“You two know each other?” Luo Yingqiang asked with a smile.
Li Sifeng instinctively denied it, but the child said, “Uncle Li.”
Luo Yingqiang gave him a meaningful look. “Bro Li, come inside. Let Xiao Wen play out here.”
Li Sifeng no longer remembered anything he discussed with Luo Yingqiang that day. All that occupied his mind was the relationship among Luo Yingqiang, Yin Xiaoyang, and Zhang Mu.
If the child was Luo Yingqiang’s, why would Zhang Mu willingly raise another man’s son? If Luo Yingqiang loved Yin Xiaoyang, why had he stood by and watched her suffer from cancer? Could there have been something suspicious about Yin Xiaoyang’s death? No, no. The child was not Luo Yingqiang’s. Luo had merely brought him over to play?
Li Sifeng was completely confused and could not come up with an answer. Luo Yingqiang, meanwhile, behaved as though nothing were unusual. After they finished discussing work, he even asked how Li Sifeng and his wife had been lately and said he envied them for having both a son and a daughter. Li Sifeng felt as though lightning had struck him. Luo Yingqiang had only a daughter. Du Fangfei had suffered badly in childbirth and could no longer have children. Did Luo Yingqiang need a son?
As Li Sifeng was leaving, Luo Yingqiang called the child over. “Come on, say goodbye to Uncle.”
“Goodbye, Uncle Li!” The child obediently waved, exactly the way he had waved at Li Sifeng outside Yin Xiaoyang’s hospital room.
A secret Li Sifeng had thought buried now seemed to be growing back out of the earth. His instinct for self-preservation told him not to investigate the truth, but after some time, he finally could not restrain himself and returned to Huaili Town. The Zhang family gate was tightly shut, and Zhang Mu had gone to work in the fields. Li Sifeng tried chatting with nearby villagers and asking about the family.
The villagers all said the Zhang family was the same as ever. Zhang Mu had lost his wife, but he still had a child to raise. He worked from dawn until dark, even harder than before, perhaps trying to save enough money to find the child a stepmother.
The more Li Sifeng heard, the more unreal it felt. What child did Zhang Mu still have to raise? Hadn’t Luo Yingqiang already taken the boy away? He paced outside the Zhang family wall, trying to see whether a child was actually inside, but not only the courtyard gate but the doors inside the house were locked as well. He could see nothing.
A villager chuckled. “What are you trying to look at? Their house has always been like this. It was the same when Xiaoyang was alive. The kid’s sickly. Doesn’t make much noise.”
Li Sifeng backed away awkwardly and was about to leave when he happened to run into Zhang Mu returning from the fields. Zhang Mu fixed him with a pair of chilling eyes filled with hostility and vigilance. Li Sifeng involuntarily stepped backward again and again. Zhang Mu said nothing, opened the door, went inside, and shut Li Sifeng out.
Li Sifeng fled in panic and never again dared let himself be drawn into that whirlpool. For the next several years, he did not see the child again, while people around Luo Yingqiang were eliminated one after another. By then he no longer had any ability to oppose Luo Yingqiang. All he wanted was for himself and his family to come out of it alive.
He went to Luo Yingqiang and proposed retiring while he was ahead, leaving Yingqiang Group for good. Luo Yingqiang only smiled at him. “Bro Li, what are you talking about? The group is doing so well right now. Why do all of you want to leave me?”
Li Sifeng was too uneasy to speak. Why would we want to leave you? Did those people leave voluntarily? Weren’t they the ones you…
Luo Yingqiang lit a cigarette for him, just as he had many years earlier. “Bro Li, I know what you’re thinking, but you’re different from them.”
“H-how am I different?” The question slipped out before overwhelming terror engulfed him. He should not have spoken. He had exposed himself!
“You never meddle, and you never try to use your own ideas to influence me.” Luo Yingqiang spoke calmly. “You’re actually the smartest one. You know what you should invest in, and you know how large a return you should take. And now, you even know when you should disappear from my sight.”
Sweat poured down Li Sifeng’s back. Disappear? Did Luo Yingqiang really want him to disappear?
“Of course, what I’m most grateful for is that even after you learned my secret, you pretended you knew nothing.” Luo Yingqiang flicked ash from his cigarette and smiled. “If Bro Sui were the one who knew, he would’ve put on that teacher-and-elder act of his and lectured me long ago.”
“You…” Li Sifeng stared at him in shock. “You know…”
Luo Yingqiang waved a hand dismissively. “It’s nothing important, and I don’t want to talk about her today either. We’re talking about you. You want to retire while you’re ahead, but I want you to stay a few more years. At the very least, help me reassure people. Otherwise, what will the outside world say about me? Luo Yingqiang only got where he is because of those early veterans, and now Yingqiang Group doesn’t have a single veteran left. Bro Li, you need to put on a show for me and prove I’m not an ungrateful man who throws people away. You understand, don’t you?”
What could Li Sifeng do except understand? For years, he kept everything about Luo Yingqiang and Yin Xiaoyang buried inside and played the role of the veteran mascot. Luo Yingqiang truly did not do anything to him. But two years earlier, Luo got drunk while they were talking and began reminiscing about the years when he had struggled to build his business. Li Sifeng sat there on pins and needles. Luo said he had worked himself to the bone his entire life, and knowing there was someone to succeed him finally made him feel secure.
Li Sifeng did not dare ask who this successor was. Luo Yingqiang volunteered the answer himself. Xiao Wen was grown up and living in Country A. Luo had not seen him in a long time, but that did not matter. The bond between father and son could never be severed.
But Xiao Wen was not in Country A at all! Li Sifeng had once seen Zhao Zhi walking with a slender young man, the two of them seeming extremely close. If Li Sifeng had never seen Xiao Wen before, he would have assumed the young man was Zhao Zhi’s partner. But he had seen him. Even though the child had grown up, the shape of his features still carried the outline of the boy he had once been.
“The moment something happened to Luo Yingqiang, I knew I was finished. I haven’t done anything evil in my life, but every single thing I hid is enough to get me and my family killed!” Li Sifeng broke down sobbing.
Chen Zheng, however, did not immediately understand the full logic behind his fear. Luo Yingqiang had been murdered, and revenge was a strong possibility. As the only old associate who had not been eliminated, Li Sifeng could easily be the next target. Fear driving him to attempt suicide made sense. But what did that have to do with Yin Shuwen? What did it have to do with protecting his family?
“Zhao Zhi is even crazier than Luo Yingqiang. Luo Yingqiang could still spare my life. Zhao Zhi won’t! I know Xiao Wen exists, and he knows I know. I don’t understand why, but he seems to be trying to hide Xiao Wen. Once Luo Yingqiang died, if I didn’t die too, you would get information about Xiao Wen from me. Zhao Zhi would definitely kill me and wipe out my family with me! Only if I died could all of this end!”
Through Li Sifeng’s frantic words, Chen Zheng finally glimpsed part of the truth and began to understand Zhao Zhi’s motive for blowing up the nursing home. But Yin Shuwen had apparently been living in Nanshan City all this time, and Luo Yingqiang had not known? Zhao Zhi, the very symbol of loyalty, had hidden Luo Yingqiang’s son right under his nose?
Li Sifeng’s condition worsened, and the doctor immediately ended the questioning. Chen Zheng closed the hospital-room door behind him and walked slowly down the brightly lit corridor.
Li Sifeng had provided a great deal of crucial information. Armed with these leads, it would be difficult for Zhao Zhi to remain silent under questioning. Yet one detail still bothered Chen Zheng. Li Sifeng said that after Yin Xiaoyang died, Luo Yingqiang brought Yin Shuwen to Nanshan City. There might have been some delay, but it could not have been long. So why, when Li Sifeng later went to Huaizi Village, did every villager still believe the Zhang family’s child was at home?
The Zhang Yinan the villagers knew had actually been Yin Shuwen. Because he was sickly, he had been kept inside for years. No one noticed when he was taken away. As long as the neighbors occasionally heard a child’s voice coming from the Zhang home, they assumed he was still there.
Then after Yin Shuwen had been taken away, who was occasionally making those sounds? And who was the “Zhang Yinan” who later died beside Luo Yingqiang? At first the police had assumed “Zhang Yinan” was a rent boy kept by Luo Yingqiang, but wouldn’t Luo have found the name strange? How could he possibly have slept with someone using it?
The very idea that this later “Zhang Yinan” could become Luo Yingqiang’s lover made no sense.
Chen Zheng stepped into the night, darkness seeming to seep into his eyes. Thinking of the child disappearances and bodies Ming Han had uncovered in Huaili Town, a brutal possibility seemed ready to surface. Zhang Mu might have been unable to father children. When Yin Xiaoyang became pregnant, something forced him to raise Luo Yingqiang’s child. Perhaps Luo Yingqiang pressured him. Even Li Sifeng feared Luo; a farmer like Zhang Mu, with no background or influence at all, would have had even less ability to defy him.
No man would willingly be cuckolded and then raise the other man’s child. Zhang Mu was already gloomy and withdrawn, and this may have twisted him further. Later, unable to take revenge on Luo Yingqiang, perhaps he redirected that hatred toward other young children. But that came afterward.
Another possibility was that Yin Xiaoyang had never told Luo Yingqiang she was pregnant, and Luo did not know Zhang Mu could not have children. At first, Luo might have believed Yin Xiaoyang’s child belonged to Zhang Mu. As Li Sifeng had said, the only thing Luo Yingqiang truly valued was his career. Women were merely temporary playthings. He had not loved Yin Xiaoyang deeply and could cast her aside after a few encounters. That would explain why he did nothing when she became gravely ill.
After Yin Xiaoyang died, Luo might have learned through some channel that her child was actually his and been overjoyed. He might not have cherished the woman who gave birth to his child, but he would cherish the child, especially because it was a boy, while his wife Du Fangfei had given him only a daughter. The business empire he had built needed a son to inherit it, and heaven had conveniently handed him one.
He took the child from Zhang Mu. Perhaps it was not even accurate to call it taking him, because Zhang Mu may not have wanted to raise another man’s flesh and blood. Yin Shuwen had lived with Luo Yingqiang for a while, though probably not long, before being sent abroad to live as a pampered young master. Li Sifeng had said Yin Shuwen and Zhao Zhi seemed unusually close. Was that because they had once lived together? Li Sifeng could only speculate. Zhao Zhi was the one holding the truth.
As for Zhang Mu, he was a man unable to have children of his own. While Yin Xiaoyang was alive, perhaps he had still been able to restrain himself. But after she died, and Luo Yingqiang humiliated him so directly by taking the child away, he no longer needed to pretend.
He showed children a friendly face, lured them into following him with candy, then shut the door and killed them. The neighbors sometimes heard a child’s voice from the Zhang house and assumed it was Zhang Yinan, when in reality it may have been those innocent children.
And after that… Chen Zheng covered his forehead. From here, it became difficult to reason any further. How had this later “Zhang Yinan” appeared? Why had Zhang Mu vanished from Huaili Town without a word? What had happened to the laborer and his son whom Zhang Mu once employed? Most importantly, why had this later “Zhang Yinan” become Luo Yingqiang’s kept lover, and why was the real Zhang Yinan, Yin Shuwen, working as a caregiver at the nursing home?
Chen Zheng leaned against the car, lit a cigarette, emptied his mind, and looked up at the sky. He should go interrogate Zhao Zhi, but his thoughts were not yet sorted out. Interrogation required skill and experience, and in his current state he was not confident he could avoid being drawn into Zhao Zhi’s rhythm.
He slipped his left hand into the pocket of his coat, touched his phone, and took it out without thinking. Only then did he notice two messages from Ming Han.
“Bro, how are things on your end?”
“I’m going to Yanshui Town. He Shuyou’s hometown is there. There’s actually another lead about Sui Ning here in Huaili Town too. I’ll tell you when I get back.”
Chen Zheng’s mind was crowded with too many clues. It took him a moment to remember that He Shuyou was the laborer who had worked for Zhang Mu and was currently missing as well.
And what was the new information about Sui Ning?
Nanshan City was north of Yanshui Town, and Huaili Town was to Yanshui’s west. Even so, Yanshui did not fall under Nanshan City’s administration and was poorly situated for development. Unlike Huaili Town, it had no strong local industry to build around. Most young people had no choice but to leave for work. As Ming Han drove into Yanshui Town, almost everyone he saw along the way was elderly.
Using the address Brother Yun had given him, Ming Han found a desolate lane lined on both sides with self-built rural houses. Their doors stood open, yet almost no one could be seen inside.
“Who are you looking for?” An old man with a cane approached after seeing Ming Han lingering nearby. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Ming Han said, “Is the He family nearby? He Shuyou’s house.”
The old man’s hunched back suddenly straightened. “You’re looking for Third He? Who are you?”
Ming Han simply took out his credentials. The old man exclaimed and immediately pointed to the shortest house. “Third He lives there, but no one’s been home for a long time. His relatives have been looking for him lately too.”
Ming Han immediately asked, “Which relatives? Are they here?”
Before he finished speaking, a middle-aged man in a leather jacket emerged from the direction the old man had called toward. “Second Uncle, did you call me?”
The old man said, “The police came looking for Third He. You two talk properly. This time we have to find him.”
The middle-aged man was clearly unused to dealing with police. The moment he saw Ming Han, he shrank back. “Police, police… What? Did something happen to Third He out there?”
Ming Han asked, “What relation are you to He Shuyou?”
The man hurriedly introduced himself. He was He Shuyou’s paternal cousin. He Shuyou ranked third among the cousins, while he ranked second, and they had been close since childhood. After He Shuyou disappeared, he occasionally returned to check whether there had been any news.
By then they had reached the He family home. Ming Han asked, “Can I go inside and take a look?”
Second Brother He took out a key. “Sure, sure. It’s just filthy inside. No one’s lived here for a long time.”
Ming Han walked through the courtyard and the house. Second Brother He sighed and said He Shuyou was kind and dependable, the sort of man who would rather take a loss himself than take advantage of anyone else. His only problem was that his fate was too hard, and he had “overcome” too many people close to him.
Elio’s Notes: In this folk belief, someone with an unusually “hard” fate may be said to overcome the people closest to them, meaning their destiny is blamed for bringing misfortune or even death to relatives. Ming Han does not believe the superstition; he is asking because the family does.
Ming Han did not believe a person’s fate could kill those around him, but if the people here believed it, he still needed to understand what they meant. “Who do people say He Shuyou ‘overcame’?”
Second Brother He counted on his fingers. He Shuyou’s father died not long after He Shuyou was born. His mother raised him alone, then remarried an honest local man. She and her new husband’s son later died in a traffic accident. Later, He Shuyou married, and his wife died too. For many years after that, he raised his son alone.
Relatives urged him to find another woman to take care of him and his boy, suggesting this family’s mute woman or that family’s woman with a bad leg. He Shuyou refused to remarry. He said he only wanted his son to grow up safely and did not want anyone else to suffer because of him.
More than ten years earlier, He Shuyou left home to work. His son stayed with different relatives, and He Shuyou returned only for Spring Festival. Later, when the boy grew older and wanted to stay with his father, He Shuyou took him along. Father and son depended on each other, but they still came back for holidays. Two years ago was the first time He Shuyou failed to return home for the New Year. No one could contact him, and even the police could not find him. Some relatives guessed that father and son had either gotten rich and no longer wanted to return to their impoverished hometown or be pestered by poor relatives, or else had gone abroad illegally to make money in foreign currency.
“I’m the only one who still can’t let go. I keep thinking the two of them will come back, so I stop by every now and then.” Second Brother He’s hair was already gray. He smiled bitterly. “I’m getting old. I won’t be able to make many more trips.”
Ming Han took out a photograph of “Zhang Yinan” and handed it to him. “Take a look. Do you recognize this person?”
Second Brother He studied it for a long time, then his hand began trembling faintly. “Isn’t this our Yunchao? He’s grown this much already? You found him? Where is he now?”
Ming Han asked, “His name is He Yunchao? You’re sure he’s He Shuyou’s son?”
“Of course I’m sure! I’m not blind!” Second Brother He said excitedly. “Yunchao loved coming to my house. He didn’t even like going to the other relatives as much! I cooked for him more times than I can count. How could I not recognize him? Did… did something happen to the two of them?”
Ming Han said, “He was murdered.”
Second Brother He looked as though lightning had struck him and did not react for a long time.
Although Second Brother He had identified He Yunchao, the police still needed stronger physical evidence. On the morning of the eighteenth, after obtaining his consent, Ming Han brought him back to Nanshan City and immediately collected a sample for DNA comparison.
When the forensic report arrived, Chen Zheng and Ming Han opened it together. The murdered “Zhang Yinan” was biologically related to Second Brother He. His real identity was He Shuyou’s son, He Yunchao.
When Chen Zheng found Lou Xiaoguo again, Lou had calmed from the grief and outrage over his boyfriend’s murder, and the feeling of betrayal had taken over. He cursed furiously, “He conned me out of my money, conned me out of my feelings, slept with me, then went and let some old man sleep with him. Bah! Good riddance! He deserved it! Zhang Yinan? He should’ve changed his name to Zhang Scumbag!”
Every customer in the gift shop turned toward Lou Xiaoguo in surprise. Lou immediately pressed his palms together and smiled. “Nothing, nothing. I’m just denouncing a scumbag. Keep shopping.” Then he took off the apron he wore for work and lowered his voice to Chen Zheng. “Officer Chen, what brings you here today? Let’s talk outside.”
Chen Zheng said, “‘Zhang Yinan’ really did deceive you. He wasn’t the real Zhang Yinan. His actual name was He Yunchao.”
Lou Xiaoguo froze. “What? Even his name was fake?”
Chen Zheng nodded. “You two lived together most of the time, right?”
Still stunned, Lou stared blankly at Chen Zheng, nodded, then shook his head. “He lived at school most of the time. Sometimes he came to stay with me. He Yunchao? Who even is that?”
Chen Zheng said, “Normally, as soon as he was murdered, we should have inspected your home. But you were in too poor a state then, so we postponed it. How about taking me there today?”
Lou Xiaoguo was the store manager, and given the circumstances, stepping away for a while was not a problem. He quickly said, “Wait for me. I’ll tell the others.”
On the way to Lou Xiaoguo’s home, Lou kept asking questions. “This He Yunchao was pretending to be Zhang Yinan? Then where’s the real Zhang Yinan? Is he already dead? Damn, this is wild.”
Chen Zheng said, “You’re certain the person who dated you from the beginning was this same man?”
“Of course I’m certain. I slept with him that many times!”
The detective driving could not help coughing. Lou Xiaoguo lowered his voice. “Ah, did I offend you straight guys? Sorry, sorry.”
Chen Zheng asked, “Tell me in more detail how you and He Yunchao met.”
Lou Xiaoguo clearly did not want to revisit the man who had deceived him, and he spoke through gritted teeth.
He had known since his teens that he was not interested in women. His parents’ relationship had broken down long before, and they lived separate lives, with neither paying much attention to him. Lou grew up following his own preferences. After graduating from high school, he got together with a man nearly twenty years older. The older man taught him a great deal, and Lou went from an inexperienced young man to someone fully comfortable with being gay. After that, there was no stopping him.
The older man liked younger partners. Once Lou no longer had the feel of a high-school boy, the man broke up with him. By then Lou was financially and personally independent, and even if the older man had not ended it, Lou would have left on his own. They separated amicably, and Lou soon found another boyfriend.
In a mocking tone, Lou said gay men were all rotten and loyalty barely existed among them. He moved easily from man to man, replacing boyfriends once he got bored. He had assumed he would spend his whole life that way and, once he reached the older man’s age, find a male student of his own to fool around with, just as that man had once kept him. Then, a year and a half ago, he met “Zhang Yinan.”
They had already reached Lou Xiaoguo’s door. He opened it and said “Zhang Yinan” came over often, then corrected himself. “Right, his name’s He Yunchao. I keep thinking of him as Zhang Scumbag.”
Chen Zheng and the other detectives entered. The apartment was neither new nor especially old, and it was obvious considerable effort had gone into decorating it years earlier. The chandelier and built-in cabinets were styles that had once been fashionable, but time had turned fashion into datedness. Lou Xiaoguo apparently was not someone who enjoyed tidying. The living room was a mess, with delivery boxes scattered around, clothes piled haphazardly on the sofa, and shopping bags crowding the table.
Lou continued telling them how he had met He Yunchao. Around two years earlier, Lou’s taste in boyfriends shifted from the older-brother type to younger men. After work, he deliberately spent time around high schools and universities, watching students sweat on basketball courts. He had enough experience to know that among the boys enjoying girls’ cheers, a small number would be like him, and someone like Lou, already out in the working world, held a natural attraction for them.
High schools were tightly controlled and gave him little room to maneuver. After a few attempts, he simply focused on male university students and soon noticed He Yunchao. He Yunchao moved freely and gracefully on the basketball court and had a handsome face, exactly Lou’s type. Unlike other boys who finished playing drenched in sweat and then threw arms around each other without hurrying to wash, He Yunchao never stayed on court too long and always went back to the dorm to shower afterward.
Lou followed He Yunchao and saw him come downstairs with his freshly dried hair fluffed up, carrying books on his way to the library. Lou admitted that was the moment he truly felt drawn in. A male university student with that faint air of restraint was exactly his type.
Lou looked young enough to blend into campus as a graduate student. Claiming he had forgotten his student card, he asked someone else to swipe him into the library. He Yunchao was sitting beside the floor-to-ceiling windows, perhaps a little tired, staring blankly at Swan Lake outside.
Lou grabbed a random book and sat down without saying anything. The library tables were large, and he chose the seat diagonally across from He Yunchao, neither too near nor too far, just right for someone with ulterior motives to observe him.
He Yunchao seemed to notice Lou’s gaze and turned his head. Their eyes met briefly. Lou looked openly, while He Yunchao, the one being watched, became awkward and quickly lowered his eyes. In that moment, Lou understood that He Yunchao was bisexual.
After that, whenever he had time, Lou went to Nanshan University. He followed He Yunchao to the basketball court and sat in the library with him, but never took the initiative to speak. Lou was an experienced gay man. Hooking an inexperienced university student like this should have been easy.
What Lou had not expected was that He Yunchao would show up at the bar Lou frequented and wait for him there.