Chapter 246: The Boat Boss

"By the time I heard news of Xi Zi Yun again, she was already a rich man's wife. Oh, yes, she was the wife of the famous Qi Dongjun. When I heard this news, I was thinking how relieved Teacher Yu would have been if she hadn't passed away so early," Teacher Qu muttered.

Qi Fei was saddened and didn't tell Teacher Qu that, regarding Xi Zi Yun, this seemingly beautiful ending was just an interlude, and it eventually ended in darkness and bloodshed—she was already dead.

"Oh, since we're talking about Xi Zi Yun, she even sent me a postcard two days ago. After so many years, she actually still remembers me, a teacher who only taught her for two years." Teacher Qu's words surprised everyone.

Obviously, Teacher Qu didn't know Xi Zi Yun was already dead.

"Can you show it to us?" Qi Fei tried to restrain his excitement and asked.

Teacher Qu pulled open the drawer under the coffee table and took out a light gray envelope with the words "To Teacher Qu" written on it.

When Qi Fei pulled the postcard out of the envelope, a marble fell out, hit the ground with a "clack, clack" sound, and quickly rolled under the sofa.

Everyone present, except Teacher Qu, knew what the appearance of the marble meant.

The elegant handwriting wrote a few lines of greetings to Teacher Qu. This handwriting did not belong to Xi Zi Yun; it was as if it were a connection of blood, and Qi Fei immediately sensed that this was Xi He's handwriting.

The back of the postcard was a Jiangnan water town. Qi Fei was very familiar with this scenery; it was a corner of the Luomeng River, with several cruise ships docked at the bluestone pier, except there was a faint white mark on the hull of the ship. Qi Fei looked carefully and couldn't help but widen his eyes—that long-lost monster pattern appeared again, two heads sharing one body, becoming graffiti on the vermilion cruise ship, grinning at Qi Fei.

"Meaningless," Zhong Kui's voice suddenly came from behind him. "It seems he knew we would track it here long ago." Qi Fei turned back and saw a bored expression on her beautiful face, a disappointment he couldn't understand.

He wouldn't care about so much; as long as there was a clue, no matter who gave it, he was one step closer to saving Qi Dongjun.

It was already the scorching heat of summer. When they came out of Teacher Qu's house, it was noon, the time when the sun was most poisonous. Qi Fei was driving, only feeling a burning pain on the back of his hand holding the steering wheel, but the atmosphere in the car was completely different from the weather outside—it was cold to the freezing point.

In fact, from the start until now, Jiang Tianyi hadn't said a word, but for Zhong Kui, it seemed his existence was already something unbearable, like a cat full of vigilance toward strangers, refusing to say an extra word, and the car fell into an awkward silence.

To be honest, Qi Fei didn't understand Liu Tong's arrangement either. In name, it was to take care of his emotions, but anyone with a discerning eye could see that it seemed the drunkard's intent was not on the wine.

The Luomeng River was a place Qi Fei was very familiar with. He soon found the place shown in the photo, just like the appearance in the photo, walking forward along the ancient street paved with bluestone, dense willows covering the ancient pier, and several cruise ships docked on the shore.

The heat plus the noon on a workday, obviously no one was taking the cruise ship, and the boat boss turned up his clothes, exposing his belly, lying on his back in the shade, taking a nap.

Wu Shanqiu stepped forward and woke up the boat boss who was sleeping soundly.

He rubbed his sleepy eyes, thinking business had arrived. When he saw the police officer's ID, he habitually muttered: "No one fell into the water recently, what are you coming to investigate?"

It seemed he often received investigations about drowning.

Qi Fei showed him the photo on the postcard, pointed to the ship marked with a mark, and asked: "We want to see this ship, can you take us there?"

The boat boss laughed as soon as he saw it: "This is the Chunfeng, it was scrapped many years ago."

"Then what about the person who drove this ship?" Zhong Kui leaned over and asked.

The boat boss heard this and curled his mouth: "Then you asked the right person." As he said this, he patted the dust on his butt, "Follow me."

As he said this, he nimbly got onto a docked cruise ship, and the others followed, swaying.

In the cabin, a dark and thin old man wearing a life jacket was napping under an electric fan, his sparse white hair blown into a mess.

"Dad, someone is looking for you," the boat boss said.

No wonder he said he asked the right person; it turned out the boss of that Chunfeng was his father. "This is my dad, he drove a boat all his life, everyone calls him Old Xu," he said with some pride.

Qi Fei handed the postcard to the boat boss.

"This must be fake!" The old man looked old, but his eyesight wasn't bad. As soon as he saw the white mark drawn on the ship in the photo, he immediately denied it: "I could know every part of my ship with my eyes closed. There is definitely no such ghost thing here."

Wu Shanqiu couldn't help but blurt out: "Could it be photoshopped?"

"Inevitably," Zhong Kui said on the side. "This place, unless it's a water ghost, it's hard to draw it on. But this is not important; what's important is why mark this ship?" She said, her gaze returning to Old Xu. "There are people falling into the water in this river; you must be the first to know, right? Forty-seven years ago, a man named Xi Zhangjiang drowned in this river. Do you know about this?"

Old Xu heard this, raised his eyes to look at Zhong Kui, a trace of doubt in his eyes: "It's been so long, why are so many people suddenly coming to ask?"

"Hmm? So many people?" Zhong Kui said keenly.

Old Xu then cast his gaze toward Qi Fei on the side: "Wasn't it you who came to ask last time?"

Qi Fei and Zhong Kui looked at each other, not surprised. It seemed Xi He had come to find Old Xu.

Zhong Kui had a flash of inspiration and smiled cunningly: "Can you tell me again what you said to him last time?"

"Are you young people teasing this old man?" Although Old Xu complained, he still described the situation back then while gesturing: "I can't forget this drowning ghost. Now that there are guardrails on the shore, this kind of thing happens much less. When I was driving the boat, what people feared most when falling into the water wasn't not knowing how to swim, but diving under the boat, either getting their heads knocked dizzy by the bottom of the boat, or suffocating because they couldn't find the water surface. It's hard not to become a drowning ghost. Xi Zhangjiang, unfortunately, wanted to be a ghost—whoever's boat he chose, he chose mine. I still remember the way he was dragged up from the bottom of the boat. His nose bridge was broken, and his feet were like they were tied to his legs with string, dangling loosely."

"It doesn't matter that this drunkard died, he made me drive the boat unluckily for several years," the old man said indignantly.

But Qi Fei heard the abnormality here: "Everyone said Xi Zhangjiang fell into the water by accident back then?" ===== CHAPTER 247 =====