Chapter 4
Edward Quan ·
Dad sprang up and stumbled backward.
“No...”
“How can it be Yanyan?”
“No!”
“Impossible!”
“I must have made a mistake!”
Frantically, he tried to destroy the face he'd just reconstructed.
At that moment, Captain Fang rushed in.
“Stop!”
He caught Dad's hand, about to ask what was wrong.
Then he saw the face.
His expression changed.
“Yanyan?”
Dad seemed to have gone mad.
He struggled desperately to destroy the model.
“No!”
“That isn't Yanyan!”
“I made a mistake!”
“A mistake!”
“She's at a friend's, taking her mind off things.”
“She isn't dead!”
“She isn't dead!”
“How long are you going to keep this up?”
“Lin!”
“Have you ever got a reconstruction wrong?”
Captain Fang's eyes reddened.
He took a hospital list from inside his coat.
“We found the victim's missing right-leg bone last night.”
“It has screw holes from a metal plate.”
“We checked hospital records.”
“Yanyan's name is on the list.”
Dad's struggles weakened.
He stood frozen.
Like a stranded fish, eyes wide open, unable to move.
He must have remembered too.
That year, the right leg that hadn't broken when I jumped to save my life had broken under Mom's beating.
And Dad's indifference.
I watched him shake his head wildly, eyes red, forcing each word through his teeth.
“On that little evidence...”
“How can you say she's my daughter?”
“It can't be Yanyan...”
“It can't...”
Captain Fang patted his shoulder.
“Then do a DNA test.”
As though he couldn't trust anyone else, Dad took samples from me and himself with his own hands.
He personally delivered them for testing.
For hours, he stood rigid outside the lab.
Without moving.
The result came.
Before opening the report, he still tried to sound relaxed.
“It's definitely not her.”
Then the final conclusion appeared.
“Probability of paternity: 99.99%.”
The last trace of hope on his face shattered.
He turned the report over and over.
Again and again.
The numbers kept telling him that the body he'd sewn together, piece by piece, was his own daughter.
Clutching the result, he staggered into the autopsy room like a walking corpse.
He came to my mangled body.
Like a rag stitched all over.
No one understood a victim's death better than a forensic pathologist.
Trembling, he reached out.
But he didn't dare touch me.
There wasn't an inch of intact skin left.
“My Yanyan...”
“How much pain were you in?”
At first, he tried to hold it in.
Choked sounds escaped his throat.
Then the autopsy room filled with his heartrending cries.
Red-eyed, Captain Fang shook his head.
“Lin.”
“I warned you not to leave yourself with regrets.”
“Crying won't help now.”
“What matters is catching the killer.”
“Giving Yanyan's spirit some peace.”
Dad clutched the leg of Captain Fang's trousers.
Nothing remained of his old composure.
Tears and mucus covered his face as he begged.
“Please...”
“You have to catch him.”
“You have to...”
“Catch him.”
Captain Fang patted his shoulder and solemnly promised.
The shock of losing his child had seriously affected Dad's ability to work.
The police gave him leave for a while.
Quietly, I followed him.
Step by step, along the road from the station to home.
In that short time, the hair that had already whitened at his temples turned almost entirely white.
He walked through the rain.
Strange.
And somehow as absurd as a solitary clown.
Then a girl's cry for help came from the alley beside us.
It cut through the rain and struck my ears.
My pupils contracted.
Zhang Pingping!
Dad quickly took out his phone and sent a message.
Then, like a hunting leopard, he plunged into the rain and rushed into the alley.
A tall man in a black raincoat that covered him completely held a scalpel.
Step by step, he was forcing Pingping into a corner.
At the sound, he turned his head.
Only his eyes showed as he looked at Dad.
In them were a madness that wanted to destroy everything, savage excitement, sick satisfaction.
Pain wouldn't stop coursing through me.
A trembling helplessness that reached into my soul.
A dark room.
Me hanging there.
The cold scalpel.
Bags of flesh.
That dreadful, harsh laugh.
At the sight of the raincoat and scalpel, Dad seemed to understand.
His eyes went bloodshot, his voice rasping as he fixed on the man.
“You killed my daughter! I'll kill you!”
He grabbed a length of scrap timber from the nearby construction site and charged.
He'd had plenty of close-combat training.
He had a chance.
Within moments, he'd pinned the killer against the wall with the wood.
But the killer gave a provocative laugh.
“Dr. Lin, are you really going to turn me over to the police?”
“I picked your daughter as my prey right here. She cried and screamed, even texted you for help. Such a naughty girl. So I peeled her skin off, layer by layer. Her screams... were lovely.”
“Aah!”
“You animal! I'll kill you!”
Dad lost control.
He pressed the wood against the killer's throat with all his strength.
Only one thought remained: kill him.
But losing his guard left too many openings.
The killer suddenly drew a scalpel hidden in his sleeve and slashed Dad's wrist.
One stroke, and his strength drained away.
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
The killer immediately turned to flee.
Dad lunged, knocked him down, and wrapped his arms and legs around him.
Then he bit his ear hard.
The killer screamed like a pig at slaughter.
For some reason, that scream drove the fear from my heart.
So no one was invincible.
The killer groped for a piece of wood studded with rusty nails and smashed it into Dad's back.
He kept pressing on the wound.
Blood poured out, nearly soaking his entire back red.
I saw Dad trembling violently, teeth clenched, refusing to let go.
He even bit off almost half the man's outer ear.
Howling in pain, the killer pulled out a nail and stabbed Dad again and again.
Dad's face grew paler.
When his grip loosened for an instant, the killer broke free.
A moment later, Dad clung to his leg again.
No matter how the man kicked, he wouldn't release him.
I heard Dad murmuring a name over and over.
“Yanyan...”
Tears suddenly spilled from my eyes.
The love I'd begged for over eight years had only appeared after my death.
Dad.
Your love came too late.
In the end, the killer still escaped.
Captain Fang arrived with the others.
They tried to help Dad up, but he only weakly pointed in the direction the man had gone.
“Never mind me... Go after him!”
Captain Fang took off his jacket and covered Dad, then hurried after the killer with his team.
Dad turned to the frightened Pingping and asked gently, “Are you all right?”
She raised her red-rimmed eyes.
They were full of hatred.
“Yanyan... she's dead, isn't she? Everything he said... it's true, isn't it?”
Dad's face grew even whiter.
His silence admitted it.
Pingping completely lost control.
“It was you! You killed Yanyan! If you hadn't forced her to go to the cemetery and kneel at your bastard son's grave, none of this would've happened!”