Monster - Chapter 23
Chapter 23: Monsterization
After being rescued, Lin Sandie was sent to a hospital to recuperate for two days. At Yan Ting's urging, she decided to visit her mother before returning to Center City.
Her father, Lin Zhenshuo, and stepmother, Wang Xia, had been killed by her younger brother, Lin Youceng. It was something she never could have imagined, but since her original plan had been to go home and visit her biological mother's grave, she had no intention of changing it.
As for her father and stepmother's burial, Zhang Fan said the local Inspectorate needed to conduct further examinations, so a funeral ceremony could not be held yet. Lin Sandie planned to return to Center City for a while before coming back to her hometown to arrange the services.
Of course, there were many other minor details, but Yang Dongyang had taken over most of them.
The rural village where Lin Sandie grew up had no designated cemetery. Her mother was buried on the mountain north of the village, a place where many deceased villagers were laid to rest. After getting Yan Ting's permission, and under the watch of personnel sent by Yang Dongyang, she went up the mountain early that morning to visit her mother's grave.
The photograph on the tombstone was somewhat faded, but her mother's beautiful features were still visible. She had been around twenty-five when the picture was taken, with short hair and a gentle smile, her dimples faintly visible. She possessed a graceful and clear-eyed temperament.
Lin Sandie looked more like her mother, Zhao Zhi, but unfortunately, Zhao Zhi had passed away from an illness at the age of twenty-five, when Lin Sandie was only five.
Lin Sandie wasn't wearing her glasses. She gazed at her mother's photograph for a long while before bending down to place the fresh flowers in front of the grave.
"I'm finally the same age as you, Mom." After setting down the flowers, Lin Sandie stood up straight again, tucking her hands into the pockets of her light windbreaker. She smiled, and here, before her mother's grave, her smile was much more sincere.
"The thing I've always wanted to do… it's almost ready." Lin Sandie gently gripped the glasses in her pocket. Her expression remained as gentle and refined as ever, but after she spoke those words, a madness she rarely showed flickered in her rain-colored eyes.
"Anyway, Dad and the others are gone. I'm all alone now, so there's nothing to worry about…" Lin Sandie took the glasses out of her pocket, lowered her head to wipe them with the velvet cloth they were wrapped in, and then gently placed them on the bridge of her nose. "Even if your spirit is in heaven, you probably can't protect me."
The moment the glasses were on, the madness in her eyes vanished.
"I don't plan to endure it any longer," Lin Sandie said, looking at her mother's photograph, her tone carrying a calm that suggested mutual destruction.
Yan Ting had played every trick in the book on her. She had to pay the price for it.
Lin Sandie was going to turn Yan Ting into flower fertilizer.
After saying this, Lin Sandie silently kept her mother, Zhao Zhi, company for a while longer before turning to walk back down the mountain. A black sedan was parked at the distant foothills. The driver, who was supposed to take her back to Center City, was on the phone, smoking a cigarette. Unlike the concrete jungle of the city, this place was surrounded by green fields. The morning breeze carried the scent of spring, yet in Lin Sandie's eyes, it was filled with a sense of desolation.
Seeing Lin Sandie descend, the driver dropped his cigarette butt to the ground, crushed it under his shoe, and then opened the car door and sat in the driver's seat.
"Back to Center City?" the driver asked, turning his head slightly after Lin Sandie had settled into the back seat. He had a fierce aura, like a cleaner.
"Yes, thank you," Lin Sandie replied, her gaze steady and her expression gentle as she nodded her thanks.
The driver turned his head back, glanced at Lin Sandie with a smirk as if mocking her, and then stepped on the accelerator, driving toward Center City.
Lin Sandie knew that the people who worked for Yan Ting privately looked down on her. In their eyes, she was like a parasite living off Yan Ting, yet she never received her true regard. She was unable to do anything for her, possessed no value, and was merely a drain on Yan Ting's resources.
This had earned Lin Sandie many scornful looks and subtle hardships.
She had expected to be taken directly home to wait for Yan Ting to come and comfort her in her spare time. To her surprise, after returning to Center City, the driver pulled up in front of an unfamiliar villa and stopped.
"Where is this?" A strong sense of foreboding washed over Lin Sandie.
The driver didn't answer her question. He opened the door, roughly dragged her out of the back seat, and gripped her arm tightly, pulling her toward the villa. As they neared the main gate, he pressed the doorbell.
"Who is it?" a somewhat shrill voice came from the intercom next to the black iron gate.
"Lao Wu. I've brought Lin Sandie."
There was no reply, but the lock on the iron gate clicked open. The driver, calling himself Lao Wu, dragged a deathly pale Lin Sandie into the villa.
At the same time, in Yan Ting's home, her face was ashen as she looked at the files her husband, Zhang Jun, had handed her.
The first was a photograph of a woman who looked exactly like Lin Sandie. She had long hair flowing over her shoulders and was wearing a loose white tank top and black skinny jeans. She was dancing, a captivating and friendly smile on her face.
Next was the surveillance footage of Feng Li's murder. The figure of the perpetrator in the video looked identical to the "Lin Sandie" in the photograph.
The third piece of video evidence showed "Lin Sandie" in a pink dress entering the area covered by surveillance cameras around Xu Siqian. This recording was extremely clear, showing "Lin Sandie's" face from every angle. It ended with her kidnapping Xu Siqian and running out of the cameras' range.
"This person is not Lin Sandie," Yan Ting said, her face grim and her tone harsh. She continued to scrutinize the footage of Xu Siqian's kidnapping. In the bottom right corner of the screen was the time and date of the recording. "Three days ago, Lin Sandie was in her hometown dealing with her family being killed by her out-of-control brother. It's impossible for her to have run thousands of kilometers to Center City to kidnap Xu Siqian."
"Then what about this?" Zhang Jun held a photo in front of Yan Ting. It showed Xing Meilu and Lin Sandie talking inside a black SUV.
In an instant, Yan Ting's eyes filled with killing intent.
Zhang Jun, however, appeared perfectly calm. He stood beside her with his arms crossed and said in an indifferent tone, "If Xing Meilu was only approaching Lin Sandie because of the Bai Xuan stabbing case, I could understand. But why is it that the police, who knew nothing about Xu Yao before, suddenly started investigating Xu Siqian?"
"Look at the last video. This Inspector from the Inspectorate, Xing Meilu, was at the scene."
"I'll handle this," Yan Ting said, standing up abruptly and walking toward the door.
"If we can't find Xu Siqian and the thing Xu Yao left behind, forget about getting the brooch. We'll all die horribly. I hope you take this seriously."
"I am taking it very seriously," Yan Ting said through gritted teeth.
Lin Sandie didn't know what was happening. After being dragged into the unfamiliar villa, she was immediately taken to a room on the second floor. Throughout the process, no one said a single word to her. It made them feel like a highly disciplined organization, not the loud-mouthed street thugs from television dramas.
As she was being pulled up to the second floor, Lin Sandie's glasses slipped slightly. She looked directly at the several people sitting in the first-floor living room, playing on their phones. They had the same aura as the driver, Lao Wu. They were all people who had mutated into monsters.
She was silently pushed into a dim room, and then she heard the sound of the door being locked. She tried to breathe, to calm herself down as quickly as possible. She scanned her surroundings and found that the room had only one small, locked window. In the center was a bed, on which lay only an old, pale-yellow mattress. Some areas were stained with suspicious colors. In the corner of the room stood a white plastic bucket. Although it had a lid, it still emitted a foul stench of urine.
Lin Sandie shifted her gaze to the floor. On the gray maple wood, she noticed specks of blood in many places. Following the bloodstains upward with her eyes, she saw a large iron ring bolted to the ceiling.
This was a place for interrogating prisoners.
The thought made her heart race uncontrollably. She barely managed to stop herself from banging on the door and begging the people outside to let her go.
She knew that even if she pleaded, those who had mutated into monsters would certainly not show any mercy.
Her chest heaved violently. Lin Sandie forced her gaze away from the iron ring, compelling herself not to dwell on things that were beyond her control.
She saw a relatively clean folding chair to the left of the entrance. Slowly, she walked over to it and sat down, trying to calm her furiously beating heart.
Her phone and bag had been taken from her when she first entered the villa. Now, all she had on her was a pair of glasses.
After calming down a little, Lin Sandie began to analyze why she had been captured the moment she returned to Center City.
Her first thought was that her deal with Glory Road to monitor Yan Ting had been discovered.
But on second thought, it didn't seem logical. She hadn't left any records at home or on her phone or computer. Her visit to the optical shop was a normal trip that could withstand Yan Ting's tracking and investigation. The only way it could have been discovered was if the Glory Road base at the optical shop had been exposed.
But Glory Road had promised her that if they were exposed, their other members would definitely send her a text message about a discount at the optical shop as a warning. As of the moment she was dragged into this villa, Lin Sandie had not received any information about a discount.
Exhaling slowly, Lin Sandie turned her thoughts to another possibility.
She thought of Xing Meilu.
Lately, Xing Meilu had been seeking her out frequently. Before she left for her hometown, she had secretly typed a note on a typewriter about Feng Li being killed by a strange woman and slipped it into the crevice of the other woman's car seat.
Could it be because of that?
"No, that's also untraceable," Lin Sandie once again dismissed the idea.
Xing Meilu's visits had been with Yan Ting's tacit approval. Although the latter was intensely jealous, she couldn't do anything openly to a high-ranking Inspectorate officer. And after every conversation with Xing Meilu, Lin Sandie would report everything truthfully.
In fact, Yan Ting had installed surveillance cameras in her home and had likely installed a Trojan Horse on her phone as well. Every word she spoke was within the scope of what Yan Ting permitted.
She and Xing Meilu had never done anything that exceeded the limits Yan Ting allowed.
There was nothing suspicious about her.
Lin Sandie repeated this to herself in her mind. She raised a hand to adjust the glasses on the bridge of her nose, then laced her fingers together. Her rain-colored eyes were like glass, devoid of any emotion. Her expression had become completely calm, no longer showing the panic from before.
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