Chapter 3: The Devil in “Fairytale” Love

After cuffing the bearded man, Zhang Haiyang first went to the bathroom to check the corpse.

Then he and Luo Fei found a marriage certificate nestled in the drawer next to the TV cabinet. The document showed the bearded man, albeit without the beard, alongside a woman, who was the deceased in the bathroom.

The bearded man was named Gu Youguo, forty-two years old, from Song Chang Shuihe village in Ningjiang County. The woman, Du Jiao, was forty years old and also from Chang Shuihe village. According to the information on the marriage certificate, they had been married for twenty years.

Thereafter, Zhang Haiyang called the police station.

“The station has already dispatched backup. Let’s wait here for them,” Zhang Haiyang said as he sat down in the chair opposite Gu Youguo.

Luo Fei, on the other hand, took the opportunity to step out onto the balcony. He had noticed earlier that the balcony door was closed, but back at Zhang Lan’s house, he distinctly smelled a stench wafting from this direction. He suspected there might be an issue on this side of the balcony as well.

Sure enough, when Luo Fei opened the balcony door, the stench hit him with an intensity far worse than the bathroom’s. The foul odor filled his mouth and nose, prompting him to immediately cover them with his hand.

The stench emanated from a groove on the balcony, which was about two meters long and one meter wide, where a large cluster of gardenias had been planted. The white gardenias were strikingly beautiful, their petals pristine and delicate, blooming in stark contrast to the foul odor that surrounded them.

TL’s TW: Slight gore.

If his intuition served him right, there should be a corpse beneath this groove as well.

Luo Fei noticed a small shovel resting beside the planter and picked it up. With careful motions, he began to unearth the soil covering the planter. Soon enough, a decaying, grotesque visage emerged, its features contorted in a grimace of agony.

Even if Luo Fei had mentally braced himself, he could not help but be startled by the suddenness of the discovery.

As Luo Fei observed the corpse, he noted that its face was completely decomposed, rendering it unrecognizable. However, judging by the length of the hair, it appeared to be that of a man.

“Mentor Zhang, come over here! There’s another corpse!” Luo Fei shouted towards the living room.

Zhang Haiyang heard Luo Fei’s urgent call and rushed over.

“This appears to be a male corpse. A man and a woman… there seems to be an ulterior story at play here,” Zhang Haiyang remarked as he examined the body in the planter. After a brief moment of contemplation, he turned to Luo Fei and instructed, “Don’t touch the body. Let’s wait for the criminal investigation team to arrive and handle the situation.”

Luo Fei nodded in agreement. He was well aware that murder cases like this were beyond the jurisdiction of the local police station and required the expertise of the criminal investigation team.

The two returned to the living room.

Zhang Haiyang settled back into the chair opposite Gu Youguo, fishing out cigarettes from his pocket.

“Do you want a cigarette?” Zhang Haiyang asked, extending the offer to Gu Youguo as he looked at him.

Gu Youguo remained silent, simply nodding his head in response.

With that, Zhang Haiyang lit a cigarette for Gu Youguo.

Gu Youguo inhaled deeply, then exhaled gradually, releasing a thick cloud of white smoke that billowed from his mouth, instantly obscuring his face.

Zhang Haiyang waited for Gu Youguo to finish smoking before saying, “Let’s talk about it.”

Gu Youguo remained silent initially, taking another drag from his cigarette before exhaling. Then he began his confession in a slow, measured tone. “As you both saw on the marriage certificate just now, that woman in the bathroom is indeed my wife. We were childhood sweethearts; we grew up together, studied together, and fell in love together. We graduated from college together and were both assigned to Ningjiang County. I taught at the junior high school, and she taught at Songxi Middle School. We liked each other and shared a deep love, so we naturally decided to get married when the time was right.”

“Hahaha, doesn’t this sound like a fairy tale romance straight out of a novel?”

“That’s true; it’s like a real-life fairy tale romance. I wonder how many people envy us when they hear our love story,” Gu Youguo said between intermittent laughs, though his laughter soon gave way to tears.

“I always believed that my love for Du Jiao would be as beautiful and pure as in a fairy tale. Even though we never had children together, it never affected our feelings, and I never doubted our love.”

“Until this year’s Spring Festival, one of my colleagues told me he saw Du Jiao watching a movie with another man at the Songxin Town Cinema,” Gu Youguo continued. “Initially, when I heard the news, I didn’t care. I had faith in our love, and I didn’t believe Du Jiao would betray me. I simply brushed it off, thinking my colleague must have been mistaken.”

“I didn’t think much of this matter at first, but over the next few months, I began to notice something was amiss. Du Jiao started spending less time with me, choosing instead to stay at school to correct students’ homework more frequently. And she, who hadn’t been particularly keen on makeup before, started experimenting with it. Still, I didn’t think much about it; I always believed in her.”

“But last month, on the 10th, I came home from school and went into the study room to prepare for my teaching materials. I have a habit of smoking, and that day was no exception. Just as I was smoking and readying to put the cigarette butt into the ashtray, I noticed there was a Zhonghua ^[1]TL’s note: Zhonghua is a Chinese cigarette brand.cigarette butt already in the ashtray.”

“I’m a habitual smoker, but I never smoked Zhonghua. Usually, except for me, no one else would enter this study room.”

“At that moment, my mind suddenly recalled what my colleague said, along with my wife’s changes over this period of time. I panicked. I loved my wife very much, and I was terrified that it might be true. I feared losing her; losing this family. I couldn’t bring myself to believe it, and I didn’t want to believe it. But logic told me that Du Jiao might really be with another man. My heart was torn, and the thought of Du Jiao betraying me—betraying our love—was unimaginable.”

“At noon that day, I told Du Jiao that I was going on a business trip to Linzhou City and wouldn’t be able to return for the next two days. After making the call to Du Jiao, I checked into a hotel room and did nothing. I just sat on the bed and waited until nighttime.”

“At 11 p.m., I left the hotel. Along the way, I pondered many possibilities—if Du Jiao was really with someone else, what should I do? What can I do? But when I gently opened the door to my house and saw the pair of black leather shoes on the doorstep, along with the unpleasant sounds coming from the bedroom, I knew I had no choice. I had no way out.”

“I took the cleaver from the kitchen, and I pushed open the door of the bedroom when I saw the man lying on Du Jiao’s body. At that moment, my mind went blank. I only thought of one thing: to kill this pair of adulterers.”

“I didn’t know how I hacked them to death. I only remembered that I was holding a cleaver and maniacally slashing one after another, and when I regained my senses, Du Jiao and the man were already dead, with my face and hands stained with blood.”

“I don’t know how to describe my feelings at that time. There was no fear, no regret, only numbness. I knew I had killed someone, and I knew I couldn’t run away—I didn’t want to run away. Betrayed by my beloved, I felt as if my heart had died along with them; there seemed to be no point in living anymore.”

“Initially, I didn’t want to deal with the bodies, but I didn’t know when the police would approach me. Leaving those two corpses in the bedroom was really disturbing, especially that man, and I needed to sleep. So, after thinking about it, I dug out the gardenias from the groove and put his body in it. And I just dumped Du Jiao’s body in the bathtub.”

After confessing, Gu Youguo slowly tilted his head back and leaned on the sofa. The cigarette in his hand had already burned out.

Luo Fei and Zhang Haiyang remained silent, both at a loss for words and unsure of how to respond.

A brief silence enveloped the living room, thick with unspoken emotions.

“Wee~Woo~~Wee~Woo~~”

A siren pierced through the quiescence, shattering the stillness.

(End of chapter)