Techniques and Dao

Chapter 83 Bedland
On the other hand, the drunkard from before had somehow moved to a distance of more than ten steps away from them. His eyes showed no signs of drunkenness; instead, they radiated an aggressive gaze in the night.

Looking back, the man who stepped out of the back of the car looked vaguely familiar. Suddenly, the gold chain on one of the men reflected light under the streetlight.

Xu Ge suddenly felt his blood run cold, as if he were immersed in ice water. He grabbed Hua Sheng's arm and shouted, "The debt collectors are here! Run!"

To everyone's surprise, Hua Sheng stared at him expressionlessly, not moving an inch. Brother Xu gave him another tug, but Hua Sheng still didn't budge, like a stone statue rooted to the spot.

Brother Xu was stunned, then seemed to realize something: "You conspired with the debt collectors to arrest me? But what good would it do if you caught me? I'm penniless, even killing me wouldn't pay back the money."

"Brother Xu, they are not loan sharks."

Brother Xu looked puzzled. They weren't here to collect a debt? Then why were they forcing a debt and beating Hua Sheng up like this?

But time didn't allow him to think too much. He took a few steps back, his eyes quickly scanning his surroundings for any possible escape route. But the place where the two of them were standing was a blind spot.

As the gold chain strode quickly toward him, Brother Xu's mind raced.

Suddenly, as if struck by lightning, he realized the truth. The cruel reality nearly broke him. He screamed in anguish, "It's fake? This is all fake! These people are police? They're here to arrest me?"

Hua Sheng walked towards Brother Xu: "Brother Xu, they already know. It's all over."

"But is there any evidence to prove I committed murder?"

Hanamori rolled up his sleeve, revealing a microphone. The entire conversation had been overheard and recorded verbatim. It might not be sufficient as evidence in court, but it was more than enough for the interrogation.

Xu felt a spasm in his stomach, a natural reaction to excessive tension. He thought of the dagger tucked into his waistband, his weapon for self-defense. Just recently, he had planned to use it to protect others in a life-or-death struggle against debt collectors.

It turns out these "debt collectors" weren't sent by the creditors at all. Or rather, they had colluded with the creditors all along, setting a trap to trick him into revealing the truth step by step.

"You betrayed me!" Brother Xu screamed in anguish, pulling out his dagger. The gleaming blade was particularly blinding under the light.

The man with the gold chain and the plainclothes policeman beside him instantly blocked Hua Sheng's path. The man with the gold chain turned and glanced at Hua Sheng: "Hua Sheng, you've suffered these past six months."

Hua Sheng pushed aside the plainclothes officers blocking his way and walked forward: "Brother Xu, don't get any deeper into this mess, go with them!"

"None of you can catch me!" Brother Xu roared, his eyes bloodshot. "This is my fate. Since fate has come for me, I won't hide!"

Xu Ge took a step forward with the dagger in his hand. Just as everyone naturally stepped back, he instantly flipped the dagger and plunged it into his own heart. Several plainclothes officers immediately pounced on him, but in that fraction of a second, Xu Ge pulled the dagger out. Blood gushed out instantly, splattering several meters away, and even splashed onto Hua Sheng's face.

The delicate facial skin and hair instantly made one feel the burning heat of their blood. Hua Sheng shouted "No!" and rushed forward.

At this moment, Xu Ge had been pinned to the ground by plainclothes police officers, and the man with the gold chain rushed over and pressed his hand firmly against the wound on Xu Ge's heart. However, blood gushed out from between his fingers like a high-pressure water jet.

"You can still atone for your sins, why do you want to die!" Hua Sheng shouted.

Some people choose death not because they have no other choice, but because they are unwilling to choose it. Seeking death often involves using extreme courage to escape something that doesn't require such courage to face. Therefore, these people must have someone or something worth pursuing, and reasons unknown to others.

Knowing his time was running out, Xu Ge used his last bit of strength to pull out his phone from his pocket, pointed at the screen and said, "Hua Sheng, do me one last favor. This is a cruise ship booking; both of my sisters will be going. You need to find them..."

Hua Sheng could not refuse such a request.

Brother Xu continued, "You must tell them this number on the cruise ship: 991248... You must remember to go, you absolutely must go!"

"991248".

Hua Sheng silently repeated the number to herself and asked, "What is this number? How should I tell them?"

Xu didn't answer, but his eyes sharpened as if in a final burst of energy. He glared at Hua Sheng and shouted with his last strength, "You don't understand! You don't understand! I have to kill her! I have no choice. If she doesn't die, so many, many people will die! I can't let so many people suffer for no reason!"

Hua Sheng was utterly shocked: "What did you say? What happened? Why are so many people dying?!"

However, Hua Sheng could no longer get answers from Brother Xu.

Several days have passed since the night Xu Ge ended his life. The misty rain of that night still often appears before Hua Sheng's eyes. The warm feeling of human blood splattered on his face has never faded from Hua Sheng's mind.

This was the first time in Hanamori's life that he had witnessed a living person die before his eyes. The instant the person's pupils lost their luster shocked him deeply, and he could not forget it for a long time.

"As long as we're alive, we should always do something for this world, even if it's something insignificant."

He had always believed this since he was in the orphanage.

So when Officer Zhang Yongren, whom he had known for many years, mentioned that he suspected a fall death might be a murder, he volunteered to approach the suspect.

Officer Zhang is the one with the gold chain.

For Hua Sheng, she wasn't exceptionally gifted. She believed that whatever she did, she had to give it her all—this wasn't about ambition, but rather an objective, natural law. In this world, many things, even with 100% preparation, will only yield a maximum of 80%. If you only have 60% preparation, you'll likely fail. Therefore, only with 200% effort and preparation can you achieve 100%.

Hua Sheng understands this principle: effort doesn't always guarantee a reward, and no one in this world can truly promise 100%. Because there are too many unknown factors, there is no such thing as 100%. The only thing a planner can do is to do everything possible to increase the probability.

Five months later, Officer Zhang received a call from Hua Sheng. Hua Sheng said that he had voluntarily asked the school for a six-month leave of absence and had been working at Brother Xu's company for several months. He believed that he could get Brother Xu to open up about his true feelings.

But this still needs some impetus, it needs a show.

What Hua Sheng didn't say was that this play still required his own blood. Hua Sheng used his own blood to win over Brother Xu's heart, so that the case could be resolved in a certain sense.

Although this is not a good ending, or rather, it can't even be considered an ending at all.

The wound, which required more than a dozen stitches, still throbbed faintly, but Hua Sheng didn't care. To him, everything up to this point was the "cause," and now he had to bear and fulfill the "effect" that followed.

So, he was standing at the cruise ship terminal at that moment.

Before me stood a giant white cruise ship called "Beidlan," nearly 90,000 tons in size, its exterior exuding an Italian romantic charm. Thousands of tourists thronged the dock, dragging heavy suitcases as they prepared to board.

This cruise company is said to have been operating since the 1950s, making it a long-established global cruise tourism company run by an Italian family. Each staff member was smartly dressed and appeared experienced, efficiently arranging for tourists to board the ship at the dock.

Hua Sheng looked back at the huge crowd; Xu Ge's two sisters should be among them. He turned on his phone screen and saw the six numbers: "991248".

Over the past few days, he had speculated a lot about the meaning of those six numbers. Perhaps Brother Xu had left a savings account for the sisters, and the numbers were the password. But if that were the case, why would he let himself tell them on the cruise ship?
What's even more perplexing are the words Xu Ge uttered before his death. If he wasn't trying to collect insurance money to pay off debts, then what was his real reason for killing his wife? Business failure, murdering his wife for insurance money—this old-fashioned tragic story suddenly becomes shrouded in mystery because of Xu Ge's dying words.

If he killed his wife to save others, then what exactly is going on with all those people who will die?

Officer Zhang had checked Xu's wife's background information more than once through the police's online system. She appeared to be an ordinary girl from an average family. Her appearance was unremarkable, and her grades from elementary school to university were mediocre. She didn't attend a prestigious university; after graduating from a second-tier university, she went to work for a small company. Xu's company was one of the potential suppliers for this project, and the two only met by chance at a proposal meeting. Ultimately, Xu's company failed to win the project due to its small size.

An ordinary-looking city woman with a simple job married a man from the countryside, only to be murdered. While the whole affair is tragic, it doesn't seem like the kind of cause that could lead to multiple deaths.

Officer Zhang was right beside Xu when he died, and he heard Xu's last words clearly. Having handled cases for many years, Officer Zhang naturally had his own understanding of the situation.

"From a psychological perspective, when people make mistakes, they usually look for external reasons, which is a weakness of human nature. When children do poorly on exams, they blame it on poor performance, a noisy environment, or poor teaching. When adults fail to complete their work tasks, they blame it on uncooperative colleagues, lack of resources from their superiors, or being given inappropriate instructions. People always find a way to save face. So, after suffering a ruptured heart and losing a lot of blood, Xu, based on his guilt towards his wife and the hallucinations he experienced while near death, uttered these incoherent words to provide a plausible excuse for his crime."

While this explanation wasn't entirely without merit, given Xu Ge's dying wish, Hua Sheng still felt it necessary to meet with his two sisters. In fact, with modern criminal investigation methods, the nationwide police network system, and the extensive coverage of facial recognition, finding someone wasn't difficult. Besides, they were relatives listed on the household registration, and they weren't deliberately hiding. Furthermore, Officer Zhang had the ability and ample reason to find the sisters and arrange a meeting between Hua Sheng and them, all to help with Xu Ge's funeral arrangements.

However, Hua Sheng still insisted on finding his sisters at the time and place Xu Ge had mentioned, to tell them the numbers in person and unravel the mystery. He vaguely sensed that the cruise ship booking Xu Ge had shown him before his death was extremely important to him. If they weren't there at that time, they might not be able to obtain the most accurate information.

Officer Zhang paid for the cruise ship for Hua Sheng at his own expense and found the room numbers for Xu Ge's sisters through a travel agency.

"Hua Sheng, I, Lao Zhang, have let you down these past six months. I never thought I'd have to rely on a kid to do this kind of thing. My boss at work has also criticized me, and besides, that glass bottle was fake. I never imagined you'd actually hurt yourself so badly!"

"Just think of it as a cruise to relax. I originally wanted to go with you, but my daughter Jiajia was diagnosed with lymphocytic leukemia a few months ago and has been hospitalized. My wife has been with her at the hospital while the case was busy recently, so I have to go and take over. I'm really sorry!"

Before boarding the ship, Hanamoto checked the numbers on his phone again, but he still had no answer.

The cabin number Officer Zhang gave the sisters was in third class on the cruise ship. After Hua Sheng put away her luggage and finished packing, the cruise ship had already entered the East China Sea. Hua Sheng walked onto the deck, and a damp sea breeze blew in her face, carrying a faint salty smell.

(End of this chapter)