Chapter 322: Does It Hurt?

Hospital, Emergency Room.

Hearing that the victim was out of danger, Xiao Yu let out a breath of relief.

Slitting one’s wrists—suicide like this—wasn’t so easy without the right conditions. Due to the viscosity and unique properties of blood. When exposed to air and temperature, it would clot, coagulate, and stop bleeding.

The human body was quite remarkable. Sometimes, even if one wanted to die, it wasn’t that simple.

“Too young.”

Sitting on a chair outside the emergency room, forensic expert He Li curled her lips.

“If she really wanted to die, she should’ve at least filled a bathtub with warm water and laid inside. That way, it would prevent hypothermia from excessive blood loss while also stopping the blood from clotting… Uh!”

She suddenly realized—

The look Xiao Yu was giving her was strange.

“Heh…” He Li let out an awkward laugh. “Occupational habit. I was just applying what I learned in school.”

Women truly are two-faced creatures, no matter their age.

Xiao Yu suddenly felt a deeper understanding of this statement.

He made a decision. Under no circumstances should Mu Qingwu and He Li ever meet. It was too damn terrifying!

He Li wasn’t the only terrifying one.

Turning his head, Xiao Yu glanced at Feng Xiuyun, who was sitting quietly on a chair nearby. Her expression was eerily calm and indifferent. She kept her head lowered, lost in thought.

The victim wouldn’t be able to give a statement anytime soon. This left Xiao Yu feeling a little frustrated.

“Let’s go.”

The group left the hospital.

***

Inside a Police Transport Vehicle.

“I don’t have time to play games with you.” Xiao Yu stared coldly at Feng Xiuyun. “Tell me everything I want to know.”

He was certain she still knew something.

She had once said that to catch that bastard, she had studied criminal investigation for two years. Sometimes, the police might not spend two full years obsessively pursuing a single case. But that didn’t mean someone else wouldn’t.

Feng Xiuyun remained silent, head lowered.

“You sure you don’t want to talk?” Xiao Yu sneered. “Or do you really think you’re smarter than everyone else?”

Slowly, Feng Xiuyun lifted her head.

A trace of mockery appeared in her eyes. She just stared at Xiao Yu, there was even a hint of contempt in her gaze.

“You know, I really hate people like you, so-called smart people.”

Xiao Yu pulled out a cigarette, lit it, and squinted slightly.

“You really think the police can’t figure things out?”

“Then what have you figured out?”  Feng Xiuyun asked. A glint of icy amusement flickered in her eyes.

“I don’t usually like slapping people in the face, but the way you’re acting right now is annoying. Makes me want to give you a few smacks, maybe it helps you remember a thing or two,” he said.

Xiao Yu exhaled a smoke ring, watching it drift through the air.

“I looked into your background. Your parents divorced when you were young. Your father left the country, your mother remarried. You and your sister relied on each other, had a strong bond. Later, your mother passed away. To take care of you, your sister dropped out of school at nineteen and started working, putting you through college. The year you graduated, that was five years ago, your sister had her accident and became a vegetative patient. Two years later, you killed her.”

“Is that all?” Feng Xiuyun’s expression remained numb.

But for a brief moment, pain flashed in her eyes, then it disappeared.

“What did you do after your sister became a vegetative patient?”

Xiao Yu took a drag of his cigarette, his gaze calm as he glanced at Feng Xiuyun.

“…”

Feng Xiuyun’s expression was no longer indifferent. Her face changed slightly, as if a hand had gripped her heart—ready to crush it at any moment.

“I could never figure it out. Through the investigation, it was clear that you and your sister were very close. So why did you kill her?”

Xiao Yu exhaled lightly, sneering.

“I didn’t dwell on it before, but now I understand. You avenged your sister, didn’t you?”

Feng Xiuyun’s face drained of color.

The drastic shift in her expression said it all. Xiao Yu’s words had gone beyond what she could mentally withstand.

“Did I get it right?”

Xiao Yu’s voice remained steady as he stared at Feng Xiuyun.

“Back then, the police never found the perpetrator. But as the person closest to your sister, you must have desperately wanted revenge. So, you started studying criminal investigation, began looking, tracking, searching. And after two years, you finally found him, didn’t you?”

“No wonder,” Xiao Yu continued, “When I saw the case file on the horror story you had Niu Xin tell, there were so many holes. But some of the details felt real. So, you did something. Didn’t you? And that’s why, in your story, the woman said, ‘I’ve been looking for you for so long.’”

At this moment, Feng Xiuyun’s body trembled uncontrollably. Her face turned ghostly pale, drained of all color.

She looked at Xiao Yu as if he were a demon.

“Back then, you thought you had found the real culprit. You believed you had avenged your sister.”

Xiao Yu exhaled a breath of smoke, his gaze shifting to the car window, his expression somewhat complicated.

“Ending your sister’s life… was it because you couldn’t bear to see her continue like that? And doing it with your own hands… was it because you wanted to go with her? But unfortunately, before you could end yourself, you were discovered by the attending doctor. They called the police. You were arrested. You confessed fully to the crime and admitted everything. And later, in court, you begged the judge to sentence you to death?!”

Xiao Yu let out a low chuckle.

“But fate doesn’t bend to human will. Anyone with eyes could see you had no reason to kill your own sister. Even with irrefutable evidence, the judge couldn’t sentence you to death. And since your sister was already in a vegetative state, the final verdict was just fifteen years.”

Feng Xiuyun’s hands trembled violently, the metal clanking as her handcuffs shook. Her face twisted in agony, and two silent streams of tears ran down her cheeks.

“No one could have expected…”

Xiao Yu crushed his cigarette into the ashtray and continued.

“That in prison, you’d hear news of the perpetrator again. Were you confused? Maybe even unable to accept it? Because you knew that the bastard who hurt your sister was dead. You killed him yourself. But when you heard about another victim, another attack exactly like what happened to your sister. That’s when you realized. Maybe you got the wrong person. Isn’t that right? So you wanted out of prison. You wanted to find him. You wanted to confirm if it is really the same man who hurt your sister?”

Xiao Yu sneered.

“You really think you’re so smart? That no one else could figure out what you were trying to do? You really think the police are that useless, that we don’t know what you’re up to? I told you, don’t take the police for fools. With that pathetic level of intelligence, if I wanted to slap you awake, I could do it in seconds.”

Xiao Yu turned his head and stared directly at Feng Xiuyun.

“Does it hurt?”