During the long break, the students rushed out to the playground, leaving Jiang Pingxin alone in the classroom.
She lowered her head to organize the papers on her desk when she noticed a blurred figure approaching and casting a shadow on the white sheets. She quickly glanced up, then continued to hold her pen, letting the tip slide swiftly along the text, pretending to be deeply engrossed in her studies.
Xu Yu turned the chair in front of Jiang Pingxin around, sat facing her, and observed her expression over the stack of textbooks. Shao Zhixin intended to sit next to Xu Yu, but Xu Yu blocked him with her hand resting on the chair and signaled with her eyes for him to sit beside Jiang Pingxin instead.
Xu Yu reached out and covered Jiang Pingxin's papers, forcing her to make eye contact. Seeing the obvious anxiety in her eyes, Xu Yu sighed and said gently, "You ran off before we could finish talking yesterday. Let's not discuss anything about being a witness right now. Little sister, listen to some advice from your elder sister: stop going to that place. It's very dangerous, especially at night and on rainy days. If you encounter a bad person and they want to harm you, you won't even have a chance to fight back. Someone died there recently. Aren't you scared?"
Jiang Pingxin kept clicking the pen cap with her right hand and was about to speak when the music on the broadcast suddenly stopped, plunging the entire school building into a vast silence. The clicking sound of the pen mechanism became particularly crisp and loud.
Startled by the noise, she immediately stopped.
New music started playing, but it sounded more irritatingly noisy.
Xu Yu's voice, neither too loud nor too soft, was somewhat drowned out by the background music, yet every word was clear due to their proximity: "You're almost eighteen, about to take the college entrance exam and go to university. Your future is bright, and this is what your sister worked so hard to secure for you, right? If anything happens to you, how could you bear to waste her efforts?"
Jiang Pingxin slammed her pen on the desk, her eyes gradually filling with fine red veins.
She didn't look at Xu Yu, sitting motionless in defiance, her whole body tense with stubborn resistance.
Xu Yu stared at her for a few seconds, seemingly disappointed, then stood up and said, "I'm going to the restroom."
Shao Zhixin watched her leave without looking back, slightly opening his mouth as if to call her back but feeling somewhat bewildered.
Sitting sideways and looking at the person less than twenty centimeters away, he hesitated and asked, "Are you okay?"
Not expecting a response, Shao Zhixin continued softly, "I don't know much about your sister's case, but Jiang Pingxin, you've been lingering around the crime scene for so many years. Our colleagues have investigated many times. If there were any issues, even the most secretive methods would have left some clues by now. You probably know the answer yourself, right?"
"But my sister's death was really suspicious. She couldn't have committed suicide!" Jiang Pingxin said with unwavering certainty. "I provided leads to the police station, but they didn't accept them! There were so many doubts, yet they just didn't want to investigate thoroughly!"
Shao Zhixin frowned, "Huh?"
Jiang Pingxin swallowed hard, trying to push down the bitterness that clouded her mind, but tears began to spill from the corners of her eyes.
Her hands went limp on the desk, fingers slightly curved. Though her thoughts were not clear, she had reviewed the case in her mind countless times, and once she started talking, the details flowed out smoothly.
"The day my sister died was my birthday. She promised to buy me a cake after work and celebrate with me," Jiang Pingxin's voice was unsteady. "She did buy the cake. At the spot where she drowned, there was a box of cream cake and a birthday card she wrote for me. She had no reason to commit suicide!"
Shao Zhixin pondered.
He had asked Xu Yu about the case details yesterday, but since Xu Yu had joined after the case was investigated, she knew little, having only heard brief mentions from colleagues.
The spot where Jiang Pingxin's sister fell into the water not only had the cake but also an overcoat and a mobile phone.
Jiang Pingxin's sister had removed her coat and shoes before entering the water. The umbrella was also placed on the bank. The next day, it was found a hundred meters away, blown by the wind.
Jiang Pingxin's voice pulled him back to reality: "You've seen that river, right? The spot where my sister fell has a wider and deeper section, but it shouldn't be deep enough to drown a grown person. The police said she drank a lot that night, and with the cold water and heavy rain, she struggled a bit, drifted to the center, and quickly ran out of strength, drowning."
Shao Zhixin nodded.
That seemed reasonable.
"The problem is, my sister was just a supermarket cashier. Why would she drink so much? And it was my birthday; she planned to come home to celebrate. Why would she go drinking? If someone forced her, shouldn't that person be held accountable?"
Shao Zhixin felt increasingly puzzled; it did seem odd.
Seeing his reaction, Jiang Pingxin grew more excited and leaned closer, saying, "And she had injuries! I saw them! The first person to find her body saw them too! When I asked the police, they lied, saying the wounds might have been caused by scraping against the riverbed and confirming the cause of death as drowning! When I pressed further, they told me it wasn't a criminal case and directed me to the police station. It's clearly a cover-up, thinking they can fool me because I'm young!"
Jiang Pingxin's tragic story, told with genuine emotion, sounded very convincing from her perspective.
Shao Zhixin wavered briefly but recalling that He Chuan Zhou was one of the detectives responsible for the case, his doubts were quickly quashed.
He couldn't believe that Captain He would ignore such obvious evidence.
Though his experience was limited, he'd seen various interrogation techniques since his internship. Often, so-called doubts in cases were merely obsessions of the involved parties.
Shao Zhixin didn't show his thoughts; his acting reached an all-time high. He lowered his eyes and turned his head, focusing on the bulletin board at the back of the classroom. Meanwhile, he raised a hand to cover his mouth, his fingers brushing against his lips as expressions of hesitation, surprise, and contemplation flashed across his face.
He remained silent, but his expressions conveyed a lot.
A black-and-white clock on the back wall showed an inaccurate time, ten minutes fast.
Judging by the sounds from outside, the morning exercises had ended, and a speech was in progress. In less than five minutes, students would start returning.
Jiang Pingxin's voice was muffled and choked, "I can't ignore my sister's death. Officer, she was only twenty-one when she died. If she were alive, she'd be about your age. She just disappeared without any explanation. How can I have a bright future? My life is tied to hers!"
Shao Zhixin knew Jiang Pingxin had played many tricks and told many lies. She seemed innocent but was mature beyond her years. Experienced detectives had struggled with her, and her life experiences might even surpass his.
Now, her sorrowful demeanor had some elements of performance, which was why she chose to speak when Xu Yu left, knowing he was a sympathetic "rookie."
But seeing her tears, he couldn't help but feel compassionate.
Perhaps it was because such deep sorrow had once surged and overwhelmed her, that even after four years of dormancy like a volcano, the scars from the intense heat remained, forever etched. When exposed, even a glimpse of these wounds was enough to strike fear into anyone who saw them.
Shao Zhixin hesitated briefly, then softly said, "These are two separate matters. I will help you inquire about your sister's case and get you an answer, but you shouldn't cover up for another criminal because of this."
"It's not two separate matters!"
Jiang Pingxin was stirred by the past, and the long-buried pressures and grievances crumbled like a high tower. Finally seeing Shao Zhixin willing to help, she clung to him desperately, hoping he would believe her and become her sole support in her long, lonely struggle.
She grabbed Shao Zhixin's hand, her breath erratic, making her speech fragmented.
"Officer, I used to have parents. We lived in the countryside, and my parents favored boys over girls. You can't imagine what life was like for girls in those poor rural areas over a decade ago. The teachers in our village couldn't teach well; some couldn't even speak proper Mandarin. Though it was supposed to be nine years of compulsory education, my sister barely had time to attend school. She was forced to work in the fields by day and help with cooking and laundry by night.
"I was an unexpected child, another girl. When I was born, they wanted to let me starve, leaving me at the door. It was my sister who carried me on her back, fed me water, and begged for milk to keep me alive."
Jiang Pingxin spent most of her time with her sister, never receiving much kindness from her parents, though she didn't mind. Her sister provided her with the warmth and care that a family should.
She followed her sister everywhere, helping her weed, plow, and fetch water, often resting under trees on her sister's back.
Shao Zhixin squeezed her trembling hand gently, realizing it might not be appropriate, and took out a tissue from his pocket.
Jiang Pingxin shook her head, letting her tears fall freely. Her vision blurred, her sister's face emerging faintly in the white mist of her tears, becoming clearer with each blink.
Her sister had been her everything. After her sister's suicide, there was no one she could confide in, not the police nor her teachers. She could only replay her memories over and over.
Each recollection felt like a knife cutting deeper into her heart. The deeper the wound, the more she felt she couldn't let it go.
She had no anchor, driven only by a stubborn determination, drifting aimlessly like a boat lost at sea, rising and falling, feeling she might drown in the vast, unknown expanse just like her sister.
When her sister was fifteen, three months after graduating from middle school, their parents had a son and decided to leave for work, leaving them in the care of relatives.
Jiang Pingxin didn't know what happened during that time, but it must have been a moment when her sister had to decide her fate.
One night, as dusk settled, she sat by the window, watching her sister pacing up and down the path outside the house, sitting on a stone bench to gaze at the distant fields when she got tired.
At night, the rice fields, unlike their daytime beauty, appeared as endless black squares, merging with the darkness beyond, seemingly boundless and terrifyingly cold.
After a few gusts of wind, her sister suddenly stood up and walked towards the street.
Jiang Pingxin hurriedly leaned out the window and called, "Sis!"
Her sister turned, her face blank with surprise.
Jiang Pingxin didn't know what to say.
After a while, seeing her sister about to leave again, she anxiously crawled a bit forward, half her body out the window, and asked in a small voice, "Sis, where are you going?"
Her sister paused again, looked back at her, and then, without a word, came back up to the second floor, took Jiang Pingxin's hand, and led her out.
Jiang Pingxin didn't ask anything.
They ran along the road, the wind numbing their cheeks. They walked a long distance until Jiang Pingxin couldn't go any further, and her sister carried her on her back, panting heavily as she continued.
When dawn broke, a passing minivan picked them up. The driver, seeing their plight, gave them a free ride to the county town.
In that unfamiliar city, her sister held her hand, navigating through the crowd.
Jiang Pingxin always remembered her sister's hand, cold with sweat, gripping tightly, leaving bruises on her arm by nightfall.
They rested huddled together, begged for money on the streets, saved for travel, and evaded the police. They went through a strange and dangerous journey, watching the scenery change outside the bus window, crossing most of China before finally reaching City A.
Because Jiang Pingxin was too young and needed to attend school, her sister pretended to be an adult and sought help from local street workers.
They had only hoped for some luck, but the social worker was exceptionally kind, believed her sister's fabricated story of being an undocumented orphan, and helped them get identification documents, enroll in school, and apply for financial aid.
From then on, they settled in City A.
Her sister worked every day to support her education, urging her to study hard.
Jiang Pingxin felt cold all over, "I don't understand much, but I could live a good life."
She felt deeply guilty. Compared to her sister, she had an abnormal stroke of luck.
Her teachers and classmates were kind, and she enjoyed their sympathy without facing life's hardships. All the cruelty fell on her sister alone, even in the end.
Her luck stemmed from her sister's great courage, so she always believed it was her burden that led to the tragic outcome.
Jiang Pingxin made up her mind. Even knowing it was a mistake, she didn't want to be consoled or let go. She would carry this obsession through her life, even if it meant going to hell, to seek justice for her sister.
Her sister's name was Jiang Jingcheng.
She had a name.
She lived.