The Creator's Grace (GL) - Chapter 8

On the day of Chi Li’s burial, the long-brewing leaden clouds finally released a continuous drizzle, the rain misty and dense, the temperature plummeting, and the entire city entered winter overnight.

Chi Li’s relatives and friends saw her off on her final journey in the rain.

Chi Yu, dressed in all black with a high ponytail, no makeup, held the urn steadily in her arms, walking at a measured pace.

Ran Jin held an umbrella high above Chi Yu’s head.

Despite the relentless wind and rain, neither Chi Yu’s shoulders nor Chi Li’s urn were even slightly dampened.

The autumn rain fell heavier and heavier, blurring the sky and the earth into one color.

Raindrops beat against the taut umbrella surface, the muffled sounds covering her ears, the net-like rain blurring her vision. Everything in the world was weighed down in a gray gloom, only Chi Yu’s obsidian-like eyes remained clear and bright, their depths sharp and profound.

After placing her sister’s urn in the burial plot and watching the cemetery staff seal the top, the cries of the relatives and friends who had come to see her off, stretching from the hillside to the mountaintop, mingled with the sound of the rain.

Everyone knew this was the final journey.

From this point on, Chi Li would no longer exist in this world.

Ran Jin was a little shorter than Chi Yu. To prevent Chi Yu’s head from hitting the edge of the umbrella, Ran Jin kept her upper arm raised throughout, her gaze fixed straight ahead, as if trying to see every frame of the misty rain clearly.

It wasn’t until the farewell cries echoed in the cemetery that Ran Jin withdrew her aimless gaze and looked at Chi Yu beside her, reaching into her pocket to hand her the pack of tissues that hadn’t been used yesterday.

Unexpectedly, Chi Yu didn’t cry.

Glistening raindrops, swept up by a sudden gust of wind, pierced Ran Jin’s defense and landed on Chi Yu’s long eyebrows and eyelashes, making her already striking features even more vivid, her cold eyes shimmering with unshed tears.

Chi Yu stepped out from under Ran Jin’s umbrella, waved away the others, and stood alone by Chi Li’s grave.

“I will spend the rest of my life finding out the truth. Whoever committed this heinous act, I will make them pay the price.”

Rainwater quickly streamed down her face, gathering at her chin and dripping down like broken threads.

Chi Yu choked back a sob, hot tears mixing with the cold rain. She bit her lip tightly, and after the tension in her lips and the surging grief were temporarily suppressed, the fury she felt when mentioning the murderer transformed into a heart-wrenching reluctance.

For the first time in her life, she experienced what farewell meant, what it meant to lose someone forever.

“Sister, I’ve grown up, I can take care of myself, so don’t worry. In the next life… let’s still be sisters.”

Chi Yu kissed her sister’s tombstone in the increasingly heavy rain.

••••

After returning from the cemetery, Chi Yu took a hot shower. When she came out, she showed signs of a slight fever.

Feeling dizzy and heavy-headed, she drank hot water, took medicine, and leaned against the sofa, scrolling through WeChat on her phone.

She remembered that Ran Jin hadn’t left and had returned to the Chi family home with her.

Ran Jin had poured the water for her medicine and had also gotten the pills.

When she handed over a dry and soft bathrobe, Chi Yu had still smelled the rain on her.

“Change your clothes,” Chi Yu said, holding the warm water cup with both hands, looking up at Ran Jin, her voice hoarse. “Otherwise, you’ll get sick too.”

Ran Jin hummed in agreement, but didn’t immediately change. Instead, she said something to Aunt Su and then turned back to Chi Yu, saying, “There are still some things at the company, I’ll go take care of them. You rest well and adjust to the time difference. There shouldn’t be anything else.”

“Thank you for your hard work, Sister Ran.”

Sister Ran gave a faint smile and left the Chi family home.

Chi Yu slept for a while after taking the antipyretic medicine. She woke up at four in the afternoon, tidied herself up, and prepared to go out.

As she walked from her third-floor bedroom towards the living room, Aunt Su, who was standing there, looked up and said to her:

“Second Miss, you’re awake? Are you going out? Dinner is ready, would you like to eat something?”

Chi Yu glanced at the dining table, which was full of dishes she liked.

Although she didn’t have much appetite, she didn’t want to disappoint Aunt Su’s efforts or waste such a lavish spread, so she sat down and forced herself to eat a few bites.

“Second Miss, let me take your temperature. It’s not good to run around if your fever hasn’t gone down. It’s still raining outside, and it’s so cold it chills you to the bone.” Aunt Su brought the thermometer gun and took her temperature. It was just over 37 degrees, so it had indeed come down a bit, but she wasn’t completely better.

Chi Yu put down her chopsticks and said, “Did Sister Ran tell you to do this?”

In her memory, Aunt Su had been a maid in their house for five years. Although she was very diligent, she wasn’t usually this meticulous.

This thoughtfulness felt very familiar, it was Ran Jin’s way of doing things.

Aunt Su was straightforward, “Yes, Miss Ran specifically instructed me when she left, and she also said that you should try not to go out if possible, rest at home and get better. She said she’ll come see you tonight after she’s done with company matters.”

If this kind of care were shown by someone else, it might have seemed a bit ingratiating, but coming from Ran Jin, it was just the right amount of thoughtfulness.

Because that’s how she had always been, whether towards her sister or all the close people around her sister.

Chi Yu went out after eating a few bites. She had to go out.

She needed to go see her friend in person and look at the evidence.

The international school Chi Yu attended in middle school had produced many talented individuals. Most of them had now embarked on the orthodox path of the elite, but of course, there were also some less conventional ones.

The friend who had been helping her investigate the truth of her sister’s death these past few days was her closest childhood friend, Qi Tong.

In middle school, Qi Tong was the school’s know-it-all. From the gossip of the lower-grade kids to the scandals of the school board, she had it all. Every time Chi Yu asked her about something, she would easily get an earful of unrelated gossip until she was stuffed. So, every time she chatted with Qi Tong, she went straight to the point.

Chi Yu’s good habit of not talking nonsense was largely cultivated by Qi Tong.

Back when Chi Yu was burning the midnight oil to get an offer from the top university for lunar orbit studies, Qi Tong saw her friend living such a fulfilling life every day, which made her feel anxious, not knowing what she would be able to do in the future.

“Think carefully about what you’re good at. Everyone has their own talent.”

Unexpectedly, it was really because of Chi Yu’s words that Qi Tong carefully examined her own abilities and discovered that she was very good at gossip. If she could monetize her gossip talent, her parents wouldn’t keep chasing after her, scolding her for being useless and a disgrace.

Chi Yu went abroad to study, while Qi Tong, while attending university, opened her own private affairs studio, specializing in helping people solve matters of “privacy intrusion” and “evidence collection,” and ensuring that everything was legal throughout.

In fact, it was taking gossip to the extreme and making the “melon farmers” pay for it.

Qi Tong’s studio flourished during her four years of university. She no longer wanted to continue with postgraduate studies and planned to dedicate all her energy to entrepreneurship after graduation.

She hadn’t expected that this increasingly mature studio could also provide services to her best friend.

At six o’clock, Chi Yu arrived at Qi Tong’s studio. Qi Tong had specifically asked her employees to leave early. After all, it concerned the most confidential truth behind the death of the former chairman of the Chi Corporation, and the fewer people who knew, the better.

When Qi Tong saw Chi Yu enter and take off her sunglasses, her face was a little flushed and she looked unwell, so she asked, “Are you sick?”

“It’s alright, let’s get down to business,” Chi Yu said, sitting down on the sofa opposite her.

Originally, Qi Tong was going to attend Chi Li’s funeral today, but she received news just as she was about to leave that the surveillance footage she had been longing for had arrived.

Qi Tong immediately told Chi Yu, didn’t go to the funeral, stayed to receive the video, and even spent time restoring it, confirming that it was very valuable evidence.

“The surveillance footage is here. It’s just as I thought, but I still need you to identify it. Should I send it to you or will you come over to watch it?”

“I’ll come over.”

“Okay, I’ll clear everyone out here and wait for you.”

Qi Tong had thought Chi Yu would come over immediately, but unexpectedly, Chi Yu said she was too sleepy and would come after taking a nap.

Qi Tong knew at this point that Chi Yu was sick, which was why she hadn’t come immediately.

In fact, Chi Yu herself understood that facing the truth that was about to be revealed, she needed to let her brain, which had been running at high speed for many days, rest a little, to be more awake, before deciding to sleep.

The surveillance footage was the most direct evidence, and the implication in Qi Tong’s words was very clear: the person captured was someone Chi Yu knew.

Ran Jin, it was very likely her.

Chi Yu already had a leaning in her heart.

But from returning home yesterday to today’s funeral, Ran Jin had been as meticulous towards her as she had been before her sister’s death.

When Chi Yu had just obtained that hard-won evidence pointing to Ran Jin as the murderer of her sister, she had indeed immediately stood on the opposite side of Ran Jin.

The night she met Ran Jin at the airport, she had already regarded her as a suspect.

But during the past two days of getting along, some contradictory details had gradually seeped into Chi Yu’s mind.

She didn’t understand how Ran Jin, if she was really the murderer, could appear so calmly in the Chi family home, keep vigil for her sister, and thoughtfully comfort the younger sister of the person she had killed.

Perhaps there was still room for doubt about whether Ran Jin was the murderer.

Chi Yu didn’t deny that deep down, she still hoped Ran Jin wasn’t the murderer.

And the other reason that made Chi Yu hope her previous assumptions could be overturned was emotional.

If Ran Jin was really the murderer, then both her sister, who had nurtured her by her side for many years, and Chi Yu, who had been cared for by her and sincerely regarded her as her sister-in-law, were fools who had been deceived for many years.

Qi Tong brought the tablet over. Seeing that Chi Yu didn’t take it, she placed it on the table and asked, “Watch it now?”

Chi Yu rested her chin on one hand, feeling the fever returning. She slowly blinked her burning eyes and said, “Watch it now, play it.”

Qi Tong clicked on the video, “Just like the destroyed autopsy report, these are all I managed to restore with great difficulty. They weren’t the original videos to begin with, the pixel quality is very poor, but the basic human shape can still be seen clearly.”

Chi Yu had seen the destroyed autopsy report. Although it was very blurry, like it had been enlarged from a very small image, some words and sentences could still be understood by connecting them with the context, and the outline of the image could be seen. It was indeed twelve stab wounds.

The video Qi Tong was playing for her now was the surveillance video from the golf course. It had been destroyed, and Qi Tong had asked someone to stay up several nights to retrieve it.

The video started playing. Chi Yu had no expression on her face, but her heart was out of control, starting to beat faster.

“This camera is installed at the back door of your sister’s lounge. There are also surveillance cameras in the front door corridor, and more than one. The murderer definitely knew about them, so they chose to go through the back door to avoid being filmed, thinking there was only one surveillance camera at the back door, making it easy to deal with. Unexpectedly, the back door had a pair of mother-child cameras. After one was destroyed, the more hidden child camera would activate, making it impossible to guard against. It was probably specially installed because it was your sister’s lounge.”

The video quality was very grainy, blurry like a secretly taken photo from an old cell phone.

A woman wearing a white baseball cap, sunglasses, and a mask covering her mouth and nose appeared in the frame.

She was wrapped up very tightly, even her coat was a size too big. It was obvious she wanted to hide her body shape as well.

“She walked over and scanned something with the sensor in her hand, see, this movement. Then she probably found the location of the camera and damaged the mother camera. After that, the child camera activated. Because entering your sister’s lounge requires authorization, needing facial scanning, right here, she took off her mask and her face was captured.”

Qi Tong paused the video at the moment this person’s face was revealed.

“The time this woman appeared at the back door was exactly half an hour after your sister entered the lounge, and twenty minutes before your sister’s secretary arrived. It’s a pity that facial scanning doesn’t require taking off sunglasses, just removing the mask is enough to successfully unlock it, otherwise she might have shown her full face.” Qi Tong looked at the blurry half of the face under the brim of the hat and sunglasses and asked Chi Yu, “Can you tell who it is?”

As soon as the question was asked, Qi Tong got the answer from Chi Yu’s motionless expression.

Clearly, Qi Tong, who had met Ran Jin many times, could roughly tell it was Ran Jin, let alone Chi Yu, who had lived with her day and night.

“It’s her. Ran Jin.”

Chi Yu’s unblinking eyes stared at the screen, at the obscured face, gradually turning red. Her throat felt like it was being choked, so tight it was almost making her cough up bl00d.

“It’s her, no mistake.”

“Xiao Yu, you, drink some coffee, calm down.”

“No need.” Chi Yu gave a cold laugh. As a huge wave of anger surged in her chest, she was surprisingly able to remain calm, even her tone didn’t change much.

Amidst the calmness, thinking of how she had just been trying to excuse Ran Jin, Chi Yu only felt her own foolishness was infuriating.

With what kind of mentality did Ran Jin stay in the Chi family home, continuing to play the role of a gentle and considerate elder?

Was it to confuse everyone and evade investigation?

Seeing others being deceived by her superb acting skills, how smug she must have felt in her heart.

Qi Tong saw that Chi Yu’s eyes were staring straight ahead, and although her tone was indeed very calm, she had already bitten her lip. She couldn’t help but take Chi Yu’s hand.

With Qi Tong’s touch, Chi Yu slightly regained her senses and then felt the taste of bl00d in her mouth.

“Continue,” Chi Yu said, clicking on the video to resume playback.

At this moment, her state of mind was completely different from when she had arrived.

All wavering conjectures couldn’t compare to the shock of what she had seen with her own eyes.

Faced with solid evidence, she couldn’t be foolish again.

No wonder Ran Jin was so determined to control the Chi Corporation.

Perhaps the huge cake that was the Chi Corporation was one of Ran Jin’s motives for committing such a ruthless act.

So, why did she come to the Chi family in the first place?

Her sister was dead, and her years of silent cultivation could finally bear fruit, right?

Chi Yu lowered her eyes and gradually let out a self-deprecating laugh.

Qi Tong looked at her, a chill running down her spine.

Dream on.

Everything of my sister’s will naturally be inherited by me.

Chi Yu’s gaze gradually sharpened.

The Chi Corporation, and everything you, Ran Jin, currently possess, should all be mine.