Chapter Eighteen: The Tattoo of the Eye Pattern

Azure could clearly sense that when she mentioned the words “Detective Agency,” the hand of the usually sunny and confident young man beside her stiffened noticeably.

“Not yet,” Li Can tightened his grip on the softness in his hand.

“Can, you know I’ll always be right behind you.”

Azure leaned gently on Li Can’s shoulder. “But it’s already been a whole year since it happened, and you’ve never told me exactly what took place that day. Some things, if you keep them buried in your heart forever, will never help you heal. I just want to share your burden.”

She still remembered how she nearly lost her mind when she first heard something had happened to Li Can. She didn’t dare imagine what darkness her world would fall into if anything truly happened to him.

Li Can rubbed the girl’s forehead, and after a long silence, he began to speak slowly.

“You know what my father’s like—always working, never a moment’s rest.”

Azure nodded obediently, not interrupting him.

“It was a weekend, and the weather was lovely. My parents, with nothing better to do, called and asked if I wanted to go fishing at Mercy Cloud Lake out of town. They said it had been ages since we’d had a family meal together. I agreed without a second thought. We set off at nine in the morning. Dad drove, I sat in the front passenger seat, and Mom was in the back, peeling tangerines for us the whole way.

The tangerines were really sour.

Mom said sour fruit would help keep me awake so I could chat with her and not doze off on the road. I didn’t object, but I still fell asleep in the end.”

“Mercy Cloud Lake is southwest of Canglan City, over three hundred kilometers from the Cherry Blossom District. It’s quite a long drive,” Azure offered comfortingly.

Li Can neither agreed nor disagreed, continuing, “I don’t know how long I slept—half an hour, maybe an hour. Anyway, I was jolted awake by a violent bump.”

Azure straightened up, sensing that they were about to reach the heart of the story.

“The car was shaking badly, and there was a pungent stench of burning rubber. I was wearing a seatbelt, but Mom, regardless, reached from behind and held me tightly against the seat. I knew what she was worried about.”

“What happened to the car?” Azure gently guided his recollection, steering Li Can away from darker memories.

“Dad said the brakes suddenly failed, and the rubber smell was from him downshifting forcefully.”

Li Can’s eyes flickered with a hint of admiration. “He was much calmer than Mom. Even when the car was speeding at a hundred kilometers an hour, he kept trying to slow us down, cracking a few jokes along the way, saying that since we were living through a scene straight out of an action movie, he had to show off his driving skills. I could tell he was actually the most nervous of all, because everyone in that car was someone he’d lay down his life to protect.”

Azure gently stroked Li Can’s back, soothing his tension.

Li Can didn’t seem to notice. He smiled to himself, “I really admired him. He managed to get the runaway car under control and, when the speed finally dropped to about thirty or forty, he put his arm in front of me and steered the car up onto a roadside knoll, bringing it to a stop.”

At this point, Li Can subconsciously gripped Azure’s hand a little tighter.

Azure endured the slight pain without a word, continuing to gently rub his back.

“We thought the danger was over, but then, out of nowhere, a fully loaded dump truck barreled into us. We didn’t even have time to react before our car was sent tumbling over a hundred-meter-high cliff.

When I came to again, it was days later, and I was in the intensive care unit. Later, the police told me I survived because the two of them held me tightly between them and never let go, even in death.”

Li Can instinctively touched the sun-shaped pendant hidden beneath his collar. If he had died back then, would the outcome have changed?

He had no answer. He couldn’t even remember if he’d gotten the necklace before getting in the car or after.

Everything was far too chaotic.

It was the first time Azure had heard the whole story. Her heart twisted painfully, feeling every word as if it were her own loss.

She knew Li Can’s parents well—one might even say intimately. Li Haotian had been friends since childhood with her own father, Wei Zhong, and Luo Yuan’s mother, Han Yuling.

In Azure’s memories, Li Haotian was a fascinating man, always learning little magic tricks to make the children laugh. But he was also strange, always telling Li Can scary stories in private. Li Can practically grew up on horror tales, to the point where he could fall asleep in the middle of a scary movie.

Han Yuling, Luo Yuan’s mother, was the opposite—a cold woman who rarely smiled, even when they met by chance.

As for Wei Zhong…

Azure always got a headache just thinking about her own father.

Wei Zhong was a man of strict discipline, harsh even with his own daughter.

He hated anyone who went against his wishes.

So, he despised Li Can.

Because the daughter he had so carefully raised had fallen for someone he hadn’t planned for!

“Why did that truck hit you? By your account, your car was already off the main road. Was there any surveillance footage?” Azure set aside her tangled thoughts and pressed on.

“There was no surveillance on that stretch, and no one knows why the truck veered into us. There weren’t even any skid marks on the road.” Li Can’s words were squeezed out through gritted teeth, thick with hatred.

“Sadly, they only found the truck afterward, never the driver.”

Azure sighed. “Can, you’ve spent every penny this past year searching for that driver. Haven’t you found anything at all? Could the detective agency have taken your money without putting in the effort?”

“No. The head of that agency was my father’s old friend. Not only did I invest, but he put in a lot of his own money too. I’m grateful for that,” Li Can shook his head.

“Could it be that your description didn’t match the real driver? After all, you only had a few seconds to see his face,” Azure frowned slightly.

“Impossible,” Li Can said firmly. “I’d know him even if he turned to dust. Besides, he had a unique tattoo on his neck—a design like an eye, extremely distinctive.”

“What kind of eye?”

“It looked like a totem, made up of many lines. The agency checked a lot of tattoo parlors, but no one had ever seen a design like it. They suspect the driver isn’t local to Canglan City. But…”

Li Can’s gaze was resolute. “No matter who he is, no matter where he’s hiding, I will find him. And when I do, I want to look him in the eye and ask him why he did it!”

“You’ll find him,” Azure said with unwavering faith.

She understood Li Can better than she understood herself.

Li Can had always been the kind of man who would never give up until he reached his goal!

(To be continued…)

P.S.: Wishing all the little kids and big kids a happy Children’s Day! May you have lollipops every year! Yo-ho-ho-ho…