Chapter 6
Chapter 6
I splashed water over my face, rinsed my mouth, and forced myself to calm down before sitting again.
Wang Yu set a glass of warm water before me, guilt in his voice. “Tian, I’m sorry. My training failed me. I couldn’t keep your teacher’s illness under control.”
I was about to drink and wash away the nausea when a roar erupted behind me.
“You wretched girl! I’ll kill you!”
My father, He Zhiyuan, charged into the room without warning.
This time, I did not run.
As he lunged, I pivoted aside, caught his wrist, and used his momentum to wrench his arm behind him. Throwing my weight into the hold, I pinned him firmly to the floor.
I had spent years investigating alone while supporting myself and pursuing my studies. Without the ability to stop an attacker in one move, how could I have survived this long?
“You wretched girl! This is all your fault! Die! Just die!”
His teeth were clenched, his eyes bloodshot with hatred.
Wang Yu summoned the medical staff. They secured He Zhiyuan with restraints, stuffed gauze into his mouth, and prepared to take him away.
“Please don’t remove my father. I have questions for him.” I flexed my wrist and pointed to the nearby sofa.
Wang Yu blinked, then laughed. “Surely Dr. He isn’t planning to reason with a madman?”
“What if he isn’t mad?” I stared at Wang Yu.
“You think… he’s been faking it?” He looked incredulous.
“Could someone completely detached from reality and supposedly getting worse possess this much discipline, logic, and capacity for execution?
“Isn’t that right, Dad?”
He Zhiyuan made muffled sounds through the gauze, shaking his head violently, his eyes bulging with rage.
“Do you see?” I crouched before him. “All those books on clinical psychiatry and behavioral psychology weren’t wasted. You fooled everyone.
“I saw your eyes just now. They betrayed you, Dad.
“It wasn’t until I was on my way here that I understood why you killed Jingjing.
“That was how my sister died, wasn’t it?”
Tears spilled down my face. I fought past the sob in my throat. “Tell me why you did it.”
He Zhiyuan closed his eyes helplessly. Two muddy tears slid down his cheeks.
My accusation stunned Wang Yu. After two seconds, he said cautiously, “Tian, your post-traumatic stress disorder is flaring up again, isn’t it?
“I know you’ve carried the blame for your sister’s death and desperately want the truth. But you can’t decide your own father killed her just because he tortured a cat in a similar way…”
His words sent an icy shiver through me. Another possibility—one so absurd I could barely grasp it—surfaced in my mind.
And suddenly, everything made sense.
“But this is exactly the scene you wanted, isn’t it, Wang Yu?” I cut him off.
His expression shifted. “Tian, what are you talking about?”
“I saw you while reviewing the surveillance footage. You were careful, but you missed an old camera outside the corner shop at the end of the alley.
“You knew what my father was doing to Jingjing from the very first day.
“You installed a hidden camera at the scene and made that video for me.
“You wanted me to believe he was my sister’s killer.
“Didn’t you?”
Wang Yu heaved a long sigh and smiled bitterly.
“Tian, you’re too clever. No wonder Xu Yan chose you as his student.
“All these years, you’ve sacrificed everything to find the truth while your teacher fought desperately to bury it.
“Being caught between you and him has been painful. Part of me wanted you to know the truth and give your sister justice.
“But I couldn’t bear to expose him. He was my mentor and my closest older friend.
“Why force this confrontation and make him hate me?”
I gave a cold laugh. “Is that really the whole story?
“On the way here, I received the task force’s findings. Two people—not one—were on Lion Mountain the day my sister disappeared, close to my family, and familiar to her.
“Why were you on Lion Mountain that day, Wang Yu? And why did you join the search party at dawn on the fourth day, becoming one of the three people who found her body?”
I held his gaze.
“Two minutes ago, I was certain my father had killed my sister. Then you pretended to defend him while using that video to establish his guilt, and I remembered a concept from criminal psychology: leakage of guilty knowledge.”
I slammed the glass onto the desk. Water splashed over its surface.
Wang Yu’s eyelid twitched. “He Tian, your nerves are making you paranoid.”
“Are they? You warned me not to brand my father a murderer simply because the video showed him making a stray cat unable to swallow.
“But the original case report stated only that my sister died of multiple-organ failure caused by extreme dehydration. Everyone outside the investigation believed she became lost in an abandoned mine shaft and accidentally died of thirst.
“The grotesque detail—that she was too afraid to drink the water beside her and kept food in her mouth without swallowing—was deduced by Professor Xu only one week ago.
“So tell me: when I asked my father whether that was how my sister died, why weren’t you surprised?
“Why did you immediately insist that her death closely resembled the cat’s?”
Wang Yu went rigid. Every trace of color vanished from his face.
“When the whole world believes you’re guilty, only two people know you are innocent—you and the true culprit.
“A criminal-investigation lecturer taught me that during my years in forensic medicine.
“Everyone abandoned me. You alone stood beside me and never blamed me once.
“By itself, that would have meant nothing. But added to everything else… it becomes a problem.”
I stared coldly into his translucent, bloodless face.