Ruan Tian was somewhat surprised. She had never expected that Yu Xiaxing felt guilty because she was taking a cut of this poor woman’s money.
Her gaze toward Yu Xiaxing grew gentler. “Miss Yu, actually, I owe you an apology too…”
“The reason I used to take money from both sides and disregard professional ethics was because I’d been betrayed by too many clients.”
“After I entered this line of work, most of the jobs I took involved catching cheating spouses and mistresses.”
“But I ran into several absolutely crazy couples. After I found out that one of them had cheated, they couldn’t bear to get divorced and chose to forgive the other person instead.”
“And then, unbelievably, they’d turn around and blame me—the detective they had hired—for uncovering the truth and putting a thorn in their hearts.”
“They were also afraid I would leak the information, so some of them actually reported me for violating their privacy. I was even detained for several days because of it.”
“After encountering several lunatic couples like that, I became twisted.”
“I knew my clients would never come back, so I didn’t need to have any professional ethics.”
“Before my clients could betray me, I’d squeeze every last bit of value out of them first… But I did have my limits. I wouldn’t sell them out completely. I’d only sell information that was inconsequential.”
“But after meeting you, even though you knew I had no principles, you never blamed me. You hired me repeatedly and even introduced me to new clients.”
“So, actually, I’m the one who feels guilty toward you…”
“You’re different. You’re the most different person I’ve ever met.”
Yu Xiaxing turned her face away. That wasn’t why she felt guilty—not because she had taken a cut of her money.
It was because she had remembered her previous life.
She had been the one to hire Ruan Tian to investigate Lu Yanzhao’s identity. Once she discovered that he was Fifth Brother’s trusted aide, she had driven Lu Yanzhao away.
Later, when she found out that Ruan Tian had taken the initiative to tell Yu Zheng that she had been the one investigating him, Yu Xiaxing had decided that Ruan Tian was someone who took money from both sides and had no principles. She had never hired her again and had even warned her acquaintances about her.
What had happened to Ruan Tian later in her previous life? Had she managed to save any money? Had her daughter succeeded in learning music?
How could she have viewed someone so one-dimensionally? Just because of a single action… Especially when that action had not truly harmed her, how could she have condemned the person as a whole?
When Ruan Tian saw that Yu Xiaxing’s eyes were growing redder and redder, she hurriedly took a tissue from her bag and handed it over. “No, no, Miss Yu. You’re making me feel a little overwhelmed. I’m not worth this. You’ve already treated me well enough.”
Yu Xiaxing did not take it. She said coldly, “How have I treated you well? I insult you to your face every day for having no principles, and I even force you to give me a cut.”
Ruan Tian smiled. “You may insult me, but you’ve never stopped giving me opportunities to make money. If it weren’t for you and your Fourth Sister, even if I worked for ten years, I still wouldn’t have been able to earn enough money to send my daughter to study vocal music.”
Yu Xiaxing took the tissue from her hand and held it tightly as she sat down on the steps nearby.
Ruan Tian sat down beside her as well.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
After a long silence, Yu Xiaxing suddenly asked, “What made you decide to enter this line of work?”
Ruan Tian said proudly, “I discovered it by accident—I’m a genius when it comes to investigation!”
Yu Xiaxing was curious. “How did you discover that?”
Ruan Tian said, “That goes back a very, very long time… I’m from the countryside. I dropped out of school when I was young and got married very early. I was only nineteen when I married.”
Yu Xiaxing glanced at the little girl nearby. No wonder.
Ruan Tian looked to be only in her thirties, yet her daughter was already fourteen or fifteen.
Ruan Tian continued, “My husband also only finished middle school. He was an honest man, and he treated me very well.”
“When our daughter was born with a congenital eye disease, he went to work on construction sites in a big city to earn money for her treatment.”
“Unfortunately, things didn’t go well for long. Not long after he started, there was an accident, and his leg was crushed.”
“The other party offered us a settlement of one hundred thousand yuan. We were uneducated and thought one hundred thousand was an enormous sum, so we agreed right away.”
“After my husband received the compensation, he said he wouldn’t treat his leg anymore. The money should be used to treat our daughter’s eyes instead.”
“But later, his leg became worse. The hospital said it had to be amputated, or his life would be in danger.”
“I rushed home to find the bank card so I could pay for my husband’s surgery… I clearly remembered that he usually kept valuable things in a box under the bed, but no matter how hard I looked that day, I couldn’t find it!”
“My mother-in-law beat me with a broom and shouted that I had deliberately hidden the card so I could give the money to my family. She called me an ungrateful wretch and accused me of not wanting to spend money on my husband’s treatment…”
“I was beaten unconscious. When I woke up the next day, the hospital told me it was already too late and asked the family to go see him one last time.”
“My husband died. When I returned from the hospital, my mother-in-law went around the entire village telling everyone that I had deliberately given the one hundred thousand yuan to my younger brother and caused my husband’s death by delaying his treatment. Everyone in the village pointed fingers at me.”
“I couldn’t accept being wronged like that, so I crawled under the bed to look for clues.”
“I noticed that along the wall on the right, the layer of dust had been dragged into a very faint arc, as though someone’s sleeve cuff or wrist had pressed against the floor and swept across it while reaching inside.”
“That clue made me suspect my mother-in-law. The space beneath my bed was very large, and a thin person could crawl inside without leaving a mark like that. Only my mother-in-law had that kind of build.”
“I also noticed that the coat my mother-in-law loved wearing was missing… I put all the unusual details together, then secretly slipped into her room to look for it.”
“In the end, I found that she hadn’t even washed the coat. It was hidden at the very bottom of a trunk. I reached inside and felt around—and the card was indeed in the pocket of that coat!”
“Then I knew that my mother-in-law had deliberately hidden the card. She hadn’t wanted to save my husband, and she hadn’t wanted to pay for her blind granddaughter’s treatment either.”
“She had an elder son and a younger son, and both of them had healthy sons. She must have wanted to give the money to them.”
“Later, at my husband’s funeral, I cried and made such a scene that I drew the villagers into my mother-in-law’s room. In front of everyone, I pulled the card out of her pocket!”
Yu Xiaxing had listened intently up to that point. She interrupted, “Did the villagers apologize to you? They had wrongly accused you before.”
Ruan Tian let out a laugh. “No, because my mother-in-law turned the tables with a single sentence.”
“She pointed at me and said, ‘You must have been scared by everyone’s accusations. You didn’t dare take the money to support your family, so you secretly put the card back.’”
“And then everyone continued scolding me.”
Yu Xiaxing was furious. “What happened afterward? Who ended up with the one hundred thousand yuan?”
