Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Luo Dayuan had spent a great deal of effort tracing the number that sent Luo Xia the anonymous text.

If Qin Jiajia was alive, then she had to be the sender. He hired a specialist and located the phone.

Zhong Mingjiang and Luo Xia drove together toward the area indicated by the signal, following the live location until it led them into a forest.

By then, night had fallen. Mosquitoes whined and insects beat their wings all around them.

The dense, silent woods resembled a bottomless cavern. Towering trees reduced the two humans beneath them to insignificant specks.

Their flashlights illuminated only tiny patches of ground, each scrap of light making the darkness around it seem deeper.

“No wonder we couldn’t find her. She’s been hiding in this dump!” Luo Xia’s lips curled upward. She gripped a kitchen cleaver.

The moment Qin Jiajia appeared, Luo Xia intended to hack her down and kill her on the spot.

The fire had failed. This time, Luo Xia would do it herself.

As far as the world knew, Qin Jiajia had been dead for years. Killing her a second time would make no difference.

Elsewhere, Gu Xinyue watched the pair stumble around the forest through hidden cameras and nearly doubled over with laughter.

Luo Xia naively believed she was still the old Qin Jiajia, a helpless fool to be manipulated at will. How ridiculous.

Did Luo Xia think she was incapable of evolving?

At first, Gu Xinyue had planned to lure them out here and find a way to kill them.

Gu Cangbei had forbidden her to commit a crime.

So she altered the plan. If she could not kill them herself, she could at least torment them.

“Ah Xia, are you looking for me? Do you want to kill me?” Gu Xinyue made her voice hollow and distant. To be safe, she ran it through a voice filter.

The forest was still. Then Qin Jiajia’s familiar voice floated through the darkness.

Luo Xia screamed, dropped the cleaver, and fled. In her panic, she kicked the blade. Blood gushed from her foot.

Zhong Mingjiang was terrified too, but he struggled to keep his composure.

“Ah Xia, didn’t you come to kill me? Come on, then. I’m up in the sky….” Gu Xinyue gave two cold laughs.

“Mingjiang, do you still think I’m the Qin Jiajia you could control however you pleased?”

“What makes either of you imagine you can hurt me again?”

Zhong Mingjiang shone his flashlight on Luo Xia’s injury.

She had kicked the cleaver directly. Its edge had opened an artery across the top of her foot, and blood sprayed from the wound.

“Jiajia, are you alive, or are you a ghost?”

Gu Xinyue did not answer. She ate her boxed meal while watching the pair wander in circles.

Neither had been in this forest before. They quickly became lost, and there was no signal at night. Their suffering was only beginning.

“Mingjiang, I’m in hell. I miss you. I miss Ah Xia too….”

“Who gave you two this kind of courage? Was it Fish Leong?”

“Qin Jiajia, show yourself if you have the guts! Stop playing ghost!”

“Qin Jiajia, you bitch!” Luo Xia sobbed hysterically. “Mingjiang, my foot! It won’t stop bleeding!”

Liu Xiaoxiao sat beside Gu Xinyue, watching the surveillance feed with growing concern. “Xinyue, is Luo Xia going to be all right? That wound looks serious.”

“Scourges live forever. She won’t die that easily.” If Luo Xia did die, so much the better. She would have brought it on herself.

Liu Xiaoxiao shook her head with a sigh. “Xinyue, you used to be so kind. Now even you’ve learned to be cruel. I suppose no one in this world stays good forever.”

“I’ve already died once. It was time I learned something from it.”

The pair remained trapped in the forest all night.

Afraid Luo Xia might bleed to death and leave him unable to explain what happened, Zhong Mingjiang removed his jacket and wrapped it tightly around her foot.

By morning, her body had gone cold.

He checked beneath her nose and felt a faint breath. He immediately called an ambulance, then the police.

Paramedics carried Luo Xia away, with Zhong Mingjiang following.

“Who is Luo Xia’s husband?”

“I am. She isn’t dead, is she?”

Alive was good. If she died, he truly would not know how to explain it.

“She’ll live, but her condition is unusual.” The doctor drew him aside.

The cleaver had cut an artery on the top of her foot and severed two tendons. With prompt treatment, she could have recovered completely. But after an entire night of severe blood loss, the nerves in her legs had become paralyzed.

Luo Xia would never use her feet again.

At the police station, Officer Liu regarded Zhong Mingjiang with an icy expression. “Tell us exactly why you went into the forest so late at night.”

“My wife and I went for a walk in the woods. Is that a crime?”

“Answer the question you were asked!” Officer Liu snapped.

Not long after Zhong Mingjiang left with the ambulance, officers discovered the body of a woman who had been missing for some time.

Zhong Mingjiang stared in disbelief. “Officer Liu, you don’t think I killed her last night, do you?”

This was outrageous. He had only gone there because he heard Qin Jiajia was hiding in the forest.

“That is not your concern. You need to explain why you happened to be in that forest, and why your wife brought a cleaver and then supposedly kicked it by accident.”

There were too many suspicious details to ignore.

“I knew nothing about a woman’s body. Nothing!” Unable to explain otherwise, Zhong Mingjiang finally told them why he had gone.

“My ex-wife sent threatening messages to my current wife. I traced the number to that forest, so I followed the signal. She never showed herself, but she kept speaking to us!”

Officer Liu could accept the claim that voices had sounded through the forest. Police had found cameras and speakers hidden among the trees.

But Zhong Mingjiang claimed his dead former wife had sent the message and spoken to them.

“Nonsense!” Officer Liu could bear no more of his absurd story.
Nearly everyone in the city knew the story of Qin Jiajia cheating on her husband in the villa, only to die when the resulting fire triggered an explosion.

Officer Liu now looked at Zhong Mingjiang as though he belonged in a psychiatric ward.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but it’s true. Qin Jiajia isn’t dead. My ex-wife is alive….”

“I understand now! My ex-wife must have killed that woman, then lured Luo Xia and me out there to frame us!

“Qin Jiajia is vicious! She hates us so much she’d go this far….”

Officer Liu narrowed their eyes. “Did something happen between you, your current wife, and your ex-wife?”

The case had been closed hastily years ago. Qin Jiajia had supposedly brought a lover home and died in a fire. With the villa burned clean of evidence, investigators had relied largely on statements from Zhong Mingjiang and Luo Xia.

Now Zhong Mingjiang’s claims brought the old case rushing back to mind.

“No! Of course not! My ex-wife had no reason to hate us. I only meant that she might be jealous because I married her best friend afterward. Perhaps she resented us for that….”

The more he explained, the more holes appeared in his story. The accusation of murder had rattled him so badly that he had nearly confessed everything.

Once Officer Liu learned Qin Jiajia might be alive, her old case would have to be reopened.

Zhong Mingjiang had dug a pit beneath his own feet, and there was no way to fill it now.

“Qin Jiajia is probably the woman who killed that victim in the forest. You have to find her….” The words only deepened his fear.

If police found Qin Jiajia, she would not be the first one destroyed. He would.

Whatever he said now created another contradiction. Every path led to disaster.

Officers took him away.

“What do you think, Officer Liu?”

“Take Zhong Mingjiang for a psychiatric evaluation. If he’s sane, reopen his ex-wife’s case.”

By the time Zhong Mingjiang emerged from the psychiatric department, his lungs felt ready to burst with rage.

Those police officers actually thought he was insane.

He called Luo Dayuan. “What kind of mess have you made? Everything is out of control now!”

“Why panic?” Luo Dayuan replied lazily.

Half an hour later, Luo Xia regained consciousness.

Thank God. She had survived.

No one sat beside her bed.

“Doctor!” she shouted until a hospital employee came in.

“Where is my husband?”

“Mr. Zhong was here just a moment ago….”

“What’s wrong with my feet? When will they heal?” Luo Xia remembered cutting only her left foot, yet the right one was numb too. Pinching it produced no sensation.

“The nerves in your legs are paralyzed. I’m afraid you may never walk again. You will also need to watch your diet. Your tests show signs of kidney failure….”

Luo Xia stopped hearing the doctor’s words. It sounded as though mosquitoes were droning inside her skull.

How could both legs be useless? She was still young. She had not even had a child.

“This is Qin Jiajia’s fault! If not for her, my legs would still work!” Her eyes reddened with fury.

As long as she drew breath, she would make Qin Jiajia suffer beyond endurance.

The cruel irony was that she had no idea where Qin Jiajia was.

Zhong Mingjiang never came to the hospital. Luo Xia cried without pause, aging ten years in a single night.

The next day, the autopsy identified the body found in the forest.

“Ms. Luo, you have our condolences….”

Luo Xia stared blankly. Condolences for whom?

Could Zhong Mingjiang be dead?

If he was, all his money would belong to her.

The officer’s next words hurled her from heaven into hell.

“The body recovered from the forest has been identified as your mother, Yang Juhua.”

Luo Xia’s eyes widened.

Yang Juhua, that deranged country woman.

Her fingers twisted into the bedsheet.

Luo Xia hated Yang Juhua. Having a mother like her was the stain of Luo Xia’s life.

How could that madwoman be dead?

Tears fell onto the white sheet. Luo Xia wiped them away.

Not long ago, Yang Juhua had called and foolishly asked to move in with her daughter, saying she wanted to share Luo Xia’s good life. Repulsed, Luo Xia had cursed her and secretly wished she would die.

Now that Yang Juhua truly was dead, an emptiness opened inside her.

“Qin Jiajia killed her!” Luo Xia frantically dialed emergency services.

“Emergency services. How may I help?”

“The body in the forest was my mother. Qin Jiajia killed her. It had to be Qin Jiajia because…”

Zhong Mingjiang entered, snatched the phone from her hand, and smashed it on the floor.

Had he arrived a moment later, Luo Xia might have told the police everything. He would have become a wanted man on the spot.

“Give me my phone!”

“Did you inject the wrinkles right out of your brain?” he raged.

Remembering how close she had come to exposing him, Zhong Mingjiang slapped her out of bed.

Her chin struck the floor with the dull crack of bone.

“Qin Jiajia did it! She did all of this! The police have to find her. A murderer must pay with her life! She killed my mother. I’ll kill her… I’ll kill her!”

Zhong Mingjiang struggled to contain his fury.

“Five years ago, you and I plotted Qin Jiajia’s rape and seized Qin Mo’s inheritance. We had her uterus illegally removed and set her on fire. Every one of those acts is a serious crime. And now you want to lecture me about a life for a life?”

Luo Xia sobbed. “She killed my mother in that forest on purpose. This is her declaration of war!”

Neither could guess Qin Jiajia’s next move. But Luo Xia’s hatred had consumed her. Whether Qin Jiajia was flesh or ghost, she would drag her out and make sure even her spirit never found peace.