“However, I've been looking into it for a while, and it seems Zhao Yao didn't give Li Hui what she wanted.”
“But if Zhao Yao didn't give her the drugs, how did Li Hui kill Xiang Guang?”
Everyone else's storylines were coming together, but Nan Yue's was stuck.
She didn't have the means to commit the crime.
Li Hui worked in the warehouse, managing heavy machinery, and she didn't have anyone in the factory to help her.
Zhao Yao was the only one who could access the chemicals, and she was unwilling to help. What else could she do?
Wait...
Nan Yue suddenly froze.
Zhao Yao wasn't the only one who could get their hands on toxic reagents.
There was one more.
Nan Yue hurried away. Wen Xiang Yuan watched her with a trace of worry; today was the fourth day, and according to their original plan, they were supposed to leave on the fifth after watching the movie.
Would Nan Yue make it in time?
While the others only had to endure this final night, Nan Yue still needed to find the missing link in her storyline.
Nan Yue rushed back to Li Hui's home and waited in the corridor for a long time.
Finally, as everyone returned to rest, she caught Zhao Dayong.
Nan Yue intercepted Zhao Dayong in the hallway. He looked at her in silence.
“It was you, wasn't it?”
Yang Hua lived right next door, so she had to keep her voice low.
Zhao Dayong watched her quietly, his face devoid of expression.
Tonight was her only chance. Tomorrow was the final day, and since everyone would be at work during the day, she wouldn't be able to find him.
She wouldn't have time in the evening either, as she had to meet with Wen Xiang Yuan.
She had to find out today if Zhao Dayong was the one who helped Li Hui kill Xiang Guang.
The two figures stood in a silent standoff in the stairwell.
Not until the lights in every household had flickered off did Zhao Dayong silently sidestep Nan Yue and enter his room.
Nan Yue hesitated for a moment before following him in.
Zhao Dayong's room was simple. The outer compartment was cluttered with various items, but the inner bedroom was relatively tidy.
Zhao Dayong rummaged through the room until he found a small brown bottle, which he handed to Nan Yue.
A "Danger" label was pasted on the bottle, indicating it contained toxic reagents. It was empty now; the contents had been used up.
Nan Yue stared at Zhao Dayong, feeling a bit dazed. She never would have guessed that the very man who had been monitoring Li Hui for Xiang Guang would be the one to help her in the end.
Zhao Dayong worked in the compounding room, making him the only person near Li Hui who could access harmful reagents.
However, because he wasn't a scavenger and wasn't considered an ally in Li Hui's storyline, Nan Yue had never considered him.
“Why did you help me?”
Zhao Dayong remained silent for a long moment before finally speaking. He didn't talk much and struggled to express himself, so he added a few words with some effort.
“It shouldn't be like this. Xiang Guang... he shouldn't have treated you like that. A man shouldn't treat a woman that way.”
Nan Yue's expression softened. “I thought you were Xiang Guang's accomplice.”
Zhao Dayong lowered his eyes to the floor. “I did help him. But I saw you burying that wild cat. You were very sad. I followed you and heard you asking Zhao Yao if she had any arsenic. Granny Zhao drove you away.”
Zhao Dayong looked up at Li Hui, adding haltingly, “Every day, I heard him beating you, bullying you. I heard you crying. I knew it wasn't right. So I found the reagents for you.”
Nan Yue gripped the empty reagent bottle, looking at the tall, silent man before her.
The fact that the bottle was empty meant Li Hui had already used it. Yet, in the current timeline of the pollution world, everyone believed Xiang Guang was just away on a business trip and still very much alive.
Zhao Dayong... hadn't been affected by this chaotic space-time. He knew everything that had happened.
Yet he showed no sign of it, simply continuing to live his life in silence. Perhaps to him, none of it mattered; the days would go on regardless.
Nan Yue gave him a deep bow, thanking him on Li Hui's behalf.
Nan Yue returned to her room with the empty reagent bottle. Everything should come to an end tomorrow.
...
Mother Zhao wanted to go to the bathhouse to wash up that evening and asked Zhu Xi Ning to accompany her.
Since they were leaving soon, Zhu Xi Ning didn't want to cause any trouble, but Mother Zhao was old and in poor health, so she worried it wouldn't be safe for the old woman to go alone.
It was only seven in the evening, still far from midnight.
Zhu Xi Ning accompanied Mother Zhao to the bathhouse.
Bathhouses in the south had curtains for privacy. Zhu Xi Ning had no intention of bathing, so she waited for Mother Zhao at the entrance.
A round, red plastic mirror hung outside, likely left behind by a previous bather.
Zhu Xi Ning stood right outside Mother Zhao's compartment, chatting with her.
Mother Zhao felt her daughter's personality had stabilized significantly over the past few days; she wasn't as sinister as before. Feeling happy, the old woman became quite talkative.
The sound of rushing water in the bathhouse was loud. No one but Zhu Xi Ning, standing right outside the curtain, could hear Mother Zhao's words unless they shouted at the top of their lungs.
She talked about finding a match for Zhao Mingming and then moved on to the men in the factory.
“There aren't many reliable young men in the factory. Setting aside the factory director's son, even that new college student is no good. I've seen him following Xiang Guang's wife several times; you can tell from his gaze alone that he's up to no good.”
Zhu Xi Ning marveled at Mother Zhao's sharp intuition.
“The others are just as bad. That Li Wang used to bully the widows and orphans of the Zhao family every day without a shred of shame. He only settled down after he nearly caused someone to die of a heart attack at the health clinic.”
“Looking at them all, that Zhao Dayong is actually quite decent. He has some intellectual issues, but he's honest and hardworking. Compounding is a delicate job, yet he handles it well. My eyes are never wrong; he'll make a good husband.”
Zhu Xi Ning continued to listen to Mother Zhao's ramblings. Many of these were clues they had already gathered, but Mother Zhao wouldn't have shared them until this specific moment.
Eventually, Mother Zhao fell silent. The only sound left in the bathhouse was the rushing water.
“Mom?”
Zhu Xi Ning felt something was wrong and called out, but Mother Zhao didn't respond. Just as she was about to pull back the curtain to check on her, she caught something out of the corner of her eye in the mirror opposite her.
She instinctively turned her head and saw the plastic mirror tied with a red string hanging on the opposite wall.
She was in the mirror. But so was someone else.
In the reflection, Zhu Xi Ning was carrying a woman on her back.
Long hair draped over the woman's face, her head resting right next to Zhu Xi Ning's. At first glance, it looked as if Zhu Xi Ning had grown a second head.
Her heart tightened. Zhu Xi Ning tilted her head, but there was nothing beside her face.
She pretended not to see and turned back to check on Mother Zhao.
As she turned, she came face-to-face with a deathly pale woman.
The woman's face looked as if it were caked in far too much powder, with deep lines of sedimented white in every wrinkle. It resembled a shattered mask, crisscrossed with cracks.
Her mouth was stretched wide, with lipstick smeared all the way up to her eyes, forming an exaggerated, grotesque smile that revealed a cavernous black void.
Her eyes were bulging, the entire eyeballs nearly protruding from their sockets as those round, black pupils stared intently at Zhu Xi Ning.
Though the woman's face looked like a painted ghost mask, every eerie detail proved that she had long since ceased to be a living being.
Rate on N.U.
