Chapter 14
After Liang Chuan left that night, Uncle Li and Aunt Li came in to comfort me.
They told me that everything was for my sake.
Bai Xue’s condition was unstable-sometimes better, sometimes worse. Many business partners lost patience after just one collaboration; if they didn’t take certain measures, the income would only dwindle.
I needed to go to school. Bai Xue needed treatment. With their abilities, they simply couldn’t afford it.
Between me and my sister, there had to be a choice.
They chose me.
Nothing was more painful to me than this.
I remember that night-I didn’t lock my sister with the iron chain.
I wished she would go mad and beat me hard.
But she only stayed carefully by my side and asked, “Sister, did I do something wrong?”
With tears in my eyes, I told her, “Living like this is worse than death.”
That is the most regretful sentence of my life.
I had clearly sworn never to hurt her again, but in the end, she still faded away right under my eyes.
Just as Officer Wu speculated, that night Bai Xue quietly ended her own life while taking a bath.
When I found her, the water in the bathtub was already dyed red.
I leaned over her, talking to her, but she would never answer me again.
Uncle Li and Aunt Li said that when Bai Xue was first forced, she resisted fiercely, too.
But when Liang Chuan told her that doing this could help me, she stopped struggling.
They told me everything my sister did was voluntary.
Besides, she was often delirious and foolish, and most of the time didn’t even remember any of it.
They said that with things as they were, everyone could be happy, and this was the best choice, so I shouldn’t blame myself too much.
But how could I not feel guilty?
I said that sentence only because I was too upset-unable to accept reality at that moment.
When I saw my sister truly lying there as a corpse in front of me, my mind went blank.
For a brief moment, I thought maybe this was good-she was free at last.
But when I pulled her out of the water, and saw, beneath the soaked clothes, her body covered with new wounds over old scars, every cell in my body trembled.
She was ill, always hurting herself.
I was used to seeing scars on her, but never thought, with so many wounds, could it be possible she’d been abused?
I had been so close to her, yet knew nothing of what she went through.
I wanted to know what my sister had experienced.
And Liang Chuan still had her videos. I dared not imagine what someone like him, driven by profit, would do with those things.
Uncle Li and Aunt Li said that, at first, my sister was unwilling. I couldn’t believe Liang Chuan wasn’t afraid of being investigated.
The child in Bai Xue’s belly could become the breakthrough-if I could find the child’s father, I could discover what had happened to her.
I believed the police would be able to follow the clues and find Liang Chuan.
He was a clever man-he wouldn’t keep anything that could incriminate himself. I guessed he would take the initiative to destroy the videos.
Even though I knew things might not go as I wished, I had to try.
So, I wiped my fingerprints off the fruit knife, cut along the slash on my sister’s wrist to separate her left hand from her body, and in order to mislead others, I made additional wounds.
Only by making a suicide look like a homicide would the police file a case and investigate.
The next day, at graduation, I held my sister’s hand and walked a completely different path from the other students.
Across the street was the school. Inside, it was bustling with voices; young men and women in academic gowns, their faces lit up with joy.
I was stopped by the police and watched as the school gates slowly closed, as if I was being expelled from that world.
But I have no regrets.