Chapter 2

Chen Yang went rigid.

A long silence followed. Then he gritted his teeth.

“All right… I’ll tell you. All of it.”

Even afterward, as I sat in my office putting his statement in order, my head was still reeling.

It took a long time for the shock to fade.

6

According to Chen Yang, the cliffside wedding that had made Xie Feng famous the previous year had never been a grand declaration of love.

It had been staged, from beginning to end.

Xie Feng wanted to use the wedding to draw viewers. He deliberately chose an isolated cliff and scripted a scene in which the groom fell into the sea and the bride jumped in to save him.

For “safety,” he supplied them both with life jackets.

But he secretly tampered with Ma Xiaoya’s.

Before the wedding, he had taken out an enormous accident insurance policy on her.

The story he had in mind went like this:

A bride jumps into the sea to save her husband and drowns. Her groom is left devastated.

A video like that was certain to explode online.

He would get money and views, along with the sympathy and admiration of the internet.

What he hadn’t counted on was his cameraman, Chen Yang, jumping in at the last moment to rescue Ma Xiaoya.

When she lost her sight, Xie Feng immediately changed tactics. He would keep playing the devoted husband who refused to leave her, and keep the views coming.

As for Ma Xiaoya, Chen Yang said she had covered for him after the latest “accident” because he had saved her life. She waited until he had escaped over the wall before calling the neighbors to report the death.

His account was logical and, on the surface, almost flawless.

Yet my doubts remained.

Was he really telling the truth?

Just then, my phone rang. It was the colleague questioning Ma Xiaoya.

I answered at once.

Sure enough, under sustained questioning, she too had confessed. Her account matched Chen Yang’s almost exactly.

So that was it.

The leap into the sea that had moved the whole internet. The steadfast love everyone had envied.

All of it was a lie.

A deadly trap Xie Feng had carefully laid for the sake of views.

And in the end, the man who had set it had died in it himself.

With a printed copy of her statement in hand, I returned to Xie Feng’s house.

Before the case could be closed, Ma Xiaoya had to confirm her account and put her fingerprint on it.

The two elderly women keeping her company took the hint when they saw me. They quickly found excuses to leave.

She sat in a wicker chair. Her sunglasses hid her eyes, but not the exhaustion in her face.

Without much preamble, I read her earlier statement aloud. She raised no objections and held out her hand to give her fingerprint.

Everything went smoothly.

So smoothly that it felt wrong.

I stood to leave, and a sudden suspicion flashed through my mind.

Before she left, one of the old women had poured me a glass of warm water and set it near the edge of the table.

I picked it up, took a long drink, and smiled.

“Been busy all morning. Haven’t even had a drink of water. At least we’re nearly finished with the case.”

Her reply was polite and mechanical, as though rehearsed.

“You’ve worked hard, Officer Song.”

“I’ll be going, then. Get some rest.”

I deliberately set the glass down with a clack.

It wasn’t quite steady. It rocked twice, fell onto the concrete floor, and shattered, sending fragments everywhere.

And I saw it clearly.

As the glass fell, Ma Xiaoya pulled her feet back sharply, avoiding every shard.

I stepped toward her.

“When did your sight come back, Ma Xiaoya? Why are you pretending to be blind?”

Before she could deny it, I went on.

“You made me guide your hand to the right place for the fingerprint. A very convincing performance. But you forgot about the ink pad. When I put the lid back, I didn’t leave it on the right as usual. I set it on the left at random. You found it straightaway.”

She was silent for a few seconds. Then a helpless little smile touched her mouth.

“So you broke the glass on purpose to test me, Officer Song?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Can you answer my question now? Is pretending to be blind that much fun?”

She lowered her head and said nothing.

The courtyard fell silent. Only the wind rustling through the leaves could be heard.

At last she looked up and slowly removed her sunglasses.

Her eyes were beautiful.

Her gaze was empty and numb.

“Whatever Xie Feng did while he was alive, Officer Song, he’s dead now.”

She spoke very calmly.

“Death ends everything. I wanted his secrets to die with him. But since you already suspect me, there’s no point hiding it anymore.

“The cliffside wedding, the groom falling into the sea, the bride jumping in to save him—it was Xie Feng’s script from start to finish. He told me we only had to act it out once, and we’d make enough to live on for half our lives. I never imagined he’d tampered with my life jacket. He wasn’t acting. He really wanted me to drown.”

Her voice began to shake.

“Chen Yang jumped in and saved me. He told me the truth.

“But I didn’t believe him. I truly couldn’t. How could a man who had written me ninety-nine love letters, who told me every day that he would protect me for the rest of my life, want to kill me?

“At first, the trauma and the water I’d inhaled left me temporarily blind. But I gradually recovered. I could see again—first faint light, then blurred shapes, and finally everything clearly. My sight came back completely.

“I didn’t tell anyone. I wanted to find out whether the man taking care of me was only pretending.

“He cooked for me, took me for walks, peeled apples, warmed my milk… He was perfectly attentive. But I knew. Every time he warmed the milk, he stirred in a packet of white powder before giving it to me. I pretended to drink it, then secretly poured it away. When I couldn’t avoid swallowing some, I ran to the bathroom and made myself throw it up.

“I saw him poisoning me with my own eyes. That was when I lost all hope.

“I secretly messaged Chen Yang. I knew he liked me. He had saved me once. Surely he would save me again.

“That day, I saw Xie Feng put a board with nails in it beside the flowers where I often walked. He deliberately scattered apple peel around it too.”

Her voice rose.

“I knew what he wanted. He was arranging an accident to kill me!

“I couldn’t bear it anymore. I confronted him. When he realized I could see and that I knew his plan, his face changed. He came at me like a demon and started strangling me.

“Just as I was about to suffocate, Chen Yang arrived. I’d secretly left the courtyard gate open for him.

“He saw what was happening, grabbed a board, and hit Xie Feng over the head. Xie Feng was stunned and let go. But he recovered quickly and came at Chen Yang with the fruit knife. Chen Yang was cut on the hand. To defend himself, he kicked Xie Feng hard in the chest.

“Xie Feng stumbled backward, stepped on the apple peel, and fell. The nail in the board went into his temple. He convulsed a few times and died.”

I looked at her.

“You’re saying it was an accidental death caused by self-defense? Then why did you hide the truth?”

She sighed, her expression cold.

“After last year’s wedding livestream, his channel became hugely popular. That image of the devoted husband brought him a lot of fans.

“His parents are dead. I’m his legal wife. Naturally, the income from his channel belongs to me now.

“If people found out he’d tried to kill his wife, the channel would collapse. I’ve learned how online content works too.”

She looked straight at me.

“I went blind saving my husband, and then he died unexpectedly. That story would earn me even more sympathy. The views wouldn’t fall. They’d go up.”

I stared at her, shaken.

Xie Feng’s cruelty horrified me.

Ma Xiaoya’s coldness shocked me just as much.

All that “devotion,” all that “tragedy”—from beginning to end, it had been a calculation.