Skin - Chapter 11

The comparison before and after made the inference about ‘manslaughter’ appear extremely credible in the article.

　　Meng Zhao read the article. Although the entire article partly overlapped with his previous speculations and could not be called completely fabricated, the mysterious tone and attitude that seemed to want to intensify the development of the matter made Meng Zhao feel extremely uncomfortable.

　　It was hard to imagine what drastic decisions Zhao Yunhua would make if she saw the article. The article was simply interfering with the police’s method of handling the case.

　　The article was published an hour ago, and the number of views had exceeded 10,000. Meng Zhao called Cheng Yun: “Contact this public account immediately and ask them to delete the article.”

　　Sensing the faint anger in Meng Zhao’s tone, Cheng Yun quickly responded: “Okay, I’ll have it done right away.”

Chapter 12

　　People were coming and going outside the bus station, some were pulling suitcases and walking in a hurry. Zhao Yunhua hugged the suitcase on her chest and shrank her neck, as if trying to hide herself.

　　The buses leading to her hometown had left one after another, but Zhao Yunhua did not dare to go to the ticket gate. She was afraid that the police had found out that she was the murderer.

　　There was a group of people gathered not far away who looked like migrant workers. Zhao Yunhua walked towards them. She felt that staying there would make her look less out of place.

　　Had the police already started to search for her? Zhao Yunhua squatted down against the corner. She hadn’t eaten all day, and her stomach was now empty, almost burning with pain. Before leaving, she had packed the breakfast bread distributed by the company in her bag, but now she was not in the mood to eat it.

　　Earlu in the morning, she was going to a client’s house to do her job. While she was waiting for the bus at the bus stop in front of her house, a man who stood next to her was on the phone. Zhao Yunhua overheard the content of his call. They seemed to be discussing Zhou Yan’s case. She was immediately alert. The man was standing so close to her that she could clearly hear what the person on the other end said.

　　”How do you know that the murderer has been found out!”

　　”I told you not to tell others… This is a police secret. The progress of the case is not allowed to be leaked. My friend told me this because he was an insider. Don’t go around and spread it. Be careful to not alert others.”

　　”I heard that she was the cleaning lady responsible for cleaning Zhou Yan’s house. She seemed to have a good relationship with Zhou Yan. The motive for the crime is still being investigated. It should be related to her son…”

　　Hearing the content of the phone call, Zhao Yunhua suddenly panicked. Did the police find out about her son? How did they find out? She deliberately walked close to the corner and still failed to avoid the camera?

　　Just as she was thinking uneasily, the man who was on the phone suddenly turned around and met Zhao Yunhua’s eyes. The man’s eyes were sharp, as if he wanted to see through her.

　　At that moment, Zhao Yunhua raised her throat in one breath and felt that her legs were weak. She could hardly stand up because of the nervousness.

　　Fortunately, the bus came at that time. The attendant came down and shouted to the passenger on board to get off quickly. The man then turned around and got on the bus.

　　Seeing the man leave, Zhao Yunhua breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, she thought the man had recognized her.

　　After the bus drove away, Zhao Yunhua realised that the bus that had just driven away was the same bus she had been waiting for.

　　However, she no longer had the courage to go to work. If the police had found out that she was the murderer, would they go to arrest her? Could they have already broken into her home?

　　Another bus came, and Zhao Yunhua got on in a hurry.

　　She didn’t dare go home to pack her luggage. Her first reaction was to return to her hometown. Her hometown was in a mountain village, which was a remote place. As long as she hid there for a while, the police wouldn’t find her.

　　She hadn’t done anything wrong. Zhao Yunhua tried to calm down.

　　Cold sweat broke out in her palms, and she could hardly hold the bus pull ring. She looked out the window and tried her best to comfort herself: It was only natural that evil people should be rewarded with evil, and murder must be punished with life.

　　Zhou Yan killed Zhao Tong and deceived her feelings. She had always used him as her emotional sustenance in the past few years since they had met. She had given him all the good things she had saved for Zhao Tong. But she didn’t expect that the person was actually the same person she had been searching for for ten years— the murderer that she had dreamt to kill!

　　Now that she had avenged Zhao Tong, there was no need for her to continue staying in the city. She wanted to return to her hometown in the countryside, where her son’s ashes were buried. She wanted to return to accompany him and tell him that his mother had avenged him so that he could sleep peacefully.

　　But when she arrived at the train station, she didn’t dare to go to the ticket office to buy a ticket. If the police had already begun to look for her, would it be equivalent to throwing herself into a trap the moment she showed her ID card?

　　She wandered around at the train station, and when she saw the uniformed traffic police, she couldn’t help but wonder if those people were there to arrest her. In panic, she took the bus to the bus station once again.

　　But after not having taken a bus for many years, she discovered that even the buses required ID cards to check in.

　　She wandered around in panic for several hours. Low blood sugar and tachycardia made Zhao Yunhua feel like she would faint at any time. She found a wall and squatted down against it. Having something to lean on behind her made her feel better.

　　Two girls in their twenties walked over not far away. It may not have been time to check in yet. They put down their suitcases and sat on them to play with their mobile phones.

　　Zhao Yunhua’s heart was in turmoil, and she suddenly noticed that the two girls were frequently looking at her, and seemed to be whispering: “Is it her? It really seems like…”

　　”Keep your voice down and take out the photographs to compare.”

　　”It’s definitely her…”

　　Zhao Yunhua didn’t dare to raise her head. What were they saying? Had the police already issued a wanted warrant?

　　The two girls looked at their phones together: “But the photo shows long hair. How does it look…”

　　”It’s been ten years, there must have been changes.”

　　When Zhao Yunhua heard what they said, she clenched the bag on her chest tightly with her fingers, and her body couldn’t help but curl up even more, as if trying to hide herself.

　　One of the girls stood up, walked towards her, bowed and handed the content on the screen to her: “Excuse me… have you read this report?”

　　”What report?” Zhao Yunhua raised her head and stretched out her hand to take the phone to see clearly. She noticed that her fingertips were trembling, so she retracted her hand and stretched her neck to look.

　　The other girl also came over and pulled the arm of the girl in front: “Let’s go, let’s go quickly.” She said, pulling her friend away, “Forget it, don’t look at this, it’s weird. Damn it, let’s take a look at the other content in your circle of friends…”

　　Seeing them sitting back in their original positions, Zhao Yunhua subconsciously reached into her bag and touched the cell phone. She remembers the screen the girl had shown her, it looked like the ‘moments’ that Zhou Yan had taught her several times.

　　She was not very good at using mobile phones. Zhou Yan taught her how to use WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, and even his daily live broadcast software. She had learned it immediately, but because she had no friends on WeChat and only a few customer updates, Moments was not commonly used.

　　What exactly was in that circle of friends? Zhao Yunhua thought uneasily. She had turned off her phone for the whole day, should she turn it on now? It wouldn’t matter since she would just take a look.

　　Zhao Yunhua took out her mobile phone and turned it on, opened the circle of friends, scrolled down a few times and saw the line: “We Interviewed Zhou Yan’s High School Classmates And Learned A Story About Campus Bullying.”

　　The profile picture of the person forwarded was unfamiliar, and she remembered that it was a person she had just added last night while waiting for the bus at the bus stop. The person said that she had no cash and wanted to transfer the money to Zhao Yunhua using WeChat in exchange for some cash. Zhao Yunhua didn’t know much about the online operations, so she gave her phone to the person and asked him to help operate it. When the person returned the phone to her, she had added the person’s WeChat ID and received a two-yuan transfer.

　　”Do you usually use Moments?” Before leaving, the man chatted with her for a few words.

　　Zhao Yunhua said at the time: “I use it a little bit, but not often.”

　　”It’s quite interesting.” The man said, “You can read it often when you are bored.”

　　Looking at that line of words, Zhao Yunhua’s hands began to tremble violently and uncontrollably. She clicked on the link, which clearly recorded the truth about Zhao Tong being forced to death by school bullying ten years ago.

　　For the past ten years, she had been trying to find out who caused Zhao Tong’s death. She didn’t believe that Zhao Tong really committed suicide, but no one was willing to tell her the truth.

　　Her reading speed was a bit slow. When she read the sentence ‘She accidentally killed the innocent Zhou Yan’, she was almost out of breath.

　　‘How was that possible!’

　　‘How could Zhou Yan be innocent!’

　　She saw it with her own eyes and heard it with her own ears. The villain who forced Zhao Tong to death was Zhou Yan, and he deserved to die!

　　At the same time, she heard the two girls not far away starting to discuss the matter again: “It’s definitely not Zhou Yan. Did you see what his fans said? Zhou Yan even praised his housekeeping aunt on Weibo. He treated her just like his mother, if he really forced Zhao Tong to death, how could he be so close and kind to Zhao Yunhua!”

　　”Zhou Yan is not that kind of person at all… Hey, what’s more, Zhou Yan even picked out Zhao Yunhua’s birthday gift and asked his fans on Weibo which colour he should choose.”

　　”Could it be out of guilt…”

　　”I don’t think so. If he was really the murderer of Zhao Tong, he wouldn’t have managed to hide it from Zhao Yunhua for that long. He must have done so with a clear conscience.”

　　Their conversation made Zhao Yunhua feel confused.

　　Was it really manslaughter? They were right. Zhou Yan had indeed been very kind to her. Although she was hired and paid by him to do the cleaning, he would sometimes go to the kitchen to help her. When chatting with him, Zhao Yunhua would occasionally think of Zhao Tong.

　　Zhou Yan would also prepare a birthday gift for her, something Zhao Tong never did when he was alive…

　　There were a few times that Zhao Yunhua even mistook Zhou Yan for Zhao Tong. When she called Zhou Yan ‘Xiaotong’, she was stunned for a moment. Zhou Yan was also stunned, and then jokingly called her ‘Mom’.

　　It was precisely because Zhou Yan was so kind to her that she was furious when she learned that Zhou Yan was the real culprit who forced Zhao Tong to death. It turned out that Zhou Yan’s kindness to her all those years was just an illusion trying to deceive her. The root cause of all her pain was Zhou Yan, whom she had treated as her own son all those years!

　　”If I were Zhao Yunhua and found out that I had killed the wrong person,” Zhao Yunhua heard the two girls still discussing, “especially the who person had treated me sincerely and had shown kindness to my son, I almost want to commit suicide by jumping off the building in pain…”

　　”How would she have the nerve to live? All the photographs have been published.”

　　”Just because of her, how much pain it brings to others…”

　　”Zhao Tong and Zhou Yan are both dead. Normal people would definitely choose to die.”

　　Death, death, death… Zhao Yunhua’s mind was filled with that word, and she could hardly hear the other sounds around her.

　　She put her phone back into her luggage bag, stood up with her hands on the ground, and staggered a step with weak legs. The two girls looked up at her and immediately fell silent.

　　Yes… How could she have the nerve to live? Zhao Yunhua thought in despair as he left the train station. What is she doing alive?

　　A young man walked directly in front, his head lowered, as if he couldn’t see the road clearly, and he bumped Zhao Yunhua’s body hard.

　　”I’m sorry.” The man in the hat said immediately.

　　But Zhao Yunhua didn’t notice him at all. She behaved like a zombie:

　　Zhao Tong was dead, and Zhou Yan, whom she regarded as her son, was killed by herself. When she was caught by the police, what would she have left to live for? If Zhou Yan was not the real murderer, would there ever be a day when she could see the truth…

　　She quickened her pace, feeling as if everyone in the station had recognized her and were looking back at her.

　　*

　　”Captain Meng, Zhao Yunhua’s phone was turned on!”

　　The municipal bureau’s technical team called Meng Zhao and sent him the location: “She is at the West Bus Station, and her mobile phone is constantly moving.”

　　”Let’s go!” Meng Zhao quickly left the train station.

　　After getting in the car, Meng Zhao connected his phone to the car navigation and drove in the direction of the red dot. Zhao Yunhua was going to… the high-speed railway station? Strangely, the economic development of Zhao Yunhua’s hometown was slow and there was no high-speed railway connection yet. Moreover, judging from Zhao Yunhua’s daily living habits, there was a direct cheap train, so there was no reason for her to go to the high-speed railway station with higher prices and shorter departure times and stricter inspections…

　　Could it be that Zhao Yunhua’s mobile phone was stolen? Meng Zhao couldn’t help but start to consider this possibility, but would any thief really appreciate an old-fashioned model that could only be sold for several hundred yuan?

　　No matter what had happened, he could only catch up with the location and take a look.

　　Meng Zhao put his foot down hard, stepped on the accelerator, and drove through the intersection under the yellow light. Then he turned the steering wheel, bypassed the congested road ahead, and took a shortcut to intercept the cell phone’s path.

　　The path had not been repaired for many years and was full of potholes. After hitting five or six big potholes along the way, Zhou Qiyang finally covered his head and asked: “Brother Zhao, where did you find such a broken road…?”

　　”While checking for drunk driving.” Meng Zhao’s expression remained unchanged.

　　”Oh, yes, it was your last time…” Zhou Qiyang was mid-sentence when a big stone ran over under the tire. He jumped up and hit his forehead once again, “Ouch”.

　　Meng Zhao held the steering wheel. The exit in front was narrow, just as wide enough for the SUV. He didn’t slow down at all. He stepped on the accelerator and passed quickly. He took a turn and drove onto the highway.

　　Zhou Qiyang breathed a sigh of relief and looked at the car navigation again. Because he had just overtaken at a curve, there was only one section left before the moving little red dot ahead.

　　”We’re about to catch up,” Meng Zhao said calmly, “Get ready.”

　　”I know.” Zhou Qiyang took out his police ID card and pressed down the window on his side of the car.

　　Meng Zhao accelerated again. After catching up with the van in front, he slowed down slightly to keep pace with the car next to him.

　　”That’s not right.” Zhou Qiyang leaned out of the window and observed for a few seconds, “There is no Zhao Yunhua in this car, is it this car?”

　　Fuck, sure enough, Meng Zhao cursed secretly. Although he had expected that Zhao Yunhua was not in the car from the beginning, he couldn’t help but get angry after confirming it: “Let him stop and cooperate with the investigation.”

　　”Hey brother,” Zhou Qiyang held his police ID card and stretched his hand out of the window, “Police, I have something to ask you, please stop the car?”

　　The window of the van next to it was open. After hearing what Zhou Qiyang said clearly, the driver stepped on the accelerator and started to accelerate again.

　　”Fuck!” Zhou Qiyang cursed.

　　Meng Zhao immediately caught up with the speed of the car and moved towards the other lane, trying to force the van to stop.