Chapter 1

Someone in our apartment complex had been murdered, and somehow the police investigation led straight to me. I touched my legs and gave a bitter smile.

“Officer, I’m disabled. You’ve got to be joking.”

The detective stared at me.

“Miss, what if your legs have already recovered—and you just don’t know it?”

1

Aunt Wu and I had just finished buying groceries and were heading home when we saw several police cars outside the entrance to our apartment complex.

According to the neighbors, the man with glasses who lived alone on the tenth floor of our building was dead.

Once they learned who it was, everyone cheered.

He had moved into the complex only last month. His apartment happened to be on my floor, right next door.

He hardly ever went out, yet people were always dumping rubbish and rotten eggs outside his door. Some even covered it with notes full of filthy abuse.

Apparently, he had just got out of prison after serving five years.

He had used his position as a teacher to sexually harass female students, causing them serious harm.

A vicious pervert like that was someone everyone wanted gone.

The neighbors at the entrance were still talking excitedly.

“He deserved to die. Serves him right!”

“Exactly! Why waste police resources on him? I bet he couldn’t take the pressure and killed himself.”

“Even if he didn’t, whoever killed him did us all a favor. One less sick bastard in the world!”

I was listening with interest when the police came over to disperse the crowd.

Aunt Wu and I went home. We had barely put our bags down when someone knocked.

I wheeled myself over and opened the door. Two uniformed police officers stood outside.

They looked briefly surprised to see me. Then one of them showed his identification.

“Hello. I’m Wei Dong, head of the city’s Criminal Investigation Unit. I’d like to ask you a few questions about your neighbor, Weng Chengwen, if this is a convenient time…”

I nodded and moved aside to let them in.

Once inside, Wei Dong kept casting discreet glances at my legs.

I smiled.

“I was in a car accident as a child. Both my legs were broken.”

His expression stiffened. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

I shook my head and asked Aunt Wu to bring them some water.

2

The questioning began.

I gave them a brief account of my circumstances.

My name was Jing Hong, and I was twenty-three. My legs had been injured in a car accident when I was little, and I had used a wheelchair ever since.

I didn’t get along with my family, so I lived on my own.

Most of my income came from online customer-service work. I had hired Aunt Wu to help with my daily needs.

At that point, Wei Dong raised a hand.

“Sorry to interrupt, Miss Jing. Are you saying you didn’t know Aunt Wu before you hired her?”

I hesitated and said nothing.

He watched me. “You don’t earn much. How can you afford a caregiver?”

I smiled.

“Aunt Wu lives alone too. There isn’t much work to do for me, and she likes keeping me company and looking after me. That’s not illegal, is it, Officer Wei?”

A faint smile lingered on his face.

“Of course not. I was just asking.”

I had barely breathed a silent sigh of relief when his tone turned serious.

“Miss Jing, what was your relationship with Weng Chengwen? What sort of person did you think he was?”

I frowned at him, puzzled.

“Who’s Weng Chengwen?”

He pointed toward the apartment next door.

“Your neighbor. The victim.”

I let out a breath.

“I don’t know him. This is the first time I’ve even heard his name.”

“Have you heard anything about him?”

I shook my head.

“I don’t know the details, but I know he was in prison. A lot of people here hated him. There were always rotten eggs and rubbish outside his door. People put notes cursing him on it too.”

“Maybe that’s why he killed himself.”

Wei Dong’s expression changed at once.

“How do you know he killed himself?”

I smiled.

“I don’t, of course. I heard people saying it at the entrance this morning, when we got back from buying groceries.”

“Besides, if you were treated like that every day, suicide wouldn’t be all that surprising.”

Wei Dong pressed his lips together and looked at me.

“Weng Chengwen went to prison five years ago. He was a secondary-school teacher at the time. He received a five-year sentence for sexually harassing female students.”

I put on a look of dawning understanding.

“Oh, I see. No wonder everyone here hated him so much.”

Wei Dong watched my face the whole time, never once looking away.

But I knew every expression was just right.

I had practiced them in front of the mirror countless times.

After studying me for a long while, he suddenly asked, “The student he harassed was called Jiang Ting. Do you know her?”

I shook my head.

“Jiang Ting was Aunt Wu’s daughter. Are you sure you don’t know her?”

Before he had even finished, Aunt Wu rushed out of the kitchen. Still wearing her apron, her hair disheveled, she glared at the officers with reddened eyes.

“Weng Chengwen deserved to die! Ten thousand deaths wouldn’t be enough!”

Wei Dong sighed.

“Even after Weng Chengwen was arrested, Jiang Ting couldn’t recover. The impact on her was too great. In the end, she couldn’t bear the public scrutiny and jumped into the river.”

Aunt Wu grew more agitated.

“Can you stop talking about it? She’s dead. What good does bringing it up do now? That man got what he deserved! Ten thousand deaths wouldn’t be enough! Why are you still investigating?”

Wei Dong stood and looked at me.

“After Weng Chengwen finished his sentence, he just happened to move into your complex—and into the apartment right next to yours. Now he’s dead. Are you telling me neither of you had anything to do with it?”

I smiled.

“So you think Aunt Wu agreed to look after me because I could help her avenge her daughter? That we planned all of this together?”

Wei Dong pursed his lips.

“It’s possible. At the very least, that’s too many coincidences.”

I laughed aloud and patted my legs.

“Officer Wei, I’m disabled. How could I kill anyone?”

Something shifted in his eyes.

“I can’t even leave the house by myself, let alone kill someone. I understand that you want to solve the case quickly, but please be reasonable.”

The officer beside him started to reprimand me. Wei Dong pressed a hand to his shoulder, stopping him, then turned back to me.

“All right. Sorry to have troubled you. If we have any more questions, I’ll be back.”

I nodded.

“Then I’ll let you see yourselves out.”

As soon as they left, Aunt Wu came over and held me, crying silently.

I clenched my teeth and refused to cry.

I had shed enough tears over the years.

3

The police returned that evening.

I knew they would work quickly. The lies I had told that morning were easy enough to check.

When I opened the door, Wei Dong smiled.

“Sorry to bother you again.”

“It’s fine,” I said calmly. “I’ll cooperate.”

He sat down, looked at me, and abruptly said, “Weng Chengwen was murdered. He didn’t kill himself.”

My expression didn’t change.

“Oh? Really? That’s strange.”

“Why do you find it strange?”

“Because everyone thought he’d killed himself. Naturally I’m surprised to hear you say he was murdered.”

I knew he suspected Aunt Wu and me.

He would never let this lead go so easily.

Strangely, though, he didn’t pursue it. Instead, he changed tack.

“The security cameras in the complex are broken. That’s made the investigation much harder. Otherwise, we could check the footage to see who Weng Chengwen had been in contact with.”

I turned my coffee cup idly in my hands.

“Yes. What a shame.”

Wei Dong fell silent.

The apartment was very quiet. The only sound came from Aunt Wu making soup in the kitchen.

She was deeply uncomfortable around the police. It wasn’t quite hatred. She seemed more afraid of giving something away.

I couldn’t change that. All I could do was keep her out of their way as much as possible.

A long while passed without another word from Wei Dong.

Bored, I yawned.

Just as I was about to ask him to leave, he turned toward me.

“Jing Hong, how did you injure your legs?”

My hands froze around the coffee cup. A surge of emotion rose inside me.

So he had finally looked into that?

He stared at me.

I knew he already had a definite answer, but I pretended otherwise.

“I told you this morning, didn’t I? I was in a car accident when I was little…”

He cut me off.

“I checked. You were never in a car accident as a child.”

I looked at him uneasily, a little flustered, and said nothing more.

“Your mother died when you were young. Your father abused her, and she took her own life by drinking pesticide. As for your legs, you jumped from a height because your father had driven you to it. Both legs were broken. You haven’t been able to walk since. You’ve had to spend the rest of your life in a wheelchair.”

I clenched my fists, struggling to control myself.

Through gritted teeth, I said, “What do my legs have to do with this case, Officer Wei?”

“Don’t tell me you came here just to reopen old wounds.”

His gaze softened a little.

“Even after your legs were broken, your father showed no remorse. He didn’t question what he’d done. Instead, he tried to take advantage of the fact that you couldn’t move and sell you to an old bachelor in the village for thirty thousand yuan.”

“All the hatred you’d bottled up over the years finally erupted.”

“You bought your father liquor. When he was drunk, you set the house on fire and burned him to death. With no evidence, the police could only rule it an accident. You collected his insurance money, moved to this city, and bought this apartment.”

By then, I had begun to calm down.

“You do have a sense of humor, Officer Wei,” I said with a smile.

“If you have evidence that I set that fire, go ahead and arrest me.”

He looked at me and shook his head.

“I’m not interested in that old arson case. After all this time, finding a fresh lead would be next to impossible.”

“Besides, you’re a very clever woman. If you dared to set that fire, you must have had a perfect plan ready.”