What does it feel like to be betrayed by someone you deeply believe in?
When my husband proposed to me 10 years ago, my best friend was a crying mess on stage.
I thought she was happy for me, but who knew she was sad for herself.
The funny thing is that I was kept in the dark for 10 years until the day I found a limited edition lipstick in my husband’s coat pocket …… “I have a friend.
” I said into the phone, “found a lipstick in her husband’s coat pocket.
” I gulped to make my voice less dry, “It’s not my friend’s own, it’s a strange lipstick.
” “So?
” Wang Xuan’s voice on the other end of the line was rambling, her slippers kicking.
“So you analyze what’s going on.” “What’s going on?
“What’s going on? I’m having an affair.”
“Does it have to be an affair?
Could it have fallen into her husband’s pocket at the party?
Or maybe she got the wrong clothes and put it in the wrong pocket.
“Li Ling.”
“The sound of slippers on the other side stopped.
“As a veteran green professional, I can responsibly tell you that these hypotheses you mentioned are not impossible, but the probability is infinitely close to zero.
” “I see, thank you.
” I was about to hang up the phone when Wang Xuan suddenly called my name again, her voice too gentle to be like her.
“Li Ling.
“Huh?”
“That friend you were talking about, is that you?
“After receiving my affirmative answer, Wang Xuan came to my house at the first opportunity, sat cross-legged on the sofa, pinched up the lipstick and looked at it in the sunlight, and after taking a closer look at it, she let out a sneer, “It’s not cheap.
“The lipstick was indeed a brand name, but its appearance was not quite the same as the ones sold at the counter.
The golden shell was carved into a fish scale pattern, and the cream swirled out was bright red and proud.
“Otherwise, I’ll just go ask him.
“I don’t really think I can tell anything from a lipstick.
Wang Xuan rolled her angry eyes at me.
“If you open your mouth, you’re the one who’ll be passive.
The answer he gave, do you believe it or not?
” I could only express my approval with silence, watching her scrutinize the lipstick with an air of helping me review the love letters I received in college.
At the end of every performance of the campus drama club, there was always a dizzy kid who couldn’t distinguish between passion and love, and wrote his inner confession to us on stage, and there was even a fat kid who loved Wang Xuan so much that he died of unrequited love.
But that was ten years ago.
Ten years ago, my husband and Wang Xuan were still my friends from the drama club.
We spent our after-school time in rehearsals and performances, experiencing all sorts of life in virtual sorrows and joys, and finally, just before we graduated, two major events that changed our own lives came to pass.
The first event was when my husband – then boyfriend – suddenly asked me to marry him.
Although I had always liked him very much, I was hesitant because of the big difference in my family’s finances.
Wang Xuan’s advice to me was, “Follow your heart and marry if you want to.
“The second thing that happened was that Wang Xuan’s fat brother, who had been in love with her, started stalking her secretly, and Wang Xuan found out about it and beat him up, resulting in several parties being penalized by the school.
It was only after the disciplinary notice came out that I realized Wang Xuan’s plight.
She was used to having her own ideas about everything, and I was used to asking her for her decision first.
“What should I do now?
“I turned to her once again.
“Trust a woman’s intuition.
” Wang Xuan searched a little bit more into the sunlight, and a golden light that was reflected lay between her eyes and eyebrows, suddenly brightening up: “Look here! There was a signature engraved on the bottom of the lipstick, the name of a designer familiar to women.
“The name of a designer familiar to all women was engraved on the bottom of the lipstick.
” We looked at each other and spoke in unison.
“Find out when this co-branded model came out.
“I already searched my phone for the answer: the Tokyo launch last Christmas.
The lipstick was only available in a few department stores in Tokyo during Christmas.
The scent of perfume filled the marble halls, and Christmas dance music played in the glittering, upscale malls.
I stared at my cell phone in a daze, imagining what the woman who was leisurely shopping in the department store would look like, in what position.
“Come on, keep trusting your instincts.
” Wang Xuan waved her lipstick in front of my eyes, “Where do you think the owner of the lipstick is most likely from?
A business associate?
A company employee?
“Before I could say anything, she laughed scornfully, “Forget it, let’s start with a company employee.
“I understood the meaning of Wang Xuan’s smile.
My husband doesn’t have any business partners, the so-called enterprise is just relying on my family’s wealth and background to get started, and the several channels that he has been cooperating with over the years are all introduced to him by my father.
It would be much easier to investigate if it was an employee.
I led Wang Xuan up the stairs to the study on the second floor of the house.
My husband’s computer was set up on the boss desk in the middle of the room, and for the first time, I found that mahogany desk incredibly ugly.
I opened my computer favorites, and using the password saved on the website, we smoothly logged into my husband’s company’s human resources management system.
As the founder of the company, my husband really had the highest authority to manage the account of the human resources system.
I searched chronologically, and a ‘Zhang Guoshell’ name appeared in the annual leave request box for last December.
I glanced at Wang Xuan.
The screen illuminated her eyes, signaling to continue.
So the mouse proceeded to search the page and clicked into the jump option for the reason for the leave: personal travel for personal reasons.
Place of travel, Tokyo, Japan.
And then check the personal information, twenty-something years old, recently graduated from the school, joined just over a year.
I breathed a long sigh of relief, and a feeling of pleasure mixed with bitterness welled up in my chest.
Jang Kokusai, I chanted this strange name in my mind.
“Even though I’m in a shell, I still think I’m the king of the infinite universe.
” It was a line from a Shakespearean play that I had read in the college drama club.
Wasn’t the drama club to us a shell from which we could see the universe?
At the end of the drama club’s big graduation play, the lights suddenly hit me and him, now that I think my husband had arranged for a lighting technician ahead of time.
He approached me and got down on one knee to present me with a ring.
Overwhelmed by the sudden sweetness, I looked around and saw Wang Xuan standing in the shadows of the lights covering her mouth and bursting into tears of laughter.
Happy for me, she nodded desperately at me, so I turned my head and nodded in agreement.
The stage was filled with cheers, and countless flowers were thrown onto the stage.
The stars have turned, the age of me, and not in this vast universe to obtain more freedom, but fell into the husband cheating, investigating a third party.
I dialed my husband’s phone: “Where are you?
Are you coming home tonight?
“Today is Saturday.
I’m on a business trip and won’t be back.” He answered briefly.
” He answered briefly, probably because he had that lipstick mistress by his side.
Wang Xuan held my hand as a sort of comfort, and when I hung up the phone, I followed her line of sight to the window, where the sluggish fall was swallowing green life.
“Li Rang, it’s just a man cheating on his wife, it can’t get any worse.
“2 I looked in the mirror, put my sunglasses on and off, hesitated several times, and finally decided not to wear them.
The sunlight at the end of October was mild and ironic.
If I showed up at my husband’s company wearing sunglasses, not only would I not be able to hide my identity, but I would be more noticeable.
My plan was to take advantage of the fact that my husband had not yet returned from his business trip early Monday morning to pretend to deliver something to his company to take a look around and see what the hell was going on with that Zhang Guoshell.
There was no photo in the HR system.
I was curious about what the young girl looked like.
However, when I arrived at the company, I realized that I was overthinking it.
Most of the company had changed to new faces, and there were very few old employees. Everyone sat listlessly in the cubicles, and no one was interested in looking up to pay attention to the people who came in.
The feeling of powerlessness was like a dark cloud hanging over the sky.
The company’s renovations from a few years ago were worn out, but there was no intention to reorganize, and even the printers and water fountains hadn’t been replaced.
As if they were going to meet me head-on, the nameplate on the first row of seats in the cubicle was “Zhang Guoshell”.
I took a deep breath, straightened my chest and walked over step by step, my high heels knocking on the ground with a countdown-like sound.
“Mr. Lee! What are you doing here?
” A warm greeting pulls me back.
The seat in front of me is empty.
I looked back and saw an old employee in charge of human resources.
I said lightly that I came here to deliver something, and pretended to point to the workstation without thinking.
“Why is this seat empty?
Where is she?
“I think she went on a business trip with her husband. Bitterness rushed up from my stomach to my throat.
“Shells.
“The old employee took one look at the sign and immediately said in a very positive tone, “The little girl resigned, just last week.
“Where did she go?
“I’m not sure.
Nowadays, young people have a lot of personality. After greeting her last Friday, she didn’t come to work on Monday, and I don’t know where to transfer her social security and provident fund.” Last Friday, October 25th.
“Last Friday, October 25th, was the day before I found the lipstick.
Is this a provocation before she left?
Although I don’t know whether Shell Cheung resigned of her own accord or was arranged to leave by her husband, the lipstick in her coat pocket suggests that she left unwillingly.
I sat down at the empty workstation and said I was tired of walking and would rest for a while.
The old employee then opened the door to pour me some tea, and in the interval between her walking away, I quickly checked the workstation.
The desktop was nearly empty, with only traces of dust indicating that there had been an electrical outlet and a computer.
On the glass of the workstation was a printed sticky note that read: What’spastisprologue.
What’s past is prologue.
It’s a line from Shakespeare’s The Tempest.
I tore off the sticky note and rubbed it into my hand, then quickly looked through the drawer at my workstation.
The drawer was basically empty of personal belongings, except for a netbook invoice and trip sheet.
Looking at the time, it was late at night on October 25th, probably because it didn’t meet the company’s reimbursement norms, so I didn’t submit it.
The trip location “DuoLing” is nearly fifty kilometers from the city.
I remembered that the real estate developer of the tourism development suddenly ran away a few years ago, and this place is already a deserted mountain.
I quietly opened my bag and stuffed the itinerary into it.
I thanked her and pretended to complain, “How is this young man doing at work?
Isn’t it hard to find a job these days, how can he just quit?
“The old employee who heard my question suddenly changed her face.
She quickly looked around from the corner of her eye and then came over to me, obviously wanting to tell me something secret.
“Mr. Lee, you don’t usually come here, so you might not know.” she stammered for a moment.
“She stammered for a moment and whispered, “The company hasn’t sent out a paycheck for two months.
“I thought you said it couldn’t get any worse.
“As soon as I got out of the office and walked down the hall, I couldn’t help but pick up the phone and spit out to Wang Xuan, “It looks like the company is going to collapse along with the men.
” “Problems solved one by one, did you find anything else when you went to the company?
” Wang Xuan asked.
I told her about the clues in the itinerary.
Wang Xuan also told me that she took the time today to check the girl’s rental information registered in the company’s human resources system.
“She’s already surrendered the lease and moved out.
” So the address on the itinerary became the only clue.
“Let’s go to the site and take a look.
” Wang Xuan said, “If it’s inconvenient for you to be alone, I can take time off work to accompany you.
‘ I thanked her for her kindness.
I hadn’t thought about whether or not I wanted to pursue it to the middle of nowhere, and this kind of behavior smacked too much of a desperate housewife.
I suddenly realized that I didn’t want to embarrass myself with my cheating.
As if she knew what I was thinking, Wang Xuan said in an indifferent tone, “That’s because you haven’t been pushed to that point yet.
” and hung up the phone.
The light in the study was on when I got home.
My husband stayed in front of the computer as usual, and the moment I pushed open the door he immediately switched the screen interface.
I walked up to him and put my hand on his shoulder, he should have sensed something was wrong with me and his face started to harden along with it.
“I’m coming to your company.
” I finished the sentence and raised my hand, he subconsciously ducked thinking I was going to slap him in the face, but I just raised my hand and hugged him.
I hugged him, feeling his familiar scent and heartbeat, rubbing my hair against his face, and then I said softly, “Why didn’t you tell me when you were in trouble, my dad still has a lot of equity there that he can sell, and he’s promised to help us start over, several times over.
” My husband’s body was visibly stunned, and a few seconds later he too wrapped his arms around me and hugged me.
We closed the curtains and fell back against the couch in the den in an embrace.
No one mentioned anything about the lipstick.
When I woke up the next morning, my husband was already in the kitchen making breakfast.
When he saw me coming downstairs, he smiled and handed me my breakfast, rubbing my hair.
“Don’t work late today, okay?
” I begged him while glancing at the calendar, October 29th, the fourth day since I found the lipstick.
The birdsong outside the window was still crisp, but it was as if we were sailing through a storm.
He hesitated and answered me, “I’m going to the office to take care of something and then I’ll come home.
When I get home, I have something to say to you.
“Can’t you leave after you finish?
” I put down the breakfast in my hand and followed him to the door.
“It’s about us starting over.
” my husband answered seriously after a moment’s thought, and that serious look was the reason why I fell in love with him in college.
Before he left the house, my husband hugged me again, with a glint in his eye, “I’ll be back soon.
“Early in the morning of October 29th, the weather was sunny.
My husband left the house and never came back.
4 My husband never came back after he left the house that morning.
Not only that, he didn’t even answer the phone.
If I called more, he would text back, but his tone was full of impatience.
At first he told me, is to save the company in the last effort, so temporarily did not say hello on a long trip, when to come back is not yet known.
I pressed more, his tone became more and more hard.
What exactly do you want to know, I have nothing to say to you.
He replied to me with this, and then turned off the phone completely.
「Many years of love still lost to a twenty-something year old girl.
” Wang Xuan lamented, then consoled me, “Don’t be sad, just consider him dead.
It’s not worth it for this kind of scum of a man.
‘ I nervously dialed the phone once again, “The user you have dialed is switched off”, and that icy cold female voice rang out once again.
「Is it possible that they have eloped with Zhang Guoshell?
Do you think it’s possible that they bought the villa in the scenic area?
” Every word of Wang Xuan’s was like it was sticking into my heart.
I didn’t say anything, mechanically flipping through old photos from the past one by one in my vision blurred by tears.
I had a dream on the third night after my husband left.
In the dream I was standing on the stage of a school play, a strong light shone on my face, and no matter how I walked, the light followed me closely.
I knew the next thing I knew another light would hit my husband and then he was going to propose to me.
I covered my forehead with my hand and barely opened my eyes to look for my husband, yet the stage was empty, only faces in the darkness of the stage.
There seemed to be a few women, their lipsticked mouths skimming up in contemptuous smiles.
“You won’t get away with this.
” One of the mouths opened and closed in the darkness.
“You know nothing and are too naive.
” another identical mouth spoke again.
Then there was a loud ‘thud’ of gunshots, and the floor by my feet was shot with black holes.
I yelped to wake up from my own cold sweat.
“Knock, knock, knock,” there was a knock on the door.
Looking through the cat’s eye, it was a young man in a police uniform, tall and thin.
After a moment’s hesitation, I opened the door.
His eyes gleamed, and he introduced himself as the public security officer in charge of the neighborhood, surnamed Zhong.
After showing his papers, he asked if my husband was home.
I shook my head. It looked like my husband wasn’t coming home anytime soon, but Mr. Zhong had no intention of leaving.
“Would you like to come inside?
” He raised the file in his hand.
I nodded, a little confused, and asked him to take a seat on the couch, watching as he pulled a picture out of the file.
My skin crawled with a trembling electric current when I saw that it was a picture of a young woman, it was her.
“The woman in the photo is called Shell Chang, she is an employee of your husband’s company.
“Officer Chung handed me the photo, “Do you recognize her?
Or have you heard your husband mention her?
I shook my head twice and added, “No.” “Shell Zhang’s family is a former employee.
” “Shell Zhang’s family reported her missing a few days ago.
In the past two days, her remains were found in the outskirts of the Duo Ling scenic area, and the preliminary judgment is that it was a homicide.
“I was suddenly sick to my stomach and a cold sweat covered my back.
For a few minutes, I couldn’t hear his voice, only the nerves in my temples screaming.
I cast my eyes from the photo to the face of Officer Chung, who was speaking, a dark red scar at the corner of his eye.
All the police officers I’ve ever met, regardless of age, have eyes that are always measuring.
I only skimmed a glance with him before withdrawing my eyes back to the photo again.
“Would it be convenient to check out the room?
” the other man asked.
I mechanically stood up and followed him.
Naturally there was nothing in the room.
Only I knew that my hand was hanging down on the edge of my pants pocket, which held the shape of a lipstick, choking the skin of my palm.
5 After dropping off the police I locked the door, drew the curtains, and carefully unfolded the itinerary and the note in the light.
A suburban trip on October 25th, what was my husband doing that night?
There were so many nights when he wasn’t home that I can’t recall a single day that was unusual.
Maybe it was the same day he told me he was going to work late at the office, then closed the door and drove off to where there were no lights.
A car?
I suddenly realized that my life had been so panicked lately that I’d forgotten to check my husband’s schedule after I’d hidden the itinerary.
Maybe I’d forgotten on purpose, maybe I was avoiding it, but there was only one lane in front of me when it came down to it, the one thing I had to do.
I threw on a hooded jacket, grabbed my keys, took the elevator down to the underground garage, and unplugged the car recorder’s memory from my husband’s car.
I shivered terribly as I did this, always feeling that there were eyes watching silently in the darkness.
But even scarier than that was the image I saw when I returned home to the warm light of my house, connected the memory to my computer, and imported the trip log for the night of October 25th.
The vehicle was driving from the lighted viaduct to the turnoff, and the light suddenly dimmed so that only a small area of headlights could be seen dialed in.
Shaky footage of the rough road surface is visible.
Later a faint ripple reflects off the edge of the lens, presumably along a lakeside path.
The headlights shine on an aged sign for that off-the-beaten-path scenic spot, Draper’s Ridge.
The car stopped and the figure of her husband appeared in the trunk, he took a shovel out and quickly disappeared again.
He reappeared, already an hour later, still alone.
The vehicle turns around and the scenery from whence he came is repeated again.
What happened in the hour he disappeared and reappeared on the record?
Stop, please, let me go.
I thought I heard voices struggling in the mud.
My heart missed a beat, paused with the crack of a shovel hitting my skull, and then jerked up with a death knell.
I saw what my eyes didn’t want to see: a woman’s hand reaching out from the shadows of the mud, shoving the lipstick into her husband’s coat pocket with her last ounce of strength.
The cell phone rang suddenly and harshly.
I couldn’t help but scream along with it and knocked over my water cup.
The call was from Wang Xuan, who once again asked me if I had thought about it, and if I wanted to accompany me to a scenic spot in the countryside.
My heart was beating so hard that I didn’t know what to decide.
At this time my cell phone rang again once more, surprisingly it was a text message from my husband with only three sentences.
“Save me.
Don’t call the police.
Come to Tara Ridge.
” I rushed to call back and again it was off.
I could have left him alone or just called the police, but then I realized that there is no time to think properly whenever you stand at the crossroads of fate.
Panic is always looking for a fulcrum to push me to make a decision.
When I was proposed to ten years ago, it was Wang Xuan who hinted at me from the sidelines so that I could nod in peace.
And this time, it was my husband’s text message that forced me to go to that nightmarish place.
Before I left, I went through my old photos from college again.
There was one of the three of us, my husband, Wang Xuan, and I, lying on the grass, our youthful bodies and faces stretching out freely under the golden sunlight.
I remembered that the sky was so blue that it seemed to have lost gravity, and I seemed to be floating and melting into the blue as I lay on the grass.
I went through all the photos one by one, page by page.
Then I dialed Wang Xuan’s number: “I’m ready.
Can you accompany me?
”6 In previous years, November was always rainy in this city, so I’d never seen a day as gloomy and bright as today.
The sun cast a million golden rays through the cracks in the clouds, shining on the dirty buildings and the beetle-like, slow-moving car trains.
Outside the car windows, there was a flood of advertisements and the sound of honking horns.
“The fatal temptation of red lips.
” A lipstick brand lit up on an LED screen half a building high, with a woman showing only half of her face, her lipstick-covered lips puckered up hard and smiling widely, as if she wanted to eat all the beetle cars on the elevated road.
Wang Xuan rolled up the window and put her hands on the steering wheel, glancing anxiously at her watch from time to time.
She wore a smart black tracksuit today, which emphasized her white skin and high ponytail.
In contrast, I, with my baggy clothes and messy hair, must still have dark circles under my eyes due to my recent insomnia.
In the nearly week since I found out about the 25th’s itinerary at the end of October, I’ve barely slept properly.
As a precaution, I took my own car out, but because I was too sleepy, Wang Xuan drove.
We hadn’t spoken much since we got in the car.
“I’ve never seen such a gloomy and bright day.
” I spoke in a small voice to break the silence.
“What?
” Wang Xuan stared at the traffic in front of us and raised her hand to look at her watch again.
“A Shakespearean play in the drama club, lines from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, do you remember?
” Wang Xuan shook her head, “No, really, you’re in the mood for theater at this hour.
“The vehicles finally moved to the elevated turnoff and entered the less traveled lane.
Wang Xuan breathed a sigh of relief and stepped on the gas, the car was so fast that it looked like it was about to fly up on the viaduct.
I rolled the window open, and the brisk wind blew my hair and slapped it in front of my eyes.
“Have the police been looking for you?
” Wang Xuan asked me.
“What?
” The wind was so strong that her voice seemed to come from far away.
“Did the police come to you?
What did they tell you?
‘ Wang Xuan rolled the window up again, restoring the quiet of the car.
“Looked for me,” I shrugged, “went into the house to check it out.
‘ After a moment of silence, I added, “And showed me a picture of the woman.
‘ The vehicle drove up a rough side road and the body began to lurch.
Sure enough, this is the road, and the lake is just ahead.
“Li Rang, things will pass.
” Wang Xuan’s voice was gentle, “Even if everything can’t go back to the past.
“She gave me a bottle of water with her free hand and gently patted my shoulder.
By this time, I could already see the glowing scales of the lake.
I proposed that I wanted to get off the bus and rest for a while, blowing in the wind and drinking some water by the lake.
Wang Xuan nodded her head after a brief moment of thought and slowed down the car to look for a parking spot.
“Did you bring your lipstick?
Lend me some.
“Before I got out of the car, I combed my hair in the car’s interior rearview mirror, the woman in the mirror had a haggard face, I needed a lipstick to cheer myself up.
I need a lipstick to cheer myself up.” “I’ll look for it.
” Wang Xuan looked down and rummaged in her handbag.
“I don’t need it.
“I took out the lipstick I had found in my husband’s jacket pocket, unscrewed its golden casing, and carefully smoothed the bright red color onto my lips.
Wang Xuan looked at me as if she was looking at a psychopath.
The lake looked much clearer in the sunlight than it did at night.
A sign saying “Swimming is prohibited in deep water” was erected on the surface of the lake, so going into the water in a place like this would only end in disaster.
The wind had completely pushed the clouds to the sky, and the blue sky overhead was so pure that it seemed to be able to see through.
I walked deeper into the jungle alone while drinking water.
Wang Xuan realized that she had left her cell phone in the car and turned back to retrieve it, and by the time she returned, most of the water in my bottle was gone, along with embarrassing lipstick marks left on the unscrewed mouth of the bottle at the drinking point.
We looked at each other and laughed, big brand lipstick will actually “stain the cup” when drinking water.
By the time I got into the car again, the light was completely unobstructed, and the warm sunlight shone through the windowpane on my eyelids, which were gradually getting heavier and heavier.
“So sleepy.
“I couldn’t help but mumble, my body slipping down.
“Take a nap if you’re sleepy,” Wang Xuan said.
” Wang Xuan said.
I didn’t make a reply, my lips tightly closed and my head already tilted to the side.
The car should have driven onto the gravelly ground, making a rhythmic scraping sound.
“I’ve never seen such a gloomy and bright day.
” Wang Xuan muttered to herself as she drove on, “How could I not remember?
That was the scene where we performed Macbeth, and if it wasn’t for you, I actually should have played the female lead, Lady Macbeth.
“We were getting closer and closer to our destination, and the vehicle bumped like a boat on a small road off the beaten track.
Wang Xuan pinched her nails deep into my arm, and I didn’t react, stiff as a plant.
“I have a friend.
” Wang Xuan’s voice was as low as a dream.
“Li Zhong, I have a friend.
She’s in love with her best friend’s husband.
In fact, this friend of mine doesn’t treat her bestie badly, helping that girl out of all sorts of trouble since she was in college, being her emotional trash can, even if her own life is in a mess?
Isn’t that silly?
“”My BFF’s husband is a good guy and doesn’t want me, his friend, to have a hard time.
Behind her best friend’s back, she and her best friend’s husband made a lot of investments.
Maybe it’s a bad fate. The investments failed and the money owed was enough to ruin all three.
“”But there’s no need for everyone to die right?
Just one person, one sacrifice would be enough, a couple of huge life and accident policies would cover those debts.
All it takes is for them to figure out a way to trick her BFF into creating an accident in the middle of nowhere.
The sacrifice of one could save the other two.
“The car slowed down and the destination was reached.
The sound of the car door sounded beside me, and tears trailed down my cheeks.
7 The clear light opened its arms to me, and in the corner of the parking lot where the fall sunlight shone, there came the sound of struggling in the seat and the crash of the car glass.
Wang Xuan was tied to the car seat, powerless to escape even with her head hitting the glass.
She stared wide-eyed, her incredulous expression as if she was in a dream.
If she could calm down now, she should be able to quickly recall what happened a few minutes ago.
A few minutes ago, the car slowed down and the destination was reached.
The sound of the car door sounded beside me and tears trailed down my cheeks before my eyes snapped open.
I took out the electric baton I had prepared from my bag and called out to Wang Xuan, who was about to get out of the car, as I reached towards her, “Wang Xuan.
“The electric current made her almost bounce out of her seat, and afterward, as if she had been drained of her muscles and bones, Wang Xuan’s eyes were dazed as she turned back to me.
She responded to me in a daze, “Huh?
“That friend you were talking about, is that you?
” I said.
“Trust a woman’s intuition.
“My good friend Wang Xuan once told me this.
Before that, she had slipped a lipstick into my husband’s coat pocket, waiting for me to go to her for help.
Given how much I relied on her, she believed I would go to her and listen to her.
An employee happened to be leaving my husband’s company, and it wasn’t difficult to falsify the departing employee’s leave records and itinerary in the HR system.
Then, with a thrilling “murder case” and my husband’s self-directed car recording camera, I was forced to travel to the middle of nowhere like a moth to a flame while keeping my secret.
The bottle of water slipped to me on the way was drugged, and Wang Xuan timed her journey so that by the time I reached my destination, I should have passed out according to the plan.
Next, I would disappear into this world, and the other two would be able to collect the compensation from the insurance policy.
However the plan was not as good as the change.
Before getting out of the car, I pinched her cell phone and hid it in the corner.
When she went back to the car to get it, I emptied the bottle at the jungle.
I also put a lipstick lip print on the mouth of the bottle, so Wang Xuan was even more convinced that the water had been drunk by me.
“Your lipstick works well.
” I shook the lipstick in my hand at the bound Wang Xuan and locked the car door.
She sneered and looked at me with eyes that surveyed her prey.
“You look great in this lipstick, it’s a shame your husband will never see it again.
” “What do you mean?
” I began to tremble all over.
Even though she was tied to the seat, it was me who was scared.
“He betrayed me twice, once ten years ago.
How?
Actually we were the lovers, he convinced me that he would propose to you in order to make money as soon as possible, and then dump you to marry me when he made enough money.
When he proposed to you on stage it was the saddest I’ve ever cried in my life, and while I was crying I had to nod my head to you ……” “The second betrayal was three days ago.
He said he would trick you into coming here to settle the score, but suddenly backtracked because you gave him a little sweetener.
Early in the morning of the 29th he came to me and said that this is the end for me and him, and that he wants to have a good life with you in the future.
I begged him on my knees, but he only wanted to start over with you, I can only smash down hard on his back …… I have been waiting for him for ten years, and this life has been ruined.
Lee rang, you won, but you don’t want him either.
“”All those text messages after that, you sent them to me?
” I understood the reason why I couldn’t dial my husband’s cell phone anymore after he left that day.
“Yeah, and I looked at his cell phone.
He deleted all my pictures and only left yours.
” Wang Xuan cried.
I opened my mouth too, but I couldn’t cry.
The color of the lipstick in my hand was like blood, and the air conditioning in the car was like a suffocating person pumping in cool air.
Wang Xuan squirmed in her chair trying to get away.
It was only then that I realized someone was coming toward the car in the distance, and I sat up straight alertly, checking the locks again and again.
“It’s the police.
” Wang Xuan said weakly, smiling bitterly.
Indeed, it was Officer Zhong from the other night, his tall, thin frame bowed as he jogged over while checking around.
“Open the door, you can hand me over to the police now.
” Wang Xuan leaned back into the chair and gave up struggling.
Officer Zhong was also tapping on the window eagerly, making gestures through the glass, signaling me to open the door.
I put my hand on the door handle, left it again under Wang Xuan’s gaze, and slowly retracted it back to my chest, looking at her twitching face I couldn’t help but smile, “And you didn’t ask me when I realized the anomaly?
” ”When?
You open the door quickly.
”Wang Xuan has already lost her temper.
At this time, the sound of police sirens rang out at the wilderness, coming from far and near, coming this way.
As soon as Officer Zhong, who was outside the car door, heard the sirens, he immediately looked flustered and started tapping furiously on the car window glass.
“It’s been my habit to ask you for help whenever I’m in trouble, but it seems that I’ve never told you about the police coming to my door.
“The ‘Officer Zhong’ who came to the door that day always made me feel that something was wrong.
While looking through my college photos, I stopped in front of a group photo.
Wang Xuan was the host of the new and old student exchange meeting in the photo.
In the corner, a fat junior gazed at her with eyes so warm that they were uncomfortable.
Afterward, this schoolmate was beaten up by Wang Xuan for stalking her, and she got someone to beat him up.
Wang Xuan hadn’t told me about this incident, and by the time I learned about it from someone else, the wound at the corner of the schoolboy’s eye had already turned into a scar.
He walked past in front of me, his obstinate and conceited aura surrounding his entire body.
Although after many years, this schoolmate had lost weight and become a straight man, perhaps even disguised as a police officer at the behest of Wang Xuan.
However, the scars at the corners of his eyes from that fight and his obsession with Wang Xuan still followed him around.
He might even have been persuaded by Wang Xuan to help her dispose of my husband’s body and continue this murder with her afterward.
All the past is a prelude.
“I have to thank you.
” I ignored the man outside the window and turned my head to continue to Wang Xuan, “You guys bought me life insurance, and I actually bought one for my husband.
So thank you for cashing in the policy for me, enough to fill that mess in his company.
” I tried to look at Wang Xuan’s expression, but her tear-filled eyes were only gazing out the window.
Our car has been surrounded by the police.
Wang Xuan struggled desperately, signaling the man outside the window to run away quickly.
However, the man hesitated for a moment and then, in a guardian position, lay down on the window glass on Wang Xuan’s side of the car and shouted something to her.
No one could hear his final confession.
Because I had turned up the music in the car to the maximum.
The sky was so blue that it seemed to have lost gravity, and the few wisps of white clouds in the sky were as pure as childhood memories.
Several police officers rushed forward, clipped the man’s hands behind his back and brought him under control to the police car.
–This time it was the real police.
Such a somber and bright day.
I adjusted the angle of the car’s rearview mirror, leaned in close to my once best friend, and then looked into the mirror, smearing my lipstick as I waited for the police to take her away.
