TYPnovel Chapter 187: You Want to Play the Good Guy?
Chapter 187: You Want to Play the Good Guy?
"Oh, I know, Dad! I promise I won’t get involved. I’ll just watch and keep my mouth shut, okay?"
Seeing her father’s serious expression and heavy tone, Shanshan pursed her lips. She lowered her head and fiddled with the corner of her shirt for a few seconds before looking up and nodding obediently.
She knew her father was worried about her, but she had no intention of interfering directly anyway.
At least for now, it seemed there was still some room to maneuver. She didn’t need to get personally involved.
She agreed readily, her eyes calm and showing no sign of anything unusual.
But no one could have expected that she would dream of this body’s original, young owner that very night.
The scene in the dream was blurry. It was pitch-black all around, with only a faint glimmer of light coming from a corner.
A small figure was curled up there, wearing a worn-out floral dress, her messy hair plastered to her face.
"WAAH... WAAH... Mommy... Grandpa, Grandma..."
Shanshan was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, she could only crouch down, gently pat the girl’s back, and comfort her in a low voice.
She tried to speak but found that she couldn’t make a sound.
The child continued to sob, her body trembling slightly as if she’d had a terrible fright.
Shanshan could only repeat the gentle motion over and over, slowly stroking the girl’s back with her palm, trying to convey a sense of calm.
Time seemed to stand still. The only sound in the silence was the sobbing.
After a long, long time of comforting her, the child finally stopped crying and looked up at Shanshan with red-rimmed eyes.
Her gaze was empty yet stubborn, as if emotions that had been pent up for too long had finally found an outlet.
She stared at Shanshan’s face, her lips trembling slightly as if confirming something.
"You have to get revenge for me, Sister! Mommy cries every day, and Grandpa and Grandma have fallen ill...
It’s all that bad daddy’s fault! He can’t be allowed to live happily ever after! I want him ruined! Once you get my revenge, Sister, I’ll go find my mommy. The body is yours, okay?"
The little girl finished speaking between sobs, waiting eagerly for Shanshan’s answer.
Shanshan’s throat tightened, and her chest felt constricted, as if something was blocking it.
’It makes sense,’ she thought. ’I’ve been occupying her body all this time without a word, and this is the first thing she’s asked of me. She’s been patient enough.’
She bit her lip and finally nodded.
When she woke up the next morning, the scenes from the dream were imprinted clearly in her mind, impossible to shake.
If she closed her eyes, she could still see the little girl’s face and hear her intermittent sobs.
She sat on her bed in a daze for a long while, her gaze fixed on the creases in the bedsheet as her thoughts slowly returned to reality.
The air was quiet, and a few birds chirped outside the window, but she felt no sense of ease.
She sat on her bed in a daze for a long while before slowly getting up to get dressed.
Her movements were sluggish, as if she hadn’t fully emerged from the dream.
But she knew that since she had made a promise, some things could no longer be postponed.
For Shanshan, this was not difficult at all.
She washed her face, put on a jacket, and sat down at her desk to open her laptop.
There was no hesitation, no unnecessary emotional fluctuation.
She casually called her Fourth Brother and had him secretly dig up evidence of Cao Daqiang’s affairs—chat logs, photos from hotel rooms, everything.
Her instructions were concise and clear: she wanted hard proof of the times, places, and people involved.
She didn’t need the process, only the result.
Once it was all compiled, she zipped it up and sent it directly to Liu Yingzi.
She didn’t even glance at the file’s contents.
To her, those photos and words were merely tools, devoid of any emotional color.
She only cared about efficiency and results.
After the "Message Sent" notification popped up, she closed her laptop, picked up her glass, and took a sip of water.
’That completed the first step.’
’Let the two of them fight it out. All I have to do is sit back, sip some tea, and watch the show.’
’Kill two birds with one stone. Saves time and effort, and I don’t even have to get my hands dirty.’
’As for who wins or loses in the end?’
’It doesn’t matter. Neither of them is any good, anyway.’
But Shanshan never would have imagined that Liu Yingzi would be so bold as to take the evidence and storm the house all by herself.
What she expected even less was that, in the moment she caught him in the act, Liu Yingzi would cause a huge scene, rushing forward to confront him in a fit of emotion, her voice sharp and piercing.
Cao Daqiang panicked. There was no one else around, only the silence in the room and the echo from the floor.
In his desperation, he shoved her. He used too much force, and she lost her balance and fell backward.
Blood oozed from her forehead, dripping onto the floor and leaving a conspicuous trail.
Liu Yingzi lay there, her eyes still open, staring straight at the ceiling. Her lips were slightly parted, as if she still had something left to say.
When Kang Yueyue saw this, she froze completely. Her breath caught in her throat, and her chest felt tight.
She took half a step back, her legs so weak she could barely stand. She had to lean against the wall to keep from collapsing.
The child, held tightly in her arms with its small face pressed against her chest, seemed to sense the tense atmosphere and didn’t make a sound.
The air grew still. The only sound was the dripping of blood, each drop striking a nerve.
In contrast, Cao Daqiang, having been a soldier, had a quick mind and rapidly assessed the situation.
He knew he couldn’t call the police. Once they got involved, everything would be exposed.
He knelt to check Liu Yingzi’s pulse. After confirming there were no signs of life, he immediately sprang into action.
First, he ushered Kang Yueyue and the child into a room, telling her to hide in the bedroom and not come out, repeatedly warning her not to make a sound.
Then he quickly got to work, staging the scene to look like a suicide.
He placed a suicide note on the desk, writing that she had long suffered from depression and couldn’t bear the pressure—the usual reasons.
He also put a bottle of pills on the bedside table to fake an overdose.
After doing all this, he even made sure to wipe down any places where he might have left fingerprints.
Afterward, he even went to a newspaper to place an ad, talking about how devoted he was and how much he had endured for the sake of love.
The article was heart-wrenching, describing how his wife had suffered in life and how he had silently protected her.
His performance was so convincing that even the neighbors sighed with sympathy, thinking he was a rare and wonderful husband.
Shanshan was sipping tea in a teahouse when she saw the newspaper.
She recognized at a glance that there was something wrong with the handwriting in the suicide note, and the format was off, too.
On top of that, Cao Daqiang had never once mentioned Liu Yingzi having depression before, but now he was talking about it as if it were a fact.
She almost laughed her head off, spitting out the tea that was in her mouth.
’How thick-skinned does a person have to be to pull something like this?’
But she didn’t rush to expose him. Instead, she added fuel to the fire.
’You want to play the good guy?’
’Fine, I’ll help you play the part to the very end. Let’s make it a big show!’
She secretly contacted a television station and anonymously tipped them off about the "moving story" behind the "devoted husband."
Just as she expected, the reporters were immediately interested, thinking it was a perfect human-interest story.
They immediately scheduled an interview, preparing to produce a special feature program.
Cao Daqiang was completely in the dark. When he got the call, he thought his good performance had finally caught the attention of his superiors.
He even thought for a moment that his workplace was going to commend him as a model employee, and he felt quite pleased with himself.
It wasn’t until the cameras were set up at his front door, the lights were turned on, and a microphone was thrust in his face...
...that he realized something was wrong. All the interview questions revolved around Liu Yingzi’s "passing."
The murderer stood before the camera, his heart pounding and cold sweat beading on his forehead.
But the words were already out of his mouth; he had no choice but to brace himself and continue the act.
Since the story was a fabrication to begin with, he was afraid it wouldn’t be moving enough, so he desperately hammed it up.