PSP Chapter 20: Sin

Lu Qi: "Get up."

Shen Qingcheng: "I won't."

Lu Qi: "Qi Mei."

Shen Qingcheng: "She left." He boasted, "Lu-dage is really amazing."

Lu Qi: "Get up."

Shen Qingcheng: "Why are you so cruel? You won't even listen to my dying wish!" He stood up angrily.

Chen Ge, who was really worried that he had been accidentally injured, rushed over to him¹.

Meng Tianhai came over, clutching the bleeding wound on his arm. He looked at Lu Qili's knife with envy, and said sincerely, "You are very powerful."

Lu Qi tucked the knife back into his prop bag, "I’m just taking advantage of a prop’s power."

Meng Tianhai shook his head and didn’t speak further. He could see clearly whether or not his performance was due to the props.

Qi Mei didn't seem to wish to confront them head-on, and she retreated. Liu Wangyu, who was on the ground, saw that the danger had lessened momentarily. He gritted his teeth and said painfully, "I’ll be troubling you to give me a hand."

In front of him stood Zhou An'an, Xue Tong and Liu Zimei.

At that time, Liu Wangyu had run to the corridor to ask for help, and Meng Tianhai had been the first to come out. The people in the other rooms had only left their rooms when the movement outside ceased.

Meng Tianhai and Qi Mei had been at a stalemate. The defense items that Chen Ge had exchanged for couldn’t help at all, so he could only watch and worry. Besides, he was still afraid of ghosts, so his legs felt too weak to hold him up.

Instead, he stood by the side holding the props, guarding against Qi Mei's sneak attacks and cautioning Meng Tianhai. Zhou An'an, Xue Tong and the others didn’t step forward to help, all of them acting like only Meng Tianhai had exchanged for an attack prop.

In the end, who knew who had exchanged for what props, except for themselves?

Chen Ge sighed when describing the situation to Shen Qingcheng and Lu Qi, "If someone had given Meng Tianhai a hand just now, I’m pretty sure he wouldn't have been hurt so badly."

They had just come up from the hall. That night, Liu Wangyu and Montaigne had both been seriously injured, and needed to be treated.

Meng Tianhai had no choice but to perform some basic medical care, because the game restricted players from leaving the kindergarten. When he took off his shirt and Liu Zimei applied medicine, his back was covered in bloody scratched.

Meng Tianhai was injured so badly; Liu Wangyu was definitely not much better, but he didn't go to the hospital either. Everyone knew the reason why he didn't want to go: because he was afraid that no one would be able to save him when Qi Mei appeared.

Chen Ge suddenly said, "I don't want Liu Wangyu to be rescued at all." That scumbag².

Shen Qingcheng covered his mouth and yawned, "When will we be able to clear the copy?" He would go bald if he kept being woken up in the middle of the night.

They were about halfway through the mission time, and they still hadn’t figured out the cause of Qi Mei and Qi Anle’s deaths.

The kindergarten was such a big place. They had searched all the places they could, but they had never found anything new, so there must be some key information that had appeared but been ignored.

After resting a bit, it was time for breakfast. Mealtime could be said to be the most anticipated part of Shen Qingcheng's visit to the kindergarten. He got up a little late that day, but fortunately he didn't miss it. After washing up, he went to the cafeteria with Lu Qi and Chen Ge.

After eating, Shen Qingcheng sprawled out and rubbed his stomach. Chen Ge asked, "Lu-ge, what should we do next? Continue collecting clues?"

Shen Qingcheng waved, "You guys go, I don't want to go." He was tired.

Lu Qi: "Don't you want to know who lives in Room 606? I’ll show you."

Shen Qingcheng raised it a little, "I still want to know how you saw them."

Lu Qi: "Don't take a mile after gaining an inch³."

Shen Qingcheng muttered, "What are you talking about, I was doubting you would listen to me." Anyway, the possibility of it working wasn’t low!

They came to the sixth floor of the residential building again. The traces left by the old man in the corridor had been cleaned up, and the door of Qi Mei's apartment was closed.

When they had left that day, the door hadn’t been closed, and the blood on the corridor hadn’t been cleaned up. The young man was not a player, and wasn’t within the scope of the game’s refresh.

Chen Ge was stunned, "Someone came to clean?" Who would come here to clean? Was the blood in the keyhole last time was also cleaned by this person?

Lu Qi walked to Room 606 and knocked on the door. Before knocking on the door, he blocked the peephole with his other hand.

That sort of thing was more typical of Shen Qingcheng’s behavior. Shen Qingcheng himself stared at Lu Qi with a kind of amazement.

The old anti-theft door had poor sound insulation. They could vaguely hear the sound of slippers dragging across the floor through the door. The person walked to the door, and apparently tried to look through the peephole first.

"Huh? How come I can’t see anything? Is it broken?" It was a very old voice. This voice asked cautiously, "Who is it?"

Lu Qi didn't speak, and knocked on the door again.

"Who is it? I won't open the door if you don't speak." The old person was very vigilant.

Seeing that Lu Qi was uncomfortable and didn't know how to answer, Shen Qingcheng smiled narrowly, pinched his throat and said, "Water drop-off."

The old person was relieved, "You made a mistake, my household didn’t call for any water."

Shen Qingcheng: "Ah? Then I’ll just leave this bucket of water for you. I'm too lazy to move it. I'm leaving." Then he imitated the sounds of going downstairs.

The old person was shocked. They couldn't see what was going on outside, so they really thought it was a young man who had delivered to the wrong apartment and just left the water at their door.

“How can you just give it away? Don’t you want to earn money to feed yourself?”

As they mumbled, they opened the door, thinking that they might as well bring the water in first, and if the same person came to bring them water next time they could give him some money.

"You, you guys!"

Outside the door was naturally not a water delivery boy, but a big-tailed wolf pretending to be a little sheep.

The old person recognized them, and immediately tried to close the door. Lu Qi held the edge of the door, and no matter how hard the old person tried, they couldn't close it.

They recognized Shen Qingcheng, and Shen Qingcheng naturally recognized them. This old woman turned out to be the one who had opened the security room door for them that day. He looked at Lu Qi suspiciously, "Did you really see her?" Or was it just a coincidence?

Lu Qi: "Naturally, I figured it out through analysis.”

Seeing that the old lady couldn't handle these people, she simply gave up on closing the door. She picked up the broom beside the door and aimed it at them, "What the hell are you trying to do?"

Chen Ge saw the broom and blurted out, "Is that the broom for cleaning the corridor?"

"Old lady⁴, we just want to ask you something," Shen Qingcheng carefully avoided the broom bristles. "Just to let Qi Anle die in peace."

Pa. The broom hit the ground, and the old lady said dazedly, "What did you say? Lele died?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Five minutes later, the group was now seated in the living room of Room 606.

The old lady wiped her eyes and came out of the bedroom. After pouring a glass of water, she sat down on the sofa. She said, "I'm sorry, my grandson is still sleeping in the room. Please keep your voices down."

They nodded in understanding.

The old lady began talking, "Leilei⁵ always said that Lele came to play with him, but Lele was obviously picked up by his family, and I didn't see anyone, so I scolded him not to talk nonsense." She started wiping her tears again.

After crying for a while, the old lady calmed down and sighed, "Just ask what you want, I don't know much."

Chen Ge: "You cleaned the mess in the corridor?"

The old lady: "It was me. The children at home can't stay still, and they always like to run outside. I couldn't let them see that."

Lu Qi: "You said that Qi Anle was picked up by his family?"

Old lady: "Yes, that's what Liu-laoshi told me."

She explained in more detail, "After Qi-laoshi's death, Lele was taken care of by our family. About a month later, Liu-laoshi told me that Qi-laoshi's family came to pick up the child, and I personally sent Lele away."

"It’s my fault, it’s all my fault⁶, I should have known they were a bunch of beasts!"

Seeing that the old lady was beginning to lose control again, Shen Qingcheng quickly changed the subject, "Then do you know how Qi Mei died?"

The chattering old lady suddenly stopped, and after a long time, she spit out a word, "Sin!"

After finding out that Liu Wangyu, Li Guofu and the others were not single at all, Qi Mei decided to cut off her relationship with those people. She had saved enough money to transfer Lele to a school with the same conditions, and Lele no longer had to endure the bullying of the other children.

After Qi Mei made her decision, she had a showdown with Li Guofu, who had the highest position among them. She would accept her dismissal or Lele's expulsion from school.

At that time, which coincided with the Chinese New Year, vice principal Li Guofu, the dean of education, and Liu Wangyu came to the school to explain to her that Qi Mei had gone and been given a lot of alcohol that night.

Qi Mei was drunk.

Liu Wangyu urged the other two men on, saying that since it was about to end, they might as well go for a big play, so they helped the drunk woman back to Room 607.

At that time, Qi Anle was watching cartoons in the house, and when he saw his mother surrounded by tall, strong men, he was already scared.

The men had no sense at all, minds muddled with alcohol. Liu Wangyu kicked the child out of the house, but the room was not soundproofed. Soon, the mens’ non-stop foul language and the woman's struggle and screaming after being woken up filtered out, and Qi Anle stood blankly at the door, weeping loudly.

The old lady was awakened by Qi Anle's cries. She disliked the sight of Qi Mei, because Qi Mei was willing to become a degenerate, but she liked Qi Anle, a well-behaved child.

She put on her clothes and came out, and saw the child standing at the door crying. Combined with the voices from the house, how could she, who had had a long life, not understand? She wanted to pull the child into her house to avoid it, but Qi Anle refused to leave, clawing at the door and crying, "Mom, Mom".

Liu Wangyu was so upset by the noise he pushed open the door and came out, cursing obscenities and all kinds of foul words that were not muted by the door and kept drilling into Qi Anle's ears. He cried even louder, and tried to get to his feet and crawl into the room.

The old lady couldn't bear to let him see inside, so she picked him up and covered his ear. She tried to calm him down, and then carried him back to her apartment

Standing outside the door and being chilled by the wind, Liu Wangyu's mind cleared up a bit. He didn't go back, but tightened his clothes and walked straight away. On his way, he notified the security guard, Zou Kai.

Qi Anle refused to sleep. The old lady held him and sat at the door of the house all night, the person in her arms crying non-stop. She patted the child soothingly on the back, and whispered, "Committing a sin!"

"Sin."

The next day, Qi Mei was found dead on the sofa in the living room. Only she was left in the room, with a filthy body and a lingering strong smell.

TLN:

¹ There’s actually a bit more to the line (不瞒你说，我的j它自己放慢了速度。) but honestly, I’m not sure what it means, and it functions fine as a sentence by itself so I just excised it completely.

² Literally scum/slag man (渣男).

³ (得寸进尺) Threshold effect. States that making multiple small requests will eventually make someone more receptive to granting larger requests.

⁴ (老太太) Not as rude as it sounds.

⁵ (磊磊) Nickname in the same vein as Lele.

⁶ (怪我，都怪我) Literally “blame me, blame me”.

Well.