“‘Zhang Yinan,’ real name He Yunchao. Why did Luo Yingqiang keep him as a lover?” Ming Han said. “There’s no way Luo Yingqiang wouldn’t remember the name Zhang Yinan, right?”
Zhao Zhi leaned back weakly. “I really don’t know about that. Luo Yingqiang trusted me, yes, but he didn’t hand every private matter over to me. He liked them young. People like that were nothing but tools to him. Once he got tired of them, he threw them away, just like Yin Xiaoyang back then.”
Ming Han said nothing and studied Zhao Zhi.
After a moment, Zhao Zhi added, “But I can tell you this. If that He approached Luo Yingqiang with some purpose in mind, Luo Yingqiang definitely knew.”
Ming Han said, “He knew, pretended he didn’t, and kept He Yunchao around anyway?”
“That’s the kind of person he was. Even if something was dangerous, he wanted to watch and see when the danger would explode.” Zhao Zhi said, “He was extremely arrogant, and he had the power and resources to indulge that arrogance. He may never have taken that He seriously at all.”
Ming Han asked, “Was Luo Yingqiang always interested in both men and women, or was that a more recent habit?”
Zhao Zhi frowned. “Probably just the last couple of years. Some people get more adventurous the older they get. Maybe women just couldn’t satisfy him anymore.”
Ming Han said, “Anything else?”
Zhao Zhi froze for a moment, then sneered. “I was only one of Luo Yingqiang’s subordinates. If I remember anything else, I’ll tell you.”
Ming Han was about to end the interrogation when Chen Zheng suddenly said, “Ask him about Jinsi Island.”
Ming Han frowned. Jinsi Island in Country M?
Chen Zheng said, “When Luo Yingqiang forced Fan Lihua to impersonate his mother, Zhao Zhi was the one who threatened her with the contract. It mentioned that if Fan Lihua refused, she might be sent to Jinsi Island. Yingqiang Group was a company that operated almost entirely in Junan City. Why would it have any interest in Jinsi Island in Country M? And when Zhao Zhi mentioned Jinsi Island, the place was still little different from a deserted island.”
Ming Han understood. “Have you ever been to Jinsi Island?”
Zhao Zhi took a moment to react. “The one in Country M? I went there on vacation. Why?”
“Just for vacation?” Ming Han asked. “Did Luo Yingqiang have any projects on Jinsi Island?”
Zhao Zhi said, “No. Yingqiang Group couldn’t reach that far.”
Ming Han said, “Which means you tried?”
Zhao Zhi did not understand why Ming Han was asking this. “I heard Luo Yingqiang mention Jinsi Island before. He said it had development potential. He may have wanted to do something there back then, but there were practical limitations and it never happened. I was still young at the time and a lot of things weren’t mine to ask about. He hasn’t mentioned it again in years.”
Chen Zheng held a cup of hot tea and stared intently at the monitor. When Ming Han and Cheng Cu returned, he was still watching the replay. Cheng Cu tossed his pen onto the desk. “The nursing-home case is basically clear now, but we still have absolutely no lead on the Luo Yingqiang and He Yunchao cases.”
Ming Han reminded him, “Don’t forget the remains of those seven children in Huaili Town, plus the missing Zhang Mu and He Shuyou. Old Cheng, all of that belongs to your Major Crimes Unit.”
Cheng Cu raised both hands. “You visiting monk, quit chanting scriptures at me every five minutes!”
The Major Crimes Unit was about to hold a case meeting. Wu Zhan and several other leaders were attending. Because the nursing-home explosion had caused such a major social impact, higher-ups were pressing them to issue a case update. Cheng Cu gulped down some water and was summoned away, leaving only Ming Han and Chen Zheng, the two “visiting monks,” in the office.
Ming Han returned the notebook to Chen Zheng, dragged over a chair, and sat beside him to watch the replay. Zhao Zhi swung between hysteria and hoarse despondency, looking nothing like a normal person. If he had received a good education from childhood, perhaps he could have lived a peaceful, ordinary life. Instead he had met the madman Luo Yingqiang, fallen in love with Luo Yingqiang’s son, and gotten blood all over his hands. What awaited him was unquestionably the death penalty.
The focus of the investigation had now shifted to He Yunchao and Luo Yingqiang.
“Why did He Yunchao become Luo Yingqiang’s lover?” Chen Zheng said. “Zhao Zhi’s analysis of why Luo accepted He Yunchao is probably right. Luo was simply watching He Yunchao perform while making use of his young body. He wouldn’t feel guilty just because this man’s name happened to be the same as his biological son’s former name.”
Ming Han said, “I think it was revenge. Revenge for Zhang Mu.”
Chen Zheng frowned faintly, an unconscious habit whenever his thoughts were moving fast. “Zhang Mu doesn’t match the profile we formed earlier.” He opened his notebook and tapped the pen against it twice. “Yin Shuwen believes Zhang Mu genuinely loved Yin Xiaoyang and had been unfailingly attentive to Yin Shuwen as well. Luo Yingqiang took his wife and child from him, and because Zhang Mu lacked the power to fight Luo, he could only vent his pain on innocent children. It’s possible He Yunchao helped him take revenge. But why would He Yunchao use the name Zhang Yinan? Logically, if he really wanted to approach Luo Yingqiang, wouldn’t an unfamiliar name have been better? Doing this created far too much risk.”
Ming Han thought for a moment. “What if Zhang Mu understood Luo Yingqiang extremely well? He hated that man for years and had already figured out his temperament. It would be hard for an ordinary person to get close to Luo Yingqiang, so this name might actually have been the key that opened the door.”
Chen Zheng propped his forehead on one hand. “That is possible. Or maybe He Yunchao needed that name too. Then we have to pull the timeline farther back. What happened among Zhang Mu, He Shuyou, and He Yunchao?”
Zhang Mu rarely interacted with people, and He Shuyou was introverted as well, so whether in Huaili Town or Yanshui Town, the police had learned very little. Quite a few people in Huaizi Village had seen Zhang Mu and He Shuyou working in the fields, but that was about it. The strangest part was that all three of them suddenly vanished. Aside from He Yunchao spending more than two years at Nanshan University, getting a boyfriend, and becoming Luo Yingqiang’s lover, there had been no trace at all of the other two.
“Maybe they were already dead.” Ming Han said. “By the time He Yunchao took the university entrance exam under Zhang Yinan’s name, no, even earlier than that, Zhang Mu and He Shuyou may already have been dead. Luo Yingqiang took the original Zhang Yinan away but never changed his household-registration information, so on paper Zhang Mu still had a son named Zhang Yinan. Yin Shuwen chose the name Yin Shuwen himself, and his formal identity is as a citizen of Country A. The name Zhang Yinan stayed on the Zhang family household register. Either Zhang Mu gave that name to He Yunchao, or He Yunchao took it.”
More branches were appearing. At this point, no one knew which branch would connect to the truth.
“Since you’ve already raised revenge as a possibility, let’s follow that line for now.” Chen Zheng made changes on the clue board. “Before Zhang Mu died, he gave He Yunchao the name Zhang Yinan and asked him to help take revenge. There’s a problem here. Even if the He and Zhang families were close, He Yunchao had no reason to agree. He Yunchao had no criminal record. Why could he no longer use his own name? What exactly did Zhang Mu tell him? Did he know the true history between Zhang Mu and Luo Yingqiang?”
“Wait.” Ming Han said, “Zhang Mu endured it for all those years. Why would he suddenly decide to take revenge? Could Luo Yingqiang have done something that provoked him?”
Chen Zheng folded his arms and thought aloud. “An enemy who hadn’t appeared in front of him for years suddenly showed up again, more arrogant than before, humiliating him with every word, completely awakening the demon inside Zhang Mu. At the time, Zhang Mu wasn’t actually alone. He Shuyou was with him. The two of them faced Luo Yingqiang together.”
Ming Han felt as though Chen Zheng had pulled him into a confrontation that might never have happened. He could not help asking, “And then?”
“Luo Yingqiang killed He Shuyou.” Chen Zheng’s voice grew colder. “Maybe it was an accident, or maybe Luo intended to kill Zhang Mu, but for some reason He Shuyou, who had been dragged into it for no reason, was the one who died.”
Ming Han said, “So that explains why Zhang Mu and He Shuyou disappeared… They didn’t leave Huaili Town voluntarily. Luo Yingqiang killed them?”
Chen Zheng had thought so deeply that his head began to ache. There was a contradiction between this hypothesis and reality. More than one villager from Huaizi Village had said Zhang Mu told them he was leaving before he went. His death therefore should not have happened suddenly. Whatever had happened to He Shuyou, Zhang Mu at least had prepared to leave.
“No. Something’s wrong.” Chen Zheng shook his head and rejected the idea.
Ming Han caught the hand Chen Zheng had raised to erase the whiteboard and took the eraser from him. “A problem with this later step doesn’t mean the earlier hypothesis is wrong too.”
Chen Zheng turned to look at Ming Han. “Hm?”
“There really was some kind of conflict between Zhang Mu and Luo Yingqiang. He Shuyou may have been there or may not have been. I think it’s more likely he wasn’t, and I’ll explain why in a minute.” Ming Han said, “We have no way to know what that conflict was anymore. For now, assume Luo Yingqiang didn’t actually hurt either Zhang Mu or He Shuyou at the time.”
Chen Zheng reacted immediately. “Right. The conflict happened, but no physical harm did. That fits with them later leaving the village voluntarily.”
Ming Han nodded. “Zhang Mu knew far more than He Yunchao, who wasn’t there at all. If he wanted to use He Yunchao to take revenge for him, the easiest things to exploit would be anger and fear.”
Chen Zheng murmured, “Angry about what? Afraid of what…”
The answer had already bared its hideous face.
“He Shuyou worked for Zhang Mu for years. A straightforward man like him must have trusted Zhang Mu a great deal, and that trust would have influenced He Yunchao too. At the very least, He Yunchao wouldn’t have believed Zhang Mu was a bad person.” Ming Han continued, “Let me guess at Zhang Mu’s plan. That confrontation with Luo Yingqiang gave him the idea, and he may have obtained something that could be linked to Luo Yingqiang. He exploited He Shuyou’s trust and killed him. For someone capable of murdering children, that would have been too easy. Then he pretended to be frantic, found He Yunchao, and told him to leave immediately or he would be killed too.”
“He Yunchao didn’t understand what had happened, but Zhang Mu’s fear easily infected him. He asked, ‘Uncle Mu, where’s my dad? Why isn’t my dad with you?’ Only then, as though He Yunchao had forced the words out of him, did Zhang Mu reveal the ‘truth’: ‘Your dad was killed by Luo Yingqiang, that Boss Luo! You need to leave now. He won’t let you go! Don’t use your own name for the time being. Use my child’s. His name is Zhang Yinan.’”
Chen Zheng said, “He Yunchao may never have known what really happened between Luo Yingqiang and Zhang Mu.”
Ming Han said, “Right. All he knew was what Zhang Mu told him: we clashed with Luo Yingqiang, he killed your father, and I don’t have long to live either. You have to survive. Hide! Zhang Mu wouldn’t openly tell him to take revenge, but that’s exactly what makes it lethal. He Yunchao sees his father’s body, sees some object or evidence pointing to Luo Yingqiang as the killer, and his entire mind collapses. Once he pulls himself back together, revenge becomes the reason he stays alive.”
The office remained silent for a long while. It was obviously a bold hypothesis, and with the people involved either dead or missing, it would be extremely difficult to verify whether any of it was true.
After a while, Chen Zheng said, “I understand what you mean. You think it’s more likely He Shuyou wasn’t present because Luo Yingqiang never saw him. So when He Yunchao approached Luo under the identity of Zhang Yinan, Luo couldn’t infer He Yunchao’s true intentions. At most, after investigating him, Luo may have discovered that He Yunchao’s father had worked for Zhang Mu and concluded that He Yunchao had approached him under Zhang Mu’s direction.”
Ming Han exhaled in relief, his gaze landing on Lou Xiaoguo’s photograph. “He Yunchao was an ordinary person. It would have been hard for him to get close to Luo Yingqiang. But once he learned Luo liked male university students, he had an idea. Around the same time, Lou Xiaoguo happened to start making moves on him, so He Yunchao used Lou Xiaoguo to learn how to seduce men.”
The clues seemed to be connecting, yet He Yunchao had not only failed to take revenge, he had lost his own life in the process. He was not the only person who had made Luo Yingqiang a target. Someone hidden much deeper had already been watching them both.
Chen Zheng said, “Maybe He Yunchao’s goal wasn’t to kill Luo Yingqiang. Their arrangement had already lasted for some time. He had plenty of opportunities to act. Maybe he wanted to find some kind of evidence that could ruin Luo Yingqiang completely, which is why he delayed for so long.” After a pause, Chen Zheng pressed his brow. “If we could find Zhang Mu, everything would become clear.”
Ming Han folded his arms. “I still think Zhang Mu may have died a long time ago. What could push him to kill one more person just to steer He Yunchao into taking revenge for him? The external trigger was obviously Luo Yingqiang. What about the internal one? He knew he didn’t have much time left. Faced with death, some people get devoured by madness.”
Chen Zheng fell silent. His field of vision was filled with a chaotic tangle of lines and arrows. The Luo Yingqiang case had led to Zhang Mu and Yin Xiaoyang, and seven missing children’s remains had been found in Zhang Mu’s field. Now Zhang Mu was missing and it was unknown whether he was alive or dead. If he was already dead, then objectively speaking, the children’s case would have begun and ended with him. If he was still alive, the existing clues still made him extremely difficult to trace.
For now, the investigation could only focus on Luo Yingqiang’s case. The Major Crimes Unit had already eliminated quite a few suspicious people, while the simple ant doodle Wu Zhan had noticed seemed to stand out more and more sharply among the clues.
Chen Zheng pictured the scene he had seen on Lou Xiaoguo’s balcony. This gay guy liked insects that made people uncomfortable to look at, and in his spare time he copied insects into sketchbooks. Could he possibly…
“Lou Xiaoguo may not have told us the truth.” Chen Zheng suddenly said.
Ming Han was still thinking about Zhang Mu, so the abrupt change of subject caught him off guard. “What?”
“What Lou Xiaoguo presented to us was that he knew nothing about He Yunchao being kept by someone. Only after we started investigating did he realize what He Yunchao had been doing behind his back, using his feelings and spending his money. He was furious enough to wish He Yunchao dead.” Chen Zheng said, “But what if he already knew? He isn’t some naive fool. He was getting involved with men much older than him while he was still in his teens, he had countless boyfriends before He Yunchao, and he works in the service industry. He should be very good at reading people. If He Yunchao tried playing mind games with him, I doubt He Yunchao could beat him.”
Ming Han said, “Then if he already knew what He Yunchao was doing, and the anger started earlier… he would have had a motive to kill both He Yunchao and Luo Yingqiang?”
Chen Zheng paced a few steps. “I admit this line of thought was influenced by Director Wu. Ever since he told me about the Nanxi Middle School case and the insect doodles at the three scenes, I haven’t been able to ignore them. Then I saw how fascinated Lou Xiaoguo is by insects, and I connected the two.”
“That’s fine.” Ming Han smiled easily. “Even setting the insects aside, Lou Xiaoguo having a motive is a fact. Cheng Cu and the others focused their earlier investigation on Luo Yingqiang, and then the nursing-home case happened. They really did neglect the investigation into Lou Xiaoguo. We can fill that gap.”
Chen Zheng checked the time and walked to the doorway, looking as though something was still on his mind. Ming Han asked, “What is it?”
Chen Zheng’s brows drew halfway together. “Following the line we just discussed, investigating Lou Xiaoguo is basically the same direction Director Wu proposed. Once we dig into it, we may end up connecting it to the Nanxi Middle School case and the workers’ case. I want to discuss it with him again.”
Ming Han nodded. “You should.”
Chen Zheng shifted his gaze toward Ming Han, looking as though he wanted to say something but stopped.
Ming Han laughed. “Bro, what’s with you today? This isn’t like you.”
Chen Zheng sat down and stared at the notebook on the table for a moment. “The Nanxi Middle School case is connected to both of us. Do you think something guided us here now, so we could finally put an end to it?”
Ming Han walked over and crouched in front of him. The ceiling light reflected in his eyes, making them look especially bright. “Yeah. What do you think guided us here?”
Their eyes met. Chen Zheng’s Adam’s apple moved.
Ming Han suddenly said in an exaggerated operatic tone, “Fate, of course. Your fate and mine.”
The ridiculous performance unexpectedly loosened something in Chen Zheng. He gave Ming Han a light push on the head and laughed. “What fate? If Old Tang knew you were fooling around with this nonsense, he’d send you back to Zhuquan City to be big brother to the police dogs again.”
“That wouldn’t be so bad.” Ming Han said.
Chen Zheng looked surprised. “Hm? You don’t want to go back to the Mobile Unit?”
“What about you?” Ming Han countered. “Do you want to go back to Zhuquan City?”
Chen Zheng was momentarily speechless.
Ming Han said, “Once the Heaven-Measuring Ruler case is over, once we personally catch Han Qu and uncover the truth, do you want to go back to Zhuquan City?”
Chen Zheng had never thought about the question. But now that Ming Han had suddenly asked, Xu Chuan’s voice surfaced in his mind.
The research institute at Chenshui Bay in Zhuquan City had once seemed to him like a place where people’s will slowly wore away. He had gone there to punish himself, or perhaps to escape. But the institute no longer meant the same thing to him. A former frontline criminal-investigation captain like him, someone who had once commanded casework at full force, and a hot-blooded rookie like Xu Chuan could both play important roles as researchers. They were almost like… an unconventional reserve force.
“I don’t know.” After saying it, Chen Zheng looked at Ming Han and added, “I’m not brushing you off. I genuinely haven’t figured it out.”
Ming Han said, “If you gave me a definite answer right now, I’d think you were brushing me off. Something this important can’t be decided in a few seconds. There’s no hurry. We have plenty of time. When this is over, I’ll think it through with you slowly.”
Chen Zheng relaxed. “So considerate?”
Ming Han smiled. “Haven’t I always been like that with you?”
Wu Zhan was chairing a Major Crimes Unit meeting. Because several important people connected to the cases had either been killed or disappeared, the Huaili Town children’s case and the disappearances of Zhang Mu and He Shuyou were temporarily difficult to pursue. Meanwhile, after the past several days of work, Luo Yingqiang’s social connections had been largely combed through without any obvious breakthrough. Wu Zhan had already discussed the matter with his superiors, and at the meeting he finally raised the insect doodles found near the scenes. The room immediately erupted into discussion.
Cheng Cu asked, “So do we start with the migrant-worker case from three years ago? That wasn’t too long ago, so we can still investigate it. But the Nanxi Middle School case was more than ten years ago, and the killer already died from illness. Reinvestigating that one might leave us groping in the dark.”
“I have an idea about that.” Wu Zhan said, “We’ll remain primarily responsible for the case from three years ago and the current foot-spa case. I want to hand the Nanxi Middle School case to the two specialists from the Provincial Department. What do you think?”
Cheng Cu and Ming Han already knew each other well, so of course Cheng Cu agreed. Some people in the municipal bureau were reluctant to let outsiders interfere, but first, the suggestion had come from Wu Zhan, and second, case after case had left the bureau stretched thin. After weighing it all, they had no choice but to accept Wu Zhan’s proposal.
“Then that’s settled.” Before ending the meeting, Wu Zhan glanced toward the corner of the conference room. At some point, Chen Zheng and Ming Han had taken seats there.
Nanxi Middle School was considered a somewhat unusual school in Nanshan City. Other elite high schools mainly recruited students with strong grades, while Nanxi’s old campus had been built in one of Nanshan City’s earliest wealthy districts. Large numbers of affluent families sent their children there, and over time Nanxi became known as the school for wealthy families among the city’s elite schools.
Chen Zheng had also attended an elite high school in Luocheng, one with first-rate facilities, so when he first came to Nanxi Middle School to investigate the case, he had not felt there was anything especially unusual about it. Now, after so many years, after visiting so many ordinary schools and meeting so many students from less privileged backgrounds, returning here made him truly feel just how different it was.
It was the long morning break. Students in uniform streamed out of the teaching buildings in orderly lines and ran around the athletic field to loud music. Quite a few students also slipped secretly out of formation and headed to the cafeteria to fill their stomachs.
A hand suddenly landed on Chen Zheng’s shoulder. When he turned, Ming Han was tilting his head at him. “Come on, Bro. Why are you just standing here?”
At first Chen Zheng had simply been waiting for the students to pass. The stream pouring from the teaching building was too long. Eventually he started observing the surroundings instead. Time moved slowly inside a school. Images from more than ten years ago gradually overlapped with the present, and memories that had long faded began surfacing again.
“You never used to take part in group activities like this, did you?” Chen Zheng tucked both hands into his coat pockets and tipped his chin toward the athletic field.
Ming Han raised an eyebrow. “Why are we suddenly talking about me?”
“It just came to mind.” Chen Zheng started walking. “Lü Ou even treats you like a target to beat. You two were both campus detectives, but he’s a lot sunnier than you were when you were young.”
Ming Han laughed. “Why are you calling it ‘when I was young’? I was in ninth grade when we first met. You call ninth grade childhood?”
Chen Zheng looked at Ming Han again and suddenly laughed. Ming Han caught up with him. “What are you laughing at?”
“Ninth grade isn’t childhood?” Chen Zheng lifted a hand to demonstrate. “Back then you were only about this tall.” As he raised his hand higher, his gaze hesitated, as though he only realized while measuring just how tall the man in front of him was now. Before his hand reached Ming Han’s head, Chen Zheng withdrew it and dropped the subject.
Ming Han was delighted. “Why’d you stop measuring?”