you're looking at the kid who survived the car accident," Smith said.
The diner's back finally moved. But he didn't attack. He just slowly turned his head, his eyes in the shadows looking over the smoke over his shoulder at Smith.
"I have to say, your story is quite compelling," Smith said, also looking at him. "It's enough to fool a ten-year-old, especially when he's incredibly emotional. You'll achieve your goal, if your goal is to stop him from pursuing the case. Even if he continues his investigation and finds the two bodies dragged from the car after the explosion charred beyond recognition, he'll simply follow your lead and think his parents absconded with the money and abandoned him as a burden."
"You have a very vivid imagination," the diner murmured.
"Your story has holes," Smith said. "If you were sitting right there when the glass wall shattered, you'd inevitably be hit by the shards, not to mention the explosion that followed. Unless you reacted incredibly quickly, realizing what was happening the moment the car hit, you'd have fled the restaurant without being drawn in by the scattered banknotes."
"You're absolutely right. I'm the type who stays calm in times of crisis and isn't greedy for money at all." The diner turned around and tilted his head. "I realized the car might explode, so I ran as far away as possible and avoided it. What's the problem?"
"How did you realize the car was going to explode?" Smith asked.
"Its tank is leaking," the diner said immediately, "and it's smoking."
"So you not only smelled it, you saw it, too," Smith said. "Can I ask exactly when you left the fast food restaurant? Because according to you, you realized what was going to happen the moment the car hit you and ran away from the fast food restaurant. You not only avoided the broken glass, but also the explosion of the car, but you—"
The diner interrupted him, "That's what I heard."
Smith looked at him and raised his eyebrows meaningfully.
"I hid under the table immediately after the car crashed into the window," the diner said, pretending not to understand his look. "I blocked the shattered glass. Then, while everyone was picking up the money, I slipped into the kitchen and escaped through their back door. I heard the details about the explosion from others. Do you have any questions?"
"No," Smith said with a smile, "except for a bit of data that's not very useful. You see, when a car hits a window, the shards fly out at about 20 to 30 miles per hour, which is the speed limit on the road outside. You can dodge those shards of glass while eating a chicken sandwich in a cramped booth—Elio just scraped his thigh when he stood up suddenly—as if you were dodging a car coming straight at you. I have to say, that's pretty fast reaction time."
"I'm gifted."
"Besides, the time lag between a vehicle starting to leak oil and exploding is usually ten to thirty seconds," Smith said. "If you said you fled after noticing it was leaking oil, I might believe you. But you just said money was flying all over the back seat of the car, and there was a scramble to get there. With everyone rushing towards you, it would be difficult to get away and escape on your own in those ten to thirty seconds."
The diner changed his stance, put his hands in his pockets, and replied in a very arrogant manner, "I am gifted."
"Of course, you can claim that," Smith looked at him. "But honestly, you heard a baby crying in the car and realized it was going to explode. In that situation, not only did you not care for the endangered baby, nor did you alert the crowd snatching money, but you fled alone. This can probably be considered a kind of innate selfishness."
The diner tilted his head. "I told you."
"But from what I've observed, you're actually a very empathetic person." Smith changed the subject. "You wanted to smoke just now, but because there were minors present, you held back. And you were very patient with Elio. You knew the orphanage had called the police because he was missing, so you warned me to get him home before dawn."
"I've come back from my mistakes," the diner said. "What's wrong? Can't we allow others to suddenly develop a conscience after encountering certain things?"
"Of course you can." Smith shrugged and leaned back. "Elio will believe your flawed story. After all, he's only ten years old, and what you're telling is indeed the 'story' that really happened back then. Even if he asks the boss, he'll only get a roughly correct story."
The diner rolled his eyes. "So what exactly are you asking?"
"The money flying out of the back seat is real," Smith said slowly, "the broken glass and the explosion of the car are real, the rescued baby and the carbonized body are real. The only thing I can't understand is that you don't have any injuries on your body."
"I told you, I'm gifted."
"No, I'm not talking about the car accident that year," Smith said. "I'm talking about the car accident that just happened."
The diner fell silent. He slowly blew out a smoke ring and stared at Smith through the gray-white cloud.
"When another little boy asked a question just now," Smith looked at him, "you answered his question in the affirmative. Whether it was today or eight years ago, you were sitting in this position."
"So what? I'm a nostalgic guy."
"You might not have noticed," Smith knocked on the table, "but after the explosion, the boss briefly cleaned up the scattered glass shards, but he didn't clean it up thoroughly. There's still some left on the chair, and you brushed it off when you stood up just now."
"So what's the problem?"
"The placement is wrong," Smith said. "If you were sitting there from the beginning, the glass would have been in front of you, not behind you. It looks more like it got there after you sat down, which means you arrived after all this happened."
The ceiling lightbulb flickered suddenly. The light shining on the diner's face also flickered. He held the cigarette in his hand, not bringing it to his lips. As the smoke cleared from his face, his previously nonchalant expression finally turned serious.
As he looked carefully at her, Smith made the final decision, "You are here for Elio."
With a thud.
Then came the second, the third, and finally the sixth. Gotham's bell tower began to ring. The resounding sound spread across the city like ripples rapidly spreading across the water.
Daybreak arrived. Faint light, from the edge of dawn, peeked into the small Paulie's fast-food restaurant where Smith and his diners were, illuminating their faces. Smith sat in a booth, his head tilted slightly upward, his hands tucked into his shirt, staring intently at the diners standing nearby.
The unnamed diner was also bending over, putting his hands on the table, staring at Smith with his eyes close.
"Take off your mask," he whispered, "and let's find another place to have a good 'chat' about this."
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Author's comment: P.S. Tim also discovered what Elio discovered ten years later, but instead of asking about the follow-up, he chose to take care of the sad child Oreo who ran away.jpg
PS: I was going to wish Oreo a happy Children's Day today, but somehow I haven't gotten around to that yet... Anyway, since I'm here, I wish Oreo and Tibo a happy Children's Day! (Oreo: Do I look happy?)
PS: This article has returned to being updated every other day... (daily updates are really too difficult [crack])... so I will try to write as much as possible at one time! [Poor][Poor][Poor]
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