Someone Else in the Car

The restaurant was a little over forty minutes from my family home by car.

Our home was also in the city, but it was even farther from the store where I worked. I had moved out to make my commute easier.

Maybe I had drunk a little too much that night, because I could barely keep my eyes open soon after getting into the car.

Mostly, though, it was because I hadn't slept at all the night before. I just couldn't hold out any longer.

I reclined my seat a little and settled in for a comfortable nap.

Before I got home, my grandfather called me halfway there and asked when I would arrive.

I told him I was almost there. I was in the car and would probably be home soon.

After hanging up, I was still desperately sleepy and decided to doze a little longer. But just as I was about to close my eyes, I caught a glimpse of a black dress out of the corner of my eye.

A pair of legs filled out the black dress, and beneath its hem was a pair of red high heels.

I was too scared to move. Looking more closely, I saw a pair of delicate, pale feet inside those red high heels. The skin was as white as jade, and the flawless toes were painted with black nail polish.

I suddenly remembered the girl we had seen that night in the house after Meng Yifan opened the door. Her toenails had been painted black.

When... had someone else gotten into my car?

"Stop! Stop the car!"

"I want to get out!"

I shot upright in my seat, not daring to look at the back seat, and screamed like a madman at the designated driver.

The driver was startled and hurriedly pulled over.

I flung the door open and scrambled out, stumbling and crawling a long way from the car.

The driver quickly got out too and ran toward me.

"Sir, what's wrong?"

He had no idea what had happened. He didn't seem to have noticed there was someone else in the car.

"There's! There's a ghost!"

I pointed at my car. "There's a woman inside! Didn't you see her?"

The driver widened his eyes, immediately ran over to look, then came back.

"Sir, there's nobody in there. You were the only person I picked up."

"Don't you know how many people got into the car with you?"

"Sir, I think you've had too much to drink. Your eyes must be playing tricks on you."

I had sobered up considerably, but I didn't dare go over alone, so I took the driver with me and checked the car again.

There really was nobody else in my car, but I knew my eyes hadn't been playing tricks on me. I really had seen someone sitting in the back seat.

Still unwilling to let it go, I opened the trunk.

This time, I actually found something, and I froze.

It was a Red High Heel, identical in style to the one Meng Yifan had brought over.

When did that bastard put this thing in my car?

What an asshole!

I quickly pulled out my phone and called Meng Yifan in a fury.

He seemed to have arrived at the bathhouse already. "Second-in-command, are you home?" he asked lazily.

"Meng Yifan! That's a low blow!" I snapped. "Why did you put that high heel in my car? Are you fucking messing with your own buddy?"

"What?" Meng Yifan sounded bewildered. "You mean the high heel I picked up? When did I put it in your car? I tossed the damn thing in my trunk, and it's still lying there right now. Are you drunk out of your mind?"

I froze. He hadn't put it there?

"There's a high heel in my trunk too. And I just saw that woman in my car..."

After hearing what I said, Meng Yifan fell silent too.

After a while, he asked, "Are you going to sleep at home once you get there?"

I told him there was no way I was sleeping at home. With something like this haunting me, I was afraid of dragging my dad and grandfather into it.

"Then come over here afterward," Meng Yifan said. "We'll keep each other company and go see Seventh Master Zhao together tomorrow."

After hanging up, I got back into the car and asked the driver to continue taking me home.

Once I left home later, I would definitely go find Meng Yifan.

I didn't dare return to my rented place alone either.

I didn't dare sleep for the rest of the ride. Fortunately, we reached my building not long afterward.

When I got home.

My grandfather and my dad were both sitting in the living room, looking troubled.

My dad grew a little nervous as soon as he saw me. That was his guilty conscience showing.

"Dad, where did you go this afternoon?" I asked.

"W-work. Overtime."

"You worked overtime at the Police Bureau?"

It was as if our roles as father and son had been reversed.

He looked at me in surprise. "How did you know...?"

"I have a friend who's a cop. He told me everything," I said irritably. "Since when have you owned another place? How come I never knew?"

My dad looked uncomfortable and sighed. "I already explained it to the police. There really was a property in my name back then, but it wasn't actually mine. It belonged to a young married couple."

"That was fifteen years ago. They wanted to buy a home, but apparently they owed someone money and couldn't buy one. If anyone found out they owned a property, they'd be sued. Once that happened, the court would freeze the property and auction it off."

"They gave me some money and asked to register the property in my name. On paper, it was mine, but in reality, it still belonged to them."

I didn't know what to say.

So my dad had become that house's first registered owner for the money.

But the whole thing sounded absurd. They weren't related to him and didn't even know him, yet they had dared to put a property worth hundreds of thousands in a stranger's name?

What if my dad had been shameless enough to simply claim the house for himself? What could that young couple have done to him?

After all, my dad's name was on the deed. Even if they hired the best lawyer in the world, they wouldn't have been able to get the house back.

"Were you that desperate for money back then?" I asked reproachfully.

My grandfather looked displeased too and kept glaring at my dad.

My dad sighed. "We hadn't bought our own place yet. We were fifty thousand short, and that was exactly what they offered me. I figured it wasn't anything illegal."

"Besides, your mother was about to leave us. I thought she'd stay if we bought a home, so I didn't think it through."

Hearing that left a bitter ache in my heart.

My dad had done it for our family, to keep my mother from leaving.

When my mother left, there had been no warning at all. She had simply abandoned my dad and me. She hadn't even wanted her own son.

And after she left, my dad had never said a single bad word about her in front of me. But I knew she must have run off with another man. If it hadn't been for a man, how could she have abandoned even her own son?

In all those years, she had never once come to see me.

I softened my tone and said to my dad, "Did you know someone died in that house? Someone died inside, and the body was hidden there all this time."

My dad nodded and said nervously, "I only found out when I went to the Police Bureau today. Li Xiumei is dead, but I really didn't kill her. I didn't even know she'd died!"

I grabbed my dad's hand, growing agitated. "You knew Li Xiumei? What exactly was your relationship with her back then?"