Soul Patch

Chapter 76 is simply a waste of time.

After finishing his meal, Wenjie took Yang Shanshan home and then walked home under the moonlight.

The moonlight is as clear as water, and one's heart calms down as well.

A plump middle-aged woman with a stall by the roadside was shouting at the top of her lungs: "Roasted chestnuts... freshly roasted chestnuts!"

Wenjie looked at the large pot behind the fat old lady, where the chestnuts with their shiny skins were floating and sinking in the black sand as the stirring shaft fixed in the center of the pot turned.

Seeing Wenjie looking towards the stall, the old lady quickly said familiarly, "Young man, try our chestnuts. They're genuine Zaozhuang oil chestnuts, big and easy to peel, with sweet and fragrant kernels. Ten yuan a pound."

Wenjie watched the plump woman's mouth open and close, as if something flashed through his mind.

The proprietress, seeing the young man staring blankly at her, glanced down at her own attire, then at the steaming hot chestnuts, and asked, puzzled:

"Hey young man, what happened to you? Did you drop something?"

I was so preoccupied with things that I forgot I needed to catch the bus. How awful...

Wenjie arrived home at 8 PM.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday...

Wow, three days have passed already!

Why are happy times always so short? Is it really time to activate the system?

The moment the thought flashed through Wenjie's mind, the system lit up.

I just thought of something. You go back first, there are still a few hours left!

I want to enjoy myself for a few more hours!

The system suddenly crashed again.

However, Wenjie seemed to sense the system's resentful look and its increasingly intense resentment.

Uh……

Get lost... Once we're bound, I'm in charge.

Wenjie wasn't the type to act recklessly; he was just in a bad mood, or rather, a really bad mood.

From now on, stay away from Jia Nan, and also stay away from Huang Weiwei.

Wenjie, clutching a bath towel, plopped down on the floor.

The bath towel that Yang Shanshan used.

I'll hang it in the bathroom and use it every time I shower.

These past two days, without any system interference, I've had plenty of sleep and feel refreshed and energetic during the day.

Wenjie was so engrossed in this kind of sleep that when he was woken up by the alarm clock at night, he was still in a daze.

Watching the system's scribbled text light up in the darkness.

[System Task: A. Beginner Difficulty, B. Intermediate Difficulty]

C. Advanced Difficulty

[A]

Even when he was drowsy and his mind wasn't working properly, Wenjie's choice regarding this issue was extremely clear.

Even if you're sleepwalking, you'll still choose A.

I will never touch a C-level mission unless I am absolutely certain of success.

Wasn't the last C-level mission a disaster enough?

Select patch type:

Equally numb, a brutal patch!

The system rewards can include patch-type rewards, but he hasn't received such a reward yet.

——Start the mission——

That night, a European-style minimalist bedroom appeared before Wenjie.

The bedroom screen swayed in the darkness, like a dancing sprite stretching its dance in the night.

A man in black nimbly jumped into the bedroom through the window.

His movements were extremely light and skillful, as if he were an expert in picking locks and climbing onto roofs.

But Wenjie had a strange feeling about this man. As the man approached the large bed against the wall on the left side of the bedroom step by step, Wenjie began to feel nervous.

However, this time his feeling was really strange. He wasn't worried about the person lying down, but about the man in black.

The man in black walked to the bedside.

He drew a knife.

A fruit knife, just like the short-handled fruit knife you use at home.

He raised the fruit knife high, its sharp blade almost reflecting his cold face.

Wait... what's with this face? What's going on with this face?

Wenjie touched his eyes, nose, eyebrows, and mouth.

Could this be me?

How could that be? How could I kill someone?

Am I a psychopath? Breaking into someone's house and killing them in the middle of the night!

By the moonlight, Wenjie could see clearly that the man lying on the bed was Jia Nan.

Jia Nan's perfect profile makes her highly recognizable!

Under the cover of night, Wenjie quietly logged out of the system.

Soon Wenjie appeared at his home. He took out his phone and glanced at it: July 16, 2019.

Uh... that means on July 16, 2019, he planned to murder Jia Nan.

But why kill Jia Nan on July 16?

If I remember correctly, you could win a big prize in the Double Color Ball lottery on July 18th.

Isn't this something a loser should be hoping for?

Why did they have to commit murder and robbery before that?

The night outside the window was dark. Wenjie took out a cigarette and silently puffed out the smoke.

In the smoke, scenes from the system tasks flashed through my mind, most of them blurry.

In order to find out the reason for killing Jia Nan, he patiently searched for clues frame by frame.

Soon, a name flashed through his confused mind like lightning in the darkness.

Zhao Xiaolong.

The timeline for Zhao Xiaolong's test was set back to 2007, when Zhao Xiaolong was 12 years old.

He took out his phone and brought up Zhao Xiaolong's name on WeChat.

Thanks to Zhao Xiaolong's honesty, he actually added Wenjie on WeChat when he said he would.

Wenjie didn't have Zhao Xiaolong's phone number, so he sent a voice call request on WeChat.

As Wenjie watched the voice call request center, Zhao Xiaolong's WeChat profile picture, dressed in a uniform, kept spinning in circles, his heart began to pound with anxiety.

Answer it quickly... answer it quickly!

Finally, the WeChat profile picture stopped spinning, and Zhao Xiaolong's intermittent voice came through the phone's earpiece: "Wen...Wen, Jie...Jie...Jie..."

Holy crap, it's like a ghost summoning a spirit.

Luckily I'm brave, otherwise I would have been terrified by that sound.

The Wi-Fi at home is incredibly fast!

"Zhao Xiaolong, this is Wenjie... I have something to ask you. Do you remember when you were 12 years old, there was a perverted cross-dressing man in your village or the surrounding villages?"

"What perverted big shot? Cross-dressing? You mean he has a... cross-dressing fetish?"

Hearing Zhao Xiaolong's incomprehensible tone, Wenjie was practically going crazy!

Ah, ah, ah!

I don’t know if I ask three questions!

You live such an easy life, do you know that I'm the one silently bearing the burden behind the scenes?

However, Wenjie maintained his smile and politely asked, "Yes, you don't know such a person, right?"

She thought to herself: You don't know him, but he's going to torment you.

"Yeah, I don't know him. There aren't any cross-dressers in the surrounding villages. Wenjie, why are you asking this?"

Zhao Xiaolong asked in surprise.

No?

In other words, this pervert is usually quite normal.

Wenjie pondered for a moment, carefully choosing his words, and said, "Then do you remember that year..."

As he spoke, his voice inexplicably began to tremble.

Am I... nervous?

To calm himself down, he put the phone to his mouth and lowered his voice.

"A boy from a nearby village...was murdered?"

He didn't believe Zhao Xiaolong wouldn't know about this; in their small hometown, life was monotonous and extracurricular activities were scarce.

The topics of conversation during leisure time are nothing more than whose crops have been ruined and whose cows have given birth.

There were also some gossip stories: the widow at the village entrance had an affair with someone in the rice paddies, and so-and-so's eldest daughter got pregnant before marriage...

If a murder were to occur, wouldn't it become the talk of the town for miles around?

The surrounding villages?

Why don't I remember that?

Logically, if an event at a certain point in the past is changed, the life trajectory of the people involved will also change.

But he had no recollection of it at all?

Could it be that Wenjie's home is far from Zhao Xiaolong's village, Zhao Village, and the news didn't get through?

"Now that you put it that way, let me think... It's been so long, more than ten years ago, I really can't remember it right now."

Zhao Xiaolong's speech slowed down noticeably, as if he had fallen into thought.

"Oh, in the countryside, every year one or two teenagers die for one reason or another. When I was 12, I think a boy was electrocuted by a high voltage."

Hey! That's not it. I thought we were close to finding a clue, but Zhao Xiaolong said something completely unrelated.

"That's not right. Are there other causes of death? Like being hacked to death?"

Zhao Xiaolong was speechless. Why did he talk about it like a pig waiting to be slaughtered in a slaughterhouse?

How many people can a village have? It seems like people die every day.

"That's all! I can't remember!" Zhao Xiaolong said irritably.

Good heavens, Zhao Xiaolong! I only got into trouble and got caught up in this bizarre situation because I was trying to save you.

What kind of attitude is that?

Wenjie got up and walked to the window. He was a little irritable. He didn't tap the cigarette in his hand for a long time, and the ash fell onto the windowsill.

He turned on the window and bent down to flick the cigarette ash out the window.

The 15th floor gave him a panoramic view of the neighborhood.

He watched as the vendors on both sides of the entrance to the residential area started setting up stalls to sell snacks: popcorn, teppanyaki, fried rice, candied hawthorn, ice cream, grilled lamb skewers...

Suddenly, I remembered the plump woman who sold roasted chestnuts on the street when I went home yesterday.

Oh right, there's also a plump auntie!

Wenjie, on a sudden inspiration, said:

"Okay, okay, okay, I won't ask you about that anymore. Don't you pass by that chubby auntie's house on your way home from school? The one who gives you eggs, right? Does that auntie still live there?"

I have to say, the lady who sold roasted chestnuts yesterday really does look a bit like the chubby auntie who gave Zhao Xiaolong eggs.

"You mean Aunt Zhao? She still lives there, but her daughter has come to work in M ​​City, so she and Uncle Zhao live there now."

Zhao Xiaolong gave a rare affirmative answer, and Wenjie was actually a little excited when he heard this.

How often do you go home? How about we go back together tomorrow?

He goes home to visit his mother every winter and summer vacation, and also goes back during holidays.

However, after starting his internship, Wenjie didn't go back home for the May Day holiday in order to perform well at his internship company.

I promised my mother I would go back to sweep my father's grave together during the Qingming Festival, but I couldn't go back because I was working overtime.

It's really time to go back and take a look!

"I haven't been home for a while. I was planning to go back after my internship ended. But it's still uncertain whether I'll get a permanent position, and I'm worried about what my parents will say when I go back..."

Zhao Xiaolong paused, feeling that Wenjie, also an intern, would understand his concerns.

"..." Wenjie also fell silent for a moment.

He hoped to be retained and to gain a foothold in M ​​City; how could he not understand Zhao Xiaolong's thoughts?

Children from rural areas like them are always the ones whose families have high hopes for them.

It seems that staying in a big city and having a respectable job is a way to bring honor to one's family and make one's parents proud.

"I'm taking the early bus back tomorrow. If you're going back too, let's meet at the long-distance bus station tomorrow."

"Okay, the early morning bus is the one at nine o'clock, right?"

"Correct!"

(End of this chapter)