Ch49 – Search

Translated by: DMlations/Zryuu

Edited by: Amelea, FistFullOfDollars and Juurensha

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The movie started, so they began watching it. After it finished, Yu Hao was about to suggest returning to college to study when Zhou Sheng sat down in the flower cafe instead. He ordered two drinks, and asked as he sat opposite Yu Hao, “Do you have VPN?”

Yu Hao said, “I’ll buy one now ba.”

Zhou Sheng, “Here, open it first. Log in to my account; I’ve registered an account on Facebook before, but it’s too troublesome to breach the wall, so I didn’t use it. Your English is good, search ‘Takin’ and ‘Columbia University’ and see if you can find his Facebook or blog.”

There are hardly any secrets in the Internet age. Ryuusei’s name was relatively unique. Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng each began searching, starting with ‘Chen Yekai’ and ‘Columbia University’. Yu Hao asked, “Is this considered internet stalking? I really don’t feel good about this……”

Zhou Sheng’s mouth twitched, “Then do you want to watch another movie? You don’t mind if he dies?”

Yu Hao, “That’s still a bit……okay let’s just search ba.”

Zhou Sheng said, “I’m the one who asked you to search, so isn’t it fine if you just blame it all on me. Or I can search on my own and send you a screenshot once I find something? Then you can help me translate?”

Yu Hao, “Of course we should bear the responsibility together. I just think that……you won’t be able to find the information you want.”

Zhou Sheng, “That’s it then, what are you wasting time for? Just look for it first, okay?”

Yu Hao was just afraid of finding Chen Yekai’s……the thought had just occurred to him when it popped up: on the account of an overseas student, he came across a photo of Chen Yekai’s naked body……but fortunately, it was only the upper half.

Yu Hao held his forehead with one hand. Zhou Sheng said, “Let me see? Take it easy, it’s at a swimming pool. He’s wearing swimming trunks, the photo was secretly taken.”

Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng searched for awhile. There were quite a few sneak shots of Chen Yekai, and one of them was a group photo with a few girls at a party.

“Look at the comments.” Zhou Sheng said, “Search the comments.”

This was from almost four and a half years ago, and it was posted on Thanksgiving. Yu Hao searched through several comments, but never saw ‘Takin’ or someone he suspected as ‘Takin’, but he did find Chen Yekai’s account.

“Look at Kaikai’s.” Zhou Sheng said.

Chen Yekai’s Facebook was almost empty, with only one post:

“Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,

In sleep a king, but waking no such matter.”

Zhou Sheng, “What does it mean?”

“Thus, the time in which I had you was like a fleeting dream; while I was asleep, I thought I was a king, but when I woke up, I found that was not the case.” Yu Hao said.

Zhou Sheng, “It’s quite poetic.”

Yu Hao, “Shakespeare’s original text.”

Zhou Sheng, “I meant the translation is very good……”

Yu Hao, “It was translated by Gu Zhengkun Laoshi.”

Zhou Sheng, “Okay shut up ba, continue searching.”

Yu Hao, “……”

Yu Hao searched through Chen Yekai’s close friends. He didn’t have many of them, but he did have a lot of fans, yet not one of them was Nakagawa Ryuusei. Zhou Sheng continued, “Login to my Twitter to check.”

Yu Hao downloaded Twitter and logged in to Zhou Sheng’s account. He accessed Chen Yekai’s Twitter through his Facebook page, but all the content on his Twitter had been completely purged. Their sleuthing trail thus came to a dead end.

Zhou Sheng refused to give up, “Search ‘Nicky’ and ‘Takin’ as keywords, what about the cached versions of the webpage?”

Yu Hao had already searched through all that could be searched. Zhou Sheng said, “Check Ryuusei’s name in katakana. His name in katakana plus ‘Takin’, ‘Nicky’, try all possible combinations. Wait, see if Kaikai has any other nicknames? What about his email prefixes and domain names?”

Yu Hao, “Oh yeah!”

Yu Hao returned to Chen Yekai’s Twitter and Facebook and found the prefix of his domain name, and managed to find the domain name ‘Nick_0928’. He used this and added ‘Takin’, as well as Ryuusei’s katakana name as search combinations.

Yu Hao found a picture on Google.

It was the one he saw before — the photo Ryuusei and Chen Yekai had taken together below Iguazu Falls.

Yu Hao used google image search, and now they finally found it; Nakagawa Ryuusei’s Facebook. He didn’t even have a single close friend, and existed alone in the clamour of the lively Internet. Just like a solitary island isolated from the world, with no routes that can reach it.

On this lonely island, there were only two posts. One was the photo he took with Chen Yekai under Iguazu Falls, captioned with a Japanese sentence. Yu Hao copied it into an online translator, and learned that it meant “Beginning”.

The other post was password-protected. The title was in Chinese, and its title read “End”. A photo of a curtain with sunlight shining upon it was attached.

Yu Hao and Zhou Sheng sat opposite each other in silence. Zhou Sheng quietly looked at Ryuusei’s Facebook.

“Want to go and take a look?” Yu Hao asked.

Zhou Sheng put his phone down, “Forget it.”

“I guessed as much.” Yu Hao said, “That’s why from the beginning, I thought that you might not find what you were looking for.”

Zhou Sheng was completely exhausted. He looked at the sun through the french windows.

Yu Hao said, “He came to this world and left in the end. He felt completely disconnected from the world, and didn’t want to leave behind a single trace when he left. The only thing he wanted to convey, was his……farewell to his lover. He had a very calm frame of mind……”

“Don’t say anymore.” Zhou Sheng answered irritably, “I don’t want to hear you recall whatever because you can empathise with him.”

Yu Hao fell silent. Actually, he did have the same mindset before: this world was so noisy and lively, yet he was just a lonesome island. But eventually, Zhou Sheng opened up a route, and became the ship that sailed towards this island, and his world gradually became more and more vibrant.

Zhou Sheng tore up five or six packets of sugar in a row and poured them all into Yu Hao’s cup of coffee, then added several packets of sugar to his own as well. He began stirring it before saying, “Here, cheers! If there are good feelings between us, then down it in one shot!”

Yu Hao, “……”

Yu Hao had no choice but to tap his cup against Zhou Sheng’s and finish his coffee, “It’s too sweet, I can’t stand it.”

Yu Hao’s throat was practically on fire and it throbbed painfully. Zhou Sheng said, “Let’s go back ba.”

“What’s next? What should we do?” Yu Hao said.

Zhou Sheng shrugged, “This is bad, even General doesn’t know ah——”

Yu Hao looked at Zhou Sheng suspiciously, yet the corners of Zhou Sheng’s mouth slowly began to curve upwards. Yu Hao keenly took notice of this instant when Zhou Sheng seemed like he had had something up his sleeve……

“You must have thought of something!” Yu Hao said, “Tell me!”

Yu Hao looked at Zhou Sheng expectantly, and Zhou Sheng laughed.

“Aren’t you quite clever?” Zhou Sheng said, “I’ll test you. The clue is this letter. Think about it ba, if you can figure it out, I’ll cook a delicious meal for you later.”

Yu Hao was immediately distracted, “What will you cook?”

Zhou Sheng looked at his watch, “I’ll give you ten minutes. When it’s 5pm, we’ll eat at the college’s canteen.”

Yu Hao immediately said, “No! Let me think about it……letter, letter……”

“Uh huh?” Zhou Sheng leaned lazily against the back of his chair.

“This letter.” Yu Hao said, “Did you want to look at it?”

“Nope.” Zhou Sheng said, “But I’ll need quite a lot of cooperation from you later on, so I’ll get you to guess first.”

Yu Hao racked his brains, “Letter? What do we do with it? I……”

Zhou Sheng, “Why are you so stupid? If I don’t take a look at it, does it mean no one else can?”

Yu Hao, “So I’ll look at it?”

Zhou Sheng, “Who else is there besides us? I’ve already given away this much, if you still can’t guess I’ll really……”

Yu Hao, “Kaikai! Let him see!”

Zhou Sheng, “Yeah, but how do we do that? So let’s look at it from another perspective ba. Right now, no one knows what’s written in that letter, but theoretically speaking, who else knows?”

Yu Hao’s mind once again fell into a state of chaos. Zhou Sheng just watched Yu Hao and started to lose his temper. Yu Hao said, “But Chen Laoshi said himself, that he doesn’t want to open that letter because he can’t forgive himself……the one who wrote it will know of course……”

Zhou Sheng held his forehead with a hand. Yu Hao suddenly said, “Wait a minute.”

Yu Hao finally put it together and asked Zhou Sheng, “So I can ask the ‘Ryuusei’ in his heart, what was written in that letter?”

Zhou Sheng said, “Your IQ finally came online.”

With Zhou Sheng’s guidance, Yu Hao began making his inferences, “I sort of understand it now. Let me sort out the clues……” After a full five minutes had passed, Yu Hao said, “Firstly, Chen Laoshi doesn’t know what’s written on the letter, but in his consciousness, this letter must exist!”

Zhou Sheng, “Correct.”

Yu Hao, “Moreover, his impression of it must have been created by ‘imagining the contents of this letter’.”

“That’s the key.” Zhou Sheng said approvingly.

Yu Hao, “So, when the two of you find Ryuusei, I’ll have to ask Ryuusei! What’s written in this letter!”

Zhou Sheng, “Full marks, you’ve got it now? Also, we need to get him to hand the letter over, otherwise if we don’t figure it out, Kaikai won’t be able to die. He said it himself, that he would only open that letter on the last day of his life……”

Zhou Sheng got up to leave, but Yu Hao pulled him back. Zhou Sheng said, “Let’s go buy some groceries first ba, if we’re too late there won’t be any good ingredients left.”

Yu Hao followed behind Zhou Sheng. Zhou Sheng pushed the shopping cart, and the two of them were deciding on what to eat at the shopping mall.

The more Yu Hao thought about it, the more shocked he became. Zhou Sheng pointed to a chicken on the shelf that had been freshly slaughtered, “To amend a minor point: based on our previous operations, when we defeated the gatekeepers and arrived at the totem, we’ve always had to activate our trash talk, right? When we get to where Ryuusei is, I’ll mention that letter.”

“Then it’ll be your turn.” Zhou Sheng said, “We need to get Ryuusei to hand over his final letter.”

Yu Hao said, “But that’s the letter in Chen Yekai’s imagination, not the letter Ryuusei left him in reality.”

Zhou Sheng, “That’s right. How do you think he imagined the letter?”

Yu Hao said, “I……I don’t know. Perhaps, it would be something along the lines of ‘I’ll go ahead and wait for you at the other side of reincarnation’ or something.”

.Zhou Sheng, “Do you think he’ll encourage him and say something like ‘live well’? Or ‘don’t waste air by staying alive, hurry and come and die with me ba!’.”

Yu Hao fell silent. Zhou Sheng said, “That’s the key; it doesn’t matter what’s in that suicide note in the real world, what’s important is the letter that’s imagined in Kaikai’s world.”

Yu Hao, “If Ryuusei’s last wish was for him to live on, then in his conscious world, Ryuusei would to some extent no longer be that dark and crazy person.”

Zhou Sheng, “Yes——!” So Ryuusei’s power will be weakened and some of it might even be transferred to you.”

Yu Hao, “But if Ryuusei’s last wish was to ask him to die……then……then……”

Zhou Sheng continued, “Then there would be a discrepancy between the real Ryuusei and the one in his imagination. He would immediately realise that he isn’t the Ryuusei he loved, or at least not entirely. As soon as Kaikai’s beliefs are shaken, we will have a chance to defeat Ryuusei, because the halo he bestowed upon the ‘imaginary Ryuusei’ would disappear.”

“I’m very sure that the former situation will occur, because I remember he said before, ‘I know he forgave me long ago. I’m just afraid that after I see that letter. I’ll end up forgiving myself in the days ahead’. So Kaikai is very clear about his understanding of Ryuusei. Ryuusei forgave him in his letter and also hoped that he would be able to live on well. Let’s go and buy a bottle of soy sauce, why’re you in a daze?”

Yu Hao suddenly went on a tangent, “It’s not very nice if we cook in the dormitory right after Fu Liqun left ba?”

“Let’s buy some Cantonese sausages, and the remaining sauce would be good for some claypot rice……are you stupid! Do you think you’ll get to eat if he’s around?” Zhou Sheng said.

“You really are a genius, Zhou Sheng.” Yu Hao’s train of thought returned as he sighed ruefully, “How can you be so smart? How’s that possible?”

Zhou Sheng said, “Can you change up the way you praise me once in awhile? I’m tired of hearing the same thing over and over.”

Yu Hao, “……”

That night, Zhou Sheng washed the chicken in the dorm and lightly marinated it with some soy sauce, scallions, ginger, star anise, fennel, and sugar. Then he placed it in the induction cooker and added some soy sauce before cooking it. Yu Hao was rinsing the rice while Zhou Sheng offered some guidance from the side, “When you’re rinsing rice, wash it in a clockwise direction with a sieve. Once you’re done rinsing, lift the sieve immediately and wash the bran off the surface of the rice grains. Don’t rub it, or else you’ll break the grains. Wash it until the water runs clear, and the rice will have a luster to it after cooking.”

“Dry it after soaking it for awhile, and dry it until the rice grains turn white before adding water to it again to steep it. This is new rice, so it’ll be fine if you just soak it for about 10 minutes or so. If you want, you could even add two drops of sesame oil, you’ll probably like the taste.”

Zhou Sheng took over. He opened up a bottle of mineral water and added the water to it, then covered the rice cooker and waited for the rice to finish soaking, “Lock the door and close the windows.”

Yu Hao, “What’s wrong?”

15 minutes later, when Zhou Sheng uncovered the induction cooker and skilfully turned the soy sauce chicken over, Yu Hao knew why. Zhou Sheng wore a bored expression as he chopped up the Cantonese sausages and taught Yu Hao how to cut the sausages so that they would taste good. The sauce that was left after cooking the soy sauce chicken could be added to the claypot rice along with chicken oil……Yu Hao had already gone deaf. He only stared, transfixed on that delectable chicken through the glass lid of the induction cooker.

“Are the windows closed?” Zhou Sheng said in the end, “Don’t let others smell it, or else there won’t be any left.”

Yu Hao checked one more time. Zhou Sheng uncovered the lid and shredded the chicken with his bare hands. Even though he only filled two lunch boxes, he still shredded it neatly before pouring some scallion oil over it, then he opened the rice cooker and stirred the claypot rice.

“……sausages from Huangshanghuang are top-tier, but the best can only be bought from Guangzhou……fuck! Yu Hao! Where’s the chicken? It’s gone?!” Zhou Sheng was halfway through tossing the claypot rice when he turned around and half a box was already gone. He said angrily, “Leave some for Laozi!”

Yu Hao made a gesture as a signal to say ‘I’m not talking anymore I want to eat chicken’.

The two of them polished off a chicken and a pot of rice together. Yu Hao was very depressed that there was no crunchy scorched rice bits at the bottom of the rice cooker. After they finished the food, Zhou Sheng opened the windows to air out the room.

“Are you guys cooking in your dorm?” Their neighbors were already beginning to knock on their door, “What are you guys eating? It smells so good!”

“Who’s cooking?” Zhou Sheng shouted, “Laozi’s sleeping! Don’t be noisy!”

“That’s right!” Those from the adjacent dormitory came over as well and were all chatting outside their door, “The fragrance came from this dorm! Is it braised pork?”

Zhou Sheng, “The braised pork from your dreams!”

“Then why don’t you open the door?!” A few more knocks sounded from the outside as they shouted, “If you don’t open up we’ll knock the door down!!”

Zhou Sheng went forward and opened the door. A group of people from the opposite and adjacent dormitories came in and began sniffing about like they were huskies. Finally, they saw the dishes in the sink and just uttered a “fuck” before leaving in resentment.

Yu Hao, “I need to lie down for awhile. Quiz me again tomorrow ba, I want to eat it again……”

“Get lost!” Zhou Sheng said angrily, “What time is it in America?”

It was 9am on Chen Yekai’s side of the world. Yu Hao was worried that he may not necessarily fall asleep because of jet lag. Zhou Sheng said, “I’ll go into my dream to take a look.”

When Fu Liqun wasn’t in the dormitory, the two of them became much more casual with their words. Yu Hao asked, “If we enter his dream, where will we be when we wake up?”

“The same place.” Zhou Sheng answered, “Be prepared for it.”

Yu Hao, “Zhou Sheng……”

Zhou Sheng, “??”

Yu Hao spoke while in a lot of pain, “I’m too full, I can’t fall asleep……”

Zhou Sheng, “……”

“I let you eat so much, so forget it. Get up and rest for awhile ba.” Zhou Sheng said, “I’ll give it a try first.”

Yu Hao had finished half a pot of rice and half a chicken. He was so stuffed that the food was reaching his throat, but he had absolutely no regrets. He was still reminiscing over the taste.

Zhou Sheng, “……”

Yu Hao, “?”

Zhou Sheng, “I can’t fall asleep either……if I knew this would happen, I wouldn’t have downed that cup of coffee in the afternoon……”

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