The fire in the villa district broke out late on the 24th, just before dawn on the 25th. Since it was deliberately set by Li Miao, the flames spread rapidly. Fortunately, Li Feng had used high-quality materials when constructing the villa, and the fire started on the third floor, so the damage was relatively contained. The nearest fire station arrived quickly and extinguished the blaze in no time. Unsurprisingly, Li Miao was arrested, and Li Feng was also taken into custody.
Within a single day, both father and daughter were detained by the police—an incident so bizarre that it sent shockwaves through the entire village. The spectacle of Pang Le and Xu Nian escorting Li Miao out of the villa, with Li Miao shooting a venomous glare at the ashen-faced Li Feng, only fueled the gossip. The villagers, especially, were stunned, struggling to make sense of it all.
Guan Xia trailed behind Xu Nian and the others, easily catching snippets of hushed conversations around her.
"What’s going on? Didn’t Uncle Li and Li Miao have a good relationship? He never remarried after his wife left, and she’s almost thirty but stayed unmarried to take care of her father. Now they look like sworn enemies—did you see the hatred in Li Miao’s eyes? Like she wanted to tear him apart!"
"Maybe it’s about money? That would make sense. Li Feng is loaded, but Li Miao never seemed to benefit much. Her clothes and accessories are worse off than some of the younger girls in the village. And her job as an elementary school teacher might sound respectable, but she only makes about 3,000 yuan a month. That’s barely enough to get by—less than what I earn in half a month working here."
Even the tourists who had come to watch the fire and the ensuing drama didn’t hold back, eagerly discussing the situation with anyone nearby.
Guan Xia, however, tuned out the idle chatter, her focus entirely on Li Miao. She was consumed by one question: How much did Li Miao know about her mother’s disappearance? Did she know about Wu Yang? Was Wu Yang involved in the case? And what about Li Song, whose remains still hadn’t been found—was he, like Lv Xiangmei, buried inside a wall?
Guan Xia stared unblinkingly at Li Miao. At first, Li Miao cooperated, her hatred directed solely at Li Feng. But when her gaze landed on the memorial tablet of Lv Xiangmei, still clutched in Li Feng’s arms, something snapped. She thrashed violently, trying to break free from Pang Le and Xu Nian’s grip to lunge at Li Feng.
Pang Le and Xu Nian, however, were prepared. They tightened their hold, rendering Li Miao’s struggles futile.
When physical resistance failed, Li Miao unleashed a torrent of curses, sparing no mercy for Li Feng.
"Let go of my mother’s memorial tablet!" she screamed. "You have no right to touch it! You murderer! You and your accomplices killed her! Let it go—don’t you dare lay a finger on it!"
Her outburst sent shockwaves through the crowd. Li Feng’s face turned even grayer, but he stubbornly held onto the tablet, as if deaf to Li Miao’s accusations. He neither denied nor admitted anything, standing silent and resigned, as though he had already accepted his fate.
But Guan Xia wasn’t convinced. Shooting Li Feng a sidelong glance, she approached Xu Nian and asked, "When will the local investigative team arrive?"
Xu Nian checked his watch with his free hand. "They should be here soon. I called the task force as soon as the fire broke out. It’s been a while, so they can’t be far."
Sure enough, moments later, the distant wail of sirens grew louder. Within minutes, a convoy of six or seven vehicles pulled up outside the villa. A tall, authoritative-looking middle-aged policewoman led the team inside.
What followed was relatively straightforward. Li Feng and Li Miao were taken into custody by Wang Yu and the local police, escorted to the district station. Xu Nian stayed behind with the forensic team to process the crime scene where Lv Xiangmei’s remains had been discovered, ensuring the bones were carefully extracted from the wall.
Meanwhile, Qi Bai and Jiang Yingyao were dispatched by Xu Nian to lead the remaining officers in searching the ancestral graves of Lijia Village for more evidence. As for Guan Xia and Pang Le, they accompanied the suspects back to the station. Guan Xia was eager to witness Li Miao’s interrogation, hoping it would finally bring them closer to apprehending Wu Yang.
By the time they reached the district station, it was still the dead of night, but neither Guan Xia, Pang Le, nor Wang Yu showed any signs of fatigue. They marched straight to the interrogation room, watching as Li Miao was seated in the chair.
To their surprise, Li Miao refused to cooperate. The moment the interrogating officers spoke, she snapped, "I don’t trust you. I won’t talk to you. Bring the two female officers who arrested me—I’ll only speak to them."
Since Li Miao insisted, the male and female officers who had just entered the room exchanged uneasy glances before stepping out to report to their superiors. The middle-aged policewoman in charge turned to Guan Xia. "Specialist Guan, the suspect has requested you and Officer Pang for the interrogation. What do you say?"
Her tone was polite, leaving room for refusal, but Guan Xia didn’t hesitate. After a brief pause, she nodded. "We’ll go in."
This was the first time Guan Xia and Pang Le would jointly lead an interrogation. While the local officers remained unfazed, Wang Yu looked concerned, stepping forward to give Guan Xia a reassuring pat on the arm.
Compared to last time, Guan Xia felt less nervous. She gave Wang Yu a confident look and entered the room ahead of Pang Le.
The moment Li Miao saw Guan Xia, her agitation visibly subsided. Her eyes lit up, and she leaned forward eagerly. "You’re here," she said.
Guan Xia didn’t respond immediately. She and Pang Le took their seats before Guan Xia finally spoke. "What did you want to tell us?"
Li Miao’s excitement didn’t wane. She stared intently at Guan Xia and asked, "Do you know my mother was murdered by Li Feng?"
Guan Xia replied succinctly, "We had suspicions. That’s why we came all the way to Lijia Village—to find proof."
Her gaze locked onto Li Miao’s. "Do you have any crucial evidence to share with us?"
Li Miao tensed. "Would a recording of Li Feng drunk count? And his suspicious dealings with his accomplices over the years—does that qualify as evidence?"
At the word "accomplices," Guan Xia’s pulse quickened, but her expression remained stern. "We’ll need to examine the actual materials to determine their validity. Where are they? In your house?"
Li Miao nodded vigorously. "I hid the voice recorder in the wall right next to the dressing table in my bedroom. I live on the second floor, so the fire shouldn’t reach it."
Guan Xia felt a wave of relief but maintained a stern expression. "We’ll contact our colleagues to retrieve it. Until then, you can tell us everything you know in detail."
Li Miao also seemed to relax, though whether she was lost in memories or deep in thought was unclear. Her expression shifted continuously for several minutes before she finally began speaking slowly.
For nearly an hour, Li Miao recounted her story, reliving the past as she spoke.
From her words, Guan Xia and the others pieced together fragments of the circumstances and details surrounding Lv Xiangmei’s disappearance.
When Lv Xiangmei went missing, Li Miao was only five years old. Now 29, she still vividly remembered the last time she saw her mother in 2013.
She recalled it was a bright, sunny day, the sky an endless blue. The flowers in the yard hadn’t yet withered, and she had just shared a delicious meal with her mother. The air was filled with a fragrant aroma as she sat alone in the yard, playing on a small wooden rocking horse. Suddenly, her mother stepped out of the house wearing a beautiful red dress and told her to stay home and behave—she had some errands to run and would lock the gate behind her. She promised to return within two hours.
Li Miao remembered clearly how she had thrown a tantrum, begging to go along. But her mother insisted the occasion wasn’t suitable for a child. As compensation, she promised to bring back candy if Li Miao stayed home obediently.
The promise of candy won over the five-year-old. She watched as her mother, dressed in that striking red dress, walked out of the yard, locked the gate from the outside, and strode away in her high heels, the sound of her footsteps fading into the distance.
That afternoon, Li Miao waited eagerly for the candy her mother would bring home. But she never could have imagined that what seemed like an ordinary goodbye would be the last time she ever saw her.
Later, she remembered just as clearly how, when night fell and the moon rose, it wasn’t her mother who returned—but her father, rushing home in a fluster. He picked her up and asked where her mother had gone.
Li Miao was confused. Hadn’t her mother gone to find him? Why had he come back alone?
Honestly, she replied that her mother had gone to look for him. She couldn’t recall the expression on her father’s face, but she would never forget the chaos of that night—her father calling in crowds of people, telling them her mother had disappeared and begging for their help to search.
The house was in constant commotion, people coming and going until dawn, when someone finally declared that her mother had left—abandoned her and her father. There were whispers that she had been seen boarding a train in a red dress with another man.
Li Miao refused to believe it. She would always remember her mother’s smiling face and the promise of candy.
For a long time afterward, she would sit in the yard on the little wooden horse her mother had given her, waiting for her return. But instead of her mother, it was the police who came, asking if she knew where her mother had gone.
Again, she gave the same answer: her mother had gone to find her father. She didn’t remember the officers’ expressions, nor her father’s. All she knew was that as time passed, more and more people told her that her mother had run off with someone else—that she had abandoned them both.
For a while, Li Miao had believed them. Her father seemed so heartbroken. She had caught him crying over her mother’s photo more than once, his grief overwhelming.
When someone suggested finding her a new mother, her father had angrily chased them away before she could even protest. Countless people told her how heartless her mother was, how devoted her father had been, how he still waited for her return, raising Li Miao alone rather than remarrying. They urged her to be filial, to never leave him—because she was his whole world, and losing her would destroy him.
And indeed, her father doted on her, personally taking her to and from school, buying her beautiful dresses and the latest toys. Not just him—other uncles often visited, taking her out together in groups.
At some point, she had truly accepted what the adults said: that her mother had lied about the candy, that she had tricked her just to escape—to run away with another man.
That belief held until they returned to Lijia Village.
One night, she woke up thirsty from a slight cold and went downstairs for water. There, she heard muffled sobbing.
At first, she assumed it was her father missing her mother again. But just as she was about to return to bed, she caught a single, choked-out word: "Sorry."
That word struck her like lightning, freezing her in place.
Her mind went blank, but her body moved instinctively, tiptoeing back to the staircase. This time, she heard it clearly—her father’s voice, repeating "I’m sorry" between the dull thuds of his forehead hitting the wooden floor as he knelt on a cushion.
That night became a nightmare for Li Miao. It shattered the illusion of her happy life, leaving her wide awake and increasingly suspicious. It dredged up memories from when she was five, making her question everything—and driving her to seek the truth about what had really happened.
Inside, she was in turmoil, but outwardly, she remained calm, going through the motions of school, homework, and play while secretly observing Li Feng’s every move.
What had once gone unnoticed now stood out starkly under her scrutiny.
For example, she had always thought her father cried over her mother’s photo out of longing. But now, older and wiser, she realized with horror that his tears weren’t from grief—but guilt. Regret.
The discovery left her mind in knots. One question haunted her: Why did Li Feng feel guilty? What had he done to her mother? And why did he regret it?
In her sparse childhood memories, life before her mother’s disappearance had been idyllic. Her father was capable and devoted—while other families struggled to put food on the table, she had a closet full of pretty dresses and matching shoes. Her mother was elegant, intelligent, and strong-willed. Though she didn’t work, she was always learning, always braiding Li Miao’s hair into intricate styles, calling her "my little princess," "my treasure."
In her memory, her father had never done anything to wrong her mother. The two never even argued—or if they did, it was only her mother’s doing. Before her mother disappeared, she had muttered while braiding Li Miao’s hair that Li Feng had been leaving early and returning late lately. Sometimes, when her mother brought food to his shop, he wasn’t even there. She didn’t know if he was genuinely busy or if his heart had strayed.
Apart from that, their relationship was so loving that they were the envy of all their neighbors. Their bond was so strong that Li Miao couldn’t imagine Li Feng ever betraying her mother—except for one thing: her mother’s disappearance.
It was from that moment on that Li Miao began to re-examine her mother’s case. As time passed, she uncovered more and more details.
Perhaps it was because she had grown up and now resembled her mother. Sometimes, Li Feng would stare at her blankly, lost in thought. At some point, he also started talking in his sleep. In his dreams, he would sob and apologize, saying he had no choice, that he had to do it.
The expression on Li Feng’s face in those dreams was one of familiar anguish, but there was something else—something twisted. Li Miao saw the fury in his eyes, saw him stretching out his hands and squeezing with all his might.
In that moment, tears streamed down Li Miao’s face too. But she finally understood the truth behind her mother’s disappearance—the mother she had once thought was deeply loved by Li Feng had actually been strangled to death by him.
How could Li Miao not hate him? She despised him with every fiber of her being. She felt humiliated, deceived, and betrayed. For years, she had truly believed her mother had fallen in love with someone else and abandoned her and Li Feng to run away.
She also felt guilty toward her mother. She had been one of the many who had cursed her name.
The hatred burned so fiercely that she wanted to kill Li Feng—and herself. Her life felt like hell, and she wished for nothing but to drag everyone down with her, especially Li Feng and his accomplices—the men she had once called uncles.
