POTL Chapter 12

After that, Yu Shi and Hua Yicheng’s teams spent a long time organizing the data and handling the investigation into the users and victims of Eden. Because Ye Feiyang had already initiated the destruction program when Yu Shi first broke through the door, some of the data in the computer was unrecoverable. This meant that even when the investigation concluded, they would never be able to track down every single user.

The case caused a massive uproar across the country. For a long time, overwhelming news coverage flooded both newspapers and the internet, with most headlines reading: Brilliant University Student Builds Chatroom to Commit Crimes. Indeed, the protagonist of the articles was always Ye Feiyang. His life, from childhood to the present, was completely stripped bare for the public to see. There were also plenty of fabricated fake news stories created purely for sensationalism, pinning all sorts of bizarre childhood experiences onto Ye Feiyang to package him as a legendary figure of evil.

Ever since Wuyang Newspaper first exposed Ye Feiyang’s personal identity and information, they hadn’t published any further reports. Some loyal readers would call the agency to ask, but the staff did their best to brush them off with vague answers. It’s because even Jiang Xue herself had no idea whether Xiang Ling would actually publish a story.

Xiang Ling was going to write it, of course. After investigating for so long, she knew far more inside details than anyone else. She had to write it all down to expose Ye Feiyang’s heinous crimes.

In the end, knowing he had nowhere left to run, Ye Feiyang confessed to all charges.

He had initially taught himself programming to create the Eden software back when he was only a sophomore in high school. He had excelled in school from a young age, learning everything faster than his peers. Back in elementary school, his classmates and teachers had even called him a genius.

During his sophomore year of high school, he built the Eden software, though its design and features were much simpler back then than they are now. At first, he cast a wide net online to lure people into the chatroom. During that period, he would often sneak out of the orphanage at night, searching everywhere for stray animals to abuse and slaughter. He would then film it, upload the videos to the chatroom to share with others, and everyone would watch with relish.

However, the people in the chatroom soon grew bored because the targets were always just small animals. Some gradually began leaving Eden. To keep the remaining users, he began locking his sights on human targets. He first set his eyes on Ning Xue from the neighboring class. He asked other classmates for Ning Xue’s number, created an advertising link, and sent it to her.

When Ning Xue first received it, she saw that the ad copy was for a job recruitment. Because her family was very poor, she wanted to click the link and take a look. From the moment she clicked the link, Ye Feiyang stole all the data from her phone—photos, contacts, and various account passwords. He then began contacting Ning Xue under the guise of an employer.

He said, “I need to hire someone to help me deliver documents. As long as you deliver the documents to the designated areas, you will be paid.”

As for the payment, he naturally offered an appropriate and reasonable rate, because a price too high would arouse suspicion.

Ning Xue agreed and took the job.

To gain Ning Xue’s trust, he paid a small advance, with the remainder to be settled once delivery was confirmed. He forged a fake document by stuffing newspapers into a standard, commercially available envelope so it looked like it contained a thick stack of papers. He then sealed it with superglue. If Ning Xue tried to open it, the envelope would rip.

After Ning Xue had legitimately delivered documents a few times, her suspicions about the job completely vanished. For just running an errand, she could earn dozens of yuan. Why wouldn’t she do it?

One evening, Ye Feiyang pretended there was an urgent delivery and contacted Ning Xue. It was just past seven in the evening. He left the document in a specific spot. Ning Xue went to pick it up as usual, then followed the address to the vicinity of the red-light district.

She knew this area wasn’t very reputable because her parents had warned her never to go inside. However, thinking about the urgent document in her hand and the partial advance she had already received, she worried that if she backed out this time, it would be a complete mystery whether the boss would ever hire her again. So, swallowing her fear, she stepped into the red-light district and found the location on the address.

It was a tall, narrow building wedged between restaurants and other shops. She climbed up the stairs, which were so narrow that they could barely fit two people walking side-by-side. Reaching the specific unit, she knocked on the door.

Very quickly, a young man opened the door. She said, “Hello, I’m here to deliver a document.”

“Oh… the document delivery…” The young man finished speaking and then violently dragged her inside.

She couldn’t clearly remember what happened afterward, because a single image alone was enough to cause her agonizing pain. So, she tried to force herself to forget the entire ordeal. Yet every time she faced herself in the mirror, she could see dark, filthy grime hiding within her festering wounds, seeping into her skin and soaking into the very marrow of her bones.

The entire process was filmed. After that, she continued to deliver documents. Only they were no longer ordinary files.

And so, day after day, whenever she stepped into school, she always had to pretend she was still her old self, laughing and chatting with her classmates as usual. As long as she looked at those familiar faces, she could temporarily forget the fact that she was different from everyone else. Perhaps her acting was simply too perfect, because not a single soul around her noticed.

Not a single one…

“Ning Xue, could you come to my office after school for a moment?” Ms. Yang said from the doorway, giving her a wink.

She flashed a playful smile and replied, “Sure, no problem!~”

After school, she went to the office as promised. Ms. Yang was confirming the details for an upcoming class activity with her. As she earnestly went over everything with the teacher, the phone inside her skirt pocket vibrated. She stole a glance at it, then asked, “Teacher, my parents aren’t home tonight. I was wondering if you’d let me stay at your place for a bit?”

Just for a little while, please…

“I’m afraid not… I have plans with someone tonight, so I won’t be home,” Ms. Yang said with a suggestive smile.

She immediately threw her hands up with a look of disappointment and said, “What a shame. I won’t get to mooch a free meal at your place then.”

“Next time! I’ll cook you a grand imperial feast, and you can bring your classmates along for a party, too,” Ms. Yang joked.

That very night, she went to deliver another document.

She had already grown numb to the job of delivering documents. Show up as scheduled, collect the payment, and get it over with.

After delivering the document, she walked away like a living corpse, only to be knocked down by someone at the corner. The phone in her hand clattered to the ground. She looked up. It was Qian Zixin, her classmate. In that single fraction of a second, her entire world completely collapsed.

She hurriedly lowered her head, burying her face in the shadow of her hood. Snatching her phone back after he picked it up for her, she muttered a thank you in a low voice and rushed off.

Before this, she could always hypnotize herself into believing that she was two different people: one was the girl at school, and the other was some stranger delivering documents. But this chance encounter with Qian Zixin forced her to realize that she existed in the real world. There were no “two people”. Whether it was the girl at school or the one delivering documents, they were both her.

The next day, Qian Zixin came to find her and asked about the night before. Deploying her usual Oscar-worthy acting skills, she successfully hid herself away.

Then, one day, she sat looking at the teacher on the podium explaining formulas, looking around at the classmates beside and in front of her who were listening intently. Sitting in the furthest corner of the classroom, she felt as though she completely mismatched the rest of the class, like she was an anomaly.

She slipped out her phone, opened Eden inside her desk drawer, and messaged the boss: “I don’t want to deliver documents anymore.”

She was exhausted. She wanted to escape.

Not long after, the boss replied with a single sentence: “Then go die.”

Ning Xue froze. Her grip on the phone tightened until her knuckles turned white. The boss sent another message: “Die quietly. Leave your phone in the drawer.”

She understood exactly what the boss meant by “die quietly”. And so, she complied.

All anyone knew was that in the final moments of her life, the face she saw was Ms. Yang’s.

Ye Feiyang stared coldly at his phone. He was sitting in a window seat. The sound of the impact was incredibly loud. He could even distinctly hear the sound of bones shattering, followed by a wave of screams rising one after another. Teachers and students alike were thrown into utter chaos. As a crowd of classmates rushed over to his side to look out, he stood up and walked into the neighboring classroom. While everyone’s attention was completely fixed on the scene outside the window, he slipped Ning Xue’s phone out of her desk drawer.

It was then that he noticed a sentence written in her notebook: This world is too filthy. No one can save me.

He couldn’t comprehend why she would write such a thing. To this day, he still didn’t understand it. In his worldview, this world had never been clean to begin with.

Later on, through his step-by-step modifications, Eden grew larger and more powerful. Its membership steadily climbed. He began to carefully handpick his targets, which is how things escalated to the state they are in today. The four rooms represented Eden’s River of Life, and he was the god within it.

His favorite member was Professor Chen Changming. He would sit right there in his seat, watching the professor talk smoothly and eloquently on the podium, which he found highly amusing. An impeccably dressed university professor who, in secret, was a member of Eden. Just watching Professor Chen was enough to keep him entertained all day long.

Occasionally, he would notice the bizarre look in Professor Chen’s eyes, as if the man fancied himself an elite who held absolute control over everything. Yet, the true master of it all was sitting right beneath his nose, watching him from the audience.

Professor Chen was nothing but a joke.

Through the software, he could conduct surveillance, wiretapping, and location tracking. He frequently listened through his headphones to the various façades of people’s daily lives. A husband’s tender devotion to his wife, a boss’s harsh criticism of a subordinate… all of it amused him greatly.

Later, someone new entered his chatroom. He recognized her identity right from the start. It was Ms. Yang, whom he hadn’t seen in a very long time. From the information gathered through wiretapping and surveillance, he learned that she was investigating Ning Xue’s case. And so, he baited her, allowing her to do whatever she pleased on his turf, and would even take the initiative to feed her a few clues.

Three years. He had watched his former teacher spend vast amounts of money and time, climbing her way up step by step, slowly and with great difficulty. So, he placed her in “Room 4”. He wanted to see just how far she could investigate. They had played several rounds of this game together. Naturally, he had specially placed her in the spectator seats so she could watch everything unfold.

Until one day, he sensed that she seemed to want to leave. Thus, he decided to take action and end this spy game. Ye Feiyang joined the game himself and designated the mission executor. He only revealed the target’s identity to Wang Kan.

At home, Yang San watched the live stream start in the group chat. Just like always, she began taking notes until the building on screen started to look familiar. Only then did she realize that she herself was the target. Seeing her own home appear on the screen, she instinctively grabbed her phone and dialed Xiang Ling’s number.

It was a completely subconscious act, reaching out to that colleague who was so similar to her, yet practically a stranger.

But the moment the call was placed, she hung up immediately. From the very beginning of her investigation, she had made a promise never to involve anyone else. Even so, she still held onto a sliver of hope, leaving her clues inside the book Genesis and hiding them beneath the mattress in her bedroom.

Wang Kan somehow had a key and unlocked the door to Yang San’s home. Yang San had initially held onto a desperate hope, preparing to slam into him the moment the door opened and make a run for it. But she didn’t know that Ye Feiyang was monitoring her every move through her phone. Unsurprisingly, Yang San was stabbed right at the doorway. Dragging her wounds and a trail of blood, she crawled into the living room. Right before her eyes, Wang Kan ruthlessly followed Ye Feiyang’s instructions, destroying every single piece of investigative data within sight.

Three years of her painstaking blood and sweat, and the truth behind Ning Xue’s death, were frozen forever in her dilating pupils.

The report was finally published, with the author credited as San Yang. The netizens were sharp-eyed. Anyone could tell this was the hallmark style of Yixian, and they could understand that this was San Yang’s final report.

The article was reposted extensively. One online comment read: “You can read the other reports out there just to pass the time, but in the end, you must read this one. The truth is here.”

The report was exceptionally long, spanning tens of thousands of words. It detailed Ye Feiyang’s youth, exposed the inner workings of Eden, named those who had lost their lives to it, and laid bare the ugliest depths of human nature. Accompanying the report was a massive trove of evidentiary data. Ye Feiyang was not the magical, mystifying, larger-than-life figure portrayed by other media outlets. He was simply a child who had been abandoned at the doorstep of an orphanage, suffering from antisocial personality disorder.

It was, pure and simple, a public investigative report.

Naturally, given the severity of the case and the intense public scrutiny surrounding it, no one was willing to act as Ye Feiyang’s defense attorney. Even his previous lawyer had resigned.

“Xiang Ling, Deng Tan Ru Shi wants to buy the copyright for this report. Even though the pen name used is San Yang, I still wanted to check with you.” This was a phone call from Jiang Xue, just two days after the article was published.

At that moment, Xiang Ling was slicing a watermelon, her phone resting on the counter beside her. “Who?”

“Deng Tan Ru Shi. That talk show that stole your report last time.”

Jiang Xue emphasized every word. The production team had learned their lesson. Their representatives were currently waiting right outside her office, contracts fully prepared.

“Sell it to them. Push the price as high as it can go,” Xiang Ling said, bringing the large knife down with a sharp chop, splashing watermelon juice.

“Got it. I’ll highball them as much as possible,” the editor-in-chief replied before hanging up.

By the time all the watermelon was sliced, the editor-in-chief sent over a photo showing the contents of the copyright contract. Xiang Ling only cared about the final payout. Looking at the figure, she couldn’t help but admire her editor-in-chief’s bargaining skills. She still remembered Professor Chen Changming’s nice house. This amount was more than enough for her down payment, with plenty left to spare.

Afterward, she wrote a letter and cut a check. Accompanied by Yu Shi, she tracked down Ning Xue’s family home. Yu Shi watched as Xiang Ling dropped the envelope containing the massive check into the mailbox. Once Xiang Ling got back into the car, Yu Shi asked, “You’re really willing to just give away the fruits of your hard labor like that?” She didn’t mind for herself, of course. She hadn’t wanted her own share right from the start.

“Of course, it hurts a little to let it go. But Yang San investigated for so many years just to bring the truth of Ning Xue’s death to light. I just finished what she couldn’t. Besides, they need this money far more than I do.”

Xiang Ling gestured toward Ning Xue’s house. She was all alone in the world anyway, so it didn’t matter much to her, and she was still young.

Yu Shi nodded and stepped on the gas. “Can you give my subordinate an autograph later?” Mie Mie had been pestering her for days to get one, all because Yu Shi had misled her last time by saying Xiang Ling was just a Yixian errand runner.

“The cute one?” Xiang Ling still remembered Yu Shi saying at the wellness center that she liked cute girls. She immediately turned her head away and said, “No. I’m busy working to save up for my down payment.”

“Then she’s going to annoy me to death. Maybe I should just skip work, or maybe I’ll just dump her into Hua Yicheng’s team,” Yu Shi joked.

“Please don’t be a useless boss.”

Of course, things wouldn’t end quite so easily. The investigation was still ongoing. Those users who hadn’t been caught yet would live out their days in constant dread, and the psychological scars left on the victims would not heal so easily. It could take a very long time, or they might never heal for the rest of their lives.

Back in her office, Yu Shi was organizing the files. As she went through them, she noticed Mie Mie’s section was missing. Glancing outside, she saw everyone focused on their own tasks. She walked out to find Mie Mie sitting with her back to her, completely absorbed in whatever was on her computer screen.

Stepping noiselessly up behind Mie Mie, Yu Shi looked at the monitor and read the words aloud: “To grant you a lifetime of fleeting splendor, and three thousand blessings of absolute devotion…”

“Ah!!! Sister Yu, what are you doing?!” Caught completely off guard, Mie Mie frantically shut off her computer monitor in a panicked flurry.

“What exactly are you reading?” Yu Shi said, reaching over to turn the monitor back on. Her subordinate seemed to be slacking off during work hours. She was determined to see exactly what Mie Mie was looking at.

“No looking!” Mie Mie blocked the screen with her body.

“Are you reading smut? You can’t read smut during work hours, and you still owe me a report!”

Yu Shi didn’t forcefully drag her away. But a subordinate’s slacking behavior had to be strictly corrected to maintain workplace discipline.

Mie Mie quickly hit the power button again to keep the screen black and said, “I am not reading smut! And it’s break time right now…” She pointed righteously at the wall clock. It was, in fact, exactly the time for lunch.

Jun Zi, the youngest member of the team, popped his head out from behind his computer and said, “She’s probably reading some fanfic shipping—”

Mie Mie cut Jun Zi off with lightning speed: “Sister Yu, I’ll email you that report right this second!”

Just then, the phone in Yu Shi’s office rang. She walked in to answer it. By the time everyone saw her walk back out, all they heard was: “Grab your bread if you have bread, grab your dry rations if you have rations. We’re eating in the car. Move out to the scene immediately.” Lunch break had ended before it even began.

The moment the words left her mouth, the whole team collectively yanked open their desk drawers, scrambling to pack whatever food they could find. Going to a crime scene was never a quick trip. As the group hurried past Hua Yicheng’s team, they could even hear him teasingly ask if they were going on a picnic.

The scene was located out in the wilderness, and the drive was incredibly bumpy. During the entire car ride, they tried to wolf down their lunch while simultaneously fighting to keep it from coming back up. Finally, the car pulled over halfway up a mountain road. All the police vehicles were parked as far to the side as possible to avoid blocking traffic. Stepping out of the car, Yu Shi led her team to find the person who had first discovered the scene. The moment they saw the man’s face, he looked remarkably familiar.

“Old mister, do you find corpses for a living?” Jun Zi blurted out instinctively.

Yu Shi naturally wanted to say the same thing. The last time a body was found under the bridge, this very same old man had discovered it, or rather, his golden retriever had dug it up. This time, the golden retriever was once again lying obediently by the old man’s side.

“Is your dog interested in becoming a police dog?” Xiao Lang couldn’t help but ask, leaning down to pat the golden retriever’s head.

“How should I know he’d be so good at digging up corpses?” the old man replied, looking utterly helpless.

Yu Shi left the two of them behind to take the man’s statement and led the rest of her team deeper into the woods. Guided by a colleague, they walked about a hundred meters before finally spotting the crime scene. The officers securing the area had wrapped a large perimeter of caution tape around the tree trunks. Everyone ducked underneath to enter. The forensics team had arrived a step ahead of them and was just preparing to exhume the body. Yu Shi could see a section of white bone protruding from the soil, clearly part of a hand.

The exhumation team carefully cleared away the dirt. As the soil was brushed aside, a complete set of skeletal remains was fully revealed before everyone.

“Why do killers always love choosing places like this to dump bodies…” Shu Xia’s complaint drifted over from a short distance away. She had been called out to examine a corpse right in the middle of her lunch.

“Your colleagues seem pretty busy. It’s always you,” Yu Shi teased.

“If I hadn’t heard that your team was responding to the call, I wouldn’t have come. If I knew the place was this wild, I would’ve told Jiu Hua to come instead.” Shu Xia had her assistant place the toolkit next to the bones, preparing to examine the skeleton.

“Jiu Hua would probably say she can’t be bothered with you,” Yu Shi said, squatting down next to Shu Xia to examine the bones as well.

Shu Xia used a brush to clear away the remaining dirt on the white bones and did a rough inspection. “There’s a hole right through the skull. I can guarantee you, this is the cause of death!”

She then checked the rest of the body. The bones were all intact. However, there was one strange detail: the skeleton’s fingers were rather peculiar. The middle finger and the ring finger of the right hand were the exact same length. Such a distinct characteristic would greatly assist them in verifying the identity. They also found a pair of earrings near the skull and a button near the hand bones. The clothes on the corpse had practically rotted away. If the fabric hadn’t been supporting them, they probably would have been completely lost in the soil.

“Since it’s completely skeletonized, there isn’t much else I can test for right now. You’ve got a tough one on your hands this time. Going by the color of the bones, this victim has been dead for quite a few years,” Shu Xia said, snapping off her gloves.

Corpses are always harder to investigate the longer they have been dead. On top of that, the dump site was so wild that the soil here would have accelerated decomposition, heavily complicating their attempts to pinpoint the exact time of death. Even if the killer had left behind any clues or traces at the time, they were likely long gone by now.

After they finished examining the skeletal remains and the surrounding environment, Jun Zi and Xiao Lang returned from taking the old man’s statement. Jun Zi reported that the old man had been walking his dog along this mountain road for exercise quite often recently and had been doing so for some time. Previously, the big golden retriever had behaved completely normally as it passed by. It was only today that it suddenly bolted into the woods to dig up the ground, leading to the discovery of the body.

“Looking at the environment here, this area has been hit by flash floods before, and more than once. The body was likely buried much deeper initially. But after experiencing several flash floods, the layer of soil covering the corpse kept getting washed away, growing shallower each time. That’s why part of the skeleton was exposed, and the big golden retriever caught the scent and ran over to dig.”

Shu Xia pointed at the nearby trees. One could see that some roots that had originally grown underground were now exposed at the surface, proving that the topsoil layer had indeed become much shallower than before.

Xiao Lang, who had been tapping away on his phone, turned the screen to face everyone and said, “Dr. Shu’s deduction is spot on. There was actually another flash flood right here just two days ago.”

“Looks like he was destined to see the light of day again,” Mie Mie said, staring at the dirt-stained skeleton.

Some things simply can’t be kept hidden forever, no matter how deep they are buried.

Meanwhile, Xiang Ling had just stepped out of the hospital elevator. She had just finished seeing a familiar psychiatrist and was heading over to pick up her prescription and settle the bill. The large TV mounted on the wall in the lobby was broadcasting the news. Out of curiosity, she watched it while waiting in line. The broadcast was currently covering a skeleton discovered in the mountains yesterday afternoon. Today, the police issued a public notice: the right middle finger and ring finger of the skeletal remains were of identical length. If anyone among the general public knew a female acquaintance with this exact characteristic who had been missing for a long time, they were urged to contact the police immediately.

While the anchor was explaining the details, a photo of the hand bones was displayed simultaneously on the screen. Sure enough, the middle finger and the ring finger were the exact same length. She instinctively glanced down at her own hand. It wasn’t until the nurse behind the counter called her name that she handed over her prescription.

“Goodness me, Da Ying’s fingers used to look just like that. Are there really that many people with fingers like that nowadays?” Over in the corner of the lobby, two cleaning ladies were whispering back and forth.

“Do you think the bones in the news could be hers?”

“Pfft, bah! Don’t talk nonsense! How could it be her? She immigrated ages ago! For all we know, she’s probably sunbathing on some beach right now with a foreigner waiting on her hand and foot…”

“Like someone who looks like Leonardo?”

“Oh, I just loved him so much in that Titanic movie! My husband asks me every single day how handsome he could possibly be, sounding completely bitter about it…”

Xiang Ling glanced over. The two cleaning ladies had already steered the topic miles off course. She finished settling her bill and was about to head over to talk to them. But just as she did, the two women suddenly shut their mouths and began cleaning with intense dedication. Sensing something suspicious, Xiang Ling looked toward the other side of the lobby and saw a man in a white lab coat walking past.

The man even smiled and nodded politely to the cleaning ladies as he passed by. Once he was gone, the two women immediately resumed whispering.

“Our Dr. Fang is just so incredibly handsome. If my son looked like him, I’d stay home all day just to look at my son!”

“Not me. If my daughter married a man like him—handsome, wealthy, and young and promising—I’d drop by my in-laws’ place every single day…”

“Ladies, who was that doctor just now? Could you introduce him to me, too?” Xiang Ling slinked up to the two cleaning ladies noiselessly. She had been listening to them fawn over him for quite a while now.

“No can do, dear! Our Dr. Fang is a married man,” the shorter cleaning lady said, waving her hand and shaking her head repeatedly.

“Young lady, I think you’re quite pretty. Why don’t you take a look at our Dr. Liu over there? He’s handsome, too. You two would make a perfect couple.”

The taller cleaning lady pointed toward a doctor who was talking to a nurse in the distance. Xiang Ling turned her head to look.

Hmm… not bad!

But finding a date wasn’t her objective here. So, she asked, “Maybe I’ll try to chat him up next time I’m here. But I just heard you mention something about the fingers earlier. Did you know someone with fingers like that?”

“Oh, that. A few years ago, there was a nurse in our hospital named Yao Ying. Her fingers looked exactly like that. But she immigrated abroad later on.” The shorter cleaning lady explained, gesturing with her fingers.

“When did she immigrate?” Xiang Ling asked next.

“About three years ago, I think! If it weren’t for this news broadcast, I would’ve completely forgotten about her!” The taller cleaning lady checked the time as she spoke, then nudged her companion. “Time’s up. We have to go to the wards to collect the laundry!” With that, the two hurried off.

It seemed her luck wasn’t half bad even when she was working alone.

Meanwhile, Yu Shi was stressing over where to even begin with this case. The public notice had been issued, but no one had come forward to claim the body yet. Over at forensics, Shu Xia had determined from the pelvis that the victim was female, and based on the color of the bones, she had been dead for several years. The clothing on the body had been thoroughly soaked in decomposition fluids as the corpse rotted, which, combined with the rainwater filtering through the soil, made it impossible to discern the original color or even piece together the style. Fortunately, the shoes were mostly intact. Based on their style and manufacturing year, they could estimate that the victim’s time of death was roughly three to four years ago.

The phone on her desk rang. It was Xiang Ling. When Yu Shi answered, the other woman asked, rather unpredictably, “Hello, do you accept tip-offs from journalists?”

“Spill,” Yu Shi said, pulling over a notepad from her desk, ready to write.

“There used to be a nurse at Yuyang Hospital named Yao Ying. Her fingers match your skeleton. Although I don’t know how long your skeleton has been dead, the information I gathered here says Yao Ying resigned and immigrated three years ago.”

“Yuyang Hospital… which ‘Ying’ character is it?”

“I didn’t ask in that much detail,” Xiang Ling said, sitting on a bench. She had just asked a casual question earlier. Since the two cleaning ladies had run off right after, she hadn’t been able to press for details.

“Got it, thank you. Is a hotpot dinner okay as a reward?” Yu Shi tore off the notepad paper, walked out of her office, and tapped it against Li Yu’s arm, signaling him that they needed to head out.

“Works for me. Just let me know the time.”

Yu Shi and Li Yu arrived at Yuyang Hospital. They originally intended to speak with the director. But since the director was out, the director’s son received them instead. Yu Shi and Li Yu sat on the sofa, while the director’s son, Fang Shuli, sat opposite them, setting a glass of water down for each of them.

Yu Shi thanked him, nudged her glass a little closer to herself, and asked, “We came over today to ask about a former nurse at your hospital, Yao Ying. We understand that she resigned three years ago.”

A look of realization dawned on Fang Shuli. “Ah, yes. Hold on a moment. Let me look up her files for you.”

With that, he walked over to the computer and began searching for the records. A moment later, he printed out the files and handed them to Yu Shi, saying, “Take a look. The hiring and resignation dates are all clearly stated inside.”

“Do you still keep people’s personal records even after they resign?” Li Yu asked.

Fang Shuli patiently explained to Li Yu, “Our hospital’s HR department archives and cleans out files once every five years. When Yao Ying resigned, it happened to be the year right after a cleanup, so our next routine archival cleanup isn’t until next year.”

“Looking at the files, Yao Ying worked here as a nurse, starting all the way from her internship. Could you tell us a little bit about her briefly?”

Yu Shi took photos of the documents and messaged them to Da Gezi, asking him to look into Yao Ying’s international departure records.

Fang Shuli wore a troubled expression and said, “Even though we were both in the cardiology department, our interactions were strictly professional. From a work perspective, she was a true professional. As for her personality in daily life, you might have to ask my wife, Wang Qin. She’s our head nurse. She had much more contact with Yao Ying than I did.”

After the two detectives agreed, Fang Shuli called Wang Qin over using the office landline.

Wang Qin looked to be around the same age as Fang Shuli. After listening to her husband’s explanation, she finally understood why the detectives were there and asked in surprise, “Didn’t she immigrate? Do you suspect that the body is hers?”

“We can’t be sure whether it’s her or not just yet. We have to check the border control records first. It’s only a suspicion at this stage. After all, there aren’t many people with fingers like that.” Saying this, Yu Shi instinctively glanced down at her own hand again.

“Then I hope it isn’t! Yao Ying was a junior of mine from the same school. Her parents died in a car crash back when she was still in university. She started working at Yuyang right after. We, colleagues, would occasionally hang out. She was always very carefree and laid-back and loved joking around with everyone. She was a very easy person to get along with,” Wang Qin recalled, reflecting on her impression of Yao Ying.

Li Yu took notes off to the side while Yu Shi intently observed the couple in front of them.

“To your knowledge, did she ever have conflicts with anyone? Colleagues, patients, or superiors…?”

“Because she was so easygoing and had no issues with her work, there shouldn’t have been any conflicts like that.”

Just then, a reply came in from Da Gezi. He stated that the Bureau of Immigration had found absolutely no record of Yao Ying ever leaving the country.

Yu Shi asked, “In that case, did Yao Ying come in person to hand in her resignation?”

“No, actually. When I came in to work that day, I just found her resignation letter sitting on my desk,” Fang Shuli said. Remembering that he might still have it, he began rummaging through his drawers.

After rummaging through several drawers, he finally pulled out an envelope and handed it to Yu Shi. The edges and corners of the envelope had already turned somewhat yellow with age.

“Why on earth did you keep someone’s resignation letter for so long?” Wang Qin asked, looking completely bewildered.

Fang Shuli said, looking a bit embarrassed, “Because it was the first time in my life I’d ever received one, so I decided to keep it.”

Yu Shi pulled it out and read through it. It wasn’t handwritten. It was printed from a computer, stating that she was going to fulfill her dream of immigrating abroad to enjoy the sun and the beach every day. At the very bottom-right corner, a date was affixed, along with a stamp bearing Yao Ying’s personal seal.

The authenticity of this resignation letter still remains to be verified.

“You just let her go based entirely on a letter?” Yu Shi handed the envelope to Li Yu.

“When I received the letter, I tried to contact her, but her phone wouldn’t go through. On top of that, she stopped showing up for work entirely, so I notified the HR department…” As Fang Shuli spoke, even he began to realize that something felt off.

“How often is the surveillance footage in your office overwritten?”

“Every three months.”

If you enjoy my works and would like to support me, you can buy me a coffee on Ko-fi. Thank you for your support.