Night Wanderer

Xue Xuanqing gripped her phone in silence.

Seeing her lips pressed tight without a word, Officer Jiang took the phone from her hand, stared at the screen for a long moment, sighed, and passed it to the officer beside him who was recording notes.

The officer typed in each word meticulously, then asked Officer Jiang if there was anything else to inquire. Officer Jiang shook his head, so the officer connected to a portable printer and clicked print.

As the printer's mechanical clatter ceased, Officer Jiang stood up, took the statement to review it, and finally handed it to Zong Yu: "Please read this statement carefully now. Verify if it matches the facts. If you have no objections, sign here and provide your fingerprint."

Zong Yu's tears gushed out uncontrollably, soaking the pillow. The monitor's readings were nearing alarm levels. Officer Jiang held the statement, his hand suspended mid-air, waiting for Zong Yu to take it.

Unlike the composed wait inside the room, the atmosphere outside the ward was fraught with tension.

After contacting her lawyer, Xing Xueshu dialed Lü Qianming's number repeatedly, but it remained unanswered.

With Secretary Shen's phone turned off and Lü Qianming unreachable, her panic peaked—she had no choice but to keep calling Lü Qianming relentlessly.

After over twenty attempts, just as her patience was about to snap, a cold, indifferent "Hello" finally came through the line.

Xing Xueshu's pent-up anxiety instantly found an outlet. Pale and trembling, she demanded urgently, "The police are in Xiao Yu's room right now. Why are they here again? Why can't I reach Shen Kai? Did you do something that got exposed?"

Lü Qianming's tone on the other end was clearly displeased as he fired back, "Mrs. Zong, are you mistaken? It was your son who led the police there. Didn’t I warn you not to let him near Zong Ying? Everything could have been resolved if we just waited patiently, but now it's a complete mess. Are you satisfied?"

Hearing this, Xing Xueshu's panic instantly turned to fury. Her face twitched violently as she lashed out recklessly, "You're blaming me?! If you hadn’t sworn that no matter what, her heart would go to Xiao Yu, how could I be this helpless now?! Since things have come to this, Lü, let me tell you—if Xiao Yu doesn’t get that surgery in the end, none of us will walk away unscathed! You’d better remember every single thing you’ve done."

She spat out the words through gritted teeth, her breath ragged, face ghostly pale, strands of hair falling loose by her ears.

The call was abruptly cut off, leaving only the sharp beeps of the dial tone.

Xing Xueshu raised a hand to cover her lips, trying to steady herself. As she lifted her head, she suddenly spotted Zong Qinglin standing several meters away.

Her pupils dilated, and she instinctively took half a step back, tightening her grip on the phone.

Zong Qinglin walked toward her and stopped right in front of her, his expression grim.

Looking down at her, he asked, "Who were you talking to?"

His tone was devoid of emotion, yet heavy with pressure.

Xing Xueshu avoided his gaze, unconsciously tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as she feigned calm. "No one."

Pressing her hair when nervous or guilty was a habit she’d developed over the years.

Zong Qinglin extended his hand, silently demanding she hand over the phone.Xing Xueshu withdrew her hand, but Zong Qinglin seized her wrist. Just as he was about to forcibly take her phone, the attending physician rushed over from the remote monitoring room with two nurses, ignoring the two of them, and urgently knocked on the ward door: "Open the door now!"

Xing and Zong turned their heads in confusion, while inside, Xue Xuanqing quickly walked over and opened the door.

"You've stayed too long. The patient's condition is extremely unstable—please leave immediately!" The attending physician pulled Xue Xuanqing out as he spoke, and amid the beeping alarms inside, the nurses ushered the other two officers out as well.

The ward door closed again, chaos unfolding inside while tension simmered outside.

Xue Xuanqing glared at Xing and Zong with vigilance and disgust; the other two officers fretted over the unfinished statement; Zong Qinglin, who had arrived after receiving a call from his lawyer, wore a dark expression as his gaze shifted to Officer Jiang’s interrogation notes; Xing Xueshu, still reeling from her earlier emotions, was now gripped by panic over Zong Yu’s condition. Like Zong Qinglin, she also wondered what had been revealed in that statement.

The digital wall clock in the hallway showed 10:11 a.m. when Zong Ying arrived at the hospital.

After parking, she unfurled the umbrella printed with "9.14" and a Möbius strip, walking through the misty rain into the inpatient building’s lobby.

Closing the umbrella in the elevator, she initially intended to find Sheng Qiushi first but inexplicably pressed the button for the 20th floor.

From the 1st to the 20th floor, people continuously entered and exited. By the time she reached the top, she was the only one left. The elevator doors opened, and as she stepped out, multiple pairs of eyes turned toward her.

Zong Ying clearly hadn’t expected such a scene.

Holding the umbrella in one hand, she stood still as the elevator doors closed behind her. Only Xue Xuanqing strode toward her.

After days without contact, Xue Xuanqing silently pulled her into an embrace. Three seconds later, she whispered in Zong Ying’s ear, "Prepare yourself, but don’t be afraid. I’ll stay with you."

Zong Ying looked up toward the ward door just as it opened. The attending physician stepped out, barely removing his mask before Xing Xueshu rushed forward. "How is he?!"

The doctor replied grimly, "Very unstable. Very critical."

Xing Xueshu felt her head spin. Officer Jiang asked, "When will visits be allowed?"

Before the doctor could answer, Xing Xueshu turned and snapped at Officer Jiang, "Visits?! All you care about is when you can interrogate him again! If you hadn’t come today, Xiao Yu wouldn’t be like this!" Nearly hysterical, she lunged for the interrogation notes in Officer Jiang’s hands, but Zong Qinglin pulled her back.

Officer Jiang retreated a step, handing the notes to another officer. "Keep these safe."

The attending physician answered Officer Jiang, "It’s unclear when visits will be possible. If you’re in a hurry, you can wait in the conference room."

With that, he returned to the ward, and the door closed again.

Nurses passed by in small groups down the hallway. Officer Jiang checked the time and, considering the statement only needed final confirmation, decided to wait in the conference room. He turned to Xue Xuanqing. "Xiao Xue, are you leaving or staying?"

Xue Xuanqing replied, "I’m not leaving unless there’s an emergency." She wrapped an arm around Zong Ying’s back. "Let’s sit for a while."Zong Ying followed Xue Xuanqing's lead toward the conference room. As they passed the ward entrance, she noticed Xing Xueshu's gaze—now completely undisguised—filled with resentment and covetousness.

The conference room felt even more confined than the hallway.

Everyone took their seats. The officer handling the records sorted through the evidence and statements while sighing regretfully, "It's really heartbreaking to see. Why did it take until now for this to come out?"

Officer Jiang replied, "A teenager carrying such a heavy burden, holding it in all this time—it's pitiful. If it were you, you wouldn’t have dared to speak up either." He picked up the statement and turned to Zong Ying. "Do you want to read it?"

Zong Ying had driven all night, and her exhaustion was impossible to hide.

She longed for the truth, but now that it was before her, she couldn’t help but feel a pang of fear.

This statement, extracted from the lips of a critically ill child, was drenched in blood.

Without a word, Zong Ying pulled a pillbox from her pocket, tipped out a tablet, and swallowed it. Only when the lump in her throat faded did she turn to Xue Xuanqing. "Go ahead."

Xue Xuanqing’s own emotions were tangled. She stood and asked Officer Jiang for the phone in the evidence bag. Opening the voice memos, she said, "You missed one. After the accident, Xing Xueyi called the police, then left this recording."

She tapped the memo dated July 23 and turned up the volume. Xing Xueyi’s voice filled the room.

His breathing was labored, but his words were firm: "I won’t make it." Then: "If I don’t say this now, it’ll be too late. Xiao Yu—

"I think you just heard and saw everything. That uncle came tonight because of something that happened years ago. He recently found out I kept this—"

A brief rustling of paper, followed by a deep sigh:

"This report was written by me. We invested too much in this drug. If a few clinical data points forced us to start over, the losses would be too great.

"We were certain… tweaking it just a little wouldn’t matter. But the report… was still rejected.

"That day, Yan Man went to inspect the new lab building. That uncle and I went with her. We argued over the report, and she… fell.

"The report landed with her. I picked it all up—and didn’t save her."

His voice grew weaker, now choked with barely restrained sobs: "A mistake is a mistake. Tampering is fraud."

Xue Xuanqing pressed stop. "That’s the gist of what happened back then. As for why they were on the highway that night—Zong Yu said he saw Lü Qianming’s secretary hand his uncle a bag of drugs. He panicked, insisting on going home to tell his mother. But on the way, he noticed his uncle acting strange and confronted him. His uncle denied it, so he reached for the bag on the passenger seat—

"Xing Xueyi wasn’t on drugs that day. The bag had just been given to him. But out of guilt, he tried to stop the boy.

"The wheel spun out of control. The rest is what we already know."

The sky was a dull gray, the rain unending.

The air in the sealed conference room grew stifling. Outside, scattered footsteps occasionally passed before fading back into silence.

Xue Xuanqing sighed and opened the phone’s browser, pulling up the search history.

She said, "When we examined the phone, we found these."The critically ill teenager, during a moment of lucidity, had opened his phone's browser and desperately searched for news about the 723 accident. The stark black text against white background was interspersed with photos of the victims and survivors—

A husband and wife who died on the spot, along with their unborn child, and finally, a lone orphan, bandaged and seated in a wheelchair, their eyes filled with a hollowness and confusion far beyond their years.

Horrified by the devastating aftermath, he struggled to assign blame, ultimately placing it all on himself.

He thought that couple could have arrived home safely, reunited with their waiting child; his uncle could have dropped him off and returned unharmed to his suburban villa... But there were no second chances.

What had happened could not be undone.

Just like how Yan Man had fallen during the argument years ago, and the two others present, to avoid suspicion, had callously abandoned her despite her faint breaths, fleeing the scene and leaving her to die alone and helpless—another irreversible fact.

The days of fearful silence that followed were now laid bare.

Yet, no matter how much he regretted it, Yan Man would never return, nor would the victims of the 723 accident come back to life.

Remorse was futile. The phone on the table ran out of battery, its screen fading to black.

Outside, the wind picked up, driving sheets of rain against the windowpanes.

Zong Ying sat motionless, clenching and unclenching her fists.

Xue Xuanqing wanted to offer some words of comfort, but before she could, Zong Ying suddenly stood and pulled open the conference room door.

The others turned toward the sound, only to see Xing Xueshu and Zong Qinglin standing at the entrance.