After treatment, Yi Hao was no longer in serious condition. Although his injuries were much worse than Du Qing’s, the fact remained that he had participated in a kidnapping, so he too had to be investigated. His mother was keeping watch in the hospital room. When Chen Zheng arrived, she was endlessly berating him. “Why did you do this? Do you think it was easy for me to raise you? You’ve caused such a huge mess. Your stepfather is running around asking everyone he knows for help, and even people at your sister’s school have heard about it. How are the rest of us supposed to face anyone now?”
Yi Hao kept his head lowered and said nothing. His mother grew more agitated as she spoke, repeatedly jabbing her index finger against his head. Yi Hao did not dodge. He took it all without resistance, like a lifeless rag doll.
Chen Zheng stepped forward and stopped her from hitting and scolding him. Yi Hao’s mother immediately pleaded, “Officer, officer, please have mercy. He doesn’t know any better. He’s still young. Don’t arrest him!”
Chen Zheng gestured for the accompanying detective to escort her outside. Even after the door closed, her voice squeezed in through the crack. Chen Zheng looked at Yi Hao and waited for a moment before saying, “Zhang Xiran has already admitted everything. What about you? Anything you want to say?”
Yi Hao’s voice was hoarse. “I’m sorry.”
Chen Zheng said, “You don’t need to say that to me.”
“I’m sorry to Zhang Xiran,” Yi Hao said. “I used her.”
In Yi Hao’s version of events, he was the mastermind, while Zhang Xiran had been deceived by him.
What Du Qing had done was far worse than Du Qing himself believed. Yi Hao and Du Qing had originally had nothing to do with each other. They were in different grades and did not even live in the same direction. But Du Qing seemed rotten by nature. One morning during group exercises, their eyes happened to meet, and from that moment Du Qing treated Yi Hao like prey.
Du Qing had a pack of delinquent friends around him, but sometimes he preferred the pleasure of tormenting his prey alone. After school he would follow Yi Hao. Yi Hao had no friends, and no matter which side street he chose, Du Qing always managed to find him, drag him somewhere deserted, and beat him.
Du Qing even beat him downstairs from his own home because he knew Yi Hao had no parent he could complain to. Du Qing would deliberately ask, “Isn’t that your home? Why aren’t you going in? Wandering around outside this late, who else deserves a beating if not you?”
Right. Why would he rather stand at his own front door and take a beating than go home? Because that patched-together family was not his home. It was his mother’s, his stepfather’s, and his little sister’s home. Every day he returned there, it felt as though he were walking into a graveyard.
Later, Du Qing apparently grew bored of bullying him and moved on to a new target. Yi Hao finally stopped being beaten. But once the physical pain disappeared, his hatred burned even hotter than before. Why was someone like Du Qing allowed to live with such impunity? Was no one going to punish him? Where were the teachers? Where were the police? Was nobody really coming? Then… could I be the one to punish him?
The idea of killing Du Qing had been there for a long time, but Yi Hao had never fully made up his mind, nor had he found anyone to help him. He was certain he could never do it alone.
Then, not long ago, the cursed dolls appeared. He felt as though even heaven were encouraging him. What excited him even more was Zhang Xiran approaching him and proposing that they work together. Zhang Xiran was naive. She only wanted to teach Du Qing a lesson. Deep down, Yi Hao actually despised her. She was the girl Du Qing had pursued. She had never really suffered, so how could she possibly understand his pain?
Even so, he and Zhang Xiran made their plan together. He never told her that what he truly intended to do was kill Du Qing.
“I failed. Without Zhang Xiran there with me, I can’t do anything right,” Yi Hao said softly. “I dragged her into this. Let her go. She was just a tool I used.”
Chen Zheng said, “Is that so? If you despise her that much, why are you asking me to let her go?”
Yi Hao kept his head lowered and did not answer.
Chen Zheng said, “She said something very similar about you.”
Yi Hao looked startled. “What?”
“She said she was the mastermind and that you were only dragged into it because of her,” Chen Zheng said. “She hopes we’ll take into account that you were badly injured and that she used you, and let you go.”
Tears suddenly welled in Yi Hao’s lifeless eyes. A moment later, he gripped the blanket tightly and began to sob in a muffled voice. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” His low apologies continued echoing through the hospital room even after Chen Zheng left.
With campus incidents breaking out one after another, a large portion of Zhuquan City’s police force had been diverted into “putting out fires.” At the same time, conflicts caused by elderly men buying sex were erupting without end. Some families had already gone to the municipal bureau and sub-bureaus carrying protest banners, demanding a complete crackdown and severe punishment for the women providing sexual services. Ironically, it was precisely because the police had located those women that they were gradually identifying more of the elderly clients.
Progress in digging into Zheng Tian and the force behind him had remained slow. The biggest objective reason was that police manpower had been stretched thin, while Huang Fei had failed to provide anything useful on the Yin Gaoqiang lead Chen Zheng considered important.
Chen Zheng remembered that when the noodle shop exploded, girls from No. 2 Middle School had said Yin Gaoqiang often offered shelter to students who were being bullied. Delinquents like Du Qing terrorized the school, while Yi Hao and Zhang Xiran were among the students who had suffered. If they had spent much time around Yin Gaoqiang, could they know more?
Yi Hao should originally have stayed in the hospital for several more days, but once Du Qing’s father learned where he was, he went there every day to make trouble. The Yi family was in the weaker position. Even with their own child being the one seriously injured, they could not contend with Du Qing’s father. Chen Zheng had Yi Hao transferred to Beiye Sub-bureau and temporarily placed in the sub-bureau guesthouse to recover. Once Yi Hao was settled, Chen Zheng steered the conversation toward Yin Gaoqiang.
Yi Hao had been silent almost the entire time, but at the mention of Yin Gaoqiang, emotion finally stirred in him. He said he had badly let Uncle Yin down. Uncle Yin had clearly told him that his own life was what mattered most, that he needed to grow up properly and not sink to the same level as the delinquents. Yet Yi Hao had become even worse than they were and had almost turned himself into a murderer.
Chen Zheng did not interrupt his remorse. He waited until Yi Hao finished, then asked, “Did you ever see any unusual visitors come looking for Uncle Yin?”
“Unusual?” It took Yi Hao a while to react. Then his eyes brightened. “Do you mean Boss Yuan?”
Chen Zheng asked, “Who’s Boss Yuan?”
Yi Hao grew nervous and began stumbling over his words. That day, school had let out early and he had nowhere to go. He had already seen Du Qing, and that scumbag was smiling at him. The moment Yi Hao started walking home, Du Qing would inevitably follow him and beat him. As he walked aimlessly, Yi Hao suddenly thought of going to the noodle shop. Since school had ended early, there would not be much business. He never went when the place was crowded, but with few customers it was perfect for hiding. Besides, it had been a long time since he had eaten his favorite noodles with minced pork sauce.
Once Yi Hao entered the noodle shop, Du Qing did not follow. He knew he would definitely get beaten the next day, but that did not matter. He only needed to get through today first. He greeted Uncle Yin and placed his order, and only then noticed an elderly man he had never seen before. The man was dressed very elegantly. His overcoat and scarf both looked expensive, and a dark-colored watch on his wrist was obviously worth a great deal. Yi Hao found himself wondering why someone like that had come here to eat noodles.
Usually when Yi Hao hid in the shop, Uncle Yin would ask whether he was being bullied and chat with him about school. But that day was strange. Uncle Yin kept talking to the wealthy old man and barely spoke to Yi Hao at all. The two seemed to have known each other for years, and the older man had come to visit him. Yi Hao listened quietly while eating his noodles. Their conversation was nothing remarkable: how business had been lately, how their health was, how the flowers at home had not been cared for properly, how the price of meat had gone up again, and other ordinary things.
Uncle Yin called the wealthy old man Old Yuan. Yi Hao figured the man was probably some kind of boss. When he finished his noodles and left, he said goodbye to Uncle Yin. The wealthy man smiled at him and said goodbye too. Yi Hao was not good at interacting with people, but he felt he ought to be polite, so he said, “Goodbye, Boss Yuan.” At that form of address, the man paused for a second, then laughed together with Uncle Yin.
Yi Hao said, “I never saw him again after that. He felt like a friend of Uncle Yin’s. Usually it’s students who eat at the noodle shop, with the occasional person from the neighborhood. He’s the only person I ever saw there who was dressed that well.”
Chen Zheng thanked him. Tears gathered in Yi Hao’s eyes again. “Whatever happens to me is fine. I’ll take responsibility for what I did. But Uncle Yin… Uncle Yin really was a good person. He can’t have died for nothing.”
Chen Zheng nodded. “Don’t worry. Catching his killer is our responsibility.”
An elderly man surnamed Yuan. Boss Yuan.
The lead was right in front of him, yet Chen Zheng did not immediately take the next step. What Yi Hao described differed slightly from what Chen Zheng had imagined. He had already suspected such a person existed, but had expected this person’s relationship with Yin Gaoqiang to be much more secretive. Instead, Boss Yuan had cheerfully greeted a student he did not know and did not seem to care that anyone knew he and Yin Gaoqiang were friends. That meant his motive might differ from the police’s earlier theory.
More importantly, Huang Fei had definitely lied. If even Yi Hao, who only happened to visit the noodle shop that day, knew Boss Yuan existed, then Huang Fei could not possibly know nothing. Why had he concealed it? What was he hiding?
Chen Zheng called Ming Han and told him to find Huang Fei personally and bring him to the sub-bureau. After hanging up, Ming Han muttered to himself, “Knew there was something wrong with you.”
Huang Fei came out of his rented apartment carrying a bag of household garbage. The moment he saw Ming Han, he instinctively stepped backward. Ming Han said, “What are you running for?”
Huang Fei became even more nervous. His legs moved faster than his brain, and he actually dropped the trash and bolted upstairs. Ming Han took a few long strides and swiftly pinned him against the wall. “You know there’s a fine for littering, right?”
Huang Fei looked ready to cry. “Y-you, let go of me!”
Ming Han could not be bothered wasting words on him and simply hauled him into the car. Still badly shaken, Huang Fei asked, “Where… where are we going?”
“You still have to ask where?” Ming Han glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “I asked you nicely whether anyone strange had approached Yin Gaoqiang. How did you answer me?”
Huang Fei went rigid. “I… I…”
“Enough. I can’t be bothered listening now either. Once we get to the sub-bureau, you answer whatever Officer Chen asks you. Be honest. Understood?” Ming Han looked more like a thug than a policeman. Huang Fei did not dare argue and nodded furiously.
The moment they entered the interview room, Chen Zheng had not even opened his mouth before Huang Fei blurted everything out in one breath. “Officer Chen, I didn’t mean to hide it from you, but Uncle Yin died, the noodle shop got blown up, and then all those other cases happened, the elderly people, the students, everything. And then that cursed doll even showed up in my own home. I… I’m scared. I don’t want to die!”
Chen Zheng glanced at Ming Han. Ming Han wore an expression that plainly said, I didn’t hit him. Chen Zheng reassured Huang Fei with a few words, then asked, “Who’s Boss Yuan? Do you know him?”
Huang Fei jolted. It took him a long while to answer. “I… I thought of him last time. I really only kept it from you because I was scared. Anyone the police are looking for can’t be good news, right? I was afraid I’d get silenced! But he isn’t a boss. He’s a professor who came back from abroad.”
Huang Fei had seen the elderly man surnamed Yuan at the noodle shop three times. Like Yi Hao, he had found it strange that someone who obviously looked wealthy would be friends with Uncle Yin. The second time Professor Yuan visited, Huang Fei had asked Yin Gaoqiang, “Uncle Yin, who was that just now?”
Yin Gaoqiang smiled. “Your auntie’s high-school classmate.”
At the time, Yin Gaoqiang’s wife, Chen Linglong, had already passed away. Huang Fei immediately thought he had said the wrong thing and touched on Uncle Yin’s grief, but Yin Gaoqiang showed no sign of sadness. He only sighed and said, “The older you get, the fewer friends you have left that you can really talk to.”
Huang Fei did not know Professor Yuan’s full name. The last time he saw him was in the summer. Huang Fei had been outside trimming vegetables while the two men talked inside. The roadside was loud and chaotic, so he could not make out what they were discussing. The only line he heard clearly was Uncle Yin saying, “Stop worrying about me. There’s no way I’d ever agree to something like that.”
Huang Fei naturally had no idea what “something like that” meant, but Chen Zheng and Ming Han exchanged a glance. The same answer had occurred to both of them: accepting a woman arranged by Professor Yuan.
The surveillance and communication equipment connected to the noodle shop had already been destroyed. All they knew about Professor Yuan was his surname, so identifying him would not be easy. But if he had been Chen Linglong’s classmate, he was not impossible to trace.
Chen Zheng left the interview room. “I’m going back to Yin Gaoqiang’s home.”
Ming Han said, “I’ll search through the trace-evidence unit.”
When Yin Gaoqiang’s case first occurred, many of his belongings had been transferred to Beiye Sub-bureau, but his wife’s possessions were not among them. If Chen Zheng could find Chen Linglong’s graduation album or something similar at the Yin home, it would be much easier to identify Professor Yuan.
The Yin residence was sealed, with an officer stationed outside. Chen Zheng opened the door and confirmed that no one had entered. After several previous rounds of examination, there were hardly any corners of the home the police had not searched. A faint smell of disinfectant hung in the air.
There was a built-in cabinet on the balcony of Yin Gaoqiang’s bedroom, filled with yellowed books, newspapers, and magazines. Older people were often like this, reluctant to throw away anything they had read, so everything simply accumulated. Chen Zheng removed the books one by one. At the very back was a box. When he opened it, he found more books. Unlike the books outside, however, these were romance novels popular in the previous century, the sort many women of Chen Linglong’s generation had loved when they were young.
Clearly, the books in the box had belonged to Chen Linglong. After she passed away, Yin Gaoqiang had carefully packed them away. Digging farther down, Chen Zheng found a scrapbook with pictures of women’s fashions that had once been popular, proof that Chen Linglong had also been someone who loved looking beautiful when she was young. He continued searching and lifted out a hardbound booklet. It was exactly what he had come hoping to find: Chen Linglong’s classmate book.
Classmate books from decades ago could not compare with modern ones. This one was very simple, and many of the pages were already mottled and coming loose. The title page listed the year, class, and school: Zhuquan No. 10 Middle School.
Chen Linglong had actually graduated from No. 10 Middle School. Could this woman, dead from illness for years, somehow be connected to the string of cases now unfolding across the city’s middle schools?
The pages were so brittle that Chen Zheng turned them with extreme care. People of the previous generation had filled out classmate books quite formally, writing down their home addresses and contact details clearly and adding heartfelt well-wishes. Near the back, Chen Zheng found an entry from someone named Yuan Jimin. Unlike everyone else, he had written in the contact-information field: From now on, the ends of the earth may separate us and letters may not arrive. I hope we meet again.
What did that mean? Huang Fei had said Professor Yuan had returned from abroad. Perhaps even when he filled out this classmate book, Yuan Jimin had already decided to leave the country. Communication had been difficult in those days. After graduation, people really could end up scattered to opposite ends of the world and struggle to contact one another.
Chen Zheng searched the entire classmate book and box but found no photograph. At that moment, Ming Han called. “Bro, how’s it going over there?”
Chen Zheng said, “Chen Linglong went to No. 10 Middle School. There’s someone in her classmate book who could very well be Professor Yuan. His name is Yuan Jimin. I’m going to No. 10 to check their archives in a bit. What about you?”
Ming Han was holding an old photograph he had found tucked among Chen Linglong’s pictures in Yin Gaoqiang’s album. On the back was written, Graduation Commemoration, Class of XX. “I found Chen Linglong’s graduation photo, but there’s no way to tell which one is Professor Yuan.”
By the time Chen Zheng reached No. 10 Middle School, Ming Han was already waiting outside the gate. Chen Zheng took the old photograph from him. Even locating Chen Linglong in it was difficult. Ming Han pointed at a girl with pigtails near the middle of the second row. “I compared her with Chen Linglong’s other photos. That should be her.”
The old photograph had poor resolution to begin with, and after so many years, everyone’s features had blurred. Chen Zheng quickly scanned the boys in the back rows, then stopped at a tall boy wearing a brimmed hat. “Does this one look like Yuan Jimin?”
Ming Han raised an eyebrow. “Neither of us has ever seen him, and Huang Fei wouldn’t recognize him either.”
“Just a feeling,” Chen Zheng said. “Yuan Jimin already knew before graduation that he was going abroad. Maybe Western culture had already left a mark on him. Young people like to show off sometimes.”
Ming Han looked at the photo again and laughed. “You know, you might be onto something.”
Chen Zheng entered No. 10 Middle School with the photograph and classmate book, while Ming Han, like an express courier whose delivery was complete, hopped on his motorcycle and vanished into traffic.
The staff member in the academic affairs office looked troubled. Students who had attended the school decades ago were already retired now, never mind their teachers. The school still kept the archives, but none had been digitized, so searching them would be extremely troublesome.
That was indeed a problem, and even if they found the file, it might not prove useful. Chen Zheng still decided to search first. If that failed, he had other options. The school assigned several young teachers to help him. At the same time, after returning to the sub-bureau, Ming Han began searching for information on Yuan Jimin. But the name appeared to be an alias, or perhaps it had been changed long ago. No record could be found.
The archive room was thick with the smell of dust. After staying inside for too long, everyone’s nose began to hurt, and coughs sounded one after another. Chen Zheng ordered masks and nasal spray from a pharmacy through a delivery app. “Thanks for the hard work, everyone.”
The young teachers were easygoing. They had not expected the visiting police officer to be so considerate. Once everyone had masks on, they threw themselves back into the search with renewed energy.
An hour later, Chen Zheng finally found the file of the person he suspected was Yuan Jimin. The photograph attached to it was so blurry that his features were almost impossible to make out, but the distinctive hat was enough for Chen Zheng to feel certain it was the same person. In the name field, however, the file did not say Yuan Jimin. It said Yuan Zhangfeng.
Chen Zheng immediately sent the information to Ming Han. Another search by the sub-bureau showed that Yuan Zhangfeng had most recently entered the country on November 14. He was a citizen of Country B, owned three properties in Zhuquan City, two of them villas, and had participated in numerous charitable programs for the elderly.
On the twenty-seventh, Chunyao Community was holding a free medical clinic for elderly residents. Many older people lived on this street. A great number of them had spent their entire lives in Chunyao, working at the factories when they were young. In old age, their children had moved to newer, better residential complexes, while they stayed behind in the old apartments once allocated by the factories, slowly walking toward death.
A private hospital was running the free clinic, which was relatively unusual. Three canopies had been set up inside the community: one for examinations, one for medicines and equipment, and one as a rest area for the elderly.
When Chen Zheng had been captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment in Luocheng, he had visited similar events. Free clinics were meant to make medical care more convenient for the elderly, but in practice they often had many problems. The most obvious was that people were called over for examinations without even being given a place to sit and rest, leaving many elderly attendees cramped and awkward. Yet this relatively underdeveloped Chunyao Community had solved that problem. It probably had little to do with the community itself. Whoever organized the event simply possessed a “cash superpower.” In matters like these, money really could solve problems.
Laughter and applause came from the rest area. Chen Zheng looked over and saw a silver-haired elderly man chatting with the people waiting for their examinations. He was tall, around one meter eighty by sight. Like the doctors, he wore a white coat, but beneath it was a suit. He held a brimmed hat in one hand and spoke with a slight foreign accent. Listening more closely, Chen Zheng realized he was telling anecdotes about Country B, where people of this age did not spend all their time worrying about their children and instead maintained lives of their own.
Some of the elderly listeners looked envious but laughingly objected that such a life cost money. They were already old, they said. They did not eat much or need fancy clothes, so they might as well save the money and let their children and grandchildren live better. The man with the hat shook his head and said people should think more about themselves. They should not assume that growing old meant nothing mattered anymore or that they ought to sacrifice themselves willingly. Precisely because they were old, they should treat themselves better.
One elderly man nodded. “Mr. Yuan, if I were as rich as you, I’d definitely treat myself well. Delicacies every day, a whole imperial banquet!”
That made many of the others laugh. Chen Zheng could tell they were mostly humoring the foreign national who had brought them this opportunity for free medical care. They had not truly accepted his way of thinking.
A nurse began calling numbers, and the people at the front of the line were courteously escorted to the examination area. Yuan Zhangfeng had probably grown tired of talking. He walked over to the water dispenser and filled a disposable paper cup. Chen Zheng approached him. “Professor Yuan.”
Yuan Zhangfeng looked up, confusion rising in his expression. “And you are?”
Chen Zheng showed his credentials. “Mr. Yuan Zhangfeng. Mr. Yuan Jimin. Which name do you prefer?”
Yuan Zhangfeng’s gaze went still. Chen Zheng could see that his appearance had surprised him, but there was no trace of panic. At that moment, a man who looked like a bodyguard stepped forward and watched Chen Zheng warily. Yuan Zhangfeng smiled and waved him back. “It’s fine. Officer Chen and I will have a chat.”
The elderly residents nearby began glancing over and whispering. Yuan Zhangfeng said, “If Officer Chen has come looking for me, I assume there must be a reason.”
Chen Zheng said, “I’m here about Yin Gaoqiang’s case. You must remember him.”
Yuan Zhangfeng’s eyes dimmed. After a moment, he sighed. “I heard about the noodle shop while I was abroad. Old Yin… I suppose in a way he’s reunited with Linglong now.”
The area was very noisy, and some elderly residents had already wandered closer hoping to overhear. Chen Zheng said, “You aren’t busy here, are you? How about coming with me to the sub-bureau?”
The bodyguard said, “Mr. Yuan!”
But Yuan Zhangfeng replied, “All right. Since you’ve found me, I’ll cooperate.”
Kong Bing had already positioned officers around Chunyao Community, worried that Yuan Zhangfeng might cause a disturbance when confronted by police. Instead, Yuan Zhangfeng simply smiled and said goodbye to the elderly residents, reminding them to take care of their health and to live the final stretch of their lives for themselves.
Perhaps the idea was still too far ahead of what these elderly residents were accustomed to. When he finished, only scattered applause sounded through the area.