Chapter 5

I started university without difficulty, using the money my parents had left and a student loan.

My first class was anatomy.

Our lecturer was a kind female professor. She was explaining the internal organs.

One glance was all it took for me to recognize our familiar silent teacher.

A year earlier, in the dark, he'd climbed onto my bed like a snarling beast and tried to rape me.

A year later, he lay motionless in this classroom, a body donor whom everyone treated with respect.

The professor noticed my expression.

Seeming to remember something, she said gently, “Li Sheng, if you're uncomfortable... you can sit down for a while.”

Perhaps the university administration had told her... that this donor was my father.

Most of my classmates were local. They'd all heard something about the wife-murder case that had caused such a stir the year before.

“Li Sheng? The daughter from that murder case?”

“Oh my God... Poor girl. I heard her brother died unexpectedly in her room, and then her dad killed her mum.”

“That's right. Within a month, she was the only one left in the family.”

“That's so sad...”

“Someone in the opposite building said her brother forced himself on her. Then he had a seizure and died in her bed. When they found him, he was naked, and underneath him there was...”

“What? That happened too? What a horrible brother!”

“Poor girl...”

...

Their whispers kept reaching my ears.

I lowered my head and said nothing.

The professor made her way through the crowd and gently took my hand.

“It's all right. Have a rest first. Come back to the practical when you feel better.”

I looked up and let her lead me to a seat in the corner.

Her kind face reminded me of the policewoman from that time.

The classroom's fluorescent lights made me pause for a moment.

My thoughts slowly drifted back...

To the day my brother died.

I'd been unexpectedly summoned home at noon.

The moment I arrived, Mum ordered me to take off my clothes and go into my brother's room.

I refused.

She picked up an iron bar and slammed it against the floor.

Bang!

“If you don't go in, I'll break both your legs, tie you up, and throw you in there! Let me make this clear: I adopted you so you could marry my son!”

I looked at the cold gleam of the iron bar and swallowed.

“I... don't have evening study tonight. I'll wait in my room. Just tell him to come in then.”

Mum looked at me doubtfully.

In the end, she chose to believe me.

Relieved, I hurried to my room and tied back the curtain in a knot.

I'd discovered a long time ago that, tied like that, the light shining through it cast a shadow...

Exactly like the hanging woman in the erotic horror film Mum rented for my brother.

I left my room and went back to school.

At six, the bell rang to end afternoon classes.

I quietly watched the students around me and waited...

Until six forty.

At exactly six forty, the rental shop outside the school opened.

I put on my schoolbag, took the erotic horror disc, and went out.

I could see the security camera outside the shop from a distance.

Calmly, I approached, deliberately making sure it recorded me clearly.

After returning the disc, I went back to school.

All the way, I kept wondering...

Had Mum taken my brother into my room yet?

He had epilepsy.

An erotic horror film had triggered a seizure once before.

If... just as Mum took him into my room, he happened to lie on the bed and see that curtain shadow, so like a hanging woman...

I thought about it throughout evening study.

I couldn't concentrate at all.

Until eight, when my homeroom teacher arrived with the news that my brother was dead.

Inside, I was ecstatic.

But I quickly calmed myself and put on a grieving face.

My teacher hadn't spoken loudly.

In that quiet classroom, though, her words were very clear.

Every classmate. The rental shop owner. The security camera.

They were all my alibi.

As long as...

No one noticed the curtain in my room.

Following my teacher's instructions, I hurried to the police station.

The scene had already been examined.

The police had concluded it was an accident, because there was no trace of a third party.

But my parents insisted I'd done it.

And so...

I entered the interview room.

The policewoman questioned me gently. She felt sorry for me.

The male officer, though...

He was extremely clever.

Those eyes seemed able to see through everything.

Worse still, my father was clever too.

He quickly realized the person who benefited most from my brother's death...

Was me.

Mum suspected me as well.

Sitting in the station, watching Captain Jiang lead her into the interview room, I had only one thought.

How could I make both Mum and Dad disappear...

And free myself of Captain Jiang's suspicions at the same time?

It didn't take me long to come up with a plan.

Dad adored my brother and was prone to domestic violence.

He'd nearly beaten Mum to death several times.

If he found out she was the one who'd locked my brother in my room, frightening him into a fatal seizure, he'd certainly beat her.

Whether... he'd beat her to death...

I didn't know.

Once I'd formed that plan, I'd intended to wait until the following week.

Who could have known...

My adoptive father, the man who was supposed to be my dad, would want me to bear his child?

I had to move things forward.

But...

Who should tell him?

Just as I was struggling with that question, Captain Jiang appeared.

“I just want to know the truth,” he said.

It seemed he still suspected me.

Then why not...

Let him be the one to tell Dad?

I told him everything Mum had done to me over that time.

Her behavior. What she'd forced my brother to do.

I concealed only one thing.

That I'd lied about not going to evening study that night.

He listened, frowning.

Afterward, his eyes were full of pity.

I knew then that he believed me.

Everything I'd told him was true, after all.

Besides, someone in the opposite building had photographed Mum directing my brother to assault me.

He drove me home and told Dad everything.

I saw Dad's hands slowly curl into fists.

I knew...

He'd beat Mum that night.

So I made an excuse and went to my room.

When Mum came home from work that evening, Dad's fists were waiting for her.

She wept and begged.

But she couldn't extinguish the rage of a father who'd just learned the truth about his son's death.

Eventually, the living room fell silent.

I opened my door and went out.

Dad had returned to his room.

Mum lay on the floor, faceup, her skin purplish.

A pillow lay beside her.

Clearly, Dad had just held it over her face.

I tiptoed over to check.

Her chest was still rising and falling, ever so faintly.

I looked at the pillow beside her.

Then I took off my jacket and wrapped it around my hands.

I picked up the pillow and pressed it over her face.

More than ten minutes later, she was completely still.

Only then did I put it down.

I carefully checked my surroundings, quietly returned to my room, locked the door, and went to sleep.

The next morning, Dad discovered Mum had been dead for some time.

His immediate assumption was that he'd killed her.

Trembling, he called the police and confessed.

Naively, he thought that if he turned himself in and I wrote a letter asking for leniency, he'd be all right.

But...

I would never forgive him.

This was exactly what I wanted.

From the moment Mum ordered me to strip and go into my brother's room, I'd started planning it all.

And everything...

Had gone exactly as I'd intended.

To everyone else, my brother had died naked in my bed because of my mother's negligence...

Or some other disgusting thing she'd done.

Mum had borne the brunt of Dad's fury over their son's death...

And he'd cruelly smothered her with a pillow.

Dad was a murderer.

He was sentenced to death.

A life for a life.

And me...

I was just a poor girl who loved her mother and couldn't forgive the father who'd killed her.

No one blamed me.

No one suspected me.

They only pitied me.

Then I'd even donated my father's body to medical science.

Such a righteous act only made them feel more sympathy...

And respect.

With that thought, I slowly stood and walked toward the professor and my classmates.

I smiled.

“I'm all right now. I can take part in the dissection practical.”

The anatomy lecturer smiled back.

“Welcome.”

Just then, my phone vibrated with a message.

I glanced down.

Captain Jiang.

“Can we talk? I want to know the truth.”

I narrowed my eyes and smiled as I typed my reply.

“Of course.”

He really was...

A ghost that wouldn't leave me alone.

But...

What would happen if a male officer who stubbornly pursued the truth...

Were accused of harassment by an orphaned girl who'd just lost both parents?

The End