Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Lin Zhicheng narrowed his eyes at the post. He didn’t get angry. He even laughed. “This post is spreading rumors.”

I frowned. “But everything in this post is so detailed. It even lists specific times. Whoever wrote it seems to know your family’s business pretty well.”

Lin Zhicheng let out a cold snort through his nose. “No need to look into it. It was definitely that old bastard Liu Daqiang, smearing my family on purpose.”

I opened a bottle of beer and handed it to Lin Zhicheng. “What’s the story there?”

Lin Zhicheng gulped down half the bottle in one go, his eyes already looking a little unfocused. “Back when Liu worked at the factory, he never got along with my grandpa. When my mom got into the factory, his daughter didn’t. So that old bastard went around spreading rumors, saying my grandpa had pulled strings and bribed the leadership. When I was a kid, I even went and pissed right in front of that old thing’s house. Served him right for running his mouth!”

I provoked him unhurriedly. “But the post says your grandpa was in debt back then and was repeatedly put on standby by the factory. Your mother doesn’t look like she studied anything related to machinery, and she was sick too. For her to get into a state-owned enterprise really does seem a little… abnormal.”

Lin Zhicheng jabbed a finger through the air and snapped, “That was the machinery factory repaying what they owed my family! Who told them to have such lousy security? The family housing compound was like a public toilet-outsiders could come and go whenever they wanted. That’s how someone in my family died! That was the debt that old punk Ma Jingyuan owed my family!”

I rubbed my temples. Ma Jingyuan. That name sounded so familiar.

Right!

When I’d looked up information on Bai Yanmei online before, I’d also looked into the machinery factory where her aunt’s family had worked.

The factory manager at the time had been named Ma Jingyuan.

I quickly asked, “What’s that about? Ma Jingyuan was the factory manager, right? How did he owe your family a debt? Does it have something to do with Bai Yanmei?”

Lin Zhicheng only drank in silence. After a long while, he nodded, then stopped talking altogether.

I had the server bring over a bottle of Wuliangye and ordered a few more appetizers to go with the drinks.

After he got nearly half the bottle down, I seized the chance to ask, “What was the connection between Manager Ma and Bai Yanmei?”

Lin Zhicheng’s tongue was thick as he waved a hand. “What else could it be? His son, Ma Wei, had his eye on Bai Yanmei and chased her like crazy. But Bai Yanmei thought too highly of herself and just ignored him. The night Bai Yanmei died, someone saw that kid sneaking out through the window of my grandma’s house.”

My heart lurched. “This Ma Wei… was he the killer?”

Lin Zhicheng tossed back a cup of baijiu with a hiss. “Don’t know. My mom said the police had already taken him in back then and interrogated him for a long time.”

“If there was nothing wrong, would they have interrogated him?”

“What could anyone do? His uncle was the deputy captain of the criminal investigation team at the Public Security Bureau, and his old man was a state-owned factory manager who could make things happen with a word.”

“So what if he was the killer? Could ordinary folks like us afford to provoke people like that?”

“Later, Manager Ma embezzled a huge sum and fled to Canada with his wife and kid. In this lifetime, we can forget about ever catching the killer!”

“Bastards. They promised to arrange for my parents to work at the factory as compensation. Who knew that damn factory would collapse not long after? My parents both got laid off.”

“At first, my dad married my mom because her family could get him a job. After he got laid off, he started despising her, beat and cursed her every day, and abandoned us mother and son.”

…

By the end, Lin Zhicheng was actually lying on the table crying.

I had no mind to comfort him.

From his drunken rambling, it seemed that the killer back then had been narrowed down to Ma Wei, Manager Ma’s son.

But because of pressure from those in power, and because Qi Xin had later been arranged a factory job as compensation, Qi Wentao and his wife stopped making a fuss.

In that matter, everyone had received a proper outcome.

But what about Bai Yanmei?

Had she just died without any explanation at all?

Anger shot up inside me. Irritated, I glared at the man in front of me.

Wait!

Lin Zhicheng had just said Manager Ma had fled to Canada with embezzled money back then.

That’s right. When I livestreamed myself drawing Bai Yanmei before, there had been a man with a Canadian IP address who messaged me privately. His username was Si Ma Nan Zhui.

He… couldn’t be Ma Wei, could he?

I hurriedly shoved Lin Zhicheng. “Get up. I’ll take you home.”