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Chapter 62: “Do you really know Zhou You?”
“You… have you killed someone?” Bian Han immediately released Zhou You in shock.
Zhou You slowly took a puff of his cigarette, then suddenly burst into laughter. He laughed uncontrollably, even coughing repeatedly.
“It’s not like it’s the first time,” he said. “I’ve killed before, buried bodies too. Do you believe me?”
Seeing Bian Han stunned, Zhou You laughed loudly.
After laughing enough, he raised his moist eyes, as if mixed with some genuine emotion. “Bian Han, I really like you. Normally, I wouldn’t do what I did just now, and even if I did, it wouldn’t be so intense. But you’re different. This is my bonus, thank you for opening up your ‘sea area’ to me, thank you for giving me the opportunity… Won’t you consider me?”
Bian Han felt him terrifying, and involuntarily stepped back. “Consider what?”
“To be my companion,” Zhou You said after a moment’s thought, then added, “and also to be my partner.”
“Dream on!” Bian Han immediately retorted.
“Do you have someone else in mind?” Zhou You asked with a smile. “Who? Do I know them?”
Bian Han remained silent.
Zhou You suddenly realized this and nodded. “I see.” He pointed outside the window. “Is it that one? The little guide you play football with? Your relationship is indeed abnormal.”
Bian Han immediately became nervous. “Don’t touch him.”
“I can’t touch him.” Zhou You’s face suddenly turned cold. “So annoying. He’s not interested in anything I say, and the barrier is too strong. Without invitation or permission, and unable to find a loophole to intrude, even I can’t enter anyone’s ‘sea area’ at will. You don’t need to be so tense.”
Bian Han sighed with relief, still staring angrily at Zhou You.
“What are you angry about?” Zhou You flicked the cigarette ash, which fell on Bian Han’s backpack. “You agreed to let me enter your ‘sea area.’ It hurts, but it’s genuinely pleasurable. Don’t turn your back on me.”
“There won’t be a next time.”
“Why? Are you afraid?” Zhou You looked up. “Your little guide doesn’t want me to be around you? Afraid I’ll harm you?”
He was both surprised and amused. “You don’t need to listen to him. You love Meng Yu, right? That dancing boy.”
Bian Han replied stiffly, “No, I don’t. I just go to the youth center to practice football and sometimes take a look.”
His repeated denials finally changed Zhou You’s mood. Complete indifference and ruthlessness passed over his youthful face, the smiles that only floated on the surface disappearing instantly like water under the scorching sun.
“So stubborn.” he stood up, brushed off the cigarette ash from his pants, and pressed the unfinished cigarette on the table to extinguish it.
Just before leaving, Zhou You suddenly grabbed Bian Han’s shoulder, quickly leaned over, and bit his lips hard. “You’ll fall in love with Meng Yu,” he said coldly, “and you’ll let me into your ‘sea area’ again.”
Bian Han punched him, but his vision suddenly tilted sharply, all colors blending together, gradually turning into pure black.
As he opened his eyes, Qin Ge momentarily couldn’t tell where he was. He saw the moon hanging in the dark sky and an eagle spreading its wings and soaring overhead.
It wasn’t until he heard Xie Zijing calling his name that sensation returned to his body bit by bit.
His limbs were cold, his heart pounding wildly, his ears buzzing, blood vessels pulsating, and a throbbing pain in his temples like a swollen ball, making his neck stiff.
“Qin Ge?”
Xie Zijing’s hands were warm, but Qin Ge felt they did nothing to warm him up.
The vast dawn fluttered butterflies around him, covering him with phosphor powder carrying a faint grass fragrance. Qin Ge took several deep breaths before gradually calming down.
“What’s wrong with you?” Xie Zijing asked.
“Nothing.” Qin Ge slowly climbed out of his embrace. This time, he didn’t experience the intense physiological discomfort as before during his patrol of the ‘sea area’. Qin Ge knew that the more severe discomfort had permanently remained in his memory, unable to be erased. His legs were still a little weak, so he crawled to the edge of the roof and looked down.
Bian Han, unconscious, was lifted onto a stretcher. Lei Chi noticed the gaze above him and looked up at Qin Ge. “How is it?”
Qin Ge said, “…Come up here. I need to talk to you alone.”
Xie Zijing patted his hair without saying a word. Qin Ge knew he was nervous, but he couldn’t find any gaps to comfort Xie Zijing right now. While waiting for Lei Chi to come up, he constantly recalled everything he had seen in Bian Han’s ‘sea area’. There was a lot of important information in it, and he couldn’t afford to miss any of it.
When Lei Chi came up, Qin Ge asked Xie Zijing to temporarily leave and not eavesdrop. Xie Zijing initially didn’t agree, but after repeated requests from Qin Ge, he reluctantly stepped away. However, even though he walked away, he didn’t go downstairs like others would, but sat on the other side diagonally, watching Qin Ge and Lei Chi from afar.
“What did you see?” Lei Chi asked.
“You told me before that during the investigation of the half-zombie homicides, you came across someone named Zhou You?”
“Yes.”
Qin Ge recounted the matter of Zhou You to Lei Chi once again. A guide in his thirties, the age matches the last missing young guide in the Cai Mingyue infanticide case, with the same surname, currently involved in producing high-end white noise earphones exclusively for sentinels. Because there was no apparent connection with the half-zombie homicides case, Lei Chi’s investigation into Zhou You was forced to stop, and he found no information related to Zhou You.
He even described Zhou You’s appearance to Qin Ge.
Zhou You had a clear and delicate appearance, but his face didn’t have any particularly prominent features. Plus, there was a certain age difference between someone in their teens and someone in their thirties. But Qin Ge felt that the guide in Bian Han’s memory was the same Zhou You Lei Chi had seen.
“I’ve never let my guard down. It’s about the guide in the Cai Mingyue case and what kind of person he turned into. His mother died, then his father, Zhou Xuefeng, died, and he disappeared after leaving the village. I don’t know if he’s dead or still alive. But a special individual… a guide—has no identity; how could he survive in this society? The entire social system has very strict regulations for special individuals. Unless… he doesn’t go to school, doesn’t work, doesn’t marry, has never been sick, and has never been to the hospital.” Lei Chi said, “As long as blood tests are done in the hospital, his guide identity will be immediately detected, and it’s impossible to hide for so long.”
“So… he took over someone else’s household registration and identity and has been living until now.”
It matched. Qin Ge thought,
He only knew his last name was Zhou, but he was never given a name by his father. Zhou Xuefeng refused to acknowledge him as his child.
Amidst long indifference and helpless violence, he harbored resentment for his inability to protect his mother, fear, and reverence towards his violent father, mingled with both murderous intent and love.
So he would never abandon the surname “Zhou”. He might give himself a name to complement “Zhou”. And this must have begun after he left the mountain village—his father died; he was no longer under control, finally gaining a degree of freedom. The first thing he did was to give himself a name. With no one to give him an identity, he bestowed it on himself. This was his symbol, his emblem.
After hearing Qin Ge’s words, Lei Chi was unable to come back to his senses for a while. He had never expected to uncover such a secret in Bian Han’s memories.
He asked the werewolf Xia Chun via the walkie-talkie, “Was there someone named ‘Zhou You’ in the Wangdu District?”
Xia Chun was taken aback. “What happened to him?”
Lei Chi: “…Do you know what happened to him?”
Xia Chun: “Bian Han knows best.”
Lei Chi: “No, you speak first.”
Xia Chun fell silent for a moment, then said only one sentence: “Zhou You is already dead.”
Lei Chi was about to continue questioning when a slightly stooped middle-aged man stood up among the underground dwellers and half-zombified individuals guarding Meng Yu.
His dry, wrinkled skin clung tightly to his bones, dressed in long-sleeved shirts and trousers, yet his expression was cold and sharp. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I know Zhou You.”
Pointing to a certain place in the Wangdu District, the half-zombified man said, “His home is there.”
Lei Chi and Qin Ge exchanged looks. “Do you really know Zhou You?”
“Of course, we were friends,” the half-zombified man replied calmly. “I’m talking about the deceased Zhou You, not the one who’s still alive.”
Squeezed between two buildings was a dilapidated little house. The house was divided into two floors, occupying this narrow, headless alley. Zhou You and his father used to live here.
“I was abandoned as a baby, but Zhou You wasn’t,” the half-zombified man led them here. “I was born in the Wangdu District, while Zhou You was born in the 267th Hospital. When he was born, he couldn’t move his legs, and he couldn’t walk when he grew up. Probably when I was six years old, Zhou You’s father brought him to the Wangdu District. He said they came here for medical treatment, from a faraway place, borrowed a lot of money. But they couldn’t get better, so they settled here in the Wangdu District, earned money slowly, and continued to see doctors.”
Zhou You’s condition at birth wasn’t good. With his mother dying in childbirth, leaving behind a disabled child, Zhou You’s grandparents had considered abandoning him. They had heard that there was such a channel in the hospital where, if you gave a little money to a certain doctor, she could help solve the problem with this child.
But Zhou You’s father refused. He took Zhou You, traveled to many places to seek medical treatment, sent him to school, and finally settled in the Wangdu District.
Zhou You was a taciturn guide, just like his father, who was also a guide, and like his child, he didn’t like to get involved in things. At that time, the Wangdu District was very chaotic, the Black Troops had not yet been officially established, and special individuals from various factions did not interact with each other. But in the depths of the world, where all “special” disappeared, like any other place in the world, people came and went normally, taking care of each other. That was when the half-zombified man met Zhou You.
“I had just fought with a child from the underground dwellers and was beaten very badly, sitting at the door crying,” the half-zombified man looked at the house. “Zhou You leaned out from the second floor and asked me if I wanted to come into his house for a while.”
The two became friends, and it was only then that the half-zombified man learned that although Zhou You was a child who never went out, he learned a lot through his father and the internet.
“He was very interested in white noise,” the half-zombified man said. “I don’t know the significance of white noise to sentinels and guides, but Zhou You said that using white noise can not only quietly affect people’s moods but even change their personalities. He was very talented, very good at these things I’ve never heard of.”
Lei Chi and Qin Ge listened attentively.
The colleagues from the Criminal Investigation Division pried open the door of the house.
“Later, a new guest arrived at their house,” the half-zombified man said. “That person, like me, was not very old. When he came to Zhou You’s house, he was also about eleven or twelve years old. He said he was an orphan and had walked from Hubei Province all the way here, enduring a lot of hardship. It’s strange… Zhou You’s father took him in for no apparent reason.”
The half-zombified man turned to look at Qin Ge and Lei Chi.
“He made that boy call him ‘dad’ too,” he said. “Because the boy’s last name was also Zhou, so they were a family.”
A chill rushed to the back of Qin Ge’s brain, and he was stunned by the fact he was about to hear.
“A few years later, Zhou You suddenly disappeared,” the half-zombified man said. “The little orphan started calling himself Zhou You, and Zhou You’s father also began calling him Zhou You.”
He never saw his friend again.
“Not long after, Zhou You’s father suddenly went mad. He would wander the streets every day, saying he was looking for his son.” The half-zombified man’s voice was low. “Whenever he saw someone around Zhou You’s age, he would stand far away, not getting closer, just standing there, crying like that.”
Lei Chi turned to Qin Ge. “You just mentioned, hearth?”
Qin Ge nodded. “Hearth.”
Xiao Liu immediately led people and tools into the dilapidated house, heading straight for the hearth in the narrow kitchen.
“What about the orphan who called himself Zhou You?” Lei Chi asked.
“After Uncle Zhou went crazy, he disappeared too,” the half-zombified man said, looking at Lei Chi. “Many people knew that the previous Zhou You disappeared and a new Zhou You appeared. But no one said anything. I talked to the leader of our half-zombified people, and he went to talk to the leaders of the sentinel and guide, but they didn’t believe me. And at that time, people were disappearing every day in Wangdu District; people were dying every day—children, the elderly, too many. Originally just a gathering of garbage in Wangdu District, one more or one less, it didn’t make much of a difference. I… I later gave up.”
When it was getting light, the hearth was dismantled.
The seemingly sealed hearth was hollow inside. A skeleton curled up in the hearth, with legs visibly different from the rest of the body due to developmental issues.
“There are signs of blunt force trauma on the skull,” Xiao Liu said. “That’s where the fatal injury occurred.”
Lei Chi asked the half-zombified man, “What about Zhou You’s father? Is he still alive?”
The half-zombified man hesitated for a moment, then said in a low voice, “I saw him two years ago. He believed Zhou You was hidden by the underground dwellers, so he couldn’t find him on the surface. He always wanted to enter the underground dwellers’ settlement. In the past two years, I haven’t seen him.”
Qin Ge reminded her, “Try to find Zhou You’s father. He’s a guide; I can patrol his ‘sea area’ and find out what happened back then.”
Lei Chi: “I know. You go rest first, don’t rush.”
Qin Ge stumbled out and saw Xie Zijing waiting for him by the roadside. He almost immediately fell into Xie Zijing’s arms, finally feeling truly relieved.
Xie Zijing hugged him tightly, and Qin Ge heard his heartbeat, which was very urgent and chaotic.
He wanted to look up at Xie Zijing, but Xie Zijing pressed his head down, holding him firmly in his arms, and sighed deeply.
The two of them stood silently embracing in the corner for a while before Xie Zijing spoke, “Aunt Qin just called; you didn’t answer, so she called my phone instead. The teacher you’ve been wanting to find, Zhang Xiao, is back. After he learned from Aunt Qin that we’re all in Wangdu District, he’s on his way here.”
Qin Ge was both surprised and delighted. “Really?!”
Xie Zijing looked down at him, and asked cautiously, “This time it’s very difficult, right?”
Qin Ge: “Yeah.”
Xie Zijing: “Does it have anything to do with me…? I heard Bian Han say he also has romantic fantasies.”
Qin Ge: “It’s related, but it’s not the same.”
Sensing Xie Zijing’s unease, he said again, “Don’t worry, Teacher Zhang Xiao is an authority in marine studies. When he comes, your ‘sea area’ will definitely be restored to normal.”
“Qin Ge, I’m a little scared.” Xie Zijing’s voice was very low, as if afraid of being heard by others. “I always feel like everything we’re doing now is useless… or even if it’s useful, it will make us… drift further and further apart.”
“It won’t.” Qin Ge looked at him seriously. “You will definitely recover, and I will always be with you. Trust me, okay?”
Xie Zijing nodded, the strength in his hands tightening again. He was still uneasy but didn’t know how to convey it to Qin Ge.
Bian Han, who had romantic fantasies, went crazy. What about himself?
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