“Who is that?”
Klein was still thinking about the mysterious suicide of the original self and the unknown dangers that he might be exposed to. He was startled upon hearing the sudden knocks on the door. He subconsciously opened the drawer and took the revolver out in vigilance.
It was quiet for two seconds and then he heard a shout in a sharp Awwa accent.
“It's me, Billy. Billy Monbatton.”
The voice paused and added.
“Police.”
Billy Monbatton… As soon as he heard the name, Klein immediately recalled the corresponding person.
Billy was one of the policemen in charge of the area where the apartment was located. He was a rude and slightly violent person. Of course, perhaps only such a man could handle the drunkards, thieves, part-time thieves, thugs, and rogues in the area.
The unique voice was one of his trademarks.
“Okay, I’ll be right here!” Klein replied in a loud voice.
At first, he had intended to put the revolver back into the drawer. However, he did not know why the police were there and if they would conduct a search in the house. Therefore, he ran to the extinguished stove and carefully inserted the revolver into it.
Immediately after that, he picked up the basket of coal and put a few pieces into the stove to cover the pistol. Finally, he placed the kettle on top of the stove to shield everything from sight.
After all this, he tidied his shirt and quickly approached the door. As he opened the door, he explained vaguely.
“Sorry, I was taking a nap.”
There were four policemen wearing black uniforms, white stripes, and badged soft hats standing outside the door. Billy, who had kept a brown beard, coughed and spoke.
“These three police officers would like to ask you some questions.”
Police officers? Klein instinctively looked at the ranks on their shoulders found that two of them had three silver six-pointed stars and the other one had two stars. All their ranks looked superior to Billy Mombatton who only had a three-V tag.
As a student of history, Klein had little understanding of the levels of police badges. He only knew that Billy often showed off his rank of senior sheriff.
[So, are they three inspectors?] Under the influence of his brother Benson, Welch and other classmates, Klein did have some common knowledge. He walked to the side of the door and gesture towards the inside of the house.
“Please come in. What it is regarding?”
The three police officers appeared to be headed by a middle-aged man with sharp, piercing eyes. His had obvious wrinkles around the edge of the eyes and the lines on his police hat were slightly brown. He looked around the room and spoke in a low voice.
“Do You know Mr. Welch McGovern?”
“What had happened to him?” Klein had a bad premonition.
“I’m asking you a question.” The fierce middle-aged police officer gave a cold-eyed stare at Klein.
The second police officer who was also wearing a three-star badge looked at Klein with a smile.
“Don't be too nervous. We are just asking the routine questions.”
The police officer was about thirty years old. He had an upright nose and a pair of gray pupils that gave a subtle sense of depth. They felt like an inaccessible lake in an ancient forest.
Klein secretly took a deep breath and tried to organize his words.
"Are you referring to Welch McGovern from Coyston, who is also a graduate of Hoey University? If so, I can confirm that we are classmates. We followed the same tutor, senior associate professor Cohen."
In the Kingdom of Ruen, “professor” was not only a professional title but also a position. It was like the combination of a professor and a dean on the earth. In other words, there could only be one professor in a university department. For an associate professor to become a full professor, he would need to wait for the boss to retire, or force him or her out.
In view of the need to retain talents, the Higher Education Commission of the Kingdom had, after years of trial and error, added senior associate professors into the previously three-tier system of lecturers, associate professors, and professors. They would be given to people with high academic qualifications who were old enough but could not become professors.
Here, Klein looked at the eyes of the middle-aged police officer. After pausing for a second he continued.
“To be honest, our relationship was fairly good. Over the past few weeks, both me and him, as well as Naya, often meet to read and discussed a ‘Fourth Epoch’ literature he had obtained. It was a notebook. Sir, may I know what had happened to him?”
The middle-aged police officer did not answer. Instead, he turned over to look at his gray pupil colleague.
The gray pupil police officer wore a badge, a soft hat and had average looking features. He replied gently.
“I’m sorry, Mr. McGovern had passed away.”
“How could it be?” Although he had some anticipation, Klein could not help but felt shocked.
[Did Welch also die like the original Klein?
This is quite scary!]
"What about Naya?” Klein hurriedly asked.
“Ms. Naya had also passed away,” said the gray pupil officer in a very calm voice. “They both died in Mr. McGovern’s house.”
“Murdered?” Klein vaguely guessed.
[Perhaps suicide…]
The gray pupil officer shook his head.
“No, from the evidence of the scene, they had committed suicide. Mr. McGovern had knocked his head against the wall many times until the wall was covered with blood. Ms. Naya had drowned herself in a basin. The kind of washbasin in homes.”
"This can’t be…” Klein could feel goosebumps on his skins when he tried to imagine that strange scenario.
A girl kneeling on a chair and burying her face into a washbasin filled with water. Her soft brown hair draped into the water and swayed with the breeze, while the body was motionless. Welch lied on the ground with his back, his eyes fixed on the ceiling and his forehead was completely crushed. Blood splattered everywhere and the wall covered with trails of blood.
The gray pupil police officer continued and spoke.
“We also thought so, but the results of the autopsy and on-site evidence have excluded factors such as drugs and external forces. They, I mean Mr. McGovern and Ms. Naya, had shown no traces of resistance.”
Not waiting for Klein to speak, he stepped into the room and asked casually.
"When was the last time you met Mr. McGovern or Ms. Naya?”
While he was talking, he motioned to his companion with the two silver stars rank.
The third police officer was a young man who looked almost the same age as Klein. He had dark green pupils and looked handsome. He also had the romantic temperament of a poet.
When Klein heard the question, thoughts ran through his mind quickly as he replied.
“It should be June 26th. We met to decipher a new passage from the notebook. After that, I returned home to prepare for the interview on the 30th. Well, it was an interview at the Department of History at the University of Tengon.”
The city of Tengon was also known as the City of Universities. There were two universities, Tengon and Hoey. Apart from that the city also had a technical school, a barristers’ college, and a business school. In terms of education infrastructure, it was just behind the capital, Beckland.
Just as he had just finished speaking, he saw the young police officer approaching the desk and picking up his diary-like "notes".
[Oh no! I've forgotten to hide it!] Klein could only utter. “You!”
The young police officer smiled at him but did not stop flipping through the notes, and the grey pupil officer explained.
“This is a necessary procedure.”
All the while, both Billy Monbatton, and the fierce-looking middle-aged police officer just watched from the side. They didn’t interrupt the conversation nor assist in the search.
[Where is your search warrant?] Klein had intended to ask such a question, but he recalled that the judicial system of Ruin Kingdom did not seem to have come up with search warrants yet. At least, he did not know about it. In fact, even the police team was only established about fifteen or sixteen years ago.
When the original Klein was a child, they were just called guards.
Klein couldn’t stop the search. He helplessly watched the young police officer flipping through his notes quickly, and the gray pupil officer did not ask any further questions.
"What are the strange things?" the young police officer turned to the end and suddenly asked, "And what does this sentence mean? ‘Everybody will die, including me’…"
[Isn't it common sense that everybody will die except for the gods?] At first, Klein had intended to argue, but he suddenly remembered he had initially wanted to seek help from the police as a defense against the possible dangers. It was just that he had not been able to find any excuses.
In less than a second, he made a decision. First, he covered his forehead with his hand and then he replied with pain.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know… Since waking up this morning, I have been feeling not right. It seems that I have forgotten something, especially what had happened in last two days. I’m not sure why I wrote the sentence. "
Sometimes, honesty was the best way to solve the problem. Of course, honesty needed to apply skillfully. You would have to understand what could be said versus what could not be said, and what to talk first versus what to talk later.
As a “keyboard warrior", Klein had some basic understanding about this.
"Absurd! Do you think we are idiots?" Billy Monbatton furiously interjected into the conversation. He could not help but felt insulted.
[The lie is too clumsy. You are simply mocking our intelligence!
Even feigning mental illness is better than pretending to have amnesia!]
“It's true,” Klein responded calmly to Billy and the middle-aged police officer.
It could not be any further from the truth.
“Perhaps it is.” The gray pupil officer slowly opened his mouth.
[What? You believe it so easily?] Klein was surprised himself.
The gray pupil police officer smiled and looked at him.
“An expert will come down in two days time. Believe me, she would be able to help you recover your missing memories.”
[Expert? Help me recover my missing memories? The field of psychology?] Klein frowned.
[Hey, what if the expert discovered that I have come from Earth?] He suddenly felt a toothache.
The young police officer put down the notebook and searched the desk and the room. Fortunately, he focused on books and did not notice the kettle.
“Well, Mr. Moretti, thank you for your cooperation. In the next few days, please do not leave Tengon. If you have to, please inform Officer Monbatton. Otherwise, you will be regarded an escaped criminal.” The gray pupil officer warned.
[Is this over? That's all for today? No further questions, or further investigation? Do I not need to go to the police station?] Klein pondered.
Since he also wanted to resolve the strange troubles of the original self, he replied and nodded.
“No problem.”
As police officers took turns to exit the room, the young officer at the end patted Klein’s shoulders suddenly.
“You are very lucky.”
“What?” Klein looked up in confusion.
The green pupil police officer with poetic temperament gave a mild smile.
“Generally speaking, it is normal for all parties to die in the event of such an incident.”
“We are very glad and lucky to see that you are still alive.”
After he finished, he walked out of the room and closed the door in a well-educated manner.
[It is normal for all parties to die? Glad that I’m still alive? Lucky to see me alive?]
In the afternoon of June, Klein felt a chill running down his spine.