Chapter 10: The Norm

Chapter Ten
The Norm

“Who is it?”

Klein had been thinking about the original owner’s mysterious suicide and the unknown dangers he might yet encounter. At the sudden knock, he instinctively pulled open the drawer, took out the revolver, and asked the question with his guard fully raised.

Outside the door, there was silence for two seconds. Then a slightly shrill voice called out in an Awwa accent:

“Me. Mountbatten. Beech Mountbatten.”

The voice paused, then added:

“Police.”

Beech Mountbatten…

The instant the name entered his ears, Klein recalled its owner.

He was one of the policemen responsible for the district where the apartment stood. A crude, violent man who loved using his fists. Then again, perhaps only someone like that could keep drunks, thieves, part-time thieves, villains, and ruffians in line.

That unique voice was one of his marks.

“All right, I will be right there!” Klein answered loudly.

He had intended to toss the revolver back into the drawer, but then he thought of the policemen outside. He had no idea why they had come. Perhaps there would be a search.

So he hurried carefully to the stove, where the remaining embers had long since gone out, and placed the revolver inside.

Immediately afterward, he picked up the small basket that held coal and shook a few pieces into the stove, covering the gun. Finally, he set the kettle on top, hiding everything.

After that was done, he straightened his clothes and walked quickly toward the door, opening it while mumbling vaguely, “Sorry. I was napping.”

Outside stood four policemen in black uniforms with white checks and soft caps bearing badges. Beech Mountbatten, who had a brownish-yellow beard along his cheeks, coughed once and said to Klein, “These three officers have some questions for you.”

Officers?

Klein reflexively looked at the epaulettes of the other three and saw that two bore three silver six-pointed stars, while the last bore two. All of them seemed higher-ranking than Beech Mountbatten, whose shoulders had only three V-shaped marks.

As a history student, Klein had not studied police ranks. He only knew that Beech Mountbatten often boasted of being a senior sergeant.

So those three are inspector-level?

Influenced by things his elder brother Benson and classmates such as Welch had said, Klein still possessed a little common knowledge. He stepped aside, gestured into the room, and said, “Please come in. May I ask what this is about?”

The leader of the three officers was a middle-aged man whose gaze was so sharp it seemed capable of seeing into a person’s mind, making one instinctively afraid. Wrinkles marked the corners of his eyes, and pale brown hair showed beneath the edge of his cap. He swept his eyes over the room as though he owned the right to do so and asked in a deep voice, “You know Welch McGovern, don’t you?”

“What happened to him?” Klein’s heart trembled, and the question burst from him.

“I am the one asking questions.” The stern middle-aged officer’s eyes turned cold.

Beside him, the other officer with three stars on his shoulders looked at Klein and smiled mildly.

“Don’t be nervous. This is only routine questioning.”

This officer seemed about thirty. His nose was straight, and his gray eyes had an indescribable depth to them, like a lake in an ancient forest that no one ever visited.

Klein drew a breath inwardly and organized his words.

“If you mean Welch McGovern, graduate of Khoy University, from Conston, then yes, I know him. We were classmates and studied under the same tutor, Senior Associate Professor Quentin Cohen.”

In the Loen Kingdom, “professor” was not merely an academic title but also a position—rather like combining professor and department chair on Earth. In other words, a university department could only have one professor. If an associate professor wished to become a full professor, they either had to wait for their superior to retire or possess the ability to force them out.

In order to retain talent, and after many years of trial and error, the Kingdom’s Higher Education Committee had added “senior associate professor” to the three-tier system of lecturer, associate professor, and professor, granting the designation to gentlemen and ladies of high academic achievement or sufficient seniority who nonetheless could not become professors.

At this point, Klein glanced into the middle-aged officer’s eyes. After considering for a second, he said, “To be honest, our relationship was fairly good. Recently, he, Naya, and I have often met to interpret and discuss a Fourth Epoch document he acquired—a notebook. Officer, what happened to him?”

The middle-aged officer did not answer. Instead, he turned his head and glanced at his gray-eyed companion.

The ordinary-featured gray-eyed officer in the badged soft cap replied gently, “I am sorry. Mr. Welch has passed away.”

“How could that be?” Although Klein had already had something of a premonition, he could not keep the shock from his voice.

Welch had died as well, just like the original owner of this body?

That was rather terrifying.

“What about Naya?” Klein hurriedly asked.

“Miss Naya has also passed away,” the gray-eyed officer said with considerable calm. “The two of them died inside Mr. Welch’s residence.”

“Murdered?” Klein had a faint guess.

Perhaps suicide…

The gray-eyed officer shook his head.

“No. Judging from the traces at the scene, they killed themselves. Mr. Welch struck his head against the wall, again and again, until the wall was covered with blood. Miss Naya drowned herself in a basin—the kind used for washing one’s face.”

“That is impossible…”

Klein felt the hairs over his entire body rise. He could almost imagine that eerie scene.

A young woman kneeling on a chair, her face buried in a washbasin full of water, her brown hair hanging smoothly down and swaying in the wind while her entire body remained motionless. Welch lying on the ground, eyes fixed rigidly on the ceiling, his forehead completely smashed and covered with blood; the wall marked again and again by impacts, slick with red…

The corner of the gray-eyed officer’s mouth moved.

“We thought so as well, but the autopsy results and the scene both ruled out factors such as drugs and external force. They—I mean Mr. Welch and Miss Naya—showed no signs of resistance.”

Before Klein could speak again, the officer stepped into the room and asked with feigned casualness, “When was the last time you saw Mr. Welch or Miss Naya?”

As he spoke, his gaze signaled the companion with two silver stars.

That was a young officer who looked about Klein’s age. He had black sideburns, green eyes, handsome features, and the romantic air of a poet.

Hearing the question, Klein’s thoughts turned rapidly as he considered his answer.

“It should have been June 26. We interpreted a new portion of the notebook together. Afterward, I returned home to prepare for my interview on the 30th. Mm, the interview for Tingen University’s history department.”

Tingen was known as a city of universities. It had both Tingen University and Khoy University, along with a technical school, a barristers’ college, and a business school. It was second only to the capital, Backlund.

No sooner had Klein finished speaking than from the corner of his eye he saw the young officer walk to the desk and pick up the “notebook” that more closely resembled a diary.

Damn it! I forgot to hide it!

Klein cried out sharply, “You!”

The young officer smiled back at him, but did not stop flipping through the notebook. The gray-eyed officer explained, “This is necessary procedure.”

At that moment, Beech Mountbatten and the stern middle-aged officer were merely watching from the side, neither interrupting nor assisting the search.

Where is your search warrant?

Klein had intended to demand this, but after thinking carefully, he realized that the Loen Kingdom’s judicial system might not yet have evolved such a thing as a search warrant. At least, he did not know whether one existed. After all, the police force itself had only been established fifteen or sixteen years ago.

When the original owner was a child, they had still been called constables.

Klein could not stop them. He could only watch helplessly as the young officer rapidly flipped through “his notebook,” while the gray-eyed officer asked no further questions.

“What strange things…” the young officer said abruptly when he reached the end. “And what does this sentence mean? ‘Everyone will die, including me’…”

Except for gods, everyone dies. Isn’t that common sense?

Klein had been preparing to argue along those lines when he suddenly remembered that he had originally intended to establish some sort of connection with the police to guard against possible danger. He had simply lacked a reason, an excuse.

In less than a second, he made his decision. He pressed a hand to his forehead and answered in a pained tone, “I don’t know. I truly don’t know… After I woke up this morning, I felt that something was wrong with me. It seems I have forgotten certain things—especially parts of what happened these last few days. I do not even understand why I wrote such a sentence.”

Sometimes, confession was the best way to solve a problem. Of course, confession required technique. What to say and what not to say was one matter; what to say first, what to say later, and how to say it was another.

As a “keyboard” expert, Klein had studied a little rhetoric as well.

“Absurd! Do you take us for fools?” Beech Mountbatten cut in angrily. He simply could not hold himself back.

The lie was so crude that it was practically an insult to their intelligence.

If you wanted to pretend to be mad, that would be better than pretending to have amnesia!

“It is true,” Klein replied calmly beneath the gazes of Mountbatten and the middle-aged officer.

It could not be any truer.

“Perhaps it really is possible,” the gray-eyed officer slowly said at that moment.

What? He believes me just like that?

Even Klein himself was surprised.

The gray-eyed officer smiled at him.

“In two days, an expert will arrive. Believe me, she should be able to help you recall the memories you have lost.”

An expert? Help me remember? In the field of psychology?

Klein frowned.

Hiss. What if she brings out my memories of Earth?

His teeth suddenly began to ache.

The young officer put down the notebook and searched the desk and the room. Fortunately, his focus was on the books, and he did not lift the kettle to take a look.

“Very well, Mr. Klein. Thank you for your cooperation. For the next few days, you had best not leave Tingen. If you must, inform Officer Mountbatten. Otherwise, you will become a fugitive,” the gray-eyed officer finally instructed.

That is it? This ends here for today? No more questions, no more investigation? You are not going to drag me to the police station and torture me?

Klein was at a loss.

However, he also wished to resolve the strange incident Welch had brought upon him, so he nodded.

“No problem.”

The officers filed out of the room. The young officer walking last suddenly patted Klein on the shoulder.

“How good. How fortunate.”

“What?” Klein looked confused.

The green-eyed officer with the air of a poet smiled slightly.

“Generally speaking, when people encounter this kind of incident, the norm is that everyone involved dies.

“We are very pleased, and very fortunate, to see that you are still alive.”

With that said, he left the room and, with excellent manners, closed the door behind him.

Everyone involved dies is the norm? They are pleased I am still alive? Fortunate I am still alive?

On that June afternoon, Klein felt a chill seep through his entire body.