The retired senior was named Wang Jing. Everyone in the unit called him Uncle Wang. He had already left frontline work before Ming Han joined the Mobile Unit and currently lived in Luocheng, so Ming Han had never met him. Since the mysterious Zhu mother and daughter were involved, Ming Han arranged work for Xu Chuan and immediately headed for Luocheng.
Wang Jing learned Ming Han was already on his way and arrived early at the Mobile Unit’s office building to wait. Cao Qiong set a cup of tea in front of him and joked, “Uncle Wang, Uncle Wang, are you trying to solve another case?”
Before retiring, Wang Jing had been famous as the Mobile Unit’s “glue,” always smiling and ready to mediate whenever anyone had a conflict. Now, however, his face was grave. “After all these years, there really is one case I never managed to solve.”
Seeing him like this, Cao Qiong sighed and patted his shoulder. “Wait a little longer. Ming Han will be back soon. He may fool around, but there’s no questioning his ability.”
Ming Han drove straight back and arrived around noon. Wang Jing immediately stood. “You have a lead on Zhu Lingjuan?”
Ming Han narrowed his eyes. “Zhu Lingjuan?”
Cao Qiong stepped forward and tugged Wang Jing back. “Don’t get so worked up. Slowly, slowly. Bird, sit down too.”
Wang Jing sat down again while Ming Han drained half the bottle of water a teammate handed him.
Wang Jing said, “First tell me in detail. What exactly is going on with the case you’re investigating?”
The Zhuquan City case was far too complicated, so Ming Han only explained the parts involving Zhu Yumo and Zhu Qianqian. Broadly speaking, “Zeng Yan’s” murder had opened two lines of inquiry. First, the current “Zeng Yan” was not the real Zeng Yan. Second, Zeng Qun had committed many wrongs when he was young and might have caused the disappearance of the Zhu mother and daughter who sold cold dishes. At this stage, the two lines had converged. There was also a “rumor” about Zhu Yumo: she might have worked for drug traffickers.
The more Wang Jing listened, the worse his expression became. His fists clenched tightly. Several times he looked ready to interrupt Ming Han, but held himself back.
Once Ming Han had finished explaining the basics, he asked, “Uncle Wang, are you sure the woman surnamed Zhu we’re looking for is the Zhu Lingjuan you know?”
Wang Jing was silent for a long time, carefully organizing his words. “If drugs are involved, then it has to be her. But Zhu Lingjuan was only the false name we had at the time. We never learned her real name or even whether she had a legitimate identity.”
The story went back more than twenty years. At the time, not only smaller places like Zhuquan City and Yafu City but even the provincial capital, Luocheng, were relatively underdeveloped. Underdevelopment bred crime. Murder, robbery, and theft occurred almost every day. Organized crime was rampant in Yafu City, and drug-trafficking gangs had even emerged. Gang clashes were frequent, and many local police officers lost their lives. Before long, the chaos in Yafu City spread into neighboring cities, affecting Zhuquan City as well.
At its worst, drug traffickers dared open fire in crowded commercial districts in broad daylight, and children became tools for transporting drugs. The Yafu City police struggled to stand against them. The Provincial Public Security Department finally intervened, dispatching an elite team made up of special police and criminal investigators.
That team was the predecessor of the Mobile Unit.
Wang Jing had been one of the criminal investigators seconded to it. The elite team arrived in force but immediately encountered a very practical problem: penetrating the cunning and brutal traffickers’ organizations was extremely difficult. For half a year, it was a game of pursuit and evasion, and they dismantled only peripheral groups.
Yafu City had several especially powerful gangs. The one Wang Jing was assigned to deal with was called Heiyong. After exhausting every method they could think of, the team obtained a piece of intelligence: there was a woman in Heiyong named Zhu Lingjuan. On the surface she was a cook, but in reality she was the mistress of a senior member named Zha Zi. She seemed to hover outside the organization while still having access to its center of power.
Dealing with drug traffickers inevitably required undercover officers and informants. The police had already sent in numerous undercover personnel, while Wang Jing had cultivated informants of his own. Almost all were men, except for one “plain and honest” country girl named Chen Caihua.
At the sound of that name, something twitched in Ming Han’s nerves.
Wang Jing continued. Chen Caihua was not actually from the countryside. She was a young woman he had rescued during an early case. She yearned for a life of punishing evil and fighting injustice, but did not have the circumstances required to become a police officer. She kept pestering him until, after thinking it over again and again, he made her one of his informants and arranged a new identity for her.
Besides working as an informant, Chen Caihua sold cold dishes. She was exceptionally skilled and attracted many customers.
Chen Caihua helped the police solve quite a few cases, earning Wang Jing’s deep trust. Since Zhu Lingjuan was a cook and Chen Caihua was one too, the task of getting close to Zhu Lingjuan naturally fell to her. But Chen Caihua said she wanted to bring someone with her.
Wang Jing flew into a rage. An informant could not expose their identity, and Chen Caihua wanted to bring another person into the team?
The person Chen Caihua brought was Zeng Qun. The moment Wang Jing saw the fierce-faced, slouching, carefree man, his head began to pound. At the same time, he had to admit that Chen Caihua really had learned his knack for judging people.
Zeng Qun did not look like a good man, and “good men” did not make good informants.
Chen Caihua excitedly told Wang Jing how she had met Zeng Qun. What shocked Uncle Wang even more was that the two were already dating.
“Old Wang, just give us a chance!” Chen Caihua said with a grin. “Let him help me out. Don’t judge him by how he looks. He actually has a strong sense of justice. If you don’t trust him, don’t you trust me?”
The police badly needed people, and after careful consideration, Wang Jing brought Zeng Qun into the operation.
Over the next several years, Chen Caihua and Zeng Qun worked together from inside and outside. At one point they even returned to Zhuquan City and had a child. The police gradually gathered intelligence on the various trafficking gangs and broke them one by one. Drug traffickers around Yafu City nearly disappeared, leaving only Heiyong still resisting inside the city.
Then, just before dawn, Chen Caihua suddenly lost contact. Zeng Qun burst into Wang Jing’s dormitory with the worst possible news: Zhu Lingjuan had discovered Chen Caihua’s identity.
An exposed informant had no chance of surviving.
To protect Zeng Qun, Wang Jing sent him back to Zhuquan City overnight while launching an operation to rescue Chen Caihua. What they recovered, however, was only a body that had long since gone cold, and it was not even intact.
Not long afterward, the police began their final assault on Heiyong, but Zhu Lingjuan vanished as though she had never existed. Before her lover Zha Zi was executed, he said she was a clever woman who had sensed the danger early and fled on her own. None of them knew where she had gone.
The traffickers were brought to justice, but Zhu Lingjuan, the woman who had killed his beloved, remained missing. Zeng Qun sank further into self-destruction. He had fallen before, and Chen Caihua had pulled him back up, turning that fall into a disguise, part of his cover as an informant. Now the force supporting him was gone, and hatred and grief dragged him into a deeper abyss.
Wang Jing went to Zhuquan City to see him. The contributions Zeng Qun and Chen Caihua had made were enough to secure a place for him and his daughter in Luocheng, and Wang Jing swore that if Zeng Qun was willing, he could arrange a good future for him there.
But Zeng Qun asked only, “Can you avenge Xiao Hua?”
Wang Jing could not answer.
Zeng Qun wiped away his tears and smiled. “Go back. I don’t want anything to do with you cops for the rest of my life. If you won’t avenge her, I’ll do it myself.”
Wang Jing hurriedly said, “Don’t do anything rash!”
Zeng Qun roared, “Get out! All of you, get the fuck out!”
Wang Jing visited Zeng Qun several more times afterward. He drank heavily and gambled, yet somehow raised his daughter, Zeng Yan, healthy and well-fed. Eventually Wang Jing stopped disturbing the father and daughter and returned to Luocheng for new assignments. The elite team was reorganized into the Mobile Unit, its personnel and scale expanding steadily. Yafu City, once mired in chaos, became a place where people lived and worked in peace, while Wang Jing himself reached the age when he had to step away from the front line.
Over the years, he never stopped looking for Zhu Lingjuan, but every attempt came to nothing. Before retirement, he looked back over his career and realized this was the only case that had never reached an ending. Guilt also kept him from visiting Zeng Qun and his daughter in Zhuquan City again. Only then did he learn that Zeng Qun had died of illness ten years earlier.
After listening to Wang Jing’s recollection, Ming Han lowered his eyes in thought, a faint shock roiling inside him. Broken clues seemed drawn toward one another by magnetism, while the image they had built of Zeng Qun peeled away to reveal the man beneath.
Neither Ming Han nor Chen Zheng had ever imagined that more than twenty years ago, Zeng Qun had been an anti-narcotics informant. Xiao Hua, the woman who bore his daughter, had not disappeared and had not been deceived by him. They had loved each other. Zeng Yan was proof of that love. And the woman Zeng Li had described as bright as the sun had ultimately died horribly at the hands of drug traffickers.
Then what Zeng Qun did afterward…
Wang Jing took an envelope from his pocket and removed a yellowing photograph. “Look. This was when Xiao Hua and Zeng Qun had just gotten together. They never married, but they invited me to a meal. Xiao Hua said we could treat it as their wedding banquet. They even wanted me to be their witness because I was their big brother.”
Wang Jing spoke slowly, tears glimmering in his eyes. Looking at the photograph was like looking at old friends from many years ago. “But I wasn’t much of a big brother.”
Ming Han took the photograph. In the frozen image, a beautiful, innocent young woman smiled brilliantly. Ming Han had seen photographs of Zeng Yan in high school. Mother and daughter resembled each other somewhat, but Zeng Yan lacked her mother’s sunny openness and instead looked gloomy and sharp. Zeng Qun had possessed a fierce face even when young. His features were good, but his bearing made him look like a thug. Even smiling at the camera, he seemed slightly out of place.
Ming Han flipped to the next photograph and suddenly frowned. “Who is this?”
“Zhu Lingjuan. It’s the only photograph we have of her. Xiao Hua gave it to me back then.”
The woman in the photograph looked mature and gentle, very much like “Zeng Yan,” the “Zeng Yan” who had died not long ago.
An earlier theory flashed through Ming Han’s mind like lightning. A crucial piece of the chain had clicked into place.
“Uncle Wang, when I told you earlier that the Zhu mother and daughter who sold cold dishes had disappeared, had you already guessed the truth?”
Wang Jing stood and walked to the window with his hands behind his back. He had injured his leg when he was young, and with age his gait had become increasingly unsteady. After a long time, he looked out the window and said, “Zeng Qun went to take revenge on his own, behind all our backs. He said it before… the police couldn’t help him, so he would do it himself.”
“I actually understood long ago. If he ever found out where Zhu Lingjuan was, he would stake his life on it.”
Ming Han said, “After Zeng Qun’s father died, he set up a cold-dish stall, but his heart was never in the business. He kept searching everywhere for Zhu Lingjuan. To relatives and neighbors who knew nothing, he looked ignorant, useless, beyond saving. What he never expected was that Zhu Lingjuan was living less than two kilometers away.”
“Zhu Lingjuan left Heiyong. When everyone in Heiyong was being arrested, she remained free. She may have wanted to begin a new life, and Zhuquan City became an ideal place. Drug traffickers hadn’t controlled the city for long, the extra police presence had already withdrawn, no one knew her, and it was a small place where information traveled relatively slowly. She settled on Miaoping Street with her daughter and survived by selling cold dishes.”
“Zheng Xiangxue said Zeng Qun stole the Zhu woman’s recipe, but the person who really stole the recipe was Zhu Lingjuan. While Xiao Hua was undercover, she passed the recipe to Zhu Lingjuan. After brutally killing Xiao Hua, Zhu Lingjuan made her living with Xiao Hua’s recipe. Zeng Qun probably started selling cold dishes because of Xiao Hua too, but Xiao Hua had only ever made them for him. She never taught him how, and no matter what he did, he couldn’t recreate her flavor. When he found Zhu Lingjuan and tasted her cold dishes, he knew this was the woman who had killed his wife.”
Whether the truth had unfolded exactly this way could no longer be verified. But once Zeng Qun discovered Zhu Lingjuan, only one choice would have remained to him: kill her.
Before killing her, however, Zeng Qun must have gone back and forth with her long enough to make her hand the cold-dish recipe over to him.
What had Zeng Qun felt as he ate cold dishes he had made with his own hands and thought of Xiao Hua, who would never return?
Zhu Lingjuan might once have wielded enormous influence inside a trafficking gang, but stripped of that identity, she was only a mother with a child. Zeng Qun was entirely capable of killing her. For reasons no one knew, however, Zhu Lingjuan’s daughter survived.
After taking revenge, Zeng Qun put down the burden he had carried. He imitated the way Xiao Hua had once run a cold-dish stall and began earning an honest living.
Then, ten years ago, while he was ill, Zeng Yan was replaced by Zhu Lingjuan’s daughter. And the person who processed Zeng Yan’s withdrawal from school was Zeng Qun himself.
Ming Han stopped. “Uncle Wang, this is the part I can’t figure out.”
Wang Jing picked up Zhu Lingjuan’s photograph again. After comparing it with photographs of “Zeng Yan,” he agreed with Ming Han: the later “Zeng Yan” was Zhu Lingjuan’s daughter, and her purpose had been to avenge her mother.
“Zeng Qun was threatened. He was already terminally ill, and the daughter he had with Xiao Hua was the last person he cared about in this world,” Uncle Wang said slowly. “That woman must have threatened him with Zeng Yan’s safety. If he didn’t do exactly as she said, Zeng Yan would die.”
Ming Han considered it. Zeng Qun was no longer the man he had once been. Just as Zhu Lingjuan had been helpless before him after losing the protection of the traffickers, the sick and weakened Zeng Qun had no way to resist Zhu Lingjuan’s daughter.
“He was deceived. Illness had worn his mind down so badly he couldn’t think through everything. He believed that if he obeyed her and withdrew Zeng Yan from school, he would be allowed to see Zeng Yan. But once the withdrawal was complete, everything fell under her control.” Uncle Wang seemed to see Zeng Qun lying sick in bed and shook his head helplessly. Then he asked, “There was still no news of Zeng Yan after that, was there?”
Ming Han said, “No. From the clues we have now, Zhu Lingjuan’s daughter, Zhu Qianqian, killed Zeng Yan around that time. After Zeng Qun processed Zeng Yan’s withdrawal, Zhu Qianqian simply became Zeng Yan, until…” Ming Han paused. “Until she was killed by a new avenger.”
The new avenger was Wu Lianshan.
Until now, the police had never found a clear motive. Wu Ye had listed one reason after another, but every one was strained. Now a genuine motive had finally emerged. Wu Lianshan’s parents had been killed by a drug-trafficking gang, and Zhu Lingjuan had been a key member of that same organization.
But a new question arose immediately. How had Wu Lianshan known that “Zeng Yan” was Zhu Lingjuan’s daughter? She had never seen Zhu Lingjuan herself.
And she might be the only person who knew how the real Zeng Yan had died.
Wang Jing said, “I want to see the photographs from Zhu Qianqian’s death.”
Ming Han found several detailed autopsy photographs on his phone. Wang Jing studied them for a long time, then pointed to the birthmark on the back of her neck. “This…”
Ming Han leaned closer. The birthmark was fan-shaped, its color distorted because bamboo skewers had once been inserted into it. “Uncle Wang, you recognize it?”
“In the intelligence Xiao Hua sent back, Zhu Lingjuan had a birthmark just like this.”
Ming Han could not wait to get back to Zhuquan City. Wang Jing walked him to the car and handed him the photographs in their envelope. “If you solve the case, let me know. I’ll go see the two of them and catch up with the couple.”
Ming Han stepped hard on the accelerator, but just before leaving the city he pulled over. He photographed the old pictures, sent them to Chen Zheng, and immediately called him.
Chen Zheng looked at the photographs while listening to Ming Han’s account. When he learned that both Zeng Qun and Xiao Hua had been informants in anti-narcotics work, he was every bit as shocked as Ming Han. At the Fengshu Residential Complex crime scene, Chen Zheng had been the first person to notice that skewers had been inserted into “Zeng Yan’s” fan-shaped birthmark. But the clues had been too scattered then for anyone to determine what it meant.
Now he finally understood. It meant hatred carved into the bone.
“We still don’t seem to have evidence that Wu Lianshan committed any crime,” Ming Han said, drinking coffee beside his car. “If Wu Ye refuses to identify her, even if we reason our way all the way to the final step, she can deny everything. And Wu Ye has already been brainwashed.”
Chen Zheng was silent for a while. “There’s actually one detail in Wu Ye’s behavior that I haven’t been able to stop thinking about.”
“What?”
“He confessed very quickly, but before admitting he killed Wu Junqian, ‘Zeng Yan,’ and Zhao Shuihe, he said he had killed his own father.”
Ming Han thought for a moment. “What’s wrong with that?”
“You weren’t there, so you didn’t see his expression and may not understand what I mean. When he started talking about his father abusing his mother and sister, beating him brutally whenever he got drunk, and how he finally couldn’t take it anymore and used a rainstorm to lure his father into the river, it felt unnecessary to me.”
“Unnecessary…” Ming Han echoed softly.
Chen Zheng nodded. “I investigated his family, but we hadn’t mentioned his family at all. All I wanted to know about were these three current murders. Yet he gave the entire story of killing his father from beginning to end before describing the process and motives for Wu Junqian and the others. Once you hear the whole story, you can understand why he would begin with his childhood. It explains how his present personality formed. But did he really need to tell us all of it? I’ve gone over it again and again lately, and I don’t think he was explaining. I think he was emphasizing something: that alcoholic, abusive piece of trash died by his hand.”
Ming Han understood. “He’s protecting someone else.”
“His sister, Wu Tao,” Chen Zheng said. “After investigating the Wu family, I thought it was very possible Wu Tao had done something. Wu Ye was too young then, but Wu Tao was already capable of killing someone. The local police station suspected her too, but there was no evidence, so they couldn’t pursue it. Now Wu Ye knows punishment is unavoidable for him, so he simply took that case onto himself as well.”
“Whether he falsely confessed to that old case isn’t actually the important part,” Ming Han said. “The important part is that he cares about his sister very, very much.”
“Exactly!” Chen Zheng said. “He has indeed been brainwashed by Wu Lianshan, but there is still someone else who carries enormous weight in his heart. That means we still have a chance.”
Ming Han said, “I’m guessing you don’t want me to come straight back anymore.”
Chen Zheng smiled. “Wu Tao is in Rongxiang City now. Go see her.”
Zhuquan City, Beiye Sub-bureau.
After confessing, Wu Ye fell silent and refused to answer any more questions. Wu Lianshan was questioned repeatedly as a major person connected to the case. She emphasized that she had known nothing about Wu Ye’s actions, yet also expressed intense self-blame, saying she bore some responsibility for the deaths of “Zeng Yan” and the other two women because, if not for her, Wu Ye would never have known them.
“Come somewhere with me,” Chen Zheng said to Wu Lianshan.
Wu Lianshan had been extremely cooperative lately. “Officer Chen, where are we going?”
Chen Zheng parked outside Uncle Yin’s Noodle Shop and called to Yin Gaoqiang, “Uncle Yin, two bowls of beef noodles.”
Wu Lianshan did not immediately go inside. “I’ve already eaten.”
Chen Zheng called inside again, “Make one of them one liang. Less noodles, extra greens.” Then he turned to Wu Lianshan. “A little more food won’t hurt, right?”
Wu Lianshan nodded.
Yin Gaoqiang looked them over. “Brought a coworker?”
“No. I mentioned her to you before. She’s Granny Wu’s granddaughter. These coasters of yours came from their family.”
Wu Lianshan lowered her gaze to the coaster, her brows drawing together.
Yin Gaoqiang immediately peered at her. “Right, it’s you! Haven’t seen you in years. Your grandmother used to bring you here for noodles. Is she still doing well?”
When Wu Lianshan raised her head, a smile had already returned to her lips. “She’s doing well. Thank you, Uncle.”
Before long, the beef noodles arrived. Chen Zheng deliberately set Wu Lianshan’s bowl on one of the coasters. “Still no idea who gave Uncle Yin these coasters. Would you call that fate?”
Wu Lianshan picked at the greens one stalk at a time, apparently lost in thought. A beat late, she said, “Then I should thank whoever it was for supporting our family’s business.”
Chen Zheng finished his noodles. Wu Lianshan had only eaten a few pieces of greens. Old Yin looked over. “Noodles not to your taste?”
Wu Lianshan hurriedly said, “No, no. They’re very good.”
After paying, Chen Zheng turned back to Old Yin. “Uncle Yin, if you remember who left the coasters here, make sure you tell me. It’s important to the case we’re investigating.”
With her back to Chen Zheng, Wu Lianshan lightly bit her lip.
“Let’s go.” Chen Zheng walked past her.
Wu Lianshan assumed they were heading back, but Chen Zheng did not get into the car. Instead, he turned down a narrow alley. Naturally, the alley was no longer the same as it had been ten years ago, but the shops still sold the kinds of things students liked.
“You used to come through here, didn’t you?” Chen Zheng said.
Wu Lianshan answered calmly, “Yes. Whenever Grandma and I packed up the stall and went home, we passed through this alley.”
“I mean with other people. For example, a new friend you made near No. 2 Middle School.”
Wu Lianshan’s chest rose faintly. “Students? I spoke to some. They liked the cords my grandmother made.”
“What about Zeng Yan? I mean the old Zeng Yan. You know by now that the current ‘Zeng Yan’ and she weren’t the same person.”
Wu Lianshan looked at a tree nearby. “Mm. You’re the ones who told me that.”
“But considering your relationship with the original Zeng Yan, the first time you saw the later ‘Zeng Yan,’ you must have known they weren’t the same person,” Chen Zheng said. “You never needed me to tell you.”
Wu Lianshan’s expression changed. She looked at Chen Zheng warily.
“Do you know why I brought you here?” Chen Zheng stepped closer. “Because someone saw you and Zeng Yan here. I mean the real Zeng Yan. She skipped school for you, and you weren’t helping Granny Wu mind the stall either. After meeting here, the two of you took a bus downtown. Schoolgirls like going there to shop, don’t they?”
Wu Lianshan’s shoulders lifted. She looked as wary as a female beast hidden in the forest.
“The witness also remembers that you gave Zeng Yan a green sweater necklace.” Chen Zheng exaggerated appropriately. “Zeng Yan liked it very much and often wore it when she joined the delinquents from No. 2 Middle School.”
Wu Lianshan shook her head instinctively.
“I was genuinely surprised when I learned all this,” Chen Zheng said. “If you and Zeng Yan were such close friends, how could you possibly ‘meet’ another ‘Zeng Yan’ through square dancing ten years later? When you learned her name was Zeng Yan, where she lived, where she had gone to school, wouldn’t you have been shocked? And how could you then become her friend and confide your relationship troubles to her?”
Wu Lianshan took a small step backward.
Chen Zheng continued, “There’s only one explanation. You knew the later ‘Zeng Yan’ could no longer speak for herself, so you fabricated a story about how you met in order to deceive the police. You needed to hide that you had been close friends with the real Zeng Yan, and you also needed to hide that you already knew the fake Zeng Yan.”
“I don’t know either of them,” Wu Lianshan said. “Who is this witness? I want to see her.”
“There’s no need to rush,” Chen Zheng said. “I recently learned something else too. Here, look at this photograph.”
Wu Lianshan approached doubtfully. Chen Zheng turned the phone toward her.
In an instant, her pupils contracted violently.
“I already know the fake Zeng Yan’s identity.” Chen Zheng stared into Wu Lianshan’s eyes. “Her mother was a drug trafficker named Zhu Lingjuan. More coincidentally still, Zhu Lingjuan operated in Yafu City and belonged to the same organization as the people responsible for your parents’ deaths: Heiyong.”
Wu Lianshan grabbed the tree trunk, turned away, and began vomiting uncontrollably.