The Gods Are Fighting Over Me - Chapter 29
Lin Jianyue bent over and coughed violently. Her chest was shaking with pain.
“Miss Jianyue, are you okay?” Ran Mouri’s voice came from far away, as if through a layer of fog.
Lin Jianyue looked around. Broken walls and crushed stones cut off all exits, completely separating her from that worried voice.
Lin Jianyue held onto the cold wall and stood steady. Her fingertips felt a sticky warmth. It was bl00d from her arm, which had been scratched by the shattered stone.
Beads of bl00d crawled down her skin and dripped onto the dusty ground, creating small red stains that were quickly covered by new falling dust.
“I’m fine, Ran.”
Lin Jianyue’s voice was muffled by the rolling dust. After just a few words, she started coughing again. “Don’t worry about me. Go find an exit.”
“But…” Ran Mouri was worried.
“It’s okay. I’ll be fine,” Lin Jianyue paused, then added, “Just like you’re still waiting for Shinichi to show up, I’m also waiting for Kenji. We’ll both be fine before our promises are fulfilled.”
Lin Jianyue thought she would be shaking and panicking, but after she said those words, even she was surprised by her own calmness. She even knew what to say to quickly convince Ran Mouri.
Ran Mouri was silent for a moment, then came a worried instruction, followed by rustling footsteps that slowly faded away.
Only then did Lin Jianyue let out a sigh of relief. She slowly slid down the wall and sat on the ground.
She turned her head to look at her surroundings. Her eyes swept over the fire hydrant that was broken in half and the overturned metal display rack, finally landing on the incandescent lamp above her head.
The light was bright and peaceful, as if no disaster had ever happened. Countless specks of dust floated in the halo, carried by the airflow, flying up and down.
Lin Jianyue stared at the dust floating in the air. She suddenly remembered the first time she watched “Countdown to Heaven.”
She first came into contact with Detective Conan when she was in the second grade, on a summer when her father was away on a trip for a performance.
She watched “Countdown to Heaven” at that time.
The sunlight came through the living room window, casting a grid-like pattern of light on her desk. Dust-like particles floated in the sunlight, creating a warm and cozy atmosphere.
At that time, she only thought that explosions and collapses were cool things that happened on the big screen. Conan was cool, and everyone else was cool, too. She never thought that one day, she would actually be standing in such a ruin, a mere speck of dust in the story.
Lin Jianyue suddenly felt a little regretful.
She didn’t love Detective Conan deeply enough. Time flew by, and after graduating from college, she had completely forgotten the case plots, only vaguely remembering some of the main storylines and famous scenes.
If she had remembered Teiji Moriya’s true identity sooner, she would never have stepped into this building that was destined to collapse.
Lin Jianyue sighed softly, found a dusty bench, brushed off the stones, and sat down.
She took out her phone, opened her notes, and her fingers quickly typed on the virtual keyboard.
Over the past few years, Lin Jianyue had only seen a small number of movies. There were as many as twelve movies that had an explosion in them. If these twelve movies were spread out over a timeline of six months, it meant that there would be at least two major explosions every month.
And this was only the part that Lin Jianyue had watched.
Lin Jianyue frowned and thought for a moment. She crossed out “2 major explosions per month” on her notes and changed it to “2.5 major explosions per month.”
She continued to write: “Mobile Unit’s duties: defusing bombs, rescuing, capturing criminal organizations, and chasing Kid the Phantom Thief.”
Her fingertips wrote faster and faster. Every word was filled with frustration.
Even though they had just started dating, Lin Jianyue could already foresee the kind of single-parent-like relationship she was about to experience.
Over the next six months, Kenji Hagiwara would be constantly on the front lines, chasing after troublesome criminal gangs, and always dealing with danger in places she couldn’t see.
The only thing she was happy about was that this kind of high-intensity hellish life wouldn’t last for too long.
Thirty years of serialization was equivalent to six months in this world. Based on this conversion ratio, Lin Jianyue bet that Conan would definitely turn back into Shinichi Kudo and completely dismantle the Black Organization within a year.
After all…
Gosho Aoyama’s lifespan could not support him drawing for another thirty years.
Just as she was thinking, her phone suddenly vibrated. The name of the person she was missing popped up on the screen.
“Jianyue! Are you okay!” As soon as the call was connected, Kenji Hagiwara’s voice boomed, with a hint of a tremor he couldn’t hide.
He didn’t even call her “Jianyue-chan” in his usual loving tone.
“I’m fine,” Lin Jianyue’s voice was very calm, even with a hint of a comforting tone.
“I’m sorry. It’s all my fault.”
Kenji Hagiwara’s voice was filled with a deep sense of self-blame. The sharp sound of tires rubbing against the ground in the background suddenly grew louder. It seemed like he was flooring the gas pedal and speeding on the street. “If I had gotten there in time, or told you to go home earlier and not wait for me, you wouldn’t have.”
“Kenji,” Lin Jianyue gently interrupted him.
Her fingers rubbed the hem of the dress on her thigh, creating a few wrinkles in the soft fabric. “Did you know? When I first watched the anime, the first person I noticed was actually Matsuda.”
The other end of the phone suddenly became silent. It was so quiet that she could hear Kenji Hagiwara’s breathing pause for a moment.
“But when I started reading about his past, my attention was uncontrollably drawn to you. Your life was too short. At most… You were only a hero for three seconds.”
Lin Jianyue half-closed her eyes. Her eyelashes cast a faint shadow underneath them. “But whether it was your personality or your selflessness for justice, you made me fall for you.”
Lin Jianyue’s voice was very soft, as soft as a sigh. It was like she was speaking to the person on the other end of the phone, and also like she was speaking to her past self who had been so heartbroken by Kenji Hagiwara’s death.
The other end of the phone was silent. There was only the rustling sound of wheels rolling over the road in the background, mixed with a faint honking.
Lin Jianyue smiled. “I love you, Kenji.”
“You’re suddenly saying all this…” Kenji Hagiwara’s voice finally came through. It was gentle, with a hint of a teasing complaint. “You’re making it harder and harder for me to let you go.”
“Idiot,” Lin Jianyue laughed, but her ears were burning up, and even her neck was flushed with a faint red.
She clutched the hem of her skirt. Her voice was as thin as a mosquito’s buzzing. “After this is over tonight… do you want to… come home with me?”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone. She knew he understood.
“I’m…” Kenji Hagiwara paused. His voice was a little tight, then it suddenly sank. “Idiot. This isn’t the time to be saying things like that. Find a safe place first.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve seen the movies. No one dies from the explosion at the Beika City Building. Everyone escapes safely.”
Lin Jianyue’s cheeks were burning. She wrung the hem of her skirt. Her voice held a shyness that even she didn’t notice. “I wore a new dress today, put on makeup, and even wore expensive daily contacts. You…”
She nervously swallowed her saliva, and just as she was about to continue, a muffled sound suddenly came from a distance, like the roar of a giant beast.
Along with the loud noise, the ground began to shake. Dust mixed with shattered stones fell from the ceiling, hitting her head, shoulders, and the back of her hands.
Lin Jianyue’s head shot up.
The concrete beam that spanned the hallway was cracking at a visible rate. Tiny bits of sand and rock seeped out of the spiderweb-like cracks.
Rumble.
The moment the beam fell, Lin Jianyue dove toward the pillar on her right.
The screams around her were like balloons that had been squeezed. They exploded and then suddenly died out, completely swallowed by the sound of the collapse. The gust of wind pushed her long hair against her face. It was mixed with small stones that scraped her skin, causing a burning pain. The smell of smoke and dust went up her nose, making her cough until her chest hurt.
The smoke and dust lingered for a long time. The lights on the ceiling went out one after another, leaving only the last wall lamp that flickered in the darkness like a dying eye.
Lin Jianyue was lying on the ground. She coughed for a long time before she raised her head. Her carefully maintained long hair had turned a dusty gray color, sticking to her cheeks with bits of concrete.
She tried to stand up, but her knees buckled, and she fell back down.
Lin Jianyue wasn’t hurt, but the hem of her new dress was completely crushed under a pile of stones, starting from the middle of her thighs.
Her phone was lying quietly about two steps away from her. The screen was cracked like a spiderweb and completely black. It was most likely unusable.
Lin Jianyue tugged on the hem of her dress. The stones didn’t move at all. Instead, they kicked up a cloud of dust, making her cough again.
The wall lamp flickered, casting a long shadow of her on the cracked wall, like a distorted silhouette.
Lin Jianyue covered her mouth and coughed a few more times. Her face suddenly turned grim.
She had been misled.
No one had actually died in the movies, but “not dead” and “not hurt” were two different things.
The camera always followed the main characters, filming them defusing bombs, solving cases, and turning danger into safety. But what about the civilians who were hit by shattered stones, the cars that were overturned by the blast, and the ordinary people who were frozen in fear?
Just because they weren’t filmed didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
The only thing a detective had to do was find the truth, stop the crime from happening, and minimize the damage. Catching the criminal and stopping the situation from escalating was the detective’s happy ending.
But for the police, doctors, and firefighters, the true happy ending was when everyone got out alive, when no one lost a limb or had their life ruined because of this.
No, the true happy ending was when the case didn’t happen at all.
Lin Jianyue wasn’t going to transfer her resentment to Conan Edogawa. The ones who were wrong were always the criminals.
She was just blaming herself for being careless, for naively thinking that as long as she was under the protection of the plot, she might experience some hardships, but she would at least be unharmed.
In the movies, no one died off-camera, but that didn’t mean no one got hurt.
Even a broken bone was something Lin Jianyue didn’t want.
Lin Jianyue bit her lip and took out a small folding knife from her bag that was only half the size of her palm. Ever since she found out about the world merging, she had always kept a folding knife in her bag.
The blade popped out, a cold gleam reflecting Lin Jianyue’s resolute gaze.
Tear.
The sound of fabric tearing was exceptionally clear in the dead silence. Lin Jianyue cut off the hem of her dress and stood up from the ground.
She couldn’t escape.
She also knew that she couldn’t escape with her own strength alone.
Even if it was Shinichi Kudo, at this point, he still had a basic respect for Newton. His belt and soccer ball couldn’t stop a Maglev train or kick a satellite—even if he was trapped here himself, he would have to obediently wait for help.
Lin Jianyue never thought that waiting for help was an embarrassing thing.
Staying calm when you were trapped was also a kind of courage.
The skirt, which had been cut short, only barely covered her thighs, but Lin Jianyue didn’t have time to be shy. She wiped the bl00d from her left cheek with the back of her hand. Her eyes were incredibly bright.
Before Kenji Hagiwara arrived, she could still do a lot of things. A lot.
Lin Jianyue looked around and walked toward a pile of stones. Half of a blue-gray piece of clothing was sticking out, like a sprout coming out of the dirt. She squatted down and dug away the shattered stones with her bare hands.
When her nails dug into the gaps, they hurt from being scraped. She was suddenly glad that she didn’t have the habit of having long nails or getting manicures, or her nails might have broken off from the root.
Occasionally, there were sobs around her, but most people were just frozen in place, their legs weak, constantly trembling, or crying.
Lin Jianyue turned her head to look at the other survivors behind her and yelled in a low voice, “Stop standing there! Come and help!”
Lin Jianyue had been coughing a lot before. Her voice was now hoarse from the dust, but it was like a thunderclap in the dead silence. A few survivors who were huddled in the corner suddenly looked up. Tears were still on their faces, and their eyes were as blank as if they were covered in a fog.
“What are you standing there for?” Lin Jianyue shouted again. Her fingertips were red from being scraped by the shattered stones. “There’s someone under here! Everyone, lend a hand!”
She leaned over and put her ear to the cold stone. A faint groan came from underneath, like a cat with its mouth covered.
Her heart suddenly tightened. Lin Jianyue started digging even harder.
A man in a suit stood up hesitantly. As he stood up, small stones fell from him.
A woman in a long, knee-length dress was following him. She was holding a bouquet that had already lost its shape. The woman hesitated for a few seconds, then she bit her lip and wiped away her tears. She threw the flowers away. “I’ll come and help too!”
Lin Jianyue glanced around again and asked in a loud voice, “Whose phone still works? Call the police!”
Everyone around her lowered their heads to check their phones, then they all shook their heads one after another. “No, there’s no signal.”
Lin Jianyue’s eyes darkened. She didn’t say anything else and focused on the task at hand.
When the three of them worked together to push the stones, Lin Jianyue realized that the wound on her arm that had just healed had split open again. The beads of bl00d traveled down her skin and dripped onto the stones, creating small red marks.
She only glanced at it before quickly looking away. The force with which she was holding the stone became even stronger. Her arms were tight, and her shoulders were trembling slightly.
More and more people gathered around. Some people found broken steel bars to use as crowbars, and some people used stones to prop them up and use their strength. No one was talking. There was only the sound of heavy breathing and the friction of the stones being moved, intertwined in the dim light to form a strong force.
The stones finally moved, revealing a middle-aged woman in a janitor’s uniform. Her face was as pale as paper. The bl00d on her forehead had already partially congealed into a jelly-like substance. Her lips were trembling.
“Can you talk? Where does it hurt?” Lin Jianyue leaned in and asked. Her voice was very soft, afraid of startling the other person. “Don’t panic. We’ll get you out right now.”
“My leg… my leg won’t move…” The middle-aged woman’s voice trembled. Tears mixed with dust streamed down her face.
“Don’t be afraid. The Mobile Unit will be here soon.” Lin Jianyue showed a comforting smile and leaned in to carefully check the woman’s injuries.
Suddenly, the wall lamp made a sizzling sound, like a dying moth’s last struggle, and then it completely went out.
Darkness instantly rushed in, wrapped in the thick smell of smoke and dust, scaring people into screaming.
“Calm down! Everyone, calm down!” Lin Jianyue raised her voice. It was a reassuring voice that couldn’t be questioned. “Whose phone still works? Turn on the flashlight!”
A faint beam of light pierced the darkness and swayed to a stop in front of her. It was a girl with a high ponytail. Her school uniform was stained with dirt. “Sister, here you go.”
When Lin Jianyue took it, she touched the other person’s cold hand. The hand was shaking, but it was steadily holding the light out for her.
“Thank you.” She clutched the phone tightly. The beam of light swept over her surroundings, illuminating faces stained with tears, like dusty stars.
More and more lights came on, a scattering of lights that weren’t enough to dispel the darkness. But when they came together, they formed a backbone that could hold up a collapse.
“Those who still have strength, continue to dig. Everyone else, shine the light,” her voice was mixed with the light and shadows. She sounded a little more confident than before.
Everyone responded in unison. Amidst the sound of steel bars prying against stones, no one made a sound of fear. The scattered lights coming from all directions, carried by everyone’s raised hands, gathered into a burning warmth, flowing into each other’s burning hearts.
The digging continued in an orderly manner again. The sound of steel bars hitting stones was jarring, but it was strangely comforting.
At least they were doing something instead of sitting around waiting to die.
The darkness blurred Lin Jianyue’s perception of time. She didn’t even feel tired.
After who knows how long, the sound of metal being cut came from a distance. It became louder and closer, like a saw cutting into a nerve, but it made people ecstatic.
A beam of light suddenly broke through the darkness.
“It’s the Mobile Unit!” a woman who was closer to the outside suddenly yelled, her voice filled with a crying laugh.
Cheers erupted. When Lin Jianyue straightened up, she realized that there was a cut on her knee, too. It hurt every time she moved.
“Jianyue!”
A familiar voice broke through the noise. Lin Jianyue’s head shot up. The beam of light happened to sweep across the figure who was rushing in first.
His medium-length hair was a little messy from the helmet. His riot gear was stained with dust. The anti-ballistic glass visor was lowered from the helmet, blocking the flying dust and revealing his incredibly bright eyes.