23 – The Murder Case That Bound Us Together Is Not Over Yet

Chapter 23: The Murder Case That Entwines Us Is Not Yet Over

A few days later.

Xie Qingcheng’s body finally regained its stability.

On this day, he and Xie Xue had lunch alone at the Huzhou University campus cafeteria. Looking at the bowl of chicken porridge, it suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t seen He Yu in a long while. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen any news of He Yu on social media for the past few days, no matter how hard he looked.

His brow furrowed instinctively. It was because he recalled He Yu’s unsettling aura from that day.

Though Xie Qingcheng was extremely rational, he was not a completely heartless person. Had he not even promised He Jiwei that he would look after He Yu on his behalf?

Thus, as soon as Xie Xue sat across from him with her plate, he asked about He Yu’s recent whereabouts.

Xie Xue’s eyes widened at her brother’s abrupt question.

“Eh? You didn’t know? He applied for a leave of absence and went to Hang City to film.”

Xie Qingcheng’s chopsticks paused in mid-air.

“Wasn’t his major directing?”

“Um, he’s not filming for long; he’s just participating briefly as a [stolen content]supporting actor. He said he was cast while buying visit our sitebreakfast near the main gate. He was already somewhat interested in it to begin with. Honestly, given his looks, who knows if he’ll end up in front of the stage or behind it in the future. And he’s so driven. How could he miss such a great opportunity to gain experience?”

“…Still, isn’t it a bit sudden?”

“It’s because the ‘Male Lead No. 5’ the production team had picked suddenly had an issue. The actor originally cast was a student from the acting department, but before joining, he was riding his bike past the school gate, collided with a taxi, and badly injured his face—he had to get several stitches. So the crew rushed to find a replacement and discovered He Yu…”

Hearing this, Xie Qingcheng recalled the faint fragments of He Yu’s phone conversation he had overheard in his dormitory. It seemed that conversation had been about this matter.

Xie Xue continued to chatter.

“But there’s one strange thing. I’ve seen the script before, and it’s a totally trashy web drama. It’s at a level that absolutely wouldn’t suit He Yu’s taste, yet he suddenly agreed to it. True, the filming period isn’t long—it’s a role that only requires about ten days of shooting—but anyway, I have no idea what he’s thinking… Even when he applied for leave, he seemed to be in a bad mood. He was so indifferent whenever I spoke to him.”

As Xie Xue spoke, Xie Qingcheng’s expression gradually grew serious.

The bandages wrapped around his wrist that day, the envelope of medicine prescribed by the hospital…

“Did something bad happen to He Yu recently?”

“Nope!”

For reasons unknown, Xie Xue seemed to be in much better spirits after the autumn outing. How should he put it—she even exuded a moist, tender atmosphere, as if peach blossoms were in full bloom. After biting her ice cream spoon and thinking for a while, Xie Xue murmured with an uncertain face.

“Actually, I’m not sure either… Probably not…?”

Sinking back into thought, Xie Qingcheng looked at Xie Xue, whose eyes were sparkling with joy.

For the past few days, Xie Xue had been noticeably happy. Since returning from the outing, she spent every day with her head bowed, tapping away at her phone screen. He had no idea who she was contacting so fervently.

There were changes on her social media as well. Previously, she only posted things like, ‘I heard a new restaurant opened on XX Road, who wants to go and eat their fill with me?’, but lately, she had begun a sudden streak of literary posts. She posted vague youth literature quotes that were incomprehensible even when reading with focused concentration, or strange photos. For example, a photo of two leaves floating on a lake, or a shadow cast on a wall in the early hours of the previous night. The light was blurry, so it was hard to tell whose shadow it was, but it was likely her own. The caption attached to the photo read:

[Hehe. My little whitey.]

Xie Qingcheng had even replied to that post at the time.

[Who is ‘whitey’?]

After a long while, Xie Xue replied.

[There’s a very cute puppy.]

[Stop posting miscellaneous things like this on social media. Go to sleep.]

Xie Xue responded with a cheeky emoticon sticking its tongue out. Not long after, Xie Qingcheng noticed that Xie Xue’s profile picture had changed. It was a photo of a swan looking away.

Recalling these trivial episodes, Xie Qingcheng asked.

“Then you—has something good happened to you lately?”

At this question, Xie Xue’s face flushed visit our sitedeep red. Turning her head and chewing on her spoon, she decided [visit our site]to [unauthorized copy]keep the secret of what happened during the autumn outing buried in her heart.

“N-no.”

Xie Qingcheng silently crossed his arms and watched Xie Xue’s movements. His gaze, piercing through her shy expression, turned sharp.

“Oh, right, Brother.”

Feeling uneasy under that gaze, Xie Xue quickly changed the subject.

“I bought some local specialty snacks at the outing for you and He Yu. Are you busy this weekend?”

“No. Why the weekend?”

“Well… um, it’s hard for me to leave my spot lately because of campus meetings. These snacks spoil quickly, so if you don’t have class, could you go to Hang City for me to check on He Yu and give him the snacks while you’re at it?”

Xie Qingcheng frowned. He felt that Xie Xue was hiding something, but he decided not to pry further.

“Alright.”

He had been worried about He Yu’s condition anyway. Stopping by the filming set to check on He Yu’s well-being was not a bad choice.

* * *

That evening.

In front of the ruined Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital.

The yellow and white police line trembled in the breeze. Behind it, the blackened earth kicked up dust. Lately, many citizens had been visiting this place. Some came to express their condolences with flowers, while others came purely out of curiosity.

Amidst the crowd, a man with no presence stood. Wearing horn-rimmed glasses, the man stared at the devastated Chengkang Psychiatric Hospital from the center of the crowd. In his bulging eyes, contradictory emotions of hesitation and fear intersected.

“…I’m telling you, they all died. Not a single high-ranking official survived.”

“Isn’t it the vengeful spirit of Jiang Lanpei?”

“They say that woman was wearing a red skirt when she died. I heard those kinds of ghosts are the most malicious. Is that why the fire moved so accurately, as if it had eyes? Looking at how it found and burned to death Liang Jicheng and the others who collaborated with him until the end…”

“Yikes, scary, so scary!”

The man in horn-rimmed glasses trembled violently as he listened to the people’s chatter. Despite the hot weather, he was drenched in sweat to the point that his back was soaked.

He swallowed hard, turned around—

And went home.

The man’s parents had been separated for a long time. Living with his father, he was also a member of the ‘Organization.’ Among the assets jointly owned by his parents, there was an old mansion where he had lived as a child. Inside a safe kept there was a bundle of documents with moth-eaten edges and accumulated grime.

It was a set of personal information files containing the truth about Jiang Lanpei.

His father had told him that if something happened to the father, he should hand these documents over to the police and surrender. He said it wouldn’t matter if he went to prison. At least he would save his own life.

Having only dipped his toes into the Organization by following his father, the man was naturally very cowardly. When the police had visited the house for an investigation that day, he couldn’t even utter a word; he was so terrified he had fainted and even vomited. Of course, he had regained some composure by now. After seeing the list of deceased in the newspaper, he sensed the severity of this incident.

He didn’t want to die. He didn’t want to fall victim to a ghost’s revenge. Driven by extreme fear, the man wanted to take the documents from the safe and run to the police station to surrender immediately.

At one time, he had been terrified of sirens. In his nightmares, whenever the sound of a police siren rang out, he would wake up in a panic, trembling like an aspen leaf. But now, he accepted the reality that only the police could save him.

The man entered the villa district, which had been a luxury complex twenty years ago, and began to run frantically. He was afraid that ‘those people’ would follow him, or that the ghost of Jiang Lanpei would follow him.

Bright red flames, a bright red skirt.

“A… Aaaah!”

The more he thought about it, the more terrified he became. After running for a while, the man eventually screamed and pissed himself. His glasses slid crookedly down his oily nose.

Dashing into the garden of the old mansion, the man burst through the door in one go.

He was too terrified. Thus, he didn’t even question why the gate of the mansion, abandoned for over a decade, was half-open.

Clutching his fragmented thoughts, the man in horn-rimmed glasses gasped for air as he ran toward the basement. The rotting floor let out a heavy scream beneath his feet, like the corpses of the patients who died at Chengkang Hospital. Half out of his mind, his lips trembled.

Save me…

Save me…

With a loud bang, the basement door flew open as the man collided with it. He rushed straight toward the safe.

He remembered the password. His father, a cowardly lecher, had often been ignored by his strong-willed mother when he was young. Eventually, the two divorced, but unexpectedly, the safe’s password was his mother’s birthday.

It suddenly occurred to him that his mother also used to enjoy wearing permed hair and red skirts when she was young. It was a time when the Hong Kong style was in full swing, and women of all kinds imitated the Hong Kong stars in magazines. Among them, the most popular garment was the red flared skirt.

The man turned the dial of the safe with trembling fingers. Once, twice…

Click.

The safe door opened.

The man reached inside.

And a few seconds later, his entire body jolted as if he had been electrocuted.

Gone.

All those documents were gone without a trace.

How… this can’t be…

His stray thoughts vanished, and terror rushed in. It was at that moment. Suddenly, something warm dripped, tap, right between his brows.

It felt as if the bones of his body wanted to bolt in every direction, but unfortunately, they were trapped in the leather bag of his skin, held firmly inside.

Tap.

The sound echoed once more.

This time, a hot droplet fell onto his lips.

A metallic, fishy taste.

The man’s eyes bulged. Gasping for breath, he slowly lifted his head, his features contorted.

What entered his field of vision was a woman.

The woman dead on the stairs was holding a gun in her hand. The entire floor beneath her pierced head was drenched in blood. An eyeball, crushed to the point where only its shape was barely recognizable, was staring toward him.

The woman appeared to have committed suicide. But the man knew very well that was absolutely not the case.

Because that person—

“Mother…”

The man in horn-rimmed glasses lost his mind, consumed by an emotion that was either extreme terror or grief.

“Mother! Mother! A-aaah…!”

There was no way his mother would be here… it’s been over ten years since she left this place…

Could it be that Mother also knew about these documents? Did she come to retrieve them to protect her son?

Having lost his reason, the man collapsed onto the floor. With his face covered in tears, snot, sweat, and blood, he wailed like a beast, babbling words he himself didn’t understand.

Just then, the sound of high heels echoed from behind.

Click, clack, click.

They were high heels fitted with a specially made, state-of-the-art reconnaissance case. Before he could even turn his head, a hard object touched the back of his head.

A woman’s voice sang with a chuckle from behind him.

“Throw it… throw it… throw the handkerchief, throw it softly behind the little one, no one must tell the little one…”

A hand emerged from behind and thrust a yellowed document envelope in front of the man’s eyes.

A lukewarm breath was felt right next to his temple. The woman spoke tenderly.

“Looking for this?”

“…You…”

He didn’t even dare to turn his head rashly. The man’s teeth chattered violently.

“Your mother was looking for it too.”

“…”

“Your father is quite the cowardly little rat. Not knowing how to be loyal to the Boss, hiding something like this at home.”

The woman blew a downy breath into his ear.

“This won’t do… Did he think the Boss wouldn’t find out?”

“W-who… are you…”

The woman laughed.

“What kind of answer does a traitor want to hear?”

“…”

“Ask in hell.”

That was the last thing the man in horn-rimmed glasses heard.

A few seconds later.

Bang!

A single gunshot sent the basement dust swirling into a haze.

The woman coldly cleaned up the scene, walking around the burst, dark-red entrails. Then, casting her eyes down, she read Jiang Lanpei’s documents for a moment before leaving the old mansion without a trace of regret.