Chapter 81: Not a legend.

Voices rose behind Liwu. Detectives that were gasping or expressing their shock in different ways.

Mrs. Nu ran to the corner and vomited into a dustbin.

“This girl is insane.” Weijun commented.

The people in the observation area, standing around him agreed.

Weijun could not understand how Liwu was staying so calm in the face of Nu Ying. She had not expressed shock, disgust, anger or any other reaction. She was steady in the face of evil.

In fact, Liwu’s gaze softened as he looked at Nu Ying. It seemed like she understood the girl completely. “Yes, Madam Meng is partially to blame for this. That is why she is being arrested as we speak. She had no right to tell young teens like yourselves about your death. None of you was mentally competent enough to deal with such news.

And she is not the only host with a prediction system being brought in. All the men and women you visited are being brought in. They will pay the price, and so will you. Now that you have confessed to the crime, I am hoping that you are willing to explain the crime scene.

“Why did you put lilies in their mouths?”

Nu Ying’s eyes clouded, a look of sadness settled inside. “For purity. In my family, we use lilies at every funeral. My grandfather used to say that they purify the soul, allowing one to be reborn as a good person and live a wonderful life. Lilies also mean endings. I gave them an ending as they should have had. In their next lives, they will be happier.”

Liwu crossed that out of her notebook. “Why didn’t any of the families reveal the predictions and the connections between the dead children to the police?”

Nu Ying smiled. “One, they were scared the Bureau would come after them for consulting a fate predictor and daring to change fate. I spread that rumor, I said Madam Meng had told me so. Two, everyone deleted their texts and calls, as long as they were related to that event.

To be on the safe side, I sent them all a link with software that erased anything else that they forgot. It was cheap to buy. I was relieved when the police didn’t make any discoveries. I am not surprised your Bureau recovered it however, your software is better.”

“One last question.” Liwu said slowly, “How did you kill them all?”

Nu Ying smiled. The smile was eerie in its calmness. “That was the easy part. There is a system host in the mall near my home who sells hats that make people invisible. Each hat costs six hundred thousand yuan. I inherited five million when my grandpa died two years ago.

I used part of the money to buy one of those hats and went to the houses on nights when I knew no adults would be at home before midnight or at all. I put a sleeping aid in a lily perfume and sprayed it all over the room.

One whiff and they all felt drowsy. Once they went to sleep, I covered their nose and mouth and suffocated them.”

“Oh my God!” Mrs. Nu hurried to the corner to barf again.

Nu Ying chimed freely, “Oh, I was the one that disconnected the cameras and home security systems. I had been to all of their houses before. We all knew each other’s alarm codes. Most of them didn’t have any home security at all.”

Liwu crossed that question from her notebook and then closed it. There was nothing left for her to ask the girl. Another detective would go over each death with Nu Ying, detail by detail. Then, prosecutors would do the rest. As for her, she was finished.

Nu Ying grabbed Liwu’s hand just as she turned. When Liwu looked back, the girl said, “I am not nothing anymore. People will always remember the lilies. They will remember me.”

Liwu exhaled slowly. “You have carved yourself into the world with blood and it has made no difference. You are still nothing. All your friends are dead. Deep inside, you are empty. You will be prosecuted for your crimes under the criminal law. Being a juvenile offender will not help you.

You will get a life sentence of twenty years or more, starting out in a juvenile facility and then transferred to a real prison when you are nineteen. Because you worked with system hosts or products to commit the murders, the Bureau will push for a longer sentence. The minimum will be fifty years.

In the end, you have proven the prediction system right–you are blank because you destroyed everything that could have filled you. Yourself, your parents, your friends and your life.”

Nu Ying’s fingers stilled. For a moment, her mask slipped, and Liwu saw the child beneath–the fear, the loneliness, the desperate hunger to be someone that mattered. But then the girl straightened, her voice cold again. “I am someone now. My story will be a legend nobody will ever forget.”

Liwu pulled her hand away from Nu Ying’s fingers and said, “You are wrong. What is sad about your story is that none of the people that predict fate truly know what a blank means. There was no proof that it was a death or a jinx. Maybe it meant you will be a powerful system host in future and they were not allowed to reveal this.

Your fate could have been so powerful that none of them is at the level to peek into it. Blank is a possibility. You ended that possibility by choosing to kill nine children who trusted you. That is not legendary–it is cruelty.”

Nu Ying’s eyes followed Liwu as she moved toward the door. Some of the other detectives were leaving too, but the only one she cared about was Liwu. “Detective Liwu,” she called, her voice echoing in the room. “When they write about me, will you say something nice?”

Liwu paused, hand on the doorknob. She turned back, her expression unreadable. “No. I will tell the truth, that you are the most cruel and calculating child I have ever met. Not once have you expressed remorse for what you did to your friends. You smile as you recount the details of your crimes because you enjoyed what you did to them. You are a sadist and a killer, and that is what history is going to remember you for.”

The door closed with a heavy click, leaving Nu Ying with her mother, a lily and Xuanji who wanted to go over each crime. But Nu Ying remained quiet. She stared at the lily, the petals trembling in the faint draft. For the first time since the girl made up her mind to kill her friends, she wondered if she had taken the wrong step.

It almost seemed as if she was waiting for the lily to tell her if she was right or wrong. But it just stared back at her blankly, like her fate.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep