CM | Chapter 19

“All the stories are connected to them, and each one is more exciting than the last.”

Gu Yao clasped her hands together and tried hard to think over those words.

She had to admit that the fact hit her hard. If Xu Shuo had suddenly run up to her a few days ago and told her all this, she would have thought he was crazy, that he was talking nonsense, and she would not have believed a single word.

But now…

Xu Shuo had laid so much groundwork in front of her, and every step had been tailored to her personality. Even if reason told her this was all a setup, she still had no excuse left to give herself.

No one knew how long had passed before Gu Yao looked up.

Xu Shuo raised a brow and smiled. “Got a question for me?”

It was the smile of someone who had hit the mark.

Gu Yao nodded.

Xu Shuo spoke first. “If you think the stories in here are all made up by me, I can understand. If it were me, I wouldn’t accept it either. As for whether it’s true or not, you might as well find the answer yourself.”

Who would have thought, Gu Yao said, “This diary should be real.”

This time, Xu Shuo looked faintly surprised. “That’s what you figured out?”

Gu Yao said, “You went to so much trouble doing all this. It wouldn’t just be to tell a lie in front of me. Besides, people can lie, but evidence can’t. Even forged ‘evidence’ will show flaws.”

She paused for a second, confusion flickering in her eyes. “How did you get this diary?”

Xu Shuo smiled. “Aren’t you curious whether Xiao Feng’s death had anything to do with your boyfriend?”

“If it did, he should be in prison by now.”

“You have too little faith in him. Maybe he killed Xiao Feng and was smart enough to cover up the evidence?”

Gu Yao gave a cold laugh. “Impossible. He’s not the kind of person who would kill over a little conflict, let alone hide a body in a sewage ditch for two years. No teenager could have done that.”

Then she changed the subject. “But as far as I know, Zhu Shengxi doesn’t have a younger sister.”

Maybe that was just a girl he got along with pretty well at the orphanage, so they called each other siblings?

Xu Shuo looked straight into Gu Yao’s eyes. After a long while, he finally spoke, his voice light and slow. “The second diary I picked for you may answer that question.”

…

200x, June, heavy rain.

Yesterday morning, something happened to one of the adults at home. We all called her Aunt Yuan.

We were reading at the time, and Aunt Yuan was sitting at the front desk, one hand propping up her head as she dozed.

Aunt Yuan was usually very fierce. She didn’t like me much and often picked on me, making me stand as punishment. But she didn’t like the other children much either. We all got scolded by her before, and behind her back we all cursed her to die sooner, then get thrown into the sewage ditch like Xiao Feng.

But these past two days, Aunt Yuan seemed to have become “kind.” She didn’t punish us, and every time, she would sleep while we were reading. Still, if she could stop snoring, we’d be even happier.

Aunt Yuan was very fat, like a sow. She wasn’t nimble and was even a little stupid. Even the sound of her snoring sounded like a pig.

The snoring got louder and louder, and we kept secretly laughing at her under our breath.

Then I noticed Big Brother had been staring at Aunt Yuan the whole time.

I thought that was strange. What was Big Brother looking at? So I looked too.

There was actually blood all over the skin under Aunt Yuan’s nose and around her mouth. The blood kept dripping little by little, splashing onto the table. It was terrifying.

At that moment, Big Brother stood up and walked over to Aunt Yuan. He pushed her.

Aunt Yuan woke up, but something about her expression was wrong. Her face was incredibly pale. She tried to get up and seemed like she wanted to speak.

Big Brother reached out to help her and called my name, telling me to go get the other adults.

Then I saw Aunt Yuan’s huge body topple off the chair. She hit the table with a loud bang, but she didn’t cry out once. She fell to the ground like a dead pig.

The adults came very quickly, and then an ambulance took Aunt Yuan away.

I kept hiding behind Big Brother. When we passed through the corridor, we heard two aunts talking inside. They said this wasn’t the first time Aunt Yuan had gotten a nosebleed. There was something growing inside her nose, and she had gone to see a doctor. The doctor said it was benign and told her to have it removed as soon as possible, or it would keep growing bigger, might turn malignant, and could even cause sudden bleeding and fainting.

Big Brother pulled me out of the corridor. When no one was around, I quietly asked him, would Aunt Yuan die?

Big Brother said he didn’t know.

The whole of yesterday, Big Brother and I were both in a very low mood, but I knew we weren’t upset for Aunt Yuan.

Every year on this day in the past, Big Brother’s mood was never very good. A few years ago, one night, he even secretly ran into the yard to burn paper money, and after the adults found out, they beat him up.

After that, Big Brother never burned paper money again, but he would always look at the cloth doll I liked best.

I knew Big Brother was remembering someone.

And my bad mood was because of “death.”

Actually, something like what happened to Aunt Yuan today has appeared many times in my memories from the past.

Not every child in our home can grow up like we have. I’m almost fourteen this year. I remember a girl I used to play with when I was ten. One day she stepped on a very long iron nail. It had been nailed into a piece of wood, standing straight up. It pierced through the sole of her shoe and stabbed into her flesh. Not long after, she died of tetanus.

There was also a boy who had asthma. I heard this illness is hard to treat and very delicate. He was unlucky. The year he died, willow fluff was floating all over the city. Once, he was alone in his room and suddenly had an attack. By the time everyone found him, he was already no longer breathing.

Besides these, I often heard adults talk about similar things, like which aunt’s relative was crushed to death by heavy objects during construction, or which uncle’s friend drowned while swimming, or how some child from a family that had nothing to do with us got into a fight with someone and was beaten to death.

Oh, a few months ago, there was an influenza outbreak in this city, and some people died too.

I knew Big Brother hadn’t slept last night. In the middle of the night, I pulled open the curtain and looked out into the yard. I saw Big Brother just sitting there.

Today, I asked him what yesterday had been, exactly.

Big Brother smiled a little and asked me back if I still remembered anything from before we came here.

I shook my head and said I didn’t remember, but I was actually lying to him.

Sometimes I dream about some scenes. I remember fragments from those dreams. In them, it seems like Big Brother and I had a dad and mom. We also had an older sister and a younger brother.

Big Brother held me in his arms and whispered in my ear that there was a secret he had never told me.

I shrank my neck a little and listened intently.

Then I heard him say that actually, we still had three more siblings.

All at once, I felt the hairs on my body stand up one by one.

I asked Big Brother where they were now.

Big Brother said one younger brother had gotten lost, one older sister had died, and another younger brother had been taken away by the adults.

I stared at Big Brother with wide eyes, and suddenly remembered a dream I had once had.

In that dream, Big Brother seemed to be fighting with a boy. They fought fiercely. I cried very loudly and wanted to rush up to save him, but another girl pulled me back.

That girl was taller than me and older too. She looked down at me, her face very pale.

Then several more boys came. They wanted to beat Big Brother. Big Brother held me and told the other girl to follow him, run!

Those boys forced us into a dead end, threw stones at us, and laughed loudly.

Big Brother protected me with all his strength. I lay on his shoulder, covering my eyes and not daring to look. I didn’t know how long they were going to keep throwing things, and I was terrified.

Then one of the boys let out an “ah,” and the attack stopped. Everyone went silent.

I secretly opened my eyes and saw that they had all turned into wooden stakes, staring stupidly this way.

I followed their gaze and saw that the other girl had already fallen. Her temple had been hit by a stone, and she was bleeding a lot.

I had always thought it was just a dream, but now that I think about it, that might have been the “older sister” Big Brother said had died.

I guess I was only four at the time, because when I was four and a half, Big Brother and I came here. As for the two younger brothers Big Brother mentioned, my impression of them is very vague, and Big Brother never brought them up either, but I think they’re probably gone too.

…

Xu Shuo closed the diary and rested one hand on the somewhat worn cover, tapping it with his fingertip.

“Exciting?”

This time, Gu Yao’s emotions were much more stable than when he had described the previous story. She was no longer forcing herself to suppress them, but had settled down naturally.

Xu Shuo seemed to have noticed her change too. He didn’t rush to ask for her analysis, and instead said, “I find your adaptability very strong.”

Gu Yao raised her eyes, expressionless.

Xu Shuo said, “Actually, I’ve read some psychology books too. One of them said that when a person suffers a major setback and blow, they go through four psychological stages, shock, grief, calm, and acceptance. Most people skip the second and third stages and go straight to the fourth. When emotional suppression accumulates too much, it can lead to depression. In my opinion, you seem to have jumped straight from one to four.”

Gu Yao said lightly, “Compared with the car accident I went through a year ago, your level of confinement doesn’t count as much of a setback.”

Xu Shuo seemed to laugh, the smile flashing by in an instant. “Oh? Is that so? Then what about Zhu Shengxi’s past, isn’t it enough to shock you? Or do you just not love him enough?”

After a second of silence, Gu Yao spoke. “No one can choose their own background or upbringing. The fact that he’s an orphan isn’t something he caused. His younger brother going missing, his older sister being stoned to death, those weren’t things he wanted to happen either.”

Xu Shuo nodded solemnly. “Indeed. Those experiences really do sound very pitiable. Especially since he’s not bad-looking and has a successful career. I believe any woman hearing these stories would grow pity into love.”

His tone was half serious, half mocking. Then he suddenly turned and said, “But from your reaction, it seems he never told you about these things. I wonder what that means in your psychological analysis.”

Gu Yao knew exactly what Xu Shuo meant. “You’re implying that Zhu Shengxi kept so much from me because he doesn’t trust me enough, or because there’s a problem with our relationship, so he never opened his heart to me. But what does that have to do with you? Aren’t you being a little too nosy?”

There wasn’t even a trace of anger in her voice, as if she were just asking a simple question.

“Is it that all of you lawyers like using this kind of conversational tactic, thinking that if you ask sharp, suggestive questions, you can provoke an emotional reaction and make the other person show a flaw? Do you know that in psychology, this is considered a kind of disease?”

“Heh.”

A soft laugh escaped Xu Shuo, and the corners of his eyes lifted with it.

Gu Yao stared at him.

He can still laugh after being scolded?

Looks like he doesn’t just have mental illness, he’s got nerve problems too.

Gu Yao looked away. She had no interest in admiring that annoying smile of Xu Shuo’s, even though, deep down, her female instinct had to admit that the bastard sitting across from her was very attractive.

If they had not met in such a terrible way, she might even have thought this man had received an excellent and advanced education, held a high-end and rare profession, lived a low-profile but fulfilling life, and had very high EQ and IQ, never once touching the edge of the law in his entire life.

But the facts proved that you can’t judge a book by its cover. There was a reason phrases like “a refined scoundrel” and “a well-dressed beast” existed.

After a moment, Gu Yao waited until Xu Shuo’s smile faded before turning her gaze back and saying, “Actually, even without my analysis, you could still reach a conclusion from the second diary. The Big Brother and ‘I’ in the diary can currently be judged as biological siblings, but I think they probably don’t share both parents. The greatest possibility is that they have the same mother.”

Xu Shuo raised a brow. “Why?”

Gu Yao said in one breath, “I’m assuming this woman gave birth to five children, three boys and two girls. Then why didn’t she raise them? Where did she go, did she die, or did she leave? If this woman had a husband, then even if she died, there would still be a man to support them. But not only did the husband never appear, there weren’t even any relatives or friends. She also left them wandering off, missing, taken by an orphanage, or beaten to death by stones. The only possible explanation is that this woman may have dated many times, but for one reason or another she kept meeting the wrong people. Those men were either living at the bottom of society and incapable of taking care of her, or they were married and only left some souvenirs in her belly. This mother had a very strong reproductive capacity. Out of maternal instinct, she needed to raise these children alone, but no man she dated could accept her having so many burdens, so she had to keep pretending to be single and could only leave these children to grow up on their own. Later on, maybe this mother died, or maybe she left with some man, leaving these children completely orphaned. Also, this woman’s ability to live independently was very poor, her temperament was loose and careless, and she was quite selfish. She only gave birth and didn’t raise them, which shows that she was extremely fond of sexual pleasure and acted without considering the consequences.”

Hearing this, Xu Shuo seemed to deliberately provoke her by asking, “Maybe she was in a special line of work.”

Gu Yao said, “If she were in a special line of work, she wouldn’t be this careless. She would definitely know how to cherish her body and pay attention to protection, because her body was her means of making money. If she were delayed by some dirty disease or by pregnancy, how would she make a living?”

Xu Shuo smiled. “Then what about this little girl? She mentions her fear of ‘death’ several times in this diary.”

Gu Yao said, “That’s easy to understand. Human instinct has two major driving forces, violence and sex. Those two words signify destruction and reproduction. Humans are, at their core, a species of survival of the fittest, but they have a natural fear of ‘death.’ In fact, what they fear isn’t ‘death’ itself, but the unknown. For example, if there were a cobra in front of you, it might bite you, or it might not. But once you leave it, the fear of the unknown will still remain.”

As she said that, Gu Yao paused. She hesitated a little, thought for a moment, and then continued, “Although these two diaries provide very limited information, I think I probably didn’t misjudge it, this girl has a latent tendency toward violence.”

Xu Shuo objected again. “Just because she once cursed Xiao Feng and Aunt Yuan to die sooner? Don’t forget, when Xiao Feng bullied her, she didn’t fight back. She was very timid, only knew how to cry, and she’s almost fourteen already but still plays with a cloth doll.”

Gu Yao seemed to snort. “‘Weak’ doesn’t mean harmless. Kittens look cute, but they can scratch people. Rabbits look harmless, but they can bite. This girl wrote in her diary that she hoped Aunt Yuan would die like Xiao Feng and be thrown into the sewage ditch, which means she seriously imagined that scene. Also, she doesn’t remember much from when she was little, most of it is forgotten, but she remembers the scene of her older sister dying. That incident hit her hard. After experiencing a major shock, some people’s memories are distorted and rewritten, because that memory is too threatening, and the self-protection mechanism blocks it from consciousness. But all truths hidden by memory are recorded in the subconscious. Memory can lie, but the subconscious can’t. For example, she unconsciously reveals in the diary how she sees death, and how she hopes Xiao Feng and Aunt Yuan will disappear.”

Xu Shuo said, “Just because of a dream she had, you’re making such a quick judgment?”

Gu Yao said very calmly, “People with latent violent tendencies usually have several traits, like being moody, taking everything personally, holding grudges, or growing up in a violent family of origin, being self-centered, lacking any sympathy for others, missing social skills, emotionally shutting themselves off, and so on. She happens to have all of them.”

Xu Shuo seemed determined to argue. “You only listened to two diaries. What makes you think she takes everything personally and holds grudges?”

“She records all the unpleasant things in her diary, and they make a deep impression on her. She also fantasizes about the people who bullied her being destroyed in a certain way. That behavior already says enough.”

“Maybe I just deliberately picked out these two entries to show you. Maybe the rest are all very sunny records.”

“Impossible. You said earlier that the stories in here get more and more exciting. I don’t think your idea of ‘exciting’ has anything to do with sunny.”

Xu Shuo asked rather casually, “Oh? Then what about sympathy? How do you know she doesn’t have any?”

Gu Yao asked back, “With so much blood from Aunt Yuan, how did she react?”

“And social skills, she mentioned having a girl she played with pretty well when she was ten.”

“By ‘played with pretty well,’ does she mean compared to those children she had no contact with on ordinary days? That girl died, and what she focused on wasn’t losing a friend, but the fact that stepping on an iron nail could actually kill someone. Based on all that, and that cloth doll, I even suspect she has mild autism.”

With that, Gu Yao fell silent.

The room was quiet for a long while before Xu Shuo let out another low laugh.

The sound was not only deep, but magnetic.

Gu Yao narrowed her eyes and said nothing.

Only when Xu Shuo took out his phone, swiped at it twice, and said, “I found a news report from twenty years ago. Take a look,” did he put the phone on the coffee table and push it forward, sending it sliding right in front of Gu Yao.

Gu Yao froze. She hadn’t expected Xu Shuo to actually hand her his phone. Wasn’t he afraid that while she looked at the news, she might also do something else on the side?

Thinking that, Gu Yao picked up the phone and lowered her head to look. Her brows quickly furrowed.

“In June of 199x, police found the body of an eight-year-old girl in the outskirts of Jiangcheng. After investigation, it was discovered that this eight-year-old girl also had four siblings suspected to share the same mother but have different fathers. Among them were two younger boys, one missing and one taken away by his biological father. There was also a six-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl, both currently under the care of Lixin Orphanage. Forensic examination confirmed that the eight-year-old girl died from a blow to the temple. The suspect has already been found, and it was the same group of underage boys. Because of a conflict with the girl’s younger brother, they accidentally injured the girl while fighting. The hospital has confirmed that these children all suffer from severe malnutrition and were long neglected and abused by their mother. Police are now actively tracing the mother’s whereabouts.”

Gu Yao didn’t move at all. She just stared at the news report.

Xu Shuo said, “Based on the ages of the children, their biological mother may not necessarily be the same person, unless there are twins in there. The report also doesn’t mention paternity testing, so as for how many full siblings your boyfriend Zhu Shengxi actually has, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

Gu Yao still didn’t make a sound. She lowered her eyelids and pretended to be swiping through the news, but in fact she had already closed the page and opened her call log and WeChat instead.

Then she froze.

The call log was completely empty, and even the contacts list had no trace of a soul. In WeChat, there was only her own chat window. Her Moments had only one post, a photo of Jeane Bar…

At the same time, Xu Shuo’s voice sounded again. “This is a new phone. Although there aren’t many traces of use, I’ve already topped it up with credit. You can call 110 right now. I absolutely won’t stop you, and I’ll even stay here with you and wait for the police together.”

Gu Yao closed the WeChat window and quietly lifted her eyes to meet those black pupils that were half smiling, half not.

She knew this man would do exactly what he said.

But she also believed that from this point on, she probably would never hear another word from this diary again, and she would never be able to ask him anything else.

Thinking of that, Gu Yao put the phone back on the coffee table and gave up the chance to contact the outside world.

Then she said, “I want to read the third diary myself.”

Author’s note:

The diary section comes to a pause here~ We’ll continue the plot tomorrow. More than ten thousand words gone, I feel completely drained. I need encouragement ┭┮﹏┭┮…