Chapter 5
Edward Quan ·
“No.
“Tiểu Mai wasn't lying.”
Unexpectedly, Dương Sâm raised his voice, cutting across both of us.
“I told you. I'm here to tell the truth.
“Tiểu Mai, don't be afraid.
“You're not the killer.
“The real killer is me.”
He pointed at himself and smiled.
“That night, you came to me beside yourself, asking for help.
“I was afraid it would traumatize you.
“So I hypnotized you.
“I planted a suggestion in your subconscious, using your mind's self-protective mechanism to make you forget.
“All you remembered was Đại Dũng beating you, then taking your daughter to your mother's in anger.”
I listened, stunned.
“So it wasn't that she was a good actress.
“She genuinely didn't know she'd struck him.”
He turned to Officer Trần.
“Hypnosis might make her forget,” the officer said calmly, “but it can't erase the fact that she killed someone.”
“No. I told you.
“I killed him.”
Dương Sâm continued.
“She only knocked him unconscious.
“He woke up that night.
“But I didn't want that animal alive anymore.
“So I killed him.
“He even got on his knees and begged me to spare him.
“Funny, isn't it?
“Scum like him turned out to be afraid of dying too.”
He laughed.
The sound seemed to lower the temperature in the room.
Yet when he looked at me, his eyes were still gentle.
“Afterward, I cut up the body, put it in a suitcase, and buried it on the hill behind the park.
“I didn't expect it to be found so soon.
“Oh, right. I made a video.
“That counts as evidence, doesn't it?”
He took out his phone and placed it on the table before Officer Trần.
In the recording, I heard Đại Dũng begging for his life.
“Listen.
“Isn't it funny?
“A man who abused people finally had to beg someone not to kill him.”
He smiled.
I was crying too hard to speak.
“Why?
“Why did you have to go this far?
“Why did you have to kill him?”
He didn't answer.
He only looked at me and smiled, just like the boy in the white shirt from long ago.
But we both knew.
We could never return to those years.
A year later, I went to the cemetery and lit incense for Dương Sâm.
His familiar smile looked out from the headstone.
For intentional homicide, he had received the sentence the law required.
As for me, although I had knocked Đại Dũng unconscious with the ashtray, my actions were ruled legitimate self-defense.
My mother-in-law and sister-in-law refused to accept it and repeatedly challenged the ruling.
Their objections were rejected at both trial and appeal.
The media also reported on his years of domestic abuse.
The respectable image he had built outside our home collapsed.
Not long after being imprisoned, Dương Sâm became seriously ill.
He was transferred to hospital.
It turned out his family carried a strange hereditary disease.
None of them lived long.
Less than a year later, he died in hospital.
Before his death, he left me a letter explaining everything.
Back then, he had been an orphan.
His father had died young from that dreadful disease.
His mother had worked herself into illness and died when he was still very small.
Everyone looked down on him for having no parents.
Only I had stayed beside him as we grew up.
Now it had been his turn to protect me.
He told me to live well with Lạc Lạc.
He said I was the light of his life.
But in truth, he had been the light of mine.
“In truth... he was innocent.”
At some point, Officer Trần had come up behind me.
He laid a bouquet before the grave.
“What are you doing here?”
“Paying my respects.”
He took out a cigarette.
“His methods were extreme.
“But he really was a good man.”
He lit it and watched me through the smoke.
“What about you, though?”
“Have you come to question me again?”
I smiled bitterly.
“Why won't you leave me alone?”
“I'm a police officer.
“So everything has to rest on evidence.”
He flicked off the ash.
“But what follows is only my own speculation.
“Just hear me out.
“Back then, your father owed money. His creditors came to the house and nearly drove him to his death.
“Dương Sâm was just a poor young man. He couldn't find that kind of money.
“You ran away together, then had an accident.
“Afterward, you forgot him.
“We checked the hospital records. You did have a concussion.
“Temporary memory loss was possible.
“But you had been together since childhood.
“Was it really so easy to forget everything?”
He finished one cigarette and lit another.
“Whatever the reason, he never believed you were at fault.
“He left the city in pain.
“You married Đại Dũng.
“Our investigation shows that Đại Dũng only agreed to pay the debts after you married him.
“Then you discovered he was an abuser.
“From that point, you were entirely the victim.
“An abuser really does deserve to die.
“For your family, you swallowed the humiliation and endured it.
“Until you discovered he had no money left.
“He'd spent it all on another woman.
“Just then, Dương Sâm returned.
“He approached you as a math teacher and counselor.
“You saw him regularly for counseling.
“During that time, you told your daughter to call him Dad.
“And he vaguely felt that the two of them looked alike.”
“Lạc Lạc is Đại Dũng's daughter,” I interrupted.
“There's a DNA test.”
“Yes.
“But Dương Sâm didn't know that.”
Officer Trần smiled faintly.
“Don't rush to deny anything.
“I'm only speculating.
“Lạc Lạc herself told me she called him Dad.
“In any case, he misunderstood.
“He worked out the dates and thought she was his daughter.
“So he willingly stayed in the shadows, protecting you both.
“Then, one day, Đại Dũng discovered you were still seeing him.
“He beat you again.
“You knocked him unconscious with the ashtray.
“You thought you'd killed him and went to Dương Sâm for help.
“Dương Sâm finished him off, went to prison, and eventually died in hospital.”
He looked at me, his gaze as cold and sharp as stars at night.
“The interesting part is this.
“According to the report from the police visit when you called them, Đại Dũng hit you on the head with that very same ashtray.
“You said he'd used it on you many times.
“So you should have known very well how much damage a blow with it could do.
“Let's make a bold assumption.
“Did you really believe you'd killed your husband?
“Or did you just pretend to panic and go to Dương Sâm?
“Perhaps you'd known for a long time that he was terminally ill.
“You understood him too well.
“You knew he would hypnotize you.
“Whether it worked or not, you would still behave as though you'd forgotten striking Đại Dũng.”
He threw his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it underfoot.
“In the end, Đại Dũng was dead.
“And you could start a new life.”
“Officer Trần, perhaps you'd make a better writer.”
I looked at him.
“I'm sure your novels would be excellent.”
“Heh...
“I've already resigned.”
His look was meaningful.
“Perhaps life is stranger than fiction.
“Wouldn't you agree, Vương Hiểu Mai?”
“Perhaps.
“Who knows?”
I turned back and continued wiping Dương Sâm's headstone.
Looking at the man's smile on the stone, I smiled too.
How could he ever understand us?
Isn't that right, A Sâm?
(The End)