Chapter 38: [good Stuff]
The house had accumulated a layer of dust because no one had lived there for a long time.
Lu Jinzhao opened the door and saw the familiar room and furniture. Scenes from the past gradually surfaced before her eyes, but they were fragmented, jumping quickly, just like flashes in a movie, or as if someone was flipping through this memory with her.
The air was filled with the smell of dust. Lu Jinzhao raised her hand and waved it, first going to open the window for some ventilation, then standing by the window to look at the room.
Her relationship with her parents wasn’t bad, but it also couldn’t be called good.
Her parents were too busy. When she was little, they could still leave one behind to take care of her, but once she had some ability to take care of herself, the two of them were occupied with work and rarely home year-round.
In the memories of this house, most of the time, she went to school and came home by herself, cooked by herself, even though she was only thirteen or fourteen at the time.
The rare moments of the whole family gathering were probably her birthdays. At that time, no matter how unqualified these parents were, they would try to rush back to celebrate her birthday together.
So the Lu Jinzhao of her adolescence looked forward very much to the arrival of her birthday.
Until another birthday, her parents died in a car accident on their way back to celebrate it with her.
Her thoughts reaching this point, Lu Jinzhao closed her eyes and forcibly cut them off.
She returned to her own room, trying to search for some clues, but the things inside, aside from stirring up her memories of childhood and adolescence, were of no great use.
They were all some very ordinary items.
“Huh?” While flipping through the last few drawers, Lu Jinzhao found a already yellowed notebook with a very old-fashioned appearance.
The moment she saw the cover of this notebook, she vaguely felt it was familiar, but couldn’t remember what it was.
When she opened it and saw the contents inside, she suddenly realized.
This was her diary from the second or third grade of elementary school.
Because she had only written it for about half a year, she didn’t remember it very well.
Lu Jinzhao had tried writing a diary two or three times, but they all ended in failure. She wasn’t someone who liked “recording.”
Probably because her memory was good enough that, before, even without writing things down, she could recall many things.
But things from the second or third grade of elementary school were still too far in the past.
When Lu Jinzhao opened this diary, she had completely no memory of many of the things recorded in it.
Including what class she had today, what she ate, what happened with which classmate.
A very childish diary, hardly recording much useful information. The only thing that caught Lu Jinzhao’s attention was the frequent appearances of:
[I got sick]
Almost every few days, she would get sick once.
“I remember I did get sick often when I was little, but it seems like as I grew up, my body gradually got better.”
But childhood memories were too distant after all. She only had the concept of getting sick often, but now looking back at the diary, she realized it was so frequent?
[I got sick again. Mom said I shouldn’t have lent my clothes to Xiao Lin to wear]
[Mom doesn’t like Xiao Lin and told me not to play with her anymore]
[Got sick. Dad and Mom aren’t home, only Little Sheep is with me]
[I seem to have passed the cold to Little Sheep. Sorry, Little Sheep.]
[Little Sheep has been sick for thirteen days, longer than my cold. Mom says my medicine can’t be given to Little Sheep. Little Sheep has its own medicine. When will Little Sheep get better?]
[Feeling sick is so uncomfortable. I had a very scary nightmare. When I woke up, Mom was right beside me. Great, I’m not so scared anymore.]
[Mom went out again. I don’t like being with Dad. Dad always ignores me.]
[Dad is smoking again. It smells so bad.]
Looking at the rows of childish handwriting, Lu Jinzhao found it somewhat hard to recall the emotions her younger self had when writing these words.
After reading all the diary entries, Lu Jinzhao couldn’t extract any key clues from these childish words.
She put the diary into her backpack and turned to walk into her parents’ room.
She rarely came to this room. Perhaps because of some awkward estrangement with her parents, after growing up, her curiosity about her parents diminished a lot, and she never tried to enter their room to curiously rummage.
But she was familiar with this room. After all, she was often home alone year-round and had to clean.
Her parents’ room had few things, and the items were always neatly arranged, because it was often unoccupied.
They were constantly away on business trips, and there were very few things belonging to her parents at home—a few clothes, some documents. Besides that, the other miscellaneous items were so few they wouldn’t fill a suitcase.
The Lu Jinzhao of the past took this for granted. Now looking at the empty bedroom, Lu Jinzhao couldn’t help but frown.
Perhaps because she had experienced some strange things, now she looked at everything with some vigilance and scrutiny. She always felt that her parents’ attitude toward this room was like they could leave at any time, without leaving too many traces or attachments.
“Am I overthinking it?”
Lu Jinzhao shook her head, setting aside the strange thought in her mind.
She skillfully opened the bedside cabinet, where all the odds and ends were kept.
Most were useless items, but when she opened the bottom drawer, she made a new discovery.
Because she was the one who almost always cleaned the room, Lu Jinzhao generally knew what was inside.
Just
“Was this here before?”
She took out an iron box, somewhat doubtful.
A square one, not much bigger than a palm, a square iron box, or rather, an iron block.
Because Lu Jinzhao couldn’t find where to open it, it seemed like a seamless whole, but the weight was off.
Gently shaking it, she could hear something inside hitting against it.
“I definitely shouldn’t have seen this thing before.”
During the time her parents passed away, she had also meticulously sorted through this room.
In her memory, this iron box indeed did not exist.
Could it be that someone entered the house after she left and put this thing in?
Lu Jinzhao furrowed her brows and instinctively scanned the room.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t see anything unusual.
“.”
Lu Jinzhao was silent for a moment, took out the parchment, and asked, “Do you know what this thing is?”
This question carried a probing tone. She wasn’t sure what was in this iron box, but if it was just an ordinary object, the parchment wouldn’t react.
Lu Jinzhao had also thought whether her memory was affected by the parchment, causing her to overlook something, and this was indeed just an ordinary object.
But probing a little was no big deal.
In her heart, she still hoped the parchment wouldn’t react, so there would be no other suspicious items in her home, and she wouldn’t need to suspect her parents, but could look for other possibilities.
Just
The next moment after asking, a line of blood script appeared on the parchment.
[Good stuff]
[Give it to me]
The parchment responded thus.
