The Real Killer Came to See Her in the Dead of Night Lin Weiwei raised her hand and smashed his mother’s urn hard onto the ground.
Ashes scattered all over the floor!
She pointed at his nose and cursed furiously. “Ji Chuan, you’re just a toad trying to eat swan meat! You’re a poor country boy who didn’t even finish junior high, covered in dirt—what makes you think you can climb up to someone like me, a graduate student?”
“I’ve made it out of that life. I have an education, I’ll have a respectable job soon, and my future is bright. But you? You’ll always be just a bottom-rung worker—we’re not from the same world.”
“All these years, I’ve been with you, I’ve slept with you—you should be grateful. Stop clinging to me and ruining my prospects.”
“If you dare threaten me again, I’ll go to the police and say you raped me! I still have a pair of underwear I haven’t washed—there’s evidence of you on it. If you don’t want to go to jail, stay out of my life!”
In that moment, he finally saw Lin Weiwei’s true colors clearly.
The first thing you do when you reach the shore is cut loose the one who helped you swim.
This saying could not have been more true for Lin Weiwei.
He hated himself—hated his foolish devotion to her, hated his own uselessness.
But most of all, he hated Lin Weiwei’s cold-hearted cruelty. She could humiliate him all she wanted.
But she had no right to smash his mother’s urn.
Ji Chuan’s emotions suddenly flared up. Even now, thinking back to that scene, he was still consumed by anger.
“I slapped her hard twice. She didn’t stand steady and fell to the ground. I grabbed her hair and slammed her head against the floor with all my strength.”
In that moment, his mind was completely blank. Years of pent-up grievance, sacrifice, humility, and rejection all erupted at once.
How could she trample on his sincerity and dignity like this?
Would she have become a graduate student without his years of support?
How dare she smash his mother’s urn?
Was he nothing more than a dog to her—called when needed, cast aside when not?
“When she gradually stopped struggling, my sense of reason returned. I was so scared I nearly lost my mind. I didn’t dare look at her anymore and ran out the door.”
“It was a long time before I stumbled back. By then, dawn was breaking, and the room was completely silent. I reached out to touch her—her body was already cold, and she was starting to stiffen up. I knew she was well and truly dead.”
“I looked at her lying there. Her face was still the one I had once cherished in my palms. But the moment I remembered her smashing my mother’s urn and calling me a toad, hatred and anger surged up again. My mind was a complete mess. I didn’t want to see her face anymore, so I took a knife and disfigured her.”
“After that, in the dead of night the next day, when no one was looking, I dumped her body on Qingluan Mountain.”
The dumping site Ji Chuan described matched exactly where the police had found the body.
But—
Lin Weiwei’s actual cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation.
In other words, when Ji Chuan left the apartment, Lin Weiwei was still alive.
The real killer had entered after Ji Chuan left, covered her mouth and nose, and strangled her until she died of oxygen deprivation.
Lu Zheng didn’t leave the police station until late at night.
When he saw the marriage certificate lying on the passenger seat of his car, he suddenly remembered—he had gotten married that day.
He picked up the certificate and looked at it.
The woman in the photo with him was fair-skinned and delicate, soft and charming.
She didn’t look twenty-six at all—she still looked like a college student.
They had parted in such a hurry that he hadn’t even asked for her contact information.
Lu Zheng took out his phone and opened the WeChat alumni group.
There were already over 99 unread messages.
Many people had tagged him.
Lu Zheng had no interest in reading them. Just as he was about to open the group member list, he saw someone tag a WeChat user named “Little Pear.”
“@Little Pear Look look! Fu Wenzhou is coming back for our No.1 High School reunion this time!”
“@Little Pear The reason you’ve never gotten married—is it because you’re waiting for your crush Fu Wenzhou to come back from abroad?”
Lu Zheng’s finger paused on the screen, and his eyebrows furrowed almost imperceptibly.
Fu Wenzhou.
A classmate from the neighboring class—once a legendary figure at No.1 High School.
Lu Zheng opened Little Pear’s WeChat profile and looked at her moments.
Her moments were visible for only three days. The most recent post was a repost of an announcement from Lin University.
Little Pear must be Wen Qingli—the woman he had married in a hurry.
He sent her a friend request.
After finishing the lesson plan for her class the next day, Wen Qingli took a shower.
She curled up on the sofa and picked up her phone.
A WeChat notification popped up—a friend request.
She clicked on it instinctively, and her eyes landed on the sender’s note: just a single letter, “Z.”
The profile picture was a side view of a man standing in the midst of towering mountains, wearing a dark jacket. His figure was tall and solitary, and even through the photo, he exuded an aura that kept strangers at a distance.
Wen Qingli’s heart skipped a heavy beat.
She hadn’t expected Lu Zheng to take the initiative to add her as a friend.
She stared at his profile picture in a daze, even her fingertips feeling slightly numb.
She suddenly remembered that in high school, when the class monitor had set up a group chat, she had wanted to send him a friend request several times, but had never dared.
That bitter, tangled feeling had been tormenting.
She took a deep breath and gently clicked “Accept.”
Looking at the quiet chat window, she hesitated for a long time before carefully typing two words:
“Hello.”
The message was sent, but the screen remained still—no reply came.
Wen Qingli felt a small pang of disappointment.
In her distraction, another notification popped up at the top of WeChat—someone had tagged her in the No.1 High School alumni group.
She clicked into the group and scanned the flood of messages—all teasing her, and constantly mentioning Fu Wenzhou’s name.
Her heart fluttered with panic, afraid that Lu Zheng might misunderstand.
She quickly opened Lu Zheng’s WeChat, wanting to explain.
But then she remembered his request before their marriage:
Treat each other with respect, do not disturb one another.
She knew clearly—he wanted a marriage in name only, one that would satisfy both their parents without any real involvement.
If she took the initiative to explain, she would seem too presumptuous.
Just as Wen Qingli was about to exit the chat window, a message from him came through.
Z: “Are you in the school dorm?”
Wen Qingli’s heart seemed to skip a beat. She stared at the message for a few seconds, choosing her words carefully before typing back:
“I have an early class tomorrow, so I didn’t go back to my apartment. I’m staying in the faculty dorm tonight.”
The message was sent, and the chat window fell silent again.
Wen Qingli put down her phone and sank deeper into the sofa.
She was annoyed at her own lack of composure.
After all these years, she still let his every word and action affect her mood.
A moment later, she picked up her phone again, wanting to ask if he had something to tell her.
Before she could send the message, her phone rang.
It was an unfamiliar number.
Wen Qingli had a feeling she knew who it was—her breath almost stopped.
She pressed the answer button, held the phone to her ear, and said softly, “Hello?”
“It’s Lu Zheng. I’m downstairs at your faculty dorm. If it’s convenient, could you come down for a moment?”
He was downstairs?
Wen Qingli rushed to the window and looked down.
Sure enough, she saw a black SUV parked below.