Chapter 41:
Because the Truth Was Never Meaningless
FIVE MINUTES, Lu Yuzhu thought. In just five minutes, everything would be over.
The detonator’s clicking countdown echoed through the basement. It sounded like the pendulum clock she’d kept in her old house in the county seat all those years ago. Back when her life had been peaceful, that clock used to resound with a tick, tock, tick, tock as its pendulum swung from side to side.
Back then, she had thought that she would be able to live out her entire life smoothly and serenely.
All of a sudden—just as that upstart young journalist had once smashed her life to pieces—the countdown to her demise unexpectedly stopped.
In that very same moment, Lu Yuzhu heard a muffled rumble from the elevator car behind her.
She twisted around abruptly to see the elevator doors opening slowly. Inside stood a tall, well-built man with broad shoulders and long legs, his beautiful peach-blossom eyes sparking with a piercing flame.
Xie Qingcheng walked out of the silvery-gray elevator car, his gaze burrowing its way straight into her chest.
He Yu’s guess had been spot-on. Lu Yuzhu was indeed here. Before he had entered the archives, the mirrored copy of the program he had downloaded on his phone had notified him of a powerful signal. When He Yu scanned for connections, he found that there was even a link to a detonator.
Multiple detonators.
The only stroke of luck amid this misfortune was that these detonators could be controlled by He Yu’s copy of the software, so he managed to break through the opponents’ firewall to enter the program and stop the countdown.
He Yu and Xie Qingcheng hadn’t notified the police before they charged in; there wasn’t enough time. Besides, they’d already confirmed that there was a mole among the police, so notifying them might only complicate matters.
The situation was as clear as day—Lu Yuzhu intended to use a suicide attack to help her benefactor thoroughly “clean up” the files that served as evidence of their crimes.
“I know there are only five minutes on the countdown. But it’s stopped now.” Xie Qingcheng stared at the woman. “Can we talk?”
“The countdown stopped…? How could the countdown…”
“That’s all thanks to your boss’s fondness for high technology.” A satin-smooth voice came from behind Xie Qingcheng. That was when Lu Yuzhu realized that there was another person standing inside the elevator.
Xie Qingcheng’s presence had been too arresting. When he walked out of those elevator doors as they slowly slid open, he seemed utterly indomitable, treading on her heart with every step. She hadn’t even noticed the young man hidden in the shadows of the spacious elevator.
This young man wore a simple black turtleneck and appeared relaxed and composed. When he stepped out of the elevator, he was even playing around on his phone with a careless air. With his outfit and appearance, he wouldn’t have looked at all out of place in a bookstore or a social club, rather than these archives.
The young man smiled at her. “Lu-laoshi, technology truly is a great thing.”
But he didn’t speak to her all that much—the technician on the opposing side was frantically trying to break through to the program he had just hijacked. He Yu only said a gentle, familiar hello, then leaned back against the wall to continue this silent coding battle. His expression hardened as he focused on his task, and he stopped paying any more attention to Xie Qingcheng and Lu Yuzhu’s conversation.
Lu Yuzhu was a woman who had experienced many great upheavals in her life. After a moment of shock, she regained her composure. She looked them up and down, and her tensed muscles relaxed slightly. “You’re not the police.”
“We’re not.”
“The dogs have yet to follow the scent here, but you’ve arrived first.” Lu Yuzhu narrowed her eyes. “Just who are you?”
Xie Qingcheng didn’t intend to beat around the bush with her, so he cut straight to the chase. “Nineteen years ago, my parents died in a car accident. A driverless vehicle crashed into them, and after they were hit, the engine spontaneously caught fire, destroying all useful evidence. The method was exactly the same as the one your people used to murder Zhang Yong just now.”
“So, were your parents traitors who deserved to be cleansed, or two police dogs?” Lu Yuzhu asked.
“They were police officers,” Xie Qingcheng replied.
“Then that’s a well-deserved death—not unjust at all. Surely they were honored as martyrs after their deaths?” Lu Yuzhu’s face twisted into a mocking smile.
“They weren’t.”
Lu Yuzhu’s smile froze.
“They didn’t die on an assignment, and there was no direct evidence to show that they had been murdered. All their colleagues knew that it wasn’t a coincidence, that it wasn’t an ordinary car crash, but as long as there was no evidence to prove otherwise, it could only be deemed a mere accident.”
Lu Yuzhu’s eyes dimmed slightly, as if she were remembering her own past.
“I’ve seen your records. I know what you’ve been through,” said Xie Qingcheng. He paused before continuing, “I know what it feels like to not receive a fair answer for so many years. Lu Yuzhu, not all police officers are utterly evil.”
Lu Yuzhu didn’t respond right away.
“My parents died in the line of duty when I was thirteen years old. From what I remember, they’d never done anything unconscionable. Instead, they were cruelly murdered because they were relentlessly pursuing the truth for people like you, trying to right wrongs.
“Lu Yuzhu, I know that you hate the reporter who framed you back then and everyone related to the investigation. You left your hometown and suffered so much, so to you, the verdict from three years ago came much too late—it’s impossible to change the past, after all.
“But do you know just how many nameless, unknown reporters, police officers, and prosecutors fought tooth and nail, with some even sacrificing their lives, to bring justice to you and to others like you who were also falsely accused? Why do they offer their blood, their youth, their lives for matters of the past that have already been settled…for matters that may not be forgiven even if the verdict is overturned?
“Because although a belated truth cannot change the past…” Xie Qingcheng’s voice trembled slightly, as though he wasn’t only speaking to Lu Yuzhu but also struggling with the part of himself that had spent nearly two decades worn to the bone. “It can at least steer the future onto the right path. It allows those who have been wronged to raise their heads again, those lifeless, nameless martyrs to rest in peace, the victims to shrug the heavy shackles from their shoulders, and those outside the law to understand the meaning of justice.”
Xie Qingcheng’s voice was calm, and his emotions were restrained as he spoke, but his red-rimmed eyes revealed his already-broken and crumbling heart. “It can’t heal the wounds of the past, Lu Yuzhu. But it’s not meaningless. The truth is never meaningless.
“When the prosecutor found you and everyone bowed to apologize to you, didn’t you feel…a kind of joy when the anger that had been bottled up for ten years vanished? Even though it was accompanied by boundless anguish, in that one moment, you could finally breathe.”