Chapter 295: The Longest Night

2022-05-20

Reading up to this point, I couldn’t help but grow curious. What exactly did Liang Mei do that night? What could she have done that still haunts her to this day? From Liang Mei’s earlier account, after she finished crying and was heading back from the construction site, she stumbled across Lü Zhiqiu’s corpse.

The letter Liang Mei wrote was probably set up for delayed delivery. When someone knows they’re about to die, most ordinary people stop lying. There’s an old saying: ‘A dying man’s words are true.’ That means, at least in this case, Liang Mei likely told the truth.

If Liang Mei didn’t kill Lü Zhiqiu, then Lü Zhiqiu must have died after Wang Yikai and Yang Licheng left but before Liang Mei arrived. We don’t know how long Liang Mei kept crying after Yang Licheng left, but thinking about it, half an hour seems about right.

In other words, during that brief half hour, someone came to the construction site, found Lü Zhiqiu alone. She must have been about to leave, when the killer struck her on the head from behind with a brick. The blow was so fierce, Lü Zhiqiu died on the spot.

But we’d seen photos of Lü Zhiqiu’s body. Judging by the wounds, the weapon was crude—evidence pointed to a blunt object. Still, the timing didn’t add up. Half an hour just wasn’t enough.

Puzzled, I read on through the rest of Liang Mei’s email. Only when I finished did I finally understand what happened that night. The truth left me shaken long after I’d put the letter down. I had never imagined it was like that.

It had never occurred to me before that killing and dismemberment are two completely different steps.

That night, all work at the construction site had stopped. The place was dead quiet. The only light came from a few dim lamps scattered around, hazy and weak—just like Liang Mei’s tear-swollen eyes. She’d cried herself nearly blind for half an hour.

That night felt like the end of her world.

They say the greatest sorrow is a heart gone cold. Yang Licheng was tall, handsome—the dream guy for many girls. Liang Mei usually kept to herself, but she liked Yang Licheng too. One night, she stood by a wall at the site, lost in thought. The other girls in the dorm all had boyfriends; only Liang Mei was alone, wasting four years in loneliness.

It wasn’t that nobody liked her, but people thought she was too distant, too hard to approach. That wasn’t true—Liang Mei just didn’t know how to show her feelings. Yet Yang Licheng stepped up and told her he liked her. It was like a flower blooming in her heart, but even so, she didn’t say yes right away.

It was only a day later she gave him her answer—she agreed to be his girlfriend.

But she never imagined she was only ever a stand-in for Lü Zhiqiu.

That betrayal festered until she hated Yang Licheng and Lü Zhiqiu both. Now, Lü Zhiqiu’s body lay right in front of her.

She stood next to the corpse, staring down. Lü Zhiqiu, who in life was so beautiful and full of elegance, adored by everyone—now in death, she was so unsightly. Liang Mei was shocked to see that even someone so pretty could look this awful once dead.

The night was silent. The scent of blood hung heavy on the ground.

Liang Mei lowered her head. She’d never looked at Lü Zhiqiu this closely before. She really was beautiful. No wonder so many people liked her.

Looking at her, Liang Mei’s tears started to fall again. She patted her belly softly and whispered, “Look, child, this is the woman who took your father away from you.”

Right then, Liang Mei made two choices that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Glancing around, she spotted a trowel and a pair of gloves stashed in the corner. She pulled on the gloves and picked up the trowel. Some people use a trowel to help others build new homes. But when Liang Mei picked it up, Lü Zhiqiu’s body ended up in pieces.

She collapsed on the ground and sat there for a long, long time, convinced that someone had to discover her eventually. She steeled herself to be caught. But as the hours dragged on, no one came.

Liang Mei realized that maybe the loneliest thing in the world is being completely ready to get caught—only to discover nobody’s even paying attention. She laughed at herself, stood up, and prepared to leave.

But before she left, a thought struck her. She straddled Lü Zhiqiu’s head, lifted her phone, and snapped a picture—a close-up, the last one Lü Zhiqiu would ever have. Liang Mei wrote in her email that at the time, she wanted to bring it back and show Yang Licheng.

But when she got back to the dorm, she saw her reflection in the mirror. Her whole body was smeared in blood; her clothes were soaked red. So she set about washing her clothes. She was so exhausted when she finished, she collapsed onto her bed and slept.

That night, Liang Mei slept harder than she ever had, worn out by everything she’d done. It was the deepest, sweetest sleep she’d ever had. But that night was also Lü Zhiqiu’s last. Lü Zhiqiu would never see the sunrise again.

The next morning, Liang Mei woke early. When the workers showed up at the site, they found the corpse. Suddenly a strange emotion welled up inside her. Suddenly she was filled with regret. She felt ridiculous.

She saw Yang Licheng’s face—that mix of fear and disgust. Every flicker of emotion played out for Liang Mei to read. It hit her all at once. Yang Licheng never really liked Lü Zhiqiu. Maybe what he loved most was himself, the kind of guy who could brag about having a goddess for a girlfriend.

People are selfish by nature—they only ever love themselves.

From the very beginning, none of this was Lü Zhiqiu’s fault. Yang Licheng was rejected. He’s the one who went after Liang Mei. It had never been Lü Zhiqiu’s doing. Liang Mei wrote that she stood off in the distance, watching every expression on every face.

But not a single person looked sad for Lü Zhiqiu. Liang Mei realized that when someone outshines the rest of the group, jealousy always starts to creep in. Lü Zhiqiu just wasn’t in the same league—but she never saw that. Maybe she noticed how people looked at her, but she totally misread it.

People always assume that if most folks say something, it’s probably right. But there’s really no such thing as absolutely right or wrong in this world. Lü Zhiqiu was terrified she’d do something wrong, afraid others would judge her—so she tried to be forgiving, tried to let everything slide. In the end, that’s exactly why people pushed her away.

People who set boundaries earn more respect than those who try to please everyone.

The tragedy is that Lü Zhiqiu yearned for respect, but if even she couldn’t respect herself, how could anyone else respect her?

Liang Mei finally understood this. In the end, she decided not to show that photo to Yang Licheng. She realized she could live just fine alone, she could raise her child alone. Liang Mei thought they’d soon catch the real killer, and once they did, she’d turn herself in for the dismemberment—at least then, she wouldn’t be wrongly blamed.

But seven years passed, and the killer never turned up.

Right before graduation, Liang Mei’s child was born. By then, everyone was busy with their own lives. Nobody even noticed Liang Mei had a baby. From the start, she told her child the truth—he was born without a father. But even so, nothing in life was missing because of it.

So much time went by, Liang Mei almost forgot the whole thing. But seven years later, someone came back for revenge over what happened. When Liang Mei heard about Hu Xiaoxue, she was terrified the killer would go after her child, so after that reunion, she insisted on moving house and sent her child to her mother’s place for safety. Liang Mei herself hurried back to Dongxing City.

She was determined to find out who was back for revenge.

That very night, once the child was gone, Liang Mei returned to Dongxing City. She dug out that old photo she’d taken seven years ago. And as she looked at it, something sent a chill down her spine. As a designer, she had a sudden urge to enlarge the photo with professional design software, and when she did, she spotted something that made her blood run cold.

In one corner, behind a concrete pillar, there was a foot sticking out—a bit of pant leg was visible too. And in that moment, Liang Mei remembered seeing someone, seven years ago, who wore those shoes and those pants. That person had to be the real killer.

Back then, the real murderer had been lurking, witnessing Liang Mei’s own desperate actions. Who knew what went through the killer’s head as he watched that night?

One thing is for sure—that night was the longest night for both of them.

He saw someone even crazier than himself, doing things he’d never dare.