On a Stormy Night, the Campus Belle Knocked on My Door Seeking Shelter
Chapter 5: Death Note Boy

Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Death Note Boy

’If that’s the case, then things are much simpler. The area where Su Yuqing was killed had no surveillance cameras, and even if it did, the torrential downpour would have obscured everything. But my own home is equipped with cameras inside and out. If anyone shows up nearby, they won’t be able to hide!’

"Mm-hmm." Hearing Chen Mo’s instructions, Su Yuqing nodded obediently like a small kitten, wrapping herself in the blanket.

CLICK...

As the door closed, Su Yuqing looked at the suddenly empty room and couldn’t help but pull the blanket tighter around herself. She curled up on the sofa, quietly waiting for Chen Mo’s return.

THWAP! THWAP! THWAP! The moment Chen Mo opened his black umbrella and stepped into the downpour, the torrential rain hammered against the canopy, creating a dense drumbeat.

The withered branches of the plane trees along the street trembled violently in the wind. Their leaves slapped against the security bars of a second-floor apartment, making a sound like rattling chains.

The puddles on the ground reflected the streetlights, whose images were shattered by the ceaseless rain, looking like a floor scattered with broken glass.

He raised his wrist and glanced at his waterproof watch—21:58.

In his past life, the forensic examiner had determined the time of death to be between 22:30 and 23:00. The crime scene was an alley in an old district two streets away, an area with no surveillance. But right now, his destination wasn’t the crime scene, but the 24-hour convenience store on the route there.

This was because a security camera there had captured Su Yuqing using the last of her money to buy some food. The kind-hearted young woman at the convenience store had even given her a towel to dry her soaked hair and lent her an umbrella.

Su Yuqing had finished her food at the store’s entrance before heading toward the alley where she was murdered. The convenience store’s surveillance footage, combined with the state of digestion of the food in her stomach, was what allowed the medical examiner to better pinpoint the time of death.

Otherwise, after being washed by the torrential rain all night, even determining the time of death would have been much more difficult.

Chen Mo decided to go there to see if any suspicious individuals had been loitering in the areas nearby, outside the convenience store camera’s range.

Since Su Yuqing had stayed there for about ten minutes, it was highly likely she had been targeted during that time.

Although time had reversed and he had already altered the course of events, meaning Su Yuqing would no longer be there, Chen Mo had seen his fair share of time travel stories.

Many of them featured the concept of a timeline automatically "correcting" itself after human intervention triggered a butterfly effect.

This corrective action usually fell into one of three types.

The first was Causal Correction.

For example, if Zhang San was fated to be killed by Li Si.

No matter how one intervened—even if you helped Zhang San evade the first attempt—he would ultimately still be killed by Li Si on the next.

It was a causally-locked event.

Unless the source of the problem, Li Si, was dealt with completely, it would be impossible to stop this inevitable event from occurring.

In this scenario, it wouldn’t make much difference whether Chen Mo went out to investigate tonight or not. He would have to explore every possible lead that might reveal Li Si’s identity, so he could learn who "Li Si" was as soon as possible and help Su Yuqing permanently avoid the danger he posed.

The second was Substitute Correction.

Originally, Zhang San was supposed to be killed by Li Si at 11 PM at Location A.

But if Zhang San was saved due to the intervention of a time traveler, then someone else would inevitably appear to take Zhang San’s place.

They would fulfill his fated death for him.

This was Substitute Correction.

If this were the case, Chen Mo would still have to rush to the scene and prevent the murder from happening. He would be driven by two things: first, his duty as a police officer, and second, the guilt of letting someone else die in Su Yuqing’s place.

He could not tolerate the idea of Su Yuqing’s life being saved at the cost of sacrificing someone else as a substitute.

A life saved that way would be tainted with guilt.

Then there was the third type: Natural Correction.

So-called Natural Correction was similar to the movie *Final Destination*. If you were meant to die at midnight but managed to escape, King Yama wouldn’t let you off the hook, even if he had to hunt you down until dawn.

You would subsequently experience all sorts of fatal "accidents."

In this scenario, the situation was basically hopeless.

No amount of effort would make a difference.

However, Natural Correction was typically triggered when an accidental death was prevented. For a premeditated murder, the chances of this third possibility occurring were not very high.

Chen Mo felt that if this timeline were to undergo a correction, it would most likely be one of the first two types.

Of course, the best-case scenario would be if the concept of timeline correction didn’t exist at all—if every world with a slight change was simply one of many different, parallel universes in a multiverse.

That would mean saving Su Yuqing this time was a permanent rescue.

But Chen Mo himself didn’t know which one it was.

Having gone through so much trouble to save Su Yuqing, he couldn’t possibly risk her life by ignoring these various uncertainties.

That’s why he had to make this trip tonight.

At the very least, he had to confirm whether the second possibility, Substitute Correction, would occur.

Ruling one out would mean one less possibility to consider, one less thing to worry about in the future.

Along the way, as his rain boots splashed through a puddle, Chen Mo pulled out his phone to check the surveillance feed from his home.

On the screen, Su Yuqing was curled up on the sofa, hugging her knees and watching TV. The warm light outlined the girl’s soft silhouette and her timid, huddled posture.

’Looks like she’s really scared of being alone. I need to finish this investigation and get home soon.’

Seeing that Su Yuqing was staying put at home and hadn’t run off, Chen Mo felt much more relieved. He put away his phone and quickened his pace.

As he neared the convenience store at the street corner, Chen Mo heard a muffled grunt pierce the curtain of rain.

Huddled by a trash can at the mouth of an alley was a slender figure. The collar of his school uniform was yanked askew, revealing dark red scratch marks on his neck.

The person clutched a black umbrella with a bent frame, muddy water dripping from a hole in the fabric. It looked like the drooping wing of an injured bird.

Three young men with dyed hair surrounded him. The leader, Yellow Hair, stomped on the back of the hand the boy had planted on the ground. "You mute or something? I asked you what you’re hiding in that handkerchief!"

Another of the youths stepped on his school bag, splattering it with muddy water.

The person pinned to the ground was curled into a ball. A small metal box lay fallen by his left hand, while his right hand desperately clutched a light gray handkerchief—the one Chen Mo had used to press against his wound during gym class last week. He had felt bad and insisted on washing it before returning it to Chen Mo.

"Lin Yu’an?" Chen Mo’s voice cut through the sound of the rain.

He recognized the boy being bullied by the hooligans at a glance; it was his classmate.

He was a quiet and withdrawn student in their class, often targeted by bullies as a punching bag.

Chen Mo had heard that he spent all his time researching supernatural and occult matters. Rumor had it that he even had a death notebook where he wrote down the names of everyone who bullied him, placing curses on them.

But so far, no one had actually been seen suffering from any curses or ill fortune.

Chen Mo just figured it was a story made up by those classless jerks to mock Lin Yu’an.

Hearing Chen Mo’s voice, Yellow Hair whipped his head around. The moment he saw who it was, his face went pale.

Chen Mo came from a well-off family, and his parents knew all sorts of people, both respectable and not. Before they went abroad, they had pulled a lot of strings to ensure Chen Mo wouldn’t be bullied, both in and out of school.

That was why, in the eyes of these petty hooligans, Chen Mo was an untouchable figure.

Once, someone who didn’t know any better had tried to corner Chen Mo, only to show up the next day, bruised and swollen, to apologize profusely.

At the time, Chen Mo hadn’t understood what happened, but the present him knew, of course, how his parents had protected him behind the scenes.

Of course, with the skills he’d gained from his years as a criminal investigator, the current Chen Mo wasn’t someone just anyone could corner anymore.

Now, Chen Mo didn’t even lower his umbrella. He simply raised the brim by half an inch, and the group across from him scattered as if they’d seen a ghost.

The only sound left in the alley was the rain drumming against a tin roof.

Chen Mo knelt, the umbrella’s canopy steadily shielding the boy on the ground. "Are you okay?"

He glanced at Lin Yu’an. An old scar from a boiling water burn three months ago was still visible on his wrist. Back then, the quiet gourd had just huddled in a corner of the classroom without a word until Chen Mo dragged him to the nurse’s office.

"Should I take you to a hospital?"

"I’m fine..." The moment Chen Mo reached out to touch him, Lin Yu’an flinched back as if electrocuted. The metal box hit the wall with a CLANG.

Several crayons rolled out, mixing with the muddy water and melting into a strange, dark red color.

"...Thanks."

He ducked his head to pick up his school bag, his soaked bangs hiding the beauty mark near the corner of his eye.

Chen Mo noticed a dark brown stain under his left fingernails, like dried blood.

"Coming out to feed stray cats in a downpour this heavy?" Chen Mo used the tip of his umbrella to flip over the metal box. Inside, besides the crayons, was half a bag of cat food.

While wandering around last weekend, he had run into Lin Yu’an in a nearby park, bandaging a stray cat’s lame leg. Lin Yu’an had mentioned he’d found someone willing to adopt it.

He had said that if no one adopted them, he couldn’t feed them.

Lin Yu’an was very principled in his actions. When he found a stray cat, he would first take a video to see if anyone was willing to adopt it. Only after confirming an adopter would he start feeding that specific cat, continuing until the person came to pick it up.

This was because he had heard about the negative consequences of indiscriminately feeding strays.

Lin Yu’an mumbled an incoherent reply and suddenly broke into a violent coughing fit, his thin shoulders trembling in the rain like a withered leaf.

Chen Mo took off his jacket and tossed it to him. "Put this on. Isn’t your mom on a business trip again? If you get sick, who’s going to take care of your little brother?"

As he spoke, a surveillance image suddenly flashed through Chen Mo’s mind. In the original footage from the convenience store, Su Yuqing had seemed to see something that worried her, after which she had left the store.

Now, seeing Lin Yu’an, Chen Mo instantly understood. Su Yuqing must have seen Lin Yu’an being bullied.