Chapter 78: This one didn’t escape either

Translator: Abo Dammen

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Case Five: The Law of Causality 

The water pressure in the sink was very strong. With a sputter, the jet of water hit the metal basin, sounding like a signal that use was over. He Yixun pulled a paper towel to dry his hands, threw it in the trash, and then opened the folding door of the restroom. The guard assigned to watch him was waiting outside.

“I’d like a drink,” said He Yixun.

He walked naturally towards the bar to his left. The guard clearly hadn’t expected him to be so casual, hesitated for a moment, then grabbed his elbow impatiently. “Come back with me now.” 

Unfazed, He Yixun withdrew his arm and walked to the bar, pouring a glass of whiskey. “Just one drink.”

The guard was strong, but He Yixun had broken free easily. The guard got serious, stepped beside He Yixun, but just as his hand landed on He Yixun’s shoulder, a cup of strong liquor was suddenly splashed in his face. Alcohol seeped into his eyes, bringing a stinging pain. Before he could recover, his chin took a heavy blow. Pain and consciousness disconnected, and he fell straight backward.

He Yixun dragged the guard behind the bar to hide him, then went to the service room next to the galley. A whiteboard there showed the layout of the guest rooms on the upper deck, with each room noting the occupant and their dietary preferences. Next to the whiteboard was a screen displaying real-time flight altitude, temperature, and the distance and weather at the destination.

The destination had a thunderstorm. The plane still had over three hours until landing. 

He Yixun left the service room, confirmed no flight attendants were moving about, and went up the stairs to the upper deck guest cabins. He tried turning the doorknob to Zhen Li’s room, but it was locked from inside. He knocked on the door. Zhen Li’s voice soon sounded, “Who is it?”

He Yixun didn’t answer, waiting for footsteps to approach. Unexpectedly, Zhen Li saw right through him. “It’s Officer He, right? One’s sense of smell becomes sharper after living in this world for a long time.”

“Open the door,” He Yixun said.

“You’re really persistent, chasing me all the way here,” Zhen Li said, his speech slow, likely due to his age. “What, are you planning to take me away when the plane lands?” 

That was actually a new idea.

The reason He Yixun had traveled here was that the plane took off through a thunderstorm layer. The destination and departure point weren’t the same thunderstorm system, so it wouldn’t violate the rule about not being able to travel twice in the same storm.

As for the blocker, although it was a bit unscrupulous, He Yixun could take this elite Xu Pei’s blocker to relieve his own Xu Puppy’s urgent need. After all, once the plane landed, this Xu Pei could buy a new one so it wouldn’t really affect him.

After taking Zhen Li back to face trial again, he could find another opportunity to come back for the charger and other items. 

“If you don’t open up, I’ll go find Zhan Gao,” said He Yixun. “Unless you’re not afraid of the trouble.”

The room fell quiet. A moment later, the sound of a bolt sliding was heard, and Zhen Li opened the door. “Come in.”

The plane’s guest room wasn’t as spacious as a hotel room, but it was larger than a train compartment, enough for a single bed, a desk, and a wardrobe. Zhen Li sat on the edge of the bed and asked He Yixun, “You don’t feel any physical abnormalities?”

“No. Why?” He Yixun pulled over the chair and sat opposite Zhen Li. 

“The reason people here evolved glands was due to a plague hundreds of years ago,” Zhen Li said. “The virus in the air has always existed. They are born with antibodies now, but we are different. We are affected by the virus. It causes problems with the nervous system.”

“I don’t have any,” He Yixun responded.

“Youth is a virtue,” Zhen Li clicked his tongue. “Maybe you have strong resistance.”

“Why do you look like this? How long have you been here?” He Yixun asked. 

“Over ten years,” Zhen Li’s answer was unexpected, yet made sense.

The newspaper said Xu Pei developed the stabilizer five years ago, so it was reasonable to infer that was when Zhen Li appeared in this spacetime. He Yixun asked, “Did you stay in another parallel spacetime for many years before coming here?”

“You could say that, but it wasn’t a parallel spacetime I went to; it was a ‘split’ spacetime.”

He Yixun: “Split?” 

“You can think of it as there being an original spacetime, the one Professor Xu originally lived in. He had a car accident when he was ten. He was supposed to die then, but because he traveled through time, a new spacetime split off. In that spacetime, he didn’t die and lived until he was thirty.”

“But at thirty, he encountered a lab explosion. He was supposed to die then too, but he survived because he traveled again, and the spacetime split once more. He lived until he announced his engagement to Zhan Gao, and was killed by the associate professor in his own lab—”

Hearing this, He Yixun’s heart sank. So Xu Pei had died so many times already?

“I discovered that adjusting the trigger’s coordinates allowed me to go back to the past. I originally wanted to go back twenty years in our world to change all this. But our spacetime didn’t split. I went back once, but I was still on the original timeline. I had no choice but to come back here and find a way to survive.” 

Zhen Li seemed to have kept these experiences bottled up for a long time. He Yixun asked, and he poured them all out.

He adopted a tone of earnest advice, “Actually, you don’t need to keep pursuing me, Officer He. In Si Lei’s case, I was at most an accomplice. Being imprisoned for twenty years already exceeds the punishment I should bear. Judged normally, I wouldn’t have gotten life…”

Zhen Li couldn’t finish his sentence because knocking sounded from the corridor outside. “Professor Xu?”

Both men instinctively looked toward the door, but there was no response from outside for a while. The flight attendant changed to pounding on the door. “Professor Xu?” 

This time, sounds of someone else opening a door came from outside. Zhan Gao asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Professor Xu ordered a coffee. I brought it up for him, but he won’t open the door.”

He Yixun faintly sensed something was wrong. He quickly opened the door and stepped out into the corridor. Seeing him, Zhan Gao frowned in puzzlement. Then, seeing Zhen Li following behind him, he seemed to assume the two were discussing interview matters. Not having the spare time to inquire further, he kicked open Xu Pei’s door.

In the room, Xu Pei was slumped face down on the desk, his back to the crowd, blood pooling on the floor.

Seeing this scene, the flight attendant screamed, the cup in her hand falling to the ground, coffee splattering everywhere.

The others reacted with their own forms of shock, but only Zhen Li sighed and muttered to himself. “This one didn’t escape it either.”

He Yixun had been mentally prepared ever since Xu Pei failed to respond. 

He was the first to enter the room. Despite having visited so many crime scenes, seeing Xu Pei like this still hit him hard.

Xu Pei’s head lay sideways on the desk, a suicide note pressed beneath his cheek. He Yixun took out his handkerchief, gently pulled out the note, and saw it written that all these events were his fault, etc., and that he couldn’t bear the immense psychological pressure, hence choosing to end his life.

He checked for a pulse. There was none. He Yixun then crouched down to inspect further and found a knife stabbed into Xu Pei’s heart.

“What are you doing?” Zhan Gao looked at He Yixun, his eyes full of incredulity. “Pretending to be a policeman?” 

He Yixun ignored him completely, stood up, and said, “This is a staged suicide scene.”

Zhen Li: “Staged?”

“According to the flight attendant, he ordered a coffee before he died. If he wanted to taste the coffee one last time before leaving, he wouldn’t have acted before drinking it.”

The very idea of treating instant airplane coffee as a last meal was itself strange. 

“But there’s a suicide note here.” Zhan Gao picked up the A4 paper with his bare hands, frowned as he skimmed it rapidly, and placed it back on the desk. “The door was locked when we came in. This is suicide.”

“First, the suicide note is printed. Anyone could have forged it,” said He Yixun. “Second, the guest room lock isn’t complex. We can’t rule out the possibility that the locked room was staged.”

“Just who are you?” Zhan Gao released alert pheromones, adding another layer of oppression to the already gloomy room.

Zhen Li, afraid He Yixun would slip up, quickly stepped in to defuse the situation. “Reporters are like this, always favoring conspiracy theories.” 

He pulled He Yixun out. “This is suicide. It has to be suicide!”

Yes.

Zhen Li wasn’t wrong. This case had to be suicide.

The entire nation was focused on Xu Pei. If he were murdered on Zhan Gao’s plane, the public outcry was unimaginable. It might very well ignite another storm. 

“Close the door. No one is allowed inside,” Zhan Gao said as he walked out of the room. He turned to Qiu Wei. “Draft a press release quickly and send it to our friendly media outlets. Say Xu Pei couldn’t handle the pressure and decided to kill himself.”

Having said that, he looked at He Yixun as if he were an insignificant, marginal figure, unworthy of further attention. “As for you, go back downstairs. If you dare report anything out of line, you’ll regret it.”

He Yixun was taken back to the lounge by the guards.

The guard he had knocked out retaliated by punching him in the stomach. He endured it, what choice did he have? The other guards mocked the man for not even being able to watch a reporter, which resulted in He Yixun being placed under strict one-on-one surveillance. 

The plane continued its smooth flight in the stratosphere; it would be quite a while before landing. Since there was nothing he could do for now anyway, He Yixun used the time to digest the massive amount of information from Zhen Li’s words.

Logically, Zhen Li shouldn’t have known that Xu Pei had time-traveled at age ten, nor that Xu Pei had been murdered by Mo Xin. He wasn’t present when those events happened.

But he could describe the timeline so clearly, indicating he had been to many spacetimes where Xu Pei died and had learned the causes of Xu Pei’s death.

For example, he had been to the so-called original spacetime, where Xu Pei died at age ten. He then went to the split spacetime where Xu Pei didn’t die. After talking with Xu Pei there, he deduced that Xu Pei had avoided death as a child through time travel. 

Another example: in a certain spacetime, after Zhan Gao swapped back his identity, he couldn’t wait to marry Xu Pei, leading Mo Xin to kill Xu Pei. When Zhen Li traveled there, perhaps the case was already solved, so he knew Xu Pei would be murdered by someone from his own lab.

Thinking this, He Yixun couldn’t help but form an absurd idea: was Zhen Li actively trying to prevent Xu Pei’s death?

This would align with his stated goal of “finding a way to survive.” After all, if Xu Pei died, he would have to find another means of survival. And given his advanced age, it was easier to use his knowledge of the future to keep Xu Pei alive.

However. 

There were still some details that weren’t clear.

He Yixun closed his eyes, mentally drawing countless connecting lines. Just then, a commotion erupted upstairs. A flight attendant came running down to the lounge, took a quick look, then ran off in a panic. All the guards followed her. Someone asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Professor Xu’s body has disappeared!”

He Yixun also stood up to follow, but the guard watching him shoved him back: “You stay put!” 

Despite saying that, the guard also left the lounge. He Yixun naturally had no intention of staying put. Keeping some distance, he followed the group of guards to the midsection of the cabin.

The upper deck was noisy. It seemed that while Qiu Wei was drafting the press release, he wanted to refer to the suicide note, but when he opened Xu Pei’s room, he found the body had vanished into thin air.

Someone suggested checking the equipment level. The crowd swarmed downstairs. He Yixun emerged from the corridor corner, intending to go upstairs while it was empty. But he suddenly felt a fluctuation in the air and, as if by telepathy, looked towards a nearby restroom. He saw the folding door suddenly open, and Xu Pei, wearing a white sweater, walked out.

Seeing each other, both men were stunned. 

Familiar style of dress, familiar scent.

Confirming it with a look—it was indeed his own Xu Puppy.

After everything that had just happened, seeing his Pei Pei again, He Yixun let out a sigh of relief and walked towards Xu Pei. “How did you get here?”

Compared to the bridge-fall spacetime, this one was relatively safer, or rather, offered more freedom and room to maneuver, not as pressing. But on this isolated island in the sky, with someone trying to murder Xu Pei, it wasn’t much better either. 

He originally intended to explain the situation quickly—he had to admit, facing such a complex scenario, He Yixun needed Xu Pei. But who knew, after recognizing him, Xu Pei reacted like a cat whose hairs exploded, grabbing He Yixun’s collar furiously and exclaiming, “He Yixun, you damn… Mph!”

Alright, he had almost forgotten about the whole ‘traveling behind Xu Pei’s back’ issue.

He Yixun covered Xu Pei’s mouth, blocking those curses. “You can scold me later.”