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Kapitel 10

Zhao Shibin felt sorry for his wife and wanted to take her to the hospital.

Xiao Hong refused. As the youngest workshop director in the No. 2 Steel Plant, she couldn't bear to lose face.

Could it be an STD? No! I've always been very chaste, how could it be… Besides, Zhao Shibin doesn't have any symptoms, so it couldn't be him who infected me. Could it be… a ghost!

Yes, what I saw that night must have been a vengeful ghost from the Netherworld!

Xiao Hong huddled in her blankets, shivering and lost in thought.

...

Zhao Shibin saw his wife—or rather, her remains—again the following evening. He was notified by the police.

He never expected that Xiao Hong, who had always been gentle and timid, would jump into the sulfuric acid pool in the factory.

The murky broth in the pool and the skeletons reflected in the setting sun on the shore both told him that this was the truth!

The unspeakable secret between them was forever separated by death, never to be spoken again.

He simply couldn't imagine the struggle a woman must have endured in a vat of sulfuric acid. The searing, corrosive sensation stung every nerve ending in her body; the suffocating feeling forced her to open her mouth to breathe, as acid surged into her mouth, trachea, esophagus, and alveoli... Her ears were gone, and her eyeballs melted away.

The beauty she possessed in life is now frozen in time.

Chapter Two – Zhao Shibin

Unexpectedly, the field trip went so smoothly that Zhao Shibin boarded the train back home with a wealth of inspiration, materials, and a thick stack of manuscripts.

He arrived a week earlier than planned, wanting to surprise his wife.

Little did he know, a man he met at the train station gave him a rude awakening. This man was his old classmate, Yang Kai, a senior gynecologist at the city hospital.

"Old Zhao, why don't you want children yet?"

Originally, they only intended to exchange a few pleasantries, but unexpectedly, Yang Kai suddenly brought up such a profound topic with Zhao Shibin.

Zhao Shibin laughed awkwardly and said, "Who said I don't want it? It also depends on God's arrangement."

Yang Kai looked surprised: "Then why did your wife come to the hospital for an abortion last month?"

Zhao Shibin was struck dumb, his mind completely blank. He couldn't even remember how he parted ways with Yang Kai afterward.

Why? His wife, who constantly professed to love him and wait for him at home, would do such a despicable thing! Are all women this shameless and promiscuous? Who did she sleep with?

With a series of questions in mind, Zhao Shibin returned home.

As soon as I got to my front door, I heard voices coming from inside the house.

One man and one woman.

The woman said, "The old man will be back soon, so you can't come here anymore."

Then a man, panting heavily, mumbled, "It's okay, at worst... I can go to my dorm... um..."

That's unbearable to hear!

Zhao Shibin desperately wanted to kick the door open and catch the adulterous couple in the act. They'd only had an abortion last month, and now they were already in such a hurry to bring a man home to fool around. What scoundrels!

But he held back and didn't make a move. He turned and left the house.

He wandered aimlessly down the street, a wave of resentment washing over him. How could one be like this, and then two more like this?! What sins have I committed?

Forget it, I'll just get a divorce... But wouldn't a divorce just be letting those two cheating couple have their way? And giving them half of my assets as a bonus? No way! It's not that cheap.

Seeing that it was almost time to get off work, he leisurely walked home.

When I got home, the house was empty.

It was quite a while before the door opened. It was Xiao Hong who had returned.

Hmph! Pretending to have just gotten off work and gone home.

Zhao Shibin felt disgusted by Xiao Hong's feigned surprise and excitement.

For several days in a row, he couldn't muster the slightest thought to speak to Xiao Hong.

"ah--!"

Upon hearing Xiao Hong's scream, Zhao Shibin instinctively rushed over to see what was wrong with his wife. He was horrified by the pictures he saw online.

At that moment, Zhao Shibin came up with a brilliant revenge plan.

He knew his wife's reaction was a psychological disorder. A common condition is trypophobia, an instinctive fear of densely packed objects, such as seeing a large number of flies, bees, or even a large crowd, which can cause symptoms like chills, itching, and trembling.

However, the wife seems to belong to the group of people with severe mental disorders...

That day, he put a few sleeping pills in his wife's juice. While she was asleep, he used a brush dipped in concentrated lime water to scrub the soles of her feet several times.

He knew that once the lime dried, it would be almost invisible. During the day, his wife would walk in her shoes at work, and her sweat would dissolve the lime, so in less than two days, small holes would be corroded into the skin of her feet. And she would feel almost nothing.

After careful observation, he discovered that the lime had taken effect. So he told his wife in advance that he was going to work overtime at the studio and asked her to go to sleep first. Before leaving, he didn't forget to add an appropriate amount of sleeping pill powder to the water dispenser.

After Xiao Hong fell asleep, Zhao Shibin quietly sneaked home, disguised himself with a mask he had prepared beforehand, and then fully utilized his talent as a painter to paint one three-dimensional "hole" after another on his body. He even dyed his tongue with food coloring.

After preparing, he went to the bedroom and used a brush dipped in lime water to scrub the soles of his wife's feet. He knew the dose of sleeping pills this time was not strong, and his wife would definitely wake up.

Sure enough, that slutty woman fainted from fright at his appearance. It's hilarious just thinking about it!

For the next few days, he pretended nothing was wrong. He listened to Xiao Hong recount her terrifying nightmares, then coldly watched her tremble as she applied ointment to the soles of her feet.

It's time to take further action.

Every night, Zhao Shibin would give Xiao Hong water mixed with sleeping pills, and then apply diluted garlic juice all over her body.

He clearly remembered Xiao Hong saying that she was allergic to garlic juice. But he didn't dare to use too much, for fear that the smell would be detected.

Things went smoothly. On the third day, Xiao Hong's skin began to react. Redness, itching... all symptoms of an allergic reaction.

The rest is much easier to do.

Following the same method Zhao Shibin used to apply makeup to himself that night, he painted realistic, three-dimensional "holes" on Xiao Hong's naked body with paint...

But strangely, that night in the bathroom, when he was holding Xiao Hong, he clearly felt... that the holes not only looked like they were recessed, but also felt exactly like the real thing. He couldn't help but shudder.

Zhao Shibin knew that Xiao Hong, being so concerned about her image, would never embarrass herself in public, especially since she was convinced she was possessed by a ghost and that no medicine could cure her. So he feigned concern and offered to take her to the hospital.

Just as he predicted, no matter how much he tried to persuade her, Xiao Hong simply wouldn't agree.

However, to his surprise, why did the holes on Xiao Hong's body become real? Before he could figure out what was going on, he learned that Xiao Hong had committed suicide by jumping into the sulfuric acid pool.

About a week later, Xiao Hong's funeral arrangements were mostly complete. Zhao Shibin still had some regrets—who exactly was that adulterer?

At this moment, he received a call from the insurance company, asking him to complete some formalities. Only then did Zhao Shibin remember that his wife had been insured, and the policy documents clearly recorded every medical claim payment made by his wife.

Last month... ovarian cyst removal surgery!

Zhao Shibin looked at it several times to make sure he wasn't mistaken; it was surgery for an ovarian cyst, not an abortion!

What's going on?! Yang Kai lied to me?!

Filled with doubt and anger, Zhao Shibin went to the hospital to confront Yang Kai, only to learn the truth upon arrival. Yang Kai, a key member of the city hospital, had been on an academic exchange program in various European countries for over two months and had not yet returned.

If Yang Kai goes abroad, who will I meet at the train station...?

Zhao Shibin suddenly realized that things were not as simple as he had thought.

Oh, and there's something else—he clearly heard someone talking in his house the day he got home. Now, thinking back, the voice sounded like Xiao Hong, but it also didn't seem like it… To figure it out, he went to Xiao Hong's factory and managed to get her attendance records. The records showed that Xiao Hong hadn't left work that day at all.

Wrong... It turns out it was wrong from the very beginning...

My wife didn't have an abortion! Nor did she cheat on me.

He racked his brains trying to figure out what had happened, but he couldn't understand it at all. Who was responsible for the destruction of his family?!

It wasn't until he stepped into the elevator leading to his home and heard the familiar yet distant laughter of a woman that he finally understood everything. That voice... sounded like his deceased ex-wife—Yang Mei! Right, thinking back, the conversation between the man and woman he heard outside the door that day... wasn't that the same conversation he heard three years ago when he caught Yang Mei in bed with another man?

Hahaha... Hahahaha...

The shrill female voice was like an awl piercing his brain from his ear canal.

Zhao Shibin covered his ears in terror, but it was no use.

Then he saw a woman's hand resting on his shoulder on the mirrored steel panel of the elevator lobby. And on his face, slowly, slowly, countless small black holes appeared...

One, two, three... like black poppies spreading.

The elevator shook violently and plummeted straight down from the nineteenth floor without hesitation.

Bang.

Chapter Three – Yangmei

Yang Mei was not Zhao Shibin's best student, but she was the woman he loved most.

With her snow-white thighs and plump breasts, Yang Mei successfully won the favor of this famous painter and thus became the teacher's wife of many senior female and male students.

Zhao Shibin never imagined that at forty-one, he would marry a lovely twenty-three-year-old. Nor did he expect that his plan to remain single for life would end with this young woman.

After their marriage, he took incredibly good care of Yang Mei. Yang Mei also admitted that, apart from her father, no other man in the world could pamper her more than Zhao Shibin.

However, this fascination with maturity could not ultimately replace love. Less than two months into their marriage, Yang Mei felt like she had married a stepfather, not a husband.

There is absolutely no passion in the marriage.

Yang Mei achieved the fame, fortune, and degree she expected, and naturally lost the motivation to pretend to be deeply in love with Zhao Shibin. Mindset determines behavior. Days passed, and life became utterly dull.

Until Yang Mei hooked up with her senior, Lü Chao.

If Zhao Shibin hadn't deliberately told Yang Mei on the phone that he wouldn't be back for a few days, as if to give her a surprise, their marriage probably wouldn't have ended so quickly.

Yang Mei knelt down, cried, and begged Zhao Shibin for forgiveness, but her actions of admitting her mistakes did not move Zhao Shibin in the slightest.

He just hadn't figured out a more suitable way to punish this dissolute woman.

He verbally forgave Yang Mei and suppressed the whole matter. After all, he was a prominent figure in the art world, and it wouldn't be something to be proud of for him to divorce less than six months after getting married.

There's a saying that goes, "Opportunities often arise; the key is to be good at seizing them."

Yang Mei absentmindedly stepped into the elevator after pressing the door button, only to find that... the elevator car hadn't come up at all; the elevator was malfunctioning.

Fortunately, she was quick-witted and grabbed the elevator cable tightly with both hands, suspending herself in the elevator shaft on the 24th floor.

"ah--!"

Her scream attracted her husband.

Zhao Shibin panicked when he saw the commotion and quickly called the property management to send someone over.

Then he tried to reach out to save Yangmei. Unfortunately, he had difficulty maintaining his balance and failed several times.