Chapter 91: Doll
Xia Qian Ge changed into her work uniform in the locker room. She put her casual clothes into the locker, humming an unknown tune. The thought of the woman’s frightened and terrified expression made the corners of her mouth twitch uncontrollably.
She wasn’t a violent person, nor did she like to build her happiness on the suffering of others. Although her father had shown her many examples of how to beat others at home, she still didn’t like this way of using physical language to make the other party feel physical pain and fear.
She preferred simple words. After the other party’s spirit collapsed, the intact body still had to live in this world. This kind of pain was hundreds of times heavier than simple physical harm.
It wasn’t just the woman’s panic at this moment. She had deliberately left a whole night of blankness, letting the woman slowly suffer in a state of frantic self-denial. On the one hand, she was secretly glad that she had not been found by the law enforcement officers. On the other hand, she was worried and scared because she had not received a specific reply from the perpetrator. Finally, she came to the convenience store to verify with heavy dark circles under her eyes. The moment she saw her intact, she completely fell into the abyss of doubt.
Xia Qian Ge tidied up her clothes and turned to leave the locker room to start her work for the day. But she was stopped at the door by the anxious Zhang Lin. She had completely lost her arrogant attitude from yesterday. She grabbed Xia Qian Ge’s slender wrist, not wanting her to leave like this, but she didn’t dare to use too much force for fear of angering Xia Qian Ge.
“I have to go to work. The manager said today’s work is very heavy. Is there something you need?”
Xia Qian Ge calmly pulled her arm out of Zhang Lin’s grasp, her face a stark contrast to Zhang Lin’s. Looking at Zhang Lin, who was stammering and unwilling to speak, she smiled gently and harmlessly. “If there’s nothing, I’ll be going now…”
Zhang Lin was stunned for a moment, even feeling that Xia Qian Ge’s steps as she left seemed to be deliberately slowed down, as if she were luring her to reveal her ugly thoughts. At this moment, she was the one being crucified and tortured. But why did she feel that the person who was judging her was a demon a hundred times more terrifying than her?
Although she tried her best to deny this possibility, she still felt as if she had really become a doll. From beginning to end, all her actions were controlled by invisible threads. She had lost her own thoughts, and her self-righteous revenge was just a joke to be mocked at afterwards.
“Don’t… Xia Qian Ge, don’t go. I have something to ask you.”
Zhang Lin further blocked Xia Qian Ge’s way. She was more and more convinced that Xia Qian Ge had known the truth all along. But the girl just looked at her with a gentle smile. Even though she had done such a despicable thing, she couldn’t see any blame in the girl’s dark eyes, as if… nothing had happened.
The repeated self-doubt was about to make her on the verge of collapse. She even hoped that someone else would come with Xia Qian Ge, that she would be handcuffed and taken away, which would be better than the torture of this repeated torment.
Xia Qian Ge stopped again. She looked at Zhang Lin with her eyes curved, waiting for her to speak.
“I… you yesterday…” Zhang Lin suddenly remembered that when Xia Qian Ge came to the store, she hadn’t been carrying the shoulder bag she usually did. So she used this as a starting point and asked, “Where’s your bag? Why didn’t you bring it today?”
“You mean my shoulder bag? Um… I accidentally broke it yesterday.” Xia Qian Ge frowned with her delicate eyebrows, looking very troubled. “I met a very strange person yesterday. He followed me. I accidentally broke my bag when I was running away.”
“Then… was he caught?”
“Yes, I called the police later.” Xia Qian Ge nodded and continued, “But… he said he was instigated by someone. But I remember I shouldn’t have provoked anyone.”
“Oh, right.” Xia Qian Ge turned her head, suddenly showing a particularly expectant expression. She looked at Zhang Lin, whose expression was becoming more and more dazed, and a hint of mockery flashed in her cold eyes. “That person should be awake now. Maybe we’ll get a result from the interrogation soon.”
Hearing this answer, Zhang Lin subconsciously swallowed. She felt that her nerves were so tense that they were about to snap. But the girl in front of her seemed to be stepping on her critical point with every step, bit by bit… bit by bit, pushing her into a desperate situation.
Zhang Lin looked at Xia Qian Ge, who was about to turn and leave again. She once again tried to reach out and grab Xia Qian Ge’s arm, but this time she was easily dodged by Xia Qian Ge. This time her eyes suddenly turned cold, as if time had turned back, and the warm and gentle spring had suddenly turned into a howling and biting winter. She looked at Zhang Lin indifferently. “Don’t touch me, okay?”
“I… I really didn’t mean it. You should have seen the message, right? I told him not to be too hard on you. I really regret it.”
“Haha, I was lying to you.” Xia Qian Ge suddenly smiled again. She squinted her eyes, a mocking smile in them. “You’re a very reliable person to take all the blame on yourself.”
“So… I still have a chance, right? They won’t necessarily find out about me. This can be as if it never happened, right? As long as… as long as you don’t report me.”
Zhang Lin didn’t dare to show any anger from being deceived. Instead, she still deluded herself with the possibility of clearing her name. She suppressed the urge to vomit and put on a fawning face. If it wasn’t for the other colleagues and customers coming and going, she wouldn’t even mind kneeling on the spot and begging for Xia Qian Ge’s forgiveness.
Compared to being handcuffed and having her freedom restricted for a period of time, she was more concerned about her family finding out about this. She didn’t want her parents to know that their well-behaved and sensible daughter would do such a despicable thing outside. She also didn’t dare to imagine the expressions on her parents’ faces when they visited her in the detention center. She felt that she would go crazy because of it, seemingly completely forgetting how cruel she had been when she cursed the other party to die.
This was exactly what she was afraid of. But the other party seemed to know this very well and put on a superior attitude to lure her into numbly confessing everything. But the other party’s gentle and non-angry attitude made Zhang Lin still feel that there was still room for maneuver.
“I was just possessed. Don’t report me. I can give you money. I’ll give you all my part-time money. And my new bag, it’s very expensive. I’ll give it to you too. Please don’t report me, okay?”
Zhang Lin spoke very quickly, like a desperate criminal. She did her best to lay out all her chips, wanting to exchange them for the possibility of Xia Qian Ge’s forgiveness.
“Oh, it’s too late.”
“Too late? What’s too late?”
Before Zhang Lin could finish her words, she heard a commotion outside the convenience store. A few people in uniform rushed into the store. She immediately understood something and turned her head to stare at Xia Qian Ge, her chest heaving violently. “You lied to me?”
The sudden and unacceptable change made Zhang Lin’s appearance twisted and terrifying. Her face seemed to have gathered all the dark expressions that a human could have. She no longer wanted to care about any so-called forbearance. Her resentment almost burst out in a roar. “You knew all along, and you reported me a long time ago. But you deliberately watched me jump up and down like a monkey here?”
Zhang Lin looked at the charming smile on the girl’s lips, the gentle smile that had just given her hope. In the blink of an eye, it had plunged her into an ice cave, as if her already crushed self-esteem had been kicked by a passerby and spat on a few times.
“You’re the real demon… you are.”
Zhang Lin trembled, every word seemed to be squeezed out from between her teeth, with a strong resentment and indignation and the smell of blood, as if she were the righteous angel who was about to judge the most evil devil.
But the girl in front of her didn’t say another word from beginning to end. She just smiled. No one could see any negative emotions in that smile, except for Zhang Lin herself.
It was not until Zhang Lin was handcuffed and about to leave that Xia Qian Ge gently whispered in her ear, “Haha, I thought you could hold on a little longer before you made a move. How boring.”
All of Zhang Lin’s struggles stopped at that moment. This sentence completely shattered her last bit of self-esteem, making a cracking sound that kept echoing in her ears.
Her guess was right. She had just been a doll controlled by threads from the very beginning. Her revenge was actually a part of the girl’s expectations. She had not caused the girl any harm, but had instead been strangled by the threads that controlled the doll, leaving only a ridiculous and ugly state.
