"No...how could he..." Long Yishin"s eyes shook as they watered. "He...he was murdered?!"Long Yun placed a hand on her upper back and led her from the corridors to her office. He kept mum until he had locked the door to her room.
He made her sit on the leather sofa as he grabbed a chair to sit facing her.
"Xiao-shin, you may wanna take a look at this." He produced a piece of paper from his coat pocket and handed it to her.
She stared at the piece of paper, in a daze, for a minute, before finally taking it from him with trembling fingers.
She looked at her brother, seemingly antic.i.p.ating instructions.
Long Yun sighed. He thought that this little sister of his is a little girl again, awaiting instructions as she did not know how to proceed.
She had only been so for a few years. Due to her intellect, he often finds her having more knowledge than he has, so she rarely asks him for guidance.
At this point, she seemed lost.
"Yishin." Her brother"s voice snapped her back to the present.
Her blank eyes finally looked like they had come back from another world.
"Unfold the paper." he instructed.
She slowly did as told. As the text was revealed, she furrowed her brows.
She found the handwriting familiar.
After a minute of staring at the words, she was certain that it was Tang Jinxi"s handwriting. He had written her several letters when they were still studying. She could not be mistaken.
She silently read with understanding.
"My amazing Yishin,
We have known each other since junior high school. Do you still remember the first time we met? It was during the first PE cla.s.s of the year when the basketball I pa.s.sed landed on your head..."
Long Yishin laughed with teary eyes as she recalled the event when they were young.
"...Everyone laughed but I didn"t. I rushed to check on you when I saw that you fell after being hit by a ball. My adreline allowed the skinny me to carry you to the school clinic, not minding the stares from everyone. After the nurse treated your wounds, you slapped me hard, so that a red mark of a palm was evident until I got home."
Long Yishin pursed her lips as she read on.
"We got up on the wrong foot, so it was like a miracle when you agreed to go with me to the dance. You were the most beautiful back then, that many of my friends envied me. However, I still remember how you laughed at my poor dancing skills. I"m sorry for stepping on your foot for more than once...
Yishin, thank you for being with me. A lot has happened since then. We almost fell apart when some girl made up things about me having a relationship with her, but we got through with it.
Yishin, I cannot imagine living my life without you. If you leave me, I don"t think I can still call my existence a life.
So, Long Yishin, will you marry me?"
Long Yishin"s tears which welled up came streaming down in large droplets from her face to the floor. She subconsciously raised her hand to cover her face as she wailed, as her other hand clutched the letter, almost crumpling it.
Long Yun almost could not bare to look at this miserable state of his sister.
.
The case of Tang Jinxi"s death had long been closed as suicide.
However, Long Yun had a hunch that what his sister said back then about the guy not having a reason to take his own life had more substance in it than a messily written suicidal note.
He had hired investigators since then. However, it took them years to finally unearth a letter hidden under the empty cushion in the box of the watch the guy was wearing the day he died.
Actually, police had some suspicion of foul play when they saw the victim. For someone who was about to commit suicide, he had dressed up a little bit too formally, as if he was going out.
Indeed, he was about to go to dinner with Long Yishin that night. When he stood her up, she went to his place and found his lifeless body.
The police dismissed the clothing as a way of life for people living in the high socioeconomic cla.s.s. They eventually closed the case as suicide after finding the note on the bedside table and finding no defensive wounds on the corpse.
.
Long Yishin looked up at her brother with fierce eyes.
"Tell me the details." Her voice was coa.r.s.e but filled with fury.