Chapter 165
Chapter 165
“For you, of course.”
Xu Lei’s sinister voice came through the recording. “Didn’t you say the three of you were as close as family?”
“Well, here’s your chance to put that bond to the test. Are you willing to give up your life for them?”
“I’m giving you an opportunity to prove how much you mean to one another.”
…
“Bullshit! Feelings don’t need to be proved with some kind of test. Time will prove whether a bond is real!” Qiu Ziyu shouted furiously, his fists clenched.
Yet no matter how angry he was, he could change nothing.
The sounds coming from the recording belonged to a struggle they could not intervene in: objects crashing to the floor, two people grappling, and Xu Lei speaking after he subdued Wen Miao…
Wen Miao struggled in silence. Aside from an occasional muffled groan, she did not utter a single word.
This was a fight for her life. How could it not hurt? How could she make no sound?
Only because Wen Miao knew that every cry of pain and every terrified scream would be preserved in full by the recording device she carried.
She did not want Nan Mu, uncovering the long-buried truth ten years later, to hear her fear.
She did not want her cries to torment him as he listened to the recording.
Nan Mu could not imagine the willpower it had taken for her to do this…
Even as she died, she had been thinking of someone else’s feelings.
===
After that, Wen Miao’s voice never appeared in the recording again.
In the study, Nan Mu’s and Qiu Ziyu’s hearts felt as heavy as boulders. Grim-faced, they sat in silence like a pair of stone statues.
At that moment, lightning suddenly tore across the pitch-black sky beyond the window. Deafening thunder rolled like the end of the world, and the rising clamor of wind and rain heralded the violent storm to come.
“What did Wen Miao mean when she said Wen Xin wouldn’t wake up? Why was he unconscious?” Qiu Ziyu asked Nan Mu with rare seriousness.
Nan Mu shook his head, recalling the Wen Xin he had left behind. The man had still been perfectly fine then.
“He was interning at Wisdom Biotechnology with me. On the night I returned, Wen Tangtang said he was probably still at the company. But for some reason, he hadn’t gone back to the university, and he wasn’t answering either her calls or Wen Miao’s.”
Qiu Ziyu’s eyes widened. “Could it have happened that very night?”
“Maybe.”
Only the people involved could know what had truly happened that day.
Qiu Ziyu sighed heavily. Remembering the fugitive Wen Tangtang, he lamented, “It’s a shame they’re all dead-Wen Xin, Wen Miao… and Xu Lei. The only person left who knows the truth is Wen Tangtang, and she escaped. Who knows where she’s hiding?”
Nan Mu was considering the same question. “Exactly. Where could she have gone?”
In this era, road surveillance was everywhere, forming a vast net that covered the city. How had she managed to evade the omnipresent cameras?
“She must be hiding somewhere secluded without surveillance equipment. Places like the underside of a bridge or an abandoned building often don’t have cameras,” Qiu Ziyu speculated.
“But she can’t hide forever. She still has to find food every day.”
Hearing the doubt Nan Mu cast on the police’s investigative ability, Qiu Ziyu asked irritably, “Why do I get the feeling you don’t have much faith in us?”
Nan Mu glanced up at him and replied evenly, “Because I don’t. You failed to find the killer in Wen Miao’s case for ten years.”
Qiu Ziyu was speechless.
He had no rebuttal.
After a moment of silence, Qiu Ziyu struggled to defend himself. “But this time is different! Every one of us has gone without sleep, reviewing all the city’s road surveillance day and night. The software went through the footage once, and then we went through it again with our own eyes, okay? After she left the hospital, the citywide surveillance network tracked her last known location to Xiangsheng Gardens, near A University of Science and Technology. It’s an old residential complex, and the cameras inside are practically useless. Some aren’t on, others are broken. Only the two at the entrance are of any use. Our people took turns watching them until our eyes were bone-dry, and not one of us saw her leave!”
When he saw Nan Mu’s lips move as if he meant to argue again, Qiu Ziyu immediately added, “Hey! We didn’t give up there. We searched every inch of Xiangsheng Gardens, and we searched the neighboring A University of Science and Technology too! But there was no trace of her anywhere.”
“All right, all right. I know you worked hard.” Nan Mu rubbed his forehead. “Can you let me speak?”
“Go ahead.”
“A living person can’t vanish into thin air. If you were Wen Tangtang, what would you do to feed yourself?”
“The police are monitoring all of Wen Tangtang’s bank accounts. There hasn’t been a single transaction in days. She had no phone with her when she escaped from the hospital. If she wanted to buy food, she would have needed cash.” Qiu Ziyu thought it over. “Maybe she expected to be arrested and hid some cash in Xiangsheng Gardens ahead of time?”
“Does Wen Tangtang own property there?”
“No.”
“Then where would she hide the cash? Pick a random spot and bury it? If hiding money were that easy, why choose Xiangsheng Gardens instead of somewhere else? You investigated her usual movements before. Did she often visit Xiangsheng Gardens?”
Nan Mu’s questions left Qiu Ziyu tongue-tied. “Then… could she have rented an apartment there?”
“It’s possible, but not very likely,” Nan Mu reminded him. “Since 2025, the government has required all rental housing to be registered for tax purposes as part of its reforms to rental taxation. Wen Tangtang would have had to provide her own identification to rent a place. The police couldn’t have missed it.”
“True.” Qiu Ziyu rubbed his chin and returned to his earlier line of thought. “Then she didn’t use cash to feed herself. Maybe… begging?”
No sooner had the idea occurred to him than he rejected it himself.
Wen Tangtang was a fugitive. Begging would force her to face too many people and draw far too much attention. Besides, if she had truly been reduced to begging…
She had left the hospital in a patient gown with handcuffs still on her wrists. If she went out begging dressed like that, passersby were bound to grow suspicious.
Wait. Qiu Ziyu rubbed his chin. Could she have stolen someone else’s clothes and changed?
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. That would explain why she had gone to Xiangsheng Gardens. It was an old complex, and residents on the lower floors often hung their laundry near the entrances to their courtyards. With the surveillance there so poor, she might easily have grabbed a set of clothes as she passed.
The possibility left Qiu Ziyu miserable. “Don’t tell me she disguised herself and then walked right out of Xiangsheng Gardens!”
For the first time, he began to doubt his own claim to Nan Mu that Wen Tangtang had never left the complex.
“She may have left Xiangsheng Gardens-and someone may have been there to meet her!” Qiu Ziyu suddenly remembered something and straightened sharply. “She couldn’t have wandered around outside in handcuffs.”
“But could she have removed them herself without help?” Every time Qiu Ziyu thought about it, frustration gnawed at him. “You don’t understand. We cuffed her to the hospital bed. I still can’t figure out how she got those cuffs off the bed.”
Wen Tangtang was a biology researcher, not some master lockpicker.
At Qiu Ziyu’s complaint, Nan Mu instinctively averted his gaze and rubbed between his brows guiltily.
Back at Shanshui Villa, he had picked a pair of handcuffs in front of Wen Xin and Wen Tangtang in order to rescue them. Afterward, the two had insisted on learning “the skill.” Eager to show off in front of Wen Miao, he had gotten carried away and taught them…
He had never expected Wen Tangtang to remember the steps ten years later. If he did not know her well enough to realize she was not that bored, he might have suspected her of practicing at home every day.
“What do you think?”
“What do you think?” Qiu Ziyu suddenly turned to ask him.
“Hmm?” Nan Mu’s gaze flickered. He rubbed his nose and looked away. “Well… I think… maybe your department should update the locks on its handcuffs.”