Did I Succeed in Redeeming the Villain Today? - Chapter 89

Chapter 89: She Felt Like She Was Drifting In The Universe, Disconnected From Her Home Planet…

A large floodlight suddenly flared to life in the dim factory, its low-quality light cutting more sharply than a blade.

Mu Jingqin instinctively squinted, but Mu Qiuyu, standing beside her, didn’t react at all. Her expression was indifferent, her gaze fixed directly on the man tied and kneeling on the ground. Seeing him so easily brought her hatred for him to a new peak.

Su Qinghang said he hadn’t succeeded. But he had killed the person she loved most. Twice.

The lights weren’t nearly as wounding as his words. He was only concerned with clearing himself of responsibility, completely indifferent to the feelings of others. Selfish and self-centered—he actually dared to pray for forgiveness.

“How could you not have succeeded?” Mu Qiuyu sneered, her eyes containing nothing but coldness. “Haven’t you always gotten exactly what you wanted?”

“Tongtong, Papa was only acting under someone else’s orders, just trying to make a living,” Su Qinghang said, expertly deploying his sob story to beg for mercy.

Mu Qiuyu ignored it, replying coldly: “Then your appetite is certainly not small.”

Su Qinghang’s expression faltered momentarily before he continued: “Tongtong, not a day has gone by these years that Papa hasn’t thought of you. Papa’s life isn’t as easy as it looks; I haven’t had it easy either.”

“True. Hiding an illegitimate son, designing the embezzlement of assets, hiring a hitman, undergoing bone-shaving plastic surgery, and erasing your entire past. Not a single one of those things is ‘easy’ when taken individually,” Mu Qiuyu listed his deeds one by one, mockingly echoing his “hardships.”

Su Qinghang’s heart skipped a beat. He realized his daughter wasn’t going to give him an ounce of face. “Tongtong…”

Mu Qiuyu didn’t wait for him to finish. “Do you know what Uncle Chen did to me here?”

Dust motes swirled under the white light, giving the air a foul odor. Mu Qiuyu looked at Su Qinghang, throwing the nightmares she had accumulated over two lifetimes back at the man who was both the perpetrator and her father.

Faced with this, whether because he knew how heinous the act was or because he had a rare spark of humanity left, Su Qinghang looked away, too guilty to meet her eyes.

Mu Jingqin had suspected as much, but she hadn’t expected it to truly be Su Qinghang’s doing. Seeing his reaction, she understood everything. She strode forward and slapped him hard: “Su Qinghang! Are you even human?! She’s your daughter! How could you do that to her!”

“I wasn’t wrong!”

This man always put his own plight before others. Even though he deserved the slap, he immediately placed himself in the role of the victim, sounding righteous.

“Mu Jingyi hid the shares! If I didn’t find someone, how was I supposed to know if she really gave them to Tongtong!”

“Besides, Tongtong didn’t actually suffer a loss, did she? Didn’t you take care of him afterward anyway?” Su Qinghang looked at Mu Jingqin, feeling a sense of grievance. “And Old Chen had a clean background. If she had stayed with him, her future wouldn’t have been bad—AH!”

Such logic was impossible to follow. Mu Jingqin grew angrier the more she listened. She felt even touching him was dirty, so she kicked him hard in a vital spot: “I’ll give you ‘not bad’! If it’s so good, why didn’t you go! Su Qinghang, what kind of thing are you!”

“What kind of thing am I?” Su Qinghang grimaced in pain, his sneer turning more grotesque. “I’m the one who gave her life! If I’m ‘nothing,’ then neither is she, nor your sister, and certainly not you!”

Mu Qiuyu hadn’t expected to hear such words from her own father. As she looked at him, a memory flashed in her mind.

A man’s thin back stood in a glass room, busy with something. Mu Qiuyu felt she saw something there. Su Qinghang realized someone was behind him and slowly turned around. Initially, a look of murderous alertness filled his eyes. But upon seeing it was Mu Qiuyu, he masked his face with a terrifying smile, beckoning her: “Tongtong, do you want to join Papa? It’s very fun.”

Finally, the struggling cries of a kitten echoed from Su Qinghang’s hands, piercing Mu Qiuyu’s ears. Young Mu Qiuyu had been terrified. That massive horror loomed in her mind, causing the present-day Mu Qiuyu to recoil uncontrollably.

“Qiuyu.” Mu Jingqin hurried to support her. Like a true elder, she pulled Mu Qiuyu into her arms and covered her ears. “Don’t be afraid. Auntie won’t let him hurt you again.”

—”Don’t be afraid. With me here, even if your father shows up, I’ll beat him until he crawls!”

Along with Mu Jingqin’s voice, Lu Ning’s voice fell upon Mu Qiuyu’s ears. That adolescent girl always had a fearless energy, yet she could tenderly hold Mu Qiuyu’s small heart in her palm.

While Mu Qiuyu was processing her recovered memories, Su Qinghang, knowing nothing, mocked her triumphantly: “Just like your mother. Scares easily. A piece of trash that can’t be propped up.”

“Say that again!” Mu Jingqin was furious.

But the act of holding Mu Qiuyu restricted her. Before she could move, Su Qinghang spoke again: “I’ll say it a hundred times. Mu Jingyi was a coward, screaming and crying right up until she died. It was so annoying.”

“Su Qinghang.” Mu Jingqin clenched her fists.

“What, can’t handle it? I haven’t told you yet, have I? I took Mu Jingyi up that mountain road. Until the moment she died, she thought I was giving her a surprise. She even kissed me before getting into the car.”

Su Qinghang spoke boastfully, but his expression grew increasingly strained. These weren’t the words he wanted to say; they were the thoughts currently in his head. He was a pragmatist; seeing Mu Qiuyu broken, he had intended to play for sympathy. Instead, he was blurting out his inner truths.

Su Qinghang had never had good judgment; he had completely misread Mu Qiuyu. Mu Qiuyu had no intention of honoring “father-daughter” ties. In the gap while being held by Mu Jingqin, she had exchanged for the “Truth Serum” Lu Ning had once mentioned.

Thus, the more Su Qinghang tried to stop, the more uncontrollably his thoughts spilled out: “It was a surprise, though. I made her watch as I drove her straight into an oncoming truck.”

“Do you know what Mu Jingyi’s expression was like then?”

At this point, Su Qinghang actually laughed.

Mu Jingqin could no longer control herself. She let go of Mu Qiuyu, stepped over, and slapped Su Qinghang again.

“F*** your mother, you b—”

Slap!

Before Su Qinghang could scream his insult, Mu Jingqin landed another blow. She was wearing decorative rings, and two strikes were enough to make him bleed. She warned him fiercely: “Shut your mouth.”

But how could Su Qinghang shut up? Half due to the Truth Serum and half because he was now simply “breaking the jar” since it was already smashed, he grinned with a bloody mouth like a demon, deliberately saying things to provoke Mu Jingqin and Mu Qiuyu. “I wonder why Mu Jingyi thought I would save her until the very end. So naive.”

“I had my hands around her throat, and she was still asking me why. Asking if I didn’t love her?”

“It’s ridiculous. I served your Mu family like a lowly servant for all those years—what servant falls in love with their master? And in the end, you didn’t even want to give me a piece of the estate? You were just using me for free!”

Su Qinghang spoke with indignation. But in reality, the estate never belonged to him; it was wealth accumulated by generations of the Mu family. He wasn’t a pioneer; he was barely fit to be a caretaker. The old man Mu had never intended for him to be the heir; it was always meant to be Mu Qiuyu.

Su Qinghang’s high-ranking father-in-law was a bird of a feather, but one wonders if he regrets it now. Thanks to this clumsy son-in-law, his flaws were exposed, and he was pushed out by those even higher up to take full responsibility. He was now behind bars, and the future of the next few generations was ruined.

Thinking of this, Mu Qiuyu felt both satisfaction and a hollow sadness. What had their children done wrong? The little girl she had once seen Su Qinghang hold with such doting love… was she now around the same age Mu Qiuyu was when Su Qinghang invited her to join him in torturing cats?

Whether for that little girl or her past self, a wave of daze surged in Mu Qiuyu’s heart.

Just as Mu Jingqin was about to “reason” with Su Qinghang again, Mu Qiuyu pulled her back. “Auntie.”

Mu Qiuyu was calmer than Mu Jingqin. She stepped forward and looked coldly at the battered Su Qinghang. “Are you finished?”

Su Qinghang’s nose and mouth were covered in blood, but he looked at the now-calm Mu Qiuyu and smiled with interest. “Mu Qiuyu, do you know who you resemble the most?”

Mu Qiuyu knew what he was going to say. She didn’t answer, watching as Su Qinghang told her triumphantly: “You resemble me the most.”

He found it hilarious. What was the use of these people hating him so much? The child who resembled him most was the daughter who hated him most.

“I am nothing like you.”

Mu Qiuyu then delivered a resounding slap to Su Qinghang’s face. She took a recording pen from her other pocket. “I am not as stupid as you. If you want to keep something clean, your mouth should be dead.”

The bright red light of the recorder was like a flame in Su Qinghang’s vision. He froze.

“It’s useless. It’s no use!” Su Qinghang’s eyes darted around, his voice trembling as he stated what he believed to be a fact. “You… things like this can’t be used as evidence! There was no third party present, you—”

But as he spoke, Su Qinghang noticed a very inconspicuous “bodyguard” standing behind Mu Qiuyu. No, that person wasn’t a bodyguard. The uniform she wore looked more like…

“Thank you for your cooperation. This played a key role in our follow-up investigation and case filing.” The policewoman who had helped Mu Qiuyu twice before took the recording pen and placed it in an evidence bag. She was now part of the Economic Investigation Department, responsible for this cross-province organized crime case.

“You’re welcome. Assisting the police is our duty as citizens,” Mu Qiuyu nodded. Her calm demeanor was nothing like what Su Qinghang had expected.

In the silent night, sirens suddenly wailed. The policewoman waved toward the darkness, and footsteps echoed through the factory.

Su Qinghang thought this was just a game of leverage. He didn’t realize he had been led into a dead end long ago. Under Mu Qiuyu’s guidance, he had admitted his crimes and described his methods.

The heavy tread of the police hammered against Su Qinghang’s mind. They untied him and replaced the ropes with handcuffs. Mu Qiuyu looked at the silver cuffs, then moved her gaze up to Su Qinghang’s eyes. “I’m not like you. I won’t let you die.”

Mu Qiuyu emphasized the word “die,” making it sound like a daughter’s deep affection. But Su Qinghang knew what she meant. The girl’s dark pupils were like a demon’s, ready to tear him apart and leave him in a state worse than death.

“Everything I said was the truth!” Su Qinghang shouted frantically to the people around him. He wanted to say, “I was coerced into a confession!” but the words that left his mouth were the truth. “EVERYTHING I SAID WAS THE TRUTH!!!”

Su Qinghang’s voice echoed in the empty factory. This behavior left even the battle-hardened police, used to sophistry, a bit bewildered. The policewoman nodded to Su Qinghang and said seriously: “Mr. Su, of course we believe you. After you go in, cooperate and try to get a lighter sentence.”

Su Qinghang wanted to argue, but his mouth was not under his control. The last time such a bizarre phenomenon occurred, it had lasted for six months and only stopped a month ago—the dreams where the cat used his own tactics to torture him. Unable to explain it through logic, Su Qinghang began to think of it as karmic retribution. The inability to change his fate gave him the feeling that he was completely finished.

Mu Qiuyu watched as Su Qinghang was taken away, leaving a wet trail of dust where he had been dragged. Su Qinghang had wet himself in terror. Mu Qiuyu simply looked on with a cold smile. She thought, this is just the beginning.

Hearing the policewoman mention “sentencing,” Mu Qiuyu silently summoned the Plot Card in her mind. Now that Lu Ning wasn’t here, she touched the small gold lock in her pocket and slowly wrote on the card. The words “Su Qinghang dies” appeared smoothly on the card without any backlash.

Mu Qiuyu thought, the system is ultimately on her side. Su Qinghang had finally been kicked out of the world line by her own hand. With this thought, she unhesitatingly wrote every deed Su Qinghang had ever done back onto him. Every near-miss heart attack he had after dreaming of the kitten was about to become the reality of prison. He would receive very good “treatment.”

He wouldn’t die. She would stay here and wish her father a long life of a hundred years.

Buzz—

A bell tolled in Mu Qiuyu’s mind, as if announcing the completion of something. A long wind blew through the abandoned factory, and snow fell from the roof. The world was quiet, save for the sound of Mu Qiuyu’s footsteps on the snow as she walked out.

For a moment, Mu Qiuyu felt an endless loneliness. The hatred she had accumulated all these days had been released; she had successfully avenged her mother and Lu Ning. But because of that, her heart was even emptier. The system issued no new tasks.

She felt like she was drifting in the universe, a wanderer disconnected from her home planet. The culprit who directly killed the kitten had been dealt with. Where should she look for the true culprit behind Lu Ning’s disappearance?

Mu Qiuyu looked at her own footprints in the snow, and a familiar voice suddenly echoed in her ear.

“Tongtong, you’ve done very well.”

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