FBH Chapter 41

That night, time felt like an eternity. I don’t know how I made it to dawn.

Although I knew my mother had likely accidentally ingested the sodium cyanide-laced drink and died, I still clung to the hope that she died from some other cause, so I wouldn’t be tormented by guilt.

However, my hope was ultimately shattered by the cold, hard autopsy result: my mother died of cyanide poisoning!

The instant I learned this result, my vision went black, and I almost fell.

The day after my mother’s death, several police officers took my father away in a police car that sped off with a wail. He was taken from his decorating company. I was standing there at the time, trembling with fear and at a loss.

Before getting into the car, my father asked one of his workers to take care of me.

But I refused the offer. First, it wasn’t necessary; I could take care of myself. Second, I wanted some peace and quiet to collect myself, and I didn’t want to be disturbed.

Fortunately, Dad came back two days later.

Seeing my father return, I breathed a sigh of relief. Seeing that he seemed relaxed, I thought the suspicion against him had probably been cleared and the police wouldn’t take him to the Public Security Bureau for questioning again.

I was still dazed and distracted. I was constantly worried that I would be taken away by the police for questioning and that I had indirectly killed my mother. I felt that I was extremely unfilial and deserved divine punishment.

I thought about jumping off a building, getting hit by a car, and taking sodium cyanide, all to atone for the deaths of my mother and Li Yuehua’s wife and children. But I am a coward by nature and lack the courage to die, so I naturally didn’t take any action.

Once, I overheard my father on the phone with my aunt in the bedroom. He said sternly that Lyu Yuchan’s accidental death was a good thing for him, because if she hadn’t died, they would have gotten divorced and she would have taken away hundreds of thousands of yuan of the family’s property.

Once loving husband and wife, now their relationship is broken. Nothing in this world is sadder than this.

After my mother died, I had no interest in doing my summer homework, and I skipped it all.

My father has always been strong. This was the first time I had seen him cry, and it was for me, his unfilial son. It was clear how disappointed he was in me. My heart was shaken, and I couldn’t bear to see my father so sad, so I quietly walked away.

My mother’s body was still in the funeral home. My father had not yet considered taking my mother’s body for cremation and burial. He told me to wait until the police caught the murderer before properly handling my mother’s funeral arrangements.

He said with a mocking tone, “Li Yuehua’s heart must be tormented. This is the retribution for interfering in other people’s marriages.”

Little did he know that I was the real murderer and that I was the one whose heart was being tormented.

——————

Time crawled by like a snail. I lived each day as if it were a year, suffering in agony.

A month passed. The police still hadn’t come looking for me. I thought with a glimmer of hope that the police might not be able to find out that I had committed the crime, and the “7.18” poisoning case might become a cold case.

Even the police don’t know I’m the murderer, so there’s no way anyone else could know.

I decided to keep this secret buried in my heart forever and never let anyone know.

However, before long, my wishful thinking was shattered.

I was startled. The glass of water in my hand almost fell to the ground. I quickly argued, “No…no…”

“I didn’t go…” My voice trembled, and I felt extremely guilty, not daring to look at my father.

I was dumbfounded and at a loss, falling heavily onto the sofa!

Speaking of that notebook, I immediately remembered that time when I went to the hospital to visit my injured father. I saw a woman with a beard, wearing white and carrying a white backpack, walking out of his room. I didn’t know what my father wanted to discuss with her, so my father asked me to step outside. At that time, my schoolbag was on my father’s bed. I suspected that it was during those six or seven minutes that I was outside that the bearded woman rummaged through my schoolbag and took my notebook.

Why did she take my notebook?

My reasoned guess is that she thought the words she wanted to say to my father shouldn’t be known by outsiders, because there were two other patients in that ward, as well as a total of four relatives and friends of the two patients. Therefore, she simply took the elegant leather notebook and the Hero brand fountain pen from my schoolbag, wrote the important words to say to my father in the notebook, and then showed them to my father.

If my father hadn’t said that someone had obtained my notebook, I would never have thought that it had been taken by the bearded woman.

The diary entry read:

This morning, Zhang Jun, Zhou Wenjue, and Huang Hao blocked me at the entrance to the toilet. They once again used my mother’s close relationship with Li Yuehua to laugh at me, saying some things that made me feel extremely disgusted.

I love my mother, and I hate Li Yuehua even more!

That person, I suspect, was my mother.

Although I don’t understand the complicated feelings between adult men and women, I think that a true man should not destroy other people’s families. This is the most basic moral bottom line.

I decided to make Li Yuehua pay a heavy price for his shameful behavior!

I have already figured it out. I plan to find an opportunity to enter his house and put cyanide in his food or water……

The person who filmed the video of me appearing on Li Yuehua’s balcony should be the bearded woman who took my notebook. How did she film it?

Why did she film me? What was the purpose of filming me?

Just as I was dazedly thinking about this question, I heard my father angrily curse, “Shen Pengfei, that bastard, actually used the video to blackmail me. I really want to kill him!”

My heart was filled with mixed feelings, as if turbulent waves were churning in my heart. I couldn’t help but burst into tears, crying freely and without restraint, pounding the sofa with my fists, and muttering to myself, “I’m sorry, Mom! I’m so…so sorry, it’s all my fault…”

After a long time, I finally stopped crying, sniffling.

My father asked me how I obtained the cyanide and how I entered Li Yuehua’s house to poison him. I had no choice but to tell him everything. I saw him looking at me with an incredulous expression, unable to come back to his senses for a long time.

He told me that the police were still investigating the case and that he was very worried that the police would find out about me. He said that once they found out that I was the murderer, I might be held criminally responsible because of the seriousness of the case and because I was over 12 years old.

In addition, I would bear the stigma of murder for the rest of my life, and outsiders would point fingers at me, condemn and scold me. He estimated that I could be drowned in spittle, and my life would be ruined.

Therefore, he taught me some skills to deal with police questioning and prepared me in advance.

In addition, the diary entry for July 27 was also important, because the diary mentioned that “I” hoped the police would catch the murderer who poisoned my mother as soon as possible. My father hoped that this content could confuse the investigating police.

What my father hoped for was also what I hoped for.

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