“An employee roster. Even though the manager said there’s no employee with the surname Zuo here, it doesn’t rule out the possibility that her position was simply too low for him to know about. So, we might as well just search the employee roster directly. It’s simpler.”
Jiang Zhique didn’t bother to lower her voice, speaking plainly. “By the way, there’s no need to worry about being exposed. The Su family didn’t send anyone to stop us in the elevator. I suspect they’ve already contacted Li Siwen. They reached a deal.”
“That Su Hui… he has someone protecting him?” Qi Ran was slightly surprised. After a moment of thought, she quickly grasped the crucial point and said slowly, “So the Su family knew about our presence from the very beginning. Everything you said to Su Hui just now was actually meant directly for Su Decai.”
“Outside that room just now, my snakes sensed a presence. If I’m not mistaken, it was probably one of those so-called Uncle Liu or Uncle Zhang,” Jiang Zhique nodded. She rose slightly on her tiptoes, but her fingertips were still a fair distance from the highest row of ledgers. Qi Ran reached out and helped her pull the books down. Jiang Zhique murmured a word of thanks and then continued, “That’s also why I didn’t tell him anything else about the Circle just now, and instead settled for the next best option—direct honesty and a plea for help…”
Her tone paused unnaturally for a moment before returning to normal. “For example, do you still remember that youngest son of the Bai family?”
Qi Ran nodded. No one could forget three sports cars smashed into scrap metal right in front of them, especially when one of the main instigators was a member of the prominent Bai family.
Jiang Zhique tapped her knuckles against the metal shelving holding the archives and said quietly, “This second-generation rich kid named Su Hui is, in essence, very similar to that Bai family’s youngest son. It’s an unspoken rule within the Circle right now. In every family, the eldest son inherits the family business, while the youngest child is sent abroad, kept completely away from any domestic circles. That way, he becomes a clean, lawful citizen, with no further ties to this world. It’s not just the Su and Bai families; every major family name operates like this today.”
“Every major family name?” Qi Ran asked, puzzled.
Jiang Zhique nodded. “Every single one. Like I told you before—Tang, Lu, Zhou, Chen, Li… they’re all the same breed.”
“Those sanctimonious bastards, always claiming the Circle has its own rules, that we Insiders are different from the ordinary masses. But in reality? They’ve all prepared their escape routes long ago, hedging their bets and making a fortune. Only the utter fools actually believe those words, fighting the Executors to the bitter end, so poor they can’t even afford a meal, still fantasizing that they’re superior beings, that the future world will belong to people like us… But the truth is, we’re the inferior ones. We don’t even count as human. The law doesn’t protect us. We’re like a bunch of savages locked in a zoo cage, still raising stone axes and chanting about survival of the fittest, hallucinating that this cage is our territory, that the people outside the cage can’t do a thing to us… I nearly die laughing just thinking about it.”
Jiang Zhique’s voice was very soft, her tone light and detached. Qi Ran glanced at her; that cold expression showed not the faintest trace of “dying of laughter.”
She didn’t respond. Jiang Zhique’s words sounded less like an explanation and more like a soliloquy, a confession. Clearly, these thoughts had been pent up in her heart for far, far too long. Perhaps she had even mumbled them quietly in the past, huddled under her blanket, to the snakes hidden on her body. So, all Qi Ran could do was listen. She didn’t need to say anything. Just listening quietly was enough.
“The clever savages caught on early. They put on clothes, stood up straight, accepted domestication, and completely obeyed every arrangement. That way, their descendants wouldn’t have to stay in this cage anymore… Just like that man named Su Hui,” Jiang Zhique lowered her eyelids, her speech very, very slow. “He doesn’t yet understand how much his father loves him, nor how much his father has planned for his life. But that’s fine. He will understand. The day his father and his brother suddenly vanish without a trace, dead without intact corpses, that decades-long beautiful dream will shatter to pieces in an instant. All the hidden secrets will be exposed to the sunlight. On that day, he will understand. This is something every second-generation heir must eventually face.”
Her words grew slower and slower, as if she had chewed over each syllable countless times, gritting her teeth. It was only then that Qi Ran realized this girl before her was not like herself at all. She wasn’t indifferent to family or familial affection. On the contrary, she cared to an almost unbearable degree. Like a young, bristling hedgehog, she forced the words out one by one through clenched teeth, with such force it seemed she wanted to spit out every single tooth.
“When that day comes, they’ll face a choice: live out their wealthy days as an ordinary second-generation heir, just as their father hoped, or return to the cage, pick up a stone axe, and smash that enemy’s head in? Either choice makes little difference. Nothing will change. After revenge, they’ll face a second question: die alone, waiting to be devoured by other savages when they’re gone, or carry on the family line, bringing an unlucky child into this world beside them, starting a new cycle all over again? It’s laughable. If I were an Executor, I’d die laughing. No need to do anything at all—these fools in their iron cages will cheerfully destroy themselves…”
Her words stopped abruptly as she stared at the tissue Qi Ran offered her. The sarcasm in her eyes faded slightly, replaced by a hint of confusion. She didn’t understand why Qi Ran was doing this.
“You’re crying.”
Qi Ran said quietly.
Jiang Zhique opened her mouth, as if to instinctively deny it, but then closed it again. In the end, she took the tissue. After wiping her cheeks clean, she didn’t say anything more. She just silently continued searching through the ledgers in the archive room.
After an unknown amount of time had passed, Qi Ran suddenly heard Jiang Zhique’s voice again. She had clearly composed herself, her tone back to normal. “I think I might have found the information you’re looking for.”
“I still haven’t found anything on my end,” Qi Ran said, setting down the large ledger that had been resting on her knees. Rolling her wheeled chair over to Jiang Zhique, she looked at the open book.
“It’s no wonder we couldn’t find anything earlier in the employee identity records. There was only ever one woman with the surname Zuo here. The problem is, this woman surnamed Zuo committed suicide due to mental illness in 2006—eleven years ago. She was twenty-one years old at the time, which fits the criteria you mentioned.” Jiang Zhique looked at Qi Ran. “2006. Doesn’t that date seem familiar?”
“It’s the date we saw on the sign at that shop,” Qi Ran said quietly.
“Exactly,” Jiang Zhique nodded. “The person that Lake Cutter wants you to find is a woman who died eleven years ago.”
“This means she either doesn’t have a normal human concept of time, or she’s lost that concept,” Qi Ran said, easily grasping what Jiang Zhique was implying. “So that ghost attached to me is indeed one of the original Ghost Birth Infants, Qiao. In that case, everything I experienced before wasn’t a manipulation by the Lake Cutter. It was real.”
Jiang Zhique nodded, not denying it. “At least in this matter, that seems to be the case.”
Qi Ran’s brow furrowed tightly. “But now the trail’s gone cold again. The only way I had to contact Miss Ah Qiao was to find this woman surnamed Zuo.”
“It sounds like you two were on fairly good terms,” Jiang Zhique said, rising from her chair. “Miss Ah Qiao… is that how you address her?”
Qi Ran nodded. “She told me her name was just the single character Qiao. Why?”
Jiang Zhique looked somewhat surprised. “In that case… she rather trusted you.”
“Why do you say that?” Qi Ran blinked. She didn’t see Miss Ah Qiao’s demeanor as fitting the definition of ‘trust’ in the slightest.
“Qiao is her true name. For a ghost, a true name is a very important secret,” Jiang Zhique said hesitantly. “Of course, it’s also possible she’s just… carefree? Judging by the photo, she doesn’t seem like the steady, cautious type.”
Qi Ran was about to deny it, but then the events that had transpired flashed through her mind, and she fell into a sudden silence. Although Miss Ah Qiao acted cold and detached, always appearing to have schemes calculated with perfect composure, when she thought about any genuinely useful plan Ah Qiao had pulled off… there really wasn’t one. Even the one scheme at the construction site had been noticed by Qi Ran, forcing Ah Qiao to make concessions. Could it be that Miss Ah Qiao had just been putting on a front from the very beginning? Was she actually not that clever, perhaps even a bit of a fool?
As her thoughts tangled, she heard Jiang Zhique speak. “The trail isn’t completely cold. There’s still another lead we can follow.”
“What do you mean?” Qi Ran asked, confused.
“The records for that woman surnamed Zuo—under mental illness, it lists postpartum depression,” Jiang Zhique said quietly. “I’m thinking, assuming she had a daughter who was only a few years old at the time… wouldn’t that mean her daughter would now be exactly in her teens? Even though her daughter isn’t here at this facility, having her listed as the birth mother is still a clue. Could that be considered a partial match for the conditions?”
