April 4, 2018, noon.
Zhou Mingrui's home.
Lin Chuan stepped out of the taxi and stood outside Zhou Mingrui's home. Looking at the apartment he had visited countless times, he suddenly had no idea what he hoped to see when he knocked and the door opened.
He stopped dwelling on it, because he already knew that the most useless things in this world were hesitation and doubt.
After two crisp knocks, the door opened, but very slowly.
First came a hand, a little pale, as though it had just been gripping something tightly. Only then did a face appear-a similar face, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, with lingering redness around the eyes.
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At the sight of Lin Chuan, he seemed about to say something, only to see Lin Chuan nod and speak in a low, slightly hoarse voice:
"I already know."
The man in the doorway visibly froze at those words.
"How did you..."
The person who had opened the door was not Zhou Mingrui, but his older brother, who worked out of town and had now returned. Together with Zhou Mingrui's earlier disappearance from WeChat, that made the situation self-evident.
Lin Chuan closed his eyes, then opened them again. Instead of answering, he asked, "When did it happen?"
Apparently realizing that Lin Chuan was in no mood to answer, his brother did not press him. "...The evening of April 1."
His voice was very quiet:
"Dad had gone to the hospital to stay overnight with Mom, and I hadn't made it back yet. He was home alone."
He paused. "After that, we couldn't reach him. When we came back the next day to check, he was already gone."
"..." Lin Chuan said nothing, as though his mind were somewhere far away.
His brother's gaze wandered slightly, barely daring to settle on Lin Chuan. He was the one who was Zhou Mingrui's family, yet seeing that expression on his younger brother's friend's face somehow made him feel he had let Lin Chuan down.
"I'm sorry," he finally said, perhaps to break the oppressive silence. "If I'd come back sooner, if I'd come back on his birthday, maybe this wouldn't have..."
Wouldn't have what? Would Zhou Mingrui have been all right if he had attended his younger brother's birthday dinner?
"...Maybe that's just what an accident is. We never know which will come first, tomorrow or the unexpected."
Is he trying to comfort me? Lin Chuan was a little surprised.
They really were a family.
Whether it was Zhou Mingrui, his parents, or his brother, they were all gentle and kind, undoubtedly "good people" in the broadest sense.
But why did good people have to cry? Good people ought to be rewarded for their goodness.
Lin Chuan suppressed his emotions, becoming unusually clearheaded instead. There were still a few things he needed to confirm:
"Was the diagnosis a vegetative state or sudden death?"
"Sudden death." His brother's voice sank lower. "The medical examiner said there was nothing abnormal. Sudden cardiac death. They couldn't find any external cause. It was just... so sudden."
"He normally... really didn't stay up late." As though unable to help himself, he added another sentence, without knowing whom he was saying it for. "I always thought his sleep schedule was more regular than mine."
Lin Chuan did not respond to that.
"You haven't told your mother."
"That's right." His brother nodded. "We were afraid something might happen to her, so we didn't dare tell her. We discussed it and decided to keep it from her for now, then tell her a while after she's discharged."
He stepped back and pulled the door open, perhaps feeling it was impolite to keep talking in the doorway. "Let's come inside and talk."
Lin Chuan murmured his assent.
It was a very quiet sound, but it seemed to nail a certain suspicion firmly into place.
"Was there anything suspicious?" Lin Chuan asked as he followed him inside. He noticed that his brother's gaze kept avoiding one direction: east.
His brother shook his head as he walked. "No. There are surveillance cameras nearby. No one other than Mingrui came in that day, and they didn't find any traces of drugs."
"No," Lin Chuan interrupted. "That's not what I mean. I'm talking about... some other details."
"What details?" He frowned, as though something had suddenly occurred to him. "You're his best friend... but what did you mean by that question just now?"
"The one about sudden death or a vegetative state?" Lin Chuan asked, but offered no answer. He simply headed toward the room in the southeastern corner. It was Zhou Mingrui's room. Its door was shut, and the answer lay within.
Lin Chuan stopped in front of the door. "After that evening on April 1, was he found in bed?"
For a moment, the air went still. His brother's expression changed, not into grief, but into something closer to wariness and suspicion.
Noticing his reaction, Lin Chuan gave him no chance to speak and pressed on. "What about his clothes?"
"Was he still wearing his everyday clothes? I don't know exactly what, but he went straight to bed without changing into pajamas, didn't he?"
His brother's expression changed again. This time, he looked as though he had seen a ghost. "How did you know?"
"Because there are some things I want to confirm." Lin Chuan grasped the door handle and turned to look at him. "Can I go inside and have a look?"
His brother froze for a moment, unable to understand what Lin Chuan was trying to do. But Lin Chuan's tone was so certain that it made people instinctively want to trust him. Besides, the things he had said sounded less like guesses than confirmations.
"Now?"
"Yes."
"...All right."
Lin Chuan pressed down on the handle, and the whole room came into view. His gaze swept over the wardrobe, the fan, the single bed, and the desk, finally settling on a bookcase beside the desk.
He walked over to the bookcase and checked the books one by one, starting from the top, until he reached the bottom row, where a thread-bound book had been casually tucked into a gap.
Lin Chuan could hardly describe how he felt. Slowly, he reached out and drew out the book, neither thin nor thick, then turned it over from its plain back cover. The title, "Qin-Han Secret Record of Esoteric Arts," stood out starkly on the cover of the slightly worn old volume.
He gently opened the cover and traced the text with a finger, character by character. Zhou Mingrui had been right: the vertical layout really did put a damper on things.
He read the contents aloud in a low voice:
"...Simply prepare four portions of the staple food of your region and place them in the four corners of the room. These may be placed on tables, cabinets, or similar surfaces. Then stand in the center of the room and trace a square with four counterclockwise steps. With the first step, sincerely recite in silence, 'Immortal Venerable of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.' With the second step, silently recite, 'Heavenly Monarch of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.' With the third step, silently recite, 'God Almighty of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.' With the fourth step, silently recite, 'Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.' After completing the steps, close your eyes and wait in place for five minutes. The ritual will then be a
success."
"Is this what you were looking for?" Zhou Mingrui's brother had followed behind him. Watching Lin Chuan find the book with such a clear purpose, he asked the question.
"Yes," Lin Chuan answered softly.
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