Chapter 109: The Stray Dog

“Wait a moment, what do you mean the second time at the Welfare Institute was the dead of night?”

“Remember those days we did volunteer work at the Welfare Institute? We figured out the general layout, and then we went back one night, using that dog hole you crawled through before,” Qi Ran said, roughly sketching a simple floor plan on the whiteboard. “The second window on the first floor on the right side of the Welfare Institute—there’s a room without a door inside, and a Monster is kept in that room. Which conveniently leads to what I need you to do next. You were raised there, so presumably, you’re more familiar with it than I am. Find a way to tame that Monster, and then figure out what’s behind that door on the ceiling.”

Listening to Qi Ran’s words, Greasepaint’s pale cheeks flushed slightly. She nodded.

Qi Ran’s tone was very open. She knew that because of Qi Xin, Greasepaint wouldn’t have any thoughts of rejecting her now.

“I mean, without my key, what its true appearance is,” Qi Ran looked at Hyena, Dry Wood, and the others, adding, “That Monster is kept there, but the room is very clean. Someone is regularly providing it with food and cleaning its living space. I’m not sure who is doing this, but that person clearly has the status to enter the Welfare Institute at will.”

She somewhat implicitly expressed her suspicion of those volunteers, not stating it outright, but Dry Wood clearly caught her implication. His brows furrowed tightly, his eyes somewhat gloomy, as if contemplating something.

Qi Ran recorded the last point on the whiteboard, then said: “That’s roughly all the intelligence we have so far. Does anyone have anything to add?”

Jiang Zhique raised her head and looked into Qi Ran’s eyes. Through the bug earlier, she had clearly heard about Qi Xin’s identity as a Lakeless Person—yet Qi Ran now seemed to have no intention of mentioning Qi Xin at all.

Qi Ran didn’t avoid her questioning gaze, just watched her quietly.

Jiang Zhique frowned.

She was no stranger to Qi Ran’s current expression. She had seen it on Qi Ran’s face many times before. It was a kind of resignation—or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it an abandonment of choice. This expression often appeared when Qi Ran was faced with a choice, and of the two answers available to her, one was what she desired, and the other was the correct one. She would show this expression and abandon the choice, handing the decision over to someone else—even if that choice was intimately connected to her own life.

It was the same now. Qi Ran didn’t want to bring up Qi Xin’s secret, yet felt that Qi Xin’s existence as a threat should be told to the other companions. Caught in this dilemma, she once again chose to give up, handing the choice entirely to someone else. Whatever choice Jiang Zhique made, she would accept it obediently.

Jiang Zhique fell silent.

“If there’s nothing else, then let’s exchange contact information and head home to wait for the next study group,” Liu Xu clapped his hands. “Remember to unify your contact names. Qi Ran is Teaching Assistant Qi, Xu Yan is Teacher Xu. Everyone else can just use ‘Student So-and-so’ for each other.”

“Do we really have to use such an embarrassing cover? If the Executors find us, they won’t care about gathering evidence at all,” Parrot sighed. Despite her words, she still took out her cell phone, muttering, “This feels like playing house or something.”

After exchanging contact information, Hyena, Dry Wood, and the others left first. They had rented a place in the Old City District. Greasepaint went back to the Welfare Institute, less than a five-minute distance away. Liu Xu drove Xu Yan home, and Nan Qiang went with them. Qi Ran looked around the room and suddenly felt it had become a bit empty again.

She walked to the very narrow balcony—calling it a balcony wasn’t quite accurate, because it was so small it couldn’t hold anything, only useful for hanging clothes or piling up clutter. Jiang Zhique sat on that wooden chair, her fingertips rubbing against the cigarette box, unopened.

“What are you thinking about?” Qi Ran sat down beside her.

“You know what I want to ask,” Jiang Zhique’s fingertip slightly indented the corner of the cigarette box. “The matter of Qi Xin. Why?”

“It’s not for any complicated reason,” Qi Ran shook her head. “If I don’t tell Hyena and the others about Qi Xin’s situation, the worst outcome is Qi Xin turning them into cripples. But if I tell them about Qi Xin, the worst outcome would be the Executors suspecting and imprisoning her—I just made a choice. Compared to Hyena and the others, I care about Qi Xin a little more. It’s that simple. If someone among them must face the possibility of danger, I would choose Hyena and the others, not Qi Xin.”

“You didn’t make a choice at all. You just threw the choice to me,” Jiang Zhique said in a low voice. “If I had spoken just now, what would you have done? Or did you just want to know whether I would tell them? If you’re so conflicted, why didn’t you just take the bug off from the very beginning?”

“…Sorry.”

Qi Ran only said this quietly. She herself couldn’t quite figure out what she had been thinking. When meeting with Qi Xin, she hadn’t forgotten about the bug’s existence. It was just due to an indescribable feeling that she hadn’t removed the bug, showing her trust in Jiang Zhique in this roundabout, twisted way—the most awkward way possible. Jiang Zhique was right: she had indeed been probing, guessing what Jiang Zhique would do.

Jiang Zhique was more perceptive than she had imagined. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been arrogant enough to think Jiang Zhique would be too dense to notice these thoughts of hers.

“Close your eyes.”

She suddenly heard Jiang Zhique’s voice. Looking up, Jiang Zhique had already risen from her chair and walked in front of her, her tone carrying a somewhat peremptory air. Her hand grabbed Qi Ran’s collar—Qi Ran closed her eyes. If it was just a hit, to vent anger, it was actually fine. She was already prepared for it.

But the expected pain never came.

In the darkness, Jiang Zhique was far too close to her, close enough to feel her breath. She could even smell the scent of camphor wood on Jiang Zhique—she knew that was because Jiang Zhique had placed a block of camphor wood in her wardrobe to prevent moth damage.

“You still have a chance to back out. I’m about to do something to you, something very serious, concerning your Mind Lake,” Jiang Zhique’s voice was very, very low, somewhat hoarse and indistinct in Qi Ran’s ears. “Don’t think about escaping. You either push me away or reach out and hold onto me. If you don’t move, I’ll just stay like this, always waiting for you to make a decision—if you push me away, I won’t bring up something like this again.”

“Then we won’t be companions anymore?”

“The things we agreed on before won’t change, but we won’t be companions anymore,” Jiang Zhique’s voice was very soft. “I won’t go back on what I’ve said, but we won’t be companions anymore.”

Even she hadn’t realized she had repeated the same words twice.

Qi Ran fell silent. She felt Jiang Zhique’s hand tremble slightly.

She sighed, didn’t open her eyes, just reached out her hand. In the darkness, she touched Jiang Zhique’s shoulder. The shoulder was a bit thin, the touch warm, trembling slightly. It suddenly reminded Qi Ran of a time long, long ago, a little stray dog she had met on the road home from middle school. It was a dusty, dirt-covered little stray dog, very ugly, filthy. It huddled under the stone slab behind the commissary, the fur on its body so dirty it was matted. When Qi Ran stroked its head, it practically curled up completely on the ground. The touch was slightly warm, trembling uncontrollably, making one afraid to use too much force, as if a little more pressure would break it.

She had crouched on the ground with her backpack, stroking that little stray dog over and over again. The little stray dog just looked at her docilely, its coal-black eyes glistening like glass marbles. But in the end, Qi Ran couldn’t bring herself to take it home. She just took a few steps and then looked back, thinking to herself that if the little stray dog followed her, she would take it back. Qi Jianguo certainly wouldn’t let her keep a dog, but that was fine. She could raise it secretly, hide it. There was always a way to hide it… but the little stray dog didn’t follow. It just sat there stupidly, as if it didn’t understand what she was doing.

In the end, she just left like that. She never saw that little stray dog again.

Qi Ran didn’t know whether she really liked that little stray dog or not, didn’t understand whether she really wanted to raise it or not… She also didn’t understand why she suddenly remembered this now. In what way was Jiang Zhique like that little stray dog? She couldn’t think of any similarity between the two. Yet when she closed her eyes, she felt like she was stroking that little stray dog. The touch of her fingertips was so scorching it stung.