Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Time rewinds to half an hour earlier.

The victim’s neighbor across the hall was named Chen Yin. Over thirty, he was the head of a small-to-medium-sized tech innovation company that had begun making a name for itself in the industry over the past few years. By any measure, he was young and accomplished.

We met him at his home.

Chen Yin was handsome, mild-mannered, and polite. He wore a pair of narrow-framed glasses and did indeed look exceptionally intelligent. When he spoke, his brows would lower slightly, giving him an air of steadiness and reliability.

He did not seem too surprised by our visit. He had apparently expected it.

Chen Yin was closely connected to both the suspect and the victim. In fact, the suspect had turned himself in after Chen Yin persuaded him to do so.

At that moment, Chen Yin could barely conceal his grief, but he still tried hard to compose himself and answered our questions meticulously.

I have always liked speaking with rational people. At first, this visit went very smoothly.

The strange part was that after he mentioned a seemingly irrelevant little matter, he suddenly became a different person.

He grew dazed and terrified. Then, unable to withstand the blow, he took his own life on the spot.

The case had only just landed in our hands. Although the suspect had basically been identified, there were still many points of doubt. Now that a witness was dead, there were even more.

Now, let us look at Chen Yin’s testimony.

Chen Yin’s testimony-

Hello, officers. Please, have a seat.

Yes, I had known the victim for a long time.

His name was He Zhili. He was the same age as me. We were from the same hometown, classmates in elementary school, and attended the same middle school.

I only recently remembered that we had gone to the same middle school too. We were not close back then. We merely knew each other, and I never paid him much attention.

As a child, I was rather shy. I did not like dealing with people.

My hometown is in Xishan County. It is a small place with a lot of social obligations. My parents’ generation all had good relationships with one another, but by our generation, those ties had grown thin.

After graduating, I came to this city to start my business and settle down. I can count on one hand the number of times I have gone back home. My company has now been established for seven years, and everything is on the right track.

My wife’s name is Zhong Ran. She was my employee. After working together for a long time, we developed feelings for each other.

At the beginning of last year, Zhong Ran and I got married.

We were very happy together. We had originally planned to have a child this year.

…

He Zhili moved here half a year ago.

Six months ago, my mother back home contacted me and said that the He family’s son was also coming to this city to develop his career. Since we were old classmates, she told me to welcome him and treat him to a meal so we could look out for each other in the future.

At first, I did not want to. Even now, I still do not like dealing with people. At work, I have no choice. Besides, He Zhili and I were never close to begin with.

But in the end, I agreed.

Because I heard he was a lawyer, and a very capable one. He had transferred over from a well-known law firm in Chengzhou City.

There is never any harm in having one more lawyer friend. I am a businessman, so sometimes I think in rather utilitarian terms.

He Zhili’s personality was the complete opposite of mine. He was cheerful, outgoing, and acted familiar with people right away. As for his looks, he was the type women tend to like.

But that sunny smile of his, to be honest, made me very uncomfortable.

Still, there was no awkward silence at all when we ate together. It was as if we truly were old friends reunited after many years apart.

At the end, when I went to pay the bill, I discovered he had already settled it. Under those circumstances, when he suggested dropping by my home for a while, I felt too embarrassed to refuse.

After visiting my home, He Zhili thought the residential complex was excellent. The layout was square and practical, the environment was beautiful, and although it was far from the city center, the transportation was convenient.

He had just arrived here and had not rented a place yet, so he decided to rent in our complex.

The rent in our complex is on the higher side, and quite a few units were available. The unit directly across from mine was one of them.

When I first heard him say he wanted to live in the same complex, I already felt very uncomfortable. I believe people should keep a proper distance from one another.

But he truly had no sense of boundaries. He rented the unit right across from mine.

Zhong Ran also felt he was far too intrusive.

Zhong Ran’s personality is very similar to mine. She is more reserved and does not like people who are too flashy.

But this was a transaction between He Zhili and the owner of the unit across from us, so we could not say much.

And so He Zhili became our neighbor.

The city is not like our hometown, where every household leaves its door open. Once the front door is shut, privacy can still be maintained.

Even so, He Zhili still invaded our lives.

For example, on weekends, he would go fishing in the countryside nearby and then bring us a fish in the evening. Zhong Ran did not want it, but he would insist on forcing it on us.

Another weekend, he went hiking and dug up bamboo shoots. Again, without taking no for an answer, he brought over a bundle of them.

Zhong Ran is not good at refusing people, and she also dislikes taking advantage of others, so she could only worry over how to repay those favors.

He Zhili also often came knocking on our door asking for help. Sometimes he borrowed a tape measure, sometimes a pair of scissors.

After enough times, we had more or less repaid the favors, but he had also become even more annoying.

I am busy with work and often work overtime. I also have to travel for business a few days every week, so I am not home most of the time. He Zhili, however, had a flexible job and plenty of free time.

Because of health issues, Zhong Ran stopped working in the office after we got married and had been working from home ever since. Whenever she was focused on work and suddenly heard a knock at the door, she would always be startled.

She is timid by nature. After being disturbed by He Zhili several times, she became somewhat neurasthenic in the end and told me she wanted to move.

It was not exactly a major issue, and moving was not realistic. Besides, he was from our hometown after all, and I did not want to make things too awkward.

So I tactfully told He Zhili that if he needed anything, he should come directly to me.

After that, He Zhili restrained himself somewhat. He stopped bothering Zhong Ran in daily life and would occasionally invite me to go fishing with him on weekends.

But Zhong Ran was still frightened whenever she saw him. If she spotted him walking toward us from a distance, she would grab my arm and make me take a detour.

At first, I thought my wife and he were simply incompatible by nature.

But from a certain day onward, their relationship began to feel strangely delicate.

That day, when I got home, I found Zhong Ran wasn’t there. I called her several times, but she didn’t answer.

Frantic, I was about to go out and look for her.

The moment I opened the door, the door across from ours opened too.

Zhong Ran walked out of He Zhili’s apartment with her head lowered, then hurried back into our home.

Her cheeks were still a little red.

He Zhili stood in his entryway, his face swallowed by the shadows, making it impossible to read his expression. He looked up and saw me, greeted me, then closed the door.

I found it strange. Why had Zhong Ran gone to He Zhili’s place?

Zhong Ran explained that He Zhili had recently taken on a divorce case. His client was the wife, and her mental state wasn’t very good, which made communication difficult. He thought having another woman talk to her might make things go more smoothly, so he had asked Zhong Ran to help comfort her over the phone.

He Zhili knew we didn’t like outsiders coming into our home, so he had asked Zhong Ran to go over to his place instead.

I opened WeChat and scrolled down, and saw a message He Zhili had sent two hours earlier.

He had indeed told me in advance, and it was the same explanation Zhong Ran had given. The message had been pushed to the bottom by other work messages, and I’d missed it.

I didn’t ask anything else. The matter passed just like that.

But later, I caught them in similar situations twice more. Each time, they had perfectly proper-sounding reasons.

She said she had learned a lot from He Zhili about our hometown, and about what I had been like as a child. She was happy to hear that I had been outstanding even when I was young.

In short, it was all supposedly about the matter at hand. As for the issue of a man and a woman being alone together in the same room, she didn’t seem to realize there was anything wrong with it.

I could also clearly feel that her attitude toward He Zhili had changed.

Before, she had been both afraid of and annoyed by He Zhili. But after interacting with him more, those feelings disappeared.

If she saw him on the road, she no longer deliberately avoided him.

I knew He Zhili’s personality wasn’t actually unpleasant. It was just that Zhong Ran was timid and sensitive, and hadn’t been used to him at first.

Being with someone as dull as me had made Zhong Ran even more subdued. By contrast, He Zhili, who was sunny and cheerful, seemed to complement her better. I couldn’t help thinking that.

I didn’t want to suspect Zhong Ran.

She loved me very much, and she had a strong sense of morality and justice. I believed she would never betray our marriage.

And He Zhili was also a married man. His wife was still in Chengzhou. She wasn’t in good health and was recuperating, so she hadn’t come with him for the time being.

Every time He Zhili mentioned his wife, his eyes were filled with love. He didn’t seem like that kind of person either.

But I kept thinking back to the first time I’d seen Zhong Ran coming out of He Zhili’s apartment.

Why had her face been red when she walked out that day?

I didn’t expose anything. I didn’t dig deeper. I continued working as usual and going on business trips as usual.

I believe that in relationships between people, whether in business or between husband and wife, the most important thing is to maintain harmony.

With some matters, once you insist on getting to the bottom of things and tear away all pretense, it might feel satisfying in the moment, but the relationship will also be ruined.

Although I don’t like dealing with people, I’m actually quite good at it.

Perhaps I don’t have as distinct a personality as He Zhili, the kind that leaves people with an enthusiastic, positive impression the first time they meet him. But the people I befriend are all willing to stay in touch with me long-term. On one hand, they think I’m steady and capable. More importantly, they value my character.

Only friendships as plain as water can last. One should also handle matters with composure, without making things too intense or too ugly. Given time, things often find their own resolution.

Though I didn’t point it out directly, that didn’t mean I would allow those suspicious situations to keep happening. Whether there was anything between them or not, it was always inappropriate for them to meet alone.

Zhong Ran was smart. All I needed to do was hint at it, and she understood. She began consciously distancing herself from He Zhili.

After that, we lived in peace for a while.

Until this week, when something suddenly changed.

On Monday, when I got home, I saw Zhong Ran washing something in the kitchen. She was so focused that she didn’t notice I had come back.

I walked over, and she jumped, whipping around abruptly.

That was when I saw she was washing a bone cleaver. There were bloodstains on it.

I noticed her panicked expression and asked what was wrong. She hemmed and hawed, saying it was nothing, that she had just chopped some pork bones.

She was timid and often startled easily. Since I was preparing for a business trip the next day, I didn’t think too much of it.

While packing my luggage, I realized my power bank was missing. I had lent it to He Zhili when we went fishing the day before. So I sent him a WeChat message, reminding him to return it.

On Tuesday, I left early in the morning.

The message I sent the day before still hadn’t received a reply.

Before going downstairs, I stopped for a moment in front of He Zhili’s door.

I noticed a spider hanging down from the ceiling, swaying in midair. It drifted onto his door, then crawled away.

Because it was too early, I didn’t knock on his door. Besides, it wasn’t anything important.

On Friday afternoon, which was yesterday, I returned from my business trip and found Zhong Ran in an even worse state.

She was terrified and unsettled, as if her soul had left her body. Even her speech was incoherent.

He Zhili still hadn’t replied to the message I had sent on Monday.

I knocked on He Zhili’s door, but there was no response.

In the dim light, I noticed something reflecting a faint glimmer.

It turned out to be the strand of spider silk that had fallen from the ceiling and stuck to the door. It was still there.

If that door had opened even once, the strand would have snapped. In other words, He Zhili’s door had not been opened for the past several days.

-He Zhili had not gone out to work from Tuesday to Friday.

Combined with Zhong Ran’s reaction, I already had a terrible premonition. I hurriedly turned around, went home, and confronted Zhong Ran.

Zhong Ran’s mind was already on the verge of collapse. She didn’t hold out for long before confessing to me-she had killed He Zhili.

She explained it all incoherently. She said that after she deliberately distanced herself from He Zhili, he behaved himself for a while, but soon went right back to how he had been, coming to find her every so often.

After the neighbors ran into them a few times, they started pointing fingers and gossiping.

Zhong Ran felt wronged and helpless. She couldn’t accept He Zhili interfering with her life, with her marriage, anymore.

That Monday, He Zhili kept pounding on our door. It looked like he was about to draw the attention of the neighbors upstairs and downstairs again.

Zhong Ran was furious. All the emotions she had suppressed for months finally erupted.

She opened our door and went to He Zhili’s apartment.

She said her mind was completely blank at the time. She didn’t know what He Zhili wanted from her, and she couldn’t hear a word he said.

The world in front of her became horribly distorted, and even her body seemed beyond her control.

By the time she came back to herself, Zhong Ran realized He Zhili was lying on the floor, and she was holding a bloodstained fruit knife.

She couldn’t explain how things had ended up that way, so she hurried back home.

Later, she took a bone cleaver and returned to the scene…

When I got home from work, I saw her in a state of complete panic.

That is what happened this Monday.

Officers, everything above is an objective statement based entirely on the facts.

But I am Zhong Ran’s husband. I can’t possibly stand completely outside of this.

I know the consequences my wife caused can no longer be undone, but I still hope you will fully consider the causes and circumstances leading up to it.

Perhaps from an outsider’s perspective, these were all trivial, petty things, and her motive seems ridiculous. To be honest, after she confessed everything to me, I was shocked too.

She was clearly such a frail, timid woman, yet simply because she was sick of a neighbor’s frequent contact, she gradually accumulated such enormous pain and hatred that the more restrained she was in ordinary times, the more extreme she became at the critical moment.

As her husband, I failed to discover the problem earlier. I truly feel guilty.

Looking back over these past two years, our life was very happy, but in truth, that was only on the surface.

I was very busy with work. Most of my energy went into my career, while she not only fought alongside me for that career, but also took care of my daily life.

There was very little communication between us, but we had a tacit understanding-or rather, my wife was the one accommodating me unilaterally.

She was always smiling gently, quietly arranging everything for me. And I accepted it all as a matter of course. I also took it for granted that such a considerate, gentle wife could take care of herself and didn’t need much concern from me.

I never imagined she was under so much mental pressure.

Now that I think about it, the signs were actually there before we got married.

We were superior and subordinate. Back when we got together, there was a lot of gossip in the company.

She had always kept a low profile. During that period, she endured too many stares and didn’t know what to do with herself for a while.

I warned the employees at the company, and when I got home, I also told her not to care about other people’s opinions, and that we should just do our own work well.

I only touched on it briefly. Once I’d said it, I moved on. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to such a minor matter.

But she had never truly let it go. Everyone’s scrutiny and criticism made her more and more silent.

Not long after we married, Zhong Ran fell ill.

To let her recover properly, I told her to rest at home and not go to work.

But she couldn’t feel at ease letting her colleagues take on her work, and she didn’t want special treatment.

In the end, we reached an agreement: she wouldn’t be required to sit in the office and would work from home instead.

She didn’t want to trouble anyone else. She always silently digested her own pain, and once she recovered, she returned to being optimistic and motivated.

But her mind was actually very fragile and sensitive. Perhaps she had never truly gotten through it at all-only now have I realized that.

She was always smiling, but psychologically, there had long been a problem, and that was what led to this terrible mistake.

After the incident on Monday, she also didn’t want to trouble me, so she didn’t tell me immediately and chose to face it alone.

She used He Zhili’s phone to request leave from the law firm, dealt with the body in his bathroom, and finally managed to clean He Zhili’s apartment.

That step was terribly, terribly wrong.

With her clumsy handling of the situation, there was no way she could destroy the body and erase all traces. Once He Zhili disappeared, his parents back in his hometown, his wife in Chengzhou, and the law firm could not possibly just let it go.

The police have advanced investigative techniques. You would be able to uncover the truth very quickly.

And her act of dismembering the body would only make the circumstances more serious.

Now that it has happened, nothing can be changed. The only option is to turn herself in as soon as possible and strive for leniency.

Yesterday, I comforted her the entire night. I told her I would accompany her today to turn herself in, and that whatever difficulties there were, we would face them together. I only fell asleep near dawn, when I couldn’t hold out any longer.

But when I woke up this morning, the person beside me was already gone.

Zhong Ran didn’t wake me. She went by herself.

By then, the police had already been dispatched. It was noisy outside, and a police cordon had been put up across the hall.

Then the two of you came to find me.

That is the entire process.

Officer Lu, my wife is a very gentle and kind woman. She has a strong sense of morality and justice, and she is timid by nature. She had never done anything bad before.

Previously, I suspected that she and He Zhili were having an affair, but that was actually only out of a subtle jealousy toward another man. As for Zhong Ran, deep down, I had always trusted her.

If she hadn’t been mentally repressed for so long, if she hadn’t been forced to a certain point, she absolutely would never have done something like this.

I hope you will fully consider my wife’s psychological state, as well as the fact that she turned herself in, and treat her with leniency.