Chapter 179

Chapter 179: Why the Hatred

Li Qing Miao looked at Madam Zhang like an enemy, his eyes cold and vicious: “Wretch! You tricked me!”

Madam Zhang stared back, voice like ice and full of hatred: “You murdered my parents. You betrayed me first. And don’t think I don’t know: you planned to leave after the thirty-year limit ran out. Before you left, you meant to kill me too, didn’t you?”

Her tone was questioning, but her certainty showed she had found new clues.

Li Qing Miao only glared in silence.

Yu Zhi Yi answered for her: “Yes. He planned to wait until the time limit ended, then kill you and run off with money.”

Worse, he was disgusting in a very special way. When he said “run off,” he did not mean to vanish to some place where no one knew him. He meant to go home, back to his own Meng County. By then the time limit would have ended. Even if someone recognized him, no one could touch him. He wanted to go back for one reason: to disgust people. The people he wanted to disgust were his own family.

Everyone stared at Li Qing Miao, stunned, unable to understand. What kind of mind worked like that? Would that give him a sense of achievement? But the dead are dead. What would it matter?

Yu Zhi Yi did not understand either, but she could read his mind from the hexagrams. She shook her head and said: “You do not need to go back to show off. Your family is already here. You can see them now.”

As she spoke, her hand traced lightly through the air.

Something flashed before Li Qing Miao’s eyes. When his vision cleared, seven figures had appeared. They were soaked in blood, eyes wide open. Some bled from the seven orifices. Some bodies looked like they had been blasted into sieves. Every one of them was miserable.

Li Qing Miao recoiled in shock. They were his family.

His father glared at him with hatred: “So you can feel fear?”

His mother was both hurt and furious: “I was so good to you. Why did you do this?”

Old Man Li and his wife cried out: “It hurts, Qing Miao, it hurts so much.”

His brothers and sisters said nothing, but their blank white eyes flashed with vicious light, as if they might rush him at any moment and tear him to pieces.

All seven moved toward him at once.

Li Qing Miao felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. He shook from the cold. Worse, those shapes had already closed in. Seven pairs of hands reached out together and clutched his throat.

The feeling of suffocation hit him instantly. His eyes rolled white. He did not die, but it felt like his neck would snap. He wanted to beg for mercy, but no words came out. Wrapped in the terror of death, he finally learned how awful it was to face the end. He did not want to die. He did not.

Heaven seemed to hear his silent prayers. All seven hands released him at once. Then, as if following a command, the figures stepped back together.

Yu Zhi Yi said coolly: “If you kill him, you will stain your hands with another blood-debt. It is not worth it. Leave him to human law.”

Freed, Li Qing Miao collapsed on the ground. At her words he jerked his head up: “You cannot arrest me!”

Yu Zhi Yi gave him a half-smile: “Why not?”

“The time limit is over. You cannot pursue that case.”

Yu Zhi Yi raised a brow: “Did you forget you killed more than seven people?”

Li Qing Miao choked on that.

Yu Zhi Yi struck again: “And who told you the time limit is over?”

Li Qing Miao’s eyes flew wide. Since he had arrived, except when he saw the ghosts, he had looked calm, like a mountain falling without changing his face. Even when his wife accused him of murder, he did not collapse. Now he lost control: “You silly girl, what do you know? Yesterday was the last day of thirty years. It is past midnight. A new day has begun. You can never pursue that case again!”

Yu Zhi Yi snorted: “So you are arrogant and ignorant. You peep at a corner and think you see the whole world.” She took a copy of the Sheng Code from her sleeve and had someone hand it to him: “Read carefully. What does the Sheng Code say about time limits for prosecution?”

Skeptical, Li Qing Miao took it. He read that the limit is counted from the day a case is discovered; if the criminal act is continuous or ongoing, it is counted from when the act ends; if another crime is committed within the limit, the clock for the earlier crime restarts from the later crime.

A strange haze came over him. Everything from thirty years ago suddenly felt unreal. At last he remembered: after he killed them, he changed into clean clothes and left Li Family Village. To make it quicker for people to lock onto him as the killer, he threw his bloody clothes at the scene. Then he swaggered out of the village. It was nighttime. People in the street saw him, but he did not tell them he was a killer. He smiled at everyone and greeted them, then cheerfully went to a tavern in town to drink. It was the next day that villagers went to the Li Clan looking for someone and discovered a house full of corpses.

So the second day was the first day of the time limit. But he had always counted from the day he committed the murders. That meant yesterday was not the last day. Today was. And after that, he even killed a few constables, which pushed the clock forward again.

Dazed, Li Qing Miao looked up, the light breaking in his eyes as if it might shatter.

Yu Zhi Yi: “…” [As Red Luan would say: he is shattered like a teapot bubble.]

She had no interest in his inner journey. She had come today to deal with this scum. A criminal this calculating had a will like iron. Ordinary methods would not make him admit his wrongs. But smashing his core belief could work. Now his eyes were cracked because that belief had been broken. Still, it was not enough. Unless he was completely crushed, those seven wronged souls could not rest and be reborn.

Yu Zhi Yi said evenly: “Li Qing Miao, your family is here. Tell us now: why did you hate them?”

He had spoken of his hate while committing the murders, but he never said everything. His family had felt his hatred, but they did not know why it existed. They had pinched pennies to support him through his studies. How had their support become a grudge?