Hu Yulan was caught the day after the bidding concluded.



Police found her in the cleaning staff break room on the first floor of Wand Tower. She was wearing gray work clothes, still gripping a half-damp mop in her hand. The moment the team leader called out her real name, her hands loosened. The mop fell into the sink. She didn't struggle. She took off her badge, placed it on the sink counter, and extended both hands.



In the interrogation room, she confessed everything. The scouting. The notification to Ma San. The entire plan. Ma San had been dead for five years-beaten to death by a homeowner while stealing something in a southwestern province. But Hu Yulan was still alive. From Nancheng to the provincial capital-dishwashing worker, hospital orderly, mall cleaner. She had lived at the very bottom of this city for twenty-four years. Mopping floors, wiping windows, emptying trash cans. No one had ever given her a second glance.



She spoke calmly during the confession. Like she was talking about someone else's story.



"Back then, I hated Shen Zhengye. He scraped my husband's tricycle and only paid three hundred. Later, Guodong got liver cancer, had no money for treatment, and died. I blamed it all on him."



The interrogator asked:



"Do you think using a four-year-old child to take revenge-was that right?"



Hu Yulan was silent for a very long time.



"Wrong."



"Then do you regret it?"



Another long silence.



"I don't dare regret it. If I regretted it, these twenty-four years would have been unbearable."