SES Chapter 98 Part 2

At this point, Huo Zihong paused.

Luo Ren asked quietly, “Something happened, didn’t it?”

“They didn’t go to school. They took another route—because the movie was about to start, they cut through an abandoned construction site to save time. It was a shortcut hardly anyone used.”

Luo Ren’s fingers clenched against the back of the sofa. Even knowing this was long past, her words made his chest feel tight, suffocated by a tragedy that couldn’t be undone.

Huo Zihong took a deep breath. She wanted to finish quickly, but some stories resisted being told in a rush.

“They ran into a gang of thugs. Delinquents. The boys dragged them upstairs. Mu Dai—she was still a girl, but not so little that she didn’t understand what was about to happen. She fought with everything she had. I don’t know if it was luck or misfortune…”

Her voice trembled. “In the struggle, Mu Dai fell from the second or third floor, I don’t even know. She hit the back of her head. There was so much blood…”

She stopped.

Luo Ren turned to Uncle Zhang. “So this is why, after her car accident, you kept asking doctors if her head might have problems, isn’t it?”

Uncle Zhang nodded silently. Awkwardly, he picked up the fruit bag and held it in his arms. The only sound in the hushed room was the crinkle of plastic.

Rustle, rustle.

“Later, they caught the gang. The ringleader confessed—they hadn’t meant to kill anyone. Just wanted to ‘have some fun.’ But when they thought Mu Dai was dead, they figured they were already guilty of murder. One or two dead, what difference did it make?”

“So Wen Wen… she suffered. She was assaulted. Then strangled to death.”

Luo Ren closed his eyes. The events weren’t as dangerous or dramatic as what he’d lived through, but the way they were told—the slow tightening of a hand around his throat—left him gasping.

“And then?” he asked.

Huo Zihong’s gaze went unfocused.

That night was seared into her memory. Around ten o’clock, she got a frantic call from Shen Wen’s mother. “Didn’t the girls go to study together? Why haven’t they come home? The teacher said there was no such session.”

Unlike Shen Wen’s mother, Huo Zihong knew the truth—that Mu Dai had dragged Wen Wen to the movies instead. Embarrassed, she admitted it and apologized on Mu Dai’s behalf.

But as the night dragged on, she too grew anxious.

The movie should have ended long ago.

Both families rallied relatives, friends, and neighbors to search. No one thought of calling the police yet.

They found the construction site.

First, they found Mu Dai. The pool of blood made Shen Wen’s mother collapse on the spot.

Later, they found Shen Wen inside.

She was already gone. But Mu Dai was still breathing. Barely.

What happened after that, Huo Zihong could hardly recall. It was chaos—countless voices talking at her, the entire city buzzing. It was a big case. A task force was formed, and clues turned up. One thug cracked under guilt and confessed. Another was caught through the trail. One had fled to another city, but was arrested with outside help.

They were all caught.

Three days after the case was solved, Mu Dai woke up.

Huo Zihong said, “At the time, I didn’t even feel relieved. Honestly, I thought… maybe it would’ve been better if she’d gone with Wen Wen.”

The thugs were in custody, but Shen Wen’s family’s grief was like fangs dripping blood, rage that chains couldn’t hold back.

And Mu Dai awoke in the middle of it.

Tears streamed down Huo Zihong’s face. “Our house was smashed several times. Mu Dai was beaten many times. Sometimes she knelt, and I knelt beside her. I could understand the Shen family’s fury—it was human. We deserved the blows.”

Uncle Zhang bowed his head, clutching the bag, motionless.

Back then, he was already working in Huo Zihong’s shop. He stood by as his boss was beaten. She wouldn’t let him interfere. He got hit too—a woman’s shoe, its hard sole cracking against the back of his head, leaving his ears ringing.

He Ruihua came over, set a box of tissues before Huo Zihong.

She pulled out several, wiped her eyes, and blew her nose. Luo Ren passed her a cup of water. She tilted her head back and drained it, as though watering ground long parched.

“I kept telling myself to endure, and told Mu Dai to endure. When you’ve done wrong, you must atone. But one time… I couldn’t endure anymore.”

Her blurred eyes curved in a strange smile.

That time, their house was smashed again. She kept her head down in silence until the Shen family left.

Afterward, she poured water from the kettle. The kettle had been broken—what poured out was mixed with shards of silvered glass. Drinking it would have shredded her insides.

With a sigh, she pushed the cup away. Then she looked up—and saw Mu Dai still kneeling there.

She went to pull the girl up and froze.

On Mu Dai’s back, there was a gleaming patch—like armor.

She didn’t understand at first. “Mu Dai, what is this?”

Mu Dai said nothing. But Huo Zihong collapsed.

It was thumbtacks.

Later, she counted—twenty-three of them. Driven straight through skin and flesh, neatly arranged in rows.

Luo Ren’s eyes burned. He withdrew his hands from the sofa, clasping them so hard the veins bulged.

Huo Zihong said, “I knew then—we couldn’t stay. I couldn’t handle it. I couldn’t fix it. All I could do was run. I told Uncle Zhang, ‘We’re moving. Right away. Anywhere.’”

She drew in a shuddering breath and gave a bitter smile. “Looking back, I was no good. I never gave Mu Dai a proper example. I only ever ran. I ran when the family was in trouble. I ran when she was in trouble. Years later, when the truth about Li Tan came out, I ran again.”

Those twenty-three thumbtacks—Huo Zihong had pried them out one by one herself. Each dropped into a porcelain dish with a heavy clang, streaked with blood.

Mu Dai hadn’t cried out once. She sat with her head down, legs crossed, staring at nothing. She asked only one question.

She said, “Aunt Hong, maybe it’d be better if I’d just died too.”

A chilling dread spread through Huo Zihong. Only then did she realize—

All this time, she’d forced Mu Dai to endure, to atone, to repent. She had never considered that Mu Dai was still just a child. She didn’t have the resilience of an adult.

Mu Dai’s mind was already breaking.