Liu Huaian jumped up from his chair as if his backside was on fire, shouting, "No! It wasn't me!"
Qingmu offered him another cigarette before he sat down again, but he looked nervous, his eyes darting around, looking left and right without settling on anything.
"Tell me about what happened twenty years ago," Qingmu said.
Liu Huaian smoked silently for a while, then looked up and said, "It really wasn't me!"
Qingmu said, "I didn't say it was you, so tell me about the past."
Liu Huaian smoked two cigarettes before he started talking, recounting his past in fits and starts.
In the early 1990s, when Liu Huaian middle school, his father was laid off and set up a mobile stall selling sesame cakes at the entrance of Liuying Lane. Because of his short stature, he was nicknamed "Wu Dalang" (meaning "short-statured Wu Dalang").
Liu Huaian's classmates all knew about this and often made fun of him about it. Some teachers who didn't know his name would also call him " Wu Dalang's son."
He felt extremely ashamed when he heard this, and wished he could find a hole to crawl into.
Liu Huaian had argued with his father more than once, telling him to stop selling pancakes, saying he'd rather be poor and suffer.
But his father was a kind-hearted and hardworking man who didn't take these gossips seriously. He said that it wouldn't hurt him to have a nickname, and that if he became famous, his pancake business would actually improve!
Liu Huaian's mother, however, thought differently. She said that selling pancakes wouldn't make her rich, and it would be better to switch to something else. At that time, the private economy was booming, and Liu Huaian's uncle had just returned from working in another city and was preparing to invest in a factory. Liu Huaian's mother then encouraged his father to invest.
His dad said investing was fine, but the pancakes still needed to be sold; if the factory went out of business, at least they'd have something to eat. His mom said the factory was a lot of work, and his second uncle would have to handle sales, production, and books—it wouldn't be a good job. His dad said if he wasn't comfortable with that, he could go work at the factory; he was determined to keep his pancake stall.
And so, Liu Huaian's mother and his second uncle opened a wool textile factory together. The business was booming, and the family made money. But the rumors and gossip outside were getting worse and worse.
Pan Jinlian ran off with Ximen Qing!
"That's not Ximen Qing! He's clearly having an affair with Wu Er, that's what the book says too!"
"Do you think Wu Da is stupid? His family is so rich, yet he's still selling pancakes on the street."
"Oh dear, you don't know, all the money in the house is managed by Pan Jinlian. Wu Da doesn't sell pancakes, how will he survive?"
Whether in Liuying Lane or at school, Liu Huaian felt that everyone was looking at him strangely. He finally couldn't take it anymore, so he went to confront his father, only to be scolded by him. "If you can't even trust your second uncle, who can you trust in the family?"
Liu Huaian went to see his mother again, only to be scolded once more. His mother was even fiercer than his father, telling him that if he didn't get into university, he should go to the south to work.
In those days, getting into university wasn't easy. Liu Huaian figured he wouldn't pass anyway, and staying at home would only bring him mistreatment, so he might as well go out and find work as soon as possible. So he packed his bags and headed south.
"I first went to Yangcheng with my fellow villagers, and later to Shenzhou. I worked at SEG and Huaqiang." Liu Huaian was clearly excited when he talked about his experience working in the south, and his face even glowed. But his expression quickly darkened again, as if he was recalling some terrible experience.
"Is that where someone implanted a chip?" Qingmu asked.
"Yes," Liu Huaian said, "They grabbed me and implanted a chip in my back."
What did they ask you to do?
"They want me to provide them with intelligence."
How will you provide it?
"The chip on my back automatically transmits the information I receive to them. They can also control my body by controlling the chip's frequency," Liu Huaian said. "However, they haven't used this function for a long time, and I suspect my remote control is out of power."
"You can charge it if it runs out of power," Qingmu said.
Liu Huaian said, "They are very busy and sometimes forget, and even without a remote control, they can still receive my messages, just like we are having this conversation right now, they can all hear it."
"They know everything," he added.
Qingmu nodded, acknowledging his statement, and asked, "Then why did you come back?"
"I made a lot of money as a spy, and I wanted to bring my dad to Shenzhou. My dad was stubborn, but he was a good man." Liu Huaian exhaled smoke, as if recalling the past. "After I went back, my dad didn't want to go south with me, saying he couldn't speak the language there. Actually, I knew he couldn't bear to leave his pancake stall. I was just about to go back to Shenzhou alone when I received orders from them via chip, instructing me to build a central hub in Wuzhong."
"At first, I didn't know how to build an Internet hub. Later, they suggested I open an internet cafe. Back then, internet cafes were a rarity, and licenses were easy to obtain. So I rented a few storefronts next to my second uncle's wool mill and started an internet cafe."
"Weren't you afraid of gossip back then?" Qingmu asked.
Liu Huaian said, "It's not fear, it's annoyance, you understand? When I'm annoyed, I have an urge to kill. I went out to work not because I was afraid of the gossips, but because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to control myself and would kill someone. But after a few years of training in the south, I'm not so impulsive anymore. Besides, I have a mission. I have to complete what they asked me to do, otherwise, they can change the chip frequency and kill me at any time."
What happened next?
"Later, they asked me to set up surveillance cameras around the area to expand the sensing range of this central control point."
Qingmu nodded and smiled, "Your second uncle's factory must have installed quite a lot too, right?"
"That's because it's required for the mission! It doesn't matter who's related to whom," Liu Huaian explained.
"Go on, what happened next?"
"Then, I woke up! I awakened to the conscience of humanity, and I became a double agent!" Liu Huaian said with a hint of pride, as if he had suddenly transformed from a traitor into a member of the underground Communist Party. "I had to find a way to destroy this central authority and restore a stable and peaceful world to the residents of Liuying Lane and the people of Wuzhong."
"So you just burned the internet cafe down?" Qingmu asked.
"Yes."
"Your second uncle's wool mill was also burned to the ground?"
"Yes."
"You did it on purpose!" Qingmu said. "You deliberately burned down your second uncle's factory; you wanted to burn him to death! You installed so many surveillance cameras just to monitor your second uncle and your mother. You're convinced they're involved, aren't you?"
"No! That's not it!" Liu Huaian shouted excitedly, his hand trembling as he threw away his cigarette butt. "I had no choice. I was fighting against AI! I was fighting for peace for humanity!"
With trembling hands and the book, he reached for the cigarette box on the table, wanting to smoke another one.
Suddenly, Qingmu grabbed a black pen from the side and shoved it into the table with a "plop," wedging it right between Liu Huaian's outstretched fingers. He yelled, "You did that on purpose!"