Chapter 102: Tragedy

At eleven o'clock at night, the office building was brightly lit.

Gao Zhiyuan rubbed his sore, gritty eyes; the planning proposal in front of him was only halfway revised.

He lifted his coffee and took a sip; the cold liquid slid down his throat, waking him a little.

In his mind, the smiling faces of his wife Su Qing and daughter Si Wen floated up.

"Honey, be careful on the road."

"Bye, Dad!"

The kisses left on his cheeks still seemed to retain their warmth.

Gao Zhiyuan's mouth lifted involuntarily, and he grabbed his phone, intending to send his wife a message that he was almost done.

The screen lit up, and an unknown number called.

He frowned instinctively, assuming it was a sales call, yet for some reason he still pressed the answer button.

"Hello, is this Mr. Gao Zhiyuan?"

On the other end was a formulaic yet slightly tense male voice.

"I am."

"This is Central City Hospital. Your wife Su Qing is now in the operating room…"

The rest was completely unintelligible to Gao Zhiyuan.

Buzz—

The whole world turned into a harsh busy tone.

He felt all the blood in his body surge to his head in an instant, then freeze into ice the next.

"…I'm coming right away!"

He mustered all his strength to roar the words, and the phone slipped from his palm, crashing to the floor.

He bolted out of the office like a madman, knocking over chairs, toppling File, and the colleagues along the way only saw a gust of wind rush by.

Elevator, building, street.

All the scenery was racing backward.

His mind was a blank, leaving only frantic running and the thudding of his heart.

Meanwhile, at Gao Zhiyuan's home.

In that living room that once rang with laughter and joy.

The Family Photo frame hanging on the wall fell to the floor without warning with a Clang!

The glass shattered into pieces.

In the photo, the bright smiles of the three of them were torn apart by countless cracks.

The acrid smell of disinfectant, the cold pallid light.

Gao Zhiyuan rushed into the Emergency Department Hall, trembling all over.

A doctor in a Doctor's Lab Coat stopped him, his face bearing professional sorrow and fatigue.

"Mr. Gao, please restrain your grief."

Restrain your grief?

Gao Zhiyuan was stunned, he stared at the doctor, his lips trembling, yet he could not utter a sound.

The doctor sighed, quietly recounting the words he never wanted to hear:

— "Rape"

— "Strangulation"

— "Multiple blunt-force injuries"

Each term was like a red‑hot knife, stabbing into Gao Zhiyuan's heart, then violently stirring it.

He could hear nothing.

He only saw the operating room door swing open, a gurney slowly emerging, covered with a white sheet.

The outline of that white sheet was etched into his memory.

He stepped forward, each step feeling like treading on a blade's tip.

His hands trembling uncontrollably, he lifted a corner of the white sheet.

It was Su Qing.

But not really.

The wife who had smiled sweetly at him this morning, teasing his muscular bulk, now lay there silently.

Her complexion was bruised, her neck bore savage ligature marks, her once beautiful face was covered with wounds and blood, her eyes tightly shut, never to smile at him again.

It was a… shattered husk.

"No…"

Gao Zhiyuan forced a broken moan from his throat.

He fell to his knees, reaching out to touch his wife's face, but halted mid‑air, fearing his touch would hurt her.

Extreme pain and despair exploded within his chest.

He could no longer suppress it, opened his mouth, and a beast‑like wail, unlike any human voice, erupted from his throat.

"Ah—!!!"

The entire hospital Corridor was drowned in this heart‑wrenching wail.

The next day.

The police found a gaunt Gao Zhiyuan.

"Mr. Gao, the suspect has been caught."

Gao Zhiyuan jerked his head up, and in his blood‑shot eyes a spark of hellish fire ignited.

"He is a boy named Zhao Lei, still a month shy of turning fourteen."

The police officer's voice was heavy.

"All the clues and evidence point to him alone."

Gao Zhiyuan clenched his fists tightly, his Nail digging deep into his flesh.

Zhao Lei.

He crushed the name on his tongue, each syllable soaked with the scent of blood.

Only one final hope remained in his heart.

A cold and cruel hope.

He wants this demon to receive the harshest legal punishment.

He wants him dead.

On the day of the trial, Gao Zhiyuan wore a black suit, sat in the gallery, like a lifeless statue.

He stared at the frail boy on the defendant's stand.

That was Zhao Lei.

He looked so ordinary, even a little timid.

Yet what Gao Zhiyuan awaited was another hell.

Zhao Lei's parents spent a fortune to hire the Federation's top lawyer.

The lawyer's defense was florid, attributing everything to "impulse," "immaturity," and "a lack of family education."

Finally, the Judge struck the Gavel.

"Defendant Zhao Lei, having been under fourteen at the time of the crime, is sentenced under the Minor Protection Law...... to serve five years in a juvenile correctional facility. His personal file will be permanently sealed."

Only...... five years?

Gao Zhiyuan's world collapsed once again.

After the recess, the crowd dispersed.

Gao Zhiyuan wandered the court's cold Corridor, lost and despondent.

Zhao Lei, surrounded by his parents, brushed past him.

In that intersecting instant, the demon suddenly turned his head, speaking in a voice only the two of them could hear, his face bearing a malicious grin far beyond his years, and he spoke contemptuously.

"Your wife's figure is fine, and her voice is pleasant."

"Five years? When I get out I'll be eighteen, just right to keep playing. Thanks, uncle."

The words detonated like a nuclear bomb, booming inside Gao Zhiyuan's mind.

"I will kill you!!!"

He went mad.

He lunged at Zhao Lei like a beast utterly enraged.

But two Court Guards pinned him to the floor, the cold floor pressed against his face.

He watched helplessly as that demon who had ruined his entire family, shielded by his parents, turned back, charged at him with a provocative, triumphant grin, and then swaggered away.

He returned home.

When the door opened, there was a dead silence.

There was no longer a "Honey, you're home" greeting.

The daughter Gao Siwen clutched a doll, curled up in a corner of the sofa, her eyes hollow, saying nothing.

From that day on, she never spoke another word.

Gao Zhiyuan walked to the wall and stared at the shattered picture frame.

The raging hatred and murderous intent nearly burned his reason to ash.

But when he turned his head, he saw his daughter.

His only daughter.

He went over, using all his strength, and held the small, cold body tightly.

For Si Wen, he cannot act irrationally.

He cannot.

In the days that followed, Gao Zhiyuan quit the job that had taken up too much of his time.

He began clumsily learning to cook, frying eggs to a char and overcooking noodles.

He tried braiding his daughter's hair, but always made a mess.

He forced a smile each day, shuttling his daughter to and from school, trying to use the little, pitiful warmth he had left to hold up a precarious sky for her.

He buried his hatred and resentment, like a malignant tumor, deep within the core of his soul.

But he did not know.

The tumor, in a place he could not see, was greedily siphoning his life and growing wildly.

What he knew even less was that Si Wen, having lost her mother and become reticent, had become a new target of bullying at school.

One night, while bathing his daughter, he saw bruises on her arm.

"Wenwen, how did this happen?"

He asked with concern.

The daughter lowered her head and whispered, "... It was an accident, I fell."

Gao Zhiyuan watched his daughter's evasive gaze, feeling as if something blocked his heart.

He wanted to press further, but feared exposing his daughter's wound and causing her more pain.

He could only tell himself over and over, it will get better, everything will get better.

Yet fate never intended to let him go.

That afternoon, Gao Zhiyuan was preparing dinner in the kitchen.

The phone rang abruptly.

He picked up his phone, and the screen displayed "Class Teacher Si Wen".

For no reason, a familiar, bone‑deep chill surged instantly from the soles of his feet up to his Heavenly Spirit Cover.

He trembled as he pressed the answer button.

On the other end, the teacher's voice was filled with unmistakable trembling and fear.

"Mr. Gao...... please, please come to the school immediately......"

"Your daughter......"

"She fell from the teaching building!"