Chapter 102.1

Wife

In the cemetery.

Two people knocked out the night patrol guard and slipped in under the cover of darkness.

Song Yuhang held a shovel in her hand, turning over the soil with each dig, revealing the reinforced concrete inner coffin below.

She was gasping for air, staring at the photo on the tombstone and began to space out.

Jingzhe spoke up, “Or… perhaps we should just let it be, after all.”

After all, it’s a disrespectful act; the dead should be revered.

Song Yuhang clenched her teeth, her eyes red as she snatched a bottle from his hand and began to pour the liquid over it.

“If Lin Yan blames anyone, let it be me. Once the case is closed, after I take care of my mom in her old age and see her off, I’ll go down and keep her company.”

At this moment, she still clung to the last sliver of hope that it wasn’t her in that coffin.

Maybe Lin Yan was just feigning death, hiding away, or perhaps there were a variety of compelling reasons she couldn’t come out to see her.

The strong acid rapidly corroded the concrete, emitting a faint “sizzling” sound, followed by a pungent volatile odor; after which several cracks split open on the sturdy concrete surface.

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With one swing of her shovel, Song Yuhang caused chunks of stone to crumble. Jingzhe, seeing her like this, could only shake his head and sigh, joining her in her efforts.

Soon, the pitch-black coffin was exposed before their eyes.

Jingzhe took a wrench to pry open the bolts sealing the coffin while Song Yuhang’s shovel dropped to the ground. She unsteadily caressed the coffin.

She was the one who said they needed to open the coffin for an examination, and she was also the one who hesitated, not daring to face the reality.

Jingzhe pulled out a cigarette from his pack, illuminated his lighter, and sparked it up: “I’ll keep watch over there.”

Saying this, he walked off to the side, making space for her.

Song Yuhang’s palm caressed the cold coffin, still covered with rough, moist soil and lime granules, the scent of aged, decayed wood mingled with a faint odor of rot.

With the gentleness of touching a lover, she leaned her forehead against the coffin, eyes reddening, murmuring to herself.

“I’m sorry, Lin Yan, so sorry, forgive my selfishness…”

“After the case is cracked and the murderer caught, a hundred years down the line, when our mother passes, I will join you down there, don’t be afraid, don’t fear.”

“Very soon, wait for me, I won’t let you be alone.”

Song Yuhang sobbed, her forehead rubbing against the coffin, leaving a red mark, tears falling steadily into the soil.

She bit down on her teeth and, amidst the piercing heartache, shoved the coffin lid open.

This time she didn’t close her eyes; she wanted to see her clearly, engraving every detail into the marrow of her bones—letting the memories and hatred surge up, repeatedly honing them until they grew deeper and became the force that sustained her will to go on.

In this process, her heart was tortured over and over again. She felt as if she had been through a gruesome ordeal, torn apart limb by limb and reduced to ashes in the end.

She knelt down, covering her lips, her nails digging into her flesh. Despite her desperate efforts to suppress her crying, the nearby Jingzhe still heard her faint whimpering, like that of a young beast.

He extinguished his cigarette, gazing at the moon in the sky, and let out a long sigh.

If only she had known, why bother opening the coffin?

Nevertheless, he still had to remind her that it was almost time for the shift change of the patrolling officers.

Jingzhe placed his index finger on his lips and let out a whistle.

In the cold winter, the rate of decay of the corpse would be relatively slower, but even so, that once unforgettable face had become unrecognizable.

Song Yuhang reached out her hand, wanting to touch her, but she couldn’t bear it and pulled it back, gritting her teeth and trembling all over.

The whistle from Jingzhe brought back what little sanity she had left. Song Yuhang sniffed and lifted her clothes, revealing a large scar on her shoulder that resembled a bowl, now blackened with unidentified larvae wriggling inside.

It was the scar left from the gunshot wound Lin Yan had suffered last time, a unique mark that belonged to her alone.

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Song Yuhang let go and collapsed to the ground.

She couldn’t cry anymore; her entire mind was numbed.

The world around her seemed to spin, round and round, and only one thought dominated her mind: Lin Yan is dead? Lin Yan is dead?

Lin Yan is really gone.

Her fiancée… was no more.

Song Yuhang muttered to herself as memories flashed through her mind like a carousel, recounting every daily interaction from when she first met her to when they fell in love.

Jingzhe approached, “We need to leave.”

Song Yuhang was still lost in her own world, alternating between crying and laughing.

Jingzhe’s tone became more insistent, “Miss Song!”

Song Yuhang snapped back to reality, wiped away her tears, and looked at the still-open coffin, “Give me a few more minutes.”

As she spoke, she got up from the ground, crawled on her knees to her side, pulled out a ring box from her pocket, took out a shiny diamond ring, gently lifted her hand, and slowly slid it on.

Jingzhe watched her as she did this, while tears streamed down her face, “I’m so sorry, Yanyan. I didn’t propose to you earlier; now I’m disturbing your peace again. But I really miss you, I miss you so, so much. When you’re down there, don’t be afraid of being alone. With this ring, you belong to me. If the Lord of the Underworld asks who you are, just say you’re Lin Yan, Song Yuhang’s wife. Wait for me, just wait for me to come find you. In our next life, we’ll be together again.”

Song Yuhang, clutching her cold wrist, struggled to fit the ring over her swollen knuckles, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Miss Song…” Jingzhe glanced at his watch, urging her.

Song Yuhang nodded, holding her cold, pale hand to her lips and kissed it, “I love you, Lin Yan.”

Based only on this scene, the act of opening a coffin in the dead of night to kiss a corpse inexplicably gives one goosebumps. Yet, to Jingzhe, who knows the full story, it seemed like a twisted form of romance.

But they really didn’t have much time left; they had to restore the scene to its original state, at the very least to ensure the young miss could rest in peace.

Song Yuhang stood up, making way as Jingzhe slowly closed the lid of the coffin.

Her Lin Yan had ultimately drifted far away from her, to another place free of sickness and pain—hoping that there she could fare well. But no, how could she? She was such a person, so lacking in a sense of security and so afraid of loneliness.

But never mind, Lin Yan, I will help you fulfill the desires you left uncompleted.

Don’t be scared, just hold on, wait for me. Very soon, very soon I will come to be with you.

I hope by then you can still remember me, but even if you’ve forgotten, it’s alright.

I will make you fall in love with me again, I swear.

After leaving the cemetery, Song Yuhang headed to Qingshan Villa.

The entrance was sealed, and the electronic fingerprint lock had been removed. With difficulty, she clambered up the gate and vaulted over from the top. Her movements were clumsy, and distracted as she was, her grip failed her. She fell down from the top, crashing to the ground, seeing stars.

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She lay on the cold ground for a while before slowly getting up and limping towards the house.

Pushing open the glass door of the hall, she found the room had been emptied out. She tried a switch on the wall light, but it didn’t turn on—the electricity and water had been cut off.

In the dimness, she dragged herself to where the couch used to be and sat down in the dark, hugging her knees.

“Assaulting the police is out of the question, but I did meet a crazed woman who hit someone and still—”

“Ugh, don’t even bring it up. Early in the morning, setting out, and I run into two lunatics who practically threw themselves at my car like they had a death wish.”

“If he can’t afford a diamond ring, I’ll give you one.”

“In the eyes of Forensic Doctor Lin, I wouldn’t want even a can tab.”

“The real Lin Yan died at the age of 6. The one who survived, what’s left, is just a shell, a demon.”

“All I know is that standing before me now is my comrade-in-arms, Song Yuhang, with whom I’ve shared life and death.”

“Ouch, here we have someone quite up in years, not only devoid of a sex life but even acting all shy when it comes to stripping for a check-up.”

“What’s wrong with this Xiao’er? She can still make you feel ecstatically blissful.”

“What’s the name of this drink?”

“The future is long.”

“It must be pretty important to you, right? It’s a pity if it got lost.”

“I carry it with me simply because it’s handy to use, and it doesn’t have any other significance, but now it does have one.”

“There was something I didn’t have the courage to say just now.”

“What?”

“You are also my faith.”

“What about my fiancée?”

“She’s alive, by your side.”

……

Recalling the past, Song Yuhang smiled as the corners of her lips turned upwards, but as she smiled, she began to choke up and buried her head into the crook of her arm.

Strangely enough, because of Lin Yan’s personality, she had never once told her “I love you.” The only direct response she ever gave to her marriage proposal was that one sentence: “She’s alive, by your side.”

Yet, she still died, leaving her forever.

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That declaration of love became a farewell.

Lin Yan, you liar, you big liar…

Muttering to herself, Song Yuhang’s tears fell in large drops to the ground.

During those days of quarreling, she had doubted whether Lin Yan truly liked her, thinking if she did, she wouldn’t go out and flirt with other men.

She knew she shouldn’t think like that, but she couldn’t control her mind from wandering, to the extent that she acted out of line towards her that night.

It turned out that it wasn’t a lack of love; Lin Yan had simply hidden all her affection deep within her heart.

She was such a person – obstinate, saying one thing but meaning the opposite, venomous in words but incredibly kind and warm at heart.

As Song Yuhang reminisced about everything about her, regret interwoven with deep yearning, she bit down on her wrist, her sobs spreading through the dark room like the wails of a young animal.

On the China-Myanmar border.

A skiff glided silently across the river surface.

Also on board were several burly men, as well as young girls brought from Northern Myanmar – all to be delicacies for the high-rollers.

A woman with strikingly red nails lifted their bamboo hats, looking over her ‘goods’ with satisfaction, figuring they would fetch a handsome price, her smile growing ever wider.

The boatman turned his head and rattled off in the local dialect, “The Chinese side has recently declared martial law; we can only smuggle across the border through the jungle now.”

The woman nonchalantly arched an eyebrow and replied in Burmese, “Make it quick; don’t want the buyers getting impatient.”

The boatman nodded, steering the boat through a fork in the river where the current became calmer, slowing the boat down.

The group knew they were approaching their destination and began to gather their belongings. The girls, with their hands tied, were roughly pulled to their feet.

As the boatman maneuvered the skiff to shore and turned to help her disembark.

The woman, peering into the pitch-black jungle, muttered uneasily, “Never been to this place before.”

As she spoke, she reached out and laid her hand on his wrist. The boatman, with eyes respectfully downcast, gave a slight nod.

By the moonlight, she saw the face beneath the conical hat—thick eyebrows, big eyes—a new face.

A shock went through the woman’s heart, and her gaze fell upon the calluses on the base of his thumb—gun calluses!

She leaned on him, feigning frailty, “Oh my, it’s so shaky, hold me, please.”

The boatman wrapped his arm around her waist, and just as she touched the gun hidden behind her back, in the instant she pulled it out…

The boatman also made a move, attempting to subdue her with a standard counter-grapple, but the woman raised her hand and shot him.

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The gunshot startled the birds in the forest, causing the boat to sway. The boatman fell backwards into the border river, and faint red blood stains spread and drifted away with the current.

As her gun rang out, it seemed to activate several switches, and tongues of fire burst forth from the pitch-black jungle.

“Dadadada—” The sound of submachine guns was relentless, and the people on the boat began to fight back, but their firepower was no match for the dense opposing fire, leaving them suppressed. The girls screamed in terror.

The woman quickly pulled someone in front of her as a shield against the bullets. When she turned her head, she saw that everyone who had come with her had either fallen on the boat or been shot and fallen into the river.

She gritted her teeth and forcefully pushed the lifeless henchmen aside, then with a “plop,” she jumped into the river herself.

The people in the jungle holstered their guns and shouted, “Chase!”

The woman didn’t know how long she drifted in the icy border river. It wasn’t until she was completely exhausted and the surroundings fell into silence that she realized the pursuers had vanished without a trace.

She coughed a few times and, in a disheveled state, crawled onto the shore. Unexpectedly, as soon as she lifted her head, a cold gun barrel pressed against her forehead.

With a cold gaze, she looked at these several tall and burly young men and asked in fluent Mandarin Chinese.

“Who sent you? The Myanmar military, Laos, or maybe—”

She paused for a brief moment: “Chinese police?”

The other party hit her with the butt of their gun: “You don’t need to know these things.”

LP: No, no, no! I’ll just pretend it’s a conveniently realistic body double of Lin Yan!