In the interrogation room, where one could hear a pin drop, Weng Xiuyue leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, resting her mind and appearing deaf to all questions.
Since Zhang Kaiyang remained silent, the questioning was primarily led by another officer. After several rounds of inquiries met with no response, the officer’s tone grew harsher.
"You have the right to remain silent, but I must inform you that your silence may be used as evidence against you! You came here because you clearly need our help. If you’re worried about your safety or other issues, tell us; we can provide protection. You can also request a lawyer to be present—all of this is negotiable. If you don't open your mouth, how can we help you?"
No matter how much the male officer coaxed or pressured her, Weng Xiuyue remained tight-lipped.
Finally, the officer lost his patience. He slammed his hand onto the table and turned to Zhang Kaiyang. "Since she doesn't want to talk, let her sit and think for a while. I’m going to grab some food. How about you?"
"Go ahead," Zhang Kaiyang replied, lifting his chin slightly, his gaze still locked on Weng Xiuyue.
The officer patted Zhang Kaiyang on the shoulder, leaving the suspect in his hands, and walked out of the interrogation room with confidence.
Zhang Kaiyang didn't speak, and neither did Weng Xiuyue. Time ticked by. The officer who had gone for dinner returned, yet Weng Xiuyue still showed no intention of speaking.
"Weng Xiuyue, we already have evidence that you used forged documents and assisted others in using them to disrupt social order. If you continue to resist, things will go very poorly for you!" the officer said sternly.
Then, shifting his tone to one of gentle persuasion, he added, "You’ve been here since noon. Have you had lunch? It’s dinner time now. Isn't it uncomfortable just sitting here? If you agree to cooperate, how about I order you some braised pork trotter rice?"
The officer looked at her expectantly.
After a long silence, Weng Xiuyue finally spoke. What she said was: "When you came back, had the sun set?"
With over ten years of experience at the station, the officer immediately became alert. He countered, "Does the sunset have anything to do with your answer?"
"Once I see the sun go down, I will tell you everything I know," Weng Xiuyue said.
The officer hesitated, instinctively glancing at Zhang Kaiyang. The latter gave a small nod.
The evidence currently held by the police consisted only of filing a false report and using forged documents. The former fell under the Administration of Public Security Punishment Law and, without serious consequences, usually resulted in administrative detention; the latter, in minor cases, was also an administrative matter.
It wasn't a difficult request to let a suspect of minor crimes see the sunset.
The officer stood up, walked to the tightly drawn curtains, and pulled them open. The unique twilight of dusk, dyed by fire, flooded the room without reservation, like a piece of age-soaked red silk gently draping over everything.
Weng Xiuyue’s face became clearer in the soft red light. Her eye sockets were slightly sunken, with faint dark circles beneath them; fatigue was etched deep into her features like a shadow. In contrast, her pupils burned with a fierce intensity. She stared fixedly at the sunset beyond the security bars, her gaze seemingly piercing through the red light to stare at something far more distant and unknowable.
"Can you talk now?" the officer asked.
Weng Xiuyue took a deep breath and slowly withdrew her gaze from the sunset. Her back straightened, moving away from the chair's backrest.
Seeing this, the officer hurried back to the desk, hands poised over the keyboard, ready to record her statement.
"I had originally resolved never to trust another police officer or judge again," Weng Xiuyue said. "Until I heard from Wei Zhi that you spent eight years investigating Mei Man’s case alone."
She looked directly at Zhang Kaiyang. The officer beside him also looked at Zhang Kaiyang in surprise; this was clearly something he hadn't expected.
"...She convinced me."
"All of us have decided to trust the justice you insist on believing in, one last time."
"This time, will justice actually come?"
Zhang Kaiyang gazed back at Weng Xiuyue and answered without hesitation, "It certainly will."
Weng Xiuyue smiled—not the street-smart, worldly smile of "Zheng Tianxin," but the rational, mature smile belonging to Weng Xiuyue.
The chapter of revenge she had meticulously planned for eight years finally turned its first page before the police.
***
At the same time, a black Bentayga was driving along a muddy mountain road. They were already a two-hour drive away from the Jiangdu city center. On both sides of the window were desolate mountains and dense forests, devoid of human presence.
A light drizzle had been falling since evening, and as night descended, the rain intensified.
As the Bentayga crested a dirt slope, the path ahead could no longer even be called a road. The car swayed left and right through the trees, occasionally bouncing off rocks. Ji Qikun had to grip the handle by the window to keep his balance.
His face was paler than usual, and not just because there was a rotting corpse in the trunk.
"How sure are you that it won't be found if we dump it here?" Ji Qikun asked in a low voice.
"Ninety percent," Wei Zhi said nonchalantly. "This heavy rain will last for two days. Two days is enough for the water to wash away our footprints and tire tracks. Besides, there are black bears in these mountains. If we dump the body here, with any luck, the bears will eat it until not even the bones are left."
*It truly is a good place to destroy evidence,* Ji Qikun murmured to himself.
After driving through the rugged woods for over half an hour, Wei Zhi finally stopped the car.
Outside, the wind and rain raged. The mountain forest seemed to have transformed into a waking giant beast; every leaf and branch became its restless fur, shaking wildly in the gale. The impending thunder rolled in from the edge of the world, sounding like a roar from deep within the earth.
The dense, violent raindrops drummed against the leaves. Wei Zhi stepped out of the car first, holding an umbrella in one hand and a flashlight in the other to illuminate the ground ahead.
Ji Qikun glanced back; a brand-new entrenching tool lay quietly on the second row of seats.
"What are you still doing in the car?" Wei Zhi shouted back at him through the curtain of rain, her flashlight beam hitting the windshield.
Ji Qikun squinted, responding as he opened the door. Wei Zhi hadn't left him an umbrella; he was half-soaked the moment he stepped out. To escape the onslaught of rain, he jogged to get under Wei Zhi’s umbrella.
"Look, this is a deep pit left behind for bear trapping," Wei Zhi stood before a hole, shining her light into the bottom. Several dried, discolored bamboo poles with sharpened tips pointed directly up at them.
"We'll throw the body in there, then fill the pit," Wei Zhi said.
"You do the throwing, I'll fill it in a bit," Ji Qikun said, then added with a fawning smile, "I’m afraid of those things, honey, you know that. Sorry to trouble you. Hubby will fill the hole later so you can rest."
After coaxing her with a few words, Ji Qikun took the umbrella from Wei Zhi and watched her walk toward the trunk.
Wei Zhi opened the trunk and grabbed the plastic-wrapped corpse by what seemed to be the shoulder, using all her strength to pull it out.
With a heavy thud, the stiff body hit the ground.
The plastic-wrapped corpse offered poor grip. Wei Zhi grabbed a bulging section of the wrap and struggled to drag it toward the edge of the pit.
The plastic wrap began to loosen during the struggle.
Black activated charcoal spilled out, tumbling between the body and the plastic.
Dragging a weight of over a hundred and sixty pounds would not be easy even for a strong man, let alone a girl like Wei Zhi who barely weighed over a hundred. She exhausted herself dragging the body to the edge, then stopped to catch her breath, hands on her knees. Her long black hair, soaked by the rain, looked even darker and glossier as water dripped from the ends.
"Ji Qikun, you come push her in—I’m out of strength."
When she finished speaking, there was no reply from Ji Qikun.
An upturned umbrella lay silently where Ji Qikun had been standing.
Behind her, the wind suddenly rose, sounding like a blade slicing through the air with a sharp whistle.
Ji Qikun swung the entrenching tool with all his might, the shovel's shadow carving a cold arc through the air. Driven by instinct, Wei Zhi lunged aside to dodge the first blow. However, Ji Qikun did not stop; he swung the tool again and again. She had no time to resist or put distance between them. Between having her brains scattered or falling into the pit, Wei Zhi chose the pit.
With a splash, her figure vanished from Ji Qikun’s sight.
He quickened his pace to the edge and peered down. He saw Wei Zhi slumped between two sharpened bamboo stakes, one hand clutching her right ankle, her face twisted in pain.
Ji Qikun breathed a sigh of relief and thrust the entrenching tool into the soft earth.
"I’ve heard that being buried alive is a very painful way to die," he sighed intentionally. "A day as husband and wife brings a hundred days of grace; I wanted to give you a quick end, but you just had to resist me."
"Ji Qikun, you’re burning the bridge after crossing it? You think killing me will let you escape?" Wei Zhi endured the pain of her sprained ankle and forced herself to stand, glaring up at him. "If I die, the police will find you soon enough. I suggest you stop now. I can treat this as a moment of impulse and let it go."
"What’s so strange about a woman who married me for money running off with the cash after paying off her online loans?" He crouched by the pit, looking down at her leisurely. That expression of being in total control had returned to his face. "After all, everyone around you and everyone around me sees you that way."
"I didn't want to take things this far; you forced me, Wei Zhi," he said slowly. "Just like you said, the heavy rain will wash away our tire tracks. If we’re lucky, the wild bears will eat you both until not a bone remains. As long as no bodies are found, the police can't open a case. Once enough time passes, everyone will forget you existed. At least Mei Man had Weng Xiuyue looking for evidence to get justice after she died. What about you? Your family is all dead. In six months or a year, no one will even remember you!"
Wei Zhi scanned the depth of the pit and found a few places that could be climbed, but as long as Ji Qikun stood guard at the edge, she had no chance of reaching the surface.
The rain poured down. The sound of the rain and the wind through the trees was like a chaotic yet magnificent percussion performance.
Wei Zhi had to buy time for everyone.
"Two years ago, I came to the gallery to apply for a job, calculating every move to become your girlfriend and fiancée. If I loved you, I wouldn't have used Weng Xiuyue’s body to threaten and control you. If I wanted your money, I should have accepted your offer and left. If I were in league with Weng Xiuyue, I wouldn't have killed her. But I don't love you, I didn't take your money, and I killed Weng Xiuyue—aren't you even a little curious why?"
Her words successfully hooked Ji Qikun, who had been about to push the plastic-wrapped body into the pit. He stopped and returned to the edge.
He was no fool. In the days since Weng Xiuyue’s "death," he had vaguely sensed that Wei Zhi hated him. That hatred wasn't a sudden whim; it was the accumulation of years.
Of course he was curious, but he fought to suppress it.
He knew that anything Wei Zhi said now was meant to change his mind.
"Once you’re dead, the reasons won't matter anymore," he sneered after a brief thought.
Wei Zhi continued as if he hadn't spoken: "Do you remember 'Little Seed'?"
Wei Zhi’s words made Ji Qikun, who was about to turn away, freeze. He looked back down at her, feeling both incredulous and suddenly enlightened.
"So it was you—"
"...You really did see my chat logs with Mei Man," Wei Zhi said.
Ji Qikun felt the thrill of having solved a riddle. He said triumphantly, "Of course I saw them. Mei Man had no secrets from me. Not only did I see your chats, I made her delete your contact info with her own hands right in front of me."
"You really are annoying," he said reflectively. "Eight years ago, you were always online trying to convince Mei Man to break up with me. Eight years later, you became the stumbling block that nearly ruined my reputation. Your reason for doing all this... it couldn't be to avenge Mei Man, could it?"
Wei Zhi’s silence made Ji Qikun burst into wild laughter.
"To avenge Mei Man, you slept with the man she slept with and killed her own mother—Wei Zhi, you really are a total lunatic!"
"Do you always use insults and humiliation to hide your own weakness?"
To gain Ji Qikun’s favor, Wei Zhi had spent a great deal of effort understanding him. She knew how to please him, and she knew exactly how to most effectively enrage him.
"You love to belittle and insult your partners, driving a wedge between them and everyone they know, simply because you are an incompetent coward. You lack any positive means to make someone truly admire you, so you can only exert power in the dark like a rat digging holes in a sewer. You aren't clever, and your victories aren't easy. Your way of obtaining love is to drag others into the gutter with you. Even among sewer rats, you are the most cowardly, the most foul, and the weakest—without those underhanded tactics, you are nothing."
"You—" Ji Qikun flared with rage, but he quickly calmed himself, his face twisting into a cruel grin.
"Does a dolphin fall in love with a pufferfish? Of course not. In a dolphin's eyes, that’s just an incense ball that secretes pleasure gas. That’s how I felt about Mei Man, about you, and about everyone else. They chose to fall in love with me. If there’s anyone to blame, it’s their own stupidity. Even when they noticed something was wrong, they were easily coaxed back because of that worthless thing called love."
"That’s just how the world works. Only the smartest dolphins can do as they please, while stupid dogs and cats either destroy themselves or, like you, struggle in vain to change their fate, only to lose their lives anyway. I don't need to waste words arguing with you. You’re down there, I’m up here. You lost, I won. Intelligence isn't proven with the mouth; it’s proven by facts."
"The law can't punish me because I never broke the law to begin with." Ji Qikun’s face was completely drenched, his dark eyes flashing with malicious light in the rainy night. He couldn't hide his excitement, looking like a child who had finally found a chance to show off. "Even if I turned myself in right now and said Mei Man died because of me, the police couldn't do anything. Because Mei Man jumped off that roof with her own two feet. I didn't touch a single finger of hers. I only told her—"
On that rainy day eight years ago, Mei Man had tried to break up with him again. Unlike previous times, her attitude was exceptionally firm.
Ji Qikun had chased her to the rooftop. Back then, she looked so pathetic, so miserable—but to Ji Qikun, a prey’s desperate begging only filled him with a sense of superiority and pleasure.
That was the "stimulant" secreted by the "pufferfish," something every "dolphin" craved.
Facing Mei Man’s tearful pleas, he had once again explicitly refused to break up. And then, he had intentionally said those words:
"'I will haunt you for the rest of your life; you’ll never get rid of me. I’ll post those videos of you acting like a bitch online, send them to your mother and every student in the school. The whole world will know how shameless you are!'"
As Ji Qikun repeated the words he had said to Mei Man to Wei Zhi, a vicious smile appeared on his wet lips.
"'You want to break up? Only if you die.'"
"...And then, she actually went and died." He was beaming, as if savoring the memory gave him a sense of satiation. "When she fell from the rooftop, she was beautiful—more beautiful than ever. That was a work of art I created with my own hands. It can't be replicated, it can't be preserved; it existed only in that moment, and I was the only witness."
"Among my past works, though there were those who lost themselves because they loved me, Mei Man was the first who actually died just because I told her to. She was my most perfect, my favorite work! She was the one who truly made me feel like a god! Do you know what it means to be a god? It means having the power of life and death over someone without facing any punishment! Through Mei Man, I proved that I am superior to everyone. I stand above them all!"
"That’s just your way of glorifying yourself. You simply exploited their kindness; it doesn't mean you’re better than them," Wei Zhi said, suppressing the fury in her heart.
"Did I tie her legs so she couldn't leave? Did I cover her mouth and nose and push her off the roof? She was an adult! She got what she deserved! She actually believed that if I didn't agree to the breakup, we couldn't break up. Tell me—if that isn't stupidity, what is? A fool like her would have died for someone else if it wasn't for me—I just happened to be the one. I’ve suffered eight years of harassment from Weng Xiuyue for no reason; aren't I the pitiful one? Why should I have to leave my home because of a fool’s death?"
The trees swayed in the storm, their shadows twisting and deforming under the flashes of lightning like a pack of ghosts wandering the wilderness, searching for a way out. Ji Qikun’s agitated voice merged with the wind and rain, taking on a manic quality.
He pulled himself out of the memory and looked at Wei Zhi again, his expression turning to one of disgust.
"...Someone like you could never understand how I feel. Because you’re just a lowly 'pufferfish.'"
"After saying all that, aren't you just trying to stall for time?" he said. "Though I don't know if you’re waiting for that missing Tan Jin or someone else, they aren't coming. Do you know why?"
Ji Qikun looked at Wei Zhi in the pit and smiled maliciously. "Because of this."
He pulled a black device that looked like a walkie-talkie from his coat.
"You think you’re the only one who makes preparations? This is a signal jammer. I kept it on me specifically because I guessed you might have put a GPS tracker on the car! No matter who you call for help, it’s useless. By the time you turn into bones down there, no one will find you. You’ll be a lonely ghost forever—oh, that’s not right. Weng Xiuyue will be there to keep you company." He laughed loudly.
Just as Ji Qikun finished speaking, a black shadow suddenly tackled him to the ground. Then, the sound of a struggle erupted above the pit. Wei Zhi seized the moment, quickly stepping onto the stones on the side of the pit and laboriously climbing out.
The rain fell in torrents, the night swallowed by the heavy curtain of water. The flashlight had been knocked to the ground; where the beam didn't reach, only blurred outlines remained.
Directly in front of Wei Zhi, Tan Mengyan and Ji Qikun were locked in a violent struggle. Not far away lay the scattered activated charcoal and the peeling plastic wrap.
***
**Glossary**
Chinese | English | Notes/Explanation
---|---|---
猪脚饭 | Braised pork trotter rice | A common, hearty Chinese dish.
添越 | Bentayga | A luxury SUV model by Bentley.
工兵铲 | Entrenching tool | A versatile folding shovel often used by military or for outdoor survival.
海豚 | Dolphin | In this context, a psychological metaphor for a predator/manipulator.
河豚 | Pufferfish | In this context, a psychological metaphor for a victim who provides "pleasure" (toxins/excitement) to the predator.
小瓜子 | Little Seed / Little Sunflower Seed | A nickname given to Wei Zhi by Mei Man.
谭孟彦 | Tan Mengyan | A character appearing at the end of the chapter.
