Ch58 - Self-Reflection (1/2)
“But he didn’t leave any evidence behind.” Zhou Sheng said, “You can’t do anything to him at all.”
Following his conversation with Liang Jinmin that day, after Chen Yekai parted ways with her, Liang Jinmin had asked another friend out. She loaned the car to Chen Yekai, and a preoccupied Chen Yekai drove Yu Hao back to the college.
Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.
Several days later, before the New Year, Chen Yekai was going to drive the couple through the expressway to send them to Liang Jinmin’s mother’s home for the New Year. But Lin Xun changed his mind at the last minute —— he decided to bring Liang Jinmin to his high school classmate’s house and spend the New Year with the other couple.
“Going to the home of the person he cheated on her with?” Yu Hao asked.
“Yes.” Chen Yekai said, “Do you think that’s possible?”
“Your Shimu wouldn’t agree.” Zhou Sheng said.
Chen Yekai nodded, “That was the one and only loophole in Lin Xun’s detailed plan. Aside from the ones involved, only I knew of the inside story, but it’s limited to Shimu’s message, so it can’t serve as evidence.”
“That day, Lin Xun told me that I didn’t need to pick them up anymore, and that he would drive there himself. On the evening of the same day, a car accident occurred on the expressway. Huang Ting and I both think that this was a premeditated murder, but no matter how hard we searched, we couldn’t find the smoking gun. They had even been fined for not wearing seat belts abroad before.”
After that, Chen Yekai began to realise that something was wrong. From New Year’s Eve to the first day of the New Year, he accompanied Liang Jinmin and stayed by her bedside. After Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao left on the night of the first day, Chen Yekai waited for Lin Xun. This was the one and only conversation they had during the entire month following the accident.
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Chen Yekai tried all sorts of ways to draw out any sort of clues from Lin Xun and even prepared a recording device beforehand. But Lin Xun wouldn’t be outdone by Chen Yekai at all. What made him even more terrifying was that while maintaining an impenetrable defence, a faintly discernible smile would always hang on the corner of his lips.
“What he wanted to tell me was, ‘yes, you guessed it right, I did it all’.” Chen Yekai said, “He knew that I must have started a recording, so he both defended and retaliated against me; he spoke in an angry and hurt tone, all the while with a mocking smile on his face.”
Yu Hao immediately trembled with fear.
Lin Xun only gave Chen Yekai 20 minutes before he left the ward. After that, when Yu Hao returned to the ward to bring Chen Yekai food, he then saw the scene of him kneeling in front of Liang Jinmin as he choked back his sobs.
“Later on, Huang Ting called him out for some routine questioning.” Chen Yekai said, “But he was too skilful, and even Huang Ting couldn’t get anything out of him. The college paid a lot of attention to this incident too, so they persistently pressured the police. Huang Ting could only watch Lin Xun and hope that he’d be able to obtain evidence of Lin Xun meeting with his partner in the affair.”
After a long time passed, Huang Ting and Chen Yekai talked again and again, yet they were at their wits’ end. In the end, they could only momentarily shelve the case, because they still had one hope — that is, to wait for Liang Jinmin to wake up.
“Lin Xun wouldn’t give you that opportunity.” Zhou Sheng said, “If all your previous speculations are correct, he will wait patiently, and after he takes Shimu home, he’ll plan to kill her again or wait for her condition to worsen and give up on treatment. He’s her family recognised by law, so he has the authority to sign.”
“Perhaps.” Chen Yekai said, “Huang Ting told me to be patient and to not visit Shimu, to act like nothing happened so that Lin Xun would relax his vigilance. But for a long time after that, there was no progress, and I couldn’t wait any longer. As long as the initial dust has settled, Lin Xun would certainly start dealing with me.”
On the night after the spring excursion, Chen Yekai waited below the teacher’s dormitory with a scalpel. Lin Xun moved back to the college temporarily, but that day……
“Did you really want to kill him then?” Yu Hao asked.
“No, I wanted to interrogate him.” Chen Yekai said, “I wouldn’t go so far as to go up to him and immediately kill him with one stab. That day, I set up my phone to record, and drank some wine because I wanted to use the alcohol to bolster my courage. I intended to press the knife against his throat and force him to tell me the truth.”
Zhou Sheng hardly knew how to evaluate that, “Did you really think he’d tell you?”
“I don’t know.” Chen Yekai said, “But that was the only way I could think of. I know he has one weakness —— he fears death; he is terrified of death.”
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Yu Hao, “Ah? He fears death? Isn’t he a psychologist? In the face of danger, he should stay cool-headed to deal with the situation, right?”
Chen Yekai nodded, “When I accompanied him to a social survey interview, we once returned late and came across a group of people who were in the midst of an armed robbery; there was even a murdered corpse on the roadside. At that time, he was extremely terrified, and it didn’t seem like a pretence.”
“He dared not put up any resistance. He froze up when confronted with the threat of death, and couldn’t think of any way out either. At that time, he had to rely on me to deal with the robbers and the situation.” Chen Yekai said, “The robbers were all juvenile delinquents and were extremely cruel. After we gave all the money we had to them, they still weren’t satisfied. Sometimes, when you deal with those types of people, you need to be even fiercer than them. Once you become fierce, the other party will turn meek instead. It was hard to see anything in the darkness, and afterwards the robbers left by themselves. I immediately called the police and recorded my testimony, and it was only when I arrived at the police station that I realised Lin Xun had been scared into incontinence at the time.”
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Yu Hao said, “But it can’t be acknowledged as legal evidence if you use those kinds of means to obtain it.”
“Yes.” Chen Yekai said, “It can’t. I don’t know why I did that either; momentary impulsiveness and anger had blinded me, like the omnipresent lightning strikes in my dream. I even thought about killing him. In short, I was fortunate to have you both.”
The next morning, Chen Yekai offered to resign. The Dean wasn’t surprised at all and approved it that early afternoon. Following which was the series of events that happened……
“That’s all.” Chen Yekai said, “That’s the whole story. By the way, the one who helped Lin Xun with his divorce consultation was my father. My dad has never lost a single lawsuit in the past 12 years.”
Zhou Sheng and Yu Hao both leaned back on their chairs with vexed expressions.
Chen Yekai said, “Any other questions you want to ask me? I can answer anything.”
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Yu Hao looked at Zhou Sheng, then at Chen Yekai again, “Until now, we’ve never considered, if……uh, what I mean is, throughout everything, what I’m trying to say is, what if was actually Lin Xun who was wronged?”
“I’ve considered that.” Chen Yekai smiled slightly, then answered, “So I’ve always been tormenting myself with it. But I’m too familiar with Laoshi; I’ve known him for nearly seven years. Whatever he wants to say, as long as he says the first half of the sentence, I’ll be able to understand the latter half of it. You asked if he had conducted any psychological manipulations on me, and now in retrospect, I can say with utmost certainty: yes.”
“He wants to banish me.” Chen Yekai said, “He wants to cleanly eliminate all uncertainties, even Zhou Sheng, who had just guessed that he beat Liang Laoshi. He’s very good at discerning fine details, then magnifying them and inducing you into making a mistake. But this time, he had clearly misjudged the two of you. He never would’ve expected that there could actually be supernatural forces at work behind all this.”
Zhou Sheng said, “Without evidence, we can’t convict anyone. It’s only proper. We’re not going to convict him now anyway, right?”
“Un……” Yu Hao considered it briefly, and that was indeed the case. They don’t intend to do anything to Lin Xun now. According to the principle of giving someone the benefit of doubt, no one would cause trouble for Lin Xun now, unless new evidence was obtained.
The three of them fell silent again. Chen Yekai smoothed his hair out; his hair was slightly longer now.
“I’ll take you two to go get a haircut?” Chen Yekai asked.
“I have one more question.” Zhou Sheng suddenly said, “Kaikai, you’re so rich, where does all your money come from? Didn’t you cut off all ties with your family a long time ago?”
Yu Hao thought, oh yeah. But that topic was too gossipy, so he was always too embarrassed to ask it outright.
Zhou Sheng stared at Chen Yekai suspiciously. Chen Yekai felt helpless, then laughed, “After graduation, I partnered with one of my bros to start up a science and tech company. We received psychological and behavioural big data analytics, including crowd profiling, some trend forecasting……it was that senior of mine who helped me track down the IP address of the visitor to the home page.”
“Oh——” Zhou Sheng nodded.
“A lot of software and websites desperately need these services.” Chen Yekai said, “We originally agreed that we would list the company on the Nasdaq, but I really didn’t want to continue anymore, so we sold the company.”
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Yu Hao thought, how much could the company have been sold for? But he refrained from asking.
Zhou Sheng also really wanted to ask, but he didn’t.
“A lot of websites are still using our old data analysis framework and regularly pay us some licencing fees every year. Why? Zhou Sheng, do you need money? If you need any, just let me know……Yu Hao, you too. Don’t stand on ceremony with me.”
Zhou Sheng quickly said, “I was just curious.”
Chen Yekai casually replied, “Your family’s rich, so money doesn’t seem as important anymore. As long as we’re all able to live our lives happily, then that would be enough.”
Zhou Sheng said, “It all belongs to my Dad. It’s hard to say if I’ll even be able to survive once I enter society.”
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“Why would you care about something like that?” Chen Yekai began laughing. After giving it some thought, he continued, “How about this, I planned a little in the morning, and the best thing we can do now is to keep a low profile.”