Chapter 28: A Life for a Life

2022-05-20

Gao Rui had never changed his feelings for Zhang Mingliang.

Watching the man he loved go to such lengths for another woman, Gao Rui felt as if his heart was bleeding. But he’d once said, if it was for Zhang Mingliang, he’d do anything.

Yet in the end, he gave up. Jealousy got the better of him.

Gao Rui started to really hate Hu Jiajia.

He used to be afraid of the dark, but for Zhang Mingliang’s sake, Gao Rui forced himself to overcome it. Only in the darkness did he dare to love freely.

What was it about Hu Jiajia that had that kind of hold on Zhang Mingliang? Gao Rui just couldn’t understand.

That sweltering night would forever be burned into his memory.

That was the night Hu Jiajia killed Principal Zhang.

And the night Gao Rui was supposed to deliver a document to Principal Zhang.

Truthfully, Gao Rui never warned Principal Zhang to leave Hu Jiajia alone. In fact, he secretly hoped the principal would do something. From Gao Rui’s perspective, Hu Jiajia must have pulled some trick to enchant Zhang Mingliang, and exposing that glare would break her image.

Principal Zhang really did go after Hu Jiajia. He just never imagined she would actually kill him.

When Gao Rui unlocked the principal’s door with a spare key, Principal Zhang was nowhere in sight. The bedroom was spattered with blood and signs of a fight, a cup and a USB drive left behind. Gao Rui searched every corner and quickly found Principal Zhang’s body, badly buried by Hu Jiajia.

He plugged in the USB drive, heart pounding with excitement. In an instant, he understood what had happened. Hu Jiajia had killed Principal Zhang by accident. That meant she’d have to disappear from Zhang Mingliang’s life. Then, just maybe, things could go back to how they used to be.

He called Zhang Mingliang, asking him to come to the scene.

Zhang Mingliang quickly realized what had happened—Hu Jiajia was now a killer.

He said, “You’re a biology teacher. You should know how to not leave a trace. Hide the body somewhere else—make sure it’s safe.”

“But this is…” Gao Rui tried to protest.

“Just do it! Did you hear me?” Zhang Mingliang’s voice brooked no argument.

After Gao Rui stashed the body someplace safe, he returned to Principal Zhang’s house. Everything was spotless and in order again.

The backyard grave had been filled in, all the blood wiped away. The mug, the USB drive—every piece of evidence vanished.

“What are you doing?” Gao Rui asked through clenched teeth. “People will realize the principal is missing and search the house. No matter how hard you scrub, there’ll be a luminol reaction on that blood.”

Zhang Mingliang just grinned. “You know I majored in chemistry. If you use bleach, the reaction only shows the bleach. Any bright light will hide the blood stains.”

“But doesn’t that make you look suspicious anyway?” Gao Rui snapped. “Why bleach the floor at all?”

“That’s why I’ve got a plan, and I need your help.” Zhang Mingliang broke into a wild grin.

That night, Zhang Mingliang’s reckless plan was set in motion.

A few days prior, Zhang Mingliang had orchestrated things so Gao Rui ended up living at Hu Jiajia’s place.

Later, he had Gao Rui stuff some stolen clothes in Principal Zhang’s huge wardrobe, then place all the spy recordings on the USB drive and lock it in the safe at Principal Zhang’s office. Gao Rui had dirt on the principal, so the old man had been so generous, even sharing the safe’s password with him.

Next, Zhang Mingliang called Hu Jiajia, demanding that she not live with any other man.

He told Gao Rui to write the words “Don’t push me” on the apartment wall, making sure to copy Principal Zhang’s handwriting. Phrases might be hard to mimic, but a couple of characters was easy enough.

Hu Jiajia played her part and called the police, leaving the evidence behind.

Finally, Zhang Mingliang pieced together a threatening letter from colored words cut out of a newspaper.

He didn’t handwrite the letter. Neither he nor Gao Rui could mimic that much writing, so the newspaper letters were the safest bet.

Then, Zhang Mingliang did something that shocked even Gao Rui.

He changed his gender, remaking himself to look almost exactly like Hu Jiajia.

In their home computer, Zhang Mingliang left evidence that he’d always dreamed of being a woman. With both of his parents gone, there was no one alive to contradict the story.

But honestly, that’s about when I started doubting Zhang Mingliang. There were so many romance novels on his bookshelf, yet they were barely touched. It made me wonder if he really saw himself as a woman at all.

That doubt stuck with me, even if there was no real sign at the time.

The evidence Zhang Mingliang left behind managed to fool us for a long while. We assumed there must be two people—one following Zhang Mingliang, but in truth, it was always just him.

Around that time, word got out about Principal Zhang’s disappearance.

When the group opened the wardrobe at his home, all of us already assumed the principal was the stalker.

Then came the most critical part of all: Zhang Mingliang’s suicide.

In the fake evidence he planted, Zhang Mingliang implied he knew the person involved; naturally, we believed the stalker was Principal Zhang.

This led us to the conclusion: Principal Zhang was the stalker harassing Hu Jiajia and had killed the wrong person.

After all, Zhang Mingliang died exactly the way the threatening letter described.

But the truth was, Zhang Mingliang had climbed the building alone. He borrowed Old Zhang’s bucket to build a contraption—a kind of guillotine—that he set up at the edge of the roof.

He used the bucket to weigh down a knife propped at the building’s edge, lined his neck up, and jumped. That’s why his head stayed atop the building, while his body landed on the sandy ground below.

From the force, when Zhang Mingliang jumped, the bucket tipped, spilling animal blood everywhere—explaining why there seemed to be so much on the ground. And, of course, the knife fell from the fifteenth floor as well.

Before doing any of this, Zhang Mingliang staged the scene to look like murder.

He dunked his head in a bucket of dog blood, then pressed it against the wall to write—making the handwriting crooked and shaky, as if someone tried to disguise their script.

Then he finished faking the scene.

After Hu Jiajia killed, she hadn’t taken the murder weapon. Even Gao Rui missed this, but Zhang Mingliang had taken it. That detail was crucial. Zhang Mingliang had already transformed himself.

Once everything was in place, he killed himself.

Who could have imagined such a suicide? With everyone assuming murder, we naturally pointed to Principal Zhang.

Then came the discovery of the corpse.

This is where Gao Rui’s role mattered most.

He hid Zhang Mingliang’s body in the sewer, lying in wait for it to be found. Once it was, we’d test the DNA on Zhang Mingliang and find traces of Principal Zhang. That would frame Principal Zhang as the killer.

Just like that, a plan to turn the dead into the living was a success.

No one ever guessed Principal Zhang had been dead all along.

In Zhang Mingliang’s plan, Gao Rui was supposed to completely dispose of Principal Zhang’s body. We would’ve never caught him, just believed he’d gone on the run. Another year or five would pass, and who would even remember? Who would suspect Hu Jiajia anymore?

A perfect plan—one life traded to fake a murder scene. If we hadn’t found Principal Zhang’s body, who would have connected the dots?

But in the end, the whole scheme unraveled when Principal Zhang’s corpse was discovered.

Somebody changed the plan at the last second.