Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
Ahhhhhhh!
A long scream that felt chilly to the ear was heard!
Her body was falling, falling fast…
There was no end to the abyss and everywhere was cold and dark.
She couldn’t see a thing.
Not a thing at all.
She could only hear the howling sounds of the wind at her ears, as though there were tens of millions of ghosts screaming and screeching at her bitterly!
It filled the ominous surrounding with despair…
Gradually, Xiang Wan could suddenly see something clearly.
She saw something like a face, a bloody face, for one could not make out the features of that face anymore. It seemed to groan in pain.
The pair of eyes attached to that face seemed especially bright as it kept staring at her; it even seemed like it was crying. As tears rolled down the bleeding face, it felt especially horrendous and painful to look at…
She could see that pair of eyes but unable to see the entire person clearly…
She felt goosebumps and cold sweat all over. She wanted to shout, struggle, and leave this place… but she could do nothing.
Had she arrived in hell or something?
Could this be, what hell look like?
Bai Muchuan, save me!
Bai Muchuan, save me!
Xiang Wan was shouting, but no sound came out of her mouth.
Suddenly, every part of her started to float. She was drifting towards the darkness and getting farther away from that pair of eyes…
That person was moving both arms and screamed loudly.
“Save me… save me… please… save me…”
A grieving cry accompanied that shrill scream. The scene then changed to that of the Annual Awards Ceremony…
The crying person became Du Landuo.
She was pleading, pleading for Xiang Wan to forgive her…
She said she couldn’t take it anymore. Cyberbullying was too terrifying. Everyone’s words seemed like sharp knives that could make her bones tremble in fear and pain…
Xiang Wan wanted to say something but her throat was blocked.
Someone was grabbing her throat…
Thus, she couldn’t shout!
She started to struggle, so much so that she started quivering!
“Beep, beep, beep… beep, beep, beep… beep, beep, beep…”
The monotonous sound of the alarm clock saved Xiang Wan from the mire of nightmares.
“Ah! Huff…” Her eyes were wide-opened now.
It was dawn at that time, and the thick winter fog covered the window pane…
It was a nightmare.
Just a nightmare.
Xiang Wan heaved a relief.
She was in such a deep sleep that her brain felt a little dazed.
She glanced at Bai Muchuan who was sleeping beside her.
His breathing was regular; he was sleeping soundly.
Xiang Wan picked up her mobile phone to turn off the alarm, then she suddenly furrowed her eyebrows at what she saw.
There were many unread message notifications.
Xiang Wan unlocked her screen and the foremost message that appeared in front of her was from Hu Bandao. He sent it about more than an hour ago.
“I’ve never expected that she would take it so hard…”
“Had I known that, when she looked for me yesterday, I would not have ignored her. At least… I wouldn’t be so cold towards her.”
Were all men as hypocritical as him?
When he wanted to be with Du Landuo, he went for it. When he didn’t want to be with her, he just broke up with her via a phone call. Wasn’t it better to talk things over in person clearly?
Xiang Wan was still dizzy while she thought about that, but she could quickly sense something—
Something’s amiss.
What did he mean by “take it so hard”?
In an instant, her sleepy brain awakened until her senses had all invigorated.
“So you’re saying?… What happened?”
Hu Bandao instantly replied, “She’s dead!”
She?
Xiang Wan thought of Du Landuo in her nightmare, and her head felt numb and cold.
She covered herself entirely in the warmth of the quilt and wanted to reply when an arm came over to take her waist.
The arm slowly exerted strength and pulled her over to him.
Xiang Wan looked up and saw that Bai Muchuan was awake.
“Did I wake you up?”
“Why didn’t you sleep longer?” He asked another question in return.
“I…” Xiang Wan moved her lips and held her phone out to him.
Then, Xiang Wan sent a message to Hu Bandao before showing their conversation to Bai Muchuan.
“Are you referring to Du Landuo?”
She wanted to be sure.
He immediately confirmed her question.
“Yes, I really didn’t expect her to be so weak…”
Hu Bandao told her that Du Landuo had committed suicide.
She had leaped from a window on the 18th floor of Dynasty Plaza.
The police summoned him that morning to help with the investigation. He had just came out of the Criminal Investigation Unit when he texted Xiang Wan.
“…”
She’s dead!?
She actually committed suicide…
Xiang Wan clasped the hem of the quilt as tightly as she could.
She didn’t know what else to say besides feeling uneasy and heavy.
Someone unrelated to her, who had tried to slander her before, had died.
If she had not had that nightmare, maybe she wouldn’t have felt this way.
She saw Du Landuo in her nightmare just before she woke up.
The latter’s eyes seemed bitter.
She was staring at her intently with blood-like tears…
There were screams, shouts, and cries.
Xiang Wan felt a cold wash over her. She stayed still without moving until Bai Muchuan hugged her; he laid her on the bed and covered her with the quilt. He kissed her forehead and spoke some comforting words… The feeling of sadness had paralyzed her nerves, and she could not recover from the shock.
“Don’t blame yourself!” Bai Muchuan embraced her tightly.
“I just dreamt of her.” Xiang Wan quivered and got closer to him. “Do you think this is really just… a coincidence?”
Her eyes were flashing.
Perhaps only Bai Muchuan would understand those words she had left unsaid.
He contemplated for a while before leaning over Xiang Wan to get his mobile phone. “I’ll find out more about what exactly happened!”
He covered Xiang Wan with the quilt and called up Qi Canghai, the current Captain of the Criminal Investigation Unit in Jin City, Hongjiang District.
Qi Canghai had rushed over to the scene the moment he received news last night.
The deceased died after falling from a high altitude. When the ambulance arrived, her heart had already stopped beating. She had drunk a lot of alcohol and had sent several messages to her ex-boyfriend. Her initial messages strongly demanded her ex-boyfriend to come over immediately to accompany her. When her ex-boyfriend rejected the request, the deceased messaged, “If you don’t come over right now, you’ll see my corpse!”
The deceased’s ex-boyfriend said that although he knew she had an unyielding personality, he really didn’t expect her to do something as stupid as this, so he ignored that message…
The case was still under investigation. They still need to verify and confirm a lot of details.
However, the deceased could have been so drunk that she couldn’t think straight and committed suicide by jumping down from a building. This possibility was extremely high as well.
That was what Qi Canghai told Bai Muchuan.
It was an unofficial statement according to the Detective Captain.
This differed slightly from what Hu Bandao had said earlier when he had affirmatively told Xiang Wan that Du Landuo had committed suicide.
Hu Bandao was the ex-boyfriend that Qi Canghai had mentioned. Coming from Qi Canghai’s angle, an unyielding Du Landuo would have sent such a message to her boyfriend before committing suicide afterward—that was also a possibility.
Xiang Wan deliberated for a moment before she looked at Bai Muchuan. “What’s the difference between a person who jumped willingly from a high place as opposed to a person who had fallen accidentally or was pushed down? Would there be differences in the state of the corpse based on the circumstances leading to their death?”
Bai Muchuan looked at her seriously. “From what I know, there isn’t much difference.”
“…?” This confused Xiang Wan slightly.
This differed from what she had seen on some detective stories.
Bai Muchuan wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “We also need to take the authority’s professional findings into consideration; there are other evidence and circumstances we need to think about too… For instance, we need to find out her actions and her circumstances prior to her death. This is a matter of absolute importance!”
“Her action and the circumstances before her death?”
“Yeah. For instance, the traces found during the crime scene. Did she leave any footprints behind? Are there other people’s footprints there too? Are there traces of a struggle? Did she show any intent of committing suicide beforehand? Did she leave any suicide note behind?… Did she have enemies? Is there any possibility of identifying a foul play? There’s also the surveillance footage at the building and the testimony of the eyewitnesses; I could go on forever… These are the basis for judging the cause of one’s death.”
“…” Xiang Wan remarked as she puffed a soft sigh, “I had thought the autopsy report might differentiate this.”
“The Medical Examiner did not have god’s hands. As proven in real-life cases, it is easy to distinguish between death from a fall away from instances where there were any attempts of camouflaging a case as suicide wherein a person killed the victim after dumping her from a high place; identifying these things are possible with the help of an autopsy. It is difficult to tell from the corpse alone if one had jumped in their own accord or if someone had pushed them down though.”
“Oh!” Xiang Wan leaned her head onto Bai Muchuan’s shoulder slowly.
He didn’t say a word but just hugged her before pulling up the quilt to cover them both.
Winter morning had always been notoriously cold.
Both of them were silent for quite a while before Xiang Wan lifted her head. “What do you want for breakfast?”
Bai Muchuan squinted his eyes while scrutinizing her for a moment before he smiled.
“What do you want to eat? I’ll make breakfast?”
Xiang Wan pouted slightly. “I don’t believe that you can do it. You better lie here longer. Let me do it!”
In such cold weather, the thought of leaving their warm blankets and bed was a tough thing to do.
Bai Muchuan hardly had any day off. Originally, he wanted to cuddle with her on the bed to enjoy a moment of warmth with her, but she insisted on getting up to make breakfast. He didn’t want to stop her either.
“I like to eat whatever you make.”
“Really?” Xiang Wan revealed a wide smile.
“Of course.” Bai Muchuan smiled. “I want to help, so I can have the right to eat!”
“Aye!” Xiang Wan tapped him on the nose and left the bed slowly. “Just wait for your breakfast!”
Bai Muchuan looked at her smiling face and pulled her over. Both of them smooched for a few times before he let her leave.
…
From the kitchen, he heard a symphony of pots and pans.
The aroma of food slowly spread to the living room.
Xiang Wan immersed herself in her own world. She didn’t know that there was another storm brewing in the online world—
As long as a person paid the price with one’s own life, whatever things that she had done, no matter how bad it was, it seemed that everyone would forgive her.
Du Landuo.
A 22-year-old young web novelist who was under a swarm of a public backlash against her and the blow of breaking off with her boyfriend made her unable to withstand the pressure of it all and jumped down from the 18th floor of a building, ending her young life.
Such an incident made people shake their heads in regret while they talked about it after their meals.
Hence, news of her suicide quickly took the headlines…
It even went viral amongst the authors in the online literature industry.
“Ex-girlfriend of Hu Bandao…”
“The arch-rival of Second Young Master Mu’s girlfriend…”
Her identity and the events that happened before Du Landuo’s death triggered a wide range of public opinion and thoughts.
There were some who thought that Hu Bandao and Xiang Gongzi Wan were really cold-blooded. The former two-timed his girlfriend and even asked for a breakup. The latter started an online attack because of a trivial matter, leaving no breathing room for Du Landuo… Both of them were the murderers who caused Du Landuo’s death.
To the extent that some people called them—the executioners without a concrete weapon.
There were also those who said that, if Du Landuo had received more concern and was forgiven, she wouldn’t have died.
However…
There were also people who felt that such thinking was practically emotional blackmailing.
They had confirmed the fact that Hu Bandao was really seeing someone behind his Du Landuo’s back. However, in this matter, they shouldn’t impose such a burden on Xiang Gongzi Wan…
They should not hold anyone responsible for another person’s decision to end their life. Unless she had intended to murder her!
