Chapter 5 — May You Be Forever Alone

He desperately tried to detect the faint, lingering scent of cheap laundry detergent on the garment. Suddenly, the office door was violently flung open. Housekeeper Hue stormed inside and hurled a resignation letter directly at Wen Sheng’s face. Then, right in front of the entire executive leadership team of the company, she pulled a pair of hand-stitched knee guards from her bag. Those were the very knee guards I had stayed up all night to sew for him, tears burning my reddened eyes, during the freezing winter when his joints ached. Hue pulled out a pair of sharp scissors and, right before Wen Sheng’s horrified eyes, chopped the knee guards into tiny shreds. Without a shred of mercy, she tossed the fabric pieces into the nearby trash can.

A beast in human skin like you is not worthy of using anything belonging to my young mistress.

Hue pointed straight at Wen Sheng’s nose and cursed loudly.

Do you really think those special stomach medications that Nian promised she secured for you actually worked?

It was all the young mistress. She hid it from you and went to the blood donation clinic time and again, trading her own blood for money just to buy those imported medicines for you.

You took the money earned from her sweat and blood to buy luxury handbags for your mistress. Are you even human?

Wen Sheng lunged out of the corner of the room. Disregarding his dignity entirely, he threw himself directly into the filthy trash can, searching with his bare hands for the shredded pieces of fabric. The scissors had been extremely sharp. His fingers were slashed open, deep wounds bleeding profusely, staining the garbage. Yet he paid no attention whatsoever. He desperately tried to piece the fragments back together, but a shattered mirror can never be made whole, and no matter how hard he tried, the cloth could not be restored to its original form. Wen Sheng pressed the unfixable scraps against his face, a succession of agonizing, heart-wrenching screams tearing from his throat like a dying animal. The sound was so desperate and desolate that it left the entire office building wrapped in an eerie, profound silence.

A month later, Nian was prosecuted on suspicion of intentional homicide. In the courtroom, Wen Sheng stood on the witness stand as the prosecution’s primary witness. He was so emaciated he barely looked human, his eye sockets deeply sunken. He handed over all of Nian’s fabricated medical records regarding her fake depression, along with audio evidence proving she had secretly purchased high-concentration chili essence to maliciously poison me. Everything was submitted to the presiding judge. He had spent the entire past month exhausting every remaining connection he possessed to unearth this undeniable proof. The judge struck the gavel and delivered the verdict right there in court.

The defendant, Nian, is found guilty of intentional homicide. The methods employed were exceptionally brutal, and the circumstances are gravely severe.

She is sentenced to life imprisonment, with lifelong deprivation of political rights.

Nian stood in the defendant’s dock, completely broken. She let out a wretched scream and pointed directly at Wen Sheng.

I refuse to accept this verdict.

Wen Sheng was involved too. It was he who threw Yan into the trunk of the car. It was he who ruthlessly disposed of the body.

He is the real murderer.

Court bailiffs immediately forced her to the ground with batons, stuffing a dirty rag tightly into her mouth. Nian struggled frantically against the floor before being dragged out of the courtroom.

Following the conclusion of the trial, Wen Sheng—having been stripped of all his wealth and corporate shares—returned to the dilapidated villa, now sealed off by authorities with its electricity cut entirely. He bypassed the warning tape and walked down into the underground parking garage. He found the car still parked in its original spot. Wen Sheng opened the trunk, squeezed his body inside, and firmly locked the lid from the inside. He wanted to experience firsthand the suffocating, pitch-black confinement in a cramped space that I had endured years ago. Severe oxygen deprivation quickly induced hallucinations in his exhausted brain. In the darkness, he seemed to see me staring at him, my hair matted with blood. Desperately, he slammed his head against the trunk lid over and over again.

Yan, it hurts.

It hurts so much.

The entire parking garage remained utterly silent. Three days later, a patrolling security guard noticed the anomaly, used a crowbar to pry open the trunk, and pulled him out. By then, the bone of Wen Sheng’s forehead was caved in and fractured. Half of his body was fused to the dried black puddle of my blood on the plastic trunk mat from years ago, emitting a nauseating odor. He shoved away the paramedic who rushed forward to bandage his wounds, dragged his crippled, injured leg, and limped toward the hotpot restaurant. He collapsed heavily onto his knees in the hallway outside the room where the tragedy had occurred, beginning to kowtow relentlessly. With every single bow, the wound on his forehead split wider, flesh and blood mingling into a gruesome mess. The restaurant owner stepped out, looking at him with utter disgust.

Get out, get out, get out.

The owner ordered four or five security guards wielding dirty mops to chase him away from the entrance.

A murderer like you has defiled every single feng shui tile in this establishment.

Wen Sheng was kicked off the steps by a guard, tumbling miserably into a puddle of dirty street water. Both of his hands tightly clutched the crumpled, soggy medical diagnosis paper pressed against his chest. Sleet and freezing winter rain poured down, soaking him completely. Half a month later, Wen Sheng was wandering the streets aimlessly, intending to use the meager cash he had traded his own blood for.