Chapter 145: The Killer

2022-05-20

All the scattered pieces formed a single clear thread in my mind. I’d never felt more certain than I did right now. Yet as the truth of the case dawned on me, I found myself at a loss for how to face the five people standing before me. They were the killers, and yet, in some twisted way, they weren’t.

But to understand how it all happened, we need to go back to noon four days ago.

Nine days ago, Luo Sumei had a fight with Captain Zhou. Things weren’t as simple as Captain Zhou made them out to be. In fact, they’d kept in contact after that argument. Zhou always called Yumu City a tiny city at the edge of nowhere—but he wasn’t wrong. This place is so small that Captain Zhou could find a spot with no security cameras even with his eyes closed.

That afternoon, heavy snow fell, trapping everyone in the dorm. Nobody noticed who’d left or returned.

But Captain Zhou drove away.

I’d heard plenty call Captain Zhou an idiot—Erxiao said so, Luo Sumei said so. Luo Sumei used to say there was a fool coming to pick her up, one who was going to give her half a million yuan. That fool was obviously Captain Zhou. But he’d told us before he could never get his hands on that much money.

So Captain Zhou took Luo Sumei to Tougouzi Village, intending to kill her. He strangled her from behind with a steel wire, pulling so tight it dug into her skin and left a bloody line around her neck. In just a few moments, she would’ve been dead.

Captain Zhou was torn up inside, but he couldn’t see another way out. He didn’t have five hundred thousand, and he couldn’t afford to lose his job either.

Halfway through, though, he heard a vehicle driving out of the village. If they saw him like that, his whole life would be finished. Looking at Luo Sumei, limp and motionless, Zhou hurriedly stuffed away the wire, dumped her body by the roadside, and sped off.

His heart hammered with panic as he drove, because he couldn’t be sure he’d actually killed her. But he couldn’t go back to check—if anyone saw him, he’d be exposed. His plan seemed thorough, but he never expected that this was the day Erxiao would come deliver goods.

It turned out Captain Zhou’s worries weren’t unfounded—Luo Sumei wasn’t dead.

Sometimes, people are so fragile they might just drop dead for no reason. But sometimes, they’re a lot tougher than anyone expects. Luo Sumei’s neck was cut, but she survived. She’d only fainted from terror, not because she was truly gone.

She never dreamed the fool she trusted would try to kill her.

Greed—everyone’s born with it. But when your greed crosses another person’s line, even the most honest soul may pick up a butcher’s knife. Captain Zhou had considered marrying her, after all those months together.

But she turned him down. For Luo Sumei, being with Captain Zhou was just about money. He didn’t make much—maybe three thousand a month. Over time, she uncovered one of Captain Zhou’s secrets. From then on, she pocketed his entire salary every month.

It was that secret that planted the thought of murder in Captain Zhou’s head.

Luo Sumei, clueless, thought she could milk that secret forever. In reality, death was already creeping toward her. Captain Zhou offered half a million as hush money, enough to buy a place right here in Yumu City. Fired up by the idea, Luo Sumei made a little goal for herself—a home in the city.

Drunk with excitement, she agreed to Captain Zhou’s terms, and even treated herself to a manicure for the first time ever. I never learned her backstory, but I could guess—if she loved this much, yet couldn’t even afford to do her nails until now, her life had been anything but easy.

Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gotten herself killed over money.

That morning, after breakfast, Luo Sumei walked cheerfully into the nail salon. She loved everything about the place. Maybe she even remembered her mother scolding her—’if you do your nails, how can you work the fields?’ But with half a million in her pocket, Luo Sumei thought she would never have to worry again.

She chatted away with the clerk, Tony, not knowing her lighthearted words would become her final ones.

She had no idea this would be both the first and last manicure of her life.

Then her phone rang and she got in the car.

She couldn’t have imagined a minute could stretch on forever. Clutching her wounded neck, she forced herself upright. The cold outside couldn’t compare to the chill in her heart. She’d never been to this place before. Just then, an old, slow-moving truck rolled by.

Luo Sumei dashed out. At the wheel was Erxiao, who jumped in surprise.

He didn’t recognize her at all.

But Erxiao saw the woman pressing her neck hard, blood seeping through her fingers. He’d never seen anything like it and quickly stopped the truck, letting her in.

Erxiao said, “The hospital’s far from here. Let’s stop at the village clinic first.”

The woman nodded, her face pale with terror.

Erxiao tried to find out what happened, why she was out here.

She must’ve been too scared to think, because she told him the whole story. She said her boyfriend was Zhou Jianshe, and because she knew one of his secrets, he tried to silence her for good.

With a sigh of relief, she looked at Erxiao and said, “Thank goodness you came by.”

Erxiao fell silent.

Luo Sumei had never been here before. She didn’t realize the truck had actually passed the clinic. They were already on the road out of the village. The farther they drove, the more uneasy she felt. Erxiao told her not to worry, they’d be there soon. When she spotted Erxiao Supermarket, her nerves calmed a little.

“There’s gauze in the store. I’ll help dress your wound,” Erxiao said.

Luo Sumei trusted the stranger. But the world is cruel. Reality was about to teach her a harsh lesson. As soon as she entered the supermarket, she felt a heavy blow to the back of her neck before everything went black. When she awoke, it was pitch-dark.

A bone-deep chill settled in. She’d fled one monster’s grasp only to fall into another’s.

She screamed, she shouted, she rammed herself against the wall—completely hysterical—but nothing helped. Snow drifted down outside; nobody was coming. Shivering in the dark, she leaned against a box, desperate for warmth.

Meanwhile, at the east entrance to Tougouzi Village—

Erxiao drove to Li Danan’s house and called for his close friends. They gathered in Li Danan’s home, discussing what to do next. Suddenly, Li Danan remembered there was a newspaper in his bathroom. He’d read them all to kill time while on the toilet.

He tore off the back page and spread it out for everyone to see.

Erxiao said, “If we’re doing this, we go all the way. Since Captain Zhou tried to kill her, he’s in it with us. Even if the body’s found, no one will link it back to us.”

The group nodded their agreement.

They drove the truck over to Erxiao Supermarket, then unlocked the storage room.

Everything unfolded according to plan.

But they couldn’t know I’d followed Captain Zhou as well.

Their plan was to face off with Captain Zhou. That way, he couldn’t pin anything on them. The five of them would prove that the woman had already left the highway—so Zhou would be in the clear, and so would they.

But they didn’t know where I stood.

As my investigation went on, they began to realize the truth would come out sooner or later.

That’s when they decided: if I refused to drop the case, the first to take the fall would be Li Danan, who already had cancer.

To distance Zhou from everything, they kept provoking me—writing bloody words on the wall, serving us dumplings, sending Captain Zhou cryptic messages. For every twist, Captain Zhou was there with us.

He ate dumplings with us, joined our investigation—so we never suspected him.

Once I discovered the torn half of the newspaper, the five knew they’d been exposed. Desperate to close the case, they threw Li Danan at me first. But I didn’t fall for it, so all five prepared to take the blame together.

It was like Inception—a lie within a lie, one set trap after another. They worked so hard to cover up the truth, but truth can’t be hidden. No matter how many layers you wrap it in, lies can’t conceal what’s real. Only things that aren’t the truth can be covered up at all.

So what was the truth worth, after all?

After these past months, I know exactly what kind of man Captain Zhou is. If he hadn’t been forced into a corner, would he ever have done something like this?

So what should I do now?

Stick to the game as the five want, everyone happily moving on and never breaking the law again? Or rip away their double-layered lies and let everyone see the truth at last?