Winter Returns

Chapter 237 "Afternoon Nap"

"How are you doing?"

"He was injured."

"Forearm, shoulder?" Zhang Shutong stared intently at Lu Qinglian's right arm. "What kind of wound is it, or is it a fracture?"

"Not serious."

Lu Qinglian took out a hair tie and tied it tightly around the right cuff:

"The clay figure has been retrieved. It belonged to a strange man. Long story short, how are things on your end?"

"We found the memory card from the camera back then..."

Zhang Shutong thought a beat slower: she really didn't like talking nonsense, as if she wasn't the one bleeding.

"Did you run into them on your way here?" Zhang Shutong hurriedly asked, "Or is it the same as last time? A restricted area?"

"Those were the things that discovered them. But not in the west."

Lu Qinglian spoke slowly and deliberately, her words clear and distinct, showing no signs of injury whatsoever.

"anymore question?"

Zhang Shutong was speechless for a moment.

There's no problem. Only a fool wouldn't understand something this simple.

The snakes that roamed the island discovered the mud figure that had suddenly appeared, so she descended from the temple, dealt with it, and then brought a clay doll-like sculpture back to the temple.

I arrived at the police station an hour later than 11 p.m., and that was all.

She resolved everything efficiently and neatly in just one morning, all by herself.

Zhang Shutong looked at Lu Qinglian's blood-stained green robe. Beneath the bright red was a hint of brown, which was dried blood. No wonder she had just tightened her cuffs... How long had she been standing here?
Zhang Shutong subconsciously glanced around at Lu Qinglian. She didn't like noise, so she waited at a street corner where the sun couldn't reach. Now he was standing there too, and a chill gradually crept up to his limbs... Zhang Shutong cursed under his breath, almost forgetting his business.

"Let's go to the hospital first!" He strode to the car, then looked back and saw that Lu Qinglian hadn't moved. Zhang Shutong had no choice but to emphasize, "I told you, I've done everything I could..."

……

The door to the observation room finally opened, and the nurse gestured for him to be quiet.

"How is she?" Zhang Shutong asked in a low voice.

"Her entire arm is covered in bruises, like she was...like she was hit by a car, and there's a gash," the nurse gestured. "The gash itself isn't big, but she said it was cut by a stone on the ground when she fell? Her clothes underneath are torn. What were you doing?"

"I just ran into her too," Zhang Shutong shook his head. "What about anywhere else?"

"It should be nothing, right?"

Zhang Shutong wasn't completely relaxed. He recalled his experience that snowy night and was about to go in and ask when the nurse said:
"She's already asleep, keep your voice down."

"Asleep?" Zhang Shutong was taken aback.

"She's probably very tired. She doesn't seem like the type to fall asleep easily. Let's not disturb her for now. By the way, the camera you asked me to find, the cameras in the hospital don't seem to be able to use this type of card."

"Yeah."

This was also one of the reasons he persuaded Lu Qinglian to come to the hospital. The memory card was in his hand, and all he needed was a camera that could read the card. There was a high probability that there was a camera in the hospital. Perhaps this sentence played a decisive role. In the end, Lu Qinglian sat on the back of the bicycle.

"Wait a minute, my friend should have some," the nurse said. "Do you remember the shop where you rented the wig last time?"

It was actually a photo studio, and the owner was a woman with purple hair, which Zhang Shutong certainly remembered:

"Then I'll go there now..."

"You," the nurse shook her head and said, "just wait here. Don't go anywhere. What girl doesn't want to see someone she knows when she wakes up in the hospital?"

Zhang Shutong felt that Lu Qinglian must want to see those photos as soon as possible. He checked his phone and thought he should be able to make it in time as long as he rode fast on the road.

"Alright, don't make trouble when you shouldn't. I haven't started work yet, so I'll run an errand for you."

"That's indeed a good idea," Zhang Shutong stopped and quickly thanked her. The nurse, while putting on her coat, joked:
"Treat me to a meal sometime, and I'll spare your life today."

He nodded, but his mind was filled with his mother's instructions. She had told him to ask Lu Qinglian if she was coming home for lunch. At that time, Zhang Shutong had just taken off his headphones and hadn't met Lu Qinglian yet. By the time they met, they were already at the hospital.

There were no benches in the hospital corridor. He leaned against the window, staring blankly at the old house with its new locks. Before leaving, the young nurse pushed him into the observation room, her voice drifting in through the crack in the door:

"Go inside and sit down. Why are you running around? At least pour me a glass of water."

That's true," Zhang Shutong sighed inwardly. He always forgot that Lu Qinglian was a patient now.

Who says only fever and colds count as illness?

But when they went inside, they found that there were no empty chairs in the room—Lu Qinglian was sitting in the only chair. Zhang Shutong had heard that she was asleep, so he assumed that she would be lying in bed.

That's not true at all.

Her face was turned to one side, her head was lowered, and her hands were neatly placed on her knees. Zhang Shutong knew that she usually sat upright with her back straight, but when Lu Qinglian was asleep, she curled up slightly, like a cat taking a nap.

The sunlight was still bright, shining on her face. The room was so quiet that only her long, light breaths could be heard. With each inhale and exhale, Lu Qinglian's long eyelashes would tremble slightly.

Zhang Shutong sat down by the bed and suddenly sighed, but he couldn't make a sound, for fear of waking Lu Qinglian. No one expected that a clay figure would suddenly appear. In a way, it was like a sudden gunshot that disrupted many plans.

He planned to wait for Lu Qinglian to wake up and ask her about the situation. In reality, the two of them barely communicated after meeting. Zhang Shutong looked around the room but didn't find the thermos. He thought he should take this opportunity to pour a glass of water back, but just as he grasped the doorknob, the breathing in his ear suddenly stopped.

Lu Qinglian woke up.

When she opened her eyes, there was no trace of the confusion she had just woken up; instead, her eyes were cold and sharp. Zhang Shutong instinctively felt his heart skip a beat. Lu Qinglian closed her eyes again, and when she opened them again, her eyes were like a still pool of water.

She always maintained this indifference, or rather, she didn't need to deliberately maintain it, because that's just who she is.

"I'm sorry for disturbing you."

Zhang Shutong apologetically released the doorknob, expecting to hear a soft sigh followed by a slightly helpless voice, "Zhang Shutong, you'd better be quiet..."

But Lu Qinglian only asked:

"What time is it now?"

"Five minutes to one o'clock."

Where is the camera?

"I've already gone to look for it." Zhang Shutong thought for a moment, "Do you want to rest a bit more? I'll call you when it's time."

"No need."

Lu Qinglian sat up straight. Her tone and expression weren't necessarily cold, but they lacked emotion.

Zhang Shutong nodded and then fell silent.

This is the real Lu Qinglian; she never says anything superfluous.

After a long silence, she said softly:
"Thank you."

“No need to be so polite. You should have come to the hospital even if I hadn’t told you.” Zhang Shutong sighed again. “How are you feeling now? Also, since the clay figure appeared, why didn’t you say anything? I know you still have your phone in the store, but you should know where I live…” As he spoke, Lu Qinglian took out a small cloth bag from the inner pocket of her green robe. It looked like a wallet she had sewn herself. She took something out of the wallet… no, it should be said that she shook something out of the wallet.

—It was a red flip phone with a plastic casing, now completely cracked in two, as if it had been hit by an external force. The exposed wires connecting the keyboard and screen were teetering on the verge of collapse.

Zhang Shutong was stunned for a moment:
"it……"

Lu Qinglian lowered her eyes and after a long while said:

"Feel sorry."

Zhang Shutong didn't know what to say. It was clear that she cherished the phone, so she apologized for the broken phone. After all, who would prepare a home for their phone? It's too much trouble to put it in your wallet every time you're done using it. What good is a home made of a piece of cloth?

Zhang Shutong could only offer words of comfort:

"It should still be able to be repaired... I mean, I can ask about it later."

Now he understood why he couldn't make that call in front of the police station; the phone screen was no longer working.

Now that things had come to this, he found it difficult to say "we should have done this a long time ago," so he changed his words to:
"If you encounter this situation again, you can contact me."

"But what can you do after I tell you?"

Lu Qinglian asked calmly.

Zhang Shutong found it difficult to answer. He recalled what Ruoping had said before, which meant that if Lu Qinglian couldn't solve something, the rest of them would only be more helpless. Just like that snowy night, he only used his arm to block the mudman's attack, but he ended up lying in the hospital for a week because of a fracture, and in the end, he almost lost half his life.

Lu Qinglian only suffered minor injuries after dealing with the situation.

What did Ruoping say? Girls mature earlier than boys, and Lu Qinglian is far more mature than her peers. She is used to leaving room for maneuver in everything she does. Even now, injured, she doesn't even frown, and doesn't look disheveled. She only closes her eyes to rest. She always looks like she can't be defeated.

“Like this…” Zhang Shutong paused.

A knock on the door interrupted their conversation.

The little nurse is back.

She immediately asked why she had woken the other person up, and after asking Lu Qinglian some questions and confirming that she was alright, she waved the camera in her hand:
"Alright, call me if you need anything."

The two of them were left alone in the room again, but there was no room for idle chatter.

No one said whether they wanted to drink water, eat, or rest for a while. Zhang Shutong inserted the memory card. He wanted to help move the chair over, but Lu Qinglian stood up and sat down on the edge of the bed as well.

As she held onto the edge of the bed, perhaps the pain aggravated her wound, and her brow furrowed slightly.

Zhang Shutong glanced at her, while Lu Qinglian simply raised her chin towards the camera.

He looked away, picked up the camera, and the switch clicked sharply. Zhang Shutong instinctively held his breath.

One second, two seconds...

It's lit up!
Fortunately, the card was neither damaged nor formatted over the long years. The camera cannot select folders; it can only start flipping through from the first photo.

It was indeed a memory card from the photography club. It contained some scenery from the university campus, as well as some everyday photos, with lush grass growing in the background.

Zhang Shutong flipped through the pages faster and faster, covering the four seasons in just a few minutes. Finally, he stopped on a photograph.

That's the deck of the ferry.

The sky was dim, and judging from the clothing of the people in the picture, it was undoubtedly winter.

Next came the scenery on the island. He saw the harbor and the bus stop, and it seemed that the order in which he took the photos was the same as the order in which that group of people toured the island.

As night fell, hands raised their glasses at the restaurant tables.

The next photo shows the interior of a girls' room, where several girls appear to be playing cards and laughing heartily.

Zhang Shutong remembered that there were both men and women in that group of college students. He never knew who the photographer was, but he could tell from this photo that even if it wasn't Yun, it must have been one of the girls, maybe even the club president.

He continued flipping through the pages, and the next morning, amidst the pervasive fog, a group of people were hiking, with several brightly colored windbreakers coming into view.

He frowned. Judging from the existing photos, this group of people really just came to the island for fun.

A bucket filled with fish appears in the shot.

The photographer probably didn't fish; he was just taking random pictures. As he flipped through the photos, he could even recreate the scene in his mind.

In a suburban area near a lake, several people sat by the water's edge, but couldn't determine their location.

Then the scene shifts, and a girl enters the frame; it's Yun.

Yun was carrying a plastic bag, and it was clear that she was distributing food to her classmates who were fishing.

Zhang Shutong slowed down his movements.

Yun, supporting herself on her knees, curiously examined the buckets in front of each person.

Yun tripped, and the photographer, with excellent skills, captured her flustered expression as she fell, along with the laughter of those around her.

Yun fell to the ground with a thud, wincing in pain.

Yun laughed along with her.

Yun's feet.

An ear was sticking out from under the foot.

A fox.

Zhang Shutong stopped.

"So, they found this fox by accident?" he asked in surprise.

He then flipped over, and then the others dug up the surrounding soil.

Perhaps because the soil was damp, or perhaps because the fox had been buried underground for too long, the statue itself was covered in soil, making it impossible to discern its expression and thus impossible to identify which fox it was.

The next photo is also of someone fishing.

Still fishing.

Return to the hotel.

On the fourth day, the group of college students spent another whole day playing, and the photos ended with pictures of the hotel interior, but the fox never appeared in the pictures again.

"Stop." Lu Qinglian suddenly said. Her right hand was injured, so she didn't extend her fingers as before, but simply said, "This is the girls' dormitory."

Zhang Shutong understood what she meant: the fox might have been kept in the boys' dormitory, but the photographer was a woman, so it wasn't photographed.

He recalled his mother's experience of finding the smiling fox; she simply thought it was funny and put it on her desk as a decoration.

So, is this also true for these college students?

But then he remembered Yun's photo. What prompted them to bring the fox out?

(End of this chapter)