Chapter 10

Chapter 10

“How did she get in?”

“Fu Mingshan personally brought her in.”

According to the security guard.

That day, my mother had indeed brought a lunchbox and a raincoat to the coal mine to find my father.

But the guard kept blocking her, refusing to let her enter.

My mother wanted the guard to give the raincoat to my father ahead of time; otherwise, he would surely get soaked when it started raining later.

The gate was quite a distance from the mining pit, and the guard was unwilling to do it.

Since they wouldn’t help, my mother refused to leave. Because of my father’s position, the guard couldn’t exactly force her away either.

The two sides were at a stalemate at the gate.

That was when Fu Mingshan drove back to the coal mine. After asking what was going on, he personally brought my mother inside.

This is where a massive point of suspicion arises.

Fu Mingshan wouldn’t even let his own wife into the coal mine. Why would he bring my mother in?

What secret did the two of them share? Or was there some kind of deal?

Could the two of them have conspired to kill my father?

If that were the case, things would align with that Death List.

But what was the motive for the murder?

Assuming my mother really was the killer and she planned the mine explosion, she would have had to enter the mine to pull it off.

Then Fu Mingshan must have been an accomplice; without him, my mother couldn’t have gotten in.

How could it be such a coincidence? My mother is stopped by the guard, he just happens to drive by, and he even violates his own rules to bring a woman into the coal mine.

And then, sure enough, a major accident occurred that very day.

I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

I still didn’t believe my mother killed my father.

I knew my face must have been a sight to behold right then, but I wasn’t an actor.

I had no way to control my emotions or my expression.

I could only manage to say to Officer Dong, “I’d like to use the restroom.”

“Sure. Do you need help?”

“No.”

I moved my wheelchair, then looked back at him. “Can you give me a cigarette?”

He hadn’t expected me to ask for a smoke. “Oh, sure.”

He pulled a cigarette from his pack and looked at my hands, appearing a bit conflicted. “Uh, where should I put it?”

“Just put it in my mouth.”

He lit the cigarette, and I went into the bathroom with it dangling from my lips.

I took a deep drag, which made me cough until tears ran down my face.

Using the smoke to steady myself, I calmed down.

I carefully considered every detail surrounding the coal mine explosion back then.

My mother only had a middle school education-she hadn’t even finished it.

If she really wanted to use a coal mine explosion to kill someone, did she have the ability?

Yes, she did.

She was at least literate. My house was full of books on mining safety that my father had brought home.

Sometimes, I would flip through them myself.

If my mother had the intent, she could have read through all those mining safety books and known exactly how to kill someone without leaving a trace.

But what was her motive?

Did Fu Mingshan really have something on her?

And what was Fu Mingshan’s motive for wanting to kill my father?

Was it because my father had something on him?

My father had a gentle personality and was easy to talk to. He was always friendly and pleasant with his coworkers and neighbors, a real “nice guy.”

But I knew he had his principles.

If his principles conflicted with the interests of the coal mine, would Fu Mingshan have resorted to murder?

Then there was the compensation-500,000 yuan. 500,000 in that era.

Many people couldn’t earn 500,000 in a lifetime.

Why was the compensation so high? Thinking about it now, that money seemed more like hush money.

But… something was wrong…

What did the notebook my mother left behind mean?

It certainly wasn’t a coincidence.

Because the notebook accurately predicted Sun Congjun’s time of death.

If she had killed him, it would be understandable, but the current evidence suggested that Sun Congjun couldn’t have been killed by her.

Then who killed him?

Did my mother have an accomplice?

Furthermore, I had overlooked a very important point.

That was the identity of the two policemen in the living room.

Criminal investigators from Jingdu, and a captain at that. Would they really travel all the way to our small county just because a victim left a name before dying?

Moreover, looking at these two officers, they clearly knew an extreme amount about what had happened to my parents.

They knew about the doctor who delivered me, Liu Jianguo, and they likely knew how he died too.

They also knew about the coal mine explosion case from back then.

And then there was the victim I didn’t know, Sun Congjun. On the surface, these three people had nothing to do with one another, but what was the deeper connection between them?

Today’s conversation was like strands of pitch-black silk.

They wrapped around me and tightened, cutting into my flesh, tightening around my throat, making it impossible to breathe.

It caused the understanding I’d had of my life for decades to completely collapse.

It was trying to use bloody facts to tell me that the person who loved me most had killed the other person who loved me most.

*Knock, knock, knock.*

Someone knocked on the bathroom door.

“Mr. Lin, are you alright?” It was Officer Xiao Li.

I shook my head hard to keep myself calm.

“I’m fine. Being disabled makes using the restroom a bit inconvenient.”

“Do you need help?”

“No, I can manage.”