Insights Chapter 133: Not Worth It

Chapter 133: Not Worth It

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: Karai

Penang, thirty years ago, in the early morning hours. It was a seemingly ordinary pitch-black night. A pregnant woman appeared on the streets of Penang. Her name was Yu Yue, once a container. For the past four years, she had been imprisoned, coerced into giving birth to three children one after another, and now she was carrying the fourth.

At only 24 years old, her face was pale, her hair disheveled. She had just escaped from hell, but her family had already moved out of the house in her memory. She had no phone, no ID, and no money. In just a few short years, everything in her hometown had changed. The streets were different, and new buildings had sprung up nearby.

Yu Yue was filled with fear. Long-term imprisonment had taken a toll on her body, and her mental state was nearing collapse. She had walked all the way from the harbor, asking for directions along the road. Her feet were blistered in many places, and she was at her limit. Yu Yue was cold and hungry, feeling like she could faint at any moment.

She stood bewildered at a nearby intersection, her eyes staring into the darkness, trying to remember which relatives and friends she still had. She didn’t know where she should go or whom she should seek out. She briefly thought about asking the police for help, but then she remembered the woman’s words. She couldn’t call the police…

So where else could she go?

Yu Yue stood on the roadside, her nose tingling, tears streaming down her face as she began to sob softly.

Just when she felt hopeless, a large car slowly pulled up in front of her. Yu Yue looked up. Snowflakes were painted on the car; it was a refrigerated truck. The driver of the refrigerated truck was a middle-aged man in his forties, accompanied by a middle-aged woman. They glanced at Yu Yue, and the middle-aged woman asked her, “Girl, why aren’t you home so late?”

Yu Yue knew she was wearing dirty hospital clothes, looking somewhat strange. She wiped the tears from her face, not knowing how to explain her situation. She could only fabricate a lie, “I… I had a fight with my family.”

The middle-aged woman’s gaze shifted downward, landing on Yu Yue’s swollen belly. “Girl, you shouldn’t be out on the street so late, even if you had a fight with your family. Come on, get in the car. We have a spare room at home. You can stay with us for the night.”

Yu Yue hesitated a bit. “Thank you, but it’s not necessary.”

After what she had been through, Yu Yue dared not easily trust anyone. She walked over to a bench by the side of the road and curled up on it. She drifted in and out of consciousness. At one point, she seemed to fall asleep, but then she felt someone tapping her shoulder.

Yu Yue opened her eyes to find that the refrigerated truck, which had driven off, had returned and was now parked not far from her. The middle-aged man got out of the car and smoked a cigarette, while the middle-aged woman woke Yu Yue up.

The woman handed Yu Yue some food and a can of milk. “It’s okay if you don’t want to come with us. It’s better to be cautious, but you should eat something. Even if you’re not thinking about yourself, you have to consider the baby in your belly.”

Yu Yue took the milk, hearing the concern in the woman’s words. Instead of insisting on taking her away, they offered her packaged food, which made Yu Yue lower her guard a bit. Maybe they weren’t bad people after all.

Yu Yue looked at the simple faces of the couple and finally opened the milk. It wasn’t too cold. She drank it in a few sips and then ate some biscuits. The middle-aged woman sat beside her and chatted with her for a while, mentioning that they owned a cold storage and had two lovely children.

Finally, the middle-aged woman said, “I know being pregnant is not easy, and you’re all alone now. Everyone encounters difficulties and needs help at some point. If you don’t want to stay at our place, we can lend you some money and help you find a nearby motel.”

Yu Yue was touched. A couple she had never met before was considering her so much. She was penniless, and the child was still months away from being born. There was nothing to gain from them. Perhaps going to their home would be fine, as long as she didn’t trouble them for more than one night.

Tomorrow morning, she could gather herself and try to find her father’s former workplace, attempting to contact them to see where they had moved. And just because she couldn’t call the police didn’t mean she couldn’t seek their help. If she claimed amnesia and being lost, they might help her find her family.

She had escaped from that hellhole and returned to the world. She could already see the dawn when the sun rose tomorrow. There were still good people in this world. Like the Number 15, like the boatman willing to take them away, like…

The front of the refrigerated truck was relatively spacious, enough to seat three people. The couple made room for her. Yu Yue happily sat in the car. It was warm and quiet inside. She was extremely tired and finally felt a moment of peace. Her hand caressed her belly. She could feel the baby’s movements. This child had been living in her womb for six months, becoming a life.

Even if those men were guilty, the child was innocent. Yu Yue thought she had already lost three children, maybe this one could stay.

At that time, she didn’t think that she had escaped from the wolves’ den only to enter the tiger’s mouth. Since that day, no one else had seen her. Lacking social experience and being naive and kind-hearted, she disappeared from the streets of Penang like that.

Four months later, she gave birth to a full-term baby boy. Seven months later, on the baby’s hundredth day, this poor woman, who had been a container, ended her life. From then on, she became a corpse, sleeping in a corner of the cold storage.

The sun rose as usual every day. More and more new buildings were erected in the city, and the roads were widened. People’s appearances, hairstyles, and clothes all changed.

Time passed, and things changed.

Thirty years passed…

On the night of the Mid-Autumn Festival, a team of detectives quickly assembled and headed towards Zhang Zhaoxin’s house. In less than half an hour, three police cars stopped in front of their house. It was a two-story villa, and from the outside, the situation inside was clear. Various traces indicated that there had just been a fight here.

The lights were on, but the room was messy, with broken plates on the floor and mooncakes that had fallen and been stepped on. There were also traces of blood on the floor.

Shen Junci wore gloves and squatted down to carefully examine it. “There’s not much blood, not fully coagulated yet. Estimated time is not more than half an hour.”

Gu Yanchen also looked around the scene. “Judging from the footprints, he probably abducted his parents.”

Wuliang sniffed around for a while inside, then turned to the door.

The property manager and Bai Meng were checking nearby surveillance footage together. They saw Zhang Yunwei driving away on the surveillance footage.

Bai Meng looked up. “Zhang Yunwei drove the car out, but I don’t know where he went. I’ll contact Skynet for tracking.”

Gu Yanchen pondered for a moment. “He doesn’t have many places to go. Does their family have any other houses or properties?”

Now that Zhang Yunwei had abducted and controlled two elderly people, he couldn’t just find any place. And he hadn’t directly killed them, otherwise, they would have found two corpses.

Bai Meng searched on the computer for a while and said, “Their cold storage business has been doing well in recent years. They purchased another smaller cold storage.”

Gu Yanchen asked, “Exact location?”

Bai Meng replied, “It’s on the west side of the city. It’s already renovated but hasn’t started operating officially.”

Gu Yanchen said, “That should be it. Let’s go there and search as soon as possible.”

.

At this moment, in a small cold storage in the west of Penang. The cold storage was not yet in use, and it was very spacious inside, with only a few chairs left from the renovation. It was set to minus ten degrees Celsius inside, and the refrigeration unit buzzed.

Opposite Zhang Yunwei sat two elderly people whose feet were tied up. He wore thick protective clothing, while the two elderly people wore only ordinary clothes. The thin clothes were completely unable to withstand the cold of the cold storage. The old people’s faces turned blue, and their lips began to turn purple. Ice had formed on Zhang Zhaoxin’s beard, and his hands had been injured during the struggle with Zhang Yunwei. He kept sniffing, his body trembling.

Ji Meiying leaned against him, crying softly. Her tears fell and froze on her face. She wiped them away, leaving frozen trails on her face. Her nose was particularly red, making her look like a clown in a circus. They had been here for ten minutes. Initially, Zhang Zhaoxin and Ji Meiying refused to speak or answer.

But Zhang Yunwei took out a few pieces of clothing. Whoever told the truth would get a piece of clothing. As the temperature dropped, the first to lose consciousness were their hands and feet.

Zhang Yunwei frowned, his voice trembling. “Tell me, who is that woman?”

Zhang Zhaoxin said, “She’s a woman of unknown origin.”

“Do you know her?”

Ji Meiying said, “Kind of… know… She couldn’t even tell where her home was or who else was in her family. We… kindly took her in for a while.”

“Don’t lie. If you don’t tell me the truth, you’ll freeze to death here!” Zhang Yunwei continued to press, “Am I her child?”

The two elderly people fell silent again.

After a moment, Zhang Zhaoxin closed his eyes. “Yes.”

His honesty earned him a thin piece of clothing.

Zhang Yunwei asked again, “Did you kidnap her because of the child in her belly?”

Ji Meiying sobbed and nodded, also receiving a piece of clothing. Once this started, the two elderly people began to reveal their secrets for a bit of warmth. Under the stimulation of the cold, their brains were like machines that had been turned on. They trembled and didn’t bother to conceal much in their speech.

Ji Meiying cried, “We didn’t want to do this either. We also thought about adopting a child, but we waited for a long time and never waited for a healthy child. Your mother… She wasn’t quite right at that time. She would suddenly sit up in the middle of the night and cry all night. One day, she was in the park and saw a girl who looked like your sister, so she picked her up and left. Later, the child’s mother caught up and explained for a long time before she wasn’t taken away by the police. My body can’t assist reproduction anymore. We just wanted a child, whether they were biological or not didn’t matter. We once thought about buying a child, but during that period, there was a crackdown on child trafficking in the city, and we couldn’t find a place to buy a child. So your father said we could try to find a pregnant woman, see if we could find a single mother.”

They spoke of their helplessness as if they were the pitiful ones forced by fate. But to Zhang Yunwei, they sounded like lunatics. After hearing their words, Zhang Yunwei threw a thin shirt at each of them. As they put them on, they regained some consciousness.

“Let us go. Don’t you remember the years of nurturing?” Zhang Zhaosen said, looking at the “son” they had raised for over thirty years.

But Zhang Yunwei’s face remained as cold as ice. He raised those shirts. “I won’t let you go. I want to hear more truths.”

The two elderly people fell into despair. They began to babble about what had happened that night. The moment they saw Yu Yue, they both had evil thoughts. It was difficult to steal the child, but what about kidnapping a pregnant woman? There was no record of the child inside the woman’s belly anywhere. That child belonged entirely to them. As for the woman, after giving birth to the child, her mission was over.

“Son, that woman must have provoked someone outside. There was a time when someone was secretly looking for a woman with a cup drawn on her shoulder. She had it.”

“That woman was crazy, yelling every day, asking us to let her go, saying she would be discovered sooner or later. Later, she died of illness.”

“Lies!” Zhang Yunwei shouted. “The police will conduct an autopsy. You won’t fool me!”

Zhang Zhaoxin sighed. “We had no choice but to kill her.”

“We used charcoal. When we burned the charcoal in the house, she fell asleep. It wasn’t painful at all.” They confessed to the sins buried under the years.

Zhang Yunwei looked at the two trembling old people in front of him, gritting his teeth, and handed them each another piece of clothing. He remembered when he was a child, he wanted a certain kind of candy, and Zhang Zhaoxin bought it for him. He remembered when he was sick, Ji Meiying stayed up all night to take care of him. He remembered the taste of Ji Meiying’s noodles and how Zhang Zhaoxin bought him a house and a car, and even handed over his cold storage business to him.

But none of these were reasons for them to kill! No amount of goodness could cover up their sins. This shouldn’t be his life! He stood in the center of the balance, on one side was the debt of nurture, and on the other side was the debt of matricide. He frowned and asked, “Is a child really that important to you?”

Ji Meiying cried, “Son, you are our life. Mom can’t live without you.”

Zhang Zhaoxin said, “Son, you haven’t had children yet, so you don’t understand. A child is so important to a family. Losing a child will make people so sad. A family without children is like a graveyard.”

“There are so many parents who have lost their only child, but they didn’t become murderers like you. I don’t have children, but I’m doing just fine!” Zhang Yunwei said disgustedly. “And don’t call me son. It makes me sick.”

Back in elementary school, he was bullied by classmates. There was a fat kid who lived in the same neighborhood as him, pointing at him and saying, “You’re not even your parents’ biological child. Our parents are young, but your parents are so old. My mom said she never saw your mom pregnant. You were just a wild child they picked up from the trash heap!”

From that moment on, he realized his difference from others. He searched through his family photo albums and found no pictures of his mother pregnant with him, only pictures of her pregnant with his older siblings. Even two months before he was born, his mother was still slim, showing no signs of pregnancy.

In high school, he studied biology. Zhang Yunwei retrieved his parents’ medical examination reports and their blood type certificates. He couldn’t possibly be their biological child.

A year ago, a man found him. That man’s name was Meng Shi. He had a chat with him. That was a strange man, saying strange things.

“I hired a private detective to search every Penang native of your age. Among them, there are some I’m not sure about, but you, I’m certain. You shouldn’t be the child of Ji Meiying and Zhang Zhaoxin. You are a container child. I think you were taken away by a cuckoo.”

He frowned and asked him, “What do you mean?” He couldn’t understand the man’s riddles.

Meng Shi looked at him and smiled, “I just came to see you, to see what kind of life you are living.”

He stood up and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, I don’t care about those things, I’m living well now. My foster parents also love me very much.”

“Aren’t you curious where your biological mother is?” Meng Shi smiled, his lips curled up, “She wasn’t killed by your foster parents, was she? Killing the mother to steal the child, losing one’s own child, then snatching someone else’s child as compensation.”

Zhang Yunwei’s eyes widened instantly, Meng Shi’s words planted a seed of doubt in his heart. He quickly left.

Since that day, his parents’ indulgence seemed different in his eyes. Could the people who raised him be his enemies who killed his mother? He moved out of the house, dared not eat the food they gave him, and refused the blind dates arranged by his parents. He searched everywhere for informants and clues. But he never dared to ask Aunt Qin, who might really know the truth.

Until today… He watched the police handle the corpse from a distance, feeling a chill creeping up from the soles of his feet. Why would someone do such a thing? He had never been so eager to verify, to understand the truth, to understand his origins. Was his biological mother really the woman frozen in the cold storage for thirty years by the people before him, now weeping bitterly?

Now that he knew everything, he didn’t feel relieved.

Zhang Zhaoxin and Ji Meiying cried bitterly in front of him, admitting their mistakes, begging him to give them a way out, to let them turn themselves in. He threw all his clothes on the ground and watched them desperately grab those few pieces of clothing.

Zhang Yunwei walked out of the cold storage, lit a cigarette for himself. His eyes were red, staring at the darkness in the distance. Thirty years ago, was his mother also like this, staring at the end of the city?

Before he finished smoking, Zhang Yunwei seemed unsurprised when a car stopped at the door. Gu Yanchen got out of the car, Shen Junci opened the back door, and Wuliang jumped out of the car, rushing towards the man in front of him.

Several other police cars also arrived, parking around, blocking his way out.

Zhang Yunwei didn’t say much. He threw away the cigarette butt, raised his hands, let himself be handcuffed, then he said, “My phone is in my pocket, I just recorded something.”

Gu Yanchen asked, “Have you found out the truth?”

“Sometimes it’s better to find the answers yourself,” Zhang Yunwei chuckled bitterly.

The two old people were finally rescued from the cold storage and handcuffed by the police officers. Although their lives were not in danger, they suffered varying degrees of frostbite and would be taken to the hospital.

Zhang Yunwei watched all this coldly. “I didn’t intend to kill them, but I didn’t want them to have it easy either. They froze my mom for thirty years, so I thought they should taste that bitterness too.”

If the police hadn’t come, he would have let them go in a while.

Gu Yanchen said, “If they die, then you’ll be just like them.”

Zhang Yunwei nodded, his eyes clearing up. “I know. Killing them wouldn’t be worth it.”

Shen Junci thought of something and showed Zhang Yunwei a photo of He Wenlin saved in his phone. “Have you seen this person?”

Zhang Yunwei examined it for a moment. “I have. This person told me that the people who raised me might be the ones who killed my mother.”

Not everyone, after being tempted by the devil, would descend into hell. Between being human and being a beast, he chose to remain human. The law would punish them; those two would pay for their crimes.

After DNA testing, the police confirmed that Zhang Yunwei was biologically related to the female corpse. The frozen corpse case was finally solved. Following the information provided by Zhang Zhaoxin, Gu Yanchen traced back and found out the identity of Yu Yue.

Yu Yue’s parents were still alive. When they learned that their daughter had once gone to the old house to look for them, the two elderly people cried bitterly. They were also willing to recognize their grandson.

After the Mid-Autumn Festival holiday, Yu Shen found Gu Yanchen with a serious expression and pulled him aside in the corridor, “Captain Gu, I’ve discovered something.”

“What is it?” Gu Yanchen asked.

Yu Shen said, “Before this incident, we searched the police records and didn’t find any reports from Yu Yue’s parents.”

Gu Yanchen grunted. He had noticed this too, which was why they hadn’t been able to confirm Yu Yue’s identity immediately. But according to Yu Yue’s parents, they had indeed reported her missing after she disappeared.

The Penang City Bureau had digitized all case files over a decade ago, making them networked and digitally operated. Old files and cases had been scanned and organized, stored in the police archive.

Gu Yanchen asked, “Is it possible that the records were lost?”

Yu Shen shook his head. “More than just this case is missing. I checked the police system, and I couldn’t find any records of my parents’ disappearance.”

He was the one who reported that case, and over the years, it had been a lingering scar in his heart. Since joining the detective team, he had never actively searched for that case. Until Yu Yue’s disappearance couldn’t match the records.

Gu Yanchen frowned.

It was impossible. Although it was also a case from over a decade ago, it was investigated by the City Bureau, and Lu Ying was the officer in charge of that case. There should not only be a record of the report, but also the police’s investigation and interviews.

Yu Shen said, “I checked based on the case number, and the number is different, but the content of the case files is the same as another case. So when browsing the numbers, it’s impossible to detect the missing records.”

Gu Yanchen comforted Yu Shen, “I understand this matter now. I will verify it and find the case file for your parents.”

Yu Shen grunted and walked away. Gu Yanchen returned to his computer, pondered for a moment, then opened the police system and entered Mo Xueqing’s name. Back then, after my mother disappeared, my grandparents also reported it to the police. According to normal procedure, as long as you enter this name, relevant cases should appear in the system.

Gu Yanchen pressed the enter key.

A few words appeared on the screen: “No relevant records found.”

He entered another name, “Lin Luo.”

This time, the case information popped up. This was the case Gu Yanchen was most familiar with; he almost memorized all the testimonies inside. He scrolled down and saw the squad leader’s testimony: “I saw Zhou Chen injure Lin Luo.”

But he remembered that the original document stated: “I didn’t see what happened in that room.”

At that moment, Gu Yanchen felt a chill creeping up from behind. He remembered another function of the Cleaner, to erase network data. When people rely too much on electronic systems, vulnerabilities arise. Occasionally noticing a missing case, people would just think it’s lost or a system error. Changes in the records make it even harder to detect. Who would stare at old cases or sealed cases every day?

They handle cases, trusting these electronic records.

Gu Yanchen stared at the computer screen, lost in thought. Those people had long discovered that erasing a piece of information is much easier than erasing a scene. Especially those cases from a long time ago, where witnesses have died, or even the firsthand witnesses have given up or forgotten.

Over time, five years, ten years, twenty years, can you still find the truth? The world they see is just the world others want them to see. False information formed a maze before his eyes.

Gu Yanchen called Shen Junci.

After listening to him, Shen Junci’s voice was cold, “I understand. Then we’ll find a way to break through these illusions.”