Winter Time Rendering

Chapter 35: Chapter 11: "Want Want Breakfast Sausage

Zhang Shutong snapped out of it and was about to lend a hand, but then he heard Lu Qinglian suddenly ask:

"Is your fishing rod going to break?"

"It’s carbon fiber, it’ll be fine." But this wasn’t the time to worry about the rod; girls usually aren’t that strong. "I meant you should be careful not to cut your hands..."

"As long as it doesn’t break, we’re fine," the girl cut in, frowning.

With that, she gripped the rod with both hands, took a step back, raised her shoulder, and twisted her waist in one fluid motion. It was as if all her strength erupted at once. A massive fish carved a graceful parabola through the air before slamming onto the grass behind her.

"Is this enough to make up for it?" Lu Qinglian asked casually, picking up the huge fish without even looking at it.

"It’s enough..."

Zhang Shutong came to his senses, feeling a bit exasperated.

He touched the water that had splashed onto his cheek. Forget him—even his buddies on the side had been completely stunned.

’Who fishes like that anyway? You’re supposed to play the fish and tire it out first. She must have gotten lucky and used just the right leverage by chance, otherwise the rod would’ve snapped ages ago. Her luck is unbelievable.’

Zhang Shutong, feeling sorry for his fishing rod, just wanted her to stop.

"I was just kidding before, don’t take it so seriously..."

But before he could finish, Qingyi’s surprised voice suddenly came from behind:

"Whoa, a *qinglian*."

"What?"

They both turned their heads at the same time.

Qingyi paid them no mind, shining his flashlight and staring only at the fish.

"This has to be a *qinglian*, right? It’s my first time seeing one. How did you guys even catch it? Do we even have this species around here? Or maybe it’s a *bailian*. Hold it still, I’m gonna look it up..."

Zhang Shutong leaned in for a closer look too. "It really does look like a *qinglian*. Slender body, mouth set forward, and a short tail. A *bailian* would be fatter..."

Catching a *qinglian* in the winter was certainly strange. This type of fish wasn’t supposed to be active when it got cold. Just as the two were curiously about to study it further, Lu Qinglian suddenly snatched the fish away.

"*Qinglian*?" she asked crisply.

"Probably..."

Her next move was even more decisive. The girl deftly removed the hook, and with a forward toss, sent the fish sailing. It slapped the water happily with its tail, and as the ripples subsided, her soft voice followed:

"A *qinglian* can’t be your compensation."

Qingyi gave Zhang Shutong a puzzled look, but Zhang Shutong simply shrugged.

After that, Lu Qinglian stopped fishing. She returned the rod to Zhang Shutong and sat by herself, still as a statue, as if meditating.

Zhang Shutong could hardly say he was in the mood to fish anymore either. He casually cast his line, wedged the end of the rod under a stool, and got up to walk around.

He’d been thinking about going to comfort Du Kang, since Ruoping had just pulled him aside for some self-reflection, but it turned out the guy was gleefully digging for frogs by the bank.

’That made sense. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shot down. He must have some serious mental fortitude, or maybe he just had a big heart. As the old saying goes, "How can one relieve sorrow? Only with Du Kang." For him, Du Kang himself was the remedy.’

Besides, getting rejected when he confessed at graduation didn’t stop him from crushing on Lu Qinglian for another eight years.

Zhang Shutong decided to just leave him be, lest he run over and start asking a million questions.

He glanced at his phone. It was a quarter past seven. An hour had passed in the blink of an eye.

He looked around. Qingyi was focused on fishing. At some point, Ruoping had sidled up to Lu Qinglian, and the two of them were chatting quietly.

"Let’s head out at seven-thirty. We shouldn’t stay out too late."

Zhang Shutong called out to the group, not waiting for a response.

The sky had turned completely dark. The moonlight was dim tonight, and the darkness felt thick.

There were no streetlights out here. Without their flashlights, you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. It reminded Zhang Shutong of the old zombie movies he watched as a kid; maybe an ancient corpse would suddenly leap out from the reeds.

Soon, the wind picked up, sending faint ripples across the lake’s surface. When he shone his flashlight out, tiny specks of dust danced in the beam.

Everything around him was pitch-black, save for a ghastly white circle illuminated on the water. Within the circle, he could see some blades of grass drifting by on the wind. ’Good thing it’s just grass. A dead fish floating by in this darkness would be pretty terrifying.’

He strolled aimlessly along the lakeshore. With nothing else to do, his mind began to wander. He plucked a reed and waved it about, his gaze shifting from the ground at his feet to the opposite shore—

Their current spot and the "restricted zone" were positioned roughly like the one and three on a clock face. Too bad it was too dark to see anything.

’I wonder how my "trap" is doing.’ He also thought that if he succeeded in catching the culprit, the island’s entire history might change.

’There’s something I forgot to consider. Ever since Gu Qiuyan’s death, all construction on the island had ground to a halt. His daughter had been murdered. Back then, Father Gu probably didn’t care about profits or losses and just abandoned this place of sorrow.’

When he returned to the island eight years later, he had seen a sizable, unfinished building from the bus. That must be the shopping mall that was now under construction.

That was also why he had transferred schools after graduating from middle school. If Father Gu’s project had continued, his parents would have stayed on the island. He probably would have gone to high school in the city off-island with his buddies, instead of returning to his family’s home in the neighboring provincial capital.

His family was from the provincial capital to begin with.

’Thinking about it like that, my own life might change because of this.’

’But that’s getting ahead of myself. First, I need to confirm the culprit’s movements.’ Zhang Shutong decided he would ride his bike over to check tomorrow morning before school.

When he snapped out of his thoughts again, he realized he had plucked the reed in his hand almost bare.

A few more minutes passed. Zhang Shutong walked back to his fishing rod. ’Going by the rate Lu Qinglian was catching them earlier,’ he thought, ’there should be some action by now.’