Chapter 83

Chapter 83

At that moment, Bai Xue also got up and came over. She couldn’t understand at all what the two were arguing about, but she still spoke up for the guest. “Lao Pei, how could you not understand? The wine hasn’t been decanted properly; can’t you just wait a bit? Why are you in such a hurry?”

Pei Yuming ignored Bai Xue. He stared intently into Su Jin’s eyes and asked, “Why won’t you let me drink it? What’s in this wine?”

The moment those words came out, Su Jin’s expression was almost one of horror, and the hand she had on Pei Yuming’s arm was trembling violently. If that wasn’t suspicious, nothing was!

Pei Yuming turned the tables by grabbing her wrist and sternly demanding, “Where’s the rest of the Potassium Cyanide? Where have you hidden it?”

Su Jin’s eyes went wide, fear mingled with confusion, as if she didn’t understand why Pei Yuming would ask that.

After Bai Xue came over, the first thing she did was separate the two, looking at her husband with reproach. “What on earth has gotten into you?”

Pei Yuming was completely focused on whether Su Jin was the murderer or not. Having finally discovered a lead, he couldn’t take in anyone else’s words. He pushed Bai Xue aside and moved to grab the retreating Su Jin.

At that moment, Lu Dong and the others at the table also came over. Su Jin hid behind Lu Dong, eyeing Pei Yuming with extreme vigilance.

“Pei Yuming!” Bai Xue grabbed him from behind. No need to see her face; just from her voice, it was clear she was furious. “Are you done? What exactly are you trying to do?”

Later on, Pei Yuming deeply regretted it. If only he had been a little more flexible then and simply explained the gist of things to Bai Xue, perhaps in the remaining time he could have even pried out of Su Jin how she got hold of the potassium cyanide.

But at the time, that thought only flashed through his mind once before he dismissed it. As for the specific reason, it was something he suddenly realized one day later on.

Perhaps, ever since he found out Su Jin was pregnant, deep down he had actually been feeling guilt and confusion. Under those circumstances, he couldn’t bring himself to just lay everything out. For one, he wasn’t ready to tell Bai Xue about his affair with Su Jin. Moreover, he couldn’t bring himself to pit Su Jin against everyone else with a clear conscience.

And so, Pei Yuming ultimately chose the most reckless way to prove whether the wine was actually poisonous. Amidst Su Jin’s screams, he picked up the wine glass from the island counter and downed the contents in one go.

“No!”

The final thing Pei Yuming was conscious of was Su Jin’s devastated cry.

He watched as Cao Lei, right in front of him, said something, but because his ears were still ringing, he couldn’t make out a single syllable.

“What did you say?” he asked.

Cao Lei furrowed his brow and repeated, “I said, since Su Jin was the one who served you the soup, do you think she could be the murderer?”

This was the second time he had asked Pei Yuming this question, and he was already prepared to receive a negative answer. But to his surprise, this time Pei Yuming nodded with absolute certainty and said, “It was her. The murderer is her.”

Cao Lei’s expression grew somewhat complicated. “Lao Pei, you won’t retract your statement again this time, right?”

But Pei Yuming, as if not hearing his concerns or the reproach in his tone, leaned forward toward Cao Lei on his own accord. “Officer Cao, listen to me. I’m absolutely certain that Su Jin is the murderer. She’s the one who put the poison in the wine!”

Cao Lei glanced at the monitor and asked helplessly, “Do you have any evidence?”

“Evidence?” Pei Yuming wanted to say, I drank the poison; what more evidence do you need?

But on second thought, everything was just what he had seen and experienced. Mere words without hard proof. No matter how vivid or reasonable his description, the police couldn’t take his account as solid evidence.

He regretted his recklessness a little. If he’d known, he would have held off a bit longer, at least long enough to ask Su Jin how she had brought the poison in and where she had hidden the rest.

“No?” Cao Lei couldn’t help but show a trace of disappointment on his face.

Pei Yuming rubbed his hands together. He felt he had never been so close to the truth before, yet facing Cao Lei, he couldn’t utter a single word.
Cao Lei keenly sensed his urgency and guided him along. “Did you notice something abnormal about her? Did she do something that made you suspect her?”

Pei Yuming’s eyes lit up at his words. “Yes. That bowl of soup. She served it for me. She kept urging me to drink it.”

“What else?” Cao Lei frowned. That could not be treated as direct evidence.

“She… she was the one who had Bai Xue call my brother and my dad over. And those two children, too. She must have deliberately brought all of us together.”

“How do you know that?”

“I heard it with my own ears.”

Cao Lei looked puzzled. “Tonight?”

Pei Yuming froze for a second, then realized what he meant and sighed. It seemed Cao Lei still did not believe his bizarre story about the Flashback. “Just treat it as if it was tonight.”

But Cao Lei’s expression still did not ease. He pressed, “Anything else?”

Pei Yuming thought for a moment. He had just been about to shake his head when he ventured, “There is one thing, but I’m not too sure. She brought over a bouquet of flowers and wouldn’t let Bai Xue or me touch it. She found a vase in my place and arranged them herself…”

“Flowers?” Cao Lei remembered the crime scene clearly. “You mean the vase of lilies on the dining table?”

“Yes!”

Cao Lei touched his ear, then said, “But there really was nothing wrong with the flowers.”

“Impossible.” Pei Yuming shook his head, looking unconvinced. “Then how did she bring the poison up here? Her bag only had lipstick and her car keys in it. That bouquet was huge, and the wrapping was so elaborate. The poison had to have been hidden in the flowers!”

The more Pei Yuming spoke, the more certain he became. He looked at Cao Lei expectantly. “Officer Cao, you have to check that bouquet again. Other than that, I can’t think of anything Su Jin could have used to bring the poison up here.”

“All right,” Cao Lei agreed. “Our people are still rechecking the scene anyway. But before that, tell me this first: how do you know Su Jin’s bag only had lipstick and car keys in it?”

Pei Yuming scratched his head. “Didn’t I tell you? When I went back before, I searched through their things. Su Jin was wearing a tight dress and only had a small handbag. It was the same time I first discovered Lu Dong had another phone.”

“You didn’t,” Cao Lei said with certainty, but he did not dwell on it. “So you found nothing at the time?”

“Mm.”

“You also said before that the killer absolutely couldn’t be Su Jin. Why change your story all of a sudden?” Cao Lei asked again.

Pei Yuming said, “Believe it or not, I really wasn’t lying to you about the Flashback. Just now, when I went back, I tried to drink the wine in the decanter right in front of Su Jin, and she did everything she could to stop me. I’m certain the killer is her, but I don’t have any evidence. To be honest, I never suspected Su Jin before. It wasn’t until you told me she was pregnant that I started to make sense of it.”

“Make sense of what?” Cao Lei did not engage with the topic of the Flashback. Pei Yuming was right: that could not be used as evidence. Even if he spun it beautifully, it was still only his word and had no reference value.

“I think that when I abandoned her again and chose Bai Xue, she must have hated me.”

Cao Lei nodded, indicating his agreement. If Su Jin truly had always loved Pei Yuming, it was not impossible for love to turn into hatred.

“She hated you. She could have gone after you directly, but…” Cao Lei stopped halfway when he saw the pain on Pei Yuming’s face. Although he was not one of the people involved, after listening to this tangled mess of love and resentment all night, understanding suddenly came to him. “She hated you… but in the end, she still couldn’t bring herself to do it to you. Instead, she transferred that intense hatred onto other people… But there is still one thing that doesn’t make sense. How could she bring herself to harm Lu Zixuan? Even a vicious tiger does not eat its own cubs. Without sufficient motive, I don’t believe she could do that to her own son.”

Pei Yuming could not figure that out either. He shook his head. Unless, next time, he asked Su Jin face-to-face.