Fan Weijia was not a suspect at present, but after Chen Zheng and Ming Han left the interview room, he grew increasingly panicked. On the monitor, he kept tugging at his hair and occasionally let out muffled cries.
Wu Zhan watched him through the feed. “Captain Chen, Fan Weijia thinks we’re treating him as Xue Chenwen’s accomplice.”
Chen Zheng said, “It wouldn’t be unreasonable if we really did think that. He refuses to admit his relationship with Xue Chenwen, and Xue Chenwen confessed without hesitation back then. Was he trying to protect Fan Weijia?”
Wu Zhan shook his head. “But you know that can’t be the truth.”
Chen Zheng nodded. “Fan Weijia thinks it is. That’s what will finally make him tell us what really happened. Director Wu, just watch. He’ll confess soon enough.”
Ming Han pushed open the interview-room door again. Fan Weijia watched him warily without saying a word. Ming Han sat down with another detective from Major Crimes and switched on the recorder.
Ming Han said, “We just discussed what you told us. I’ll ask you one more time. Were you and Xue Chenwen together? And when you lit eternal lamps for Ping Yiyi and Li Shuxing, was it because you were the one who pushed them toward their deaths?”
Fan Weijia broke down and shouted, “The only person I wronged was Xue Chenwen! I didn’t wrong anyone else! He was the one who killed them! He was insane! If I’d stayed with a madman like that, I would’ve been the one who died!”
Ming Han said, “A madman?”
Fan Weijia roared, “Yes! Xue Chenwen was completely insane!”
Fan Weijia was different from Xue Chenwen. Xue Chenwen had no interest at all in his father’s business, while Fan Weijia had dreamed since childhood of inheriting his father’s mantle.
When he was young, the quiet Xue Chenwen had been brought in front of him, and his father told him, “This is Uncle Xue’s son. You two should get along well.”
Back then, he had not particularly liked Xue Chenwen, because Xue Chenwen was always staring at him. Whenever he went off to play with the other boys, Xue Chenwen followed, but never joined their games.
When the group got tired from playing, Xue Chenwen would bring him cake and drinks. His friends teased him, and although Fan Weijia was impatient, he kept a smile on his face.
That was what his family had taught him. From the time he could remember, his parents had told him, “You’re going to do great things someday. You can’t lose your temper whenever you feel like it. Even if you’re unhappy, you can’t let people see it, especially people you’re only casually acquainted with. You have to make them feel comfortable around you.”
So he smiled and thanked Xue Chenwen, then ate every last bite of the cake he did not even like. Xue Chenwen’s eyes shone, and he stayed beside him, calling “Weijia, Weijia” over and over.
It seemed that from then on, Xue Chenwen became attached to him.
His father said the Xue family did very well in business, so there was value in keeping a good relationship with Xue Chenwen. Later Fan Weijia learned that Xue Chenwen rarely accompanied his father to social gatherings and actually felt relieved, but Xue Chenwen was interested in him. As long as Fan Weijia was there, Xue Chenwen would appear, running over eagerly to fuss over him, carrying food and drinks for him like a little servant. Fan Weijia had no need for a little servant, yet he could not treat Xue Chenwen coldly.
Many years later, after they got together, Xue Chenwen still thought Fan Weijia had always been gentle with him and that every childhood gathering had been happy. Fan Weijia thought, You were the only one who was happy.
After puberty began, Fan Weijia gradually realized he did not like girls. Class belles, school beauties, none of them held his gaze. His eyes always followed the agile figures on the basketball court. Xue Chenwen, who had grown up with him, was no longer the pale, frail child of their younger years. Somehow he had become the tallest and most eye-catching presence on the court.
The way Fan Weijia looked at Xue Chenwen changed. Xue Chenwen, meanwhile, treated him as well as ever. Whatever Fan Weijia wanted, Xue Chenwen would find some way to get it for him. Fan Weijia began entertaining improper thoughts about him, and because Xue Chenwen spoiled him, one day when Xue asked what he wanted, Fan Weijia said, “I want you.”
Xue Chenwen had never been attracted to men before. He stood there stunned for a long time before understanding what Fan Weijia meant, then fled in panic. Fan Weijia had only been testing the waters and would have let it go if it did not work. He thought they might not even be able to remain brothers afterward, but Xue Chenwen came back, face red, and said he could give Fan Weijia what he wanted.
They began dating during their first year of university. In truth, Fan Weijia had regretted it almost from the beginning. He felt as though he had dragged Xue Chenwen into the abyss of homosexuality. Xue Chenwen had eyes only for him and was intensely possessive, but Fan Weijia had only wanted to have some fun. He did not like Xue Chenwen nearly as much as Xue liked him. Compared with staying with Xue Chenwen, Fan Weijia wanted to be like other gay men he knew and change partners frequently.
Xue Chenwen would stare at him and tell him again and again, “You’re my only one. You can’t leave me.”
Fan Weijia found Xue Chenwen frightening. He did not dare imagine what Xue might do if he betrayed him. Gradually, he grew numb to it and settled into life with Xue Chenwen, making plans for the future. Xue Chenwen was wealthy, and whatever Fan Weijia wanted to buy, Xue would buy for him. Fan Weijia himself was rich, but who ever complained about having more money?
Then the internet boom arrived, and the Fan family planned to invest in Luocheng. It was an industry that burned money, and no amount ever seemed enough. Xue Chenwen took all the dividends he had received from the Xue family since reaching adulthood and handed them to Fan Weijia. Fan Weijia had been moved by that. But when Xue Chenwen declared with great enthusiasm that he would come to Luocheng for his internship so they could build their future together, Fan Weijia felt irritated all over again.
They were already old enough to enter society. Building careers and families was not child’s play. Fan Weijia did not know whether the Xue family could accept Xue Chenwen being gay, never marrying and never having children, but his own father absolutely would not accept that. Once the Luocheng business stabilized, Fan Weijia would have to marry a woman and have a child. Of course, he intended to continue seeing men as well.
Every time Xue Chenwen spoke earnestly about their future, Fan Weijia panicked. He had hinted more than once that they should break up. Xue Chenwen thought he wanted children and said they could adopt two, one taking the surname Xue and one the surname Fan. He even said Uncle Fan would definitely understand.
Understand my ass! Fan Weijia roared inwardly. But he had worn his mask for too many years. He could not bring himself to lose his temper at Xue Chenwen, much less explain the fear inside him.
From a certain angle, Fan Weijia was more like Xue Chenwen’s father than Xue Chenwen was. Making money was the highest priority in Fan Weijia’s heart, and he did not place much value on relationships. Once his father entrusted him with responsibility for developing the family business, he threw himself completely into work. He often neglected Xue Chenwen during that period. He even fantasized that this passive distancing might gradually weaken Xue Chenwen’s feelings, until someday Fan Weijia had succeeded in business and Xue Chenwen was the one who asked to break up.
But Xue Chenwen responded with astonishing generosity. He understood how hard Fan Weijia was working and wanted to be the supportive partner at his side. Fan Weijia felt as though he were going insane.
Yunyang Tech’s sudden entry into the market left Fan Weijia no time to think about his relationship with Xue Chenwen. During that period, he fought so viciously in business that even in his dreams he was thinking about how to take down Bu Yangyun. But in the end, the one taken down was Fan Weijia, along with the other internet companies from Nanshan City.
Then one disaster followed another. His mother was diagnosed with a terminal illness and did not have long to live. Yunyang Tech had destroyed the Fan family’s foothold in Luocheng, so Fan Weijia returned to Nanshan City with his father. Xue Chenwen had actually arrived before him and was already caring for his sick mother in his place.
Fan Weijia lived every day in fear. In what capacity had Xue Chenwen come here? Wasn’t this exposing their relationship? Under the combined blows to his career and family, Fan Weijia finally could not take it anymore and had a huge fight with Xue Chenwen.
Xue Chenwen was stunned. Fan Weijia pressed the advantage and said the Fan family could never accept a gay son, that the two of them had no future, and that he had no energy left to think about romance anyway. They were finished. Xue Chenwen left looking utterly lost, but several days later, to Fan Weijia’s disbelief, he returned and said, “Weijia, don’t be afraid. We’ll get through this together.”
The look in Xue Chenwen’s eyes made goosebumps rise all over Fan Weijia. He did not want to get through anything together with Xue Chenwen. He only wanted to get away from this madman as quickly as possible. Since the facade had already been torn apart, Fan Weijia stopped pretending. He told Xue Chenwen that he had never planned to spend his whole life with a man, that he would marry and have children in the future, and that their dating game ended with university.
But Xue Chenwen hugged him and said no, they were meant to spend their whole lives together. “Weijia, you’re the one who made me into someone who can only accept men. Have you forgotten?”
Xue Chenwen became Fan Weijia’s nightmare. Fan Weijia fought Yunyang Tech’s encroachment on one side and resisted Xue Chenwen on the other, exhausted in both body and mind. Yet at his weakest moments, he could not bear to give up the care Xue Chenwen offered him. The two continued breaking up and getting back together for a while.
Finally, in the second year after retreating from Luocheng back to Nanshan City, Fan Weijia could no longer tolerate Xue Chenwen and threatened to kill himself to force Xue Chenwen to let him go.
“I learned it from him. He pulled that suicide stunt in front of me several times.” Fan Weijia’s tone was cold when he spoke of Xue Chenwen, and he pointed at his own temple.
He said that shortly after they first got together, he realized Xue Chenwen was psychologically fragile and always imagined the worst possible outcome. He was sensitive and introverted. Whenever Fan Weijia mentioned breaking up, Xue Chenwen would stop eating and become neurotic. Fan Weijia had even forced him to see a psychiatrist, who prescribed a pile of medication. While he took the medication, Xue Chenwen was relatively stable. Once he stopped, he would lose control again.
Fan Weijia had long since run out of patience. He gradually began giving Xue Chenwen the cold shoulder and withholding affection. At first, every time Xue Chenwen threatened suicide, Fan Weijia was terrified. Later, he simply copied the tactic. When Xue Chenwen finally gave up on him, Fan Weijia felt as though he had come back to life.
After the breakup, Xue Chenwen did exactly what Fan Weijia wanted and never contacted him again. Fan Weijia felt as though shackles he had worn for years had finally been unlocked. He fooled around with different men and only occasionally asked about Xue Chenwen. Their mutual friends said Xue Chenwen was doing well, was popular with his students, and was named an outstanding teacher every semester, though he had never dated anyone again. Fan Weijia felt relieved. If Xue Chenwen was doing well, he would not come looking for trouble. It would have been even better if one day Fan Weijia heard that Xue Chenwen had married.
But what Fan Weijia eventually heard was that Xue Chenwen had killed two students.
For a moment, he could not believe his ears. Xue Chenwen had killed students? How could that be possible? Fan Weijia had grown sick of Xue Chenwen, but he still believed he understood him fairly well. Xue Chenwen had wanted to be a teacher since childhood. After teaching his first internship class, he had said with a flushed face that students were the most wonderful group of people in the world.
Fan Weijia suddenly became afraid. The case was so serious that the police would certainly investigate everyone who had known Xue Chenwen. Would Xue Chenwen tell them they had dated? Would Fan Weijia be dragged into the case? He waited in fear for the police to come to him and prepared an explanation about how he and Xue Chenwen had broken up long ago. But when the police did question him, they treated him only as an ordinary friend of Xue Chenwen’s.
Xue Chenwen had actually said nothing. He had not even left behind anything proving they had been lovers.
Fan Weijia relaxed, but before long regret began to creep in. Xue Chenwen would certainly be sentenced to death. When Fan Weijia thought about how this man who had treated him so well was about to disappear from the world, he finally felt a trace of guilt. He should have treated Xue Chenwen better.
Yet before any sentence was handed down, Xue Chenwen suddenly died of illness. With everything settled, Fan Weijia thought again and again about why Xue Chenwen had become that way and finally reached one conclusion: it was because of him.
He knew better than anyone how psychologically fragile Xue Chenwen had been, and he believed the breakup had dealt Xue a devastating blow. Back then Fan Weijia had frozen Xue Chenwen out, sometimes even struck him, and humiliated him with words to force him away. Fan Weijia himself had been freed, but Xue Chenwen’s mental illness only grew worse until, in Fan Weijia’s mind, he reached the point of taking revenge on society.
Fan Weijia believed Xue Chenwen had killed Ping Yiyi and Li Shuxing, and that made Fan himself half a murderer too. If he had not heartlessly pushed Xue Chenwen away, then Xue Chenwen would still have been that gentle teacher.
Once Fan Weijia convinced himself of this, he suffered nightmares every night. Ping Yiyi and Li Shuxing appeared soaked in blood, demanding his life. While he was tormented by guilt, he heard that Xue Chenwen’s mother had become a nun at Jinghui Nunnery.
Xue Chenwen’s mother had always treated Fan Weijia very well. He wanted to visit this grieving elder and perhaps worship the Buddha while he was there. When he saw the many eternal lamps burning inside Jinghui Nunnery, he asked what they were for. After Xue Chenwen’s mother explained, Fan Weijia immediately decided to light two for Ping Yiyi and Li Shuxing.
After returning from Jinghui Nunnery, whether it was psychological or the eternal lamps truly had some effect, Fan Weijia stopped dreaming about the children coming to claim his life.
“I’ve told you everything. Arrest me if you want.” Fan Weijia looked utterly exhausted. “I feel guilty. Their deaths really do have something to do with me, but I absolutely didn’t do it, and Xue Chenwen wasn’t protecting me.”
Ming Han said, “Are you certain Xue Chenwen killed those two students because he wanted revenge on society?”
Fan Weijia stared blankly. “What else could it have been? He confessed. He really did kill them. Other than revenge against society, I can’t think of any other reason.”
“Do you think he was capable of doing something like that?” Ming Han said. “From what you just told me, he sounds like someone very gentle, someone who would rather hurt himself than hurt anyone else. The moment you threatened to kill yourself, he gave you up and never bothered you again.”
Fan Weijia opened his mouth but could not speak for a long time. He rubbed his face. “That’s true. He was too kind. That’s why someone like me was able to hurt him.”
“You were together for many years. Did you ever see him deliberately hurt anyone else?” Ming Han asked.
Fan Weijia shook his head and finally said, “I don’t think he should have been capable of killing students, but that’s already a fact.”
After the questioning ended, Ming Han returned to the office. Chen Zheng was still watching the recording. Ming Han walked over and braced one hand on the edge of the desk. Chen Zheng hit pause. “It’s obvious now. There’s another person hidden inside this case, the real killer.”
Ming Han said, “The person who drew the dragonfly on the wall?”
Chen Zheng said, “Don’t forget that the missing Li Wan had a motive too.”
Ming Han dragged over a chair and sat facing Chen Zheng. “When you investigated Fan Weijia back then, did none of you ever consider that his relationship with Xue Chenwen might have been more than ordinary friendship?”
“There were no clues at all. Director Wu and I just discussed it. Xue Chenwen knew that once something happened to him, the police might follow the trail to Fan Weijia, and once they reached Fan Weijia, they would start digging into their relationship and looking for motive. He didn’t want Fan Weijia dragged into it. And since he knew he was going to die, there was no point keeping a lot of things, so he destroyed everything.” Chen Zheng said, “Even at the end, he was still thinking about Fan Weijia. It’s hard to imagine someone like that taking revenge on society for Fan Weijia’s sake. He was utterly hopeless at the time. The person he wanted to kill was himself.”
Ming Han said, “If he was going to die anyway, he might as well die in someone else’s place. Right?”
Chen Zheng pulled up Li Wan’s photograph, looked at it for a while, then shook his head. “Not this man. They had no intersection. Xue Chenwen loved students that much. If he was going to shoulder someone’s crime, it could only have been for a student.”
Ming Han said, “Lou Xiaoguo.”
Both of them fell silent. The image of Lou Xiaoguo wearing an apron in his gift shop gradually sharpened in their minds. The real killer had never been brought to justice. That was why the cicada graffiti and the ant graffiti had appeared later.
Chen Zheng leaned back in his chair and thought about the predicament Lou Xiaoguo had faced back then. “Li Shuxing and Ping Yiyi were both targeting him. His mother said he came home late. In reality, they were bullying him. I can’t yet imagine what methods they used, but for some reason Lou Xiaoguo never told his family or teachers and chose to endure it in silence. He thought he could just bear it until it passed, but he couldn’t. He snapped and somehow lured the two of them to the table-tennis court and killed them. Assuming he really was the killer, he did something like that, then used graffiti as a mark, a kind of boast. But he had no way to evade the investigation. If Xue Chenwen hadn’t cleaned up after him, he would inevitably have been caught. Which brings us back to why Xue Chenwen would do that.”
Ming Han said, “Because Xue Chenwen had already been hurt so badly that he didn’t want to live anymore, and because the people he loved most were his students.”
Chen Zheng opened the old case file. On the screen was the burned-out table-tennis court. “Did the killer ask him for help? Or did he learn what the killer had done and create the collapse and fire himself, using the flames to erase the killer’s traces? That way, as long as he confessed, even if police suspected someone else, finding evidence would be extremely difficult. The one thing that wasn’t erased was the graffiti on the wall. The killer never told him that the graffiti was his too.”
After a moment, Ming Han said, “Then what about Li Wan? Xue Chenwen wouldn’t take the blame for Li Wan, so that rules Li Wan out as the killer. But Li Wan is missing now and may have been dead for a long time. Unless…”
“Unless Li Wan was the only person who knew the killer wasn’t Xue Chenwen at all,” Chen Zheng said. “Years later, the killer grew up and realized someone knew his secret, so he moved against Li Wan. Before Li Wan went to the Nianbei Plateau, the two of them had already clashed several times. Li Wan told Shi Bo that everything would be resolved soon. He intended to eliminate the killer, but he failed.”
Ming Han supported his forehead with one hand. “Why would Li Wan know who the real killer was… unless he had also been planning to kill Li Shuxing back then and had been following Li Shuxing for a long time!”
“That’s possible,” Chen Zheng said. “But for some reason, he never told us who the real killer was. Did his own actions also contribute to what happened to Li Shuxing, so he had to keep himself out of it? Still, if the killer was Lou Xiaoguo, he had plenty of motive to kill Li Wan, Luo Yingqiang, and He Yunchao. What about those two workers? What motive would he have to kill them? What worries me now is that we may be letting the insect graffiti lead us around by the nose.”
“Or maybe we’re the ones holding tightly onto the insect-graffiti thread,” Ming Han said. “At least the deduction that Li Wan was silenced is logically sound.”
Chen Zheng relaxed a little. “That’s true. Next, we focus on Lou Xiaoguo.”
Earlier, Chen Zheng had turned over the insect coloring book taken from Lou Xiaoguo’s home to forensic comparison experts. Later, Ming Han had photographed drawings by Lou at his mother’s esports hotel. According to the comparison, Lou Xiaoguo’s drawing style was highly similar to the insect graffiti left at the scenes, and one ant illustration in the coloring book matched the ant graffiti on the pillar at the footbath club in four specific details.
Chen Zheng’s findings and the experts’ conclusion were placed together in front of Wu Zhan. He took off his glasses and rubbed his aching eyes. “We really did arrest the wrong person back then!”
But graffiti that appeared to have been created by the same person could not serve as decisive evidence. First, the expert conclusion was only “similar.” Second, even if Lou Xiaoguo admitted the drawings were his, that would not mean admitting he was the killer. He could have drawn them at any point before the murders.
“Director Wu, there’s no need to rush. Lou Xiaoguo is already under close surveillance. I want the logical chain to be more complete before we question him,” Chen Zheng said calmly.
Wu Zhan nodded. “Right. The Ping Yiyi and Li Shuxing case has been cold for so many years, and we finally have a new lead. We can’t rush, can’t rush. Captain Chen, when you say a more complete logical chain…”
Chen Zheng said, “I still can’t connect the deaths of the workers Zhong Lishan and Kong Chunxiang to the clues we already have, and I don’t know enough about those two men. Director Wu, when you first showed me their case, I thought it might be connected to Luo Yingqiang. At the time, they were working on a project Luo had invested in. Trouble at the construction site halted the project and directly affected Luo Yingqiang. But in fact, the Huishan Mall project was barely affected. The killer then turned on Luo Yingqiang himself. That line of reasoning doesn’t really hold up anymore. We need to keep investigating.”
Wu Zhan said, “Perfect. Major Crimes has been looking into the Luo-He case and the Zhong-Kong case lately anyway. I’ll call Cheng Cu over and we can compare what everyone has.”
Before Wu Zhan could even notify Cheng Cu, Cheng Cu arrived with Ming Han. “I just found something in the Zhong Lishan and Kong Chunxiang case that connects with Bird Bro’s lead.”
Both Zhong Lishan and Kong Chunxiang were from Dahe County, a small place with few able-bodied men left. For most adults, leaving home to find work elsewhere was practically the only option. Like most people from the area, Zhong Lishan had left his hometown in his teens and spent years taking jobs at construction sites.
Kong Chunxiang’s situation was less common. He did not leave home for work until he was twenty-nine. By then he had no family left. His father had died very early, and from childhood he and his mother, Qiu Pingping, had depended on each other. Perhaps because Qiu Pingping had been very beautiful when she was young, Kong Chunxiang, despite being a rough-hewn man, had surprisingly delicate features.
Several years earlier, word spread that a high-speed rail line would be built through Dahe County. If it really happened, the local economy would develop rapidly. Investors began arriving one after another to inspect land, and because Kong Chunxiang was one of the few young men who had stayed in the area, he was often called in to help with odd jobs. In the end, however, the high-speed rail project proved to be only a rumor. The investors left, and Dahe County became as quiet as before.
But that same year, something happened in the Kong family: Qiu Pingping accidentally fell into the river and drowned. It appeared to be nothing more than an accident. When police investigated the Zhong-Kong case years later, they looked into it and even considered whether Kong Chunxiang himself might have killed his mother. In fact, he had been away at the market that day and was not home at all.
Qiu Pingping’s death changed Kong Chunxiang. He had stayed in his hometown all those years only to keep his mother company. Once she was gone, he finally took his first step into migrant work. But the taciturn Kong Chunxiang ran into rejection everywhere after arriving in Nanshan City, until he met fellow villager Zhong Lishan.
Zhong Lishan was warmhearted and treated him like a younger brother, introducing him to several jobs. At first they worked at different construction sites, but as they spent more time together they became increasingly close. After Kong Chunxiang finished his previous job, he waited for Zhong Lishan for a while, and the two eventually went together to work at the Huishan Mall construction site.
Chen Zheng said, “So far that all sounds fairly ordinary. What’s the connection to the investors?”
“The investors are exactly the point!” Cheng Cu said. “Captain Chen, you really know how to seize the key detail. Among that group of investors back then was actually Li Wan, the man you’re investigating!”