Chapter 321: The Lonely Grave

2022-05-20

Zhao Mingkun’s motorbike couldn’t fit the three of us, but thankfully Jiang Xiaochun had her own car. I wanted to ride with her, but after thinking about it, I decided against it.

Zhao Mingkun seemed a bit puzzled and asked why. I answered, “Jiang Xiaochun isn’t going to run. I already have a pretty clear idea of what she’s planning. At this point, this might be her best option.”

After hearing me out, Zhao Mingkun didn’t say anything. I think she understood Jiang Xiaochun’s intentions too.

Zhao Mingkun followed behind in her motorbike while Jiang Xiaochun drove slowly ahead. What should have been a half hour’s drive stretched on so long it felt like an entire lifetime. The place we arrived at looked like a park, but judging by the overgrown weeds, no one had taken care of it in ages. The grass along the path was already past our knees as we started up the mountain road.

Jiang Xiaochun glanced back at us and said calmly, “Lü Zhiqiu’s grave is just up ahead. I’d like to speak with her alone, if that’s okay. There’s a cliff past there, but I won’t run.”

I looked at Jiang Xiaochun and asked seriously, “Are you sure about this?”

What I saw in her eyes was resignation and sorrow. She hesitated a moment, silent, and then only nodded softly. She walked away into the distance. Her lonely figure lingered in my mind long after she’d gone. Then, unexpectedly, Jiang Xiaochun turned back around and said earnestly, “Thank you, truly.”

I waved her off, not saying anything.

“You’re just going to let her go like this?” Zhao Mingkun asked. “You know what she’s about to do.”

I shrugged and replied, “What else could I possibly do?”

A heavy silence settled between us. When I lit my third cigarette, Zhao Mingkun finally spoke. “If the time comes, I hope you’ll give me the same dignity—to let me have a final scrap of it. Honestly, I hate trouble more than anything. Take Jiang Xiaochun, for example; even that would be enough.”

I kept smoking and looked at Zhao Mingkun. “Why do you say that? What makes you think that day will come?”

“Woman’s intuition,” Zhao Mingkun said, glancing over at me.

Half an hour passed.

I checked my watch and said, “I just texted Gu Chen. I told him to call the police in an hour and have them come here to make the arrest. So judging from the time, we’ve got maybe another twenty minutes before they arrive. Let’s go see how Jiang Xiaochun is doing.”

Zhao Mingkun looked at me. “You already know how it’ll end. Why bother?”

I looked back at her, then nodded. “Yeah, no point. She didn’t want anyone else there, anyway. The place looks like it’s been left abandoned for years, hardly a soul comes by anymore.”

A scene played out in my mind: Jiang Xiaochun sitting alone amidst the weeds, a small grave mound beside her. She just sits there, talking quietly to Lü Zhiqiu. Suddenly I remembered a line of poetry: ‘A solitary grave a thousand miles away, nowhere to speak of one’s sorrow.’ But maybe this is for the best. Like Zhao Mingkun once said, if the dead become stars, and the more people who miss them, the brighter they shine—maybe the stars for Lü Zhiqiu and Jiang Xiaochun will never be the brightest, but at least they’re there. At least they’re not alone.

If people really could become stars, perhaps they’d be together forever.

We left the mountain. Zhao Mingkun took me back on her motorbike. As we pulled away, my eyes lingered on the scene atop the slope. I saw the tiny grave mound and a faded tombstone, the writing on it already wiped away by time.

And standing right beside that tombstone, someone was swaying like a child on a swing. But look closer, and you could see the rope looped around her neck. It was Jiang Xiaochun.

To be honest, back at her house, I already knew what Jiang Xiaochun intended to do. I understood why she’d choose that path. In the end, Jiang Xiaochun was no stranger to killing—among those twenty people, only one was really the killer, or maybe there never was a killer at all. But Jiang Xiaochun still made sure every last one of them died.

Maybe they were selfish. Maybe some had even wished for Lü Zhiqiu to die. But none of them truly deserved it. They all had families, spouses, children—someone waiting for them to come home, only now they never would.

Were they selfish? Absolutely. But selfishness is written into human nature. Caring about your own interests isn’t anything to be ashamed of, but people are always trying to cover it up, pretending it doesn’t exist, never facing the facts.

In this world, there isn’t a single creature that isn’t selfish. In the end, it always comes down to two things—surviving and living better. Isn’t that what everyone calls their ‘dream’? Jiang Xiaochun was selfish too because, for her, death was the easiest way out.

Once she died, she wouldn’t have to face the families’ accusations. She wouldn’t have to see those red, tear-filled eyes, or deal with Hu Xiaoxue’s mother, or confront her own family. Instead, she dumped all the mess she’d made onto death itself, leaving others to speak in her defense: ‘She’s dead already—why keep pursuing her?’

Selfish or not, suicide might just be the most selfish act there is.

The ride back was slow and the wind felt cool on my face, oddly comforting. Who would have thought that the end of a seven-year-old case would come like this, with so many lives dragged down for Lü Zhiqiu’s sake.

“So that’s the end of the case?” Zhao Mingkun asked with a sigh.

I nodded, then shook my head. “So far, everyone Jiang Xiaochun suspected has been killed by her. Not a single one spared. But the sad part is, even among so many people, no one could completely clear themselves. Not one of them is truly innocent.”

Zhao Mingkun laughed. “When you think about it, can anyone be completely clear? If you suspect someone, anything becomes a reason to kill. For example, you could say I killed Lü Zhiqiu out of jealousy. If you want to kill someone badly enough, any excuse will do.”

She had a point. So was it really that Jiang Xiaochun couldn’t find the truth, or was she just too exhausted to keep searching? Was she truly after justice for Lü Zhiqiu, or just venting the anger in her own heart? It’s the kind of question that never has a clear answer.

When I didn’t respond, Zhao Mingkun continued, “I was like that once too. After killing innocent people, you find some reason to justify it, just to quiet whatever conscience is left. People can fool everyone but themselves.”

She brushed her hair back with one hand. “But it’s all in the past now. And with Jiang Xiaochun gone, I guess we can call the seven-year-old story finished.”

“Is it really finished?” I shook my head.

As I looked back, the mountain slope shrank to a tiny dot. Soon, someone would find Jiang Xiaochun’s body. Maybe they’d discover she was the real killer, maybe not. Either way, her final fate was death—a fitting end, in its own way.

But think about it: why did Jiang Xiaochun try so hard to make Deng Xuemei her scapegoat? Why point the blame at Deng Xuemei in the first place? In the end, she must have hoped nobody would ever track her down. Part of her must have wanted to live; otherwise, why go through so much effort to fake the evidence?

But when we shattered everything she’d constructed and saw through her act, she knew she’d killed too many to escape. Facing a trial, facing the victims’ families—she couldn’t handle it, so she chose suicide instead.

At that thought, I couldn’t help but laugh bitterly. Maybe the most selfless people of all are also the most selfish.

“It’s not over?” Zhao Mingkun asked in confusion.

I nodded. “That’s right, it’s not. We still don’t know who killed Lü Zhiqiu, and we still don’t know who left that phone outside Jiang Xiaochun’s new house. Until those answers are clear, the case isn’t truly closed.”

“But do we even have any clues?” Zhao Mingkun pressed. “About what happened seven years ago, about the real killer—we’ve spent all this time running in circles. No one knows who last saw Lü Zhiqiu alive, no one knows if it was just someone grabbing a handy brick in a moment of anger. Anyone could be the killer, because anyone could lose control.”

“No,” I shook my head. “There’s something important we’ve all missed. Why does the suspect have to be one of those twenty people, one of the interns?”

Something clicked in Zhao Mingkun’s mind and she grew urgent. “You mean…”

I nodded, my voice firm. “Exactly. We’ve been ignoring a crucial detail—something even Jiang Xiaochun overlooked. The students and workers lived in different areas, so we assumed there couldn’t be conflict between them. But in reality, there was.”

“Workers,” Zhao Mingkun said. “But there are so many…”

I shook my head. “But only a few ever had trouble with the students.”

“You mean the workers who wanted to kill the dog?” Zhao Mingkun asked.

I closed my eyes. “That’s right. The murder weapon was never found, right? Someone must have taken it away…”