His stay in Peshawar was like a one-day vacation. Xia Lei was already back in China the very next day.
To him, the times he shared with Szlamy were good times, one could even say that she was an ideal lover. The relationship they shared was harmonious. He would stay out of her life and she would do the same. Though such dynamics might shift as the years passed, the sentiment they shared would remain the same.
Xia Lei didn’t appear in public on the first day he returned to Jingdu. Surprisingly, he hadn’t made himself present at the Thunder Horse Military Factory either. Before making his appearance, he needed to settle something important.
Ning Jing.
In a room back at the Peace Mansion,
“Uncle Xia, where are we?” Ning Jing, who was wrapped tightly in gauze blinked her big eyes at Xia Lei. The glimmer in her eyes radiated adorable child-like innocence.
Her current mind couldn’t be any older than ten years old.
Xia Lei replied gently, “This is my home.”
“Whoa, your house is really big and pretty.” Suddenly, the lights in her eye went out. “I don’t even remember what my home looks like…”
“You’ll remember soon. Here, let me help you remove your dressing.” Xia Lei placed a metal tray that contained a sanitized scissor and some disinfecting liquid on the bed. He swiftly removed the contents onto the blanket before he started to work on Ning Jing.
“Will it be less itchy when the dressing is gone?”
“Yeah, you won’t feel any itch after this.” Xia Lei continued to engage her with conversation as he snipped away at the gauze.
There was some dried blood stuck to the covering, making it more difficult for Xia Lei to remove the dressing. Though it was obvious that she had a child’s mind, her body was that of a grown woman. Freeing her chest from the tight grip of the material felt like peeling a bamboo shoot. Once you had gotten past its shell, the pale, firm flesh of the shoot would be revealed. The last snip had even made her bosoms bounce. When presented to such a scene, no male would be able to resist it.
To his shock, the bloody scars adhered to the dressing. As soon as he got rid of it, her scars came peeling off her skin leaving behind a wide span of smooth pale skin. It looked like a warm flawless white jade. This was probably the best skin Xia Lei had ever seen. It was close to perfect!
“Uncle Xiao is not shy at all.” Ning Jing started to giggle as Xia Lei began to work on the dressings around her thigh. She scratched her cheek bashfully. Though she said that, she hadn’t bothered to hide her exposed body parts. She even extended a leg to give Xia Lei a playful kick. That bold movement showed Xia Lei an inappropriate scenery.
“Okay, enough. Let me take off those around your head now.” Xia Lei pulled the blanket over her body. Although she felt nothing being completely naked in front of Xia Lei, the effect it had on him was intense. He wasn’t able to concentrate at all!
The blanket Xia Lei placed on her was unceremoniously kicked away. “I don’t want the blanket! I don’t want it!”
Xia Lei mustered a pained smile as he shook his head in defeat. Fine, if that's what she wanted, he’d just pretend that she was nothing but a child. With tense shoulders, he began to remove the dressing that hid her face.
Layers and layers of gauze were slowly peeled off. As he came to the very last layer, Xia Lei felt his heart rate rapidly increase. He was getting nervous. With caution, he gripped the edges of the dressing and stripped it away from her skin. Just like before, countless bloodied scars were peeled away with the gauze. The entire removal process felt like he was deshelling a boiled egg. Underneath the eggshell was her bouncy and pale new skin, that resembled the texture of a hard-boiled egg.
Her healed face was now exposed completely to air.
Upon seeing her face, Xia Lei immediately forgot how to breathe.
The woman in front of him was not Ning Jing nor was it Gu Kewen, she was Princess Yongmei also known as Zhu Xuanyue. She looked exactly like the Zhu Xuanyue Xia Lei found in the old tombs of Afghanistan and also the female corpse he found off the coast of Okinawa in the shipwreck. They looked the same, it was uncanny!
Even a 3D printer wouldn’t be able to replicate the same thing twice. The woman in front of him was definitely an exact replica of the two female corpses he encountered. Her height, facial features, hair, skin and even her pores were the same!
She extended a hand to wave in front of Xia Lei. She giggled, “Uncle Xia, you’ve been staring at me. You’re really not shy at all.”
That snapped Xia Lei back to reality. He took a deep breath and began to question. “Who… Who exactly are you?”
“Didn’t you say I was Ning Jing?” She smiled. “So I must be Ning Jing.”
“Gu Kewen?” Xia Lei brought up another name.
“Who’s Gu Kewen?”
“Zhu Xuanyue?” Xia Lei pressed on.
“Who’s Zhu Xuanyue?”
The woman was unfazed by the two names he mentioned. Her response wasn’t like this back in India. When she had first woke up, she had switched between Ning Jing and Gu Kewen. Now, her being seemed to have settled on being a young girl. Xia Lei wasn’t sure if this was going to change.
The current situation posed a new problem. What identity should he assign her?
If he had made her Ning Jing, Ning Jing’s parents would certainly be very against it.
If he had made her Gu Kewen, the dead female was still a wanted criminal. The possibility of him doing so was close to impossible. Other than that, it was his personal wish to not have the woman associated with Gu Kewen.
If he had made her Zhu Xuanyue, would she be able to embrace and utilize her identity? After all, Zhu Xuanyue was essentially non-existent and she had not shown mannerism that hinted at Zhu Xuanyue.
Xia Lei was in a dilemma. “If we use Ning Jing’s identity and say that she did plastic surgery, people would easily buy it. But she had escaped from the sanatorium. How would I explain her presence to Bureau 101 and the other investigators? Ah, jeez…”
“Uncle Xia, what have you hidden there?” She spoke.
Xia Lei’s thoughts were interrupted. He questioned, “What did you say?”
“I asked, what have you hidden there?” Perplexed, she pointed to a spot on Xia Lei’s pants.
Xia Lei averted his gaze to look at the standing tent in the front of his pants. Immediately, he felt his face flushed and frantically gave a sheepish answer. “Uh… Well, it’s a… screwdriver.”
“Why are you hiding a screwdriver in your pants? What if it stabs you?” She extended an arm towards him, in an attempt to help him adjust its position.
Xia Lei scurried away as he did his best to explain. “It’s fine! It’s fine! My screwdriver won’t hurt me, there’s no need to worry about it.”
She looked at him innocently. “Uncle Xia, does that mean your screwdriver will only stab others?”
Xia Lei could feel his heart race and his brain go numb.
It was true that his screwdriver would only stab others. His victims were only tasteful and beautiful women. Hearing those suggestive words from the mouth of a ‘child’ was truly bizarre.
“Uncle Xia, why don’t I have a screwdriver?” She started to search at the same spot, looking defeated.
Gosh, she was as pure as a paper.
Her near-perfect face and amazing body lines made her look like a faerie from the storybooks. How could she be so pure-minded?
Abruptly, an urge occurred to Xia Lei. His left eye twitched and went into X-ray vision mode. His vision went past her pretty face and tough skull to reach her greyish-white brain. Like fluid, his vision began to penetrate deeper and deeper into the structure of her brain.
“Wait, that’s…” What he found shocked him to the core.
In the centre of her brain was something akin to mineral powder. Occurring in speckles, it glimmered ever so slightly with light.
The weird powder-like substance was no stranger to him. He had come across it in the underground maze back in Italy, specifically on the oil painting of a starry sky. Leonardo da Vinci had depicted something with transparent ink in his notebook. Whenever she visited, she would be injured. She would always bring some mineral powder with her return without fail. I had asked her about the powder but she had never given me an answer. I also asked what were her intentions behind such an odd painting but she only answered that someone would awaken her after her death. I remain confused due to my inability to understand the world of the Gods.
The answer to the mystery was hidden in Leonardo da Vinci’s depiction. The substance wasn’t any regular mineral powder. It was the core of Zhu Xuanyue’s existence!
The origins of Zhu Xuanyue or how she was born and where she had gotten the substance still remains a mystery for now.
This energy that had the appearance of mineral powder was latent in her brain with no signs of activity. It was as if it had entered dormancy.
Though Xia Lei remained unsure of what it was, this substance had helped him solve his problem. The woman in front of him was no longer Ning Jing nor was she Gu Kewen. She was Zhu Xuanyue!
“Next time…” Xia Lei hesitated but continued anyway, “Listen closely, your name is Zhu Xuanyue. Can you remember that?”
“I’m not Ning Jing?” She was puzzled.
Xia Lei shook his head. “No, you’re not Ning Jing. You’re Zhu Xuanyue. When others ask you for your name, just say that you’re Zhu Xuanyue. If anyone asks you where you live or where you are from, answer that you’re from the White Hun tribe in Afghanistan.”
“Who would ask me weird questions like this?”
“Just remember it well. If you don’t do as I say, I’ll send you away,” threatened Xia Lei with a stern face.
“Uncle Xia, I promise to do as you said. Please don’t send me away…” Zhu Xuanyue looked absolutely pitiful.
Xia Lei answered, “Good child. As long as you do as I ask, I will not send you away.”
“Mm!” Zhu Xuanyue let out a noise and snuggled herself into Xia Lei’s chest abruptly.
Xia Lei could feel his entire body tense. She was no child. She was a physically matured and unbearably seductive female!
“Uncle Xia, your screwdriver is so weird. I think it’s trying to stab me.”
“Say, can you show me your screwdriver?”
Xia Lei could no longer bear with her. He frantically pushed her away and dodged her sneaky hand. After he distanced himself for a good few metres away from her, he dug out his phone to make a call.
“Hey, Old Ye, what are you up to? I need you to help me with something”
“Director Xia, there’s no need to be so courteous. What can I do for you?”
“Hehe, guess I won’t hold back then. Could you help me apply for a visa? Her name is Zhu Xuanyue…”
