Chapter 320: The Final Wish

2022-05-20

Jiang Xiaochun let out a cold laugh, then started, “Seven years ago, we were still best friends, for better or worse. Though in her eyes, maybe the rest of us were just fools. But that’s the funny thing about this world—even those who seem smart on the outside are usually clueless. The truly smart ones? They know how to act like they’re not.”

“I found out about her secret affair with her boss. It was obvious to me that she was already in her thirties. If she still wanted to get married, she couldn’t keep going like this.” Jiang Xiaochun kept her voice even. “So I got in touch, told her someone wanted to set her up on a blind date. I wondered if she’d be open to meeting him.”

She laughed quietly again. “So I posed as the guy myself, chatting with her online. Gullible as she was, she really thought this handsome, rich guy was interested. The pictures I used? All taken from the internet. After chatting for two months, I asked to meet her. That was my last gambit. If, in the end, Deng Xuemei’s death was investigated as a homicide, the suspect would be the man I made up.”

Cunning, truly cunning. We hadn’t even found Deng Xuemei’s body when she was already laying out backup plans in case her trail grew cold. If it weren’t for Xu Man, we probably never would have cracked this case, not in a lifetime.

Strange how the world works—clearly, Jiang Xiaochun has high intelligence and emotional insight, yet she failed to grasp a simple truth: if you kill someone, you have to pay the price. Maybe once someone falls into a whirlpool of intense emotion, reason stops mattering at all.

“I told Deng Xuemei we were going fishing by the sea and arranged a place to meet.” Jiang Xiaochun kept going. “Told her not to bring anything, but perhaps she wanted to make a good impression and bought a bait tray. I sensed that bait tray might become a problem, but I figured, with the man I made up, you’d never track him down anyway.”

“But I never thought—” she shook her head, “—you’d get here so quickly.”

“I used a voice changer when I told Deng Xuemei where to go, and she happily agreed. It was a cliff by the coast, the kind you find all up and down the shore. When Deng Xuemei saw me, she asked why I was there too. I told her the guy was shy and wanted her to wait for him elsewhere.”

Jiang Xiaochun made a pushing gesture. “So, I just gave her a gentle push, and Deng Xuemei was lost forever to the sea. Maybe she went down still clutching her beautiful hopes and dreams, but now she’s nothing more than a meal for the fish. After that, I did as you guessed—I staged things to look like she had committed murder herself.”

She shrugged. “I convinced her to quit her job and, using my fake persona, sent her money every month. That way she’d have time to carry out the crime. And, if I ever needed her again, I could just call and she’d show up.”

Jiang Xiaochun’s tone was casual, like she was talking about a kid scoring a hundred on a test. But her plan? Absolutely flawless. In just a handful of moves, she’d drawn Deng Xuemei right into her trap. Maybe Deng Xuemei died never even knowing what happened.

But as Jiang Xiaochun pointed out, who knows when we’ll ever find Deng Xuemei’s body. Still, I finally got the answers I wanted. All the clues in my mind had finally connected, save for a few stray threads. Not that it mattered at this point. Even if some details remained a mystery, it wouldn’t change anything.

Still, curiosity has a way of gnawing at you. People always want to see the full picture.

I held up a finger. “One last question. That phone—how did you actually get it? If I’m right, it must have been the trigger for the murder. Still, with or without it, you would have killed—it was only a matter of time.”

Jiang Xiaochun looked at me intently, her expression serious. “You might not believe this, but I actually found that phone by chance.”

“You found it?” I frowned, pressing her. “You didn’t find out about it while investigating all these years?”

“No.” Jiang Xiaochun waved a hand. “It was a few months ago. Hu Pei was away on a business trip, Hu Xiaoxue was at school. I was alone at home. I went out to buy groceries for dinner, and just as I stepped outside, I saw a phone lying quietly on the ground. There was no one around at all, so I picked it up and took a look.”

Her answer left me puzzled. From the way she described it, there was no way that phone ended up there by accident. Clearly someone had left it specifically for her. If they didn’t want anyone else to find it, they’d have dropped it right before she went out for groceries—that would be the most logical approach.

“And then?” I gestured for Jiang Xiaochun to keep going.

She nodded. “I wanted to snoop and see whose phone it was. The model was old, the buttons were nearly worn away. Someone using a phone this run-down probably didn’t have much money or maybe just felt sentimental about it.”

“But the moment I turned it on, the first thing I saw was a photo—an image of Lü Zhiqiu’s dismembered body.” Jiang Xiaochun’s voice grew strained with anger. “You’ve all seen it too—the photo of Lü Zhiqiu after she was chopped up. My mind went blank. I glanced at my basket of groceries and suddenly felt disgusted with myself. I understood why I married Hu Pei—but how did I end up as a housewife?”

If that’s how it happened, then someone knew her routine pretty well. That phone was meant for Jiang Xiaochun specifically. Whoever left it wanted her to find it, so they must have tossed it out just before she went shopping.

Jiang Xiaochun continued, “So, two months ago, I started planning the whole case. I spent a week coming up with a plan that would let me get away with everything—a plan to kill everyone. From that moment on, everything was already set. Maybe it was fate, sending someone to remind me how far I’d strayed from myself.”

I tugged at my hair and thought hard. The investigation was essentially at an end. But with every major mystery solved, smaller ones always spring up to take their place, making my head spin. But the real enigma that remained was—who killed Lü Zhiqiu?

Suddenly, a face came to mind.

I remembered something else and asked, “Since you and Lü Zhiqiu were so close, you must know about that dog—what happened with it? I know Wang Xin posted fake stuff online about it. Did that have any effect on you guys?”

“Yeah.” Jiang Xiaochun answered, “I remember it clearly. After Lü Zhiqiu bought the dog, since we were both working as interns at the construction site, we kept it there. About a month went by, then one day the guy who wanted to kill the dog came pounding over looking for Lü Zhiqiu.”

Jiang Xiaochun kept talking, and I listened closely. “He made a huge scene, really angry, but we never figured out what exactly happened. Oh, and it was just the two of us that day. A few days later, that worker disappeared. I heard they fired him or something, but we never knew for sure.”

She paused, then added, “We were relieved when it was over, but in the end the dog went missing too—probably just ran away. After that, we never mentioned it again.”

I ran a hand through my hair, thinking hard about the whole thing. From what Jiang Xiaochun said, the worker was probably fired after that incident. It’s hard to tell if it had anything to do with Wang Xin’s lies online, but I remember someone did track down that worker.

Could that worker have held a grudge against Lü Zhiqiu? Who knows. I glanced at Zhao Mingkun, and he looked straight back—I had a feeling this was something worth digging into.

With that, I’d asked everything I wanted. Most of my theories had been confirmed. Now it was time to find out what Jiang Xiaochun wanted to do next.

I spoke. “That’s it for my questions. Now, what is it you want to do?”

Jiang Xiaochun looked like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She gave me a grateful glance. “Alright. I just want to see Lü Zhiqiu one last time.”

“You know where she’s buried?” I asked.

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Jiang Xiaochun nodded firmly.

I asked again, “Did you handle her burial? I remember Lü Zhiqiu’s family wouldn’t claim her body out of fear of the expense.”

“Yeah.” Jiang Xiaochun let out a helpless sigh. “It was me. Her body sat in the funeral home for ages, and her family never came. In the end, I had to do it—all of it, from claiming her to the cremation and the burial. I used to love sitting by her grave, just talking to her. Maybe this will be my last time. I hope you’ll grant me that wish. I promise I won’t try and run.”

I nodded. “Fine, but we have to be there with you.”

Jiang Xiaochun gave me an address.

While we talked, I sent a message to Gu Chen, telling him to have people waiting at the grave an hour later.

I stared at Jiang Xiaochun, and she stared right back. For a long moment, neither of us knew what to say.

We opened the door. Hu Xiaoxue’s mother was still sitting on the couch in a daze, seemingly unaware of Jiang Xiaochun’s confession moments earlier. When she saw us, she shot to her feet. “Who was it? Who killed them?”

I couldn’t bear to tell her the painful truth, so I just said softly, “We need to take Jiang Xiaochun now. You’ll get the news in an hour at most. Please be ready.”

Hearing that, she dropped to her knees, sobbing. “As long as you’ve caught the killer, that’s all that matters… My son, my granddaughter can finally rest in peace…”

Her wails filled the room, the sound of grief long held back finally bursting free.

All of life comes back to the heart—everything in the world is bound by love.