The Evil White Nightmare (16)

Under Lu He's gaze, Shen Xiangming sent Meng Siqi to the fifth floor and repeatedly urged her to come down to eat after taking a shower.

After Meng Siqi entered the house, the first thing she did was to go to the window to collect the clothes. She knew that the clothes were already wet, and it was windy outside, so she was worried that they would be blown away.

She pushed open the window that was tightened by the wind and reached out to the clothes rack to hook up the clothes.

"Siqi, is this vest yours?" Shen Xiangming's voice came from the window downstairs. His voice was so loud that it was estimated that the whole building could hear it.

Meng Siqi usually doesn't hang her underwear out to dry, but the small vest is actually a sweatshirt, which can be considered as underwear. She immediately blushed and didn't reply.

After Shen Xiangming stuck his head out and asked again, Meng Siqi had no choice but to reply, "Yes, I'll come down and get it later."

"Okay, I'll keep it for you first."

This building is quite old, and the windows are not well soundproofed. She guessed that Lu He on the third floor could also hear it clearly. But it was not a big deal. She pushed the door open and went downstairs, knocking on Shen Xiangming's door. Seeing her coming down so quickly, Shen Xiangming gave her a few more instructions, telling her to take a shower quickly, otherwise she would catch a cold.

Meng Siqi went back to boil some hot water, took a shower, changed her clothes, put on a white shirt, blew her hair dry, put on a coat, and changed into sneakers. After making sure she was looking more formal, she prepared to go downstairs. She had just washed half of the clothes and all she needed was clean water. Nearly forty minutes had passed, and she guessed that Shen Xiangming would be almost done by then, so it would not be a good idea for him to come up and call her in person.

She thought Lu He should have passed by, as he was a very punctual person. After knocking on the door of Room 402, Shen Xiangming's smiling face appeared. He welcomed her into the room and closed the door. He glanced at her under the light and said with a smile, "Siqi, if you were in our police academy, the boys chasing you would definitely line up across the street to the campus of the University of Science and Technology."

His praise made Meng Siqi feel embarrassed, because she knew that Shen Xiangming had pursued Liang Ran madly in the police academy. Liang Ran must be very beautiful, otherwise there wouldn't be so many "good stories" about her in the police academy.

This made Meng Siqi realize that what Zhao Leiting said might be true, and Shen Xiangming might have come to the Municipal Bureau this time with the purpose of picking targets.

Meng Siqi smiled and said, "Thank you, Captain Shen, for the compliment," and then asked, "Is Lu He in the kitchen?"

The first thing Meng Siqi did when she entered the house was to confirm whether Lu He was there. The structure of this house was exactly the same as hers. The living room was very small and could be seen through at a glance. She could hear sizzling sounds coming from the kitchen, and she guessed that Lu He was helping him in the kitchen.

"Hey, he hasn't come up yet. He just called and said he's busy with something."

Shen Xiangming was wearing an apron, looking like an elder unlike usual. His face was very kind, and even when he was looking at him and talking, his eyes were calm, unlike his usual arrogance.

Meng Siqi knew that Lu He was not idle when he came back. He must still be sorting out the case. He probably wanted to come up and eat at mealtime.

"Siqi, please help yourself to the bottles and cups on the table. I have two more dishes." Shen Xiangming said and walked towards the kitchen.

"Okay, Captain Shen."

As Shen Xiangming walked into the kitchen, he shouted back, "Don't call me Captain Shen at home. Call me Brother Ming. Everyone in the team calls me Brother Ming."

Meng Siqi pursed her lips and smiled without responding. She sat at the square table and poured herself a cup of hot water.

I had just taken a sip when there was lightning and thunder outside the window. It looked like the moderate rain was going to turn into heavy rain, and the window glass was already crackling.

After a while, Shen Xiangming brought up the first dish, which was minced meat and eggplant. The aroma was so fragrant that Meng Siqi quickly stood up and said, "Brother Ming, let me help you."

"Sit down, Siqi, you are the guest." Shen Xiangming wiped the water droplets on her table with a rag, "Just eat."

Shen Xiangming served all the dishes, five dishes and one soup, and Meng Siqi said, "Then I'll go down and call Lu He."

"Siqi, you eat first, I'll go get him." Shen Xiangming said as he took off his apron. "Needless to say, he must be busy with the case. He often forgets to eat and sleep."

He put his apron on the back of the chair, opened the door slightly, walked downstairs, glanced at the door of Room 302, turned around and shouted at the empty stairs: "Lu He, what's the matter with you? We agreed to have dinner together, and you don't give me face, right?"

Meng Siqi could clearly hear Shen Xiangming's loud voice in the room, "Lu He, what's the matter with you? We agreed to have dinner together, but you don't want to give me face, right?"

After a while, Shen Xiangming returned to the house and shook his head. "Lu He said that there was an emergency at the bureau and he had to go back. Siqi, let's eat first. I'll save a portion for him later."

Meng Siqi was a little hesitant. In fact, if Lu He didn't come to have this meal, she would definitely not come. But now that they were sitting at the table, she even picked up the chopsticks. If she put them down without any reason, their relationship would probably be strained in the future.

However, she did have to explain to Shen Xiangming today that she would not go to the provincial government. And there was one more thing. She wanted to take this opportunity to learn about Lu He's past. There were many things about Lu He that she didn't know. Why did he leave home after graduation and come to the remote Jinyang City? How could he be content to work here for his entire youth and not be transferred to the provincial government?

*

"Siqi, is this little vest yours?"

"Yes, I'll come down and get it later."

"Okay, I'll keep it for you first."

Raindrops flew in through the window, and Lu He heard their conversation as he closed the window. He clenched his fists, and the window suddenly loosened its grip. The raindrops slammed into his cheeks as the wind crackled, soaking his upper body.

The rain was getting heavier, like the sound of countless locusts flying by, eroding his eardrums.

"Lu He, what's wrong with you? We agreed to have dinner together, but you don't want to give me face, right?"

After hearing this, he was already helpless. Amidst the thunder and lightning, Lu He fell down. He crawled hard towards the bedroom, towards the wooden cabinet.

The hallucination reappeared before his eyes. He was in an endless gray environment. The ground was a wet concrete floor with many puddles. All around him was endless fog and deathly silence.

The devil appeared in front of him again. The devil's face seemed to have all burst blood vessels, with bright red strips of flesh crisscrossing across it. His face was ferocious, and his eyeballs were filled with bloody threads that looked like bloodworms, wriggling.

He opened his mouth with black teeth and smiled at her, but every time, behind his horrifying smile, there were bloody actions. He picked up a long sharp blade and slid it across the woman's face and body.

The woman was lying on a table the size of an operating table in front of him. She was already unconscious. Her clothes were torn off and the sharp blade was slowly sliding across her snow-white skin, as quick and powerful as cutting tofu.

Every time after cutting a woman's body into pieces, he would walk towards him and slit his throat with a knife.

The feeling of having his throat cut countless times made Lu He extremely disgusted. He wanted to escape. There was a door in the mist. He tried to crawl into that door countless times, but each time he was hijacked by the devil halfway and a knife was swung at his throat.

This time, the devil walked towards him in leather boots, stopped in front of him, squatted down, hooked his head with the long blade, looked into his eyes, and smiled at him horribly.

"Lu He," he said in a neurotic voice, "you will never know who I am."

Lu He wanted to swing his fist, but every time he did so, he found that his fist was just that of a five or six-year-old child.

In the fantasy world, he will never be a child who grows up. Even if he tries hard, he will never be able to see through the other person's eyes. He will never be able to walk out of this evil land, this dream.

Every time he crawled towards that door, the end result was that when he woke up, he would be in that wooden cabinet. The wooden cabinet became his umbrella for survival, but it could not help him out of the predicament.

When the devil raised the knife to his chin, he had more and more difficulty breathing. He didn't know when his symptoms started to get worse. He often experienced the pain of suffocation in his dreams, and the devil's destruction of him became more and more serious.

He had difficulty breathing and crawled backwards, trying to escape from the devil's smile and sharp blade, but he could never escape. No matter which direction he looked, his smile and the knife were in front of him.

He used his hands to push him, to push away the knife, but all he could see was blood... Suddenly, he seemed to have grasped something, a thick feeling fell into his palm, and he held it up desperately to breathe.

He was relieved a lot.

Every time he woke up from the illusion, he was sitting in the wooden cabinet with his head buried in the precious towel. That towel had been used to wipe Meng Siqi's hair and body. It seemed that there was a special smell left on it. This smell made him calm and was the only image that saved him from the devil's blade.

But the smell of the towel had already faded. Now he wanted to find her, Meng Siqi, so he crawled towards the door...

*

"Are you saying that you don't want to go to the provincial government for the time being?" At the dinner table, Shen Xiangming looked at her to confirm.

Meng Siqi lowered his eyes slightly, "I'm sorry, Captain Shen, I just came to the Municipal Bureau and I still have a lot of knowledge to learn. With my ability, I will definitely be a drag on you if I go to the Provincial Department."

Shen Xiangming said slowly, "Siqi, you are too modest. I know your ability. Whether I have heard about it or seen it with my own eyes this time, I believe that she will shine wherever she goes. However, I hope you can tell me the real reason, the real reason why you don't want to go to the provincial hall. Otherwise, I will not let it go."

"The real reason?" Meng Siqi has been thinking these past two days, why she is unwilling to leave here. In fact, the provincial department is indeed better. She later thought of many answers. There are many people here whom she is reluctant to leave, and she is unwilling to leave them.

There are also unsolved cases, such as the Ruan Mengying case and the Jia Longhui case. She believes that these cases will be solved soon. There is also the Xiang Jie case that is closely related to Sister Rong and Master. In fact, she has thought about it carefully and believes that as long as Lu He and Han Changlin are still in the Municipal Bureau, these cases should be solved sooner or later.

What did she really care about? She figured it out: it was Lu He's death.

Thirty years later, Lu He's bones appeared in the news. She went back to thirty years ago and saw Lu He alive with her own eyes. She would never let this news happen again. This is the real reason why she stayed here.

But she couldn't say it. She didn't like lying. Even in front of Shen Xiangming, she slowly said, "Captain Shen, I'm sorry, can I not say it?"

Shen Xiangming stared into her eyes silently. Her eyes were very pure. Shen Xiangming had seen many people, but this pair of eyes was too pure, like a piece of unpolished jade without any impurities. At this moment, there was a faint mist in them, as if a beautiful jade was hidden in a clear spring, which was very impressive.

"Okay, I agree," he said with a light smile, "but that doesn't mean I won't invite you again in the future."

"Thank you, Captain Shen." Meng Siqi thanked him sincerely.

"Take a few more bites. I see you haven't eaten much. Maybe the food doesn't suit your taste."

Meng Siqi hurriedly said, "Brother Ming's cooking is delicious, but I'm not that hungry today." She took another bite of eggplant and ate it slowly.

"Only if you eat well and sleep well can you solve a good case, right?"

"Yes." Meng Siqi took two more bites.

"I won't drink with you this time. Neither of us is suitable for drinking." Shen Xiangming poured her warm coconut milk.

"Brother Ming, can I ask you something?" Meng Siqi asked after putting down his chopsticks.

"Ask me."

"I heard that you and Lu He were alumni of the National Police University. What happened back then must have been very interesting."

Shen Xiangming raised his eyes, emitting a light that could see through people's hearts, and smiled: "Do you want to understand Lu He, or me?"

Meng Siqi had not expected him to ask this. When he was hesitating about how to answer, Shen Xiangming said slowly, "Since you want to hear it, then tell me. I remember it was in 1984, I think. I was the president of the Student Union of Haijiang Provincial Police University at that time, and I had supreme... idol power. At that time, I met Liang Ran and Lu He for the first time, who were just about to enter their sophomore year."

"You will never think of how beautiful Liang Ran is, and what kind of person Lu He is..."

"Actually, I didn't know they were siblings at first. It was hard to guess from their names. It was only later that I realized..."