Everything from last night appeared before his eyes again.
That old kraft paper notebook reappeared before Ji Xun’s eyes. His hands could still faintly feel the sensation of touching it—the paper was coarse, thin, and brittle. A light shake would rustle it, like the jeering cackle of a night owl.
He saw that line of words.
Written in pencil, stroke by stroke, were the neat but unmistakably naive characters of a child’s handwriting.
This child had calmly written:
“11.19, first snow. Everyone said it was an accident.”
He flipped further back. There was more written in pencil, a lot more.
This was a notebook where the word “kill” never appeared on any page, yet from any angle, between the lines, every square was describing how to kill. This was a murder notebook.
Ji Xun’s vision blurred for a moment. The illusory notebook was gone, and what reappeared before him was the frost-faced Huo Ranyin. He looked at the other man, and whether it was a trick of the light or not, he saw a shadow on his face.
The cold shadow of murder.
Huo Ranyin was still waiting for his answer.
Ji Xun continued to pace forward, walking past the parking lot. The concrete path ended here, leaving only the winter-hardened soil and sparse blades of grass that stubbornly pushed through even at this time of year.
Looking down the steep cliff, there were scattered shrubs, with only their branches remaining.
The toe of Ji Xun’s shoe scuffed the dirt, kicking up a puff of soil that scattered and fell.
He ignored the urgency hidden beneath Huo Ranyin’s calm exterior and continued at his own pace. “Was there something wrong with my attitude yesterday?”
“You weren’t surprised?”
“Of course, I was surprised. But being surprised doesn’t mean I should haul you off to the Public Security Bureau in the middle of the night over an old notebook of dubious authenticity—an act that would be based on insufficient evidence, only serving to tip our hand and waste police resources. Huo Ranyin, you and I should both despise such things.”
Huo Ranyin’s scrutinizing gaze fell upon him.
That gaze was as sharp as a small knife; wherever it landed, the blade followed.
“It seems you don’t believe it.”
“Quite the opposite, I find it very reasonable and credible. You were abused by your parents, which filled you with resentment, sparking the intent to kill. You finally chose to turn on the gas to kill your parents, and after the murder, you were left with a lasting psychological trauma, leading to a fixation on suffocation. All the logic is perfectly sound—but it’s just logic.”
A word in that long sentence stung Huo Ranyin.
Huo Ranyin’s eyes narrowed. The blade pressed against Ji Xun’s skin slid downwards, breaking the skin and drawing blood.
“…Ji Xun. You’re making excuses for me.”
“I’m afraid this doesn’t count as making excuses. It’s precisely because you yourself are uncertain about this that you’ve been eager for me to explore your past, for me to be the one to judge you. For a truth that even the person involved isn’t sure of, why should I make a rash judgment without understanding anything?”
“What if I’m lying? What if I know everything, am clearly aware of all my sins, and am just putting on an act in front of you?” Huo Ranyin sneered. “The presumption of innocence. Sometimes it’s a good fig leaf, isn’t it? Right now, you’re the police, and I’m the suspect, yet you, the policeman, are treating a suspect so lightly…”
Huo Ranyin stuck his hands in his pockets, standing against the wind for a long while, until the last trace of warmth on his face was devoured by the cold. He said softly, “Ji Xun, you really disappoint me.”
Huo Ranyin turned to leave.
But an arm seized him from behind. It descended upon him with immense force, and in an instant, he was clamped down, controlled. He was dragged backward. From below, he saw Ji Xun’s calm face, which flashed before him and then became a view of his jaw.
He was falling.
For the first time, he saw Ji Xun from this angle and realized with utter surprise that Ji Xun’s face—when it was not wearing its usual lazy, flippant, playful smile—was even colder than he had imagined or expected.
His back met empty air.
Behind him was the cliff. The thin wind could not support him; he was falling.
Then, with a delayed realization, he understood:
Ji Xun was still pushing him.
Was Ji Xun going to kill him?
Just then, the hand pulling him applied a reverse force. He staggered to a stable footing on the very edge of the cliff. Only a small patch of hard earth on the edge broke under his feet, the scattered clumps of dirt tumbling down the cliffside one after another.
Ji Xun pulled Huo Ranyin to a steady position.
He lowered his eyes slightly, straightening Huo Ranyin’s disheveled collar. Beneath the messy collar was a layer of cold sweat induced by the sudden incident. Ji Xun’s fingertips brushed past the sweat, and the body beneath his fingers trembled violently as if he had grazed a nerve ending.
There was no one around.
But there were eyes. The cars, the trees, even a gust of wind from the mountain—all grew eyes, prying from all directions, spying on Huo Ranyin with him, and then spying on him with Huo Ranyin.
Ji Xun looked at the slightly breathless Huo Ranyin.
“Huo Ranyin, you are completely unguarded around me, the one you suspect of killing your sister. You always say I’m too emotional, that I shouldn’t be affected by the polarizing filter of emotion. But am I really the one who’s affected? Do you really know me? Not the me you expect, the illusory me… but the real me.”
“…”
“Actually, I don’t know myself well enough either,” Ji Xun said conversationally, in a normal tone. “Neither of us knows ourselves well enough. So it seems we have both done things we once thought were absolutely impossible.”
…I really don’t know Ji Xun well enough.
Staring at Ji Xun’s face, this thought suddenly occurred to Huo Ranyin. At this moment, he saw complete strangeness in this familiar face. After long and serious thought, he finally realized it.
Ji Xun’s face was a mirror, and the reflection within it changed with the outside world. Sometimes this face was more casual, sometimes more reckless, and sometimes it appeared gentle and affectionate.
None of them were his true face; they were merely masks that could be changed at any time.
“But Huo Ranyin, you chose the right person,” Ji Xun said again.
“…What?” Huo Ranyin returned from his daze.
“You chose me, and you were right,” Ji Xun said with a sudden, confident smile. “Huo Ranyin, I will bring you the truth.”
The mirror rippled as if it were water.
All the cicada-wing-thin masks merged on his face, collectively painting a visage forged from wisdom and confidence.
A face that would never be forgotten or mistaken.
Huo Ranyin was mesmerized.
Just then, the clanging of gongs and drums from a funeral procession sounded. Ji Xun turned his head and glanced down toward the parking lot. During their conversation, the guests had finished paying their respects and descended the mountain. Only the deceased’s relatives remained, led by the funeral staff, following the coffin toward the crematorium.
This was the final moment, after which the 900-degree heat would annihilate the human body, leaving only a small canister filled with still-warm ashes.
“Huo Ranyin,” Ji Xun said, “I just figured something out, but I didn’t know who to tell. After thinking about it, I guess I can only tell you.”
Ji Xun organized his thoughts slightly and began to narrate:
“We were just talking about your notebook. Let’s start from there. Before I saw the notebook, my biggest guess about your empathy for Changchang was that you had been abused by your parents and they had once tried to die with you, but you luckily escaped, leaving you with psychological trauma.”
“After seeing it, a new possibility emerged.”
“People subconsciously assume a victim, but in a gas murder, the possibility of your parents turning on the switch is equal to you turning on the switch. There’s no precedence.”
“Just as in the matter of Gao Shuang’s death, neither the suicide note, the humidifier, the window, nor the poison has a clear direction.”
“The suicide note could have been forged by Zhuo Cangying, or by Gao Shuang herself. Without fingerprints, we don’t know who used the humidifier, and with smart controls, even if the command was sent from Zhuo Cangying’s phone, you can’t be sure who set it up. As for the poison, the police haven’t yet found out how the cyanide was obtained.”
“They—Zhuo Cangying and Gao Shuang—had an equal possibility of killing Gao Shuang.”
“Mo Nai understood what Gao Shuang said about ‘killing’ as personally killing Zhuo Cangying, but it could also be interpreted as committing suicide and framing Zhuo Cangying for murder.”
“A suicide insurance policy generally only takes effect two years after the policyholder buys it.”
“Today I heard a story that two years ago, Gao Shuang wanted to return to society and get a job, but after many efforts, she failed.”
“Gao Shuang is different from Wei Zhenzhu, yet similar.”
“Their similarity lies in the fact that although Gao Shuang seemed to live a carefree life, her married life was still miserable. In a marriage, besides overt violence like Duan Hongwen’s, there can also be the cold violence of neglect.”
“Unlike Wei Zhenzhu, Gao Shuang once tried to escape it all.”
“She was a full-time housewife, and her social circle was extremely limited. She pursued illusory emotional connections in games. She also wanted to work, as a job was a prerequisite for divorce and supporting her child.”
“But all these attempts failed. The failure of her in-game relationships wasn’t because the internet is illusory, but because most people are unwilling to accept the burden of a divorced woman with a child. And her failure at work was due to common workplace rules.”
“Because of a wedding and childbirth, she was shackled in this cold, hopeless marriage, not only having to endure her husband’s indifference but also facing the drop in her own status.”
“Just as she lamented to Mo Nai, Gao Shuang felt that society had left her behind. Driven by this strong emotion, she wanted to end her prematurely aging life on one hand, and seek revenge on her husband on the other.”
“But she couldn’t let go of her child. She couldn’t end her life rashly. She began to plan her own death, yet hoped that something would interrupt the process.”
“She either induced Zhuo Cangying or simply used his name to buy herself an insurance policy; a large policy can be purchased without the person being present.”
“This policy included the common suicide clause that took effect after two years. That was the time she chose for her death, when Xiao Jun would be in the first grade of elementary school, old enough to have a certain degree of independence.”
“Before the two-year period was up, she wanted to make one last struggle. She lowered her standards to find a job, but unfortunately, she failed again.”
“Everything seemed to be an inevitable development urging her to hasten to her death.”
“Gao Shuang took a final trip before her death. She watched the sunrise. She returned home. The nanny had been sent away in advance under the pretext of a vacation. Everything was ready. She made a phone call, claiming she was going to see her child later to create the illusion that she didn’t want to die. Then she lay on the bed, waiting for the poison in the fingerprint-wiped humidifier to take effect.”
“When the police arrived at the scene and saw the insurance money and the deliberately hidden suicide note, all suspicion of murder would naturally fall on Zhuo Cangying.”
“Wei Zhenzhu was right. Gao Shuang did indeed die with the elegance she most envied, because for Gao Shuang to kill Zhuo Cangying, she didn’t need to get her own hands dirty like she did.”
“But all of this still has no evidence,” Huo Ranyin said, not immediately swayed by Ji Xun’s narrative. His thoughts were clear as he spoke in a low voice. “Even if you’ve added so much credible motive and logic for Gao Shuang, the possibility is still equal.”
“The suicide note,” Ji Xun said.
“Gao Shuang told her parents to throw away the furniture!” Huo Ranyin recalled, quickly grasping the key point.
“She was worried about toxic substances remaining on the furniture,” Ji Xun sighed. “This is the kind of last word only a mother would leave. Until the very end of her life, she cared more about her child than her scheme. A husband who is indifferent to his family could imitate her handwriting, but he could never imitate her feelings as a mother.”
Huo Ranyin had no more questions.
It was like this every time. Ji Xun could always convince him in the end, making him firmly believe that this was the unknown truth.
“So, you’re hesitating whether to reveal this truth?”
Huo Ranyin, like Ji Xun, looked at the funeral procession. The child in sackcloth walked at the very front of the line. The wails of the professional mourners completely drowned out the child’s natural cries, the final expression of a small child’s love for his mother.
“You don’t want to clear Zhuo Cangying of the false accusation of murder?”
This time, it was Ji Xun who fell silent. In everyone’s life, there are many things for which a decision cannot be made immediately. Ji Xun probably encountered more than most.
This silence stretched on until the line of white-clad figures disappeared from their sight.
“The matter of Gao Shuang’s death was never officially filed as a case. The police cannot convict Zhuo Cangying. Zhuo Cangying did not murder Gao Shuang; he just slowly poisoned her with his life—but all that,” Ji Xun finally smiled at Huo Ranyin, “let the police decide.”
Volume Four: The Troubled Poems of Conjecture
