Chapter 50: Swan Lake

2022-05-20

“Wu Meng.” Just as I was about to answer, Mary walked over. “I got all the files you asked for—everything on Chu Mei and Lin Daiyu. Backgrounds, family relationships, medical records, even their QQ posts. There’s a lot, I didn’t bother sorting it. Take a look yourself.”

“Why are you still looking through this now that the case is closed?” Gu Chen eyed the thick stack in Mary’s hands and shook his head.

I reached out to take the files and told Mary, “Thanks. I’ll go through them. Even though we know Daiyu is the killer, don’t you want to understand what’s really going on beneath the surface?”

“Just let me know if you find anything,” Gu Chen waved dismissively. “I can’t stand pouring through pages of reports.”

I let out a sigh. Foolish humans. You’ll never understand the joy of truly unraveling something until every detail is clear—that’s where the real sense of accomplishment in solving a case lies. Catching someone is easy; uncovering why they did it is far messier.

So there I was, piecing it all together late at night.

I found Daiyu’s medical records. When she was very young, she’d had surgery.

The surgery was called: ‘Polydactyly: Excision of Extra Toes on Right Foot.’

Reading that, a chill ran down my spine.

The term is simple, really—removing an extra toe from the right foot. But the person who had the surgery wasn’t Chu Mei, but Daiyu. That means the child Lord Chu picked up from the roadside all those years ago wasn’t Chu Mei, but this Daiyu.

Suddenly, I remembered: the first time I met Daiyu, there was a faint scar near the joint on her right big toe.

The medical notes went on: when the extra digit sits at the joint, requiring tendon and capsule repair, surgery should happen before age three.

Daiyu had her operation when she was just two years old. Would she even remember something so small?

Lord Chu wasn’t Daiyu’s real father after all. He took away his own daughter, leaving this found baby girl for his wife. If that’s true, the First Wife must have known.

The night was still as water, but people’s hearts were anything but simple.

Who was really the scapegoat here—Chu Mei or Daiyu? I suspected it was Daiyu.

Think about it. If you wanted revenge, would you target the adopted daughter or the biological one, even if that father hadn’t been home for twenty years? Sometimes, the most dangerous place is the safest. That’s how Chu Mei stayed out of harm’s way.

From what Daiyu described before, she and Lord Chu were very close. If she was just a plaything to him, why would she hurry home the second he died?

Daiyu was the one abandoned. I wondered before—if having six fingers was something surgery could fix, why toss her away? Was it because she was a girl, or because she wasn’t pretty?

Could it really be that Daiyu didn’t know any of this?

Had she never questioned her past, never found her own records?

I guessed she knew.

So why did Daiyu seek revenge for Lord Chu? Why kill the Six Brothers and the ones who arranged ghost marriages for Chu Mei, steal the corpses, and dance Swan Lake in the courtyard?

Just as the answer dawned on me, a wave of bitter sadness overwhelmed me. Guan Zengbin once said she felt sympathy for Daiyu. I didn’t, not until now, until the sadness was so heavy I couldn’t shake it.

The dance Daiyu performed in her red dress that night was Swan Lake.

And what is Swan Lake about?

It’s a classic: a prince slays an ugly old sorcerer, saves a beautiful girl trapped as a swan, and lives happily ever after.

But what is happiness really? We say, ‘wish you happiness,’ or ‘they lived happily ever after.’ But what does that mean?

For Daiyu, abandoned since childhood, what did happiness really look like?

Is it just being needed? When no one in the world likes you, you fake being needed. I think Daiyu always knew she was the castoff, but she didn’t dare say a word. Because if she admitted it, her mother would drop the act, and Lord Chu would never be the father she dreamed of.

She wasn’t lying to others—she was lying to herself.

How does someone abandoned by everyone fake being irreplaceable?

Maybe Daiyu killed Chu Mei because of jealousy. Jealous of Chu Mei being the center of attention, envied just for her looks. Even after death, her body was wanted enough for someone to pay three hundred grand.

But for Daiyu, who was taunted as a child, pitied as she grew older, not once did anyone ever say, ‘I need you.’ The world can be cruel sometimes.

And so, Daiyu killed Chu Mei and stole the dead girls’ bodies—because even in death, people needed them.

But no one needed her—not once in her life.

I found Daiyu’s QQ diary, set to private, and read through it.

Daiyu had wanted to love, like any girl her age. She craved love and being loved. Watching couples everywhere, she wandered alone. While others found partners, she didn’t even have anyone to talk to.

So she counted the different colored tiles on the floor, to keep loneliness at bay.

There were 17,932 white tiles, 5,872 red ones, and 6,211 yellow.

“Actually, there are four colors, but I’ve only counted three. I’ve double-checked the numbers ten times. There’s still one color—purple—I won’t count it. Because once I do, there’s nothing left to count. I’ll save it, counting it slowly, just so I won’t be lonely anymore.”

That’s what Daiyu wrote.

The next day, Daiyu was to be taken away. She was calm, almost detached. After all, what was left worth staying for?

I walked over. Daiyu turned to look at me.

“Guess I lost to you, little brother,” she said, voice steady as ever.

I didn’t know what to say—just walked over and hugged her.

A sentence slipped out: “No one in this world is truly unnecessary.”

There wasn’t much I could do—just hoped I could tell her this simple truth before she died.

By the time I looked up, Daiyu had wiped her tears away, scruffy as always.

“Let’s go,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

She was taken away. Maybe she was just born at the wrong time, in an era not quite ready for her kind of difference—a world that claimed not to care much about looks, but really did.

Guan Zengbin didn’t quite get it. She asked, “What did you two say? Didn’t you say there was another possibility? I’ve been thinking all day—what else could it be?”

So I told Guan Zengbin. I explained Daiyu’s motive probably wasn’t father-daughter love, or opposition to the ghost marriage. But deep loneliness and jealousy—jealousy of Chu Mei, jealousy of those corpses people needed, so she killed Chu Mei, the ghost marriage arrangers, and even the Six Brothers who sneered at her.

Sometimes people are just ridiculous creatures. Pathetic, really.

Once I told them this, both Guan Zengbin and Gu Chen shook their heads.

Guan Zengbin said, “Wu Meng, you really do see everything in the darkest, most miserable way. Your whole theory hangs on Daiyu knowing she’s the one abandoned. But there could be another explanation—maybe Daiyu never figured out she was the adopted one.”

Gu Chen nodded. “Yeah, you’re overthinking it. Daiyu already gave her motive—no need to dredge up all this background she herself denies. Feels like you’re stretching it too far this time.”

“I think so too,” Guan Zengbin said, hands on her hips. “I believe it was Chu Mei who pushed Daiyu to act, that Daiyu set up the murders because she knew Lord Chu was her father, and that her opposition to the ghost marriage drove her to kill. That’s what I believe.”

Guan Zengbin pressed on: “Longing to be needed, killing out of jealousy—seriously? Take a break, you look exhausted!”

I sighed. “Yeah, it’s just another possibility. Either way, she’s gone.”

But if it wasn’t about being needed, why did she cry on my shoulder?

Is being ugly a crime against happiness? Is it a reason to be mocked? I often wondered why she never tried plastic surgery—after all, it’s easy these days. But maybe no one wants their feelings pinned to a version of themselves that isn’t real.

Ugly but true, or beautiful and fake? I don’t look down on plastic surgery, but maybe Daiyu wanted to stay herself—even if that meant staying flawed.

“Oh, right!” I pulled out a notebook. On it was a passage I’d found in Daiyu’s diary, written in English. “Guan Zengbin, you went to a top university—can you figure out what this means? I know the letters but none of the words make sense together.”

“Hand it over, slacker!” Guan Zengbin snatched the notebook.

She translated:

“When I was a child, my mom took me to see Swan Lake. Everyone loved the white swan, but I fell in love with the ugly old witch.”