Chapter 63: How Do You Control Greed?

2022-05-20

When tragedy strikes far away, it’s hard for us to feel anything. It’s too distant, too removed from our own lives. But when a corpse was laid right before Ma Liliang, he felt the weight of real death for the first time.

There was no struggle. That person died right in front of him.

Ma Liliang remembered—he wasn’t the first to say these things. He could still hear all those men and women, young and old, pleading: “That’s my family’s only hope, please, I beg you.”

Money to save lives?

Before all this, Ma Liliang never cared. He’d heard it too many times. Was it really life-saving money? He didn’t know, or maybe he just didn’t want to know. He convinced himself all that cash was just play money to these people—how could seventy thousand yuan be a lifeline? What could seventy thousand buy in Dongxing City? Five square meters of an apartment?

That was the story he told himself. He’d been telling himself that for three years.

Now, he couldn’t convince himself anymore.

Ma Liliang dreamed of his father jumping from a building. He woke terrified. He called his dad, who told him everything was fine back home, no need to worry. His father said, work hard in the big city, stay on the right path, and don’t fall in with the wrong crowd.

“Got it,” Ma Liliang replied.

When he was little, Ma Liliang’s family was dirt poor.

He’d only ever had potato chips once. Passing the village store one day, while his father chatted with the shopkeeper, Ma Liliang slipped a bag of chips under his shirt.

They hadn’t walked far before his dad heard the rustle of plastic. Once he figured out what happened, he slapped Ma Liliang hard across the face. Then he paid the store double for the chips. The shopkeeper protested, ‘It’s just a snack for the kid, let him have it, we’re all neighbors.’

But his father wouldn’t hear of it. He told Ma Liliang, ‘We may be poor, but we don’t steal, we don’t take from others. I never went to school, so I can’t help you with your studies. I don’t have much to give you. But I can teach you the basics of being a good person. Remember this: whatever you do, take today as a lesson.’

That bag of chips? Ma Liliang never opened it.

Ma Liliang made it into a top high school and got into an ordinary university. It wasn’t the best, but his family celebrated anyway. His father told his younger siblings, ‘Your big brother’s your role model.’

But only Ma Liliang knew—being a college graduate in a big city meant barely scraping by. His siblings still needed to go to school, his father was getting older, and the family savings were gone just to get him through college. He had to find a job that paid well. He had to shoulder his family’s burdens.

Job interview after interview ended in failure. Ma Liliang grew hopeless. He wondered what the point of college even was.

Then a new opportunity appeared.

On the surface, Ma Liliang worked as a real estate agent for a company. In truth, he was running scams the entire time.

This past month, every day felt like torture.

He still kept that bag of chips. It had expired and gotten squashed long ago, but he never threw it out. This month, he’d just sit staring at it. His father once told him—do everything with a clear conscience.

But honestly, he’d never really listened.

Back then, he secretly vowed to become rich, to make so much money that his own kid would never have to steal a bag of chips. He’d show that he was more than just some poor village boy—the one the shopkeeper eyed with cold judgment, the one whose dad awkwardly scraped coins from his pocket to pay the bill.

He was terrified of being poor. That’s why he chased money, desperate for more.

He opened that bag of chips, ate a piece—moldy and stale, but to him it was the best thing he’d ever tasted. While chewing on chips that had expired over ten years ago, he wrote his last letter. He finally understood why his father had said those things.

Because in the end, no one can truly lie to themselves.

Ma Liliang wasn’t a heartless person by nature. He’d used cold indifference to numb himself. But deep down, his conscience kept nagging at him. He couldn’t turn a blind eye forever. In his rambling suicide note, he admitted he envied his boss—the real definition of ruthless.

Only those cold and ruthless enough can survive.

Ma Liliang transferred his savings—two hundred thousand yuan from the last three years—into his father’s bank account.

“Maybe my dad won’t see it until he needs tuition for my siblings. By then, any trace of my sins or suffering will be buried with me. I wonder what my father felt during his fall from the rooftop. Maybe soon, I’ll find out for myself.”

“There’s fifty thousand left. I hope it goes to a charity for kids’ education. Even though my sins are heavy, it’s hardly enough to atone. I’m leaving—heading down to pay for my debts.”

Putting on his work suit and gold-rimmed glasses, he headed for the rooftop.

Maybe, in his last moments, Ma Liliang finally understood what that stranger had felt.

Death is always the same. But how could the feelings ever be?

How much harm can poverty do to a child’s soul? Is it like a spider’s web, tangling them up, keeping them stuck when they should be free? Making them ashamed, making them feel worthless, turning them into slaves to money—and then blaming them for loving it too much.

All he wanted was just a bag of potato chips.

After I finished reading Ma Liliang’s note, I couldn’t find the words for what I felt. Some say, ‘Pity those who are pitiful, for they have faults.’ Others say, ‘Those with faults are still deserving of pity.’ Maybe that’s the truth. Ma Liliang’s three years of struggle finally ended. I wonder if, in that last moment, he felt regret or sorrow.

But he’s gone now. It’s all just a story carried away by the wind.

What’s right, what’s wrong, who’s good or bad—can we ever tell for sure? We’re all just ordinary people, sometimes kind, sometimes selfish.

I set the note down on the table and said, ‘He finished the bag of chips, but the wrapper’s missing. That might be the item taken from him. Not much left to find here, is there?’

Gu Chen nodded. ‘Nothing else turned up, but I can see this case has you in a weird mood—try not to overthink it.’

I said, ‘Just feeling a little. Every family has its troubles, right? I wonder, how does Team Leader Shao stay so unaffected by stories like these? You think he ever feels sympathy like I do?’

Gu Chen scratched his head. ‘From what I’ve heard, no one ever called him sentimental. He’s much more decisive than you. Even his mentor—if they broke the law, he’d still arrest them.’

“Mentor?” I asked, puzzled.

Gu Chen glanced around, then whispered, ‘You don’t know? Heard it from others. Team Leader Shao had a mentor, someone who taught him everything. They worked together for four or five years. In the end, something happened with the mentor’s daughter—and Shao still arrested him with his own hands.’

I shook my head. That’s a level I’m still a long way from.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“Where to?” Gu Chen asked.

I ran my fingers through my hair, walking to the door. ‘This killer’s getting bolder with every case. You know what kind of cases are the hardest to crack?’

“The hardest?” Gu Chen stroked his chin. “The toughest should be those where the killer plans everything—from alibis to dodging cameras, using tricky murder methods, hiding deep…”

He trailed off, looking at me. “Are there really such killers out there?”

I shook a finger. ‘No, that’s not it at all. The cases hardest to crack aren’t always the most carefully planned or calculated. Imagine this: it’s late, you’re walking down the street alone, and someone suddenly stabs you from behind.’

‘No motive, no reason—they just want to kill. You just happened to cross paths, then they vanish. No cameras, no motive, no link between you. How do we even find a killer like that?’

Gu Chen’s brows furrowed. ‘You’re making a point here.’

I nodded, looking at his confused face. ‘Before, the killer would leave tools—potassium cyanide, ropes, maybe a specific knot. But now? Nothing left at the scene, no cameras, no motive. He’s getting more careful.’

Gu Chen’s eyes lit up. ‘So you think he knows we’re after him?’

‘What if he never shows up again?’ I stared at Gu Chen. ‘How do we catch him then?’

“Potassium cyanide?” Gu Chen pointed.

I nodded. ‘Exactly. You can get rope anywhere, but potassium cyanide—that’s our biggest lead. We can’t let this go. If we lose this clue, we might never catch him. We need to re-interrogate those five kids.’

“By the way, tell Mary to investigate the dead man’s background. Now, add one more person to her list,” I said, dialing Mary. “Mary, there’s a new victim, Ma Liliang, worked at a real estate agency. Look into his background, and also check out the clothing company he worked for. See if there’s a way to take it down.”

“Take it down?” Mary sounded confused.

I said, ‘Yeah. It’s a shell company, basically a scam that cheats people out of franchise fees.’

Mary went silent for a moment, then replied, ‘Do you know how many scam companies like that exist? Even if you bust one, they just change names and keep going. There are too many. How can you possibly stop them all?’

Her words left me speechless.

How could anyone control the greed inside human nature?