Qiming Chapter 70

Chapter 70

---

At eight o'clock in the morning, she got up on time. By nine, she had finished breakfast and headed to the classroom for her classes. If she didn't have any classes, she would go to the library for self-study.

From Tuesday to Friday afternoons, she would go to Zhiyin Technology, ten kilometres away from the school, for an internship as a content editor.

On weekends, she would travel between several high-end residential areas, tutoring middle school students.

"So, Professor Xu, if you want to find Qiu Lu, it's best to do so on Monday afternoons. But according to her roommates, she goes off campus every Monday afternoon without saying where she's going or what she's doing." The counsellor stood in front of the Mathematics Department office building, holding several bouquets of flowers, and handed a bunch of lilies to Xu Chengyue. "Happy Teacher's Day."

"She's packed her schedule so tightly, can she manage it?" He accepted the flowers and brought them to his nose for a sniff.

"She's a very hard-working student. Her family's financial situation is average, and she has a student loan."

He glanced at the time. It was Monday, and Qiu Lu's class would finish in twenty minutes. He planned to wait for her in the classroom and see where she went off-campus on Monday afternoons.

"Professor Xu, why are you looking for her?" The counsellor, a man in his late twenties with a round face and black-framed glasses, asked curiously, his small eyes almost hidden.

"Oh, she's been failing to turn in her homework for one of her courses recently, I need to talk to her about it."

The counsellor looked surprised, frowning as he asked, "But she didn't enrol in your course, did she?"

The two stood there in silence for nearly a minute.

"Ahem, she didn't?" He pretended to be bothered by the flower's fragrance and waved the bouquet, saying, "Did I remember wrong?"

"Maybe I really remembered it wrong." Before the other person could respond, he repeated it and quickly left the office building, ignoring the counsellor's suspicious squint. He walked towards the school building where Qiu Lu was attending class. Dressed in a plain grey shirt, he kept his head down to blend into the crowd. Bicycles whizzed past, their wheels drowning out the surrounding noise.

As he walked, he called Gu Yunfeng. "I'll follow Qiu Lu this afternoon and see where she plans to go."

"I'll find some people to go with you."

"No need." He rejected the offer flatly. "Too many people will attract attention."

"Then be careful."

Xu Chengyue nodded, saying that there definitely wouldn't be any problems.

On the other end, Gu Yunfeng was in his office, frantically flipping through case files. Hearing what he said, he didn't think much of it and quickly ended the call. Although Qiu Lu had the opportunity to kill the three victims based on the timing, she was, after all, just a university student in his eyes, with no apparent motive. Xu Chengyue following her in broad daylight shouldn't pose any danger.

At seven in the morning, he received a call from Ying Xizi. After what happened yesterday, she had spent the entire night searching through boxes and cupboards, and finally found a check-up report from last year in Ying Han's safe.

"How did you open your father's safe?" He asked in exasperation.

"I took his key."

"I know, I'm asking how you got the key."

"I took it while he was sleeping, simple as that." Ying Xizi answered candidly, without any regard for the irritation it caused Gu Yunfeng.

So, she had tricked him just to deal with her parents' pressure to get married? All that talk about not stealing and not opening safes was just an excuse. She had no idea how many explanations he had to give last night to smooth things over.

"I've sent you the report, just take a look."

He opened the report she emailed, which included the critical condition notice issued when Xu Chengyue was admitted to the hospital after his fall a year ago. There were also some diagnostic results he couldn't quite understand. The reports were sent in a jumbled mess, with a haphazard order, so he had to print them out, organise them properly, and carefully review each one.

"Yesterday, I told my dad that being a police officer is really dangerous, that you could get injured or die in the line of duty if you're not careful."

"And?"

"He didn't say anything, so I guess he won't be pushing me to get married anytime soon." Ying Xizi sighed, her voice full of frustration. She felt that her heartbreak was rather unique, she had secretly admired someone, been rivals in love with everyone, and in the end, discovered that she was the unnecessary one.

What a special experience, it probably wouldn't happen again in her lifetime.

"No, you need to tell me, these reports... what's the conclusion?" Gu Yunfeng pressed his temples, feeling a headache coming on as he looked at the pile of documents.

"They say that Chengyue resumed breathing within twenty-four hours of brain death and was resuscitated."

"Isn't that what we already know?" Gu Yunfeng asked.

"Yes, that's right." Ying Xizi was also puzzled and nodded in agreement.

"Then why did your dad hide these reports? What's there to cover up?"

"You're asking me? I don't know either." Ying Xizi replied sincerely. She found it odd as well, the report wasn't much different from the medical records stored in the hospital's archives, so why would it be hidden?

—————

After class, Qiu Lu slung her backpack over her shoulder and walked straight out of the classroom. She cautiously glanced around, and seeing no one paying attention, she pulled out a black mask from her bag, calmly put it on, and let her black hair down from its ponytail.

In an instant, she looked like a different person.

With people bustling around her, Xu Chengyue followed her from about five metres away as she walked out of the school gates and into the subway. He deliberately removed his glasses and held a book in his hand, pretending to be a student waiting for the subway.

He then boarded the train with her, heading towards the northern part of the city.

Half an hour later, they emerged from the subway station into an overcast sky, and soon after, it began to drizzle. Xu Chengyue bought a dark-coloured umbrella from a street vendor, using it to shield his face as much as he could as he continued to follow Qiu Lu, who was carrying a small backpack.

They had left the city centre and were now in the northern outskirts of Nanpu City. The area was mostly industrial parks and office buildings, with few residential buildings. The streets were sparsely populated, but there were many side roads, forcing him to close the distance between them to avoid losing her.

The girl in front continued to zigzag through the streets, frequently glancing down at her phone. When she reached a traffic light intersection, she suddenly turned around, scanning her surroundings cautiously. Seeing no one around, it seemed she was confident she wasn't being followed.

At that moment, Xu Chengyue had just rounded a corner next to a building. The rain had stopped, and as he closed his umbrella, he paused for a few seconds, the line of sight was blocked by the tall buildings.

That was likely why he wasn't discovered.

Why was Qiu Lu in this area? He had to widen the gap between them to over ten metres as he opened his phone's map to check the nearby buildings.

Finally, within a five-hundred-metre radius, he spotted the words "Ronghua Biotech."

When he stopped, he looked up and saw the company's logo. Twenty metres ahead, Qiu Lu took out a key, quietly unlocked the door, and entered the industrial park. In the blink of an eye, she had vanished.

Why did Qiu Lu come to Ronghua Biotech's old facility? Was she meeting someone here?

Xu Chengyue circled the entrance of the park several times. Qiu Lu had relocked the door behind her, so the only way in was to climb over the wall. He realised that he had never actually climbed a wall before. Usually, in situations like this, Gu Yunfeng would handle it, picking a lock or breaking down a door with ease. But since he had declined Gu Yunfeng's offer to send someone along, he had to solve this small problem himself.

So, he found some bricks and stacked them up. After stepping back ten metres, he sprinted forward, stepping on the wobbly pile of bricks about thirty centimetres high, and using his left foot to propel himself up, he grabbed onto the red-tiled wall and nimbly climbed over the fence.

Then, with his heart in his mouth, he closed his eyes and jumped into the soft grass below.

Inside the park were two modern buildings from twenty years ago, their walls covered in green vines. Due to the investigation into Ronghua Biotech, all the doors were tightly shut, and the place had ceased normal operations.

Xu Chengyue stood at the base of the building, looking up at a window on the sixth floor that wasn't fully closed. There was a pot of devil's ivy on the windowsill, which, from lack of care, had grown down the wall to the fifth floor.

He glanced up at the heavy clouds. Though the rain had stopped, the air was stifling, filled with the overwhelming scent of osmanthus flowers, making it hard to breathe.

Qiu Lu had already disappeared into one of the two buildings. He had no idea which room she had gone to. With the place shut down, what was she doing here?

Almost as if guided by some unseen force, he walked into the building in front of him, shivering as he stepped inside.

The dark lobby, the damp stairs, the mosaic-patterned floor tiles, and the two nutcracker statues symmetrically placed by the elevator.

He had been here before. Maybe he had actually been here, or perhaps it was just a place that had appeared in one of his strange, vivid dreams.

Suddenly, he remembered a news report he had seen earlier about Ronghua Biotech's new product launch. The accompanying photo had been taken in one of Ronghua's offices. The desk in the photo almost filled the entire frame, with Jiang Yang sitting behind it, wearing a suit and an unsettling, greasy smile. In the corner to his left was a red velvet box with a red ribbon bow.

Xu Chengyue had been searching for the office from that news report. He needed to know to whom that red velvet box belonged and if it was the same one from his memory. In the photo, the place where Jiang Yang was seated had a south-facing window behind him, and there was a microscope on the desk, which seemed more like a decorative model than a real one. About a metre to the left of the desk was a wall with a clock hanging on it, showing the time as three in the afternoon, just as the sun was setting.

He checked his watch. It was exactly three o'clock. The news interview had been in May, and now it was September, so in just a few minutes, the sun would be at the same height again.

The same room, its decorations might change, curtains might be replaced, even the doors and windows could be altered in a day.

But the position remained unchanged. The sun's height was constant, and the shadows it cast never changed.

When he reached the third floor, he pushed open a half-closed door. On the wall hung a calligraphy piece, and the floor was covered with a red carpet. In the middle of the desk were several open books.

Looking up, he saw the sun emerging from behind the clouds, its rays breaking through and aligning perfectly with the sun in the news photo.

But soon, a heavy sense of oppression filled the room.

There was someone else in this seemingly empty office!

He glanced around and saw, directly opposite him, a person sitting with their back to him in a large chair, almost completely shrouded in the shadow cast by the backlight.

"This office belongs to Jiang Yang." The chair swivelled to face Xu Chengyue, and the person pulled a book from the bookshelf titled The Therapeutic Effects of Artificial Neural Systems on Parkinson's Patients.

"We meet again, Professor Xu." Lin Xiangrong appeared as elegant and composed as ever, her long hair curled at the tips. She was dressed in tailored trousers, a shirt, and black flats.

She smiled at him as if greeting an old friend.

—————

"Miss Lin," Xu Chengyue greeted her politely, his right hand trembling as he turned on his phone's recording feature. His back was drenched in sweat, but he maintained his feigned composure and stood opposite her. "Have you seen a female student with long hair and a black mask?"

"You mean Qiu Lu." She casually spun her chair, her hands resting on the armrests. After a few seconds, she slowly lifted her head, her gaze drifting over Xu Chengyue's shoulder and fixing on something behind him.

"She's standing right behind you."

A wave of fear inexplicably washed over him, and for a moment, he didn't react. He stood there dumbfounded until Lin Xiangrong pointed to the door behind him, prompting him to instinctively turn around and step back.

The girl with the black mask stood in front of him, her eyes filled with murderous intent. She reached out and shoved Xu Chengyue, slamming the door shut without hesitation.

He rushed to the door, braced his elbow against the wall, and twisted the doorknob with all his might. But the sound of the door being locked from outside echoed in his ears. Taking a few steps back, he kicked the door handle forcefully, nearly despairing as he stared at the unmoving iron door.

"What are you trying to do?" Xu Chengyue lowered his voice, moving closer to the desk, his eyes red with frustration as he questioned Lin Xiangrong.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you." Lin Xiangrong stood up and approached him, calmly reaching into his pocket to retrieve the recording phone.

"Recording? It's useless to record it. I'll help you delete it in two hours." Her eyes curved into a crescent moon as she smiled.

She waved the phone in front of Xu Chengyue before placing it back in his pocket.

"I just wanted to have a private chat with you, after all, we were quite close once."

"Once?"

"Yeah, before your surgery. Back then, you hadn't forgotten me." She playfully pinched Xu Chengyue's cheek as she sat on the desk with a slight leap.

He immediately pulled away, frowning.

"Wang Kun has already confessed." He sat in the chair opposite her, lying deliberately. "He said that when he and Jiang Yang entered the villa, the others were already dead. He killed Jiang Yang, and Qiu Lu killed the other three."

He wanted to see how Lin Xiangrong would react. If she were involved, she might show fear, panic, or outright denial.

But reality disappointed him.

"He hasn't confessed," Lin Xiangrong replied with a nonchalant smile. "But your deduction is correct, and I don't mind you knowing. You're probably wondering why Qiu Lu would kill them, right?"

"Yes, I'm very curious."

"Because..." She paused for a few seconds, then retrieved a lighter from the desk. In the flickering flame, she quietly lit a white cigarette.

"Of course, it's because of you, Professor Xu."

Amidst the swirling smoke, she smiled with a surprising ease, returning the lighter to the drawer and holding the slender cigarette between her fingers, the smoke subtly veiling the fine lines at the corners of her eyes.

"We're not talking about the Jiang family case today, it's pretty much as you suspected. Let's talk about your story instead, you must be eager to hear it." Her long fingers rhythmically tapped the desk, creating an overwhelming sense of pressure.

"I don't have much of a story, and I'm not interested."

"Don't be so contradictory, it's not good." Lin Xiangrong seemed a little disappointed as she continued, "Even if you pretend not to be interested, I still have to tell you the cause and effect so you'll understand that we've always been in the same boat."

Without waiting for Xu Chengyue to refute, she pressed on.

"That year, after you fell from the building, you were severely injured, brain-dead, with no spontaneous breathing. To keep you alive, Lu Yong sought me out, and under my direction, we performed a groundbreaking surgery on you."

"This was supposed to be top-secret, but somehow Jiang Yang found out about it and told the rest of the family." Lin Xiangrong shrugged helplessly. "There was no other way, they had to go to another world."

Her casual tone made it seem like she was talking about something trivial, as if the innocent victims were nothing more than insignificant ants in a vast world.

Seeing the anger in Xu Chengyue's eyes, Lin Xiangrong quickly waved her hands. "Professor Xu, don't look at me like that. I wasn't the one who ordered their deaths, I'm not that cruel."

"Heh." He sneered, "Then who did? God?" The moment she mentioned that they were in the same boat, Xu Chengyue felt his reason slipping away. Her every word, every move, exuded extreme disdain and contempt. In her eyes, he seemed like nothing more than a puppet, easily manipulated.

"Professor Xu." Instead of answering his question, she looked at him gently and asked a seemingly unrelated question: "How's that AI detective project in your lab coming along?"

"It's going fine, no need to worry."

"Sometimes, I often wonder where I came from, why I live, and why everyone has a unique soul and consciousness." She kept jumping topics, turning to gaze out at the setting sun, vibrant and brilliant.

"Professor Xu, do you ever think about these trivial questions?"

Suppressing his anger and frustration, he forced a smile and wiped the sweat from his hands and forehead. "No, I only think about who ordered the killings of the entire Jiang family."

"Then you are really slow." Lin Xiangrong's sharp eyes met his, unflinchingly, and she quickly returned to her rhythm.

"That AI detective project of yours started years ago. From what I know, it was basically complete by last May."

"In fact, I don't understand much about artificial intelligence. But at the time, Lu Yong explained that after the system was built, you needed to train the AI detective with a large number of samples, so it could learn, self-train, and ultimately possess the most accurate judgement capabilities."

"That's when I first grasped the concept of artificial intelligence." She jumped off the desk and walked to Xu Chengyue's side, leaning close to his ear as she whispered, "This year, they suddenly sent you to the frontline criminal investigation team, to crime scenes, do you know why?"

The last rays of sunlight slipped through the gap in the curtains, as the moon rose in the west, and a particularly bright star illuminated the darkening sky.

Why? A wave of confusion swept over him.

Lin Xiangrong's every word seeped into his body like venom, eroding his past perceptions and judgments. Her gentle voice was like a sharp dagger, its poisoned blade aimed directly at his heart.

"Xu Chengyue," She called his name.

The soft voice became deafening, each word infinitely amplified in his mind–

"Haven't you realised? You are the AI detective."

You are the one who has been trained.

—————

The author has something to say:

Tomorrow is the last chapter of the second volume, and the day after tomorrow will start the third volume, happy National Day everyone!

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

Previous Chapter | TOC | Next Chapter

Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: August 24, 2024 by Angel

Edited: November 14, 2024 by Angel