Chapter 5
Edward Quan ·
“I knew something was wrong that day. I tried to report her missing, and you stopped me! If we'd called the police then, maybe she wouldn't have died!”
“Have you ever cared about her all these years? Where were you when her classmates bullied her and pressed cigarettes into her arms? Where were you when they called her a bastard with no parents? Where were you when she texted you for help?”
“Just when I was about to find her, you got in the way! You cut off her last hope!”
“And she always cared so much about you! You didn't like disobedient children, so she let you hit her and scold her without ever talking back. You didn't like children who got less than full marks, so she studied day and night, working until both her hands were covered in cracks and chilblains, hurting and itching.”
“She told me she'd killed her brother. That she deserved to be the target of her grieving parents' anger.”
“But it's been eight years! Eight whole years!”
“Are your hearts made of stone? Or was Lin Yan never your daughter at all?”
“This family... doesn't deserve to be her family!”
“If only I'd gone to the cemetery with her that day... She wouldn't have died...”
“If I were her, with parents like you, I'd never forgive you. If you want to die, do it far away. Don't make me look at you!”
After crying, Zhang Pingping turned and ran.
Pain had drained every trace of color from Dad's face.
Still, he forced himself to stand.
He looked blankly after her, put on Captain Fang's leather jacket, and followed quietly at a distance.
Once Pingping was safely home, I looked at Dad.
I wanted to thank him.
But my feelings were tangled.
I respected his courage, his fearlessness in protecting the public.
And hated the coldness he'd deliberately shown me.
His body swayed.
He stumbled back several steps and had to brace himself against a roadside tree.
His voice was hoarse.
“Yanyan... If I'd seen your message sooner... If I'd come to protect you... Would you have come home safely too, just like that girl?”
Rain poured down.
I couldn't tell rain from tears on his face.
Only that his eyes were red.
But Dad.
There are no ifs in this world.
He didn't go to the hospital.
He quietly returned home.
Night had fallen, and the house was brightly lit.
The table was covered with rich dishes.
Mom, my brother, and my sister-in-law ate and laughed.
As soon as Dad came in, Mom called, “Goodness, why are you soaked? Go and change, then come and eat. Everyone's here. We've only been waiting for you.”
“Everyone?”
Dad coldly looked around at their smiling faces.
Then he overturned the table.
The sudden violence frightened them all.
Mom and my brother instinctively shielded my sister-in-law.
Mom screamed.
“What are you doing? Xiaojing and his wife have finally come home. I worked so hard making all this food to celebrate with you! Have you gone mad? Don't forget she's carrying your grandson!”
Dad looked at her with red eyes.
“Are these the only people you see?”
“What about Yanyan?”
Mom clicked her tongue.
“Isn't she off playing with friends? She doesn't even remember to come home. Why should I think of her? I'm her mother. Do I owe her something?”
Dad's eyes were bloodshot.
“Do you know...”
“Yanyan... is dead.”
Mom jumped up.
“Lin! That isn't funny!”
My brother's face went white too.
“Is she still refusing to forgive me? Refusing to come home? Is that why you're helping her trick us?”
“How could she...”
“Be dead...”
Mom nodded frantically and rushed to seize Dad's arm.
“Tell us! She found out her brother faked his death, got upset, and asked you to fool us, didn't she? It has to be her! She's always lying!”
Slap!
Dad struck her hard.
His lips trembled as he stared at her.
“Yanyan never lied!”
“Do you remember the Rain Butcher case I told you about eight years ago?”
“The body I went to examine that day...”
“Was Yanyan.”
Mom shook her head again and again.
“No... impossible! You're lying! Yanyan called me! She was still...”
She suddenly choked on the words.
Her expression slowly changed.
That day, she'd heard me pleading for help.
But she'd thought I was lying.
Even when the killer trampled my phone, she'd thought I'd hung up in a sulk.
She was the one who'd let the crucial chance to save me slip away.
The room was terrifyingly silent.
Then Dad's phone rang.
Captain Fang.
The killer had been caught.
Dad looked at everyone.
“If you want the truth, come with me.”
No one spoke on the way to the station.
They stood behind the glass outside the interrogation room.
Inside, the killer deliberately called Dad's name.
With special permission, Dad went in.
The moment he saw him, the killer smiled in satisfaction.
“Dr. Lin, eight years ago, you wouldn't let go. You drove my brother into dying with your son.”
“Eight years later...”
“I'll let you watch your family line end.”
“Let you taste what it's like to lose someone!”
“You—”
“Don't be impatient, Dr. Lin.”
“Want to know how your daughter died?”
“I've confessed everything.”
“The video... is in my phone's gallery.”
Soon, the video appeared on the screens in both the interrogation room and the observation room.
The little alley was shrouded in rain.
He'd cornered me.
Trembling, I tried to negotiate.
“I texted my parents! My father's a police officer. They'll be here any minute! You should run now, or you won't get another chance!”
He glanced at the phone he'd crushed beneath his foot and sneered.
“Really? Sounded like your mother didn't believe a word. 'Lying little wretch'... Suits you.”
On the video, he seized my hair.
I struggled wildly and screamed for help.
Suddenly, the screen went dark.
Every sound stopped.
A white lamb toy was pointed at his throat.
My voice was strangely calm and firm.
“Don't move! Or I won't hesitate to use this stun device!”
“My father made it especially for me. Get ready to be arrested!”
Then confusion.
“Why... why isn't it working?”
The man's voice was demonic.
“Ha ha... Eight years ago, on the very first day I followed you, you used the same trick. Lin Yan, a trick doesn't work twice.”
So the man who'd followed me in the first week after the plane crash had been him too.
Back then, I'd called Dad for help.
By the time he arrived, the man had been stunned by the device and disappeared.
After that, Dad concluded I was a liar.
Clearly, he remembered now.
His face changed at once.
“Dad, save me!”
“Yanyan!”
Watching the video, Dad's swollen red eyes filled with guilt, helplessness, and fear.
Only now did he remember the bloodstained lamb keychain they'd found.
The self-defense gift he'd made me.
The little lamb he'd later trampled himself because he thought I was wasting time playing.
Then the screen went dark again.
The killer looked at Dad and smiled provocatively.
“I have to admit, your daughter's quite capable. She got that self-defense toy right against my throat. Too bad the stun device inside was broken.”
“From that pained look on your face...”
“You broke it, didn't you?”
Dad went deathly pale.
Already badly wounded, he could barely stand.
As the words ended, the video became clear again.
A crude, dark basement.
A young woman, drugged and tied tightly to an operating table.
The man's voice seemed to rise from hell.
“I made this drug especially for you.”
“With it, you'll stay conscious through the whole thing and enjoy it with me.”
“Oh, right...”
“It doubles the pain too.”
The cold scalpel slid lightly through skin.
Blood welled up at once.
Then the whole screen was red.
Only my screams filled the video.
“Dad... Mom... help me...”
“Dad... Mom... why haven't you come...”
“Kill me...”
“Aah...”
...
“Dad...”
“Mom...”
“Yanyan... wants to go home...”
For three hours, my cries of agony echoed through the room.
Everyone watched.
A healthy young woman.
Skinned.
Her flesh cut away.
Her tendons pulled out.
Her bones removed.
Until nothing remained but a heap of flesh.
No one could hold back their tears.
The killer laughed wildly.
“Thanks to Dr. Lin for breaking that stun device.”
“The person who killed your daughter...”
“Was you, Dr. Lin!”
“How does it feel to kill your own daughter?”
“Ha ha ha ha...”
“And sewing her corpse back together with your own hands... That hurt, didn't it?”
“I'll kill you! You animal! I'll kill you!”
Dad panted, his eyes bloodshot, and rushed forward with his fist raised.
Several people held him back.
The police led the killer away.
A long time passed.
Then Dad suddenly dropped to his knees.
He began punching his own head wildly.
“What... what have I done...”
Outside, Mom's cries were full of pain and remorse.
“Yanyan! My Yanyan!”
“You must have hurt so much...”
“I was wrong...”
“I was so wrong...”
She collapsed.
My brother shouted in panic.
“Mom!”
His voice was already hoarse.