Chapter 506 (2/2)

Xiao Ran raised her head, ”I admit that I secretly changed my university choices. Later, I heard that Zhang Jinlei wasn't going, so I didn't go either.”

”It seems that you still love him very much. But every time we've contacted you before this, you always acted very magnanimously. Your best friend and the person you liked got together. You could only cry in silence, but never talked about it.”

”What could I do?!” Xiao Ran yelled, ”He was infatuated with Yan Qilin, and I didn't have the ability to s.n.a.t.c.h him back. If I don't pretend to be a little lofty, should I complain everywhere like Xianglin's wife?”

Lin Dongxue said, ”You only pretended to act loftily, but in fact, you were helping the Zhang family to break them up. You said that Yan Qilin was almost arrested as a prost.i.tute and that you were at the scene, but we heard another version later on. In fact, you were the one who pushed her down into the fire pit.”

Xiao Ran gritted her teeth. ”So what if I harmed her? Even so, there was still Yue Chao who came out running to save her. No matter what, she was always surrounded by boys who were willing to do things for her. I could only be jealous in secret.”

Lin Dongxue paused. ”So, you killed her?”

Xiao Ran's eyes widened. ”I didn't...”

Lin Dongxue put a piece of paper in front of her. ”This is a form I got from the place where you work. It has your handwriting on it. We've identified the handwriting to be the same as the handwriting on Yan Qilin's arm.”

”Impossible! Impossible!” Xiao Ran reached out to grab the paper. She wanted to confirm it.

Lin Dongxue withdrew her hand, ”Yan Qilin's mobile phone shows the two calls that you made to her. At that time, your confession said that you were just asking her to go shopping, but your cla.s.smates said that you two had almost no contact with each other at that time. We re-examined the case from that year and picked up on a small detail. After Yan Qilin's death, you were the first to arrive at the scene, and you were the first to call Zhang Jinlei and Yue Chao. Granted, notifyingZhang Jinlei was to be expected, but why would you notify Yue Chao? It was because the code you wrote on her arm was related to Yue Chao. Unfortunately, the police back then didn't find out about this. Even if Yue Chao later admitted himself that the code was related to him, that was your childish means of framing him.”

”I... I have alibis. I have one for every year. Why would you suspect me?!”

”I didn't say that you had committed the murders afterwards. I am saying that Yan Qilin was killed by you! Although you clearly hated her, you would secretly burn joss paper for her at this time every year because of your guilty conscience!”

Under the repeated blows, Xiao Ran's spirit finally collapsed. She looked at her hands and said, ”I... I hated her! She s.n.a.t.c.hed Zhang Jinlei, and then took my chance to go to university. During the summer vacation, she told me insincerely that she and Jinlei were going to study at that band 3 university. I gave up the opportunity to enter a band 1 university like an idiot and filled out the same choices. Then I learned that the Zhang family had already gotten her a special enrollment opportunity. She wanted to use this to get rid of me forever! Why did she have to take everything away from me? She took everything away from me, so I... ”

”So you killed her?!”

Xiao Ran's mind got stuck. She lifted her tear-filled eyes and stared at Lin Dongxue. Lin Dongxue's gaze oppressed her and  became the last straw that crushed her.

”I just wanted to invite her to come out and talk  in order to clarify everything. You guys would never know what she was like in private. She always felt that she should have the best from birth. Others were only worthy of licking her shoes. I… I lost my head and  used the box-cutter in my pocket to slash her. I shouted for her to shut up. After I regained my composure, I realized that she had collapsed onto the ground and was bleeding continuously… I was both frightened and excited. This ho had never been so helpless and pitiful in front of me. I picked up a bag of salt and sprinkled it on her to make her die even more painfully... At that moment, I was very happy and felt that I had won. The true nightmare followed. The police came to investigate, and I was scared I'd be found out. I started to have nightmares and saw her covered in blood, telling me to pay for it with my life. Even when I got together with Jinlei afterwards, I could feel that he had no eyes for me. She was forever the only one for him! The person who won was her. She died, so she became the most beautiful memory, and I'm just a sad subst.i.tute!”

1. A character from a short novel written during the Republican China era by Chinese writer Lu Xun. She was a poor farm widow who encountered many misfortunes.

2. Harmed her.

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