Soul Patch

Chapter 52 Time is out of control

The night was dark and the atmosphere was heavy.

Several people were in Weiwei Bakery, waiting for the police to take their statements.

Police turned on searchlights outside the bakery.

On summer nights, as long as there is a light source, countless mosquitoes and moths will swarm around it, fluttering their wings and making the light appear illusory and unpredictable.

The crowd thinned out, and at the command of the police, a path quickly opened up, and paramedics carried the stretcher toward the ambulance.

Two doctors carried out a stretcher covered with a white sheet. Yang Shanshan felt that the white sheet was particularly conspicuous under the streetlights in the dark night.

What's even more jarring is the arm sticking out from under the white sheet; it belonged to the passerby who was crushed to death.

His shirt was rolled up, revealing a section of firm muscle, while his arm hung limply off the stretcher like a noodle.

Yang Shanshan noticed something tied to the wrist of that arm, which looked like a thin rope.

She watched the group get into the ambulance and drive away before turning her gaze away.

Is that a red string tied around the boy's arm for good luck?

It's those little gadgets that girls like to play with...

She glanced at Huang Weiwei, who was still talking to Officer Cao about the supervisor who had been dismissed.

She took out her phone from her pocket and sent a message to Wenjie. After revising it for a long time, she finally typed a few words: "Wenjie, are you okay?"

After a while, Wenjie replied to the message: "I'm not doing well."

Yang Shanshan breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back against the soft sofa.

"What's wrong?"

"I...I, Shanshan, I miss you!"

Yang Shanshan stared blankly at the message, her heart pounding wildly.

So why isn't she?

Seeing the passerby who was crushed to death, I felt a strange sense of familiarity. I walked over and looked at him repeatedly before realizing where this sense of familiarity came from. The boy lying on the ground looked a bit like Wenjie.

Even though I knew it wasn't, just somewhat similar, and that Wenjie would never carry such an expensive backpack, I still couldn't help feeling uneasy.

She only felt relieved when Wenjie replied to her message.

But why did Wenjie suddenly say something like that?

Yang Shanshan sent a shy emoji.

"Shanshan, what are you doing?" Wenjie checked the time; it was past eight o'clock. Yang Shanshan should be home by now.

"I'm at my best friend's place. Something happened at her shop, it's really weird. She doesn't seem to be in a good mental state, so I might have to keep her company tonight!"

Upon seeing Yang Shanshan's reply, Wenjie's gaze was fixed on the sentence, "I might have to keep her company tonight."

What does it mean?

Did I make it too obvious that I wanted her to keep me company?

"Best friend? Is it Huang Weiwei who went missing last time?" Of Yang Shanshan's best friends, Wenjie only knew this one.

When Huang Weiwei went missing last time, Yang Shanshan was extremely worried and took leave to look for her. It is said that she searched everywhere Huang Weiwei might have gone that day.

It seems that Yang Shanshan and she have a very good relationship.

"Yes, it's Weiwei, the wall panel in her shop collapsed..."

Yang Shanshan looked towards Huang Weiwei and saw that Huang Weiwei had finished giving her statement. Huang Dongheng was sitting next to her and whispering something to her. The police were taking a statement from the cashier.

Yang Shanshan winked at Huang Weiwei, pointed to her phone, and got up to leave the bakery.

She dialed Wenjie's number, and upon hearing his familiar voice coming through the receiver, Yang Shanshan unconsciously smiled.

"Wenjie, do you know what happened? An advertising sign on the side of Huang Weiwei's bakery has suddenly fallen down."

"It just fell, but I never expected it to hit someone so hard!"

"What?" Wenjie was completely dumbfounded after hearing this.

I thought the first half was a funny story, but the second half turned out to be a horror story.

"Who was killed?"

"A passerby!"

Bystander, how unlucky is this person?!

"Then... as the shop owner, will Huang Weiwei be held accountable?"

"I don't know either. I guess it'll be hard to get away with it. Even if they aren't held accountable, the shop's business is probably ruined!" Yang Shanshan sighed.

While talking on the phone with Yang Shanshan, Wenjie went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

The system test material was a video, which was playing in front of him at normal speed.

At that moment, he saw the man on the system interface take out a sharp knife from his pocket and squat in the shadows in the corner, his eyes fixed on the mall entrance, like a wild beast waiting to be hunted.

Wenjie recognized the knife; wasn't it the same sharp knife he had seen in the supermarket downstairs when he bought a fruit knife for his family?

He picked it up and weighed it in his hand, but then decided it wasn't suitable for home use and put it down. He then chose the green-handled, foldable fruit knife he has now.

Customers were constantly coming and going through the mall's revolving doors when suddenly he seemed to see something. In the darkness, he gripped the hilt of his knife and nimbly rushed toward the door.

They were a well-dressed couple, walking arm in arm out of the mall. The man glanced this way as he chatted and laughed…

Holy crap, what's going on? It's Bai Yu!

*Thud!* The blanket in Wenjie's hand fell to the ground and shattered. Hot water splashed onto his feet, but he ignored the pain and yelled:

"Bai Yu, danger! Run! Someone's trying to kill you!"

Isn't this insane? How could Bai Yu hear that?

Bai Yu glanced sideways and saw the man rushing towards him. His expression turned awkward, and he turned to run away.

But it was too late. The man plunged his knife down, piercing Bai Yu's carotid artery. Bai Yu grabbed the man's arm, but gradually went limp.

The woman standing nearby was terrified: "Xiaojun, you...you..."

The man slapped the woman to the ground and turned to leave.

"What's wrong, Wenjie? What happened?"

Yang Shanshan, on the other end of the phone, was also startled when she heard Wenjie shout out.

She was standing at the entrance of the bakery. The police at the crime scene had basically finished collecting evidence, leaving only one officer guarding the cordon.

Inside the cordon, in the area marked with white lines depicting human figures, bloodstains were smeared on the cement bricks, creating an eerie atmosphere when the wind blew.

Yang Shanshan looked away and moved to a brighter spot in the shop window. Huang Weiwei looked up and saw Yang Shanshan looking this way, and gave her a forced smile.

"Oh..." Wenjie completely forgot he was on the phone. When Yang Shanshan asked, he stammered for a while before coming up with an excuse:

"Uh... I'm playing a game, Peacekeeper Elite."

"Oh, so that's why there's all this fighting and killing."

Yang Shanshan chuckled self-deprecatingly. She was being a bit neurotic today, always thinking the worst. "Okay, you have fun! I'm going to keep Weiwei company, bye~"

Wenjie hung up the phone and stood in the kitchen looking at the broken cup on the floor:

Why is the timeline all messed up? I even saw Bai Yu on my way home from get off work today!

This happened at night, so it definitely wasn't last night.

Could it be... a live stream?

Or... some night in the future?

(End of this chapter)