Overly Intense [Criminal Investigation] 143

Chapter 143: The Red Silk · La Soie Rouge

The Red Silk · La Soie Rouge

The documentary was too old, and the blurry pixels gradually revealed an image. The picture seemed to be covered in a layer of dust from a bygone era.

At that time, China was in the early stages of reform and opening up. The first batch of foreign cultural exchange projects had landed, and Xu Meng had followed the national art troupe to visit Paris, and had begun to show her brilliance on the international stage.

The scene in the camera was the backstage of a theater. Xu Meng was surrounded by foreign dancers, and everyone was admiring her performance costume. A young girl in her twenties, with a straight posture, was proudly showing her clothes to the foreigners.

A red Chinese-style stand-up collar and front opening design, with silver silk wrapped around the collar. From the left shoulder to the right waist was a red silk scarf as thin as a cicada’s wing, embellished with a phoenix pattern embroidered with gold thread, like a water ripple curve.

Xu Meng spun around lightly, and the thin gauze naturally opened up in the rotation, like wings. Her waist was as slender as a fish’s body, and the skirt was layered, with different colors, but all were ink red, and the layers were distinct with the change of light.

Although the retro photography was a bit distorted, you could still feel its beauty through the lens, and you could see the art troupe’s painstaking efforts for the foreign affairs activities.

The video was still playing.

On the stage of the old theater in Paris, a gray-blue light was shining on the ground. French-style mirror frames and Chinese-style folding fans were hung alternately. The opening was a solo dance by her mother. The red dress was like a flowing flame, brilliant but fleeting.

The old and dim hall was burning brightly. Shen Yiyi’s eyes only dared to stare at the red dress.

She was afraid of seeing the smile on her mother’s face, afraid of seeing her expression when she was jumping freely. Her eyes, which had been nurtured by the stage and freedom, were so bright and unblinking.

[She’s so special.]
[So beautiful.]
[How can the national team not be beautiful? It’s a pity that she met with a tragic case.]

The bullet screen covered her eyes, and the words were all sighs. The disaster had plundered her mother’s dreams, including her life.

Shen Yiyi pressed the pause button, and her posture was frozen in mid-air.

It didn’t seem to be that painful.
Not as stressful as she had imagined.

She looked at the opposite side. The faint shadow was half-bent. It seemed to be stuck in its movement, and its outline was slowly fading.

Who was it?

The unfinished guess that Zhan Luo had not finished, the question that had been entangled with her for more than twenty years, had come to a halt tonight. She was not in a hurry to ask, was not nervous, and was even surprised to see the case on the news again.

Shen Yiyi’s mind was echoing with Zhan Luo’s fierce shouts outside the courtyard. He was calling Qin Luo’s name, as if he hated her to the core but could not let go of his faith. The moment she had held Qin Luo and had told her not to look back, she had been distracted. At that time, she had been thinking: Why is Qin Luo so unlucky? Why can a pure heart, a fiery ideal, be stuck with a madman?

And now, she was also persuading herself like this.

A person’s fate is like gambling. An unlucky person will die in a few seconds, while some who do not want to live will not die time and time again. Her mother’s death was just an accidental accident, and she, who had been left behind by the killer, was perhaps a bug in the game mechanism. She had to, and she must, enjoy this strange splendor left by fate.

Thinking about it this way, Zhan Luo did not want to die. A person who wanted to die would not be able to howl. Only a person whose death was left in their body but whose consciousness wanted to live would be torn apart.

And she was now stitching up the torn part.

She had used her brain too much tonight, and Shen Yiyi was a little tired.

She turned off her phone.

Shen Yiyi found a clean corner by the bed and curled up, slowly closing her eyes.

In her dream, that dress was dancing. It was not the same as she had usually seen. Although the style was similar in her impression, the red dress when her mother had returned to the stage had no skirt…

***

On the highway, Wang Xi was speeding on the way back. Her boss in the passenger seat was holding her phone, her face ashen.

Wang Xi peeked at her. Qin Luo was looking at the posts about Director Shen online.

She had finished reading the posts when she was free. The content was very explosive. It was really hurtful for such a tragic case to be spread as a topic online. She had originally thought that her boss would be angry when she saw the posts, but she had not expected that her boss would have no expression in the passenger seat.

Qin Luo’s dazed expression made Wang Xi at a loss. How come it felt like her boss knew about it later than she did?

“Is Director Shen okay?”

The two in the back row were already asleep. President Liu’s life and death were unknown, and Wang Xi did not dare to play music. But she was so sleepy that she found a topic. “When I was in the work group, I saw that her face was particularly bad.”

Qin Luo did not say a word and stared blankly out the window.

The night was very dark, and the past was murky. Qin Luo remembered many moments.

Especially the scene that she could not understand the most. Shen Yiyi and Jiang Yan were sitting side by side, smiling and eating with their heads down. She was always silent on the topic of her mother, but she was particularly patient with the nagging Jiang Yan, and had even expressed her gratitude for Jiang Yan’s cooking before she had left.

Qin Luo had originally understood this plot as Shen Yiyi being very good at pretending, pretending to be a good student, pretending to be polite, pretending to be smart and well-behaved. Now, Qin Luo was heartbroken by her previous speculation. The indifference under Shen Yiyi’s strange temper in her adolescence, the strange mysophobia, and the choice to abandon her life for her goal were all like sharp needles stabbing into Qin Luo’s heart.

She must be very lonely.

Even if it were a novel, Qin Luo thought that this plot was too cruel. She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, unable to imagine the scene of that tragic case. A young child was hiding in a corner, her face smeared with blood by a ruffian. Her mother was lying at her feet, so real that it felt fake.

Regret was greater than heartache. Qin Luo was in agony in the passenger seat.

The journey was almost over. There were still a dozen or so minutes before they reached the hospital. But Director Qin had not spoken the whole time, just sighing over and over. “Director Qin, we’re almost there.”

Only then did Qin Luo open her eyes. The dawn was faint. It was going to get cold in a few days, and it was drizzling again in Shanghai.

Liu Jia, a southerner, hated the drizzle the most. She always said that the power of this kind of ghost weather was like an old lover. Although the commotion was not big, it was clinging and exhausting. Ever since she had studied and worked in Beijing, she had developed a hatred for the plum rain season in the south. When the studio had just been established in Nanjing, Liu Jia had issued a rain order: as long as it rained, the employees could work from home. At that time, Logos only had a dozen or so people, and there was no administrative post to manage this and that. Everyone was happy to look forward to the rain, and their phone screen savers were all changed to the god of thunder and lightning. In those years, Qin Luo and Liu Jia had lived together. On rainy days, the two would hide in their room and chat. Liu Jia would gossip, and Qin Luo would talk about everything under the sun. Although they were talking about their own things, they would still squeeze onto one sofa.

Qin Luo’s head was filled with the two of them. Both of them were hanging high in her heart, and she could not help either of them. When a person is at a loss, they always think of surrendering.

When she arrived at the hospital, Liu Jia’s mother was sitting on a bench in the corridor. Qin Luo did not dare to go forward and stood in punishment.

Fortunately, her aunt saw Qin Luo first.

Her tears fell before her voice. Liu Jia’s mother let out a wail.

Qin Luo could not move. Her body was trapped in this picture. The nurses in the corridor were running back and forth. They were separated from the ICU ward by several layers of protective doors. She sat down next to her aunt, and the moment her body touched the bench, her head was unprecedentedly detached. Her emotions were flowing out of her blood in batches, and her strength was exhausted. Qin Luo thought that she had not yet reached the limit of her breakdown, but her tears were flowing uncontrollably.

The tears flowed into her mouth, and only then did she ask, “How is she?”

“She’s in a coma from lack of oxygen.” Auntie Wang’s voice was already hoarse. She held Qin Luo’s hand tightly, as she had when she was a child. “The doctor said that there might be delayed nerve damage, and we have to observe her for a few more days.”

Lack of oxygen.

Qin Luo did not know what Liu Jia had been through. Shen Yiyi had not said, and the police had also kept it confidential. But just hearing the words “lack of oxygen,” she also had trouble breathing.

“I want to go in and see her.”

Qin Luo pleaded. Only by seeing her once could she be at ease.

The victim had not yet passed the critical period. There were three police officers guarding outside the intensive care unit. Qin Luo’s request to go in was blocked. Auntie Wang claimed that Qin Luo was a family member and had negotiated several times before she had reluctantly agreed. She had had Qin Luo change into a sterile gown and had had a police officer accompany her.

The large room was filled with the smell of disinfectant, and the electronic instruments were beeping densely. Once a person lay in this kind of ward, they would become the same as a plant, a seedling waiting to grow again.

Liu Jia was lying in a corner, her hair shaved. Qin Luo could barely recognize her.

She was so scared she didn’t dare to go forward. Her posture was the same as when she had been standing in the corridor. She looked from a distance, at the row of electrodes on her forehead, her face as white as her hospital gown.

Liu Jia always said that a beautiful woman should always pay attention to and take care of her hair. Every time she went on a business trip to Japan or Korea, she would buy a lot of hair care sets for her colleagues. She didn’t know if she would be angry to death when she woke up and saw that her hair had been shaved. At this thought, Qin Luo’s tears fell uncontrollably again.

In the end, Qin Luo still stood in front of the hospital bed. The tall police officer beside her did not leave her side and listened to her say some words of surrender, of admitting her mistakes, and of repentance.

“It was my obsession that it has come to this today.”
“It was my obsession.”
“The obsession to put pressure on you, to force you to have to make a decision.”

Obsession is a different dimension of indecision.

It is precisely because a person cannot make a second, better choice that they will be stubborn to achieve a certain goal to obtain happiness, such as Shen Yiyi and the reading group.

Qin Luo hated that she could not be ruthless and make a choice, that she was so willful that she wanted everything but could not maintain it herself. She knew very well that in these past few years, her messes were countless, and it was only because of Liu Jia’s persistence that she had come this far. In contrast, that day when she had rushed into the office, had pointed at Liu Jia’s face, had questioned her harshly, and had coldly shirked her responsibility, she had cruelly cut off her partner and her ideals, but she had never thought about whether she would be all alone behind her.

“It was my fault.” Qin Luo apologized softly.

If she had stopped the project when she was not satisfied with the sponsor, if she had discovered Shang Yi’s intentions for the public welfare earlier, maybe none of this would have happened today. She hated that her persistence had been misinterpreted, had been used as a springboard, as a place to express her values. But she hated these obsessed followers even more, hated the self-righteous judgment.

Qin Luo was afraid that Liu Jia would resent her when she woke up.

“I’m not very suitable to be a boss, and I’m not very good at being a friend. I always leave the difficult problems for you to handle.”
“You have to get well soon. I really can’t handle the company’s affairs alone.”

Qin Luo wanted to hold Liu Jia’s hand, but her arm was on a needle. Qin Luo did not dare to touch it and just gently rested her hand on her shoulder, leaning in. “I’ve thought about it. When you’re discharged, I’ll discuss it with the other shareholders. I’ll transfer my shares to you. I believe that Logos will definitely have higher achievements and go further.”

Liu Jia lay there, motionless, not even her eyelids twitching.