After Transmigrating as the Northeast CEO's Pampered Little Husband - Chapter 41

When Zhou Cheng finally woke up, five days had already passed. By the time he finished dealing with the police enquiries, half a month had gone by.

Returning home after half a month away, Zhou Cheng felt an immense sense of unfamiliarity with everything in his house.

He had intentionally paid for a psychiatric evaluation hoping to evade legal sanctions, yet he discovered that his mental state was genuinely deteriorating.

Clink, clatter…

Beer bottles of various brands were disturbed by the vibrations of Zhou Cheng sitting down, rolling off the low sofa and crashing to the floor.

The living room remained dim even with the lights on. Zhou Cheng had been drowning his sorrows in alcohol recently due to suspected hallucinations. The floor was carpeted with empty bottles, emitting a foul stench.

“…It’s all over… no… I can still stage a comeback… I can start again…” Zhou Cheng slumped on the sofa, muttering as he stared at the ceiling light, which kept splitting into double images.

Because he had wasted so many days in the hospital and entangled with the police, concrete evidence of his malicious cyberbullying of a peer and his fabrication of rumours had spread everywhere online. He had missed the optimal window for defence, and his public reputation was utterly ruined.

However, he still firmly believed he could make a comeback. After all, the internet world changed rapidly; as long as he manoeuvred it well, netizens would eventually forget what he had done.

“Cough, cough, cough…” Zhou Cheng coughed a few times. After mentally rebuilding his confidence, he crawled up to wash his face and sober up.

“I did nothing wrong… I wasn’t wrong…” Dragging his heavy, hungover body to the bathroom, Zhou Cheng turned on the tap and splashed a handful of water onto his face. Inadvertently, he looked up and saw himself in the mirror.

His eyebrows were drawn, his eyes lined, and he wore purple eyeshadow from a bygone era paired with rose-red lipstick. The expression on his face wasn’t the dejection he imagined, but a bright, vivid smile.

“!!! Ah!!!”

Zhou Cheng froze for a moment before realising the reflection in the mirror was indeed himself. Screaming, he stumbled backwards. The figure in the mirror retreated and screamed with him, yet the corners of its mouth remained fixed in an eerie, upward curve.

“Who… who is in there!!!” Zhou Cheng frantically grabbed a bottle of shower gel beside him and hurled it at the mirror. Broken shards of glass crashed to the floor, creating a mess.

“Urgh…” Zhou Cheng huddled at the base of the wall, but a sudden wave of nausea surged in his chest. Simultaneously, his hands began to move uncontrollably towards his abdomen.

Rip…

Zhou Cheng watched helplessly as his own hands tore open his clothes, exposing his belly. Then, they began to claw viciously at his skin, leaving one red welt after another.

“Stop… stop!!!” Zhou Cheng screamed and shouted, but his hands continued to scratch at his belly uncontrollably, over and over again. He didn’t stop until the skin broke, revealing the pale layer of fat beneath… yet his hands did not cease, continuing to claw relentlessly…

Bang!

As if unable to bear Zhou Cheng’s howling any longer, the bathroom light suddenly short-circuited and shattered. The entire bathroom plunged into darkness, and Zhou Cheng’s screams gradually faded away.

27 hours later.

“Quick! Dispatch! Case confirmed!” The police verified the authenticity of the anonymously mailed materials and immediately mobilized. Solving a cold case that had been buried for years was a priority for every officer. Regardless of how the evidence was obtained even if through illegal meanstheir immediate concern was arresting the criminal.

Sirens wailed all the way to the residential complex. Unexpectedly, however, they only found a corpse that had been dead for quite some time in the criminal’s home. According to the forensic examination, the deceased had clawed himself to death, practically disembowelling himself and dying from excessive blood loss.

The verdict was suicide due to fear of punishment.

“It’s truly bizarre. We just received the anonymous tip-off, and the guy kills himself,” a police officer remarked, frowning as he leaned against the car door, looking up at the apartment block.

“What’s bizarre about it? We are servants of the people who believe in science. Hmm… although the death was a bit ugly, checking the surveillance and examining the scene showed no trace of a second person. Besides, there was a psychiatric evaluation from the Central People’s Hospital on the deceased’s desk. He probably had a guilty conscience, scared himself, and actually ended up mentally ill,” another officer said, clearly finding nothing strange about it. They had handled plenty of cases; they learned to take things in their stride.

“Alright, let’s wrap it up.”

By the time the reporters rushed over upon hearing the news, this case, which had been cold for years, had already been closed with record speed.

…

“…Right then. I didn’t even have to lift a finger…”

No one noticed Wu Ke on the floor of the building opposite, smoking a cigarette as he watched the police cars parked below. The expression on his face was obscured behind the haze of smoke.

The jobs the boss handed out were truly getting easier every year.

“Next one. Let’s move.”

Wu Ke extinguished his finished cigarette on the bin, dusted the ash off his trousers, put on his hat, and left.

As the head of a paid troll army who worked for money, Wang Ergua had been living a very comfortable life recently. Today, he went to the supermarket and bought some lamb spine, planning to go home and make a hotpot to celebrate the substantial increase in his savings.

“Us common folk… are truly happy today… Lang ge li ge lang…” Wang Ergua carried his beer and lamb spine, walking home with a swagger. It was the height of summer, and even at night, the streets were sweltering. So, Wang Ergua decided to take a shortcut home; the alleyway had fewer people and a through-draught, so it should be much cooler.

“La la la…” Wang Ergua hummed a messy tune with his broken-gong voice. He turned into the small alley and paused briefly in front of a dim lamppost, habitually checking the ‘psoriasis’ ads stuck on it.

“Tsk tsk, ‘Heavy Gold Seeking Child’ again. Can’t they come up with something fresh?” Wang Ergua curled his lip. Just as he was about to take another swaggering step, his vision went black. Someone had thrown a sack over his head, dragged him into the darkness, and subjected him to a sound beating.

“Who is it??? Ouch!!! Holy crap, Grandpa, have mercy! I just do what I’m paid to do! I was forced by livelihood to take these desperate measures! Please, Grandpa, spare this lowly one’s life!!! Ouch!!!”

Wang Ergua couldn’t open the sack over his head at all. He could only flail his hands wildly, trying to grab the attacker’s feet, but the person was agile and impossible to catch. In the end, he could only curl up, holding his head and wailing loudly to feign pity.

“Grandpa!!! Spare me!!! I have an elderly mother above and a wife and child below! It’s all forced by life!!!” Heaven knew his parents died early, and his wife had long since despised his lack of ambition, divorcing him and taking their newborn son to remarry. He hadn’t paid a penny in child support and had even swindled his wife out of her assets.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been beaten before. In his line of work, accepting money to do dirty deeds, he would occasionally run into people with the connections to track him down physically. He was well-versed in handling this: act servile, pretend to be a grandson, and beg. Even if he couldn’t avoid a beating, the other party wouldn’t have the guts to actually take his life.

After all, while his trolling and smear campaigns were real, the state’s intolerance for murder was even more real.

The internet laws might not be fully fleshed out with every stipulation clear, but the laws regarding human life were incredibly detailed.

Sure enough, as expected, the person left after beating him up. Wang Ergua lay on the ground gasping for air. He had at least a few broken bones, but compared to his savings, this pain was worth mentioning.

“Hiss… hurts like hell… Hello? Come pick, pick me up. No, just got beaten up again…” Wang Ergua endured the pain to call his friend. The lamb spine hotpot wasn’t happening; it looked like he’d be spending the night in the hospital.

…

However, what Wang Ergua didn’t expect was that the moment he checked into the hospital, he received a greeting from the police the very next day.

So, before his injuries from the beating could even heal, he was forced into a wheelchair and taken to court. He spent ages in a frontal battle with the plaintiff’s lawyer, who refused to show the plaintiff’s face. In the end, amidst the smile of the opposing lawyer—which revealed half a set of dentures he was sentenced to the ‘deluxe package’ of prison time.

“Wang Ergua! You have a visitor!” The prison guard tapped the iron gate and shouted inside.

Wang Ergua, who still wasn’t clear on how he had suddenly ended up in prison, sat on the chair. His face twisted as he looked at the plaintiff’s lawyer, who was leisurely drinking water on the other side of the glass partition.

“Who exactly wants to harm me?! Hmph, I still have a trump card. Wait until I get out of prison; you just wait for my revenge!!!” Wang Ergua threw himself against the glass, slapping it furiously. His teeth, some of which had been knocked out during a beating in prison, allowed his spittle to spray unobstructed onto the window, looking utterly grotesque.

“Sigh, Mr Wang. It seems you still haven’t figured one thing out.” Wu Ke slowly swallowed the water in his mouth, placed the bottle into the briefcase beside him, and rested his chin in his hand, watching Wang Ergua’s hysterical shouting with leisurely interest.

“From start to finish, no one wanted to harm you. It was you who kept harming others. As a qualified lawyer, my task was merely to ensure you received the punishment you deserved. You see, compared to beating you up and leaving you crippled for life, legal sanctions teach you a much better lesson.”

Wu Ke adjusted the buttons of his suit, stood up, pushed up his glasses, and picked up his briefcase, looking as if he didn’t want to talk anymore and was ready to leave.

“It was you!!! You’re not a lawyer at all!!! Are you a gangster! Was it you that night!!! Did they send you!??” Wang Ergua roared in anger, only to be intercepted by the guard nearby and pressed back into the chair.

“Forging evidence is illegal!!! You fake lawyer! You black-hearted lawyer who takes money to do dirty work!!! I’m going to sue you!!!”

“Hmph, incompetent rage. Mr Wang, judging by your performance, even if you haven’t committed any capital crimes, you likely won’t be seeing the outside of this prison for the rest of your life.” Wu Ke nodded his thanks to the guard, then turned his face to stare at the contorted features of Wang Ergua, offering a smile.

Only, the smile didn’t reach his eyes; it looked profound and meaningful.

“Goodbye. Oh, no we won’t be meeting again.”

“Shut up! Isn’t hard labour enough for you? You’ve really been spoiled and fed too well!” The guard, seeing Wang Ergua’s emotions spiral out of control and hearing him spout nonsense without admitting his crimes, made a harsh note in his file and dragged him back to his cell to reflect properly.

Support