The few people there surrounded the table, three pairs of eyes fixed on Qiao-Qiao's notebook. For half a minute, none of the three said a thing, their hearts all sharing the same thought as though by telepathy: What kind of tumour had been growing in your esteemed mother's brain?

After a while, Gan Qing finally asked gently, "It was… your mother who told you that you have to take revenge?"

Qiao-Qiao first nodded a little hesitantly, then shook her head.

Yu Lanchuan asked, "So did she or did she not?"

Gan Qing raised a hand and gave him a warning nudge, then asked Qiao-Qiao again. "Your qinggong is pretty good. Who taught you?"

Qiao-Qiao wrote: My mum.

She seemed unsure where to start explaining. After pausing for quite a while, she signed at Yan Hao. Yan Hao's sign language had yet to pass the TEM-8 level. The two of them gestured for a while, then stared into each other's eyes for yet another while, communicating soundlessly for a long time with both sign language and brain waves. Outsiders looking at them were completely lost.

Yan Hao finally clutched at his hair and summoned the courage to open his mouth and said in a voice as soft as a cat's mewing, "Uhh… Maybe I'll speak for her… She said that thirty years ago when that thing happened, a few Beggars' Sect seniors were held up by Yang Ping and made to drink. Yang Ping sent people to each of their homes to notify the families. The Travellers' Sect people who were lying in wait took the chance then to kidnap them… Her eldest maternal uncle was one of those messengers."

Qiao-Qiao made two hand signs.

Yan Hao said, "Oh, she said that her mum came from a difficult background and had been raised by her eldest brother since young. The two of them had always depended on each other."

Gan Qing said, "Meizhen-jie told me before that Yang Ping colluded with Travellers' Sect and the messengers were actually leading the way for the kidnappers…"

Qiao-Qiao waved her hand repeatedly.

Gan Qing asked, "What is it?"

Yan Hao explained in a stammering voice, "I-It wasn't like that. Qiao-Qiao said that her eldest maternal uncle was on very good terms with the few sect elders and also had a shixiong-shidi relationship with her paternal grandfather. He only found out what had happened the night before on the next day. At that time, he had left right after delivering the message. Because it was too late, he didn't even go into their homes and had just talked to them at their doorstep."

Thirty years ago, the kidnappers from Travellers' Sect had used some kind of method to enter the homes of the core members of Beggars' Sect and kidnap their families.

Those core members did not operate businesses at their homes and their doors were not left open all the time. Late at night, they should have been reasonably wary. That was why, from Zhang Meizhen to Gan Qing and Yu Lanchuan, they all agreed that the reason why Travellers' Sect's kidnapping was successful was none other than Yang Ping colluding with them secretly. They used the victim's trust in the messengers to trick them into opening their doors and that was why they could launch a sneak attack.

"Based on your words, the messengers are innocent?" Yu Lanchuan said. "In that case, Yang Ping is also innocent. Why did you attack him?"

Qiao-Qiao's bright and clear little face again showed a trace of the furious resentment that was like a vengeful female ghost. This girl was born with a lovely and pitiable little girl's face so the degree and speed of the change in her expressions was an unusually shocking sight, like there was a scary doll hiding under her skin.

Yang Ping is not inno... She wrote in her book like she was using a knife to carve on stone. Even after a long while, she couldn't finish the word "innocent." Her writing was getting messier and messier and she seemed unable to control her own hand, scrawling a large black circle on the page. One look and anyone could tell that her heart was hoping that Yang Ping would ascend to paradise as soon as possible.

"Don't rush, take your time." Gan Qing thought for a while. "At that time, something so big happened to Beggars' Sect and it definitely would have been investigated thoroughly. Taking it from the top—your grandpa and the rest of them were called away by Yang Ping and the messengers were sent by Yang Ping. I don't know what the others thought but if I were there back then, I would feel that it was too much of a coincidence. Yang Ping is very suspicious but the Beggars' Sect people did not suspect him."

Yan Hao spoke for Qiao-Qiao, "That was because Yang Ping stood forward to howl and wail at the very first moment, blaming himself for insisting on gathering them that day and causing so many deaths. He thought of those messengers as his uncles and they were publicly acknowledged to have good characters. They were also close to the victims so there was no way they could all betray them at the same time."

When outsiders came up with conspiracy theories, they always sounded so convincing and logical. For example, Zhang Meizhen had a complete theory of her own but if there was one or two key points that fell through, this sinister plot would become a paper tiger and appear flimsy.

Just as Yu Lanchuan had said, if the messengers were not suspicious, then Yang Ping also indirectly put himself in the clear. He had only organised a gathering, a few of his loyal and faithful good friends had met up with him, what was wrong with that?

Everything that happened after that was definitely an unfortunate coincidence.

Qiao-Qiao calmed down for a while and wrote: My eldest maternal uncle said, "He used me." He said it a few times. He left a letter to my mum and told her to send it to my grandpa. After reading it, my grandpa hurried home with her and found out that my eldest maternal uncle had already killed himself. After that, my mum and my dad were sent to the countryside by my grandpa.

Two young people whose families were killed, staying in the same unfamiliar environment—naturally, they got together.

While the first blossoming of love in other young people resulted in the couple mutually sharing the sudden rush of their inexperienced desires, the two of them depended on each other for survival and shared the deep and bloody feud that neither could shake off.

Qiao-Qiao wrote: Later on, they had me. I was born unable to talk so my parents discussed how to live their lives peacefully. They could not go on the same way anymore. Between the two of them, one was left behind to take care of me while the other continued to investigate. I've seen the letters my dad wrote to my mum. He said that he had nothing left other than his family now. Me being the way I am must be retribution. They agreed on three years. Three years later, he would return and live peacefully. No matter what had happened to the older generation, they would let it go. However...

However, he did not return.

Gan Qing leaned back against the chair. "I have a guess, I don't know if it's correct."

Yu Lanchuan immediately turned his head to look at her. "Hmm?"

Gan Qing fell silent for a few seconds. She started to speak but stopped herself, and she waved her hand. "It's nothing."

She was thinking, those luckless fellows whose lives were exceptionally bumpy should spend more time reflecting on themselves instead of just blindly regretting the present and hoping for the future. Didn't these people realise? Every time people like them said something like "I have nothing left, I only have…" they would very quickly lose whatever it was they had left.

Below the deep abyss, there was only still the same deep abyss. What kind of bottom limit could there be to the fate of an ant?

Gan Qing's eyes curved and she smiled at Qiao-Qiao. "Go on."

Qiao-Qiao wrote: For every day that there was no news from my dad, my mum became worse and worse. Every time she talked to me, she would take a deep breath and force a smile, then purposely keep her voice very low. She depended on doing all that to remind herself to control her emotions. She had never raised her voice to me. But when I was young, I always had nightmares. In the nightmares, my gentle mum would always suddenly have a ferocious and monstrous face and chase after me, wanting to choke me to death.

A child's eyes were like a kitten or a puppy's sense of smell. They could discern the joy or sorrow that the adults thought were very well hidden under their skin.

When she lost everything yet was tied down by a disabled child and could not even die, no matter how much she acted as though there was major going on, the poison in her heart would flow out along with her every breath. Unless she stopped breathing, there was no way she could hide it.

Qiao-Qiao wrote: There was once when I had a nightmare and I was very scared. I went to my mum's room but I saw her with her hair messy and sitting there in a daze, then suddenly smashing her fist against the wall until the white wall was bloody. Before that, I had seen blood on the wall too but she had always said that they were marks left behind from hitting mosquitoes. I was so scared at that time. I sat at the door and cried. She heard the noise and carried me up, bouncing me and coaxing me to sleep and at the same time, saying that even revenge was a must even if it meant giving up on being human.

But she could not fall asleep. The woman's trembling hands were nearly choking her to death.

The girl's character seemed to have a very sharp split. One moment, she was like a clear, unblemished crystal; the next, she was like a ghost child grinding her teeth and sucking blood.

She was probably a natural mirror, faithfully reflecting the two faces of her mother in the daytime and at night.

Yu Lanchuan knocked the tabletop, putting a stop to everyone's myriad and complicated feelings like a wet blanket. "Wait, I still have a question. If the messengers were innocent, then how did Yang Ping collude with Travellers' Sect and kidnap the sect elders' families? Surely it was not pure luck?"

Qiao-Qiao looked at him and blinked guilelessly.

"You don't know either?" Yu Lanchuan asked, feeling his head swell. "You don't know but you just took a knife to attack him directly?"

Qiao-Qiao lowered her head. After a while, she wrote in her notebook: I heard the Travellers' Sect's Branch Master Zhang say so.

When Zhang Meizhen was reminiscing about her youth with Gan Qing, they unexpectedly didn't notice that there was a little demon cat near them. Qiao-Qiao was truly gifted.

Qiao-Qiao's face perked up and she continued to write: Otherwise, why would that old man Yang throw out his own biological son?

Yan Hao had deep respect for Old Sect Leader Yang. Hearing her speak rudely of him, he spoke up to stop her. "Qiao-Qiao…"

Qiao-Qiao's hands seemed quick enough to take flight as she made a series of hand signs at him.

Gan Qing asked, "What is she saying?"

It probably wasn't anything pleasant. Yan Hao's face reddened and he shook his head hard, refusing to translate.

Yu Lanchuan waved a hand. "You can think what you like but you were lucky this time. Yang Ping brought trouble on himself and didn't give you the chance to screw things up. If you do this again, no one can help you. You'll be eighteen in two months. When the time comes, you won't even have any excuse to get a lenient sentence. Can I trouble all of you to put a stop to these things for now and live peacefully?"

Qiao-Qiao didn't dare raise her head under the force of his scolding.

Yu Lanchuan said, "And also, it's good that you like small animals but there must be a limit to good things too. In the future, if you're worried about the moral quality of the people who adopt the animals, you can refuse them or just implement a system of getting recommendations from people you know. I don't want to hear anything about the 'breaking into high-rises without stealing' cases anymore. Entering private residences without permission is against the law. Just one home with CCTV is enough to send you to the police station."

Qiao-Qiao looked at him in shock. For a second, there was some panic in her eyes and she swallowed. The girl harboured no deep schemes in her chest and her face could be easily read in a glance, her thoughts obvious enough to be presented in a court of law: Even though it was indeed me who did that, how did you know? I'm shocked.

"Who else could it be other than you?" Yu Lanchuan's heart was weary. He extended a hand and snapped his fingers in front of Gan Qing's face. "I have nothing else to ask, let's go."

"I have one more question." Gan Qing grabbed his wrist and asked Qiao-Qiao. "Before your father lost contact, approximately where was his last letter from?"

Qiao-Qiao answered on paper: The neighbouring province. I don't know the exact address. I went to investigate before but I'm not familiar with the place and didn't find any clues.

Gan Qing's eyes narrowed slightly.

Qiao-Qiao wrote: Jiejie, what's wrong?

Gan Qing stood up and looked at her from above. She reached out and pinched the girl's sharp chin. "When I was seventeen, I was just like you, full of hatred and revenge."

Qiao-Qiao's eyes widened and glimmered as she looked at her.

"If I can go back to that year now, I would study hard and take the exam to enter university," Gan Qing said in a low voice. "But I don't have a second seventeen years old."

After saying that, she left the pet store with all the cats and dogs there seeing her off.

Yu Lanchuan caught up to her in just a few steps. All of a sudden, he felt an urge to do something and so, before Gan Qing crossed the road, he took hold of her left hand that was hanging by her side. There were blades hidden on Gan Qing's left wrist and this hand of hers was the same as a lethal weapon. Caught off guard, she instinctively wanted to fight free but Yu Lanchuan spread his fingers and enclosed her "lethal weapon" entirely in the palm of his hand, their hands fitting snugly against each other.

Gan Qing looked at him in shock.

"Don't cross the road when the light's red." Yu Lanchuan was instead looking in the direction of the zebra crossing at the crossroads, his gaze fixed steadily on the pedestrian light on the opposite side of the road, refusing to meet her gaze. "Can you break traffic laws as you wish just because you're a pedestrian?"