The Reason

Chapter 26: The Reason

Bai Yanliang stared at Zhang Wen's face, trying to figure out what was going through her mind.

Seeing how businesslike Bai Yanliang was, Zhang Wen felt more at ease.

She had just picked up the kettle to pour him a cup of water when Bai Yanliang raised a hand to stop her.

"No need for formalities. I have other work to do, so I won't be staying long."

Zhang Wen froze. Under Bai Yanliang's gaze, she set down the kettle and sat on the edge of her bed, looking strangely out of place.

Bai Yanliang was certain this woman had far more secrets than he had imagined.

Zhang Wen seemed distracted. After a long moment, she stared at Bai Yanliang, who sat opposite her, and grinned. "You have to publish everything I tell you."

"That depends on whether your story is interesting enough." Bai Yanliang's expression didn't change.

"Heh... All right. I'll tell you."

Zhang Wen gave a strange little laugh. Looking at Bai Yanliang, she began with something he didn't know.

"I'm Zhang Qiao's older sister." She didn't blink. "Her actual sister."

Zhang Qiao...

The image that surfaced in Bai Yanliang's mind was the deathly pale face beneath the bed.

It seemed the relationships among these people were growing more and more complicated.

Bai Yanliang truly hadn't expected Zhang Wen and Zhang Qiao to be sisters.

As Zhang Wen continued, however, a bizarre story slowly unfolded before him...

The Zhang sisters and the Ding brothers were couples.

Ding Peng and Zhang Qiao.

Ding Lei and Zhang Wen.

But... a third person had suddenly entered the relationship between Ding Lei and Zhang Wen: Li Yuhua.

Li Yuhua wasn't as pretty or as young as Zhang Wen, but she owned a plot of land and a building.

That's right. Ruyi Inn was the Li family's property.

When faced with a choice between love and financial security, Ding Lei had chosen Li Yuhua without hesitation.

At the same time, though, he'd made Zhang Wen a promise: once he got ownership of Ruyi Inn, he'd stage an accident, kill Li Yuhua, and marry her.

Drunk on the beautiful lies woven by her lover, Zhang Wen stopped pestering Ding Lei. Instead, she went to work at Ruyi Inn and quietly waited for her chance.

But she waited three years.

Zhang Wen began to grow anxious.

Her lover seemed to have forgotten all about it. Day after day, he went to work, came home, and carried on with his life...

The love letters she secretly stashed in Ding Lei's office also went unanswered, one after another.

Zhang Wen understood. She had been... abandoned.

But then an opportunity appeared before her!

Her younger sister and Ding Lei's younger brother had come to spend their honeymoon!

Zhang Wen knew her brother-in-law well. He seemed mild-mannered and easygoing, but deep down, he was consumed by jealousy of his older brother.

Why hadn't a rich young lady chosen him?

How had a penniless nobody like Ding Lei become a wealthy boss overnight?

Zhang Wen approached him, and the two hit it off at once.

"So you wanted Ding Peng to help you kill Li Yuhua?" Bai Yanliang asked.

"Yes!" Zhang Wen's face twisted with resentment and glee. "I told Ding Peng to kill Li Yuhua and make it look like suicide! Then we'd forge a will. Once she was dead, all her property would go to him!"

Bai Yanliang looked at her venomous expression, his mind unmoved.

This woman was completely insane.

"What happened next?"

"After that?" Zhang Wen looked at Bai Yanliang, her gaze unnervingly dangerous. "Ding Peng agreed to work with me. But before we could do anything, my sister disappeared!"

Zhang Wen's expression changed. The resentment drained from her face, replaced by worry. "Qiao'er was a good girl. Such a good girl... She was kind, clever, beautiful, and generous. How could she have disappeared? Why did she disappear?"

Zhang Wen's voice grew louder, and she became more and more agitated.

"Not long after Qiao'er disappeared, that damned old woman disappeared too? Ha... What gave her the right to disappear along with Qiao'er?" Zhang Wen stared at Bai Yanliang, looking crazed. "Tell me, what gave her the right?"

Bai Yanliang didn't answer, but he'd more or less figured it out.

Zhang Qiao might have disappeared back then, but Li Yuhua hadn't.

Ding Peng had already made his move.

Li Yuhua had been thrown into the water tank and then... soaked until she became a "giant" who would burst at the slightest touch.

Zhang Wen's mood shifted quickly. A moment later, she was composed again and continued, "Three days after Qiao'er disappeared, I saw her again."

"Haha... Qiao'er was looking at me from inside the mirror... Qiao'er told me to make people find out about this place, about what happened here. The more people who knew, the better..."

Zhang Wen's expression turned strange. Her words, which had been fairly coherent, became halting and fragmented; faint, broken muttering gradually overtook her complete sentences.

As Bai Yanliang listened to her increasingly bizarre words, he finally realized something was wrong.

Had that "Qiao'er" told Zhang Wen to call the newspaper and publish those messages?

But... as far as Bai Yanliang knew, the ghost beneath his bed was Zhang Qiao.

Then... who was haunting Zhang Wen?

As for the man and woman's corpses in the water tank, Bai Yanliang now knew exactly who they were. But... the strangest thing was still Zhang Qiao!

Lying back-to-back, waking from a dream without a soul...

She was the protagonist of Jieyu!

Who had killed her?

And... where was her body?

"Hey, aren't you a reporter? Write it all down properly and publish it!" Seeing that Bai Yanliang seemed distracted, Zhang Wen looked displeased.

"You don't need to tell me how to do my job." Bai Yanliang's tone was cold.

In truth, unless he had to act like a "normal" person, this was the way he really was.

This woman... was clearly insane.

Bai Yanliang sensed something familiar about her, something that reminded him of the place where he had once stayed: Ye City Psychiatric Hospital.

She was almost obsessively in love with Ding Lei and her younger sister. In all her descriptions, she hadn't used a single unkind word for either of them.

Even though Ding Lei had abandoned her, the person she resented was Li Yuhua. She hadn't once considered that Ding Lei might be at fault.

Perhaps... it wasn't that she hadn't considered it, but that she didn't want to.

Zhang Wen could now survive only by clinging to the happy memories she'd once had.

If the beautiful hopes she had for Ding Lei were shattered, the woman might collapse in an instant. Even a split personality would be a relatively good outcome.

This was probably... a form of delusional disorder.

"I'm leaving. I'll publish the story as soon as I can. You can tell 'Qiao'er' not to worry." Bai Yanliang stood up.

That ghost wasn't the "Qiao'er" Zhang Wen was talking about.

But Bai Yanliang had no intention of exposing that.

Zhang Wen didn't seem to notice. Pleased with Bai Yanliang's "promise," she watched him leave her room.