"It's the first time I've seen that kind of thing too."
"Wait a moment," Zhang Shutong interrupted her. "Let me process this..."
He no longer stayed in bed, whether lying on his back or on his side, but struggled to prop himself up and get to his feet. His head was buzzing.
It was already horrifying for a person who had passed away years ago to appear, but now Lu Qinglian was telling him that the thing was not only not a living person, but it wasn't even related to "human."
Zhang Shutong pulled at the collar of his hospital gown and suddenly felt a little short of breath.
To be honest, he hadn't thought about these questions carefully. From taking Gu Qiumian out of the villa, to that dream, to opening Teacher Song's diary, and then to stopping that woman, all he had thought about was how to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
After waking up, he triggered the rollback. At that time, he was already running a fever and his head was groggy. He only cared about why he had come back and what had happened in this timeline.
Once he was sure he was lying in the ward, he was thinking about what he had missed this week and how to explain his hospitalization to everyone, which was also a headache.
You could say his mind had never stopped working for a moment, but after operating for so long, he had never seriously considered what the woman's existence itself meant.
He had long expected that there were some unusual things on the island. Whether it was the folklore and legends he had heard as a child, or the experiences he had had since the rollback, he had long been certain that the deaths of Gu Qiumian, Lu Qinglian, and himself could not be explained by an ordinary "serial murder case."
But these secrets had always been covered by a blurry veil for him.
Now, they had voluntarily removed the veil, appearing before him without warning.
Those supernatural things, some were listened to as stories, some were half-believed, some were self-frightening, and some were subconsciously believed, but you were enveloped by the fear of the unknown, so you subconsciously hid them in a corner of your brain, unwilling to think deeply about them.
But now it was different.
It wasn't a story, it wasn't a bizarre tale, it wasn't a legend, but reality was forcing you to lift the veil and explore their naked side.
Zhang Shutong vaguely remembered Lu Qinglian telling him that his questions could be roughly divided into four types.
One was what she knew, and one was what she didn't know.
There was also a type that she knew but couldn't say.
The last one was that it was better for him not to know.
Zhang Shutong used to not take it seriously, thinking that this woman always liked to play coy and was unclear when she spoke.
But now he realized that, in a sense, it was for his own good.
Perhaps in her eyes, he really didn't need to know so many things. Wouldn't it be better to live a peaceful life as a student and return to a normal life?
As the saying goes, curiosity killed the cat, but it wasn't just cats. People could also be killed—
You accidentally discovered a door, then you curiously opened it and stepped inside, entering a new world. You struggled to walk a few steps. When regret welled up in your heart, a gust of wind blew up behind you. It turned out that the door had already closed.
And you could never go back.
It was already dark. The corridor outside was a bit noisy. Inside the room, it was silent. The lights were not on. Zhang Shutong looked at Lu Qinglian's back. In the cold moonlight, they also seemed to be in another world.
Lu Qinglian was waiting for his answer.
If he nodded, she would say the next words.
If he shook his head, Zhang Shutong had no doubt that she would turn and leave.
He wouldn't say "can you wait for me to think about it." Zhang Shutong just thought tiredly that this recent rollback was so timely. If it hadn't happened, he probably would have hesitated. His original wish was to dedicate himself to a plain life, and he thought that saving Gu Qiumian would complete his mission.
But this rollback just happened to come, placing the future world in front of him, and said, it's far from over. He would still live a miserable life. Gu Qiumian would still leave the small island, and Lu Qinglian would still die.
Humans are contradictory creatures.
During the cold-blooded timeline, he was betrayed and deserted by everyone, so he made up his mind that the next time, he absolutely couldn't be so cold-blooded.
Now, he thought almost helplessly, please, can't you be a little more cold-blooded? You should have just walked away. Otherwise, you'll live a life of constant running. Oh, I have an inspiration. This timeline might as well be called the wild dog timeline.
Now, Zhang Shutong looked at Lu Qinglian. She was the one who saved his life. Walking away was really not his character.
Besides, wouldn't walking away be equivalent to living the life of the original timeline? Transferring to a school in the city or a more distant place alone, and slowly losing contact with friends. That wasn't the life Zhang Shutong wanted. To put it bluntly, it was equivalent to escaping from this small island.
And now he might not have a choice. Zhang Shutong even suspected that if he didn't completely solve these things, he would be trapped in the cycle of eight years over and over again.
"You've been hesitating for a while." Lu Qinglian spoke slowly.
"I'm not really hesitating." Zhang Shutong let out a breath and also peeled an orange. He wanted to say, do you think I'm pretty busy? But then he thought that Lu Qinglian was the one who had been running around all this time, so he couldn't say the words.
It was better to get straight to the point.
"It's the first time you've seen it too, so that means you don't know where this thing came from either?"
Lu Qinglian nodded.
"Then why do you know about its existence?"
"You should still remember those frozen snakes."
"Does she have any other characteristics, or clues?"
"No, I checked her clothes later." Lu Qinglian said bluntly. "I wanted to find some answers from her identity, but now it seems there's no connection."
"So what exactly is the 'clay figurine' you're talking about? It's too vague. I don't understand. A mud man? A swamp person?" Zhang Shutong was confused. "I do remember you said her body was very soft, like a king oyster mushroom. What did that mean?"
Wait... hold on.
A terrifying answer suddenly popped into his head:
"You didn't kill her and find out there was no bleeding, did you?"
"Zhang Shutong, what are you thinking about?" Lu Qinglian skillfully tore off the white pith from the orange, and said carelessly, "I took it to that area you call the 'restricted zone,' and then, it became something else."
She lightly tapped the thermos on the bedside with her finger:
"A small sculpture made of mud, about this big."
"Just that simple?"
"Just that simple."
"It feels like some weird thing is at work, or is it the dead coming back to life?" Zhang Shutong also thought, if taking the "deceased" that was at work to the "restricted zone" was equivalent to giving them peace, then how did these deceased come back to life?
Is the key also in the restricted zone?
He seemed to have really heard a similar story somewhere. In addition to the shipwreck back then, the reason the restricted zone was called a restricted zone was because it was the abbreviation for "life restricted zone." It was the lowest point on the entire island, where the dead could be resurrected from the mud and return to the world.
And every time, Gu Qiumian died in that place. If that clay figurine hadn't been dealt with, maybe it would mean... Zhang Shutong suddenly touched his neck. He was covered in goosebumps, because he remembered the murderer who killed him in the cold-blooded timeline.
There was something wrapped around her face, very much like Gu Qiumian's red scarf.
Zhang Shutong was stunned for a long time.
The person who had puzzled him for so long, the one who killed him, seemed to have been revealed in that instant.
He silently opened his mouth, feeling the muscles around his eyes stretch little by little, but he couldn't make any sound.
Assuming that the bodies of the woman named 'Yun' and Gu's mother were resurrected because they appeared in the restricted zone, then...
What was the deal with the Lu Qinglian he saw?
Zhang Shutong's breathing hitched.
He slowly turned his head. Lu Qinglian was looking at him with her back to the moonlight. Her eyes were usually an amber color, but at this moment, they showed a dark light.
Zhang Shutong suddenly understood why she was always vague when he asked her where the clay figurine came from, because this matter simply couldn't be explained!
There were three known people. If the first two were resurrected from the dead, then what about the last one?
She looked at him indifferently, her lips moving.
Suddenly, the phone rang.
Zhang Shutong's heart jumped. Both of them looked at the glowing phone. Not long ago, Lu Qinglian had placed it on the windowsill. Now a phone call broke the silence in the room. Zhang Shutong stared at the phone. Before he could speak, Lu Qinglian took the initiative to hand the phone over:
"It's Teacher Song's."
"..."
Zhang Shutong answered the call. The man's voice sounded:
"Shutong, how are things on your side?" Song Nanshan was still weak. He said intermittently, "I didn't see Du Kang. Did he go back to the island? Where are you and Qiumian now?"
"It has been dealt with." Zhang Shutong glanced at Lu Qinglian.
After a long silence:
"That person... was she Qiumian's mom?"
"Yes."
The man suddenly became a little anxious:
"H-how was it dealt with? Does that mean her mother actually isn't dead, or..."
"You should have had the answer a long time ago." Zhang Shutong said softly. "The dead cannot be resurrected."
"..."
Teacher Song's originally hurried breathing slowly calmed down. He didn't ask why the deceased would appear in the present world, nor did he press for what it meant to "deal with a dead person." His voice became low:
"I... I see."
Song Nanshan's already weak voice became even weaker.
It was as if the last glimmer of hope in his heart had been shattered. Zhang Shutong could almost see the man lying on the hospital bed at this moment, staring at the ceiling with empty eyes.
The night wind whistled past.
After an even longer silence, Zhang Shutong thought he no longer cared about the call, but unexpectedly, Song Nanshan said in a low voice:
"You must have seen the things in my room. I'm sorry, Shutong. Teacher shouldn't have involved you."
"Do you want to rest for a while first?"
"I know you must have a lot of questions waiting to ask me. Wait for me to find a place with no one around." It seemed he could hear the sound of him getting up with difficulty. It was as if the conversation just now had been forgotten in the blink of an eye. Teacher Song shuffled in his slippers, habitually mumbling, "I just said it's worthy of a city hospital. There's even a separate bathroom. I'll go in, lock the door, and then we can talk in detail…"
He spoke these meaningless words without a care, but since he usually smoked too much, his voice was hoarse at this moment, and even speaking clearly was difficult.
Zhang Shutong didn't plan to expose him. He just waited for the sound of the door closing, and then asked:
"When did you first discover that long-haired woman?"
"Four years ago, or three years ago. To be honest, I can't remember, but it was around that time."
"What about in between?"
"Just like in the notebook, I had no luck. She just disappeared."
"If I'm not mistaken, at that time you were still looking for your wife, but you didn't know Gu Qiumian's mother. But you clipped her photo in there. Does that mean..."
"It's just as you guessed. It's the same person. She, she became her, in that barren area to the west. I even drove you and Qiumian there once."
"I understand." Zhang Shutong said goodbye. "You should rest first. I still have some things to do here."
Zhang Shutong hung up the phone.
Actually, at the beginning, he had two guesses. One was that the three people were three different people.
The other was that the three people were actually one person.
The reason Zhang Shutong thought it was the latter was because Teacher Song had clipped an irrelevant photo into his notebook.
He looked at Lu Qinglian again. Earlier, Zhang Shutong had turned on the speakerphone, so she had heard the conversation between the teacher and student clearly. Zhang Shutong silently stared at Lu Qinglian's chest. She was wearing a thick green robe, and she breathed lightly. He couldn't see the rise and fall of her chest.
"What are you looking at?" Lu Qinglian frowned and turned her body to the side.
Zhang Shutong had ruled out the guess that Lu Qinglian was a dead person.
A dead person's sprained ankle wouldn't swell.
"You heard everything," he said.
"Yes."
The two looked at each other.
In fact, when Teacher Song said the words "four years ago," they had both frowned at almost the same time.
If it was the first time Lu Qinglian had seen this thing.
Then—
How did the woman from four years ago come back to life? And how did she find peace?
Why was she awakened again?
"There was only one clay figurine?" Zhang Shutong confirmed again.
"Only one."
Zhang Shutong wanted to say, could you find some time to take a picture and send it over? But then he remembered that Lu Qinglian didn't have a phone. He had almost died in the avalanche this time because of this lack of timely communication, which was quite a headache. Zhang Shutong remembered that he had some reward money at the police station that he hadn't claimed yet. Since it was for Zhou Ziheng's case, why not just get a phone?
He was just about to say, I'll buy you a phone, but the words caught in his throat.
Phone, photo.
Zhang Shutong suddenly remembered where he had heard about this "clay figurine" thing.
Because he hadn't just heard about it, he had seen it.
In the cold-blooded timeline, he had found two photos in a hidden album on his phone. One was of Gu Qiumian, and the other was of the inside of the temple.
A sculpture of a green snake was enshrined in the temple. The light was dim. On the shrine below the sculpture, besides a few candle lights, there were also several small figurines. They were all clay sculptures. Their faces were all facing the camera, looking a bit creepy. At the time, he thought it was a special custom of the temple, but now he suddenly realized—
What he saw back then were the clay figurines!
He, on the cold-blooded timeline, knew about the existence of the clay figurines!
Zhang Shutong then remembered the three tattoos on his arm.
Snake, figurine, circle.
Besides the snake, he had probably never been close to the correct answer. The figurine didn't refer to the temple keeper or Lu Qinglian, which were superficial symbols. It was—
The clay figurine!
Snake, clay figurine.
If that's the case, what does the last circle refer to?
But then an even more troublesome question followed.
When was that photo taken?
If there was only one clay figurine sculpture in the temple now, but there were many in the photo, didn't that mean that these things would still appear during these eight years?
Ruoping said at the time that he had been hanging out with Lu Qinglian during the second semester of junior year. Was it to deal with those clay figurines?
Zhang Shutong directly told Lu Qinglian about his discovery, using the excuse of a dream. He thought that there would be a hint of surprise on her face, which was usually as cold as a statue, but Lu Qinglian's focus was unique:
"So you've been to the temple?" she said thoughtfully.
"Don't worry about that. I'm talking about those clay figurines," Zhang Shutong emphasized.
"Do you know when they appear?" she asked in return.
"No."
"If that's the case, we'll take it one step at a time." Lu Qinglian put the last piece of orange into her mouth. "I should go."
"Then what about four years ago?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?"
"I'll ask."
Zhang Shutong couldn't figure out what she meant at all, but it was already very late. He looked at his phone. It was almost nine o'clock, and he was also very tired today. There were still many things he needed to think about quietly, so he said goodbye and sat back on the bed.
Lu Qinglian unlocked the door but didn't leave immediately.
She stood at the boundary between light and dark at the door.
"Zhang Shutong, I'll assume everything you said tonight is not a lie, and I'll trust you one last time." She sighed softly. "Although my rational side tells me that it seems every time I trust you, a lot of trouble arises."
Zhang Shutong had already lied down on the bed. Hearing her words made him feel a little embarrassed. A sprained ankle once, an avalanche once. It seemed he had already accumulated a lot of favors without realizing it.
This night should also come to an end. Although he still hadn't figured out what he had missed, he had undoubtedly cleared up a lot of things.
At the very last moment before the door closed, he also sighed and said gratefully:
"Thank you for saving my life."
"Good that you know."
Through the crack, Lu Qinglian added lightly:
"Also, don't call me 'Mom' next time."