Chapter 285 - Chapter 285: Chapter 285: What a Pity (1/2)

Chapter 285: Chapter 285: What a Pity

Translator: 549690339

Yesterday morning, Xiang Kun suddenly asked Xia Libing about the topic related to her dreams and kept probing, making her realize that Xiang Kun, through some means, seemed to have started touching on her secret.

So, she also planned to adopt a more direct strategy to observe and even test Xiang Kun.

The conversation in the car was the specific implementation of this strategy.

Based on Xiang Kun’s reaction, her speculation about his activities the previous night seems to be in the right direction.

But Xiang Kun didn’t show any signs of panic or nervousness, nor did he offer any rebuttal or explanation. While she made her guesses, his responses were more of surprise and astonishment.

There could be two possibilities for this.

One is that although her guess is in the right direction, due to limited information, the results of her speculation are also limited, and she is far from “uncovering” the “hidden” secret of Xiang Kun, so he is not worried.

The other possibility is that Xiang Kun feels it doesn’t matter even if she “uncovers” his “hidden” secret.

Comparatively speaking, she felt the first possibility was more likely.

What exactly did Xiang Kun do last night?

Or rather, what has he been doing these few nights in Tongshi Town? – Xia Libing now has reason to believe that the previous few days he returned home early in the morning with breakfast were not for going jogging, but for being out all night doing “business”.

What kind of work requires a man to go out alone in the middle of the night?

Going by his actions, could he possibly be heading into the mountains?

Is it possible he’s not eating enough usually, so he’s going to the mountains to “hunt” and cook in the middle of the night?

Or perhaps, it’s related to the tourist falling off the cliff at Wushu Mountain Scenic Area on the day she arrived at Tongshi Town? Has he been investigating this “accidental event” for several nights in a row? Considering his previous arrest of a fugitive on the street, it’s entirely possible.

Xia Libing shook her head. The available information was too scant to make an accurate judgment. She could look into the news of the accident at Wushu Mountain later.

Her attention returned to the paper in her hand, wondering about the meaning of the pattern on it.

As she was thinking, a little girl who appeared to be in kindergarten next to her exclaimed, “Sister, you’re so amazing…”

Xia Libing looked at her and found her staring at her left hand flipping a coin quickly.

The little girl’s parents next to her quickly pulled her, “Don’t disturb sister”, and then smiled apologetically at Xia Libing.

After some thought, Xia Libing stopped flipping the coin in her hand and smiled back at her and the little girl. Of course, this smile was much more natural than the smile she showed to the college student who tried to hit on her a few days ago at the station.

The little girl turned back to look at her mother, then at Xia Libing, and whispered to her mother, “Sister is very pretty and her painting is also very nice.”

Xia Libing heard what the little girl said. She didn’t care about the first half of the compliment and grew interested in the second half, talking to her, “Are you talking about this drawing?” Saying that, she unfolded the piece of paper with Xiang Kun’s black circle graffiti in front of her.

The little girl looked at her and nodded, “Yes!”

Xia Libing asked, “What do you find attractive about it?”

The little girl’s parents couldn’t help but feel a bit strange, thinking that this beautiful young woman with a unique aura seemed to think differently from ordinary people.

Usually, when a girl receives a compliment from a child, whether it’s about being pretty or drawing well, they would just say thank you and that’d be the end of it. But why would she ask “What do you find attractive?” Moreover, based on her expression, it seemed that she was genuinely asking the question and not just humoring the kid.

The little girl also earnestly looked at the paper and said, “It’s just very nice, like water.”

Water? Xia Libing was stunned for a moment before realizing that the little girl was referring to the pattern of water ripples. On that piece of paper, the black circle design did in some parts indeed resemble the ripple effect in water.

At this moment, a little boy seated across the aisle from them stood up, leaned over and said, “This looks like bugs! Lots of big bugs! It also looks like beards!”

“No, it doesn’t! It’s not bugs!” The little girl turned her head and glared at the boy, indicating they knew each other.

The little boy giggled and said, “It’s a bug, a big earthworm, a cluster of bugs!”

“No, it’s not!”

Xia Libing stopped paying attention to the children’s “debate”. She placed the paper on the black leather-covered notebook on her knee and resumed her previous contemplation.

However, the children’s conversation gave her some new thoughts:

Although the black circles and arcs on the paper seem to follow an inexplicable rule and beauty and certainly were not drawn randomly, it is too complicated to find the corresponding meaning in reality based on these abstract shapes formed from simple lines. They could represent many things, or they could mean nothing at all. Even if she were to find some pattern among these lines or infer some expression from them, it might not necessarily reflect what Xiang Kun had in mind while drawing them.

She thought back to the calligraphy lyrics Xiang Kun had previously given her. The fact that Xiang Kun gave her these items which were certainly not conventional “gifts”, different in essence from the woodcarvings given to Nana and her cousin, there must be a reason and purpose.

Previously, when she studied the calligraphy piece, she at first focused on the song itself. But she quickly concluded that its relationship to the song must not be significant. Otherwise, there would be no need to transcribe the lyrics in calligraphy on such a ragged paper; sending the song via WeChat would suffice.

So she turned her attention to the writing itself, analyzing each character, even each stroke, but the useful information obtained was still not enough.

However, during her coin flipping practice with Nana and Yang Zhen’ er, she discovered an unexpected fact – the coin that Xiang Kun gave to Nana seemed a little different from ordinary coins.

She borrowed Nana’s coin and compared it in detail. On the surface, it appeared the same as any other coin, in looks, weight, and material.

But the moment she attempted to flip it, she could feel the difference. It was undoubtedly more “adhesive” and accommodated the fingers more, making the action more smooth, with a lower error rate.

Even when not flipping it, but merely holding the coin in her hand, she could feel its greater compatibility and better hand feel than an ordinary coin, as if it had become one with her palm.

Initially, she thought this was just some kind of illusion or psychological suggestion. However, she carefully experienced this several times and found it to be a phenomenon that objectively exists.

Especially just before she got off the vehicle, when she asked Xiang Kun for a coin, her suspicion was further confirmed through her hands-on experience – the coins given by Xiang Kun, whether hers or Tang Baona’s, were indeed slightly different from ordinary coins.

Thinking of the coin in Little Apple’s hand, given by Xiang Kun, and her proficiency in flipping the coin, Xia Libing felt that Xiang Kun might have some kind of equipment that could carry out some “treatment” on these seemingly ordinary coins that the naked eye could not detect, giving them properties that ordinary coins did not possess.

These properties gave her a better tactile experience when handling these coins.

However, she asked Nana and Yang Zhen’er, and in their hands, the so-called “lucky coins” given by Xiang Kun did not significantly differ from other coins. They stumbled with ordinary coins and stumbled likewise with the “lucky coins”.

So, these properties seemed to only be able to enhance, not impart. Much like a high-performance basketball shoe, it may enable a person who can already dunk to perform better and more consistently, but it cannot enable someone who can’t even reach the basket to don it and dunk immediately.

Xia Libing speculated that the action of “flipping a coin” is a simple method to “test” these special coins.

It was very likely that the video she had watched earlier, where the little fatty girl, who lived next door to Xiang Kun’s house, was so skillfully flipping coins with a unique technique, was because the coin was given by Xiang Kun as well.

In that case, what was Xiang Kun’s motivation for doing this?

How were these coins able to possess these characteristics?

Xia Libing then wondered whether the “black circle graffiti” that Xiang Kun gave her and the previous calligraphy might be similar to those coins?

Though there seems to be no connection in material or type, they might possess certain properties?