Chapter 4

She wept and screamed.

“She was a devil! She destroyed our family! Our parents... died because of her!”

Everyone was stunned.

Bai Qiao covered her mouth and stared at Fu Yi in disbelief.

“Yi Yi... How did you find out...”

Fu Yi roughly wiped her tears away and spoke coldly.

“That wasn't the only reason. I was jealous of her. Jealous that she inherited Mum's looks.

“All our lives, almost everyone who saw Fu Nian said she was the image of our mother. Everyone cherished her.

“I was just the shadow beside her.

“After Aunt Bai adopted us, she was still outstanding. Beautiful. Good at school. Almost everyone loved her.

“I was so eclipsed by her brilliance that I gradually lost all sense of who I was.”

She pulled up her sleeve, revealing an arm covered in tattoos.

“All I could do was rebel. Skip classes. Get into fights. Stop caring. That was the only way anyone noticed I existed.

“But no one knew I didn't even like those things. I wanted to be a good girl too. To do well at school. To be loved.

“So every time I sank lower, I hated Fu Nian a little more.

“Then, not long ago, I happened to find out she was the one responsible for our parents' deaths.

“All those years of hatred exploded.

“I lost my mind. I ran to the art room and asked whether it was true.

“Her silence drove me mad.

“I picked up the statuette... and killed her.

“When I saw her lying in that pool of blood, I got scared. I dropped it and ran.

“Later, I heard Xiao Chen had raped and murdered her and been caught at the scene.

“Scum like him, who wouldn't even leave a corpse alone... I was happy to let him take the blame.

“I thought that would be the end of it. I never expected to meet a cop like you.

“Now you've found out, there's no point hiding it. I killed her. Do whatever you want.”

She dropped heavily into her chair and closed her eyes.

“I'm an adult. If I've done wrong, I have to take responsibility.”

I sighed and took out my handcuffs.

I was about to cuff her when an unexpected sound rang out.

Clunk! Clunk! Clunk!

The screen flashed red again and again, as if my sister were desperately warning me.

I went rigid.

Could it be...

Fu Yi wasn't the killer?

Even she looked surprised.

“Officer Xia... is your equipment broken?”

I checked it.

Everything was working normally.

“Ruonan... are you saying the person who actually killed Fu Nian wasn't Fu Yi?”

Beep.

The screen turned green.

Looking at my sister's face, I chose to trust her.

But Fu Yi had confessed.

Why did Ruonan still think she wasn't the real killer?

What had she noticed?

I wished she could open her eyes right then and tell me all her reasoning.

I quickly ran through the case in my head and found myself murmuring aloud.

“First, Liu Jie assaulted Fu Nian at home, and she fled to the art room, afraid to go back.

“Then Fu Yi came to confront her. In a rage, she killed her with the statuette.

“Finally, Xiao Chen discovered the body and was caught assaulting it by the guard on patrol...”

Beep! Beep! Beep!

What was wrong with what I'd just said?

An explosion seemed to go off in my head.

I'd almost missed the most important detail.

There was no trace of Xiao Chen's DNA in Fu Nian's vagina.

That meant he must have used a condom.

But he hadn't killed her. He'd happened upon the body and given in to a depraved impulse.

He couldn't have known he would find her corpse, much less brought a condom in advance.

In other words...

Someone else had caused the genital injuries.

A third person might have sexually assaulted her.

But that person wasn't necessarily the killer.

Why, then, did my sister insist someone else had killed her?

Could there still be a clue in the photograph that I hadn't noticed?

After racking my brains, I finally realized what I'd overlooked.

Fu Nian had been killed with a single blow.

How could she have taken out the photograph?

Unless...

I immediately texted a colleague.

“Xiao Zhang, find the pathologist. Ask him to reexamine the victim's injury very carefully!”

I sat anxiously waiting.

Before long, his reply arrived.

“Captain, I had to beg him, but he agreed to another examination. The head injury was caused by two blows! The first wasn't fatal. The second was the actual cause of death. It landed exactly over the first injury, which is why the initial examination missed it.”

Just as I'd thought.

Fu Yi wasn't the real killer!

The person who caused the genital injuries had delivered the second, fatal blow.

That was the murderer.

I suddenly turned my sharp gaze on Liu Jie. He shuddered.

“Was it you... Liu Jie?”

Clunk!

“Then the real killer must be a man we haven't investigated.”

Clunk!

Two consecutive negatives left me stunned.

Not Liu Jie.

Not another man.

I immediately understood my sister's earlier hint.

“Ruonan... do you mean the killer wasn't male?”

Beep.

Her confirmation only deepened my frown.

If the killer was a woman, why had she deliberately inflicted those injuries?

Revenge?

To vent her rage?

Or...

I suddenly remembered the other students' expressions when we asked them about the case.

Contempt. Disgust. Even a hint of mockery.

All because they knew Fu Nian had been sexually assaulted.

Virginity...

That veil society insists on draping over women.

The killer had brutally torn away even that last covering.

She didn't just want to kill Fu Nian. She wanted to destroy her reputation after death too.

I squeezed my eyes shut and reconstructed the scene.

Fu Yi struck Fu Nian with the statuette, then fled.

Soon afterward, Fu Nian regained consciousness.

Attacked by the sister she loved most, and burdened with guilt over her parents' deaths, she'd lost the will to live.

She picked up the statuette and wiped away her sister's fingerprints.

Then she took out their photograph to look at her sister one last time...

And quietly waited for death.

But someone else entered.

Wearing gloves, that person picked up the statuette and struck the same wound again, killing her.

Then the killer removed her clothes and injured her genitals, staging a rape-murder.

That was what had really happened.

But who was it?

I looked toward Xu Ruo.

Her?

Only three people had remained at the school without alibis that night.

Fu Yi. Xu Ruo. Liu Jie.

We'd ruled out Fu Yi and Liu Jie.

That left Xu Ruo.

Her expression didn't change under my stare.

“Xu Ruo. The night Fu Nian died, were you really in your dormitory the whole time?”

“Yes,” she replied calmly.

Facing her was like being an accomplished boxer throwing everything into a punch, only to hit a mass of cotton.

Her face never wavered.

She seemed hidden inside thick armor, giving me no purchase on her emotions.

“Officer Xia. You're welcome to speculate that I killed Fu Nian. But...”