Seizing Dreams

“But he didn’t leave any evidence behind.” Zhou Sheng said, “You can’t do anything to him at all.”

Following his conversation with Liang Jinmin that day, after Chen Yekai parted ways with her, Liang Jinmin had asked another friend out. She loaned the car to Chen Yekai, and a preoccupied Chen Yekai drove Yu Hao back to the college.

Several days later, before the New Year, Chen Yekai was going to drive the couple through the expressway to send them to Liang Jinmin’s mother’s home for the New Year. But Lin Xun changed his mind at the last minute —— he decided to bring Liang Jinmin to his high school classmate’s house and spend the New Year with the other couple.

“Going to the home of the person he cheated on her with?” Yu Hao asked.

“Yes.” Chen Yekai said, “Do you think that’s possible?”

“Your Shimu wouldn’t agree.” Zhou Sheng said.

Chen Yekai nodded, “That was the one and only loophole in Lin Xun’s detailed plan. Aside from the ones involved, only I knew of the inside story, but it’s limited to Shimu’s message, so it can’t serve as evidence.”

“That day, Lin Xun told me that I didn’t need to pick them up anymore, and that he would drive there himself. On the evening of the same day, a car accident occurred on the expressway. Huang Ting and I both think that this was a premeditated murder, but no matter how hard we searched, we couldn’t find the smoking gun. They had even been fined for not wearing seat belts abroad before.”

After that, Chen Yekai began to realise that something was wrong. From New Year’s Eve to the first day of the New Year, he accompanied Liang Jinmin and stayed by her bedside. After Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao left on the night of the first day, Chen Yekai waited for Lin Xun. This was the one and only conversation they had during the entire month following the accident.

Chen Yekai tried all sorts of ways to draw out any sort of clues from Lin Xun and even prepared a recording device beforehand. But Lin Xun wouldn’t be outdone by Chen Yekai at all. What made him even more terrifying was that while maintaining an impenetrable defence, a faintly discernible smile would always hang on the corner of his lips.

“What he wanted to tell me was, ‘yes, you guessed it right, I did it all’.” Chen Yekai said, “He knew that I must have started a recording, so he both defended and retaliated against me; he spoke in an angry and hurt tone, all the while with a mocking smile on his face.”

Yu Hao immediately trembled with fear.

Lin Xun only gave Chen Yekai 20 minutes before he left the ward. After that, when Yu Hao returned to the ward to bring Chen Yekai food, he then saw the scene of him kneeling in front of Liang Jinmin as he choked back his sobs.

“Later on, Huang Ting called him out for some routine questioning.” Chen Yekai said, “But he was too skilful, and even Huang Ting couldn’t get anything out of him. The college paid a lot of attention to this incident too, so they persistently pressured the police. Huang Ting could only watch Lin Xun and hope that he’d be able to obtain evidence of Lin Xun meeting with his partner in the affair.”

After a long time passed, Huang Ting and Chen Yekai talked again and again, yet they were at their wits’ end. In the end, they could only momentarily shelve the case, because they still had one hope — that is, to wait for Liang Jinmin to wake up.

“Lin Xun wouldn’t give you that opportunity.” Zhou Sheng said, “If all your previous speculations are correct, he will wait patiently, and after he takes Shimu home, he’ll plan to kill her again or wait for her condition to worsen and give up on treatment. He’s her family recognised by law, so he has the authority to sign.”

“Perhaps.” Chen Yekai said, “Huang Ting told me to be patient and to not visit Shimu, to act like nothing happened so that Lin Xun would relax his vigilance. But for a long time after that, there was no progress, and I couldn’t wait any longer. As long as the initial dust has settled, Lin Xun would certainly start dealing with me.”

On the night after the spring excursion, Chen Yekai waited below the teacher’s dormitory with a scalpel. Lin Xun moved back to the college temporarily, but that day......

“Did you really want to kill him then?” Yu Hao asked.

“No, I wanted to interrogate him.” Chen Yekai said, “I wouldn’t go so far as to go up to him and immediately kill him with one stab. That day, I set up my phone to record, and drank some wine because I wanted to use the alcohol to bolster my courage. I intended to press the knife against his throat and force him to tell me the truth.”

Zhou Sheng hardly knew how to evaluate that, “Did you really think he’d tell you?”

“I don’t know.” Chen Yekai said, “But that was the only way I could think of. I know he has one weakness —— he fears death; he is terrified of death.”

Yu Hao, “Ah? He fears death? Isn’t he a psychologist? In the face of danger, he should stay cool-headed to deal with the situation, right?”

Chen Yekai nodded, “When I accompanied him to a social survey interview, we once returned late and came across a group of people who were in the midst of an armed robbery; there was even a murdered corpse on the roadside. At that time, he was extremely terrified, and it didn’t seem like a pretence.”

“He dared not put up any resistance. He froze up when confronted with the threat of death, and couldn’t think of any way out either. At that time, he had to rely on me to deal with the robbers and the situation.” Chen Yekai said, “The robbers were all juvenile delinquents and were extremely cruel. After we gave all the money we had to them, they still weren’t satisfied. Sometimes, when you deal with those types of people, you need to be even fiercer than them. Once you become fierce, the other party will turn meek instead. It was hard to see anything in the darkness, and afterwards the robbers left by themselves. I immediately called the police and recorded my testimony, and it was only when I arrived at the police station that I realised Lin Xun had been scared into incontinence at the time.”

Yu Hao said, “But it can’t be acknowledged as legal evidence if you use those kinds of means to obtain it.”

“Yes.” Chen Yekai said, “It can’t. I don’t know why I did that either; momentary impulsiveness and anger had blinded me, like the omnipresent lightning strikes in my dream. I even thought about killing him. In short, I was fortunate to have you both.”

The next morning, Chen Yekai offered to resign. The Dean wasn’t surprised at all and approved it that early afternoon. Following which was the series of events that happened......

“That’s all.” Chen Yekai said, “That’s the whole story. By the way, the one who helped Lin Xun with his divorce consultation was my father. My dad has never lost a single lawsuit in the past 12 years.”

Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao both leaned back on their chairs with vexed expressions.

Chen Yekai said, “Any other questions you want to ask me? I can answer anything.”

Yu Hao looked at Zhou Sheng, then at Chen Yekai again, “Until now, we’ve never considered, if......uh, what I mean is, throughout everything, what I’m trying to say is, what if was actually Lin Xun who was wronged?”

“I’ve considered that.” Chen Yekai smiled slightly, then answered, “So I’ve always been tormenting myself with it. But I’m too familiar with Laoshi; I’ve known him for nearly seven years. Whatever he wants to say, as long as he says the first half of the sentence, I’ll be able to understand the latter half of it. You asked if he had conducted any psychological manipulations on me, and now in retrospect, I can say with utmost certainty: yes.”

“He wants to banish me.” Chen Yekai said, “He wants to cleanly eliminate all uncertainties, even Zhou Sheng, who had just guessed that he beat Liang Laoshi. He’s very good at discerning fine details, then magnifying them and inducing you into making a mistake. But this time, he had clearly misjudged the two of you. He never would’ve expected that there could actually be supernatural forces at work behind all this.”

Zhou Sheng said, “Without evidence, we can’t convict anyone. It’s only proper. We’re not going to convict him now anyway, right?”

“Un......” Yu Hao considered it briefly, and that was indeed the case. They don’t intend to do anything to Lin Xun now. According to the principle of giving someone the benefit of doubt, no one would cause trouble for Lin Xun now, unless new evidence was obtained.

The three of them fell silent again. Chen Yekai smoothed his hair out; his hair was slightly longer now.

“I’ll take you two to go get a haircut?” Chen Yekai asked.

“I have one more question.” Zhou Sheng suddenly said, “Kaikai, you’re so rich, where does all your money come from? Didn’t you cut off all ties with your family a long time ago?”

Yu Hao thought, oh yeah. But that topic was too gossipy, so he was always too embarrassed to ask it outright.

Zhou Sheng stared at Chen Yekai suspiciously. Chen Yekai felt helpless, then laughed, “After graduation, I partnered with one of my bros to start up a science and tech company. We received psychological and behavioural big data analytics, including crowd profiling, some trend forecasting......it was that senior of mine who helped me track down the IP address of the visitor to the home page.”

“Oh——” Zhou Sheng nodded.

“A lot of software and websites desperately need these services.” Chen Yekai said, “We originally agreed that we would list the company on the Nasdaq, but I really didn’t want to continue anymore, so we sold the company.”

Yu Hao thought, how much could the company have been sold for? But he refrained from asking.

Zhou Sheng also really wanted to ask, but he didn’t.

“A lot of websites are still using our old data analysis framework and regularly pay us some licencing fees every year. Why? Zhou Sheng, do you need money? If you need any, just let me know......Yu Hao, you too. Don’t stand on ceremony with me.”

Zhou Sheng quickly said, “I was just curious.”

Chen Yekai casually replied, “Your family’s rich, so money doesn’t seem as important anymore. As long as we’re all able to live our lives happily, then that would be enough.”

Zhou Sheng said, “It all belongs to my Dad. It’s hard to say if I’ll even be able to survive once I enter society.”

“Why would you care about something like that?” Chen Yekai began laughing. After giving it some thought, he continued, “How about this, I planned a little in the morning, and the best thing we can do now is to keep a low profile.”

“Un.” Zhou Sheng answered, “That’s the most appropriate method. And since you’ve already resigned, don’t go back to the college anymore.”

“I’ll find a place to live first.” Chen Yekai said, “When I’m free, I’ll look for Huang Ting and organise the leads we have. Don’t worry Zhou Sheng, even if I die, I’ll never say those things to anyone.”

“I believe you.” Zhou Sheng said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“The both of you should still return to the college first.” Chen Yekai said, “Right now, only you guys can monitor Lin Xun.”

“If it was so easy for him to give himself away,” Zhou Sheng said helplessly, “Then you would’ve taken care of him yourself, why would you still need us?”

“Not necessarily.” Chen Yekai said, “In his mind, I’m someone who has already left.”

“As long as you’re not dead,” Zhou Sheng said, “He’ll definitely still be very wary. Let’s not talk about that now; we’re all tired today, so let’s head back first......wait, it’s Monday today?!”

Only then did Yu Hao remember, they had classes today! And they had both turned off their alarm clocks. Now that they looked at their phones, there were more than 400 unread messages in them — Xue Long was scolding the two of them madly in the group chat. They skipped classes in the morning and didn’t even reply to any messages. Where were their self-reflection manuscripts? Hand in their self-reflection manuscripts immediately!

Meanwhile, Fu Liqun just calmly asked them where they had gone off to because he didn’t find them in the area around the hotel.

“The cohort meeting will be held in 20 minutes, come back soon kay.” Fu Liqun’s voice rang out in their four-people group.

Yu Hao, “We’re finished!! We need to do a self-reflection today? What do we do?!”

“What’re you scared of?” Zhou Sheng said, “Leave it, I’ll handle it!”

Yu Hao couldn’t help but recall the fear that had overwhelmed him during his self-reflection in the previous cohort general assembly. However, Zhou Sheng didn’t care about that at all and hailed a cab back to the college. He stuffed both hands into his pockets, his sportswear’s hoodie covering his head; an overbearing air emanated from his profile as he walked straight through the multi-purpose classroom’s door.

Yu Hao trailed behind him, then hurried through the doorway before sitting down in his seat in class, immediately triggering a burst of laughter.

Xue Long stood on the stage with an infuriated expression. After Yu Hao sat down, his gaze swept over the classroom — Lin Xun didn’t come. That person was quite strange, he made Zhou Sheng do a self-reflection yet he didn’t come to listen to it.

Zhou Sheng went directly onto the stage.

Xue Long, “......”

“Cough!” Zhou Sheng stuffed one hand in his pocket while the other held the microphone, “Wei, wei, can everyone hear me?”

Another peal of laughter rang out; the entire multi-purpose classroom was cheering and clapping madly, and some were even smacking their tables. Yu Hao held his forehead with one hand. He remembered the self-reflection he did a few months ago, and the seat in which Chen Yekai sat then was now empty.

“Sorry ah.” Zhou Sheng continued, “Today I am here to sincerely apologise to Lei Hongbo, as well as everyone in Class 3.”

The whole multi-purpose classroom fell silent.

Xue Long’s expression was extremely terrible. Yet Zhou Sheng bowed politely and said, “It was a moment of impulse for me, I hope everyone won’t take it to heart. I’ll definitely restrain myself in the future and talk it out instead of starting fights. I hope everyone will help me out by supervising me too.”

Yu Hao was extremely surprised by his tone; he had thought that Zhou Sheng was going to make some kind of sensational joke. He didn’t expect Zhou Sheng to actually apologise so earnestly.

Then he looked at the ones from Class 3, and his expression relaxed a little. Class 2 began applauding as a group again and cheered for Zhou Sheng.

Zhou Sheng’s line of sight shifted; it landed upon Yu Hao, and their eyes met. Yu Hao immediately clapped for him and mouthed the word ‘handsome’. Zhou Sheng smiled, then suddenly said, “As for our family’s Yu Hao, I hope everyone can give me some face and stop teasing him all the time, okay?”

The audience instantly erupted in an uproar. Yu Hao was still in a daze when a bunch of guys from Sports Class 2 sitting behind him laughed so hard they laid sprawled on their tables.

Zhou Sheng continued, “Also, regarding Lin Laoshi, even though he’s not here today, I would also like to sincerely apologise to him. I shouldn’t have spouted nonsense in college, I hope Lin Laoshi will forgive me. Thank you!”

As he spoke, Zhou Sheng bowed again. Everyone in the classroom turned around, and countless gazes from all sides converged on Yu Hao. When Zhou Sheng stood upright again, no one dared to look at Yu Hao anymore, and they all acted as if nothing had happened.

Zhou Sheng’s gaze suddenly turned incredibly sharp — it swept across the classroom with a sharp edge to it for a moment, but immediately resumed its lazy appearance not a moment later. He passed the microphone back to Xue Long, then walked off the stage.

“So cool.”

Yu Hao heard a girl in the front row start talking about Zhou Sheng. A lot of people never seemed to realise how cool Zhou Sheng was in the past, but today, everyone could feel Zhou Sheng’s unrestrained and confident temperament. Once that guy turned refined and courteous, his gaze could really captivate people.

Xue Long began talking about truancy and their grades in various subjects, as well as notifying the class of Chen Yekai’s resignation. Without anyone’s notice, the beginning of the summer season was upon them. The weather gradually grew warmer, and in another month or so, their freshman year would be over.

The cicadas on campus began chirping, and the guys in the sports department were all in the same T-shirt and shorts now. Yu Hao, Zhou Sheng, and Fu Liqun ate some stir-fry in the dining hall, and Fu Liqun couldn’t hold back any longer and asked what exactly had happened the day before. Zhou Sheng kicked Yu Hao under the table to signal that he would deal with it. After that, he briefly talked to Fu Liqun about how Liang Jinmin suffered from domestic violence under the hands of Lin Xun, and Lin Xun’s intention to force Chen Yekai away.

Fu Liqun’s expression was very complicated, yet Zhou Sheng looked calm. Fu Liqun said, “That won’t be easy to resolve.”

Yu Hao asked, “If we resolve it, do you think Chen Laoshi will come back?”

“He won’t ba?” Zhou Sheng said with some regret.

Fu Liqun said, “It’s a real pity for such a good teacher.”

The three of them sighed for a long time simultaneously. When night fell, Chen Yekai gave Zhou Sheng a call. Zhou Sheng laid on his bed and handed one earphone over the railing on the side of his bed to Yu Hao.

“The issue regarding your bicycle race is resolved.” Chen Yekai said in the phone.

Yu Hao almost cried out, that’s great!

Zhou Sheng seemed to have anticipated this result long ago, so he just casually responded with an “un”.

“I called the organising committee of the contest this afternoon.” Chen Yekai said, “Actually I didn’t have much to do with it. Xue Long had already notified their side in advance, but, the organising committee didn’t seem to take him seriously.”

Zhou Sheng instantly uttered a pfft and burst into laughter. Apparently, Chen Yekai heard the laments from the organising committee’s office in the afternoon. He was the one who helped Zhou Sheng register; he had stamped his registration with the official seal, and the contact information he wrote on it was his as well. This time, Xue Long asked the organising committee as a representative of the college to cancel Zhou Sheng’s qualification for the race. The organising committee inquired about what had occurred, and Xue Long truthfully informed them that Zhou Sheng received a Notice of Criticism for being involved in a fight, and suggested they disqualify him from the competition.

But the organising committee replied: I’m sorry, but we don’t accept your suggestion. Our activity is sponsored by a company — as long as the participants didn’t break the law and get detained as a result, nor persuaded to withdraw and therefore still maintain their status as a college student, then even if he was placed under surveillance in school, he would still be eligible to participate. The implication behind these words were, “What does a Notice of Criticism have to do with us? If you want to discipline your students, then do it yourselves. Sports competitions are sacred, we won’t cooperate with you and be used as a means for punishment.”

Chen Yekai had planned to personally make a trip down to the organising committee, but after he heard these laments, he laughed so hard that he couldn’t rein himself in. In the end, the other side informed him that everything would continue on as normal for Zhou Sheng, and that it would be fine as long as he joins the competition as usual when the competition comes up before ending the call.

“I’m guessing that Xue Long will continue keeping this from you.” Chen Yekai said, “To make you think that you’ve been disqualified. Don’t fall out with Xue Long over this, it’s not worth it. Anyway, just do what you should be doing.”

“Okay.” Zhou Sheng answered casually.

The finals will be held during their summer vacation, so there was still some time before that. Zhou Sheng raised his hand, Yu Hao understood this gesture and smiled as he gave him a high-five.

As for Lin Xun’s case, Chen Yekai’s reply was, “I’ve already communicated with Huang Ting. Next, we’ll have to wait patiently.”

It has already been four months since the car accident. Liang Jinmin was still bedridden in hospital and hasn’t woken up yet. Lin Xun began his application to the hospital to take Liang Jinmin home, but the hospital recommended continuing to observe her condition for a while longer. Huang Ting and his colleagues monitored every single move of Lin Xun’s as they waited for him to give himself away.

Chen Yekai also began collecting evidence of Lin Xun’s extramarital affairs abroad. This was comparatively difficult, but he had a general idea of how to go about it. If Liang Jinmin regained consciousness, they could even deal Lin Xun a decisive blow.

“There must be a way.” Chen Yekai said, “I’ve contacted Lin Xun’s partners in his previous affairs, and there are a few who are willing to provide me with evidence. I plan to make a trip back to New York this week to meet up with them for a talk.”

“Good luck.” Zhou Sheng said.

“At first, many things always seem to be obscured by a dense fog.” Chen Yekai stated, “But now I believe that a day will come when the clouds would disperse and the sun will show itself.”

—