Qiming Chapter 91

Chapter 91

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Midnight, there was no light, no lamps, only the long, endless night.

The wind swept across mountains and rivers, carrying the scent of blood. He stood on the rooftop of the laboratory, clutching his laptop, backing up step by step. Looking up, there were no stars, only the overwhelming light pollution, but if he stared long enough, he could vaguely make out a lonely, dim star.

Several shadowy figures emerged from the darkness, approaching step by step. He tightened his grip on the dagger, the blade pointing forward, catching the starlight.

After a long pause, Lu Yong stepped out from the unlit darkness, his face displaying nothing but indifference and pity.

"Chengyue, can we sit down and talk this through?"

"No."

"You don’t have to do this." Lu Yong sighed, "If you just restore the original version of the AI detective, we can still be teacher and student, even father and son, I can treat you as my own child."

"Father and son?" He let out a cold laugh and continued to step back, the laptop hovering over the edge, ready to fall and shatter with just the release of his hand.

"You’ve modified all the versions, and I don’t know what changes you’ve made," Lu Yong continued, "Your time is limited, and the alterations are just minor, inconsequential details, the modified version can still be used."

"But in the end, I prefer perfection."

"You like the perfect AI detective too, don’t you? Can you bear to let it be tarnished with flaws like this?"

Lu Yong stared at the laptop in his hands.

He also preferred perfection, that was why he had kept the final flawless version.

– It was stored in the laptop he was holding.

But he neither wanted to, nor could, hand it over to Lu Yong. He had nowhere left to turn, he had to destroy it, forcing them to use the flawed AI detective. That way, he still had a chance to turn the tables, to give himself a slim hope of bringing the guilty to justice in court.

That small flaw was the only opportunity he could seize, the trap he had planted for them.

He placed the laptop on the edge of the rooftop and gently stretched out his hands.

Then, with a violent kick, he sent it plummeting off the top of the building. The laptop hit the hard concrete below, shattering into fragments as it spun in the air.

Bang–

In that moment, it felt as if something inside him had shattered as well.

The wind came from afar, sweeping across mountains and rivers, ushering in the morning star.

Finally, the trap he had planted would explode, revealing the blood-stained truth of their crimes.

—————

It was snowing.

This was the first snow of the winter, light and barely reaching the ground before it turned into vapour, bringing with it a piercingly damp cold. Gu Yunfeng was tidying up his messy closet, trying to find his down jacket that had gone missing for almost a year.

Although the closet was chaotic, there wasn’t much inside. It didn’t take long for him to realise that he had thrown the jacket out, leaving only a few coats hanging on the rack, which would have to suffice to keep him from freezing.

He bent down and pulled open a drawer, searching for a pair of thicker socks. Amidst a pile of brightly coloured socks, he found a bottle of medicine with its label torn off. The bottle was vaguely familiar. About a month ago, when they were in Sichuan chasing after Fang Xing, it had fallen out of Xu Chengyue’s backpack. Back then, the label had detailed the effects, though Gu Yunfeng couldn’t recall exactly what they were. He vaguely remembered it had something to do with the artificial nerves in his brain.

A month later, the bottle still hadn’t been opened. As he brought it closer, he could smell a sharp, pungent odour. The label was completely torn off, and the instruction leaflet was nowhere to be found. Gu Yunfeng held the bottle in his hand, examined it for a while, then stood up and walked to the living room.

Xu Chengyue was sitting on the sofa. He was no longer addicted to mobile games but had instead developed a love for online novels. According to him, he had died too many times in the life simulation game he had been playing. He thought his fate was too tragic, every attempt to defy destiny ended in failure, his family would either fall into ruin, or he would die with his eyes closed in frustration. So, he quit the game and switched to reading cultivation novels instead.

This was something Gu Yunfeng had never expected. The once aloof and unworldly Professor Xu, who seemed above earthly pleasures, was now engrossed in all sorts of mundane entertainment. On the TV, a period mythological drama played, while Xu Chengyue sat cross-legged, intently reading a novel, his eyes darting quickly across the lines. Occasionally, he even glanced up to watch the television.

How did he become like this...

Was he really using his extraordinary intelligence to waste time indulging in such leisurely activities? He was just one step away from embodying the perfect otaku lifestyle, only missing a bag of chips and a can of soda beside him.

Gu Yunfeng sighed, feeling as though he had corrupted the nation’s pillar of hope for humanity. In desperation, he took out a bottle of medicine and placed it on the table. As Xu Chengyue looked up at him, Gu Yunfeng pretended to casually tear open the packaging. Upon seeing the unfamiliar pills, he exclaimed in shock, "Whose medicine is this? I almost thought it was my own cold medicine and nearly took it."

"It's mine." Xu Chengyue set down his Kindle, a flicker of panic flashing in his eyes before he calmly stood up, walked over, picked up the opened bottle, closed the cap, and put it in his pocket.

"What kind of medicine is it?" Gu Yunfeng asked with concern, "I don't think you've mentioned it before."

"Are you feeling unwell?"

"No, it’s just that I haven’t been sleeping well lately, always dreaming. It's just to help calm my nerves." As soon as he said that, Gu Yunfeng’s hand covered his forehead. The warmth of his palm touched the cold skin, the sensation seeping through Xu Chengyue’s veins, circulating with his blood and flowing back into his heart.

“If you can’t sleep, just tell me, don’t take medicine,” Gu Yunfeng said. “I can chat with you, or play games if you want.”

Xu Chengyue nodded, then looked out at the world that was gradually turning white through the window, "It's snowing."

"Yeah, the snow came early this year." The temperature was getting lower and lower. After wiping off the fog on the window glass, the long street was covered with a thin layer of white.

“Director Zhao called this morning, saying the investigation into Zhiyin Biotech has been formally filed.” Gu Yunfeng opened the window for ventilation. It should have been good news, but he wasn’t happy at all.

Standing in the relatively mild cold wind, he gazed at the city, now washed clean. For some reason, the city he had lived in for twenty-six years seemed silent for the first time. It was as if the snow was washing away all the filth and noise, leaving the city wordless, watching the quiet, bowed heads of the people below, and peeking into the anxiety brewing in their hearts.

—————

“Look, what kind of medicine is this?” Gu Yunfeng placed two red pills, which he had secretly pocketed, in front of Ying Xizi. Xu Chengyue had gone to class, so Gu Yunfeng had snuck over to the university hospital. Fortunately, there were no patients at that time, so he pulled out a chair and sat down directly across from Ying Xizi.

Although she was working at the university hospital, Ying Xizi looked utterly drained. Her eyelids were dark and swollen, her face haggard. She listlessly picked up the two pills, looked at them, and then brought them to the tip of her nose and sniffed them.

“Never seen or smelled these before,” she shook her head, rubbing her tired cheeks, “Forgive my ignorance.”

It had been nearly a week since Ying Han had been taken away. They said it was for an investigation, but she hadn’t seen her father since. All her life, Ying Xizi had led a smooth and easy existence. Her family was well off, and she had never faced any major disasters. She didn't work hard, but she lived comfortably. The most severe thing she had ever experienced was Xu Chengyue’s accident last year, she didn’t understand true hardship.

But now, things are different. Over the past few days, she had been imagining the consequences of Ying Han being imprisoned. She pictured him standing in court, being accused, berated, stripped of everything, and wholly condemned. The overwhelming fear gnawed at her nerves, leaving her sleepless day and night.

“This medicine belongs to Chengyue. He's never taken it, but he keeps it with him carefully.” Gu Yunfeng hesitated before telling her the situation with the pills in detail.

“I don’t know where it came from, but it doesn’t seem like ordinary medicine, and I’m concerned about it.”

“No logo or packaging?”

“There was packaging before, with a description of the effects.” He interlocked his fingers and leaned his arms on the table, trying hard to recall what he had seen a month ago, but he couldn’t remember anything.

"Unfortunately, I’ve forgotten."

Ying Xizi sighed. "I can’t do much... I’ll keep the medicine and ask a few classmates to help analyse its composition for you."

From time to time, colleagues in white lab coats walked past her, casting curious glances at the unfamiliar face.

Outside the clinic, the snowstorm had stopped, leaving a layer of snow on the ground. A number of students were gathered on the playground, reminiscing about their childhoods and having snowball fights. Watching their innocent and youthful faces, she suddenly felt a deep sense of envy.

"Captain Gu, want to go outside and build a snowman?"

"Now?"

She nodded, her gaze piercing through the window, as if seeing herself from a few years ago, from over ten years ago, or even twenty years ago.

Back then, Ying Han wasn’t as busy with work, and he would accompany her, still a young child, to build snowmen. She didn’t understand much or know how to do anything, but playing with her family brought her immense joy.

This snow seemed heavy, but the temperature wasn’t too low, so there wasn’t much snow that had accumulated. She crouched down and tried rolling snowballs for a long time, but didn’t manage to build anything. All she could do was watch as the snowball in her hands grew smaller and smaller, eventually melting into water that trickled down into the snow.

"How’s my dad... doing these days?" she asked as she rubbed her hands, which were red from the cold.

"Not bad, they aren't giving him a hard time."

"My mom has been in touch with some acquaintances she knows in the public prosecutor's office recently, I’ve told her it’s useless and that she should find a reliable lawyer instead." She looked up at the pale blue sky, watching it merge with the white world below, without any clear boundary.

"It feels like all of a sudden my world has turned upside down."

"At first, I never imagined it would involve me. These days I keep thinking, if I hadn’t asked you to handle this, would things have turned out differently? If the involvement of Ruihe Hospital had never been discovered, could my life have carried on peacefully, like before?"

She stood up, stomping and shaking the snow off her clothes and boots. Neither of them had managed to roll a proper snowball, only leaving behind a patchwork of footprints and scattered snow.

"How could that be? What happened has already happened, it was bound to be discovered sooner or later."

"Yeah, it was bound to be discovered sooner or later." She repeated, kicking at the half-formed snowballs scattered on the ground, her face full of worry. "Then will everyone eventually find out about Chengyue’s involvement in all of this?"

Her heart suddenly skipped a few beats before pounding wildly.

"I won’t let anyone know." Gu Yunfeng wasn’t entirely sure of his own words as he spoke them. The cold wind hit him, causing him to cough violently as he wrapped his coat tighter around him.

"But it's not up to you or me." Ying Xizi lowered her head in resignation, her long, silky hair falling over her shoulders. It was as if she had transformed from a carefree princess into an unlucky person cursed by fate.

She took out her phone and played a piece of news, then turned the screen towards Gu Yunfeng, enlarging it for him to see.

"News from ten minutes ago, Zhiyin Biotech held a shareholders' meeting and reshuffled the senior management team."

"Who did they add?" He blurted out the question subconsciously. He didn’t need to think much to guess that after removing Fang Xing, they would appoint a new executive, and it quite possibly could be someone they both knew.

"A woman named Lin Xiangrong." She looked at Gu Yunfeng in surprise. "Do you know her?"

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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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: September 17, 2024 by Angel

Edited: December 19, 2024 by Angel