Chapter 262: Chaotic Accusations

2022-05-20

The moment I finished speaking, I noticed a man sitting in the farthest corner suddenly start to tremble. He tried hard to keep up a calm façade but just couldn’t control the physical signs of his fear. He forced a smile onto his face, the kind a child puts on when holding back tears, but everyone can see he’s struggling.

Zhao Mingkun spotted him too, locking his gaze directly onto the man.

His name was Luo Ding, an unremarkable person at first glance. In his thirties, a little overweight, hair greasy as if it hadn’t seen shampoo in ages. Even in a setting like this, he wore jeans, a t-shirt and thick black-framed glasses. Noticing my stare, his hand kept adjusting his glasses over and over. Every move screamed that he was deeply afraid of something.

The rest of the group looked tense and silent with furrowed brows, but none matched Luo Ding’s level of anxiety. I had just asked if anyone had recently encountered anything weird—so strange it could even put their life in danger.

So, Luo Ding must have gone through something horrifying.

Could it be the killer’s next target is him?

Based on all the clues Zhao Mingkun and I had gathered, the person who returned to avenge Lü Zhiqiu probably didn’t know who exactly killed her seven years back, so the killer might just decide to eliminate anyone involved back then—all the interns and anyone who might have colluded with them.

I tapped my thigh rhythmically with my finger, slow and steady. It was clear everyone’s nerves were completely frayed.

After a moment, I shot straight to the point: “Luo Ding, what are you so afraid of? Did you run into something strange?”

Luo Ding looked at me, hesitated, then admitted, “Yeah. Lately, my house has just felt off. I used to sleep straight through till noon, but now I wake up every night in the middle of the night. And every time I wake up, it feels like… like something is watching me in the dark.”

“I’m too scared to turn on the light. I can feel it—just by the edge of my bed, there’s a pair of eyes staring right at me,” he said, trembling. “But it’s too dark, I can’t see what’s there. If I turn on the light, what if I see it standing there? What if, the moment I actually see its face, it’s already too late and I’m dead?”

Luo Ding sucked in deep breaths, his whole body shaking violently. He kept rubbing his hands together like someone freezing in an icebox. “More than once, I woke up and felt the apartment was freezing—bone-chilling cold. Once, I even saw a shadow slip out of my bathroom. I’m not lying, I swear.”

“I’ve gone to see Daoists for help, a bunch of times. They all say my yang energy is too weak, that’s why ghosts latch onto me.” His voice quivered. “The last one told me this ghost… it’s vengeful. Said she died a terrible death, and I happened to be nearby. So her angry soul follows me. The Daoist said with a ghost like that around, I wouldn’t have any friends. Other people would just avoid me.”

“Don’t you feel how cold it is in here?” Luo Ding hugged his knees to his chest, curling up like a ball. “But I didn’t kill anyone. Seven years ago, I didn’t kill Lü Zhiqiu. Why… why does her ghost have to haunt me and no one else?”

The fear gripping Luo Ding was genuine, not an act. He couldn’t hide it even if he tried.

Listening to him talk, watching how he moved, I couldn’t help but feel a chill in the air too. Whatever ghost he saw at home…what was it really?

“There are ghosts! There really are ghosts!” Luo Ding suddenly yelled.

His outburst rattled a few people. The class reunion had started at nine, two hours of food and drinks, then another hour just sitting in this apartment. It was already midnight. Even though the hotel windows showed city lights outside, darkness lurked everywhere else—who knew what might be waiting out there?

Luo Ding suddenly went wild, shouting that the ghosts had come.

Now I understood why his outfit was just jeans and a t-shirt—someone nearly driven mad by ghosts wouldn’t care about what to wear to a reunion. He was probably just looking for any excuse to escape his haunted apartment.

The place with the ghost, that apartment—Luo Ding never wanted to set foot there again.

“Lü Zhiqiu—her ghost has always been following us!” Luo Ding sobbed. “We all saw her corpse back then. Her eyes had been gouged out, so she never knew who killed her. She waited too long, and she can’t wait anymore. Anyone who saw her body… will die.”

“One by one, we’ll all be killed in the same brutal way.”

I frowned at Luo Ding, silence hanging heavy in the air. His words were the only thing echoing in the room.

“That’s enough!” a girl’s voice suddenly snapped. “Stop making stuff up! There are no such things as ghosts. No need to try scaring everyone.”

The girl was Xing Yafang—thin, delicate, looked gentle. No one expected her to be the first to speak out against Luo Ding.

She pointed right at him, voice rising. “I remember you sneaked into the girls’ dorm to steal our clothes. It was Lü Zhiqiu who caught you!”

“It was near the end of our internship. Lü Zhiqiu told me you begged on your knees for ages, so she was torn about reporting you. That night, you must have lured her out somewhere. When she finally decided to reveal the truth, you panicked and killed her—didn’t you?”

“She only told me about this. And the next day she was dead. If you weren’t the killer, then who was?” Tears streamed down Xing Yafang’s face as she spoke.

Luo Ding reacted like someone had stepped on his tail, snapping back, “Xing Yafang, don’t go throwing accusations around. You say I killed her, but where’s your proof? For all we know, it could’ve been you! After the internship, there was a job offer, two grand a month. You and Lü Zhiqiu were the main competitors. But you knew you weren’t as pretty, and your personality couldn’t match hers.”

Luo Ding was breathing hard, almost panting. “So why couldn’t it be you? With her out of the way, the job would be yours, right? You hated her because she always outshined you. That was enough reason to kill her!”

Xing Yafang waved her hand, clearly upset by everyone staring at her. “Yes, I eventually got the job after she died. But does that make me a killer? If you want to talk about motives, why not say it was Yang Licheng and Zhou Moli?”

“Lü Zhiqiu got twice the aid and even a scholarship—all because the professor favored her. She earned around three thousand a month, but Yang Licheng and Zhou Moli were just as needy and got nothing. Maybe they resented her, and that’s why they killed!”

“Nonsense!” Yang Licheng shot to his feet, tall and muscular, skin tanned, hands full of calluses.

Yang Licheng barked, “Why would Zhou Moli or I kill someone over a thousand bucks a month? For all we know, it was Wang Yikai. Back then, he chased after Lü Zhiqiu like crazy but she never agreed. One night, in their dorm, Zhang Yifa, Cheng Lu, Sun Shouwang and Wang Yikai were all drinking, and I heard them say they wanted to ruin Lü Zhiqiu.”

He paused, then said, “Do you dare admit you said that? Wang Yikai even said if he couldn’t have her, he’d make sure no one else could either. Didn’t you all admit you liked her too? I bet all of you in the dorm finally snapped and killed her.”

“You can’t take drunken words as evidence!” Zhang Yifa immediately shot back. “If you’ll go that far, then Liang Mei, Zhang Xue, Zhao Pingjuan—they all argued with Lü Zhiqiu over school issues and threatened to chop her to pieces if they had the chance. Why not accuse them? And late at night, it’s way easier for a girl to lure another girl out!”

Liang Mei wouldn’t back down. “Fine, if that’s how it’s going to be—then Wang Xin and Wang Xianduo are suspects too, and their motive is even stronger. Lü Zhiqiu led a lot of people into a scam and they lost thousands. Wang Xin and Wang Xianduo weren’t rich. That kind of money meant a lot!”

“That’s right!” Zhang Xue added. “Lü Zhiqiu later claimed she’d pay everyone back, but who knows if she ever did. Wang Xin and Wang Xianduo could’ve hated her enough to want her dead out of revenge.”

Thirteen people, thirteen mouths—suddenly everyone was talking over each other, accusing left and right. I never imagined it would turn out like this. I’d hoped to rule out most of the group and zero in on a few with real motive and opportunity. Now, thanks to all their stories, everyone had a reason to want Lü Zhiqiu dead.

And, disturbingly, all their motives sounded plausible.

Looking around the room, I caught a hint of fear and worry in every face. If they were truly innocent, if they hadn’t harmed Lü Zhiqiu, why did they look so terrified? I honestly couldn’t tell who among these thirteen was genuinely blameless—if any of them had no motive at all.

Maybe each of the thirteen harbored a different emotion. But in the end, it all came down to the same thing—benefit, self-interest.

If everyone here had a motive, where did we even start the investigation?

Xing Yafang slammed the table. “Enough! I’m out of here! I can’t stay in this place a second longer!”