Mr. Melancholy Wants to Live a Peaceful Life - Chap 19

You Zhengping rushed to the police station, which was outwardly his official post. He received his outfit and police-issue motor scooter and zoomed off to the base.

He had been adequately trained in maintaining secrecy. All his actions had to fit the reasons he had thought of. If he said he was going to work overtime, he had to go to the police station to go through the formalities. This wasn’t only for the sake of concealing his identity; it could also keep his family from being spotted by Destroyers.

With every department cooperating to the best of their abilities, Lian Yufan was extremely fast. In a few hours, he had turned up a big heap of materials. There were three piles laid out on Director Xiao’s desk. One pile was Yu Hua’s report cards and academic records from his time at school; Lian Yufan had classified these as unimportant and had stacked them together. One pile was a record of all major events in Yu Hua’s life since going to work and getting married. The final pile was the report on the investigation into what had happened since Yu Hua had lost his job. These fifteen days contained more material than the previous fifteen years.

Next to the three piles of materials was a small box.

You Zhengping had shaken hands and made up with Lian Yufan right in front of Director Xiao earlier that day. Naturally he couldn’t step up and punch Lian Yufan. He had to force down his anger and say, “Where did you put the nanotech listening device?”

Lian Yufan pressed on the webbing between his fingers. “I put it there when we shook hands.”

You Zhengping squeezed the base of his right thumb, rubbing off the new-type listening device firmly stuck to the webbing.

He gave the listening device to Lian Yufan and went to the desk. He picked up the first pile of materials and quickly ran his eyes over Yu Hua’s report cards.

Before age twelve, Yu Hua hadn’t come to this world yet. The identity was one the System had forged for him according to his wish. Yu Hua had wanted to live an ordinary life, so the System had given him grades that were steadily at the bottom of the class. After arriving, Yu Hua had thought that grades at the bottom of the class were too eye-catching and didn’t fit his future position in life, so he had gradually raised them, keeping himself in the top ten of his class and the top one-hundred of his grade.

These grades wouldn’t get him too much attention, and they weren’t so excessively low that he wouldn’t be able to test into university.

But Yu Hua had been attending the Xuyang District’s key primary school. These grades had narrowly gotten him into the key middle school. On coming to middle school, he’d been near the bottom of the class again and had had to make fewer mistakes, until he was in the class’s top ten. But many people from key middle schools went on to key high schools. He had once again squeaked by and tested into a key high school, where he was again near the bottom of the class. When he had once again raised his grades to the top one-hundred of his grade, Yu Hua had discovered that over a hundred people from their high school tested into one of the top two universities each year.

This time, no matter what, Yu Hua hadn’t wanted to test into too good of a school. He had just managed to test into the top three university.

You Zhengping silently hugged the report cards.

“What are you doing? Are you trying to steal the results of my investigation?” Lian Yufan, noticing what he was doing, said guardedly.

“Bah!” You Zhengping said. “I’ve never seen my husband’s report cards before. Are you telling me I can’t get copies to frame?”

“Decide whether you want copies after you’ve read my report,” Lian Yufan said coldly, handing You Zhengping a photocopy of the investigation report.

When everyone present had a report, Lian Yufan said, “I first went to the hospital to visit the executive from Yu Hua’s former job. His external injuries have already healed, and he’s going to be released from the hospital tomorrow. Yu Hua paid for the medical expenses.”

You Zhengping, Cen Xiao, and the others had suspected all along that the leader had been faking to extort money. After reading the medical records Lian Yufan had rigorously examined, they frowned. They hadn’t expected that Yu Hua really had hit the executive, and very seriously. This was simply unbelievable!

At the same time, Lian Yufan played the surveillance footage from the company’s lobby. In it, Yu Hua and the executive, talking and laughing, walked side by side towards the elevator. The executive stepped into a puddle of water that the janitor hadn’t yet had time to clean. He slipped and lost his footing. Seeing the executive about to fall, Yu Hua reached out his arms to support him from behind. But his slight supporting gesture turned into pressing on the executive’s back, shoving his head against the wall next to the elevator.

You Zhengping: “…”

This sequence of events really couldn’t be explained as a slip of the hand.

Lian Yufan said, “Many people saw the scene at the time. Employees at the company all thought it was an accident. The security guard in charge of monitoring also claimed that, saying that Yu Hua may also have stepped in the water and lost his footing, and that’s why he used so much force. But we’ve all undergone specialized training. We see things differently from other people. I think it wasn’t an accident. It was caused by Yu Hua losing control of his strength.

“And afterwards, the company didn’t fire him, like Yu Hua said it did. His interpersonal relationships at the company were good. The executives also believed it was an accident. It was Yu Hua who insisted on resigning and using the last sum the company paid him to cover the medical expenses.”

Lian Yufan’s conclusion concerning the matter of Yu Hua injuring someone was: after Yu Hua was replaced by a Destroyer, he quickly resigned and distanced himself from his original colleagues to avoid people who were familiar with him noticing anything strange.

“The reason he suddenly injured someone hasn’t been completely clarified yet,” You Zhengping said in rebuttal. “You can’t draw a rash conclusion. Voluntarily resigning also doesn’t mean anything. Yu Hua explained to me that he wanted to set up a new plan for his work goals. You must all have heard that while you were listening in on us. Tonight, when I cooperated with Captain Lian’s investigation, Yu Hua precisely recounted every day he had worked overtime during our three years of marriage. Would a replacement have such a distinct understanding of everything?”

“Of course he would. It’s very simple.” Lian Yufan pulled out a series of photocopies of a calendar from the stack of materials. He had made these copies while searching Yu Hua’s home.

This was a desk calendar. Yu Hua didn’t keep a diary, but he had a habit of writing down the important things that happened each day on the calendar. The calendar notes started on the day he had gone on a blind date with You Zhengping: courtship, marriage, all the way to the day before he had hit the executive, each day some bits of new and joyful events.

—XX/XX/XX, Went on a blind date I’d meant to refuse, met a very cute boy (rainbow-colored), Xiao You. I want to get closer to him. I don’t know whether he’ll like me.

—XX/XX/XX, First date. I researched countless strategies beforehand, formulated the most perfect plan for a date. Xiao You was wearing…some torn-up clothes I don’t know how to describe. He said they got chewed up by a dog before the date. Later I found out that he’d dressed up too well for the date, and his friends were jealous. By the time they were finished fighting, it was nearly time for the date. Xiao You rushed over wearing his ragged clothes so he wouldn’t be late (I wanted to laugh).

My formulated plan didn’t come in useful at all. Instead of a movie, I went with Xiao You to buy clothing. Instead of the restaurant, I went with Xiao You to Cen Xiao’s backyard to roast Cen Xiao’s mixed green onions. It’s my first time knowing that you can be so happy without a plan, that life is full of accidents and happy surprises and an unnoticeable air of fireworks.

PS: I’m kind of jealous of Cen Xiao.

—XX/XX/XX, Exercise. My back strength seems a bit lacking.

—XX/XX/XX, Planned to propose. Unsurprisingly, all my plans were overturned. I bought a pair of rings and made a plan with a wedding company. In the morning, Xiao You came to pick me up. I sat in his flashy car, and he took me to the Bureau of Civil Affairs.

I panicked, not because I was suddenly being pushed into marriage, but because I hadn’t brought my papers. Xiao You got out my ID and residence registration booklet. I don’t know when he got them.

This time, no matter what, I couldn’t let Xiao You run wild. I pulled a long face and snatched away the ID and residence booklet, turned, and went towards the —— Hall, where there’s a little more space.

Xiao You was flustered and quickly explained that if I didn’t want to get married, then we could go on as we were, and he had advanced prematurely.

I saw him looking scared and suddenly felt secret delight. I maintained my displeased expression, turned magnificently, went down on one knee, and put the diamond ring on his ring finger.

When I made the fiercest expression while saying the most romantic words and saw Xiao You’s surprised and happy look, I felt secret delight. The tail-end of my proposal plan was a success.

PS: I deliberately held hands with Xiao You and made the diamond ring flash in Cen Xiao’s eyes. This is a tiny inner pettiness of mine.

—XX/XX/XX…

You Zhengping, grinning, had only read a few pages when he heard Lian Yufan say, “Yu Hua was in the habit of keeping notes. The replacement would of course get to know his body’s circumstances. Naturally he knows about the important times between you two perfectly well. Starting from half a month ago, the day he mistakenly injured the executive, Yu Hua hasn’t written in his calendar diary again. That’s also an important piece of evidence.”

Neither You Zhengping nor Cen Xiao listened carefully to what he was saying. Cen Xiao thought in shock, So Yu Hua is jealous of my relationship with You Zhengping. That’s horrifying. You really can’t just go around reading people’s diaries. How am I supposed to look Yu Hua in the face after this?

You Zhengping, meanwhile, pulled a long face and said, “Copy these materials for me, too. I’ll take them away and go through them slowly.”

Take them away and get them bound into a book, then read it like a serial romance with himself as the main character.

Lian Yufan said, “…Did you hear what I said?”

You Zhengping and Cen Xiao nodded repeatedly. “We heard, we heard.”

You Zhengping suddenly thought that it would be nice for Lian Yufan to investigate more things he didn’t know about Yu Hua. The report cards, the calendar diary, these were things he could collect and occasionally take out to read.

No wonder lovers were always unable to resist sneaking looks at each others’ phones or diaries. You Zhengping had always been very scornful towards this kind of snooping. He had abundant trust in Yu Hua. But, having read the calendar pages, You Zhengping thought that he could often go through the calendar after this.

Lian Yufan knocked lightly on the table. When he had everyone’s attention, he explained the third piece of evidence—Yu Hua’s recent spending reports.

“You keep on saying that you understand the person sleeping beside you, but do you know how many household goods Yu Hua has broken lately?” Lian Yufan said. “One hundred and seven dishes, two tables, three chairs, one mirror, twelve tiles. After resigning, he must have told you he went to look for work, right? But actually, he didn’t leave the house. He stayed home breaking household goods and replacing them with identical ones while you were at work.”

The pink romantic bubbles floating around You Zhengping after the diary dispersed. Distressed, he said, “Why would Yu Hua do that? If he was in a bad mood, he could have told me, and I could have taken him to the storehouse at work to break tables. Why did he have to use the good furniture at home? Replacing it costs so much money! We hardly have any savings!”

Lian Yufan: “…”

Was that the important point?

He took a deep breath and told himself not to get into it with a lovesick idiot. He continued, “The important point isn’t the waste of money, it’s why his disposition would change so much that he started breaking furniture. He’s a perfect gentleman in front of everyone. All of his psychological evaluations at work have been outstanding.

“And he didn’t only break furniture and tableware.” Lian Yufan opened the box. “There’s also this phone. You must not have noticed that he switched to an identical new phone?”

You Zhengping took the box. The phone inside the box looked as though someone had smashed it to bits with a hammer.

“How could he break such an important phone?!” Cen Xiao, who had been silent for a long time, said in grief and indignation. “Do you think we got off easy when You Zhengping bought that phone?”

Lian Yufan: “…”

What does this have to do with you? Why are you so upset?

You Zhengping’s apparent salary was only 2500. He’d wanted to give Yu Hua a phone for his birthday and didn’t dare to use his private savings to buy it. So that no one would know, his food and drink had come from his underlings. He had saved four months of salary from the cracks between Cen Xiao and the other underlings’ teeth, buying the phone through a great deal of hard work.

For outsiders, Cen Xiao and the others were also temporary workers at the subdistrict office, with salaries of 2500, like You Zhengping. During those four months, You Zhengping had said they couldn’t expose their true salaries, so everyone had grit their teeth and struggled together, tightening their belts to help You Zhengping save money.

And You Zhengping could really eat!

During those four months, if Yu Hua hadn’t occasionally had You Zhengping bring everyone snacks, Cen Xiao and the others didn’t know how they would have made it.

Those four months had been the darkest, more bitter than group training at the base when they were young. At least at the base you would be fed well and given new clothes!

Cen Xiao didn’t want to think about those four months when they’d been saving money and hadn’t been able to have soda.

“If this really was done by a replacement, there’s no need for anyone else to step in, I’ll get rid of him myself,” Cen Xiao said, looking serious. “If Yu Hua broke it…then he can make us some more snacks.”

Author’s Note
The false investigation: Finding evidence that Yu Hua is a Destroyer.

The real investigation: Large-scale scene of abusing single dogs.