After taking out the USB drive sealed inside the urn, Lin Hanzhi carefully put the featherlight bag of ashes back inside, not daring to look too closely. He returned the urn to the burial chamber and covered it with the concrete slab, completing everything step by step.
Covered in mud and water, Lin Hanzhi returned to the car, turned around, and left along the way he had come. He parked where he had first picked it up, then used the car rental app registered under his alternate account to tell the owner that the car had gotten dirty and paid a cleaning fee.
He climbed the hotel pipes and balcony railings back to his room with a speed and agility that would have earned praise from a parkour master. Stripping off his soaked clothes on the balcony, he went into the bathroom and took a warm shower.
He carefully set the USB drive and his phone on a tray beside him. Silently, he stared at the drive, his eyes dark and deeper than the endlessly raining sky.
Suddenly, his phone lit up with a new message.
[Gugu: The forecast says it's raining in Shanyin City tonight. Are you back at the hotel? You didn't get wet, did you?]
Qi Gu had checked Shanyin City's weather once, and the system seemed to have assumed he was there, proactively sending him rain alerts and reminding him to bring an umbrella when he went out.
So when he saw the notification, he thought of the frail Lin Hanzhi and worried that he might get sick from being caught in the rain.
The instant Lin Hanzhi saw the message, he vaguely felt a trace of warmth seep into the heart that even the hot water had failed to warm.
Then he remembered Huai Shui