“I’ll say this first: everything I’m about to tell you is what we learned over the past two days. Even though it sounds pretty ridiculous, it’s been verified through multiple sources, so the credibility isn’t low. So if you have questions, don’t rush to ask them yet. Listen until I finish.” Ji Xun gave Shen Kui a sort of advance warning, then took out his phone.
He found a photo, enlarged it, and handed it to Shen Kui. “Look. Does this look like the car you two rode in?”
When they went out that night, everything had been rushed and chaotic. Shen Kui only remembered that there had been a palm-sized gap in the taxi’s roof light, and that the license plate started with A850. Although the information was limited, it did basically match the car in the photo.
“Maybe,” she said uncertainly.
“But the one you two actually rode in was this one.”
Ji Xun swiped the album to the right, and a taxi crushed and badly deformed appeared in front of Shen Kui.
Strictly speaking, with the damage from the collision this severe, it was already very difficult to tell from the appearance alone whether it was really the same taxi Shen Kui and Tian Ke had taken that night. Still, Shen Kui cooperated and nodded. “Then what?”
Ji Xun explained, “This car accident wasn’t an accident. It was a deliberate murder. But the intended victim wasn’t you two…”
“…It was the taxi driver.” Shen Kui reacted quickly.
“Right. You two were just the unlucky passengers who happened to be in that car.”
Ji Xun paused, showing a very speechless expression. “What’s even more ridiculous is… the killer targeted the wrong person.”
“What?!” Even though she had already prepared herself mentally, Shen Kui was still shocked.
“You two were forced to take a detour because of the roadblock, right? That was actually prepared in advance by the killer. But who could have predicted that the car he was waiting for never showed up, and your car arrived first instead? In the middle of the night, visibility was already poor. Both were taxis, and their license plates were similar. The killer got overanxious, and then…”
“This…” The explanation was so ridiculous that Shen Kui instinctively wanted to refute it. But for a moment, she didn’t even know where to start.
“Ridiculous, right?” Ji Xun gave her a look that said, I know you. He patted her shoulder. “I know, we didn’t believe it at first either. I have a classmate working at the accident processing center, so I specifically asked around. The witness statements and physical evidence are all there. Sure, there are many coincidences, but this really is what happened.”
Shen Kui fell silent in thought.
There were just too many coincidences in these two incidents. Even though everything sounded reasonable and airtight, she couldn’t accept that this was the full truth.
There had to be something more…
“Hua Hua.” Tian Ke held Shen Kui’s hand, her round face full of genuine concern. She said softly, “I know what you’re thinking. You feel like there are too many coincidences in these two incidents. You think someone must be behind all this, don’t you?”
“I’m thinking…” Shen Kui’s mind was in chaos as she tried to piece things together. Tian Ke suddenly sat up, quickly exchanged a glance with Ji Xun, and gently interrupted her:
“Hua Hua, there’s actually one more thing I haven’t told you.”
“After Ji Xun and I finished investigating these two incidents, we went to your house as well.”
Tian Ke’s voice was gentle, as if afraid of startling Shen Kui. “Do you remember how, during that half month, every time you were woken up in the middle of the night, you would send me a WeChat message? About broken vases, cracked mirrors, and things like that…”
“I remember.” Shen Kui vaguely sensed what Tian Ke was about to say, but she didn’t dare think too deeply.
“I compared everything you told me before with the items in your house…” Tian Ke took a deep breath and slowly said, “The vases are intact, the bathroom mirror is fine… every so-called ‘accident’ you mentioned that woke you up in the middle of the night… none of it actually happened.”
It was like a bolt of lightning suddenly tearing through the long night. Thunder seemed to explode in Shen Kui’s ears.
For a moment, she couldn’t even process what Tian Ke was saying. Her mind kept flashing back over everything she had seen and experienced during the past half month…
The nights she couldn’t sleep…
Her increasingly exhausted body…
Her gradually clouded, numbed mind…
Could it really be, as Tian Ke said, that everything at three in the morning during the first half of the month was just her illusion?
Was it because something was wrong with her mind?
“No… no, that’s not right.”
Shen Kui was briefly dazed, but she quickly regained her focus. “Even if the reasons I woke up in the first half of the month were imagined, the time is real. Our chat records can confirm it. I really did wake up at that time.”
“This is probably just your biological clock being off…” Tian Ke tried to explain.
“Biological clock being off…” Shen Kui took a deep breath. “No matter the reason, as long as the three o’clock time is confirmed, and we line it up with the times of Lu Ting’s death and the taxi accident, doesn’t that still point to something? It’s hard for me to convince myself that all of this is just a coincidence.”
“But… you were fine during the two days you were unconscious, right? Why can’t those two incidents just be coincidences?”
“Can I chime in?” Ji Xun said. “Honestly, I don’t think we need to get stuck on this. If it really was a coincidence, nothing like it will happen again. If it wasn’t, then we handle things as they come. Sure, it’s confusing, but dwelling on it won’t help us now…”
“But the doctor said—”
Ji Xun interrupted her again. “I think you’re overanalyzing. People aren’t fully conscious when they’re half-asleep. Illusions happen all the time. It’s nothing serious. We’ve got a lot of real issues to deal with right now, so don’t make trouble for yourself.”
Tian Ke seemed about to say something else, but Ji Xun furrowed his brows, crossed his arms, and said bluntly, “I just don’t get it. Everything’s fine, so why do you have to make your best friend seem like she’s mentally ill?”
Tian Ke was taken aback and stammered in defense, “I-I didn’t…”
“Alright, enough,” Shen Kui soothed them. “I know you both mean well. Since nothing happened these past two nights, we can take it as a good sign for now. Let’s put this matter aside and hope I can sleep well going forward. Keke, you don’t need to dig into it either. I understand, so don’t worry.”
“Alright then…” Tian Ke still looked a bit reluctant. Suddenly she remembered, “Oh, right, the class reunion is tomorrow. Are you still going?”
“Yes.” Shen Kui nodded while instinctively patting her pocket, then realized she was still wearing her patient gown. “My phone, where is it?”
“Oh, here.” Ji Xun handed it to her. “Your colleagues tried contacting you a few times over the past two days. We answered for you. Your boss even wanted to come visit, but we stopped him.”
“Boss…” Shen Kui remembered the Ouroboros tattoo on Uncle Xu’s wrist. A strange, hard-to-describe feeling rose in her chest.
“Your boss is nice. He checks on you every day. If he hadn’t said he’s in his fifties, I might’ve thought he liked you.” Ji Xun teased.
“Fifties or not, our Hua Hua is irresistible to all ages.” Tian Ke finally caught on and shot back teasingly.
Ji Xun gave a subtle eye roll and didn’t say anything more.
Shen Kui quickly skimmed through the messages on her phone, and just to be safe, even checked the forum.
Of course, there was still nothing on the forum.
Since the post had been taken down, no related discussions had appeared. Aside from the class group chat buzzing with plans for tomorrow’s reunion, there was nothing.
Over the past two days, while she had been unconscious, it was as if all those strange events had been paused. Things that hadn’t given her a moment to breathe before were now, almost as if by agreement, on a collective ceasefire.
For a brief moment, Shen Kui even wondered if she should start looking for problems within herself, but she quickly dismissed the thought.
She was by no means blindly confident. If the facts proved that everything had been her imagination, she could face it calmly. But with so much concrete evidence right in front of her, it was clear that this wasn’t a situation she could have fabricated on her own.
Shen Kui ran through in her mind the things she needed to do next and asked, “By the way, Lu Ting’s farewell ceremony is tomorrow morning, right?”
“Not exactly tomorrow. Look at the time now. It’s almost dawn. I remember they scheduled it for nine in the morning, so that’s about four hours from now. Want me to go with you?” Ji Xun said casually.
“Sure.”
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Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152