Chapter 3: Astonishing News and Changes

  But then I suddenly realized that something was off, I was indeed in a hospital, but I was in the corridor of the hospital, not in a ward! And what I was wearing wasn't right either. I looked at myself and took a good look around, no way! Everything about this just didn't feel right!

  I had a car accident in winter, but now I'm wearing the 2008 new Adidas sports suit. This silly outfit I only wore when I was still practicing sports, after the coach uniformly purchased for us, I treasured it and wore it every day.

  And now I'm much thinner than before the car accident, the muscles on my forearm bulge out from under the rolled-up sleeves, making the tattoo on my right arm look particularly ferocious, and in my right hand is a Nokia green sliding cover phone.

  This phone is like the one my deskmate, a rotten girl named Cen, had in high school. It was a super popular model at that time and almost every fashionable boy and girl had to have one, just like how everyone has an iPhone now.

  "Whoa!"

  I suddenly slammed my left hand with my right hand, "I think I remembered, isn't this the corner of the corridor on the second floor of our community hospital's operating room?"

  I clearly remember that year after I beat Guang Touqiang, we took the pangolin to report to the school while organizing everyone to send Xiaodou and Guang Touqiang together to the community hospital closest to our school.

  And it was at this time that I borrowed a mobile phone from my deskmate, Rong Nü Chen, outside the operating room and walked to the corner of the corridor to send a text message to my cousin who is a police officer for help. At that time, I didn't dare tell my family because I was afraid of being beaten by my father.

  But I and my cousin who has been the closest to me since childhood have always talked about everything, so when I came to my senses, the first thing I thought of was to ask for his help.

  At that time, I was already 20 years old, but I still thought that bringing my cousin over would be enough to suppress the matter. Because I had also fought a lot before, as long as I brought my cousin over and because I was a student, the matter could be settled on the spot, and therefore nothing big had ever happened.

  Now that I think about it, I was really stupid back then. In the past when we got into fights, all it took was a trip to the hospital for an X-ray and paying some medical expenses, but this time I broke someone's bones, it's not something that can be easily resolved just because my uncle stepped in.

  I looked towards the end of the corridor. If I hadn't remembered incorrectly, my cousin should have walked in from the staircase at the end of the corridor, but just then the mobile phone in my hand suddenly rang, an unfamiliar number, which seemed to be a public IC card phone.

  In our city at that time, IC card public phones were very common. Looking around, there was a telephone booth with an IC card phone on both sides of the road not far apart. This scene could no longer be seen in 2014.

  "Hello, who is this?" I hesitated for a moment before answering the phone.

  "Shut up, don't talk, listen to me," I heard my brother's voice on the phone and suddenly felt very puzzled.

  "This time you've gone too far."

  Listening to my brother's very low and cautious tone, I was suddenly very suspicious. "This time you've killed someone, hurry up and run away before the police arrive! You're already an adult, you can't escape the death penalty!"

  My heart suddenly turned cold: "What? Killed someone?"

  "Yeah, you forgot that you sent me a message saying you beat that guy's head to a pulp! The school has already reported it to the police!"

  "Shut up, the police are almost here. You go downstairs now and head east towards the police station."

  "Beep beep!"

  Listening to the busy tone on the phone, I felt uneasy and couldn't express my feelings. Suddenly, I remembered the text message, and clumsily opened the old-fashioned mobile phone's inbox which was once very trendy.

  While reading the text message, he rushed downstairs. On his way down, he found the text message again, which clearly read: "Brother, I got into a fight with someone this morning and hit that bald-headed guy with dumbbells until he was knocked out. They said he might be dead, what should I do?"

  I put down my phone on the windowsill and rushed downstairs to the entrance of the building.

  It's okay now, it's early morning, around 6 o'clock, there aren't many people in the community hospital. I lowered my head and quickly walked out of the hospital building, heading east while adjusting my clothes as I went.

  He dropped the rolled-up sleeves, suddenly remembering that there was a red knitted hat in the waist bag at his waist. As soon as he took out the knitted hat and put it on his head, he heard the sound of police sirens coming from afar.

  I didn't dare to waste any more time, I lowered my head and turned into the open residential area on the east side of the hospital, not daring to stay for a moment, turning around without looking back and heading south towards the building.

  As I walked, I organized the things in my waist pack: a Browning folding knife, a small folding knife made of industrial ceramic material, 200 yuan in cash for today's meal card and less than 45 yuan in change, an IC card, a school ID badge, and an MP3 player with earphone cord.

  When I saw the ceramic knife, I suddenly thought of my uncle. My uncle lives in Harbin, but I remembered that two days before I was arrested in '08, I had a phone call with him and he said he would be passing through Shenyang to escort a very valuable cargo.

  My uncle started a logistics company, not very large, actually it's just a logistics distribution station, with seven big trailers and twenty or so big cars running errands for him. That ceramic knife was a birthday gift he gave me when I turned 18 in '06.

  I saw an IC card phone booth standing at the entrance of the residential area, and I thought of calling my dad with my IC card. But then I remembered a movie plot where the protagonist's family members' phones were being tapped after he committed a crime, so I didn't dare use the IC card phone.

  I looked around and found that the old residential area near the road had a row of shops on the first floor, with one of them being a small grocery store, and above the door was a white and blue telephone sign.

  "This is it," I pulled down my knit cap, pushed open the creaky wooden door and walked into this small grocery store. The space inside was not big, on the right side there was a glass counter, inside the counter there was a wooden shelf.

  In front of the shelf, a wooden chair was placed, and an old man sat on that chair, leaning on the glass counter, dozing off. On the left side, there were five or six blue card seats, each with a phone on it. On the backboard of each card seat, a note was posted, which read: "Two cents for local calls, five cents for long-distance calls."

  I walked over, sat down in a swivel chair at the outermost card table and said, "Boss on the phone". Then, without lifting my head, I picked up the receiver and dialed a string of numbers: "Ding ding ding! Hello? Who is this?"

  Listening to the thick male voice on the phone, I finally couldn't hold back my tears anymore. "Hello? Hello? Who is it?"

  I held back my sobs and said: "Dad, it's me Xiaohua. Don't say anything, just listen to me. I've killed someone and now I'm planning to wait for Uncle to come to Shenyang, then follow him on the road and see if I can go to Russia with his logistics truck. You and Mom need to take good care of yourselves, and don't contact me until I'm safe again. Also, neither you nor Mom should call my uncle, the police may not think of looking for me there so quickly."