Chapter 18: The Twelfth Cycle of Time

Both Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun have a good impression of this kind and generous "police uncle".

Their experiences of 'urgent questioning' are difficult to recall, but they are not without their warmth.

Li Shiqing remembers the quilt he tucked in for her and the eyes that were red from the tragedy of the accident.

Xiao Heyun remembers him, remembering every glass of water he handed her, remembering him asking if she wanted to eat, remembering his "no matter how unbelievable it is, we will believe it".

Although Mr. Zhang didn't believe it in the end, he never resented the police, nor did he blame them for torturing people so much, because it was thanks to these respectable and fearful police officers that they were able to live in peace.

It would be disrespectful to the innocent victims if the suspects were not treated harshly.

But now, this honourable and dear officer is dead, killed in the bombing.

Because of their "indiscretion".

"We'll still time loop, won't we?"

Li Shiqing's heart became heavier and heavier after reading the life of Mr. Zhang.

"He'll be alive and well when we cycle through time again, won't he?"

Mr. Zhang is only forty-six years old, a veteran of more than twenty years in the criminal police force, having helped solve several major cases that have become a sensation throughout the province and the country.

The short briefing was full of appreciation and deploration for this elite member of the police force.

"I don't know."

A gleam of bitterness flooded Boy's lips, "but I wish I could time loop again."

Their "efforts" did not stop the explosion, but caused more casualties.

This was something neither he nor Li Shiqing wanted.

With such a 'discovery', both Li Shiqing and Boy felt bad, and even when they looked for more information, they were depressed, with only remorse and remorse filling their hearts.

As the screen goes completely black, Boy reluctantly puts the phone in his bag.

The wetland park is closed to the public at night and it is already seven or eight o'clock in the evening. The two of them have been hiding on this rockery for hours and no one has passed by, there are no lights, no food, it is dark in all directions and their stomachs are rumbling, so they can only rely on small talk to overcome their loneliness and restlessness.

"Next time, get some food and water before you get off the bus."

Boy rubbed his stomach, "You say it's a strange thing, I didn't feel hungry in the car and within a few hours of getting off it I felt hungry."

"How can we be hungry when we'll only live a few minutes in the car?"

Li Shiqing looks at the dark shadows in the distance and is a little frightened, so she unconsciously moves closer to Boy, but her mind is on other things.

"If we can get back to the car, we must find the killer and also figure out what the explosives are before informing the police."

"Hmm."

Knowing that she was still blaming herself for the incident, Boy chimed in.

"When the police get into the car, we have to assist them in controlling the culprit, otherwise a carload of people are in danger."

She reminded Boy.

"Well, good."

"We'll have to remind them to get in plain clothes." Li Shiqing thought of another point, "It's best to remind them again to evacuate the crowd and block off traffic in advance."

"Yes."

Boy nods along.

"What do we do if we do get back to the car?"

Li Shiqing finally stopped saying "do as I say" this time, "Aren't you the best at making plans? Let's make a plan?"

"First we have to line up who is suspicious in the car."

Boy said without thinking, "The bus was small and there weren't many people in it, so if the perpetrator was able to set off the explosion very stealthily and immediately, that means that bomb would have been carried with him and we probably wouldn't even have been able to observe how it was set off."

"Check who's carrying bags or large luggage first?"

Li Shiqing is very clear.

"Yes. The first thing to look at is who's carrying something, and the stupider way is to eliminate them one by one. The ones with bags on their backs like me, and the ones with things under their feet, check to see if they're carrying bombs."

Boy sighs again when he thinks about their "workload".

"But if you do that, you'll have to go directly up against the thugs, they may not give you a check, and you may have to die straight away again ......"

Who's going to show you if you're really carrying a bomb? It might detonate as soon as it's discovered.

It may not even be necessary to find out, as long as the culprit is alerted to the fact that he has been spotted, he may be ready to "BOOM".

"And people don't always give you a search, they might have to fight. ......"

Li Shiqing scratched her head, "How about we do it the stupid way, you overpower the owner of something by surprise and I take the opportunity to open someone's bag or luggage to check?"

"That's the only way to go."

Boy patted his chest and rightfully replied, "I'm at least a man, stronger than you, I can't ask you to fight someone, can I?"

The two of them were just slowly refining possible plans in the darkness, you and I. Time passed by, so involved were they in their deliberations that they even forgot about their physical hunger and mental exhaustion.

But it wasn't long before the unexpected struck.

"What's that over there? Street lights on?"

Li Shiqing, with a sharp eye, points to a light source in the east and indicates to Boy to look.

They were now nestled on top of a rockery somewhere in the park, high enough up and next to a shelter so that anyone coming could see them at a glance, and they could hide inside the rockery for most of the day.

"It seemed to be the light of a torch and there were quite a few of them."

Boy narrowed his eyes and suddenly blushed.

"No good, it's the police looking for us!"

What else could it be, if not the police looking for someone with this kind of strong torch and so many more?

"Here to see us? There's no surveillance around here, so why ......"

When Li Shiqing heard "police", she swayed and subconsciously tried to get into the wigwam.

"Who knows, maybe the location of the base station was located through a mobile phone signal, maybe someone saw it, it's just us two ordinary people, isn't it normal that we can't hide from the police?"

Boy grabbed her hand tightly, "Don't be afraid, your phone is off all the time, if they want to find it, they'll be looking for me, I'll go down first and try to see if I can lure them away, you hide here now. I'm going to fool around and come back for you in the morning ......"

Seeing the light of the torch getting closer, he thought nothing of it, stood up and ran down the wigwam.

Before he could jump up and take two steps, he saw that he had tripped over something and fell down the rockery.

"Ugh!"

"Look out!"

Li Shiqing was quick to grab the clothes on his back, but she was too weak and was carried down the rockery with him.

"Ah!"

"What a guy!"

"Who's that over there!"

With intense dizziness and pain coming from her head and golden lights popping up in front of her eyes, Li Shiqing vaguely felt a light shining on her face ......

Someone came up to them and she heard someone tsking at herself.

"How can there be such dumb criminals?"

"You're the one who's stupid, your whole family is stupid!"

With a mental yell, she was so angry and in pain that she finally passed out.

--

Li Shiqing stinks of a face and is once again sober from the bus.

She couldn't have imagined that the two of them would return to the bus in such an "odd" way.

Not to mention the fact that one moment her "companion" was "bravely" saying he would help her distract the police, and the next, he was taking her straight to the pit.

"I'm highly myopic with astigmatism and a bit of night blindness ......"

Boy scratched his head apologetically, "I'm sorry for getting you into trouble, but look, we're back, aren't we?"

"Do I care that you got me involved? What I care about is that we're so fucking stupid to be found out!"

Li Shiqing lowered her voice to spit.

The shame of being taunted on the floor still seemed to haunt her, and without looking, Li Shiqing knew with her toes how the police would be informed if they didn't "come back".

[The suspects, so-and-so and so-and-so, lost their footing due to slippery feet and accidentally fell from the wigwam where they were hiding and managed to fall into the police net].

What a "slippery foot" criminal!

"Ow!"

The more she thought about it, the more she regretted it and rubbed her face vigorously.

Probably embarrassed by the fact that one moment he was a "hero" and the next he was a "bear", Eye Boy coughed dryly, looked around, lowered his voice and said to her.

"You let me go out for a walk and I'll go and observe which people have brought large luggage."

When he got down to business, Li Shiqing's expression, which had been tinged with a bit of shyness, suddenly straightened and she busily gave him a way out.

They have come back earlier this time and are not yet at East River Road station, but given the short time between each stop, they will probably be at the next one soon.

Pretending to get up and move his arms and legs, Xiao Heyun shakes his hands and stamps his feet, pacing the carriage.

He and Li Shiqing both boarded the bus in Jiangdong District, which is full of universities and high-tech companies, and there were quite a few people on board, which is why they had to sit together.

However, with a number of people getting on and off the bus along the way, a number of people on the bus got off in the commercial centre area of Jiangdong District, and later on it was even less people getting on and more people getting off, and when there were more empty seats, many people did not want to sit with others, so the passengers in the bus were now scattered in various locations on this bus.

If Li Shiqing hadn't been sleeping, she would have found an empty seat halfway through.

From the front to the back, Boy mentally counted the number of people, excluding the driver, him and Li Shiqing, there were only nine people, four in the front and middle area and the rest in the back of the car, very spread out.

He wandered past every seat pretending to loiter, noticing that more or less everyone in the carriage was carrying something, but only three people were carrying conspicuous luggage.

One is an old grandfather sitting in front of the back door, with a short stretcher in his hand and two snakeskin bags at his feet. The bags are bulging and it is impossible to see what is inside, but you can tell from what you see that there is a lot of stuff inside.

One was a middle-aged man sitting in the middle seat in the back row, a man with dark skin and a sturdy build, with the kind of toughness that is characteristic of manual workers in his demeanour. On the seat next to him was the usual cylinder satchel from the gym, but the bag was slightly worn and bulging in size.

He hadn't been sleeping or looking at his phone, but it was obvious that he was lost in thought.

Boy remembered him from the previous times he had been subdued by passengers on the bus, and each time, the middle-aged man had been the "main man", easily beating him down as a strong young man.

He even remembered the pain of the man using those powerful arms to hold him down in a death grip.

The third, an older woman in a flowery shirt sitting in the front row across the aisle from them.

The older woman looked to be in her mid-forties, thin and ordinary looking, like the kind of housewife you often see.

As with most housewives out and about for the same reason, she had a large plastic bag of the supermarket variety at her feet and appeared to have just returned from a major purchase.

But because she was sitting on the outside, with the plastic bag on the floor inside, and the older woman's legs isolating Boy's gaze, it was impossible to see what was inside that plastic bag.

It was this older woman who said she had to go home to cook for her family and could not afford to delay giving evidence to Li Shiqing.

As Xiao Heyun was so gentle looking and white, not many people expressed their impatience with him walking around, and some even asked him nicely if he was looking for a place to get off and could help tell him.

While Boy was scouting the car, Li Shiqing was also looking carefully at everyone's position, trying to remember which direction each blast had come from.

Soon the familiar announcement of the stop sounded again and the bus slowly pulled up to the 45 bus stop and opened its doors.

This time, no one got out of the car, but someone got in through the front door.

Xiao Heyun, who was skulking around the carriage, and Li Shiqing, who was peering out from her seat, both shuddered as the man entered the carriage!

The two men looked at each other with wide eyes and nodded at the same time.