Chapter 226 Memory - The Past

1999 years.

5 month 20 day.

Binhai City.

Children's welfare home.

……

Heavy rain today.

The dark clouds in the sky were very low, and the wind was blowing violently, making crackling sounds outside the colorful green glass windows.

Su Beixun stirred the rice porridge in the bowl with a spoon and sat at the dining table with other children.

"I really want to eat meat. How long is it until the next festival?"

"About ten days... Hey, I really hope Children's Day can come soon."

"Hey, do you think someone will come to give gifts this time like they did last year?"

"Of course I will! I just broke the toy car last time, so if there are any toys left this time, I will be the first to choose!"

I could hear a lot of chattering.

Su Beixun tore the steamed bun into pieces, soaked it in the soup bowl and swallowed it all.

……

boom!
boom!
Sudden.

There were strange noises amidst the wind and rain.

It was very faint, but the woman cleaning up in the kitchen heard it.

She washed her hands, wiped the water stains on her apron, walked over and opened the door.

With a squeak.

A cold wind with a smell of mud rushed in, but was mostly blocked by two tall figures.

Su Beixun turned his head and looked.

They were two men carrying mountaineering bags, wearing cotton hats, light-colored coats, and their upper bodies were soaked.

The three men stood at the door, talking about something, but the woman slowly moved aside and pointed out the stairs leading to the second floor.

Are you here to take shelter from the rain?
Su Beixun thought so and felt that it should be okay.

……

soon.

Dinner is over.

The woman put away the dishes and washed them.

The other children went to play in the room next door where dolls were piled up and cushions were laid.

Su Beixun did not participate in it. He had been having a headache these days because of the illusion that appeared from time to time. He wanted to ask the adults, but he did not want to expose his abnormal side.

Sigh.

He took out a storybook he had never read before and sat by the window, lost in thought.

About an hour later.

The woman came in and took them to the bathroom to wash their faces and feet one by one. After using the toilet, they went back to the room to rest.

……

There are quite a few people in the orphanage and the facilities are not bad. After all, it was built with government funding, so it won't be too bad even if it's just for the sake of face.

Among them, those under five years old will sleep together in the room on the first floor, and only ten of them have their own rooms on the second floor.

Su Beixun pushed open the door with his name on it and returned to this small yet safe place.

A child about his age was sitting cross-legged on the blue sheets, smiling at him with his hands outstretched.

"Brother, give me a hug!"

Su Beixun stared at him for a moment, but didn't care. He took off his clothes, opened his back corner, rolled in, and reached out to grope for the light switch beside the bed.

The child pursed his lips in disappointment, put down his arms sadly, and lay down facing him.

It seemed as if I could hear the other person's faint breathing at such close range.

With a click.

The lights went out.

A soft whisper was heard in the darkness.

"Good night, brother."

##
In completely different rooms.

The woman waved her arms, a little angrily.

"Damn it! How dare you come in in front of so many children today, and without any disguise... If you want to die, don't take me with you!"

She vented for a moment, licked the corner of her mouth, and looked at the two greedily: "How much money did you make this time?"

Caesar responded quickly.

He shrugged and said in a familiar tone: "I don't know. It's too troublesome to count."

"Yep!"

The woman's eyes were burning with anger, and she couldn't calm down. "They own a jewelry business, and it would be too much trouble to calculate it."

Caesar kept these words in mind and had a rough guess about his identity.

His brows twitched, and he was about to ask more questions when he suddenly heard the woman shouting.

"Who?! Who's outside?!"

Caesar and Lu Mingfei were stunned, and the next moment they heard hurried footsteps coming from outside the door and quickly moving away.

He immediately turned around and opened the door.

But in the darkness, Caesar saw no figure except the lingering groaning of the stairs.

The woman hurriedly turned on the light, her fat face looked very ugly.

She immediately rushed up the stairs.

Caesar and Chu Zihang followed closely behind.

Click~

The woman pulled the light cord hanging at the stairs, and the dim light illuminated the corridor again.

She moved her head rapidly from side to side, trying to find the tag swinging on the door, but in the end she found nothing.

"Who...who is it? Who on earth is it?!"

The woman growled ferociously.

But when he saw the two people coming, his expression quickly turned into a pleading one: "Please, I will definitely find that brat! Give me a little more time... a day, no, half a day will be enough!"

Caesar pondered for a moment, and in line with the principle of saying less and less, he said indifferently: "As soon as possible!"

"understand!"

……

Return to the room again.

The two found that in addition to the room becoming less shabby, there were many strange things in it.

"So, our identities are robbers and murderers? Is that so exciting?!"

Lu Mingfei rummaged through his backpack that appeared out of nowhere. Looking at the colorful banknotes and a large bag of jewelry inside, he felt his mouth dry.

Caesar took out the blood-stained gloves and the knife wrapped in white cloth from the hidden compartment of his backpack, and rubbed his thumb and index finger back and forth on the blood stains.

"It seems that we didn't appear here out of thin air, but replaced someone in the memory... Well, the blood hasn't completely dried up yet."

But that was all he could do. He couldn't use this to determine the approximate time of the crime, like in a detective novel.

Stuffing everything back into the backpack, Caesar pulled it up and slung it over his shoulder.

"Although we have entered deeper levels of memory, it is clear that the gains are not as great as we imagined."

he mused.

"The murderer was accidentally overheard when he was meeting with his accomplice... Although it is more specific, it is not much different from our original inference."

Lu Mingfei scratched his head: "Right, now we still have to find the kid who eavesdropped... Damn, who is that guy who is not sleeping at night?!"

Caesar thought for a moment.

"I don't know. But no matter what, this is his memory after all, so we still have to think from Su Beixun's perspective."

"Uh...but Boss, didn't we test it before? Reporting him is totally useless! Do we need to report him again?"

After Lu Mingfei finished speaking, he suddenly felt that it made sense and punched the air excitedly.

"That's right! The reason why we failed last time was probably because we hadn't completely entered into our memory."

"That makes sense. But..."

Caesar paused.

"I don't think that just by overhearing a conversation, he would remember it to this day."

He recalled his previous idea of ​​[changing the course of events] and muttered to himself, "If... he really isn't an eavesdropper..."

When Lu Mingfei heard Caesar's half-sentence, his mind suddenly opened up. "Eh? Boss, is it possible that the eavesdropper was his good friend? He was discovered in the end, which made Su Beixun very sad. And what we have to do is to protect his friend from being discovered!"

good friend?
sad?

Caesar tried to put himself in Su Beixun's shoes, but he always felt that this word was incompatible with Su Beixun's image, and it felt awkward no matter how he thought about it.

He shook his head and regained his thoughts.

"Perhaps... in the original development line, he would also be wrongly accused of being an eavesdropper?"

##
Its daybreak.

But the wind and rain seemed not to stop yet.

The tender green leaves were knocked into the mud.

The slightly movable glass in the window swayed back and forth.

Su Beixun woke up early, but he didn't slowly open his eyes until the woman came and knocked on the door.

"How did you sleep?"

The woman pushed the door open and smiled at him.

Su Beixun nodded and pulled the clothes on the bedside and put them on: "It's okay, but the glass is a bit annoying. It's been making a lot of noise in the past few days."

The woman walked over and pushed gently: "The sealant has aged. I'll go to the utility room this afternoon to check it out and fix it for you before tonight."

After checking, she touched Su Beixun's head again.

"I'm sorry, no wonder you look so tired, you must not have slept well yesterday, right? I'll ask the teacher for leave for you this morning, you just stay in your room and rest."

Su Beixun paused his fingers pressing on the bed board and narrowed his eyes slightly - he felt that the woman was a little abnormal today and seemed to have given too much concern.

He shook his head calmly: "It's just because I just got up. I slept well last night!"

"Is that so?"

The woman stared at him for a while before she smiled and took her hand away: "Let's go to the first floor to eat. I'll go call the others."

……

There is no tradition of waiting until everyone is present before starting to eat in this welfare home.

Except for the very young children who had to wait for the women to feed them, everyone else ate when they arrived. If they came too late, they would not be able to catch up with the few dishes.

Su Beixun sat in his seat, still habitually tearing the steamed bun into pieces and soaking it in the bowl.

slowly.

Just when he was about to finish eating, everyone arrived.

While feeding the youngest child rice porridge, the woman turned around and spoke to the older children.

"Last night, a child sneaked out. I hope he can take the initiative to stand up and admit his mistake."

It was a very casual tone and Su Beixun didn't take it seriously.

In the past, there were often children who sneaked out, but when they were found, they were simply criticized in public, and even when they could not be found, they would not be forced to return.

Su Beixun withdrew his gaze and prepared to swallow the last bit of breakfast.

But fierce!
The spoon he raised to his mouth suddenly stopped!

The conversation just now suddenly popped into his mind, making him feel like something was wrong.

This morning...was the woman testing whether he had gone out last night?

Su Beixun pondered silently.

At this moment, the woman's face darkened and her angry pupils swept across the faces of the older children one by one.

"Boys, I'm disappointed!"

"I can't believe that there are people among you who are so irresponsible! You don't even have the courage to admit your mistakes!"

"After school this morning, everyone come to my room! I must teach you what honesty is!"

The atmosphere in the living room suddenly became depressing.

Seeing the angry woman, the children shrank their necks and even the noises they made while eating became much quieter.

……

The welfare home’s classes are held in an empty room next to the restaurant, which is furnished with many tables, chairs and a small blackboard.

About nine o'clock.

A gray-haired old man pushed open the door of the welfare home with a book in his hand.

He was sent by the government to be the enlightenment teacher here. After all, these orphans would not be sent to ordinary schools before being adopted.

What the old man teaches is very simple.

In the morning, we basically learn pinyin and literacy, while in the afternoon, we learn the most basic addition and subtraction.

Su Beixun did not sit back and stare blankly after quickly mastering the technique as usual.

Today, his eyes would always carefully glance at the woman who sat in the room for the first time during class.

——I feel that this matter is more and more unusual.

……

Half past eleven in the morning.

get out of class has ended.

The old man held his textbooks like he did when he came, politely declined the woman's request to stay for a meal, and left the welfare home to eat somewhere else.

The ten children living on the second floor lowered their heads and followed the frosty-faced woman, and were brought into her residence one by one.

"Brother, something seems to be wrong."

Su Beixun, who was staring at the closed door, suddenly heard a voice coming from the side.

The child stuck his head out of the wall and said to him with a grin, "Besides the woman, there are also two men hiding under the bed and in the closet."

Su Beixun instantly remembered the unexpected visitor whom he had caught a glimpse of last night.

But just as he was about to doubt the credibility of the child's words, the door in front of him suddenly opened.

The child who came out waved to Su Beixun.

……

The women's room is simple.

Su Beixun forced himself not to look under the bed or at the closet, but to keep his eyes on the woman's face.

"Child, come and sit down!"

The woman living by the bed waved at him.

After Su Beixun sat next to her, she touched his hand and asked softly, "Did you find anything unusual last night?"

"no!"

Su Beixun answered decisively: "I fell asleep as soon as I returned to my room yesterday."

The woman frowned and said nothing.

Su Beixun looked up at her in confusion, "Don't you believe it... But I really didn't lie!"

"Of course, of course!"

The woman said quickly: "You have always been a very good child. I know this very well. I know Xiaoxun will never lie."

She leaned over and hugged Su Beixun, patting his back comfortingly.

This sudden intimate action made Su Beixun stiff for a moment.

The woman touched her head and said, "Go out. Lunch is in the kitchen. Please call Wang An in."

Su Beixun nodded.

He jumped off the bed, bowed slightly to her, and left in a small hop.

……

Time passed by minute by minute.

When the last child leaves the room.

The woman walked over and locked the door, then lowered her voice and said, "Come out."

With a rustling sound, a bearded man emerged from under the bed, scratching the spider web on his body.

"Damn it! How long has it been since you cleaned the house?! Do you know how many spiders were crawling on my face just now?"

"Idiot! Keep your voice down! They're just a few bugs."

Another thin man with a gloomy face came out of the closet.

He snorted coldly, ignored the stupid big guy, looked at the woman and asked, "Did you find the kid from last night?"

"Big...probably."

The woman felt a little guilty.

But she quickly made up for it by saying, "But I can guarantee that the one who eavesdropped must be one of Wang Er, Haozhe, and Su Beixun!"

The thin man narrowed his eyes.

"reason?"

"The eavesdroppers already know my identity... and among all the children, only these three looked stiff and resisted when I hugged them!"

(End of this chapter)