Lie Guoxiao stroked an old, yellowed photo. The photo showed a woman in a goose-yellow sweater and a pair of children. Judging from the height of the children, they were a pair of siblings. They were very cute. The three of them were smiling. They were flawless smiles immersed in happiness.

Lie Guoxiao’s tears fell on the photo. He wiped it away with his finger, and whispered softly, “Forgive me. I couldn’t help it!”

Then he asked the subordinate at his side, "What was the date that day?"

"May 17th."

"Okay, remember that May 17th is my daughter's death anniversary, and whenever this day comes..."

When the phone rang, Lie Guoxiao answered impatiently. After listening, he cursed, "Damn the police. Tell them to come in!"

He sat down, lit a cigar, and put on an unruffled demeanor. He was slightly surprised when he saw Lin Qiupu walking in. But when he saw Lin Dongxue who was following behind Lin Qiupu, Lie Guoxiao suddenly cried out in fear, "Ah, ghost!"

Lin Qiupu and Lin Dongxue exchanged glances in surprise. What was going on?

Lie Guoxiao quickly returned to normal, and transformed back to the old man who reveals nothing. However, his momentary strange reaction planted deep doubts in Lin Dongxue's heart.

On the way back, Lin Dongxue kept looking silently out the window. When the car stopped at an intersection, the slight swaying of the car recalled her to reality. She said, "He just called me a ‘ghost’, right?"

"Well, it's truly a bit strange."

"Brother, I’ve been thinking about why Chu Wei kidnapped me for the past two days. At that time, he was going to use me to extort money from someone. Chu Wei was the one who killed our parents. When I asked him about it, he said that he just did it for the money. I then asked who had hired him, and he said mockingly - 'Your father'!"

"What?!"

"I thought he was teasing me, but I thought about it later. Could this have a double meaning? Did our father fake his own death?!"

"How could that be possible? Our father..."

"Do you remember what he looked like? What did he do? Did he have any enemies?"

Lin Qiupu fell into silence for a while, and the traffic started to move again. A few minutes later, Lin Qiupu replied, "Our father is called Lin Zhaoxiong. I remember that he often travelled on business and sometimes didn’t come back for a few months. Whenever he came back, he would bring us many toys. Every time, he would buy us imported chocolates and it made you picky with your food. He was very affectionate with our mother, although they had an age gap of over ten years."

Lin Dongxue had no impression of these things, but she knew one thing. "Our father has no relatives in Long'an, and the ones who have raised us since childhood were relatives from our mother's side... Brother, can we do a DNA test? "

"Ashes cannot be identified by DNA. What do you want to express?"

"Brother, don't think that my thoughts are too exaggerated, I think it's possible..." Lin Dongxue knew that when this sentence is said, many things would change, but the truth has a magical power that makes people unconsciously explore it. "Lie Guoxiao is our father?!"

"Impossible!!!" Lin Qiupu said loudly.

"Listen to me. Chu Wei kidnapped me to extort someone. He only did this when all his other options were exhausted. It shows that he didn't dare to offend that person normally. What does this person have to do with me? Is he our father? If this is the case, our father had pretended to die back then. He hired Chu Wei to fake a car accident. Chu Wei had always known this secret. After he fell out with the gang, he used this secret to extort a fortune. That night, I heard him mention 'Pandora's Box' on the phone. Doesn’t this mean that a secret is about to be revealed?"

"Based on this, our father isn’t a good man!"

"Then there’s Chu Wei's death. He and his two assistants died on the mountain. The method was like that of a professional killer’s. Why did he escape to the mountain? Chu Wei was familiar with those villages. He had been in hiding before. He must have a place to go since he was previously hiding from the police. I think he went to the mountain to meet someone. He intended to continue the transaction with the other person, using a fake hostage. That is, that girl. The autopsy report mentioned the clothing of the deceased. I remember that the female drug addict wasn’t wearing that outfit before. The clothes she wore when she died were very similar to what I was wearing that day. Why did they change a woman's clothes in the middle of escaping at night? This is the most likely reason!"

"What Chu Wei didn't expect was that the other party didn't plan to carry out the transaction at all, and directly sent killers to kill all three of them. As far as this person was concerned, he had personally killed his own daughter and buried this secret forever... Think about Lie Guoxiao's reaction when he saw me just then!"

Lin Dongxue's eyes were burning with fervour, but Lin Qiupu was lost in thought. "Do you really hope that such a person is our father?"

"Brother, we can’t choose our parents. If Lie Guoxiao is really our father, my reasoning will make sense. In that case, it will prove that he is a member of the criminal syndicate, and may be the mastermind behind the scenes. Then we will have evidence to arrest him... Even if the evidence isn’t sufficient, the fact that he is still alive as our father is inherently problematic because another person died for him back then!"

Lin Qiupu smiled bitterly, "How can you say such things so calmly?"

"For me, it's the same whether we have parents or not. I only have one family member in this world."

"Is that person's surname Lin?"

"It isn’t Lin, but Gē, as in ‘Older Brother’!" Lin Dongxue smiled.[1]

Lin Qiupu suddenly remembered that when they were young, they were staying with relatives after the two lost their parents. Lin Dongxue had a nightmare at night, and cried that she wanted to find her brother.

"The last time Lie Guoxiao was arrested, we retained his DNA." He noted.

"What are you waiting for? Let’s hurry back to the bureau."

Back in the bureau, Lin Qiupu immediately asked Peng Sijue to compare two samples. He didn't say that that strand of hair was his own. He waited anxiously for three hours. The two stood up nervously as long as they heard footsteps in the office.

At this time, the internal line rung and Lin Qiupu answered. "I'll go and get the report!"

"I'll go as well!" Lin Dongxue couldn't wait.

"No, no, no, I'm afraid you’ll scream. I'll be right back."

After Lin Qiupu left, every second felt extremely long and Lin Dongxue felt nervous and uneasy. If Lie Guoxiao was really her father, how grave a fact would that be? How should she tell other people and tell Chen Shi?

The door opened and Lin Qiupu came in with a piece of paper. Lin Dongxue snatched it from him. After reading the words on it, it was a load off her mind.

"Sister, Lie Guoxiao is really our father!" Lin Qiupu said with mixed feelings. "This is strong evidence for us to arrest him!"

"Let’s arrest him now and ask this old bastard why he pretended to die and killed our mother! Why did he send a killer that night to kill me?!" At this point, Lin Dongxue's eyes became moist with tears. They were tears of anger and disappointment.

1. “Older brother” is pronounced as “Gēgē”.