Controlled Experiment Chapter 46

Game of Death – 21

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After locking the phone, Du Yusheng stared blankly at the screen, a strange, indescribable feeling creeping over him. Summer was hot and dry, the season when fires were most likely to break out, but it was winter now. Granted, fires weren't uncommon in winter either, but something about it stirred a sense of connection in Du Yusheng's mind. He couldn't tell if it was because he'd been on edge lately, but he kept linking everything around him back to the current case.

Du Yusheng sighed deeply.

His phone wallpaper was still a screenshot of that team commendation notice, back when the whole team had been praised. Du Yusheng barely took up any space in the photo, and blowing it up to fit as a wallpaper had made the pixels blur slightly. Ever since changing to that wallpaper, it felt like one thunderbolt after another had exploded around him. Holding the phone, Du Yusheng began wondering if maybe it was time to switch it, just to ward off the bad luck.

Lai Yao, who was walking ahead of him, looked back at Du Yusheng.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

Du Yusheng shook his head, pointed at his own head, and said with a grin, "Headache."

Only a moment ago, Du Yusheng had been dead certain he wasn't ill, but now he believed it.

"You've got medicine, right? Just give me some," Du Yusheng said.

He grinned at Li Yao as if falling ill were something to be proud of.

Li Yao scratched at his brow and turned his gaze away as though by accident.

The elevator was small, and only the two of them were inside. Usually, Du Yusheng was a chatterbox, but today, perhaps because of the fever, he'd turned unusually silent. For a moment, Li Yao could even hear Du Yusheng's laboured breathing caused by the fever. It wasn't a serious illness, but when the fever hit properly, it was deeply unpleasant. Du Yusheng's face had started to flush red, and he leaned his body against the cold metal wall of the elevator.

This is the first time Li Yao has seen Du Yusheng looking sick.

He was quiet and well-behaved, standing right behind Li Yao and staring blankly at the keyhole on Li Yao's front door.

Back in the car, he hadn't seemed this affected, Li Yao reckoned the fever must've really started to kick in now.

Du Yusheng stood dazedly in the doorway, watching as Li Yao pulled a pair of cotton slippers from the shoe cabinet. He tried to say "thanks" and parted his lips, but his throat was terribly dry.

He hadn't expected the fever to come on so quickly

Seated on the sofa, Du Yusheng reached up again to feel his forehead, but now his hand was the same temperature as his skin, so he couldn't feel a thing. He could only stare wide-eyed at Li Yao's back as the latter stood in front of the drawer, pulled out a thermometer, and handed it to him.

With the thermometer tucked under his arm, Du Yusheng pulled out his phone. He was waiting for a message from He Shen.

Du Yusheng wanted to know the story behind that photo as soon as possible.

A few minutes later, Li Yao picked up the thermometer and glanced at it.

He looked at the reading, then at Du Yusheng's flushed face.

He chuckled and said, "It's not even a serious illness, why do you look like you're on your deathbed?"

Du Yusheng gave a snort from his nose.

He pointed to his chest and said, "Heartache."

Li Yao looked at Du Yusheng's face and smiled slightly. He was genuinely curious about what could weigh so heavily on the heart of someone like Du Yusheng.

Du Yusheng sighed. The sofa in Li Yao's home was wide and spacious. Not bothering with courtesy, and seeing that Li Yao had no intention of sitting down, he simply stretched out across the entire couch, his head resting comfortably on the armrest. It was a bit too short for Du Yusheng's legs, so he bent them slightly, eyes fixed on the ceiling above.

His head had started to buzz.

A fever dulled the senses, and an illness was like a switch, flipping open all the memories you cared about.

The good, the bad, scene by scene, they replayed before his eyes.

"... Actually, it's quite shameful to admit," Du Yusheng's eyes locked on the ceiling light. "I don't even know how my dad died, and I didn't even... get to see his body."

The light above was a little too harsh, and Du Yusheng couldn't help but raise a finger to shield his eyes.

"When his car was salvaged, there was no one inside. They suspected he'd been drunk driving and crashed off an unfinished bridge, causing both him and the vehicle to sink. I stayed there with the recovery team for three whole days and nights, we pulled nearly a tonne of garbage out of that water, just not him." At this, Du Yusheng laughed bitterly. "That old car everyone mocks me for driving now is the one my dad drove before he died. I can't bear to get rid of it, I always feel like he's still there."

It was rare for Du Yusheng to speak about what was in his heart, rare for him to let out the emotions he usually buried.

Li Yao sat on the edge of the coffee table. Even though Du Yusheng wasn't looking at him, he still looked at him directly.

"There was something in that old car," Du Yusheng took a deep breath and said, "It was a note about the controlled experiment, wrapped up and wedged in a crevice. It was pure chance, but the water didn't wash it away. I saw that thing two years ago, I never imagined I'd see it again two years later, and not just one copy, either. Honestly, I've known for a long time that my dad's death wasn't an accident. When the car was recovered, the door was open. So that car went off the bridge with its door open, unless someone deliberately did it, making sure not even my dad's body was left behind. That's murder. Otherwise... I can't think of any other explanation."

Du Yusheng let out a cold laugh.

His eyes were filled with exhaustion. Though two years had passed, it still felt painfully vivid.

Li Yao stepped forward and moved into Du Yusheng's line of sight. "Sooner or later, you'll see him again."

Du Yusheng's expression suddenly softened, his eyes creasing with a faint smile.

"I checked the surveillance. At the last intersection where my dad's car appeared, I saw someone else in the footage, Zhuang Hao." Du Yusheng sat up and lifted his head slightly. Smiling bitterly at Li Yao, he went on, "I've been looking for Zhuang Hao all this time, I want to know what really happened, what exactly happened to my dad. But he's dead, or rather, missing. Li Yao, I know that you knew Zhuang Hao. Not just him, you also know Mu Bai. And sometimes I really can't work out why."

Du Yusheng's fevered, flushed face looked somewhat ridiculous, yet the words coming from his mouth were serious.

Li Yao looked into Du Yusheng's eyes and sighed slightly. Perhaps it was the fever, or perhaps it was the fog in his brain that had given Du Yusheng the courage to ask such things, and the courage to bear the answers.

Li Yao's gaze dropped to Du Yusheng's lips. They looked terribly dry. Li Yao walked over, rolled up his sleeves, poured a glass of hot water, and handed it over.

Then he leaned against the glass window of his own home, silent for a moment.

Where should I start?

Rubbing his fingers together, Li Yao said, "You started looking into me a long time ago, but I don't think you found out one thing."

Du Yusheng stared at Li Yao, holding his breath and gripping the teacup so tightly his knuckles were white. He didn't want to miss a single word of what Li Yao was saying now.

"I was raised by a drug lord."

Du Yusheng froze.

"... So," Li Yao paused briefly before continuing, "in that kind of environment, it's possible I could know anyone."

"What do you mean, that kind of environment?"

"You should know that better than I do." Li Yao lowered his head, he didn't really want to recall the things that had happened to him. When he looked up again, Du Yusheng's eyes were slightly reddened from the fever, staring straight at him. Li Yao shifted his gaze, glanced out at the streetlamp outside the window, and smiled faintly. "... To be honest, I don't really want to talk about it, it's not exactly a glorious experience, so, let's not talk about it any more."

Like two people meeting for the first time, Li Yao politely wore a faint smile.

As though putting a thousand miles between them once again.

It was a very clever answer. In just a few words, he had brushed away most of Du Yusheng's questions. Compared to the deduction that being raised by a drug lord might mean he had access to both the criminal and the law enforcement worlds, what lingered more in Du Yusheng's mind was the earlier part. Li Yao had been raised by a drug lord, he said it so lightly, but those few words made Du Yusheng's chest feel tight, his throat closing up with it. To be raised by someone meant that you were still a child when you were thrust into that world. Li Yao had endured it, lived through it, how much had he suffered? Du Yusheng didn't want to think about it.

Perhaps it was precisely because of this that Li Yao had become who he was now.

It felt as though all the questions surrounding this man had suddenly been answered with those few words.

Du Yusheng rubbed his forehead, beginning to wonder whether he was too easily placated.

When the second cup of hot water was passed to him, Du Yusheng was still a little dazed. He blankly accepted it and took a sip.

Looking somewhat bewildered, he asked Li Yao, "... Isn't this meant for the medicine?"

Li Yao was sitting properly at one end of the sofa, still holding a textbook on his lap.

It seemed that the previous conversation had no effect on Li Yao, who continued to speak without raising his head or opening his eyes, "Your temperature isn't high enough to need medication, let's stick to physical cooling instead."

Hey! What kind of logic is that? Du Yusheng smacked his lips, thinking to himself, Aren't drug lords supposed to be ruthless and cold-blooded? How did one end up raising such a proper doctor?

Du Yusheng narrowed his eyes and suddenly grasped the crux of the matter.

Since Li Yao had been raised by a drug lord, who was his father? And who exactly was that drug lord?

The questions he had just managed to put to rest slowly began to fill his head again. Du Yusheng took another sip of the hot water, his head buzzing, and only then did he realise that it wasn't his brain buzzing, it was his phone.

Most likely a message, there were two alert sounds.

Absent-mindedly, Du Yusheng fished out his phone.

As his eyes scanned over the new message, Du Yusheng froze.

The information inside turned out to be two lines of numbers with decimal points.

The numbers were arranged in two lines, each line containing a decimal point, both positioned in the same place.

Du Yusheng slowly lifted his head, a faint chill creeping over his scalp.

These weren't fucking numbers, they were two lines of coordinates.

Why would a set of coordinates be sent to me?

"Welcome to my game."

The moment Du Yusheng realised this, his mind seemed to explode with a loud buzz. He lifted his foot as if to get up from the sofa, raising his face. The glass opposite him happened to reflect Li Yao standing behind him.

Li Yao had his back to Du Yusheng, his head bowed, staring at his phone.

Du Yusheng, still dazed, picked up his phone and looked again. Suddenly, he thought of something, he had opened the message at the first alert sound, so why had there been a second alert? Du Yusheng was a bit slow to realise.

Li Yao didn't seem to realise that his reflection was on the glass across from him, maintaining his posture without change. Du Yusheng didn't dare to make any sudden movements, only trying his best to see the reflection on the glass more clearly. But even with his sharp eyesight, Du Yusheng could only tell from the blurry shadow that Li Yao was looking at a message roughly the same length as the one on Du Yusheng's phone. Whether it was a text or some other chat app, Du Yusheng couldn't quite make out.

Yet just this point was enough to send a cold shiver down Du Yusheng's spine.

At the very same moment, both men in the room had received a message.

Even the lengths were almost identical, that was just too much of a coincidence.

Suddenly, Du Yusheng stood up, he no longer felt sick. Within seconds, his symptoms had vanished.

He knew he shouldn't think like that, but this coincidence forced Du Yusheng's mind to race. It felt as though some invisible force was pulling him.

Du Yusheng shook his head. What he needed to do now wasn't to sit here and speculate blindly. Du Yusheng rubbed his nose. What he needed to do now was to find out why these two lines of numbers were sent over and where exactly this coordinate was.

Maybe Li Yao was simply looking at his phone, and it was all just Du Yusheng overthinking things.

Li Yao looked up, glanced at Du Yusheng, and smiled. "How do you feel, any better?"

Du Yusheng didn't know what to say. After a long pause, he finally managed to squeeze out a "Mhmm."

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Author's Note:

Coordinates have arrived. Du Du, tell me, are you going or not?

‿︵‿︵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: June 14, 2025 by Angel

Edited: July 15, 2025 by Angel