Why go up there? To show her a heartwarming parent-child scene? To tell her that maternal love is instinctive, and that no mother would consider her child a burden?
Mu Dai didn’t want to go up.
While she hesitated, the infant’s crying suddenly softened, and then the light was switched off.
She guessed that the mother had taken the baby back to the bedroom.
Luo Ren’s expression looked like someone who’d been doused with a basin of foot-washing water while walking below.
After a moment, he had no choice but to climb back down dejectedly.
Mu Dai found it amusing: “Is it fun climbing up and down like that?”
She added: “I should have shouted ‘thief!'”
Luo Ren landed on the ground, irritably dusted off his hands, and asked her: “Who am I doing this for?”
Mu Dai smiled and answered: “For me, I suppose.”
She reached for Luo Ren’s hand.
Luo Ren said softly, “Some things you need to come to terms with on your own. It’s not something I can persuade you to accept with just a few words. But I still want to tell you my thoughts.”
“The line between being a burden and being loved is razor-thin. If someone loves you enough, no matter how troublesome you are, you’re still precious. If they don’t love you enough, no matter how well-behaved you are, you’re still a burden.”
“This might sound hurtful, but Mu Dai, I’ve heard enough details—your mother doesn’t love you.”
Mu Dai listened quietly.
She had guessed this long ago, hadn’t she? Although in her heart, she always imagined various compelling reasons why her mother had abandoned her, she vaguely felt that perhaps the truth was simple.
Not every child is born into a flood of love.
Mu Dai sighed softly and tugged at his arm: “Let’s go.”
Luo Ren said, “One last thing.”
So serious? Mu Dai couldn’t help but look up.
“Don’t be afraid of troubling me. In the future, I’ll trouble you too.” He leaned close to her ear, almost like blowing warm air, “Girlfriend, we only trouble those closest to us. Let’s thoroughly trouble each other.”
Early in the morning, Cao Yanhua received a WeChat message from Yan Hongsha asking him and Yi Wansan to come to her room for breakfast.
Everyone was there. The breakfast was so plentiful that it was touching. On the low table in the room were soy milk, fried dough sticks, scallion pancakes, steamed buns, eggs, and tofu pudding—a variety that could be described as dazzling.
Yi Wansan thought Yan Hongsha had bought it all and looked at her sideways: “You’re being so generous?”
Last night, when they asked her to buy food, she had only returned with flatbread, and it was dense at that.
Yan Hongsha said, “Luo Ren bought it.”
The bathroom door opened. Mu Dai had just washed her face and came out with water droplets still on it. Yan Hongsha moved over a bit to leave her a seat, then handed her a cup of soy milk. Mu Dai wasn’t in a hurry to eat and instructed Cao Yanhua: “Get my toiletry bag for me, the black one.”
Cao Yanhua, with half an egg in his mouth, turned to get the bag for her.
They were as naturally familiar with each other as family.
Midway through the meal, Luo Ren got to the point: “I went to the hospital last night.”
Luo Ren had already told Mu Dai about this on their way back, so she wasn’t surprised and continued sipping her soy milk in small mouthfuls. But Yi Wansan and the others all stopped eating.
Yi Wansan was a bit nervous: “How is Ma Chao?”
Deep down, he still felt that if he hadn’t chased and beaten Ma Chao so desperately, Ma Chao wouldn’t have gotten hurt.
“From what I saw, he seemed stable.”
Luo Ren paused for a moment, then briefly described how he had tested his blood on Ma Chao.
Cao Yanhua’s eyes widened: “How is that possible? If Brother Sansan’s blood worked, why wouldn’t yours?”
His hierarchical mindset was strong, and he instinctively felt that since Brother Luo was more formidable than Yi Wansan, his blood should be more effective—the fact that it was less effective than Yi Wansan’s was immediately unacceptable to him.
Could it be that the murder weapon had left Ma Chao’s body? That didn’t seem likely either. Experience had shown that unless the host died, the murder weapon wouldn’t leave on its own.
Luo Ren looked around at everyone: “I have a theory.”
“It feels like the power of the Phoenix Lock doesn’t have the upper hand right now. The murder weapon is still aggressive. To say that just a small amount of blood from Yi Wansan caused such a dramatic reaction in Ma Chao, who was possessed by the murder weapon, doesn’t make sense to me.”
Yan Hongsha began to understand: “You mean…”
Luo Ren nodded: “Just like those witnesses who insisted they saw Yi Wansan push someone, Ma Chao might also be someone influenced by the murder weapon.”
Yi Wansan laughed nervously: “Surely it’s not that bad? The murder weapon can now command people to do its bidding?”
This wasn’t just an upgrade—it was skipping several levels.
Luo Ren said, “It’s not as serious as you think. Do you remember my uncle, Luo Wenmiao?”
Of course, they remembered, but this was Luo Ren’s family matter. Yi Wansan and Cao Yanhua exchanged glances, hesitant about whether to bring it up.
Luo Ren, however, had no such reservations.
“My uncle was a scholar with his thoughts, beliefs, and consciousness. In some ways, I think he was also a person of strong will, but after being possessed by the murder weapon…”
He fell silent for a moment.
Mu Dai stopped sipping and set down her soy milk cup. She had been fully involved in the incident at Xiaoshang River. Luo Ren’s mention of that midnight fire and the stiff puppets strung together with fishing line still gave her chills when she thought about it.
“According to Pin Ting’s account, my uncle had completely become a different person by then. In other words, he was fully controlled by the murder weapon, which had changed his nature.”
“But Ma Chao’s situation, and those witnesses’ situations, are different.”
Cao Yanhua felt like a spark had gone off in his brain and exclaimed, “Ah!”
He was extremely excited: “I’ve got it, Brother Luo. Let me… let me organize my thoughts.”
Rarely was his mind ahead of the others, and he was so proud he feared someone else might steal his opportunity.
“Let me… organize my thoughts.”
His mind was racing, and he was somewhat nervous. Luo Ren looked at him with an encouraging smile.
Cao Yanhua felt more at ease.
He chose his words carefully: “Brother Luo just said that Luo Wenmiao had completely changed because the murder weapon was on him and fully controlled Uncle Luo.”
“The murder weapon’s power should be finite, like a spoonful of sugar added to a cup of water—that cup becomes sweet water. But add it to a tank of water, and you might not even taste the sweetness when you drink it.”
Luo Ren smiled: “That’s the principle.”
Cao Yanhua continued more fluently: “If Brother Luo’s inference is correct, and Ma Chao and those witnesses are all people influenced by the murder weapon, then this time, the murder weapon has affected quite several people. So, it can’t make them lose their normal nature like Luo Wenmiao. It can only influence them on some very small point.”
“So we see that both Ma Chao and those witnesses still behave like normal people in terms of temperament and behavior. The only thing that seems wrong is that when specific events occur, their accounts are completely different.”
Yi Wansan understood: “And their accounts are particularly sincere and convincing, not like lies at all.”
Yan Hongsha felt like she almost understood, but upon further thought, she became confused again. With a miserable face, she asked: “Can someone explain this in a way I can understand?”
Mu Dai couldn’t help but laugh, flicking Yan Hongsha’s forehead with her finger: “Little confused one.”
Luo Ren said, “Let’s put it another way. Take Mu Dai as an example.”
“That night, Mu Dai was never on the bridge. But three people firmly stated they had seen Mu Dai, even recognizing her face and describing what she was wearing.”
“But there was a flaw in their description—that night, Mu Dai had her hair tied up, but they saw Mu Dai with flowing long hair.”
He picked up an egg: “It’s as if someone who had seen Mu Dai earlier formed an image of her in their mind.”
Then he took three buns and arranged them in a row on the table: “Then, they embedded this image into specific, edited scenes, like slides, inserted or replaced in their memories.”
That’s why when the witnesses recalled the scene from that night, except for Song Tie, in Ma Chao and Wu Yuping’s descriptions, Mu Dai seemed to appear completely abruptly.
Ma Chao had turned away earlier to avoid seeing Zhang Tong urinate, and when he turned back, he suddenly saw Mu Dai—this was an inserted image.
Wu Yuping was cycling onto the bridge and didn’t see anything while on the bridge, then fell, and when she looked up, she saw Mu Dai standing on the bridge—this was also an inserted image.
Only Song Tie, who was walking along the riverbank, saw Mu Dai coming when he reached the bridge. Song Tie’s insertion timing was the best, blending almost seamlessly.
So in the investigators’ view, Mu Dai’s suspicion was almost impossible to clear: there was Ma Chao as an eyewitness at the scene, plus Song Tie and Wu Yuping as corroborating witnesses.
Luo Ren sneered: “But forced insertion is still insertion. If you scrutinize, you’ll find extremely unreasonable points. One is the abruptness of Mu Dai’s appearance, and the second is… Ma Chao didn’t report to the police.”
“I’m inclined to believe that if Zhang Tong’s death was connected to Ma Chao, then Ma Chao, in his anxiety, would not call the police. That night, he left the bridge in fear and returned home, perhaps even praying that the police wouldn’t suspect him.”
Yi Wansan sighed: “But after waking up, the situation was different. His mind contained a substituted segment that he firmly believed—he thought it was Mu Dai who harmed Zhang Tong.”
Luo Ren nodded: “This kind of testimony is powerful. The expression and attitude are sincere and authentic, undetectable even by a lie detector.”
Indeed, the working principle of a lie detector is to record human physiological variables, such as breathing rate, blood volume, pulse, and skin resistance. When a person knows they’re lying, due to nervousness, no matter how calm they try to appear, their physiological values will still show slight changes—but what if they don’t even know they’re lying?
Yan Hongsha reflected: “No wonder at the Traffic Management Bureau, when I was confronting those witnesses, they almost wanted to eat me alive—they thought I was the one distorting facts and telling blatant lies.”
Perhaps they thought they were on the side of justice, speaking out righteously, while Yan Hongsha was the villain with a condemnable heart and a mouth full of lies.
Luo Ren said, “The framing of Mu Dai was like a post-event setup, so the arrangement was quite meticulous. But Yi Wansan’s case this time seems to be immediate, so it was relatively easy to expose.”
He fiddled with the egg, making it stand wobblingly on the table: “The fourth murder weapon, or rather, the person possessed by the fourth murder weapon.”
“First, it has seen Mu Dai before; otherwise, it couldn’t have inserted the image so precisely.”
“Second, it was near the bridge when Zhang Tong died, so it knew about Song Tie and Wu Yuping, who passed by afterward and could be used as eyewitnesses.”
“Third, when Yi Wansan and Ma Chao had their chase and fight, it happened to be at the scene, so it could complete an immediate, albeit crude, framing.”
“We need to find a way to get the surveillance video from the scene. Although the situation was chaotic, I dare to assert that in the footage, there must be a person—someone we haven’t directly encountered yet—who has the fourth murder weapon on them.”
After a brief silence, Mu Dai picked up her soy milk cup, gulped down a large mouthful, and said: “I’m more wronged than Dou E.”
Yi Wansan felt the same way: “Thanks to surveillance cameras. If this had been fifty years ago, I probably would have joined Dou E.”
Luo Ren smiled: “To bring the topic back, why Yi Wansan’s blood worked while mine didn’t—I guess it might be because, although Yi Wansan’s blood is far from enough to counter the murder weapon, it’s more than sufficient to deal with someone influenced by the murder weapon. By the time I went to test, the murder weapon’s influence had left Ma Chao, so my blood was just ordinary blood to him.”
Cao Yanhua interjected: “We can verify this again.”
He boldly threw four wallets onto the coffee table: “Those four bastards—we have their IDs and addresses. Whether the murder weapon still influences them or not, we’ll know by testing.”
Yi Wansan thought to himself: We could have kept this between us. Why did you have to throw these out…
Sure enough, Yan Hongsha looked up at Cao Yanhua: “Where did these come from?”
Luo Ren also turned to look at Mu Dai: “As his master, shouldn’t you say something?”
Mu Dai was silent for a moment, then said something.
“I guess… Fat Cao picked them up?”