Chapter 3

“He wanted her to hate him. To cut the last tie holding her there, so she would stop enduring that inhuman torment for his sake. Because he had already made his own decision.”

Officer Zhou closed the file. The soft sound was unusually clear in the silence.

He looked at me, his gaze deep, no longer the gaze he had turned on a suspect.

Slowly and gravely, he asked his final question.

“Now, Li Yunyue, we’ve heard the brother’s story.”

“What about the sister?”

14

My sobbing broke abruptly through the cramped interrogation room.

Officer Zhou and the clerk said nothing. They simply watched.

No urging. No interruption. Even their breathing grew quiet.

Clumsily, I wiped my face with my cuffed hands.

Strangely, I began to calm. A cold clarity came into my eyes, the clarity of someone who had decided to risk everything.

“I can tell you all of it. But I have one condition.”

Officer Zhou grew tense.

“What condition?”

“I want to see Shen Qing. Officer Shen.”

I looked straight at him.

“If I’m right, she was transferred because of me. Wasn’t she?”

He pressed his lips together. He did not deny it. That was an answer in itself.

My mouth curved bitterly, mockingly.

“Do you know? Yu Yue did try to save herself.”

“She went to the police. More than once. And what happened? Either the officer handling it was transferred soon afterward for one reason or another, or she was the one warned for extortion. Every report brought worse retaliation from the Lins.”

“In this city…”

“There are corners the light cannot reach.”

Officer Zhou sighed.

“So you chose to bring light there yourself. Even if your methods were wrong. Even if you were the price.”

I did not answer. I only repeated, “I want to see Shen Qing.”

15

After nearly three months, I finally saw her again.

When she pushed open the door, the sharpness of our first meeting was gone.

Her uniform was still neat, but a thin mist seemed to lie deep in her eyes.

My throat tightened. I spoke first, very softly.

“Officer Shen… I’m sorry. Did I cause you a lot of trouble?”

She paused, then gave a small but genuine smile.

“No.”

I drew a deep breath and slowly let it out, as though releasing all the stale air trapped in my lungs for three months.

“All right. I’ll tell you. Everything.”

“Yu Yue said she’d found a livestreaming platform. She would work hard, earn money, and take her brother away. She wouldn’t go to the Lin house again.”

“But she still went on Christmas Day. Lin Muhai sent her a photograph. Her eyes went bloodshot. She was so angry she could barely breathe.”

“I think it must have been the picture of Yu Xiang in a dress.”

“They often used him to threaten her. If she resisted, he suffered.”

“After my Werewolf game ended that night, I switched off the computer. It was already early morning. There was still no message from her.”

“When I lifted my pillow to lie down, I saw an envelope beside it.”

“Yu Yue’s suicide note.”

Shen Qing’s breathing seemed to catch.

“It wasn’t long. But every word was a knife.”

I recounted the words. They had long since been carved into my mind, more clearly than my own memories.

“She said she finally understood. As long as she was alive, Yu Xiang would always be leverage for those two animals.”

“As long as she lived, he could never truly escape them.”

I laughed bitterly.

“Funny, isn’t it? They weren’t related by blood, but they said exactly the same things.”

“She said he didn’t need a dirty, useless sister who only held him back. He needed money. Enough to leave this place. That was the last thing she could give him.”

“She said she wanted to die on the cleanest snowfield in the city. To let the snow settle on her, flake by flake, hoping it could wash the body and soul she felt had long been stained. She said it was the only atonement she could think of.”

I could no longer hold back my tears.

Even now, I could not understand. What had she done wrong?

“At the end, she asked me to report it to the police. She said she’d arranged the insurance payout. All the money was to go to Yu Xiang, so he could leave. As far away as possible.”

I paused and looked at Shen Qing.

A strange smile slowly formed on my face: grief, fury, and profound helplessness tangled together.

“Report it? Ha…”

I laughed, but tears came again.

“Wasn’t she foolish, Officer Shen?”

“What insurance pays for suicide? What good was going to the police? I did. You tried. And what happened?”

“Lin Shuanglong was still a celebrated philanthropist. Lin Muhai was still a rich young man with a shining future.”

“Why were they both so foolish? What good did killing themselves do? Who would care? Yu Yue had been missing for seventy days. What officer was still looking?”

My voice rose suddenly, sharp beyond my control.

“There are cases in this city that cannot be solved by following the ordinary procedures! Ordinary lives, ordinary people’s suffering—they weigh no more than snow to some people. A breath of wind scatters them. Once they melt, there’s no trace!”

“It had to become a scandal!”

I stared at Shen Qing. Every word sounded like an oath.

“Everyone had to know. It had to become impossible to cover up, impossible for anyone to look away. Even if it meant we all died.”

“It took me only two hours to plan everything that followed.”

The room was deathly silent.

Shen Qing had gone a little pale. Officer Zhou’s brows were tightly furrowed.

“Then…”

I leaned back. My voice became calm, but carried a bone-deep chill.

“I hid the note. I went to my father and asked for the plans and structural documents, saying I wanted to learn and look around. He had nothing to do with it.”

“Then I went to the wasteland and found Yu Yue.”

“She lay in the snow as though asleep. There was even a little peace in her expression. Snow covered more than half her body, and tiny ice crystals had formed on her lashes. She had always been so beautiful. Like a snow goddess.”

“I took her to the plaza. Following the plans, I opened the access to the cavity at the base of the sculpture, left there for inspection and maintenance, and put her inside.”

“To leave her where she belonged.”

“And make her the first light nobody could ignore. A light into the darkness.”

16

Shen Qing reached out, not for her pen, but across the table to take hold of my icy handcuffs.

“Li Yunyue, you’re wrong.”

I looked up blankly.

“Going to the police does matter.”

“Look. I’m still here. Officer Zhou is still here.”

“The whole country is watching this case. The fire you lit is burning.”

“It may not burn the way you imagined. But it has lit up the darkness.”

Officer Zhou spoke gravely too.

“The leads you gave us, Yu Yue’s spare phone, Yu Xiang’s existence, the Lin family secrets you steered us toward—they form an evidence chain we cannot ignore. The law will provide an answer.”

I opened my mouth. No sound came.

The steel wire of “dying together” had held me up for so long. At the words “the law will provide an answer,” it suddenly snapped.

“My condition…”

I murmured, looking at Shen Qing.

“I understand. You wanted to put the final trigger in my hands.”

“Thank you for trusting me. Don’t worry. I’ll do it.”

17

The days that followed passed like a silent storm.

With the final piece of evidence—Yu Yue’s suicide note—Shen Qing and Officer Zhou bypassed possible internal interference and reported directly to the special task force.

The story of Yu Yue and Yu Xiang, two siblings who had sacrificed their lives trying to protect each other, became a force strong enough to sweep everything aside.

They had no other family left. Now countless people online became their family.

Public outrage never subsided. Under immense pressure, the university renounced the Lins’ sponsorship and stood with its students.

The once-glittering Shuanglong Scholarship Fund became a symbol of disgrace.

During a transfer in custody, I briefly came face to face with Lin Muhai.

His once-smooth, tidy hair hung in disorder. His bloodshot eyes fixed on me as though he wanted to kill me.

Even without direct criminal causation linking him to Yu Yue’s death, offenses including unlawful detention, coerced molestation, and threats were enough to mark him indelibly as a criminal.

Lin Shuanglong faced dozens of accusations. The charitable empire he had built collapsed under investigation, exposing its tangled, rotten roots.

Justice awaited him.

And me.

My trial was quiet and quick.

I was prosecuted for concealing a body, fabricating evidence, seriously misleading a criminal investigation, causing public alarm, and other offenses.

My lawyer did not argue innocence. The defense focused on my motives.

In court, I declined my final statement. Nothing more needed saying.

The verdict: three years’ imprisonment, suspended for four years.

I showed no expression when I heard it. It was already far better than the mutual destruction I had once planned.

Outside the courthouse, the sunlight dazzled.

Shen Qing waited at the entrance. She smiled faintly.

“It’s over.”

“Oh, and I’ve been transferred back to criminal investigations. This case… changed a great deal.”

I stood in silence for a while.

“Yu Yue and Yu Xiang…”

I asked softly.

“They’re buried together at Jing’an Memorial Park, west of the city. On a sunny hillside.”

18

During my suspended sentence, I withdrew from university.

I found a job shelving books in a library.

I reported regularly to the community authorities and followed every condition of my sentence.

Sometimes Shen Qing visited, out of uniform, like any ordinary patron.

Once, she asked why I had gone so far for a friend.

I smiled at her. It was a long time before I spoke.

“I went to the Lin villa once, about financial aid.”

“But I only got as far as the door.”

“Yu Yue slapped me and refused to let me in.”

“That night, she came home covered in injuries. Then she told me everything.”

My expression was calm. Shen Qing’s eyes reddened.

19

The following spring, I took a bouquet of white daisies to Jing’an Memorial Park.

The hillside grass was green.

I put down the flowers and stood for a long time.

I did not say, “Rest in peace.” Somehow, I felt that was not what they needed.

They had only wanted to be free of the stain, safe and untroubled, with nobody to disturb them again.

The sunlight was beautiful as I walked down the hill.

I looked back once. The cemetery was lush with green, full of life.

Snow would melt. The seasons would turn.

Some evils were buried behind bars.

Some sacrifices slept among green hills and sunlight.

And the living carried their wounds and memories onward, along a road sometimes muddy, sometimes touched by glimmers of light.