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墨書 Inktalez
Inside the Guiyuan Tavern, 19-year-old Wei Sheng was busy.
Although it was summer vacation, he still had a lot to do. The tavern was small, but business was always good, thanks to their homemade wine.
At a quarter past eleven, outside the glass window, the sun shone brightly over Meng City.
With relatively few customers at noon, he had to ladle the wine from the jars into specially made cloth bags and tie them with a lucky knot using thin hemp rope before placing them in a bamboo basket for sale. A piece of parchment hung on the wall with today's reminders; soon he would need to deliver wine to an old patron who had broken a bone but still craved a drink. The young man focused on his tasks, occasionally glancing outside through the diamond-patterned wooden bar, his gaze often landing on two patrons sitting quietly.
One of them had a back that made his heart feel tender.
She hadn’t returned home last night and had left with Park Chi, likely caught up in some case again. Unlike the man across from her who was drinking, she was savoring a cup of her own brewed herbal tea. After returning, she had changed into a flowing outfit—a light tea-colored robe paired with wide white silk pants, her dark hair casually pinned with a dark green stone hairpin. Not long after sitting down, the two began to whisper to each other.
Concentrating, Wei Sheng could only catch snippets of their conversation.
“You can’t hide anything from you, detective,” the man’s voice sounded relieved.
The young man smiled and returned to his work.
“Is this what you mean?” The woman calmly placed a photograph on the table. It was Jiang Yufei's suicide note.
“Death is no dream, for in death I'm caressing you. With the last breath of my soul, I'll be blessing you.” This was a line from “Gloomy Sunday.” The so-called suicide note was merely half of the lyrics she had copied down and torn in half. “I should have seen this coming,” she sighed softly.
Upon seeing that sky-blue recipe book at the Gu family’s place, she felt a chill run down her spine; as a personal mark, Jiang Yufei's note did not bear the three-colored pansy symbol that usually accompanied her signature.
This was highly unusual but was overlooked by her as she was caught up in her feelings of love.
He also ignored the large number of expired cigarette butts found in the trash can when he accidentally entered the bedroom. His wife was nineteen weeks pregnant, yet he continued to smoke.
It wasn't until he met Lu Kai that she was forced to confront a terrifying possibility.
The deceased had told him that day that she hoped her husband, Gu Cheng, could love her without any worries from the past. A love without worries from the past. Why did that statement feel more like a hint?
And since Lu had left that day, was it really only possible for Jiang Yufei to have committed suicide on that patch of bulrushes?
Would a suicide victim willingly lie down in a box?
Moreover, this was an iron box that would become airtight once closed.
If only… she truly did not want to think any further.
But it was still uncertain. As Lu Kai had said, the area of the swamp was not large; if the deceased had made any noise, he should have heard it from the opposite direction.
With these doubts in mind, she arrived at the scene early in the morning.
The seasonal wind swept past her ears, and she suddenly realized.
Though this swamp was small, it was sandwiched between two mountains and divided by a bridge. The unique geographical environment caused what would normally be a gentle seasonal wind to form a vortex as it passed through. The dense bulrushes muffled any echoes,
so even if Jiang Yufei had made a sound, Lu Kai would not have heard it.
There were others on the bridge at that time who could only rely on their eyes to judge what had happened.
"I found your cigarette butt on the bridge. As a senior, you must understand that a DNA test can prove you were there on the day of the incident. When you got home that day and saw that text message, knowing her as you do, you must have rushed over. If I’m not mistaken, later on, you witnessed something you shouldn’t have on the bridge." Yan Xiaoque said helplessly.
Last night, while investigating in the community, one of the children playing in the central garden mentioned that they had seen Gu Cheng around 6 PM on the 17th while playing hide and seek at the stairwell. At the time, she thought it was just evidence of Gu getting off work, so she didn’t pay much attention. It wasn’t until this morning when an intern officer sent to retrieve surveillance footage from the West Garden reported that around 6:15 PM, a batch of large items was being transported to the F floor by the elevator, during which time all other floors were paused for a few minutes. That’s when Yan Xiaoque realized that what the child referred to as "the stairwell" actually meant the rarely used staircase on the left side.
After seeing that text message, Gu Cheng must have rushed out of his house in a panic, unable to wait for the elevator that had paused for a few minutes, and ran down the stairs, just in time for the child to see him.
Gu must have taken the elevator home from work. The elevator entrance and stairwell—how could one hide in an elevator? She couldn’t help but blame herself for being so careless.
"I saw him holding roses, holding Jiang Yufei's hand, and they talked for a long time. Later, they started pulling at each other over something, and suddenly Jiang Yufei hugged Lu Kai from behind! They were just like that..." Gu Cheng's voice was filled with jealousy. "She is my wife, yet she’s hugging her ex-lover. What do you want me to feel?!"
Faced with his accusation, Yan Xiaoque could only smile bitterly. Fate plays tricks on people.
"By the time I rushed down to their meeting place under the bridge, Lu Kai had already left."
A slight miscalculation led to a significant consequence; all she could do now was sigh. Compared to Lu Kai's account, it was clear that Gu Cheng hadn’t been patient enough to see what happened next.
"Why didn’t you listen to her explanation? What did you do afterward?" Yan Xiaoque asked.
"Explanation? What is there to explain? She threw away the ring," Gu Cheng said despondently.
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