Cheng Shuangshuang was dead, perished in a fire, her bones turned to ashes, unrecoverable.
At Yan Garden on Ten-Mile Slope, Ji Liao sat dazedly on the ground, staring at the court summons Yu Nanzhi had thrown at her, feeling a chill run through her entire body.
Five days ago, he had pinned her down, gripping her neck as he roared, “Did you set the fire that killed Cheng Shuangshuang?”
Ji Liao didn’t respond—she couldn’t.
Yu Nanzhi had no intention of letting her off. Over those five days, he forced her to sift through the rubble, demanding she recover Cheng Shuangshuang’s ashes.
In the end, it was futile.
Five days later, he purchased a burial plot at Yan Garden on Ten-Mile Slope. Using Cheng Shuangshuang’s favorite clothes and a handful of soil from the ruins as her remains, he buried her there.
Yu Nanzhi dragged Ji Liao by the hair, forcing her to kneel and kowtow to the deceased Cheng Shuangshuang, confessing her guilt and atoning for her sins.
She refused, and he kicked her, sending her sprawling before the tombstone.
Ji Liao lifted her head in disarray, her eyes stung by the radiant, smiling photo of Cheng Shuangshuang.
Yu Nanzhi stood over her, throwing Cheng Shuangshuang’s ultrasound report in her face. “Ji Liao, you carry two lives on your conscience. What you owe her, you couldn’t repay in a hundred years after death.”
He was right—two lives.
Cheng Shuangshuang had been pregnant before she died, but the child wasn’t Yu Nanzhi’s. Even though Cheng Shuangshuang had married someone else, he still regarded her as an innocent angel, cherishing her deeply and remaining unwavering in his devotion.
And who was Ji Liao? She was Yu Nanzhi’s lawful wife, formally wed into the Yu family. Yet, she could never capture Yu Nanzhi’s attention.
How laughable her identity sounded.
Ji Liao stubbornly met the gaze of the man standing before her, holding a classic black umbrella and dressed in a tailored black suit. The drizzling rain blurred her vision, but she stood her ground. “I didn’t set the fire that killed Cheng Shuangshuang. How many times must I say it for you to believe me?”
Yu Nanzhi suddenly crouched down. Before Ji Liao could react, his long, strong fingers clamped around her chin, sending a sharp pain through her. “Do you think denying it now will change anything?”
Trembling, Ji Liao forced out a rebuttal, “Yu Nanzhi, I am innocent. Even if I have to say it until I die, I will never admit to being the murderer.”
“Heh!” No sooner had she spoken than his powerful hand gripped her chin and slammed it downward. With a thud, the back of her head hit the ground, and her mind went blank.
“You’ve been married to me for so many years, left alone in an empty room—you must have been terribly lonely, right?”
As she regained her senses, before she could even register the pain, his distinct, mellow voice reached her ears. The faint scent of mint brushed against her cheeks and filled her nostrils—his scent, the one Cheng Shuangshuang had loved most.
“What do you mean?” she asked, still dazed. The whole world knew she had been lonely all these years. He had never cared about her well-being, so why ask now?
Yu Nanzhi pinched her chin, his thumb roughly smearing her red lips.
Pain shot through her. Ji Liao bit her lip and glared at him, only to fall into the depths of his eyes, which blazed with fury. She felt scorched, unable to struggle, as if hearing a greeting from hell itself. This man, like a wrathful deity, seemed to be asking, “Did you miss me to the point of madness?”
Yu Nanzhi exuded a chilling aura like glacial hell as he coldly stated, “Ji Liao, even if you’re jealous that Shuangshuang has won my affection, you shouldn’t have killed her.”
A frigid sensation spread from her toes to the crown of her head. Ji Liao snapped back to reality with a shudder. From beginning to end, he stubbornly insisted she was Cheng Shuangshuang’s murderer.
“I never intended to kill anyone,” she stubbornly denied.
Yu Nanzhi despised her to the core. “How dare you claim you never intended to kill anyone? Hah… Little did you know the captured thugs have already betrayed you, saying you hired them to murder her. While Shuangshuang was entering the hotel, you had them ignite the gas cylinders to blow her up inside!”
Killing intent gradually surfaced in his eyes. Without giving her a chance to explain, he gripped her chin, lifted her up, and slammed her down violently.
“Ah!!”Accompanied by a scream, Ji Liao’s head struck the stone steps before the tombstone with a heavy thud, instantly splitting open her skin.” Crimson blood mixed with rainwater, forming streams. The man’s voice beside her ear sounded particularly piercing at this moment.
“Ji Liao, I truly wish I could treat you the same way, but that would be letting you off too easily.”
Yes, it really would be too lenient. How could the torment Cheng Shuangshuang endured in the fire be glossed over so simply?
Ji Liao gripped his wrist, glaring at him. This umbrella-holding man descended like the god of death, looking down on her with disdain.
He released her, simultaneously shaking off her hand, and sternly declared, “Ji Liao, calmly await the judgment of the law. Wait to enter prison where you’ll find life unlivable and death unreachable!”
“Yu Nanzhi, listen to me! Things aren’t what you think!”
“Hah…” He let out a cold laugh, exuding an aura as frigid as Satan’s. “It’s not impossible for me to hear you out, Ji Liao. But do you have the resolve?”
Ji Liao gritted her teeth. “Yes.”
“Good.” Yu Nanzhi swept a glance over her. “I recall your parents are also buried in this cemetery. If you’re willing to dig them up to prove your determination, perhaps once my anger subsides, I’ll grant you an hour to plead your case.”
“What!” Ji Liao stared at him in disbelief. “My parents have already passed away! How can you say such a thing!”
“I’ve said what I said. Whether you prove it or not is up to you!” After uttering these words with disgust, someone behind him tossed a shovel that clattered to the ground before Ji Liao.
He turned away with a cold laugh and strode off abruptly.
Ji Liao stared blankly at the cold iron shovel, sitting up dazedly and remaining silent for a long time.
After what felt like an eternity, she woodenly took the white cloth hanging on Cheng Shuangshuang’s tombstone and wrapped it around her head twice to bandage the wound.
Then, in the drizzling rain, Ji Liao clenched her pale lips, picked up the shovel, and gripped it tightly in her palm.
Lifting her gaze, she saw her parents’ graves not far away. The yellow chrysanthemums placed before the tombstones seemed to weep for her plight under the washing rain.
“Cheng Shuangshuang, are you satisfied with my current fate? You were already a married woman, why did you keep clinging to someone else’s husband? Was your own husband dead? Couldn’t he help you? Now that you’ve descended to hell, unwilling to accept that I remain by Yu Nanzhi’s side, you’d drag me down to hell to keep you company no matter what, right? Hah… You filthy homewrecker, you vile invader!”
The shovel scraped off a corner of her tombstone. Ji Liao lifted her heavy footsteps and trudged step by step toward her parents’ graves.
In the rain, her face and lips were pale, and she trembled all over from the cold. With a thud, her knees hit the ground as she knelt before her parents’ tombstones, weeping bitterly.
“Mom, Dad, you’re gone, my brother is missing, the family property has been divided up by the relatives, and in the end, I’m the only one left in this family. Tell me, what should I do, what should I do…”