If the Deep Sea Forgets You

“Huh?”

“He wants to relive the pleasure of the moment when he killed someone. By going back to the same place at the same time, he can feel the thrill once again.”

Zhang Yang kept silent and considered what she had said.

“If it’s possible, he would even go to the police station. He’s too confident, he thinks you’ll never find him. He wants to go to the station to see the police busy working on his case, racking their brains to find him. This would give him even more pleasure than killing people.”

“That’s impossible, isn’t it?” Zhang Yang felt incredulous just thinking about a murderer who would dare to come into a police station.

“You can’t just treat him like a murderer, he’s more abnormal than you can imagine. You can see this from the photographs of the crime scene.”

“Back then, I had trouble figuring out whether the rustling of the tree leaves I heard at the scene that day belonged to him. But now that I think about it, he was probably standing right beside me around that time, because he wanted to see me panic personally when I saw the body. He didn’t kill me only because he felt that the time wasn’t right.”

It frightened Zhang Yang to hear her talking in this manner. Thinking about how the murderer had stood right behind Xia Qingyi terrified him. “Weren’t you scared?”

“I don’t know why I wasn’t scared.” Xia Qingyi’s tone was rather light. “I can only help you until here, it’s up to you to believe me or not. If you want to catch him, then you should work on it. Look for an ordinary person loitering at the exact time and place when the crime was committed.

“If all goes well, that would be the murderer.”

“Isn’t your way of thinking too bold?” Zhang Yang was a little disbelieving.

“If you don’t believe me then forget it, I have nothing more to say.”

Zhang Yang said, “I’ll mention what you told me to my mentor and see what he says.”

“As you wish.” Xia Qingyi looked at the crowd walking past her before she realized she had to go to class as well. “I have to go to class, I’m hanging up.”

Since she had evening classes that day, it was already nine P.M. by the time Xia Qingyi arrived home. She was sitting on a rickety public bus looking at the view outside the window on her way home when Mo Han called.

“Have you reached home?” Mo Han had been sitting at the office arranging his documents when he looked up and realized it was already nine P.M. Somehow he felt the need to call Xia Qingyi knowing that she was probably on her way home around this time.

“No, I’m still on my way home.”

“Why are you so late today?”

“I had a class at night, I just got onto the bus.”

“Is everything at your school… okay recently?” Mo Han thought of the murder case that took place at their school a few days earlier. It seemed to have sparked quite a bit of discussion.

“Not really, the school almost closed down. There are police everywhere on the campus, we have to be careful even when we walk around,” Xia Qingyi pouted. She could not help but complain every time she brought up this matter.

“Take a few days off school if you’re scared. Don’t go to school anymore, come to the hospital and get your injury checked.”

“I’m not scared, it’s just really troublesome. You never know when you might be stopped for a random check, and the security at the main gates is really tight, I have to go through so many procedures just to leave school,” Xia Qingyi felt that she was going to be annoyed to death if this matter did not end soon.

“It’ll get better after some time.”

“Brother, when are you coming home?” Xia Qingyi asked.

Mo Han stopped flipping through his documents and raised his head when he heard the sentence.

Such a simple sentence, and yet it had been a long time since he had heard someone say it to him. Even his own parents would rarely say it. They were always too busy, living their own lives and occupied with their own jobs.

It seemed that there had never been someone who just looked forward to him coming home.