Chapter 3: Shouldn't things be over by now?

  I couldn't help but sneer, "The person wasn't killed by me, why should I follow you guys and muddy the waters?"

  Lin Wei also burst out laughing, his handsome face twisted in distortion.

  He looked at me with disdain, speaking in a low but clear voice, "Don't think I don't know what kind of person you are. Following Liu Tingting to attend a banquet and thinking you're a high-class person? You're not even like a dog, being kicked around by others."

  He then turned to the boy who was still squatting on the ground crying and said, "Xiao Peng, do you have any money on you?"

  "Yes, yes!" The boy named Xiaopeng hastily replied.

  "Transfer 200,000 yuan to his account as hush money," Lin Wei instructed.

  Xiaopeng nodded and hastily pulled out his mobile phone.

  Liu Tingting suddenly walked up to me and hugged me from behind, pulled out my wallet from my pocket, and handed the bank card inside to Xiao Peng who was squatting on the ground.

  Xiaopeng fiddled with it for a while and handed my bank card back to me. At the same time, my phone "dinged" once, without looking, I knew that the windfall had arrived.

  Lin Wei continued to sneer, "Alright, you'd better not call the police. Otherwise, you won't be able to explain where this 200,000 came from. Now, you're just a grasshopper on the same string as us."

  That night, I don't know how I left the venue. All I remember is that I brought Lin Mei Xin's headband back to my dormitory.

  To be honest, I have never dealt with corpses before. I hid Lin Mei Xin's head under the bed for several days, but that head did not rot at all, and instead continued to emit a pleasant fragrance.

  Every night, as soon as I close my eyes, I can see Lin Mei's head with her big round eyes staring at me, swaying back and forth in front of me.

  I can't take it anymore, if this continues I'll definitely go crazy, I must get rid of this head. But I have no idea how to deal with it, if I just throw it away, it's very likely to be discovered by someone, and in the end it will still be traced back to me, at that time it will be hard to explain.

  I searched for many police and detective movies online, then I drew inferences from them. First, I shaved off Lin Mei's hair piece by piece, dug out the cotton balls from the pillow, mixed them with her hair, and stuffed them back into the pillow.

  I bought a large cooking pot from the market, threw her head into it and cooked it. After just a few minutes, a strong fishy smell wafted out of the pot.

  I quickly covered the lid and after a few hours of cooking, whether it was the fragrance or the stench, had all dissipated. The room was filled with an enticing aroma of meat. I walked to the stove and opened the lid. In that instant when the lid was lifted, I let out a blood-curdling scream. I saw those eyes that had been cooked until they were white as flowers, staring at me dead on, scaring me so much that I almost threw the lid away.

  I fetched a pair of long chopsticks and thrust them into the clear eyes I once adored, until they were all rotten, turning into a pool of blood, turning into foam floating on the surface of the meat soup.

  The aroma of the corpse transformed into a meaty flavor that no one could resist. The neighbor, a single uncle who lived next door, caught a whiff of it as he walked by and couldn't help but knock on my door to ask, "Little Lan, what are you cooking? It smells so good!"

  I gave him a whole pot of stewed meat soup, and he was grateful to me.

  Then I donated the pillow stuffed with Lin Mei's hair and some old clothes, quilts to a welfare organization, which would be sent to distant mountains.

  In the end, all that was left was how to deal with the white skull. After some thought, I came up with a solution. Because Lin Mei Xin's skull had softened during cooking and easily broke into small pieces, I used a file to scrape off a part of the bone every day. Then, every day when taking the subway, I took advantage of the crowd to scatter the bone ash powder, a little at a time. It wasn't until about half a month later that the entire skull had completely disappeared.

  Isn't it time for this to end?

  The day after I returned to work from the classmate gathering, I saw Liu Tingting. She acted as if nothing had happened and didn't mention anything about the classmate gathering. However, both of us were harboring secrets in our hearts, and our relationship wasn't as good as before. When we met, it was just a polite nod.

  To be honest, I really want to leave, forget all this and treat that night as just a real nightmare, but unfortunately, I simply can't do it.

  In the half month of handling Lin Meixin's skull, although no one came to investigate Lin Meixin's disappearance and Liu Tingting didn't mention it again, every time I saw those extra zeros on the passbook account, my heart still had lingering fears.

  I've made an important decision, when I get the year-end bonus, I'll take that 200,000 and the annual bonus to leave this city, go to a distant place to buy a house, marry a wife more beautiful than Lin Mei and live a life.

  Little did I know, this was just a wishful thinking on my part. Death had only just begun to unfold its curtains, and it was far from over...

  That day, I was busy with my work in the company, and when I looked up at the time, it was already close to midnight. The whole building was left with only me, except for the lights in the office, everywhere else was pitch black.

  I'm getting goosebumps, what's going on? Nobody warned me and everyone has left work already?

  I simply tidied up a few things, just about to shut down the computer and leave, when I suddenly saw something unbelievable. The screen of the computer had somehow turned into the image from the corridor surveillance camera?

  I thought I was seeing things, so I rubbed my eyes hard and took another close look. No mistake, the computer screen had indeed been divided into four parts, each displaying a different monitor's image.

  I quickly recognized two of them, one was the monitor at the end of the staircase on this floor where my office is located, which can see the entire corridor, and the other was the monitor at the glass door of the first-floor lobby, facing the glass door, showing people entering and exiting.

  As for the other two scenes, I also don't know where they are from.

  Strange? How can the computer display the monitor's screen? Could it be that someone in the control room connected the wrong cable?

  I was in a daze and about to turn off the monitor when I suddenly noticed that one of the monitors showed a figure who was just about to walk down the corridor.

  I took a closer look and it turned out to be Liu Tingting!

  Liu Tingting stopped at the edge of the surveillance camera's view, rummaging through her own bag for half a day without knowing what she was looking for. Finally, she seemed to be annoyed and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it up.

  I was originally going to leave, but after seeing Liu Tingting appear, I suddenly became interested. It's so late, what is she still doing in the building, could it be that she's waiting for someone?

  It's been rumored for a long time that Liu Tingting and the company's boss have an improper relationship. Is she waiting for the company's boss?

  I couldn't help but feel a thrill at the thought. Because I knew that the company's boss had a wife who was notorious for being fierce, if I could get evidence of the boss and Liu Tingting having an affair, I would definitely be able to extort more money from him before leaving.

  I sat down and opened the screenshot software so that I could record key evidence at any time.

  I saw Liu Tingting smoke for a while, then extinguish the cigarette and take out her phone from her bag to make a call. After finishing the call, it seemed like someone walked over, but that person was outside the surveillance camera's range, so I couldn't see who it was clearly.

  Liu Tingting stood still, waiting for that person for dozens of seconds. "Plop," her bag suddenly fell to the ground, and her face turned pale. She turned around and started running, but tripped and fell after just a few steps. The surveillance camera clearly captured her thong underwear and lingerie, but did not capture the person she saw.

  Liu Tingting threw away her shoes and ran desperately until she finally escaped the surveillance area.

  I sat in the chair, covered in goosebumps all over. What on earth did Liu Tingting see? Why was she fleeing for her life like she'd seen a ghost?

  I wanted to go out and see what had happened, but that chair was like a lump of magnetism, sucking my body in and holding me firmly in place, unable to move even an inch.

  I continued to stare at the computer screen with a chill, and soon I saw Liu Tingting appear in the range of another monitor. She stumbled and staggered, occasionally turning her head back to look, as if shouting something loudly.

  There was only an image on the computer screen, no sound, but I guessed she must have been shouting for help.

  ———————————————————————————————