Chapter 6: The only thing he could do now was be… as… quiet… as… a… chicken

JANUARY 5, 2022 FISH1 COMMENT

The blurriness of that snapshot was really quite tragic. The person’s own mother probably wouldn’t even be able to recognise them from it. The image also had a lot of water ripples. The already blurry mass of a human figure was almost distorted into an abstract shape. Additionally, whether it was because the equipment was aged or some other reason, the whole picture was extremely dark, the colours abnormal and unrealistic. 

The only information you could see from this image was —— the thief wore reddish clothes. 

Qi Chen had always been extremely sensitive to colour. Even if the whole image was dark and blurry with outrageously low saturation and luminance and that smudge of red was flooded with coal cinder like greyish black, he could still recognise that person was wearing beautiful red clothes. 

Hence, that woman staggering outside the bus window last night immediately surfaced in his head, incidentally also carrying a name with her — — Qin-jie.

Actually, objectively speaking, there was no true relation between these three people. 

Firstly, Qin-jie was one of the many personnel associated with the museum. All Qi Chen understood of her was as a bystander on the road one afternoon as well as hearing a form of address from Xu Liang. 

Secondly, Qi Chen only caught a brief glimpse of the red clothed women by the bus last night. He didn’t even see her face clearly. She also couldn’t be the only one wearing red clothes on the streets. In this whole district, even in this whole city there were countless people. 

Besides, in the news image this morning, not to mention their face, it was difficult to even differentiate gender. It was even more controversial to prove who it was. 

The only reason these three were linked together was because they happened to cross Qi Chen’s eyes at a relatively high frequency within one day and night. 

But whether it was intuition or guesswork, this matter didn’t have anything to do with Qi Chen. The news said the museum had already reported the case. The police had already begun to investigate and have gotten some clues. Irrelevant people like him could only look at reports. 

Just as Qi Chen was about to close the webpage, something in that last image flashed past his gaze. He held the mouse and scrolled to the upper right hand corner, then stopped halfway. 

“Huh?” He blinked and approached the monitor with some confusion. 

In that last image, there was a patch of darkness behind the red clothed thief unlit by lights. And the thing that just flashed past seemed to have appeared in that spot. 

Qi Chen stared at that dark patch while adjusting the viewing angle. Finally just as he stopped at some angle that caused light to reflect off the screen, a faint pair of eyes appeared in that seemingly empty patch of darkness. 

It was a pair of lifeless eyes with drooping eyelids, the whites of the eyes large, the pupils small. It was like there was someone hiding in the corner, noiselessly staring at the camera lens…..

Suddenly being met with such a pair of eyes, Qi Chen was startled and gasped, leaning back in the chair abruptly. 

The swivel chair slid back a few steps, the somewhat flexible backrest slamming into Executive Leader Long’s table with a ‘bang’. 

“Aiyou jeez what’s wrong?” Hong Ming’s voice travelled from the side, probably having gotten a jump scare from this sudden movement. Only her voice was somewhat unclear as if she didn’t open her mouth to speak and squeezed out the words from between her teeth. 

“Ah? No…. I probably saw it wrong….” Qi Chen patted his chest, speaking while turning around to look at Hong Ming. He ended up seeing a face smeared in pitch black with only holes for the eyes. 

Holy………………… shit! 

Qi Chen’s lips trembled. His heart that’d almost stopped from fright hadn’t even recovered before it almost stopped again. 

“Hehehehe….” With the black mud face mask pasted on, Hong Ming couldn’t open her mouth and could only laugh from her throat like a snake. 

She felt around in her bag on the table for a while, then stood up and walked to Qi Chen’s table in her high heels. She placed the item in her hands on his table and said: “What? You haven’t seen a face mask on before? Your face turned green from fright. Here! Little comrade Qi Chen, eat a navel orange to get over your shock.” 

Qi Chen: “…..” You really weren’t trying to tease me on purpose?!

“A few days ago I went on a business trip to work and made my face all dry. I finally have a bit of spare time today.” Hong Ming huddled in front of the computer screen with a face as black as coal and glanced at the news on the page, “Yo, looking at that piece of news? So far it has nothing to do with us. We’ll have to see what the police says. But how were you so scared looking at this piece of news?” 

Qi Chen felt that looking at that face too closely was another kind of visual assault. Thus he silently turned his gaze away, sitting perfectly straight and facing the front like a coffin plank. He thought that even though Ming-jie was somewhat energetic she was a woman after all. There was no need to tell her about this kind of scary thing. It would be a grave sin to make someone unable to sleep at night. Thus he shook his head and said: “No, a somewhat scary pop up ad appeared just now.” 

Probably because this coal-like face in front of him was too attention grabbing and comical, he’d almost forgotten his previous fright after chatting with her for a bit. 

They didn’t chat for long before Director Dong’s call arrived at Hong Ming’s telephone extension. It was unknown what was said. He only saw Hong Ming ‘oh’ a few times before rushing out with the phone. She couldn’t even properly answer him when Qi Chen called after her, only leaving behind: “We’ll talk later!” Then she disappeared.

Qi Chen silently peeled the navel orange in his hands and thought: I only wanted to say you forgot to take off your face mask….. 

He calmly finished eating the orange, drank some water and prepared himself mentally. Only then did he straighten once more and lean closer to the screen, wanting to look at the image from the previous angle. 

This time, he adjusted it from all angles countless times. The only thing he didn’t do was turn his head upside down to look. Yet he didn’t see that pair of white upturned eyes again as if everything he saw before was an illusion. 

With the exception of that pair of eyes, the rest of Qi Chen’s day was very calm and leisurely. 

Actually, in the two or three days since he joined Guang He Company, he had always been a bit too leisurely with regards to work. The only thing that required physical fixing was Long Ya. Afterwards there wasn’t much serious work to do. Sometimes he saw the responsible people rushing around in the director’s office and had asked if there was any work that needed to be done. In the end, Ming-jie replied: “Don’t worry. Your work isn’t related to this. We’ll call you if there is anything.” 

Qi Chen had interned before during his four years at university and had stayed at many companies. They were basically all ‘I’ll use you in whatever way I can’ types. They definitely wouldn’t hold back when giving work. Such a sweet company like Guang He was really a first for him. 

So why did Director Dong recruit him who had no outstanding qualities? No need to work, just be a mascot? 

Although he was someone that was lazy to find things for himself to do, in this kind of environment where everyone was busy, it was truly a bit too shameless to be free by himself. Thus he would often go find Xiao Hei or other HR girls for some work he could do. 

Gradually, Qi Chen found that Guang He’s division of work was a bit strange. As for order, everything was interlinked. It was methodological and also quite efficient. But as for structure ——

As he helplessly watched material regarding a newly arrived cultural relic collection get passed onto human affairs, he really didn’t know how to ridicule them.

Regarding a company that delegated technical personnel to logistics, assigned earthen jars and porcelain bowls to human affairs, not walking the path of a normal company from start to finish, the only thing he could do was be… as … quiet… as… a… chicken.

Hehe, as long as you’re all happy.

The snow that started last night continued intermittently for the rest of the day and still didn’t show any signs of completely stopping. Outside, the ceaseless movement of people and cars still prevented the ground from accumulating snow. In contrast, the flower beds in Guang He Company’s yard were smothered with a downy white layer of snow. 

Qi Chen watched the continuously dipping temperature and the layer of icy residue on the roads, feeling very troubled internally. 

He was somewhat worried that if he accidentally sleep walked again tonight and went out of the company, he would discover himself having fallen into a bloody pulp with a few fingers frozen off when he woke up…….

He wrapped himself in the quilt with such brutal thoughts rattling in his head and slowly fell asleep. Luckily he had a dreamless night until he was woken by the buzzing of his phone on the bedside table before dawn. 

Long Ya/龙牙- Directly translates to ‘dragon tooth’. If you’ll remember its the name of the knife Qi Chen repaired in chapter 1 XD. Also worth noting that this Long is the same Long from Executive Director Long’s name hehe. 

Translator’s Corner:

Lmfao who in their right mind would choose to wear red to steal something from a museum 

Yohohoho surprise chapter hehe. I’m currently on holiday so I’m going to try to do maybe 2 chapters a week when I can. Next update will be Monday as usual XD.