SES Chapter 115 Part 2

When he left again, Pingtin gave him a necklace. She said, Take it as a blessing from family. You have to accept it.

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” Hongsha sighed in relief.

“What do you think I felt back then?” Luo Ren asked.

“Relieved?” she guessed.

He shook his head. “Honestly, I was a little disappointed.”

Hongsha’s eyes shot open again.

Luo Ren chuckled. “Yeah, that’s how men think. When you’re in a tough situation, you ask her to leave so you won’t drag her down—and she does leave. Versus her refusing, insisting on staying by your side—that means something different.”

“Later, I met Mu Dai. I’d never seen such a cute girl before. Tease her a little and she’d get flustered, scare her and she’d cry. I just wanted to keep teasing her, getting close to her—nothing complicated. Just a man liking a woman and wanting to be near her.”

“But then I got word about some old, unfinished business. The timing didn’t feel right anymore.”

A gentle smile touched Luo Ren’s lips.

What did Mu Dai say back then?

She said: I only know that the best time for two people to be together is when you like me and I like you.

That surprised him. This sweet girl had a kind of courage in love—she didn’t cry and back down, she cried and stared you down until you were speechless.

“From then on,” Luo Ren said with a smile.

Before, he had only seen her with his eyes. After that, she was in his heart.

“So you asked what the foundation of love is,” Luo Ren said. “It’s exactly what Mu Dai said—you like me, and I like you.”

“When Mu Dai was with Dr. He, it felt like we weren’t sure anymore if we could still like each other. I even went to see her once. At that time, she seemed… like a stranger.”

He fell quiet for a moment.

When Mu Dai left her note and disappeared, he had a feeling—she didn’t want any contact with them anymore.

Then Huo Zihong got a call from her, and Luo Ren immediately rushed to Nantian.

He remembered that night, asking Zheng Li about Mu Dai in Aunt Shuiyu’s little restaurant. Zheng Li told him so much.

—Sister Mu Mu said she had a boyfriend.
—She mentioned him a lot. Whenever she talked about him, she smiled.
—Sometimes I thought it was fake. If she really had a boyfriend, why didn’t he take care of her? But she always said, he’s busy.

The restaurant was noisy, Zheng Li’s aunt kept hurrying her to serve food, but to Luo Ren, those were the most beautiful words he’d ever heard—love, retold.

His girl, slipping away quietly, working in some rundown diner, wiping tables, washing dishes, and still smiling as she talked about him, thought of him.

Nothing could be more beautiful.

As he left the restaurant, Zheng Li suddenly called after him: My sister Mu Mu’s boyfriend… that’s you, isn’t it?

Luo Ren smiled. “Who else would it be?”

By then, the sky was fully dark. Not far away, one of the shop boys waved to him—the car was ready.

Hongsha stood and started walking, but after a few steps, she realized Luo Ren hadn’t followed.

She turned back curiously.

He was still sitting there, watching her, and softly said, “Thank you.”

“For what?” she asked.

“Today, I was just about ready to give up. Mu Dai had already given up. Yiwan San and Cao Yanhua—I knew they’d accepted the outcome too. Only one girl ran out crying, threw herself in front of the car, and stopped it.”

Yan Hongsha blushed with embarrassment.

Luo Ren said, “Honestly, at that moment, I was already trying to figure out a fallback for Mu Dai. All that stuff she said about asking Dr. He for a certificate—I’d started considering it. Looking back now, it gives me chills. If we’d stopped there, Mu Dai might have spent the rest of her life in prison.”

He looked at Yan Hongsha, his voice dropping low.

“You don’t know how grateful I am to you.”

Meanwhile, Cao Yanhua had combed through nearly everything he could find online about the Tengma Platform.

The heartbeat, the strange gusts of wind—it all lined up with the hint from Phoenix Luan. But tying it to an abandoned concrete platform felt absurd, almost laughable.

He turned back to Yiwan San and Mu Dai. “We should all head over there tonight, right? Even though the posts all say it works best at midnight, and alone.”

Yiwan San gave a nervous laugh. “If it’s related to the murder notes, then of course we go together. Isn’t that right, little boss lady?”

When Mu Dai didn’t answer, he looked over and saw her frowning deeply, lost in thought.

He waved a hand in front of her face.

Mu Dai snapped out of it. “I just remembered something. Luo Ren said the sequence of the investigation went like this: someone reported the crime—the police questioned people nearby—Song Tie provided a lead—and based on that, the police found Ma Chao.”

Yiwan San nodded. “That’s right.”

Mu Dai said, “So why didn’t Ma Chao call the police?”

Ma Chao knew Zhang Tong and even witnessed the incident. Sure, he panicked at the time, but after escaping, shouldn’t his first instinct have been to call the police?

That question stumped Yiwan San—he’d never thought about it.

Cao Yanhua frowned too, sensing something off. “That gap is pretty obvious. The cops must have asked him. That night on the bridge, aside from Zhang Tong, the only ones there were Ma Chao and my sister—Little Master.”

Then something clicked in his mind.

“You don’t think… maybe Ma Chao did it?”

Yiwan San’s first reaction was disbelief. “Him? No way.”

Cao Yanhua grew agitated. “Think about it, Brother San. That night, there were three witnesses. Except for Ma Chao, who directly accused my sister, the other two didn’t actually see the moment of the crime. And those two—they saw both Little Master and Zhang Tong.”

“Honestly, if Ma Chao hadn’t pointed the finger, then the only witnesses left would’ve been Song Tie and Wu Yuping. Based on their testimony, the suspects would’ve been two people.”

Yiwan San fell silent.

It did make sense. It was like a vote: Ma Chao two votes, Mu Dai two votes. Then Ma Chao cast his for Mu Dai.

Suddenly, the tally went from 2–2 to 3–0.

Yiwan San looked at Cao Yanhua, suspicion growing in his tone. “So you’re saying Ma Chao’s shady?”

Cao Yanhua was firm. “I think he is.”

Yiwan San pulled out his phone. “Anyway, we’re not going to Tengma Platform until tonight. Why don’t I invite him out for dinner and feel him out first?”

Cao Yanhua, already convinced that Ma Chao was a murderer framing his sister, objected. “That sounds dangerous.”

Yiwan San waved it off. “It’s just dinner, at a busy place with crowds. What could he possibly do to me?”