Chapter 73: Anomalous Time 39

…Eh?

Yu Bai’s brain short-circuited for a moment, and almost on instinct, he handed the phone over. Just as it was about to reach Xie Wufang’s hand, a vague sense that something was off surfaced in his mind.

“Wait, aren’t you super annoyed by other—”

His fingertips, hovering in midair, began to pull back, but they failed quickly. The metal case, warmed by body heat, was snatched firmly by another hand.

Xie Wufang took the phone, not forgetting to instruct him. “Go sit over there.”

Yu Bai glanced down at his now-empty palm, utterly bewildered, but he lacked the rationality to think it through. At the same time, drawn by the rich aroma of hot chocolate, he looked toward the milk pot bubbling merrily on the stove. His attention shifted almost immediately.

The drunkard offered to help again with enthusiasm. “Then you make the call, and I’ll watch the pot.”

The milk pot was at a high temperature, the chocolate syrup and spoon both scalding hot, while the knives lay neatly gathered to one side.

Xie Wufang frowned.

“No need,” the man said curtly. “Go sit properly.”

“…” Yu Bai, his expression blank, murmured a soft response. “Oh.”

He had no choice but to turn back and obediently settle into the chair where he had been sitting moments before.

Perhaps because he so rarely saw Xie Wufang like this, the novelty made him unusually compliant.

But no sooner had he sat down than he sprang up again two seconds later. Xie Wufang, who had been about to answer the call, paused mid-word and turned his gaze once more toward the drunkard, whose intentions remained unclear.

Meeting that faintly puzzled look, Yu Bai said with some embarrassment, “…I’m going to wash my face.”

He had downed cola mixed with alcohol, and now he needed the bathroom again.

Moreover…

Just the thought of Xie Wufang talking to Uncle Li on the phone right in front of him felt weird. No matter how he turned it over in his mind, it was awkward.

…Like the fourth wall breaking?

But Yu Bai didn’t dare snatch the phone back from this version of Xie Wufang tonight.

After mulling it over, he opted for avoidance.

As long as the call wasn’t happening right in front of him, the fourth wall wouldn’t break!

Convinced by his own logic, the drunkard scurried hurriedly into the bathroom.

The bathroom was at least safer than the kitchen.

Xie Wufang didn’t try to stop him this time. He simply said, “Call me if you need anything.”

A clear voice rang out alongside the sound of the closing door. “…What could possibly happen!”

It carried a touch of lively dissatisfaction and complaint, drifting over from a distance.

Li Nanxiao had been waiting patiently on the other end of the line, absorbing their entire exchange. Only now did he speak. “I was going to ask you to look after Little Bai, but it sounds like you’re already doing that.”

Once Yu Bai had left, the magnetic voice that had been reasonably gentle in the receiver turned icy in an instant.

“Not a trouble,” said the man with the strange ID, his tone frigid. “No need for you to tell me.”

Even without facing each other, unable to see expressions, that intensely oppressive aura surged clearly across the airwaves.

A brief silence flowed through the receiver after his words.

A moment later, Li Nanxiao chuckled. “You know who I am, right?”

The young man named Xie Wufang replied, “Your surname is Li.”

“Correct. I’m Li Nanxiao—Nan from south, Xiao from brave warrior. Captain of the Criminal Police Brigade at Skystar City Public Security Bureau.”

After introducing himself, he asked calmly, “The identity you registered in the system is fake, isn’t it?”

It was phrased as a question, but his tone left no doubt.

The young man on the other end offered no reply.

Given the other’s clear antipathy toward him, Li Nanxiao took the silence as tacit confirmation.

If there had been any intent to refute or deny it, words would have come already.

Li Nanxiao wasn’t surprised by the attitude—rudeness by any normal standard.

He had already gauged the young man’s personality yesterday afternoon at the police station.

That black-haired man with blue eyes was special only when it came to Yu Bai.

The middle-aged policeman, sitting alone in his office, simply pressed on. “Yesterday, Little Bai said he suddenly dragged you out of the station because he spotted an anomaly in the sky outside the window—one that matched a dream he’d had the night before. He thought the world was ending.”

“But before he stood up to run, I recall he never looked out the window. And from the seat Little Bai was in, even glancing that way wouldn’t have shown him the sky.”

“As for that bit about describing his dream and novel inspiration…” The middle-aged man let out a hearty chuckle. “Pure nonsense.”

“Dragging you out of the station happened right as the sky anomaly appeared, and it vanished the moment he let go of your hand.”

“The sky’s color at the time looked a lot like your eyes.”

Here, the Criminal Investigation Captain posed his question in a tone that required no answer. “That sky yesterday afternoon—was it connected to the two of you?”

As expected, the enigmatic “person” on the line gave neither yes nor no.

The young man standing alone in the kitchen countered, “Did you know he was lying back at the station?”

“Yes,” Li Nanxiao replied methodically. “I can always tell when Little Bai lies.”

“Then why didn’t you call him out?”

A faint bewilderment crept into the cold voice.

Indeed, why?

It was no small matter.

And he was a policeman, bound by duty and responsibility.

Li Nanxiao paused in thought before answering with a touch of realization. “Because Little Bai hadn’t told a lie like that in ages.”

Not the sort like “I didn’t have time to cook, so I got takeout”—the kind pretending everything was fine.

But the kind where, after a cigarette mysteriously vanished from the pack in his pocket and smoke lingered on his clothes, the boy would grin foolishly and offer to buy him a cola, desperately covering up his mischief.

“Little Bai seemed so happy, so free… I hadn’t seen him like that in a long time.”

Li Nanxiao murmured softly, then corrected himself. “Maybe I’d never seen him like that at all.”

It was the first time.

Which made this the first time he had been an unqualified cop.

Amid the faint static hum of the connection, the young man’s voice returned, thoughtful. “You wanted him happy, so you lied too.”

The chill in his tone eased ever so slightly.

Li Nanxiao felt a pang of guilt. “Yeah. Little Bai lied, but so did I.”

Xie Wufang pressed, “When you said you wouldn’t pursue the ID matter—was that a lie too?”

The middle-aged policeman at his desk let out a wry chuckle.

He had no idea who this young man truly was, where he came from, or what he planned.

But he had no intention of asking.

For all his mystery and intimidating presence, there was something oddly innocent and pure about him—something utterly unlike ordinary folk.

The very innocence Yu Bai strove to shield, the kind that set him free.

“That wasn’t a lie. I truly won’t pursue it,” Li Nanxiao said honestly. “…I doubt anyone could, even if they tried.”

No one had the power to challenge that terrifying force which had altered the sky.

“Besides, Little Bai put himself between you and me. He was protecting you.” Li Nanxiao continued. “He hasn’t done that in years. You’re only the second friend he’s gone out of his way for like that.”

The first had been his childhood companion, Yan Jing.

The young man on the phone fell silent, though his breathing grew subtly heavier.

The Criminal Investigation Captain sensed keenly that the other’s mood had soured further.

He shifted topics deliberately, asking something he hadn’t planned to. “Will you hurt Little Bai?”

“No,” came the swift reply.

Li Nanxiao had suspected as much, but the unhesitating confirmation eased his mind all the more.

He followed up. “Will the world really end?”

“No.”

Li Nanxiao asked no more.

No delving into questions that might shatter his worldview entirely.

Better to remain the regulation-bound materialist.

Even if the apocalypse loomed, he’d stand his post and fulfill his duty.

The middle-aged man went quiet, but the young man on the other end spoke abruptly. “Aren’t you afraid of me?”

Another question posed as fact.

“Not particularly,” Li Nanxiao replied, snapping back. “This job doesn’t leave room for fear. And fear changes nothing.”

Every cop stepped out the door prepared never to return.

Xie Wufang said, “He is too.”

“Little Bai?” Li Nanxiao blinked, blurting, “I knew he wouldn’t fear you.”

“Why would you know?”

He asked directly and candidly, but Li Nanxiao on the other end of the phone fell into a daze for a long while before murmuring, “Because Little Bai has a lot of guts.”

The middle-aged man, with faint wrinkles already forming at the corners of his eyes, suddenly recalled the past—days when he himself had been a bit younger.

He had been held back at the station by an unexpected matter and couldn’t pick up Yu Bai for dinner on time. All he could do was apologize and tell the boy to wait at home a little longer, grab some snacks to tide himself over in the meantime, and he’d come by later.

The child on the phone had agreed readily enough. Yet an hour later, a small figure appeared at the police station entrance. He carried two full bags of plastic takeout containers wafting with the tangy aroma of sweet and sour pork, waiting there quietly all by himself.

He had brought packed sweet and sour pork for Li Nanxiao and the other familiar Uncle Police officers. Without making a fuss, he joined the suddenly overtime-bound uncles for some boxed meals, declaring that this counted as going out to eat.

That shop was tucked away in a deep, rundown alley. At night, it was nearly pitch-black with no lights, dark and foreboding enough to make even adults uneasy as they passed through. Normally, Li Nanxiao or one of his colleagues would escort him there.

He had never imagined that a child just over ten years old would cross half the city alone, navigate that shadowy alley, and come to see him—without the slightest hint of fear on his face.

Back then, in his early thirties and yet to experience the loss of a close family member, Li Nanxiao had been utterly astonished. He couldn’t help asking, “Aren’t you afraid of the dark?”

The boy shook his head. “No.”

“Whoa, guts like that!” one of his colleagues had teased with a laugh. “Not even afraid of ghosts?”

“No.” The young child smiled along, adding softly, “I’m actually hoping to run into one.”

“Huh?” The Uncle Police officers paused with their chopsticks midair, staring at him in surprise. “Why’s that?”

The little boy with his mop of brown hair hesitated for a moment, then said shyly in a quiet voice, “If ghosts really exist in this world… then maybe I could see Dad again.”

His words were timid, brimming with innocent hope and the unguarded longing of a child who hadn’t yet learned to hide his feelings.

Li Nanxiao had never forgotten it. That night, the sweet and sour pork had tasted unusually tart and bittersweet. It brought tears to the eyes of all the adults at the table, who turned away one by one to wipe them in secret.

Only much later, after he’d grown older and helplessly watched his elderly, ailing mother slip away, did Li Nanxiao truly understand the emotions of that young child on that distant evening.

It wasn’t the same as the courage and resolve born from his profession.

This was something deeper—a fearlessness toward ghosts and gods, even death itself, forged in the crucible of profound loss. From that point on, it became a quiet yearning for a reunion beyond the veil.

Yet some among them would rediscover the taste of fear.

Life was long, after all, and in time they formed new bonds: blood ties, lifelong loves… or dreams they swore to chase.

Others had nothing left but that endless, day-and-night longing.

And so Li Nanxiao thought that Yu Bai surely wouldn’t fear that mysterious, powerful young man—no matter who he truly was, ghost or god.

In a wistful tone, he replied to Xie Wufang on the other end of the line. “Little Bai has a lot of guts… He’s not afraid of anything. So I know he won’t be afraid of you.”

After a moment of silence, the young man with the icy voice asked again, “How did you know he’d been drinking?”

Li Nanxiao paused for a beat, then chuckled.

He must have overheard the exchange between him and Yu Bai just now.

Sharp ears.

Li Nanxiao didn’t yet know Xie Wufang’s origins or intentions, but his instincts told him this curiosity was a good sign.

Especially when it revolved around Yu Bai.

Patiently, he continued. “I’ve seen Little Bai drunk once before. His voice sounded just like that, so I put two and two together right away.”

“…” The young man’s tone turned a touch displeased, laced with curiosity. “Before?”

“It was years ago, the summer after he finished elementary school and before starting middle school.”

“My colleagues threw me a birthday party,” Li Nanxiao explained, “but really, they were using it as an excuse to celebrate Little Bai’s birthday. I don’t make a big deal out of birthdays myself, and he likes them even less—still just a kid, after all. Our dates happened to be close, so everyone seized the chance to throw him a secret celebration.”

“That night, we were all talking about him heading off to middle school. There was chatting, drinking—the mood was great. He gradually loosened up and sidled over to whisper if he could try a sip of alcohol too. After all, once summer ended, he’d be a little adult.”

Li Nanxiao’s voice warmed with fond amusement as he recalled it. “You should’ve seen him. Someone had stuck a birthday hat on his head, and here he was making this rare request—voice all soft, but his eyes shining bright. How could I say no?”

“Then he got drunk. Just like that.” Li Nanxiao laughed and shook his head. “Not even half a glass, and he was out.”

“Once he was tipsy, his eyes sparkled even more. He started clinging to everyone, chattering away. That night… well, ‘flattered and overwhelmed’ about sums it up. We’d never seen him so talkative, so outgoing.”

“After the birthday cake, I walked him home. He kept yammering the whole way, nonstop.”

It had been a summer night many years ago, under the dim glow of streetlights. Their shadows—one tall, one short—mingled on the pavement. The sturdy middle-aged man held the hand of the freshly graduated, drunken elementary schooler as cheerful words spilled along the path.

The adult’s palm was rough but warm, and in that hazy moment, it felt just like a father’s.

The little boy’s heart brimmed with joy. He gripped that hand tightly and, looking up, caught sight of the distant, beautiful night sky.

“For some reason, he suddenly asked me for the stars,” Li Nanxiao said. “I asked him which ones, and he said the ones swimming across the sky.”

“I didn’t quite get it, but he kept gazing at me with those sparkling eyes—looking from me to the sky and back—begging over and over for the stars up there.”

His voice grew a little dimmer here, touched by a soft sigh. “I wanted so badly to say yes,” he said. “But I just… couldn’t.”

He had longed to pluck the stars from the heavens for that child.

Sadly, it was beyond him.