Chapter 42
Chapter 42
Pei Yuming was forty-eight this year, but you couldn’t tell from his appearance. Though his work kept him busy, he had always paid great attention to his health and grooming over the years. Partly influenced by his wife Bai Xue, and partly because he didn’t want to look like he was a generation older than her-since Bai Xue was already several years younger than him.
But now he realized that even if he looked like he was in his early forties, his body was honest. At this moment, he was truly experiencing what it meant to be a middle-aged man whose strength couldn’t match his will.
He could clearly feel his anger, but he couldn’t even muster the energy to explode. His father’s illness had drained most of his mental strength. Right now, he stood by the wall of the examination room, quietly waiting for his daughter to finish her checkup, like a devoted father who had brought his daughter in for a physical.
But from Pei Xiaobei’s perspective, it wasn’t like that at all.
To her, her dad was normally a simple, rough tyrant. Now, uncharacteristically not losing his temper, he must be saving up something even worse.
She was so scared she didn’t dare make any unnecessary movements, afraid that if she even blinked wrong, her dad would lash out and hit her.
Of course, not only was she too scared to move, she also forgot the most important thing: to tell Lu Zixuan, who had come with her, not to come back after buying milk tea.
As it turned out, the more critical the moment, the more you need courage and carefulness. Unfortunately, Pei Xiaobei was only nineteen, at an age where you trade lessons for experience.
As she held the checkup form and dejectedly followed her father out, she hadn’t even remembered about Lu Zixuan.
Pei Yuming turned back and yanked his daughter’s arm roughly, telling her to hurry up.
Pei Xiaobei winced from the grip, but didn’t dare utter a word of protest.
“Who’s is it?” Pei Yuming finally asked through gritted teeth. “A classmate?”
But Pei Xiaobei kept her head down, not daring to answer a single word.
Pei Yuming growled, “Speak!”
That wasn’t a quiet sound. It successfully drew the attention of everyone in the corridor waiting for consultations.
A middle-aged man and a young girl-this pairing could easily trigger some unsavory associations, especially since they were in the gynecology department.
But right now, Pei Yuming clearly had no time to care what others thought, especially when he looked up again and locked eyes with Lu Zixuan, who was walking over carrying a bag of drinks. In that instant, he felt the whole world fade away. If there was ever a moment when Pei Yuming truly wanted to kill someone, it was now.
From the moment he saw Lu Zixuan, the violent rage that had been pent up in his chest with nowhere to go finally erupted. Expressionless, he strode over in big steps, seeing no one else. He even forgot about his daughter following behind. He had only one thought: to beat that Lu man severely.
Pei Yuming vented all his resentment over Lu Dong and Bai Xue’s affair, his disappointment at his younger brother’s deception, as well as his father’s surgery and his daughter’s pregnancy-all the negative emotions generated by everything-onto Lu Zixuan.
Lu Zixuan, completely unprepared, was kicked down by Pei Yuming the moment they met.
By the time he was pinned underneath Pei Yuming, he had completely lost the ability to fight back. A few solid punches were enough to daze him; he didn’t even have a chance to return a blow.
Pei Yuming threw punches at Lu Zixuan like a madman. His frenzy made the bystanders who were eager to intervene too afraid to step in. Only Pei Xiaobei was futilely trying to pull him away, but he easily shrugged her off.
The chaos was finally stopped by the floor security. When a strong electric current passed through Pei Yuming’s back and spread throughout his entire body, in that instant, he felt like he saw countless parallel universes unfolding before him, with each of his choices leading to a different ending.
“You don’t know?” Cao Lei asked again: “That can’t be right. After your mother passed away, you should have seen her deposits, right?”
“…What?” Pei Yuming unconsciously clenched his stinging fingers, but he clearly hadn’t taken in a single word, obviously distracted.
Cao Lei narrowed his eyes, sizing him up, and asked sharply, “Did you go back just now?”
Those words seemed to flip a switch in Pei Yuming. He suddenly covered his face with both hands, his shoulders heaving violently-clearly crying.
Cao Lei glanced at his watch in confusion, and couldn’t help but curse inwardly again: Damn, 9:40! What the hell?
He ran a hand through his hair in irritation, let out a long breath, and with all the patience he could muster, patted Pei Yuming’s back and consoled him softly, “Lao Pei, I know it’s hard, but time is tight. Can you tell me, did something else happen?”
But unfortunately, Captain Cao’s rare tenderness didn’t seem to have much effect.
No matter how he tried to pry open Pei Yuming’s mouth, the man acted as if he hadn’t heard, burying his face in the partition and crying for nearly two minutes before finally quieting down.
“My father’s savings are gone, I don’t know how it happened…” Pei Yuming finally raised his head, his eyes somewhat vacant. He mechanically explained to Cao Lei, as if completing some task, “I had to pay for surgery, so I asked my wife to transfer money to me, but I saw my daughter in the hospital too. She… she…”
“What about her?” Cao Lei fixed his eyes on him, sensing he was about to reveal a new clue.
Pei Yuming clenched his fists, and after a long silence, he said with difficulty, “She’s pregnant.”
Cao Lei couldn’t help raising an eyebrow. Only a little over three hours had passed since the incident; the forensics team couldn’t have finished autopsying all seven bodies. He glanced at the monitor, and sure enough, the reply from that side was: his daughter’s detailed autopsy report wasn’t out yet.
Cao Lei nodded. “How do you know? Did she tell you?”
“She went for a check-up, and I saw it.” Pei Yuming’s expression was agonized. “She’s only nineteen, hasn’t even started college, and something like this happened… And I, I didn’t know anything beforehand. I’m such a failure as a father! I should have been poisoned too. Why didn’t I die with them? Why do I have to know all this? My wife lied to me, my own brother lied to me, and now even my daughter is hiding things from me! Is anything in my life real? Why are they treating me like this?”
Pei Yuming completely broke down. He began pounding his head with his hands, and as if that wasn’t enough, he then directly banged his head against the partition on the chair in front of him.
Cao Lei quickly got up to stop him, but Pei Yuming was completely hysterical, with astonishing strength. Cao Lei tried twice but couldn’t hold him back. Finally, the recorder next to him also stepped in to help, and together they restrained him.
“Lao Pei! Calm down!” Cao Lei shouted. “What’s done is done. No matter how much you blame yourself, you can’t change anything. What we need to do now is find the real culprit and give the victims justice. Don’t you want to know who killed them?”
Pei Yuming was utterly dejected and said through tears, “But I don’t know either. They all lied to me. I can’t see who did it…”
Cao Lei placed his hands on his shoulders, patted him firmly twice, and said with conviction, “That’s all right. As long as you tell me everything that happened, I’ll take responsibility for finding the culprit!”