Insights Chapter 24: The Little Train

Chapter 24: The Little Train

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

Nighttime in Bincheng, the commotion here happened suddenly, from the girl climbing over the railing to jumping off the bridge, everything occurred within a few short seconds. The three bridges were all long, and despite the deployment of numerous police forces, they seemed scattered like grains of sand everywhere. 

Right after the incident of falling from the bridge, when Shen Junci grabbed the girl, Gu Yanchen’s car arrived first, heading in the direction on the other side of the bridge.

“There, across the bridge!” Lu Ying stepped on the brakes, and with a squeak, the car stopped on the inclined side across the bridge.

Gu Yanchen had been on the phone just now, but as he turned, he recognized Shen Junci’s figure. He hung up the phone and dashed out of the car, swiftly vaulting over the railing like an arrow.

Amidst the continuous flow of traffic on the opposite side, he maneuvered through the gaps between the cars. In just a few seconds, Gu Yanchen reached Shen Junci’s side, reaching out from behind to grab him and extending his other hand to pull Xu Ziyue up. In the night wind, Shen Junci felt a bit dizzy, sensing his own figure fluctuating as if he could fall into the river at any moment along with Xu Ziyue. But at that moment, he was grabbed…

Gu Yanchen’s grip was much stronger; Xu Ziyue’s figure was finally stabilized, no longer plummeting, but she kept screaming. The initial courage vanished the moment she jumped off the bridge; her body hung in mid-air, with the wind whistling past her ears and the turbulent river below her feet. She was terrified, struggling incessantly.

Gu Yanchen shouted, “If you don’t want to die, stop moving!”

Xu Ziyue seemed to suddenly wake up, cooperating with their efforts, and with a strong pull from both of them, she was lifted back up. After climbing over the railing, Xu Ziyue’s legs went weak, and she knelt on the ground, wailing loudly.

Gu Yanchen didn’t bother with her, turning to support Shen Junci instead. Struggling to turn around, Shen Junci sat down with Gu Yanchen’s help, leaning against the railing. He clutched the clothes over his chest, breathing heavily. Those few seconds just now were too unbearable; the intense pain in his chest made his consciousness unclear, as if he had experienced death once again.

Gu Yanchen seemed to be saying something urgent in his ear. Shen Junci tried hard to focus and finally heard a few words. 

“Are you okay?”

Shen Junci knew he must look pale at the moment. He breathed heavily, waiting for his heartbeat to calm down, coughing softly twice, “I’m fine, just let me rest for a moment.”

Gu Yanchen assumed he was just exhausted and turned back to deal with the current situation.

During this time, Lu Ying had arrived, along with other patrol officers and detectives from the sub-bureau. Gu Yanchen didn’t show any courtesy to Xu Ziyue, directly taking out a pair of handcuffs from behind and dragging her into the police car. He instructed Lu Ying, “You follow their car and escort her to the City Bureau.”

Shen Junci’s ears kept ringing sharply as he sat on the bridge, watching people gather around. There was a noisy conversation around him, and vehicles on the road nearby kept shuttling back and forth. After resting for a while, the excruciating pain in his chest finally subsided, and his hearing gradually recovered.

Shen Junci listened to Lu Ying scolding Xu Ziyue next to him, “Damn it, how much trouble did you cause?!”

The officer said, “Maybe she feels guilty for accidentally killing her sister, so that’s why she’s acting like this…”

Lu Ying scoffed in response, “If she really feels guilty for causing her sister’s death, why didn’t she turn herself in for a year? Why didn’t she try to jump into the river back then?”

“Well…” The officer was at a loss for words.

The wind on the bridge was quite strong at night, and the few young officers nearby fell silent for a moment.

Gu Yanchen cut through the silence mercilessly, “She probably thought about jumping into the river only now because her sister’s corpse has just been found. She’s afraid of legal consequences, ultimately selfish. She almost dragged Doctor Shen down just now.”

Lu Ying also looked at Shen Junci with lingering fear, “It was too dangerous.”

Shen Junci stood up, leaning against the railing, and walked over to Gu Yanchen. Regardless of whether she was the murderer or not, if he had let Xu Ziyue jump in front of him like that without trying to save her, he wouldn’t be able to pass his own moral test. Find out the truth, investigate to the end. These eight simple words were Lin Xianglan’s catchphrase, also his motto. Old Lin had lived his whole life like this, and he demanded the same from others. In a way, it was the motto of his family.

Seeing that things were almost settled here, Lu Ying said, “I’ll go with the car Xu Ziyue is sitting in.”

The other officers left one after another, leaving only the two of them on the bridge.

Gu Yanchen glanced at Shen Junci. He usually saw Shen Junci wearing white clothes. Not only was his medical examiner uniform white, but his casual clothes were mostly white too—white shirts, white T-shirts, always looking pristine. But tonight, he was wearing a black shirt, making his skin look even paler. His handsome features exuded a sense of desolation, and his figure seemed even more slender.

Gu Yanchen knew that even if he knew he might be dragged down by Xu Ziyue, Shen Junci might still do the same, if the situation happened again. Sometimes indifferent towards matters that didn’t concern him, sometimes displaying his unique attitude towards the world, sometimes showing a resolute attitude towards life and death, when combined, this was the person before him.

Gu Yanchen remained silent for a few seconds before asking Shen Junci, “Are you really not injured?”

When he had pulled Xu Ziyue up just now, Shen Junci’s face was pale, devoid of color, even his eyes lacked focus. He was a bit frightened by the situation at that time. Fortunately, that state didn’t last long. If it had lasted longer, Gu Yanchen would have called for an ambulance.

Apart from those few seconds of excruciating pain, Shen Junci quickly recovered afterward. He concealed this fact and shook his head, “I’m fine.”

Gu Yanchen said, “I have to work overtime at the City Bureau. Do you need a ride?”

“I’m also going to the City Bureau.” Shen Junci replied, “The lab said the DNA test results will be ready tonight.”

That was crucial evidence for this case.

Gu Yanchen nodded. The car was still parked on the other side of the road. Gu Yanchen climbed over the railing of the bridge and then extended his hand back. Shen Junci didn’t need his help; he simply flipped over by himself. After both of them got into the car, silence enveloped them for a moment.

It was nighttime now, and the city was shrouded in darkness, with the city lights illuminating it. They were in the city center, where vehicles passed by, crowds flowed, and towering buildings flashed with giant billboards reflecting the lights.

Gu Yanchen drove the car off the bridge and soon headed towards the City Bureau. After the commotion with Xu Ziyue, nobody had managed to eat dinner. After driving for a few streets, Gu Yanchen saw a fast food restaurant on the roadside and said to Shen Junci, “Wait for me.”

Shen Junci responded with an “okay.”

Gu Yanchen got out of the car without turning off the engine, and he bought a large bag of fast food. Just as Gu Yanchen reached the entrance of the fast-food restaurant, he suddenly stopped in his tracks. He noticed a toy store nearby. Inside, there was a set of toy trains laid out on a track. The track was quite long, with multiple levels, and the toy train was continuously shuttling up and down on the rails.

On a whim, Gu Yanchen turned and entered the toy store. Immediately, an enthusiastic salesperson approached him, “Hello, welcome to the toy shop. Are you here to buy toys for your son?”

The use of the word “son” caught Gu Yanchen off guard. Another salesperson nearby quickly caught on and said with a sweet smile, “You’re so young, handsome. You must be buying toys for a little friend.”

This broadened the meaning significantly. Little friends could be relatives, colleagues, or friends’ children. Gu Yanchen thought of Shen Junci sitting in the car and couldn’t help but smile, “Yes, for a little friend.”

He quickly picked out the largest and most expensive set of toy trains, paid swiftly, and left. Returning to the car, Gu Yanchen placed the food in the middle and then handed the gift to Shen Junci.

Unprepared, Shen Junci now had something extra in his possession. “What’s this?” he asked.

Gu Yanchen started the car. “It’s for you.”

Shen Junci examined the packaging and realized it was a toy. “Captain Gu, do you think I’m still a child?”

Although his words carried a hint of disdain, he opened the package nonetheless. Looking inside, Shen Junci found a set of Thomas the Tank Engine toy trains. Upon seeing this unexpected gift, Shen Junci’s eyelashes trembled slightly, and his hand paused.

“Doctor Shen, be more careful next time you act bravely,” Gu Yanchen said as he started the car, looking out of the window. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

Sitting silently beside him, Shen Junci didn’t say a word. In an instant, he remembered the moment on the bridge when Gu Yanchen’s arm had wrapped around his waist, the warmth and strength waking him from the chaos. It was like the time when he had held him, covered in blood, urging him not to give up, not to sleep.

Shen Junci gently tightened his arms, holding the toy train in his embrace.

—

At night, the Bincheng City Bureau was still brightly lit. For policemen, there was no holidays when things got busy; everyone was used to it. Xu Ziyue had been taken to the interrogation room in the main building. After experiencing the thrilling scene of the evening, she felt weightless, suspended in the air, half scared to death. It seemed that Xu Ziyue finally realized that death was much more terrifying than she had imagined.

At this moment, sitting in the police station, her emotions finally stabilized a bit. The guarding detective brought in some water and food for her, and she cried while eating. At 8:30 in the evening, Gu Yanchen came in with his team for interrogation. After verifying her identity information, Xu Ziyue wiped her eyes with a tissue.

“A year ago, I accidentally killed my sister. At that time, I just couldn’t stand her anymore…” Gu Yanchen asked for more details, and Xu Ziyue continued to speak. “Since childhood, our relationship wasn’t like sisters; it was more like enemies. Whenever my sister did something wrong, she would pretend it was me and make me take the blame. She would pinch me, tease me, deliberately push me. I always felt like my sister never saw me as a sister. When I was sick and hospitalized, my mother was too busy to come, so she stayed to take care of me. She sat by the bed eating fruits bought by others, doing math exercises, and cursing me for not dying. My mom said we needed to compete, to be aggressive. She often said, ‘With the family’s money, only one person can have a new phone. Whoever has better grades, who is more obedient, I’ll buy the phone for them. The family can only afford one person to attend a better school; you must strive for it.’ And I always lost to my sister.

“I never got to enjoy good food or things. Although we had money, my mom still made me wear my sister’s old clothes and shoes. My mom would scold me, asking why I couldn’t be as good as my sister. ‘Are you really my own child if you’re so stupid? If you can’t even get first place, what right do you have to eat?'”

Gu Yanchen had heard about these things during the afternoon interrogation with Gao Xuan, but hearing Xu Ziyue say them now was even more heart-wrenching. There was no maternal love or filial piety, no sibling or friendly relationships. Gu Yanchen felt that Xu Ziyue was jealous of Xu Yapei  to the point of madness. This was a pathological sister relationship, a mother-daughter relationship dominated by the mother, everything under her control.

On hearing this, Gu Yanchen drew a circle around “small black room.” It seemed that a long time ago, Tang Lu used this method to torture her two daughters. He asked, “Was your sister also put in the ‘small black room’?”

Xu Ziyue paused for a moment. “When she made mistakes. For example, that time she refused to perform for relatives, and she was locked up for a long time.”

Gu Yanchen marked it down again. Was the final closing of Xu Yapei ‘s room an extension of her childhood “small black room”?

“After my sister went to university, she started to disobey my mom and often argued with her. I was so happy then; I felt that she wasn’t obedient anymore, and as long as I behaved well, my mom would treat me better. But my mother still often mentioned her, scolding her while bringing her up, even using my sister as a negative example, threatening me to listen to her. My sister later got a boyfriend and brought me along, using me as her foil. I listened to her friends praising my sister, saying she was prettier, gentler, and more outstanding… I got angry and just left. At that time, I hated my sister even more. I even wished she would die.”

Gu Yanchen sat silently across from the girl, looking at Xu Ziyue’s twisted face, beautiful yet distorted by tears. The budding murderous intent was like thorns, piercing Xu Ziyue’s heart, tormenting her day and night. The demon in her heart grew with each passing day and night. Blood relatives harboring such intense hatred was reminiscent of the boy in the lychee case. If that case was caused by parents neglecting their children excessively, the current case was caused by a mother excessively intruding into her child’s life.

In the past, with limited resources, siblings didn’t seem to have such strong competition, but with the relaxation of the one-child policy and the opening up to second children, in a society where material resources seemed abundant but were actually scarce, parents were busy with work and found it difficult to distribute their love fairly among their children. A house could bankrupt a family, and the cost of university tuition and living expenses was increasing. 

In order to compete for their parents’ affection and to grab material resources, the relationship between siblings turned into a competition, and familial love seemed to become colder. Xu Ziyue tearfully recounted her story, it was the first time she had spoken these words to an outsider, and those past experiences felt like giant boulders, crushing her breath.

Gu Yanchen asked, “So what exactly happened that day?”