Chapter 497: Karma Always Comes Back
by xennovelChapter 497: What Goes Around Comes Around (Update 5)
Outside the villa, Xiao Yu sat by the flowerbed, leisurely puffing on a cigarette.
Three days… Three whole days without a smoke.
After a couple of deep drags, Xiao Yu got light-headed.
“Didn’t you promise your wife you’d quit smoking?”
Wang Dong’s teasing voice rang out from nearby.
Those words hit Xiao Yu like a shockwave through his mind.
It felt like his darkest secret had been mercilessly exposed.
A brief panic left him momentarily flustered.
Embarrassment made him want to hide his face, as if life had lost all meaning…
No… regardless of how humiliating reality might be.
Online, we’re still seen as wise and decisive.
Only by keeping such a calm and detached attitude can one defuse the awkwardness!
“Beat it—you’re not my wife, so don’t worry about it.”
Xiao Yu took another drag, shot Dog King a look, and flashed a devilish smile.
Lately, he had perfected that mischievous grin.
It carried an air of both aggression and mischief.
Almost as if he were daring fate with a cheeky smirk…
“Come on, isn’t it a bit dodgy to try passing off a box of special supplies?”
Wang Dong licked his lips and, grinning at Little Brother, said, “We’re all brothers here—can’t be so ruthless!”
“Dodgy? Not at all.”
Xiao Yu lost his temper, pulled a hand grenade from his coat, and lobbed it at Wang Dong. “This is both a Compact Cannon and a grenade! Am I out here playing Russian Roulette or what?”
“Uh, okay…”
Watching the grenade in hand, Wang Dong’s lip twitched. “Fine, then.”
He finally grasped the meaning of taking advantage of someone’s moment of weakness.
“Don’t be ungrateful.”
Xiao Yu crushed his cigarette and blew a smoke ring. “The case isn’t over yet.”
“Hmm?”
Wang Dong’s face turned stern, devoid of any amusement. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…”
Xiao Yu stood up. “We should go ask Shi Yanwan if she’s got anything to say to us!”
……
Hospital, Ward.
Shi Yanwan lay in her hospital bed, resting.
On the bed, Xiao Yu eyed that heart-freezing, repulsive face. “How can you sleep?”
He never believed that someone guilty of such misdeeds could ever rest peacefully.
Slowly, Shi Yanwan, who had her eyes firmly closed, opened them to reveal bloodshot irises.
Clearly, she hadn’t slept at all.
After a long pause, she sighed and asked in a weary tone, “What’s the matter?”
“Zheng Jie got caught. There’s also a madman, thirteen corpses… and a prison.”
Xiao Yu’s eyes glinted with cold indifference. “I’m here to tell you: the case is nearly wrapped up.”
“Is that so?”
On her scarred, pockmarked face, Shi Yanwan showed no sign of emotion. “So you know everything? Are you here… to arrest me?”
Xiao Yu looked at her and remarked, “It’s rare to see someone screw up this badly.”
“What is right, and what is wrong?”
Shi Yanwan slowly sat up. After a moment of silence, she said, “Truth is, I never wanted it to go this way!”
“Never wanted it, or just dared not?”
Xiao Yu snorted. “Didn’t you deceive me? Nine victims, nine cities—were they all preselected?”
“Do you really believe it was fate?”
Shi Yanwan replied coolly, “Some things just happen, as if arranged by destiny.”
“Fate, then?”
Xiao Yu wasn’t in the mood for puzzles. “Even if it was fate, did you lure them in for Zheng Jie?”
“Only Cao Fang and Li Dongguo,”
Shi Yanwan shook her head. “The others were lured in by Zheng Jie himself—with money.”
“Was the whole game designed just for murder?”
Xiao Yu raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“No,” she replied.
Shi Yanwan shook her head again, gritting her teeth in a chilling display. “Zheng Jie once told me he just wanted to toy with them—to torture them a bit. He never expected I’d be deceived. He truly wanted to kill, together with that madman. No—Zheng Jie himself is a madman. I realized his unstable mind soon after I started following him.”
Xiao Yu said coldly, “Spill out every single detail.”
“There’s nothing more to say,” she replied.
With a sigh, Shi Yanwan muttered, “You reap what you sow… I trusted Zheng Jie and even sought revenge on Cao Fang and Li Dongguo. We gathered nine people and locked them in that prison, yet Zheng Jie let them tear each other apart. I got scared and tried to free them in secret, but they caught me, pinned me against the railing, and were about to devour me.”
“Had I not been clever enough to record everything, I might have ended up dead.”
“Then, while I was recovering, I watched them torment each other until not a single person was left.”
“After that, they released me with a warning—keep silent or my parents would be killed!”
Xiao Yu murmured ruefully, “No wonder I didn’t sense any real hatred in you. It’s just self-inflicted.”
“That’s right,” Shi Yanwan admitted.
Bitterly, with tears streaming down her scarred face, she said, “The only person I could hate was Zheng Jie, yet what could I really hate him for? I deceived Cao Fang and Li Dongguo, and in the end, I became like this. Perhaps it’s destiny’s punishment—and my own karma.”
A classic case of self-destruction… Xiao Yu grimaced.
One misstep had left him crippled, yet in hindsight, it almost landed him a fortune!
Shi Yanwan stood and walked to the window, opening it once more.
Xiao Yu calmly watched as she, right before his eyes, jumped onto the window sill.
“Wait a minute—are you really about to jump right in front of me?”
“Zheng Jie and the others have been caught. My parents are safe,” she retorted.
Turning around with a smile, Shi Yanwan declared, “I have no regrets!”
Though her smile was fierce, it felt genuine.
She spread her arms wide and leaned forward.
But… smack!
Her neck was suddenly grabbed, as if she were a little chick, pulled back into the ward and dumped onto the bed.
“Running away won’t help you,” came a cold, firm voice.
Xiao Yu strode toward the ward exit. “The case will not end like this!”
When you make mistakes, death is inevitable—what’s the point of laws then?
Though such measures were cruel for an already tragic woman.
But as the saying goes…
“What goes around, comes around!”