Chapter 77: Chapter 77: Why Run?

Shen Zhiyao asked hurriedly, “Do you have any proof?”

“Of course I do!” Meng Long pulled up photos and videos from another phone, displaying them for the livestream. “Take a good look for yourselves and see who’s been lying!”

The photos were all of Zhou Lan with different men, entering and leaving all sorts of places.

The video showed Zhou Lan flirting playfully with a man. What was even more shocking was that her son was standing right there, watching.

[So Zhou Lan was the one who cheated! We were all fooled!]

[She even took her son with her to date another man? What kind of woman does that?!]

[You can know a person’s face, but not their heart! A woman like that is terrifying!]

In the face of undeniable proof, playing the victim was useless.

The viewers who had been trashing Meng Long just moments ago now turned all their vitriol on Zhou Lan.

Meng Long said, “After I discovered Zhou Lan was cheating, I asked for a divorce.”

“At first, she refused. Then, for some reason, she changed her mind and agreed, but she demanded half of our assets and full custody of our son.”

“Of course, I couldn’t agree to that. Later, for our son’s sake, I consented to giving her half of the assets, but I absolutely refused to give her custody.”

“But she suddenly went crazy. She grabbed our son, ran up to the roof, and sat on the ledge, threatening to jump with him if I didn’t give her custody.”

“I’ll admit it—I was terrified. I felt I had no choice, so I agreed to all her demands.”

“And just like that, we got divorced.”

“But I never imagined that after she was stabbed, she would lock herself and our son in a room for two weeks, refusing to come out or let me see him!”

“If I’d known she would do something like this, I would have died before I let her take our son!”

The moment he finished the full story, the livestream chat erupted again:

[This woman is a complete psycho! A serial cheater who still wants custody? Isn’t she afraid she’ll corrupt her own son?!]

[She might not be a good wife, but she must be a good mother. Otherwise, why fight so hard for custody? Wouldn’t it be easier to just go live her own life?]

Shen Zhiyao stared at that comment for a long time before speaking slowly. “Perhaps Zhou Lan really was a good mother, at first. But it wasn’t long before she changed. For a man, she turned into a complete demon.”

After divorcing Meng Long, Zhou Lan quickly moved in with a bar singer. She was deeply in love with him, but the singer didn’t like children.

More than once, the singer beat the boy in front of Zhou Lan. He’d even make threats, telling her he wanted the son to get the hell out of their house.

In the beginning, Zhou Lan would argue with the singer over her son.

Zhou Lan couldn’t bear to send her son away, but she was also deeply in love with the singer. So she just kept telling her son to behave, to be a better boy.

After all, he was still young and at a rebellious age. The more the singer tried to make him leave, the more he refused to go.

Gradually, the singer grew tired and annoyed with the situation. Feeling like Zhou Lan was just playing him, he started giving her the cold shoulder.

Zhou Lan couldn’t understand why her son wouldn’t just cooperate with the singer, and she blamed the boy for all her relationship problems. To vent her frustration, she started “disciplining” her son with a charging cable.

Getting hit with a charging cable hurts a lot, but the welts heal quickly, leaving no lasting evidence of abuse.

Slowly, the boy realized his mother had become terrifying. He believed the only reason she had changed was because this “uncle” hated him. He thought if he just killed the man, his mother would go back to being a good mom again.

So, Zhou Lan’s beatings had the opposite effect, only making her son more rebellious. He started deliberately causing trouble at home and acting out at school.

Over time, the son became the school bully. Han Lijie couldn’t stand him acting like he owned the place, and the two of them got into a big fight at school.

This incident made the son despise Han Lijie. So, during chemistry class, he collected Han Lijie’s fingerprints. That night, he snuck into Han Lijie’s home and murdered his parents!

When he was done and walked out of Han Lijie’s house, knife in hand, he saw Zhou Lan standing before him, a look of pure terror on her face.

It was late and dark, and the boy thought it was the singer standing there, so he lunged with the knife.

By the time the boy realized what he’d done, he had already stabbed Zhou Lan twice.

He panicked instantly. “Mom… Mom, don’t scare me! We have to call the police! Let’s just call them. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have done something so evil.”

But Zhou Lan stopped him. “No. No. Since it’s already done… we’ll just have to build on this mistake with another.”

Han Lijie had a habit of going to an internet cafe every night and staying until midnight before heading home.

So she lay in wait on a small path she knew Han Lijie had to take. There were no security cameras here. She just waited for him to show up.

At one in the morning, Han Lijie finally appeared.

She called out from behind him, “Han Lijie!”

The moment Han Lijie turned around, Zhou Lan knocked him unconscious with a bat.

Zhou Lan quickly forced sleeping pills into Han Lijie’s mouth, tossed the bottle in a trash can, and dressed him in her son’s blood-spattered clothes.

After doing all this, Zhou Lan quickly returned home, cleaned up the bloodstains, and called the police.

After finishing the story, Shen Zhiyao looked at Meng Long, their expression unchanged. “You probably know the rest.”

Tears were already streaming down Meng Long’s face. Listening to the story had shattered his heart.

To think his son had suffered so much over the past few years, and he had no idea. “I was wrong. Daddy was wrong. It was Daddy’s fault for not taking you with me, for not raising you right… This is all my fault… All my fault…”

[That woman is so vicious! Shoving her own son out to dry for some guy, and then beating him when it fails? Is she even human?]

[Didn’t they say Zhou Lan was hiding her son? She shouldn’t be protecting him. He deserves everything that’s coming to him. He’s the one who had an evil heart and killed Han Lijie’s parents! Serves him right!]

[To the commenter above, are you nuts?! Why are you blaming a little kid? It was clearly his mother’s fault. She didn’t raise him right or give him a safe home. That’s what twisted him up inside and made him a killer.]

[You’re the one who’s nuts! Defending a murderer, of all people!]

[Have some damn decency, all of you! The boy’s father is right here! Is this really the time or place for this?]

[Poor Han Lijie, forced to be the scapegoat for that kid. I don’t get why he ran, though. If he had just told the police the truth, this whole misunderstanding could have been avoided.]

[I think this is all just a story the streamer made up. The police aren’t that dumb.]

Shen Zhiyao said, “The story about Han Lijie killing his parents is a rumor. This was all just a scheme by Zhou Lan’s son to get revenge. As for why Han Lijie chose to run… that has everything to do with his personal history!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep