Lin Xirou said to herself, “That’s right.” She had never harmed that woman, but once or twice, it was that woman who had made the moves against her. Hadn’t she been courteous to the Yan Huaishan family? She hadn’t used them as blood vessels, and after dying once and coming back, she hadn’t even held a grudge about being pushed into the bathtub and electrocuted—why couldn’t that woman just live quietly without causing her trouble? Why couldn’t she learn to behave and stop hitting brick walls?
Yan Tuo’s words truly resonated with her heart.
“Are you saying you don’t mind what happened in those early years?”
Yan Tuo said, “It’s not that I don’t mind. I spent a lot of time thinking about it. I can’t say who was right or wrong. When my mother tried to kill you the second time, if she had succeeded, wouldn’t you have been the one who died? It was a fifty-fifty situation. I guess heaven just wasn’t on her side.”
“Then how do you see me?”
Yan Tuo was silent for a moment. “The one who raises you matters more than the one who bore you. Aunt Lin, to be honest, you’ve raised me all these years without ever mistreating me.”
“What about your sister then? I took your sister away. What do you think about that?”
Yan Tuo smiled slightly. “Want the truth?”
“Tell me the truth.”
“The truth might seem a bit heartless,” Yan Tuo said. “Before seeing the diary, I wasn’t even sure if I had a sister or not. Later when I found out I did, I couldn’t remember what she looked like anymore. More than twenty years have passed without any interaction—if I claimed to have deep sibling feelings, that would be pure lies.”
“Don’t you want to know your sister’s whereabouts?”
“I’m curious. If you’re willing to tell me, Aunt Lin, you might as well let me know. After all, she’s family. If she’s not doing well, I could help her out.”
Lin Xirou stared intently into Yan Tuo’s eyes. “Why did you hide the diary so secretly, afraid of people finding it?”
Xiong Hei, who had been listening on the side, couldn’t help but interject: “Sister Lin, isn’t that question unnecessary? If he left it by his bedside, wouldn’t that make you uncomfortable?”
Lin Xirou shouted harshly: “Shut up!”
Xiong Hei felt awkward and rolled his eyes toward the ceiling.
Yan Tuo sighed, gesturing at his current situation: “This is exactly what I was afraid of. I feared that once you knew, you’d have misgivings. And I worried you’d think I shouldn’t know your early secrets… Besides, it’s all in the past. I thought not mentioning it, not asking about it, would be better for both of us. So I just left it there.”
Lin Xirou stopped questioning and looked down at the diary on the floor.
No wonder the brick-red cover looked familiar at first glance: Yan Tuo’s mother indeed had a habit of keeping a diary. Several times, she had seen her writing intensely under the desk lamp while she was comforting the restless little Tuo.
After a while, she suddenly threw out another question: “That time at the farm, when we were interrogating Gou Ya, why were you eavesdropping at the door?”
So the farm incident had come to light.
Yan Tuo felt more at ease internally: Earlier, he had felt there were too many “buried mines” around him and had carefully thought through how to explain if things came to light.
“I was curious,” he said. “Gou Ya had been ‘dead’ for so long, then suddenly appeared alive and kicking. Aunt Lin, do you know how excited I was? I’d only seen Brother Xiong’s fingers regrow after being cut off, I’d never seen someone come back from the dead. You wouldn’t let me in, so I could only listen outside—but I listened openly, didn’t I? I knew there were cameras, I didn’t hide or dodge. I thought at the time if I get caught on camera, so be it. After all, I’ve never hidden my curiosity. I’ve told you about it, told Brother Xiong too.”
Xiong Hei nodded unconsciously. It was precisely that attempt to join in and Yan Tuo’s “confession” that had changed his opinion, making him feel that Yan Tuo was quite genuine.
It was rare to find someone who knew the inside story and could still maintain a friendly attitude toward Di Xiao.
What a pity they couldn’t recruit him—wasn’t he much better than failures like Gou Ya or Li Yueying?
“What about Chen Fu and Han Guan then? Were you involved in what happened to them?”
Yan Tuo’s scalp tingled, and he nearly changed color, but he quickly recovered, expressing confusion: “Chen Fu and Han Guan?”
After a pause, he seemed to realize something: “You mean the companions Brother Xiong was looking for in the surveillance footage?”
He smiled bitterly: “Aunt Lin, I only knew what they looked like after Brother Xiong told me they were missing. You never introduced them to me before, how would I know them?”
Lin Xirou could barely contain herself: “Then why did you appear in the area shortly after their disappearance, driving Lu Xian’s car?”
Yan Tuo looked puzzled: “Driving Lu Xian’s car?”
Soon, he seemed to “remember” and turned to look at Xiong Hei: “Brother Xiong knows about this.”
Xiong Hei looked confused: “Me?”
“At the time, I was staying at A-Peng’s place. In the middle of the night, Brother Xiong brought someone who had been shot, telling me they’d taken care of Jiang Baichuan’s people and it was all over. I thought since everything was finished, I should leave too, so I borrowed Lu Xian’s car the next day, planning to drive back to Xi’an—if Brother Xiong hadn’t said anything, I might have stayed a few more days.”
Xiong Hei remembered now and said: “That’s right, that did happen.”
“But I hadn’t slept well the night before, and I wasn’t used to driving Lu Xian’s car. I kept dozing off on the road and almost crashed into someone else’s car. I thought, forget it, in this state, I’d never make it back to Xi’an, so I turned back.”
At this point, he looked up at Lin Xirou: “Aunt Lin, I was wondering why you’ve been acting strange since I came back, hinting at things—so it was all about this? If there’s anything else you’re unsure about, just ask everything at once. Better than keeping it bottled up inside.”
Lin Xirou remained silent.
She didn’t have anything else to ask.
Yan Tuo also stayed quiet, his back feeling uncomfortably cool as his sweat-soaked shirt clung to his skin.
He was determined about one thing: whether it was the farm surveillance, the traffic cameras outside Shi He County, or this diary, none of it could prove anything.
Unless Lin Xirou had concrete evidence, she could only suspect him but couldn’t condemn him.
This was just questioning; if it came to physical confrontation later, he would have to maintain the same stance.
Important matters were in progress, and he needed to keep things running smoothly.
After a while, Lin Xirou instructed Xiong Hei: “Come outside with me for a moment.”
…
Two left, leaving two in the room. Feng Mi’s gun was no longer pointed at him; she was just playing with it in her hand.
Yan Tuo frowned: “Don’t play with the gun. If it goes off accidentally, I’ll die unjustly.”
Feng Mi listened and stopped playing. After a few seconds, she asked: “You just said to ‘ask everything at once,’ so let me ask one thing. Let’s see if you tell the truth.”