Chen Shi's shocking words made Lin Dongxue's eyes widen in surprise. "You mean..."

Chen Shi nodded and turned to Zhuo Xuan, whose face was pale. "You took Lu Zhendong's money and ‘transferred’ Cheng Yan to him, so he allowed you to visit her in confidence. Maybe you even hand-delivered her to this demon!”

"Bullshit! You’re saying bullshit!" Zhuo Xuan nearly had a mental breakdown.

"Why don’t you tell us the truth? We will never tell her. We’ll let her think that you were the perfect boyfriend who sacrificed for her. Whereas if you don’t tell me, I will tell her the truth. Of course, my reasoning may be a bit more exaggerated than the truth."

Zhuo Xuan broke out in cold sweat. Chen Shi's words broke his psychological defence. He finally spoke, "Lu Zhendong... promised to give me... 40 million!"

"Scum!" Lin Dongxue whispered.

"When?" Chen Shi asked.

"Half a month ago, he found me and offered this condition. I blatantly refused it at first, but when he increased the price to 40 million... I couldn't make so much money in my life. I think if it were someone else, they’d do the same…”

"Don't treat others the same as you!" Lin Dongxue spat in contempt.

"Go on." Chen Shi urged.

Zhuo Xuan's eyes were wet and his lips began trembling. Even his voice was shaky. "Of course, I feel very uncomfortable in my heart, but when I thought about using this money to treat my mother, buying a house for my family, and completing my own movie dream, I was tempted. I asked Cheng Yan to come out that day and was nonchalant the whole time while we were walking. I couldn’t take in anything that she said. Then when I was sending her home, Lu Zhendong drove to me. When Lu Zhendong got to us, Cheng Yan and I were on the road still getting to her house… It was me… I dragged her into the car. Lu Zhendong gave her a shot with a syringe. He smiled and said to me, “Relax, I’ll treat her very well. Win-win for the both of us!”

"Then, Cheng Yan disappeared completely. I went to her house every night but found that her window was never lit. I couldn’t get through to her phone. I found Lu Zhendong and asked him what happened. Lu Zhendong smiled and told me, 'The little girl is very shy and plays hard to get. I need to spend some time on her.'”

"I grabbed his collar and asked, ‘What did you do to her?'”

"He said, ‘Easy, take easy[1]! I can’t hurt her. How can I hurt her if I like her so much?’”

"I asked, ‘Where is she?’"

"Lu Zhendong replied, 'At my house! Haii, let me tell you the truth. I recently watched a foreign movie. A man locked up a woman and raised her like a pet. Slowly, the woman began to love him... Don't look at me like that, I'm not a psycho. This is necessary. Understand? I assure you that I won’t hurt her. Just training!’”

"I was disgusted. When I think about how I pushed Yanyan into this fire pit with my own hands, I really hated myself! So, I unconsciously started watching various B-level crime films. It seems subconsciously that I wanted to kill Lu Zhendong before I would be happy. I suffered every day, especially at night. When I think of Lu Zhendong, that beast, playing with her, I couldn’t handle the amount of hate within me. I couldn’t sleep at night at all. Why was the world so distorted? Rich people can do whatever they want. Human beings are going to their doom. The richer people are, the more mating rights they have, but the genes of these rich people are ugly and selfish. In this way, the good genes will gradually die away and the ugly genes will continue to spread. Humanity will eventually die out…”

Lin Dongxue slammed the table angrily. "Don't talk to me about this useless stuff, just talk about the serious matter at hand!"

"When she disappeared for about two months, I thought of a perfect killing plan!" Zhuo Xuan said viciously, as if returning to the night when he planned the crime.

"Let me interject - did you get the money?" Chen Shi queried.

"No."

"Lu Zhendong wrote a blank check?"

"I asked him and he said that he couldn't take out so much money, but that his father would give him 40 million in the near future. He promised to give it to me in a week. But after a week, he came to me again and apologized again. There had been an auction that day and he bought a guitar because it was apparently just too good. I almost killed him when I heard this. He said that he would give the guitar to me two days after playing with it. The guitar would continue to appreciate in value, so it would be worth more than 40 million eventually… I actually believed his nonsense!”

"The guitar that Huang used?"

"He did say that."

"What about the guitar?"

"I took it. And the body of his assistant is hidden in my house along with it."

Chen Shi was a little surprised this time. "I thought you would hide them more secretly!"

Zhuo Xuan shook his head. "If the police suspected me so much that they were going to search my house, I wouldn’t be able to hide it no matter where I tried. I just hid them at home. The body won’t stink because I bought a large freezer to put it in. As for the guitar, I hope you will give it to my mom after you sell it. You can also take a little as well. I won’t say anything!”

Lin Dongxue looked down on him and Chen Shi said, "That guitar is not yours. Lu Zhendong has not officially given it to you. That is his property. It will be handed over to his family after the trial."

"What?" Zhuo Xuan lowered his head. "It turns out that the bamboo basket was empty when I tried to scoop water. Lu Zhendong didn’t sacrifice anything and played with her for so long! It was too cheap for him!”

"I'm sick to the point of vomiting!" Lin Dongxue's contempt had risen to her upper limit.

Chen Shi probed, "I don't understand something. Is your motive for killing Lu Zhendong because he didn't fulfill his promise or because he robbed your love?"

"It's both."

"Two factors, but which is bigger?"

"Love..." Zhuo Xuan paused before saying, "In the face of so much money, it's not something that can’t be parted with! If it were you..."

"I will never betray my beloved!" Chen Shi said. "So if Lu Zhendong gave you the guitar at the beginning, the ending is ‘everyone’s happy’? He gets Cheng Yan and you get the money.”

"What use is it to talk about that now? It's all too late!"

"Are you a virgin?"

Zhuo Xuan froze. "If masturbating is not counted, I should be."

"Then you can expect to be a virgin your whole life then, Mr. Zhuo. Good luck!" Chen Shi stood up and the interrogation was over. Lin Dongxue ran outside and found that everyone was there. She exhaled and said, “What was thought to be a beautiful love story turns out to be really disgusting! "

Everyone in the audience was shocked. Xu Xiaodong asked, "Brother Chen, is this something we should tell the girl?"

"Don’t tell her. Just let her think that she is in love with a perfect boy!" Chen Shi pulled out a card which held the 200,000-yuan savings card given by Old Man Lu. "This money was given to me by Old Man Lu. I originally planned to return it after the case was closed. Now, I’ve changed my mind. We need to find a good psychiatrist for the girl. All the rest will be given to her. We can say we donated it to her and that it's a little bit of psychological comfort."

Lin Dongxue smiled bitterly. "The ending of the story is still using money to heal internal wounds."

"Money can also be categorized as good or bad!" Chen Shi laughed.

Suddenly, there was the sound of fireworks taking off outside. Everyone was amazed and asked what day it was today. Then, someone suddenly remembered. "Today is New Year's Eve!"[2]

"Fuck. We’ve been so busy that we forgot!"

"It's great. The case was broken before the new year."

"Brother Chen is mighty!"

In the midst of everyone's joy, Lin Dongxue quietly pulled Chen Shi away. The two came to the office before Chen Shi asked, "Do you have a gift for me?"

"Haha, you guessed it!"

Lin Dongxue took out a knitted scarf from the drawer and hung it around Chen Shi's neck, helping him tie it.

There were cute flowers on the scarf. Chen Shi liked it very much and said, "Thank you!"

"Just one thank you?" Lin Dongxue stared at Chen Shi's eyes with her hands behind her back. Chen Shi was taller than her and she had to tip-toe.

"Otherwise, come to my house tonight then..." Chen Shi suggested.

Lin Dongxue flushed and Chen Shi continued. "Tao Yueyue is probably starving at home right now. I will make Chinese New Year's Eve dinner for you and we can do the countdown together.”[3]

Lin Dongxue felt some loss pass through her heart, but it wasn’t too bad. It should be a warm and memorable New Year’s Eve!

1. Easy, take easy” is something the author wrote in English.

2. New Year’s eve on the Lunar calendar. My editor put everything on a timeline and he said that following the story thus far, they should actually be on New Years at the moment, but I left it as what the author wrote.

3. Usually the fireworks go off at 12 after the countdown so I’m not too sure about this. Perhaps it’s different in different regions?