Yore Descry (昔日的描述)

Glimpse 4; The Sound of Flowing Water

The sun was setting, Haoyu was sitting on his kick pottery wheel, turning the circular bottom piece with a kick to control the speed as he finishes up his creation. After putting his creation to set aside and dry, he left the small room to wash up and settle down for the day. When he left the shower, with a towel over his wet hair, his eyes fell on the small tightly sealed container on his coffee table. He decided to start his investigation as he waits for his hair to dry, he sat down on his couch and puts on rubber gloves. He opened the container and took out a striped shirt stained with dirt; the 7-year-old's last worn shirt. Haoyu inhaled and exhaled, before focusing and allowing his eyes to glow platinum, then the scenes quickly came to his sight. Haoyu didn't take more than a few seconds to feel a lump in his throat, the hazy vision let him know the worst outcome already. Despite that, Haoyu kept going to make do with the remnants still clear for him to see.

It was the same as on the report, it was midday around 12:40 p.m., the sun shining at the highest point of the sky. Han Lingrui had a few sheets of money that he pulled out of his pocket, then a figure of a man appeared, making gestures to the little boy to come closer. The man grabbed the little one's arm and took him down the street to the woods through a fence, with the promises of more sweets. The man was one with a big beard, big hands, tattoos covering his entire left arm, and a somewhat overweight appearance. They stopped near a white SUV, where the man instructed for Lingrui to take off every piece of clothing he was wearing. At this point, the little boy had caught on that the man was with ill deeds, he was trembling and sobbing in fear as he did what the man asked him. In that moment, Haoyu also took the chance to identify the license plate of the vehicle, 鲁L·A5204. Haoyu's point of view dropped to the ground when the boy took off the striped shirt and dropped it to the dirt, and Haoyu could only watch the man put the child in his trunk before driving away.

***

"The car's a rental,"

"What...?" Haoyu was on the phone with Mr. Liu two days later, stunned when he heard that information.

"Yeah, it was a rental car rented around the outskirts of Rizhao. It's been 6 years and they have a system to delete records every 5 years, so we unfortunately can't get a hold of the information of whoever rented the car that time." Mr. Liu sighed heavily, "But we did give the worker the description of the man you gave us and he did remember the man from 6 years ago, he also said that the car was thoroughly cleaned when he returned it. That's suspicious in itself, but then again, it's been 6 years and the car's probably already have been rented thousands of times after the perpetrator. There's no point to it," he explained, and Haoyu fell silent for a few seconds.

"Well, there's really not much reason to rush this investigation..." Haoyu said in a solemn tone, "Han Lingrui already passed,"

"What?!" Mr. Liu was in shock, "How come?? Are you sure?!"

"I've seen through countless items to understand, sir. According to my experience, Han Lingrui's been long gone." Haoyu spoke with a heavy heart.

"I see..." Mr. Liu felt defeated, the feeling of failure.

"But don't worry, I'll keep looking for more clues, I haven't gone through all of the items. All I can do now is provide leads to capture the perpetrator and give Han Lingrui and his family the justice they deserve,"

"Alright, let me know if you find any more details." Mr. Liu massaged the top of his nose and hung up the call.

"Seriously..." Haoyu sighed when slumped to rest his head on the counter after he placed down the telephone back on its box, closing his eyes.

"Haoyu~" Jianguo pushed the entrance door, startling Haoyu to spring his head up.

"Ow, I feel light-headed..."