Chapter 30

Chapter 30

Over the next month, Zhang Qiong fell completely into the depths of Liang He’s tenderness, unable to pull herself out.

She shared every little detail of her life with him on WeChat because Liang He always gave her a thoughtful response.

From waking up and making breakfast to going to the supermarket and picking out clothes online, she shared it all with Liang He.

Liang He was incredibly patient. He would help Zhang Qiong compare the quality and taste of different yogurts, help her choose clothes that best suited her temperament, and even help her plan out a weekly breakfast menu.

Liang He understood Zhang Qiong better than the big data algorithms on her phone.

Zhang Qiong began to understand why Huang Yuanrui clung so desperately to Qin Song.

The age gap wasn’t just about years; it was a psychological suppression, a total cognitive outmatching.

The less mature person in the relationship was like an ignorant little cub who had stumbled into a sweet forest, preferring to stay lost forever rather than find a way out.

Over the course of the month, she gradually learned that Liang He had married young. His wife had given him two sons; the younger was still in elementary school, while the elder was already in high school, preparing for the college entrance exam.

When a son prepares for exams, the father gets nervous too.

Liang He told Zhang Qiong that his son’s grades were mediocre. Lately, he had been busy looking for tutors everywhere and contacting friends in the education sector to see if he could secure a backup path for the boy… He spent all day on the phone, racking up over 200 yuan in phone bills in a single month.

Seeing Liang He’s dedication to his family and children, Zhang Qiong felt a deep sense of admiration.

She couldn’t help but think of her own useless husband. Comparing the two was enough to make her blood boil.

Recently, her husband and children had returned home. With the kids’ final exams approaching, the atmosphere in the house was tense.

Every day after work, Zhang Qiong would immediately start cooking for her daughter and tutoring her.

Her daughter was excellent at Chinese but struggled with math. It was a major headache for Zhang Qiong.

She was very busy now. Busy looking after the children, busy with work, busy dating Qin Song in secret, and busy soaking in Liang He’s tenderness.

She had no idea that something horrific was about to happen to her.

“Mom! Come draw with me!” her daughter called out from her room.

“Coming, baby!”

Zhang Qiong put down the kitchen knife and wiped her hands on her apron.

“What are we drawing today? Did you finish all your homework?”

Her daughter pointed to the watercolor markers on the desk. “We don’t have any homework this week. Teacher Ma has been taking us through the final exam review points every day. I did really well today… Today I want to draw a castle! Search for a picture for me.”

Zhang Qiong picked up her phone and started searching for castle images suitable for a child to copy.

Her daughter sniffled and picked up a marker, drawing a few clouds on the paper first.

As Zhang Qiong looked at her phone, she suddenly froze.

“Mom, hurry up and search! I’ve already finished the blue sky and white clouds. All I’m missing is a big castle.”

Zhang Qiong wrinkled her nose. “Oh, okay. Just a second…”

As she searched, she stopped again and began looking around the room.

Her daughter turned her head. “Did you find one, Mom? Just a simple one is fine.”

Zhang Qiong’s nose twitched as she sniffed the air. “Baby, do you smell something?”

Her daughter sniffled again. “Mom, don’t I have a cold? My nose has been stuffed up all day. I can’t smell anything.”

“Oh, right. Don’t forget to take your medicine again after dinner.” Zhang Qiong paused. “I keep smelling something foul…”

“Did something burn on the stove?” her daughter asked.

“No, I smell a fishy, rotting stench… Did something go bad?”

Her daughter looked at her strangely.

“Were you playing with something in your room?” Zhang Qiong asked.

“I only played with the squishies in my drawer for a bit. Squishies always smell sweet.”

Zhang Qiong bent down, crawling around to sniff and look everywhere, but she couldn’t find any rotten fruit or food in the room.

Finally, her gaze locked onto her daughter’s schoolbag.

“What did you put in your bag?”

Her daughter blinked. “Books and my pencil case. Oh, and the egg you gave me this morning. I didn’t eat it.”

Zhang Qiong found it strange. Even if a hard-boiled egg wasn’t eaten, it shouldn’t start reeking after just one day.

Could she have been seeing things this morning and accidentally put a raw egg in her daughter’s bag? Had a raw egg been crushed, causing the smell?
No, raw eggs didn’t smell like this.

Zhang Qiong yanked open her daughter’s backpack, and a foul stench hit her full in the face.

“You didn’t put anything in here?” Zhang Qiong covered her nose. “Your backpack reeks!”

Her daughter looked aggrieved. “I really only put my books and eggs in there! Nothing else!”

“Still stubborn, I see!” Zhang Qiong snapped. “I’m going to see exactly what you put in here!”

With that, she reached her hand into the backpack.

She felt something furry, but the texture was strange-as if it were coated in a layer of cold, wet slime.

She grabbed the object and pulled it out with force, holding it up before her daughter’s eyes. “And you still say you didn’t put anything in here!”

As the girl saw the object clearly, she suddenly covered her eyes and let out a piercing scream.

Zhang Qiong slowly shifted her gaze to her hand. She saw something long and thin dangling down along her wrist.

What was that?

Frowning, Zhang Qiong turned the object in her palm over. With just one look, she shrieked and flung it away.

A large, rotting, dead rat lay silently on the floor.

Zhang Qiong realized instantly: the thing dangling along her wrist had been its tail.

Zhang Qiong began to dry heave. She grabbed a rag to cover it, then ran to the sink to wash her hands over and over again.

Her daughter also ran screaming into the living room, curling up on the sofa and sobbing as she dialed her father’s cell phone.

Zhang Qiong trembled as she told her daughter not to be afraid, all while frantically scrubbing her hands over a dozen times.

It wasn’t just a rat; it was a corpse.

Zhang Qiong felt like no matter how much she washed, her hands still smelled of rot and filth.

She didn’t dare step back into her daughter’s room to face that smell, nor did she dare clean up the carcass on the floor.

Zhang Qiong’s husband rushed home shortly after. He quickly cleared the floor, mopped the area several times, and sprayed disinfectant.

Zhang Qiong and her daughter sat on the sofa, still shaken.

“Honey,” Zhang Qiong asked, “did you have a falling out with any of the other kids at school? Or is someone playing a prank on you?”

Zhang Qiong’s husband added, “For a child so young to play this kind of prank is truly malicious! I’m going to the school tomorrow to talk to the teacher!”

“Daddy, I didn’t,” the daughter cried. “I didn’t argue with anyone. I don’t know how this happened!”

She broke into loud sobs again.

Zhang Qiong said with a shudder, “This is too much. This is really too much.”

“You two take a breather,” her husband said. “I’ll go finish cleaning her room.”

He went into the daughter’s room, shook everything out of her backpack, and stuffed the bag into the trash can.

Both the pencil case and the books were stained with that disgusting slime.

“Daddy, I don’t want them anymore! I don’t want any of it!” the daughter cried.

Zhang Qiong hurried to pull her daughter into her arms. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, sweetie. Mommy will buy you a new pencil case, and we’ll get new books tomorrow! Throw them away-throw it all away!”

“I’m taking all this trash out now,” her husband said. “Stop crying. Once Daddy gets this stuff out of the house, our home will be clean again!”

With that, he quickly opened the door and went out to dump the trash.

Zhang Qiong held her daughter for a while before she suddenly remembered there was one thing her husband hadn’t cleared out.

That stench.

She walked to her daughter’s room, intending to pull back the curtains and open the window to air the place out.

She drew the curtains and opened the window, letting a gentle evening breeze pour in.

Something was wrong.

Zhang Qiong smelled that stench again.

Her heart began to tremble.

Where was it coming from?

Sensitive to the odor, she began sniffing around the room again.

Her daughter followed timidly but suddenly stopped at the doorway.

“Mommy,” she said, her voice shaking. “Behind you…”

Zhang Qiong felt her heart skip a beat. “Behind me?”

Zhang Qiong turned around. She was too close to the window, and facing outward, she saw nothing.

Her daughter let out a blood-curdling scream. “Mommy, look up!”

Zhang Qiong struggled to breathe as she lifted her head.

Outside the window, a dozen strings hung down in a neat row.

At the end of each string, a dozen dead rats hung upside down in a dense cluster.

Their eyes were closed, and every single one of them was facing Zhang Qiong.