Chapter 6

Dazed, like someone whose soul had been drained away.

The only thing I could feel was hate.

I wandered aimlessly. Somehow, I reached my biological father's house.

Several tables stood outside the tiled-roof home. Guests were talking noisily.

He was hosting a feast.

I watched from a distance.

Cheng Haisheng wore a shirt washed pale with age. For once, his hair was neatly combed.

He raised his glass and laughed heartily.

"I've never broken the law in my life. Never hurt anyone. I was wrongly imprisoned, and now my name's finally cleared. I really must thank everyone who helped."

Someone agreed.

"You care about your good name more than anything. Now you can finally hold your head up. Be careful from now on. We must never get mixed up in anything illegal."

His smile broadened.

"Of course. Of course. A man should live an honest life."

I waited for the feast to end.

Then approached.

He was clearing away tables and chairs.

"Dad."

He went still.

I spoke again.

"Can you help me kill two people?"

"No. Three."

Cheng Haisheng valued his reputation.

But he loved his daughter more.

He helped me kill my adoptive parents.

Then he took every valuable in the house, staging the scene as a burglary.

As I'd instructed, after the murders he bathed, changed into a completely fresh set of clothes, gathered enough food and went into the basement.

Yes.

I knew where the entrance was.

When I came up after giving birth, they hadn't blindfolded me again.

It was beneath the bedside cabinet in the spare bedroom.

The cabinet had to be moved aside, the flooring lifted, then a thick concrete slab opened.

Underneath was a narrow passage, just wide enough for one person.

The cabinet hid it. And the spare room wasn't the crime scene.

That was why the police hadn't found it.

Early in the investigation, I'd had a little contact with Sheng Yucheng.

As a relative, he'd offered me a few words of comfort.

I hadn't suspected him then.

Not until much later, when my father happened to say something as we talked.

"Your adoptive parents used to live so simply. They weren't short of money. Why would they sell you for it?"

The question was a stone thrown into a still lake, sending uneasy ripples through me.

Yes.

Why?

They were rural teachers, always modest and generous.

Why had my mother suddenly changed?

When had it begun?

Perhaps when Sheng gave her a handbag.

Was that famous lawyer involved?

I remembered our first meeting.

He'd returned to his hometown that day. My father invited him for a meal and some legal advice.

A minor traffic accident had been troubling him.

I'd been pestered by my biological father and was still furious when I got home.

Drizzle fell. I strode quickly toward the house.

My umbrella blocked my view, and I accidentally crashed into someone.

Sheng Yucheng.

He wore a tailored suit and stood out from everyone else.

His expression barely changed when I collided with him.

He only stared at my face for a few seconds.

My mother introduced us.

"This is Zhou Ning, our adopted daughter. Ningning, why are you rushing about? Go inside."

He coldly pushed me away.

Apparently, he had no other reaction.

But when he got into his car, his hand gripped the front of his suit.

Where I'd accidentally got it wet.

I thought he was strange.

That evening, he sent my father a long series of legal documents.

I heard my mother mutter, "My cousin's husband changes his tune fast. This afternoon he said he was too busy for little cases like this. Now he's so helpful."

Afterward, he kept inviting them to meals.

Handbags. Gifts. Cruises.

It was too strange.

Like someone who'd been planning in secret for a long time, he drew them step by step into a world of wealth and status that had never belonged to them.

Before long, the house was built.

He personally came to supervise a few times.

I guessed the basement had been his idea too. He was paying, after all.

Whatever reason he'd given them, my parents never mentioned it to me.

When I told my biological father I suspected Sheng was the man, he refused to believe it.

Sheng had found someone to help overturn his conviction.

My father had always considered him his benefactor.

Then my best friend came to visit.

On entering the village, she'd seen a car parked on the road opposite my house.

The man inside kept staring at my home.

She'd taken a photo.

Sheng Yucheng.

Only then did I learn he came by from time to time to watch me.

That pervert.

I was eighty or ninety percent sure it was him.

At this point, my father's trust in him began to waver too.

But how could we know for sure?

We only had suspicions.

My friend said it was simple.

Lure him to the house and test his reaction to the surrogacy.

If it really was Sheng, he'd slip up.

But we weren't close. I had no reason to ask him over.

The only opening was my adoptive parents' deaths.

So I came up with a plan. Not exactly watertight...

As it turned out, the performance I'd written and staged myself succeeded.

To keep him from getting suspicious, I deliberately kept the messages my friend and I had fabricated.

They made it look as though I'd turned to him because I had nowhere else to go.

Blind Wang's visit was pure coincidence.

His fortune-telling was controversial.

Every reading concerned whose wife was having an affair, or whose husband was secretly seeing another woman.

Every time, someone beat him up.

So he'd been branded a fraud.

Perhaps he really was a master.

He just exposed things people didn't want to face.

Following the lead his words gave me, I lured Sheng to the house.

I tested him, step by step.

At last, he admitted it.

At last...

He showed his true face.

Now, seeing Cheng Haisheng emerge, Sheng's expression changed slightly.

"I didn't know she was your daughter."

"I never imagined you were really the one who hurt her."

My father looked even more devastated than I felt.

Sheng had always been the man he respected most.

The day I asked him to kill, he was on the phone with Sheng, thanking him profusely.

As reverent as a believer.

Now his faith had collapsed too.

"Mr. Sheng, I'm grateful you had your protégé help overturn my conviction. But I can't forgive you."

Simple words.

A perfectly clear meaning.

Sheng said nothing. He only looked at me.

"Ningning, my feelings for you are real. Don't you want to meet our child?"

I looked back coldly.

"No. I never want to see you again."

I'd done all I could to preserve a last scrap of civility.

"All right."

His voice was full of disappointment.

I noticed his right hand had stayed in his pocket.

"He's calling the police!"

"Dad! He's calling the police!"

The moment I spoke, Cheng Haisheng lunged.

The men grappled.

My father tightened a rope around Sheng's neck.

"Killing you now would count as self-defense."

Sheng looked certain he had the upper hand.

After speaking, he drew the fruit knife.

Nobody paid attention to his words.

He gritted his teeth and drove it at my father.

He really was formidable. Even stabbing someone, he aimed straight for the heart.

The next instant, the blade slid back inside the handle.

Bright red liquid spilled out.

The smell of ketchup filled the air.

He seemed to have forgotten.

I'd prepared that knife.

It was a stage prop.

Sheng stared at me, eyes stretched wide in disbelief.

For the first time, I saw his composure completely fall apart.

"Goodbye. I won't see you out."

To the distant sound of police sirens, he and I said our final farewell.

The End