Shen Zhizhao glanced at the time.
Having long been accustomed to insomnia anyway, he got up, turned on the computer in front of him, and brought up the screen.
Several surveillance camera feeds along the street near the Shen family residence, installed at tricky angles, covered all the necessary routes in and out.
Shen Zhizhao had pondered a question: why was she able to travel through time and space?
She couldn't possibly be some elven mage. From a realistic standpoint, such an ability would come with a price, but what was the trigger?
Unable to sleep, Shen Zhizhao stared at the surveillance footage like a stalker, ready to see Shen Yi's movements.
He was originally just keeping his usual watch, but unexpectedly made a surprising discovery.
Approaching one o'clock in the morning, Shen Yi was carrying a suitcase, her back looking exceptionally resolute.
Seeing this, Shen Zhizhao picked up his phone and dialed Shen Ruxu's number.
It rang three times.
Shen Ruxu's mumbled voice came from the other end, Hello... do you know what time it is...
Help me check all the surveillance cameras along the road.
Shen Ruxu was deep in sleep at this hour, and his tone was impatient when he was woken up.
But Shen Zhizhao's next sentence made him sit right up—
Xiaoyi went out in the middle of the night carrying a very large suitcase.
The other end of the line went quiet for two seconds.
Shen Ruxu let out a soft sigh, his voice carrying his signature half-joking exaggeration: She isn't secretly dating, is she? Going out in the middle of the night?
Shen Zhizhao didn't speak.
Shen Ruxu continued on his own, muttering to himself, getting more and more outrageous: Is she carrying a suitcase to dump her boyfriend's body? She should have told us if she was going to dump a body.
Shen Zhizhao gave a faint, mocking smile: Shen Ruxu, would it kill you not to be glib?
Shen Ruxu stopped joking. He sat up, ruffled his hair, and quickly pulled up the surveillance feeds from all the surrounding corners.
Going through the roadside cameras frame by frame, the taxi traveled through the early morning streets, its final destination locked onto a construction site.
There were no surveillance cameras near the construction site.
Beyond a certain range, the footage cut off, making it impossible to check any further.
Seeing that there was no additional footage.
After pondering for a moment, Shen Ruxu directly pulled up the most recent surveillance footage of their home. He found that around three o'clock, Shen Yi returned alone, riding a bike.
She didn't look too good in the footage.
Compared to her resoluteness when she left, the returning Shen Yi looked like a dejected house cat.
Like one that boldly ran out to wander, only to get beaten up by stray cats and slink back home with its tail between its legs.
Even the way she rode the bike exuded a sense of grievance.
Shen Ruxu let out a soft sigh, the heartache in his voice almost overflowing from the receiver: So pitiful. What on earth did she go do?
Poor Xiaoyi.
He really wanted to rub her head, pull her into his arms and hold her, and ask who had bullied her so he could go bury them.
Meanwhile.
Shen Zhizhao also began to repeatedly ponder a question.
The last time Shen Yi appeared in front of him was when she was seven years old. At the time, he thought it was just a chance encounter, or perhaps destiny.
But two consecutive encounters.
That wasn't a coincidence; there must have been a trigger.
She was so small when she was seven.
What did she do to be able to travel through time?
Shen Zhizhao lowered his eyes, deep in thought.
Both times she appeared, it was perhaps related to death.
And stuck at a perfectly delicate moment.
Shen Ruxu said on the other end of the phone: Xiaoyi came home past three. There's no surveillance near the construction site she went to. I'll send someone to take a look. Just in case she really dumped a body, we can help clean up the mess.
Hearing his younger brother's voice, Shen Zhizhao suddenly remembered.
Shen Ruxu...
He usually didn't know how many troubles he had smoothed over for this reckless beagle of a younger brother, but there was one exception.
He was saved by Shen Yi.
He remembered that at the time, she had also told him that she had killed someone.
Shen Zhizhao leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.
The trigger for her returning to the past couldn't be killing someone.
Killing couldn't be the trigger.
The reason was simple—Shen Yi took plenty of assassination contracts later on.
If killing someone could trigger something, she would have triggered it no less than a hundred times already.
Then what was the condition for time travel?
Was it related to death? Whose death exactly caused her to time travel?
Once these extremely coincidental events were put together, it was hard for him to ignore the pattern among them.
While Shen Zhizhao was still brainstorming on his end,
Shen Ruxu on the other end was exceptionally curious after checking the roadside surveillance.
What exactly did their house cat do when she ran out?
The subordinate sent out in the middle of the night quickly gave him feedback: There's just a corpse at that deserted construction site.
Died pretty miserably. He took a photo and sent it over.
Shen Ruxu studied the dead man's state.
Oh, his house cat killed someone.
How nice.
Out of professional habit, Shen Ruxu first went to pull up the dead man's background profile.
It would have been fine if he hadn't checked.
But upon checking, he found that the man's identity was actually fake.
Shen Ruxu immediately followed the clues to investigate the man's life, discovering that this seemingly ordinary man actually had quite a background.
After repeated investigations, when Shen Ruxu confirmed the man's identity, his heart almost skipped a beat. He sent all of White Sparrow's files to his eldest brother, unable to conceal his astonishment:
Xiaoyi killed White Sparrow.
Shen Zhizhao didn't respond for a long time, rarely immersed in shock himself.
White Sparrow's photo was attached to the first page of the file, an extremely ordinary male face.
But the dense records below the file clearly stated what this person had done and how many people he had killed.
It wasn't that Shen Zhizhao looked down on his sister.
But someone like White Sparrow, who could hold the position of eternal second place, was simply not someone she could deal with right now.
Besides, this man had been missing for many years. How did she end up going out in the middle of the night and confronting him?
Yet this impossible thing had actually become reality.
White Sparrow was dead.
Killed by Shen Yi.
Then what was the connection between him and Shen Yi's time travel?
Shen Zhizhao's intuition told him there was definitely a connection. He immediately wanted to contact their parents or talk to the family about this issue.
He wanted to say that he had seen her before.
And more than once.
But these words rolled around in his mouth and ultimately made no sound, and...
The things he had wanted to say were suddenly forgotten in his mind within a short period of time, as if they had been forcibly erased by someone.
Shen Zhizhao decisively shut his mouth, realizing that this kind of topic was absolutely impossible to speak aloud.
To avoid backfiring, he changed his phrasing: When Xiaoyi was seven, what did you and she go through?
Mentioning this, Shen Ruxu's tone became serious.
He carefully recalled the past, his tone exceptionally cherishing, For my sake, she killed someone.
Shen Zhizhao: ...Let me ask you, that time, if it weren't for her, would you have died?
Shen Ruxu lightly bit the corner of his lip, pressing it into a slight curve.
Bringing up the incident where he almost died, his first reaction wasn't fear, but happiness, I would.
Without her, I absolutely would have died alone.
He was very certain.
Shen Ruxu couldn't imagine how he would have survived back then, nor did he have a strong desire to live. Being saved by her, he naturally became her person.
Shen Zhizhao suppressed the emotions in his eyes, his knuckles turning white.
Last time, she might have done it for Shen Ruxu.
...Then what about this time?
Shen Ruxu could sense his older brother's hesitation, but he had no idea what his brother was holding back.
In the end, Shen Zhizhao didn't say much more to Shen Ruxu.
Right now, he needed verification:
"Think back carefully. Tell me everything that happened the year she was seven, down to the very last detail."
"I will," Shen Ruxu replied.
Neither brother would get any sleep tonight.
They both threw themselves into investigating the incident sparked by their sister's late-night murder.
