Silent Testimony - Chapter 60

“The Iron Flower performance will begin in five minutes. Tourists, please move toward the viewing area by the lake.”

“Alright, follow me to count down.”

“Five, four, three…”

As the countdown abruptly ended, the four performers on the bamboo raft in the middle of the lake simultaneously tossed the molten iron into the air, using wooden paddles in their right hands to forcefully strike it higher. In a blink of an eye, the sparks lit up the night sky like fireworks, resembling falling stars descending onto the lake. Water and fire merged perfectly, astonishing the surrounding tourists.

Cheng Yingqiu concentrated on her filming. Qiu Wan, behind her, found a good angle and quickly snapped two pictures of her at work.

“That’s a good shot,” Li Hewei complimented sincerely from her right side.

“You’re not bad yourself.” Qiu Wan turned her head, looking at Tao Ling’s tall, distinguished figure in front of them, and teased Li Hewei, “You must have secretly taken at least 20 pictures this afternoon, right?”

Li Hewei didn’t hide it and spoke truthfully: “After careful selection, about 23 pictures.”

“Your future path with her might be difficult,” Qiu Wan’s eyes deepened slightly, then she curled her lips. “But I believe you two will definitely pave a road through the mountains and bridge the water when you meet it.”

Li Hewei laughed knowingly: “The ink isn’t even dry yet. I’ll work hard.”

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. Xiao Tao seems to care about you too.”

“Mhm.”

Is it that obvious? Li Hewei pondered, then softly called Tao Ling’s name.

“Mhm?”

Tao Ling turned around to look back, her eyes like water, her smile like a flower. Li Hewei raised her phone high, framed the two of them in the picture, and pressed the shutter. While the girl was lost in thought, Li Hewei quickly walked over and showed her the photo.

“What do you think?”

Tao Ling unpursed her lips: “It looks good.”

“I think so too. I’ll send it to your WeChat.” Under Tao Ling’s watchful gaze, Li Hewei set the joint photo as her chat background.

“Sister Wei…” A feeling that she couldn’t quite describe slipped into Tao Ling’s heart. She immediately shifted her gaze, but in her peripheral vision, she coincidentally saw that Li Hewei had also changed her phone screensaver to the joint photo. She silently wondered, What does Sister Wei’s blatant action mean?

Just intimacy between friends? Or…

Tao Ling didn’t have time to dwell on it. Cheng Yingqiu suddenly leaned over: “The performance is over. I’m going to conduct interviews. Do you two want to go back to the tents first?”

Li Hewei nodded: “Mhm, sure.”

Qiu Wan casually took the milk tea beside her: “Let’s go.”

“Sister Qiu?”

“It’s not safe for you to be alone.”

“Oh.” A smile that she couldn’t suppress spread across Cheng Yingqiu’s face.

As the noise subsided, tourists dispersed, chatting and laughing. Li Hewei and Tao Ling took their toiletries to the designated area to wash up, then sat side by side in front of the tent, looking up at the sky.

Li Hewei gazed at the dazzling starry sky, feeling a little lost. She remembered driving in Inner Mongolia with friends after flying in during her annual leave in early July. The sky had looked just like this when they sat on the ground looking at the stars. She wondered if she could go back, or rather, she felt a sense of attachment now and didn’t even want to return.

As if sensing the nostalgia in Li Hewei’s eyes, Tao Ling hesitated for a moment and quietly asked her: “Sister Wei, what are you thinking about?”

“Friends.” Li Hewei withdrew her gaze and looked at Tao Ling in the night, telling her truthfully, “I probably won’t be able to see them again.”

Tao Ling was confused: “Why?”

“Because…” A WeChat notification interrupted what Li Hewei was about to say. She tapped on the chat box and typed a reply to Chen Man.

[Mhm. In the future, when you and Yingqiu go out to eat, I’ll shamelessly join you.]

Tao Ling inadvertently glanced at the chat content, and a pang of dull pain flashed through her heart. Her gaze flickered; she didn’t want to pry into private matters, but she happened to catch two other sentences.

[Xiao Man, I probably can’t meet you alone. After all, the person I like would get jealous.]

[It’s fine, Sister Wei. We’re still friends, right?]

In that instant, it felt as though something exploded with a loud roar in Tao Ling’s mind.

She… who does Sister Wei like?

Tao Ling looked down, lost in thought, her mind a mess. All the unanswered questions from the past few days rushed into her head. Sister Wei got upset when she suspected I was going on a blind date. Her differentiating treatment with the bookshelf and desk. And just now, changing her chat background and screensaver to their joint photo…

Although she had no experience with relationships, she didn’t consider herself dense. The answer seemed about to burst out.

No, it shouldn’t be. Maybe it’s just Sister Wei’s excuse to reject Chen Man? Tao Ling deceived herself, slowly closing her fingers into a tight fist.

“Tao Ling?” Li Hewei saw her shoulders trembling from deep breathing and asked anxiously, “Are you feeling unwell?”

“No, no. I’m very sleepy.”

Li Hewei didn’t suspect anything and stood up: “It’s 10:20 p.m. You usually go to bed around now.”

“Mhm.” Tao Ling mumbled and followed her, taking off her shoes to enter the tent and rolling herself up like a zongzi (rice dumpling).

Li Hewei turned off the light and lay down. Using the faint moonlight from outside, she reached out and touched Tao Ling’s soft hair, asking gently: “Why are you hiding your head inside?”

“Cold.”

“Cold?” The lowest temperature at night was 22°C, and it was currently 26°C. Logically, it shouldn’t be cold.

“Mhm.”

Fortunately, she had made preparations for both scenarios. Li Hewei lowered her voice: “Then come out. We’ll switch to using the sleeping bag cover.”

“N-No need. It will warm up soon.”

Li Hewei’s tone was firm: “Be obedient. You only recovered from your cold two days ago.”

Tao Ling poked her head out and saw that Li Hewei had already put away the sleeping bag.

Li Hewei instructed: “Hurry up and wrap yourself in the sleeping bag.”

Tao Ling did as she was told, but slowly realized something was wrong. Why are there only a moisture-proof mat and a thermal blanket?

Li Hewei unzipped the sleeping bag: “I bought the new autumn/winter style. It’s for two people.”

A double sleeping bag, with no separation in the middle. Scarlet flushed across Tao Ling’s fair face, and her small ears began to heat up: “Ac-Actually…”

“Actually, what?”

“Nothing.”

She helped Li Hewei spread out the sleeping bag, slid into it first, and turned her back to the woman.

Li Hewei looked at her back and smiled silently.

In the dead of night, Tao Ling clearly sensed the body heat next to her. For some unknown reason, her body became increasingly hot. She intentionally left her hands outside, but it was still no use; the heat didn’t dissipate.

Li Hewei felt the same way. The sleeping bag weighed 2.6 kg and was rated for temperatures between 7°C and 18°C.

Time passed minute by minute. Fine sweat beaded on Li Hewei’s forehead. She couldn’t help but turn onto her side. Tao Ling simultaneously turned around. Their noses lightly brushed, and their breaths mingled.

“Sister Wei…” The words hovered on her lips. Tao Ling unconsciously gripped the sleeping bag, her heart beating like crazy…

“What?” Li Hewei tried her best to suppress the emotions that mirrored Tao Ling’s, asking softly.

“Hot.” Tao Ling’s breath was like orchids. Li Hewei felt an itch in her heart, as if suffering from skin hunger, desperately wanting to pull the girl into her embrace to fill the inner turmoil and emptiness. She swallowed, her voice slightly hoarse: “Weren’t you cold earlier?”

“I…”

“Let’s switch. We should sleep separately after all.” Li Hewei forcibly suppressed the desire she couldn’t relieve, turned on the light, and was the first to step out of the sleeping bag.

After settling down around midnight, the two finally fell asleep. Tao Ling felt Li Hewei’s consideration, and a warm current surged into her heart, slowly flowing through her limbs. She closed her eyes and asked herself: If things are truly as I suspect—that they are mutually in love—how should they face Aunt Qiong and Uncle Wu in the future?

In Tao Ling’s memory, their family was harmonious, and she didn’t want Li Hewei to have any discord with her closest relatives.

What should I do? Tao Ling felt utterly lost.

The next morning, the two went to wash up, followed closely by Cheng Yingqiu, who patted Li Hewei’s back: “Sis, what were you two doing in the middle of the night?”

“What?”

“Your shadows were flickering around, disturbing my sleep.” Cheng Yingqiu had returned from her interview around 10:30 p.m. last night. After washing up, she and Qiu Wan chatted, and the topic gradually drifted to the tent next door.

“Sister Qiu, guess what they’re doing?”

Qiu Wan shook her head: “I don’t know.”

“Sixth sense says something definitely happened.”

Li Hewei spoke calmly: “Tao Ling felt cold, so we switched to the shared sleeping bag.”

“And then?”

“Then it got hot, so we switched back to the single sleeping bags.”

“Oh, so that’s what happened.” Cheng Yingqiu’s tone was elevated at the end, and she gave an ambiguous look to Tao Ling, whose cheeks were unusually warm.

Qiu Wan had a sudden engagement, so after breakfast, they drove back home. Around noon, the phones of three of the four people rang one after another, excluding Tao Ling.

“Boss, there’s a murder case in Shou’an Residential Area.”

“Xiao Li, there’s a murder case in Shou’an Residential Area. Where are you?”

“Xiao Cheng, there’s a murder case in Shou’an Residential Area. The victim is Ma Zhiming, a popular writer who held a book signing in Puchen just the day before yesterday.”

“Ma Zhiming?” Tao Ling frowned. “The author of The Last Survivor?”

“I’m receiving the information.” Cheng Yingqiu tapped into WeChat to check the victim’s details. “Yes, his representative work is The Last Survivor, released on October 2nd. Puchen was the first stop on his book signing tour.”

Tao Ling hummed: “He was born in Puchen and only went to Yancheng to make a living at 18, so the first stop for every novel signing is always Puchen.”

“This is going to be tricky. His case will definitely draw a lot of social attention.” Qiu Wan connected via Bluetooth and made a phone call to arrange things: “Sister Wang, are you in Puchen?”

“Yes, I was on duty yesterday.”

“Please rush to the scene first. I’ll be there in half an hour at most.”

“No rush. Take your time. I’ve already contacted He Ying from the technical team.”

Tao Ling lowered her head and sent a message to Zhao Xiaoting: [Sister Xiaoting, the investigation kit.]

[No problem.]

At 12:27 p.m., the SUV stopped at the back gate of Shou’an Residential Area. The group of three walked up the stairs to the crime scene.

Xiao Zhou handed them masks, gloves, and shoe covers: “Boss.”

“Mhm.” Dressed properly, Li Hewei walked in and asked He Ying by the bedroom door: “Sister He, what’s the situation?”

“See for yourself.”

Li Hewei looked up, seeing the victim tied and suspended by his hands and head in a cross shape. His abdomen and chest were pierced by a sharp object. Dripping blood stained the marble windowsill, next to which were written two words: “Deserves death.”

He Ying asked: “Where’s Xiao Tao?”

Li Hewei turned her head and saw Tao Ling frowning deeply, her eyes fixed intently on the body.

“What’s wrong?”

“The murderer killed the victim according to the murder methods described in the victim’s published novel.”