Chapter 3

That night of madness seemed nearly over.

In fact, the hardest part of the case had only begun.

We still had not found the real killer.

The second killer Tuấn had suspected from the outset.

Someone besides Tuyết Mai.

Could that person be among those we had brought in?

Tuyết Mai’s mental state was indeed very poor.

In the interview room, she could barely communicate normally.

Most of the time, she wore an apparently friendly smile that sent chills through us.

First, she admitted the killings.

Ninh and his wife.

Huy’s family of three.

She had killed them all.

But when asked how, she could not describe it.

She only gave a cold smile.

“I don’t remember.”

More importantly, she could not answer even the simplest questions.

How had she broken into the two homes?

Our examination showed that both security locks had been damaged.

Even saying she had smashed them would have been an answer.

But she could not give one.

Still less could she describe the killings.

Who killed them?

“I did.”

Why?

“Revenge.”

Why not spare the families and the child?

“If I didn’t kill everyone, I’d be exposed immediately. I couldn’t go on to the next household.”

She even took responsibility for Đông Minh’s death.

Again, she could explain none of the details.

Asked how she intended to enter Tuấn Thành’s home, she could not offer a workable plan.

His security door was exceptionally solid.

Without specialized tools, getting in was almost impossible.

We were forced to consider an unusual possibility.

Perhaps she was only taking the blame.

The real planner knew her psychiatric illnesses could protect her.

They might even exempt her from criminal responsibility.

Who could have planned something so substantial with her?

Perhaps only her father.

Or her best friend of more than ten years.

Our checks showed neither had an alibi.

We questioned Tuấn Thành first.

He genuinely knew nothing.

He barely even remembered Tuyết Mai’s name.

After struggling to recall, he candidly admitted what he had done at university.

His account almost exactly matched Lệ Hồng’s.

He was a familiar type of man.

Lecherous, contemptible, and malicious.

Even while describing it, he portrayed himself as wronged.

“But I was punished too! I deleted the post, and the university still reprimanded me.”

“I only repeated what I’d heard. How is that slander?”

“If she was innocent, she should have explained. True gold doesn’t fear the fire, does it?”

“I never imagined she’d be so vicious. It was only a joke. Who knew she’d still hold a grudge after all these years…”

We heard not the slightest guilt or remorse.

Honestly, for a moment even we felt he deserved a lesson.

But we had another reason to keep questioning him.

We wanted to know how Tuyết Mai—or the real killer—intended to enter his home.

At that question, he went pale.

“The lock! The smart lock!”

“Two weeks ago, an unknown number called and said I’d won a prize. I thought it was a scam…”

“But they really sent a high-end smart lock. It was free, so I installed it.”

So that was it.

I immediately sent colleagues back to examine the lock and asked the technical team to trace the prize call.

Sure enough, the lock had been illegally modified.

That left the phone number.

The suspect must have made that call.

Other lines of inquiry continued.

We also conducted preliminary background investigations into Ninh and Huy.

Their old high-school classmates gave us several leads.

Those leads explained why Tuyết Mai’s revenge had come after so many years.

A month earlier, Ninh had married.

A wedding itself was unremarkable.

But he had deliberately obtained Tuyết Mai’s contact details and repeatedly messaged her.

He sent wedding photographs of himself and his new wife.

Along with endless boasts about his happiness and perfect life.

Worst were the words intended to provoke her.

“Jealous?”

“You should be. If you’d agreed to date me back then, this happiness would be yours.”

“But that’s fate. You’re still alone, so clearly you were never meant to have it good.”

“I’m doing very well. The rest of my life will be blissful.”

“Unlike you. Your remaining years probably won’t amount to much.”

“Pathetic.”

Those words had brought about his death.

Huy’s culpability lay there too.

In group chats, he repeatedly defended his good friend Ninh.

Together, they slandered and ridiculed Tuyết Mai.

Tragically, their families had been caught up in it.

From our investigation, we could provisionally reconstruct events.

A month earlier, Ninh provoked Tuyết Mai.

Her condition deteriorated. She broke down completely and developed an intent to kill.

Two weeks earlier, Tuấn Thành became a target and received the smart lock.

Yesterday, the murder plan was put into action.

As I arranged the timeline, another event caught my attention.

A month earlier, Tuyết Mai’s best friend, Lệ Hồng, had reunited with Đông Minh.

We also had a duty to investigate him as a victim.

Unexpectedly, the more we looked, the more surprises we found.

His records were easy to locate.

He had been in prison.

The offense was intentionally inflicting serious injury with a weapon.

He had served over four years.

We contacted his thug friends and learned that, after his release, he had almost no means of making a living.

So he went back to Lệ Hồng.

The problem was that he had been released six months earlier.

She said they had reunited only one month ago.

And she insisted they had done so because they still loved each other.

Yet those intervening months hardly suggested lingering affection.

Particularly with someone like Đông Minh.

The idea that he had patiently pursued an ex-girlfriend for half a year did not ring true.

What had happened between them during that time?

We opened her file.

And found a crucial turning point in her life.

One month earlier, she had secured a permanent public-sector healthcare position through the recruitment examinations.

More precisely, she had formally been hired then.

Before that, she had been on a contract.

Only now did she have a stable post.

I understood immediately.

Perhaps the months of supposed reconciliation had nothing to do with love.

Perhaps her agreeing to take him back had nothing to do with it either.

She had been threatened.

At last, we formally interviewed her.

I did not mince words.

I placed both files before her.

“Does Đông Minh have something on you?”

At first, she feigned ignorance.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

So I laid out my theory.

Six months earlier, he left prison and began pestering her.

She must have refused.

She was no longer the naïve schoolgirl she had been.

He, however, had nothing to lose.

He kept clinging to her.

It went on for months.

Then came her major opportunity.

She passed the recruitment process for a permanent post.

He became more aggressive.

Perhaps he understood how important the public announcement and probation periods were.

One small problem could cost her the appointment.

He must have had something he could report or use to cause trouble.