Winter Returns

Chapter 124 One Life to Clear the Game (Part 1)

"Yun, I saw you again today."

Zhang Shutong fell silent.

He could reflexively break down the meaning of each word. For example, the woman named "Yun" was the name of Lao Song's girlfriend. He also knew that this diary must have been written after his girlfriend's death, because how could a rough man like Lao Song have the habit of writing a diary? And Lao Song said that he saw... but did he really see it, or did he dream about it?

Zhang Shutong saw the date at the end.

2008 12 Month 16 Day.

"really."

he said to himself.

Zhang Shutong talked with his best friends while he was getting an IV drip that night. They discussed what Lao Song had discovered that made him suddenly run away. Ruoping said it seemed like he saw someone, but he knew that the person didn't know anyone on the island.

Only Zhang Shutong himself knew that there was someone, and a dead person, who could have made Lao Song lose his composure like this.

—The dead come back to life.

Therefore, this terrifying thought came to his mind at the time, but since Lao Song remained unconscious, he was unable to draw any further conclusions.

The only thing he hadn't expected was that Lao Song had seen his ex-girlfriend so early, exactly four years ago. Zhang Shutong felt a chill in his heart, because it meant that Lao Song might have just attended his ex-girlfriend's funeral.

How many years ago was this story buried?
Some vague things from the past suddenly came to mind at this moment, so let's make a simple deduction.

Old Song met his deceased ex-girlfriend after lunch today.

Old Song chased after him and was subsequently involved in a car accident.

Old Song knew he was protecting Gu Qiumian.

The first thing Lao Song did after waking up was to have Gu Qiu Mian leave the villa and confirm that she was out of danger.

So, who exactly is the murderer?
Is there any connection between this and Gu Qiumian's murder?
Perhaps the answer is self-evident.

The real clue was indeed hidden in this small house.

Zhang Shutong quickly flipped to the next page of his notebook.

He urgently needs to confirm whether the woman Old Song saw was indeed the other party's ex-girlfriend.

Because there had been precedents before, I had seen a "fake Lu Qinglian" near the edge of the restricted area.

The second page of the diary contained a pasted photograph. It was yellowed and blurry, but upon closer inspection, he realized it had been taken secretly. The steering wheel of a car was visible through the frame, indicating that the person was inside the car.

The photo shows the short-haired woman standing on a patch of overgrown wasteland on January 1, 2009.

"is it you?"

Old Song's signature.

The third page.

It's still a photograph, but this one only shows a woman's back, and the woman in the back view is also short-haired.

However, it is obvious that this woman's clothing is different from that in the previous photo. Zhang Shutong did not have time to distinguish the differences in their height and body shape, because Lao Song himself did not seem to be able to tell them apart, so the entire page was left blank.

The date on the cover is January 3rd.

Page 4:
"I saw you again, but you just like before, suddenly running away."

There isn't even a photo on this page; perhaps it disappeared so suddenly that it wasn't captured.

Page 5:
“I called the police. I’m going crazy from all this. Was that person really you? If it were, I would have been so grateful. But I watched your body being buried with my own eyes… I hope everything goes well.”

2009 1 Month 4 Day.

Page 6:
“The search results are in. The police said I was so heartbroken that I was hallucinating. I even thought about telling your parents, but they still refused to see me. It was my fault for not taking you home that night.”

2009 1 Month 11 Day.

Zhang Shutong was stunned. He suddenly remembered that when he went to the police station that day, Old Song and a police officer surnamed Wang were old acquaintances. Old Song said that he had troubled him with the matter from back then, and the police officer said that he should not take that matter too seriously and that he would eventually have to let go... Zhang Shutong did not understand what they were talking about before, but now he had the answer.

It turns out that Lao Song really did go to the police station to report the case, in order to find his ex-girlfriend who had already passed away.

Next Page:
“I’ve made up my mind. I’ve quit my job in the city and settled on this island. My parents don’t quite understand, and the principal has talked to me and tried to persuade me to come out of this situation. But they have no idea what I saw. Of course, even if they did see it, they wouldn’t believe it. Ha, who would believe that I saw someone who has already passed away?”

2009 2 Month 1 Day.

Next page:
“The work has been handed over. This is where you grew up. You said your favorite thing to do was to walk by the lake, and that there was a temple on the mountain. I haven’t had a chance to go yet. I’ve been driving around looking for you these past few days.”

2 month 3 day.

Zhang Shutong turned another page, and this time he finally found something. Pasted on the yellowed paper was a yellowed photograph, a profile of a short-haired woman. He looked closely and it seemed to have been taken in the city.

“My decision was right. Although I haven’t caught up with you yet, I will find out the truth about this one day. You’re still alive and waiting for me to find you, right?”

2 month 10 day.

"I drove around the island five times today because it was a holiday."

2 month 15 day.

"You seem to have suddenly disappeared, Yun."

2 month 20 day.

"I have memorized all the roads on the island."

2 month 25 day.

"You have completely disappeared from my life."

3 month 1 day.

“Maybe it’s really an illusion.”

3 month 5 day.

"But I don't believe it."

3 month 10 day.

Zhang Shutong flipped through the pages faster and faster until he found a new photo.

The photo was blurry, but upon closer inspection, he discovered that the blurriness was not in the environment where the photo was taken, but in the subject itself.

The woman wasn't the short-haired woman in the previous photos; she had long hair. Normally, Old Song wouldn't put an unrelated woman in his diary, but his annotation was:

"Who are you?"

4 month 4 day.

Zhang Shutong hurriedly flipped to the next page, but this time there were no photos, only two sentences:
"I think I'm going crazy."

"But if I'm not insane, who are you?"

Zhang Shutong opened his mouth silently.

He turned back to the previous page and looked at the woman again; he could only see her profile.

A deceased woman became another person; they were the same person...

He had no time to think further; he instinctively turned to the next page, eager to know when Old Song last saw his girlfriend. But the new page contained this:

"This is the third year already."

The date on the cover is December 12, 2010.

Zhang Shutong was somewhat surprised. He had thought that such a thick diary would continue according to the years, but it jumped directly to 2010, which meant that the man had gained nothing in the past year and a half.

So what was the final result?
He simply didn't bother flipping through the middle pages, but instead ran his fingertips over each page. He flipped through them quickly and read them very fast, but apart from the man sometimes expressing his inner turmoil, he found nothing.

The mysterious woman seems to have disappeared.

He even flipped to the last few pages, which were dated November 2012, just a month earlier.

Zhang Shutong closed his diary, processing the information within. He recalled the long-haired woman who had fought Lu Qinglian, the footprints in the snow, and the villa that had been studied many times and was considered impeccable.

The villa is surrounded by a fence with an electric fence, which is more than two meters high.

The main gate of the fence is equipped with a password and fingerprint lock, as well as facial recognition.

Lu Qinglian judged that, given that woman's skills, it was almost impossible for her to directly jump over the two-meter-high fence.

He found the number 2004 on a stone tablet outside the villa, indicating that the villa was built at least eight years ago.

The nanny, Aunt Wu, said that the system at the gate only recorded the faces of Gu Qiu Mian's family.

But the murderer still managed to sneak in silently, even though the person couldn't fly or burrow underground, and didn't have any special abilities like shrinking bones. He then recalled Gu Qiu Mian's mysterious disappearance.

I remembered...

The long-haired woman seen in the family photo at the villa.

The woman was beautiful, around thirty years old, with eyes very similar to Gu Qiu Mian's, but with an oval face.

Gu's mother has long hair and a gentle smile in the group photo; she can make people feel good at first glance.

The family photo was taken at—

2006 years.

Zhang Shutong had never met the murderer, and the only person she had met was Lu Qinglian, but Lu Qinglian had already returned to the sofa when the family photo was being hung up.

Who did Lao Song actually see?

Really.

Yes.

Ex-girlfriend?

Today is December 8th, and the man was in a car accident.

Just yesterday, December 7th, the man saw that family photo, sighed, and patted his shoulder. It seemed to be the first time he had seen Gu Qiu Mian's mother.

Zhang Shutong felt a chill run down his spine.

He suddenly understood everything.

He understood why Lao Song wanted to pick up Gu Qiu Mian from the villa immediately, why he always spoke vaguely to Du Kang, and even why the other party gave him the final choice.

He finally remembered the photo his senior sent him eight years later. The camera captured a long-haired woman, but due to the angle, only her long hair was visible; her clothes and face were not shown.

He didn't think much of it, because he had seen Lu Qinglian go to the villa before, so he assumed that was Lu Qinglian, regardless of whether it was real or not. But Zhang Shutong never imagined that the long-haired woman he photographed in the early morning—

She is Gu Qiumian's mother.

He also knew that Gu Qiumian had hypoglycemia, that she never locked the door when she slept, and that she always wore that red scarf, which she regarded as an important keepsake left by her mother. She would cry sadly if he stepped on it.

Zhang Shutong finally understood what had happened in the early hours of December 9th. He gently closed his eyes, and could even reconstruct that cruel process: a girl woke up with a start, her mind still hazy, and in the moonlight, she saw that face that haunted her dreams. Perhaps her eyes welled up with tears, whether from excitement or confusion, and she rushed towards him, and then…

Zhang Shutong was no longer willing to think about anything more.

All he knew was that the girl's bright life had ended; she saw her mother, who had passed away many years ago, but she would never see tomorrow.

Zhang Shutong glanced at the time again. It was 11:40 a.m. on December 8th, and the woman was on her way to the villa.

No wonder the other party went to the villa. Only a villa is the best place to make a move. What he once regarded as an impregnable defense was just a thin sheet of paper in the eyes of the other party. In the original timeline, only Gu Qiu Mian and the nanny were left in the villa, and there were two sleeping bodyguards on the cold-blooded line.

And now.

Because of his influence, the villa received more security, with more bodyguards who were armed and kept watch day and night in the living room.

Yes, Lu Qinglian once said that the woman would never be a match for so many bodyguards, and Zhang Shutong believed her judgment.

Gu Qiu Mian will not die.

But the problem is...

this matter.

Really.

Really.

Is it over?

He returned to this snowy night eight years later and finally saw what was hidden behind this case that spanned eight years.

No wonder Mr. Gu was unwilling to reveal the murderer of his daughter. All information was blocked. Perhaps they hadn't found out, or perhaps they had... and discovered that the murderer had a familiar face.

His wife killed his daughter.

What an absurd truth.

Zhang Shutong unconsciously clenched his fist.

He had always thought that protecting Gu Qiu Mian's life was enough to fulfill his mission, but at this moment he realized that simply protecting her life was far from enough. What would happen if things were left to develop unchecked? The woman successfully broke into the villa, and the bodyguard successfully subdued the murderer. Of course, things might not go smoothly; there would be a fierce battle. Perhaps the murderer would be seriously injured, or perhaps he would be killed. Then, Gu's father, who was also in the villa, approached the woman under the protection of others and saw her face clearly.

In fact, Zhang Shutong wasn't very concerned about the big boss's romantic history and emotional journey. He first thought about what would happen if he told Gu's father about this in advance, and then he remembered that pistol and the blood hole in his temple.

It turned out to be like this...

What would happen if they stayed in the hospital? He took Gu Qiu Mian back to the villa at dawn. The two rode a bicycle together, relieved that they hadn't been discovered. But how could they have been discovered? It would be strange if they had, because everyone who cared about her had already left that night.

"She hasn't had a good life these past few years."

Actually, it's not just that it's not good. Perhaps in Gu Qiu Mian's eyes, if she hadn't chosen to believe that she had secretly run away from home, none of these things would have happened.

Zhang Shutong noticed the photos all over the room. Regret is the most useless and pathetic thing. You can hate the heavens, the earth, and your enemies, but you are still as powerless as you are with yourself. You can only stare blankly in the middle of the night, heartbroken.

She must feel regret too.

Reason told him he should tell Gu Qiumian about this now, and then have Gu Qiumian tell her father that a woman with murderous intent would break into the villa in a few tens of minutes, and then hope that Gu's father was strong enough to clean up the place and dispose of the body before Gu Qiumian returned.

But Zhang Shutong dared not gamble.

He has already used up one extra chance.

But who knows how many more opportunities like this there will be?

His head started spinning again. Zhang Shutong sat on the bed, breathing heavily.

He seemed to have an answer in his heart, but he was having trouble even walking, let alone running, so he gave himself thirty seconds to calm his breathing.

Zhang Shutong suddenly thought of Lao Song. At this moment, Zhang Shutong suddenly understood what Lao Song was doing, why he quit his job and came to this small island, why he always drove that Ford Focus around aimlessly, and why he didn't have any acquaintances or friends on the island.

For four whole years, the man measured this land with his car wheels. His car and his cigarettes were his companions, until the car was filled with an inescapable smell of smoke.

He looked around the tidy room, wondering what men do all those nights. If you leave your room a mess, you'll have trash all over the place to keep you company, but if you keep it neat and tidy, you'll only be left with loneliness.

Song Nanshan said he saw his past self in himself. He roughly understood himself, but Zhang Shutong never understood him. Or rather, no one ever truly understood him. In other people's eyes, he was a promising young man who had fallen into depravity, a lunatic, and a lovelorn man who had fallen into delusion because of heartbreak. But only the man himself knew that he had kept a secret in his heart for four years, just to give himself an explanation.

Because no one would believe such a thing anyway, you have no choice but to keep it to yourself and drive around alone.

Zhang Shutong instinctively reached for his phone, but instead pulled out a hard card. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a gas coupon. The car's armrest compartment was crammed with these kinds of things. Who knew how much gas he had consumed over the past four years? The man had told him that he had to leave something behind over those four years, so he hadn't thrown these gas cards away. Zhang Shutong had never understood how keeping a box of waste paper could be considered proof, but now, looking at the three-yuan discount on the card, he realized that these were medals left behind by a man.

Despite gaining nothing.

Zhang Shutong couldn't think any further. He felt deeply exhausted. With only fifteen seconds left on the countdown, he simply lay back on the bed, gently closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he saw a photograph at the foot of the bed.

The photo was placed in a spot that I always saw before going to sleep; it was a picture of a short-haired woman holding a cotton candy in an amusement park.

Amusement Park...

Zhang Shutong knew that the woman had been in a car accident the night she finished playing at the amusement park, and the man hadn't taken her home, thus missing out on a lifetime together.

And what is he thinking when he looks at this photo every night?
From Wednesday to Saturday, I was almost at my breaking point after four days of this, but he had been struggling for four whole years.

But now he's lying down, and the car is on the verge of being totaled. Zhang Shutong had seen pictures of the interior of the ambulance from inside; all the airbags had deployed, and the Bulbasaur was no exception, its head separated from its body. But Zhang Shutong remembered that Lao Song had said that his girlfriend had glued it on, and if it hadn't been glued on so tightly, she would have thrown it away long ago.

Actually, it's because that woman he's never met is clinging too tightly to his heart.

Zhang Shutong decided to spend an extra second doing something important. He picked up the diary again and turned to the last page. He hadn't looked at it carefully before, but now he desperately wanted to know what was written on it.

He used to use it to relieve his thoughts and frustrations:
"I drove around the island five times today because it was a holiday."

"It's like you suddenly disappeared."

"I have memorized all the roads on the island."

“Maybe it’s really an illusion.”

"But I don't believe it."

"I think I'm going crazy."

"But I'm still going to keep looking."

He searched for four years, and in the end, all that remained was this light and airy statement:

"Yun, I'm already 28 years old this year."

(End of this chapter)