Chapter 4

Now and then, he took a long drink of beer.

His expression never changed.

“Lâm Thanh Thần killed him.

“You must know something.

“He fooled the police. I can tell.

“He has a secret.

“Actually... to be honest...

“I don't hate him.

“I'm grateful to whoever did it.

“I mean it...”

My words came in broken fragments.

At last, Dương Trác couldn't stand watching me anymore.

“Stop drinking.”

I ignored him.

Unable to persuade me, he gave up trying and headed for the kitchen.

“I'll boil some water.”

The remaining beers were soon empty.

I still hadn't had enough.

I staggered over to the fridge. There was no beer left in the upper compartment, so without thinking, I pulled the freezer handle.

“Don't open it!”

Dương Trác's urgent shout came from behind me.

“Don't!”

My vision was blurred. I thought he was just trying to stop me drinking.

Stubbornly, I pulled the door open.

In that instant, my blood seemed to freeze.

Every trace of drunkenness vanished.

Curled inside the freezer was a woman's body, blue from the cold.

Vương Mạn Mạn.

A corpse had somehow appeared in my fridge.

I was instantly sober.

I stood rooted to the spot, staring at the frost-covered woman.

My stomach heaved.

Clamping a hand over my mouth, I rushed into the nearby kitchen.

It took a while for my mind to clear.

When I looked to one side, I saw all the food that should have been in the freezer piled in the sink, along with its large drawers.

Now I understood why Dương Trác had tried to stop me opening it.

The sink was full of frozen meat. Bloody meltwater spread across the floor. Anyone would have found the sight unnerving.

But thinking about it, if I had found that pile of meat first, I would at most have assumed a burglar had been in, or that something odd had happened.

It would never have occurred to me that anything so horrifying was hidden in the fridge.

There was clearly more to Dương Trác than met the eye.

The police arrived quickly after I called.

Once again, I was taken to the station.

I expected another round of suspicion.

Instead, before my interview was even over, they caught the killer.

The person who had murdered Vương Mạn Mạn was her boyfriend, Triệu Cương.

He confessed that he had stabbed her three days earlier, then taken her body to my apartment that night and hidden it in the fridge.

He had scouted the place beforehand.

He knew I had gone to the countryside and that the apartment was empty.

He had expected the body to remain undiscovered for ten days or more and planned to flee in a few days' time.

He hadn't expected me to return so soon, much less find the corpse.

As for getting inside, he said he had picked up lock-opening techniques from a locksmith.

But what interested both the police and me most was why he had killed his own girlfriend.

His hair was dyed pink and blue, just like hers.

There was still something boyish about his face.

Yet the moment he mentioned her, he bristled like a hedgehog, all aggression.

“Ever since she found out the guy she slept with was some doctoral supervisor, that bitch kept saying all this disgusting shit to me.

“That I was stupid. Useless.

“Illiterate.

“When she was the one who chased after me in the first place!”

He leaped up in fury and slammed the table.

Two officers quickly forced him back into his seat.

He said he had never got over her cheating.

Then she had become obsessed with Mạnh Tuyền, watching videos of him on her phone all day, right in front of him.

Eventually, his patience ran out.

They started fighting every few days.

Three days earlier, he had come home drunk to find her watching Mạnh Tuyền's videos again.

She had even printed out a stack of his photographs and covered the wall with them.

Enraged, he had charged over and torn them all down.

Of course, they had another vicious argument.

“She said she regretted being with an illiterate like me.

“She wanted to break up.

“Said she'd rather spend her life mourning Mạnh Tuyền than let me lay a finger on her.

“I lost it.

“I grabbed the fruit knife on the table and stabbed her.

“I wanted her dead.

“She had to pay for betraying what we had.”

“Pregnant?

“You mean the thing in her belly?”

Triệu Cương sneered.

“Who knows if it was Mạnh Tuyền's or some other bastard's?

“She was a filthy whore.

“She liked Mạnh Tuyền so much, didn't she?

“So I took her to his place.

“She could stay there forever.”

It took me a long time to recover from the sight of his twisted face.

Vương Mạn Mạn really had become infatuated with Mạnh Tuyền.

Even when she died, she hadn't known what sort of monster she had fallen in love with.

I knew how easily people were dazzled by a glamorous exterior.

I hadn't imagined she had sunk so deep.

In another office at the station, I saw the evidence recently collected from Triệu Cương's home.

Among it were several torn photographs, stained with dried blood.

The man in them was my dead husband.

Noticing me staring, Officer Trần said, “We'll solve the case soon.”

I nodded and looked away without much interest.

Then Dương Trác and I left the station.

I couldn't go home now. Returning to my parents would only make them worry.

With no other choice, I went to a hotel with him.

Why was I still with him?

Officer Trần had said either of us might be called in at any time and advised us to stay in the city for now.

Fate was strange.

A month ago, I had still been struggling in a marriage from hell.

Who could have imagined that a month later, I would be a widow, calmly checking into a hotel with another man?

We booked two separate rooms, each with a double bed.

I thought we would spend a quiet night on our own.

But as soon as it grew dark, I couldn't help knocking on his door.

“I'm a little scared.

“Could I stay in your room tonight?”

I stood outside, embarrassed.

He lowered his eyes to look at me, said nothing, and stepped aside to let me in.

“I can sleep on the sofa,” I said once inside.

“You take the bed.

“I'll use the sofa.”

Quite a gentleman.

I didn't argue and got straight into bed.

That night, despite the soft mattress, I tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

Whenever I closed my eyes, the woman's body in the freezer appeared before me.

The fear was even stronger than when I had heard of Mạnh Tuyền's death.

After trying for a long time without success, I gave up.

“Are you asleep?” I asked into the darkness.

“No.”

“You can't sleep either?”

“No.

“You keep turning over.”

Oh.

I felt a little awkward.

But it wasn't entirely my fault.

Who wouldn't be frightened after seeing something like that?

We fell silent again.

My thoughts drifted back to Mạnh Tuyền and the years we had spent together.

I couldn't help asking, “Dương Trác...

“Do you have any secrets?”

“Secrets?”

“Yes. Do you?”

A soft laugh came from the darkness.

“Everyone has secrets.”

He was younger than me, yet always acted so worldly.

I laid an arm across my eyes.

“Yes,” I murmured.

“Everyone does.”

So did I.

My secret was that I had killed a girl.

A girl in the loveliest years of her life.

As beautiful as a flower.

Let me start at the beginning.

Ten years ago, after the first time Mạnh Tuyền sexually assaulted me, he explained that the pressure of work had left him unable to control himself.

He even showed me psychiatric diagnoses.

Moderate depression.

Manic disorder.

My first reaction was to feel sorry for him.

Back then, I loved him deeply.

So deeply that I forgave far too much.

Even when he pinned me down, even when his frenzy and violence plunged me into despair, I kept telling myself he was only ill.

“Nguyệt Nguyệt...

“I'm sorry.

“I really... can't control myself.

“Please forgive me.”

Afterward, he always trembled as he begged my forgiveness.

Sometimes he did it after dressing my wounds.

I almost forgot to mention that he had a PhD in biology and considerable medical knowledge.

He treated most of my injuries himself at home.

Sometimes, when he finished bandaging me, he would cover my eyes with his hand and hold me tightly.

“I promise.

“Nguyệt Nguyệt.”