That day, she walked forward along the road her adoptive parents had pointed out for her.

Back then, she was blind.

The blaring horns of passing cars rang painfully loud in her ears.

She knew exactly what her adoptive parents intended.

They wanted to abandon her.

As long as she remained alive, every day she lived was, in their eyes, nothing more than wasted food.

She had wanted release too.

But she didn’t have the courage.

Even though she couldn’t see a single color of this world, she still wanted to live.

She simply wanted to keep living.

And yet… in the end, she still took that step.

The car struck her and sent her flying dozens of meters.

In that moment, she believed her life was over.

But just as her consciousness was about to fade, she heard her adoptive parents crying out nearby.

Their voices were hoarse from screaming.

They wailed about how pitiful she was, how tragic her life had been.

And demanded compensation from the driver who had hit her.

That was the moment the hatred inside her began to grow, silently and steadily.

Why?

They were the ones who had wanted her dead.

And yet in the end, they tried to squeeze money out of her death.

Later, she learned what had happened.

The driver who struck her had been Professor Chen’s son.

That day he had attended a wedding banquet and had drunk a little alcohol.

In rural areas, drunk driving was rarely checked.

It was simply bad luck.

Even if it hadn’t been Sang Ning, something else would likely have happened to him sooner or later.

But before he died… he donated his corneas to her.

She didn’t know how he had learned about her blindness.

Perhaps he had heard it when her adoptive parents were wailing about her miserable life…

Professor Chen’s son died in that accident.

After hitting Sang Ning, he had sobered up halfway and jerked the steering wheel hard—only to crash into an oncoming truck.

When Sang Ning woke up in the hospital, the first thing she saw was Professor Chen’s kind, gentle face.

And beside him, Mrs. Chen’s grief-filled eyes.

It was clearly her fault that they had lost their son.

White-haired parents burying their child.

And yet the couple showed her not a trace of blame.

Sang Ning had wanted to ask what her adoptive parents did after the accident.

Had they continued harassing the Chen family for money?

But what happened afterward made her worries unnecessary.

In her adoptive parents’ eyes, she had already died in the crash.

When the ambulance carried her away, they hadn’t even bothered to accompany her.

Professor Chen later said she was a child with a bitter fate.

Since his son had given her his eyes…

Then he hoped she would use them to see the moon piercing through fireflies, to walk through lantern-lit markets and bustling streets, and experience all the splendor this world had to offer.

Only then would she understand that life was worth living.

Sang Ning knew she couldn’t remain trapped in the past forever.

She would investigate the truth about her adoptive parents.

And she would repay the kindness of the Chen family.

Professor Chen’s son had been a forensic pathologist.

So she would live on in his place.

Nine full years had passed.

In all that time, Sang Ning had never dared revisit those memories.

Nor had she ever mentioned them in front of Professor Chen and his wife.

And now—

Gu Yezhou’s single sentence—

*To speak for the dead is something remarkable.*

Had dragged every buried memory back to the surface.

Come to think of it…

She hadn’t visited Professor Chen in a very long time.

Her eyes reddened as she looked at him.

Gu Yezhou immediately stopped.

“Alright,” he said gently. “Let’s not talk about personal matters for now. Let’s discuss the Ping’an Apartment case.”

Sang Ning sniffed softly and forced a smile.

“Okay.”

Gu Yezhou sighed quietly to himself.

Had he been too impatient?

Too eager to understand Sang Ning.

Too eager to learn about her past.

Back when they had just received their marriage certificate, he had wanted to ask what she did for a living.

Her name sounded familiar.

Years ago, at the provincial bureau, he had heard about a forensic pathologist from Yancheng.

She had once been blind.

Then, as an adult, fate had turned in her favor when someone donated corneas to her, restoring her sight.

Within a single year, she had been admitted to medical school thanks to her outstanding academic performance.

At first, Sang Ning had only been a trainee forensic examiner.

Yet every time she went to a crime scene, she noticed subtle details others missed, helping the criminal investigation team solve numerous cases.

From entering medical school to joining the police force, she had advanced step by step.

Now only twenty-seven years old, she had already secured her position as chief forensic examiner.

He had known about Sang Ning.

He simply hadn’t expected that the lively, slightly rogue-like girl he met outside the Civil Affairs Bureau…

Would turn out to be her.

“Let’s record this. Official procedure.” Sang Ning pulled a lipstick out of her bag.

It was actually a voice recorder.

The usual recorder designs didn’t appeal to her.

A lipstick, however, wouldn’t draw attention when carried by a woman.

A flicker of approval appeared in Gu Yezhou’s eyes.

Before he could ask anything, Sang Ning began recounting the events of the past two days on her own.

“Let’s start with today. After getting ready this morning, I planned to register my marriage with my blind date. Because of that, I took the day off and went to the Civil Affairs Bureau early.

“I left home around 7:30 a.m. On the way, I stopped at a roadside shop called Kou Liuxiang Baozi and bought some buns.”

She glanced at the watch on her wrist.

“Then I rode my electric scooter to the Civil Affairs Bureau and arrived around eight. From that moment on, I was waiting for someone.”

Gu Yezhou asked, “What’s your blind date’s name?”

“Lin Zehui,” Sang Ning answered calmly. “From eight in the morning until about three-thirty in the afternoon, I never left the Civil Affairs Bureau.

“Coincidentally, around one-thirty in the afternoon, I ran into you, Captain Gu.”

Gu Yezhou raised an eyebrow.

“Lin Zehui… from the Lin Group?”

Sang Ning paused.

She recalled the man she had seen at the hospital earlier. His clothes and demeanor had looked expensive and refined.

But Sang Ning had one major flaw.

Even if someone stood in front of her dressed head to toe in luxury brands, she wouldn’t recognize the difference.

Because she simply didn’t know any of them.

“Probably not,” she said with a wry smile. “The young master of the Lin Group wouldn’t show up in the blind dating market, would he?”

Gu Yezhou wanted to say something, but the words stopped at his lips.

He hoped things weren’t exactly as he suspected.

Sang Ning continued.

“Before that, the Civil Affairs Bureau entrance had surveillance cameras. Other than leaving briefly for lunch, I spent the entire time there waiting for him.”

“Maybe you’ll think I was stupid,” she added. “But I was simply keeping my promise. Since Lin Zehui chose today, no matter how late he told me he’d be, I would wait there.”

“Until three o’clock this afternoon, when I received a call from Lin Zehui.”

She paused.

“That call was from his mistress.”

Whether she had unknowingly become the other woman, or the other woman had appeared later—it didn’t matter.

When she and Lin Zehui had met through the blind date, everything had been open and proper.

Their relationship had begun openly and honestly.

So any woman calling him with ambiguous intentions—

Was a mistress.

To hell with that *little sister* nonsense.

Sang Ning placed the call log and timestamp in front of Gu Yezhou.

“As for what happened next—you already know. I registered my marriage with another gentleman.”

“Right after receiving the marriage certificate, I got the report of a case and rushed to the crime scene… only to discover the victim lived right next door to me.”

Gu Yezhou silently looked away.

He had been present for everything she described afterward.

And when she mentioned the “other gentleman” she had married—him—

Sang Ning never even looked at him.

She simply gazed out the window, describing it like some trivial event, brushing past it lightly.

For some reason, that made Gu Yezhou feel slightly uncomfortable.

“What were you doing on the ninth?” he asked.

“Working as usual during the day,” Sang Ning replied. “Lu Lin can confirm that. The surveillance cameras at the station entrance can too.”

She rubbed her temples before continuing.

“That evening, Lin Zehui invited me to dinner. We went to a farmhouse-style restaurant on Century Avenue.

“We finished eating around seven.”

“He drove me back to Ping’an Apartment. I got home around eight.”

She shrugged slightly.

“I don’t really like crowded places. I’m not fond of movie theaters either. So Lin Zehui went to meet someone else afterward.”