Unsurprisingly, Zhang Mingsheng has placed me under house arrest once again. As the door swung shut, he glanced through the narrow gap, and I caught that unreadable, expressionless look of his. I couldn’t let him leave like that, right after finally showing his true face, so I struggled off the bed and dragged myself toward the door, desperately trying to stop him from closing it. But I was a second too late. He gripped the handle and ruthlessly shut the door. If you listened carefully, you could hear the key turning in the lock; one and a half rotations, then a firm twist, sealing it shut, leaving me completely alone in the room.
I knelt on the floor while leaning against the door, the still-wet tear tracks on my face feeling cold and uncomfortable. My throat was hoarse, only able to force out a whisper as I began to repeat a curse toward the sealed exit, “Zhang Mingsheng, you’ll get what you deserve. We’ll both face our retribution.”
I hate Zhang Mingsheng; I truly hate him. I hate him for toying with feelings that even I didn’t dare to confront. If this were all just about revenge, I might actually feel better. I would be willing to die to pay for Auntie Yang’s life. But that isn’t the case. Zhang Mingsheng truly wants to trap me, to trap me forever regardless of the cost. I could have died, but he won’t allow it; he wants me to continue living in pain and struggle, just as long as I remain by his side.
For a moment, I even regretted saving him. If I had just let him die in that fire, my life wouldn’t be this restless. I always believed everything was my own fault; it was my hesitation and indecisiveness, but it turns out he saw through it and calculated it all. He intentionally lured me in, letting me tear myself apart.
I am a tiger in a circus. No matter how brilliant the moment I leap through the ring of fire, how thunderous the audience’s applause, how beautiful the new name the trainer has given me, or how precious the gaze he directs my way, every single second beneath these glorious lights, I am being enslaved.
What is Zhang Mingsheng observing? What is he waiting for? My cage was built by him, but his cage is his own life. Does controlling me bring him satisfaction? How much space has been filled by the stones I’ve carried in my bloodied mouth in the ocean of his existence?
I am exhausted to the core, yet my brain is unnervingly wired. Shaking, I curl my body and speak the final thought in my mind aloud:
“…I will kill you, Zhang Mingsheng.”
The moment the words left my mouth, even I was startled.
But my shock does not last long; instead, it brings a strange calm. I have sunk into a state where there is no beginning again, no release, no way out, and not even death offers an escape. Why should I be the one to die? Zhang Mingsheng pushes me toward death while simultaneously demanding I stay to be his spouse for a lifetime. By what right? On what grounds? If there is to be death, I want Zhang Mingsheng to come with me. Better he die by my hand than remain trapped in Zhan Weiqing’s.
Yes, that’s it.
I am going to kill Zhang Mingsheng.
No matter what my ultimate end is, I will kill him first. I want everything he has orchestrated to crumble into nothing.
Yes, I must kill him.
I scramble up from the floor while staggering and begin to ransack the room. I have never killed anyone; all the training I ever received was meant to defend the lives and safety of others. But thinking back carefully, protection and harm are actually positioned so closely together; they are almost interchangeable. As long as you have the capacity to protect someone, you are inherently prepared to harm someone else, whether you actually go through with it or not.
The phone on the bedside table hummed, it was a work mobile Zhang Mingsheng had inadvertently left behind. I let out a cold laugh; it seemed he was truly rattled if he’d forgotten something like this. At this very moment, a single call to the police station would have been enough to expose everything, sending the entire Zhang family behind bars. Yet I no longer had the will to pursue justice for anyone. Whether imprisonment or even the death penalty, none of it would mean anything to a man like him. He despises the authorities, so he wouldn’t suffer; he’d simply hire a fleet of lawyers to weave a tragic narrative of his life until the jury dissolved into tears, perhaps even securing a reduced sentence. If the police grew careless for even a second, he might even escape.
I refused to grant him that chance.
I casually picked up the phone and was about to hang up when I saw the caller ID showed a single “Zhang.”
It was likely Zhang Yaonian. I wondered what he wanted at this hour. Is it a threat, perhaps? Or a negotiation?
I pressed the answer button and held it to my ear. I heard the old man’s voice, thick as if obstructed by phlegm, sounding blurred and indistinct: “Ah Sheng, it’s me. It’s your grandfather.”
A biological grandfather reduced to calling his grandson’s work phone, how pathetic. I didn’t say a word, listening coldly as I waited for him to continue. Unfortunately, this terrifying old man, who looked ready to crumble into bone at any moment, was more alert than anyone. When he realized I wasn’t responding, he fell silent for a long while before tentatively asking, “Is that Ah Sheng on the line?”
He must have known Zhang Mingsheng’s phone wouldn’t just end up in anyone’s hands. In that minute of silence, was he hoping it had fallen into a kidnapper’s grasp? Was he quietly wishing that Zhang Mingsheng had finally been taken away?
I had no intention of letting him indulge in such happy fantasies, so I spoke, “It’s me. It’s Ah Qing.”
“Ah, it’s Ah Qing,” Zhang Yaonian replied, his voice sounding noticeably dejected. “You’ve returned then.”
He actually knew about my escape.
“It’s good that you’re back, it’s good that you’re back. Ah Qing, you must never follow the example of Ah Sheng’s parents,” Zhang Yaonian advised with painstaking earnestness, his true intentions impossible to discern. “The two of them eloped and deliberately abandoned Ah Sheng. You have no idea how much he hated them as a child; even now, he refuses to acknowledge his own mother.”
The photo of the so-called “Young Mistress” in the Zhang family’s ancestral home was indeed Auntie Yang.
It was simply that Zhang Mingsheng refused to admit it.
“How could I? We were just separated by the earthquake.” I started constructing lies to match his, both of us fully aware it was nothing more than a performance.
“Then that’s good, then that’s good. Ah Sheng dotes on you and Keke the most because he never had a mother’s love growing up. Ai, that arranged marriage back then… it was my mistake. It forced his parents to be together against their will, and they were reluctant to even bring Ah Sheng into this world. His parents both loathed him; when they ran away, they didn’t even take him with them. Tell me, of all the couples in the world who elope, who leaves their child behind?” Zhang Yaonian sighed repeatedly. “Ah Sheng doesn’t speak of this grudge, but I know he has kept it in his heart all this time.”
“Don’t blame me for overstepping,” Zhang Yaonian added. “Officer Yu, this grandson of mine is a psychopath. If you possess something that he lacks, don’t you think he will hate you? Don’t you think he’ll seek revenge?”
I listened in silence.
I already knew everything he was saying.
I asked, “What is it that I have, and he does not?”
“I know you’re surprised, Officer Yu, but I really have to thank you for your escape and that earthquake. The moment Ah Sheng looked away, I, as the head of the family, finally had the chance to take up my responsibilities again; even if only for a few days.” Zhang Yaonian didn’t answer my question directly; instead, his voice carried a hint of smugness. “But it doesn’t matter, Officer Yu. Even though Keke isn’t a child of our family, I’ve doted on her for all these years. You are still Zhang Sheng’s wife; I won’t treat either of you poorly.”
“But you must be careful,” Zhang Yaonian continued. “Zhang Sheng was born cold-blooded; he harbored a deep-seated resentment toward anyone who takes what belongs to him. I still remember when he was a child—” He broke off with a raspy, unsettling chuckle. “Forget it, it’s not a pleasant story anyway. You live with him day and night, Officer Yu; you should have a sense of it. If you have strength, remember to warn your mentor.”
“Back then, I offered him a sum of money to take care of Zhang Mingsheng’s mother,” he said dismissively as if he were discussing a jewelry purchase rather than a hit. “He refused and stopped investigating the disappearance altogether.”
“However, the leads he held were eventually used by his colleagues…”
My mentor was involved in this too? My brain was failing me, and a migraine began to throb behind my eyes. Forcing myself to remain standing, I snapped, “I don’t want to hear another word about your family’s affairs.”
“…Ah, yes, that’s quite right. The past belongs in the past.” Zhang Yaonian seemed taken aback by the interruption, stammering for a moment before shifting his approach. “I never imagined you were the child in that photograph. When I saw her belongings back then, I assumed my daughter-in-law had remarried and had another child. You have a destiny with our family, Ah Qing. When he said he wanted to marry you, I was actually relieved; I thought it was out of love. I’ve arranged so many marriages for my children, and none of them were happy. I’m old now, and sometimes, I truly feel regret.”
As soon as Zhang Yaonian finished speaking, the door opened right before my eyes. I looked up, still holding the phone to my ear and listening to the voice on the other end.
“Who are you talking to?” He walked over at an unhurried pace before reaching out his hand for the device.
I handed it to him without hesitation. “Your grandfather. He says that you aren’t punishing me for the slip of the tongue that harmed your mother, but rather, you’re retaliating because I was the one your mother actually loved.”
“Is that how it is, Mr. Zhang?”
