Chapter 5: The Real Killer Is Close at Hand (Part 1)
I watched Elena's back from the shadows, and my heart felt pierced by something sharp. I wanted to reach out and hold her, but I was the last person who deserved to be the one reaching out.
It shouldn't be me...
She had surrendered her savings, even offered up her inheritance—all to reduce my sentence.
How much more trouble was I going to bring her?
I clenched my jaw, fighting to suppress my fury, and kept climbing.
There were people here, so I couldn't risk going in. I'd have to wait until the crowd thinned.
Wendy Xu followed me to the rooftop, where it was finally quiet. She asked curiously, "That girl... was she trying to get forgiveness for you?"
"I told you, it's none of your business."
I found a corner and sat down to wait. She settled beside me and asked, "Don't you want to talk to someone about it? Ever since you saw that girl, you've looked completely different."
"How well do I know you? Right now we're only working together because our interests align. You want me to cry and snivel and pour out my sob story, and then you can bawl your eyes out and tell me why you became a sugar baby, and then we'll hold each other like idiots until it gets dark, putting on some kind of melodramatic urban drama?"
She muttered, "If you don't want to talk, just say so. No need to be cruel about it. I do have my own story, but I became a sugar baby because I didn't want to suffer. I wanted to make money."
I ignored her and closed my eyes. My mind was full of Elena.
Wendy Xu left me alone and didn't disturb me until late into the night, when I finally crept back downstairs.
The family members seemed to have all left to rest or attend to other matters. Only Howard Li remained, burning paper money while occasionally sending voice messages on his phone: "Just submit it to the Da Shun Transport office. Have you shown the document to the manager?"
He was discussing work. I found it bitterly ironic—moments ago he'd been furiously berating Elena, and now he was chatting away about business.
Howard Li couldn't wrap up his call quickly enough, so he dialed someone else and started yelling: "Are you useless or what? I told you to show it to the manager first, then get the Da Shun Transport stamp. Is that so hard? Fine, forget it—don't even bother showing him. Just bring the document to me. Call me when you're at the community entrance."
I frowned. The guy's father was lying dead, and he was still all about making money. Like father, like son—money was the only thing they respected.
After about fifteen minutes of waiting, Howard Li received another call and headed for the elevator. I knew he was going to collect his work documents, so I made my move toward the apartment. The front door was still sealed with police tape, but the hallway window was still open—same way I'd gotten in before.
I climbed through the window onto the balcony. The breach in the railing was still there—the gap Victor Li had crashed through—and dried bloodstains still marked the floor where he'd been hurt.
Wendy Xu leaned through the window and looked down. She blanched and pulled back. "That's way too high. I can't climb down. Can I just wait out here?"
"Fine. Wait for my signal."
I crept inside. The apartment was pitch black. I turned on my phone's flashlight and consulted the renovation plans to find my bearings.
The entire place bore the scars of the fire—blackened walls, a lingering stench even harsher than the cheap renovation materials from before.
I found the location on the blueprint—Victor Li's living room, exactly where I'd hidden behind the sofa. But now the sofa had been reduced to ash.
Strange... there didn't seem to be any passage here.
I stared at the wall in bewilderment. No matter how I looked, I couldn't see anything unusual. To save my phone battery, I switched off the flashlight.
When the darkness swallowed the room, something extraordinary happened.
A line of light appeared along the bottom of the wall.
I crouched down and examined it closely. There it was—a narrow seam in the wall. When I tried pushing, I was stunned to discover that the lower portion of the wall actually moved!
Found it!
I dropped to the floor and pushed harder. The bottom section of the wall slid open, revealing a gap that led directly into the adjacent unit.
The adjoining apartment was still lit, but I didn't see anyone. I squeezed through, carefully pushing the wall panel back into place behind me.
The sound of running water came from the bathroom. The main room was empty, but on the coffee table sat an elegant gift box—the very same one that had held the pure gold zodiac figurines.
It was empty now.
The items that should have disappeared in the fire were sitting right here in the next apartment?
An ashtray on the coffee table held several cigarette butts, each smoked down to the very end of the filter. The same smoking pattern I'd seen at Tai Sun's place.
I was certain—Tai Sun had been hiding out in this apartment!
Water was still running in the bathroom. My pulse quickened. I quickly scanned the rest of the unit. Apart from the bathroom, no one else was around. I went to the kitchen and picked up a cleaver...
Then reconsidered. Assault with a deadly weapon was a serious crime. I put the cleaver back and grabbed a rolling pin instead. But to make sure no one else could grab a better weapon, I closed the kitchen door and wedged a chair under the handle.
This was the weakness of trying to stay on the right side of the law—even when clearing your own name, you had to be careful not to commit new crimes.
Armed with the rolling pin, I positioned myself beside the bathroom door, barely daring to breathe, and waited.
The person inside was showering. When the water stopped and the door opened, I pressed myself flat against the wall behind it.
A figure stepped out, and I didn't hesitate—I swung with all my might.
The rolling pin connected with a satisfying crack against the person's skull. They shrieked in pain and crumpled to the floor. Only then did I see who it was: Nora Zhao, who had recently vanished into thin air!
She sat on the floor in her damp nightclothes, wet hair plastered to her face, staring at me in terror. Seeing her only made me angrier. I raised the rolling pin and struck again. She clutched her head and screamed, "Stop! Please stop!"
"You vicious woman! You set fire to that building and now all the blame is on me! You're going to get me killed!"
I still wasn't satisfied. I hit her twice more, then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her roughly to the door, where I pulled the belt from my waist and bound her wrists to the door handle.
Nora Zhao slumped, unable to resist. She was gasping for breath, her wet hair tangled, her face pale with fear. She stammered, "Don't... don't hit a woman. Let's talk this out. I'm just a woman..."
"Now you remember you're a woman? What kind of woman sets a building on fire and kills someone?"
Nora Zhao had no answer. Once I had her secured, I checked the rest of the apartment to make sure no one else was hiding. Then I headed for the bathroom.
It was empty. But on the sink counter sat a pregnancy test. Two pink lines stared back at me.
I returned to the living room and looked at the breathless Nora Zhao. "You're pregnant?"
She nodded.
I sighed and muttered an apology, then grabbed a cushion from the sofa so she wouldn't have to sit on the cold floor.
I cracked the front door open—Howard Li was still gone—and called Wendy Xu inside.
She hurried in and spotted Nora Zhao. "Who is this?"
I said coldly, "This is the real arsonist."
I sat across from Nora Zhao, running my hands through my hair in frustration. "What the hell is really going on? You're in here taking a nice hot shower while I'm out there losing my mind! Tell me everything right now, or we all go down together!"
She asked weakly, "What do you want me to say?"
"Start with why you're here. And Tai Sun—I know he's been here. And why is the gold zodiac box in this apartment? Tell me everything you know."
She blinked. "You saw Tai Sun?"