Xiao Xiang was silent for a moment before admitting it. “Yes. Lord Huo thought Shu Jun was about to make a move against Lin Dong. If he stayed, he’d get dragged into the mess too. But I never imagined he’d say something like that while arguing with Lin Dong’s fans. It was too reckless!”
Chen Zheng asked, “Had he ever behaved like that before?”
Xiao Xiang was not entirely certain. “I don’t remember anything like it. Lord Huo could act like a spoiled rich kid, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew what he could say and what he couldn’t. Telling fans Lin Dong was dead went way too far.”
Whatever Huo Yewei’s reason for saying it, he was dead now and could no longer answer. Chen Zheng returned toward Weimo Mountain Resort. On the way, he saw a crowd surrounding a small wooden building and shouting, “Hand over the murderer!”
The cabin bore the word “lake.” Chen Zheng immediately hurried over. The people surrounding it were all Huo Yewei’s fans. Many had witnessed Liu Qing throw the beer bottle at him and had been furious that she was not detained. Now Huo Yewei was dead. They were grieving and enraged. Police were still gathering evidence, but the fans had already reached their own conclusion.
Who else could have killed Huo Yewei but Liu Qing? That woman had tried to kill him in public the day before!
Unlike Xiao Xiang, the fans had plenty of time to spend online and had all seen the private-message screenshot posted by Lin Dong’s fan. Huo Yewei said Lin Dong was dead? No. Obviously Lin Dong’s fans were spreading lies. Huo Yewei was the one who was dead, and Lin Dong and his fans were trying to turn the accusation around!
“Hand over Liu Qing! Hand over Lin Dong!” The crowd was furious. lake employees had been dragged outside as though they were prisoners about to be publicly beheaded, and the glass door had already been smashed. A middle-aged man who looked like a supervisor was shouting at the fans. His suit had originally been immaculate, but even his glasses had been knocked away in the crush.
Local officers arrived to control the scene but could not hold the crowd. Some people had already pushed through the cabin toward lake’s office area. Chen Zheng forced his way into the crowd and blocked a fist swinging at the middle-aged man. The man clasped his hands urgently. “Please help us! Everything’s gone crazy!”
The middle-aged man was Zheng Feilong, lake’s channel director and a distant relative of owner Liu Xun. He not only managed factory affairs but also helped handle Liu family matters. His accent was fairly strong. He showed Chen Zheng injuries on his head and arm, sweat pouring down his face.
More police arrived and barely managed to separate the fans.
Chen Zheng was about to head farther into the factory when his phone suddenly rang.
“Bro, are you still with Huo Yewei’s assistant?” Ming Han spoke quickly.
Chen Zheng said, “No. I’m at lake. The fans are causing trouble.”
Ming Han said, “We got a likely match for one set of footprints inside the villa. They may belong to Liu Qing. The resort’s own surveillance recorded her near the Huo villa at eight last night.”
Chen Zheng frowned. Was Liu Qing really the killer?
Ming Han continued, “Liu Qing is missing. Li Shu just tried to bring her in for questioning, but her family says nobody’s seen her all day!”
Another group rushed past Chen Zheng toward lake’s office area, bumping him hard enough that he stumbled.
Ming Han immediately asked, alert, “Bro, what happened?”
“Nothing.” Chen Zheng said, “I’m going to ask lake’s people what they know.”
Zheng Feilong led Chen Zheng toward lake’s research area. On the way, Chen Zheng smelled an intense fragrance. This was a perfume factory, so fragrance itself was nothing unusual, but this scent was completely natural, not perfume. He looked toward the source and saw a huge expanse of wintersweet in full bloom. The area around the research buildings was practically a spectacular wintersweet garden.
Zheng Feilong hurried to explain that Liu Xun had loved strongly fragrant plants since childhood. The mountain was well suited to wintersweet, so not long after lake was established, they planted this entire garden.
A woman in work clothes was dragged out by the fans. Security guards and several fans were grappling with one another. Chen Zheng and local officers worked together to separate them. The woman had just been grabbed around the neck, and her face was bright red. A fan restrained by police was still shouting, “Your sister killed someone! Pay with your life! Pay with your life!”
Zheng Feilong rushed over to protect the woman. “What are you doing? Is there no law anymore?”
Chen Zheng looked at her. Security guards were calling her “President Liu.” She coughed until tears came to her eyes, managed to tie her hair back, and said, “My sister did not kill anyone! If she did, the police will come arrest her themselves.”
A fan shouted, “Who doesn’t know your family has something going on with Lin Dong? Lin Dong told her to kill Lord Huo! Don’t deny it!”
The woman’s expression changed. She actually broke away from security, rushed over, and slapped the fan. Even Zheng Feilong stared in shock. Emotions on both sides ignited again, and another clash became almost unavoidable.
Chen Zheng quickly grabbed the woman. “Liu Qing is missing. You didn’t know?”
The woman froze. “What did you say?”
Fifteen minutes later, the woman was sitting in a police car while Zheng Feilong was swallowed again by the furious fans outside. Unlike the hard stance she had shown them, she now looked panicked. “What happened to my sister?”
Chen Zheng said, “I was about to ask you. What is your family’s relationship with Lin Dong? Why did Liu Qing attack Huo Yewei?”
Liu Xun was thirty years old and had independently founded the lake perfume brand. Liu Qing was her younger sister, ten years her junior. Despite the age gap, the two sisters had always depended on each other and were extremely close.
As Liu Xun spoke about her family, a trace of melancholy appeared in her stubborn eyes. Generations of the Liu family had lived by Junan Lake. Their parents were fruit growers who had accumulated a fair amount of wealth through hard work. They sent their eldest son, Liu Xun’s older brother, overseas to study, and Liu Xun herself went abroad while still in high school.
After completing his studies, their brother came home and took the family orchard to another level. More ambitious than their parents, he wanted to unite other growers and turn Junan Lake fruit into a recognizable brand.
To accomplish that goal, he and several like-minded young people traveled to major cities across Han Province to study the market. He overworked himself and died suddenly. Their parents were devastated, and the orchard they had carefully tended for half their lives fell into neglect.
Influenced by fashion overseas, Liu Xun had been interning at a niche perfume studio and hoped to establish herself in the fashion industry. The terrible news forced her to return home. Her parents had never mistreated either daughter, but deep down they favored sons and had regarded their eldest boy as the hope of their lives. Once he died, something inside them collapsed. Nothing Liu Xun did to accompany or comfort them worked. With the family’s pillar gone, she had no choice but to stay. It effectively meant rebuilding her own life from nothing.
Not long afterward came news that the western side of Junan Lake would also be developed as a tourist area. Most fruit growers refused and hung banners in protest. Liu Xun thought it might be an opportunity and persuaded her parents to sign the agreement. The Liu family received substantial compensation. Liu Xun set part aside for her parents’ retirement and planned to risk another portion buying land on the mountain west of Junan Lake, the land lake occupied now.
The people who blocked her were her own parents. After losing their son, the elderly couple changed completely and found fault with both daughters in everything they did. Nothing the girls accomplished compared to their brother. Every day, their parents talked about how good and filial their son had been. Liu Qing was only in middle school then. The atmosphere at home became so suffocating that she stayed with a classmate and refused to return.
They had clearly agreed to sign the development contract, yet the moment Liu Xun tried to use part of the compensation, they regretted it and accused her of caring only about money, of even dipping into her parents’ funeral savings. No matter how Liu Xun explained that only part of the money would be invested, they refused to believe her. They even went to the developer and worked with the company to cut off Liu Xun’s path forward.
Eventually, Liu Xun’s mother pointed at her and screamed, “Why weren’t you the one who died? Give me my son back!”
Liu Xun’s life was already going badly then. She had spent a long time overseas and learned foreign fashion-industry business models that were of little use domestically. She could only slow everything down and patiently try to repair her relationship with her parents. But they continued to hate her for selling the orchard and wanted all the compensation returned, without leaving a cent for Liu Xun or Liu Qing, while also insisting on cutting ties. The developer obstructed her too. Liu Xun could get neither the land nor the compensation.
Later, Liu Xun sought legal aid. Before matters reached court, she persuaded the developer, obtained the mountain land, and was cut off by her parents.
Life reached its hardest point. Liu Xun had to raise her younger sister and find a way to survive. Perfume and fashion were pushed out of her mind. She worked day and night, saved capital by doing makeup for celebrities, then invited distant relative Zheng Feilong to help. She partnered with Weimo Mountain Resort, built a workshop suited to the mountain’s style, and began developing perfume.
That was another painful stretch. There were already more major-brand perfumes on the market than anyone could possibly buy. Who would choose her tiny label? Worse, niche perfume had been ruined by many unscrupulous sellers and was associated with plagiarism, poor quality, toxicity, and other bad publicity. Liu Xun could guarantee every lake fragrance was painstakingly made and unique, but consumers did not know that.
At the end of her rope, she began considering shutting lake down. Liu Qing refused and cried as she begged her sister to hold on a little longer. “Sis, I wore our perfume to school today. Everyone said it smelled good. Sis, don’t give up, okay?”
Liu Qing had grown up without hardship. She had been pampered as a child. When their older brother was alive, he doted on her. After he died, Liu Xun came home and sheltered her under her wing. So Liu Qing remained naive, always believing that if she truly wanted something, someone would make it happen.
Perhaps Liu Xun herself was unwilling to surrender. Perhaps she did not want to disappoint her sister. She gritted her teeth and kept going. That same year, Liu Qing became a fan of an unknown young idol named Lin Dong.
Liu Xun had never chased celebrities. She had seen plenty whose public and private faces were completely different. Every time she warned Liu Qing not to become too obsessed, Liu Qing argued with perfect confidence that Lin Dong was different. Lin Dong would definitely become famous.
At the time, Lin Dong only appeared in tiny roles in trendy idol dramas or warmed up the stage at events. Even the few followers on his Weibo had been bought by his company. Yet Liu Qing carried professional cameras and long lenses everywhere to follow him, becoming one of his earliest fans.
Chasing a star cost money. Liu Qing, carefree as ever, asked Liu Xun for it. Liu Xun was already overwhelmed by lake but still squeezed out money to support her sister’s hobby. She never expected that it would become motivation and inspiration for herself. Instead of closing lake, she focused on research and began using contacts she had built while working as a makeup artist. Her fragrances started spreading on a small scale among makeup artists and stylists. Soon, a celebrity without a perfume endorsement took a liking to them, finally giving lake some recognition.
What surprised Liu Xun was that by then Liu Qing had also become one of Lin Dong’s reasons to keep going. Lin Dong came from an ordinary family and had no capital behind him. Not long earlier, famous musician Huo Yewei had humiliated him so badly he could barely lift his head. Almost nobody criticized Huo Yewei; the entire internet mocked Lin Dong instead. Liu Qing was one of the very few people who supported him unwaveringly. Rain or shine, she followed him, always standing in the first row holding a sign, fanatical, childish, even ridiculous.
Lin Dong noticed her long ago. After performances, whenever he had the chance, he actively thanked her and the other fans who came to support him.
Liu Xun had once thought it unhealthy for her sister to spend so much energy chasing a star. But as she watched Lin Dong grow step by step through his own effort, Liu Qing seemed to mature too. She stopped being so willful and impulsive. One day, she told Liu Xun, “Sis, you and Lin Dong are both my role models. I helped him. Now I want to help you.”
Liu Xun asked curiously, “You helped him?”
Liu Qing happily explained that Lin Dong had finally landed a second-male-lead role. The director said his acting was natural, and in the future he would focus more on acting and reduce stage appearances. Lin Dong himself had told several longtime fans a few days earlier and had especially thanked Liu Qing for always being there.
Liu Qing did not merely say she would change. She truly settled down and studied seriously, scored well on the college entrance examination, and wrote promotional copy for lake the previous year that was very well received.
Chen Zheng said, “Lin Dong has a lot of lake perfumes at home. Liu Qing sent them?”
Liu Xun nodded. “Qingqing really wanted us to hire Lin Dong as a spokesperson, but earlier we had already signed another celebrity, so it wasn’t possible. Whenever Qingqing had the chance, she would send perfume to Lin Dong. Later, when the previous contract expired, I planned to try signing him, but Qingqing was the one who stopped me.”
Chen Zheng asked, “Why?”
Liu Xun said, “By then Lin Dong was already rising. He wasn’t some obscure idol anyone could humiliate anymore. When I said we should try, I knew our chances were slim. His management contract was with Yunxiang Entertainment. However good lake might be, we’re still far behind the major brands, and he could sign with someone better. What I didn’t expect was Qingqing stopping me. I asked why. She said she protected Lin Dong because she wanted nothing in return from him. Now that he was doing better and better, she should step farther away. If marketing accounts found out Lin Dong was too close to a fan, it could hurt him.”
Tears appeared in Liu Xun’s eyes. “Qingqing is very kind. Other than our parents, no one ever hurt her, so she’s willing to give away all the love she received. We haven’t actively contacted Lin Dong for the past two years. Even when Qingqing goes to the airport, she hides inside the crowd. Lin Dong… he really kept the perfume we gave him?”
Chen Zheng nodded. “All of it is in a display cabinet at his home, somewhere very conspicuous.”
Liu Xun’s nose stung. “Qingqing didn’t choose the wrong person to admire.” Suddenly she stared at him. “You went to Lin Dong’s home… does that mean something really happened to him?”
Chen Zheng asked, “What have you heard? And if Liu Qing decided to step away from Lin Dong, why did she suddenly attack Huo Yewei?”
Liu Xun looked flustered and shook her head. “Qingqing’s been in a terrible state lately. I asked if something happened, and unusually, she brought up Lin Dong. She hardly ever talks about him anymore. Suddenly she said there was trouble at his company, Lin Dong still hadn’t appeared, and his studio had released no news at all.”
When Lin Dong was obscure and struggling, Liu Qing had been a protector. When he became the center of millions of people’s attention, she quietly stepped back. Now that Lin Dong was in trouble, she was still the person who worried about him most.
“Qingqing has always hated Huo Yewei,” Liu Xun said. “She spent these past few days reading a lot online. I usually stay in the workshop and didn’t know exactly what was happening. On the seventeenth, I suddenly got a call from police telling me to come pick someone up. That’s when I learned Huo Yewei had returned and Qingqing had nearly hit him with a bottle.”
Liu Xun rushed to the police station. Huo Yewei was not there, but his assistant was relatively easy to deal with. She apologized repeatedly and made Liu Qing apologize too. With an officer watching, Liu Qing apologized very reluctantly. On the way home, Liu Xun could not help scolding her.
“I thought you’d grown up and matured. Didn’t you say you weren’t going to interfere in Lin Dong’s business anymore? Why did you go provoke Huo Yewei? What if you actually hurt him? Do you know how big and powerful the Huo family is? They aren’t people a little household like ours can compare with.”
Liu Qing lost her usual obedience. “Lin Dong disappeared! He’s never gone this long without any news before! Huo Yewei definitely did something!”
“I know better than you what the entertainment industry is like! Yunxiang is in trouble, so of course he’s lying low. Why would he come out now?” Liu Xun reprimanded her. “Even if Huo Yewei did something, what can you do about it? Go home and think about what you’ve done!”
Once they got home, she locked Liu Qing in and asked Zheng Feilong to help keep watch.
lake had been developing a new product recently, so Liu Xun spent long periods at the factory. On the afternoon of the eighteenth, she went home to check. The housekeeper said Liu Qing was still inside, had eaten, and seemed emotionally stable. Relieved, Liu Xun returned to the workshop and stayed there until now.
“I… I didn’t know Qingqing went out!” she said urgently. “But no matter what happened, she could never kill anyone! I raised her. I know her!”
“But the fact is Liu Qing may have participated in the murder.” Ming Han opened a video. At six in the evening on the eighteenth, Liu Qing left home wearing a navy outdoor jacket and hat with a black backpack. She kept looking around, visibly cautious. Judging from her direction, she was probably heading toward Huo Yewei’s house. At that time, Huo Yewei’s little concert had just ended. Fans were gradually leaving, though a few still lingered nearby.
At eight that evening, surveillance near the Huo residence captured Liu Qing again. She looked toward the villa as though waiting for something. Not long after she disappeared from the camera, the Huo house surveillance system, which normally ran continuously, lost power.
“This set of footprints most likely belongs to Liu Qing.” Ming Han handed Chen Zheng a comparison image. “The trace team just collected all her shoes. The tread patterns are different, but the size and wear caused by her walking habits are very similar.”
Chen Zheng said, “Liu Qing entered the villa at nine, shut down the surveillance, fled after the crime, and left bloody footprints. What about the other set?”
Ming Han shook his head. “Men’s size-42 athletic shoes. We don’t have a specific comparison target yet. But I remember Lin Dong wears size 42 too. The tread is similar to the shoes he wore when he disappeared.”
“Liu Qing and Lin Dong worked together to kill Huo Yewei?” Chen Zheng considered it. “Logically, it’s possible. Have you compared them with Lin Dong’s prints?”
“How could they possibly be done already?” Ming Han said. “Lin Dong vanished voluntarily just so he could kill Huo Yewei? He never seemed to care about this man. Huo Yewei was the one constantly attaching himself to Lin Dong.”
“So Liu Qing conspired with someone else, and that person wore shoes like Lin Dong’s?” Chen Zheng wrote in his notebook as he thought. “Liu Qing grew up around Junan Lake and knows Weimo Mountain Resort better than anyone. She may know Huo Yewei’s villa better than Huo Yewei himself. She’d be the ideal accomplice. But she didn’t do the killing. The killer drove a knife through Huo Yewei’s heart, then cut open the body afterward and slowly watched ink pour over the organs. She couldn’t do that.”
“Right, Bro.” Ming Han interrupted. “I thought of another interpretation for the ink. Maybe the killer wasn’t saying Huo Yewei had a black heart.”
Chen Zheng looked up. “Hm?”
Ming Han said, “Maybe they were mocking the idea that Huo Yewei had ‘a belly full of learning.’ Why else would most of the ink be in his abdomen? Huo Yewei’s whole image was that of a talented intellectual. Not just talented in music, but knowledgeable about everything.”
Chen Zheng immediately added that point to his notebook, then said, “What we just discussed is one possibility: Liu Qing helped the killer, and after the murder they both fled. But there’s another possibility. Liu Qing may already be in grave danger.”
Ming Han narrowed his eyes. “She saw something she shouldn’t and was silenced?”
Chen Zheng stood and took a few steps. “Liu Xun says Liu Qing is terrible at hiding her emotions. Love and hatred both show clearly on her face, but at heart she’s kind. I’m wondering, would she really hate Huo Yewei enough over Lin Dong to join someone else in murdering him?”
“She already vented her anger with that beer bottle,” Ming Han said. “Huo Yewei’s arrival was sudden, and she lost control because she was worried about Lin Dong. If she had already planned a murder, why expose herself first and even end up at the police station? Once she did that, the moment Huo Yewei died, all eyes would go straight to her.”
Chen Zheng nodded and followed that line of thought. “At the station, maybe she regretted it a little. But Liu Xun rushed to settle, forced her to apologize, then locked her up. Her youthful rebelliousness flared and she wanted to do something again.” He bent over his notes. “There are two paths from there. She went to Huo Yewei’s house to force him to tell her what happened to Lin Dong, or… she only wanted to teach him another lesson?”
“She took photography equipment with her,” Ming Han said. “It was in the backpack. She wanted to capture something.”
“Then it fits,” Chen Zheng said. “Photography is what she’s good at. From her perspective, there wasn’t much she could do. Exposing what Huo Yewei was like in private was one option. She may have wanted material to threaten him, or simply to tear apart his public image. But that night the killer came to the house. She saw the murder scene and fled in panic.”
Ming Han said, “The killer wouldn’t let her go, and wouldn’t let whatever she captured get out either. That’s why she’s now ‘missing.’”
Chen Zheng sighed. “Right. Then there’s the second path. The killer seized the opportunity created by Liu Qing throwing the beer bottle and used her. They may have known each other, or only come into contact on the eighteenth. The killer persuaded Liu Qing to cut the surveillance. Most likely they never told her what they truly planned to do, only that they wanted to teach Huo Yewei a lesson. Liu Qing is inexperienced and was easily drawn in. Once she completed her role, the killer wouldn’t let her survive.”
Ming Han said, “So there’s a good chance we’re going to find another body.”