The clues seemed to have looped back on themselves again. The mystery of Zeng Yan’s replacement still sat like an enormous abscess nailed squarely into the center of the case.
“Yin Jingliu’s disappearance and the real and fake Zeng Yan—if we leave aside Xiao Hua and the Zhu mother and daughter, whose origins are still unknown, then we’re looking at at least two cases now.” Chen Zheng said, “Do you know what else occurred to me when I worked out this revenge angle?”
The moment the words left his mouth, he paused, annoyed at himself for blurting out the question. Asking something like that sounded almost like an invitation for Ming Han to peer inside his mind, and that had not been Chen Zheng’s intention. Explaining himself would only be more awkward, so he stayed silent.
“What reaction would the killer have after discovering they killed the wrong person?” Ming Han said. “I don’t know if that’s what you were thinking, but that’s what interests me most. Should we try profiling this killer?”
Chen Zheng had already attempted a profile. Assuming Yin Jingliu had been murdered, the person with the greatest reason to avenge him should have been his father, Yin Gaoqiang. But the lonely old man did not appear capable of revenge, and he had never connected his son’s disappearance with murder—perhaps because he was unwilling to think that way.
Yin Jingliu had been very well liked at No. 2 Middle School. An excellent student like him was naturally treasured by his teachers, and unusually, most of the other students had liked him too. But among those people, was there anyone who would avenge him? And how would that person have learned the truth about what happened ten years later?
After Yin Jingliu went to Luocheng, he barely interacted with anyone and formed no meaningful relationships, so if this avenger existed, they were more likely to be someone from Zhuquan City. Perhaps several years earlier, they too had believed Yin Jingliu had merely gone missing. Or, more pessimistically, perhaps they suspected he had fallen victim to human trafficking, been sold abroad, or even died. But closer to the present, some opportunity finally led them to notice that Yin Jingliu’s personality had changed before and after university because his eyesight had deteriorated. Once they noticed that, it would only be a matter of time before their reasoning led them to Zeng Yan, Feng Feng, and the others.
Once this person identified the group, they would search for evidence, verify their suspicions, and reconstruct the truth behind Yin Jingliu’s disappearance. After reaching that point, they would begin planning revenge.
This person had an extraordinary relationship with Yin Jingliu and might have been in repeated contact with Yin Gaoqiang, which meant Yin Gaoqiang might hold clues. The person was also highly logical and, after ten years, still capable of carrying out revenge—someone extremely obsessive. Putting “Zeng Yan” in a trash can and sticking bamboo skewers into her body might have been deliberate misdirection, intended to make police initially suspect retaliation by a business rival.
Every step appeared perfectly executed, and so far the police had found no decisive clue. But the killer had murdered the wrong person. They did not know that “Zeng Yan” was no longer the same Zeng Yan from ten years ago.
They did not know these people well enough.
“Feng Feng and the others are in danger,” Ming Han said. “If the killer chose revenge, then Zeng Yan won’t be the only target. I tried contacting Feng Feng again afterward. Still nothing.”
“The killer has already gone after Feng Feng…” Chen Zheng frowned in thought. “But they still have no way of knowing they killed the wrong person.”
Ming Han immediately understood. “But they’ll be closely watching the progress of the police investigation. We release the information that Zeng Yan had been replaced—we don’t need to make it public, only make sure the killer learns it. That will disrupt their next step.”
“Can you drive?” Chen Zheng asked.
Ming Han laughed. “Who are you looking down on?”
They switched seats. From the passenger side, Chen Zheng called Kong Bing. After listening, Kong Bing was silent for so long that Chen Zheng could not help calling, “Captain Kong?”
Only then did Kong Bing answer. “I’ll arrange it. As for Feng Feng, I’ll ask our colleagues in Wanjun City to check on him.”
Ke Shuer was also trying to find Feng Feng. Every time she heard, “The number you dialed is temporarily unavailable,” she became so irritated she wanted to smash her phone.
That afternoon, a server went into the kitchen. “Chef Wei, there’s a woman here to see you.”
After Chen Zheng’s visit, Wei Youtai had become wary of anyone who appeared unexpectedly asking for him. He went cautiously to the private room and found Ke Shuer neurotically biting her nails. Her foundation was caked on thick, her lipstick red as though she had been drinking blood, and her gloomy eyes stared straight at people like a wet snake.
She had been like this before too. Wei Youtai could not help remembering high school. Ke Shuer had been ostentatious from the moment she entered school. She was not the most beautiful girl in the entire school, but she knew how to dress herself and moved among the male students like a social butterfly. Whenever another girl was prettier than she was, Ke Shuer would play dirty tricks behind her back. As a result, very few girls in their year dared dress themselves up. If they could not afford to provoke her, at least they could stay out of her way.
“Has Feng Feng contacted you?” Ke Shuer suddenly asked. Her voice trembled like a sick person’s.
Wei Youtai closed the door, and an invisible pressure seemed to descend over the room. “Feng Feng? Why would he contact me?”
“Stop fucking pretending!” Ke Shuer could not control herself at all. “Zeng Yan is dead, and the police came to see you!”
They sat across a low table, talking about the same thing while seeming to belong to two completely opposing camps.
“Yes, the police came to me. They asked whether I knew Zeng Yan was dead and what kind of person she’d been in high school.” Wei Youtai pushed the tea toward Ke Shuer. He pretended to be calm, but in reality he was testing her. “Isn’t that normal? Anyone who investigates even a little will find out what our relationship with Zeng Yan was in high school. Of course they’d come to us. You’re too nervous.”
“But don’t you know why Zeng Yan was killed?” Ke Shuer’s eyes looked ready to bulge out of their sockets. “The police definitely know about what happened back then!”
Wei Youtai’s expression darkened. He stared at Ke Shuer as though looking at a monster. After a full minute, he slowly said, “Back then? What happened back then?”
Ke Shuer looked at him in barely concealed shock. “You…”
“I’m telling you, you’re too nervous.” Wei Youtai’s voice was cold. “Yes, we were delinquents back then. We collected protection money from younger students, hit teachers, dated, and even ended up at the police station. But weren’t we just young and ignorant? We paid for it. Now we keep our heads down and run our businesses honestly. What, ten years later the police are going to dig all that up and settle old accounts with us?”
Ke Shuer’s raised shoulders gradually sank. Before long, she burst into a string of laughter. “Right. Right, you’re absolutely right. We were just young and stupid. Wei Youtai, did I underestimate you back then? You’re the one who knows best how to keep his head.”
Wei Youtai took a sip of tea and did not answer.
“But Feng Feng can’t be reached!” Ke Shuer said. “What if he also…”
“He’s a landscape photographer. He goes places without a signal all the time. It’s normal for him to be unreachable.” Wei Youtai cut her off. “Actually, you shouldn’t keep calling him over and over. And you shouldn’t have come to see me today.”
The words seemed to hit Ke Shuer exactly where it hurt, and she became agitated again. “If I don’t come looking for you, does that mean nothing will happen to any of you? Was I the one who did something wrong back then?”
Wei Youtai looked displeased. “I already told you this has nothing to do with what happened back then.”
“Who are you trying to fool?” Ke Shuer sneered. “If you’re really that calm about it, why’d you close the door? Why not invite all your employees in to watch the show?”
“If you came here today looking for trouble, then excuse me. I won’t keep you company any longer,” Wei Youtai said.
“Stop!” Ke Shuer’s face went cold. “After I couldn’t reach Feng Feng, I got several strange phone calls.”
“Hm?” Wei Youtai sat back down.
Ke Shuer trembled. “No one said anything, but he definitely knew who I was. He wanted to see how I’d react after having contact with the police.”
“Did you say anything?” Wei Youtai asked.
“No!” Ke Shuer laughed coldly. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”
Wei Youtai seemed only then to realize the implications, and his expression turned grave. “Who could be calling?”
Ke Shuer looked smug. “Finally scared? Then let me tell you something else…” She lowered her head and dropped her voice. “The police also said the ‘Zeng Yan’ who died isn’t the Zeng Yan we knew.”
Wei Youtai stared at her in astonishment. “What does that mean?”
Ke Shuer straightened her back. “I don’t know either. I came today to warn you: if what happened back then comes to light, not one fucking one of us is getting away!”
Chen Zheng had not completely set Wu Lianshan aside. After dropping Ming Han back at the Beiye Sub-bureau, he went alone to the health college. Wu Lianshan’s friendship with “Zeng Yan” had been built on an unsupported framework; nearly all their interactions and conversations were known only to the two of them. Now that “Zeng Yan” was dead, Wu Lianshan could describe their relationship however she wished. The only people who might have known they were acquainted were Manager Lu at the convenience store and Wu Lianshan’s boyfriend. And the boyfriend was also the “culprit” behind the awkwardness that had developed between Wu Lianshan and “Zeng Yan,” ultimately causing them to stop seeing each other. Chen Zheng intended to meet this male student, who was two years younger than Wu Lianshan, and while he was there, hear what her teachers had to say about her.
“You’re looking for Wu Lianshan? She was a student here, but she graduated this year. She got a pretty decent placement too. Hold on, let me check… No. 9 Hospital.” Wu Lianshan’s academic adviser was an enthusiastic middle-aged woman. “Do you need her contact information?”
Chen Zheng accepted the bottled water the adviser handed him. “Thank you, but I already saw her at No. 9 Hospital. I came today because I’d like to speak with her teachers.”
The adviser frowned. “Wu Lianshan’s a good student. Her grades were good and she got along well with her classmates. There’s no way she did anything wrong, right?”
“No, no. We’re investigating a case involving a friend of hers and need to understand what she was like at school.”
“Why would investigating her friend bring you all the way here…” The adviser muttered a few words, but cooperated readily with Chen Zheng’s questions. Just as Wu Lianshan herself had said, she had indeed come from Yafu City, and her family was not well-off. Because she lost both parents early, she matured earlier than most people her age and was more pragmatic. Perhaps because her upbringing had been difficult, Wu Lianshan was extremely driven. That ambition showed not only in her studies but also in student activities. She carried some of the self-consciousness that came from an ordinary family, but it was obvious that she was actively trying to change and desperately working to establish herself in the city. She won a scholarship in her first semester, and later placed among the winners in a nursing-skills assessment. Outside her major, Wu Lianshan also participated in off-campus programs helping girls and women.
At this point, the adviser paused, hesitation appearing on her face.
Chen Zheng waited a moment. “Was there something wrong with the programs Wu Lianshan joined?”
“No, nothing like that.” The adviser quickly shook her head. “They were all legitimate public-welfare programs. Some were organized by medical universities, others by the government. She was very active in them and helped quite a few people. We even had recovered patients come here and present us with commendation banners.”
The adviser found one of the banners and said proudly, “Look. It says she’s as precious as coral jade, with a compassionate heart for those who suffer.”
Elio’s Notes: The banner deliberately plays on the characters in Lianshan’s given name: 怜 (lian, “compassion/pity”) and 珊 (shan, “coral”).
The banner had been presented by a woman who had suffered domestic violence for years. Her original family had already brought her enormous hardship—her mother died young, and her maternal uncle beat and cursed her constantly. As an adult she escaped him, only to marry the wrong man and endure years of domestic abuse. She was even forced into prostitution. By the time the public-welfare organization found her, both her body and mind had been severely traumatized. Miscarriage, sexually transmitted disease, fractures, and other injuries had stripped away her will to live.
Wu Lianshan had been one of the nurses caring for her. She not only assisted the doctors with treatment but also used what she had learned from her psychology minor to counsel her. After recovering completely, the woman was most grateful to Wu Lianshan. She decided to leave Zhuquan City and begin again from scratch. The previous year, the school had even received mountain produce she mailed back from the mountains—she now made a living selling local mountain goods.
Everything sounded wonderful, but Chen Zheng noticed a trace of regret the adviser unconsciously revealed. When he asked, he learned that not long after Wu Lianshan received the commendation banner, she withdrew from every volunteer organization she had joined.
“To tell you the truth, those of us responsible for student affairs were all pretty shocked,” the adviser said. Everyone had seen how active Wu Lianshan was in those programs, and they did not merely consume her time; the experience would also have benefited her future options. Yet she gave them all up at once.
“Did she say why?” Chen Zheng asked.
The adviser nodded. “She said she was about to start her internship and was worried she wouldn’t be able to balance the time. That was understandable, but personally, I still thought it was a shame.”
Chen Zheng thought for a moment. “But Wu Lianshan only recently started working at No. 9 Hospital. If she began interning that early, why was her job settled so late?”
“That’s something I never understood either.” The adviser explained that Wu Lianshan had said she was quitting the student activities because of her internship, but as far as the adviser knew, Wu Lianshan actually spent a long period without interning anywhere and instead worked at the convenience store. It was not that there was anything wrong with convenience-store work, but it had absolutely nothing to do with Wu Lianshan’s field. The adviser had spoken with her about it. Wu Lianshan smiled and said she had looked for an internship but had not found a suitable one, and that taking a break was not a bad thing. When she saw the adviser’s disapproving expression, she added, half joking and half serious, that young people abroad took gap years, so why shouldn’t she? People here spent their entire lives being pushed forward by society’s rules, without even a little space of their own.
Once Wu Lianshan put it that way, the adviser could hardly keep persuading her. There were certainly students who gave up on themselves under too much pressure, so she ultimately let Wu Lianshan be.
Chen Zheng’s confusion deepened. Wu Lianshan had originally been passionate about public-welfare work and then abruptly withdrew. There should have been some important turning point behind that change. After quitting, she spent a long period without taking an internship, contradicting the reason she had given for leaving the programs.
So what had that turning point been? And what had she been doing during the period before graduation?
“Ah, the more I thought about it afterward, the more I felt that dating was what held her back.” The more the adviser talked, the more emotional she became. “Don’t look down on us because we’re only a health college. We have cooperative programs with several major hospitals in the province. Every year, we can recommend especially outstanding nurses for internships there. If Wu Lianshan had stayed active in those public-welfare programs, she definitely would have gotten one of the recommendation slots this year.”
Chen Zheng had already intended to learn more about Wu Lianshan’s boyfriend. Since the adviser had brought him up, he followed the opening. “Was her boyfriend a classmate? Or from another school? If he was at another school, it would actually make sense. Traveling back and forth would take time.”
“What other school? He goes here. He’s two years below her.” The pride on the adviser’s face whenever she spoke about Wu Lianshan vanished when she mentioned this boy. Chen Zheng knew the expression well—it was exactly how homeroom teachers looked when discussing the poor students in their class.
The boy’s name was Wu Ye. He was a Zhuquan local whose family lived on Tiaoming Street. His father was dead, though the adviser did not know the exact cause. Wu Ye’s mother had remarried. He also had an older sister, but after marrying, she no longer lived with him and was reportedly overseas. Wu Ye had ended up at the health college because he failed to get into any other school. His grades were mediocre, but because male students were exceptionally rare in nursing, the school had taken special care of him when he first enrolled. Yet he was constantly late or absent, always hovered among the bottom three in exams, and made mistakes in practically every hands-on class. He did not get along well with the female students in his class either. As time passed, his teachers became increasingly disappointed and stopped trying to manage him. Someone like him would almost certainly never enter a proper hospital after graduation and would end up at a small clinic or pharmacy.
Elio’s Notes: Wu Lianshan’s surname 吴 and Wu Ye’s surname 巫 are different Chinese characters, but both are romanized as Wu.
What surprised many teachers and students was that in the second half of the previous year, Wu Ye and Wu Lianshan actually started dating. The two appeared everywhere together at school and openly showed their affection. Before exams, Wu Lianshan tutored him and personally supervised his practical training, leaving everyone stunned. The timing of the relationship was close to when Wu Lianshan withdrew from all her activities, so the adviser was not the only one who suspected that romance had gone to her head.
What no one understood was that if Wu Lianshan was going to date someone, why not at least choose someone good? What did Wu Ye have? His family had no money, and he was short too—only a little over 1.7 meters tall. His face was decent enough, the kind younger girls liked, but was that one advantage really enough to make someone as independent and self-reliant as Wu Lianshan fall so deeply in love that she would even give up her future?
The two were inseparable and even rented an apartment off campus together. Wu Lianshan’s roommates privately thought it was a terrible shame and had no idea what sort of spell Wu Ye had cast over her. Before him, Wu Lianshan had had no shortage of admirers, including some young doctors from hospitals. Wu Lianshan had always said women should not depend on men. For now, she would prioritize school; later, she would prioritize her career. She had no time for romance.
But people really could change without warning.
The more Chen Zheng heard, the more wrong it felt. The Wu Lianshan he had met was a self-conscious, introverted woman who relied heavily on her boyfriend, while the image held by her teachers and classmates was far more like the “Zeng Yan” Wu Lianshan herself had described.
A person’s personality could change, but what could cause such an abrupt transformation? Which side of her had been an act? Or, just like “Zeng Yan,” were there also two Wu Lianshans?
Chen Zheng took out Wu Lianshan’s photograph. The adviser was certain that it was her and said Wu Lianshan had returned to complete some paperwork after securing her job the previous month. She had not looked any different.
Chen Zheng took a copy of Wu Ye’s class schedule from the adviser. Seeing a psychology class on it, he asked, “By the way, you said that when Wu Lianshan used to participate in the public-welfare programs, she also provided psychological counseling to patients?”
The adviser expressed her regret all over again. “Yes. Psychology was only her minor, but she was better at it than anyone. It’s useful for nurses to have some psychological knowledge. Such a shame. Ah…”
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