Chapter 60: Boyfriend Does Laundry

  We couldn't find any news about it, only a few Weibo posts mentioned it. But the bloggers weren't influential and not many people forwarded them. That's how the matter was covered up.

  I poked my head out and looked at the picture on the tablet, that familiar lakeside had two corpses washed up by the water. That was exactly where we saw that medic last time.

  I said: "This time the nearby villages should not drink tap water anymore."

  Atian also noticed those pictures: "Drinking water is not mistaken. In our city, where the water is drawn to make tap water, isn't it by the river? That riverbank, people die every year. One year, a dead body was even stuck at the water inlet and wasn't discovered until later. Who knows how many days it had been stuck there. Everyone drank corpse water for several days."

  "Can't you just shut up?" I interrupted him. Earlier in the cave, he had seen how repulsed I was by that bowl of instant noodles soaked in spring water.

  "Alright, let's go down and hail a taxi, each of us going our separate ways. Girl, be brave and go for the check-up tomorrow. Leave everything else to me."

  I came out of the restaurant and it was just an afternoon scene outside. Kakashi and I took a taxi to school. I got off in front of my small apartment building. As I walked up the stairs, I called Su Haicheng on the phone.

  At that time, I was really out of my mind and didn't remember that his phone was turned off, and it was at Ah Tian's place. I just thought that contacting him here shouldn't have anyone recognizing him, right?

  It wasn't until the phone said "The user you are calling is currently unreachable" that I remembered his phone was turned off, and it was at Tian's place.

  There's an inexplicable sense of loss in my heart. After going through so much together, now that we've truly returned and can finally catch our breath, he's nowhere to be found.

  Standing at the door, I reached into my bag to find the keys. In the past, when going out, I would carry a small backpack and had to flip through it several times to find the keys. Now, I'm carrying a large backpack with many pockets on my clothes, and for a moment, I couldn't find where I put the keys.

  I followed my usual habit and searched the outermost small pocket of my backpack, but it was still nowhere to be found. I unconsciously muttered: "Where did the key go?"

  The old man living opposite our house happened to be back from buying vegetables, leaning on the handrail of the stairs, looking at me and saying: "Si Yi ah, are you looking for your key?"

  "Ah, yes, sir, buying vegetables."

  "Hey, isn't there someone at your place? I saw that there was someone hanging clothes to dry this noon. Is that your boyfriend? The tall and handsome one. He stands very straight, must be a soldier."

  This old-fashioned house has a balcony that is relatively close, and unlike high-rise buildings, it does not have fully enclosed windows. Although the balcony is a security net, you can still see the opposite balcony.

  I listened to what the old man said and was a bit surprised, with my eyes wide open.

  The old man was already standing at his door and said: "Isn't he your boyfriend? He doesn't look like a thief either, he's just drying clothes on the balcony."

  Just then, the door was opened and Su Haicheng stood in the doorway. He wore a pair of black pants and a sporty hoodie on top. At the entrance, he nodded at the old man across from him as a greeting.

  The old man also smiled at him: "Si Yi, your boyfriend is not bad." The old man said this as he opened the door and walked in. After finishing speaking, he went in and closed the door. In this corridor, I stood outside the door, and he stood inside.

  "Come in," he said, opening the door. I was still a bit dazed and followed him in after a few seconds, closing the door behind me.

  He took my backpack and put it behind the door before saying, "Go take a shower first."

  "You, you, you..."

  "Where am I going if I don't come back?"

  Yes, he is still an unemployed vagrant without an ID card, and he can only hide out here with me.

  He looked at me standing still, took two steps closer to me. Too close, so close that I could smell the shampoo on him. I suddenly thought of the cave where he got so close to me, when he kissed me, his hair also rubbed against my cheek. My face turned red, then I quickly stretched out my hand to push him away and walked towards the bathroom.

  After entering the bathroom, the door closed, leaning against the back of the door, suddenly feeling that this trip back is a bit different from before. How to say, it's just different. Before also kissed, but not in the cave like that, that, that... Now there are only two of us, we...

  "Knock knock." The bathroom door was knocked on. I was startled: "Ah?"

  His voice came from the doorway: "You didn't bring your clothes, how are you going to take a bath?"

  How did I make such a mistake? Plucking up the courage to open the door, I walked into the room to get my clothes and then came back to take a bath. This time, I took a good shower. And also washed my clothes. Anyway, it's just stalling for time here. No matter how much time you drag on, there will be an end to being busy. When I went out to dry my clothes, he was sitting on the sofa in the living room, drawing at the small table.

  This house is really too small, the living room and balcony sofa, a straight-line distance of just over two meters. I looked at his clothes hanging above, a bit unexpected. Such a man would also do household chores. But thinking about it, he's not an ordinary spoiled brat, he's a soldier, washing clothes is no problem, even roasting sweet potatoes will, maybe he'll even cook for himself.

  Just as I was thinking about this, he said without even looking at me from over there: "My grandfather is looking for you?"

  "No, it's not even worth looking into. He just wanted Ah Tian to talk about the causes and consequences of these things. But when I mentioned the possibility of Q General, he stopped asking questions and instead severely warned us not to investigate further. He also said that some truths are not for us to pursue."

  Su Haicheng's pen stopped, froze for a few seconds, and continued to draw as he said, "He must have known something already, or else he wouldn't have given us such a warning. What else?"

  "He asked me to go to the hospital for a check-up tomorrow afternoon and have his orderly pick me up."

  "Hmm! This doesn't seem like Grandpa's style, it must be Mom who arranged this."

  I hung up the clothes and leaned against the door frame of the balcony, saying: "There's one more thing, Grandpa's orderly Xiao Zhong saw you at the train station. He wasn't sure if it was you, Ah Tian said you were our hired laborer, but Xiao Zhong insisted that you weren't a laborer. I think he must have suspected you."

  Su Haicheng nodded, not speaking, and continued with what he was doing. I walked over and stood behind the sofa, looking at what he was drawing. At a glance, I knew what it was - the route map of that cave. Not just the path we took to get out, but also many other paths we had taken before, as well as those I hadn't taken, which they had taken on their previous trip in. He took off his watch and placed it at one corner of the notebook, occasionally glancing at it. There was nothing special about the watch either.

  "How did you remember the route in there? So many paths! How did you memorize it?"

  "If I hadn't been forced by my grandfather to join the army, with my grades, getting into college wouldn't have been a problem. I also studied in a military school before, this is a trick I learned from there. A special memory method."

  "Still this move?" I looked at his movements and estimated that his memory was just a medium made with this watch.

  "He pointed at the road above and said: 'Shuǐ Tán, the way we came out, the grave, that skull place, this side is the lake, the mountain cave passage under the lake.'"

  "Oh, Su Haicheng." I interrupted him, "That cave full of corpses seems to have been destroyed by Kakashi and me. The boss said that when he left the village, he heard people say that two charred bodies were floating on the lake surface. Someone took a photo, and the location is the same as where we saw the medic last time."

  Su Haicheng listened and hastily said: "Open it for me to see!" His tone was very urgent, as if he had made some important discovery.

  I didn't dare slack off either, so I quickly returned to my room and turned on the computer.

  When those pictures appeared on the computer screen, he was standing behind me, with one hand resting on the back of the chair and the other on the desk, leaning forward, I was almost in his circle. I could feel that we had the same scent of shower gel and shampoo on us. We seemed to have blended together perfectly. My little thoughts made me turn my face away, avoiding him.

  His gaze remained fixed on the screen for a while before he said, "The corpse is abnormal!"