She turned back in a hurry, but it was too late.
Feng Rou had been hiding by the door. After the other woman entered, she followed behind her, holding a fruit knife and slashing across her throat.
Before Lian Ma could even scream, she clutched the wound on her neck and collapsed onto the floor.
Feng Rou immediately locked the door from the inside and approached Xie Zhendong with the fruit knife, bursting into laughter.
Xie Zhendong tried to block her with his hands, but his limbs were still weak. When he tried to lift them, he could only raise them very slowly, inch by inch.
Feng Rou easily lowered her head and bent her body, smiling as she traced the fruit knife across his face and neck, but she didn't actually cut his skin.
"Zhendong, you look so pathetic right now." Her tone was laced with mockery.
Xie Zhendong looked at her with a mixture of terror and rage.
She continued to smile and say, "Your expression now is just like when I first entered the psychiatric hospital."
As she spoke, she put away the knife and gently stroked his pale, lusterless face with her finger, speaking to herself regardless of whether Xie Zhendong was listening.
"Do you know how handsome you were when you were young? Honestly, the first time I saw you, I was captivated by your handsome and dashing appearance. Actually, our son Qining isn't as handsome as you. He probably only inherited sixty to seventy percent of your looks."
Xie Zhendong turned his head away and closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bear to look at her anymore.
Feng Rou, unfazed, leaned close to his ear and whispered with a smile, "Do you know that Xie Corporation is bankrupt? The woman you love so dearly is going to jail, and your mother is already dead..."
Xie Zhendong's eyes suddenly flew open, and he stared at her with bloodshot eyes, trying to open his mouth to bite her.
Feng Rou slapped him without mercy and laughed heartily, "Do you think I'm lying to you? It's useless. They were all lying to you; only I told you the truth! Do you know how I was able to get into this room today? I used your mother's funeral, the opportunity to pay respects to her!"
After she finished speaking, she laughed until tears streamed down her face, finally seeing the despair in Xie Zhendong's eyes.
Just then, Zhan Zhipeng arrived with his men, knocking forcefully on the door from the outside. "Lian Ma! Are you in there? Open the door quickly!"
Lian Ma, clutching her neck wound in pain, shouted, "I'm inside! Hurry and get in, this woman has gone mad!"
Feng Rou, realizing Lian Ma could still speak, immediately went over and kicked her.
Lian Ma cried out in pain!
Hearing the commotion inside, Zhan Zhipeng quickly rammed the door with force.
Feng Rou returned to Xie Zhendong's side, still smiling, "Zhendong, these people are so annoying. I still had a lot I wanted to say to you, but there's no time."
As she spoke, she took out a lighter from her pocket, crouched down, and ignited the lighter, setting fire to a corner of the bedsheet.
Lian Ma struggled to crawl towards the door, trying to open it from the inside.
However, Feng Rou quickly set fire to the other three corners of the bedsheet and began searching the room for anything else flammable.
She spotted the patient record books used by the medical staff, set the stack of papers ablaze, and then threw them around the room.
Suddenly, small fires broke out everywhere in the room. She laughed and delivered another stab to Lian Ma's back, ensuring she wouldn't be able to open the door.
The small patches of fire in the room gradually merged into one large blaze, and the flames grew more intense.
The fire from the burning bedsheet, in particular, had now surrounded Xie Zhendong.
Flames also licked at Feng Rou's body, but she seemed to feel no pain from the burning. She lay down next to Xie Zhendong and said to him, "Only I will be with you until the end. That woman is not worthy of being by your side."
Xie Zhendong watched as the flames on her body grew larger, yet she could still smile. He just wanted to get as far away from her as possible.
But she directly embraced him tightly, and the two of them instantly became figures engulfed in flames.
Zhan Zhipeng had been ramming the door from the outside for a while without success. When the room was renovated, the best aerospace metal materials had been used for the door for safety reasons.
If it was locked from the inside, it was impossible to break open by ramming.
Zhan Zhipeng had no choice but to contact the manufacturer for someone who could open such a lock. However, the person beside him smelled smoke and quickly said, "Is there a fire inside? Why does it smell like smoke is coming out?"
Zhan Zhipeng sniffed carefully as well. Indeed, there was a strong smell of smoke, and when he placed his hand on the door, it felt very hot.
He immediately panicked. His brother-in-law, Lian Ma, and the medical staff attending to his brother-in-law were all in the room. This was a matter of several lives.
He called the fire department and the police, hoping that the lock technician from the manufacturer would arrive quickly.
...
In the evening, after returning home and having dinner, Susu saw a major accident news report online.
It stated that a large mansion in the suburbs had caught fire, and the blaze had just been extinguished. The casualties were still unclear.
Susu stared at the photos online. The house was clearly the Xie family mansion; she had visited it that morning and couldn't be mistaken.
The roof in the photo had a black hole burned through it. The fire must have been incredibly intense.
How could it have caught fire so suddenly?
Tianyi was playing with the children in the garden but noticed Susu sitting on the swing, engrossed in her phone.
He walked over and asked possessively, "What are you looking at? Didn't we agree that after work, we'd spend more time with the children?"
Susu showed him her phone and said, "Look at the live news, it says the Xie family mansion caught fire, and there might be casualties."
Tianyi glanced at it and said, "Misfortune never comes singly. Don't bother with this. Hengheng has been clamoring for Mommy to play with him."
Seeing that he was completely unconcerned about the Xie family's affairs, Susu put away her phone and stood up, saying, "Alright, let's go play with the children."
As she approached Hengheng, she suddenly thought of Feng Rou. She remembered that Feng Rou had not left the Xie family mansion when she departed that morning.
Could this fire have been caused by Feng Rou? But the online reports hadn't mentioned the cause of the fire yet.
Just as she picked up Hengheng, she felt her phone vibrating incessantly in her pocket.
She had to put Hengheng down again, take out her phone, and leave the garden. Once in the living room, she saw that it was Zhan Zhipeng calling and quickly answered.
"Zhipeng, I just saw on the news that the Xie family mansion caught fire. Are you alright? Are you all okay..."
"Sister Gu." Zhan Zhipeng called her name on the other end of the line and then burst into tears.
His crying made Susu's heart race. She asked, "What's wrong? How did the fire start?"
"My brother-in-law, Lian Ma, and the medical staff who were taking care of my brother-in-law all burned to death!" Zhan Zhipeng cried. "I don't know what to do, I really don't know what to do! My sister asked me to take care of the Xie family... take care of Lian Ma, but I failed..."
Hearing that so many people had died at once, Susu was stunned into disbelief.
Susu didn't hear anything Zhan Zhipeng was saying as he continued to speak. Her mind was buzzing.
Tianyi appeared behind her at some point and asked, "Who are you talking to on the phone? Is it someone from the Xie family?"