Into your heart! [ZhanYi FF]

Chapter 49 - The Time Capsule

While Zhan was in the house with the IT professionals looking for possible recorded videos, Yibo went outside to the garden. Now in the daylight, it looked much nicer and bigger than it had on that evening of the politician's birthday party when he had first been here with Zhan. It was also the evening when he and Zhan had become closer again.

As Yibo walked slowly through the garden, he admired the many beautiful flowers. He had no idea what kind of flowers they were. But besides their beauty, the flowers also smelled wonderful. He went down on his knees to pick one of these flowers to show Zhan later and let him smell it, when something caught his eye.

In the middle of this flowerbed, he saw that the soil in one spot had been loosened by something recently. He put on some gloves and pushed the soil aside. He dug a hole with his hand until he felt a resistance. Something hard was in that spot.

Yibo made the hole a little bigger and pulled out what had been buried there. It was a small wooden casket wrapped in foil. It had decorations and a date had been carved into it. December 17, 1993. The small metal clasp had long since rusted and was difficult to open.

When he had opened the box, he looked at the contents. He took out a letter, two photos and a revolver. "ZhanZhan? Come over here. You have to see this!" He shouted as loud as he could. A minute later, Zhan came running out of the house and to him.

"What is it? What did you find?"

"There was this time capsule buried in the ground. At least, I assume it is one. There's a date carved on it. I don't know if it has anything to do with the contents, though. Here is a letter. Then there are two pictures. Looks like pictures of the young politician and a woman. She doesn't look like his wife. And then this. A revolver."

"Did you read the letter?"

"No, not yet."

"Then we'll read it together."

"Do you really think we should?"

"There was a revolver in it, so yes."

"Okay. Then I'll open it and read it aloud."

"Uh-huh. We'll put the revolver in an evidence bag first, though."

"Okay wait. There are two letters in here. Oh, one is kind of a contract. It says, "I hereby swear that I will keep everything that happened that night to myself." Underneath are the signatures of the politician and a woman named Xian Sue."

"I assume Xian Sue is the mother of Xian Chu."

"Mhm, I think so too. Here's the letter. Or no, a confession. "On December 17, 1993, my beloved Sue and I did something unforgivable. We killed a man. Her stepfather! The revolver we did it with is in this casket and hopefully will never be found. After her stepfather found out that Sue was expecting my child, he beat her and demanded that she abort the baby. We then just wanted to talk to him. I wanted to tell him that I would take care of her and our baby. But he didn't listen to me at all. He immediately started screaming and tugging on Sue. She fell and fell on her stomach. I slapped her stepfather in response. Suddenly Sue had this revolver in her hand. She was furious. I tried to stop her from doing something stupid and took the revolver away from her. But she fought back and we struggled for the gun. Suddenly a shot went off and hit her stepfather in the neck. He gasped, blood shot from the wound, and then he went down. Sue and I panicked. He was spitting blood and gasping desperately for air. He was suffering. I wanted to end his suffering and took the revolver. I shot him in the chest but missed his heart. He suffered even more. He gasped in agony. Sue took the revolver from me and shot her stepfather in the head. Then he just winced once more, and then he was dead. We buried his body here. It lies just a short distance from the casket. I pray that no one will ever find it. We kept it quiet and pretended we didn't know anything. Sue broke up with me shortly after. She said she couldn't look at me anymore without seeing her stepfather die. She made me sign a contract when she left. A contract for my silence. If I didn't abide by it, I would never be allowed to meet my child." That's all it says."