The car stopped downstairs, engine off. The cabin was stuffy and quiet. The smell of garlic from yesterday's bread on the passenger seat mixed with the lingering scent of tobacco, threads of it wisping into Old He's nostrils.
Old He's face was taut, motionless. He stared coldly out at the night through the window.
Xu Ruyi was involved. He was now almost certain of it.
Even though Xu Ruyi had kept denying it — "That's nonsense! I don't understand a word you're saying! And I don't want to hear it! My parents are gone, I'm already miserable enough! Can you please stop bringing them up!" — she was barely holding on.
Her pale, bloodless face, the overwhelming grief brimming in her eyes, and the many small, suppressed gestures of panic and restraint all clearly told Old He she was involved.
Qin Guan wasn't wrong. From the beginning of this case, she had been hidden behind the scenes, racing against Qin Guan, planning meticulously step by step.
And her motive for doing all this was her parents — the deaths of that couple were clearly both related to Qin Guan.
Of course, Qin Guan would never admit this.
Qin Guan's exact words were: "Xu Ruyi just hates me for cheating, for betraying her. She must have found out about Qi Min from my father-in-law and cooked up all these schemes to ruin me, to ruin Qi Min. Her goal was to kill two birds with one stone: murder Qi Min, then use Qi Min's death to take my life. Of course, she had to dress up her actions with a righteous excuse — her parents! She hates me for not saving them! She's putting that blame on my head too! Just because her parents sponsored my education and gave me my current job, I'm supposed to be sold to her family for life? I'm responsible for every mishap in her family! I have to bear it all! Because I received their kindness, I have to repay it with my whole life! To be precise, I could never repay it fully in one lifetime!"
It had to be said, Qin Guan was remarkably skilled at stirring up sentiment.
His rhetoric had gained him considerable support online — men and women, all ages.
"Give a little charity and expect someone to be your slave for life? There are way too many people like that!"
"Let's be real, the sponsorship was selfish from the start. An only daughter — the parents probably knew what their daughter was like. So they picked out a loyal, honest servant early on, raised him up, groomed him, to be used later!"
"The fact that the family assets weren't given to the son-in-law proves everything. If the genders were reversed, they'd be getting roasted alive! What if they raised a girl just to marry her off as a servant? And didn't give her any assets? What girl would agree to that? She'd have jumped out of the fire long ago! This guy's been good enough, doing so much, used up and discarded, kicked out by the woman's family! Emptied out! How tragic is that?"
…
Under Qin Guan's direction, his legal team had manipulated the situation, and the court of public opinion had genuinely shifted.
Furthermore, Qin Guan had also requested a psychiatric evaluation.
Yes, this was Qin Guan's backup plan — his biological mother was mentally ill. As her only son, he might well have inherited it. If diagnosed with a mental disorder, it could significantly alter the trial's outcome.
This lawyer was truly a master strategist.
Thinking of Qin Guan, Old He couldn't help but sigh — Qin Guan really had some tricks up his sleeve. After shaking off his initial panic, every step he took was a desperate fight for survival.
If the chain of evidence from Lakeside Charm Hotel hadn't been so perfect, Old He wouldn't have dared imagine — if there had been even a single flaw, Qin Guan might have slipped through long ago.
Besides desperately saving himself, Qin Guan hadn't forgotten to drag Xu Ruyi down with him.
"If Feng Zhi has a solid alibi, that proves one thing: Xu Ruyi found someone else, someone who closely resembles Feng Zhi! This person carried out the operation, with Xu Ruyi and Feng Zhi directing from behind the scenes!"
Qin Guan had even figured out a crucial point.
"That time at Jiayuan Complex, when I found signs of someone staying over, I always thought it was because I was careful, observant, that I spotted the clues. No. Xu Ruyi deliberately let me find them! She was intentionally guiding me to suspect Feng Zhi, leading us to investigate him, then using a perfect alibi to seal off that dead end."
Old He agreed with Qin Guan on this point.
He just couldn't find this person who resembled Feng Zhi.
To do something like this, it would have to be someone close, trusted, reliable, and capable enough — no one among relatives or friends fit the bill. How could Xu Ruyi just conjure up such a person out of thin air? And not fear that person blackmailing her?
Thinking of blackmail brought Old He back to the large sum of money Xu Ruyi had withdrawn — clearly someone was blackmailing and extorting her. Who was it?
"Zeng Demei"?
Or this person who resembled Feng Zhi?
Most importantly, if everything was exactly as Qin Guan claimed — if "Zeng Demei" could blackmail Xu Ruyi, it proved Qin Guan wasn't lying. Qi Min really had come back alive. If that was true, what about Qi Min's time of death?
The motion-activated light in the hallway ahead flickered on and off. Old He sat quietly, his expression shadowed. The faces of Qin Guan and Xu Ruyi flashed alternately in his mind, occasionally overlapping with another pair of faces.
To nail this criminal, he had to uncover the whole truth — only then, even someone as cunning as Qin Guan, would be forced to admit guilt and face justice.
Getting out of the car, he returned to his cold, lonely home.
The fridge held nothing edible. Old He circled it before finally fishing out half a bag of biscuits from under the coffee table. Chewing slowly, he washed them down with cold water.
His phone buzzed with a notification.
He opened it and nearly choked on the biscuit in his throat — his son had replied to his message.
To be precise, it was a reply to a message sent three days ago.
He didn't know when communication with his son had become so slow and delayed — his son usually replied to his messages, but generally after two or three days, sometimes even a month later.
"Not celebrating. Normal classes." The son's reply was terse, devoid of emotion.
Next week was his son's birthday.
Old He held the phone, staring at these eight cold characters. He tapped his son's WeChat profile picture; the son's Moments feed showed only a single line.
"I don't like posting Moments," his son always said whenever Old He tentatively asked. "Nothing worth posting."
He wasn't like this as a child. He was lively, outgoing, loved to laugh, jump, and perform. Whenever he met anyone, he would proudly announce loudly, "My dad's a policeman! When I grow up, I'm going to be a policeman too! We catch bad guys! Bad guy, stop! Don't run!"
He'd written in essays many times: My Policeman Dad, My Dad is Awesome, I Love My Dad, Dad is a Hero…
How he had idolized him back then.
Sadly, everything changed after the incident with his sister-in-law.
"Why couldn't you even catch a bad guy? What kind of policeman are you?! I hate you! I hate you!" During that period, he would cry and wail every day, pounding his small fists against his father. "Dad, aren't you a policeman? Why didn't you catch that bad guy?"
Later, as he grew up, he never raged like that again. When Old He carefully brought it up, explaining the rules and systems of police work, his son would respond with detached indifference, "Oh, I know. The world of rules. What's justice or injustice? It's all an illusion."
Justice was a seed planted in his son's heart in early childhood.
But that seed had rotted before it could sprout.
His son had changed completely. He never mentioned the "policeman" aspiration again, never brought up his aunt's death, and avoided closeness with his father.
"The glasses you tried on last time looked really good. How about Dad buys you a pair? As your birthday gift?" Old He typed, deleted, typed again, deleted again. Finally, he squeezed out the sentence and sent it off nervously, then waited quietly for a response.
After a long while, a reply actually came: "No need. The old glasses were repaired. Anything can be repaired now."
Anything can be repaired, except broken feelings.
The dry, hard biscuit lodged firmly in Old He's throat — perhaps the strongest thing in the world is the bond between people. The aunt who raised him alongside his father would live forever in his son's heart. Yet the most fragile thing is also the bond between people. Once cracked, creating a chasm, no matter how hard you try, it can never be fully restored to how it was.
"Work! Work on the case!"
Old He took a deep breath, gulped down a large mouthful of water, spread the case files open on the coffee table, and forced himself back into the investigation. His eyes scanned Qin Guan's confession, layer by layer, until they landed on the word "wheelchair". Suddenly, his heart gave a jolt.
Anything can be repaired. Wheelchairs too.