The girl with the high ponytail was lowering her eyes, standing right behind Zhang Shutong.
Zhang Shutong felt inexplicably creeped out.
When did she co over?
How could she walk without making any sound?
Zhang Shutong imdiately turned off the screen, shifted his body to the side, and instinctively pulled back to create distance.
If he didn't explain beforehand that this was an island developnt plan, it would take him a while to figure out what it was.
Besides, he wouldn't have been completely oblivious to soone standing behind him for ages. This ant Lu Qinglian had only glanced at it briefly, yet she'd already identified where her family's temple was located?
This was way too abnormal.
"I've seen this map before." Before he could speak, Lu Qinglian stated directly. As if she even knew what he was thinking.
"What do you an?"
"Gu Qiumian's father wants to demolish the temple and develop it into a scenic area. Their people ca to talk to my grandmother about it, but she didn't agree."
"Then your family..."
Zhang Shutong couldn't quite gauge her intentions.
"I don't agree either." The girl said flatly, "By the way, are you still investigating who has a grudge against Gu Qiumian's family?"
Zhang Shutong was caught off guard.
"You're suspecting ?" she asked again, her tone unchanged, yet not giving him a mont to breathe.
"...How could that be possible?"
"Mm, better not."
Having said this, Lu Qinglian lost interest in further conversation.
She placed her backpack on the desk, took out a neatly folded robe from inside, then put it on. Zhang Shutong knew this wasn't about being eccentric—she was just cold, using it as a warm outer layer.
Then Lu Qinglian flicked her ponytail and walked over to a cabinet in the office. She dug out an umbrella from the corner. The umbrella looked like it ca free with so purchase—red and white fabric folded together, with the faint outline of so beer advertisent visible. It was probably a communal umbrella for the teachers.
"Where's Teacher Song? I'd like to borrow an umbrella," the girl asked then.
"He's dealing with sothing."
"Then tell him for when he gets back. Thank you."
With that, Lu Qinglian left.
Zhang Shutong sat in the chair. He watched until her figure disappeared from the office doorway. Her footsteps were indeed very light, quickly drowned out by the coming and going students.
Zhang Shutong picked up his water cup but didn't drink, then set it down again after a long mont.
As expected.
It was related to the Green Snake Temple.
Back then on the rooftop, the reason he hadn't continued conversing with Lu Qinglian was because he couldn't gauge her position.
He thought again of the tattoos on his arm.
Snake, small person, eye.
The snake was the Green Snake Temple, the small person was the temple keeper...
It undoubtedly confird his speculation once more.
He frowned, thinking about those three tattoos.
Wait, when exactly were these three patterns discovered?
Zhang Shutong recalled Du Kang's words at the lake fish restaurant. At the ti, he'd only focused on asking what that circle represented, but the other had said:
"...I rember the police sealed off everything related to the case back then, right? You pleaded with Officer Xiong and finally managed to get a photo, then drew this thing down. When we asked you what it ant, you only said it was a clue about the murderer..."
Only now did Zhang Shutong realize a detail he'd overlooked.
The "circle" was a clue about the murderer, but that didn't an all three patterns were.
These three patterns definitely had so connection, which is why he'd always felt they were discovered together.
But thinking about it now, that wasn't necessarily true.
He'd found this circle not long after Gu Qiumian was murdered, but at the ti Ruoping and Du Kang had no reaction to the snake and small person, aning he'd only told them about the circle—or rather, he'd only discovered the circle.
The three patterns weren't discovered at the sa ti.
The snake and small person ca later.
Zhang Shutong lifted his left arm and closed his eyes, visualizing the positions of those three tattoos.
From left to right, they were:
Green snake, small person, eye.
The reading order was also left to right.
So his subconscious understanding of these three patterns followed the sa sequence.
There was another reason: the green snake and small person almost reflexively made one think of sothing specific, while the circle was completely baffling.
But Zhang Shutong suddenly thought—if the circle was discovered first, then following this order, wouldn't it an the green snake was last?
Eye, small person, green snake.
But did this so-called sequential order actually help in tracking down the murderer?
He stood up and walked to the window, pushing open a small gap. Cold wind rushed against his face, and a chill rose through his body as well.
On the playground, parents sward in like a swarm, either holding umbrellas or wearing rain ponchos, while students from the other side rushed out at high speed. For a mont, figures crisscrossed, and the pristine white snow from monts ago instantly turned grayish-black, like an old, worn, pitted cotton blanket.
On this tattered cotton blanket, Zhang Shutong even spotted Ruoping. Her father had co—truly his precious daughter. He first helped the girl pick up her backpack, then held up an umbrella, using his other hand to quickly brush snow off her hair.
Only then did Zhang Shutong rember to reply to his friends' ssages. Turns out Ruoping had asked if he wanted to ride ho with her family. The latest ssage ca from three minutes ago, saying: "My dad called , I'm heading down first, I'll wait for you a bit, reply quick."
anwhile, Du Kang and Qingyi had arranged to go back together. All three of his friends' families had cars, but Du Kang's parents couldn't get away right now, and Qingyi's father was also picking him up—a refined-looking man with glasses, from what he rembered.
He searched for them and spotted the two boys from below the teaching building. Boys weren't too particular—they generally didn't need parents to run up to the building. The two just put their backpacks over their heads and charged out with all their might.
He quickly replied, telling them he had plans today and would see them tomorrow.
The crowd surged like a tide. In the blink of an eye, they'd trampled the thick accumulated snow until nothing remained. It was in this turbulent scene that Zhang Shutong noticed a conspicuously out-of-place figure.
The figure's owner held a red and white umbrella, its surface wrinkled and crumpled, printed with so beer advertisent. Beneath the umbrella was a girl wearing a green robe.
In the wind and snow filling the sky, Lu Qinglian rged into the crowd.
The surrounding clamor had nothing to do with her. Her pace was unhurried, yet she walked quickly.
Zhang Shutong stared at the advertisent on the umbrella for a while, until the red umbrella departed from the crowd again. It exited the school gate and disappeared around a corner—the direction leading back up the mountain.
He withdrew his gaze and saw the national flag on the flagpole had been forgotten. It hung limply against the pole, probably destined to turn to ice by tomorrow.
Zhang Shutong closed the window.
What ca next was nothing more than three strategies: upper, middle, and lower.
The upper strategy was to find so clue tonight about what exactly Gu Qiumian encountered in the early hours of Sunday morning, then combine the forces around him to bring the murderer to justice.
The middle strategy was to hide—it didn't matter where, but leaving the island would be safest.
The lower strategy was to wait passively: call on Old Song, call the police, call the bodyguards from Gu Qiumian's family, and not leave the villa for even half a step on Saturday. But the reason it was the lower strategy was that mobilizing such forces wasn't that easy.
Zhang Shutong returned to the classroom to pack his bag. When he left, he happened to run into Old Song. Rembering the umbrella, he ntioned it to him.
Song Nanshan slapped his forehead and said it was bad:
"I forgot to have Qinglian wait—with snow this heavy, I should have given her a ride back... When did she leave?"
Zhang Shutong thought for a mont:
"She left a while ago."
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