He Xiuyu was taken away.
Both the interrogator and the person being interrogated had reached their limits. If they continued, Gong Yingxian was afraid he would be the first to let something slip.
Qiu Yan looked at Gong Yingxian’s deathly pale face and patted him on the shoulder. “I’m going to have a cup of tea. You should rest for a while, too. I’ll turn off the surveillance cameras. Also, let me know if you want to see her now.”
She knew who could comfort Gong Yingxian at a time like this, so she wanted to give them some privacy.
After Qiu Yan left, Gong Yingxian covered his eyes and forehead with one hand, slowly regulating his breathing.
Ren Yi still hadn’t recovered from the shock. He murmured, “Why… How could this happen…”
“Why… What other reason could there be?”
Self-interest, desire, hatred, profit—the poppy fruits with which demons tempted mortals.
“Then Yue Xingu… Was he acting under someone’s orders?”
“My aunt was pregnant when the incident happened. I vaguely remember hearing about it. Later, I was told that she miscarried because of the upheaval within the family and the excessive strain she was under.” Gong Yingxian spoke softly. “I suspect that until the day he died, Yue Xingu never knew that the child hadn’t been miscarried at all, but had actually been born. And that the child wasn’t his in the first place.”
Ren Yi felt a chill run down his spine.
Although Yue Xingu had also worked for Baosheng Group, he didn’t hold a position powerful enough to influence the bidding results. Gong Mingqing, however, was different. She was the chairman’s biological younger sister.
Perhaps Yue Xingu had also benefited from the bribery surrounding the bidding process. Perhaps he knew that he and Gong Mingqing were partners in their mutual interests. Or perhaps he had known nothing about it until his wife became pregnant. Wanting to protect his family, he had been left with no other choice.
Whatever the truth, he had become an accomplice.
And even on the brink of death, he had refused to expose his daughter’s mother, all for the sake of Gong Feilan.
“But what about Feilan? How could she allow He Xiuyu to hurt Feilan?”
“I think she lost control of He Xiuyu a long time ago. Did you see the hatred He Xiuyu has for me? Wouldn’t he hate Feilan even more?”
Ren Yi fell silent.
They had the same blood running through their veins. One was an illegitimate son who had grown up alone and helpless, committing arson and accumulating one crime after another. The other was a little princess who had been showered with love, innocent and carefree, with a bright future ahead of her.
“…Can someone really be this vicious?”
Ren Yi looked at Gong Yingxian’s eyes beneath his faintly trembling eyelashes, where he was desperately concealing his pain, and his heart ached terribly.
Gong Yingxian had spent nineteen years desperately pursuing the truth, only to have it laid bare before him in the cruelest possible way. His own paternal aunt had turned out to be the person responsible for his family’s deaths. The only two family members he had left all these years had been secretly shooting cold arrows at him from behind.
Why did all these cruel things have to happen to Gong Yingxian?
Was there any justice in this world? Were there any gods watching over them?
Gong Yingxian was in so much pain that he had become numb. He spoke softly. “Yes, there are.”
He turned his head and took Ren Yi’s hand. He even managed a smile.
“I’ve already prepared myself mentally. I’m more worried about Feilan. I don’t know how to explain this to her.”
Thinking of Feilan made Ren Yi’s heart feel even heavier.
Ren Yi caressed Gong Yingxian’s face, his eyes red and his voice hoarse. “Yingxian, you don’t have to bear all of this alone. You have me, understand?”
Gong Yingxian nodded. “Of course I know. Without you, I never would have made it this far.”
Without Ren Yi, he would either have died or completely fallen apart.
Ren Yi closed his eyes. “Then… do you want to see her?”
What would that scene be like? Just imagining it made Ren Yi’s heart ache on Gong Yingxian’s behalf.
“I do. I’ve waited so long for this. What reason would I have to back out now?” Gong Yingxian’s tone was calm, but his grip on Ren Yi’s hand gradually tightened. “After she threatened you at the hospital, she immediately fled back to the United States and refused to return. So we didn’t dare alert her. We couldn’t let her know that we suspected her, not even in the slightest. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to arrest her. This time, we finally managed to find an opportunity to trick her into coming back.”
Ren Yi froze for a moment.
Gong Yingxian immediately realized what he was thinking and hurriedly explained, “My illness wasn’t faked!”
“I…” Ren Yi breathed a sigh of relief. He wanted to say that he hadn’t suspected him, but for that brief moment, he really had wondered. He didn’t want to lie, so he could only tell the truth. “I actually wish you had faked it this time.”
“I didn’t.” Gong Yingxian gently stroked the palm of his hand. “I told you before that I wouldn’t lie to you again. I used to be far too self-righteous. I thought that as long as I had a legitimate reason, I could always choose the option that required the smallest sacrifice and yielded the greatest benefit. I never took emotions into account. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“On the day the nursing home caught fire, we were secretly searching one of her residences. It was very close to where Captain He was staying, so we were able to arrive as quickly as possible. Before I went inside, I knew there was a good chance I wouldn’t come out safely. But whether I died, survived, was injured, or became disabled, any of those outcomes would give her a reason to return to the country.”
Ren Yi would always feel pain no matter how many times he recalled the determination with which Gong Yingxian had rushed into that burning building.
He wrapped his arms around Gong Yingxian but couldn’t utter a single word.
Gong Yingxian could feel the turbulent emotions surging through Ren Yi. He gently stroked Ren Yi’s back and spoke in a tired yet clear voice.
“I used to think I would be impulsive, that I would go mad with rage and grief. After all, I’d waited nineteen years for this truth. But now, I just feel exhausted. I want it to be over.”
By the end, there was unmistakably a hint of a sob in his voice.
“I really just want it to be over.”
Let him finally awaken from this long nightmare. Let him finally be freed from the shackles he had carried for nineteen years. Let the path of bloodshed and suffering he had walked for most of his life finally come to an end.
Ren Yi held him tightly in return, comforting him gently.
“It’s almost over. It’s almost over.”
“Stay with me when I face her.”
Gong Yingxian aside, even Ren Yi had imagined countless times what kind of person the real culprit behind the Gong family arson case would be, and what the scene would look like when they finally caught them.
But the absurd turn of events unfolding before them now was almost beyond anything that belonged in the human world.
The chairman of Baosheng Group, Gong Yingxian’s own paternal aunt, Gong Mingqing, entered slowly, wearing handcuffs.
This was Ren Yi’s first time seeing the woman. She was tall and slender, with striking features and an air of sternness and aloofness. He recognized those eyes immediately. They were filled with intelligence, contemplation, sorrow, and indifference. They were the eyes of someone who had buried far too many stories within herself.
The instant Gong Mingqing saw Gong Yingxian, her eyes reddened.
She sat down opposite the two men. Her face was haggard and pale.
For a while, no one spoke.
After a long silence, Gong Mingqing finally said, “Yingxian, can we talk privately?”
“He’s staying here,” Gong Yingxian replied.
He needed Ren Yi’s strength.
Gong Mingqing fell silent for a moment. “Could you please avoid telling Feilan for the time being? She’s only just arrived in the United States, and she’s finally started to feel happy again.”
“I’ll find a way to handle it.” Gong Yingxian’s face was like a mask of ice, without the slightest crack through which his emotions could escape.
Gong Mingqing’s eyes reddened. “I’m sorry.”
Ren Yi felt a wave of nausea.
“Auntie.” Gong Yingxian looked at the woman opposite him with his misty gray eyes. “You’ve been lying to me for nineteen years. From now on, even if it’s only for Feilan’s sake, tell the truth. There’s no point in lying anymore.”
Tears streamed down Gong Mingqing’s face. Her lips trembled.
“That year, I learned the confidential bidding price through Yue Xingu. Then I leaked it to the son of the municipal Party committee secretary at the time. That man has since retired, but I’m sure you already know who he is.”
She gave them a name.
Ren Yi’s expression changed.
No wonder reopening this case had encountered such tremendous resistance.
“I received two million yuan in kickbacks. But the truth is, I didn’t do it for the money. I only wanted to win his favor,” Gong Mingqing said. “My father, your grandfather, was extremely conservative in his thinking. From childhood onward, I did everything he told me to do. I studied hard, took the entrance exams for the schools he chose, worked in the jobs he wanted me to take, and even married someone I didn’t love simply because he told me to.”
She gave a bitter smile.
“But no matter how well I did, in his eyes, I was never as good as your father.”
“I didn’t leak the bidding price for money. I just wanted to build better connections and achieve better results for the company, so he would know that I wasn’t inferior to my older brother in any way.”
Gong Mingqing took a deep breath.
“But I never expected that the materials would be defective, or that such a terrible accident would happen.”
Ren Yi felt a dull ache in his chest.
That accident had destroyed countless families. It had nearly destroyed his own, too. He had come within a hair’s breadth of having his father’s name included among those at the mass funeral he had attended.
Gong Mingqing’s shoulders trembled violently, and her lips had turned so pale that they were almost bloodless.
“At the time, I was genuinely terrified. I was only in my early twenties. If the investigation uncovered what I had done, I would spend the rest of my life in prison. Yue Xingu didn’t know I had leaked the bidding price, and he was even planning to cooperate with the investigation. I had no choice. I confessed everything to him and threatened him. I told him that if the police found out, he would be guilty, too. Besides, I was pregnant at the time…”
“So, in the end, he agreed to help me.”
“Whose child was it?” Gong Yingxian finally asked.
Gong Mingqing stared blankly at her own handcuffed hands without answering.
“They’ll find out eventually. There’s no point in hiding it,” Gong Yingxian said. “Was it the man who won the bid?”
Gong Mingqing bit her lip lightly, trying to stop her tears from falling. Then she nodded.
“He couldn’t afford to have the investigation uncover the truth, either. So we did everything we could to cover it up. But the problems with those materials were still discovered. Sooner or later, the investigation might lead back to us.”
Gong Yingxian spoke in a low voice. “So you decided to kill to silence the witnesses and frame someone else.”
Tears streamed down Gong Mingqing’s face.
“I… I really… I never wanted to hurt you. I…”
Ren Yi clenched his fists, consumed by hatred for her.
“That man suggested that your father take the blame… that they make it look like he had committed suicide out of guilt, then interfere with the investigation to bring the matter to an end.” Gong Mingqing seemed to need every ounce of her strength just to continue. “Back then, every single day, I wanted to die. But every single day, I also wanted to live. I didn’t want to go to prison. I couldn’t bear the thought of spending the rest of my life behind bars. I was terrified of seeing the hatred in my father’s eyes. I couldn’t bear to think about the hundreds of families destroyed by the explosion. And I was pregnant…”
Gong Mingqing sobbed uncontrollably, almost unable to speak.
The two men waited silently, their hearts aching as though they were being pierced from within.
“In the end, I agreed.”
Gong Mingqing’s face was ashen.
“Originally, it wasn’t supposed to happen at home. But your father was out on bail at the time and wasn’t allowed to leave the house. I… I gave him the key.”
“You gave him the key?”
Gong Yingxian stared at Gong Mingqing, his hawk-like eyes filled with bloodshot streaks.
The key!
Ren Yi’s heart jolted.
The culprit had a key! If the culprit had a key, then all the previous suspicions cast on the firefighters could be dismissed. The culprit could enter and leave the Gong family home at will without needing anyone’s help.
Ren Yi thought of Chen Xiaofei, who was still in the ICU, and felt as though he could hardly breathe.
Gong Mingqing nodded through her tears.
“I did. I gave him the key. He found someone, some so-called hitman. That person promised to make it look like a suicide. But I never imagined… I never imagined he would set the house on fire. I never imagined he would… would…”
She broke down completely, sobbing bitterly.
“I never wanted to hurt you.”
The veins on Gong Yingxian’s forehead bulged. His normally fair, jade-like face had turned an eerie shade of green, and his expression was horribly contorted. He had to keep both fists tightly hidden beneath the table to restrain the urge to lunge at her and tear her apart with his bare hands.
“You never wanted to hurt us? You never wanted to?”
His teeth clattered against one another as he forced out each blood-soaked word.
“My father, my mother, and my sister were burned alive!”
Gong Mingqing wept bitterly.
“I’m sorry, Yingxian. I’m sorry. I… I’m sorry.”
Ren Yi held Gong Yingxian’s hand, tears in his eyes.
Gong Yingxian closed his eyes. His Adam’s apple moved as he struggled to suppress the savage hatred rising within him.
“What about the ‘hitman’?”
“That man said… he said he had taken care of the hitman, too, to eliminate any future trouble.” Gong Mingqing sobbed, her words coming in broken fragments. “At first, I wanted to abort the child. But I was afraid that without the child, I would have nothing to use to threaten him. Yet I didn’t dare give birth to the child openly, either, because I was afraid people would discover that he wasn’t Yue Xingu’s. So I… I secretly gave birth and left the child at an orphanage.”
“All these years, there hasn’t been a single day when I haven’t lived in fear, not a single day when I haven’t been tormented by guilt and terror,” Gong Mingqing cried. “When I… when I discovered that this child had a pyromania problem, I knew it was retribution. This was my punishment.”
Ren Yi gritted his teeth.
“If you really understood what retribution meant, if you were truly tormented by guilt and suffering, why didn’t you turn back before it was too late? Why did you continue killing so many innocent people? Was the life of your own brother, sister-in-law, and niece not enough? Were the hundreds of people who died in the explosion not enough? Are you even human, or are you a ghost?”
Gong Mingqing shook her head, her face twisted with anguish.
“It wasn’t me. He was threatening me!”
“After the orphanage caught fire, he was listed as a suspect. I had actually been keeping an eye on him all along and secretly providing financial support to the orphanage. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. Eventually, I found him a lawyer and acknowledged him as my son.”
“Later, after you began investigating the case, he somehow guessed that I was connected to what had happened all those years ago. He said he wanted to help me. I… I was afraid the truth would be exposed. I wasn’t afraid of dying. I had long since stopped fearing death or prison. Either would have been a form of release.”
“But I was afraid people would find out that I had killed my own brother and his entire family. I was afraid Feilan would learn the truth… So I agreed. But I never expected him to lose control. He was like a madman, like a devil. He used Feilan to threaten Yue Xingu and me. In the end, everything went completely out of control. Completely…”
Gong Mingqing’s face twisted in agony.
“I could have given up everything, but Feilan was innocent! We couldn’t take it anymore in the end. We wanted to turn ourselves in, to put an end to all of this. But he… he kidnapped Feilan…”
She struggled to breathe between sobs.
“This is all retribution. This is my punishment.”
Gong Yingxian and Ren Yi were both deathly pale. Though it was a warm spring day in April, the chill seemed to pierce their bones.
According to He Xiuyu, his mother had been the mastermind behind everything, the evil force pulling all the strings from behind the scenes.
But according to Gong Mingqing, the truth was the complete opposite.
Whom should they believe?
Such a beautiful exterior, such a privileged family background—yet the soul dwelling within was that of a demon.