Shu Lingchen felt his head buzz.
He recognized every single word the woman in the lab coat was saying, but when put together, his brain temporarily short-circuited trying to process what it actually meant.
The woman’s voice kept drilling into his ears.
“…Officers, I’ll confess. I’ll confess everything.”
“Luo Ping and I met a long time ago playing mahjong at a parlor. I work at a pharmacy. Since Shu Lingchen is an orphan but gets fifty thousand yuan a month in living expenses, she set her sights on his money. She wanted to pocket some cash to spend, so she asked me to play along and gave me a cut every time.”
“I hesitated the first few times, but later I saw nothing was happening. I figured since I had nothing to lose and there was money to be made, I agreed to this long-term arrangement with her—”
“She’s slandering Auntie Chu!”
Before the video could even finish playing, Shu Lingchen jumped to his feet in agitation. Pointing at the laptop, he said with absolute certainty, “She’s talking nonsense just to get herself off the hook! How could Auntie Chu possibly be that kind of person!”
But next, the police showed Shu Lingchen the evidence provided by the woman in the lab coat.
Shu Lingchen’s gaze followed the officer’s hand, and then he saw an incredibly familiar profile picture.
It was the WeChat profile picture Auntie Chu always used.
The woman in the lab coat was clearly a shrewd operator. She had saved the initial chat logs of Mother Chu asking for her cooperation, as well as every single transfer record—almost as if she had been anticipating the day the truth would eventually come to light.
The officer said, “We’ve verified everything. All transfers were initiated and received by Luo Ping herself. Furthermore, according to records from the hospital, Luo Ping has always been in perfect health. She has never suffered from any major illness.”
“…”
Just a few minutes ago, Shu Lingchen had been completely in the dark, unable to comprehend why he was the victim of a fraud case.
Now, he understood.
The teenager froze to the spot, unable to react for a long time. His lips twitched as he shook his head, still in denial: “I… I still don’t believe it. I want to ask Auntie Chu face-to-face…”
The two officers exchanged another look.
Confrontations like this happened all the time at the station; it was nothing new. “You may.”
At that moment, Mother Chu was in the interrogation room next door.
One of the officers gestured for Shu Lingchen to follow him, but the boy was still trapped in a state of utter shock.
Shu Lingchen simply couldn’t connect the warm, kind Auntie Chu in his memories with the mercenary, calculating face in those chat logs.
Auntie Chu had lied to him. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her health.
Did Chuchu know about this?
Just as the thought crossed Shu Lingchen’s mind—
“Ah Chen…”
A tearful female voice rang out.
Shu Lingchen looked up and saw Chu Lian appearing with red, puffy eyes. She had rushed over after hearing that Mother Chu had been taken away by the police. At this moment, tears were trembling on the brink of falling.
“Ah Chen, I didn’t expect Mom to do something so incredibly foolish… I… I’m honestly too ashamed to face you.”
Shu Lingchen picked up on the implicit message in Chu Lian’s words.
—So, Chuchu didn’t know about this either.
“Ah Chen, I’ll go with you.” Chu Lian had overheard the conversation just now. She took a step forward, looking as if she were about to weep. “I want to ask Mom why on earth she did this.”
Naturally, Shu Lingchen wasn’t going to refuse.
Inside the interrogation room.
Mother Chu obviously knew the woman in the lab coat had sold her out completely. Seeing Shu Lingchen walk in, her eyes darted around shiftily.
“Auntie Chu,” Shu Lingchen’s voice sounded dry. “Is what the police are saying true? Your health… there was never anything wrong with you from the very beginning?”
“…” Mother Chu hemmed and hawed, avoiding a direct answer.
Seeing this, how could Shu Lingchen not understand? His heart instantly sank, filled with a mixture of crushing disappointment and shock.
Auntie Chu really had deceived him.
“—Mom, you’ve gone too far!” Chu Lian suddenly spoke up from the side. She shot a glance at Shu Lingchen, looking furiously indignant as she ranted, “How could you do something like this? You could go to jail for this!”
The moment she heard the word “jail,” Mother Chu instantly panicked, her vision turning black. “No, I don’t want to go to jail!”
“Now you know how to panic? What were you doing before this? Do you have any idea how badly you’ve broken Ah Chen’s heart?”
Chu Lian spoke with absolute righteousness. After finishing her speech, she turned her head back to look at Shu Lingchen, her tone softening immediately.
“Ah Chen, Mom is indeed completely in the wrong here. Let me apologize to you on her behalf, okay? Can you please give her a chance to admit her mistake, for the sake of how she looked after you since you were little?”
“…That’s right, Xiao Chen.”
Mother Chu took a few seconds to catch on, realizing Chu Lian’s intention. She immediately reached across the table, grabbed Shu Lingchen’s hand, and began to play the pity card.
“Xiao Chen, I was just possessed by greed at the time. It’s all my fault. I apologize to you. It’s only natural for you to blame me, but Xiao Chen, think about it—when you were about to be sent to the orphanage, it was me who helped report that woman who abused you! It was me who told you that the couple who wanted to adopt you had bad intentions!”
“Are you really going to return kindness with enmity and send me to jail?”
“I…” Shu Lingchen began to hesitate.
It was true. If it weren’t for Auntie Chu, no one would have ever known he was being abused. If it weren’t for Auntie Chu’s warning, he definitely would have been miserably abandoned after going to that new family…
Mother Chu’s words stabbed right at the softest parts of Shu Lingchen’s heart. By the time he walked out of the interrogation room, his expression was entirely dazed, as if he had fallen into a deep state of confusion.
“Ah Chen, I’m so sorry.” Chu Lian’s face was filled with self-reproach as she sobbed, “I’m so sorry for making you sad.”
She already had a delicate, pure-looking face, and crying only made her look all the more pitiful.
Nothing had a greater impact on Shu Lingchen than Chu Lian’s tears. The moment he heard her cry, he went into a total panic.
“Chuchu, don’t cry. This isn’t your fault.”
Catching a glimpse of the heartache on Shu Lingchen’s face, Chu Lian seized the opportunity to look up and say, “Ah Chen, what will I do if Mom goes to jail? Can you… please not press charges against her?”
Shu Lingchen, who had already been stunned by Mother Chu’s earlier speech, completely forgot about his disappointment over being deceived the moment he saw Chu Lian like this. He hurriedly comforted her, “Chuchu, I won’t press charges against Auntie Chu.”
Chu Lian instantly cried tears of joy. “Really? Thank you, Ah Chen! Does this mean Mom won’t have to go to jail now?”
“Probably not, actually—”
A lazy female voice interrupted Chu Lian’s words.
Shu Lingchen and Chu Lian turned their heads at the same time. Chu Lian froze, looking thoroughly astonished as to why Shu Shu was appearing here.
Shu Shu crossed her arms, leaning casually against the hallway wall. “Chu Lian, your understanding of the law seems a bit weak. The money your mom conned out of Shu Lingchen for ‘medicine’ is close to half a million yuan.”
“If she wants leniency, shouldn’t she start by paying back every single cent she stole from him first?”
The sobbing expression on Chu Lian’s face stiffened for a split second.
That money had long been spent. Let alone the full amount, they couldn’t even pay back half of it.
“Ah Chen, I heard someone say before that if you get a settlement and forgiveness letter from the victim, the case can be handled with leniency.” Chu Lian started whimpering again, looking at Shu Lingchen with a deeply pitiful gaze as she wailed, “Please, can you help Mom out?”
The moment Chu Lian begged him, Shu Lingchen couldn’t take it at all. He didn’t even care that he was the miserable victim anymore and immediately went to find the police to sign a forgiveness letter for Mother Chu without a second thought.
Shu Shu raised an eyebrow. It was exactly as she had expected, so she didn’t bother to stop him.
…
In the lobby.
Chu Lian was sitting on the sofa when a pack of tissues was handed to her. Following the tissues up, her eyes landed on Shu Shu.
“Chu Lian, you must be tired from all that crying. Here, wipe your face.”
“…”
For some reason, Chu Lian felt like Shu Shu was actually asking her if she was tired from acting.
Maintaining the fragile expression on her face, she still reached out and took the tissues. After wiping away her tears, she asked with assumed casualness, voicing her earlier confusion: “Shu Shu, why are you here?”