0123 123 But a scar on my heart
Qi Yu came down the stairs with a person whose face was completely covered. As soon as they stepped out of the stairs, Li Qing and Xiao Lan squatted down on either side of Qi Shuyao, looking at each other in a panic, then looking up with puzzled expressions.
He already knew why she was like this, so he went over, picked her up, and placed her on the sofa.
The man behind her took off his hat and mask, revealing a pale face that no one recognized.
Who is this?
The little girl asked in her innocent voice, and Li Qing quickly picked her up and held her in her arms.
"This was the only caregiver in Pei Yuzhou's intensive care unit before he faked his death."
Qi Yu rubbed his aching back, then sat down next to Qi Shuyao. His work habit as a man led him to bow slightly before beginning his explanation.
“I served as Pei Yuzhou’s full-time caregiver from the first time he was hospitalized for a serious illness until his ‘death’, a full five years. I was particularly afraid of him, but I always thought that since I had taken care of him for so long, there must be something different about us. But the day before he was announced to have died, two burly men tied me to a hospital bed, and a needle as thick as a pencil was inserted into my vein, drawing most of the blood from my body.”
Why are they drawing blood?
"When Pei Yuzhou was taken away, he was transported by water. The black cruise ship identified passengers' information only by blood samples taken on-site."
"You've been by his side for so many years, do you know any inside information about him?"
"They must have planned for me to not survive. I wasn't allowed to leave the hospital or use my own phone. Many times, people would come to my ward without carrying me. There were some people I didn't recognize, but the one you asked me about, his son, never came. Also, the person in your photo came twice."
"What photo?"
"Silent words."
"Mr. Shen's two visits both ended in unpleasantness with Pei Yuzhou. They were always arguing, and Mr. Shen once shouted, 'Stop trying to control me!'"
The caregiver had nothing more to say, and someone took him away.
"Where did you find him? How could the Pei family have made such a mistake?" It was Sister Xiaolan who asked.
“The Pei family was in complete chaos at the time, so they didn’t have the mind to care about him. When I found him, he was on the verge of death and had been abandoned in the backyard of the hospital.”
"But why did Pei Yuzhou suddenly arrange all these things back then?"
Qi Shuyao took Xiaolan's hand and shook it reassuringly twice. Xiaolan understood and left first, carrying Li Qing's daughter.
Li Qing also turned and left, leaving only the two of them in the small room.
Qi Yu tried to reach out and embrace her, but Qi Shuyao pushed him down with her hand.
"Dad, Sheng Sheng is dead. Is it true?"
"That was a result she had planned from the very beginning."
"And then, how many more people will suddenly disappear from this world?"
Qi Yu stood up, hands in his pockets, facing the wall. Behind him, Qi Shuyao was painfully clutching her hair, breathing heavily.
"Do you know who else is involved in the revenge the Shen family mentioned?"
“All those who compete with the Shen family have no idea about Shen Yan’s background. They just search among their rivals one by one. A madman is not afraid of anyone, and besides, they have already been brainwashed by the Lower Heaven Sect.”
"But I really didn't expect that would be the last time we saw each other..."
She rejected Qi Yu's comfort and curled up in a corner. She once thought that she could completely control her own life, but after living for nearly 30 years, she found that every step she took was pushed by others.
A group of highly cohesive thugs, armed with a large quantity of weapons, began a reckless act of revenge after losing their leader. Some went to the cemetery in Jingyang and dug up the ashes of Song Yusheng's parents; others stormed into the Jingyang prison and killed Su Changce, who was serving time, in a hail of bullets.
Xu Mei immediately brought Gu Chaohuan back to Xianhui and sent him to the underground air-raid shelter.
Unable to find her, the Shen family's second act of revenge struck the Mai family.
Mai Hong somehow contacted Li Qing and wanted to ask her out. Li Qing stood at the door, hesitating and looking down, while her youngest daughter shook her hand.
"Mom, who is this?"
She looked up and saw that the man in front of her was Lin Bai.
"This is Lin... You go back and play with your aunt first."
The little girl turned and ran back, and Li Qing defensively crossed her arms over her chest.
Why did you come here?
"You've been gone for so long, and you haven't even looked for me once."
"Let's never see each other again; that's more suitable for us."
"But we are the most compatible two people, from body to soul."
"Did you come to see me for something?"
Lin Bai pointed with his finger in the direction the little girl ran off to.
"You never told me you had a child."
Li Qing took two steps to the side, blocking her daughter's departing figure. She didn't know why she did it, but she knew she no longer wanted anything to do with the man in front of her, not even a few words like this, face to face.
Lin Bo didn't hold it against her; instead, he smiled gently.
"Actually, I came here today to tell you that I am about to leave. There is no end, no destination, but I feel that I will not give up painting, just like you told me before I woke up, don't give up on life, because of other unrelated people."
"You misheard me, that wasn't me."
She retorted very quickly, speaking so fast it was as if someone was chasing her.
Lin Bai smiled and shook his head.
"I will never forget your voice, and your image will be forever etched here."
He raised his hand and touched his heart, his fingers circling as he traced the wound through his clothes.
Li Qing turned her face away.
Are all artists like this?
"No, actually you are the artist. Have you forgotten? In your first book, you wrote that love cannot be defined by humans. No word created by humans is sufficient to describe it. It was born between heaven and earth before humanity, eternal and flawless. Perhaps only the most dazzling sun in the sky can compare with it. But love prefers the moon. It will secretly, at night, go behind the moon and try to embrace it. You can't see or touch love. Indeed, it can only reveal its true form under the reflection of sunlight. It's a pity that many people spend their whole lives and never learn to shine. So, I want to change my light... Can I come to you to change my light?"
Li Qing turned her back, hiding herself in the darkness of the corner, swallowing back her tears.
This was the first paragraph she wrote. At that time, her mind was full of Mai Hong, but unfortunately, he would never understand.
Lin Bo left. He set out from the darkness, moving lightly and nimbly, and merged himself into the light.
That night, a heavy rain fell. After the rain stopped, a gruesome body was found inside a dilapidated rental house in the suburbs.
The body was discovered by a neighbor's dog. The dog barked wildly at the body, waking up the residents of a row of small houses. Some people angrily picked up stones from the ground, about to throw them at the dog, but were so frightened by the body that they collapsed to the ground.
Police and forensic doctors from the city quickly took the body away, and the scene was sealed off. The police pried open the dilapidated wooden door, and the strong smell of smoke inside the house choked them out.
There were still embers on the ground in the middle of the room. Some pieces of paper, burned to a crisp like charcoal, were salvaged. There were words written on them, but the handwriting was already blurred.
The walls of the small bungalow were bare, but it was not hard to find traces of tape left on them, densely covering the entire wall.
Something must have been pasted there, torn off by the perpetrator or the killer, piled up in the middle of the house, and then burned completely. That must be a very important clue.
The body had long since lost vital signs. The forensic doctor first cleaned her face and quickly identified her based on her facial features.
Fan Ying, female, 37 years old, was once one of the ten outstanding journalists specially commended by the Jingyang Municipal Government. She followed up on many major cases. Many people in the industry were optimistic that she would make a name for herself after winning the award. However, she resigned four years ago and has disappeared since.
The police quickly contacted Fan Ying's parents back home, persuading them that the case was murder and requesting their consent to an autopsy. They expected a difficult debate, but Fan Ying's parents immediately agreed to the autopsy and even traveled to Jingyang to cooperate with the police investigation.
The forensic doctor was well-prepared. Before the autopsy, he had conducted a preliminary examination of the body's surface. After the autopsy was completed, an autopsy report was immediately presented to the criminal investigation captain.
"The victim's wrists showed signs of being bound. Based on the scene and the direction of the marks, it was determined that the victim was tied behind a chair. The back of the chair left scraping marks on the upper part of the victim's upper arms. There were marks on the victim's mouth indicating that it had been sealed with tape. The victim died of asphyxiation and inhaled a small amount of smoke before breathing stopped. After the victim's death, there was a burn on the left wrist. Preliminary reconstruction showed an oval pattern under the skin, which does not resemble a tattoo but is more likely some kind of brand."
After listening to the forensic doctor's explanation with a frown, the criminal investigation captain immediately gave orders to his team members.
Fan Ying's schedule was transparent and open when she was a reporter. After resigning, she closed all the cases she had followed, making it easy to investigate people with vested interests in her. In addition, neighbors identified Fan Ying as having lived in a suburban bungalow area for nearly three years. She rarely went out, but when she did leave, she would only return about every two weeks.
Qi Shuyao remembered Fan Ying; the person who presented her with the award when she received the Top Ten Outstanding Journalists award was Pei Yuzhou.
In the days following Pei Yuzhou's death, most people still held positive views of him, with only a few expressing different opinions, including Fan Ying.
A few days later, Pei Yuzhou became the villain in the plot he had arranged. After Lao Lin was arrested, he only arranged one interview, and the reporter for that interview was Fan Ying. It can be said that in the minds of many people, Fan Ying is the embodiment of justice who exposes darkness. Her tragic death will naturally be speculated to be because she offended the evil forces.
Qi Shuyao closed her laptop and sighed. Another heavy burden had been placed on Qi Yu's shoulders, and Jingyang was especially chaotic this year.
A series of thumping footsteps sounded behind her. Qi Shuyao turned around and saw her little niece running towards her, holding her phone.
"Auntie, Auntie, you've received a new message on your phone."
Qi Shuyao rubbed her cheeks and took the phone.
At that moment, a new news notification popped up, which shocked her even more than the message she had received.
Former Finance Minister Liu Jiangyan has been reinstated.
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