Chapter 3

“After comparing the evidence at the scene, we’ve identified Gu Dashan’s neighbor Yue Kai as a major suspect!”

Yue Kai?

How could it be him?

Was this another correction by the time fragment?

Or…

A rush of air struck from behind.

Instinctively, I darted forward several steps and narrowly avoided the attack.

The man in black.

Gathering my courage, I asked, “Yue Kai? Are you Yue Kai?”

His axe answered.

I bolted, shouting into the phone as I ran.

“Officer Zhou! Help! I’m at—”

Harsh static grated in my ear.

Seconds later, a voice distorted beyond anything human pronounced each word.

“Zhou Li is dead.

“Gu Na, you’re next.”

16

Terrified, I hurled the handset at the attacker.

As he dodged, I quickly put more distance between us, rushed outside, and climbed onto Yue Kai’s motorcycle.

Thank heaven—the key was still in it.

I started the engine and opened the throttle. With a roar, it shot away.

Fortunately, I had added a Class D driving qualification to my license last year. Otherwise, I could only have stared helplessly at the machine.

Shifting repeatedly with my left foot, I sped away on three wheels. The man in black fell behind.

Only at the town’s edge did I stop to consider my next move.

I didn’t know whether Zhou Li was alive. Nor could I tell whether Yue Kai was friend or enemy.

I couldn’t understand.

If Yue Kai was the attacker, he’d had plenty of better chances to kill me. Why lead me through such an elaborate detour?

Besides, the fuel gauge and phone clock had already shown that his time-fragment theory wasn’t baseless.

Whatever the explanation, a vicious criminal group was operating here.

They had murdered my parents, repeatedly tried to kill me, and now killed Officer Zhou too.

Was a lottery ticket really behind all of this?

After much thought, I decided to visit Uncle Erhai.

My instincts told me he knew something.

17

In my memory, Uncle Erhai was wealthy.

He had studied foreign languages. During the eighties, he seized the opportunity presented by the craze for bulky mobile phones and made a fortune. He bought a home in the city and rebuilt his hometown house as a three-story Western-style villa, the talk of the town.

I drove south and recognized his house at once.

Parking neatly, I took a screwdriver from the storage compartment and tucked it into my waistband for protection.

He must have been asleep. I knocked for two minutes before he came out cursing.

“Banging on doors in the middle of the night! Are you sick?”

The small hatch in the security door slid open, revealing his scowl.

“Who are you? What do you want?”

He really had been handsome when young, just as I remembered from childhood.

I smiled and waved.

“Uncle Erhai, it’s Gu Na. I—”

He slammed the hatch shut.

“If you’re ill, get treatment! It’s New Year! Nana is only five. At least do your research before trying to con someone!”

Stepping forward, I hammered on the door.

“Uncle! Let’s go to the provincial capital and claim the lottery prize!”

The security door immediately opened quietly. He leaned out and scanned the surroundings nervously.

“Shh! Keep your voice down. Come in!”

I followed him inside, sat on the sofa, and regarded him with interest.

My childhood memories had faded. I hadn’t realized how much his younger self resembled Dad.

“Who exactly are you, young lady?”

Sitting opposite me, he lit a cigarette to wake himself up and studied me through the smoke.

Spreading my hands, I explained that I was Gu Na from twenty years in the future, returned to 2005 for some unknown reason.

When I described receiving his call at the crime scene, astonishment overwhelmed his face. He sprang up.

“Wait. You mean your parents—my brother Gu Dashan and his wife Cai Liqiu—are dead?”

I nodded, puzzled.

“The case caused such a commotion. Surely the whole town knows. How could you not?”

He shook his head helplessly, lips moving in a low murmur.

“I didn’t know… I never thought… they would dare…”

My left hand slowly slid down beneath my clothes and closed around the screwdriver.

“Uncle, who are ‘they’?”

He signaled for silence.

Then he took a lottery ticket from his pocket.

Before I could ask more, he waved a hand, fetched paper and pen, and wrote:

[Don’t say it aloud.]

[They’re listening. To everything in this town.]

18

I seized the pen.

[Who are they?]

Looking at me, he suddenly said, “Ah, my brother was a good man. Good people never live long these days.”

I followed his lead, talking aloud about ordinary memories of my parents, hoping to fool whoever was listening.

He wrote:

[Gu Na, you say you come from twenty years ahead. What am I like then?]

I answered:

[Probably reincarnated. In 2015, you drove drunk into the back of a tractor-trailer. Your death was horrible.]

While telling amusing stories about Dad’s childhood, he wrote:

[Impossible. I’m allergic to alcohol. I never drink a drop. It must have been murder.]

After thinking, he added:

[I understand. Since they won’t spare me anyway, I’ll help you.]

Help me?

I looked at him questioningly.

He unbuttoned his clothes and took a lottery ticket from inside his close-fitting undershirt.

[Your parents left this in my keeping. If anything happened to them, I was to give it to you when you grew up.]

[If you’re Gu Na from twenty years later, there’s nothing wrong with giving it to you now.]

I accepted the ticket, still warm from his body.

It was a Double Color Ball ticket. The red numbers were 01, 03, 06, 07, 08, 09; the blue number was 04.

Putting it away carefully, I wrote:

[Is this the ticket you mentioned on the phone?]

He shook his head.

[This is all I can tell you. I don’t know much else.]

Once he was sure I had read every word, he folded the sheet and burned it with his lighter.

Then he said, “Gu Na, I’m getting old. I can’t stay up late. I’m going to bed. Sleep in the guest room tonight.”

Before I could answer, he winked repeatedly and mouthed:

“Refuse. Pretend to leave.

“Otherwise, we’ll both be dead tomorrow morning.”

19

Understanding, I said aloud, “No, Uncle, I still have things to do. I’ll leave now.”

At the entrance, I opened the security door, exchanged a few polite farewells, then shut it loudly.

Smiling as though I were a promising pupil, he led me downstairs.

The villa’s basement was enormous, at least two or three hundred square meters.

On tiptoe, I followed him through a billiard room, a sitting room, and a wine cellar, trying not to make a sound.

At the corridor’s end, he pressed several spots on a brick wall.

A mechanism clicked into motion. A door’s outline appeared.

He pushed it open, led me into the concealed room, and finally relaxed.

Switching on the light, he spoke softly.

“Little Na, I’m truly glad to see you grown up.

“Your parents’ case involves an international organization. Those people wanted something they had and kept hunting them.

“I thought they’d be safe at home, that the organization wouldn’t dare act here. But I underestimated human greed.

“Now I see how naïve I was. If they even dare attack police, what won’t they do?

“Gu Na, if everything you’ve said is true, and solving your parents’ deaths might take you back twenty years into the future…

“Then I wish you success.”

He patted my shoulder encouragingly and turned to go.

I stopped him for one last question.

“What is the organization called?”

He hesitated a long time.

“Its full name is ‘Polettita,’ a Greek word. They abbreviate it to π.

“‘Polettita’ is difficult to pronounce, but you’ll certainly know its Chinese translation.”

“What is it?”

His weariness abruptly vanished. He stared at me, eyes burning, and spoke distinctly.

“The Republic.”

20

Long after he left, I remained stunned.

The Republic? Plato’s famous work?

I had never read it. I knew only that it discussed political systems and philosophy and was regarded as one of the sources of Western philosophy.

An organization named after that book made its ambitions plain enough.

What could my parents have possessed to bring such relentless pursuit?

Putting those hazy thoughts aside, I examined the room, hoping to sleep and recover.

It was a simply furnished bedroom of about twenty square meters.

A single bed stood in the corner, its sheets printed with vivid red peonies that immediately evoked another era.

Beside it was a rocking chair. To the left stood a tea table with several packets of expensive tea; to the right, a distinctly old-fashioned rack piled with assorted newspapers and magazines.

As a businessman, Uncle Erhai must have been under considerable strain.

Perhaps this was where he sat alone, drinking tea and reading.

I reclined in the rocking chair and studied the ticket.

Very quickly, I noticed the problem.

It had been issued three months ago.

On the phone at the crime scene, he said he had borrowed a car to take my parents to claim their prize.

But the ticket’s back clearly stated a claim period of only twenty-eight days.

An expired ticket was worthless, even if it had won the jackpot.

Its real value had to be the information concealed on it.

No wonder Yue Kai wanted me to search the house. He wanted to use me to find the information and locate whatever my parents had hidden.

After quickly washing, I lay under the blanket and considered how everything connected.

First, Yue Kai was suspect.

He had approached me, offered his time-fragment theory to gain my trust, then guided me home to search for the ticket.

I leaned toward believing the theory itself was real.

But whether the fragment was real or false, Yue Kai was very likely a π member.

The organization had existed in 2005, perhaps earlier.

He said I might escape by finding the truth about my parents’ deaths. That was my “mission.”

What about him?

Why had an uninvolved outsider been drawn into the fragment, arriving five years before me?

In 2000, my parents returned to Tailuowan to settle. It was also the year I was born.

So I strongly suspected his mission was to obtain whatever they had hidden.

The supernatural time fragment itself might even have been created by π.

Five years gave him ample time to cultivate accomplices, recruit helpers, and establish a smaller π organization.

Officer Zhou called to name him as a possible killer.

Less than a minute later, Zhou was attacked, and so was I.

That suggested Yue Kai had eyes and ears throughout the town.

The more I thought, the more frightened I became.

He could have predicted I would visit Uncle Erhai, known the ticket was here, even guessed my uncle would hand it over.

What a terrifying opponent.

At least Uncle Erhai was on my side.

He was right: an organization willing to attack police had lost all humanity.

If I fell into their hands…

Wait.

I sat bolt upright, cold sweat running down my spine.

Uncle Erhai was so cut off from information that he didn’t even know my parents had been murdered.

Then how did he know Officer Zhou had been attacked?

21

A car engine woke me.

Drowsily opening my eyes, I found myself still in the secret room, the ticket clenched in my hand.

A ventilation window in the corner was concealed by weeds in the garden.

Standing on the rocking chair, I cracked it open and listened.

“Happy New Year, comrade. We’re from Tailuowan Police Station. Are you Gu Erhai?”

Police?

Much of my sleepiness vanished.

My uncle answered, “Yes. What is it, officers?”

A middle-aged policeman asked, “Have you seen the person in this photograph?”

I couldn’t see the picture, only two pairs of police shoes and my uncle’s slippers.

“Yes. She came last night claiming to be ‘Gu Na from twenty years in the future.’ I thought she seemed mentally unwell and sent her away. Who is she?”

They were looking for me.

“This woman is seriously implicated in a murder case. Inform us immediately if you see her again.”

He repeatedly agreed.

Watching the two pairs of shoes leave the garden, I closed the vent and waited by the secret door.

Within a minute, my uncle opened it, panting.

“Little Na, the police are looking for you! Stay hidden. Don’t go outside!”

I nodded.

“Yes, Uncle. I’ll do as you say.”

He handed me a bag containing bread and a bottle of milk.

“Eat this for now. Once things quiet down, I’ll find a way to get you out of town.”

About to leave, he paused.

“If you get bored, study that ticket. See whether you can find what your parents left.”

I promptly agreed, returned to the chair, and studied it while eating, careful to betray nothing.

My suspicion was correct.

He too belonged to π.

He knew last night that Zhou had been attacked. He readily accepted my time-travel story, volunteered the ticket, and repeatedly insisted I study it.

Everything was arranged to make me willingly work at decoding its secret.

Which meant I was safe until I solved it.

I spent the whole day hidden there, puzzling over the ticket.

Uncle brought both lunch and dinner. They tasted quite good.

After dark, he entered one final time. Seeing no progress, he sighed and left.