“Fuxiang Cemetery?” Ming Han said. “You’re sure she’s there?”
Chen Zheng was already in the car. “No. But if Huang Li really intends to kill herself, there’s a good chance she’ll go say goodbye to her parents.”
At Huang Li’s home, Chen Zheng had seen many photographs of the three-person family. Huang Li had put them into frames and placed them on cabinets or hung them on walls. No matter where she stood in the apartment, she could see her parents. Perhaps this was how she numbed herself: They’re still here with me.
Inside a drawer in the coffee table were her parents’ cremation certificates. Beneath them was the cemetery-purchase certificate: Fuxiang Cemetery, south of Zhuquan City. Because it was far from the urban area, the plots were relatively inexpensive.
After listening, Ming Han thought for a while. “What if Huang Li isn’t trying to kill herself?”
“I understand what you mean. Huang Li may have been used as someone’s weapon, and now that person wants to kill her to silence her, then make it look like suicide. But we have no clue who that person is. For now, the only thing we can do is investigate the possibility that Huang Li intends to kill herself. And if that person exists, guiding Huang Li into suicide would be far more likely than personally killing her.” Chen Zheng paused, then added, “The neighbors all consider Huang Li extremely kind. If that really is her personality, suicide isn’t an unlikely possibility.”
Chen Zheng’s car sped south through Zhuquan City. Ming Han diverted several investigators to follow, and they asked traffic police for help urgently obtaining footage from the long-distance bus station.
Just as Chen Zheng predicted, Huang Li had boarded a bus heading toward Longwan Town, in the direction of Fuxiang Cemetery. It was the earliest bus, leaving at six that morning.
It was already past noon. The worst possibility was that Huang Li had finished saying goodbye to her parents and was already dead.
Chen Zheng pressed harder on the accelerator, sending the car into the sprawling mountain ranges outside the city.
“She comes here often. I don’t know whether she came today.” After looking at the photograph on Chen Zheng’s phone, the cemetery attendant said, “I just changed shifts with a coworker.”
Chen Zheng showed his identification. “Please pull up the surveillance from after eight this morning.”
“Our cameras aren’t really much use. You can see for yourself, more than half this cemetery is on wild mountainside. Anyone can come in.” The attendant muttered a few complaints but still retrieved the footage.
“That’s fine.” Chen Zheng wiped sweat from his temple. He had rushed there so quickly that the back of his shirt was already damp.
Huang Li seemed to be someone who did things according to rules, and she had made no effort to avoid cameras around Weiming or at the long-distance bus station. She knew she was going to die, so leaving traces no longer mattered. In that case, there was a good chance she had entered the cemetery through the formal entrance.
“Is that her?” the attendant suddenly asked, pointing at the screen.
Chen Zheng bent down to look. It was Huang Li.
“Which section are her family members buried in?” he asked immediately.
Before entering the cemetery, Chen Zheng had driven along a treacherous mountain road and gained a rough understanding of the grounds. The graves were scattered widely, almost like private rural burial plots. The mountains were vast and the graves spread everywhere. Without the exact section, searching would waste enormous amounts of time.
Other attendants gathered after hearing what was happening and helped search for the plot information. An older attendant sighed. “Xiao Huang. Every time she comes, she always greets me. Her parents are buried inside. Heard they both died from illness. Young people these days think buying their parents a grave proves they’re filial. Plenty don’t come back once in three or five years. But Xiao Huang is different. She comes practically every month. Children that filial are rare now.”
The cemetery’s management was outdated and disorganized. They searched for a long time without finding the plot record. Chen Zheng looked at the time. Every second slipping away felt like another second slipping from Huang Li’s life.
“Section E, Number 80!” one attendant finally shouted. “Section E is far!”
Ordinary vehicles were not permitted inside the cemetery, so they had to use the grounds’ shuttle carts. Chen Zheng immediately left with the attendant. By then, the other investigators had also arrived.
The shuttle wound around the mountains, passing Sections A, B, C, and D without any sign of Section E. The attendant explained that Section E lay halfway around the rear of another mountain. It was cheaper precisely because it was difficult to reach. Huang Li still came often. She truly was filial.
The moment they reached Section E, Chen Zheng jumped out. Countless gravestones stood silently amid the autumn landscape. Yellow leaves drifted down in the passing wind. There was no one in sight.
The attendant looked confused. “She isn’t here? But we never saw her leave.”
Chen Zheng hurried to Grave 80. It was a double grave, and Huang Li’s name was listed as the person who had erected the monument. A bouquet of chrysanthemums and some fruit rested on the base. Ash from burned paper offerings had blown around and settled nearby. The incense and candles had gone out, and the last traces of smoke were still dispersing.
Chen Zheng crouched and touched some of the ash. It was still warm. Huang Li had spent a long time here. There might still be time to save her.
“Which parts of this mountain are off-limits to visitors?” Chen Zheng asked.
The attendant startled and pointed southeast. “Th-that side has bad feng shui. We haven’t developed it yet.”
Chen Zheng immediately split the investigators up and sent them southeast, moving quickly in the same direction himself. The attendant could only provide a general area, and the forest was enormous. With limited manpower, finding one person was extremely difficult. Chen Zheng asked cemetery staff to help. The elderly attendant, once he heard Huang Li might be suicidal, insisted on joining the search.
At two in the afternoon, Chen Zheng discovered a set of tracks on a steep slope. They looked like women’s athletic-shoe prints. Following them downhill, he found signs that something had rolled down the incline. It had rained the night before. Even the paths were slippery, let alone the wild woods. One unstable step could send a person tumbling. Chen Zheng grabbed branches along the way and moved downhill as quickly as possible. By the time he reached the bottom, his clothes and shoes were covered in mud. Beside a rock not far away, half of a person’s head was barely visible.
Chen Zheng’s pupils contracted. He rushed over. Huang Li was sitting beside the rock, her body covered in mud. Her exposed face and hands bore bloody scrapes from the fall. Her head hung limply toward one shoulder. Her shoulder bag lay nearby, her water bottle overturned, and several pills were scattered on the ground. Half buried in the earth, the pills resembled vigorous seeds. Yet when those “seeds” took root inside Huang Li’s body, they became sickles harvesting life.
Chen Zheng contacted the other investigators and carefully checked Huang Li’s condition. She was still breathing, but between the external and internal injuries, whether she could be saved was difficult to say.
Huang Li was taken to the hospital in Longwan Town. Doctors confirmed she had swallowed a large quantity of sleeping pills and needed gastric lavage. She had also struck her head during the fall and broken several ribs. The fractures could be treated immediately, but the head injury required urgent examination and treatment at a larger hospital.
While Huang Li underwent gastric lavage, Chen Zheng waited and contacted a hospital in the city. The moment the procedure was finished, she would be transferred for surgery.
After arranging everything, Chen Zheng went outside for air. It had begun raining again. Thick clouds blocked the daylight, dimming everything within sight. Some of the streetlights had already switched on. A police-plated vehicle pulled in. The door opened, and someone Chen Zheng had not expected to see here quickly stepped out.
Chen Zheng opened his mouth, an unlit cigarette held between his fingers. “Ming Han? Why are you here?”
Not long earlier, he had spoken with Ming Han, and Ming Han had said nothing about being on the road. Chen Zheng had assumed he was still dealing with the Wu family.
Ming Han had no umbrella. By the time he reached the covered entrance, his clothes and hair had been soaked by the rain. Chen Zheng reached out and pulled him under the awning, abruptly feeling that something about Ming Han was different from usual.
After a moment, Ming Han seemed to confirm the situation. His familiar smile returned. Chen Zheng was about to ask again why he had come when Ming Han unexpectedly lifted a hand and wiped Chen Zheng’s cheek. Chen Zheng instinctively leaned away, but the gun callus on Ming Han’s fingertip still registered clearly against his skin.
“Look. You’re covered in this.” Ming Han showed Chen Zheng his finger. “Bro, you got everyone else taken care of and never noticed your face and clothes are covered in mud?”
Chen Zheng gave a soft “Ah.” Only then did he remember that while searching for Huang Li, he had practically rolled down the slope himself. Time had been tight. There had been no way to descend carefully and keep his footing. If he wanted speed, he could not care about appearances. Then after finding Huang Li, he had been busy rescuing her. After all that rushing around, he had completely forgotten how disheveled he looked.
Chen Zheng put away the cigarette, took the tissues Ming Han offered, and wiped his face. “So you came all the way here just to see me embarrass myself?”
Ming Han smiled without answering. “You can’t wipe it all off. Go wash your face.”
Chen Zheng nodded and headed toward the restroom on the ground floor. He assumed Ming Han would follow, but when he looked back, the man had disappeared somewhere. Chen Zheng looked at himself in the mirror. After a moment, he laughed softly. He really did look terrible. It had been a long time since he had gotten himself into this state. Ever since becoming captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment, much of the hardship of frontline work had moved away from him. After transferring to the research institute, he had practically lived like a useless man. The last time he had looked this miserable…
Chen Zheng frowned and refused to think about that period. He cupped water in his hands and splashed it onto his face. The water in the town seemed far colder than in the city. It bit through his skin and into his nerves, bringing reason and clarity. He looked down at his shirt and trousers. There was no cleaning these. He would have to change when he got back.
Footsteps sounded outside the restroom. Chen Zheng wiped his face and prepared to make room, but the person entering was Ming Han. Ming Han looked him over again, just as he had when they met outside. Chen Zheng noticed a transparent bag in his hand. Clothes?
“Here. Change.” Ming Han said, “The mud has dried into your clothes. They can’t be comfortable.”
Chen Zheng looked surprised and did not immediately take them. Ming Han had come all this way to bring him clothes?
Ming Han pulled them out and shook them twice. “They’re mine. Bro, make do with them.”
It was a light-gray tracksuit, made from fabric that looked high quality and particularly well suited to the rainy, chilly weather.
When Chen Zheng still did not take them, Ming Han simply stepped closer. “You dislike them that much? Come on, Bro. They’re clean. Surely this is better than wearing mud.”
Chen Zheng did not dislike them. His mind simply had not caught up with the fact that Ming Han had driven all this way to deliver clothes to him.
“You really won’t change?” Ming Han put on a disappointed, aggrieved expression and hugged the clothes to himself. “Fine, then. I’ll drive you back later and you can change at home. But that’ll waste time. Are you really going to make a trip home?”
Chen Zheng finally held out a hand. “Give them to me. Thanks.”
The gloom vanished from Ming Han’s face. “You undress first. I’ll hold everything for you.”
After wearing dirty clothes long enough, Chen Zheng had gradually stopped noticing them and no longer cared how filthy they were. Once he changed into clean clothes, however, the tension in his limbs finally eased. He wanted to thank Ming Han again, but Ming Han was already whistling as he neatly folded the dirty clothes and packed them into the bag.
Noticing Chen Zheng’s gaze, Ming Han looked up. “Hm?”
Chen Zheng shook his head. “Nothing. I’m going to check on Huang Li.”
The gastric lavage was complete, but Huang Li remained unstable. The sleeping pills and the fall had severely affected her brain, and she was still in critical condition. By then, an ambulance from the city had arrived, and Chen Zheng rode back with the medical team.
“It’s fortunate you found her when you did,” the doctor said. “The weather is terrible today and the temperature has dropped sharply. Another half hour in the mountains and there wouldn’t have been a chance to save her.”
Chen Zheng described the circumstances in which she had been found. “There were no other footprints nearby. She fell on her own. After she was badly injured, she still moved herself behind the rock.”
The doctor nodded. “That happens. She struck her head and fractured her ribs, but her legs only suffered soft-tissue injuries. Immediately after the fall, she may not have felt anything wrong with her head. She would only have known she was bleeding heavily. Her mind was still clear then, and she could move on her own. The brain injury probably worsened later while she was waiting for the sleeping pills to kill her.”
Chen Zheng asked how likely Huang Li was to wake. The doctor sighed and said there were no guarantees.
Huang Li was taken into surgery for a craniotomy. She had no family, so Chen Zheng signed the necessary forms on behalf of the police. During the operation, Ming Han returned too and showed Chen Zheng all the surveillance footage they had collected.
The bus Huang Li took had reached Longwan Town at seven-thirty, but the distance from Longwan Town to Fuxiang Cemetery was still considerable. Three-wheeled taxis waited at the edge of town to take passengers up the mountain. Perhaps some part of Huang Li had still been reluctant to let go of life, because she chose not to ride and walked instead. That “wasted” time also bought her the most precious time of all.
Huang Li passed the cemetery camera at nine. Based on when Chen Zheng found her, she must have spent a long time beside her parents’ grave. If she had not, she most likely would not have survived long enough to be rescued.
“So in a way, everything was pulling her back,” Ming Han said. “Don’t worry. She’ll wake up.”
Chen Zheng looked into Ming Han’s eyes and, for the first time, thought he saw something related to gentleness there. The moment the thought appeared, he hurried to dismiss it. It was not that Ming Han could not be gentle. The thought itself simply felt strangely difficult for Chen Zheng to adapt to.
“Bro, are those clothes comfortable enough?” Ming Han asked.
Chen Zheng withdrew his gaze. “I’ll wash them and return them.”
Ming Han smiled. “Sure, sure.”
The surgery went smoothly, but Huang Li was not yet out of danger and was moved into intensive care. By then, the police were not the only people waiting at the hospital. Li Luo and other members of the Wu family had arrived too. They were convinced Huang Li was the person who killed Wu Junqian and that, after her crime was exposed, she had attempted suicide out of guilt. The more emotional family members even tried to stop doctors from saving her. Chen Zheng remained at the hospital specifically to keep them under control.
Li Luo cried. “Why save someone like her? A life for a life! Did our Qianqian just die for nothing?”
Chen Zheng blocked the agitated family members. “We will investigate Wu Junqian’s case to the end. No one can conclude right now whether Huang Li is the killer. She hasn’t even regained consciousness. If you don’t want the real murderer to disappear from view permanently, then do not interfere with treatment or the investigation.”
There were more rational people among the family. During the latter half of the night, the Wu family gradually left. Chen Zheng did not dare relax, however, and still stationed investigators outside the intensive-care unit.
“Bro, go back and get some sleep,” Ming Han said. “I’ll stay here.”
Chen Zheng had no intention of going home. “I’ll rest at the sub-bureau.”
“You actually want to go back and see whether Kong Bing found anything new, don’t you?”
Caught, Chen Zheng said, “I can sleep there too.”
“I think you just find my clothes too comfortable and can’t be bothered changing out of them.”
Chen Zheng choked. “Want me to give them back right now?”
Ming Han immediately waved both hands. “Keep them on, keep them on. This is a public place. Taking them off here would be inappropriate.”
Chen Zheng: “…”
Speechlessness aside, Chen Zheng still did not go home. The sub-bureau had showers and resting rooms and was closer to the hospital. Going home would accomplish little beyond changing into his own clothes. What he was wearing now was actually… fine.
The search of Xuebu Mountain still had not produced results, leaving Kong Bing overwhelmed. But Chen Zheng had previously proposed searching the year’s missing-woman cases using Zeng Yan and Wu Junqian as templates, and they had now identified three missing women who fit the conditions.
Kong Bing drank Red Bull while calling Chen Zheng over to look at the information.
Wang Chenchen, twenty-nine, ran a tiny malatang shop in a commercial district, with most of her business coming from office-worker deliveries. On May 10 that year, her husband reported her missing.
Liu Jianglu, forty-seven, owned a chain of dumpling shops and promoted products online as an influencer. She was last seen at one of her shops on April 28. Her parents reported her missing.
Zhao Yu, twenty-seven, sold milk tea from a shop called Dream Island. A customer repeatedly complained about the business, and Zhao Yu eventually confronted him in person. One week later, she disappeared. The missing-person report was filed on April 12.
“Was that customer investigated?” Chen Zheng asked.
“Local police checked him. He said the milk tea Zhao Yu actually made didn’t match the ingredients advertised, so he kept leaving negative reviews. Zhao Yu eventually got angry and asked someone she knew to beat him up. He said he knew nothing whatsoever about her disappearance. The police station didn’t find any evidence against him either.”
Chen Zheng had been about to suggest transferring all three disappearances to the sub-bureau for a centralized investigation, but then remembered the sub-bureau was already operating far beyond capacity and could not take on three more missing-person cases.
Still, identifying the three cases meant they at least knew what existed.
“This is the handwriting analysis on the suicide note,” Kong Bing added. “It matches Huang Li’s handwriting and writing habits. She wrote it herself.”
Chen Zheng had earlier suspected that someone might have forged Huang Li’s suicide note and asked the sub-bureau to bring in an expert. Combined with the fact that Huang Li had swallowed sleeping pills, the result basically showed her actions had been voluntary, though it could not rule out the possibility that someone had guided her toward them.
“This Huang Li. If you tell me she’s the killer, the possibility feels low. But if she isn’t, then yesterday we barely started looking into her, asked a few probing questions, and she immediately went wrong. By the middle of the night, she’d already decided to kill herself.” Kong Bing shook his head. “Unless she did something to Wu Junqian.”
Kong Bing finished the Red Bull and stood to throw the can away. Suddenly, he stopped and looked Chen Zheng up and down.
Chen Zheng grew uncomfortable under the stare. “Hm?”
Kong Bing looked awkward too and scratched his hair. “Never seen you wearing that before.”
Chen Zheng had even less idea how to answer that. Should he say these were Ming Han’s clothes? Or ask why Kong Bing paid enough attention to remember what he usually wore?
Kong Bing cleared his throat. “I’m going to sleep for a while.”
“All right.” Chen Zheng remained alone, organizing the clues. Before long, exhaustion overwhelmed him as well, and he fell asleep on the office sofa. He had no idea how long he slept. Sounds gradually pulled closer from somewhere far away, and he jolted awake. A shaft of sunlight came through the window.
“Director Chen, Feng Feng has been found!” An investigator saw him wake and shouted, “We just got word from Wanjun City!”
Chen Zheng became fully alert at once. Wanjun City administered Weizhao County. Because Feng Feng had disappeared there, Zhuquan City and Wanjun City had established contact earlier. Although it had initially been only a missing-person case, Feng Feng’s disappearance was linked to multiple homicides, so Wanjun police had taken it seriously and continued searching.
As his consciousness fully returned, Chen Zheng suddenly realized this might not be good news. Sure enough, the investigator’s expression turned grave. “They found a body. It was already badly decomposed. DNA confirmed the identity.”
Chen Zheng took a deep breath. “Let me see.”
Feng Feng’s body had been discovered in Heiwen Town, which lay within Wanjun City’s jurisdiction. Heiwen Town and Weizhao County sat on opposite sides of Wanjun Mountain. Police had never initially thought to search Heiwen Town, while the search on the Weizhao side had produced nothing. The day before, someone in Heiwen Town reported finding a body inside an abandoned factory. Police compared the DNA and confirmed it was Feng Feng.
The body had decomposed severely after a brief period of warm weather in early autumn. The autopsy found that Feng Feng had died from a fall from height and had been bound before his death. Rain had washed away the traces on the factory roof, but blood from where he struck the ground remained below. He had been pushed while tied up. A four-story fall was easily enough to kill.
But the killer may have chosen that location for another reason besides isolation: it allowed them to torture Feng Feng. He had not died immediately after hitting the ground. The killer may have stood nearby and watched him struggle until, after a long and hopeless period of suffering, he finally stopped breathing.
The body had been buried on a wild slope behind the factory, land that also belonged to the abandoned facility and was almost never visited.
After autumn began, a group of outdoor-content creators grew bored with famous scenic locations and decided to find somewhere unusual, eventually choosing the abandoned factory where almost no one ever went. When they first saw the body, they even assumed it was some kind of prop.
Bound and dropped from a height. Chen Zheng’s first thought was Hao Le. Hao Le had not been tied up when he fell from the cliff on Xuebu Mountain, but he had a safety rope around his waist. That rope should have saved his life. Instead, Feng Feng, who should have held it, decisively released the rope the moment danger occurred. And Hao Le had originally been safely back at the campsite. If Feng Feng and Zeng Yan had not insisted on sending him down, he never would have fallen.
Hao Le had not died immediately after falling. Instead of saving him, Feng Feng and Zeng Yan killed him.
What happened ten years ago seemed to have been reflected back onto Feng Feng.
Chen Zheng’s brows drew tighter and tighter. So was someone truly avenging Hao Le? First they killed Feng Feng, then “Zeng Yan,” and even guided police suspicion toward Feng Feng. If Feng Feng’s body had never been found, the police could easily have concluded that Feng Feng had killed “Zeng Yan” to silence her.
But that brought them back to the same problem. The mystery of the real and fake Zeng Yan once again had no reasonable explanation.
His phone rang. Chen Zheng looked down. Ming Han. He answered immediately. “Huang Li woke up?”
“No. She’s stable now, but whether she’ll wake depends on luck. I heard Feng Feng was found?”
Chen Zheng was silent for a moment, then told Ming Han everything he knew and everything he had been considering. Ming Han asked, “What are you planning to investigate next?”
“Before, it was only speculation. Now the way Feng Feng died directly points toward revenge for Hao Le.” Chen Zheng said, “I’ll use that fact to probe Ke Shuer and Wei Youtai again, especially Wei Youtai.”