Silent Reading 默读 [BL Novel by Priest]

Chapter 59 to 69

At this point, Luo Wenzhou stopped for a moment and put his hand on Guo Heng's shoulder. Put together, the skinny shoulders and the heaving chest looked like a slimy and old-fashioned broken-down bellows.

Guo Heng took a difficult breath. "Talk. Keep talking."

"That girl—she was Su Xiaolan. She tricked Guo Fei into taking a drink that had been drugged. She left her in the hotel, waiting for the killer Wu Guangchuan to get out of the hospital. Wu Guangchuan used his poor health as an excuse to get away from the rest of his team and take one of the company cars. After murdering Guo Fei, Wu Guangchuan hid her in the trunk of the car and left Lotus Mountain. Su Xiaolan took Guo Fei's pencil box." Though he knew, judging from Su Xiaolan's diary, the uniformity of the method of the crimes, and other facts, that the one who'd murdered Guo Fei must in fact have been Su Xiaolan, Luo Wenzhou used his seemingly objective tone to lightly twist the facts. "Su Xiaolan had a twisted relationship with the killer that made her very jealous of the victim. In the middle of their offense, an altercation occurred between Su Xiaolan and the killer because of this. She furiously got out of the car, ran down that slope you discovered, saw the public phone next to the waste transfer station, and suddenly thought of a means of relief—to call you and let you hear that scream, and also to let your hear the pencil box."

"Why would she... Why..."

"Because she was jealous that Guo Fei had parents like you, had a happy home, had grown up into a little girl ten thousand times better than her, had things she wouldn't possess even after living another twenty years."

At his tone, Guo Heng looked at Luo Wenzhou and for a time couldn't speak.

"Uncle Guo, you didn't kill the wrong person then. You were only...too kind-hearted. You didn't suspect the other person in that house at all," Luo Wenzhou said quietly. "But because you killed Wu Guangchuan in front of her, Su Xiaolan was intimidated. She knew for the first time that doing these things would call down retribution. Her life afterwards was painful and deformed, and the frequency of her crimes was greatly reduced. You virtually saved quite a few potential victims—over a hundred at least."

But Guo Heng covered his eyes, unable to speak for tears.

"Uncle Guo..." said Luo Wenzhou.

"Don't say it." Guo Heng absently waved a hand at him. "Don't trouble yourself to find pleasant-sounding words to comfort me. Thank you."

Because he'd rashly stabbed Wu Guangchuan back then and scared Su Xiaolan out of using the same method to torment the victims' relatives, even making her alter her methods, the records of those murdered little girls had afterwards vanished among numerous other missing children, only coming to light once more fully twenty years late.

Guo Heng had been impulsive and easily angered, but he wasn't at all stupid. He could pick out this type of obviously flawed lie.

"So where is my Feifei now?"

"Su Hui, the principal offender from back then, didn't participate in that case. So our conjecture is that Guo Fei must be along the national road that led from Lotus Mountain to the city at the time."

"Can you...can you still find her? Are you still looking?"

"We can find her," said Luo Wenzhou. "A person can't be made to vanish just like that. She must still be hidden somewhere. There are always traces. Even if we can't find her for a time, there will still be hope. Even if others forget, I'll remember. Set your mind at ease."

Guo Heng left the City Bureau by the first rays of another morning. Luo Wenzhou watched him go until he was out of sight. He didn't know what would happen to Guo Heng now, but whether he was sixty, seventy, or eighty, a person still had to live, still had to keep going through his days, still had to turn his eyes forward.