“The rain seems to have stopped…”
Li Yuan pushed the car door open and extended her hand into the cool air. After feeling no droplets, she spoke to Qi Xin, who was sitting quietly in the back seat. “Good news. At least we won’t have to crowd under that tiny umbrella.”
Qi Xin opened the car door. Although the rain was nearly over, the dark clouds in the sky still hadn’t dispersed, pressing down in oppressive layers that felt somewhat stifling. She followed Li Yuan into an unremarkable gray-white building. Li Yuan pressed her right index finger onto the fingerprint lock. Following a clear “ding,” Qi Xin saw a small camera extend from the top, flashing a white light at the two of them before the main door slowly opened.
“Don’t be too nervous,” Li Yuan turned back to encourage her. “Opening Lake is a very routine procedure—have you ever done something like a physical examination? It’s about the same. With the development of medical technology nowadays, Opening Lake is much more convenient than before. You just need to lie down on the bed, and then a few electrode patches are attached, like when taking an electrocardiogram. It’s over in less than a minute.”
“Do I need to take off my clothes?” Qi Xin asked.
Li Yuan paused momentarily, misunderstanding Qi Xin’s meaning, thinking she was just shy and embarrassed. She laughed and reassured her, “There’s no need to be embarrassed. Tian Xi is also a woman… you just need to lift up your shirt a bit. You don’t need to take off your clothes.”
Qi Xin’s fingertips tightened slightly. It was certainly not that kind of trivial shyness she was concerned about. But in the end, she said nothing more, merely lowering her head slightly and murmuring, “Okay.”
The sound of a ringing phone came from Li Yuan’s bag. She pulled out her cell phone, answered it, and asked with some confusion, “Qi Xin and I are already at Tian Xi’s place now. What is it?”
Qi Xin tilted her head to listen, but she could only make out that the speaker on the other end was generally Fang Qi. The content was somewhat muffled, indistinguishable.
“Lake Cutter?”
Li Yuan’s voice suddenly became a bit sharper, trembling slightly. She then regained her composure and said to Qi Xin with a hint of apology in her low voice, “I need to take this call first. Just sit and wait for me on the chair over there. I’ll be back as soon as I’m done.”
Qi Xin nodded. “Okay.”
Li Yuan took out a key and unlocked the iron door of a holding room nearby. This type of jail cell, made from special materials, offered excellent isolation. Even using the methods of Insiders, one couldn’t peer into what was happening inside. After she was sure the door was securely shut, she reconnected the call.
“I’m already inside the holding cell now. Go on, what do I need to do?”
“What you need to do is immediately take Qi Xin to get her Lake Opened. After she’s done, bring Tian Xi back to the Group with you,” Fang Qi said in a low voice. “Do you understand?”
“I can just have Tian Xi go over there on her own right now…”
Fang Qi interrupted her, enunciating each word clearly. “First, take Qi Xin to get her Lake Opened. Before she finishes Opening Lake, Tian Xi cannot leave that place—”
He paused slightly before continuing, “Li Yuan, this is an order passed down from the top. You should understand that if you disobey an order, the one punished will only be Yu Mi. Don’t make things difficult for him.”
Li Yuan took a deep breath, forcing back the swear words that were about to spill from her mouth. “Are human lives more important, or is Opening Lake?”
“Obedience is more important,” Fang Qi answered the question bluntly. “You should know, the lives of patients like us don’t count as human lives.”
“Can I curse now?”
“We can curse together when you get back,” Fang Qi sighed. “Now take that girl to Open Lake. I’m here watching Team Leader Yu, don’t worry.”
Li Yuan hung up the phone cleanly. After taking a deep breath to let the irritation in her heart subside slightly, she pushed open the iron door and returned to the hallway. She spotted the girl at a glance, sitting on the bench not far away. The girl sat very upright, hands resting on her knees, quietly and calmly staring at the wall in front of her.
Was it because she had said, “Sit on the chair and wait for me”?
Only at this moment did she realize just how much the girl before her differed from her peers. She was like an obedient doll, doing whatever she was told. She didn’t act like a child in the throes of adolescence at all. Rather than calling it well-behaved, it was more fitting to say she seemed docile—like a domesticated dog, whose sole scrap of self-awareness was devoted to pleasing the people around her.
“Qi Xin.”
Only after hearing her name did the girl seem to snap back to attention and turn her head to look at her.
Li Yuan tentatively said, “My call is finished.”
The girl nodded, said nothing, and didn’t stand up, just quietly looked at her.
Was it because she had to wait for the phrase “Let’s go” before she could stand up from the chair?
“Let’s go,” she said, her expression unchanged.
Qi Xin stood up and quietly followed behind her.
After figuring out the reasoning behind all of the girl’s past behaviors, Li Yuan’s heart tightened slightly. An indescribable, bittersweet emotion washed away her earlier irritation. This girl, practically the textbook definition of the “model child from someone else’s family”—what kind of childhood had she endured to turn her into her current state? What kind of upbringing had Li Wanying, currently locked in a cell, inflicted upon her?
“Actually, there’s no need to sit so rigidly upright,” she smiled, speaking to the girl following behind her. “Are you very nervous? You can relax a little.”
The girl’s expression flickered momentarily. She hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry, I will correct it.”
“No, I didn’t mean for you to apologize,” Li Yuan felt a slight headache coming on. “My meaning wasn’t to scold you. It’s more like… are you very afraid of doing things wrong?”
The girl’s slender eyebrows furrowed slightly, as if she were a little conflicted, not knowing the correct way to answer this question. Looking at her expression, Li Yuan sighed inwardly, knowing this kind of situation couldn’t be changed with just a few words. She could only shift the topic to something easier. “Have you ever had a physical exam? A full, comprehensive one?”
Qi Xin nodded. “I had one at school before.”
“Have you ever been to a hospital?”
“I’ve been to the clinic near our residential compound… I don’t get sick much. The time I went to the clinic was because I scraped my knee while running.” Qi Xin nodded.
Li Yuan recalled the crude physical exams at school and understood that the girl likely didn’t know what an electrocardiogram entailed. The reason she had asked earlier, “Do I need to take off my clothes?”, was probably because she had only read about physical exams in books. And when Li Yuan mentioned electrode patches, the girl clearly didn’t know what they were but still nodded without voicing her doubts. Adding to that the question about whether she’d been to a hospital, she’d only ever been to a clinic, yet she still nodded. There was no doubt—even if it was done to please others, the girl before her clearly had her own sense of self-respect and a tiny bit of vanity. It was a very, very small thing, propping her up, keeping her back straight, making her appear omniscient and omnipotent before her schoolmates.
The girl’s claim that she had never been sick was likely because Li Wanying considered colds and fevers to be unworthy of being called illnesses. So naturally, she had never been sick at all.
Thinking of this, Li Yuan suddenly breathed a sigh of relief. She felt this was a good thing. It at least proved that deep down, the girl was normal. She had things she herself wanted to do. She wasn’t completely devoid of personal thoughts.
After reaching the fourth floor, Li Yuan looked at the room numbers by the doors, counting one by one, and finally stopped at the door of 408. She knocked on the door. “I’m Li Yuan from Yu Mi’s Investigation Team. I’m here regarding the Opening Lake.”
After a moment, a woman’s voice came from inside. “Please come in—of course, I’m unable to open the door for you. Please help yourself.”
Li Yuan pressed her right index finger onto the fingerprint lock by the door. A small camera once again extended from above the door, snapping a picture before retracting. Following a clear ding, the iron door slowly opened. Even though she knew the woman inside had undergone surgery, Li Yuan’s nerves still tightened slightly.
A gentle-looking woman was sitting on the bed, wearing a blue and white striped hospital gown. Upon clearly seeing the two visitors, a faint smile lifted the corner of her mouth.
“Hello, nice to meet you for the first time. My name is Tian Xi.”
