One year ago, on a whim, I told my wife a story.
Due to its bizarre content and overly realistic details, she was terrified out of her wits.
Afterwards, I deeply regretted it and emphasized countless times that the story was made up. But her trust in me had already crumbled, and the way she looked at me was filled with fear.
That night, she fled into the bathroom, locked the door, and called the police.
As a result, I ended up in prison.
Now, I will sort out the entire incident as follows.
**I**
My name is He Mu, and I’m 42 years old. Since I’ve loved mystery and reasoning since I was a child, I’ve become a mystery novelist.
I’ve been married to Shan Jing for many years, and we’ve always gotten along well. She has always been my first and loyal reader.
Apart from writing novels, I have a hobby that I’ve persisted in for many years, which is raising reptile pets. Turtles, frogs, lizards – these small creatures with different shapes fascinate me.
I’ve specifically set up a room for my reptile pets at home. I also took great pains to build a large ecological tank in the room, simulating the ecological environment of the tropical rainforest to provide a natural and comfortable habitat for my beloved pets as much as possible.
Although I now rely on writing for a living, I actually majored in bioengineering in college, and now I can be said to be applying what I’ve learned.
When I first met Shan Jing, she had some complaints about my hobby. But she’s an easy – going person, and over time, she also came to love the reptile pets because of me. Gradually, she also found these little creatures cute.
After getting married, we didn’t have children and instead raised reptile pets together, which brought us a lot of joy. Many times when I was rushing to finish my manuscripts, so busy that I didn’t stop day or night, it was she who took care of the pets more.
One night, when I finished my work, it was already midnight. Shan Jing hadn’t gone to sleep either.
I went to the reptile pet room and saw her observing a frog.
She sighed and said, “Actually, I used to be quite afraid of these cold – blooded animals.”
Then she casually asked me, “He Mu, is there any animal you’re afraid of?”
I thought for a moment, and suddenly a strange idea flashed through my mind.
“Yes,” I said seriously. “I’m afraid of sheep.”
She was very puzzled. “Why? Sheep are so gentle.”
“Because the eyes of sheep are very strange,” I said in a serious manner. “Are you not sleepy yet? Let me tell you a story.”
It was late at night and quiet. The light in the reptile pet room was dim, and the slender vertical pupils of those lizards were watching me.
“You’re being so mysterious,” Shan Jing smiled. “Go ahead and tell me.”
“The protagonist of this story is named He Mu.”
“Why is it your own name?”
“This way, it has a sense of substitution.”
**II**
– Story 1 –
1.
My name is He Mu. I’ve loved mystery and reasoning since I was a child and was determined to enter a police academy and become a criminal police officer in the future.
At that time, I thought that my future life would always be smooth sailing.
The accident happened in the summer of 1997. I was 17 years old, and my father was sending me to take the college entrance examination.
Before entering the examination room, my father called me, looked at me deeply, seemed to want to say something but held back. Finally, he said, “You will definitely get good grades and be admitted to the police academy.”
At that time, I didn’t notice anything unusual about my father. I just took it as a routine encouragement, nodded, and then turned around and entered.
I really did well in the exam. When the last subject ended, I rushed out of the examination room, eager to share my joy with my father.
However, my father was gone.
2.
Every time there was a major exam, my father would wait for me outside the examination room.
He would hold the bicycle, looking intently at the door. When I came out after the exam, squeezing through the crowd and reaching him, he was still looking around.
I would call out to him, and he would suddenly be overjoyed, patting the bike seat hard. “Son, you’re done with the exam. Let’s go home!”
Then I would jump onto the back seat of the bike, talking animatedly all the way about how easy the questions were. He would laugh, telling me to be more modest, but he would pedal even harder, creating a cool breeze.
My father would ride the bike with me, going uphill, downhill, on mountain roads, and dirt roads. The wheels kept turning, passing through many years. The shoulders and back of the person in the front seat gradually became hunched, but they were always majestic.
– Such small things, because they had become a habit, I took them for granted, regarding them as the law of the world. My father was a silent and strong support, and thus I was able to move forward without distractions.
Once this law was broken, I was left in a panic.
I looked around outside the examination room, running and shouting, describing the appearance of an ordinary middle – aged man to passers – by. But precisely because he was so ordinary, no one paid attention to him.
I searched aimlessly, feeling uneasy.
Nothing will happen. He might have gone back first.
Thinking like this, I went home alone. But my father hadn’t come back early either.
My father had disappeared.
3.
My mother said that on the night before my college entrance examination, my father was inexplicably irritable, and they had a few words. Maybe he was angry and ran away from home. He would come back in a few days when he calmed down.
I thought this reason was a bit strange, but I could only accept this explanation.
A man running away didn’t sound good. We didn’t make it public and searched secretly. But for several days, there was no news.
The college entrance examination seemed to really become a major turning point in my life. My father disappeared after I finished the college entrance examination.
I didn’t understand why my father would abandon us. Looking back, there was no reasonable sign. Since I could remember, my father was a steady and family – oriented man, honest and down – to – earth. He silently cared for his family and protected the family in the simple way unique to most Chinese fathers.
I had no doubts about my father’s love. But my father just left like this.
My mother said again, “Could he have gone to find your brother?”
I have an older brother who is five years older than me and was born with a visual disability.
My brother left home to work very early and never came back. There was no news of him, as if he had also disappeared from the world.
Could this be the reason? My intuition told me no.
A month later, the neighbor also noticed something was wrong and reported it to the police. The enthusiastic neighbor also described my father’s appearance, height, weight, etc. to the police.
The police came to our house with a solemn expression. They didn’t talk about finding my father but just collected fingerprints everywhere.
The next day, they came again and brought an earth – shattering secret about my father.
4.
In 1985, a mass murder occurred in a mountainous area of a neighboring province. A family of five was killed, and none of them survived.
The crime scene was in a remote place, and this family lived in isolation, so there were no direct witnesses.
The police investigated the social relationships but found nothing. The murderer was not an enemy but just a random passer – by from another place. This greatly increased the difficulty of solving the case.
The police collected the suspect’s fingerprints from the victims and the murder weapon. Through inquiries, they learned the general appearance of the suspect, but they still had no clue. The case was shelved for 12 years.
A murder must be solved, and they would not give up. A young policeman was following his master to investigate this case at that time and was very persistent. More than ten years later, the young policeman happened to be transferred to our county. After my father’s disappearance was reported, he sensitively sensed something.
The police came to my home, collected my father’s fingerprints, and took them back for comparison. The results showed that they were consistent with the fingerprints of the suspect in the mass murder 12 years ago.
At the moment I learned the truth, a dull pain like being hammered came from my heart, pressing hard, again and again.
In 1985, I was 5 years old. My father worked outside and would bring me a rattle when he came back and take me to play on the mountain. His warm big hand held mine, and I didn’t know it was bloody.
After I started school, my father would pick me up by bike. On the way there, he told me to study hard, and on the way back, he praised me as a good boy. The scenes of riding in the wind and laughing and chatting turned gloomy, turned black and white, and finally fell apart.
The majestic figure that I naturally trusted collapsed overnight; the deep fatherly love I once had was also like an illusory bubble.
The world shattered and then reorganized. The rumbling dull sound suddenly dissipated, leaving only a cold sentence –
My father was a murderer.
5.
My father killed a family of five and fled. He returned to his wife and son without changing his expression and continued to live a peaceful life.
He had put up a good pretense, so my mother and I, quite unexpectedly, became the family members of a murderer.
Then, in the year I was 17, he left again without saying a word.
This was not only a heavy emotional blow to us but also a substantial one.
A direct relative committing a serious crime had a serious impact, and my dream of becoming a police officer was shattered.
Later, I didn’t take the entrance exam for the police academy. I went to an ordinary science and engineering university and majored in bioengineering. Then I studied, graduated, and worked in an orderly manner, becoming an ordinary person.
My father disappeared in 1997 and never appeared again. The mass murder case remained unsolved.
The heat of the case decreased over time, but the police would not give up. My father was listed as a fugitive and wanted.
My family was completely broken. My mother passed away from illness after I graduated from college. My brother still didn’t come back after many years. I moved to the city where I am now, and my hometown was left empty.
After graduation, I worked in a microbiology research institute for a few years. My daily life was very monotonous. Besides writing novels, I raised reptile pets. In 2009, I met my true love, Shan Jing. We got married, and life continued in peace.
Until 2011, the police found a skeleton in a desolate river valley in the mountainous area of my hometown.
6.
Based on the local climate and the degree of corpse decomposition, it was estimated that the person died about 10 – 15 years ago, that is, around 1996 – 2001, which corresponded to the time my father disappeared in 1997.
Based on the bone age, it was estimated that the person was 30 – 40 years old when they died, which also corresponded to my father’s age (40 years old) when he disappeared.
The body had completely turned into a skeleton, so fingerprints were naturally useless. But now, there is a powerful tool in criminal investigation technology, which is DNA testing.
In 1985, when the mass murder occurred, the technology was backward, and the police only obtained the suspect’s fingerprints.
In 1997, when my father disappeared, the police compared my father’s fingerprints and confirmed that my father was the one who committed the mass murder in 1985. But the DNA technology was still backward. The collected biological samples could only preserve blood samples and test blood types, and DNA testing could not be carried out.
So at that time, the police couldn’t obtain my father’s DNA. They only collected my blood sample and stored it in the database.
In 2011, when the skeleton at the foot of the mountain was found, after more than ten years, the DNA technology had gradually become mature. The police extracted the DNA of the skeleton for testing and comparison. The results showed that the skeleton and I were father – son.
It took decades in total. Fortunately, thanks to the progress of technology, there was more persuasive proof.
The skeleton at the foot of the mountain was my father who had been missing for many years. The police quickly notified me.
After all these years, I still remember what clothes my father was wearing on the day he sent me to the college entrance examination. It was a striped vest. Now, fragments of clothes were wrapped around the skeleton, and the same pattern could be vaguely distinguished.
The death of the wanted criminal meant that criminal liability was no longer pursued. The mass murder case was thus closed, and the shadow of my father’s generation that I carried finally came to an end.
Since it was over, there was no need to talk about it anymore, so I never told my wife, Shan Jing.
**III**
Having told this far, I asked Shan Jing, “What do you think of this story?”
Shan Jing couldn’t hide her shock and only asked, “Is this true?”
“Don’t care whether it’s true or false.”
But Shan Jing was very persistent. “I don’t know much about your past. I only know that you come from a single – parent family, you were raised by your mother, your father disappeared when you were young, and your mother passed away later. I know these past events are the pain in your heart, so I’ve never taken the initiative to explore.
“But today, you took the initiative to tell me such a story: the protagonist is also named He Mu, his father also disappeared when he was young, his mother also passed away later, he also majored in bioengineering in college, and later wrote novels and raised reptile pets. In 2009, he married Shan Jing – that is, me… So this is really your own story, right?”
“This is to make it more immersive and enhance your reading experience,” I explained. “Don’t care about the truth. Go back to the story itself and tell me your thoughts.”
Shan Jing looked at me suspiciously but finally chose to believe.
She thought for a while and said, “You said you were afraid of sheep and then told this story. But it seems that this story has nothing to do with sheep.
“Also, there’s a detail problem. In the story, after the father disappeared, the mother and son searched for a month without reporting it to the police. Finally, it was the neighbor who reported it. It feels a bit strange. Four or five days would be understandable, but a month seems too long. It doesn’t seem like they were really worried about the father.
“The content itself is quite tortuous, but the story is too straightforward. It’s just that the father was a murderer, then he disappeared, and finally his body was found and the case was solved.”
“You’re right,” I paused and said. “The story isn’t over yet. What I just told is only the main plot. Next is the hidden plot.”
“The father actually didn’t die.”
**IV**
– Hidden Plot –
1.
I’ve loved mystery and reasoning since I was a child and once dreamed of being admitted to a police academy and becoming a criminal police officer.
In 1997, I was 17 years old and took the college entrance examination. The moment I put down my pen was the moment I was closest to my dream.
But then an accident happened.
With a direct relative committing a serious crime, I couldn’t become a police officer. So my father said to me, “Son, I have to die.”
2.
Actually, the day after the college entrance examination ended, I found my father.
My home is in the mountains, surrounded by endless mountains. Since I was a child, my father has taken me climbing, taught me to study the plants on the mountains, and caught small animals like lizards and frogs for me. So my hobby of raising reptile pets has its origin.
We even opened up a unique mountain path just for our father – son pair. It was thrilling and exciting and also very interesting.
Somehow, I had a premonition. I anxiously searched for my father for two days, at a loss. Then, suddenly, I had an inspiration and thought of that mountain path.
I quickly made my way up the mountain along the path. Sure enough, I found my father by the cliff.
After sending me into the examination room, he came here alone and sat there for a day without eating or drinking. He wanted to commit suicide but was also afraid.
I didn’t understand and cried, asking him, “Why, Dad?”
My father also cried. He told me the secret he had hidden in his heart for many years.
3.
Shortly after I was born, my father went out to work and only came back during the Spring Festival.
In 1985, on his way back home, the car broke down, and he had to walk for a while. At night, he took shelter in a family’s house.
Because he had a lot of money on him, he was extra cautious when sleeping at night. In the middle of the night, he really heard someone sneak into his room. It was the male owner of the house.
My father was furious and fought with that person. The male owner directly took out a knife, determined to rob the passer – by.
My father panicked. The more panicked he was, the harder he fought back. Instead, he snatched the knife and killed the male owner.
With someone dead, my father became even more nervous. Afraid of being reported by others, he got carried away and his eyes turned red.
When he gasped and came to his senses, all five members of this family had been killed by him, including women and children.
My father knew he had committed a crime and fled that night. The crime scene was in a neighboring province, some distance from home. He crossed two mountains, and his mood gradually calmed down. Then he got on a road and caught a ride back home.
After that, my father didn’t go out to work anymore and has been farming at home ever since.
4.
My mother was easy – going and never probed into what her husband did outside. She always believed in her husband.
The terrifying word “murder” was too far from us. We never thought it was right beside us, nor did we notice any signs.
In our eyes, my father was a truly good man, who valued family affection, loved his wife and children, and wholeheartedly protected the family.
However, my father’s psychological burden grew heavier day by day.
I was smart and had excellent grades since I was a child. My father was always proud of me. As I grew up day by day, my father became more and more worried that he would become a burden to me.
Because I had the great ambition to become a police officer, while he had the hidden secret of having killed someone.
Time passed quickly. By 1997, a series of homicides occurred in a neighboring city, causing a serious social impact. The local police carried out a large – scale investigation, extracting and screening the fingerprints of more than a hundred thousand local men.
If the suspect couldn’t be found in the neighboring city, they might very likely come to our place for investigation, and might also uncover the suspect of another old case from 12 years ago.
One can’t escape one’s fate forever. My father knew that he would be exposed sooner or later. If he didn’t end his life before the truth came out, I would bear the stigma of being the son of a murderer.
So in the same year when I took the college entrance examination and stepped onto a broad new journey, my father’s path came to an end.
5.
My father told me everything in detail.
I didn’t know whether the details he told were true or if he had whitewashed his motives for killing. The father who told me these past events made me unable to trust him wholeheartedly anymore.
But in any case, whether that family wanted to rob him or he impulsively committed a burglary, he had killed people.
I was silent for a long time and soon calmed down. “Dad, come over to me first.”
He stood on the edge of the cliff, crying with his face covered, shaking his head vigorously. But the ground under his feet loosened, and he lost his balance, falling backwards.
My father’s pupils suddenly contracted, and his arms flailed around. My heart skipped a beat.
I rushed forward in one go and managed to grab him in time, pulling him away from the cliff edge.
Rocks and soil fell off the cliff, and no sound could be heard except the howling mountain wind. My father gasped heavily, looking dazed.
Fortunately, it was a narrow escape.
I knew my father was afraid of death. Intellectually, he wanted to end his life, but when it really came to it, he couldn’t be as calm as he thought.
I took my father’s hand and said, “Dad, it’s too high here. Let’s go down a bit and you can see how high it is.”
My father let me lead him without refusal. So we walked to the side and slowly went down towards the river valley.
The downhill road was dangerous and unopened. We stumbled for two hours before finally reaching the flat ground of the river valley below.
Directly above was the cliff we were at before, so high and far away, hidden among the overlapping plants on the mountainside, only showing a tip.
I looked up and said, “It’s so high. If you jump down, it will hurt a lot.”
My father said, “I have no other choice.”
It was already dusk, and the sky was filled with colorful clouds. The wind blew through the valley, rustling, and it was a bit cold.
At this moment, I felt a calm and terrifying gaze.
I looked around and found a sheep not far away, looking at us. It was looking so quietly, like an outsider.
I started to shiver all over.
6.
I’m afraid of sheep because of their eyes.
This is a childhood trauma of mine. Since I was a child, I’ve been deeply tormented by the terrifying feeling of being stared at by sheep’s eyes.
Most animals have round pupils or vertical pupils, through which their emotions can be seen and explored.
But sheep have horizontal pupils. Such eyes are a mystery, completely unpredictable. They are neither cute nor fierce, showing no emotion, and seem extremely strange.
A sheep stands not far away, quietly looking at you. You don’t know what it’s thinking. If you look into its eyes for a long time, it remains as calm as ever, but people will lose control.
Obviously, it’s such a gentle and vulnerable animal, but it seems to have some power to control people’s minds, inducing people to do something, especially to kill it.
It seems to be an arrangement by fate.
I withdrew my gaze, opened my arms to hug my father, and said firmly, “Dad, you’ve killed people, but I’m not afraid, nor do I hate you.
“You will never be a burden to me. Maybe others see you as a demon, but to me, you’re just my father, the best father.
“I want to be a police officer, but that doesn’t mean I have a strong sense of justice. I just like mystery and reasoning. This hobby can lead to two paths, one towards good and the other towards evil. Even if I can’t be a police officer, I won’t be at a dead – end.
“If my beloved father is a criminal, I will give up my original choice without hesitation and stand firmly by his side.”
I knew I wasn’t right, and I knew there were five bloody lives, but I couldn’t bring myself to turn in my own father. I had my own selfish motives and really wasn’t worthy of being a police officer.
After saying that, without waiting for my father to respond, I bent down to pick up a stone and walked towards the sheep.
That sheep, with its strange horizontal pupils, quietly watched me approach and quietly watched me raise the stone. It didn’t move at all.
I smashed the sheep to death, blow by blow.
The birds returning to their nests were startled from the forest, flapping their wings and scattering in all directions. Blood spurted out, blending with the crimson glow of the setting sun and the waters of the river.
My father looked at me in shock as I committed this act of violence. He didn’t understand what I was doing, but as if guided by some divine force, he came to help me.
One of us grabbed the front legs of the sheep, and the other grabbed the back legs. We jointly lifted the sheep’s body and threw it into the hidden bushes near the mountainside.
After doing all this, I looked at my father deeply and said word by word, “In religion, a sheep is sacrificed as a scapegoat.”
“Dad, the sin you committed will be repaid by it. Now you’re dead, and we can go home.”
This was a psychological hint like deceiving oneself, but it worked.
My father was somewhat comforted. He was stunned for a while, still feeling uneasy. “Sooner or later…”
“Let’s worry about the future when it comes. Things will eventually work out,” I said firmly. “Dad, trust me. We’ll both be fine.”
As the sky gradually darkened, I took my father’s hand and went up the mountain, following the original path back.
Since I was a child, my father had taken me climbing many times. He always held my hand and walked in front to lead the way.
This time, I wanted to walk in front of him.
7.
My mother learned about my father’s past earlier than I did. She also deeply loved my father but was powerless about his choice.
A few days ago, she endured the sadness and hid it from me. She watched me anxiously looking around but couldn’t say anything. When she saw my father again tonight, she burst into tears.
After experiencing such a false alarm of separation and death, our family of three hugged each other and cried bitterly that night.
From the next day on, my father became a ghost in the house, no longer able to show himself in the light. Even if his crime hadn’t been exposed yet, we had to erase his existence in advance, just in case.
This wasn’t the best way, but it was a suitable one. We could only take one step at a time.
My mother and I spent nearly a month slowly cleaning up my father’s things and, intentionally or unintentionally, spreading the word to create the appearance that my father had left home with his luggage.
Having read a lot of detective stories, I had some knowledge of fingerprint technology. So I carefully wiped every place in the house where my father might have left fingerprints.
When no one came to the house, my father could move around wearing gloves. If someone came, he had to hide in the cellar. This was a kind of torture for my father, who liked outdoor activities. But he could endure it.
But we never expected that the trial of justice would come so quickly.
A month later, the enthusiastic neighbor “reported it for us” to the police, and the police also became suspicious.
I wiped the fingerprints carefully, but the police were even more careful. They found a fingerprint left by my father above the door frame.
So the truth came out.
8.
When the police came the second time, they collected my blood sample. After that, they kept an eye on my house in case my missing father came back.
Especially a police officer surnamed Lu was very dedicated to the case. He was the one who handled the mass murder case back then, and now he happened to be transferred to our place.
My home is in a mountain village, surrounded by mountains, with high mountains and long roads. The police couldn’t watch all the time and could only visit every once in a while.
My mother and I were excellent actors. From the shock and disbelief when the police told us the truth to the hatred and ignorance during each subsequent visit, we performed very well.
In addition, we deliberately hinted to the police that my father had behaved unusually before his disappearance and had left some decisive words. We didn’t pay attention at that time, but later thought that my father might not come back to avoid implicating us.
When the police weren’t around, we were also very cautious. Since there was a murderer in my family, the neighbors interacted with us less and didn’t notice any flaws. So when the police visited the neighbors, all they could get was that my father had left and hadn’t come back.
Gradually, the police also thought that it was unlikely that my father would come back, and the frequency of their visits became lower and lower. They couldn’t imagine that my father was always at home.
In 2001, I graduated from college, and my mother passed away from illness. I went back to my hometown to hold a funeral for my mother.
My father lost my mother’s protection and could no longer hide in my hometown. He had hidden for a full four years.
After the funeral, I secretly took my father to the city and found a small clinic to give my father plastic surgery.
The surgery was successful, and my father recovered quickly. The new face wasn’t completely unrecognizable. At least it allowed my father to walk in the sun.
At the door of the clinic, I wrote the phone number and address on a note and handed it to my father, telling him that we couldn’t live together just in case.
So we parted in the morning mist.
9.
In 2001, the new century began. My father and I started new lives in the same city.
I majored in bioengineering in college. After graduation, I worked in a research institute for many years, staring at the microscope every day, dealing with various microorganisms.
My father used the identity of a deceased fellow worker to enter a metallurgical factory. The work involved contact with strong acids, and he took advantage of his position to habitually corrode his fingerprints.
We corresponded with each other using fake names and burned the letters after reading them.
Considering that Police Officer Lu still came to me from time to time, we soon gave up regular letter – writing and switched to a more inconspicuous way of exchanging information.
For example, we would choose a fixed seat in a noodle shop. My father would go to eat noodles in the morning and hide a letter under the seat. I would go to eat noodles in the afternoon and pick up the letter.
We occasionally made an appointment to go climbing. When we arrived, we would look at each other from a distance and then go up the mountain together. I couldn’t hold my father’s hand like I did when I was a child and could only keep a distance like strangers.
Life went on like this for several years.
In 2007, something unexpected happened. On the way of climbing, I felt that calm and terrifying gaze again.
The gaze of a sheep.
I suppressed the fear in my heart and turned back to look. There were crowds of people, and I didn’t see a sheep. Instead, I saw Police Officer Lu in plain clothes. He was following me.
After discovering this, I continued walking calmly, gradually deviating from the original direction and further increasing the already large distance from my father.
Police Officer Lu didn’t notice anything unusual, and it was a narrow escape.
However, we couldn’t be so cautious forever. My father was right back then. This wasn’t a long – term solution.
My father had plastic surgery, but if you looked closely, you could still see his past appearance. He corroded his fingerprints, but they would grow back. Even if the fingerprints could be erased, DNA was an eternal mark.
As early as 1997 when my father disappeared, my DNA was already in the hands of the police.
I always knew that if the case wasn’t closed, the past would never pass.
10.
In 2009, I got married to Shan Jing. Not long after getting married, I took Shan Jing to climb the mountain so that my father could have a look. Of course, Shan Jing didn’t know the truth.
In the subsequent letter, my father said that although he could only see from afar, he could tell that Shan Jing was as gentle as my mother.
He told me that he was very satisfied with his daughter – in – law, was very happy, and even ate an extra bowl of noodles.
I laughed when I saw that letter, laughed until I cried, and then lit a lighter to burn it.
Please be patient a little longer, Dad.
It’ll be soon.
11.
In 2011, the old matter finally came to an end, and Police Officer Lu no longer came to me.
People who like mystery and reasoning don’t only have two paths, towards good or towards evil. There is a third path in the middle. I switched to become a mystery writer.
When we made an appointment to climb the mountain again, we looked at each other from a distance across the crowd. Then I walked straight towards my father.
My father pretended to look elsewhere, occasionally focusing on me. When I got close enough so that we were no longer at a stranger’s distance, my father panicked, frowned, winked, and turned to leave.
I stepped forward, grabbed my father, and said to him, “Dad, the case is too old. The police told me that they won’t investigate anymore.”
“What?”
“It’s all over. We can be like we used to be now.”
In 2001, my father and I parted at the door of the plastic – surgery clinic. Ten years had passed since then until now, and only now could we meet at such a close distance.
My father was 54 years old. Half of his hair was white, and his wrinkles were deep. Because of the habit of corroding his fingerprints, his hands were mottled and rough, making him look even older.
These ten years were so long, but at this moment, it seemed like the fast – forward button had been pressed. In my impression, my father was clearly middle – aged, but now he was suddenly old.
I hugged my father and choked, “It’s all over, Dad. You don’t have to be scared anymore. We can meet in the open.”
That day, I helped my father and we climbed the mountain together. Such a walk together was long overdue.
12.
My father and I met openly as mountain – climbing friends. We wouldn’t call each other father and son in front of others, nor did we plan to live together. Because after so many years, we both had our own lives.
My father changed to a job in a bookstore and met Aunt Wang, who loved reading. The two of them got together. They didn’t get married but just accompanied each other.
Aunt Wang had a 25 – year – old daughter. My father treated her well, and she was filial to my father.
Just like that, another ten years passed.
In the summer of 2021, my father suddenly had a heart attack and passed away at the age of 64. Aunt Wang’s daughter held a funeral for him, and I attended as my father’s mountain – climbing friend. According to my father’s last wish, his ashes were scattered on the mountaintop.
Sometimes I think that the most difficult times have passed. My father should have lived a few more good years. But that day, when my father and I climbed to the mountaintop, my father said, “I’ve been living on borrowed time for many years. I should have died in the summer of 1997.”
That day, I told my father that the case was too old and the police had given up. My father believed me.
What he didn’t know was that the police would never give up chasing a wanted criminal who had been put on record.
The police stopped investigating because the case was closed.
**V**
Having told this far, I stared blankly at a corner of the reptile pet room and didn’t continue.
Shan Jing looked at me, saying nothing.
I asked her, “What are your thoughts?”
Shan Jing’s eyes flickered. “I feel like this is true.”
“Stop dwelling on what’s true and what’s false.”
“I don’t know. I never knew these things,” Shan Jing said, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath. “You said this was just a story, that it was fake. But not long after we got married, you really took me climbing. I didn’t know that I was meeting your father that day. For a while, you really often went to a noodle shop to eat noodles, and you also regularly went hiking alone… All these details match up. I believe all this is true.”
Shan Jing covered her face, her shoulders trembling.
“This is a novel,” I stepped forward and hugged her, coaxing softly. “I just filled in some dramatic plots in the blanks of my life to make it more immersive. — Since you care so much, I won’t tell it anymore, so as not to make you overthink…”
“No, you continue,” she wiped away her tears, pushed me away, and her eyes were cold. “There are still many things in the main plot that haven’t been explained in the hidden plot. Tell me, why was the case closed? What’s going on with the bones the police found? Was it that sheep?
“How could the police not tell whether a skeleton was a human or a sheep? This ‘scapegoat’ thing is just a religious myth. Tell me, what exactly is going on?”
I looked at her pale face and hesitated. “Do you really want to hear it? I’m afraid you can’t handle it.”
“You have to tell me.”
**VI**
– The Truth –
1.
In the story I told just now, there were some parts that I just mentioned briefly. And next, he will be the protagonist.
I mentioned before that I have an older brother who is five years older than me. He was born in 1975, and I was born in 1980.
So at first, there were four people in our family: my parents, my brother, and me.
I’m afraid of the eyes of sheep because sheep have horizontal pupils, which are calm and strange. You can’t tell their emotions, and they’re unpredictable. As I mentioned before, I’ve been tormented by the terrifying feeling of being stared at by sheep’s eyes since I was a child.
But we didn’t raise sheep at home.
What I’m afraid of is my brother.
2.
My brother has a visual disability. He was born with congenital iris coloboma, which makes his pupils not round but horizontal like a sheep’s, and it terrifies me.
I’ve been healthy, good – looking, and smart since I was a child. My parents almost gave all their love to me.
In contrast to me, my brother looks strange, has a gentle and quiet personality, talks very little, and is also slow – witted. At first, my parents were good to him, but as time went by, my mother began to be afraid of him.
He would stare at people quietly with those eyes. When you asked him something, he wouldn’t answer, just stare quietly. No one could stand it.
The villagers avoided him like the plague and even refrained from mentioning him out of superstition. There was a grandpa in the village who believed in Christianity. He said that in the West, goats are inauspicious things, the incarnation of the devil, and they will induce people to do bad things. My brother was the devil.
The whole village ostracized my brother, and my parents were also influenced. My father later told me that he had subconsciously excused himself, thinking that his killing in 1985 was precisely induced by this inauspicious child.
After what the grandpa who believed in Christianity said, my father seemed to have grasped a straw of hope and never treated my brother well since then.
My brother knew that he wasn’t welcome, so he dropped out of school early and left home to work. Soon, the villagers forgot about him. It’s more like they didn’t want to remember something bad.
My brother never came back, and there was no news of him. When the police came to visit, they didn’t know about my brother’s existence.
It wasn’t until after my mother passed away in 2001 that he came back once.
3.
During the days of my mother’s funeral, many people came to mourn, and Police Officer Lu also came to pay his respects.
So my father could only stay in the cellar. Every day, I secretly went down to bring him food.
After the funeral, for safety’s sake, my father still had to stay in the cellar for a few more days.
One day, I went down to the cellar to deliver food as usual.
The light was dim, and it was completely silent.
Suddenly, I felt that calm and terrifying gaze again.
I turned my head and saw my brother standing behind me, looking at me expressionlessly.
I was so scared that I almost fainted, and my father was also very surprised.
We never expected that my brother would come back. He had been gone for many years.
That night, the three of us, father and sons, sat around the table. The atmosphere was awkward and stagnant.
“I haven’t been back for a long time. I kind of miss you,” my brother said, wearing a pair of brown – tinted glasses to cover his eye disability. “I didn’t expect that I couldn’t see mom for the last time.”
“However,” he took off his glasses, and his pitch – black horizontal pupils stared at me without blinking. “What’s going on with dad?”
I remained silent.
“Why does dad have to hide in the cellar? Why did you tell me not to tell others that I saw dad?”
I avoided his gaze and just said, “… Anyway, this is to protect dad.”
“But,” my brother’s expression was still gentle and harmless, but he slowly uttered terrifying words. “Shouldn’t murderers pay for their lives?”
My brother had heard the rumors. We had no choice but to tell him the whole story and hoped he would keep it a secret.
But he just stared at us quietly with those unpredictable sheep – like eyes and said nothing.
The next day, my brother and I exchanged contact information and then he left. I originally planned to take my father away a few days later, but because of my uneasiness, I took action earlier.
After that, I took my father to the city for plastic surgery, then we parted, and later corresponded with each other and occasionally went hiking.
Until 2007, my brother suddenly contacted me again.
4.
In 2007, my brother came to my house and stayed for two weeks.
He asked me where my father was. I told him that my father had left and that I hadn’t seen him for many years.
During those days, I had to read my father’s letters secretly in the public restroom and refused to let my brother follow me when I went hiking. I kept hinting to him to leave my house as soon as possible.
On one hand, I didn’t want him to know where my father was. On the other hand, I didn’t want to have any involvement with my brother because the police would come to me from time to time, and I was afraid he would tell the police the truth. In the end, I just couldn’t trust him.
Of course, there was another reason. He had those eyes that terrified me, and he was unpredictable.
One day, on the way of climbing, I felt that terrifying sheep’s gaze again, so I turned back to look.
I saw Police Officer Lu, and behind him, my brother.
He was looking at me coldly with those sheep – like eyes.
Police Officer Lu didn’t find my father’s whereabouts, but my brother did.
The two of them followed me one after another. My brother knew about Police Officer Lu’s existence. He didn’t report it, but it seemed like he could at any time.
When I got home at night and was feeding the pets in the reptile pet room, he came in and said that sentence again, “Shouldn’t murderers pay for their lives?”
5.
At that moment, I suddenly wondered what the meaning of my brother’s existence was.
Why did he look like a sheep? Why did he come back after leaving home for so many years? Why did he always say, “Shouldn’t murderers pay for their lives?”
It seemed that there was some inescapable fate hidden in it.
My father had plastic surgery, but if you looked closely, you could still see his past appearance. He corroded his fingerprints, but they would grow back. Even if the fingerprints could be erased, DNA was an eternal mark.
As early as 1997 when my father disappeared, my DNA was already in the hands of the police.
If the case wasn’t closed, the past would never pass.
Suddenly, I understood everything. I understood the meaning of my brother’s existence and thought of a once – and – for – all solution.
Yes, shouldn’t murderers pay for their lives? Paying with the life of a sheep was not enough.
My brother, with those unpredictable sheep – like eyes, stared at me quietly. Silently, he had the power to induce people to lose control.
He induced me to pick up a rope and walk towards him.
Induced me to wrap that rope around his neck.
My brother wasn’t the incarnation of the devil. He was the second scapegoat.
6.
I majored in bioengineering in college. You know, many forensic doctors originally studied this major.
In 2007, I killed my own brother at home. Then, I deliberately asked my father for his old clothes and put them on my brother’s body.
I decided to spend a few years faking a reasonable corpse of my father.
To be reasonable, there are mainly three points.
The first point is age.
When the body has turned into a skeleton, the age at death can only be judged based on the bone age. For minors, whose bones are still developing, the bone – age detection is relatively accurate. For adults, whose bones are fully developed, there is a certain error in bone – age detection, and only a rough age range can be estimated.
In 1997, when my father disappeared, he was 40 years old. My brother was born in 1975, and when he died in 2007, he was 32 years old, 8 years younger than my father.
Later, after the police’s appraisal, the medullary cavity of the humerus reached the surgical neck but not the epiphyseal line. The police determined that the age of the person when the skeleton died was about 30 – 40 years old, which corresponded to my father’s age when he disappeared.
The second point is the degree of corpse decomposition.
There was a huge ecological tank in the reptile pet room, which was originally built just for raising reptile pets. I buried my brother’s body in the soil of the ecological tank while paying attention to ventilation.
The city where I live is not far from my hometown. This area has a temperate monsoon climate. The decomposition speed of a corpse in this region is relatively slow.
The ecological tank simulated a tropical rainforest. This artificial ecosystem had been running smoothly for two years. The decomposition speed of a corpse in a tropical rainforest environment is very fast. So I could create the illusion of the passage of time by artificially adjusting the temperature, humidity, and microorganisms. It only took a little over two months for the body to turn into a skeleton and the stench to dissipate.
To make the final presented time reasonable, the decomposition speed needed to be strictly controlled, neither too fast nor too slow. I couldn’t adjust the temperature and humidity out of thin air. I needed a reference. So in 1997, the body of the sheep that I smashed to death came in handy.
If my father had really died in 1997 instead of that sheep, then by now, the degree of decomposition of my father’s bones would be similar to that of the sheep. So the bones of the first scapegoat could be used as a reference.
Since 2007, I went back to my hometown every three months. Ostensibly, I was cleaning the old house, but actually, I was going to get a piece of the sheep’s bones.
I adjusted the temperature and humidity of the ecological tank according to the decomposition degree of the sheep, and thus controlled the decomposition degree of my brother’s body. Until 2011, the decomposition speed of the second scapegoat caught up with that of the first scapegoat.
Later, I also collected the soil at the foot of the mountain in my hometown for inspection, and in advance cleaned the bones of my brother and replaced them with the soil at the foot of the mountain to ensure that the soil environment and the situation of microorganisms were finally the same.
So, in just four years, this skeleton had already shown the form of having decomposed for ten years in a temperate region.
After graduating, I worked in a research institute, and many of the inspections were secretly completed with the help of the institute’s equipment. When everything was settled, that is, in 2011, I resigned from the research institute and switched to become a writer.
In 2011, I sent the second scapegoat to a hidden place in the mountainous area of my hometown. Half a month later, I anonymously reported the location of the bones to the police using a public phone.
After the police’s appraisal, it was estimated that the person died about 10 – 15 years ago, that is, around 1996 – 2001, which corresponded to the time my father disappeared in 1997.
The third point, and the most important one, is DNA. My father didn’t leave any DNA back then, but I did.
In DNA testing, the Y – STR testing technology is mainly used for male suspects. Y – STR is unique to males and is inherited in a paternal haploid manner. Here, Y refers to the male Y – chromosome.
My brother and I both inherited the Y – chromosome from our father. The three of us, father and sons, have the same Y – chromosome.
After the police’s inspection, the Y – chromosome of me and that skeleton matched at all loci, with no gene mutations…
**VII**
“I can’t listen anymore…” Shan Jing interrupted me weakly. Her expression was distorted, and she was on the verge of collapse. “I really, really can’t listen anymore…”
“Your father is a killing monster, and so are you. You’re even more perverted and insane… I never thought that you killed your own brother right here in this house, in this reptile pet room…
“He Mu, you killed your brother in 2007, but I married you in 2009! I’ve always trusted you wholeheartedly and have been kept in the dark all this time —
“I was dragged by you to climb the mountain to meet your murderer father. I took care of the reptile pets in this room, but I was living with the corpse in the ecological tank day and night…”
“Calm down. This is just a novel,” I said, feeling a headache. “This isn’t real. It’s just a fabricated story with a sense of reality. I originally wanted to make you more immersed, but I regretted it halfway through. I didn’t want to tell the rest of it…”
Shan Jing kept muttering to herself, “… When I married into this family, that corpse had already been there for two years. I stayed in the same room with a corpse without knowing it… This is terrifying… just terrifying…”
“Honey, trust me, okay? I’m just a suspense novelist!”
“Honey, trust me, okay? I’m just a mystery novelist!”
“No, no, I can’t trust you anymore… Rather, whether to trust you isn’t up to me…”
Her eyes were glazed, and she looked at the mobile phone on the table.
“Calm down!” I realized what she was going to do and immediately got up to grab the phone.
But she was faster. She snatched the phone, held it tightly, and rushed into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
“Calm down and listen to me!” I chased after her and knocked on the door. Hearing her sobbing inside, I became more and more anxious. “Even if the story is true, it’s 2021 now. The case has been closed for ten years. There’s no way to prove it anymore. The relevant people have all passed away, right?”
As soon as I said this, I secretly thought it was bad.
She cried, “You admitted it was true… I have to call the police!”
I was left speechless.
**VIII**
The police came to the door, and Shan Jing told them the story.
After listening, the two police officers laughed. “Ma’am, stop crying. This is really just a story. Your husband is not kind, making up such a story to scare you.”
“I really regret it,” I said, annoyed. Then I asked, “But how do you know it’s made up just by listening?”
“DNA testing isn’t that unreliable. You’re majoring in bioengineering. Don’t you know? For male members of a family, as long as there’s no gene mutation, the Y – chromosome is the same. It’s not just the three father – son pairs. Grandfathers, uncles, they all have the same Y – chromosome as you. Just determining that you and that skeleton are in a father – son relationship merely because the Y – chromosome loci match is far too hasty.
“In DNA testing, besides the Y – STR testing technology, there is also autosomal STR testing. Looking at both together, it’s even more impossible to misjudge brothers as father – son.”
After saying that, the two police officers continued to comfort Shan Jing.
“It’s really a father – son relationship,” I said.
The three of them looked at me in shock.
“Actually, the story isn’t finished yet.”
**IX**
– The Foreshadowing Ten Years Ago –
Since I was a child, I’ve loved mystery and reasoning. I often listened to the legal programs on the radio and read detective stories, so I have some knowledge of fingerprint technology and DNA technology.
The day after the college entrance examination, I found my father by the cliff, killed the first scapegoat, and took my father home to hide him.
After that, I carefully wiped every corner of the house to ensure that no fingerprints or DNA of my father were left. But the police still found a fingerprint. After comparison, they determined that my father was the murderer of the mass murder.
Fortunately, in 1997, the local DNA technology was still backward. The police didn’t collect skin flakes or hair. They could only preserve blood samples and test blood types, and couldn’t conduct DNA testing. So the police couldn’t obtain my father’s DNA. They only saved my blood sample for future use.
The first day the police came, they found the fingerprint, and I had a premonition. I knew that if the fingerprints matched, the police would come back the next day and also take my blood. So that night, I deliberately got my father’s blood.
The next day, the police told me the comparison result and the truth. I was shocked, scared, and couldn’t believe that my father had killed someone, just like every inexperienced child, in a state of confusion.
When the police took my blood sample, they didn’t guard against me. Instead, they kept reassuring me. At that time, the blood – collection process wasn’t very strict either. So, they didn’t notice that I secretly took a sample collection card. When the police were registering my personal information, I dropped my father’s blood onto the card.
Just like that, without their notice, I secretly swapped my father’s blood with mine.
So later, the DNA in the database that was supposed to be mine was actually my father’s DNA.
In 2011, the police found the skeleton at the foot of the mountain and conducted a DNA comparison.
The DNA of the skeleton was my brother’s, and the DNA in the database (which was actually my father’s) was used for the comparison. My mother had passed away, so it could only be a father – son dyad test. The results showed that it was indeed a father – son relationship, the relationship between my father and my brother.
It’s just that the positions of the father’s sample and the son’s sample were reversed, but this didn’t affect the conclusion. Thus, the mass – murder case was successfully closed.
So, why did I swap the blood samples back then? Did I plan to fake the corpse ten years later? No, my thoughts at that time were very simple.
I thought my father wouldn’t hide at home for a lifetime. He would eventually escape. What if my father committed another crime in the future? He would surely remember to wear gloves, but it’s very difficult to hide DNA.
In the future, DNA technology would keep advancing, getting closer to that of developed regions. Later, the police could extract DNA from hair, skin flakes, and other traces. If my father committed another crime and left his DNA, and the police compared it with the DNA in the database and found it was mine, then I could take the blame for my father, even if it was only once.
I no longer trusted my father completely, but I still loved him deeply. I originally wanted to be a police officer, but because I was my father’s son, I could only stand on the opposite side of the police.
I risked everything, standing in front of my father, planning to turn myself into the second scapegoat.
**X**
“Later, my father didn’t commit any more crimes. Until the case was dismissed in 2011, this scapegoat of mine was never used.
“Back then, the suspect in the mass – murder case died, and criminal liability was no longer pursued. The case was directly dismissed without going through the trial stage. My father didn’t leave a criminal record, and I wasn’t much affected either.
“It seems as if nothing had happened.”
After the story was told, the two police officers looked solemn, and Shan Jing was almost in a faint.
I was stunned for a while before I reacted. I slapped my thigh hard and shut up.
The next day, the police started to investigate me.
They investigated my background, took my blood for re – testing, and moved the soil in the ecological tank out one trip after another. They investigated for a whole week but didn’t find anything unusual.
Because it was originally fake, just a story.
Come to think of it, even if it were true, it would be very difficult to verify. — I’m not admitting it’s true.
I felt very guilty for wasting police resources. But the police didn’t come away empty – handed.
They found that several of the reptile pets I raised were precious wild animals.
In the end, I was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for illegally purchasing wild animals.
Now I’m serving my sentence in prison. It was during my free – activity time that I finished writing this novel!
– The End –
