The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

Before the story…

Relationships between humans are always filled with various contradictions.

A few indistinct figures appeared amidst the darkness on the opposite side of the humanoid.

“Enjoy the show~“

The open, black space was filled with the sound of music.

The painted piece of cloth surged into the air, fluttering up and down.

The sounds of a gong being knocked and banged gradually scattered through the air, carried away by the wind to a place swallowed in darkness.

With the loud hum of the electric generators, the shadows swayed under the reflection of the light.

The humanoid picked up the pace and began to brandish a weapon on the colorful stage as a demonstration with the supplement of a narration.

But there was no clapping below the stage.

The spacious area was filled with seats. The flickering shadows directly faced the nimble humanoid on stage, telling a story with music.

No matter how passionate the performance on stage was, there was no response below.

This was an evening show.

A haunted performance playing through the night.

“This isn’t just Tongyi pudding, you know. Let me, your Gē, introduce it to you. This was bought from whatever group buying thing that damned woman has been crazy about recently. Apparently this pudding was made by some famous uncle in Tainan.”

Yu Yin waved the package he had just gotten just now from a certain, annoying female friend. As soon as he returned home, he was excited to see the other person, who was sitting in the living room and watching some English education channel as usual. “I have every flavor. Didn’t you look these up several times online?”

Ever since discovering Xiao Yu liked gelatin desserts and pudding-like snacks, Yu Yin had paid particular attention to what that guy often browsed on the web. Just recently, he had managed to grab the website Xiao Yu had been looking up pudding on.

Summer had arrived.

And people became more hot-blooded with it.

As expected, Xiao Yu’s focus shifted from the TV onto the pudding. His usual blank face now seemed to show a faint, rare wavering.

“As usual, you just have to speak up if you want it.” Yu Yin had a wicked smile on his face as he opened the case so that the person in the living room could see that it was indeed filled with pudding.

Xiao Yu silently sighed. He really wanted to ignore this person’s senseless behaviour.

“This place is pretty famous~” Yu Yin refused to give up as he continued to wave the pudding around. But the game that he typically dragged on for a long time was ruined within two minutes by someone’s fist.

Yu Xia, who had come home early, had just stepped through the front gate to see his family’s son bullying a child. Without any warning, he knocked the head covered with a skull-covered bandanna. “How many times have I told you to not tease Xiao Yu! And what kind of crazy get-up is this? Hurry up and get rid of that shady stuff!” Yu Xia glared at the clothing that Yu Yin had quickly gotten into after getting injured. No matter how he looked at it, it pissed him off.

Don’t tell me this guy’s aesthetic sense was destroyed along with his brain?

“Hey, this is punk style, you know. It’s pretty popular these days.” Yu Yin looked down at his own clothing and shrugged. Actually, his style was pretty low-key, with just a few skulls, small pins, and a few thin chains, as well as the occasional strange totem. Aside from that, his top was pretty much the same as what he originally used to wear, and his pants were just normal jeans. It wasn’t like he had gone super overboard or anything. He had even seen others wearing tattered clothing, nose and tongue piercings, and iron chains, so he was pretty subtle as it was. There was just the addition of the bandanna on his head.

After getting hit in the head and having his hair shaven off for healing purposes, Yu Yin had resolved to never remove a bandanna or a hat until his hair was long enough to face other people. After all, he still had a pretty terrifying scar.

Yu Xia stared at his clothing and sneered, “You’d look better off with the style of a nobody.”

“What’s the style of a nobody?!”

As Yu Yin protested, he grabbed the puddings and brought them into the living room for everyone to eat. Since his uncle had come home early tonight, it meant he couldn’t tease Xiao Yu anymore…oh well, he had plenty of chances in the future.

“But Uncle, why did you come back so early today?” His uncle was famous for only going home to sleep. He hadn’t imagined a return before it was even six. It was really bizarre.

Yu Xia lazily shot the questioner a glance before taking a pudding and sinking down onto the sofa. “Someone from the higher ups came by the station for an inspection.” As soon as he had finished his tasks, he’d immediately high-tailed home.

“Pfft!” Yu Yin nearly spat out his snack as a look of understanding dawned on his face.

Ever since his uncle’s superiors had learned just how fierce their subordinate was, they would always plead for him to head home early or not go to work whenever there was news of an inspection. Although his uncle’s savageness was already very well known, and everyone was very well aware of his fame, it was still better to avoid having it show itself during an inspection.

Xiao Yu secretly let out a breath from his seat in front of the TV as he picked up a pudding and quietly listened to the other two chat.

Everything was just as usual.

After the case of the missing students was resolved, a large amount of media had flooded the campus, trying their utmost to publish a series of reports as exaggerated as possible. This included the parents crying about where their children were living every day, and grabbing random students to ask about the deceased’s behaviours. They even fabricating stories about how the bad students actually had tragic histories, such as how they had only started acting up in school because of their family backgrounds and such…

In this kind of situation, the reporters with sharper eyes obviously discovered the fact that Xiao Yu had transferred to this high school. Then, they had tried to use him as a topic to promote themselves.

Fortunately, Li Zi Hong had gotten ahead of them and contained the information flow. After some coordination with the school, Xiao Yu was temporarily deferred from studying to avoid the large amount of media, both photos and cover articles.

Somehow, the media had figured out that Xiao Yu had been taken in by the Yu family. Every day there was a reporter waiting in ambush near the Yu residence in attempt to get the first story. Sometimes they came up to Yu Xia or Yu Tong while heading to work. There had even been a time when Yu Yin had nearly crashed into a reporter who abruptly appeared out of nowhere and tried to interrogate him.

This had really caused quite a bit of disturbance for them.

Of course, Xiao Yu also knew of this and didn’t really go out anymore. He spent nearly every day at home either playing on the computer or watching TV and reading books. Sometimes he would also exchange texts with Fang Yi Xun. Since she also knew the situation, she did not really pay any visits either. She simply waited for the media’s interest to gradually fade and weaken.

Time would slowly shift their attention elsewhere. Once a new big case occurred, they would immediately become fixated on a fresh target.

“Ah Yin, are you going on break soon?” Yu Xia counted the days and thought about how it would soon the period when the rate of juvenile crimes would increase. It was always around this time every year when his coworkers in the transportation group would start trying to come up with solutions and tricks to hunt down people going off on joyrides. He had just seen two of his own colleagues mulling over this issue two days ago.

Moreover, people these days were getting worse. They had learned to violate the rules, and even tried to collide with the police, not even trying to protect their own lives. The most frustrating ones were those that involved hitting patrons. That was seriously asking for them to admit their weakness; if they didn’t do so, they would not be forgiven. It was no wonder that so many of his coworkers had recently said they could only punish those that could take being punished. Otherwise, provoking those that could not would definitely have a pretty miserable outcome.

If he had been there today, he definitely would have charged straight up to the other person to give them a good beating without caring about anything else. As Yu Xia pondered this, he tossed the empty box back onto the table.

“Oh, it starts next week. But we’ve already finished exams, so a lot of people have already gone for vacation by themselves.” Yu Yin bit down on his spoon and noticed the person next to him was no longer looking at the TV. He went ahead to change the channel to some children’s channel and said, “Ah Fang’s group said they would go south to some villa as a friendship trip. You know Lin Yue and Ah Guan already, and there are over a dozen people going total. They’ve rented out a private villa to play in, and they’ll head east afterwards for a dozen days or so as well.”

Yu Xia narrowed his eyes at his family’s son and said, “Weird, don’t you usually go along too?” If he recalled correctly, this brat loved participating in activities like these the most.

Things such as singing songs, barbecuing meat, running around in the middle of the night were activities he always participated in.

Because Yu Tong and Yu Xia believed their child knew how to act appropriately, they had never tried to particularly stop him. Fortunately, Yu Yin had never done anything actually excessive either.

At some point, Yu Xia had told his nephew that he had to keep his consciousness. If Yu Yin one day committed a crime, Yu Xia would definitely be the first to kill their family’s son…of course, he would be beaten first until he could barely escape death. After that, Yu Xia would flush the bone ash down the toilet and into a septic tank.

Yu Yin was very grateful that he simply enjoyed playing around and had never done anything bad.

“I also have things that I want to do this summer break. And fooling around with a bunch of people in a villa? I’ll pass.”

Yu Yin shrugged. Actually, he just didn’t really want to go wild outside with a bald head. As a result, he had planned his own activities for leisure over the summer break. There were a bunch of movies he hadn’t seen. A while back, his uncle had bought a game console and quite a few games that he hadn’t yet played. He could also extend his part-time job hours. In the end, there were quite a few things he could do. When he thought about it some more, not going out to travel and stay outside somewhere wasn’t tragic or anything.

“If you’re on break anyways, why don’t you see if you can bring Xiao Yu anywhere to play? We’ve gotten quite a few tickets to amusements parks and lodges recently, so you can go to those places when you have the time.” Yu Xia stood and walked over to draw up the window curtains in front of the French window, putting an end to the people using binoculars to observe them directly from outside.

Sooner or later, he would go out and beat up those bastards violating their privacy.

“Oho, alright.”

Summer had begun.

At that time, all that surrounded the small road in the southern area was jade grass that rippled and waved in the air.

The rainy season this year had been extremely short, and it was rare for the plants to be exposed under the strong sunlight instead of being destroyed by the annual monsoons. They grew lushly, swaying about with the warm breeze incited by humans.

The shuttle bus slowly traveled along the asphalt road that was practically steaming.

The heat warped the space, twisting the road and giving it a bizarre visual effect.

“So hot…how much longer until we arrive?” The girl who asked was biting down on a popsicle she had just bought from a convenience store. She wore only a camisole and hot shorts as she leaned against the car’s air conditioning vent. However, the cool air was still not enough to cancel out the intensity of the heat.

“Almost there, almost there.” The person driving calmly replied with a smile. He had long since gotten used to the blistering hot weather, as well as the complaints of travelers. He maintained his smile as he continued pushing the car forwards.

“Ah Fang, is Ah Yin really not coming this time?” Li Lin Yue asked as she kicked the front seat. She had been sitting on this small bus for quite a while now. The girl next to her was still chewing on a popsicle loudly, while Ah Guan, who had made a racket the entire trip, was just lying down now.

“He said you guys would definitely rip off his bandanna and tease him for being bald, so he stubbornly refused to come.” Ah Fang glanced out at the great weather outside before removing his earphones and stopping the music playing on his MP3 player.

Yi Tai was sitting next to him, quietly flipping through a book. He was completely unaffected by the noisiness of the bus and did not even seem to be ruffled at all by the periodic heatwaves.

“Hmph, such a pity,” Li Lin Yu grumbled in regret. She had originally planned to properly make fun of him. “But a lot of stuff has happened recently, after all.”

It had been a while since the brawl between the university and the high school.

Although the police had coordinated things with both schools to keep the matter under control and prevent the outside from over-embellishing the fiasco, there had still been a constant investigation for participants of the matter since it had ultimately resulted in a death.

The main target was obviously the impartial person that theoretically knew everything: Yi Tai.

But through some unknown methods, Yi Tai had made sure that nobody was in any trouble. They had not yet been pestered by the school either.

Big Camel’s group had nearly all quit school. Once the issue of drugs being on campus had been spread, many of the students purchasing the drugs had also been uncovered. The incident regarding the mob attack of violence had also exploded everywhere.

Some of the people that read the news report deeply felt sympathetic towards the health office nurse, bluntly declaring that even death could not wipe the sins of those students, and that the parents had wasted their time and efforts in raising their children like this. Some others heavily criticized the health office nurse, saying that her own child was enough pain; there was no need to put so many people through that same suffering. All kinds of opinions continued to circulate through the public.

Ah Fang shot a glance at his friend who was currently reading. However, Ah Si’s train of thought was cut when the small bus stopped. He looked through the glass window to see a lone villa standing amidst some artificial grass and an open field.

The building had an elegant, Japanese-style design. There was an outer wall erected around the artificial grass and open field. Behind the walls was running water, outdoor seating, and other various equipment for leisure.

Having finally reached their destination, the entire bus erupted with cheers. The small bus stopped, and the instant it opened the door, nearly everyone scrambled to rush off onto the artificial grass without even grabbing their luggage.

This was the beginning of summer.

The idea had first been proposed by Li Lin Yue. The plan was to start from the south and travel east. In the end, they had unknowingly gathered twenty people to join. This was enough to book the entire, isolated villa at a cheaper price as their first destination on their three-days-two-nights trip.

“This house is pretty good.” Yi Tai put his book down and slowly and deliberately picked up his own luggage and walked out of the bus once everyone else had left. He then went to stand alongside his friends on the artificial grass.

Although they had already seen the house online before, seeing it in person gave off a different feeling.

“I heard that the owner is operating another guesthouse about ten minutes away from here. You can rent bikes to enter the downtown area for sightseeing and night markets.” Ah Fang flipped through a tourist pamphlet. “This place is closer to the mountains. It would probably take around twenty minutes or so to get to the top from here. However, I’ve heard that it’s not very clean up on the mountains, and there isn’t anything enjoyable either.”

The villa they had rented was actually closer to the city outskirts. A row of woods and an open field separated them from other places, which meant it was quieter and less populated. There were some other similar villas and pensions nearby. The neighbouring hillsides, forests, and orchards were lushly green and formed a natural scenic view. It was well suited for visitors that enjoyed relaxing outdoors. The owner of this building also ran a pension and counted as one of the wealthier people in this area.

These past few years, people from the city had grown to value leisure more and had started to become accustomed to spending vacation like this. Rather than just choosing a hotel, they would choose from all kinds of different lodging options. It was possible that before long, people might even start running camp trucks or something.

“You’re better off properly sleeping at night.” Yi Tai smiled naturally at his friend and walked into the crowd of people to pick up the house keys from the one leading. The group followed behind him and noisily entered the villa.

The villa was fairly large in size. It had four levels and a total of six double bedrooms, one four-person room, and two five-person rooms. The first floor had a double, as well as its own separate storage closet. Every level had its own little communal area. Because it was Japanese-style, the common bathrooms included large bathtubs they could use in addition to the private bathrooms inside each room.

The more unique part about the rooms was the design of the sliding doors. There was a built-in lock on the inside of the doors that could be used to separately lock them. Every level also had a lockable door in the space between the stairs and the corridor to prevent others from intruding.

When they entered the lounge, they discovered that the house owner had already generously prepared snacks and drinks for them on the table. The refrigerator was filled with water bottles, and there were even common, everyday items prepared in each room.

The first thing the university students did once they brought their luggage in was to turn on the air conditioning in the hall to full blast. They comfortably sat or lay down on the chairs. A few excitedly grabbed their keys and raced upstairs to check out their rooms before shouting out in pleasant surprise.

“This villa was pretty cheap. The entire place only resulted in each person paying 3500 for three days and two nights, plus they’re supplying one barbecue dinner and breakfast. Such a good deal.” Ah Fang carried his luggage in hand as he scanned the house and said, “But who would have thought you would come along too? I always thought you had little interest in going out very far.”

Yi Tai looked at him and shrugged. “Occasionally going out is good too. Plus…”

Because the person speaking in front of him spoke too softly, Ah Fang tugged at the other person’s bag in confusion. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Yi Tai entered the last level and swung his keys around in his hand as he turned around to say, “Call me if anything happens.” With that, he walked into the fourth floor bedroom.

On the way here, he had already coordinated with the others to have a double room to himself. Because the villa could accommodate for more people than the amount they had in their group, the others obviously did not have any objections to this.

After all, every single person had more or less been helped by Yi Tai before. Moreover, quite a few people wanted to stay in the same room, so that naturally meant there were plenty of empty ones.

“Oh right, remember to inform the others not to use the double on the first level.” Yi Tai seemed to recall another matter, and he reminded his good friend, “The house owner mentioned to me before that the bedroom down there seems to have a mousehole. If you guys get bitten by something in the middle of the night, you’d better take responsibility.”

“Okay.”

***

“Lin Yue, why are you storing those keys away?”

A few girls giggled this question when they saw Li Lin Yue stow one of the room keys into the little bag she kept with her at all times for safekeeping.

“The rooms on the second, third, and fourth floors are enough for us anyways. Yi Tai said the double on the first floor hasn’t been cleaned. Plus, since the first floor only has that one bedroom, having one or two people living there is a bit scary, so we should just leave it closed,” Li Lin Yue explained, and tossed a pillow at her female companions fooling around.

“Ohhh, is that how it is?”

“Yep~”

The five-person room was set up like the other rooms. The walls were all paper with wooden frames, but only one face could open as a doorway. The other three were fake, and the wooden frames were actually walls. The sound-proofing was pretty decent too, as one could not hear noise from the other rooms.

“This place really is awesome.” A few girls took out their cameras and began to link shoulders with each other to take some selfies.

“Mhm, I saw it on the travel sheet, but didn’t expect to get it at such a favorable price. It’s really great. Looks like the rest of our trip east will go well too.” Li Lin Yue zipped her bag up and quickly ran over to join her friends taking photos of the rooms at different angles.

“Oh right, do you guys…have any objectives this time?”

It wasn’t certain who started this topic. Of the twenty students, eight of them were female and twelve of them were male. Aside from the two couples present, there were obviously quite a few that had fantasised about what to do on this trip.

Although they were all from different classes, they had mostly all hung out together before, or had mutual friends. As a result, it was inevitable for them to look forward to a trip of companionship like this at their age.

They were not exceptions.

“Want to walk around downtown tonight?”

“I think the boys said they wanted to circle around the mountains, since it seems we are nearby? We’re here anyways, so might as well all walk around together…”

“Haha, starting with something boring…”

After noisily fooling around for a bit, they organised their luggage and walked back downstairs.

The others also finished arranging their things and began to disperse around various parts of the villa. The snacks that had been prepared for them earlier had already been completely ravaged; only a small amount remained.

The two couples went off to their own places to whisper sweet nothings to each other, while occasionally being teased by others for cranking up the heat and such.

At one in the afternoon, after finishing the supplied lunch, the entire group grandiosely headed out to rent bicycles at the pension.

The university always let out earlier than grade school, and they had all chosen to skip a few days of class to arrive extremely early. As a result, they had avoided the booming season and there weren’t many tourists. As they walked along the small path, they would sometimes brush past some locals, so they obviously did not hold back and made sure to ask for sightseeing information.

The people in the south were all very friendly. So when Li Lin Yue’s group walked through the small woods and arrived at the nearby pension, the notebooks in their hands were already filled with lists of night markets and some scenic spots their tour pamphlets had not mentioned.

“Did Yi Tai not want to go out together?”

While the others were carrying out the formalities, Li Lin Yue sat with Ah Fang, who was leading the group of boys, to idly chat. “So frustrating. And here I’d thought that I could finally manage to invite him…”

“So from the beginning, your hunting target was Yi Tai?” Ah Fang swirled his canned beverage as he glanced at the school flower next to him.

Li Lin Yue wasn’t famous for just her face, but also her omnipotent methods for making friends with both males and females alike. Although she changed boyfriends quickly, there were not many who evaluated her negatively. Most of her counterparts would continue to be friends with her after breaking up.

This was something that everyone in the school knew.

“Yep, seems to be pretty challenging?” The girl swiped away the canned drink, finishing the little amount of sports drink remaining. The other person did not particularly mind.

“With regards to certain aspects, it might be faster if you tried to hook up with someone training to be a monk.” He truly believed this.

“Is that so? What a pity. And here I was hoping to succeed this summer vacation.” She rested her hand on her chin as she passed the empty can back to its owner. “Then how about I change my hunting target to you? A hot-blooded basketball captain?”

“I’ll pass. I would definitely waver, so I beg of you to please look for someone else.” Ah Fang stood up to place the can into the recycling bin.

“Everyone knows that before Yi Tai joined the school, you were originally the mediator at school. If I don’t catch you, who else would I catch?” Every school always had people like this: someone to look towards, who didn’t lean too heavily on black or white; someone who could communicate between two sites and help settle matters impartially. Although nobody necessarily voiced this, they were all well aware of it.

These kinds of people, who could be said either as skilled at dealing with or settling matters, always wandered around schools.

“Save your breath. You’re popular everywhere, so no need to praise others, thanks.” Ah Fang stopped the topic of whether to hook up with someone or not. He actually also thought it was a bit unusual for his friend to join as well. Ah Fang then stood up to survey the pension, which was different from the villa they were staying at. This guesthouse was actually a specialised lodging that had a more ordinary design and was said to be able to accommodate up to fifty or sixty people.

From this, it was evident that the owner of this pension really had quite a bit of money. The houses on both sides took up quite a bit of space, and neither seemed to be very cheap.

The owner was a middle-age husband and wife who appeared to be in their fourties and on the skinnier side. They did not really have any friendly chats with their customers, and simply corresponded politely. However, their service was not of any less value than expected. While helping the students go through the rentals procedure, they were also serving some other clients and helping them arrange some plans. Both sides were properly taken care of.

An extremely large painting hung at the very end of the hall.

Li Lin Yue tilted her head as she scrutinised the oil painting of a landscape. It was a very normal type of painting that had no special characteristics to speak of.

“Xiao Yue, we’re done. Let’s go.” After standing there in a daze for what seemed to be a very long time, but may not have actually been long at all, a girl that she usually hung out with walked over to pat her shoulder. “What are you looking at?”

“Mm…nothing.” Li Lin Yue stood up and nonchalantly swung her bag up as she giggled to her friend as they walked out, “Yi Lin, has anyone caught your fancy on this trip?”

The long-haired girl named Yi Lin sniggered and elbowed her good friend. “Don’t tell me you want to try catching Yi Tai?”

“Yeah right, there’s no way I could.”

“Haha…that’s exactly what I said before…”

***

Summer had arrived.

Unlike the city, there were small, pink butterflies fluttering around and sipping all of the honey from the wild flowers growing along the path.

He could hear the sound of people giggling outside.

“Are you not going to go down and play?” His friend that usually led the playing around was standing at the doorway. “We’re going to go take bikes to circle around the area a bit.”

“I’m fine, I will just watch over the luggage. You guys should be careful, make sure to not get into fights with the wild youths or the delinquents here. It would be troublesome to try gathering people here.”

“…Don’t tell me you’re feeling uncomfortable because of the different environment?”

“Not particularly.”

Ah Fang closed the door and hummed a tune as he walked down the stairs. “Yi Tai said he won’t be going, so we can just head out once we’re ready.”

“Huh? What is he going to do shut in on the second floor instead of going?” A boy shouted out.

“Don’t tell me he secretly brought some good things for himself?”

“As if. Let’s just go out ourselves.” Ah Fang directly jumped down from the top floor and shouted, “Come on, hurry up. I’ll kick anyone still lying down. We’re meeting up outside in ten minutes! If you’re not there, you’re standing us up…Ah Guan, what are you still fooling around for!”

Ah Guan had been crouching down in front of the double bedroom next to the living room, and was just about to push the door open. He awkwardly chuckled, “I’m not doing anything, I just wanted to see if there were really mice in this room.”

Once he said this, a few other students gathered around as well. “That’s right, we haven’t looked inside this room yet. They only said we couldn’t live inside, not that we couldn’t look. Maybe it’s a VIP room. Where is the key? Quickly take it out so that we can check.”

As the entire crowd began to foolishly hoot out, Li Lin Yue took out the key from her bag. A random person grabbed it and opened the lock on the door.

After emitting a somewhat unnatural dragging sound, the door creaked open with a shove.

Faint, unusual noises came from the dusky room, as if something was underneath the floors. The stale odour that resulted from the room being sealed for so long assailed their nostrils.

After turning on the lights of the room, the dim yellow glow quickly chased away the darkness, illuminating the relatively small space. It wasn’t really any different from the other rooms. There were wooden-framed fake walls on all sides, and a small cabinet with pillows and blankets neatly folded inside. There were even tatami mats on the twin-sized bed, and an entire bath set on the bedside table. There was also a small TV and such, which was identical to the other rooms.

“Huh? This room doesn’t have a bathroom.” Li Lin Yue looked around and noticed the difference.

“Probably because the first floor has a public bath and bathroom, they didn’t bother building another.” Some others all began to chatter among themselves in discussion. “Seems like there really are mice, there’s noise coming from underneath the floor boards.”

The faint chitters never stopped, only stopping a bit when they were all loudly speaking before quickly continuing again. With a prankster’s curiousity, some purposely neared the bed and stomped hard on the place where the noise seemed to originate. The things actually did run off. “There are probably water pipes underneath, the mice run crazy fast.”

“Alright, stop fooling around. Hurry up and scram out of here now.” Ah Fang pushed his noisy friends out before turning off the light and stepping outside himself.

When he turned around, he saw Li Lin Yue, who had stayed behind to lock the door, was staring blankly at him.

“What’s wrong?” Ah Fang asked in bewilderment after walking out of the abnormally dark room.

“There’s nobody inside, right?” Li Lin Yue stuck her head in to glance around in the darkness before pulling the door shut to lock it. “When you switched off the light, I thought there was someone sitting on the bed.”

“You were probably just mistaken, the room was super dark. I have no idea how they designed it, seeing as it doesn’t even have a window to let some air in.” Ah Fang had been standing next to her as he watched the door close on the darkness that was the exact opposite of outside.

After confirming the door was properly shut, Li Lin Yue rotated the key a few times. She furrowed her brows and said, “Why does the key seem to be…locked…crap!” With a shout of alarm, she pulled out the remaining half of the key. “Damn, now we’ll definitely get in trouble with the owner.”

Ah Fang looked at the broken key and coughed. “I think we should just talk to the cleaning people tomorrow morning. At most, we’ll have to pay for the key. This kind of lodging always has spare keys anyways, so we can come back later and get rid of the other half stuck inside.”

“That’s true too.” Li Lin Yue placed the snapped key inside her pocket and quickly brushed the matter aside to go laugh around with others. Chatting together, they walked out the front door.

The clamour from the large group of youths outside on the grass could be heard even from inside the house.

About five minutes later, the sound of bikes gradually grew distant, with the occasional joyful shouts, both male and female. Slowly, they disappeared off on the other side of the field.

A breeze blew past from outside, causing the windchimes hanging outside on the balcony to ring with a clear and crisp tinkle.

The person left inside the house crossed the ice-cold floor and walked down the stairs. He then saw the mess of things tossed all over the living room and put them back in their rightful places.

“Sigh, there isn’t even any water left.” He shook the water cooler, which only gave an empty swishing sound. After circling around, he automatically went to the kitchen to start boiling water. After preparing some tea with the teabags the owner had left for them, he walked out to sit in a scenic seat in the yard and leisurely flipped through a provided magazine.

In reality, coming out like this once in a while wasn’t bad at all.

A wind blew through the house.

The chittering noise never stopped inside the dark bedroom from the beginning.

An unusual metallic sound came from under the door. Without anyone watching, the room shook a few times, and the originally blocked keyhole was cleared from the other side.

A certain noise covered the chittering, spreading out from the keyhole that passed through the darkness. A low hum of vacuum avariciously sucked in the wind from outside the living room, like a person’s desperate breath of air after being released from a stranglehold. Once it grew satisfied, it slowly…slowly…left.

The windchimes crisply rang out once more, suddenly shattering the round surface that the reflection of light could not reach.

Summer had arrived.

Actually, this was just the beginning of the season.