Chapter 146: I’ve Already Contacted He Shiqin

Chapter 146: I’ve Already Contacted He Shiqin

Li Maoren’s expression tightened.

Ding Ruilong had killed Dong Yuantao?

He went back through his memory. It had happened more than a decade ago, and the death had been ruled an accident; word had spread, but no scandal had come of it, so there was little for him to recall. He had not known much about it even then.

All he could bring back now was that Dong Yuantao had attended Nanguang No. 1 High School.

So had Ding Ruilong.

That was more or less the only connection between them.

The Ding and Dong families had never been close, then or now.

And it went further than that. Nanguang No. 1 High School ranked among the top ten high schools in the country. Anyone who got in was either an exceptional student with outstanding scores on the high school entrance exam or the child of a wealthy and powerful family—including families from neighboring provinces and cities.

The place was thick with the children of the powerful to begin with.

So Ding Ruilong and Dong Yuantao being schoolmates meant very little.

More importantly, Dong Yuantao had been two years older.

When he accidentally drowned, he was eighteen and in his final year of high school.

Ding Ruilong, reckoning back from his present age, had been sixteen and in his first year of high school.

They were not even in the same year, which made the chance of real contact or real conflict much smaller.

And when Dong Yuantao died, it was not as though the school pronounced it an accidental drowning and the Dong family simply took their word for it.

The Dongs had investigated, naturally, and confirmed it truly was an accident. Li Maoren had heard that Dong Yuantao’s mother wept herself half out of her senses, close to collapse, and spent time in hospital afterward—but in the end there had been nobody to blame. Only fate.

Li Maoren had assumed at first that if Wu Chen was suddenly raising Dong Yuantao and calling it murder at Ding Ruilong’s hands, he must have some basis for an accusation of that size.

Which was why he had thought it through.

And the more he thought, the less it held together.

Impossible.

If Dong Yuantao had been murdered, how could the Dong family have turned up not one suspicious point?

There had not even been rumors. Everyone was certain it was an accidental drowning.

And even granting, for the sake of argument, that he had been murdered—by Ding Ruilong?

Madness. Weak as the Dong family had been then, they were only half a step below the Dings. The Dings would have had to be insane to provoke them like that. Over what blood feud? Li Maoren had never heard of any serious conflict between the two houses. They had barely had minor friction. And even had there been conflict, no great family moved against a junior still in school. It simply was not done.

Even supposing Ding Ruilong held a personal grudge against Dong Yuantao, the Ding family would never have helped him kill the boy and stage an accident that clean—not for a junior whose existence touched neither family’s interests.

Impossible.

If it had ever come out, the spectacle would have been enormous.

Every powerful family that heard of it would have been shaken. Even with a genuine blood feud, striking at a junior who had not yet entered public life was taboo.

“Young man,” Li Maoren said at last, after turning it over and over. “Remember this. You can be careless about what you eat; you cannot be careless about what you say. Ding Ruilong killed Dong Yuantao? Do you understand what would happen if a claim like that got out? Manufacturing a rumor of that kind gets people killed.”

“But it’s true,” Wu Chen said, faintly smiling.

“True? On what grounds? Where’s your evidence? There’s no logic in it. If you’re only saying this to make me believe Ding Ruilong is dangerous and might harm the Li family, then I can tell you right now—”

“Which part has no logic in it?” Wu Chen cut in.

“Which part does? Whatever the reason, the Ding family would never move against a child still in high school.”

“I never said the Ding family did.”

“You said Ding Ruilong—”

“Exactly. I said Ding Ruilong. Ding Ruilong killed him.” Wu Chen laid weight on the distinction.

Li Maoren paused. He understood what Wu Chen was pressing—and somehow it made the thing harder to believe, not easier.

“You mean Ding Ruilong did it himself? The Ding family didn’t do it for him?” The skepticism in his voice deepened. Ding Ruilong had been sixteen when Dong Yuantao died.

“That’s right. Ding Ruilong did it. Alone. Before he acted, he was the only person who knew. And after Dong Yuantao died, the people inside the Ding family who knew the truth could be counted on one hand. Old Master Ding himself only learned of it afterward.”

Li Maoren watched him in silence.

He still did not believe a word of it. But the matter was too grave to wave away. What if it were true? Dong Yuantao would be thirty-three today. He had been the youngest son of the Dong family’s current number-one figure.

Li Maoren had to ask.

“Motive?” He went straight at the heart of it. Murder required a motive.

“A woman.” Wu Chen smiled.

“A woman?” Li Maoren frowned.

“Do you know He Shiqin?”

The frown deepened. After a moment: “I do.”

Two words, and no more. He plainly had no wish to enlarge on it, because he knew He Shiqin was Ding Ruilong’s woman—and more than a mistress. She had borne Ding Ruilong a child. A daughter.

Li Maoren knew about the illegitimate daughter.

It did not touch the marriage alliance between the two great families. Set against the larger situation, against the families’ interests, it was a small thing. Such matters were not exactly common among the great families, but neither were they rare.

Li Maoren himself kept mistresses quietly. He simply had no children by them.

“Ding Ruilong murdered Dong Yuantao over He Shiqin,” Wu Chen said.

“They were… rivals for her?” Li Maoren asked. The Li family had investigated He Shiqin specifically. He knew she had also attended Nanguang No. 1 High School and had reportedly been the beauty of the school, with no end of boys pursuing her.

“It hardly rose to rivalry.” Wu Chen shook his head and smiled thinly. “A great many sons of powerful families were pursuing He Shiqin then. They even drew up a gentlemen’s agreement among themselves: fair competition, nobody allowed to play dirty. Ding Ruilong was a first-year, He Shiqin a second-year, Dong Yuantao a third-year.”

“Dong Yuantao was gifted, and his marks were outstanding. As a senior he was one of the most prominent students in the school. He Shiqin was closer to him than to the others, but she had no intention of dating in high school. Her studies came first, and she had turned every one of her pursuers down plainly. She spent more time with Dong Yuantao because he had volunteered to tutor her…”

“She rejected Ding Ruilong outright, many times. She had no interest whatsoever in a younger student. And because she was close to Dong Yuantao—Dong Yuantao died.”

Li Maoren still felt something was wrong.

“Just out of jealousy? Enough to kill someone?” he asked. “You’ve said a great deal, young man, but do you have proof? These are only words—”

“First, let me be clear on one point. It was not only jealousy.”

Wu Chen cut him off. Looking at him, his voice level: “Ding Ruilong wanted He Shiqin. He is deeply obsessive. When he wants a woman, he must have her. So on the day he killed Dong Yuantao, he arranged for He Shiqin to be there. He Shiqin watched Ding Ruilong kill him with her own eyes. She went with Ding Ruilong because she was terrified and did not dare refuse. He Shiqin is the only eyewitness to Ding Ruilong’s murder of Dong Yuantao.”

Li Maoren’s expression changed. He fell silent, thinking.

“Even if what you say is true, what of it?” he asked after a moment. “He Shiqin has been with Ding Ruilong for more than ten years. They have a child. She will never come forward to testify. It’s meaningless.”

“Who says she won’t testify? She hates Ding Ruilong. He ruined her life.” Wu Chen grinned. “I’ve already contacted He Shiqin…”

He Shiqin was the woman Wu Chen had contacted before, under the handle No Envy by the Abyss.

“Hm?” Li Maoren froze—and then his face changed drastically. He shot to his feet. “What are you trying to do?”