Chapter 144: Burning Body with Fire

After the burned woman heard Han Cheng’s words, she seemed at a loss and didn’t speak again for a long time. Her two scary eyes just kept staring in Han Cheng’s direction, and her lonely figure looked very helpless.

“A girlfriend you’ve been with for five years, the girlfriend you always said you would protect with your life, and you said you didn’t know her!?” Zhou Ling shouted at Han Cheng angrily.

“Mr. Han Cheng, is that really what happened? Why did you hide the truth?” The tabloid reporter somehow came out again, holding a microphone he had found from somewhere.

“Xiao Ling, it’s wrong! Everything is wrong! It’s not what you think! We shouldn’t be here! Let’s just end all of this!” Han Cheng pushed the reporter aside, turned, and rushed toward Zhou Ling. In an instant, he knocked her to the ground and tightly choked her neck with both hands.

Zhou Ling stared hard at Han Cheng but didn’t resist at all. Zhou Jing, who had been silent and hadn’t moved, suddenly appeared beside the two of them. Her long hair wildly surged from her head, wrapping around Han Cheng’s entire body and lifting him into the air…

Just as Han Cheng’s body was about to be cut into a bloody mist and pieces like the men before, the burned woman suddenly rushed over. Her body burst into towering flames, and she tightly hugged Zhou Jing’s body, instantly burning Zhou Jing’s floating, dancing hair into ash.

Zhou Jing let out a piercing scream in the flames. She struggled desperately, but the woman held her tightly and wouldn’t let go. The two turned into a huge fireball, crashing around in the hotel’s first-floor lobby, frightening everyone inside into screaming and running away.

“Xiao Jing!”

Zhou Ling shouted at the fireball, trying to rush over, but Liu Yin held her tightly.

“Xiao Ling, just let them go…” Liu Yin whispered to comfort Zhou Ling.

Zhou Ling’s body went weak, and she knelt on the ground again, crying loudly as she watched the burning fireball.

When the flames completely died out, the woman who burned herself with fire and Zhou Jing’s body had both disappeared. The burning ashes gathered in the air, forming the shape of a beautiful woman who looked down at Han Cheng on the ground with a smile.

“Xiao Zhao…” Han Cheng gazed at the woman in the air, his whole body trembling nonstop.

“A Cheng, I will always love you…” After saying this, the woman made of ashes quickly scattered and turned into something like a Black Mist. It wrapped around all the other burning ashes and rushed out through the hotel’s broken glass door, merging with the Black Mist outside.

The hotel’s first-floor lobby fell into silence, with only Zhou Ling’s sorrowful crying remaining.

“Xiao Ling, are you really the Death Killer?” Liu Yin murmured to Zhou Ling.

“Does it matter whether I am or not?” Zhou Ling finally stopped crying, and her eyes turned cold and sharp again.

“Xiao Ling, Xiao Jing has been gone for a long time! What burned with Xiao Zhao just now wasn’t Xiao Jing, but just a part of your own memory! It was your own obsession with Xiao Jing… But even this obsession didn’t want you to kill randomly… If we come into the world and still can’t learn how to love, then how are we different from the Wanderers in Mountain Peak Village back then?” Han Cheng came over and tried to persuade Zhou Ling.

“What right do you have to talk about love!? What right do you have to lecture me!?” Zhou Ling turned her head and glared at Han Cheng with extreme anger.

“Xiao Ling, the mistake was that I didn’t recognize you. When I left you, I didn’t tell you what true love in the world really is…” Han Cheng crouched down, picked up the shivering big calico cat from the ground, and gently stroked its head.

“Meow!” The big calico cat closed its eyes contentedly, lifted its head, and rubbed hard against Han Cheng’s hand.

“Enough! Shut your mouth!” Zhou Ling covered her ears with her hands, looking very irritable.

“Xiao Ling, did you really kill Xiao Bei?” Liu Yin’s expression now held no hatred or anger, only extreme sorrow.

Zhou Ling glared fiercely at Liu Yin but didn’t answer him.

“This cat that your sister raised three years ago switched to its new owner after her boyfriend Wan Wenzhong found a new girlfriend. This made you very angry. Because the sister formed from your memories stopped you from hurting Wan Wenzhong, you tortured and killed this cat…” Han Cheng continued.

“On the fourth day of the next month, you made a fake video and posted it online, putting the old Xiao Ling into the Death Livestream. You also sent me a copy of the video in the name of the Death Killer… I only understand now that you must have realized you didn’t love me anymore back then… So you wanted to make a break with the past…” Han Cheng glanced at Liu Yin and sighed softly.

“But this man didn’t love you, or at least, not as much as you thought, because he already had a girlfriend he loved deeply… Xiao Bei…”

“You were very sad and desperate… You had nowhere to vent your anger, and finally, despite Xiao Jing’s attempts to stop you, you threw Wan Wenzhong’s new girlfriend into the third Death Livestream and found various ways to torment and humiliate that man… In the end… you cruelly tortured and killed that innocent girl…”

“That Death Livestream gave you a twisted sense of satisfaction. You finally decided to vent your long-held resentment toward me, so you took Xiao Zhao from me… If I had recognized you back then, Xiao Zhao wouldn’t have died, and I would have persuaded you to stop this cruel torture game… It’s a pity…”

“Do you think your persuasion would have any effect on me? The old stupid and foolish Xiao Ling is dead! You were worth nothing to me back then! Just a shameful and pitiful cheap man!” Zhou Ling coldly replied to Han Cheng.

Han Cheng didn’t say anything more. He let out a long sigh, lifted his head, and held back the tears about to spill from his eyes.

“I remember one day, you asked me how much I loved Xiao Bei. I said I loved her very, very much and was willing to give everything for her.” After Han Cheng stopped talking, Liu Yin murmured and spoke again.

“You asked me again… if I was willing to give my life for this love…”

“I said… of course…”

“I never thought that because of my words, Xiao Bei was harmed… You tricked her away from me, locked her in a sulfuric acid pool, just to make me prove what I had said, to prove my love for her…”

“That night when we visited Lü Yang together, when I pressured him to cooperate with us by threatening his girlfriend and family, he also said something similar in front of you, saying he would give his life for his girlfriend Xiao Ya. So, this time, you chose to target Xiao Ya… Maybe you didn’t even plan to do another Death Livestream this month, but because of what he said… you decided to do it on the spot…”

“Your sister Xiao Jing’s death hit you very hard. The two men you loved in succession always overlooked your feelings and your existence… You conducted the Death Livestream and gave Tasks to the victims’ boyfriends to prove that men aren’t worth loving… That men only talk and never actually give their lives for the women they love…”

“And the result was exactly as you expected. The three victims… although their boyfriends always claimed they would give their lives for them, not one of them actually did it… including me…” Liu Yin’s voice became extremely tired and defeated as he spoke.

“All of this is so ironic. I never thought… the Death Killer I’ve been trying so hard to catch was actually right beside me all along… and was the most important and trusted person in my life…” Liu Yin’s voice grew lower and lower, so low that only he and Zhou Ling could hear it.

“Most important? Cut it out! I stayed by your side every day, caring for you and looking after you. When did you ever care about me? Even if I died someday, you wouldn’t shed a single tear for me! You only had Xiao Bei in your heart; you always treated me like air!” Zhou Ling replied to Liu Yin in a bitter tone.

“Don’t you want men to be faithful in love? I loved Xiao Bei deeply, so of course I buried my feelings for you deep in my heart. Also, how do you know I never loved you? Yes, I treated you like air because, over these two years, you became more and more important to me, until later… you became as essential as the air I need to breathe every day… I couldn’t be without you for a moment… But if I had chosen you, what would have happened to Xiao Bei?”

Zhou Ling snorted coldly and didn’t speak again, but her eyes turned to look at Lü Yang.

“Xiao Ling, let Xiao Ya go. Don’t hurt any more innocent people. I already lost my chance to save Xiao Bei. This time, I’m willing to exchange my life for Xiao Ya’s…” Liu Yin begged Zhou Ling.

“Too late!” Zhou Ling flatly refused Liu Yin, her eyes still fixed on Lü Yang.

“It’s not too late yet. If you think my life isn’t enough to get Xiao Ya back, as long as you let her go and return her to Xiao Lü, I will stay with you for the rest of my life, love you, serve you like a horse or ox, give you the happiness you want, so you won’t be full of hate anymore…” Liu Yin took Zhou Ling’s arm, trying to persuade her to give up on torturing Yi Ya.

At this moment, after confirming that Zhou Ling was the Death Killer, Liu Yin’s heart was completely dead. He felt that if he could use his special relationship with Zhou Ling to persuade her to save Yi Ya, it would be the only meaningful thing he could do while still alive.

“Too late!”

Zhou Ling shook off Liu Yin’s hand: “Because, since last night, I have stopped loving you!”

Liu Yin stared blankly at Zhou Ling, his face showing a very complicated expression, and he instantly looked much older.

Zhou Ling’s gaze was now fixed on Lü Yang…