Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Wen Xingzhou was still cursing as the security guards pinned him to the floor.

He cursed Qi Jiashu for using him as a pawn; he cursed Gu Yanzhou for clearly finding the evidence yet still pretending to be brothers; and he cursed Madam Gu for having him help with the bookkeeping only to throw him under the bus the moment things went south.

But no matter how fiercely he cursed, he never touched upon the core issue.

Who killed Gu Yanzhou?

As the paramedics came up to provide basic bandaging for Qi Jiashu’s wound, I suddenly remembered the message Gu Yanzhou had left earlier.

Watch Qi Jiashu’s left hand.

Qi Jiashu was left-handed.

When I was an intern at the firm, I had worked with him on revising contracts. He wrote, turned pages, and held his cup-all habitually with his left hand. Yet, from the moment we met tonight until now, he had only used his right hand to hand over documents, adjust the projector, and open doors.

Under what circumstances would a left-handed person deliberately avoid using their left hand?

Unless that hand was already injured.

And in Gu Yanzhou’s autopsy report, there was a detail I had skimmed over earlier: there was a needle mark on the side of the deceased’s neck that slanted to the left, suggesting he had been injected with drugs before death. The forensic pathologist determined that the person administering the injection most likely stood behind the deceased’s left side and was left-handed.

I looked at Qi Jiashu’s bandaged hand, and a sudden chill washed over me.

He was wearing a dark gray suit tonight, and a piece of fabric was missing from his cuff.

It was an exact match for the scrap that had fallen outside the storage room earlier.

“Miss Jiang?” a nurse called out to me.

I slowly looked up, meeting Qi Jiashu’s habitually gentle gaze. Those eyes were far too good at pretending; over the past few years, there was even a time when I truly considered him a friend. After Gu Yanzhou died, he was the first person to contact me; on my way to the hotel, he was the one who told me not to be afraid, that he would be there.

That was why Gu Yanzhou said, “Don’t trust the person who seems most likely to help you.”

I suddenly smiled.

“Qi Jiashu,” I asked, “when did you burn your left hand?”

The room fell silent.

Qi Jiashu lowered his eyes to look at his gauze-wrapped hand, his tone still steady. “It was just cut by the wine bottle. You saw it.”

“It was a cut, not a burn,” I said, staring at him. “But on the keypad of the safe in Gu Yanzhou’s study, the residue left behind was a burn impression from a left thumb. Xie Lingshu’s injury is on her thumb web; it doesn’t match. Yet you’ve been hiding your left hand all night.”

Wen Xingzhou suddenly looked up, as if seizing a lifeline. “Yes, it was him! He went in first that night, saying Yanzhou wanted to change his will and told me to wait outside. By the time I entered the study, the fire had already started!”

Madam Gu barked at him, “Wen Xingzhou, shut up!”

“Why should I shut up?” Wen Xingzhou had completely snapped. “I didn’t kill him! You guys made me change the project data, Qi Jiashu drafted the liability waiver, and when someone died, he was the one who said he could suppress it! As for Jiang Linchuan’s car accident, he was the one who handled the racing team and the insurance company!”

Madam Gu looked as if she had been slapped, her entire body swaying.

But I only looked at Qi Jiashu.

He finally stopped pretending. The perfectly measured gentleness at the corners of his mouth faded bit by bit, replaced by a faint, cold exhaustion.

“Gu Yanzhou really wouldn’t let me have it easy, even in death,” he said.

“So you did kill him.”

“I didn’t want to kill him; he was the one who insisted on seeking death.” Qi Jiashu methodically unwrapped the gauze, revealing a fresh burn on the base of his left palm. “The Gu Family members are stupid, Wen Xingzhou is greedy, and Madam Gu is ruthless. Gu Yanzhou, on the other hand, suddenly wanted to be a saint. The Chenghai Project had already progressed to that stage, yet he insisted on digging up old scores, even wanting to take out a billion to set up a foundation for that dead man, Jiang Linchuan. Don’t you think that’s laughable?”

“That was my brother,” I said, my voice trembling.

“In their eyes, he was just a life that shouldn’t have been meddling in other people’s business.” Qi Jiashu looked at me, his tone almost calm. “Nanzhi, I didn’t come from a good background. Getting to where I am today wasn’t luck; it’s because I understand the rules better than anyone. When Jiang Linchuan went to Gu Yanzhou with evidence, I originally just wanted to get the documents back. He was the one who wouldn’t listen and insisted on getting on the elevated highway. Later, when Gu Yanzhou traced it back to me and wanted to reopen the case with you, he had no idea how massive the stakes he was facing were.”

“So you killed him?”

“I just gave him a shot to make him a bit quieter.” Qi Jiashu smiled slightly. “The dosage might not have been fatal, but who knew he would struggle to open the safe? I knocked over the coffee machine while trying to pull him away, and the fire started. Ultimately, it was just his bad luck.”

As soon as he said this, even Madam Gu’s expression changed.

“Jiashu, have you gone mad?”

“I’m mad?” Qi Jiashu finally raised his voice. “Who has been cleaning up your messes all these years? Who modified the clinical project so it could pass review? Who appeased the families of the deceased one by one? You treated me as one of your own when you were enjoying the profits, but now that something’s happened, you want me to take the fall alone?”

Xie Lingshu whispered beside me, “I recorded it.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her turn off her phone screen, and my heart steadied significantly.

But Qi Jiashu seemed to have expected it. He glanced over and actually laughed.

“Go ahead and record. Why do you think the signal on this floor has been intermittent all night?” He took a step back toward the window. “If Gu Yanzhou could leave a backup plan, why wouldn’t I?”

Just as he finished speaking, a piercing roar came from outside the window. In the parking lot below, a black business van had already started its engine.

Wen Xingzhou’s face turned pale. “You arranged for people too?”

“Of course.” Qi Jiashu looked at me. “Gu Yanzhou knew long ago that I would make a move, which is why he left the execution of the will to me. Because only I know best which evidence is real and where I can block you all. He was too arrogant, thinking he could still beat me after death.”

“He’s already won,” I suddenly spoke up.

Qi Jiashu narrowed his eyes.

I held up the recording pen. “Don’t you understand yet? Gu Yanzhou never intended to rely on you to execute the will. He let you come because as long as you personally stood here, you would definitely show a weakness.”

I pressed the final button on the recording pen.

The ceiling lights of the suite suddenly dimmed, and the projector screen lit up on its own.
The third video began.

This time, Gu Yanzhou wasn’t sitting in his study. Instead, he was standing on the hospital rooftop, the wind whipping his shirt with a sharp rustle. He looked exhausted, yet remarkably lucid, as if he had finally decided to stop acting.

“If this video is playing, then congratulations-the real rat has been smoked out of its hole.”

He glanced off-camera, as if confirming something.

“Jiashu, seeing this, you’ll probably curse me for being underhanded. But I had no choice. To catch a clever man, one must use a clever man’s methods.”

Qi Jiashu’s face finally darkened completely.

Gu Yanzhou continued, “I knew you would use your position as the Executor of the Will to tamper with the process, so I set the actual trigger conditions to a different set of parameters. The moment Nanzhi presses the final button on the recording pen, all surveillance footage, audio, and backup files from this floor over the past three hours will be automatically synced to the police, the notary office, and the Board Supervisory Committee’s monitoring inbox. By the time you hear this, it should already be too late.”

Everyone in the room froze.

Xie Lingshu was the first to break the silence, muttering under her breath, “That dead man Gu Yanzhou… he even guarded against me.”

I, however, suddenly felt like laughing and crying at the same time.

This was the real Gu Yanzhou.

He always had a way of infuriating people with his words while secretly calculating every worst-case scenario.

On the screen, he fell silent for two seconds, his tone suddenly softening.

“Nanzhi, I’m sorry.”

My eyes stung instantly.

“Five years ago, I thought that if I just pushed you away, you could live your life in peace. Only later did I realize that pushing you away wasn’t protection. It was making the person I trusted most continue to hurt you on my behalf.”

“I never found the full set of materials Jiang Linchuan left before he died. It wasn’t until last month that I discovered he had hidden the most critical recording inside the interlayer of a ring. I fished that ring out of the river-twice. I missed it the first time, and the second time, I nearly drowned myself.”

“I didn’t intend to use a billion dollars to tie you back to me. I just thought that if I didn’t make it, I could at least return the truth and the power of choice to you.”

His gaze looked through the screen, possessing that same focused intensity I remembered.

“The money, the shares, the funds-you can reject all of it. But Nanzhi, don’t forgive the world on behalf of the villains. Your brother shouldn’t have died for nothing, and neither should I.”

Before the video ended, he gave one last smile.

“Also, the password is set to the date you first blacklisted me. I remember that day very clearly. You really have a foul mouth when you’re cursing someone out.”

Silence filled the room.

A second later, hurried footsteps echoed in the hallway. Police and notary officials burst through the door almost simultaneously, followed by two Board Supervisory Committee Members.

Looking at the door, Qi Jiashu finally showed a look of genuine, uncontrolled panic for the first time.

He turned, attempting to retreat toward the floor-to-ceiling window, but Xie Lingshu was faster, kicking him hard behind the knees. Wen Xingzhou, his survival instinct kicking into high gear, practically lunged forward to grab Qi Jiashu’s legs, screaming, “I can testify! I’ll tell you everything!”

The scene was as chaotic as an absurd comedy.

Meanwhile, I stood rooted to the spot, suddenly unable to hear anything.

I only saw the horizon gradually turning white, the sea’s surface cracking into fine silver threads. Gu Yanzhou had orchestrated such an elaborate scheme, calculating everyone’s greed, fear, ruthlessness, and resentment-he had even calculated that I would definitely come. Yet, he was the only one he hadn’t left a way out for.

The case was investigated quickly after that.

Qi Jiashu was the mastermind, while Wen Xingzhou and Madam Gu were involved in falsifying data for the Chenghai Project and suppressing the subsequent investigation. Although Meng Mingche wasn’t directly involved in the homicide, he had cooked the books for the project and didn’t escape justice either. The surveillance provided by Xie Lingshu, the memory card in the ring, the automatically synced footage from the entire floor, and Qi Jiashu’s own verbal confession nailed the five-year-old cold case shut.

Three months later, the court ordered the freezing of assets related to the Gu Corporation, and the Chenghai Project was completely halted.

I eventually accepted the billion-dollar trust Gu Yanzhou left for me.

It wasn’t because I forgave him, nor was it out of a soft heart.

It was because I knew that if I didn’t take it, that money might not end up in the hands of those who truly deserved it.

Using that money and the shares Gu Yanzhou left me, I established the “Linchuan Truth Fund,” specifically dedicated to providing evidence collection, litigation, and assistance to victims and families of medical malpractice and clinical trials.

On the day the fund was established, Xie Lingshu dressed in all red, standing below the stage with a bouquet of flowers. She winked at me and said, “If Gu Yanzhou knew he’d still be working for his love rival after death, he’d probably kick his coffin lid open.”

I replied, “Aren’t you his fake fiancée? Since when did you become my love rival?”

She gave a cheeky smile. “Seeing as you still haven’t forgotten him after all these years, I guess I count as half of one.”

I smiled too.

It had been a long time since I’d laughed like that.

Later, I went to the riverbank alone.

It was the spot where I had thrown the ring five years ago. The wind was still strong, waves crashing against the railing with a damp, salty tang. I stood there for a long time before fishing the modified old ring out of my pocket.

The metal was somewhat worn, but the inner band remained bright.

I remembered Gu Yanzhou saying in the video that he missed it the first time and nearly drowned the second; I remembered how, during that fire in the study, he was still worried about leaving the evidence in the safe; and I remembered the night he proposed-how his hands were clearly shaking with nerves while he acted as if he were signing a ten-million-dollar contract.

This man… when he was alive, he always hid his sincerity behind the most infuriating words. Even in death, he was the same.

I clenched the ring in my palm and whispered, “Gu Yanzhou, you still haven’t finished paying back what you owe me.”

The river breeze scattered my voice.

But I knew he probably heard me.

Because when I returned to the office that evening, the receptionist handed me a newly arrived local courier package. The sender’s line was blank, but inside was a note Gu Yanzhou had written long ago.

The handwriting was still in his usual, punchable style:

“Jiang Nanzhi, I’ve given you the billion dollars and the murderer. Remember to spend the rest of your life making it a lively one.”