“They said my sister was an ‘ice girl.’ At first, I didn’t even know what that meant. I innocently thought it was just someone who skates with others. But then I saw them doing drugs with my own eyes, and I finally understood what ‘ice girl’ really meant.

An ‘ice girl’ is a girl who accompanies clients to do drugs. A group of men, high out of their minds, naked, doing beastly things.”

Li Shuo finally understood how Li Wantao got the money she sent him for living expenses. Every penny he spent was earned by his sister selling her body, making money from those disgusting men.

The admission notice he was so proud of turned into a cold sword stabbing into his chest.

“This world is nothing like I imagined! My sister and I just wanted to live well, but there are always people dragging us into hell.”

Li Shuo’s arm trembled uncontrollably, those hands that had killed someone felt as if they were no longer his own.

“Why didn’t you stop your sister?”

“Do you think I didn’t try?”

Li Shuo tried to stop Li Wantao from getting involved with those people, even locking her in a room to detox, but Li Wantao had been poisoned by drugs for years, and when the addiction hit, she couldn’t control herself at all.

“Brother, please, just let me have a hit!” Li Wantao curled up on the ground in pain, begging.

Li Shuo remembered how strong-willed and stubborn his sister’s pride was, but in the face of addiction, she became a completely different person.

“Later, I learned what ‘powder widow’ was. Whoever invented this stuff probably never intended for people to quit, let alone my sister, who had been using for so long. How could she possibly quit?”

Li Wantao tried smashing things, slitting her wrists, jumping off buildings, doing anything just to get another hit of ‘powder widow.’

Li Shuo’s determination to help his sister quit drugs gradually faded to nothing.

“One time I came back from school and found my sister missing. I searched everywhere for her and finally found her under a bridge.

“She was sleeping under the bridge, barely clothed, who knows how much she’d used.”

When Li Shuo approached Li Wantao, he broke down crying, taking off his clothes to cover her, afraid someone might see.

Li Wantao lay in bed for a week before she recovered.

“I went through my sister’s phone and found out she was being controlled by Chu Jian all along. They had broken up, but that bastard Chu Jian wouldn’t let her go. Everything my sister suffered over the years, killing him wouldn’t even be enough to repay!”

From that moment on, Li Shuo had the idea of killing Chu Jian, but Chu Jian had many brothers around him, and Li Shuo couldn’t get to him. To get closer to Chu Jian, he took a part-time job at the KTV where Chu Jian often went.

“I kept thinking about how I could kill him without affecting my sister and me. I thought for a long time and finally came up with a method.”

Li Shuo knew Chu Jian often did drugs in room 888, so he had long planned how to kill him. He had prepared the murder weapon, hidden it in a secret cabinet in the room, a place no one would usually touch. Even if it was discovered, no one would know what it was.

He just needed to wait for the right moment to kill Chu Jian himself.

“Yesterday, my sister went missing. When I went to the KTV to find her, I happened to catch that bastard high in the private room, so I took the opportunity to kill him.

I hesitated when I killed him, but when I thought of everything my sister had suffered over the years, I just wanted him to go to hell!

Maybe he was too high, he didn’t struggle much before he died. I thought it was too easy for him.”

After killing him, Li Shuo hid the murder weapon in his clothes and took it away. Just as he was going downstairs, he ran into the police coming in. Thinking quickly, he hid the murder weapon in the utility room of the emergency exit.

Worried the police would seal off the scene, he hurriedly left the KTV, not expecting his face to be remembered by Di Ye, who was coming in.

Afterward, he rushed back to school and sat in the classroom all night, staring at the blackboard with the unfinished notes, feeling lost.

It was a simple molecular formula.

He liked chemistry because chemistry could change the world, but he also hated chemistry because he saw his sister being poisoned by synthetic compounds with his own eyes.

Chemistry could also destroy this world. Chu Jian was dead, but his sister couldn’t go back to the way she was.

*

This case was particularly meaningful for Di Ye because it was the fastest murder case he had ever solved. From discovering the body to catching the murderer, it only took eight hours.

All of this was thanks to Leng Ning. If it weren’t for his solid professional skills, they might still be stuck investigating the gun.

Li Wantao was in a daze in the interrogation room for over ten hours before she slowly came to her senses. Once she was sober, she was still a bit confused, her mood very low, and even speaking took a lot of effort.

“I was tricked by Chu Jian. At that time, I was fooled by his sweet words, thinking I had met my prince charming.”

When Li Wantao said this, there was a sarcastic smile on her lips.

Back then, she was naive and followed Chu Jian wholeheartedly. Not long after, they ran out of money. Chu Jian didn’t go out to earn money, just stayed in the rented house, texting different people, watching DVDs, wasting away day and night. When they ran out of money, he would go out to borrow some. Sometimes they didn’t even have food to eat.

Li Wantao felt they couldn’t go on like this and tried to find a job outside. But she had no education or experience, so she could only do odd jobs with low pay, not even enough to cover her brother’s tuition back home.

She urged Chu Jian to go out and make money, but he scorned her, saying she wasn’t pretty, didn’t have a good figure, and dressed like a country bumpkin.

Every time Chu Jian humiliated her, she felt like she was rotten to the core, that her life was rotten to the core.

One day, Chu Jian asked her to accompany a boss for dinner, saying the boss was a friend who would introduce him to resources, telling her to dress nicely and not embarrass him.

“That boss was over fifty, with lecherous eyes. I was terrified of him.”

Taozi kept looking to Chu Jian for help, but he just kept pushing her to drink with him. In the end, she got drunk, and Chu Jian disappeared.

“That old man raped me.”

After that night, Taozi felt like a different person. She thought Chu Jian would at least give her an explanation, but all she got was merciless ridicule.

“Who do you think you are? What else can you do besides being a whore? You’re so worthless you can’t even sell yourself for a good price. I’m already doing you a favor by finding you a job!”

Chu Jian’s words shattered her worldview. She suddenly remembered what her aunt had told her.

“A girl is just a money-losing deal, destined to be married off. What’s the point of studying so much?”

She realized Chu Jian never loved her, only used her.

She hid her sincere heart, no longer holding out hope for anyone, remembering she still had a brother. She didn’t want him to end up like her, dropping out of school and becoming part of society’s underbelly, unable to lift his head for a lifetime.

She couldn’t change her fate, but at least she could make her brother’s life a little easier, let him do what he wanted to do.

When she was lucky, she could rely on old clients for a stable income. When she wasn’t, she would be cursed like trash.

Until she met Hei Gou.

“Hei Gou was actually an honest man. He was scammed out of money and had no choice but to start selling ice. Back then, he and his brothers came to play, and he picked me.”

It was supposed to be just a transaction, but the two gradually developed real feelings, even seeing each other as their only support in the world.

Hei Gou said that once he saved enough money, he would take Taozi away to a place where no one knew them, open a small restaurant, and she’d be the boss lady, counting money every day.

Taozi looked forward to that day, secretly saving money herself. She thought life would get better, but fate played a cruel joke on her again.

“Chu Jian took my savings, forced Hei Gou into addiction. He was a tyrant around Baohuang Temple, and no one could control him. I thought I’d never get back on my feet, but one day, Hei Gou came to me with fifteen thousand in cash.”

Hei Gou brought a whole bag of money to Taozi, telling her to pack up and run away with him.

“We ran to Qingzhou with the money, but we were still found.”

Later, Taozi learned where the money came from.

“Hei Gou had secretly made fake goods to get that money. Suddenly, a substitute for ‘powder widow’ became popular on the market. It was much cheaper than ‘powder widow.’ He somehow got the goods and sold them to Chu Jian’s acquaintances.”

Chu Jian found out and was furious, chasing Hei Gou with his men overnight. Hei Gou was caught and beaten up by Chu Jian.

“Chu Jian said Hei Gou owed him money he couldn’t repay, so he was going to use me to settle the debt. He forced me to do drugs, got me addicted too.

After that, I was taken to different places to accompany clients for drugs. Sometimes I’d wake up and remember nothing, sometimes a week would pass like a day, and I’d be in a daze.

Hei Gou never came for me. I called him a few times, but we barely spoke before he hung up! I thought we were completely over. In my sadness, I used drugs to numb myself, and my addiction grew.”

“Has Hei Gou contacted you recently?”

Li Wantao thought for a moment, “I’ve been using a lot lately, I can’t remember.”

After a while, Li Wantao seemed to recall something, “He might have called me, or maybe I was dreaming.”

“What did he say on the phone?”

“He seemed to say someone was going after Chu Jian, told me not to go out… Who knows? Maybe he never called me at all.”

The pattering rain hit the windowsill, noisy yet making one’s thoughts clearer.

Di Ye watched the surveillance screen, Li Wantao’s voice, filled with despair, echoing in his mind.

In such an environment, even the kindest person could turn into a demon!

The source of the drugs must be traced, the distribution at Baohuang Temple must be uprooted!

Those bastards can’t be allowed to run rampant any longer!