Boss Sun held a cigarette between his lips. “He went abroad to enjoy the good life ages ago! Luo Yingqiang made that much money. You think Sui Ning didn’t get his share?”
Ming Han frowned. “When did he leave? Which country did he go to?”
“How would I know?” Boss Sun was starting to get a little woozy. He called on the others to think about it too, but none of them could give an exact date. It had been more than ten years ago, anyway.
When Luo Yingqiang first started opening supermarkets, Sui Ning had put in money and could be counted as a partner. But in the vegetable farmers’ eyes, Sui Ning had always seemed rather detached from worldly competition. He was not as hungry for money as people whose families had been poor for generations. He looked like a scholar, though a scholar unusually favored by fortune, and he enjoyed tinkering with antiques of mysterious origin more than he enjoyed making money.
Some people said he probably had more money than he could ever spend in one lifetime, which was why he eventually emigrated with his whole family. With a personality like his, disagreement with Luo Yingqiang had been inevitable.
Ming Han asked, “They had conflicts?”
Boss Sun cut in again. “Of course they did. If it were me, I’d have clashed with Sui Ning too. He didn’t even want to make that much money. He thought an ordinary life was enough. But who complains about having too much money? Old Luo wanted to become the richest man in Nanshan. He was obsessed with money. We don’t know how dirty his competitive tactics got, but what business war isn’t bloody? Sui Ning definitely couldn’t accept that. Better to split up peacefully, right?”
Ming Han smiled. “Right, right.”
Night settled in while everyone continued talking over one another, and before long the conversation slid into cruder territory. Boss Sun was the one who started it, his tone lewd. “Old Luo was a handsome guy when he was young too. I never understood how, after he got rich, he could still stay with that wife of his!”
“Why else do you think all the older women in Nanshan City adored him? Wasn’t it because of his money and his faithfulness?”
“Tsk, tsk. If I had that much money, I’d have dumped my wife ages ago. I wouldn’t even need to go looking. Female university students would line up at my door!”
“Hahahaha!”
“But I heard his wife went abroad ages ago. Maybe they divorced? I don’t think Old Luo loved his wife as much as people said, otherwise what was the deal with Yin Xiaoyang?”
The moment Ming Han heard that, he became alert. “Yin Xiaoyang? You mean Xiaoyang from Huaizi Village?”
Boss Sun lifted his beer bottle. “Who cares which village she was from? The woman who used to come help Old Luo all the time.”
That jogged the others’ memories too. “Wasn’t she that woman who acted like a boss herself? Married into some Zhang family or something?”
The Yin Xiaoyang described by the vegetable farmers, Zhang Yinan’s mother, was different again from the woman remembered by the neighbors in Huaizi Village. More than twenty years ago, most people in Huaili Town still married locals. Zhang Mu was plain-looking and gloomy all day long, yet he somehow married a woman from outside town. Everyone found it fascinating and kept finding excuses to visit the Zhang home just to see what this wife looked like and whether she was ugly. Then they saw her. Well, she was a bright-eyed, beautiful woman. The men immediately felt cheated by life. How had a rustic guy like Zhang Mu managed to land a woman like that?
Zhang Mu was old-fashioned and had been one of the last people in town willing to work with produce dealers. He seemed deeply reluctant to have dealings with outsiders and would rather drive his own van to make deliveries. Yin Xiaoyang was his complete opposite. She liked dealing with people and, for a period of time, frequently visited the wholesale market. She was close to both Luo Yingqiang and Sui Ning.
Back in Huaizi Village, Ming Han had already wondered whether Yin Xiaoyang and Luo Yingqiang had crossed paths. Now that he had confirmation, more possibilities immediately occurred to him.
Boss Sun spoke as though he had witnessed everything himself, going on and on about how Yin Xiaoyang and Luo Yingqiang had exchanged flirtatious looks. According to him, few of the women in town were attractive, even fewer knew how to dress, and in summer most of them smelled of sweat. Every time Yin Xiaoyang appeared, however, she wore makeup and perfume, her skirt fluttering like she was some kind of fairy.
Luo Yingqiang was a man too, Boss Sun said. With an ugly wife at home, it was perfectly normal for him to look at a beautiful woman outside. Yin Xiaoyang had apparently wanted to work at Luo Yingqiang’s company, but Zhang Mu probably stopped her, and the matter came to nothing.
Later, as Luo Yingqiang’s business grew larger, he had fewer opportunities to come personally to Huaili Town. Yin Xiaoyang’s health was poor, and Zhang Mu kept her shut inside the house and would not let her go out. After Yin Xiaoyang died, Zhang Mu became even less willing to interact with people and devoted himself entirely to farming.
Ming Han said, “By the way, do any of you know where Zhang Mu went later?”
Boss Sun belched. “No idea. You’d have to ask the workers he hired. They might know.”
Ming Han followed the opening. “Do you know any of those workers?”
Boss Sun thought for a long time but could not come up with an answer. “I really don’t. You looking to hire workers? Here, here, I’ll give you someone’s number…”
Ming Han got the number of a man everyone called Brother Yun. According to Boss Sun, Brother Yun used to bring in large numbers of workers from out of town and had connections everywhere. He was basically a labor crew boss.
It was already very late. The Major Crimes officers were preparing to return to the city, but Ming Han stayed behind alone and found Brother Yun at a massage parlor.
Brother Yun was about the same age as Luo Yingqiang. After years of hard work, he was now living a retired life. He had already heard that Luo Yingqiang was dead, so when the police came looking, he assumed Ming Han wanted to ask about Luo. When Ming Han mentioned Zhang Mu instead, Brother Yun stared blankly for quite a while before it clicked. “You mean that quiet, gloomy guy?”
Ming Han nodded. “Right. I heard you introduced some workers to him. Would you mind telling me who they were?”
Brother Yun looked thoroughly puzzled. “I can tell you, sure. You’re police. Even if it was inconvenient, I’d have to figure something out for you.” Muttering, he began scrolling through his phone while hurriedly complaining about how hard it was for workers like them to scrape together a living.
Ming Han was from Nanshan City, but he did not know much about the social ecology of the surrounding towns. Listening to Brother Yun’s complaints, he learned that after Huaili Town became prosperous, it had actually squeezed development opportunities out of neighboring towns. People who used to be able to farm could no longer make a living that way. Some left home to find work elsewhere, while others came to Huaili as hired laborers. Brother Yun himself was from Yanshui Town. Because he had arrived early and knew how to deal with people, he built good relationships with the large growers. When he introduced fellow townspeople for work, he took a cut and effectively served as their guarantor as well.
Zhang Mu was rigid and gloomy, and Brother Yun had never taken the initiative to send workers his way. So when Zhang Mu approached him asking for laborers, Brother Yun had been very surprised.
“The way that man stared at me gave me goosebumps!” Brother Yun hugged himself as he spoke, his expression exaggerated enough to be comical. “But I figured, why turn down business that comes to your door? I happened to have a few workers free, so I sent them over. Sure enough, he was hard to get along with. Most of the people I sent didn’t last long!”
Ming Han asked, “Why? Someone must have stayed in the end, right?”
Brother Yun shook a long strand of ash from his cigarette and pointed to a group photo on his phone. “This guy worked for him. What was his name again? Let me think… He, He Shuyou.”
Ming Han examined the photo carefully. It had been taken during a meal and showed more than ten men at a worksite. Almost all of them were shirtless. Only He Shuyou wore a T-shirt, and he looked somewhat wooden and reserved.
“He was a quiet one too, same as Zhang Mu. That’s probably why the two of them could get along.” Brother Yun went on to say that the other workers disliked how Zhang Mu barely spoke yet demanded a great deal. There was only Zhang Mu in the Zhang household, and the place had no life to it.
“Only him?” Ming Han interrupted. “His wife was dead by then, but wasn’t he living with his son?”
Brother Yun froze, clearly caught off guard. “I heard he had a son, but I never saw the kid.”
Ming Han’s gaze darkened. The neighbors had said Zhang Yinan was sickly as a child, never played with the other children, and spent long periods alone inside the house. They also said that after Zhang Yinan grew older, he worked the fields with Zhang Mu. Yet Brother Yun had never seen Zhang Mu’s son at all.
A trace of disdain entered Brother Yun’s voice. “He Shuyou didn’t have much choice either. His wife died, and he was raising a kid. Heard the kid did pretty well in school. He had to make money, otherwise how was he supposed to put the kid through university?”
Ming Han asked where He Shuyou was now. Rubbing his chin, Brother Yun said he did not know. After Zhang Mu stopped living in Huaili Town, He Shuyou disappeared too. Brother Yun had looked for him several times, since he was the labor broker responsible for the workers he introduced, but He Shuyou was nowhere to be found, neither in his hometown nor at the Zhang house. Eventually Brother Yun stopped bothering.
Ming Han rushed back to Nanshan City through the night. Major Crimes had just finished its lead-summary meeting. Progress in sorting through Luo Yingqiang’s relationships had been slow. Cheng Cu had several suspicious targets, but they would need to continue checking them the next day. Wu Zhan had too many reservations to tell Cheng Cu about the insect doodles yet, so for now Chen Zheng was the only other person who knew. When the detectives sent to Huaili Town came back, Chen Zheng assumed Ming Han would be with them. When he did not see him, his heart suddenly dropped. Remembering Wu Zhan’s warning, an ominous feeling rose inside him.
Ming Han received two calls from Chen Zheng on the way back and was mildly surprised. When he returned to the municipal bureau and saw Chen Zheng waiting downstairs for him, his curiosity grew even stronger.
“Bro, what’s going on? Thought I got lost?”
Chen Zheng frowned at him, startled by his own unease. Ming Han had already explained over the phone that he had stayed behind because there were more people connected to the case he needed to meet, which was why he had not returned with Major Crimes. Even so, Chen Zheng had been unable to stop himself from coming downstairs to wait. He had not felt like this in a very long time.
Ming Han moved closer and deliberately bent his head to study Chen Zheng’s face. Too close. Chen Zheng instinctively stepped back, but Ming Han reached out and caught him by the waist.
Their autumn and winter clothes were thick, yet Chen Zheng still felt the warmth of Ming Han’s palm travel through to his spine.
“Bro, you look like you were worried about me.” The night was deep in Ming Han’s eyes, but his lips curved upward. “Am I that important?”
Ming Han’s arm was strong and powerful, leaving Chen Zheng nowhere to retreat, but lifting a foot and kicking forward was easy enough.
“OW!” Ming Han yelped, crouching down to clutch his shin before looking up with an aggrieved expression. “Sneak attack?”
Chen Zheng kept both hands in his pockets and looked down at him. “Who attacked first?”
Just then, an officer Chen Zheng did not know walked past. Seeing such a huge man sprawled there like that, Chen Zheng thought Ming Han was doing serious damage to police decorum. “Come on. We’ll talk inside.”
He walked several steps before realizing there was no movement behind him at all. Chen Zheng turned around. Ming Han was exactly where he had been, only his head and one hand having shifted. His head was now tilted against that hand as he smiled at Chen Zheng.
Chen Zheng: “…”
When Chen Zheng looked over, Ming Han first held out one hand, signaling for him to come pull him up. Chen Zheng did not move. Ming Han simply raised both hands instead. He did not call out, but little plaintive noises emerged from his throat.
Another passing officer looked over, apparently curious about what was happening. Chen Zheng had no choice but to go back and lightly kick the side of Ming Han’s shin again. “Get up. People are watching you.”
Ming Han acted as if he had not heard. He looked left, then right, and even waved cheerfully at the officer staring at them. The other man had no idea what was going on but waved back anyway.
Chen Zheng could barely stand to watch. “Bro Ming…”
Ming Han finally spoke. “No, forget all that ‘Bro Ming’ stuff. You’re my bro. You kicked me first, and now you want me to get up without doing anything to make it up to me? Since when do you get deals that good?”
Chen Zheng made a motion as though he were about to lift Ming Han around the waist. “You’re so heavy I might not be able to pick you up.”
Ming Han raised an eyebrow, his hand still extended. “Pick me up? I get something that good?”
Chen Zheng smiled. “Yeah. You do.”
Ming Han suddenly became “shy.” “Then let’s save that for later. We’re outside someone else’s municipal bureau. Wouldn’t want to offend public decency. Just pull me up.”
Chen Zheng finally understood that unless he gave in, Ming Han could keep this act going forever. Even if his legs went numb from squatting there, he would probably just sit down on the ground and continue.
“Get up.” Chen Zheng bent down and patted the back of Ming Han’s right hand. Ming Han smiled and clasped the hand Chen Zheng offered with both of his. For an instant, Chen Zheng felt as though he was about to be yanked down. His core tightened reflexively, and only then did he manage to keep his balance.
Ming Han was already on his feet, wearing a face of complete innocence. “Oops, sorry. Got up too fast. Bro, you didn’t throw your back out, did you?”
Chen Zheng badly wanted to kick him again, but he was afraid Ming Han would pretend to be weak and collapse a second time, so he let it go. They went upstairs together. Major Crimes had an empty small conference room, which Cheng Cu had given them to use as a temporary office. Ming Han drank more than half a cup of water in one go, and the teasing faded from his face. “Bro, you’re acting a little off today.”
Chen Zheng frowned slightly. It was true. Ever since speaking with Wu Zhan, the clues in his mind had become tangled. The old cases were like corpses finally heaved to the surface by hidden currents, while the present case was like great rafts of driftwood on the sea, smashing into one another under immense force, splintering and tearing apart.
“Tell me first what you found in Huaili Town,” Chen Zheng said. “Everyone else came back. You didn’t.”
Ming Han studied Chen Zheng seriously. After a moment, he leaned back in his chair, but his eyes never left Chen Zheng’s face. “If you hadn’t called me halfway through, I probably wouldn’t even have bothered coming back tonight. There are too many suspicious things about Zhang Yinan. His relationship with Luo Yingqiang may have been much more than simply being kept. Luo Yingqiang had a benefactor when he was getting started. His name was Sui Ning. Back when I was still in Nanshan City, I’d never heard of him. People who knew him said he emigrated long ago. I didn’t have time to verify where he went, but maybe he never emigrated at all.”
“Another one who went abroad.” Chen Zheng frowned, thinking of the wife and daughter Luo Yingqiang had sent overseas. Major Crimes had tried contacting them during the day but failed. Whether they were truly living well in Country A was now very much in question.
Ming Han had spent most of the day in Huaili Town and did not know much about the progress in Nanshan City. After recounting what he had learned about Zhang Mu and his son, Sui Ning, and He Shuyou, he asked Chen Zheng about the clues on his side.
Chen Zheng said, “For years Luo Yingqiang won over huge numbers of supporters with a fake public persona. He was neither a faithful husband nor a filial son. His real mother died long ago, and the woman he presents as his mother now is a puppet he trapped into performing for him. Besides Zhang Yinan, he also kept many female university students.”
Ming Han took a moment to digest that. “His obsession with wealth and status had reached an unbelievable level. To succeed, he was capable of anything.”
Chen Zheng immediately understood what Ming Han meant. “You suspect Sui Ning never emigrated at all, but was killed by Luo Yingqiang?”
Ming Han stood up. “I only scratched the surface of what happened back then, but in the eyes of Boss Sun and the others, Sui Ning was a smart, decent man. He knew how to make money, but he wouldn’t profit from anything unjust. Early on, helping Luo Yingqiang was just an easy favor, and later he saw Luo’s potential. But once Luo Yingqiang started opening supermarkets and shopping centers, Sui Ning realized Luo had become a monster he could no longer rein in. Maybe Sui Ning had a strong moral streak and tried to stop him.”
“So Luo Yingqiang made him disappear.” Chen Zheng said, “Everything in Yingqiang Group was decided by Luo Yingqiang alone. Anyone who threatened him got sent away. Didn’t you also say there were rumors that one of Luo Yingqiang’s partners had disappeared and been killed?”
Ming Han said, “There are rumors like that, but they’re more like urban legends, rich-family secrets. Have all of Yingqiang Group’s senior executives been checked?”
Chen Zheng shook his head. “How could it be that fast? A few aren’t even in Nanshan City right now.”
The clues could not be sorted out in a short time. The two fell quiet. Wind had risen outside, bleak and forceful against the room’s only window. Ming Han asked, “That’s all?”
Chen Zheng came back to himself. “What?”
Ming Han said, “You just told me a lot, but I didn’t hear anything serious enough to make you act this strange. Bro, you’re still hiding the most important part from me, aren’t you?”
The eyes watching him were dark and deep, seeming to hold an endless desire to probe beneath the surface. Chen Zheng met that gaze and felt himself drawn into a space where all other sound had been shut away.
“Director Wu came to find me specifically today,” Chen Zheng said.
“Director Wu?” Ming Han did not immediately place the name.
“Wu Zhan,” Chen Zheng said. “He was the Major Crimes captain when the Nanxi Middle School case happened. Now he’s deputy director of the Nanshan Municipal Public Security Bureau.”
The words Nanxi Middle School lightly pricked Ming Han’s nerves. “Why did he come to you?”
Chen Zheng said, “That case may never really have been solved. Or maybe it was solved, but the ‘seed’ kept spreading.”
Everything Chen Zheng knew at present had come from Wu Zhan. He repeated it to Ming Han without leaving anything out. Ming Han listened in silence, the crease between his brows growing deeper. When Chen Zheng finished, he did not ask what Ming Han thought. The two simply sat there together in silence.
“I tried Brother Chao again today. Still couldn’t reach him.” Ming Han suddenly said, “Feels like we’ve been pulled into a whirlpool much bigger than we imagined.”
There was a knock at the door. Chen Zheng opened it and found Wu Zhan standing outside. Wu Zhan looked past him and saw Ming Han. “You’re both here. Come with me.”
It was already deep into the night, and no one was passing through the floor where Wu Zhan’s office was. Wu Zhan said, “Sit. I pulled the files on both the workers’ case and the Nanxi Middle School case. Read them first, then tell me what you think.”
Tea bubbled in a pot on the desk. Wu Zhan handed cups to Chen Zheng and Ming Han. Chen Zheng took a sip. “Milk tea?”
Wu Zhan smiled. “Added a little coffee.”
Ming Han tried it too. “Director Wu likes yuenyeung milk tea?”
Wu Zhan said, “I used to stay up late all the time and just threw things together. Anything that could keep me awake went in. Then I’d be unable to sleep for half the night.”
Ming Han never drank anything slowly. He finished the cup in one go and said to Chen Zheng, “No sleeping tonight.”
Chen Zheng was not nearly as reckless. He set down his cup and opened the case file. “The victims were Zhong Lishan, thirty-four, and Kong Chunxiang, thirty. Both were from Dahe County, Nanshan City…”
Three years earlier in October, the owner of Time Alley Stationery Factory smelled a powerful stench while clearing out a warehouse. Following the odor, he discovered two male bodies dumped in the warehouse’s rear yard. The corpses had been covered with large amounts of discarded cardboard boxes, paper, and packing material, and almost no one ever went into that corner. They were only discovered once the smell of decomposition spread.
The stationery factory was in Lanwanba, a suburban area surrounded by workshops and warehouses of similar size, with all kinds of people coming and going. By the time police arrived, a crowd had already gathered to watch. The victims had no clothes on, and their ears were mangled. The way they had been killed was chilling. A sharp awl had been driven into both ears, causing catastrophic brain injuries.
Both bodies bore signs of restraint. They had consumed alcohol before death, and the alcohol contained sleeping medication. The killer had used the liquor and drugs to render them unable to resist, then tied them up and carried out the murders.
Identifying the victims took considerable time. At first, police even suspected the stationery factory owner might have staged the whole thing himself. He had conflicts with both employees and business partners, routinely withheld wages, secretly produced and sold goods behind the backs of authorized partners, pocketing the extra revenue, essentially manufacturing pirated products on his own. When caught, he would throw tantrums and brazen it out. Some employees had been unable to collect months of pay and quit in anger, while he cheerfully hired new ones.
But after a full investigation, the two dead men appeared to have nothing to do with him after all, and no one knew who they were.
Half a month later, a middle-aged man surnamed Zhong reported to a local police station that his younger brother had come to Nanshan City for work. The brother used to send money home every month, but that month nothing came. The family could no longer reach him, and when they went to the worksite to ask, they learned he had stopped working there some time earlier.
DNA comparison confirmed that one of the bodies was the missing younger brother, Zhong Lishan. Further investigation revealed that another worker from the same site, Kong Chunxiang, had also disappeared. Police contacted his relatives and confirmed the identity of the second victim.
When the contractor learned that something had happened on the project he managed, he panicked and kept insisting he had no idea why they had died, that he had never withheld wages, and so on. The police investigation indicated that the murders of Zhong Lishan and Kong Chunxiang truly did not seem to have much to do with the worksite.
The two men came from the same hometown and were close. They often drank and played cards together. Zhong Lishan’s family situation was complicated, with many relatives and frequent disputes among the children over money. Kong Chunxiang, on the other hand, was an only child. He had depended on his mother when he was young and stayed in Dahe County, never going out to work and never marrying. Only after his mother died did he leave home to work. That was when he met Zhong Lishan, and the two looked out for each other.
Surveillance from the construction site showed that in the early hours of October 19, after finishing work, Zhong Lishan and Kong Chunxiang left together. Neither was seen again afterward. Workers came and went so frequently that everyone was too busy worrying about their own food and livelihood to pay attention to why someone else had vanished.
The worksite and stationery factory were both in eastern Nanshan City. Based on the forensic estimate of time of death, the two were likely killed on the same day they disappeared. The killer knew the Lanwanba area extremely well, knew there were few surveillance cameras, knew it was busy by day and almost empty at night, and knew the rear yard of the stationery factory warehouse was ordinarily deserted.
The investigation into the victims’ relationships turned up quite a few people who might have had reason to harm them, but one by one those possibilities were eliminated. To this day, the case remained unsolved.