Chapter 143: Emotion

2022-05-20

Erxiao threw his arms around Li Danan, tears brimming in both of their eyes. Old Xia stood by, expressionless, just watching the two men sobbing in each other’s embrace. After a while, even Old Xia couldn’t hold it in anymore. Just like that snowy afternoon, Old Xia turned away and faced the wall.

He still cried silently, his shoulders jerking with each suppressed sob. I couldn’t understand it—why would three grown men be reduced to tears right now? And what’s more, even though I was at their mercy, none of them showed any hint of wanting to hurt me.

I had never witnessed anything like this before. I just sat there and watched them, silent and still.

With tears running down his cheeks, Erxiao whispered, “Maybe this is for the best. Danan, now the five of us can face things together.”

The words had barely left his lips when Li Danan suddenly pushed Erxiao away. Caught everyone off guard, he dropped to his knees in front of me. Tears streamed down his face as he pleaded, “Please, I’m begging you—just do me this favor, okay? Two months ago, the doctor told me I have cancer. I’ve got less than half a year left.”

Maybe worried that I wouldn’t believe him, Li Danan pulled a piece of paper from his pocket—a hospital report. The details were clear: Li Danan wasn’t lying. Terminal liver cancer. At most, six months to live.

Like a desperate student, Li Danan held up the medical report with both hands, as if trying to show me every word.

Seeing no reaction from me, Li Danan suddenly started slamming his head against the ground. The dull thuds echoed through the warehouse.

He kept begging. “Please, I’m really begging you. Erxiao just made one mistake, that’s all! He’s a good guy! Just let my worthless life end—spare the others. Everything was my idea, no one else was involved.”

But some mistakes you can’t take back. Once you cross that line, there’s no going back.

Li Danan howled with a pain so raw, it could have softened even the hardest heart. But not me, not this time. Luo Sumei died in agony. Who knows how much pain and despair she felt at the end.

She deserves justice. The truth deserves justice.

Li Danan, seeing I still wouldn’t answer, clung to my legs. The touch made my skin crawl and I jerked away in disgust. But he wouldn’t stop, as if he’d never get up off the floor without my agreement.

Erxiao gritted his teeth, then said, “Wu Meng, here’s the thing. I’ve scraped and saved for ten years. Two years ago, I finally bought a place in Dongxing City. I’ll give you the house. Just let the brothers go, all right? The place isn’t big, it’s not in the best area, but it’s worth two million. Set us free, and the house is yours.”

I don’t want money. I don’t want anyone’s dignity. I just want the truth. Because even now, I can’t be sure my final guess really is the truth.

Li Danan stayed kneeling. Erxiao looked at me with desperation in his eyes. Old Xia seemed to have given up, still sobbing quietly into the wall.

With no reaction from me, Erxiao suddenly snapped. “Wu Meng, we begged you, we even offered money. Don’t push us too far! Think carefully about where you stand—if you force us into a corner, do you really believe you can leave here alive?”

He’d finally come to the question I’d been wondering about all along. If I was already in their hands, shouldn’t I be the one begging them? So why were they pleading with me? Did they think even if they killed us and ran, it wouldn’t matter? Or did they actually have no intention of killing us at all?

I looked at Erxiao, Old Xia, and Li Danan.

After a long pause, I finally spoke. “Answer me a few questions. Since I won’t take your deal, I’m ready to accept never walking out of this warehouse. But curiosity’s a stubborn thing, even in the face of death—I have to know.”

“Questions?” Erxiao asked.

I nodded, serious. “If you were just trying to mislead us, why leave all those clues to provoke us? Stuff that would only make us chase after you harder. Why write blood words on the wall? Why make us dumplings? Why send Captain Zhou text messages?”

I laid out my last confusion, waiting to see how they’d explain themselves. In my mind, the truth was falling into place. The whole story was coming together. There was no solid proof, but my hunch was nearly certain.

If Guan Zengbin followed the instructions on my phone, and if my guess was right, we’d all be safe. But if I was wrong, these guys really might kill us to silence us.

Gu Chen once said I’d lost my courage, but here in this small mountain village, I felt like I’d gotten my confidence back. If we’re going to play, let’s play for real.

Erxiao never expected I’d rather face death than say a single pleading word. It’s not like I couldn’t have compromised—pretend to agree, then report everything to the police and get them all arrested. But the moment I waver, I risk losing the truth.

That’s why I had to stay tough, even if it cost all three of us our lives.

After everything I’d said, still showing no sign of sympathy, Erxiao got impatient. “Why even ask? The more we act like this, the less you’ll suspect us. Or maybe we’ve just gone too far down this road. We had to pretend we had no conscience left, or you would have seen right through us.”

“That’s why I snuck into your yard in the middle of the night and wrote those blood words on the wall,” Erxiao sneered. “That’s why we had to stick that severed limb in the snow. That’s why we had Li Luo make dumplings for you.”

Suddenly, Erxiao lunged at me, grabbed my collar with one hand, and pinched his own cheek hard with the other. “Look at this face. Really look! Tell me—isn’t this the ugliest, most hypocritical face you’ve ever seen?”

Erxiao seemed to lose it, squeezing his own face in a frenzy, his features contorted.

“Some things, once they start, you can’t turn back from,” Erxiao trembled all over, the veins in his neck standing out, his whole face flushed red. “Once you draw the bow, there’s no taking the arrow back. We’ve come this far. But I just don’t get it—is the universe really determined to destroy us?”

He panted heavily, “You people aren’t from Yumu City. I don’t know where you came from or when you’ll leave. But why, in the little time you were here, did all this have to happen?”

I went quiet for a while before finally saying, “If I hadn’t come, if it were Captain Zhou here—what do you think he’d do? Or do you really think Captain Zhou wouldn’t be able to figure it out?”

Erxiao heard me and suddenly started to laugh. “I know Luo Sumei. In fact, I knew she was Captain Zhou’s girlfriend. But do you know why I dared to go after her? Because she was Captain Zhou’s girlfriend. That guy’s a fool, always running errands for villagers over in Tougouzi Village with his squad.”

When he mentioned Captain Zhou, Erxiao’s voice dripped with contempt. “He’s been coming to our village for years. I know what sort of man he is. He’s a simpleton. If it was just him, we’d never have let things go this far.”

“He’d never find the killer. He’s completely clueless,” Erxiao went on. “If it weren’t for the fact murders don’t happen much in Yumu City, Captain Zhou would’ve been kicked off the force long ago. But I didn’t expect he’d bring you along.”

Erxiao pointed right at my eyes. “You, though—your eyes are sharp. From the moment you started investigating me, I knew Captain Zhou posed no threat. You were the real danger. When Li Danan told me you’d spotted the newspaper in the bathroom, I realized you’d already figured everything out just by looking at the back page.”

“So.” I picked up his thread, “You deliberately had Li Danan go out to dump the body, and had Old Xia ‘accidentally’ sabotage it to lure us here. At Erxiao Supermarket, Li Luo and Sun Kangning’s father were already lying in wait. They knocked out Gu Chen and Captain Zhou, right?”

I kept going, “After dragging the two here, you put the supermarket back to normal and waited for me. Then, you had Li Danan come out and confess, feeding me the story you wanted me to believe. And in the end, when Li Danan was about to silence us, you and Old Xia burst in to play the heroes?”

Erxiao gave me a small nod.

I took a breath and continued, “After that, you staged this whole scene in front of me, pinning all the blame on Li Danan. If it all worked, you’d toss Captain Zhou and Gu Chen out into the snow, then wake them up and say we’d all fallen into Li Danan’s trap—that they were knocked out as soon as they entered the supermarket.”

“The two of them would half-believe, half-doubt,” I said with a smile. “At that point, trusting that Li Danan was the culprit, I’d be on your side—after all, I’d walked right into his scheme too. It’s a perfect plan, seamless, one twist after another. You just can’t help but fall for it.”

Erxiao waved a hand, his tone flat. “But you still saw through it. If it had been Captain Zhou, he’d have believed me for sure. So here’s my last question: can you let us go? If you want to take credit, Li Danan’s already agreed to sacrifice himself.”

I answered, word by word, “No. I can’t.”