Kong Bing asked, “Why? What grudges did those women have against you?”
Wu Ye gave a cold smile. “Do they have to have a grudge against me before I can kill them?”
“Then tell me why you killed them and how you did it.” Kong Bing thought of something else and added, “Besides those three, have you killed anyone else?”
Wu Ye paused. “Yes.”
“Who?”
“My father, Wu Zhang. That piece of trash.”
Kong Bing had thought the disappearance cases involving Zhao Yu and the others might finally be going somewhere. He had not expected Wu Ye to name his own father. According to the information Chen Zheng had gathered earlier, Wu Zhang had fallen into a river while drunk during a rainstorm. Murder had been considered possible, but the police had never found any evidence.
“You…” Kong Bing said. “How did you do it? Weren’t you only eight at the time?”
Wu Ye gave an indifferent shrug. “An eight-year-old wants to live too. If I hadn’t fought back, that piece of trash would’ve tortured me to death sooner or later.” Seeing Kong Bing about to speak, Wu Ye cut him off. “Don’t start lecturing me now. When I was living through hell, where were you? Did any of you come save me?”
Kong Bing swallowed a breath. “At eight years old, what could you even do?”
“Not much,” Wu Ye said. “But I could still go meet someone who was dead drunk and bring him home.”
Wu Ye’s gaze passed through Kong Bing as though he were seeing that small figure running through the rain years ago. Xiaozhu River near Tiaoming Street rose whenever it rained, and the harder the rain, the higher the water. Wu Zhang had run up large gambling debts playing cards on Tiaoming Street. He drank as he played and frequently went into drunken rages, until none of the card rooms there would take him anymore. He had to go farther away to gamble, and when he returned late at night, he would walk a long stretch along Xiaozhu River.
Wu Ye had been beaten again. He sat by the river crying, oblivious to the raindrops falling over him. The water crept higher and higher. An adult passing by shouted, “Whose kid is that? Get up here! The water’s about to rise. Are you trying to drown?”
He ignored the man. Then let me drown.
But in the end, he did not drown. The rain stopped before long that day, and the water only rose to his calves.
Later, during another rainstorm, he came to Xiaozhu River and saw a toy poodle run into the water to play. Rain poured down, the river churned, and the little dog desperately paddled toward shore. A wave surged over it, and the struggling shape vanished beneath the water.
Wu Ye suddenly stood. A plan began to take shape.
Whenever Wu Zhang was losing at cards, he would pour bottle after bottle of beer down his throat. Sometimes when he came out of the card room late at night, he could fall asleep on the ground halfway home.
Rainy season arrived, and Zhuquan City was hit by downpours every few days. The next time Wu Zhang went out to play cards, Wu Ye obediently asked, “Dad, do you want me to bring you an umbrella tonight?”
Wu Zhang snapped, “If you don’t come get me, I’ll beat you to death.”
In the early hours of the morning, Wu Ye did not appear at the card room. Wu Zhang had lost heavily and drunk just as heavily, and he was still carrying a bottle in one hand. When Wu Ye failed to show, he cursed a few times and staggered into the downpour. Wu Ye ran over from the direction of the river, holding up an umbrella. “Dad, I’m here!”
Wu Zhang snatched the umbrella and shoved him aside. The drunk man’s steps grew slower and slower. Wu Ye said, “Let’s rest for a while. Over there. There’s a rock over there.”
The rock sat right beside the river. The water would rise over it soon.
Wu Zhang could barely walk. He forced himself over, sprawled across the rock, and immediately fell asleep.
Wu Ye took the umbrella back and slowly retreated. Rain at night was different from rain during the day, heavier and fiercer. The water rose very quickly. Before long it covered the rock, then the man lying on it. Wu Ye stood on the bank and watched the river fling Wu Zhang toward the middle of the current. Wu Zhang may have struggled. He may have shouted. But against the force of nature, his voice was crushed to pieces just like his breathing.
Several days later, people found the body after it had washed back onto the bank.
The more Kong Bing listened, the more unbelievable it sounded. Could an eight-year-old child really have done something like this?
Wu Ye said calmly, “Killing a drunk is ridiculously easy. Didn’t you want to know why I killed those three people? This is where it started.”
Kong Bing said, “Where it started? What did your father have to do with those three victims?”
“Nothing directly. But every one of them reminded me of that piece of trash in one way or another,” Wu Ye said. “Especially Zhao Shuihe.”
“You and Zhao Shuihe weren’t even from the same city. How did you end up holding a grudge against her?”
“Because she humiliated Sister Shan.”
Kong Bing said, “Wu Lianshan? Your girlfriend asked you to avenge her?”
“Sister Shan didn’t know,” Wu Ye said. “After I heard what happened, I just didn’t want a woman like that staying alive and hurting other women.”
“What did you hear?”
Wu Ye’s account was essentially the same as what Chen Zheng had learned on Bajiao Street. Eight years earlier, Zhao Shuihe’s words had caused lasting damage to Wu Lianshan, even making her lose interest in school.
After they started dating, Wu Lianshan told Wu Ye about it with a downcast expression. She said that, from the perspective of a young girl, Zhao Shuihe had once seemed like exactly the kind of woman she longed to become: independent, strong, beautiful. Yet this role model had coldly mocked her future and belittled all her efforts as worthless. Wu Lianshan had been confused and lost. It indirectly caused her grades to plummet in high school. As she grew older, she came to understand that Zhao Shuihe’s purpose had been to suppress younger girls, but by then she had fallen too far behind in school. Even after working desperately to catch up, she only managed to get into the health college.
Wu Ye sneered. “I grew up seeing how evil men could be. He hit my mother and my sister. They were kind, wonderful women. Why should they have been treated like that? So I killed Wu Zhang. I used to think women should help one another, and that men should protect them. Some men are so rotten, like the piece of trash in my family. If women don’t band together, how are they supposed to fight men like that? But after I grew up, I realized something. Some women will also do everything they can to crush other women.”
Kong Bing could not stop himself. “You’re too extreme.”
“Extreme? Isn’t Zhao Shuihe a living example?” Wu Ye said with disdain. “She hadn’t even climbed to the top yet, and she was already saying things like that to Sister Shan. She wouldn’t spare a single girl with potential. Do you know what she did later at Yihe?”
Kong Bing had reviewed the Zhao Shuihe case. She had been extremely harsh toward her male employees, and Xiang Yu’s long-term humiliation at her hands was precisely what had caused him to develop the impulse to kill.
“Xiang Yu was only a target she used. She needed one unlucky man to make it look like she stood with women, so women would treat her as a symbol, an idol. But did she really?” Wu Ye said. “Other than her, was there a single woman at Yihe who was allowed to truly rise to the top? No. Vases only made her look more beautiful.”
“How do you know so much about her?”
“Because I observe people,” Wu Ye said. “After Sister Shan mentioned her, I wanted to know exactly what kind of person she was.”
Kong Bing asked, “When you went back to Yafu City in April, was it to kill Zhao Shuihe?”
“Sister Shan wanted to take me to see Granny. I acted while we were there.” Wu Ye sounded almost resigned. “Unfortunately, I didn’t have experience. I left clues behind, the dagger and the footprint you found. What I didn’t expect was that the idiot who followed us also wanted Zhao Shuihe dead. He even thought killing her was some glorious achievement and immediately claimed the whole thing for himself.”
“But how did you trick Zhao Shuihe into going to Xingfu Park? You didn’t know each other. Why would she listen to you?”
Wu Ye stopped meeting Kong Bing’s eyes. His gaze swept across the tabletop. More than ten seconds passed before he said, “I found her and told her I wanted to discuss a business deal.”
Kong Bing obviously did not believe him. “That’s it?”
“Yes. That’s it,” Wu Ye insisted.
The interrogation continued. Kong Bing said, “Fine. Let’s move on to the next one. Did you kill ‘Zeng Yan’ too?”
Wu Ye nodded.
Kong Bing stared at him. “She was Wu Lianshan’s friend. Did Wu Lianshan know you killed her?”
Wu Ye scoffed. “If Sister Shan knew, she would’ve broken up with me a long time ago.”
“What was your motive?” Kong Bing said. “Which woman did she hurt?”
Wu Ye waved a hand. “That wasn’t it. I hated her for personal reasons.”
“Why?”
“She tried to talk Sister Shan into breaking up with me. Isn’t that enough?”
The young couple had argued over something trivial. Angry, Wu Lianshan stormed out and spent the night with “Zeng Yan.” Wu Lianshan complained about her boyfriend, and “Zeng Yan” spared no effort trying to convince her to break up with him. By the next day, Wu Lianshan had cooled off. She said goodbye to “Zeng Yan,” reconciled with Wu Ye soon afterward, then turned around and told him what had happened that night.
Wu Ye said nothing at the time, but he came to hate “Zeng Yan” bitterly. He could not imagine what he would do if Wu Lianshan actually listened to her and left him.
Having already killed once, he grew bolder. After following “Zeng Yan” several times, he realized killing her would be much easier than killing Zhao Shuihe.
On October 4, Wu Lianshan was working the night shift at No. 9 Hospital. Wu Ye left their apartment under cover of darkness and went near the snack alley. “Zeng Yan” seemed to notice that someone was secretly watching her and closed her stall early, believing she would be safe once she got home. She even went back out once along the way, apparently looking for someone.
What “Zeng Yan” did not know was that danger was hiding in one of the dark corners found everywhere in the old residential building.
The instant “Zeng Yan” opened her door, Wu Ye rushed out of the shadows like a ghost. Before she could make a sound, he covered her head. Everything after that was easy. He tied “Zeng Yan” up and used the hammer he had prepared in advance to smash her cervical spine.
Kong Bing asked urgently, “Then what was the trash can about? And the bamboo skewers?”
When “Zeng Yan” was found, her body had been placed in a large trash can, with the bamboo skewers used for cold dishes stuck into her body and face.
Wu Ye thought for a moment. “That? I just wanted to play a game with you police. Make you think she died because of her cold-dish business. Food safety? Revenge from a competitor? Anything would do.”
Kong Bing clenched his fist. “So you specifically targeted women in the food business?”
“You mean Wu Junqian?” Wu Ye said. “Don’t you think she was trash too? Those stray cats were so adorable, and she could still bring herself to poison them.”
Wu Ye also emphasized that on July 27, he really had gone to Silu Street to buy jiangxiang flatbread. He happened to spot Wu Junqian and followed her.
Kong Bing asked, “You just see someone on the street and casually decide to follow them?”
“Of course I knew who she was.” Wu Ye explained that Wu Lianshan often watched Wu Junqian’s livestreams and even praised her for being cute and funny. Sometimes he watched with Wu Lianshan, but he could never see what was supposed to be cute about Wu Junqian. To him, she only seemed overbearing, not his type at all.
When he ran into Wu Junqian, he happened to have nothing to do. Wu Junqian was acting furtively and looked suspicious, so he decided to see what she was up to.
Wu Junqian carried a box of cake into the little park. It was nighttime again, and it was a park again. The familiar setting stirred an impulse inside him.
That was what the scene had looked like when he killed Zhao Shuihe. Unfortunately, he had been too nervous then and had not done it perfectly.
He was fairly familiar with the little park. Plenty of stray cats and dogs lived there, and kindhearted people came to feed them. He had fed them several times himself. Wu Junqian did not realize anyone was following her. She walked deep into the park and began making little “mimi” sounds to lure the stray cats closer.
Wu Ye immediately sensed something was wrong. When Wu Junqian opened the cake box, he understood what she intended to do.
Kong Bing was puzzled. “The cats weren’t dead yet. How did you know she was going to poison them?”
“Haven’t I said it already? I like observing people. And don’t you know I like stray cats and dogs? I’ve seen plenty of people feed them. You think I can’t tell what someone who wants to poison them looks like? The moment she crouched down, I knew.”
Wu Ye quietly raised his phone and recorded Wu Junqian poisoning the stray cats.
Wu Junqian thought she had done it without anyone knowing. As she was about to leave, she saw Wu Ye standing behind her and screamed in fright. Wu Ye played the recording in front of her. “You’re the owner of Weiming, right? I’ve seen your livestreams. If your fans knew this was the kind of person you are, do you think your shops would go under?”
Wu Junqian panicked. “How much do you want?”
“Come with me first.”
Wu Junqian had no choice but to follow him.
“And then I killed her on Xuebu Mountain,” Wu Ye said.
Kong Bing slapped the table. “How did you do all of that by yourself? How did you get her to Xuebu Mountain?”
“She was afraid of me. She did everything I told her.”
Kong Bing kept pressing for details, but Wu Ye refused to answer, claiming he was too tired and could no longer remember them.
Chen Zheng watched the entire interrogation from the monitoring room, repeatedly making notes in the notebook in his hand. Wu Ye had confessed, but there were too many holes in his statement. He might indeed be the killer, but many of the things he described would have been extremely difficult for him to accomplish alone.
He had an accomplice.
No. Perhaps what he had wasn’t an accomplice, but a master.
Wu Lianshan surfaced in Chen Zheng’s mind, becoming more mysterious by the moment. His first impression of her had been that she was indecisive, liked confiding in people, was a little too wrapped up in romance, and was not especially bright. Later, however, he gradually discovered her forceful and outgoing side.
Chen Zheng remained certain of one thing: Wu Lianshan and Wu Ye’s relationship was absolutely not an ordinary romance. Wu Ye’s family background had practically guaranteed that he would be drawn to Wu Lianshan. But what about Wu Lianshan? What had attracted her to Wu Ye?
Was it that he could be used by her?
Chen Zheng was about to pull Kong Bing aside for a short meeting when a female officer suddenly opened the monitoring-room door and said Wu Lianshan wanted to see him.
Wu Lianshan was sitting in an interview room and looked far more anxious than the last time he had seen her. She wore no makeup, and her eyes were heavily bloodshot. The moment she saw Chen Zheng, she stood. “Officer Chen, there’s something I need to tell you!”
Chen Zheng nodded. “No rush. Take your time.”
Wu Lianshan apparently did not know Wu Ye was currently at Beiye Sub-bureau. Uneasily, she said, “I… I think there might be something wrong with Wu Ye!”
Chen Zheng asked at an unhurried pace, “Mm? Why?”
“After all those questions you asked me last time, the more I thought about it, the closer the case seemed to me. There really is… someone around me who might be capable of something like this.” Wu Lianshan looked extremely hesitant. “I didn’t go home. I was too afraid. I’ve stayed at No. 9 Hospital the whole time. Suddenly Wu Ye feels terrifying to me, and maybe the reason he dated me wasn’t innocent either. Officer Chen, do you think it could be him?”
Chen Zheng looked at Wu Lianshan for a long time. “Wu Ye confessed just now.”
Wu Lianshan did not understand. “Confessed to what?”
“Murder,” Chen Zheng said. “He confessed to killing Zhao Shuihe, Wu Junqian, and ‘Zeng Yan.’”
Wu Lianshan sat frozen like a wooden puppet for several seconds. Then she covered her mouth and began dry-heaving repeatedly.
After her emotions settled somewhat, Chen Zheng said, “He was your boyfriend. You never noticed anything before?”
“No…” Wu Lianshan kept trembling, and her voice shook badly. “When we were together, he never said anything about killing people. I… I thought he was a very kind person. He took care of small animals and was friendly toward women. He told me about his sister, how because of her he wanted to protect vulnerable women. That was what attracted me to him.”
Wu Lianshan was close to breaking down. She clutched her head. “How could he be this kind of person? Do you think he might want to kill me too?”
Coldness surfaced in Chen Zheng’s eyes. A moment later, the female officer came to escort Wu Lianshan out.
“There is no way Wu Ye committed all these crimes by himself!” Kong Bing boomed in the meeting room. “He has motives, sure, but the more I think about it, the more ridiculous it sounds. He hates people who persecute women, so why did he kill three women? There are plenty of people like Zhao Shuihe. Is he going to kill them all? And listen to his story. He says he got Zhao Shuihe to Xingfu Park by telling her he wanted to discuss business. Zhao Shuihe was cautious and smart. Would she really go along with that?”
“Because there are things he can’t say,” Chen Zheng said. “The moment he says them, the person he’s hiding will be exposed.”
“Wu Lianshan, obviously! Every one of those three victims has some connection to Wu Lianshan. The two of them went to Yafu City together, yet he’s supposedly the only one who committed the crime!”
Chen Zheng stared at the clue wall for a while. “Wu Lianshan brainwashed him.”
Kong Bing followed him. “Brainwashed him? I think they were partners.”
“If they were partners, with the investigation already this far along, why would he refuse to give Wu Lianshan up?” Chen Zheng said. “And Wu Lianshan clearly knew we had already detained Wu Ye. That was why she came to me just now with her ‘lead.’ She was certain Wu Ye wouldn’t implicate her. All she needs to do now is display her innocence, preferably make us believe she’s another victim, that she was deceived by Wu Ye’s gentle and harmless facade. Think about it. If they were merely partners, why would she be so confident?”
Kong Bing’s brows knotted. “Isn’t that basically the reverse of a prisoner’s dilemma? If my accomplice and I were both caught, I’d absolutely worry that the other person had sold me out.”
Chen Zheng nodded. “Exactly. That’s why I think brainwashing is very possible. Wu Ye’s upbringing made it easy for him to depend on and trust women who resembled an older sister. After prolonged, deliberate conditioning of his thinking, he could become Wu Lianshan’s tool.”
As he spoke, Chen Zheng remembered discovering, when he first investigated Wu Lianshan and Wu Ye at the health college, that both of them had taken psychology courses. Had Wu Lianshan used psychology to control Wu Ye, while Wu Ye had passively accepted psychology from her?
Kong Bing rubbed his eyes. “Wu Ye’s situation is a little like Xiang Yu’s, but Xiang Yu was pushed along by public opinion and actively confessed to killing Zhao Shuihe. Wu Ye is more complicated.”
Chen Zheng finished the thought for him. “And harder to deal with. Once Wu Ye’s confession is on record, the chain of evidence becomes relatively complete. Wu Lianshan disappears from the case entirely.”
“Unless we get Wu Ye to change his statement.”
Days of investigation had left everyone’s minds sluggish. Chen Zheng went out alone for a walk and received a call from Ming Han.
News of Wu Ye’s confession had already reached the Yafu City police, finally giving the Zhao Shuihe case a new point of entry. Ming Han said, “Gong Jin asked me to thank you for him.”
Chen Zheng had already suspected that Gong Jin might have been the one who arranged for Zhao Shuihe’s case to be sent to the institute while prosecutors were still preparing the indictment, but hearing Gong Jin’s thanks still stirred something in him.
He and Gong Jin were not close. They had barely even spoken. Gong Jin was around his age. When Chen Zheng first started working, he would occasionally hear senior officers mention Gong Jin, saying the man worked ferociously hard. He was perhaps a little short on natural talent, but diligence made up for it, and he had already solved several major cases.
People the same age inevitably compared themselves. Even though Chen Zheng had never met Gong Jin, he heard the name so often that he and the other rookies around him pushed themselves to keep up.
Over the next few years, Chen Zheng also solved major case after major case and rose quickly. Many of his peers who had initially been assigned to other cities were transferred to the Luocheng Municipal Public Security Bureau or the Provincial Public Security Department because of their outstanding investigative ability.
Yet Chen Zheng still never saw Gong Jin and assumed the man had simply flashed brightly for a while and faded. Only after asking around did he learn that Gong Jin had solved no fewer cases than anyone else. He had long since received offers to transfer elsewhere, but rejected every one.
“Why?” Chen Zheng, who had always remained in Luocheng, naturally wondered.
The senior officer had only heard it secondhand. “Seems like he doesn’t want to leave Yafu City. Thinks northeastern Han Province still needs him. Sometimes people don’t only care about climbing higher.”
Because of that choice, Chen Zheng always remembered Gong Jin. Later, when they happened to cross paths at the Provincial Department, Gong Jin looked nothing like the fierce figure of rumor. He greeted Chen Zheng mildly. “Captain Chen.”
Chen Zheng came back to the present. “I didn’t do anything.”
“How did you not?” Ming Han said. “Gong Jin said he was betting on exactly this. If you hadn’t been at the institute, he wouldn’t even have known where to send the case.”
A phrase suddenly came to Chen Zheng: kindred spirits.
He had always respected detectives like Gong Jin who put down roots in smaller cities. He had not expected Gong Jin to think of him in a difficult moment too. When Chen Zheng transferred from the Luocheng bureau to the institute in Zhuquan City, many people treated him as a joke. Yet Gong Jin had placed his hopes on him, trusting him and trusting the people who followed him to bring a glimmer of light to the Zhao Shuihe case.
Chen Zheng took a deep breath. Cold air entered his windpipe and cleared his head slightly.
After they finished discussing Wu Ye and Wu Lianshan, Chen Zheng asked, “How do you think we should investigate from here?”
Ming Han laughed. “Why do I feel like we just took the baton from Gong Jin? Now the same pressure has landed on us?”
“You sound excited.”
“Not excited. Intensely curious.”
“Oh?”
“I’m not that interested in exactly how Wu Lianshan turned a person into a dog. It was probably some psychological manipulation or other. But her motive is interesting. Why did those three people specifically have to die?”
Chen Zheng stared at the traffic ahead and did not speak for a long time. Ming Han said, “Bro? Bro, make a sound.”
“When you mentioned motive, I suddenly remembered a few scattered details.”
“Mm? Which ones?”
“‘Zeng Yan’ inexplicably taking a photograph of Wu Lianshan. The coaster that appeared at Uncle Yin’s noodle shop even though Yin Gaoqiang couldn’t explain where it came from. Wu Lianshan leaving Zhuquan City right around the time Zeng Yan was replaced…” Chen Zheng paused. “And going further back, there are Yin Jingliu and Hao Le, neither alive nor dead as far as anyone knows.”
“Hiss. Doesn’t that take us straight back to what happened at No. 2 Middle School?” Ming Han thought for a moment. “Right. If we can’t get anywhere going forward, we might as well go backward and start with all the questions that never got answered. Oh, right. Bro, do you remember the very first suspicious point we found?”
Chen Zheng was silent for several seconds. “The missing Zhu mother and daughter?”