Winter Time Rendering

"I get it. Deduction and solving cases are exciting, I know. But have you ever heard the saying, ’too clever by half’? I’m not saying you’re bound to lose out someday, but just because you have a sharp mind doesn’t mean you should reduce everything to a calculation."

Song scratched his head, looking troubled.

"How should I put this... We’re all flesh-and-blood people, not calculating machines. If you calculate away every last bit of humanity... You’re smart, you should know what I mean."

Before Zhang Shutong could speak, Song Nanshan clapped him on the shoulder to stop him. The man’s voice grew somber.

"Even though it was a close call and everything worked out in the end—much better than your teacher just driving around aimlessly—I still have to say, it was too risky.

"Why did you have to leave Qiumian at home? I know your reasons were sound—you wanted to catch the culprit in one fell swoop. You even predicted the attacker would come tonight and called the police in advance without telling even me, but..."

Before he could finish, Zhang Shutong’s phone suddenly rang.

He gripped his phone, acting as if he hadn’t heard it, and just said to Song Nanshan:

"I’m sorry."

Song was taken aback for a moment.

"I’m not scolding you. What’s the use of apologizing to me? Go on and say that to Qiumian later. She’ll be down any minute. All right, just answer your phone..."

With that, the man let out a huge sneeze, his stern demeanor gone. He hunched his shoulders against the cold and walked away.

Zhang Shutong watched him walk away before closing the glass door to the patio.

Then he pressed the answer button.

It was the call he had been waiting for.

A young man’s voice came from the other end of the line:

"Sorry, sorry, I was reading. I put my phone on silent so I wouldn’t be disturbed."

"That book? The one about the headless... something?" Zhang Shutong was in the mood to chat a little.

"Yeah! I just finished it in one sitting. Let me tell you, the big twist is brilliant. It’s when the main char—"

"Stop, stop." Zhang Shutong pinched the bridge of his nose. "Did you find anything?"

"Yeah, I looked up photos from back then. It’s not a match."

"You’re sure?"

"Positive. Gu Qiuyan’s dad’s car is an A8L. The car from the fatal accident you mentioned was a Passat. They both look like black sedans, but they’re worlds apart. You could buy several Passats for the price of one A8L."

"Mm, I only found two pictures of the scene, and one of them didn’t even show the car. I don’t know anything about cars, which is why I specifically asked you."

"You can say that again. It was a huge pain to find. I had to use a VPN to search, and then it took me forever to compare them and confirm." It sounded like Qingyi was talking with a pen in his mouth. His words were muffled as he asked, "But why are you looking into this? A car crash from ’07 seems like a long time ago. It happened near the city amusement park... a drunk driver at night. Let me see... oh, a woman was killed."

"To rule some things out,"

Zhang Shutong said after a moment of thought.

"Like what?"

"Well, I was going to tell you, but it’s your own fault for checking your messages so late."

"Ah, I can’t believe you’re keeping me in suspense. Sounds like you had an eventful night, Shutong," Qingyi said, sounding envious.

"More like terrifying," Zhang Shutong shrugged.

It was just a thought that had suddenly occurred to him after seeing the poisoned dog.

In his past life, before that murder case happened, after Father Gu had left the island...

The teacher named Song Nanshan had been entrusted with a task: to look after a girl in his class.

He was warm-hearted, responsible, and cared for his students.

But he knew nothing of what the girl went through over the weekend.

He didn’t even report it to the police on Monday.

Zhang Shutong didn’t know what exactly had happened during that period in the past.

But just as he was trying to use salami tactics to rule out Friday night—his reasoning being that if something had happened to Gu Qiuyan on Friday, a man like Song Nanshan, no matter how unrefined, would have at least called once over the weekend—he suddenly realized a problem.

’Why would he have to call?’

’Or rather, why was I just assuming his position?’

The teacher named Song Nanshan’s girlfriend had died in a car accident.

Zhang Shutong had searched for pictures of the accident while he was in the car.

The at-fault vehicle at the scene was a black sedan, very similar to the car he had seen dropping Gu Qiuyan off that morning.

So, a little while ago, he had sent the pictures to his best friend and asked him to compare them.

A little over ten minutes ago, he had considered whether the person who poisoned the dog was the same person as the attacker.

A few minutes ago, he had been asked why he had been so almost paranoid about keeping Gu Qiuyan at home.

And not long before that, when asked what his "third precaution" was, he had chosen to remain silent.

And why he had asked Du Kang to call the police, but stubbornly refused to tell the man in the driver’s seat.

Zhang Shutong’s heart had never been in such turmoil for so long.

But now, all these doubts could finally be laid to rest—

He had said the attacker made two-pronged preparations to make them lower their guard;

And Zhang Shutong himself, though he hadn’t had a clue about many things at the start, had still managed to make three preparations of his own.

The first was going to the commercial district.

The second was calling the police.

And as for the so-called third precaution—

...it was leaving Gu Qiuyan at the villa, completely separating her from the man.

That was the third precaution Zhang Shutong had taken for the worst-case scenario he had imagined.

Although it wasn’t needed in the end, and it turned out he had been overthinking things, that didn’t stop Zhang Shutong from smiling and saying to Qingyi:

"When you get down to it, this is all your fault."

"How so?"

"If you’d seen my message earlier, I wouldn’t have had to go through all this trouble."

"A man’s allowed to be late sometimes," Qingyi said lazily.

"Oh, and I also ended up wrongly suspecting a good person."

"Who?"

"That’s a secret."

He said that out loud, but in his mind, he spoke the person’s name.

’The teacher I respected most throughout my entire time as a student.’

So, when the two of them had been standing in the hallway talking, the other man had gotten one thing wrong.

That "I’m sorry" from just now was never meant for Gu Qiuyan.

It was said specifically for him to hear.

But Song would probably never understand what it meant.

Zhang Shutong gazed out at the night for a while longer.

Just then, Qingyi reminded him over the phone:

"Don’t forget we’re meeting up tomorrow morning to get ready for the birthday party. Don’t you be late. By the way, I heard from Du Kang you called the cops again. What happened with Gu Qiuyan this time?"

"Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there for sure," Zhang Shutong said with a laugh. "Gu Qiuyan’s fine. It’s just those people we talked about today, the ones with a grudge against her family. We finally caught them."

"Wow, you work fast."

"It was alright. I just ended up looking like an idiot, running around for nothing."

"It doesn’t matter if a man is misunderstood sometimes. As long as you get the job done."

"It’s thanks to you guys, too."

"It sounds like you’re outside?"

"Yeah."

"Wait, you’re not at Gu Qiuyan’s house, are you..."

Zhang Shutong’s smile froze. He immediately hung up.

The rain was still falling.

The night remained unchanged.

Everything grew quiet.

It was truly cold outside; no sane person would linger out there. He stretched his arms wide, rubbing his numb hands, and was just about to go back inside when a crisp, clear voice floated down from above:

"You idiot, what are you doing just standing there? Aren’t you cold?"

Zhang Shutong froze. He looked up.

He saw Gu Qiuyan’s spirited and beautiful eyes.

She looked like she had just gotten out of the shower. A few strands of hair clung to the side of her face, and she was wrapped in a wine-red nightgown.

A fine drizzle fell between them. On this cold, clean, rainy night, they each leaned halfway out and their eyes met.