Miss Forensics – Chapter 66

Volume One: First Scroll

Finale

I will not let the woman I love die.

“Bang—” The gunshot echoed in the empty hallway.

Police sirens wailed.

A group of fully armed Special Police officers rushed in, splashing through the standing water. Duan Cheng, looking completely devastated¹, lowered his gun. The child had already disappeared at the end of the hallway.

In that instant, he had pulled the trigger, but ultimately, he was off by an inch.

Duan Cheng covered his face and knelt in the knee-deep water, wailing loudly, “Captain Zhang, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I…”

“Captain Zhang, Captain Zhang, hang on! Hang on!” Fang Xin’s clothes were soaked with the blood that kept pouring out. Before they could even lift him onto the stretcher, Zhang Jinhai’s arm slipped down.

Zheng Chengrui took off his glasses, covered his face, and turned away, choking back sobs.

Everyone else remained silent; only Fang Xin was still crying softly.

A Special Police officer stepped forward and closed his eyes, which had not yet shut in death. Then, he took off his own police uniform, covered him with it, and raised his right hand.

“Hero, farewell!”²

The journey back felt so long. Even though their arrival had been thrilling and dangerous, the group had been joking around.

His instructions still seemed to ring in their ears: “This is how you wear a bulletproof vest. Tie this part tight so it doesn’t come off easily. This is a matter of life and death…”

How, in the blink of an eye, could he be lying here so quietly?

Duan Cheng, Fang Xin, Zheng Chengrui, and a few Special Police officers carried him out. Police cars and ambulances were already waiting, but it was too late, too late.

The group carried Zhang Jinhai’s body through the crowd. The criminal police officers lining both sides of the path raised their right hands in unison, including Feng Jianguo standing in the training room and the technical staff remaining at the city bureau.

Zhang Jinhai’s wife and daughter pushed through the crowd and rushed over.

He had been right; his daughter was indeed about the same age as that child. She had her Gaokao next year, but he would never see the day she got into university.

The girl cried her heart out³: “Dad! Dad! Didn’t you say you’d send me to Beijing for university next year? Didn’t you say you’d get off work early this afternoon and cook for me?! Dad, Dad, say something…”

“Doesn’t Old Zhang not usually do field work? How did he… how…” Zhang Jinhai’s wife, tears streaming down her face, grabbed their arms one by one, questioning them.

Fang Xin turned away, crying so hard he was out of breath.

“Tell me! Say something!!!” Zhang Jinhai’s wife went to shake Duan Cheng’s shoulders again.

But no one could answer her question now. How could they face a wife and daughter who had just lost their husband and father, and tell them he had his throat slit by a child about the same age as his own daughter, a single fatal cut?

Even more cruelly, he hadn’t been able to kill his enemy with his own hands.

Duan Cheng stood crying in the rain. This downpour also washed away his boyish immaturity; his eyes began to show the sharpness and weariness of a man.

---

The moment that girl ran in, both Song Yuhang and Lin Yan moved.

It was just that Lin Yan sensed the approaching danger and subconsciously pushed her out, while Song Yuhang felt someone rush in from behind the door—not one of their own—and instinctively used a takedown move, grabbing the opponent’s neck.

By the time they both came to their senses, the dark muzzle of a gun was already pressed against her temple.

Li Yang was holding Song Yuhang’s service pistol that had fallen on the ground, while she, holding the other’s gun, had it pressed against the little girl’s forehead.

Lin Yan gasped for breath, choked to the point of suffocation. She looked at Song Yuhang and managed to force out a few words, “Quick… go… don’t… worry about me…”

As soon as she finished speaking, she was struck in the back with a gun butt, doubling over. Blood seeped from her mouth and nose. “Keh keh…”

Song Yuhang’s eyes were wide with fury, as if they would split⁴; she wished she could grit her teeth and tear him apart⁵. “Let. Her. Go.”

Li Yang looked at the little girl in her hands, then at the group of Special Police officers behind her, everyone’s guns aimed squarely at him.

He dragged Lin Yan backward step by step. “Let her go? Would you let me go? No. I never expected to live to see this day. If I die, I’m taking someone with me!”

The little girl in Song Yuhang’s arms also seemed extremely uncomfortable from being choked. She stretched out her arm, trying to reach Li Yang. “Dad…”

Li Yang panted, blood from his forehead trickling down, smearing his already ugly face until it was changed beyond recognition.

Lin Yan’s entire face was turning purple from his grip, not to mention the gun pressed against her head that could go off at any moment.

Song Yuhang was trembling all over. Her hand was gradually going numb; she had no idea how much force she was using. The girl struggled, trying to pry her wrist away.

For a fleeting moment, Song Yuhang wanted to snap her neck.

Seeing the situation was bad, the Special Police captain took an inconspicuous step and whispered in her ear, “Lure him towards the window. The sniper is on standby.”

Song Yuhang took two deep breaths, pressed the gun against the girl’s temple, and twisted it slightly. “You want to die, but you don’t want her to live either?”

Li Yang’s throat moved. A fierce glint suddenly flashed in his eyes. He pressed the muzzle against Lin Yan’s shoulder and fired. No one had expected him to shoot so suddenly.

When the gunshot rang out, Song Yuhang’s eyes instantly reddened. A spray of blood bloomed in her vision.

She almost fell to her knees along with Lin Yan, if not for the hostage still in her hand.

Even so, her mental state was on the verge of collapse. Tears streaming, she slightly squeezed the trigger, roaring along with Li Yang.

“Don’t touch her! Don’t touch her! F#ck!!! I told you not to touch her! Believe it or not, I’ll kill her!!!”

The muzzle grazed the girl’s temple, drawing blood.

Several Special Police officers lunged forward, prying at her wrist. “Captain Song, Captain Song, don’t shoot! This is against regulations…”

Li Yang, also consumed by a killing frenzy, roared, “Shoot! Shoot! Coward! I don’t care if she lives or dies! If you have the guts, then shoot! At worst, we’ll all go down together, a lose-lose situation!”⁶

One of Lin Yan’s arms hung limply. Her hair was being pulled, the gun muzzle pressed to her temple, swaying with Li Yang’s movements as he spoke.

Because of the close-range shot, shrapnel⁷ was embedded in her flesh, her skin split and flesh gaping.

“Keh keh…” Blood foamed at the corner of her lips, but she still looked up at Song Yuhang.

“He… he’s right… Song Yuhang… if you’re still a cop… shoot!” She suddenly bit out the words, and another mouthful of congealed blood gushed out.

Lin Yan paused for a moment, their gazes meeting in the dimness. She saw Song Yuhang’s face streaked with tears, the hand holding the gun trembling slightly.

Lin Yan was satisfied. “Kill him… help… help me and… and Chunan get revenge…”

In that instant, it was as if time and space swirled.

Song Yuhang was completely trapped in a dilemma.

“Yuhang… kill him! Take care of your Saozi⁸…” The scene from seven years ago replayed before her eyes.

Lin Yan’s figure gradually overlapped with Song Yichen’s⁹, and Li Yang’s face transformed into that of the drug dealer, reappearing in her nightmares night after night.

The same extreme viciousness, the same utter derangement, the same way they had seized her greatest weakness in this life.

The gun, which she had managed to hold steady with great difficulty, began to tremble again.

Song Yuhang shook her head desperately, biting her tongue until she tasted blood.

She looked at the frenzied Li Yang, then at the dying Lin Yan, still holding the girl by the neck. But her gun muzzle shifted again and again. She staggered back a few steps and was steadied by a teammate.

“No… no… Lin Yan… Lin Yan… I can’t do it… I can’t…”

This was the first time she had ever admitted her weakness.

Lin Yan cried, tilting her head back desperately to force the tears back. “Song Yuhang…”

She called her name, but the words that came out were harsh and cruel, “You really are inferior to men, inferior in every way!”

Lin Yan gasped, enduring the pain, clenching her jaw to stay conscious. “How could I… could I like a coward like you… If you… if you don’t want me to hate you and curse you for the rest of my life… you f#cking shoot!!! I can still… still…”

Lin Yan slowly closed her eyes. “…remember some good things about you.”

Song Yuhang panted heavily, her chest heaving. The slippery mix of blood and sweat in her palm made it almost impossible to hold the gun.

She and Li Yang were like two desperate beasts, tearing at each other with their eyes.

Li Yang aimed the gun at Lin Yan’s temple, and Song Yuhang also slightly tightened her finger on the trigger.

If she pressed it, everything would turn to dust.

Without a hostage, Li Yang would surely die, and Lin Yan would also leave her, disappearing into thin air.

The time she had known Lin Yan was so short, just two seasons, yet in this instant, all their past moments—whether arguments, fights, or jealousy—became incredibly clear and seemed to stretch on endlessly.

Lin Yan’s warmth still lingered on her forehead.

The marks from Lin Yan’s bite were still on her lips.

If she pulled the trigger, all of this would cease to exist.

Song Yuhang’s lips trembled. She felt that even before firing the gun, her heart had already died.

The kind of utter despair that comes after being torn to pieces, repeatedly trampled, then thrown into a furnace and reduced to ashes.

However, Lin Yan’s gaze was so gentle yet firm. She had never looked at her this way before; the first time was now, at a time like this. Tears streamed down Lin Yan’s face, her expressive eyes seeming to say: Song Yuhang, thank you. I don’t hate you. And… I like you.

How could anyone refuse such a Lin Yan?

Whether smiling, crying, happy, angry, dazzlingly beautiful, or cold and harsh…

Song Yuhang couldn’t refuse any of it. She couldn’t, and she wouldn’t.

Immense sorrow welled up in those light brown eyes. Biting her lip, tears streaming, she pulled the trigger along with Li Yang.

The girl’s eyes widened in terror, tears streaming from the corners as she screamed, “Dad—!”

It was that single “Dad.”

“Bang—”

Song Yuhang’s gun pointed at the ceiling, while Li Yang’s arm dropped limply.

Lin Yan gasped, eyes squeezed shut, but the searing pain she expected didn’t come.

“Song Yuhang, shoot! Shoot!” She struggled, only to be pulled up again, dragged backward by the neck.

“Captain Song, Director Feng is on the line.” A criminal police officer handed her a walkie-talkie from behind.

Song Yuhang took it. Feng Jianguo had already arrived outside the hospital and was striding down from the command vehicle.

“Li Yang, listen carefully—”

Song Yuhang put it on speakerphone. His authoritative and somewhat pained voice came through.

“I am Feng Jianguo, Director of the Jiangcheng Public Security Bureau and the supreme commander on site. As long as you release the hostage, we will not harm your daughter.”

Li Yang dragged Lin Yan backward step by step. Out of the operating room, there was a staircase. He pulled Lin Yan up it, step by step, while Song Yuhang, holding the little girl, pressed close behind.

As Li Yang walked, he pointed the gun at Lin Yan’s head. “Back off, all of you, back off!”

Song Yuhang raised a hand, and the others stayed below. Only she, escorting the little girl, followed him up.

She licked her lips and looked at Lin Yan. “You might not believe my words, but you should believe Director Feng’s. As long as you release her, we won’t harm this little girl.”

The two exchanged a look of tacit understanding. Song Yuhang’s face was expressionless, but Lin Yan’s lips curved slightly.

Li Yang slammed open the rooftop door with his back, the gun in his hand trembling as he pointed it at her. “How do I know if you’re telling the truth or not?!”

“If I were lying, I would have shot just now,” Song Yuhang said, pushing the little girl out into the rain as well.

She tilted her head, looking at Lin Yan. Now that no one else was around, she could freely express her love.

“I love her, no less than you love this child. You wouldn’t let her die, and by the same token, I won’t let the woman I love die.”

The heavy rain washed over her wounds, bringing waves of pain but also a moment of clarity to her mind.

Song Yuhang felt she could finally think a little straighter.

“Li Yang, you’re already at death’s door¹⁰, but she’s still young. She still has a chance to start over. Haven’t you been tirelessly searching for a kidney source for her all these years, hoping to give her a new life?”

“Dad—don’t listen to her! They’re all liars! Cops are no good! Hurry and go!” Weakened, the girl’s face turned deathly pale as she screamed herself hoarse in the wind and rain.

Song Yuhang didn’t stop her; this was exactly what she wanted.

“Binoculars.” Feng Jianguo held out his hand, asking a subordinate for binoculars, and looked up at the rooftop.

The sniper also adjusted his position, aiming his scope at them, but because Lin Yan was constantly in front of Li Yang, he couldn’t pull the trigger.

Through the binoculars, Li Yang was roaring hysterically, “Shut up! Don’t call me Dad! I’m not your dad! Your dad f#cking died long ago! You’re just a burden¹¹, a little b#stard¹² that nobody wants!”

During the long years they had spent relying on each other, hiding and fleeing, Li Yang had been hot and cold towards her. This wasn’t the first time he’d had such a hysterical outburst.

When he was happy, he would stroke her face and call her, “Little princess.”

When he was unhappy, he would kick her hard, call her a little b#stard, and tell her to die.

The girl had gotten used to it, becoming obedient to his every word.

But even so, hearing him say this didn’t mean she wasn’t hurt at all.

Compared to his frenzy, Song Yuhang was much calmer. She had already pulled herself out of that state, even though her heart was still burning with anxiety.

The scales of victory began to tip.

“If that’s the case, you should have just abandoned her from the start. Why keep her by your side all this time? Isn’t it a bit late for regrets now? Or perhaps, you still have a shred of human conscience left? Your brother abandoned you in the mine and ran, but Yu Xinye saved you. You want to repay his kindness, right?”

“Shut up! You shut up!” Li Yang panted heavily, backing away. He stepped on some rebar and concrete piled on the rooftop and stumbled.

Lin Yan’s wound was still bleeding. Dragged by him, she was on the verge of death, but her eyes would still open from time to time to glance at Song Yuhang, showing she was still alive.

Song Yuhang was the first to lower her gun, though she still held onto the girl. “I don’t know what exactly happened to you down there, but just for the fact that you know how to repay kindness, I respect you as a man.”

“Twenty years of relying on each other. Forget raising a person, even raising a dog for that long, you’d have feelings for it, right? You’ve committed countless crimes, but she’s still young. Does she really have to be buried here with you?”

“Li Yang, if she dies, can you face Yu Xinye’s last wish? Can you face your good brother? He traded his life for yours! Without him, forget living an extra twenty years, would you even be standing here now?!”

Amidst Song Yuhang’s persuasive yet cruel words, everything that happened in the mine twenty years ago replayed vividly in his mind.

---

“I heard there’s only one spot for the educated youth to return to the city this time. The next batch will have to wait another three years.”

“Ah, I don’t have any connections back home, and I haven’t earned enough work points¹³. I guess it’s hopeless for me.”

“If you ask me, among our batch, the Li brothers came the earliest and can endure the most hardship. I wonder which one of them will go back.”

“Hmph, anyway, they’re two brothers, it’s the same whoever goes, right Li Hai?”

A companion nudged Li Hai. Li Hai wiped his sweat, glanced at his younger brother working not far away, then at the dark, filthy mine shaft around them and the blisters on his palm. His eyes darkened.

“Go, go, get to work!”

When the mine accident happened, Li Hai was the first to notice. The basket for tin ore on the ground was trembling slightly.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead, stopped working, and suddenly a small rock fell from above, hitting his foot.

As he watched, his pupils suddenly contracted. He threw down his pickaxe and ran towards the exit, grabbing Li Yang and Yu Xinye along the way, pushing them out.

“Quick, go!”

It all happened in an instant; it was too late.

Li Hai let go of Li Yang’s hand, while Yu Xinye instinctively shielded this “younger brother” from the city.

“Ge¹⁴!” Li Yang’s voice was swallowed by the darkness.

Three days later.

“Keh keh…” Yu Xinye’s hand was crushed numb by a boulder, half of his body had lost sensation.

“Yu-ge, Yu-ge, hang in there…” When the mine roof collapsed, Yu Xinye had pushed Li Yang beneath him. Li Yang was unharmed and crawled out from the rubble, feeding Yu Xinye water from the flask he carried.

Li Hai crawled over and pulled him. “Li Yang, Li Yang, Didi¹⁵, over there, there’s light over there! Let’s go see if we can dig through…”

Li Yang wiped away his tears and placed the water flask beside Yu Xinye. “Okay, Ge, the three of us have to get out together.”

Yu Xinye heard them and called out, his voice drawn out, “Hey, what do you guys want to do when you get out? I really miss my wife right now, a wife, kids, and a warm kang…”

Li Hai had luckily escaped with only a few scrapes, and was digging at the earth with a rock he’d found.

“Get a master’s in medicine, then a doctorate, work in a big hospital, marry a beautiful wife, get rich, never have to work again, or put up with the production team leader’s crap¹⁶.”

“Li Yang, what about you?”

“I…” Li Yang’s digging paused. Li Hai thought of the hardships of the remote countryside, but Li Yang thought of the clear rivers and streams here, the blue skies and white clouds on sunny days, the cattle and sheep running freely on the grasslands, the simple villagers like Auntie Yu, and the shy girls with rosy cheeks.

“I… I’ll start a pig farm. I want to eat meat, I want everyone to get rich, so no one has to suffer anymore.”

Yu Xinye, though trapped for three days, was still in relatively good spirits. Hearing this, he burst out laughing.

“Good! Then I’ll be your worker, you be the boss, and we’ll get rich together.”

The fifth day.

Li Hai’s water flask was empty. He went to take Li Yang’s, but Li Yang snatched it back.

“Ge, leave this water for Yu-ge to drink.”

Li Hai licked his chapped lips. “Damn it, I don’t have an ounce of strength left! If we don’t have the strength to work, we’ll all die here!”

Yu Xinye lay on the ground, his face covered in dust, the other half of his body also going numb. He wanted to speak but couldn’t.

“Ge!” Li Yang tried to grab the flask.

Li Hai uncapped it, gulped down the water, wiped his lips, and threw the flask on the ground.

“Li Yang, are you possessed?! I’m your brother! Yu Xinye is almost done for! Only the two of us can still move, only we can get out of here alive! Go! Come dig with me!!!”

“No, I’m not going! Let go of me!”

“You’re not going, are you? Are you?!” Li Hai dragged the pickaxe, pacing back and forth, roaring like a wild beast.

“Then you can just wait here to die!”

Li Yang initially thought he was joking. Who knew that two days later, when their food and water ran out, Li Hai left under the cover of night.

Li Yang chased after him, only to find the opening they had painstakingly dug blocked by a large rock again.

He ran back crying, “Yu-ge, Yu-ge, what do we do? We can’t get out! My brother… he abandoned me…”

Yu Xinye’s only movable left hand trembled as it gripped Li Yang’s wrist. His voice was intermittent, “Don’t… don’t cry… Yu-ge is here… Didi… promise me something…”

Li Yang wiped his tears, cupping his hand under Yu Xinye’s head for support. “Brother… Brother, tell me…”

The hand gripping his wrist tightened. “Take care of your… your Saozi… and… and my girl… If you have time, go see… see Auntie Yu… She’s old… her legs aren’t good… You help Brother… help Brother take care of her a bit…”

Li Yang nodded repeatedly, tears falling.

Yu Xinye’s hand fumbled for the sickle they had used to dig earth a few days before. Although Li Hai had left, he had still left them tools.

He grasped it, smiled, clutched it in his palm, and with a sudden jerk of his hand, blood gushed out.

Li Yang lunged forward, pressing on the wound. “Brother! Brother!”

Yu Xinye’s face was deathly pale. He managed a weak smile. “Don’t waste it… hurry, drink.”

Later, Li Yang’s memories of those dark days became blurred, but he always remembered one phrase: “eating raw and drinking blood”¹⁷.

He didn’t remember how long he had been in there. Starving and freezing, instinct drove him to drink Yu Xinye’s blood. At first, it was warm, then it gradually grew cold, and later, his body began to rot.

And Li Yang finally crawled out, neither human nor ghost, changed beyond recognition.

The simple villagers wouldn’t even spare him a sip of water. When they saw him, they ran, shouting, “A ghost!”

Including the girl at the village entrance who had liked him. So he killed her.

He swore he didn’t mean to; he just wanted to teach her a lesson¹⁸. Who knew that when he came to his senses, she was no longer breathing.

Li Yang, utterly devastated, ran a couple of steps, but then turned back to rummage through her belongings for anything valuable.

Afterward, he ran to Yu Xinye’s house, but it was long deserted. Demolition workers drove him away.

“Are you crazy?! Where did this lunatic come from? Get lost!”

He found Yu Jing¹⁹ in a garbage heap behind the Yu family’s house. The swaddling clothes were tattered, the baby’s face was pale and bluish, and she was barely breathing.

Li Yang used all the money he had scrounged from the girl to buy milk powder. Sitting under a bridge, he fed her bit by bit with a baby bottle he’d picked from a trash pile.

From that day on, his twenty years of wandering with Yu Jing began, day in and day out.

Later, he also took Yu Jing to find Auntie Yu. The old woman, having suffered successive blows, was already like a candle flickering in the wind in her declining years²⁰, lying in bed coughing incessantly. The dilapidated thatched hut was drafty and on the verge of collapse.

Li Yang placed the money he had stolen on the veranda, and left Xiaohe Village holding the child.

An uneducated man with no qualifications and a cancelled ID card, already struggling to care for a crying infant, how could he also look after an elderly, sick woman?

In this world, there are many strange twists of fate and situations where one is willing but powerless.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought of finding a proper job to make ends meet.

“Education?”

“University…” The recruiter’s eyes lit up.

Li Yang lowered his head. “Dropped out.”

“Get lost, get lost.”

At a construction site.

“That guy, he f#cking brings a kid to work on his back. He can’t get much done all day, and it’s another mouth to feed.”

By evening, he was fired, clutching a meager salary that was only half of what they’d agreed on, not even enough to buy a can of milk powder.

“Let me tell you, this is a construction site, not a charity. The boss is already doing you a favor by giving you this money—” The foreman, arrogant and haughty, saw him hesitate to take the money and threw it straight in his face.

Li Yang lunged, grabbed a nearby sledgehammer, and smashed it hard onto the foreman’s head until the helmet shattered and the foreman gradually stopped moving.

Li Yang threw down the sledgehammer, wiped the ground with his clothes, and hurried home, picked up the child, and began their next escape.

And so it went, from Xiaohe Village to Wuli Town, then to Qing’an County, and later to many other places.

Yu Jing had been with him for two years and had reached the age of babbling and learning to talk.

Li Yang survived by scavenging. One night, he came home to find Yu Jing vomiting milk. He rushed the child to the hospital.

The doctor told him, “It’s likely a congenital kidney disease. It’s incurable. Prepare yourself.”

Leaving the hospital, he placed the child by the roadside. It was a busy road; perhaps a kind-hearted person would see her and take her.

Li Yang squatted in a corner, smoking cigarette butts he found on the ground, waiting until the moon was high in the sky, but no one came for Yu Jing.

The child, perhaps hungry, started wailing. Li Yang stood up and walked away.

But the child’s cries behind him were like a demonic sound drilling into his ears, impossible to shake off.

Li Yang remembered Yu Xinye’s face in the darkness and his last wish.

He gritted his teeth and ran back. He picked up the child from the cardboard box. Feeling the familiar warmth and scent, Yu Jing instantly stopped crying, grinned, and snuggled into his arms, snot bubbles forming at her nose. She hooked his finger and said her first words, “Ba… Baba…”²¹

That year, Li Yang was twenty-four. He wasn’t married, had no children of his own, and had never been in love, yet he had his first child.

---

“What do you understand?! What?! Yu Xinye did it willingly! Willingly! I didn’t harm him! I didn’t harm him! You all deserve to die! What do people like you, who’ve never been abandoned, who are so self-righteous, understand?! Don’t come any closer! I’ll kill her!”

Li Yang, choking Lin Yan, dragged her backward, almost reaching the edge of the rooftop.

Song Yuhang pushed the girl forward. “Don’t get agitated. Let’s make a deal. You give her back to me, I give the child back to you. I promise not to hurt her, how about that?”

The handcuffs Song Yuhang had just passed her were still clutched in Lin Yan’s hand, hidden in her sleeve. Even in excruciating pain and barely conscious, she hadn’t let go.

She retreated with Li Yang. “Who says I’ve never been abandoned? Li Yang, I don’t know what kind of life you’ve lived, but me, I’ve never been the one who was firmly chosen.”

“My name is Lin Yan, my older brother is Lin Cheng. Just from the names, you know who my dad chose.” Having lost a lot of blood, Lin Yan panted heavily as she spoke this long passage, her breathing as labored as a bellows.

“I’ve also lived a life… in the shadows, but…” She tilted her head up slightly, her gaze resolute and burning. “I’ve never harmed anyone. The brave, when angered, draw their swords against the stronger; the timid, when angered, draw their swords against the weaker. If you can’t stand this f#cked up life, then overturn it with your own hands! What kind of f#cking skill is killing people?!”

As soon as she finished speaking, the child cried out again, “You’re talking nonsense! You don’t understand him at all, you don’t understand the life we’ve lived! What right do you have to talk about us?!”

“When I was six, I wanted to go to school, but we didn’t have ID cards and couldn’t get household registration²². Dad went to beg the teacher, knelt at her feet and begged…”

“After I got sick and couldn’t go out, he was afraid I’d be bored at home, so he used all his savings to buy an old computer from a scrap-recycling station…”

“We were very, very poor. We often went a whole day without a meal…”

“We lived under bridges, slept on the streets, hid in public toilets… What about you?” A malicious and disdainful light shone in the girl’s eyes. “You live in luxury²³, yet you still complain that the world is unfair to you. On what grounds?”

“It’s the same with all those kids who want to die. They’ll never know how hard others have it, and how easy their own lives are.”

Song Yuhang lowered her head and glanced at the girl. Rainwater streamed down her chin.

“You’re still young. You also don’t know that no one in this world has it easy.”

Others only saw Lin Yan’s immense wealth, but not the precariousness of her life, like walking on thin ice.

Others only saw her calmness and wisdom, her happy and perfect family, but not the deep regrets hidden behind that perfection.

Others perhaps could only see Li Yang’s ruthlessness and derangement, but not the dire straits²⁴ the two of them, dependent on each other, were living in.

Everyone in this world stands in their own well, looking up at their own patch of sky.

Without experiencing it oneself, how can one truly empathize?

However, everyone should have a standard in their heart: the bottom line of morality and law.

No matter your reason—be it for affection, for love, for money, or for revenge—as long as you cross this line, it is a crime, it is an annihilation of humanity.

Therefore, Song Yuhang only said, “You have a father. Have you ever thought that the children you lured and killed also had fathers and mothers? Like your father, they depended on their parents.”

The girl froze, her lips trembling. She had been soaked in the rain for too long. End-stage uremia had made her body extremely weak; she could barely stand.

Li Yang sensitively detected this change and dragged Lin Yan back another step, pressing against the railing. He glanced down. The area below was filled with police cars, ambulances, and heavily armed Special Police officers, who looked like tiny ants in the darkness.

A drone hovered above his head. He knew that today, even if he had wings, he couldn’t escape²⁵.

Song Yuhang pushed the child forward a step too. “Look, even though you’ve done so many wrong things to this child—inciting her to kill, hitting her, cursing her—what she remembers is still your kindness.”

“Children are such soft and amazing creatures. Li Yang, don’t betray her affection for you, and don’t betray Yu Xinye’s last wish. I think if he were alive, he wouldn’t want to see his beloved daughter and his closest brother end up like this.”

“Li Yang, come back. Let her go. Like this…” Song Yuhang slowly loosened her grip on the girl’s arm. “I promise you can talk to her for a while before you’re arrested.”

“Oh, and Auntie Yu. I visited her in Xiaohe Village. She’s in good health, just has some trouble with her legs. I know you’ve been sending her things all these years, right?”

“Auntie Yu said she misses you very much and hopes you can go back to see her. If she knew Yu Xinye’s daughter was still alive, she would be overjoyed.”

The gun muzzle pressed against Lin Yan’s temple slowly slid down. Song Yuhang breathed a sigh of relief.

Lin Yan quietly swallowed, her Adam’s apple bobbing.

Li Yang took a step back, but he didn’t pull Lin Yan back with him. Instead, he looked at Yu Jing and slowly raised the gun to his own forehead.

“Yu Jing, in the next life, don’t follow me again.”

Tears instantly welled up in Yu Jing’s eyes. “Dad!”

She suddenly opened her mouth and bit Song Yuhang’s wrist hard. Song Yuhang cried out in pain. Already exhausted, she was caught off guard, and the girl escaped.

She was too late to stop it; it happened in the instant they brushed past each other.

A bullet cut through the air.

“Lin Yan, get down!”

As if from countless times of perfect coordination, the moment Song Yuhang spoke, Lin Yan instinctively lunged forward. But she didn’t expect Li Yang’s face to instantly turn cold and terrifying as he wrapped his arms tightly around her waist.

He heard the gunshot, but it wasn’t his own.

“I told you, if I die, I’m taking someone with me!”

“No!”

Song Yuhang lunged.

But in the end, it was all for nothing. She couldn’t save anyone.

The dilapidated railing broke before her eyes. Blood bloomed in her vision.

Li Yang’s gun had only one bullet, the one that had just hit Lin Yan’s shoulder.

Song Yuhang knew that.

But what she didn’t know, and hadn’t expected, was that Yu Jing would lunge to save Li Yang. The sniper had fired only to prevent Li Yang from committing suicide.

Yu Jing had lunged only to stop her father from killing himself.

But that bullet hit her.

Under the force of gravity, Li Yang, dragging Lin Yan, stared wide-eyed at the bloody hole appearing on Yu Jing’s head. The three of them tumbled off the rooftop together.

“Lin Yan!!!” Song Yuhang roared hoarsely, rushing to the broken railing.

“Bang—”

“Thud—”

Ambulance and police sirens blared.

Song Yuhang knelt in the rain, hysterically screaming Lin Yan’s name.

She almost cried herself unconscious, soaked to the bone like a drowned rat²⁶. Pale red, bloody water seeped out from beneath her.

A few Special Police officers came to pull her up, but Song Yuhang threw them off. “Get lost! Get lost!”

She looked at the railing, even feeling an urge to jump.

“Captain Song, Captain Song, calm down…” Several people came to drag her. Song Yuhang crawled in the rain, inching towards the edge of the rooftop.

When she reached the edge, her eyes met someone else’s.

Lin Yan was handcuffed by one hand, the other handcuff secured to a steel bar protruding from a roof beam, dangling precariously in the wind.

She smiled enchantingly. “What, is Captain Song about to die for love?”

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LP: Re-translated on May 23, 2025

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