Chapter 319: A Handful of Questions

2022-05-20

I felt helpless right then but there was nothing I could do except help Zhao Mingkun lift Jiang Xiaochun to her feet. Zhao Mingkun shook her head slightly, grabbed a pillow towel from the side, and wrapped it around Jiang Xiaochun’s head to stop the bleeding. She didn’t care at all if it was sanitized.

Jiang Xiaochun just stood there in silence, saying nothing. Blood trickled down her face, mixing with her tears. I couldn’t begin to describe the swirl of emotions turning inside me. For the sake of someone she loved, Jiang Xiaochun went dark, turning into a ghost lurking in the night, killing twenty people one by one under the cover of endless darkness.

I honestly couldn’t make sense of her actions, but Jiang Xiaochun had done it all the same. Now I finally understood why this case was such a nightmare to investigate. The motive was just too bizarre. Who on earth could imagine that a married woman would, after seven years, start killing for another woman long forgotten by everyone else—and kill so many?

But maybe that’s just how this world works. What some forget, someone else always remembers. Just like Jiang Xiaochun herself said, this was something in her heart that she had to do. And deep down, I realized that if we let Jiang Xiaochun walk away now, we all knew what would happen.

Yet one thing still gnawed at me. Seven years had gone by, but who was the real killer? Out of those twenty people, who actually murdered Lü Zhiqiu? There were no leads. No wonder Jiang Xiaochun finally snapped. As she’d said, wait a few more years and those people might vanish forever.

Zhao Mingkun had finished bandaging Jiang Xiaochun’s wound. All those harsh knocks when she bowed before hit so hard even I felt it, but Jiang Xiaochun seemed completely unfazed.

Shaking my head, I said, “There are still a few things that don’t add up. I need to ask you some questions. If your answers satisfy me, we’ll do what you want. But you should understand—with all the information we have, where exactly do you think you could run to?”

Jiang Xiaochun pointed at herself in an exaggerated gesture. “Me? Where could I run? Besides, I’m done running. Too much time has passed. Sometimes—I can’t even remember the first time I met Lü Zhiqiu. Sometimes I forget when I fell in love with Lü Zhiqiu…”

“That’s good,” I nodded. “I only have four things to ask. First, did you do all of this yourself, or did anyone help you?”

Everything had gone way too smoothly. Jiang Xiaochun’s luck had been unreal. She’d pulled off exactly what she wanted, almost as if fate was on her side. If even the smallest thing had gone wrong, she would’ve been caught. Killing so many people—there’s no room for even a minor slip.

This case was packed with interference. Without Lü Xiangyang, we would’ve never gotten led this far astray.

“No. I did all of it myself,” Jiang Xiaochun said quietly. “Don’t let all those friends around Lü Zhiqiu fool you. When things went bad, how many were really her friends? Even her own family never really treated Lü Zhiqiu as their daughter. Outsiders? They cared even less.”

I frowned, eyes pinned on Jiang Xiaochun. She didn’t look like she was lying. But she’d given us another clue: Jiang Xiaochun seemed to know about Lü Zhiqiu’s family situation. Before, when we questioned those thirteen people, none of them knew Lü Zhiqiu had a younger brother.

I asked, “You know Lü Zhiqiu’s family background?”

Jiang Xiaochun nodded. “I know her family. I went home with Lü Zhiqiu once. Even then I could tell just how badly her family treated her. She had a younger brother named Lü Xiangyang. I remember when I went there, I really understood what people meant by gender inequality.”

She let out a sigh and kept going. “I remember back then, Lü Zhiqiu only got scraps to eat. If I hadn’t been visiting, they might not have even given her that much. That night she slept in another room which had nothing inside it—no lights, no water. Can you imagine that?”

“To be honest, I never imagined the smile on Lü Zhiqiu’s face was hiding a soul biting back pain,” Jiang Xiaochun said, crying harder, tears flowing like a creek. “That’s when I realized, people like this really exist in the world. Even with so much suffering and injustice, they still treat others with kindness.”

“So,” I pressed, “do you know Lü Xiangyang? Does Lü Xiangyang know you?”

Jiang Xiaochun paused to think, then said, “I definitely know Lü Xiangyang, but I don’t know if he remembers me. He was maybe five or six years old then—he’s probably forgotten all about me. But Lü Zhiqiu told me later her brother did mention me afterwards. Beyond that, I don’t know much more.”

I nodded. “Alright, that was the first point. Second, did Liang Mei die in your new home—did you kill her?”

Without any attempt to hide it, Jiang Xiaochun admitted, “Yes. Liang Mei was killed by me. Just like you guessed, I lost track of her during all the murders. You know, I had to make sure nobody else tried to run. If anyone showed signs of leaving, I had to get to them first. Otherwise, how could I kill everyone else?”

“I get it,” I nodded.

Jiang Xiaochun went on, “That’s how it was. But then, Liang Mei disappeared on the second day. Since I went to school with these people, I had their phone numbers, their social accounts, and even knew which companies they worked at. I checked online to see if anyone was still in Dongxing City.”

“But before long I realized it was as if Liang Mei had vanished. I thought she was the killer from seven years ago, escaping as fast as she could. But in the end, she came looking for me herself. I’d slipped sleeping pills into the soup my mother-in-law drank each day—she’d sleep for over four hours. The day Liang Mei showed up, I knew fate was helping me.”

“Later, while she was on the phone with you during the call, I made my move. Her body is still in the new home,” Jiang Xiaochun said, looking straight at me.

I nodded again and asked, “Okay, third: Did you push Deng Xuemei into the sea?”

“That’s right, I did it,” Jiang Xiaochun said. “Back in college, I didn’t even know about Deng Xuemei’s situation. But over these seven years, my investigations showed her dad had some kind of rare genetic illness. Ha, her own father was stuck on the edge between life and death! Sometimes he didn’t even have money for medicine unless someone else helped him out. But Deng Xuemei? She walked around campus in brand-name clothes, went to clubs, bought the latest phone, acting rich and generous, even treating classmates to dinner.”

She paused for a breath. “That’s when I realized I could take advantage of this. Deng Xuemei’s roommates didn’t know what kind of person Lü Zhiqiu was, and Lü Zhiqiu’s roommates had no idea Deng Xuemei was so ungrateful. It was perfect—I thought up a brilliant switcheroo.”

“But in the end,” Jiang Xiaochun glanced at us, “it didn’t matter anyway.”

I could only shrug helplessly.

Jiang Xiaochun continued, “After graduating, Deng Xuemei’s father’s condition got worse. She had to earn money to pay for his treatment. Can you imagine? The truth is, Deng Xuemei probably wished her father would just die. Back when he couldn’t afford to send her to school, at least he didn’t cost her anything. But after that—well…”

Suddenly the memory of Deng Xuemei’s mother abandoning her family came to me, and I realized something. Deng Xuemei didn’t want to stay with her dad but she had no other choice. If her mother had wanted to take her in, she’d have left without a second thought.

A frightening possibility hit me. Back in the mourning tent, I hadn’t seen any medicine or pill bottles. No scavenger would bother taking those. So had the medicine been taken away by a daughter who acted so filial on the outside?

Just picturing it sent a chill down my spine. Now that I understood what kind of person Deng Xuemei truly was, I realized she might really do such a thing. To outsiders, the father and daughter seemed bonded by hardship, but inside, maybe that daughter prayed for her father’s death every moment, just for some relief.

They say no child stays devoted for long at the sickbed of a dying parent. There are just too many stories like that.

I could almost see it: In the quiet of night, a daughter returns home, sneaking her dad’s medicine from his bedside. He doesn’t notice a thing. Everything goes quietly, just like any ordinary night.

When sickness struck that night, Lao Deng reached for his life-saving medicine, but his hand met only empty air. In that instant, he started to knock on the wall for help—his hand was already out. But then he pulled it back, because suddenly he understood why the medicine was missing. Only one possibility came to mind.

After all the years spent raising his daughter, he realized that, in the end, she hoped for his death just because he couldn’t provide anymore. He quietly lowered his hand, biting through his pain, refusing to make a sound. He could’ve yelled for Lao Li and Old Zhang in that silent night.

But nothing hurts more than a dead heart. He’d tried so hard to stay alive, not wanting to leave his daughter behind, but suddenly understood she was hoping he’d die.

“How did you lure Deng Xuemei out? And how did she get separated from her boss that night?” I looked at Jiang Xiaochun and asked the final question.