Chapter 227
Chapter 227
By the time Seventh Master and I arrived at the entrance to Sun Yang’s residential complex, Meng Yifan and Song Xiaotian were already there.
A crowd had gathered at the gate-residents from the complex, as well as relatives from Sun Yang’s family.
Gu An’an was there too. She looked awful, as if she had just been crying; her eyes were red and swollen.
We walked over, greeted her, and asked her what exactly had happened.
“I… I don’t really know either. When I woke up this morning, I saw a farewell text from Sun Yang.”
Gu An’an choked out, “He sent one to everyone in the family. He said he’d already killed himself at home last night and told everyone to take care of themselves. He said that after he died, he wanted his ashes buried together with Jiayu and Ruoning.”
“I got up pretty early. As soon as I saw the text, I contacted the others in the family, and we all came over to take a look. But none of us dared to go inside, so we asked the security guard to check. That’s when they found that Sun Yang was already dead. He burned charcoal.”
Charcoal suicide. Carbon monoxide poisoning…
Sun Yang had killed himself last night. Could it have been because we had taken Ding Ruoning away, leaving him in despair until he lost all hope and went to such an extreme?
If that was the case, then weren’t we the ones who had caused his death?
The four of us looked at one another, and none of us dared to speak.
I asked Gu An’an, “Sister An, what time did Mr. Sun send you the text?”
Gu An’an sobbed, “Three twenty-five in the morning. By the time I saw it, it was already six-thirty. Last night… if any one of us had stayed up late, we might have seen it right away. We might have been able to talk Sun Yang out of it.”
“What on earth was this family thinking? How could they all give up like this? My cousin and my niece had accidents one after another, and now even Sun Yang couldn’t get past it.”
After hearing what Gu An’an said, the unease in our hearts grew even heavier.
Last night, when we took Ding Ruoning in, it had been roughly before one in the morning. Sun Yang killed himself a little after three.
It was very possible that he really had fallen into despair because we took Ding Ruoning away, and so he burned charcoal…
Seventh Master sighed and consoled her. “Please accept my condolences. Mr. Sun was a man who loved deeply. With both his wife and child gone, perhaps he had lost all hope of living as well.”
“Can we go inside and see his body?”
Gu An’an said, “The police are already inside. They might not let you see him.”
As we were speaking, the police came out, carrying Sun Yang’s body with them.
His body was covered with a white sheet, so we couldn’t see anything.
His family, along with Ding Ruoning’s family, immediately crowded around and burst into loud sobs. Sun Yang’s parents were there too, crying and shouting that they wanted to see their child one last time.
It wasn’t that the police refused outright, but they still advised Sun Yang’s family that it would be best not to look.
The bodies of people who die by charcoal burning are actually very difficult to look at. Many people think charcoal suicide is the least painful way to die, that a person can pass quietly and silently. But in reality, charcoal suicide is painful too-especially in the last few minutes before death, when the suffering is particularly intense.
The deceased’s expression will be twisted and ferocious, with foam at the mouth. Most people who die by charcoal burning also lose control of their bladder and bowels, and their bodies curl up in strange positions.
That makes it very hard for the family of the deceased to accept.
Keeping the family from seeing the body is, in truth, for their own good.
Most police officers are considerate of the family’s feelings. They try to persuade them to wait until the funeral to see the body. By then, the mortician will have applied makeup to the corpse, and at the very least, the remains will look a little more presentable.
Before long, Sun Yang’s body was carried into the funeral home’s vehicle. Since it was a suicide, and he had sent farewell texts to his family, and the police had already examined the scene, there was no need to take the body back to the station.
A man who looked like the team leader walked over and handed a document envelope to Gu An’an, who had been the first to call the police.
“These are the deceased’s belongings. They were found beside the body. We checked them over. There’s a suicide note inside, along with documents regarding the distribution of his assets. Everything is in order, so we’re handing them over to the family now. Please accept our condolences.”
After returning the belongings to the family, the police withdrew.
Gu An’an read through the suicide note. At once, she broke down sobbing again, then handed the note to us. “It seems like Sun Yang wrote this for you.”
“For us?” We were a little surprised.
After all, we’d never met Sun Yang. We’d never even spoken face-to-face.
And yet the suicide note he had written was for us?
For some reason, guilt stirred in my heart. I couldn’t help wondering if Sun Yang had cursed us in his suicide note…
I took the note, and Seventh Master, Meng Yifan, and the others all gathered around.
We read the note from beginning to end. By the time we finished, our hearts were a tangled mess of emotions.
There was a lot written in that suicide note. The handwriting was firm and powerful, yet every word was steeped in helplessness and despair.
Sun Yang had explained in detail why he wanted to take his own life. The reason was simple: his wife and child were both gone, and he no longer had any reason or hope to go on living.
In the note, Sun Yang wrote with deep sincerity that the two luckiest days of his life were, first, the day his wife married him, and second, the day his daughter was born. From that moment on, every day of his life had been happy.
In his career, he had achieved a certain level of success. It wasn’t anything grand, but that had been his own choice. He believed the family’s money was already enough for them to spend for the rest of their lives, so there was no need for him to devote all his energy to work. He would rather set aside half his time to watch his daughter grow up healthy and to enjoy quiet, romantic days with his wife.
But all of that had turned into a fleeting dream with the deaths of Sun Jiayu and Ding Ruoning.
The happier he had once been, the harder the blow that followed.
Sun Yang was actually a believer in the Dao as well. He was a lay practitioner. In Daoism, if one leaves secular life, one becomes a Daoist priest; if one does not, one is a lay practitioner.
He was also a devout follower of Daoism, so he knew that taking revenge together with Ding Ruoning would harm her. But when hatred blinds a person, they can no longer think through so many consequences.
He had been conflicted. He hoped we would stop them, yet also hoped we would not. But whether we stopped them or not, after he had taken revenge, he would still take his own life and go join his wife and daughter.
In the suicide note, he wrote:
“My beloved daughter was sensible from a young age and dearly loved by her parents. My wife was virtuous and kind, respectful to her elders and loving toward children. I, Sun Yang, never committed any evil in my life, and every cent I earned was earned with a clear conscience. Why, then, did such a great calamity befall us?”
“If I do not avenge this, I am unworthy of being a father! Unworthy of being a man!”
“But by taking revenge, I have also brought suffering upon my wife.”
“Therefore, there is no need for you to blame yourselves. I know you are good people, and that is rare. If those online mobs had been like you, perhaps my beloved daughter and my wife would not have been driven to this point. Now that things have come to this, I have also found release. I hereby bid farewell to this world and go below to accompany my loved ones.”
Reading this, I felt as if a heavy stone had lodged in my chest. For reasons I couldn’t explain, I felt both heartsick and full of regret.
I regretted never getting to meet Sun Yang.
This was what a man should be. Sun Yang had been a true man of honor.
It was just a shame that he was already gone. By the time I saw him, that white cloth had already been pulled over his body.