Soul Patch

Chapter 179 Didn't even enter the residential area!

Wenjie was stunned!

Liu Qingqing was also stunned!

Even Ah Zhi, who was lying on the ground, although unwilling to face this outcome, clearly felt that he was exhaling more than he was inhaling, and he probably wouldn't last 30 seconds.

"Ah Zhi, you lied to me!" Liu Qingqing's voice was deep and powerful, sounding as if she had been betrayed by her buddy and was ready to demand an explanation with her fists.

It's hard to believe that these words sound like a question between lovers.

Wenjie was shocked, not because he had been deceived, but because he had already been deceived by Patch Carrier 2 once, or rather, many times.

The patch carrier keeps changing its identity, and each time it is essentially a form of deception.

Therefore, his emotions were clearly different from Liu Qingqing's; one could say that he was much calmer than Liu Qingqing.

He had previously suspected that one of the people in the patch carrier was the murderer.

After all that trouble, the final shot that killed the murderer resulted in mission failure.

He just felt it was a pity. If this would lead to the failure of the mission, he might as well have just gone along with the plan and waited for Patch Carrier 2 to kill Li Shiman.

It's believed that during the murder, the motive must have been mentioned. This would have provided an opportunity to change the course of one's life.

Wenjie and Liu Qingqing, with four eyes, stared intently at Azhi on the ground, the murderer in this mission.

"Are you the murderer?"

"You are the murderer!"

The two spoke almost in unison.

Ah Zhi, lying on the ground, rolled his eyes weakly, his throat bobbing as he managed to utter a few words with difficulty:

Twenty years ago today, at this very time... I didn't want to die...

As soon as Ah Zhi finished speaking, the network system interface, which had just been counting down, suddenly changed.

【时间设定：1999年7月7日 16：00】

Oh my god!

What an incredible comeback!

Just when Wenjie, Liu Qingqing, and even the system determined that the mission was about to fail, the mission took an unexpected turn for the better!

This shocked Wenjie to an extreme degree.

Before he died, the murderer, Ah Zhi, offered a point in time to correct the course of his life.

At this moment, a million alpacas were running through Wenjie's mind...

Holy crap! If I had known this would work, I would have just shot down the most suspicious patch carrier right away, wouldn't that have been enough?

All that fussing and guessing was, in retrospect, a complete waste of time.

And is the system really this user-friendly now?

It's amazing that such a vague time description can still be used to set a time.

Now I realize that all that effort I put into figuring out the date was unnecessary.

Soon, the scene before Wenjie's eyes flashed back rapidly, twenty years of time compressed into a blink of an eye.

"Please, please save me!" Ah Zhi's words became empty and hollow, each word drifting into Wen Jie's ears as if separated by a distance of time and space.

Wenjie felt a wave of dizziness. When he opened his eyes again, his ears were filled with old, worn-out melodies like "Serving the Country with Utmost Loyalty," "Birch Forest," and "Smiling Face" echoing through the streets and alleys.

Looking around, I was surprised to see a poster for "Titanic" displayed at the entrance of the video store.

Wasn't Titanic the movie that caused a global sensation in 1998?

Leonardo DiCaprio's stunning good looks brought to life an epic love story...

When it was popular, Wenjie was still very young, and there were no movie theaters in the countryside. All he could hear was the movie's theme song, "My Heart Will Go On," resounding throughout the streets and alleys.

It wasn't until Wenjie started elementary school that he learned the song came from a really awesome movie. So he and a few male classmates watched the movie at a video arcade.

Wow, that movie was a masterpiece, especially the scene where they were drawing...

Wenjie slowly withdrew his gaze from the posters in the music store.

He looked down at himself and burst out laughing.

He realized that he was wearing a suit jacket, trousers, and a waistcoat, made of a light blue blended fabric, with a matching waistcoat...

Before Wenjie could find an adjective to describe his outfit, a woman's laughter beside him interrupted his thoughts: "Hahaha!"

He turned to look at Liu Qingqing beside him.

I was so busy looking at this and that that I forgot Liu Qingqing was right next to me.

Liu Qingqing was wearing black leggings and a white shirt, with white sneakers on her feet. The white shirt had lace trim.

Well, it feels like women's clothing could go back twenty years and not be too different. Nowadays, there are plenty of girls wearing black skinny jeans, and girls with good figures aren't afraid to show off their curves.

His own clothes, however, were so dated that he even thought the Little Tigers would wear the same outfits when performing on stage.

Little Tigers?

For a moment, Wenjie's sense of time was a bit confused. Had the Little Tigers debuted or become popular in this era?

Wenjie understood that Liu Qingqing was laughing at his clothes, and he laughed along with her.

"Your hairstyle is hilarious! It looks like one of those mushroom cuts worn by the Four Heavenly Kings! Hahaha!"

Liu Qingqing laughed as she stroked Wenjie's hair with her hand.

Oh, so they weren't laughing at his clothes, but at his hairstyle!

Wenjie reached out and touched his hair. It was really strange. The back of his hair was cut at a very steep angle with clippers, making the hair at the back of his head pile up together, making the hairstyle look fluffy and giving the impression that he had a lot of hair.

The front should be 40/60. My God, Wenjie touched it again and again, and it really was 40/60.

The image of a traitor during the War of Resistance against Japan flashed through his mind; it seemed to look just like this.

Wenjie was only 4 years old in 1999 and doesn't have much of an impression of that era.

However, the posters of Hong Kong and Taiwanese celebrities were displayed in the homes of children who were a bit older than him. People in his hometown were not well-off, and a single poster could remain there for many years.

Many posters have faded and yellowed, and their edges are curled, but I can't bear to throw them away.

When Wenjie got a little older, he seemed to still remember the posters of the Young and Dangerous movies and the Four Heavenly Kings.

"What are you laughing at? Your hairstyle is weird too," Wenjie glanced at Liu Qingqing and said rudely.

"My hairstyle?" Liu Qingqing's first reaction was to reach for her phone.

But Liu Qingqing's clothes and pants didn't have pockets, let alone a cell phone.

"Don't tell me you're looking for your cell phone. Back in 1999, even a mobile phone was something only a very small number of rich people owned. How could you possibly have a cell phone?" Wenjie said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Hmph! What's wrong with my hairstyle? I feel like my..." Liu Qingqing reached out and touched it, then screamed "Ah!"

"Where's my hair? I have long hair!" She reached out and touched a head of short, uneven hair, of varying thickness.

"It got cut by the system!" Wenjie shrugged and said with a half-smile.

"How about I... I comb my hair short?" Liu Qingqing looked at Wenjie a little nervously and asked shyly.

Upon hearing this, Wenjie pretended to examine him closely.

Well, Liu Qingqing wasn't exactly beautiful; at best, she was well-proportioned and had a regular figure. The only striking feature of her was her pair of jade-like hands.

Of course, Liu Qingqing's original appearance was better than the disguise she had chosen before, so Wenjie felt much more pleasant chatting with her now.

After looking at it for a while, Wenjie said in a deliberately profound tone, "It's better to have long hair."

"Humph!"

Liu Qingqing twisted her body and started to act childishly.

"Let's get down to business!" Wenjie looked around, trying to find Azhi, the patch carrier 2.

“Uh…Ah Zhi was only six years old in 1999!” Liu Qingqing thought to herself, “That’s really hard to find.”

From childhood to adulthood, a person's appearance changes so much, where can you find someone who can do that?

Before she could finish speaking, Liu Qingqing saw a little boy being held by a middle-aged woman not far from them.

He slept soundly in the woman's arms, his little hands dangling on her shoulders.

Liu Qingqing covered her mouth, afraid she would scream. She pointed in that direction and then poked Wenjie with her finger.

"Hmm," Wenjie responded softly, indicating that he had seen it.

"Follow them," Wenjie said to Liu Qingqing after squinting for a moment.

The two men followed the woman quietly.

The woman walked quickly, crossing the street lined with record stores, and then turned several times before entering a fully enclosed residential area.

Wenjie and the others glanced at the security guards in military uniforms in the community, then looked down at their own and Liu Qingqing's attire.

He tilted his chin towards the narrow path on the side of the residential area, which was shaded by poplar and locust trees.

Liu Qingqing tactfully followed Wenjie in that direction.

After the two had moved some distance from the main gate and security guards, Wenjie looked at the standard high-rise buildings in the residential area and asked, "What's A-Zhi's full name? How much do you know about him?"

Upon hearing this, Liu Qingqing thought for a moment and then said the most important thing:

“His name is Zhang Zhipeng, male, 26 years old. Both of his parents are highly educated intellectuals. He is very talented, especially fond of reading and painting... We met because of his paintings.”

As Liu Qingqing spoke, she lowered her head, her face suddenly turning slightly red.

Seeing Liu Qingqing's expression, Wenjie couldn't help but laugh. It seemed this girl had truly fallen for him.

"Is there anything else?"

"I can't remember right now."

Liu Qingqing looked at Wenjie, not understanding what he was referring to.

"He didn't tell you he was sick?" Wenjie asked, slightly surprised.

He recalled the first time he met Zhang Zhipeng. He had seen the pale, thin boy reflected in the mirror inside the stairwell.

His intuition told him that the boy's thinness must be a sign of illness.

He was surprised that Liu Qingqing couldn't tell.

Even if Liu Qingqing didn't realize it, since Zhang Zhipeng and Liu Qingqing were already officially dating, shouldn't Zhang Zhipeng have explained his physical condition to her before confirming their relationship?

"Oh... if you put it that way, it seems you did mention that... but..."

Looking at Wenjie's serious face, Liu Qingqing tried hard to recall.

"Just what?"

Liu Qingqing frowned and gave Wen Jie a light but not too harsh review.

Wenjie's tone had been too serious, making her feel uncomfortable. After pushing Wenjie away, she breathed a sigh of relief to relax before slowly saying:

"Why did you say that about him? He mentioned to me that he doesn't sleep well. He mostly needs to read and paint late at night when it's quiet, so his schedule is not very regular."

I usually go to bed late at night and don't get up until nine or ten in the morning. I don't think that's a problem!

"Oh"

Wenjie responded softly, but he still felt that wasn't quite right.

He'd seen plenty of night owls. Some people did indeed lose weight because they stayed up late; but many more gained weight because of irregular sleep patterns, eating late at night, and then going to sleep without exercising, resulting in their bodies absorbing excessive nutrients and becoming overweight.

Is Zhang Zhipeng's pale and thin appearance really caused by staying up late?

Soon the two walked some distance along the narrow path. They stood in the middle of the trees, their figures almost swallowed up.

Wenjie looked at the iron fence of the community, which still had steel spikes on it.

He turned to look at Liu Qingqing: "If you can't get over there, then you can guard the main gate."

"I can get over it!"

Liu Qingqing rubbed her hands together, ready to climb up.

Suddenly, she stopped moving because she saw a system notification message.

[The murderer's life trajectory correction failed]

Like her, Wenjie stood there, stunned, staring at the system's bullet comments in front of him.

He looked down at his watch and thank goodness, the system had left him a watch.

However, it's not a crown logo, but rather an old-fashioned Flying Pigeon watch.

His father had one of these watches, so he recognized the brand.

The watch shows 16:23.

What puzzled Wenjie was: what exactly happened to six-year-old Zhang Zhipeng at 16:23? How could his life trajectory fail to be corrected after that time?

When the online mission initially provided the time of Li Shiman's murder, the time was accurate to the second.

This did not arouse Wenjie's suspicion, because the system can span across the timeline, so it can know the exact time of Li Shiman's murder.

Now it seems that this is not just a time accurate to the second.

This timing was crucial for the murderer.

Twenty years ago at this moment, the murderer's life trajectory was changed because of a special event, so twenty years later, he wants to kill Li Shiman at this point in time!

Wenjie turned around and looked at the neighborhood behind him. Suddenly, as if he had thought of something, he stared at Liu Qingqing and shouted, "Does Li Shiman live in this neighborhood?"

Before Liu Qingqing could answer, the two of them suddenly disappeared from the narrow path.

After the familiar dizziness subsided, Wenjie opened his eyes and found that he and Liu Qingqing had returned to the door of his office.

Zhang Zhipeng, who had been shot, lay on the ground, while the other man on the ground struggled to open his mouth, trying to say something to them.

Wenjie immediately said to Liu Qingqing, "Reject the system countdown for now!"

"Of course!"

Liu Qingqing was a little dissatisfied. Did she think I was stupid? I clearly had a chance to complete the task and get the reward, and I still logged out of the system and quit the task?

"Liu Qingqing, keep an eye on the time and remind me in 25 seconds."

"Ok?"

Liu Qingqing was taken aback. She looked at Wenjie and then at Zhang Zhipeng on the ground, and seemed to understand Wenjie's intention.

The system indicates that the murderer will die in 30 seconds. In other words, as long as a point in time can be determined before the murderer dies that can correct his life trajectory, they can return to that point in time and reenact his life trajectory.

Liu Qingqing took out her phone and started a countdown: 25, 24, 23...

Wenjie leaned down, brought his face close to Zhang Zhipeng's, and said in an unquestionable tone, "Repeat after me: July 6, 1999."

If he weren't facing a dying man, and if time weren't so pressing, he would have insisted on having a proper talk with him:

Twenty years ago today, at the same time...

It is 16:00 PM now, and at 16:23 PM, a life-changing event will happen to you.

We only have 23 minutes!

You really trust us?! 23 minutes! We haven't even gotten into the apartment complex yet!

(End of this chapter)