Shan’e Street, where No. 10 Middle School was located, was a neighborhood caught somewhere between new and old. Outside each of the school’s two gates was a food street catering to students. Zhou Xi’s little circle did not particularly like eating on either one. They would walk farther along the food street outside the rear gate, cross the road, and reach Shuiban Street, which had little connection to the school.
Several office buildings stood around Shuiban Street. None housed especially impressive companies, but at least the people coming and going were white-collar workers. To students, people who had already entered society always carried a little extra appeal. Liu Wenran did not really belong to Zhou Xi’s social circle, but she often wandered around Shuiban Street with them.
Zhou Xi recalled that on the day in question, they went to Shuiban Street and found somewhere to get drinks. The milk tea was inexpensive, only a little over ten yuan a cup. Liu Wenran ordered the cheapest one. While they waited, everyone started talking about gifts they had received recently. Liu Wenran pulled a box wrapped in sparkly purple paper from her schoolbag.
The girls all loved opening gifts and crowded around to see what was inside. Zhou Xi asked, “Who gave it to you?”
Liu Wenran carefully peeled off the tape, not wanting to ruin the pretty wrapping, and shook her head. “I don’t know. I got to the classroom this afternoon and found it in my desk.”
Everyone laughed and teased her. “It has to be some guy! Could it be Lü Ou?”
Liu Wenran blushed. “Stop talking nonsense.”
The box was sealed very tightly, and it took Liu Wenran several minutes to get the object out. The moment everyone saw the doll in her hands, they fell silent. Dolls were fashionable, certainly, but this thing was not appealing at all. It was ugly enough already, and the longer one looked at its eyes and smile, the creepier it became. Its overall outline was chibi-like, yet the facial features were disturbingly realistic. Inside its eyes were more eyes, layered together in a way that made Zhou Xi think of insect eggs. Zhou Xi collected plenty of blind-box and open-box figures and knew this was definitely not some popular release. Even she had never seen it before.
Who gives someone something like this?
Zhou Xi looked at Liu Wenran and saw that her face had gone pale. That made sense. If a bystander like Zhou Xi found it unsettling, how much worse must it be for the person who had received it? She tried to smooth things over. “Hahaha, actually, it’s pretty finely made. Hey, our milk tea should be ready. Wenran, let’s go get it.”
Liu Wenran put the doll back into the box and stuffed the box into her bag. While everyone drank and chatted afterward, she barely spoke, looking absentminded the entire time.
Afterward, the girls planned to go shopping. When they left the milk-tea shop, Liu Wenran walked at the back. As they passed a trash can, she suddenly stopped. Zhou Xi turned around to call her and happened to see her throw the box into the trash.
Zhou Xi said in surprise, “Hey, Wenran, you could’ve kept it and asked around to see who gave it to you.”
Liu Wenran shook her head, disgust written across her face. Zhou Xi had known her for more than two years and had rarely seen that expression on her, so she quickly stopped talking.
Liu Wenran did not usually join them for shopping anyway. When they reached the traffic lights, she smiled. “You guys have fun. I’ll head back first.”
Zhou Xi said, “Okay, see you!”
Right after they separated, the girls discussed Liu Wenran for a while, guessing who might have left the thing. No matter how they thought about it, it did not seem likely to be one of the boys openly pursuing her. Neither their tastes nor their personalities seemed compatible with a gift like that. Maybe it was someone who secretly liked her, pulling some self-satisfied prank like an elementary schooler. Someone also brought up something that had happened in Grade 10. “Xixi, I remember you lost your student ID right after school started. You never found it, did you?”
Remembering it made Zhou Xi annoyed all over again. “No. I had to get a replacement later.”
Her friend said, “If you lost it at school, anyone normal who found it would’ve turned it in. Maybe some creepy secret admirer picked it up and secretly kept it. Those people are the worst.”
Once they entered the mall, everyone’s attention shifted to clothes and bags, and the strange doll was forgotten.
A few days later, Zhou Xi noticed Liu Wenran in the classroom. Liu Wenran had always been good at enlivening the atmosphere. After they entered Grade 12, morning study started even earlier, and plenty of students could barely wake up, spending the period either sleeping or yawning. Liu Wenran, on the other hand, would be bursting with energy, telling jokes and getting everyone to sing, without the slightest concern for maintaining a “beautiful girl” image. Now, however, she was sprawled across her desk as though she were sick.
During the break, Zhou Xi asked what was wrong. Liu Wenran’s eyes looked dull, and she said she had not slept well. Zhou Xi even touched her forehead. She did not have a fever.
After school, the girls usually got together for a meal or something similar. Zhou Xi invited Liu Wenran as usual. Liu gave her an apologetic smile. “I don’t feel very well. I want to go home early.”
The same thing happened several more times. Eventually, Zhou Xi stopped inviting her. Liu Wenran’s absence did not really affect the rest of their little group, and gradually everyone stopped discussing her.
Zhou Xi looked worriedly at Ming Han. “We joked at the time that the thing looked like a cursed doll. It couldn’t really be one, could it? Did someone put some kind of gu curse on Wenran?”
Ming Han asked, “Do you believe in gu and curses?”
Zhou Xi’s cheeks reddened slightly. She thought for a moment. “We didn’t when we were joking about it. But now that I think about it, Wenran really did start feeling sick and avoiding everyone after receiving that thing, and then she disappeared! So… there has to be something wrong with it!”
Ming Han was a committed materialist. He did not believe in witchcraft or curses, but he did believe that people could exploit the mystery surrounding such things for their own purposes.
“You said you wanted to find out who gave Liu Wenran the doll. Did you ever figure it out?”
“Well…” Zhou Xi brushed her hair back and lowered her head in embarrassment. “We only said it in passing. No one actually investigated.”
Ming Han nodded and asked, “Who’s the Lü Ou you mentioned?”
“A student in Class 2. His grades are really good, and he’s been pursuing Wenran since last semester.” Zhou Xi added, “But I thought about it afterward. He probably wasn’t the one who left the doll. He does everything openly.”
Ming Han said, “Class 2? If I remember correctly, Class 2 is an experimental class.”
“Yes,” Zhou Xi said. “That’s why I don’t think he’s the type.”
Zhou Xi took Ming Han to the trash can where Liu Wenran had discarded the doll. It was not large and was already packed full. Ming Han looked up for surveillance cameras and found that the trash can was within camera range.
He was about to notify Kong Bing and have someone retrieve the footage when his gaze moved farther away and suddenly landed on the Dream Island milk-tea shop across the street. Zhao Yu’s disappearance remained unsolved, and Kong Bing was still agonizing over it. Ming Han himself had visited the area to inspect it, but at the time he had not realized just how close the shop was to No. 10 Middle School.
The storefront was rented, and because the area had heavy foot traffic, the rent was high. After Zhao Yu disappeared, Dream Island could no longer operate. Logically, the space should have been sublet, but Zhao Yu’s husband refused no matter what anyone said. He insisted on waiting for his wife to return and gritted his teeth through the continuing rent.
Ming Han pointed across the street. “Have you ever had drinks at that place?”
There were at least three milk-tea shops across the road, but Zhou Xi immediately understood that he meant Dream Island. “You mean the one with the shutter down?”
Ming Han raised an eyebrow. “You seem familiar with it.”
“We used to go all the time. Dream Island’s fruit teas were really good. They weren’t expensive, but they weren’t like those cheap places where your tongue feels weird afterward either. They probably used decent sugar.” Zhou Xi sighed. “But I heard something happened to the owner. The police came to investigate several times and still couldn’t find her.”
Ming Han asked, “Did you ever talk about why something might have happened to her?”
Zhou Xi looked at him, clearly finding the question strange. Weren’t they investigating Wenran? Why were they suddenly talking about…
Suddenly, Zhou Xi exclaimed, “Ah!” as if she had remembered something.
Ming Han asked, “What is it?”
Zhou Xi grew nervous. Her lips moved several times, but nothing came out.
“Take your time,” Ming Han soothed. “Think it through before you speak. Don’t be afraid. You’re with the police.”
Zhou Xi shook her head. “I’m not afraid. I just suddenly remembered that Wenran actually had something to do with Dream Island. How come the owner disappeared a few months ago and now Wenran has disappeared too?”
Ming Han had not expected that. “What was their relationship?”
Sweat appeared on Zhou Xi’s forehead. “We went to Dream Island all the time, right? I think the owner’s name had Yu in it, so we called her Sister Yuzi. When she was busy, Sister Yuzi had a bit of a temper and could snap at people, but when she wasn’t busy, she was really nice. She’d chat with us and recommend good drinks. Not just things from her own shop either. She’d recommend milk tea and fruit tea from other places, and I went to try a lot of them. They were genuinely good. Then last summer, Dream Island launched a mint lemonade because it was summer, but compared with their other fruit teas, it really wasn’t very good. Wenran… Wenran gave her suggestions for improving it.”
The faster Zhou Xi spoke, the faster her words came, as if she wanted to dump everything she knew into the police officer in front of her so she could finally breathe again. Ming Han motioned for her to stop and told her not to rush. She nodded, closed her eyes, took a deep breath, then continued. “We all thought it was kind of rude to criticize it directly. Sister Yuzi was already in a bad mood that day, and then Wenran went and told her the mint lemonade tasted bad. Wasn’t that embarrassing her on purpose? Besides, we were all students. None of us had ever run a drink business. How could she know how to improve it?”
“But Sister Yuzi actually listened. She kept Wenran there, and they worked together on making the mint lemonade taste better. I think it took about a week. It was summer vacation then. Wenran told all of us to go try it and said the flavor had changed. I had one, and it really was different. Sister Yuzi turned that mint lemonade into one of Dream Island’s signature drinks afterward. I heard it sold really well too.”
Ming Han asked, “Did Liu Wenran get paid for that?”
“She probably did, but I don’t know how much. Wenran and us never talked about money because it would’ve been awkward.” Zhou Xi continued, “Oh, right. Sister Yuzi also said we could drink there for free from then on. But how could we do that? I said Wenran could take the free drinks, but we couldn’t. And that was basically the end of it.”
Ming Han asked, “Did Liu Wenran ever work at Dream Island afterward?”
Zhou Xi was uncertain. “I don’t think so. Even if she did, she wouldn’t necessarily have let us know.”
Ming Han searched his memory. He had read the police investigation into Zhao Yu’s disappearance, and Liu Wenran’s name had never appeared. If Liu Wenran had still been helping Zhao Yu three months before Zhao Yu vanished, the police should have interviewed her.
The missing Zhao Yu and the missing Liu Wenran actually shared a connection. There was no question that this was an important lead.
Ming Han notified Kong Bing to check the surveillance footage, then escorted Zhou Xi back to No. 10. On the way, he showed her a photograph of Yin Gaoqiang. “Do you recognize this man?”
Zhou Xi said she did not. “Who is he?”
“He may have some connection to Liu Wenran. Did Liu Wenran ever talk about relatives? Or neighbors, people she knew?”
This time Zhou Xi answered with certainty. “No. We never talked about those things.”
Ming Han and Chen Zheng met back up at No. 10 Middle School. Somehow, in such a short time, they had dug up so many suspicious points surrounding Liu Wenran that both needed to stop and sort them out.
“Liu Wenran received the doll on October 28 and threw it away that same day, but the doll appeared in Huang Fei’s home. Huang Fei says Yin Gaoqiang gave it to him last week, but we have no evidence confirming that. From the traces in Yin Gaoqiang’s home, however, Liu Wenran and Yin Gaoqiang really did know each other. And according to what Ao Yan said, the relationship between them may have been…” The thought that Liu Wenran was still a student made the words difficult for Chen Zheng to say. “Transactional.”
As he spoke, Chen Zheng drew a relationship chart in his notebook. A handful of simple lines connected the victim and the missing people.
“Because of that doll, Liu Wenran received some kind of message or suggestion, remained depressed afterward, and disappeared after school on November 11,” Chen Zheng continued. “Her disappearance also seems connected to Zhao Yu’s. She helped improve one of the products in Zhao Yu’s shop, but when police investigated Zhao Yu’s disappearance, they never noticed her at all. Liu Wenran, Zhao Yu, Yin Gaoqiang. There’s a line connecting the three.”
Ming Han looked at the notebook. After a moment, he said, “But when we first got Yin Gaoqiang’s case, our theory was that someone wanted to silence him because Kong Bing had restarted the investigation into Yin Jingliu’s disappearance.”
Chen Zheng set down his pen. “Yin Jingliu. That’s another disappearance.”
Ming Han said, “The doll is the key. Who put it in Liu Wenran’s desk? If Zhou Xi remembers correctly and isn’t lying, and it really is the same doll, how did it end up in Huang Fei’s home?”
The broken clues refused to form a complete picture. No matter which direction they thought in, they ran straight into confusion. Chen Zheng steadied his thoughts. “There was something else I noticed while talking to teachers and students today. Ever since Liu Wenran disappeared, the school has been the one worrying about her. Her parent doesn’t seem to care at all whether she’s in danger.”
Regarding Liu Wenran’s deliberate concealment of her family circumstances and the wealthy persona she created in front of her classmates, Chen Zheng and Ming Han reached the same conclusion. She came from an unhappy family and desperately wanted to escape it. Since she could not escape yet, she disguised herself instead.
“I need to go to Xingwen Street. If her family won’t cooperate with the investigation, then we’ll have to go to them.” After thinking for a moment, Chen Zheng added, “Have you spoken to that student named Lü Ou yet?”
Ming Han said, “Not yet. I’m going to pull the classroom surveillance next.”
The two divided up the work. Chen Zheng was about to leave when Kong Bing called and said Shan’e Street Police Station had found Liu Wenran on surveillance footage.
At five in the afternoon on November 11, the streets outside both school gates were at their busiest. Students poured out like fish tipped from cold storage, flooding the entire street. Liu Wenran appeared at the rear gate, lost in the crowd and not particularly conspicuous. She was alone, did not greet anyone, and walked slowly. Unlike students who were strolling or shopping, however, she never once looked at the stores lining either side.
From the footage alone, Chen Zheng felt he could almost see Liu Wenran’s mental state. She seemed to have somewhere she wanted to go, yet outwardly she looked lost and aimless. She knew going there would accomplish nothing, but she also did not know where else she could go.
The surveillance coverage was not continuous. The police could only follow the direction Liu Wenran was walking and pick her up again on the cameras farther ahead.
When she appeared on Shuiban Street, Chen Zheng’s heartbeat gradually quickened. This was the street Ming Han had visited not long ago. According to Zhou Xi, it was also where Liu Wenran had opened the gift box and discarded the doll.
She did not stop on Shuiban Street. Instead, she continued farther away from No. 10. At one point she disappeared from camera range, then returned several minutes later and stood by the roadside as if waiting for someone.
“She isn’t waiting for anyone.” Chen Zheng pointed at the screen. “She’s looking across the street.”
Because Ming Han had been there, the map of the area immediately formed in his mind. “Dream Island is across the street!”
Liu Wenran was looking at Dream Island.
Sure enough, she disappeared again, then reappeared on Dream Island’s side of the road. The camera captured her buying a drink from the milk-tea shop next door and standing in front of Dream Island’s closed metal shutter. What had she been thinking at that moment?
After getting her drink, she headed west. The police continued following her through surveillance footage, but at Matou Alley, about one kilometer from Dream Island, she disappeared completely.
Of course, she had not physically vanished. The cameras simply failed to capture where she went next. They had lost the trail.
Ming Han urged Kong Bing to pull the footage around the trash can on Shuiban Street. Just as Zhou Xi had said, Liu Wenran had indeed thrown away the purple package. From the time the girls left until a sanitation worker came to collect the garbage bag, no one removed anything from the trash can.
Kong Bing hissed. “Then how did the doll get into Huang Fei’s home?”
Chen Zheng said, “But all the cameras captured, and all Zhou Xi saw, was the package. Did Liu Wenran actually throw away the doll?”
“Now that you mention it…” Ming Han recalled Zhou Xi’s account. Liu Wenran had indeed put the doll back into the gift box in front of all of them, but the box had not been resealed. It would have been easy for her to secretly take the doll out again and hide it in her schoolbag. And after leaving the milk-tea shop, Liu Wenran had been walking at the back of the group.
The problem was, “Why would Liu Wenran do that?”
Chen Zheng had no answer either. “That’s not the only thing. A lot of Liu Wenran’s behavior doesn’t have an explanation yet.”
Ming Han scrubbed a hand through his close-cropped hair. “I still need to go back to the school and check the surveillance.”
Chen Zheng stayed at Shan’e Street Police Station and discussed Liu Wenran’s family situation with Kong Bing. He was not, after all, an investigator from Beiye Sub-bureau, so going to Xingwen Street to investigate required the sub-bureau’s authorization. Kong Bing thought about it and simply assigned officers to go with him.
Beiye Sub-bureau’s vehicles had official markings, so Chen Zheng drove his own car and let the officers ride with him. No. 10 Middle School was actually not far from Xingwen Street, only three bus stops and less than ten minutes by car. Yet not only Chen Zheng, but the officers too, had always imagined Xingwen Street as being much farther away.
After getting out of the car, Chen Zheng split up from the others. Xingwen Street’s single-story homes and old apartment blocks were surrounded by high-rise buildings. Only after stepping into the noisy, aging neighborhood did he understand that the sense of distance was mostly psychological, as if a district like this simply should no longer exist inside a city transforming with each passing day.
It was not yet dark, but the sky was heavily overcast. Lights had already come on inside many homes, yet they could not dispel the decadence and rot permeating the street, like mold that had accumulated for years in the corners of a wall.
Many of the single-story houses along the outer part of Xingwen Street had been converted into shops: courier stations, clinics, convenience stores, vegetable markets, massage parlors. At first glance it looked like a complete neighborhood. Farther in, two kinds of establishments became disproportionately common: mahjong parlors and hair salons. Every hair salon glowed with suggestive light, women standing in the doorways and casting sticky looks at passing men.
Chen Zheng knew perfectly well what they were doing. The police carried out anti-prostitution sweeps at certain times every year, but outside those periods, the women stood openly in front of anyone who happened to pass.
On the student-information form provided by the school, Liu Wenran listed only one family member: her mother, Cao Wenmei, whose occupation was recorded as “freelancer.” When Liu Wenran first disappeared, the school had still been able to reach Cao Wenmei by phone. Later, Cao said she was busy and simply stopped answering, seemingly indifferent to her daughter’s safety.
As Chen Zheng passed a hair salon and prepared to head toward a nearby mahjong parlor, a woman standing outside the salon suddenly approached him with a broad smile. “Hey, handsome. Haven’t seen you before. First time here?”
Before Chen Zheng even turned around, he caught the overpowering scent of cheap perfume. He looked at the woman calmly. She wore a camel-colored coat that reached her calves, a dark-red qipao underneath, and padded slippers on her feet. Her figure was still well maintained, but neither her clothes nor her face had been treated kindly by time. Both the coat and qipao were badly worn, and the heavy makeup on her face could not conceal sagging skin and wrinkles. She was no longer young. The cheap cosmetics only emphasized her age, yet she still chose to dress herself the way she might have when she was younger.
“Hello,” Chen Zheng said. “I’m looking for someone.”
Displeasure immediately crossed the woman’s face. Her tattooed eyebrows rose high. “Oh, so you’re a regular? Who’re you looking for?”
“Do you know Cao Wenmei?”
The woman immediately looked at Chen Zheng strangely, as though unable to believe a man like him would be interested in Cao Wenmei. “What do you want her for?”
Chen Zheng smiled. “Something happened to her daughter at school. I haven’t been able to reach her.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “You’re not here for that?”
Chen Zheng pretended not to understand. “For what?”
The woman instantly lost interest. She waved a hand and pointed toward the corner ahead. “Go that way, turn left, third mahjong parlor.”
After thanking her, Chen Zheng asked, “What’s your surname?”
The woman looked him up and down, her gaze scorching. Apparently she thought Chen Zheng was interested in her after all, because her smile quickly returned. “You’re a schoolteacher, aren’t you? I knew it. People like you all look like respectable elites on the surface, but behind closed doors, you’ll try anything.”
Chen Zheng fell silent.
The woman snickered and jerked her chin toward the pink sign behind her. “Looking for me? Just come inside.”
Chen Zheng said, “Sorry to bother you,” then walked toward the corner.
The woman watched his retreating back. “Hmph.”
Someone passing by called to her, “Has your Yanzi come back yet?”
The woman impatiently waved the person away. “None of your damn business…”
Chen Zheng did not stop. Finding Cao Wenmei mattered more right now, but afterward, he intended to speak with this woman again. Ao Yan’s words had drawn back an ugly curtain: the rumor that Liu Wenran sold herself to old men. Ao Yan was only a high school student and had refused to say exactly where she had heard it, but the most likely source was this neighborhood. The women working in these hair salons might know something.
Around the corner, the clatter of mahjong tiles was deafening. A bead curtain straight out of the previous century still hung over the door of the single-story building. A man who had apparently lost badly pushed through it, swearing as he stormed away. Chen Zheng looked inside and noticed a woman dressed similarly to the one he had just met, her hair curled into large waves. She was smiling as she slid into an empty seat, an unfinished cigarette between her fingers. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Keep playing! He’s gone, but I’m still here. I’ll play with you!”
She was the only woman at the table. A balding man stared at her with an obscene expression. “Little Sister Cao, you should’ve come and kept us company ages ago.”
Chen Zheng looked down at Liu Wenran’s photograph and guessed that the woman was Cao Wenmei. Their features were very similar.
Chen Zheng did not go inside immediately, but neither did he leave. He bought a bottle of water and smoked outside the mahjong parlor. Crude jokes kept floating out behind him. People here seemed fond of turning vulgar things into entertainment, circling back to the same subjects again and again. Cao Wenmei was clearly the center of attention. The men made filthy jokes at her, and no matter how obscene they became, she could take them and fire back something even sharper, sending the whole table into laughter.
A little after six, the mahjong players gradually left to go home for dinner. Cao Wenmei saw the customers out and only then noticed Chen Zheng outside. His clothes and demeanor made it obvious he was not the sort of person who usually came to Xingwen Street. Cao Wenmei examined him, then called back toward the owner, “Sister Wang, I’m heading home.”
She did not speak to Chen Zheng and walked to the right of the mahjong parlor. Chen Zheng followed. Along the way, Cao Wenmei greeted middle-aged men and women with easy familiarity. When they reached an old corridor-style apartment building, she finally turned around. There was a smile on her face, but it looked tired. “Are you looking for me?”
Chen Zheng showed his credentials directly. She froze and looked away. “Police…”
“Do you know something has happened to your daughter?” Chen Zheng asked. “No. 10 contacted you, but you refused to go to the school even once.”
Cao Wenmei said impatiently, “I already told them she just went out to have some fun. What do you mean, something happened? They even got the police involved…”
“It’s more serious than her simply going out for fun.” Seeing that Cao Wenmei had no intention of cooperating, Chen Zheng went straight to the point. “There was an explosion a few days ago. Do you know about it?”
“What explosion? I don’t know anything about that.”
“Your daughter’s footprints appeared inside the victim’s home,” Chen Zheng said. “And not only her footprints. We found her hair too.”
Cao Wenmei’s body trembled almost imperceptibly. Her eyes were filled with disbelief and confusion.
Chen Zheng took out Yin Gaoqiang’s photograph. “Have you ever seen this man?”
Cao Wenmei leaned closer warily. The instant she saw the old man in the photograph clearly, she jerked backward so violently that she nearly fell.