Skin - Chapter 48

Chapter 48 – Lu Shichen’s Dream

　　Lu Shichen had a dream.

　　In the dream, he was back in Wen Yi Sanatorium more than ten years ago. The weather was very good that day, with the sun shining brightly and a gentle breeze.

　　The sanatorium has lush green plants and large lawns, which makes people feel happy just by looking at it.

　　The students of the experimental class 1 got off the bus and lined up at the entrance. The head teacher shouted in front of the team: “Our volunteer activity will be recorded by the TV station throughout the whole process. After entering, no one must run around. You must respect the elderly in the and never run around to disturb them. Everyone must abide by this rule. If you are found running around and causing serious problems, it will affect your files and even the college entrance examination. Do you hear me?”

　　As soon as the three words “must”, “must”, and “must” came out, the alarmist effect was fully achieved.

　　Lu Shichen listened absentmindedly. He was not interested in this volunteer activity at all, nor did he want to take care of those elderly people who were said to have held high positions when they were young.

　　”I understand.” The students around responded to the teacher loudly, but Lu Shichen remained silent.

　　After the head teacher counted the class headcount, the whole class lined up to enter the sanatorium. When they reached the stairs in front of the building, two boys in the front suddenly fell down at the same time, perhaps because they were too nervous or someone was playing a prank. Thus, they dragged down six or seven people behind them, almost causing a stampede.

　　The head teacher and the person in charge hurried forward to check the situation. In the chaos, Lu Shichen, who was at the end of the line, saw that no one was paying attention to him, so he left the line as if no one was around. Because the situation was so chaotic, no one noticed that a young man had disappeared by himself.

　　Walking to the lush green garden of the sanatorium and listening to the chorus of his classmates coming from the building, Lu Shichen felt a little bored.

　　Would those old people feel happy to hear such an ugly and old-fashioned song? He walked in the corridor, observing the structure of the building.

　　The courtyard was large, with many trees and winding paths. The speakers were disguised as tree stumps, playing quiet tunes.

　　Lu Shichen didn’t know how long he had been walking, and he was a little tired. He looked at the wall not far away, wondering if he could climb over it. Suddenly, he felt a hot wind blowing under his feet. He squatted down and looked at the place where the wind was blowing. Only then did he realize that the tree stump at his feet was not a speaker, but a hidden exhaust facility.

　　‘Why is there an exhaust facility?’ Lu Shichen is not the kind of person with a strong curiosity, but once his curiosity is aroused, he must find out what is going on.

　　This place was far away from the main building, and the exhaust facilities would not be installed so far away.

　　Exhaust facilities must be placed in hidden and unventilated places. Lu Shichen began to wander around, wanting to know where the exhaust facilities led to.

　　He walked around for a few times before he found a place that seemed a little harder than the surrounding grass. He squatted down and touched the place under his feet with his fingers. Then he touched something cold, hard, and metallic- it seemed to be a square iron door.

　　He stretched out both hands and tried to pry the iron door open, but it didn’t budge. Then he discovered that there was a lock on it.

　　It was an old-fashioned iron lock, but the ring didn’t fit into the keyhole.

　　‘Even the exhaust facilities are so hidden, what is this place used for? Was the iron lock not locked because of human negligence?’

　　Out of curiosity, he opened the iron lock and pushed the iron door hard.

　　He opened the heavy iron door and slowly slid it to one side, revealing a staircase leading downstairs.

　　Compared to the bright sky outside, it seemed extremely dark below, but there seemed to be light coming through.

　　Lu Shichen felt that this place might hide a secret, and curiosity drove him to go down and take a look. So he went down the stairs one step at a time.

　　After both feet touched the ground, Lu Shichen looked around.

　　The passage was dark, with only a dim wall lamp hanging at the end of the corridor.

　　This seemed like a secret room. Lu Shichen looked around, wondering what the place was used for. He walked forward, holding onto the uneven wall. The passage was very long and had many turns. After walking for a long time, he finally saw a door, from which a brighter light could be seen.

　　The door was not locked, leaving a narrow gap. Through the gap, Lu Shichen saw a hospital bed inside, and there seemed to be a person lying on the bed receiving an IV.

　　He pushed the door open gently, the hinges creaking slightly, and he paused cautiously.

　　But after a few seconds, there was no movement from inside the door, and the person on the bed did not respond at all.

　　So he pushed the door a little further inward, and then he could see the whole room clearly.

　　This is a very large and simple room. Except for the person lying on the bed and receiving an IV drip, there is nothing in the room. Everything here seems to be white, white walls, white bed…

　　He walked over and looked at the person on the hospital bed. The person looked old and fragile, with white hair, and a pale face and even lips.

　　Inexplicably, after staring at this person for a few seconds, he felt as if there was some kind of connection between him and this person – subconsciously, he seemed to have seen this person before.

　　‘Is she…dead? Why does she look unconscious?’ Lu Shichen reached out his hand and touched the woman’s forehead.

　　His touch startled the woman on the bed, and she slowly opened her eyes and looked at Lu Shichen.

　　The moment they looked at each other, the feeling of some mysterious connection became stronger in Lu Shichen’s mind.

　　At this moment, the person on the bed suddenly opened his eyes wide, and raised the hand that had been lying flat on the bed, pointing tremblingly at Lu Shichen.

　　The stiff and excited expression was almost terrifying. Even though Lu Shichen usually had no emotional fluctuations, he was shocked and nailed to the spot. Who is this person? Why does he seem to know her? Lu Shichen tried to retrieve the memory of this person from his brain, and suddenly a severe headache came over him. It was like an electric drill stabbing into his temples, making his head split.

　　At this moment, footsteps were heard from the end of the corridor behind me – someone was coming!

　　At this moment when Lu Shichen’s head was splitting, he had a terrible premonition – if he didn’t run, he might be imprisoned forever in this empty basement like this woman.

　　He turned around and quickly left the room before the person outside the door approached. The severe headache made him stumble, but he vaguely felt that he could not stop. He relied on his remaining willpower to run out of the basement along the original route. When he suddenly saw the bright sky outside, his headache instantly intensified.

　　He always had a good memory, but this time, his headache made him unable to think about which road he had come from. The basement made him feel a little scared. He vaguely felt that he should go further away. Perhaps the person behind him had already discovered him and was chasing after him.

　　He endured the headache and ran for a long distance. Suddenly, he tripped over something and fell to the ground, holding his head in pain with his hands.

　　It felt like there was a drumstick inside his brain, hammering down his nerves over and over again. With every hit, something seemed to want to burst out, but was then forced back by the severe headache.

　　Lu Shichen instinctively pressed his head with his fingers. The more severe the headache was, the harder he pressed.

　　The headache made him feel like he would die at any moment, and he almost felt suffocated.

　　”What’s wrong?” At this moment, he heard someone ask this question in his ear. The young man’s voice was as clear as a basin of ice water poured over his head, and his voice seemed to be laced with some concern, “Do you have a headache?”

　　This voice made Lu Shichen sober up a little, but he was still tortured by the headache and couldn’t speak. Then he felt that the other person used a lot of strength to lift him up from the ground and let him lean on him.

　　The 17-year-old boy was in the period of growth and development, and his bones were hard. Their shoulders bumped into each other, which not only did not make Lu Shichen feel better, but made his headache worse. If it weren’t for the nerves in his body affected by the headache, he almost wanted to kick this person away. In this situation, he just wanted to be alone.

　　The other party helped him to sit on a wooden chair in the garden and seemed to say something again, but Lu Shichen didn’t hear it clearly. He held his head, and this time the headache was worse than before. It made him feel that he would die at any time.

　　The next second, slightly cool fingers touched his lips, and then something was pushed in.

　　It’s sweet at first, and melts quickly in the mouth.

　　Then a slightly sour lime flavor emerges, stimulating the nerves on the tip of the tongue.

　　”It’s sugar. It can relieve the pain.” This time he heard the other person’s words clearly.

　　He didn’t know if this thing could really relieve the pain, or if his pain is shared by his taste buds, but after a while, Lu Shichen’s headache actually lessened a little. He opened his eyes and saw the boy squatting in front of him.

　　The boy’s appearance is just like his voice, as clear and handsome as ice water in summer.

　　He was staring at him with his clear black and white eyes, revealing some emotions in his eyes that Lu Shichen could not recognize.

　　The two seemed to look at each other for a moment, and the boy stood up and pointed outside: “I’m going to buy some painkillers, you wait here for a while.”

　　Lu Shichen didn’t say anything. He sat for a while. The candy gradually melted in his mouth and his headache was mostly gone.

　　There were footsteps coming from behind him. Lu Shichen turned around and saw a man about ten meters away looking around, as if he was looking for something.

　　Lu Shichen remembered the footsteps he heard before he escaped from the basement. Could it be that the man had chased him out?

　　He sensed that something was wrong with the basement. It was the dark secret of this sanatorium. Now that he had accidentally discovered this secret, the other party would not let him go.

　　He stood up and quickly left the sanatorium.

　　He hailed a taxi at the door, and on the way home, he thought of the woman hidden in the basement again.

　　‘Who is that person? Why does she seem to know me? And why does she give me a headache?’

　　He intuitively felt that the elderly woman had some connection with him, but once he thought about it more deeply, the headache threatened to return.

　　The instinct of seeking profit and avoiding harm made Lu Shichen stop guessing about this woman, so he looked out the car window and forced himself to divert his attention. He saw the young man just now running towards the sanatorium.

　　The hem of his shirt fluttered in the wind, outlining his narrow waistline, and further down, his two long legs were moving very fast.

　　The car drove past, and Lu Shichen turned around and looked at the man.

　　Then he thought of the young man squatting in front of him.

　　‘What exactly did the emotion in those clear black and white eyes mean?’ It seemed that few people had ever shown this kind of emotion to him before.

　　‘Is it… worry? Anxiety? Or something else?’

　　‘The feeling is sweet and slightly sour.’

　　Lu Shichen linked emotions and taste together.

　　•=•=•

　　Meng Zhao parked the car in the parking lot and ran all the way to the lobby of the inpatient building.

　　It was around eight in the morning, when the hospital was at its busiest, and every elevator door was filled with people waiting.

　　Meng Zhao didn’t bother to wait for the elevator and climbed up the stairs skipping two steps at a time.

　　”What’s wrong?” He pushed the door open and walked in. Meng Ruoshu and Lu Chengze were standing beside the bed. They looked at him when they heard the voice.

　　The attending doctor was also there. After checking Lu Shichen’s condition, he stood up and said, “The condition was not very good just now. The heartbeat was very unstable, but it is much better now. It should be caused by mental fluctuations. The patient had amnesia before, and he may have subconsciously recalled some painful experiences…”

　　”Memories?” Lu Chengze interrupted the doctor, “Director Liu, is it possible that Shi Chen has recovered his memory?”

　　”Lawyer Lu, you’re overthinking this,” the doctor smiled bitterly and shook his head. “I’ve been practicing medicine for more than 30 years, and I’ve never encountered such a dramatic situation. It’s a good thing that it didn’t cause a second stress amnesia.”

　　”Yeah.” Lu Chengze said.

　　After the doctor left, Meng Zhao walked to the bedside and looked at Lu Shichen.

　　At this moment, Lu Shichen was wearing an oxygen mask and looked very calm, as if Lu Shichen was always this calm. He didn’t smile much and rarely had mood swings. Except for an expression of agony that would appear on his face when he had a headache, most of the time, he looked extremely indifferent and calm.

　　”Xiao Meng, how is the case going? Has the person who directed the driver been caught?” Lu Chengze asked Meng Zhao.

　　Meng Zhao then turned his eyes away from Lu Shichen’s face and said to Lu Chengze, “He is temporarily under control in the police station, but there is insufficient evidence to apply for an arrest warrant immediately.”

　　”Shi Chen is unconscious now. We can’t do anything if we stay here. You can’t help even if you come. It’s more important to go back and solve the case.”

　　”Yes,” Meng Zhao nodded, “I know Uncle Lu, I originally planned to come here to take a look and leave. Don’t worry, I will make the person who caused this car accident pay the price.”

　　”Thank you for your hard work,” Lu Chengze said, “You have to be busy solving the case and also worry about this place.”

　　Meng Zhao left the ward when Ren Bin called. He had just tried to persuade the students who bullied Zhao Tong to tell the truth:

　　”Fan Xinxin has always insisted that Zhao Tong committed suicide, and she also said that she didn’t know anything about Xu Yulin and Wu Weihan. I think that unless Wu Weihan is really sentenced to death or life imprisonment, Fan Xinxin would never reveal what happened back then. She is too afraid of facing Wu Weihan’s retaliation. She is also too afraid of losing everything she has now. How is Lin Lang?”

　　Meng Zhao walked to the window at the end of the corridor, leaned down on the windowsill with his elbows, and said in a low voice: “Cheng Yun said everything, but Lin Lang still refused to open the door.”

　　”Do you want to just go in? Finding clues and convicting Wu Weihan will be a good thing for Lin Lang.”

　　Meng Zhao sighed, “It’s too cruel. A little girl who was brutally sexually assaulted before she even reached adulthood has not left her home for ten years. This shows how much damage this incident has done to her. If I break in without permission, I’m worried that it will cause irreparable consequences.”

　　”Are you saying that Lin Lang might choose to commit suicide?”

　　“It’s not impossible.”

　　After hanging up the phone, Meng Zhao stood up from the windowsill, turned around and was about to walk towards the stairs when he saw Meng Ruoshu standing two steps away from him.

　　Meng Zhao was stunned for a moment: “Why are you here?”

　　”I poured you a glass of water,” Meng Ruoshu walked over with a disposable paper cup in her hand, “I saw your lips were so dry that they were about to crack.”

　　Because he had just mentioned Lin Lang’s sexual assault on the phone, Meng Zhao was worried that Meng Ruoshu had heard what he said. When he took the paper cup, he deliberately glanced at Meng Ruoshu, but Meng Ruoshu looked natural and there was nothing unusual about her.

　　Meng Zhao raised his head and drank all the water in the cup in one breath. After drinking the water, he realized that he was indeed a little thirsty because he had not drank any water for more than ten hours.

　　Just as he finished the last sip of water and handed the cup to Meng Ruoshu, Meng Ruoshu spoke up: “Brother, how about I go with you to talk to that person?”

　　”Cough, cough, cough,” Meng Zhao choked on a mouthful of water unexpectedly, “What are you going to do? Stay here.”

　　”Don’t worry, I’ll ask Xu Yan to help me guard this place,” Meng Ruoshu said, taking out her phone to call her best friend, “Didn’t you just call and say that Lin Lang hadn’t left her home for ten years because she was sexually assaulted? I’ve been through that experience myself, so I should be able to try to convince her.”

　　Meng Zhao snatched the phone from her hand, turned off the screen and handed it back to her: “Don’t make trouble. Just stay here if I ask you to. This job is important, so I specifically asked you to come here.” After he said that, he raised his leg and walked towards the elevator.

　　”Xu Yan cares so much about you, are you still worried that she can’t help you protect your friend?” Meng Ruoshu trotted over, “Brother, that incident happened more than ten years ago. Since I offered to help, it means I have moved on.”

　　Meng Zhao paused and looked at Meng Ruoshu. The little girl who was not even as tall as his chest back then had now grown to the tip of his nose.

　　He sighed: “Xiaoshu, what Lin Lang experienced was very cruel. Although there is no comparison between these two things, what we have to consider now is that even if you muster up the courage to talk to her about your experience, she may still not be able to get over it.” Meng Zhao said this very tactfully, and this was indeed the case. The damage caused by molestation and gang rape was really incomparable.

　　Meng Ruoshu lowered her head slightly and was silent for a long time. Just when Meng Zhao thought she had given up the idea, Meng Ruoshu finally spoke: “Brother, my father actually concealed some facts from you out of protection for me.”

　　”What?” Meng Zhao frowned, as if he had guessed what Meng Ruoshu was going to say.

　　Meng Ruoshu took a deep breath: “What I experienced was actually a more serious sexual assault than molestation. So I think no one is more suitable than me to persuade Lin Lang. After all, to some extent, we are actually the same kind…”

　　Meng Zhao looked at Meng Ruoshu with mixed feelings.

　　He had always felt that what Meng Ruoshu had encountered seemed to be much more serious than he knew, but he never dared to think too deeply about it.

　　Only after Meng Ruoshu told him her story in person did he dare to touch upon this cruel truth.

　　Perhaps no matter what the outcome is, it would be a good thing to allow Meng Ruoshu, who has already gotten over the incident, to have a conversation with Lin Lang, who has not yet gotten over it.

　　Meng Zhao looked at Meng Ruoshu in silence for a long time. The expression on his face relaxed. He raised his hand and gently placed it on the top of Meng Ruoshu’s head. He looked at her and sighed slightly: “In the blink of an eye, you have grown so tall and become a big girl.”

　　Meng Ruoshu also looked up at him.

　　”Then,” Meng Zhao paused, “I’ll leave this matter to you.”

　　Meng Ruoshu breathed a sigh of relief and a smile appeared on her face: “Brother, I promise to complete