The plot became even more intense. Zuo Zhen cleared away the bodies, finding four relatively intact corpses and one that had been dismembered. The arms were reduced to bones, the thighs still had some flesh left, and there were visible bite marks on them.
He pried open the jaws of the other four corpses and confirmed that they had done the biting.
So, it turned out that among the five people trapped in the well, when they realized they couldn’t escape, they had eaten one of their own to survive.
As the bodies were lifted out, a relative collapsed beside the bones, claiming to be the deceased’s younger brother.
His brother, Li Da, worked as the assistant manager at a tavern in a nearby town. Seven days ago, Li Da told him he had taken on a job that would earn him twenty taels of silver, enough to pay for his wedding.
The other four corpses were also nearly unrecognizable; their relatives could only identify them by their clothes. Among them were Qiao Zhongcai, a wealthy man from the town, Fan Jiu, a bodyguard from an escort agency, Liang Boxian, a county government clerk, and Scarface, a bandit from a horse gang.
These five people seemed unrelated—so how did they end up dead together at the bottom of a well?
Then, Zuo Zhen heard that Liu Erhai, who had gone out for temporary work, had been missing for several days. His family had searched everywhere, with some saying he went west.
The only connection between this town and Zuo Zhen’s friend was an incident thirteen years ago when a great disaster struck the Hu Guang region. The imperial court urgently allocated 200,000 taels of silver for disaster relief, which was temporarily stored in this town. But overnight, the silver turned into bricks, and Zuo Zhen’s friend, who was the commander of the Jinyiwei at the time, was personally involved in the investigation.
However, the case was never resolved, and Zuo Zhen’s friend was eventually dismissed.
Cheng Liao was engrossed in the movie when her phone rang in her bag. She quickly pulled it out and saw that it was Yan Xiao calling.
Yan Xiao’s voice was urgent, "You need to come over now. The company’s server has been hacked, and the website is down."
Returning to her seat, Cheng Liao whispered an apology to Sheng Jingchu, "Something’s come up at work. I have to go."
Sheng Jingchu left with her, "I’ll drive you—it’ll be faster."
Sheng Jingchu drove his Hyundai this time. The last time, he had driven the Ferrari, which only had two doors, so Cheng Liao naturally sat in the front passenger seat. But since the Hyundai had both front and back seats, she went to open the door to the seat behind the driver’s seat.
Sheng Jingchu motioned for her to sit in the front passenger seat, "You can sit here."
Cheng Liao was puzzled, "Didn’t you say this seat is the safest?"
"That’s because I wasn’t the one driving."
Seeing her confusion, he explained further, "When people encounter a crisis, their instinct is to protect themselves, but I’ll do my best to ensure your safety."
When he said this, his tone wasn’t particularly warm—it was as if he were simply stating a fact, choosing his words carefully, saying he would "do his best" rather than guaranteeing it.
But Cheng Liao knew that even in a split second when instinct overcomes emotion, he would remember this promise and do everything possible to keep her safe.
She sniffled, "Are you this kind to everyone?"
He shook his head, "No."
Cheng Liao’s heart raced, and she cautiously asked, "Why?"
He explained, "Because we’re friends."
Cheng Liao sighed in relief, realizing she had been getting ahead of herself.
She tried to mask her embarrassment by muttering, "The system’s down, so why are they calling us? Shouldn’t they get the programmers to fix it?" Her mind was still on the movie, itching with curiosity, "I wonder who the killer is."
"Among the five dead in the well, one was thrown in later. These people seemed unrelated, but they were all connected to the disaster relief silver theft case from thirteen years ago. The killer first threatened Qiao Zhongcai, who then lured the other four into the well and left them to starve to death. To cover his tracks, Qiao Zhongcai killed Liu Erhai, dressed him in his clothes, and threw him into the well."
"Zuo Zhen’s friend had done something wrong during the investigation of the disaster relief silver case and likely covered it up, possibly involving someone else. As for the killer, it could be the night watchman at the mortuary, the tavern owner who had a thing with Zuo Zhen, the county’s constable, or the blind storyteller at the tavern."
Cheng Liao stared in shock for a moment, "You’ve seen it before?"
"No."
As they reached a red light, Sheng Jingchu stopped the car.
"If the screenwriter doesn’t throw in a twist, this should be the plot. Did you notice at 28 minutes and 32 seconds, when Zuo Zhen met with Madam Qiao, there was a close-up of her picking out jewelry? Her husband had been missing for over seven days, yet she still had the interest to pick out jewelry. Either she knew something, or she was having an affair. If it’s an affair, then killing her husband would be too cliché and wouldn’t fit the overall theme of the movie."
Now that he mentioned it, there was such a close-up…
Cheng Yi had seen the movie last week, and Cheng Liao was tempted to ask her for confirmation. But knowing how her sister loved to spoil things, she had sent her a text on purpose:
"I’m watching Kill Zone with a friend tonight. Please let Grandma know not to save dinner for me."
Cheng Yi replied quickly:
"The killer is the tavern owner, the night watchman at the mortuary, the county constable, and the blind storyteller. Don’t thank me, because I’m like Lei Feng."
Cheng Liao glanced at Sheng Jingchu, "I really want to compliment you right now."
Sheng Jingchu chuckled, "Are you going to tell me I have a nice smile again?"
"This time, it’s not as shallow as last time," Cheng Liao thought for a moment, unable to find the right words to express her admiration, so she simply smacked her lips. "Did your mom eat a lot of walnuts while she was pregnant with you?"
They say walnuts are good for the brain—how else could he be so smart?
Yan Xiao called again.
"Where are you? Hurry up, the team leader is really angry."
The team leader was angry? Was it related to her? Cheng Liao rubbed her forehead, feeling like she was in for some bad luck.
When she reached the 16th floor, she finally got the full story from Yan Xiao.
The special video Cheng Liao had made about Cao Xihe had been spotted and shared by his fans, causing the view count to skyrocket. Cao Xihe had a tense relationship with Kato Kiyomasa, a top Japanese Go player, and one of Kato’s fans, who happened to be studying in China, saw the video online. Upset, he hacked into the site where the video was hosted.
The hack occurred during the exclusive live broadcast of the Cannes Film Festival’s red carpet event on Xiu Shidai’s platform.
Although the tech department managed to fix it quickly, the damage was done. Xiu Shidai had spent millions securing the exclusive broadcast rights, and with the website crash, all that money was lost. They also had to compensate the advertisers.
Cheng Liao’s responsibility was "uploading Cao Xihe’s video without permission."
She had reported this to the team leader earlier in the day. Although the team leader didn’t agree to promote it, he did allow her to upload it.
Now, with everything so muddled, the team leader completely denied this, even giving her a sinister glare as he left the room, threatening, "You’d better keep your mouth shut, understand?"
According to company policy, all requests and reports should be made via email and copied to the department head. However, it was common practice within the team to report things verbally, given the volume of work each day. If they sent an email for every task, who knows when they’d get a response?
Not to mention that there was nothing wrong with the video itself. Who could have predicted it would upset Japanese Go fans so much that the site would get hacked? Cheng Liao had no control over that.
As an intern with no seniority and zero connections, she knew the company’s response would likely pin all the blame on her. Her colleagues gave her sympathetic looks, unanimously agreeing that she would take the fall.
Cheng Liao felt absolutely miserable.
She had long sensed that the team leader didn’t like her, but she hadn’t expected him to throw her under the bus at such a crucial moment.
It was truly a case of "we wished to fly together as a pair, but when disaster struck, we each went our own way."
Cheng Liao left the company, feeling dizzy and disoriented.
Because it was the weekend, the business district was deserted. The harsh sunlight beat down on the ground, and waves of heat slammed into her face. She raised her hand to rub her eyes, and suddenly noticed Sheng Jingchu’s car still parked outside.
She walked over and knocked on the window.
"You’re still here?"
Sheng Jingchu put away the book he was holding and said, "I was waiting for you."
She opened the car door and got in, feeling the cool air that helped calm her down a bit.
Sheng Jingchu could tell from her expression that something had gone wrong, but he didn’t ask about it. He understood that when someone is deeply troubled, they might not even want to talk about it, so he decided to give her some quiet space.
After sitting in silence for a while, Cheng Liao finally let out a long sigh.
"It looks like the company is about to dump all the blame on me. I guess I’ll just have to lie low and let them place the blame firmly on my shoulders."
After saying that, she vented her frustrations for a while.
In the end, she sighed again, "At the end of the day, I made a mistake too. If only I had some proof in the form of an email, this would be easier to handle."
She had just entered the workforce and hadn’t yet experienced the thrill and glory of succeeding in the professional world. Instead, she was already battered and bruised by the complex interpersonal relationships.
The more she thought about it, the more dejected she felt. She asked Sheng Jingchu, "Do you think I’d make a good housewife? Maybe I should just hurry up and get married, become a happy housewife. I could buy groceries every day, cook meals, wait at the door for my husband to come home from work, and then we’d have dinner together, and I could act a little spoiled."
This was a life Sheng Jingchu had never imagined for himself. He was used to being alone; even when his assistant Xiao Qi was around, he tried to maintain a quiet environment.
He disliked noise and chaos, which was why he avoided crowded places. Cao Xihe had once told him he had many peculiar habits, some of which were hard for others to tolerate. Sheng Jingchu agreed, which was why he tried to keep others out of his life as much as possible.
But at that moment, he suddenly thought, So this is what an ordinary life is like—coming home from work, having dinner with your wife, taking a walk together, talking about the day, making plans for the future, and watching the time slowly slip by, growing old together.
It actually didn’t sound so bad.
){kind=link}
0 Comments