"What's your name?"

  Jiang Xi

  "How old?"

  Twenty-eight.

  In a small interrogation room, Yan Li flipped through the files in his hand and asked routine questions without any emotion. Xiao Liu from the new department next to him bowed his head and wrote hastily.

  Across the interrogation table was a woman with a dull and lifeless complexion, her face sallow and prematurely wrinkled at the corners of her eyes. She wore a tattered and patched cotton-padded jacket that seemed to have been worn for seven or eight years, yet she still looked like she had already entered the twilight years of her life despite being in her prime.

  The prisoners who came here were either scolding or crying for mercy, but this woman kept her head down from beginning to end and only occasionally nodded or shook her head in response, quietly cooperating with the interrogation.

  Yan Li didn't mind either.

  As the second-in-command of the Guilin Municipal Public Security Bureau, he handles thousands or even tens of thousands of cases every year. His heart has long been tempered into a hard and stinky stone that is not easily shaken.

  What's more, he is a murderer who killed six people in one family.

  Yan Li thought of the Mid-Autumn Festival a year ago, when he received the report and rushed to the scene, the six charred bodies pulled out from the ruins were unrecognizable.

  This is one of the rare major criminal cases in recent years.

  But thinking of the customs in Heyang County, I feel that such a thing is bound to happen sooner or later. Especially in the southeastern corner of Sangjiadang, nestled in the mountains, they rarely interact with the outside world and are still as poor as they were before liberation, with every household relying on their daughters-in-law for survival.

  After the incident, the men of Sangjiadang stood up with righteous indignation, saying that this bought-in daughter-in-law was a born white-eyed wolf, who had run away five or six times and still had the audacity to run off with a goods runner after being beaten by Quan Gen until her legs were broken. A few gossiping women also angrily said that this daughter-in-law was a fox spirit who loved to seduce men into bed, saying that it was only a matter of time before something happened, and everyone became wise after the event.

  A one-legged woman was wanted nationwide for a year, and somehow managed to conceal herself, hiding for a whole year until she surrendered today - making the entire Gui City police station almost a laughing stock in the industry.

  "After fleeing for almost a year, why did you suddenly think of surrendering?"

  Jiang Xi looked up at him with a glance.

  Yan Li only then realized that the woman had a pair of sparkling eyes, even with a large scar under her eye, and even if the sparkle was just a stagnant pool of water, it could still sense the former charm, making people unable to help but stop and think for a moment.

  "Officer," Jiang Xi's coarse voice was like sandpaper scraping against wood, as if he hadn't spoken in a long time: "What are you asking all this for?"

  "The case requires."

  Yan tightly handed over the file, and passed the mineral water on his side forward. Little Liu also stopped writing, curiously looking over.

  Jiang Xi didn't respond, as if she had lost interest in everything in this world. After a while, she managed to say: "I... went back home for a bit."

  Yan Li suddenly understood.

  Last year, when the wanted notice was just released, he went to Shen City on purpose to catch people. During the investigation, it was found that within two months of Jiang Xi's kidnapping, her parents had died. It is said that his father was spiritually confused on the way to find someone outside, and was crushed to death by a large card, with a very tragic death. Jiang Xi's mother could not bear the blow, suffered from depression, and jumped directly from the building.

  Yan Li could almost imagine that when Jiang Xi finally returned home after overcoming countless difficulties, he found that his parents had long since passed away due to the accident that year, and his heart was filled with despair.

  He suddenly felt a little sympathy for this murderer.

  Jiang Xi fell silent for a moment: "Being alive doesn't have much meaning either."

  "Why kill?"

  "If you can't live, then just die."

  Jiang Xi slightly closed her eyes, and only then did Yan Li notice that she still had a row of curled and raised eyelashes.

  He suddenly remembered the personal data sheet from Shen City, which was said to be able to reveal the true form of all demons and monsters. On the ID photo, a bright-eyed and smiling girl with a flying spirit was reflected, and just by looking at it, one could feel the surging spiritual energy.

  If fate hadn't taken a wrong turn, it would be too cruel to this woman. She should have had a bright and happy future instead of carrying an infamous name for the rest of her life.

  Yan Li felt a slight sense of regret.

  He thought of his own daughter who was in high school, at the age when she was full of energy and life, about the same age as Jiang Xi when she went missing. The mere thought sent shivers down his spine.

  "Can't live on? Did they beat you?"

  "Why not beat her? Every day, three meals a day, take the whip and hit. At any time, if she doesn't obey, also hit. In that place, wives bought are their own property, beating to death is not a problem."

  Jiang Xi rolled up her sleeves, revealing a small section of her wrist, and Little Liu let out a cry of surprise.

  A short paragraph, crisscrossing with no good flesh, all are potholed and layered scars, obviously left by years of flogging, a glance is frightening.

  "Doesn't look good? Nothing's wrong."

  Jiang Xi casually pulled her sleeve back down, but Yan Li noticed that her right thumb was slightly bent outward, as if it had been twisted and not properly reset.

  "Getting beaten is a daily routine, often being punished by going hungry and sleepless all day and night – it's nothing."

  Under the bright red flag in the broad daylight, Little Liu grew up luxuriantly and couldn't understand that if this was nothing, then what was something. Soon, Jiang Xi let him know, the evil that could be bred from the land irrigated by ignorance and poverty.

  "Where did Sang Quanguan get the money to buy me, do you know? He's the eldest, and there are three younger brothers under him. The four brothers pooled their money together to buy me. On the surface, I'm Sang Quanguan's wife alone, but do you know how many people sleep in this bed?"

  "How many?"

  Xiao Liu's throat is tight.

  Yan Li looked at him and didn't scold him.

  "Four, ah, no, later there was even one more, that old invincible father of his."

  Jiang Xi let out a strange laugh from his throat, short and cold-blooded.

  It was as if he had stumbled into a bizarre reality that only existed in ghost stories told at night, leaving Little Liu stunned and his voice trembling: "Th-th-this..."

  He was at a loss for words.

  "Why didn't you call the police?"

  "Report an alarm?"

  Jiang Xi's gaze made Xiao Liu feel a wave of heat on his face, and for some reason, he suddenly didn't dare to listen anymore.

  Yan Li understood in Jiang Xi's silence.

  In that poor and remote Heyang County, where the sky is high and the emperor is far away, for the sake of local peacekeeping, most police officers turned a blind eye to this.

  Jiang Xi didn't say anything, but in her almost mocking gaze, it was as if she had said everything.

  "Officer, is there anything else you'd like to ask?"

  Jiang Xi was the kind of prisoner Yan Li rarely encountered.

  She is elegant and courteous, with clear speech, obviously well-educated. When confessing to the crime, her logic remains very clear. She confessed in great detail, from pre-incident preparations to post-incident escape methods, without any deceit or concealment. Her attitude was calm and composed.

  Yan Li was very clear, this is a person who seeks death with all his heart ——

  She lost her footing in life.

  Life for Jiang Xi was nothing but pain and desolation.

  Yan Li felt a slight tingling in his nose, he rubbed his nose, and his voice became a bit thicker: "It's gone."

  He picked up the file and stood up, as if he had thought of something again, turned his head and said: "If... there's anything or letters that need to be delivered, you can call Little Liu."

  Jiang Xi fell silent for a long time, then suddenly laughed:

  "No."

  The case was approved very quickly from the time it was submitted to the time the approval document came down, which was not unexpected. In any case, there is a good reason for this, and what awaits Jiang Xi is just a bullet.

  In the midst of complex and complicated news events, even a piece of tofu can't get any attention.

  ************************

  "Hmm——"

  Jiang Xi suddenly opened his eyes.

  The back of her head throbbed with increasingly severe pain, and she dazedly thought: Didn't I die?

  The sound of sobbing, like a symphony, made her feel uneasy even in death. Jiang Xi couldn't help but "come back to life" and forced herself to look ahead, only to be stunned into stupidity by what she saw:

  "Little, Little Ling?"

  A round-eyed and round-faced little girl asked her with a half curious and half naive expression: "Sister, how do you know Xiaoling's name?"

  Jiang Xi had an unconscious feeling that something was wrong.

  Propped up his body, behind him was a cold and hard earth wall, under him was a thick layer of straw mat, in the small room, dozens of big and small children were herded together like driving pigs, the whole scene was bleak and desolate.

  In her tears, Jiang Xi squinted - wasn't this the room where she was temporarily placed for a period of time after being abducted all those years ago?

  "Sister, does your head still hurt?"

  Jiang Xi only felt a large bulge at the back of her head, and suddenly remembered that when she was first thrown into this room, she had a fiery temper and was indeed smashed against the wall by that woman with a handful of hair.

  "Sister doesn't hurt."

  Jiang Xi looked at his own excessively pale and tender hands, these hands had never had the calluses of middle-aged labor, nor any frightening missing fingers.

  It suddenly occurred to her: coincidentally, she... had been reborn?

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