Once they reached Beiye Sub-bureau, Yuan Zhangfeng behaved as though he had arrived at a hotel, casually removing his hat and coat while Kong Bing stared at him.
Chen Zheng showed him Chen Linglong’s classmate book and graduation photograph. When Yuan Zhangfeng saw the page he had written, the wrinkles on his face trembled faintly. “How nostalgic. That’s the name I used when I wrote in her book.”
Chen Zheng asked, “Did you change your name later?”
“Not exactly,” Yuan Zhangfeng said. “Jimin was a name I chose for myself. I’ve always liked it. Linglong and Old Yin both called me that too. But my birth name was given to me by my parents, so naturally I shouldn’t change it.”
Chen Zheng nodded. “Let’s talk about the important part. Before the noodle shop incident, you visited Yin Gaoqiang at least three times. You two were close?”
“Wait a moment, Officer Chen. From the way you’re speaking, it sounds as if you think I harmed Old Yin.” Yuan Zhangfeng calmly raised his right hand. “I can swear to you that I would never hurt my friend. Besides, I wasn’t even in the country at the time.”
Ming Han’s voice came through Chen Zheng’s earpiece. “He really wasn’t in the country on November tenth. I checked his entry and exit records. This year, he spent about half his time in Zhuquan City and half in Country B.”
Chen Zheng said, “You’ve misunderstood. This is only routine investigation. You occupy a rather unusual place in Yin Gaoqiang’s social circle, so I need to understand why you visited him and what kind of relationship you had with him and his wife.”
Yuan Zhangfeng paused. “Linglong and I were simply classmates and friends, completely aboveboard. I met Old Yin through her, and he and I became old friends too.”
According to Yuan Zhangfeng, he had been born into a relatively wealthy family. One of his uncles lived abroad, and his parents had long planned to send him overseas to study. He knew that after graduating from middle school he would leave for Country B, and he was reluctant to part from his classmates and friends.
Chen Linglong was one of his close friends. He admired her for her excellent grades and bright, outgoing personality, and had even considered asking her to go abroad with him. Chen Linglong only laughed when he brought it up. She had no desire to leave the country, she said, and her family could not afford it anyway. After graduation, she intended to find factory work, marry early, and build a family of her own.
He had been somewhat disappointed. He felt Chen Linglong ought to go somewhere higher and farther, the way he would, rather than be bound by everyday concerns like cooking rice and buying groceries. In a fit of pique, when he filled out her classmate book, he deliberately left no contact information.
After arriving in Country B, he adapted well. He became a teacher after completing his studies and eventually rose to the rank of professor. For decades, he did not return to his homeland. By the time he set foot there again, he had changed his nationality and his hometown had transformed beyond recognition. On a whim, he decided to find some of his old classmates. The first person he located was Chen Linglong. By then she was married, and her son was already in middle school and seemed very bright.
He and Yin Gaoqiang hit it off immediately, and Yuan Zhangfeng praised Yin Gaoqiang’s cooking endlessly. Back then, he had even told Yin Jingliu, “Study hard. When you’re older, come find your uncle in Country B.”
After spending half a month in his hometown, Yuan Zhangfeng returned to Country B and resumed his work. By the next time he came to Zhuquan City, disaster had struck the Yin family. Yin Jingliu had disappeared, Chen Linglong had fallen ill, and Yin Gaoqiang was struggling to hold the entire family together alone. Yuan Zhangfeng wanted to help, but Yin Gaoqiang told him that other than finding his child, there was nothing he needed. Yet finding the child was precisely the one thing Yuan Zhangfeng felt least capable of doing. He had even changed his nationality and was practically a foreigner unfamiliar with the local area. How was he supposed to help a local man find his missing son?
After that, he paid closer attention to the Yin family. He knew Yin Jingliu never returned, and he knew that after years of being tormented by illness, Chen Linglong finally left Yin Gaoqiang behind and departed this world alone. Yuan Zhangfeng had been unable to return for her funeral because he still had important work in Country B. When he saw Yin Gaoqiang again a month later, Yin Gaoqiang had become gaunt and haggard, while Yuan Zhangfeng himself was no longer young and bore the marks of age and hardship.
The two men had always gotten along well. Now Yin Gaoqiang had lost his wife and needed someone to comfort him, and Yuan Zhangfeng happened to appear at exactly the right time. He spent a great deal of time talking with Yin Gaoqiang. It was then that he realized he himself was no longer young. The drive that had once pushed him to struggle abroad had faded, and he began to long to return to his roots.
For the past three years, he had spent most of his time in Zhuquan City. He purchased property and began putting the savings he had accumulated over the years into charitable projects for the elderly. Because he became so busy, he visited Yin Gaoqiang less and less often. “I never imagined the noodle shop would suddenly end up like that.” He let out a long sigh, as though mourning a friend already gone.
Chen Zheng said, “There’s one thing I don’t quite understand.”
Yuan Zhangfeng’s attention refocused. “Hm?”
Chen Zheng said, “If the two of you were such good friends, and you knew something had happened to Yin Gaoqiang, why didn’t you visit the noodle shop even once afterward?”
Yuan Zhangfeng fell silent, a faint crease appearing between his brows.
“Because something unpleasant happened between you?” Chen Zheng said. “Yin Gaoqiang told you he didn’t want you to visit him anymore. Is that right?”
Yuan Zhangfeng studied the policeman across from him. After a moment, he smiled faintly. “Officer Chen, I thought you came to me because of Old Yin, but it seems you have another purpose.”
Chen Zheng smiled too and took out several photographs. “Do you know these women?”
The photographs showed Cao Wenmei, Luo Anxin, and several others already known to the police. Yuan Zhangfeng glanced over them and remained calm. “They’re all my employees.”
The answer surprised Chen Zheng and everyone watching through the monitoring system. No one had expected him to admit it so readily. Chen Zheng looked straight at Yuan Zhangfeng, instinctively suspecting some kind of trick, but the man remained extraordinarily composed and even seemed faintly sincere. Before Chen Zheng could speak, he asked, “Officer Chen, is there a problem with that?”
Chen Zheng said, “Employees? You know what kind of work they do?”
Yuan Zhangfeng laughed. “Officer Chen, it seems a young man like you is less open-minded than an old fellow like me. Do you really think their work is something shameful? They exchange their bodies for money, and in doing so they solve a social problem. I’m proud of them.”
The conversation had veered far away from what police expected. Chen Zheng quickly adjusted and took out Liu Wenran’s photograph. “Then is this girl one of your employees too?”
Yuan Zhangfeng looked at it and immediately shook his head. “If I remember correctly, that’s Cao Wenmei’s daughter, the one still in high school. Why would I ever invite a young girl to do that kind of work? I know she’s missing, so let me make this clear first: her disappearance has absolutely nothing to do with me. Her mother is merely one of my many employees.”
Chen Zheng said, “Your information seems very current.”
Yuan Zhangfeng sighed. “A student disappeared and the case became such a sensation. Is there anyone living in Zhuquan City who hasn’t heard about it?”
Watching from the other room, Kong Bing grew impatient and shouted into the communication system, “Stop wasting time talking to him. What he’s doing is already a crime! Does he think this is Country B?”
The shout hurt Chen Zheng’s ear. He simply removed the earpiece and slipped it into his trouser pocket. Kong Bing nearly jumped with frustration when he saw that. Chen Zheng continued, “But Liu Wenran once went to see Yin Gaoqiang at his home. She seemed to be trying to impersonate her mother.”
For the first time, Yuan Zhangfeng’s expression changed. He seemed genuinely puzzled by the information. “Impossible. My people would never make a mistake like that.”
“Your people?” Chen Zheng said. “Would one of them happen to be a man named Zheng Tian?”
Yuan Zhangfeng seemed to realize something and changed course. “Officer Chen, I have nothing to do with Liu Wenran’s disappearance or Old Yin’s death. You’re asking far too many questions.”
“Whether you’re connected to them is only your version of events. In reality, both cases overlap with you to some degree.” Before Yuan Zhangfeng could object, Chen Zheng continued, “Since you were a friend of Yin Gaoqiang and his wife, I assume you won’t mind telling me more about him. You don’t want him to have been murdered without anyone ever learning the truth, do you?”
Yuan Zhangfeng was clearly displeased now, yet he still smiled with composure. “If the police prove incapable, I’ll use my private connections to investigate the truth of his death myself.”
Chen Zheng raised an eyebrow. “Then we can cooperate. Before Yin Gaoqiang died, the two of you had a disagreement serious enough that you didn’t even show yourself after his death. My guess is that it had something to do with your insistence on introducing women to him.”
Yuan Zhangfeng looked slightly surprised. “You even know about that?”
Chen Zheng said, “I also know the woman you introduced to him was Cao Wenmei. What I don’t understand is this: if you and Chen Linglong were classmates and friends, how could you arrange sexual services for her husband?”
Perhaps because Yuan Zhangfeng had lived abroad for too long, it actually took him a moment to process Chen Zheng’s question. When he finally did, he spoke with almost incredulous bewilderment. “Linglong is gone. There is no Linglong anywhere in this world anymore. Old Yin has had a hard life and has never once thought about himself. Why shouldn’t he enjoy some of the pleasures of being a man? I only wanted him to have a happy old age. Linglong wouldn’t blame me. She wouldn’t want Old Yin to spend his final days suffering the way she did, would she?”
When he spoke of Chen Linglong’s final days, the grief in Yuan Zhangfeng’s eyes was undisguised. Chen Linglong had been ill for a long time. Even the expensive medicines he mailed back from abroad could not save her. He watched the bright, spirited woman she had once been worn away by sickness and sorrow until she barely looked human. It was from then on that he began to believe the final stage of life should not look like that.
After returning to the country and spending time with Yin Gaoqiang, Yuan Zhangfeng listened as the other man rambled about many things that had happened before Chen Linglong died. The Yin family had worked in food service for years, and neither husband nor wife cared much about their own quality of life, so they saved a great deal of money. Yin Gaoqiang could have afforded better treatment for Chen Linglong. But she refused. She insisted the money be saved for when their son came home, so it could pay for his schooling and help him marry.
The more Yuan Zhangfeng heard, the more desolate he felt. It should not be this way. Why did reaching middle or old age mean people had to think only about the next generation and could no longer spend money on themselves? Had this generation of elderly people not suffered enough when they were young? Why, with only another decade or a few years left, were they still unwilling to let themselves enjoy life?
Yuan Zhangfeng asked, “Officer Chen, what do you think is the saddest thing about growing old?”
Kong Bing was speechless. “What’s wrong with this guy? Now he wants to discuss anthropology?”
Ming Han said, “Don’t you find him interesting? He doesn’t fit our profile of him at all.”
Kong Bing’s brow tightened. Chen Zheng had been the first to suggest that the cases involving elderly men buying sex were more complicated than they appeared. Zheng Tian, the intermediary, had shown little interest in money, which meant there had to be a larger objective. Yet now Yuan Zhangfeng, the man hidden behind the operation, had appeared, and he was calm and seemingly benevolent. Looking at him, the only thing that came to mind was philanthropist.
Chen Zheng answered, “Having to face illness and death.”
“Wrong,” Yuan Zhangfeng said. “It’s that you cease to have a gender.”
Chen Zheng frowned thoughtfully. “Gender?”
“Think about the elderly people in your own family, or the elderly people you know. Once they grow old, aren’t they treated as though sex has nothing to do with them anymore?” Yuan Zhangfeng’s tone resembled the one he had used in Chunyao Community. “This society never stops boasting about caring for the elderly, but have any of you truly cared about them? What they need isn’t limited to concern for their health and finances. Do you really believe that once people grow old, even their natural physiological needs simply disappear?”
For once, Chen Zheng found himself with nothing to say to a suspect.
Yuan Zhangfeng became like an impassioned speaker, turning the interview room into his stage. “All I want is to do what little I can for people who’ve worked hard their entire lives. I wanted Old Yin to avoid dying like Linglong, having enjoyed nothing at all.” His expression abruptly turned lonely. “But I suggested it again and again. He refused every time. Eventually he didn’t even want to remain friends with me. Sending Cao Wenmei to him was my own decision, and it was my final test.”
Kong Bing grew increasingly agitated as he listened from the monitoring room. Finally he could no longer bear it and stormed into the interview room. “You sure have an endless supply of grand theories. Do you know how many families have already fallen apart because of your so-called charity? What you’re doing is a crime!”
Yuan Zhangfeng looked at him in puzzlement. A few seconds later he smiled. “A crime? How many crimes does this society commit against the elderly every day? Aren’t the young people who kill their own relatives the ones truly committing crimes?”
Kong Bing had no response. Chen Zheng put a hand on his shoulder, then asked Yuan Zhangfeng another question. “Are you still helping Old Yin look for Yin Jingliu?”
Yuan Zhangfeng’s expression changed almost imperceptibly. He shook his head helplessly. “I did everything I could.”
Chen Zheng opened his photo gallery. “Do these look familiar to you?”
He showed Yuan Zhangfeng the cushions that had inexplicably appeared at the noodle shop. Yuan Zhangfeng frowned and said he knew nothing about them.
The questioning was temporarily suspended.
Yuan Zhangfeng was suspected of organizing prostitution, and the operation had led to serious criminal cases, so he was temporarily detained at Beiye Sub-bureau pending further investigation. Unlike many people in custody, his emotions remained remarkably stable. He identified more than thirty people who worked for him. Three were middle-aged men whose target clients were elderly women.
Police finally found Zheng Tian in Yuan Zhangfeng’s communication records. Yuan Zhangfeng admitted that Zheng Tian was the adopted son he had taken in many years ago. His original name was Zeng Ting. Zheng Tian was responsible for identifying suitable men and women and introducing clients to them.
Word of Yuan Zhangfeng’s arrest had already reached Zheng Tian. When Chen Zheng found him at his residence, he had just finished getting himself ready and was dressed in loose outdoor sportswear. At the sight of Chen Zheng, he smiled amicably. “The old man is always so careless.”
Something felt strange to Chen Zheng. He looked Zheng Tian over. “You dressed for a getaway?”
Zheng Tian shook his head with a bitter smile. “I heard the detention center is no place for a person to live, so I changed into something practical.”
As he climbed into the police car, Zheng Tian looked up at the sky. An airplane crossed through the dark clouds. Suddenly he said, “I tried to persuade the old man, but he wouldn’t listen.”
Chen Zheng asked, “About what?”
“When something happened to Uncle Yin, I knew sooner or later the police would trace things back to us. I told him to stay in Country B a little longer and lie low.” Zheng Tian had a pair of gentle, expressive eyes. Looking at Chen Zheng, he said, “But it was useless. He insisted on coming back.”
Chen Zheng opened the car door. “Get in. Don’t make yourselves sound so heroic.”
Zheng Tian paused, seemingly surprised by the policeman’s “heartlessness.” Chen Zheng shut the door crisply and added, “Is that how you look at the women you recruit too?”
After a moment, Zheng Tian said, “They’re more innocent than you.”
Chen Zheng said, “An innocent person couldn’t be a cop.”
Zheng Tian said, “You use ‘innocent’ as an insult. I mean it as praise. They and I are simply each getting what we need.”
By then, Ming Han had already uncovered Zheng Tian’s background. Zheng Tian was an alias, but there was a clear trail for Zeng Ting. Fifteen years earlier, when Yuan Zhangfeng returned to the country, twenty-year-old Zeng Ting lost his only real family member: his grandfather.
Both of Zeng Ting’s parents had left traces in police records. They had originally run a small renovation business. The work was exhausting, but they made decent money. To take on more jobs, the young couple left their son in the care of his paternal grandfather, who had just retired from factory work. Outside of work, the couple had few interests. They gave part of their earnings to the old man and kept the rest for themselves.
Gradually, Zeng Ting’s mother was led into drug use. Instead of helping her quit, his father began using with her. Even a wealthy family could be destroyed by drugs, never mind a household that had only recently begun to have a little money to spare.
For several years, the two cycled in and out of drug rehabilitation. The last time they came out, debt collectors beat them to death. Zeng Ting had been raised alongside his grandfather since childhood and felt surprisingly little when his parents died. His grandfather was his real family. But his parents had already drained the household finances and consumed even his grandfather’s funeral savings, leaving grandfather and grandson to live from one uncertain meal to the next.
Zeng Ting had excellent grades and earned direct admission to Luocheng University to study medicine. But years of exhaustion and poverty had hollowed out his grandfather’s health. His chronic illnesses in old age were severe, and he spent almost all of his final two years in pain. Zeng Ting watched his grandfather suffer and could do nothing. When the old man died, twenty-year-old Zeng Ting did not even have enough money to lay him properly to rest.
That was when Yuan Zhangfeng appeared.
“He asked me why people had to endure so much suffering once they grew old. He said that in all the days he’d spent at the hospital, he’d never seen anyone truly grieve for an elderly person except me.” As Zheng Tian described how he and Yuan Zhangfeng had become connected, a faint confusion lingered in his eyes.
To care for his grandfather, Zeng Ting had taken a leave of absence during his second year of university and found several part-time jobs in Zhuquan City. At night he slept at the hospital. Even then, the money he earned was nowhere near enough to cover the medical bills, and his grandfather stayed in the hospital’s worst ward, a room packed with twenty patients.
Every day, elderly patients on the verge of death were taken home, while others were covered with white sheets and sent to the morgue. His grandfather could no longer recognize him. Although one last breath of life remained, lying in that hospital bed he seemed to have already departed from the world.
At night, Zeng Ting sat by the hospital flower beds smoking, numbly thinking about the twenty years of his own life. Why had he come into this world? Why had his grandfather? His grandfather had spent the first half of his life endlessly giving, raising children without so much as a hobby of his own. When he finally grew old enough to enjoy a quiet life, he was burdened with such a useless son and daughter-in-law. Had Grandfather ever enjoyed even a single day? No. Even at the end, poverty forced him to endure pain day after day.
Yuan Zhangfeng appeared at the funeral home and told Zeng Ting, who stood there holding the urn with nowhere to go, that he could help bury his grandfather. Zeng Ting was astonished. He vaguely remembered seeing the man at the hospital, visiting a patient in the neighboring ward, but they had never spoken.
Only later did he learn that one of Yuan Zhangfeng’s distant relatives had also been hospitalized. Yuan Zhangfeng felt little affection for that relative, but older members of the family had urged him to visit more often. Accustomed to life in Country B, Yuan Zhangfeng had been deeply shaken by what he saw in a small hospital in a small city back home. The wards and corridors were packed at every hour, yet only the patients themselves truly understood their suffering. In rooms full of elderly patients especially, some children even had looks in their eyes that seemed to say they hoped their parents would die sooner.
“You’re different. You’re genuinely kind,” Yuan Zhangfeng told him. “If you’re willing, you can stay with me. As it happens, I’ll never have children of my own.”
Zeng Ting understood that after being away from university for so long, returning was no longer realistic, while Yuan Zhangfeng might be the benefactor fate had dropped into his path. By the time his grandfather was buried, he already knew a great deal about Yuan Zhangfeng: that the man had businesses and property in Country B and had returned only to visit relatives. Zeng Ting did not want to throw away an opportunity that had fallen from the sky. He agreed to become Yuan Zhangfeng’s adopted son and chose a false name for himself: Zheng Tian, carrying the meaning of proving himself to Heaven.
Elio’s Notes: Zheng Tian’s alias carries a sound-based play in Chinese: “Zheng” echoes the word for “prove,” while “Tian” means “Heaven,” matching his stated intention to “prove it to Heaven.”
In Country B, Zheng Tian completed his studies with Yuan Zhangfeng’s financial support and became his right-hand man. Every time Yuan Zhangfeng returned home, Zheng Tian accompanied him, and he could clearly sense that Yuan Zhangfeng’s heart was no longer in Country B. He wanted to return to his roots.
“I want to do something for the elderly here,” Yuan Zhangfeng suddenly told Zheng Tian one day. “Why is it that the moment people grow old, even their gender gets ignored?”
At first, Zheng Tian did not realize that Yuan Zhangfeng had something so bold in mind. Yuan Zhangfeng possessed considerable wealth. There was nothing unusual about using some of it for charitable projects benefiting the elderly. When Yuan Zhangfeng asked what kind of project he wanted to create, Zheng Tian thought of his grandfather’s miserable final years and suggested building a nursing home specifically for elderly residents. Yuan Zhangfeng only laughed. “You child. You’re still too conservative.”
Zheng Tian did not understand. Yuan Zhangfeng said, “By the time people grow so old they can’t do anything anymore, it’s already too late. Why not let them enjoy themselves while they’re still capable of enjoying something?”
“Enjoy themselves?” Zheng Tian thought for a long time. “Traveling? Shopping?” Even after living in Country B with Yuan Zhangfeng for years, whenever he thought of the elderly he still thought of his grandfather and the older people he had grown up seeing: people who spent their entire lives on their children and grandchildren, saving every bit of money for the next generation, even saying when offered something tasty, I can’t eat much anymore. You have it.
Yuan Zhangfeng told him he was conservative.
“When people grow old, do even their most basic physiological needs have to be ignored?” Yuan Zhangfeng said. “Look at you. The thought never even occurred to you, did it?”
Zheng Tian stared at him in shock. His first reaction was, That’s illegal!