Chapter 6

I stopped at the riverbank.

The deep water seemed to draw me toward it.

By the time I came to my senses, I was already waist-deep.

I had no intention of turning back.

Again, I remembered the girl's face.

Then I thought of Lâm Thanh Thần.

Closing my eyes, I stepped farther into the current.

“Are you out of your mind?”

A powerful grip caught me from behind.

I turned and saw Dương Trác.

“Leave me alone! Let go!”

I struggled.

“Keep moving and we'll both be swept away.”

His voice was colder than the river.

Despair flooded me.

For all these years, I had never been allowed to live as I wished.

Was even this beyond my control?

“Let go! I don't need you to save me!”

“Shut up!”

He shouted, dragged me onto the bank, and held me down.

“Stop it.”

I laughed bitterly.

“Why should I listen to you?”

I kept struggling.

“Let me go!”

He wouldn't release me.

Almost breaking down, I screamed, “You're saving a murderer. Do you know that?”

We both froze.

But he still didn't let go.

All my strength seemed to drain away.

“Dương Trác... I'm a murderer,” I said hoarsely. “I don't deserve to be saved.”

He looked at me.

“You're not that kind of person.”

I laughed.

“How much do you think you know about me?”

He said nothing.

“I know what Lâm Thanh Thần was doing the night Mạnh Tuyền died. He didn't kill him.

“The person who really caused the death of the girl he loved was me. Her name was Ngô Duyệt.

“When I caused her death... she was only seventeen.”

Dương Trác frowned. His grip began to loosen.

“If it hadn't been for what happened then, I would have left Mạnh Tuyền seven years ago. It was my guilt over Ngô Duyệt that kept me from escaping him.”

That year, after reading the divorce agreement, Mạnh Tuyền asked me to help tidy the laboratory.

Clean the benches, check that no one was still in the cold room and nothing was wrong, then lock it up. He had taught me how to do these things back when he was a PhD student.

When I finished, he signed the agreement.

We arranged to complete the formalities the following week.

The next day, just as I was finally enjoying a peaceful sleep after so many days in hell, my ringing phone woke me.

Even years later, remembering it still felt like a nightmare.

“Did you check the cold room before locking it last night? Do you have any idea what you've done? There was still a female student inside!”

It was the first time I had ever heard him sound so panicked and angry.

I went numb.

“How could that... I checked it last night. There wasn't anyone there...”

“I'll send you a photo.”

I opened our chat.

In the photograph, a girl was curled in a corner of the cold room, her body covered in frost.

My mind seemed to explode.

“I... I checked. There was no one there. How could this happen?”

Tears spilled down my face as I dimly realized that I might have caused someone's death.

“Don't call the police. Wait to hear from me.”

He hung up.

But how could I sit still?

Beside myself, I drove to A University as fast as I could.

From a distance, I saw medical workers coming out of the laboratory building carrying a stretcher covered by a white sheet.

A gust of wind lifted one corner, revealing the girl's face.

She looked asleep, still young and beautiful.

But her life had stopped there forever.

And the person who had stopped it was me, Lý Tĩnh Nguyệt.

“I heard she was a first-year. Only seventeen...”

“Yes. So tragic...”

“I knew her. Such a pretty, sweet girl. Who would have thought...?”

The students' murmurs stabbed at my heart.

I saw a police car nearby and was about to go over and tell them everything when my phone rang.

“What are you doing at the university? Go home!”

I had no idea where Mạnh Tuyền was, but somehow he had seen me.

“I have to turn myself in...”

“Have you lost your mind? Don't do anything rash. Leave it to me. Go home now.”

“But...”

“Now!”

Like a terrified bird, I obeyed him in the end, trembling all the way home.

I waited in torment for hours.

It was evening before he returned.

The first thing he did on coming in was tell me to pack and go abroad.

“I can deal with this. Go overseas for a while.”

“I have to turn myself in.”

I was prepared to take responsibility for my mistake.

He gave a cold laugh.

“Turn yourself in? Don't be so selfish, Lý Tĩnh Nguyệt.”

I stared at him.

“What do you mean?”

“If you turn yourself in, do you think I'll be able to keep teaching? You came to see me. What happens to my career if people find out my wife caused a student's death?”

“But...”

All I wanted to say was that when you did something wrong, you had to take responsibility.

Wasn't that obvious?

He went on, “And you'll have to pay a huge amount in compensation. We just bought a home. Where would we find the money?”

“You think the police won't investigate? Even if I don't confess, they'll come looking for me.”

“I've already thought of a way. Just go abroad first. Don't worry about anything.”

I still wasn't convinced.

“Which would you choose? Trusting me, or throwing away the rest of your life?”

He gripped my shoulders.

His icy gaze bore down on me with an invisible pressure.

For the first time, the husband before me seemed like a stranger.

After we stared at each other for a while, I finally gave in.

“Your plan... will it really work?”

He let out a small breath of relief and held me tightly.

“Trust me, Nguyệt Nguyệt.”

I said nothing more.

Years in prison and a crippling compensation payment would all but end my life.

I might as well take a chance and trust him.

People really were the most frightening creatures of all.

I went abroad.

A peaceful year passed, then he called me home.

When I returned, everything carried on as though nothing had happened.

He had even been promoted.

The girl's death seemed not to have affected him at all.

He had really done it.

As for how he had dealt with it, I never dared ask.

I didn't dare return to the university where he taught, let alone look into what had happened.

Because of that incident, I no longer had the courage to divorce him.

Nor could I bring myself to resist when he hurt me.

“Compared with killing an innocent girl, what does your suffering amount to? She would probably have accepted this herself rather than die like that.

“Don't you think so, Nguyệt Nguyệt? Why are you crying?

“One of my students didn't cry even when something happened to her. You feel a little pain and cry like this.

“Your tears aren't worth a thing.”

Mạnh Tuyền was like a devil.

Whenever I was at my lowest, he used those cold words to destroy the last of my defenses, leaving me without the strength to fight back.

I thought it was my punishment.

Later, I became pregnant.

To be honest, I wasn't happy when I found out.

By then, I knew that besides abusing me, he was involved with many other women.

I didn't want to have a child with someone like him.

He, however, was overjoyed and full of anticipation.

But my mind was made up.

I found a way to buy the medication.

While he was away on business, I took it for several days, intending to end the pregnancy.

Just as it was nearly over and I was preparing to go to the hospital, he unexpectedly returned.

Worse, he found the empty packaging in the trash.

The medication had started working. My stomach hurt terribly.

He locked me in the apartment and refused to let me go to the hospital.

“You bitch!”

He slapped me.

I fell to the floor.

Looking up at his face, twisted with rage, I still forced a smile.

“I'd rather die than give someone like you a child.”

He glared at me.

“Then die.”

He walked out.

Soon afterward, I lost consciousness.

When I woke, I was in hospital.

The doctor said I had lost not only the baby. My condition had been so severe that they had had to remove my uterus.

I was in pain.

I was devastated.

But I never regretted my choice.

From then on, I became nothing more than an object for him to vent his anger on.

When he was happy, he treated me a little better.

When he wasn't, he found endless ways to torment me.

As for me, I was already a living corpse.

I believed I was guilty, that everything I suffered was retribution.

I thought I would spend the rest of my life that way.

Then he was suddenly murdered.

The night I saw the photograph in Lâm Thanh Thần's room, I thought I understood.

He must have killed Mạnh Tuyền.

He must have believed Mạnh Tuyền caused Ngô Duyệt's death and wanted revenge for her.

Dương Trác remained silent for a long time after hearing my story.

Eventually, he asked, “Did Mạnh Tuyền ever tell you how he dealt with it?”

I shook my head.

“No. He never told me, and I never asked.”

The truth was that I hadn't dared.

It was a wound I didn't want to touch.

He turned toward the flowing river.

“He said... the girl killed herself.”

“So that's how...”

I asked, “What was Ngô Duyệt's relationship with Lâm Thanh Thần?”

“They grew up together. Childhood sweethearts. They were going to marry after university.”

He stood on the embankment, looking at the green woods across the water.

The breeze lifted the hair from his forehead.

For some reason, his eyes seemed to be fixed on somewhere very far away.

“So that's why he dresses like her...”

“Yes.”