Turbid Light

It took half an hour to drive from the hospital to the Municipal Bureau. Fu Xue was very quiet. Her face was pale and her eyes were terribly sunken. The birthmark on the right side was covered by her hair, and only a vague outline could be seen.

Fu Xue's expression was numb, and her blinking speed became slower and slower. She didn't know where she was going and let the police officer handcuff her wrists. It was not until Chen An handed a photo to her that she slowly looked up and regained some consciousness.

"Fu Xue, 35 years old, unemployed, has long been abducting girls for sexual exploitation and has developed a partnership with the Ren Ai Children's Park, providing them with targets. The person in the photo is your biological sister, Fu Ying, 17 years old. She suffered from a congenital heart disease and passed away just a few hours ago."

Listening to the other party's uneven voice, Fu Xue said "Oh" lightly.

She was now immersed in the sorrow of losing her sister, and it was difficult to pry anything out of her mouth, but Chen An didn't want to give up.

"17 years old, such a beautiful age. If nothing unexpected happens, she should still be in the classroom." Chen An stood up and walked around to her side, looking down at her. "You love her very much. You give her a lot of pocket money every month. She can buy whatever she wants and go wherever she wants. You support all her decisions, even when she has a relationship at school and has sex with a stranger outside..."

"Shut up!"

Fu Xue finally responded, "You are not allowed to slander my sister!"

Chen An took advantage of the situation to continue provoking, "Defamation? Do you know what defamation means? If someone uses it to accuse someone of something they didn't do, that's called defamation, but your sister is also slandered, right? Haven't you always known what she did?"

Fu Xue raised her head and glared at him angrily. The bruises under her eyes and the red bloodshot in her eyeballs made her look like a demon from hell. "You are not allowed to say that to her!" she said word by word.

Chen An refused to back down, staring directly at her, forcing her to reveal her uglier side. "Then what should I say? That she's a complete victim, that the life she enjoys now has nothing to do with those women lying in hospital beds, or should I say..." He paused for a moment, then sneered, "Is her current fate retribution for the people you've harmed?"

"I didn't! I didn't! The retribution is theirs! Not me!" Fu Xue was furious, with purple veins bulging on his neck. "I didn't hurt anyone!"

"No? That young girl who was forced to have her eggs harvested in the basement of the 'Ren Ai' children's playground; the disabled person who was forced to bear a child; the woman who refused to be controlled and tried to escape her suffering but was electrocuted, what are they? What do they mean to you?"

Chen An rarely gets angry, at least Cheng Xiaoxiang rarely sees it. In his impression, his boss seems like an immortal who is indifferent to the trivialities of the world, as if he is not surprised no matter how bad things "people" do.

When he was still a rookie and was used to empathizing with everyone involved in every case, Chen An patted him on the shoulder and told him that it was time to get off work.

Yes, just these three words told Cheng Xiaoxiang that empathy is a good thing but don't turn it into a bad thing. Solving cases requires rationality, rational analysis of clues and rational analysis of psychology. They are outsiders, and looking at the overall situation from a third-party perspective is the biggest advantage of the police profession.

Fu Xue was speechless and kept scratching her flesh with her nails until it bled.

Chen An came to his senses and realized that he had been too extreme. He calmed down for a few minutes and got back on track. "Who is the person you are contacting?"

She wiped the blood away herself, leaving it all over her hands. Fu Xue seemed to have had her bones and breath sucked out, and she spoke weakly, "...No one."

"You'd better think it over."

The two of them were anxious, and Chen An had a vague premonition that if he didn't speak today, she would never speak again.

So one person's mind goes blank while the other person tries to figure out how to activate his frozen brain.

Five minutes later, Chen An brought the topic back to Fu Ying.

"I'm curious. You probably don't have much affection for your parents, so why would you be willing to raise a sister who's so much older than you?"

Fu Xue's parents are both from rural areas. When they were young, they went south to work and met in a factory. It was considered a free love relationship. Not long after, they discussed getting married. Soon, the young couple welcomed their first child.

Fu Xue was born on a snowy day. The first snow fell in her hometown as she cried for the first time. Since the two of them had little education, they just followed fate and gave her this name.

However, the family did not get better after the child was born. Her parents often quarreled, and the relationship between her grandmother and mother was not good. As the two quarreled, her mother moved back south to the city. Her father left her with her grandmother and followed her. For two-thirds of her growing up, she considered herself a left-behind child.

When Fu Xue was six years old, her family finally discovered her problem. A dark mark began to spread around her right eye socket. Her parents never imagined that the inconspicuous little mole would grow into a birthmark that would affect her appearance in the future.

The birthmark grew rapidly, and Fu Xue's school experience changed accordingly. She was undoubtedly isolated.

Her face made her look like an alien, and her parents took her south to see a doctor and decided to give up treatment. At that time, her mother promised that she and her father would love her well and would not let her feel inferior because of the birthmark, but the promise only existed when she wanted to fulfill it.

Country people are gossipy. If you don’t have a son, you will be laughed at for the rest of your life.

At first, the mother said that daughters were fine and there was no need to have so many children, but years of gossip and ridicule broke down the already shaky emotional dam. In the end, they took the risk and exchanged a son for emotional and life support.

In the year that Fu Xue took the college entrance examination, they started their plan to have a second child.

Her mother stayed at home to take care of the pregnancy for a year. Fu Xue looked at her belly growing bigger day by day and had no real feeling that she would soon have a younger brother.

On the day of delivery, everyone was praying outside the delivery room, praying that it would be a son. When the nurse took the baby out, everyone sighed. It was a girl. All the efforts were in vain at this moment.

The name Fu Ying was left by the registration staff due to a mispronunciation. No one remembers what the original name was.

With another child came another burden. Fu Xue's parents disappeared, abandoning Fu Ying just like they had abandoned her, but this time she had to take care of Fu Ying until she grew up.

"I actually didn't want to raise her at all." Tears streamed down Fu Xue's eyes as she spoke. "I... I'm not a saint. I have my own life to live. She was so young back then, and they disappeared. I really didn't know what to do with her..."

"But you raised her in the end," said Chen An.

"At that time, I gradually understood a truth: some people's births are not expected. Otherwise, why are there so many abandoned baby girls?" Fu Xue picked up Fu Ying's photo. "In fact, no one expected Fu Ying to be born. Everyone was just hoping for a son. So I felt sorry for her, so sorry that I actually wanted to raise her!"

"I was so stupid! I knew she wouldn't live for many years! But I still raised her with all my heart! I was only eighteen years old at the time. I did everything, everything others could do, even things they couldn't. When I was the poorest, I sold my blood, and the first bite I bought was for Fu Ying!"

"Many times I have the thought that I live for her, but it is true that I do live for her."

Fu Xue seemed to be brainwashing himself.

"Fu Xue, you're not doing this for her."

Chen An exposed the lies she had woven for herself, "You did this for the imperfect self you are now."

The sadness in Fu Xue's eyes was replaced by fierceness, and she stared at the person who disturbed her sweet dream with a snake-like gaze.

"You see Fu Ying as another self. You project onto her the person you most want to be but cannot be. You give her complete freedom and indulgence. You're not looking at your sister, you're clearly admiring your imaginary self."

"After you started college, you applied for a loan, and your two jobs became just one. Even though you had to go to school and take care of the kids at the same time, you could still make ends meet." Chen An suddenly pulled out a blurry photo of her when she first started college. In the photo, Fu Xue was smiling happily. "Then you met someone at a KTV."

Fu Xue's stiff face twitched uncontrollably, "...Who?"