Skin - Chapter 20

　　After putting away Zhou Yan’s cell phone, Meng Zhao walked out of the city bureau, opened the door to Lu Shichen’s car and got in.

　　”How is it?” Lu Shichen turned to look at him.

　　”It was ringing.”

　　”Then we can basically rule out the possibility that the murderer had answered the call.” Lu Shichen started the car.

　　”Well, of course, we can’t rule out another possibility that it was too difficult for the murderer to find the mobile phone at that time… By the way, if that dog hair was really intended to frame you, then could it be that this person has conflicts with you too? But you just returned to China not long ago, who did you make enemies with?”

　　”I don’t know.” Lu Shichen drove across the road and straight to Building 7.

　　”However, using a piece of dog hair to frame someone for a murder, I wonder if the murderer ever felt that such an evidence was strong enough or not…”

　　”I had been to the crime scene at the time of the incident, and there is evidence of the testimony. I had also called the deceased around the same time of the murder. If another policeman was to investigate the case, maybe I would’ve already become a suspect.” They were already very close to Building No. 7. By the time Lu Shichen finished speaking, they had already arrived in front of the round arch.

　　Meng Zhao opened the door and got out of the car: “So, it turns out that I am your saviour…”

　　Lu Shichen also got out of the car and walked next to Meng Zhao. Meng Zhao patted Lu Shichen’s arm with the back of his hand: “I won’t let you pledge yourself to your saviour. Show more respect to your saviour from now on.”

　　Lu Shichen glanced at him: “You pledged yourself to your saviour?”

　　The two of them passed through the round arch and entered Building 7. Meng Zhao took out the key and clicked his tongue: “Not necessarily. At least we have to see if the saviour likes it or not.”

　　Opening the door, the two of them walked into the house.

　　Lu Shichen first stepped into the nearest bedroom and stood in front of the whitewashed wall. Meng Zhao followed him in.

　　”Newly painted wall.” Lu Shichen whispered.

　　”Yes, it should have been painted before or after Zhou Yan’s death. In other words, Zhou Yan probably died because of the content on this wall. The things he wanted to show you should also be on this wall,” Meng Zhao looked at Lu Shichen, “Can you guess what was on the wall?”

　　”I can’t guess.” Lu Shichen said.

　　”It’s really strange. There had to be something important on this wall…” Meng Zhao looked at the wall again, “I tried using luminol, there was no trace of blood. Of course, it was completely covered with white paint. It doesn’t necessarily matter if it’s covered.”

　　After Lu Shichen walked around the room, he walked out and entered Zhou Yan’s bedroom.

　　Meng Zhao followed him, observing his every move at all times.

　　Lu Shichen seemed to be just wandering around casually. He looked around the room, then walked to Zhou Yan’s desk and picked up the photo frame on the table. In the frame was a photograph of a six or seven-year-old boy and his mother. Judging from the outline of his face, Looking at it, one could roughly say that it was a photograph of Zhou Yan and his mother when he was a child.

　　Meng Zhao stepped closer, and saw Lu Shichen’s knitted eyebrows.

　　So far, no one had noticed anything wrong with the seemingly ordinary photograph. Meng Zhao took a look at the photograph and asked, “What’s wrong?”

　　Unexpectedly, the next second, Lu Shichen raised his hand to press his temples, his eyebrows furrowed even more tightly, as if he was bearing some sort of extreme pain.

　　The pain seemed to come extremely quickly, causing Lu Shichen to bend his back and bow immediately, and all the veins on his arms seemed to want to burst out.

　　”Is it a headache?” Watching Lu Shichen’s tortured expression, Meng Zhao suddenly became nervous, “What’s going on with you?”

　　Lu Shichen seemed to have a horrible headache. He was breathing heavily. He raised both hands and pinched his temples tightly with his fingers, as if he was going to crush his head at any moment.

　　Looking at the almost deformed fingers, Meng Zhao couldn’t bear it. He used some strength to pull down Lu Shichen’s hands and help him sit down on the bed: “Don’t end up hurting yourself. Sit down first and relax.”

　　After seating Lu Shichen on the bed, Meng Zhao raised his hand and put it on Lu Shichen’s head, inserting his fingers into his hair, feeling the area around his temples, then he pressed the area with some force. Since he had never learned anything about massage, he didn’t know how to do it properly. With no expression himself, he looked at Lu Shichen: “Are you feeling better?”

　　Lu Shichen closed his eyes and said nothing. After a while, his heavy breathing gradually calmed down, and his frown slowly relaxed.

　　”Are you feeling better now?” Meng Zhao observed his expression and breathed a sigh of relief, “What’s going on with you…?”

　　Lu Shichen shook his head and did not respond, as if he was too agitated by the headache to even respond to Meng Zhao.

　　Meng Zhao didn’t stop moving his hands, and tried his best to control his strength for a while: “Do you often have such type of headaches? I remember you had it once when we were in high school.”

　　”It happens occasionally.” Lu Shichen answered, his voice sounding a little hoarse.

　　”Have you never been to the hospital?”

　　”Yeh.”

　　”What did the doctor say? The medical technology in foreign countries is so advanced, why hasn’t it been cured yet? It’s been so many years?”

　　”It can’t be cured.”

　　Meng Zhao’s movements paused: “What do you mean?… There is no cure?”

　　Lu Shichen laughed: “Are you afraid that I will die?”

　　Upon finding that Lu Shichen was still laughing, Meng Zhao suddenly realised that he had made a mistake. He stopped moving his hand and retracted it: “I don’t think you can die because of such a thing. You are the kind of scourge that will last for thousands of years.” After suddenly stopping the movements, he felt that the small action from a while ago was too intimate.

　　Lu Shichen laughed again, this time, the sound was lower than the last time: “That’s really unfortunate.”

　　Meng Zhao walked to Zhou Yan’s desk and picked up the frame: “What did you think of when you saw this photograph just now?”

　　”I didn’t expect anything.” Lu Shichen raised his hand and pinched his eyebrows, “I don’t even remember anything that happened when I was a child.”

　　”Yes, this photograph must have been from twenty years ago, so it’s normal to not be able to remember it.” Meng Zhao continued to ask tentatively, “But do you think there is anything wrong about this photograph?”

　　Lu Shichen shook his head and said after a moment: “I had a car accident when I was ten years old.”

　　Meng Zhao had heard the wife of his teacher mention the matter a few days ago, so he was not surprised to hear Lu Shichen say it. He was more curious about why Lu Shichen suddenly mentioned it.

　　”After the accident, I suffered from stress-induced amnesia. I can’t remember anything before the age of ten.” Lu Shichen looked at him and said calmly, “So, have I seen this photograph? Can I recognize the person in the photograph? I don’t know because I can’t remember anything from back then.”

　　”But one thing is certain,” Lu Shichen continued, “this photograph indeed has some sort of a connection with me.”

Chapter 22

　　”Stress-induced amnesia?” Meng Zhao knew about it. It was the same symptom of PTSD as Meng Ruoshu’s stress-induced aphasia. “So, your memory of your childhood has completely disappeared?”

　　”It hasn’t completely been lost, I can feel it somewhere in my head, but once I try to force myself to recall it, it ends like this.”

　　”So, this is the reason why you’ve been having those headaches?”

　　”Well,” Lu Shichen looked a little tired from the headache, “complications of the amnesia.”

　　”It was so serious. Didn’t your dad take you to see a doctor at that time?”

　　”We went to a lot of doctors, but it was useless in the end.” Lu Shichen remembered that after the car accident, he had broken his arm and laid in the hospital for a while. After he was discharged, Lu Chengze took him to visit many doctors in various hospitals, but his amnesia never improved. .

　　During that time, Lu Chengze would ask him every day if he had recalled anything from the past, and he would have to shake his head in silence every time. After a while, Lu Shichen was sent back to school and life returned to normal. Lu Chengze also became busy at work, and the plan of looking for a treatment for the amnesia was put on hold.

　　”We can’t just ignore it, right?” Meng Zhao looked at Lu Shichen’s slightly pale lips, which made Lu Shichen look a little more pale, resembling more to a dummy.

　　But the dummy would not feel the pain from the earth-shattering headache that Lu Shichen had borne which had made Meng Zhao feel frightened just after watching it once.

　　”I think you should still go to the hospital,” Meng Zhao said. “If this continues happening, what if it causes other complications?”

　　Lu Shichen didn’t seem to listen to him. Meng Zhao paused and then thought about the case: “If there is any connection between you, Zhou Yan and his mother, then it seems that you are deeply involved in this case…”

　　Lu Shichen’s headache subsided and he looked at Meng Zhao: “At the entrance of the City Bureau, didn’t you say that something had happened? Is it also related to the case?”

　　Meng Zhao returned from his thoughts and said “hmm”.

　　”What’s the matter?” Lu Shichen asked again.

　　”The night before Zhou Yan was strangled to death, Zhao Yunhua was acting strangely. I want to go find out what she did that night.”

　　”Let’s go then,” Lu Shichen stood up: “Your car is at repair, isn’t it? I’ll take you there.”

　　”But, are you okay?”

　　Lu Shichen glanced at him.

　　”I don’t mean to say you can’t do it, but didn’t you just have a headache…?”

　　”It’s okay.” Lu Shichen said.

　　The two of them walked downstairs, and Meng Zhao took the initiative to ask: “Do you need me to drive?”

　　”No need.” Lu Shichen walked to the driver’s seat, opened the door and got in.

　　As the car drove, Meng Zhao looked at Lu Shichen’s profile. The colour of Lu Shichen’s lips had returned a little and seemed to be getting better.

　　The car had excellent sound insulation, and no noisy sounds from outside could penetrate. There was a kind of soft music echoing in the quiet car that seemed to soothe the nerves.

　　Under the influence of the music, Meng Zhao also felt relaxed. His back touched the back of the seat and he sat down more comfortably. He felt there was something shaky in his trouser pocket, so he reached in and took it out to take a look. It was the medicine bottle that he had found at Zhao Yunhua’s house in the morning. The medicine had been taken away for tests, but he had managed to bring the bottle.

　　”What is that?” Lu Shichen glanced at the medicine bottle in his hand.

　　”Medicine bottle which was found at Zhao Yunhua’s house.”

　　”What sort of medicine?”

　　”It has already expired. It’s been so long that even the words on the bottle have worn out and cannot be read clearly. We will not know what sort of a medicine it is until the ingredients have been tested,” Meng Zhao carefully read the blurry font on the label of the medicine bottle, “Is this word ‘general’ or… ”

　　”Citalopram, amitriptyline, maprotiline…” Lu Shichen spoke out a series of drug names with a natural expression.

　　”Wait, it seems to be amitriptyline. What is it used for?”

　　”Depression.”

　　Because there had been speculation before, Meng Zhao was not surprised by the result. Zhao Yunhua had once suffered from depression because of Zhao Tong’s suicide, and the content of the public account had stimulated her depression to relapse. Under the pressure of the intense emotions, she chose to commit suicide. Upon thinking about it carefully, the real murderer had actually planned every step of the way in extreme precision. From the beginning, he chose a person with the highest possibility of committing suicide to achieve his purpose…

　　But besides that, Meng Zhao had another question that he wanted to know about: “How do you know these medicines? Is it possible that you also…”

　　Before he could finish his question, Lu Shichen interrupted him with a “hmm” sound.

　　How many medicines did he have to take to be able to name an entire series without even stumbling once… Thinking of the environment in which Lu Shichen had been raised, Meng Zhao almost sympathised with him. Lu Shichen may appear to be living a prosperous life. But upon closer inspection, his life was really miserable. In addition, he had been staying abroad and had few friends when he returned to China… With sympathy overflowing in his heart, Meng Zhao felt that he should be nicer to Lu Shichen.

　　After everything was over, he would treat him to a nice meal.

　　Huaxing Street was not very far from Zhao Yunhua’s residence. It was only a dozen metres away from the side door.

　　The alley was already narrow, and several small restaurants had set up their tables because there wasn’t enough space in the shops. It made the street appear even more cramped and crowded.

　　The shopkeepers selling seafood were pouring the sewage out with buckets. The air was filled with a strong smell of fish, and turbid sewage which was flowing on the streets, making it almost impossible to walk through.

　　It was also the first time for Meng Zhao to go to such a place, but he subconsciously led Lu Shichen away. He stepped onto the higher concrete shoulder next to him, raised his hand and took Lu Shichen’s arm and pulled him in his direction: “Come here, walk this way. ”

　　Walking on the shoulder of the road, he looked at the street and the dozens of small shops. Where did Zhao Yunhua go that night? Zhao Yunhua lived a frugal life, and the kitchen at home was often used. She probably didn’t have the habit of eating out… then could it be that she went to the grocery store to buy things? But the surveillance showed that Zhao Yunhua did not bring anything along with her when she returned home.

　　Meng Zhao walked in front, scanning the row of shops, and suddenly noticed a small Internet cafe not far away. A thought flashed in his mind, could she have gone to the Internet cafe? Before her death, Zhao Yunhua had told them that she had seen and heard. Of course, it could be possible that she had witnessed the incident from that year. If that was the case, then she would not have waited until recently to target Zhou Yan. The most likely inference was that she had seen the video recording of the incident from that year.

·+·+·

　　”Let’s go…” He turned his head and was about to tell Lu Shichen to go to the Internet cafe in front of them, but he saw that Lu Shichen was also staring at the front of the Internet cafe.

　　The day was quite hot, and the smell of fish had lingered in the dilapidated and crowded narrow alleys for a long time. On the tables in front of the small restaurants, there were many shirtless diners drinking beer and swearing at something. A few steps away, Lu Shichen stood wearing a well-tailored smoky grey shirt, looking at the Internet cafe with his chin slightly raised. The entire picture seemed out of place on the street.

　　The man really looked like a robot… The thought wandered into Meng Zhao’s mind again, even to the point of being somewhat pleasing to the eye.

　　”You want to go to the Internet cafe?” Lu Shichen interrupted Meng Zhao’s thoughts.

　　”…Yes.” Meng Zhao returned to his senses and suddenly came up with the idea of teasing Lu Shichen, “Oh, by the way, don’t I still owe you a meal? I think this street is good, with affordable prices and a wide range of varieties. You can pick whatever you want, pick an expensive one, and don’t be polite to me. Although the salaries in our police department are meagre, we can still afford them here.”

　　He deliberately said such a thing to demean Lu Shichen. The man always looked aloof and unconventional, and he didn’t know if descending to earth once would be equivalent to making him go through a disaster.