Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Luo Xia recovered from most of her injuries in the hospital, but the nerve damage caused by severe blood loss could not be reversed.

On the day she was discharged, she bought a burial plot for Yang Juhua, giving her mother’s body a place to rest.

Then she had “Qin Jiajia’s” ashes dug out of their grave and scattered into a foul drainage ditch. Afterward, she entered the burned villa with more than a dozen Taoist priests and ordered them to suppress Qin Jiajia’s spirit.

If Qin Jiajia was dead, her soul would be trapped and unable to reincarnate. If she was alive, perhaps she would see what had been done to her ashes and be sickened by it.

Several older cleaners passing by applauded.

“This place hasn’t known peace since that woman died. Sometimes it feels as if someone is still inside. Passersby have seen a figure here more than once.”

A chill ran down Luo Xia’s back. “That can’t be true.”

“Oh, it is. A woman with a bloody piece of flesh cradled in her hands. Her face is covered in blood, and she looks as if she just walked out of the fire. The smell of burned meat follows her. Terrifying….”

“You… you’ve seen her?” Luo Xia stammered, swallowing hard.

“Several times at night. Come see for yourself if you don’t believe me. She holds that lump of flesh and weeps something awful!”

“Mrs. Zhong, I could kneel and thank you. Once you suppress this ghost, the rest of us can finally live in peace!”

“It is only a ritual. There’s no need to thank me….”

Luo Xia was badly shaken. She stared at the villa’s blackened shell, heart pounding. Had Qin Jiajia’s ghost been the voice in the forest too?

A clear conscience saw no ghosts. A guilty one saw them everywhere.

Halfway through the ritual, Luo Xia could bear no more. Afraid some evil presence might attach itself to her, she paid the priests and fled.

“Gu Xinyue!”

Just outside the villa, she spotted Gu Xinyue.

“What are you doing here?”

The sight of Gu Xinyue filled her with rage. Thinking of the sordid affair between this woman and Zhong Mingjiang made her sick.

“Mrs. Zhong, don’t you think you’re being a little controlling? My friend and I are waiting for the bus.”

“Friend?” Luo Xia narrowed her eyes at Liu Xiaoxiao. The woman looked aloof and refined in her white coat.

“A nurse?” Luo Xia sneered. Zhong Mingjiang had slept with nurses before, leaving her with a particular dislike for them.

“I’m a doctor, Mrs. Zhong,” Liu Xiaoxiao corrected politely.

Gu Xinyue cleared her throat, quiet malice sparkling in her eyes. She spoke with all the aggression of a triumphant mistress. “Now that you’re disabled, Mrs. Zhong, how will you and Mr. Zhong manage in the bedroom?”

“Mr. Zhong is a vigorous man. Whenever he’s with me, he loses all control. Comparisons can be so cruel. When he comes back to you afterward… well, I almost feel sorry for him. Don’t worry, though. I’ll help you. I’ll shoulder your burden.”

“You bitch!” Luo Xia tried to leap up and strike her, forgetting she could no longer stand. She nearly pitched face-first onto the ground.

Gu Xinyue frowned and helped her safely back into the wheelchair.

Luo Xia kept cursing. Deep down, she knew Gu Xinyue was right, and that uncertainty only made her angrier. “Bitch! Whore! You think you’re worthy of him?”

Smack!

Once Luo Xia was safely seated, Gu Xinyue slapped her.

“You…”

Before Luo Xia could finish, Gu Xinyue struck her again, harder than before, almost blinded by rage.

Luo Xia looked ready to explode. She hated Gu Xinyue, but hatred was all she had left. Her body could no longer carry out her fury.

The sight filled Gu Xinyue with exhilaration, though her face remained calm. “I have parents who brought me into this world, Mrs. Zhong.”

Fire blazed in Luo Xia’s eyes. Gu Xinyue was implying that Luo Xia, raised in an orphanage, had a mother but no father. The words pierced her deepest wound.

Her mother was dead now. She had no family left in the world.

Had Gu Xinyue investigated her on purpose?

“So when you call me a bitch and a whore, you insult not only me but my parents. I won’t tolerate it again. As for Mr. Zhong and me, our feelings simply became too powerful to resist. I’m terribly sorry.”

“I spit on you!”

“If you curse me again, I’ll slap you again. Every single time.” Gu Xinyue narrowed her eyes.

“Mr. Zhong and I are perfectly matched in every way. When he complains about you, I’ve even defended you. Clearly, I shouldn’t bother.”

Without waiting for an answer, Gu Xinyue took Liu Xiaoxiao’s hand and walked away.

Once they were at a distance, Liu Xiaoxiao patted her chest. “You scared me, Xinyue. That woman already killed you once, and you dared humiliate her like that!”

Gu Xinyue narrowed her eyes. The cleaners had been hired performers. Their ghost stories should keep Luo Xia awake tonight.

She looked intently at Liu Xiaoxiao. “Did you arrange everything at the hospital?”

Liu Xiaoxiao nodded and slipped an arm around her waist, adopting an exaggerated tone. “How could I deny any request from such an exquisite beauty?”

Later, after her shower, Gu Xinyue looked at the one patch of burned skin on her arm that had yet to be repaired. Her expression changed.

The sensation of having her uterus ripped from her body seemed to belong to yesterday: hands closing in, forceps and scissors entering her, cutting her five-month-old baby apart inside her body until blood and flesh became indistinguishable….

Even now, the memory brought cold sweat to her brow. But the old terror was gone. It no longer kept her awake or filled every night with nightmares.
She refused to use the tragedy inflicted upon her as a weapon against herself. She would bury the pain in her heart and forge it into a blade, one sharp enough to pierce those who had hurt her and condemn them beyond redemption.

She had barely dried herself when the door flew open.

Before Gu Xinyue could react, someone slammed her against the wall. A hand closed hard around her throat, cutting off her breath.

“Gu Cangbei, what are you doing?”

His pupils contracted. Rage roughened his voice. “I told you not to kill anyone. Did you think my warning meant nothing?”

“Daddy, don’t hurt her! Please don’t hurt her!” In his anger, Gu Cangbei had forgotten that Gu Yiman had come upstairs with him.

He released Gu Xinyue when he noticed her state of undress. She dressed as quickly as she could.

“Yiman, go into the bedroom. I need to speak to her.”

The child blinked up at him. “Are Daddy and Auntie going to do something only grown-ups do?”

At the sight of her innocent face, all Gu Cangbei’s anger drained away.

“Be good. Go inside.”

Gu Xinyue sat beside him, suddenly heartsore.

“The police know you’re alive.” His voice was calm, but barely concealed his fury. “Tell me why you killed them.”

Her eyes shifted. So Zhong Mingjiang and Luo Xia had indeed panicked and told the police about the past. Good. Let them dig their own graves.

“Why assume I killed anyone?”

“Who else could it be?”

At first, Gu Xinyue had planned to lure the pair into the forest and kill them. She had reluctantly abandoned that plan after his warning, but Gu Cangbei knew only the beginning of her scheme, not its end.

If Gu Xinyue had not killed Guan Nana and Yang Juhua, who had?

“Xinyue, revenge is one thing, but we cannot become criminals. We cannot kill. Do you understand?”

She had killed no one. Hearing him lecture her made something knot painfully inside.

“They can kill me. They can use any method they please against me, but I’m forbidden to strike back? I have to choose the slowest possible revenge? By what right, Gu Cangbei?”

He drew a deep breath. “Because you have a future. You have years ahead of you. When this is over, you can live well. You can find someone you love who loves you too….”

“Enough!” She rubbed her temples. “I didn’t kill anyone, and I don’t know who did. Spare me the sermon.”

“It wasn’t you?” Doubt entered his eyes.

“No.”

Guan Nana’s murder pointed directly at Luo Xia, who remained the police’s prime suspect.

Yang Juhua’s death pointed at both Luo Xia and Zhong Mingjiang.

Who besides Gu Xinyue hated those two enough to construct such a trap?

Everything suggested her hand, yet Gu Cangbei saw no trace of deception in her eyes. She had no reason to lie to him.

At the hospital, Luo Xia took her test results to a doctor.

Behind her mask, Liu Xiaoxiao recognized her immediately and narrowed her eyes.

As it happened, Liu Xiaoxiao was a nephrologist at that hospital.

“How bad is it?” Luo Xia asked, unable to hide her fear.

The moment she saw the report, dread had seized her.

“Your kidneys have begun to fail,” the doctor said with professional detachment. “There has been no improvement. Your condition is deteriorating.”

Luo Xia’s heart dropped into an abyss.

People were selfish. When they harmed others, they never imagined themselves in the victim’s place. Only when misfortune found them did they panic, flail helplessly, and howl at the injustice of fate.

Like a skinned rabbit, its bloody flesh exposed as it thrashed.

“The situation is urgent. You need a kidney transplant. Go home and discuss it with your family.”

Luo Xia left the hospital dizzy and disoriented.

The hospital could search for a donor, but there was no telling how long it would take, or whether any available organ would match. Her best hope was a blood relative.

Yang Juhua was dead. Who could give her a kidney now?

Her father’s identity was unknown.

After Yang Juhua’s husband died, she lost her mind completely. She had always been beautiful, and a beautiful madwoman wandering a village in disordered clothes could expect no mercy.

The village men restrained themselves for a time. Eventually, they banded together and violated her.

Then Luo Xia was born.

She had been abandoned at an orphanage almost immediately and suffered there throughout childhood.

Luo Xia dug her nails into her thigh. Her paralyzed leg felt nothing.

Now she had to find her biological father and convince him to surrender a kidney.

Only then could she live.

She traveled to the village and asked about the past. The villagers refused to say much. They told her only that Yang Juhua’s first husband died young, that the couple had a child who later disappeared, and that Yang Juhua somehow became pregnant again after his death. The new baby was sent to an orphanage. Beyond that, they claimed to know nothing.

“Please, tell me the truth,” Luo Xia begged the village chief. “How did Yang Juhua become pregnant after her husband died? I’ll pay. Name your price.”

He was determined to bury the scandal. “Who are you? Why do you care?”

Some unknown woman had appeared to dig into the village’s ugliest secret. If word spread, what woman would ever marry into the village again?

Luo Xia’s instincts told her the village chief was hiding something.