Volume One, Chapter Ninety-Eight: Your Mother Has Always Been Watching You

Qin Yu laughed as well, with the harmless smile of a lamb, “You would be better off turning yourself in at the police station than making me say it out loud.”

Fresh gossip had just come out, and the chat exploded.

“One moment, let me grab my popcorn.”

“Peanuts, beer, and melon seeds are ready. I’m waiting for today’s big revelation.”

“Such empty bluster. I want to see how this fraud is going to keep acting.”

“Hey, upstairs, I advise you to keep your voice down. Otherwise the slap in the face later is going to hurt.”

“What business is it of yours?”

“None. I just got slapped once myself, so I’m kindly warning you.”

Li Hua froze.

What did she mean by that? Did she really know something?

No. Impossible. He had even fooled the police. How could she possibly know? Unless she was some kind of immortal!

“Sorry, I just came out of the police station.”

Qin Yu smiled. “Then do you know your mother has been watching you from above all along?”

A chill ran down everyone’s spine.

“Damn, that gave me goosebumps.”

“Ma’am, please don’t say it like that. It makes me feel like my own mother is watching me from above too.”

“Honey, hit him!”

“Bluffing is your usual trick for grabbing attention. If you’ve got the guts, do it for real!”

Li Hua was startled by Qin Yu’s words, and the cold on the back of his neck nearly froze him in place. Yet his mouth remained stubborn. “My mother has been dead for a month. How could she still be around? Stop trying to scare me!”

Qin Yu looked at the old woman above Li Hua’s head, her face full of disappointment, and could not help feeling sorrow for her.

“Now that you’re living in this house, it must be very comfortable, isn’t it?”

Her gaze turned cold as she fixed on Li Hua’s eyes, and her presence grew instantly oppressive.

On one hand, Li Hua was under the mental pressure Qin Yu was releasing; on the other, he felt a creeping chill behind him, as if a ghost were truly standing there.

“This is my house! Of course I’m comfortable living here!”

He howled, trying to hang up the call, but he could not.

“When midnight comes and you dream, do you ever dream of your mother dying in misery?”

Li Hua completely broke down. His eyes turned scarlet, webbed with bloodshot veins. “That was not misery! I was helping her find release! She was such a dignified woman, lying on that bed, eating, drinking, relieving herself there, day after day. How terrible must that have been? I was only helping her be free! She ought to be grateful to me!”

Murdering one’s mother?

How can you still call yourself human?

They always said raising children was for old age, but if this is the kind of son I’d raise, I’d rather send myself straight to a nursing home.

Another day of being terrified of having children.

But if I were bedridden, with every bodily function reduced to a humiliating mess, I truly might think death was a release.

Would you still feel that way if your own son pulled out your oxygen tube?

That is your opinion. If you want to die, no one is stopping you. But don’t force your views onto others. Whether someone lives or dies is their freedom. Don’t use your own morality to blackmail everyone else!

Qin Yu’s heart ached faintly, because she saw two streams of tears running down the face of the old woman above Li Hua’s head.

To hear with her own ears the son she had loved and protected all her life speak those words was like a knife driven into her heart, then twisted again and again.

Qin Yu looked at Li Hua and asked on the old woman’s behalf, “Do you truly feel no remorse at all?”

Li Hua laughed. “Remorse? Why should I feel remorse? Didn’t she love me the most? Even if she knew, she would still side with me! Me, regret? What do I have to regret?”

Qin Yu shook her head, too speechless to continue.

This man truly was beyond saving.

She changed the subject. “Then what about your sister? What did she ever owe you? Do you really not feel guilty for framing her and sending her to prison just to get your hands on your mother’s house?”

Li Hua’s laughter grew louder. “Guilty? They forced me into it! If my sister had handed over my mother’s house earlier, would I have had to kill my mother? They forced me to do all of this!”

“Madman! This man is a madman!”

“If his mother has been watching him all along, how heartbroken must she be?”

“I don’t think there’s much to be heartbroken over. He was obviously spoiled rotten. This mother brought it on herself.”

“The dead deserve respect. Once a person is dead, there’s no point arguing over right and wrong anymore.”

Qin Yu truly pitied him. “Turn around and look at the wall behind you.”

Li Hua had no desire to listen to her. With a cold laugh, he said, “Stop trying to trick me with those despicable little schemes. I’m not falling for it.”

Qin Yu shook her head. “I only want you to look at the marks where something had been nailed to the wall.”

Li Hua turned around in disdain and, sure enough, saw four holes. “And then what? Don’t tell me my mother’s ghost nailed something there?”

Qin Yu shook her head again. There was only pity left in her eyes. “There used to be a surveillance camera there.”

Li Hua’s eyes widened in shock. “W-what?”

“Your mother was bedridden for a long time. Your sister worried that the hired caregiver might not look after her properly, so she installed a camera at home. But on the night your mother died, she took the camera down.”

The chat erupted once more.

“Whoa, the plot just got seriously brain-burning.”

“So that means the camera actually recorded the brother killing their mother, right? And the sister removed it to protect him?”

“Really? Fake? I’m crying over this sister!”

“The key point is that the sister knew the brother had killed their mother, and she still chose to go to prison herself in order to protect him. What kind of heavenly sister is this?”

“But am I the only one who thinks this sister is foolish? She protected such a piece of trash!”

“Upstairs, it’s obvious you don’t have any younger siblings. Most of the time, protecting them has nothing to do with what kind of siblings they are. It’s simply because they are your siblings.”

Li Hua stared in disbelief at the four little holes in the wall. For a long time, he could not believe it.

“Why didn’t she expose me? Why?”

“Because you are her brother. Her only brother.”

“But I killed Mother! I even framed her and made her take the blame for me!”

Qin Yu said nothing, letting him slowly digest the blow.

Above him, the old woman wept as if rain were falling from the sky.

She turned her pleading gaze toward the screen, knowing Qin Yu could see her.

Qin Yu’s compassion stirred. With a small gesture, she made the hovering old woman gradually take shape and appear.

“Ahhh! A ghost!!!”

“What’s the big deal? Seeing ghosts in the master’s livestream is perfectly normal, isn’t it?”

“Oh my god, is this not a hologram? The streamer’s technology is impressive.”

“Just you wait!”

“A ghost!”

The old woman drifted to Li Hua’s side, and he screamed in terror.

She was over seventy now, with not a tooth left in her mouth.

Pouting angrily, she lifted a hand and only wanted to tap his forehead. “You ungrateful son! Just wait till I beat you to death!”

Li Hua’s soul nearly fled his body. With a thud, he dropped to his knees. “Mother, I really had no choice! They said if I didn’t pay the money back, they would beat my son to death! My sister wouldn’t let me use your property deed for a loan! I could only kill you and frame her!”

He burst into tears, snot and tears streaming down his face, but not a shred of sympathy could be stirred.