The Heiress's Game

As the car drove out of the sanatorium gate, Gu Yunjin leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes for a while.

Outside the window were rows of camphor trees, their shadows sliding past the car window in clumps.

Gu Yunjin couldn't fall asleep. With her eyes closed, her mind was filled with images from more than ten years ago.

She had just turned fourteen and was standing in the corridor of the funeral home, with Su Wanning's portrait in front of her.

Many people came to pay their respects. Friends from the entertainment industry, directors they had worked with, and old fans stood outside the funeral home holding candles, creating a huge crowd.

Standing in the family section, listening to the cries and camera shutters clicking behind her, Gu Yunjin's voice became hoarse from crying.

Her mother called her the day before yesterday, saying that the schedule for the new drama was set and that filming would be completed in the second half of the year. She also said that the paperwork for the land they bought was finally done, and once the house was built, Gu Yunjin could occasionally come over and live with her.

Su Wanning laughed happily on the phone and said, "Yun Jin, on the day you turn eighteen, we'll bring the keys over, and you can choose the biggest room as your bedroom."

Forty-eight hours later, the person was gone.

Gu Yunjin didn't believe it.

Years later, she studied criminal psychology abroad, and one sentence in the textbook was printed very early on: Among suicide victims, the percentage of those who planned to buy real estate, sign long-term contracts, or make specific plans for the future is extremely low.

When she saw that sentence, the professor continued flipping through the PowerPoint presentation on the podium, while she quietly folded a corner of that page in her seat.

She didn't need textbooks to tell her that her mother didn't commit suicide; she already knew when she was fourteen.

Three days after the funeral, Mrs. Bei summoned her to the study in the old house.

Mrs. Bei was dressed in a black suit with a pearl brooch on her chest, and her expression was one of dignified sorrow.

She didn't ask Gu Yunjin if she had eaten, nor did she ask if she could sleep at night. Her first words were:

"I've already had someone contact a school abroad, and you can go there next month. The formalities are almost done."

Gu Yunjin stood in the middle of the study, looking at the woman she should call Grandma, without saying a word.

Mrs. Bei added, "Staying here won't change anything; going out to study will do you a good job."

The tone was imperative, leaving no room for negotiation.

A fourteen-year-old girl, whose mother had just passed away less than a week ago, was notified that she would be sent to the other side of the world alone next month before she could even come to her senses.

Gu Yunjin stood in that study, looking at Madam Bei's lightly made-up face, with only one thought in her mind—what was this person afraid of?

Mrs. Bei has disliked Su Wanning for a long time, and almost everyone in the circle knows this.

Su Wanning was an actress, and Mrs. Bei felt that it was a disgrace for the Gu family to have an actress enter their home. From the first day that Gu Zhenxing brought Su Wanning home, she never gave her a kind look.

She wasn't allowed to sit at the family banquet, and no red envelopes were given during the Lunar New Year. Later, Su Wanning and Gu Zhenxing divorced, and Mrs. Bei would tell everyone she met, "I knew long ago that she wasn't a decent person."

Su Wanning never mentioned those words to her daughter, but Gu Yunjin knew them all. She had known them since she was a child.

My mother actually did better after the divorce. She returned to acting, received numerous film offers, became incredibly famous, and people called her name wherever she went.

Buying land, building houses, and planning for the future—it's like a plant that's been removed from its pot, its roots finally able to stretch freely.

Would someone like that commit suicide right after the foundation of their new house has been laid?

Mrs. Bei wanted to send her abroad, and Gu Yunjin did not resist.

She said okay, Grandma, and then quietly went to pack her luggage.

The person who drove her mother to her death thought she knew nothing and couldn't do anything; she was just a terrified little girl.

In fact, she has already been doing it.

Mrs. Bei had trouble sleeping during that period and needed sleeping pills to fall asleep every night—this was known to the servants in the house, and Gu Yunjin also knew it.

She went to the pharmacy and bought a bottle of veterinary medicine for large livestock; it was hallucinogenic and had a strong effect.

She had checked the dosage—if a person who takes sleeping pills for a long time is given a large dose of hallucinogens while asleep, there will be no danger to their life, but their brain will be repeatedly torn apart in the chemical storm of the drug.

She didn't need Mrs. Belle to die. Death was too cheap.

The old house was quiet that night. Mrs. Bei's sleeping pills were on the bedside table, and her water glass was next to them, a habit she had maintained for decades.

When Gu Yunjin opened the door late at night, Madam Bei was fast asleep, her breathing heavy and even.

She stood by the bed, dissolved the prepared veterinary medicine powder in water, lifted Mrs. Bei's head, and fed her the medicine little by little with a syringe.

Mrs. Bei choked slightly in her sleep, frowned, but did not wake up.

Gu Yunjin put the water glass back on the bedside table as it was, closed the door as it was, then went back to her room, curled up in bed, and closed her eyes.

It was as if she had never left that bed.

She began watching Su Wanning's movies over and over again in front of Mrs. Bei.

The TV in the living room was playing an old movie starring Su Wanning. Gu Yunjin sat on the sofa with her knees drawn up to her chest, her eyes red-rimmed, and her voice very soft:

"Grandma, I miss Mom." Mrs. Bei initially turned her face away uncomfortably, but later became irritated and told her to turn it off.

But Gu Yunjin always had the same expression and the same tone—a little girl who had just lost her mother, remembering her in her own way.

Who can stop her? Who dares to stop her? Even Gu Zhenxing could only frown and sigh, saying that the child hadn't recovered yet.

Mrs. Belle's hallucinations became more and more frequent.

The earliest account says that someone was singing in the middle of the night, and that it was an interlude from Su Wanning's movie.

Later, people started saying they saw Su Wanning standing in the garden, at the top of the stairs, and at the foot of her bed.

Later on, she stopped recognizing people, mistook the maid for Su Wanning, cried and cursed, smashed the soup bowl on the table, and said that Su Wanning had poisoned the soup.

Gu Mingcheng and Gu Mingyue were too intimidated by her presence to approach. Gu Zhenxing brought in one expert after another, and the diagnoses filled the medical records.

The day before Gu Yunjin left the country, the Gu family sent Madam Bei to a sanatorium.

Gu Mingyue posted a message on her social media account with a picture of green trees and white walls of a nursing home, and the caption read, "Hope Grandma recovers soon."

Gu Yunjin sat on the flight to London, looked at the post for a long time, and then turned off her phone.

She had no evidence that Mrs. Belle had killed her mother—she didn't need any evidence.

She only needed to be certain of one thing, and the speed and extent of Mrs. Belle's madness had already made the answer very clear.

If someone has nothing to hide, they wouldn't be driven to this point by a few movie DVDs and a few spoonfuls of veterinary medicine.

The shadows of the camphor trees outside the window were still flashing past the car window.

Gu Yunjin opened her eyes and looked at her face in the rearview mirror, which was covered in retro makeup—thin, arched eyebrows and cool-toned lips, just like Su Wanning when she was thirty.

The moment Mrs. Bei saw her in the hospital room today, she was so frightened that she slid off her wheelchair.

Huddled in the corner, covering her head, she kept repeating, "I know I was wrong," and "It wasn't me who killed you."

More than ten years have passed, and you've finally admitted it yourself. Although I knew it all along.

I was too busy today, sorry for the late update. I thought no one would read it, but I didn't expect there were still so many lovely readers.

Your requests for updates and comments are my motivation.