Shangguan Yuyan's upper eyelids trembled slightly, then her eyes slowly opened.
"Detective Lin, you know a lot about my past."
"It's not knowing, just a bit curious. After all, there aren't many women capable of being admitted to Harbin Medical University for Pharmacology, and even fewer who are inexplicably expelled by the school. So, I was simply curious."
Shangguan Yuyan stood up, patting nonexistent dust from her skirt, and chuckled softly.
"Speaking of expulsions, Detective Lin, you shouldn't be unfamiliar with that. I heard from my good friend at Jinling Girls' College that your sister, Lin Qingge, participated in a sketching activity with her club. There were ten people in total, including the teacher. But besides her, no one survived; they all met a tragic end in the deep mountains. The police questioned her, but she remained silent. Soon, rumors spread throughout the school that she was the murderer. Not long after, she was expelled by the school, which was a de facto confirmation of the rumors. I wonder if Detective Lin managed to clear your sister's name, or perhaps, brought her to justice yourself?"
Facing Shangguan Yuyan's taunt, Lin Qingge remained unmoved. Because, she had indeed killed people. But not teachers or classmates.
That day, they went out sketching and accidentally stumbled upon a camp. The officers at the camp, upon learning they were students from Jinling Girls' College, enthusiastically invited them to lunch at the camp. What they thought was a display of goodwill between soldiers and civilians turned out to be a group of beasts in human clothing.
Because Leng Ningyue was delayed and would arrive later, Lin Qingge, worried that Leng Ningyue wouldn't find the way to the camp, went out to meet her. Unexpectedly, this action saved her life. When she and Leng Ningyue returned to the camp, they found their teacher and classmates had already been brutally mistreated by those beasts. An unprecedented surge of rage shot up from her heels to the crown of her head. With red-rimmed eyes, she grabbed a wooden stick and struck the beast closest to her. She beat it madly until she thrust the blood-stained stick into its throat, only then realizing that the other beasts had all been silently eliminated by Leng Ningyue.
After leading the vacant-eyed, dull-faced teachers and classmates away from there to a secluded spot to rest, she and Leng Ningyue returned to the camp. Following Leng Ningyue's instructions, she dug a trench around the camp. Then, Leng Ningyue, after erasing their tracks, set the camp ablaze. However, when they returned, they did not find the teachers and classmates who were supposed to be resting at the original location. After searching everywhere, they finally found the drowned teachers and classmates by a small stream nearby. The deepest part of the stream was barely a meter deep, not enough to drown anyone. Therefore, the teachers and classmates committed suicide to escape the humiliation.
To be honest, she felt extremely regretful and guilty at the time. If she had paid a little more attention, or stayed behind, perhaps the teacher and classmates would not have died. But Leng Ningyue comforted her, saying that perhaps for them, dying like this was also a form of release.
After calming down, she couldn't help but voice the doubt that had been lingering in her heart. She asked Leng Ningyue who she truly was. Unexpectedly, Leng Ningyue answered without hesitation, stating she was a KMT spy. She had been sent to investigate the presence of underground party radio activities within Jinling Girls' College.
Surprised, Lin Qingge pointed at herself and made the most correct decision of her life! That is, to reveal her identity and recruit Leng Ningyue into their ranks, or rather, into the revolutionary ranks. Leng Ningyue said that as a high-ranking spy, she had seen too many heinous acts within the KMT, and that the organization was rotten to its core. Today's events were a prime example. If it were in the base areas, they might have also been welcomed warmly, but they would never have committed such inhumane acts. Leng Ningyue also said that she had known all along that Lin Qingge was an underground party member, and that Leng Ningyue had secretly provided cover for her several times when she sent out radio messages.
As they talked, they retrieved the bodies floating in the stream. While Leng Ningyue was fretting over these corpses, Lin Qingge, taking advantage of Leng Ningyue's unguarded moment, knocked her unconscious.
Leng Ningyue, as the eleventh person to arrive late, had not been seen by others during the assembly. With so many people suddenly dead, someone would inevitably have to report back, facing criticism and blame. If she and Leng Ningyue had to choose between them, she was willing for it to be herself. To preserve the reputation of the teachers and classmates, to maintain the last shred of dignity for them and their families, she said nothing about the camp. She even deliberately used a guilty expression to lead the police to suspect her as the murderer of the teachers and classmates. This way, those seemingly not-so-bright blokes from the police station wouldn't connect the mysteriously burning camp with them.
Seeing her silence, the police intended to use torture to extract a confession. After all, a student could have accidentally fallen into the water. But with nine teachers and students simultaneously drowning in a stream that reached their waists, the explanation of accidentally falling in would be rather far-fetched. Fortunately, at a critical moment, Leng Ningyue suddenly appeared and, using some unknown means, rescued her from the police. Despite this, the escalating rumors forced her to leave school prematurely.
Perhaps sensing Lin Qingge's prolonged silence, Shangguan Yuyan, feeling she had hit a sore spot, raised her chin and asked, "What, nothing to say?"
"Whatever she wants to say or do is her freedom, and it has nothing to do with you."
At that moment, Leng Ningyue walked in from outside. She gave Shangguan Yuyan a cold glance and stood in front of Lin Qingge.
"My dear sister. It's clear to me now, at this point, that this Detective Lin was specifically invited by you to target our mother and me! The will was also a setup by the two of you! Father had long ago revealed to Mother that I was to be the future successor of the Shangguan family. But the will taken from the safe has your name on it!"
"Miss Shangguan, wills can be changed~ According to the information I've gathered, Miss Shangguan, you were in a car accident last month. Although it wasn't too serious, you still required blood transfusions. At the time, Mrs. Shangguan was out playing mahjong and didn't receive the news in time. Mr. Shangguan, rushing to her side with fatherly love for his beloved daughter, offered to donate blood for Miss Shangguan despite his own health. But he was told by the doctor that your blood types were incompatible, and blood transfusion was not possible. Mr. Shangguan insisted that Miss Shangguan also had AB blood type and that the doctor was incompetent for delaying his daughter's treatment. Later, when tested at another hospital, the results showed no abnormalities. To find out where the error lay, Mr. Shangguan recently tricked Mrs. Shangguan into the hospital for a blood draw under the guise of a physical examination~ But the results showed Mrs. Shangguan was type A. Combining her with Mr. Shangguan, who is AB blood type, it's theoretically impossible for you, Miss Shangguan, to be born as type O~"