CH 22

No one could have predicted this unexpected mishap at the wedding banquet. All sorts of gazes were fixed on Jiang Chen, filled with sympathy, ridicule, and above all, surprise.

“What just happened?”

Jiang Chen struggled to stand up from the ground, but his legs gave out. He looked up at me, who was calmly smoking, with fiery eyes and an open mouth. The words were stuck on his throat, and he suddenly spat out a mouthful of foul-smelling blood before collapsing and passing out.

“Should I just call the police? This is clearly extortion!” I kicked the motionless Jiang Chen and continued, “Never mind, call 120 quickly. He might still be saved.”

The scene suddenly became chaotic as the secretary of the Jiangjin Group’s CEO and the security guards rushed in with a private doctor to take Jiang Chen away for treatment.

“Can this even be considered a wedding without the groom? Mr. Jiang, your choice of this auspicious date doesn’t seem to be very good.” Several men in light gray suits stood up in the VIP area on the second floor and said, “We won’t bother you today since you’re busy with family matters.”

Surprisingly, they left without giving the Jiang family any face.

“Who were they? They were even more arrogant than the previous idiot.”

“Shush, that person is one of the leading figures in our city and the executive director of Qian Ding Pharmaceutical Industry.”

“I’m sorry for the poor greeting. Take care, Mr. Huang.” This voice came from the middle of the second floor, but I couldn’t see anyone in that direction.

“Gao Jian, how did you do that?” Tie Ningxiang grabbed my arm, curious and surprised, as if she was meeting me for the first time.

“I didn’t do anything; he just fell down on his own?”

“Who would believe that? Will you confess or not?”

“What? Is the team leader of the criminal investigation division going to use her power to extract a confession through torture? I’m scared.”

I couldn’t reveal the real reason to outsiders, so I didn’t continue the conversation and just gave Ye Bing another look. “Take care of yourself. Goodbye.”

I didn’t care about the outcome of this chaotic wedding. I came here simply to bid farewell to my past.

Amid Ye Bing’s hesitant words and the bewildered gaze of our “old classmates” Tie Ningxiang and I left the wedding scene together.

……

At around two or three o’clock in the afternoon, I was urged by a phone call from Tie Ningxiang to go to the local police station again. As soon as I entered the interrogation room, I realized that the situation was serious.

Four police officers, including Tie Ningxiang, in police uniform, stood at the four corners of the room, looking like they were facing a formidable foe with guns holstered at their waists.

“Is all of this necessary?” I couldn’t help but ask. The four officers were on high alert, yet their target was just a raggedly dressed woman. She was handcuffed and sitting on the interrogation chair with her hands and feet restrained, her long hair cascading down her back as she faced downward on the table.

“You’re here.” Tie Ningxiang stopped me as I walked towards them. “The suspect’s emotions are very unstable, so don’t go near her for now.”

The woman locked to the chair was Xiao Feng, whose figure I had become familiar with on the night she was arrested. “Why are her clothes torn like this?” I asked. “You didn’t use force against an innocent woman, did you?”

“Use force? This lady nearly destroyed my interrogation room! Xiao Wang, come over and let him see your wound.” One of the police officers was called over by Tie Ningxiang.

“Look, this is where she bit him! She refused to open her mouth, so we had to sedate her before prying it open. Otherwise, this whole chunk of flesh would have fallen off.”

The wound on Xiao Wang’s arm was shocking, with two rows of bite marks penetrating the flesh to a depth of 1 centimeter. Even after being treated, it was still bleeding.

“This shouldn’t have happened. Xiao Feng seemed perfectly normal,” I said.

“How would I know she’d suddenly go crazy? You didn’t see her with blood all over her mouth, like a ghost crawling out of hell.”

“ghost?” I stroked my chin. Xiao Feng was a gentle and somewhat timid girl. Her sudden change in personality was probably caused by being possessed by some ghost from the Peace of Mind Inn.

The crucial issue here was that this place wasn’t the Peace of Mind Inn anymore but the public security bureau. In ancient times, the public security bureau was also a court that settled disputes and injustices. It was a place that even ghosts and spirits dared not disturb.

“Unless that vengeful ghost wasn’t actually hiding in the inn, but has been attached to Xiao Feng all along.” I was just guessing, as it was difficult to directly prove anything involving ghosts and spirits.

“You spent a night with her and should have formed a deep friendship. Once the anesthesia wears off, you can question her.” Tie Ningxiang patted my shoulder, looking very confident in me.

“That doesn’t seem appropriate.” I glanced at officer Xiao Wang’s wound. “Investigating is your job as police officers, and I’m just…”

“You’re just what? Don’t disappoint me, junior brother. Besides, she specifically asked to speak with you.”

Honestly, I was also curious about what Xiao Feng wanted to tell me. Even though the live broadcast at the inn was over, the questions it left behind remained unresolved.

“Wu…” After a while, Xiao Feng slowly woke up, looking around in confusion. “Why are you all so far away from me? Why is my mouth wet?”

Her hands and feet were restrained with cuffs, so she couldn’t wipe the blood off the corner of her mouth.

“Go ahead and talk to her.” Tie Ningxiang gave me an encouraging look, then led everyone out of the room.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be monitoring your safety.”

With a loud “thud,” the heavy door closed from behind, leaving only Xiao Feng and me in the room.

Alone together, Xiao Feng suddenly lowered her head and dared not look at me. “You…Does your promise from before still stand?”

At this moment, Xiao Feng appeared a bit shy and timid, with a voice that was both tender and pitiful.

However, all of this was under the premise of ignoring the fresh blood that was still congealing at the corner of her mouth.

“Calm down, Gao Jian. This girl almost gnawed off a piece of someone’s flesh earlier!”

I took a deep breath and pulled out a tissue from my pocket, crouching down next to her. “Don’t move, let me clean you up.”

Perhaps seeing the blood on the tissue, Xiao Feng remained silent for a long time.

“Rinse your mouth.” I picked up a teacup from the table, wiped off the bloodstains, and then pulled a chair over to sit beside her. “So, what is it that you want to tell me? Why did you come looking for me?”

“When we were at the Peace of Mind Hotel, you told me that I could ask for your help with anything. Is that still true?”

“I did say that.” At the time, I was just testing Xiao Feng and didn’t expect her to take it seriously.

“Okay.” Xiao Feng’s eyes brightened, and she became unusually serious. “I have only one request.”

“Go ahead, I’ll do my best to help you.”

“I want to marry you.”

The interrogation room fell silent as soon as she spoke those words. The only sound was the ticking of the clock. Her gaze was intense, as if she could see right through me.

When she said those words, I forgot about all my reasoning and speculation. It was a direction of occurrences completely different from what I had been contemplating.

“You want…. to marry me?” I trembled as I took a cigarette out of my pocket and lit it. “This case has nothing to do with you. Even if you deliberately concealed the crime by not reporting it, you wouldn’t receive a heavy sentence. With your qualities, you could easily find a more suitable person.”

According to the information provided by Tie Ningxiang, Xiaofeng is not an accomplice but rather a victim. She did not need to sell her body in order to end her detention sooner.

“There’s no one more suitable than you. I can only survive if I’m with you,” Xiao Feng’s sentence sounded quite familiar to me. Upon closer inspection, the paper masked interviewer at the underworld show had said something similar.

“Why is that?”

“Over the past few years, so many people have resided at the Peace of Mind Inn, but only you have been able to clear my sister’s name and punish that devilish family. Only you were able to do it!”

“It was just luck. Besides, that family has already been detained, and the absconding Lu Xing is now a wanted man. What are you afraid of? You can live a normal life without fear of being bullied.”

“No, Lu Xing won’t be caught until he has killed seven people,” Xiao Feng shook her head desperately. “My sister was the first, and I should be the last. The Two-Faced Buddha said that seven people will die, and the first five deaths have all come true!”

“The Two-Faced Buddha?” I pulled out my phone and found a picture I had taken in the underground tunnel of the Peaceful Inn. It was a statue embedded in the cave wall, with two heads of a Buddha—one face had a benevolent expression, while the other bore a fierce and malevolent expression.

“He’s the geomancer who came when the Anxin Inn was first built. He’s neither a monk nor a Taoist, and he calls himself the Two-Faced Buddha.” Xiao Feng recalled a painful memory from the past. “I once overheard a conversation between him and Lu Xing. The gist of it was that they needed to kill seven people, with my sister being the first and me being the last.”

“If you knew all this beforehand, why didn’t you run away?”

“I’ve tried to run away, but they always manage to catch me and…” Xiaofeng gestured for me to lift up her shirt, revealing several small black dots on her smooth, white back.

“Every time they catch me, they stick a needle into my flesh.”