Chapter 24 Section 5

At dusk, there was a sudden knock on the door.It was still the old man standing outside the door. "Have a glass of wine together? Although it is indeed a bit early at the moment." With a bottle of brandy in his hand, he winked at me.I couldn't find a reason for my refusal, so I had to invite him into the room. "Well, where's your wife?" He looked around the room and asked. "She went out, probably shopping." I tried to calm down, and I knew the tone of voice was unnatural. "So, is she feeling better?" "Well, thanks to you, it's all right."

I prepared wine glasses and ice cubes and put them on the table.The old man sat down happily. "Do you often travel abroad?" he asked casually, pouring brandy into two glasses. "No, I only go out once a year or two, and I just walk around nearby." "Even so, it's still enviable. As I said before, you still have to travel while you're young." After taking a sip of his wine, he pointed to the suitcase in the corner of the room and said, "This suitcase is really not small. I've never seen such a large suitcase before!" "I bought this for a trip to Europe. It's just too big and it's inconvenient to hold it."

That trip to Europe was also with my ex-wife.I even vividly remember the joke she made when she pointed to this suitcase: "If I get in as checked luggage, I can save the airfare." into this box. "Hey, it's so big, it's more than enough for a person to lie in it!" The old man stepped forward and looked at the suitcase intently, as if he really wanted to open it and take a look inside.I said nothing. After a while, he tried to lift the suitcase, as if trying to weigh it.But the box didn't budge. "Well, it's very heavy!" He blushed and took a step back.

"Is your wife in the room?" I asked.He smiled wryly. "She played too much in the morning, and now she has a headache and is lying down." "Then you should worry." "What, it will be fine soon. I know her body better than her." The old man said, drinking happily. "Do you two have children?" "No, it's just the two of us who are elderly trying to live alone." There was no trace of loneliness in the old man's smiling face.Presumably he has already survived that period of feeling lonely. I stared at the huge suitcase and took two more sips of brandy.Meditating on Shangmei's posture when she packed her luggage, she felt her stomach constricted, as if being tightly pressed by something.

"Can I ask you something?" I put down my wine glass and looked at the old man: "Have you ever thought about...killing Madam?" The old man didn't look surprised, but slowly put the wine glass back on the table.He stared at the ceiling for a while, and finally returned his gaze to my face, and said, "Yes." "what?" "Yes. After all, we've been living together for fifty years." He raised the wine glass to his lips again, took a sip, wriggled his lips like a goat, and then swallowed. "This is really unexpected. The relationship between the two seems to be very good."

"That's right. However, no matter how happy a couple is, they will encounter crises. No, not only that. It should be said that because they love each other, they will misunderstand each other's feelings and make a mess in the end." "Mutual misunderstanding..." "Actions that are taken in the interest of the other party, but not understood by the other party, are as entangled as the gears reversed. However, it is not easy to make the gears work properly, because doing so will inevitably lead to hurt each other." "gear……" I sighed: "If it's just a misunderstanding, there will always be a solution."

As I said it, I thought in my heart that the rules the old man said do not apply to our current predicament.If Shangmei didn't kill Hongzi, why didn't she defend herself? The old man seemed to see through my thoughts, and said: "Whether it is a misunderstanding or not, you have to try to untangle it to understand." I was taken aback and didn't know how to answer for a moment. I was stunned for a while before I said, "Perhaps what you said is right. However, isn't it true that some cases will never be properly judged? In many cases, the authenticity cannot be judged, but it must be judged." It was nerve-wracking to come to a conclusion.”

The old man smiled silently: "When you don't know how to determine the authenticity, you should take the method of trusting the other party. Those who can't do this are really fools." After that, he stood up and said, "Okay, it's time for me to leave too." I walked him to the door, and the old man turned to me again. "If you only focus on the other party's behavior itself, the misunderstanding will naturally be difficult to resolve. Please think again about this point." I didn't understand what he meant, and I didn't know how to interface.He smiled, opened the door and walked out.

I was alone in the room.I saw that there was still a little brandy in the glass, so I drank it again. The old man's words made me think a lot: don't just focus on the behavior of the other party—— What the hell does this mean?Does it make me think about my actions too?However, I was not there when Hongzi died tragically, so even if I wanted to recall something, I had no clue. Could it be that the problem came before I left home?But I'm sure I extinguished the fireplace. However, thinking about the situation after that, I was quietly shaken in my heart.All this while, I've only looked at the fireplace as the culprit and ignored everything else.

However, the most important factor is precisely hidden in it.I didn't realize it until now! I couldn't sit still any longer, and was pacing furiously up and down the room like a bear.The process of reasoning that seemed to me so terrifying is gradually becoming visible, and this reasoning is enough to make all the lumps reasonable. The old man was undoubtedly here to give me advice. After a few minutes, I ran out of the room, ran down the corridor, and knocked on the door of the old couple. "You finally came." The old man greeted him.I took a few steps in the house and stopped in front of a chair by the window.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" I moaned and said, "It was actually me who killed Hiroko?" "I... can't say it." Naomi said with tears.