Silent Scapegoat

Cheng Tai'a, a high school mathematics teacher in the city's No. 1 Middle School, is viewed by students as a rational person who is precise and based on facts. Until the body of Qin Shanmeng, the former psychiatrist of sister Cheng Ai, was found in an old wooden house in Wujiang Town, Chenjiao; all evidence pointed to Cheng Tai'a. The police had no doubts: a motive, surveillance, and even the fact that she had the dead man's blood on her. Cheng Tai'a remained silent in the interrogation room and confessed to all doubtful accusations. Retired criminal policeman Yang Zhan looked through the case files. A perfect "error" is perceived. Cheng Tai'a's alibi; perfect, like a precise experimental report that has been repeatedly checked. Instead, it became the biggest flaw. She is not "covering up" the crime; she is "reconstructing" the murder. Her sister, who seemed to be innocent and dependent on her, would always murmur something that no one could understand when she dreamed about it at midnight: "Sister, ice... It's so cold." Yang Zhan pushed through the fog and approached the core. Discovering the truth is far more suffocating than murder; it is a cold "sacrifice of love" composed of physical logic and mathematics. Cheng Tai'a used reasoning and calculation, for his sister, for himself, and for the real "murderer". An insurmountable barrier was built. But true ineffable love never follows logic. The truth of the story always points to that cruel tragedy.