Ch 12: Text Messages Across Time

“Lin Wu is seventeen, goes to No. 1 High, and gets pretty good grades…” Luo Liang had no idea why Qin Weidong was asking about Lin Wu. He assumed the two had some sort of conflict, so he began recounting everything in painstaking detail.

At the entrance to Piaoxiang Pavilion, Qin Weidong found a step off to the side and sat down, listening carefully.

Half an hour later, he had a basic understanding of Lin Wu’s circumstances: his father was disabled, his mother had an intellectual disability, his father died when he was in his first year of high school, and now he lived with his mother. His mother made buns in the canteen and earned nine hundred yuan a month. Lin Wu did well in school and had always been a top student…

“This guy is usually gloomy and doesn’t fit in. In his first year of high school, he almost killed someone…” Luo Liang grew more and more animated as he talked.

“Killed someone?” Qin Weidong caught that immediately.

“It was during winter break in his first year. He got into an argument with someone from the compound. By the time we got there, Lin Wu was holding a knife, and the other guy was already on the ground.”

“Was there blood?”

“No. The guy fell down from fright.”

Qin Weidong was a little surprised. After calculating Lin Wu’s age at the time, he asked, “Did he get sent to juvenile detention?” Based on Luo Liang’s description, even if Lin Wu hadn’t actually killed anyone, that still counted as threats and intimidation, which should have resulted in detention.

“No. He came out after giving a statement at the police station.”

“Why?”

“The knife wasn’t Lin Wu’s. The other guy brought it.”

Qin Weidong understood at once. The other person had brought the knife intending to threaten Lin Wu and ended up getting the tables turned on him.

“He didn’t kill anyone, so why are you saying he did?”

“When we got there, Lin Wu’s expression was terrifying. Not crazy or twisted, just this cold, blank calm, like one of those psychopathic killers in movies. His family was already abnormal to begin with, so we all thought he’d inherited it from his mom and was some kind of potential mental case…”

Qin Weidong frowned. “Isn’t his mom intellectually disabled?”

“It’s all the same.”

“An intellectual disability is an intellectual disability. Mental illness is mental illness. And anyway, mental illness isn’t necessarily hereditary,” Qin Weidong corrected him.

“…Oh.” Luo Liang sounded a little dazed by that. Then he asked, “Brother Qin, should we find some people and beat him up?”

“You used to beat him up a lot?”

“We had some conflicts when we were kids, but he fought back pretty hard, so he didn’t exactly lose out. Later, once we got older, we mostly stayed out of each other’s way.”

“What kinds of conflicts?”

“Do I really have to say?” Luo Liang didn’t understand why Qin Weidong wanted to know all this.

“Yeah. Tell me everything.” Qin Weidong shifted position.

“Actually, at the start it was all small stuff…”

Luo Liang himself had no direct conflict with Lin Wu. It was more that their group as a whole had issues with him. The reason, more or less, was that Lin Wu’s father was lame and his mother had an intellectual disability. Translated on Hololo novels. Their family had neither power nor influence in the steel factory, so a lot of kids looked down on them. They liked to imitate the way Lin Haiming walked. Lin Haiming was meek and could only make shooing gestures, which made everyone laugh.

Later, simply mocking the way he walked stopped being fun enough. They started throwing stones at Luo Xiaorong, or dragging her out to the road to make a fool of her, or tricking her into eating spicy snack strips picked up off the ground…

Luo Xiaorong couldn’t really express herself, and they kept getting worse and worse, until Lin Wu found out.

Lin Wu didn’t back down. He went straight to hitting people. He fought in a very underhanded way, aiming only at places outsiders couldn’t see, never leaving obvious wounds. When the kids who got beaten told their parents, the parents knew their own children had been bullying someone and beat them again. After enough of these incidents, the conflict shifted from being between them and Lin Wu’s parents to being between them and Lin Wu himself. It went back and forth like that until junior high, when things finally eased up a little.

“We didn’t really have any contact after junior high. It’s just that Zhao Qi liked to mess with him now and then when he was bored…” Zhao Qi was the one who had pulled the knife on Lin Wu. Not long after that incident, his family moved away for work.

“You people really are trash.” Qin Weidong might have been a troublemaker, but he looked down on this kind of bullying cruelty.

“They’re not, I am. No, that’s not right, I can’t exactly say I’m trash either. I mostly just followed them around and watched the fun.” Luo Liang got increasingly tangled up in his own words, then finished with, “Did he piss you off? I can get some people to beat him back for you.”

“Get lost. Who said I wanted to beat anyone up?” Qin Weidong frowned. “I’m just asking you about some things. Don’t go starting trouble for me. My business is not yours to interfere with, and don’t go looking to beat anyone up.”

Seeing how serious he was, Luo Liang hurriedly promised, “I absolutely won’t interfere!”

“Mm.” Qin Weidong had lost interest in talking. After a couple more words, he hung up.

It was now 9:10. Just as Qin Weidong stood up, Hu Wei came out of the restaurant.

“Brother Qin, why aren’t you inside? I tried calling you but couldn’t get through.”

“I was on another call. I’m coming in now.”

Qin Weidong brushed the dust off his clothes and went upstairs with Hu Wei to sing. The group played from nine until eleven that night. Qin Weidong slipped the gate guard two packs of cigarettes, then took Hu Wei back to the dormitory in secret.

That night Gao Mingming had gone home for something, so after saying a word to him, Hu Wei took his bed. Qin Weidong and Gao Mingming usually had the upper and lower bunk arrangement, but now it was Qin Weidong above and Hu Wei below. The other two roommates were in the next dorm playing cards, so only the two of them were in the room.

“Monkey.” Lying in bed, Qin Weidong suddenly called Hu Wei by his nickname.

“What?” Hu Wei was playing Sokoban and looked up when he heard him.

“Say there’s someone who’s been bullied his whole life, and these people bully both him and his parents. Then some stranger shows up and tells him, ‘Your mom’s going to die in three months’… would that count as provocation?” Qin Weidong asked after thinking through how to phrase it.

“Of course.” Hu Wei answered without hesitation.

“And what if that stranger doesn’t know anything about the family? He’s just passing on a message for someone.”

“Who passes on a message saying somebody’s parents are going to die? If anyone said that about my dad, I’d be the first one to beat the hell out of them.” Hu Wei got smacked around by his own father often enough, but he loved him, and his father loved him. He would never allow someone to attack him like that.

“This stranger doesn’t know that. He thinks he’s helping someone.”

“What kind of helping is it to tell someone their parents are going to die?” Hu Wei sounded scornful. “That person is either brain-dead or a complete idiot. There’s no third possibility.”

After Hu Wei said that, the upper bunk went silent.

“Brother Qin?” Hu Wei called out.

“Heh.” Qin Weidong let out a cold laugh, then said icily, “Go to sleep!”

Hu Wei: Why did it suddenly get so cold?

Going to school, leaving school, and taking Luo Xiaorong home.

Lin Wu’s life in high school was extremely simple. After Luo Xiaorong changed jobs, he no longer had to pick her up or drop her off. His days were reduced to just school and home, back and forth, and he was very satisfied with this routine. He didn’t want any changes.

But the next day after school, the moment he stepped out of the school gate, he felt like someone was following him. It was 8:35 in the evening, and the entrance was crowded with graduating seniors. He took a couple of steps, then suddenly turned around—

About five meters behind him, a tall boy was trailing him lazily. The weather was a bit cool today. Translated on Hololo novels. The boy wore a red jacket, light blue jeans, and a white baseball cap. With broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and long limbs, he stood out sharply among the sea of school uniforms.

Lin Wu recognized him. It was the person from the alley a few days ago.

He walked forward, and the other followed. He stopped, and the other stopped. When Lin Wu looked over, the boy made no effort to hide and simply smiled at him.

Lin Wu: …

Lin Wu very much wanted to ask why he was being followed, but this wasn’t his private road. If he asked, it would make him seem self-important.

Suppressing his discomfort, Lin Wu walked as usual to the bus stop. The other followed him there.

Lin Wu got on the bus. The other got on.

Lin Wu got off. The other got off.

Lin Wu walked into the residential compound. The other followed behind. After about a hundred meters, Lin Wu finally couldn’t hold back anymore and turned around. “Are you following me?”

“You just noticed?” Qin Weidong sounded genuinely surprised, as if it were strange Lin Wu had only just realized.

“Do you need something?” Lin Wu frowned.

“Yes.” Qin Weidong took out his phone without hesitation.

He had thought it through the day before. His original goal was to figure out the identity of the unknown number. Now the only lead was Lin Wu. There was no reason to abandon it just because of one unpleasant interaction.

“Do you recognize this number?” Qin Weidong quickly pulled up the unknown number. He had switched phones, so the previous message history was still in the old one. Only the saved contact remained on the SIM card.

“I don’t,” Lin Wu said after a glance.

“Look again carefully!” Qin Weidong was very dissatisfied with the perfunctory answer.

“I really don’t know it.” Lin Wu’s social circle was extremely small. Aside from Wang Manshan and Hao Shuqin, he didn’t recognize other numbers. This one had nothing special about it except that it matched his birthdate.

“Think again.” Qin Weidong stared intently at his expression.

“I don’t know it,” Lin Wu said firmly.

“A few days ago, this number sent me messages and told me to pass something on to you,” Qin Weidong said, bringing up what happened in the alley.

Lin Wu looked at him in slight surprise. “Thank you. I understand now.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.” After their previous unpleasant encounter, Lin Wu instinctively kept his distance. He didn’t care who had said those words, whether it was this boy or someone else. It didn’t matter. He didn’t want to waste energy on meaningless things. Of course, if the other kept pushing and harassing him, he wouldn’t hesitate to push back.

“I’m going home now. Do you have anything else?” Lin Wu asked.

“No…”

“Goodbye.” Lin Wu turned and left without another word.

Qin Weidong watched his back and felt that something was off. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly realized what it was.

He had followed him all the way here to prove his noble, helpful nature. But just now, the other had been brushing him off the entire time. He was being dismissed.

“Damn!” Qin Weidong felt this couldn’t just end like that. He couldn’t let himself be misunderstood. He was being helpful, a model citizen with upright character!

He immediately followed again.

Lin Wu didn’t notice. At Building 26, just as he reached downstairs, he saw Luo Xiaorong sitting on the steps. When she saw him, she happily ran up. “Wuwu!”

“Mom, why did you come downstairs? It’s cold.”

Luo Xiaorong was wearing winter pajamas. Lin Wu’s first instinct was to pull her collar tighter.

“It’s not cold.” She breathed out warm air as she spoke. She used to go home with him, but now that she stayed alone, she wasn’t used to it. She liked waiting for him downstairs.

“I’ll set an alarm for you. Come down when it rings.” Lin Wu knew she could be stubborn sometimes, so he didn’t argue further. After a couple more words, he took her hand and led her upstairs.

When Qin Weidong arrived, this was the scene he saw: Lin Wu adjusting Luo Xiaorong’s clothes and leading her upstairs.

He looked up at the windows of the old apartment building. Not long after, a light came on in a third-floor unit.

He wanted to explain things, but he didn’t have the habit of knocking on someone’s door out of the blue. If he did, he’d basically look like a stalker.

He found a spot sheltered from the wind, took out his phone, and was about to call Hu Wei to see where he was.

Just as he was about to dial, footsteps came from the corridor of Building 12. Qin Weidong turned around.

In the steel factory residential area, about ninety percent of the residents were factory workers. When the buildings were constructed, each one had a row of water pipes downstairs so residents could wash vegetables and clothes. The factory covered the water cost as part of employee benefits.

When Qin Weidong turned, he saw Lin Wu again, now in pajamas, carrying a large basin of clothes.

Lin Wu came down, took a washboard from beside a flowerbed, filled the basin with water, and sat by the pipe on a stone to start washing. The clothes included his own long underwear and Luo Xiaorong’s jackets and pants.

He wore rubber gloves and moved with practiced ease.

Qin Weidong watched from the shadows for a while. This wasn’t the right moment to explain anything. Even if he insisted again and again that he was telling the truth, it would be too hard for anyone to believe.

He walked to the entrance of the compound just as Hu Wei’s call came in.

“Brother Qin, I’m at Whirlwind Billiards Hall right now. Where are you? Haven’t seen you all night. You coming over?” Hu Wei’s side was noisy; he had to shout.

“Had something to deal with earlier. I’m not coming.” Qin Weidong replied casually, then asked, “Can they repair phones at the mobile mall?”

“Your phone’s broken?!” Hu Wei moved somewhere quieter, sounding shocked. Qin Weidong had just bought a new phone a week ago.

“It’s not broken. I want to fix the old one as a backup.” He hadn’t planned to repair it before, but just now he suddenly thought of it. The old phone still had the message history with the unknown number. If he fixed it, at least he could prove he was telling the truth.

Right now, he not only looked like someone pulling a prank, but the more he tried to explain, the worse it sounded. He needed to clear his name.

✧˖°.──⋆⭒˚.⋆💌⋆⭒˚.⋆──✧˖°.