Xie Wuming frowned. “I’m not sure. She looks a lot like someone I knew. I had a junior schoolmate named Zhu Yi. We lost touch after she graduated.”
“Then I’ll ask Director Chen!” Xu Chuan said.
At that very moment, Chen Zheng called. Xu Chuan’s eyes lit up, and he answered in a torrent of words. “Director Chen! How’ve you been? Is it cold over in Junan? I was just about to call you! Xie-jie and I are looking through cases from Junan, and she spotted someone in a case file who used to be her junior at university…”
Chen Zheng moved the phone slightly away, intending to wait out Xu Chuan’s verbal barrage. Then he heard, “That junior’s name is Zhu Yi!”
He immediately brought the phone back to his ear. “Put Xiao Xie on.”
Xu Chuan blinked, confused. “Huh?”
Xie Wuming had already heard Chen Zheng. She took the phone straight from Xu Chuan’s hand. “Director Chen, it’s Xiao Xie.”
“Xu Chuan just said you knew Zhu Yi?”
Xie Wuming’s heartbeat accelerated. “Yes. We both graduated from Han Province University of Political Science and Law. I was three years ahead of her. Director Chen, has something happened to Zhu Yi?”
Chen Zheng paused. “We were originally investigating Huo Yewei’s murder, but some leads brought us to Yongshen Law Firm. Zhu Yi interned there.”
Xie Wuming’s throat felt dry. “And then?”
“During her internship she met a man from Yuanshu Township and gave up her job at the firm,” Chen Zheng said. “She has now… died of an illness.”
Xie Wuming’s eyes widened. She slowly sat down, unable to accept it. “How could that happen?”
Xu Chuan was beside himself, scratching his head in agitation. “What? What is it? Xie-jie, let me hear too!”
Chen Zheng briefly explained what he’d learned about Zhu Yi and Yi Lei, then continued, “There are too many questionable things about Zhu Yi, and the clues involve her six fellow interns. It’s too much to explain quickly. Xiao Xie, what was she like at university?”
Xie Wuming’s thoughts were in chaos. Still reeling from the news, she said, “D-Director Chen, I don’t think I can explain it right now.”
“That’s all right. Let me speak to Xu Chuan for a moment.”
Xu Chuan grabbed the phone. “Hello, hello! Director Chen!”
Chen Zheng told him he wanted the institute involved in this investigation. Xu Chuan was beside himself with excitement. Forgetting his place, he exclaimed, “I knew you were incredibly useful! You’re our institute’s brightest trump card!”
Chen Zheng said nothing.
Xu Chuan clapped a hand over his mouth. “Director Chen, I’m sorry! I’ll pack right away and come tomorrow!”
“Director Chen, I’ll come too,” Xie Wuming said. “I’ll spend tonight thinking carefully about Zhu Yi.”
Researchers needed approval from their superiors to travel for work. It was after office hours, so Xu Chuan went looking for Bin Fa. The institute director’s office was locked, and Bin Fa didn’t answer his phone. “Xie-jie, should we wait until Director Bin comes to work tomorrow and then file our travel request?”
Xie Wuming wanted to leave for Junan City immediately. “No. That would waste too much time.”
“Then should we just go?”
“Director Bin hasn’t been around much lately. He might not come in tomorrow either.”
Xu Chuan thought back. “True. I haven’t seen him for a while. What’s he so busy with? Never mind. Our direct superior is Director Chen anyway. We’ll take this as him approving the trip!”
On the morning of the twenty-second, just as Chen Zheng was preparing to visit Gezi Town Police Station, Xu Chuan called. The man was like a machine fitted with an engine, energetic at night and full of spirit by day. “Director Chen, Xie-jie and I are here!”
“You’re already here?”
“Xie-jie couldn’t wait! She dragged me out in the middle of the night! Ugh, my back aches from all that driving, and I haven’t even had breakfast!”
Chen Zheng sent him the address. “Come over. Breakfast is on me.”
The town’s breakfast shop was bustling. Chen Zheng and Wen Wu came over from the guesthouse, and Wen Wu, familiar with the area, ordered four bowls of chicken-broth wontons. When Xu Chuan learned Wen Wu was a teammate of Ming Han’s, his adoration was impossible to hide. His eyes went from two dots to searchlights. He stared so intensely that Wen Wu carried his bowl to another table. Xu Chuan promptly followed him.
“Let them be. We’ll eat here,” Chen Zheng said. “Xiao Xie, how much do you remember about Zhu Yi?”
After a night to calm herself, Xie Wuming answered steadily. “Zhu Yi wanted to become a lawyer to help people like herself. Even I haven’t completely left the legal world behind. She, of all people, would never have abandoned it for some so-called romance.”
“People like herself?”
Xie Wuming nodded. “Zhu Yi grew up in an orphanage…”
Her account differed from what Yi Lei claimed Zhu Yi had told him. Zhu Yi had indeed grown up in an orphanage, but she entered after her mother died, not her father. Zhu Yi’s mother had been beautiful. She left to work in Luocheng while still a teenager. With little education, she could only find reasonably paid work in nightlife establishments.
Before giving birth to Zhu Yi, her mother had become pregnant several times. During the last pregnancy, a doctor warned that another abortion might mean she would never be able to have a child. She couldn’t bring herself to terminate the pregnancy, so she stopped working for a while and gave birth.
Zhu Yi had no father present from birth. Her mother never told her who he was, and perhaps didn’t know herself. Though her mother’s profession wasn’t socially respectable, she never neglected Zhu Yi, doing everything she could to give her daughter an ordinary life. But when Zhu Yi was five, her mother died.
Zhu Yi had to live in an orphanage, which could provide only the bare necessities. Her mother’s friends helped her, taking turns bringing her out to have fun and see the wider world. Zhu Yi did very well in middle school and high school, and the women rewarded her with money, even pooling funds to pay for extra lessons.
The words they most often told her were, “Xiao Yi, you and us, we’ve all had hard lives. We don’t want to live this way either, but we don’t have a choice anymore. You’re still young. You have a future. Please, never let yourself fall into the same life.”
Zhu Yi nodded solemnly, promising that one day she would stand on her own feet and help many more people.
But after Zhu Yi became an adult, her mother’s friends broke off contact of their own accord. They told her their work was disreputable, while Zhu Yi had earned a place at university through honest effort and could now support herself. She shouldn’t associate with women like them anymore.
Zhu Yi had told Xie Wuming all of this after they became acquainted.
At the time, Zhu Yi was a first-year student and Xie Wuming was in her final year, worried about employment. On the one hand, she wanted to try becoming a lawyer. On the other, her family preferred a more stable career, perhaps as a researcher.
She didn’t have much time left on campus. Once, the student union invited her to give a talk to first-years. Zhu Yi, smiling as she spoke about her dreams, left a deep impression. Xie Wuming herself had been idealistic as a freshman, but reality had gradually worn that down. Becoming a lawyer was no longer her first choice. Even so, she couldn’t help drawing closer to someone who shone so brightly.
Zhu Yi worked at a milk tea shop off campus. Xie Wuming sometimes went there to sit, and whenever she had time Zhu Yi would chat with her. Although Xie Wuming was the senior student, Zhu Yi had far more life experience. She discussed problems rationally and with remarkable clarity.
Only then did Xie Wuming understand the difference between them. Her own freshman idealism had arisen from naivety, from not yet knowing hardship. Zhu Yi’s idealism had endured and accepted suffering, becoming something far more resilient.
To Xie Wuming, Zhu Yi seemed to shine.
But they hadn’t actually spent much time together. Before graduating, Xie Wuming went to Zhuquan City for an internship and only returned to collect her diploma in August. She happened to see Zhu Yi, who was still living at the university during the summer vacation.
Zhu Yi was delighted to hear that Xie Wuming had secured a job. But Xie Wuming felt faintly sad. This little sun had warmed her without changing her. She treated Zhu Yi to dessert, and Zhu Yi accompanied her to the station. Even after she boarded, she could still see Zhu Yi smiling and waving.
That was the last time they saw each other, though Xie Wuming didn’t know it then.
Once Xie Wuming entered the working world, everything from university gradually faded. She repeated the same tasks at the institute day after day and lost touch with most of her classmates. Sometimes she wanted to chat with Zhu Yi, but when she saw her profile sunk to the bottom of her contact list, she hesitated for ages before abandoning the idea.
What could she talk to Zhu Yi about now? She used to be the admired senior student, but she’d become another boring office worker. Suddenly sending a message asking “Are you there?” or “How have you been?” would only make things awkward.
Two years earlier, however, she had returned to Luocheng. Walking through the familiar campus brought Zhu Yi to mind again. She must have graduated by then. Where was she practicing law? How many people had she helped? Finally Xie Wuming couldn’t resist messaging her, only to be met with the glaring red notice that Zhu Yi had deleted her.
An indescribable sense of loss spread through her. Why had Zhu Yi removed her? Was she clearing out old contacts? Or had she heard that Xie Wuming had become a mediocre worker just drifting through life? Xie Wuming told herself not to dwell on it, but couldn’t stop thinking about Zhu Yi.
Not long afterward, she met someone from Zhu Yi’s year through work. During a casual conversation, she mentioned Zhu Yi as though by chance. The other person was surprised. “Senior, you know Zhu Yi too?”
“I remember her saying she wanted to become a lawyer.” Xie Wuming smiled.
But the person sighed. “None of us knows what became of her. She vanished as soon as she graduated. It seems she didn’t keep in touch with anybody.”
“We thought perhaps she’d gone off to do something important,” Xie Wuming said, her eyes reddening. “I never imagined… How could she have suddenly gone and married someone?”
Presented with the two versions, Chen Zheng naturally found Xie Wuming’s more credible. Both Xie Wuming and Yi Lei claimed to have heard Zhu Yi’s background from Zhu Yi herself. She’d been a freshman when she spoke to Xie Wuming. She had no reason to lie to an older student she liked, and discussing family and childhood was normal between close friends.
By the time she supposedly told Yi Lei about her past, however, she was a mature adult considering marriage. Given her character, her falling in love with Yi Lei was suspicious to begin with, making it harder to trust what he said she’d told him. Or perhaps Yi Lei had simply invented the entire account to deceive the police.
“Director Chen, Zhu Yi wasn’t the kind of person Yi Lei described,” Xie Wuming said firmly. “I could accept her suddenly falling for someone who… didn’t deserve her. But Yi Lei says she grew tired of village life after having a child, gave up on herself, and contracted a disease. That’s impossible!”
Chen Zheng had found that account absurd the day before. Having now learned about Zhu Yi’s mother and the women who had helped raise her, he agreed with Xie Wuming even more strongly.
“Finish your breakfast,” he said. “Then come find me at the police station.”
Chief Zhou at Gezi Town Police Station received Chen Zheng. Chen Zheng held several titles, but simply introduced himself as someone from the Zhuquan Research Institute who had come to investigate older cases from the town’s surrounding villages.
He produced Zhu Yi’s photograph. “Do you recognize her?”
Chief Zhou shook his head and searched the records. “We haven’t handled any cases involving her.”
Chen Zheng asked about Yi Lei too, but there was no record.
Chief Zhou grew anxious. “Director Chen, what exactly are you investigating?”
“Has anything unusual happened in Yuanshu Township over the past four years?”
Chief Zhou immediately frowned.
“So there has?”
Chief Zhou sighed. “Director Chen, you have no idea how difficult those villages around Yuanshu Township are to manage!”
Because the local economy was underdeveloped, the villages under Gezi Town’s jurisdiction had retained many harmful customs. These couldn’t be changed overnight. If the authorities tried to move even a little too quickly, the villagers pushed back furiously.
Women still had very low status in places like Yuanshu, Yuanzhi, and Yuanye Townships. They worked like beasts of burden at home, then, when they became mothers-in-law, oppressed their own daughters-in-law in turn. The police station visited the villages every year, inspecting conditions and giving educational talks. It wasn’t that there had been no improvement at all, but the situation was nothing like in the cities.
Women forced to rise early and work late serving their husbands and in-laws had grown up seeing their mothers do the same. To them it seemed normal. Rather than welcome the police, they resented officers for disrupting their lives. Every time the police visited, the women found ways to defend those mistreating them.
Villages also had a tradition of exchanging brides through marriage. In effect, a family would “sell” its daughter to secure a wife for a son. Happiness in such marriages was almost nonexistent. The only people who might be happy were the men and their parents. A woman’s birth family would never intervene on her behalf. Once married, she belonged to someone else’s family, and they considered her no longer their concern.
Chief Zhou complained, “It’s really hard for us. We want to intervene, but gentle measures do nothing. If we’re more forceful, they know how to complain to our superiors, saying we mistreat ordinary people. And then there are those private charities. They come claiming to help, distribute food and drink, and make it look like charity work. But they ignore the villages’ real problems, film some footage, and leave.”
“Four years ago, Zhu Yi came here as a legal outreach volunteer. Nothing happened then?”
Chief Zhou said no, but suddenly stopped. “Wait a moment. Around that time, there was a woman in Yuanshu Township who’d apparently been trafficked. Her parents came and took her home.”
Chen Zheng immediately asked, “Who was she? What happened?”
Chief Zhou quickly found the record, although it didn’t mention trafficking. The woman was named Mei Rui, twenty-two at the time, originally from Junan City. She had lived in Yuanshu Township for three years, was in a de facto marriage with a villager named Li Jiangbao, and had given birth to a son and daughter.
Mei Rui’s parents came to the police station, saying they’d heard that their daughter, who had been missing for years, might be in Yuanshu Township. They asked the police to help. Officers duly found Mei Rui in the Li household. Her elderly parents embraced her and wept in a moving reunion.
It seemed obvious to anyone with eyes that Mei Rui had been trafficked into Yuanshu Township, and the police prepared to investigate. But the next day, Mei Rui insisted she hadn’t been abducted. At seventeen she’d had a fierce argument with her parents and run away, unwilling to stay at home another moment. She got into trouble and was fortunate to meet Li Jiangbao, who saved her from being beaten to death by thugs. Grateful to him, she returned to Yuanshu Township with him.
After growing up in the city, she felt this was where she truly belonged. Li Jiangbao was devoted to his parents, and she followed his example, serving the family wholeheartedly. Gradually she came to believe this life was deeply meaningful.
She repeatedly insisted she’d stayed voluntarily and that the Li family treated her well. Mei Rui’s parents had apparently reached some arrangement with Li Jiangbao and also spoke in his favor.
Chief Zhou guessed the two children had tied Mei Rui to the village, forcing her parents to accept the situation. If Li Jiangbao were deemed responsible for trafficking her, what would become of the children?
The police station had little room to intervene. As far as Chief Zhou knew, Mei Rui and her daughter returned to Junan City with her parents, while her son remained with the Li family. During inspections over the past two years, officers had seen that the little boy had grown into a wild, overbearing child.
Chen Zheng had become alert the moment he heard Mei Rui’s name. In the Huyun Tea Factory disappearance case, the last missing minor was named Mei Rui, and her parents, Mei Feng and Li Ping, were now nowhere to be found either.
“How did Mei Rui’s parents know to come looking here?” Chen Zheng asked.
Chief Zhou shook his head. “I asked them myself, but they absolutely refused to tell me.”
Chen Zheng became serious. “We’re investigating Mei Rui’s case too. Six other teenagers the same age disappeared from her small factory community.”
Chief Zhou swallowed nervously and hurried through the records. “Ah, yes, there was something about that. Mei… Mei Feng mentioned it. Later, other people came looking for children too, and we helped them. But none of their children were here.”
“Which people?”
Chief Zhou pointed out the incident record. The names were clearly listed: Zhou Xia, Zeng Hong, Gong Xiaoyang, Lu Feng, and Wang Wanjian.
Chief Zhou explained anxiously that they’d been extremely forceful, especially Zhou Xia and Gong Xiaoyang. They insisted that since Mei Rui had been found in Gezi Town, the other children must be there too. But after searching, they found no one. Apparently new leads came from Junan City, and they all rushed back together. None had returned since.
Chen Zheng noticed the date Mei Rui was taken home. It was four months after Zhu Yi arrived in Yuanshu Township. Zhu Yi had given birth to Yi Lei’s child a year after that.
“Have there been similar cases in Yuanshu Township or the neighboring villages? Women from elsewhere being taken home by their families?”
“No. This is the only case we know of. If Mei Rui’s parents hadn’t come here first, and if they’d not negotiated with the Li family and taken her away themselves, we wouldn’t have known.”
Seeing Chen Zheng’s brow furrowed, Chief Zhou asked, “Teacher Chen, is there something seriously wrong with Huyun Tea Factory? It’s such a famous business.”
Yes, Huyun Tea Factory was famous. It had a long history and broad appeal throughout Han Province. It sold expensive tea suitable for gifts and displays of status, as well as flavored varieties adapted to younger consumers’ tastes. Lu Hejing had drunk its black tea for decades, and Chen Zheng had given him some on several occasions.
The problem wasn’t Huyun Tea Factory. It was the people who had come out of it.
Earlier investigations had linked the four missing tourists from Weimo Mountain Resort only tenuously. All that really connected them was that they happened to stay at Shanshui House. Si Wei’s group and Zhou Xia’s didn’t know one another and moved in entirely different circles. At most, they might have passed each other in the guesthouse lobby.
Now, however, connections between them were gradually coming to light.
Back in Junan City, Ming Han was using the Gu Qiang case file to locate Zhou Xijun, the legal-aid lawyer who had defended Liao Huaimeng. Zhou was twenty-seven at the time, working at an obscure little firm. The firm had since shut down, and its owner had gone into the restaurant business, with fairly good results.
“Looking for Zhou Xijun?” The former proprietor personally cooked Ming Han a dish, shaking his head. “I heard he went abroad. No idea where. Why, has he gotten himself into trouble?”
“Do you know about the Gu Qiang case?”
The proprietor scraped his chair across the floor as he moved it, surprised. “Of course! Zhou Xijun defended the accused. Wait, are you saying there was something wrong with the case?”
“How did your firm get assigned to it?”
The proprietor thought carefully. The firm had been doing so badly that nobody, himself included, could attract clients. They survived on unprofitable legal-aid cases, and he’d already been considering closing the firm before Gu Qiang’s murder. Zhou Xijun was young and ambitious. While everyone else handled legal-aid work perfunctorily, he tackled every case conscientiously and with extraordinary dedication.
Gu Qiang’s murder was a massive event in Junan’s legal circles. Everyone wondered who would handle the defense. The proprietor secretly wanted the case but knew such a high-profile assignment would never go to a tiny outfit like his. To his amazement, Liao Huaimeng didn’t hire a defense lawyer. The court therefore had to assign her a legal-aid attorney. Zhou Xijun happened to be waiting for work, and the assignment fell to him.
The profession was stunned. Everyone assumed Liao Huaimeng would receive the death penalty with immediate execution. But Zhou Xijun worked day and night, challenged the prosecution, made skillful use of public opinion, and somehow won a life sentence for her.
Suddenly Zhou Xijun was bathed in praise, and the proprietor felt proud of him. He even began thinking he could keep the firm open. Every day he spoke enthusiastically to Zhou about the future and invited him to become a partner. At first Zhou responded warmly, but gradually began avoiding him. When pressed, he finally said he was leaving the country.
Zhou Xijun departed almost immediately. Without its star lawyer, the firm soon closed.
The proprietor rubbed the back of his head and smiled bitterly. “I guess I was dreaming too big. Why would a lawyer like him settle for being my partner?”
Zhou Xijun came from another province and vanished from contact after leaving. Ming Han could only determine that he’d gone to Country A. His parents were divorced, and both had remarried and had children with their new spouses. They knew Zhou had gone abroad but had no idea how he was doing.
Zhou Xijun’s sudden departure and disappearance made the Gu Qiang case even more puzzling. Just then, the Mobile Unit delivered a major lead. The day before, police had found suspicious medication at one of Huo Yewei’s residences. Tests confirmed it was the same psychiatric drug detected in his body. It was highly similar to the drug Chen Zheng had previously brought back from Nanshan City, an upgraded, improved version of it.
More than a decade earlier, Xue Chenwen had used large quantities of psychiatric medication of unknown origin while suffering severe mental distress. He eventually died of organ failure in a detention center. Now Huo Yewei, who also struggled with psychological problems, had been using an evolved replacement. Unlike Xue Chenwen, he hadn’t died of the drug. Perhaps he’d been taking it for a shorter period, or perhaps the newer formulation was less harmful.
But a terrifying fact had emerged. Somewhere beyond the police’s awareness, a kind of narcotic was quietly evolving, extending its criminal reach.