Near noon the next day, Liu Ling finally drove there after receiving the news. She wore the navy blue smoking attire that impressed Luo Binhan, put her coat on her shoulders like a cape, and made a majestic appearance. Luo Binhan, who was sitting by the window, watched as she walked into the front yard and struck up a conversation with a policeman who was directing others to check the lawn. They must be acquaintances, so Liu Ling pointed to the door and asked questions for a long time, and finally walked into the house easily without Yu Qingshu's intervention.
Before opening the front door, she stared at her feet for a long time, then walked to the living room and stood still, leaving a bag on the sofa and looking around the entire ground floor with her hands on her hips. Luo Binhan always found her tone of voice particularly interesting, so he never interrupted, but drank his hot cocoa with great interest. When Liu Ling saw him, he raised his cup to say hello.
"Did bandits enter your place last night?" Liu Ling said, glancing at the blood-stained anti-slip mat at the kitchen door, "I heard someone died?"
"Here comes a madman." Luo Binhan continued to eat his brunch. "First he pretended to be a policeman and came in to threaten us, and then he crashed and died in front of our house."
"What happened to your leg?"
"A little injury."
"Did that lunatic do it?"
"He also injured Rongrong's hand." Luo Binhan said, seeing Liu Ling's brows beginning to knot, "It's not serious anyway. He was quite cruel to himself."
"What on earth did he want to do when he came to you?"
Luo Binhan made a strange face at her: "Go crazy."
Liu Ling gave up asking him for more information. She peeked into the kitchen, but couldn't find anyone else she could talk to. "Where's your mother?"
"Talking to the police upstairs, Mal is with her. Velvet is in her own bedroom with her classmates."
Leo's excited barking could be heard in the backyard. He might have heard the arrival of an acquaintance, but he couldn't come out to greet him. Yu Xiaorong tied it to the willow tree in the backyard so as not to interfere with the police's inspection work. The phone in the house rings every ten minutes. Neighbors who are well-informed are concerned about them and eager to know their well-being (and the gruesome details of the murder).
A few idle teenagers were standing far across the street, pointing at the situation in front of Gate No. 15. Of course they couldn't see the body. The gruesome remains had been taken away long ago, but the blood splattered at the door and in the front yard was enough to keep them excited for the whole day. On this sunny day with clear skies, nothing is more exciting than a horrifying murder happening on your neighbor's doorstep. If all the residents in this house weren't safe, they would sneak in tonight and play with the Ouija board.
The police who were searching the front lawn were calling to their detective outside, maybe they had found some clues. Leo hadn't had enough yelling in the backyard, and the phone started ringing madly. The noise made Liu Ling dizzy. She smoothed her shiny curly hair (needless to say, she must have come from the office that was lit all night), pinched her nose vigorously with her fingers, and went upstairs to find Yu Qingshu.
Luo Binhan continued to eat his brunch calmly. He doesn't have to get up and deal with the police or the phone because he's just a stupid gringo. His mother asked him never to talk to the police alone, let alone talk about anything about last night. If anyone spoke to him in English or German, he would just stupidly ask the other person if they could speak Chinese. This arrangement suited him very well, although he didn't think he would get into any legal trouble, because no matter how weird the situation last night was, Lot was 100% suicidal. He walked out of the house on his own initiative, and then smashed his head so hard that he couldn't even distinguish the shape of his facial features. The camera at the door completely recorded his crazy behavior, which is irrefutable evidence.
The tinkling noise continued. A door to a room upstairs opened. Luo Binhan turned his head and saw Hannah Zahn walking out of Yu Xiaorong's bedroom, answering the phone with ease, and responding to the condolences of good neighbors with a weak tone that was definitely fake. Then she walked downstairs and took an untouched piece of shortbread from Luo Binhan's plate. Luo Binhan glanced at her face and found that she was in high spirits, showing no sign of having stayed up all night. This is a youthful vitality that Zhou Yu cannot envy.
"Aren't you going to class?" he asked casually.
Hannah's eyes widened. "Of course not," she said in a startled tone, "after what happened last night! Of course poor Jania and I will have to rest for a few days."
Luo Binhan glanced at her strangely again. He didn't know whether what this girl said was true or not, and even doubted whether her parents knew about it now. Last night, when Lot went crazy, she was indeed frightened, but after one night she was once again a strange girl full of evil ideas. Is this consistent with the normal psychology of an adolescent child? He couldn't tell. He has been away from his student days for too long, and he only finds that kind of savage and natural cunning to be scary at times.
Hannah sat down opposite him, looking out the window at the police officers coming and going. Luo Binhan looked at her quietly through the reflection of the glass, wondering how much she knew. The police arrived very quickly last night, the condition of the body was too scary, and they were overwhelmed with all kinds of troubles. He didn't have time to have an honest, at least to some extent sincere, conversation with Yu Xiaorong. What happened to Lenny Klein? How did Lot learn that trick?
He had to figure these things out before he left Regenberg. At the same time, he also had to weigh the burden he carried. How much should he tell Yu Xiaorong about the things beyond the sky?
He grabbed his phone out of habit and glanced at the message box. After experiencing a nearly fatal network problem, he carefully checked the phone settings and the remaining phone credit. There was no visible problem, but he decided to replace the phone when he returned. It might have malfunctioned while the Silence was traveling through a special area, hosting a cosmic evil spirit intent on murdering him. In order to avoid trouble from the authorities, he deleted the two failed messages before the police arrived, and instead asked Momolo when it would be convenient to meet him in Lihai City. He didn't even dare to call to explain the situation, because now even Reigenberg could show up, and he wasn't sure whether his communication security could really be guaranteed.
Momolo still didn't reply to him. The delay this time was at least seven hours long, which made Luo Binhan wonder whether the Yongguang clan was also in trouble. He persuaded himself to wait a little longer and not to easily post sensitive information online, but he couldn't help but repeatedly open Momolo's identity information or look back at the pictures they had sent each other before. He endlessly imagined the secret, the thing that Jing Huang and Yaleriga kept from him, and the secret operation that Momolo was carrying out behind his back. Maybe Lot was just the beginning, and soon people all over the world would be bumping into someone else’s door.
This thought made Luo Binhan laugh inappropriately, until he found Hannah secretly looking at his mobile phone. This is not what a good student should do. He immediately put the phone away, and then looked at Hannah with a smile. Such an obvious expression could not make the girl retreat. She blinked innocently: "Is there any interesting news?"
"Just talking about movies with friends." Luo Binhan said, "Anyway, we don't want to go out today. I'm thinking of finding something interesting to watch."
"What do you want to see?"
This is exactly the question Luo Binhan is secretly waiting for. He maliciously searched out the animated movie called "The Fox and the Hound" and waved it in front of Hannah. "I think we should watch some heartwarming movies," he said sinisterly, "a pair of animal friends who were childhood sweethearts, and finally turned against each other because of humans. What do you think?"
Hannah giggled.
"I must have seen this movie." She recalled, "It was in elementary school, but I still remember that there was an old woman in it, and there was a bear - the dog and the fox had already separated when they grew up, and they became It was the bear's attack that made them reconcile, right?"
Luo Binhan has not actually watched this movie. He could only search for the plot synopsis on his mobile phone without comment.
"That's what I remember," Hannah continued quite confidently, "but I don't like this movie, the cliche happy ending. I prefer the original work, which I think has the same name. The fox is a human being. He was raised, like in the movie, but he and the hound were never friends. In fact, the hound hunted foxes for the hunters, and they killed its children and mates."
Luo Binhan stared at her, but Hannah was completely lost in her own thoughts. "They finally caught the fox," she said with some joy, "and finally killed it. Now that the old hunter has accomplished his goal, he has to pack his bags and go to a nursing home. But dogs are not allowed there. Ah! So, before moving in, he shot the loyal hunting dog to death with his own gun."
A leaf falls silently on the street. Hannah tapped her fingers thoughtfully: "I'm curious why they wanted to make the movie into a heartwarming story."
"Maybe," Luo Binhan said, "so that most children don't have to scream and cry in the theater?"
"It's really scary to not have a job and a pension." Hannah agreed. "A country boy drinks and has sex all day long, and kills wild foxes and is praised as the ultimate pursuit of life, the great achievement of a hero, and finally Being ruthlessly abandoned by the urban economy. I think this is very warning."
"What about the hunting dogs?" Luo Binhan reminded her, "The one that was betrayed and killed by its owner?"
"Oh, isn't that doomed?" Hannah said naturally, "Since it serves such a not-so-smart master, I don't think it will end well anyway. It still believed in him before it died, It's licking his hand! But now that it has seen how people treat foxes, it should understand its position. It believes too much that it and humans are one."
"The fox is also dead." Luo Binhan added.
"Prioritize the elimination of the opposition." Hannah said thoughtfully, "I haven't thought about it from this perspective. But I don't think this is a profound political metaphor - this is how our society has always done things."
Luo Binhan began to look at her from head to toe, as if it was the first day he met this person. He didn't make a fuss, because it's entirely possible for a child in the Internet age to act like an alien guide. He was just surprised that she accepted it so naturally and calmly, and then the image of her holding a gun last night came to his mind.
"Were you scared last night?" he asked, "during that madman's attack?"
"Of course, this is the first time I've seen someone do that."
"But you recovered very quickly. Based on the situation last night, I thought it would scare the child so much that he couldn't sleep for three days."
"But he is dead after all, isn't he?" Hannah said lightly. "If he were alive and still had the madness to fear death, it would threaten us all. But since he is dead, I don't think there is any need. What are you worried about? It was just a corpse."
She thought about it for a while, nodded and admitted: "That is really an unforgettable corpse. The police can't even recognize his face. Is that the purpose of what he chose to do?"
Luo Binhan didn't know the answer either. He avoided those clear and bright eyes, and could not deny the vague panic in his heart about whether Yu Xiaorong truly understood his best friend. Maybe she is just an ordinary girl with a smart mind and weird ideas. Maybe she will lead an alien army to destroy all mankind in the future. At this moment, he just hoped that the fox and the hound were really, really good friends, like the animated movie version.
"I have to go in and sleep for a while." He pretended to yawn, grabbed his cell phone, and slipped away from Yu Xiaorong's accomplices. But he wasn't really sleepy. Zhou Yu went to the hospital alone when he wasn't paying attention. He really didn't have anyone to talk to. So he just hid in the room for a while and read work emails and process messages, wondering when the other side would know about the strange thing last night. He knew that his parents must have friends who could connect with both parties (this was a business relationship after all). Nan Mingguang would come to talk to him sooner or later.
He briefly flipped through the news he missed yesterday to keep up with the latest progress of the financial department's compliance rectification plan. In fact, there is not much to say. The real meaning of the whole document is to scream at the end that their internal auditors are exhausted, so hurry up and hire a professional audit team! As for how to coordinate the two sides? Who makes which decisions? I'm afraid this is the task Nan Mingguang is going to give him. He hasn't met the new financial director yet.
It's all wonderful, wonderful. The most romantic thing in life is to go to the company and torture the workers after a vacation in which a madman chopped off his leg. He has already thought about what to order when he invites the overtime team to dinner next time. Later, he secretly observed Luo Jiaotian's circle of friends, which were all about student union activity promotions and martial arts reading check-ins. This is also a mystery in Luo Binhan's eyes. Luo Jiaotian often unconsciously imitates Zhou Yu in his behavior, but martial arts is entirely his own interest. Maybe that is the "true self" that Luo Jiaotian identifies with in his heart.
He spent some time studying Luo Jiaotian's book list until he was sure that Hannah was no longer in the living room, then he walked out of the house and crossed the street to say hello to Antique Pierre opposite. Angti came back at midnight yesterday, around the time Zhou Yu met Lot. She had just returned to her home from outside and found it in a mess. When Luo Binhan pushed open the ajar front door and walked in, he saw a dozen garbage bags scattered in the living room, and Ondy himself was lying on the sofa in frustration. She was lying upside down, her long hair spread to the floor, and her legs hanging on the back of the sofa. Luo Binhan coughed loudly twice, but she remained motionless, hanging upside down like a giant bat to look at him.
Luo Binhan was a little embarrassed. He couldn't tell whether there was a hint of condemnation in Anti's eyes. After all, he was responsible for the destruction of this house. The dance studio on the second floor was completely destroyed, and the other rooms were also complete disaster scenes. If that wasn't the biggest problem, the police now had a bread knife from her home that had been used by some madman to break into and cause intentional damage. This might bring Ondy into the questioning. In fact, it's strange that the police haven't come to question her yet. He estimated that they were planning to complete a thorough inspection on the 15th before dealing with the mute lady who could not speak.
Considering the well-documented cause of Lot's death, it wasn't really a risk, but it was still troublesome. As an apology, Luo Binhan tidied up the garbage piles in the living room according to different categories for her, and went to the second floor to check the situation. It seemed that Antiy had only sorted out the smashed glass, porcelain, rags and other small debris. All kinds of carpets were piled messily against the wall, and the blood stains were bright and eye-catching. Finally, he stood in front of the antique wall clock at the end of the corridor, looking at its exquisite wooden frame and snow-white cold stone inlay pattern. None of the three hands on the clock moved. Luo Binhan stared at the longest second hand for a long time before realizing that it was still moving forward slightly. This clock was probably broken in the conflict last night, which was another huge loss for Anti.
Luo Binhan didn't feel that he was the culprit of this loss, but there was a thought that stabbed his throat. He remembered the strange situation last night, before Yu Xiaorong appeared... He was not sure that it was indeed possible that he broke the clock instead of Lot. He looked down at the soles of his feet again. The blood stains under the antique clock were particularly strong. You can also feel the fishy salty smell and the coldness rising along the spine. He hesitated, thinking about what the police would think when they saw so much blood, and whether rushing to clean it would attract additional suspicion. At last he decided not to touch it, but to leave it to Anti-Pierre to decide what to do with the family affairs.
He went downstairs, returned to the living room, and sat opposite Antiy, who was upside down. "Sorry for messing up your house," he said straight to the point. "Last night that guy threw velvet into your house, and then we got into a fight and couldn't take care of your furniture."
Anti's arms hanging to the ground swayed like a snake. Luo Binhan thought that she had already exposed the matter. He originally wanted to talk about the issue of financial compensation, but he felt that it was best to leave the valuation negotiation to his mother, so he fell silent. Antiy was silently thinking about her own thoughts, and from time to time she squirmed like a living snake, which looked terrible.
Would she do the same thing in front of Yu Xiaorong, mother and daughter? Luo Binhan couldn't help but be a little suspicious. It may also be because he knows Chen Wei, and this good apprentice will release certain natures, or should I say - evil natures, in front of everyone who knows her master. He chewed the word over and over in his mind, and finally decided that he still had to ask for clarification.
"Anti." He organized his words and said, "What happened last night, that is, the stranger suddenly went crazy in our house and knocked himself to death... I guess it was actually you who did it. ?”
Angti slowly moved his back, raising his entire body on the back of the sofa so that his line of sight could be closer to Luo Binhan's height. She stared at him silently, her eyes turning over and over again on him, as if there was something that puzzled her.
"I think this is quite obvious, right?" Luo Binhan speculated, "You just came back at that time, right? You discovered what happened in our house, so you used some method to make him go crazy in front of the camera. Someone once told me that you have a hypnotic ability... Don't worry, you know this and I know it, and I won't tell others."
Anti moved his arms again, slid down a little, and his gaze wandered to the ceiling. There is no doubt that she acquiesced. He easily caught the real culprit behind Lot's death. Of course, he didn't intend to denounce her, but had to cover for her.
"We'd better not let my sister know about this." He said with a sigh of relief. "She likes to study secrets too much. She might find out the relationship between you and Lot. Then she will keep an eye on you every day and send People test you and peek into the privacy of your life. So, if anyone, no matter who it is, asks you what you think about this matter in the future, just pretend you don't know anything about it, okay?"
Antique took turns tapping the back of the sofa with his two calves, making a vowed banging sound. This rhythm showed that she firmly agreed with Luo Binhan's view and would never reveal the inside story to anyone. Luo Binhan met her eyes, and they both smiled confidently.
(End of chapter)
