Li Jiangbao glanced at Xu Chuan. “Officers, I’m upset too. I never wanted any of this to happen. Why don’t we all take a moment?”
“Do you know what’s happened to Mei Rui?” Chen Zheng’s voice suddenly came from the phone carrying the live interview. His tone was perfectly steady, as though Zhu Yi’s suffering hadn’t affected him at all.
Li Jiangbao hurriedly turned toward the phone. “I-I don’t know! Officer, listen to me. I swear I never went back to bother her family! Her father wouldn’t let me contact her, and I know I wronged her. I kept my word!”
“Then you don’t know she died by suicide a few months after returning home?”
Li Jiangbao didn’t seem to process it. “I don’t know. How could I possibly kn— What did you say? Suicide? Who?”
“Mei Rui. She jumped from a building with your daughter in her arms. Neither survived.”
Li Jiangbao sat as motionless as a wooden statue, as though he’d been struck by lightning. Chen Zheng asked several more questions, but Li Jiangbao’s eyes did not move, and he made no response.
“Director Chen?” Xu Chuan asked. “Should we keep questioning him?”
Chen Zheng observed him for a moment. “Let’s leave it there for now.”
It was late, and continuing to interrogate a suspect would violate procedure. But even if the suspects could rest, Chen Zheng could not stop. He’d considered before that someone like Zhu Yi, who voluntarily remained in Yuanshu Township, was unlikely to be simply a woman blinded by romance. She had wanted to become the key that freed the village women from their shackles.
Li Jiangbao had now supplied most of the answer. Zhu Yi had used Yi Lei. At first glance, Yi Lei really did seem more educated and open-minded than the other villagers. Zhu Yi had chosen him partly to use him, partly because she believed he wouldn’t hurt her and might even be persuaded to help liberate the women.
Zhu Yi knew she was taking a risk, but thought she possessed another safeguard: Yi Lei was supposedly incapable of sex. What she hadn’t realized was that Yi Lei had been calculating against her from the moment she began making use of him.
Chen Zheng turned his gaze toward the evidence wall. Dong Jing, Zhu Xiaodi, Si Wei, Du Ying, Zhang Pin and Li Ren. These six had been Zhu Yi’s colleagues. At first they all shared similar ideals, but apart from Zhu Yi, they had all backed down.
Yet even Chen Zheng, who’d never met Zhu Yi, could reconstruct her intentions years later. Could six colleagues who spent every day with her truly have known nothing?
No. Impossible. They must have known, perhaps even discussed the plan with her. Zhu Yi had been an outstanding student and was highly regarded by He Mei. She could not have been merely an idealist; she must have had considerable practical judgment too. If she dared venture in alone, it meant she believed she was not truly alone. Her colleagues were supposed to support her from outside and ensure her safety.
At least, that was what she had believed when the operation began.
Mei Feng had learned that Mei Rui was in Yuanshu Township because someone passed him information. Zhu Yi might not have been able to contact Mei Feng directly, but she could certainly have sent the information to a colleague, who would act as the intermediary. That must have been their plan, and up to that point everything had gone smoothly.
Yet after sending the information, Zhu Yi had been imprisoned by Yi Lei. If her colleagues could not reach her for a prolonged period, they should have called the police or asked Yongshen Law Firm for help. From any angle, rescuing her should not have been difficult. According to Li Jiangbao, even Yi Lei spent a long time afraid someone would come.
But no one came to save Zhu Yi. She had no parents. She was an orphan. The women who had helped raise her wanted her to have an unblemished future and had deliberately stepped back once she became an adult.
Only at this point in her life had the world truly forgotten her.
Yi Lei knew at last that no one was coming, and that was why he dared do whatever he pleased. He was the murderer who took Zhu Yi’s life and dignity. But what of the colleagues Zhu Yi had trusted? Were they accomplices in some sense too?
Then Dong Jing had to die, and perhaps Zhu Xiaodi had already been killed. Without the Huo Yewei case, the killer would have continued.
Chen Zheng faced the cold wind, his breath misting white before his eyes. The strange feeling he’d had when first encountering Du Ying and the others finally had an explanation. Perhaps they all knew what happened to Zhu Yi and had abandoned her anyway. Someone had gathered them at Weimo Mountain Resort not to celebrate the New Year, but to settle accounts.
And yet, who was directing this? If the person could gather all the former interns, why had they failed to save Zhu Yi back then? And why hadn’t they gone after Yi Lei?
Chen Zheng thought about it for a long time. He had a rough answer to the last question: once police began investigating, Yi Lei would be arrested and face legal judgment. The others would not. They might not even spend a day in prison.
The killer was extraordinarily meticulous, even arranging for Dong Jing to book the guesthouse himself.
There were still many unanswered questions. Chen Zheng rubbed his temples. He couldn’t stay awake any longer. Questioning Yi Lei after dawn would be another hard battle.
Given the poor facilities at the Gezi Town station, Yi Lei and the others were transferred to Junan City. Acting on the information Li Jiangbao provided, officers searched Jianya Township and neighboring villages, arresting a group of men implicated in the abuse of Zhu Yi.
Xie Wuming and Xu Chuan remained in Gezi Town to help with the investigation. Aqiong approached Xie Wuming and stood before her with her mouth slightly open, hesitating. Xie Wuming had cried through the night without sleeping, yet her mind was almost feverishly alert. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
At last, Aqiong spoke. “Big Sister, I don’t want to be their slave. Please save me.”
At the Junan Municipal Bureau, Chen Zheng pushed open the interrogation room door. Yi Lei’s eyes immediately flashed with malice.
“Li Jiangbao and those ‘customers’ of yours have been making statements one after another,” Chen Zheng said. “Zhu Yi died because of what you did to her.”
Yi Lei laughed loudly. “She died of her own disease! What does that have to do with me? Who told her to be so shameless?”
“Then why did she contract it?” Chen Zheng said. “Your cousin knows better than I do.”
Yi Lei’s face twitched. After a long while, he gave a sinister smile. “So what? She’s a wife of the Yi family. She was supposed to work like an ox for me and my family! She even dared frame me, use me as a stepping stone. She deserved it!”
It was hard to imagine that places like Yuanshu Township, and people like Yi Lei, still existed in this day and age. They knew nothing of the law and assumed ancestral traditions were the law itself. To them, it was only natural that women should serve the entire family, just as it was natural for Aqiong’s parents to sell her to Yi Lei. Zhu Yi had used him, so he was entitled to take revenge. Zhu Yi had died a miserable death from disease? That was the punishment of a woman without “womanly virtue”!
Yi Lei’s brazen laughter echoed around the interrogation room. He was more cruel than Li Jiangbao and most of the other villagers. He had read more books than they had, and had absorbed every ounce of the educated person’s capacity for cutting words and cold-hearted malice.
Chen Zheng knew trying to reason with him about morality or the law was like playing music to a cow. He changed the subject. “Who was helping Zhu Yi?”
Yi Lei froze, as expected.
“If you already knew she was using you, you must have known someone was supporting her outside. Who was that person?”
Yi Lei frowned without answering.
“Let me be more specific,” Chen Zheng said. “Which of the law interns was it?”
“You don’t know?” Yi Lei asked.
“I want to know whether you do.”
After a long pause, Yi Lei ground out, “She wouldn’t tell me!”
“Didn’t you have her phone?”
“But I couldn’t see the messages she’d deleted!” Yi Lei spoke, nodding as if the words were confirming his own thoughts. “Yes, that’s right. Someone was supporting her from outside. That’s the person who told on us about Mei Rui! If Mei Rui hadn’t been concerned about Li Jiangbao, your police would’ve destroyed our whole village!”
Chen Zheng frowned and laid the photographs of Dong Jing and the others on the table one by one. “Think again. Which of them was Zhu Yi closest to?”
Yi Lei studied the pictures and pointed a grimy finger at Dong Jing. “This one.”
Zhu Yi had been closest to Dong Jing? And Dong Jing was now the one who’d been killed? In the hallway outside the interrogation room, Chen Zheng tried to work out how the pieces fit. No, Yi Lei might simply have pointed to someone at random. From what they currently knew, all the former interns were clearly entangled.
At first they’d tacitly avoided mentioning Zhu Yi at all. Later they’d been evasive and unwilling to say much. How would they react now?
“Did you hear the commotion outside just now? Do you know who arrived?” Chen Zheng asked as he sat down across from Si Wei.
Si Wei looked far more haggard than before, and her reactions were slower. “Who?”
“People from Yuanshu Township. Li Jiangbao, Yi Lei, and a dozen or so others who together drove Zhu Yi to her death.”
Hearing Zhu Yi’s name jolted Si Wei awake. She stared straight at Chen Zheng. “Th-they…”
“Yi Lei has admitted to raping and imprisoning Zhu Yi,” Chen Zheng said. “He also mentioned that from the first moment Zhu Yi showed interest in him, he saw she and you were only trying to use him.”
Si Wei’s eyes widened gradually. Her hands flew over her mouth. She looked stunned and unwilling to believe it.
“He said he turned the tables and deliberately ‘welcomed’ Zhu Yi when she came to him,” Chen Zheng continued. “He even told her that an injury in the mountains had made him ‘useless’ in that regard, so that she’d lower her guard.”
Si Wei shook her head faintly, murmuring something under her breath.
“Even Yi Lei knew Zhu Yi approached him with a purpose, and that she had someone backing her up,” Chen Zheng said, watching Si Wei. “As her colleague, do you really expect me to believe you knew nothing about her intentions?”
Si Wei kept shaking her head, but her eyes betrayed her. She dropped her hands and asked helplessly, “Zhu Yi… what exactly did she go through in the end?”
“Terrible things,” Chen Zheng said with a frown. “In all these years, only one woman from Yuanshu Township managed to escape her chains. But long before that happened, Yi Lei discovered what Zhu Yi was doing and locked her in a cellar. She never escaped, not even before she died, while men were free to come and go.”
Si Wei began to shake. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Why are you sorry?” Chen Zheng asked. “Because you lost contact with her and knew something terrible must have happened, but never went to rescue her? Yi Lei said he spent a long time afraid. He didn’t dare hurt Zhu Yi during that period, because he knew her colleagues would come as soon as she disappeared. But Zhu Yi waited and waited, and no one ever came.”
Si Wei covered her ears and shook her head. “No. No!”
Chen Zheng continued, “So much time passed that even Yi Lei became convinced you’d abandoned her, that none of you cared whether she lived or died. Then he could do anything he wanted, and there was no longer anyone in the world who could hear Zhu Yi calling for help.”
“Ah!” Si Wei screamed. “That’s not how it happened! I wasn’t working with her! I never received any message from her!”
“Then what happened?”
Si Wei gasped for air. Only after a long while did she calm down enough to speak. “She… Zhu Yi approaching Yi Lei was… it was our idea. At first she was afraid to do it.”
“She didn’t suggest it? You did?”
Si Wei nodded miserably. “I was selfish. Every one of us was selfish!”
Of the seven interns He Mei had supervised, Si Wei had been among the last to arrive. Her academic performance was average, but she was outgoing, good-looking and skilled at getting along with people. Those three traits gave her a significant advantage among the interns.
Unlike most of the young lawyers who hoped to build brilliant careers at Yongshen Law Firm, she was not especially interested in law or the work itself. She’d enrolled in law simply because her exam score was sufficient.
Her real ambition was to find an outstanding, wealthy husband at a prestigious firm and enjoy life as a rich man’s wife. So each day she arrived at the firm dressed to impress, smiling at everyone like a brightly colored butterfly.
Things did not work out as hoped. The interns rarely had a chance to meet the firm’s top lawyers, and even their supervising lawyer was a woman.
If anything, Si Wei was more interested in He Mei than the others. He Mei was beautiful and tall, and reportedly highly capable. Sometimes Si Wei imagined that if she could reach He Mei’s professional standard and copy the way she dressed, wealthy men would be lining up. There were rumors around the firm that He Mei was involved with a prominent lawyer.
Before long, Si Wei’s attention shifted because Dong Jing began courting her. She wasn’t surprised. With her, the group had only three young women. In her eyes, Du Ying and Zhu Yi were both dowdy. Zhu Yi was lively enough, but Du Ying could go all day without speaking. Who would be attracted to them? Of the men, Dong Jing had a distinctive style. He wore his hair long and came from a reasonably well-off family, and he was good-looking.
Since she wasn’t about to meet any senior lawyers, she figured she might as well have some fun with Dong Jing.
She never explicitly agreed to date him, but flirted and enjoyed the superiority of having a handsome man pursue her. It wasn’t long before she discovered that, before she joined the internship, Dong Jing had pursued Zhu Yi.
She couldn’t believe it. Zhu Yi? That unsophisticated girl whose whole outfit couldn’t have cost three hundred yuan?
Dong Jing showered Si Wei with sweet words. Whenever she imagined he’d once said those same things to Zhu Yi, she felt uncomfortable. She asked Li Ren, who confirmed it. Dong Jing had found Zhu Yi innocent and pursued her fervently, but she’d never accepted him, so he’d given up.
Si Wei resented it. She felt Dong Jing had made a fool of her. She grew irritated whenever she saw Zhu Yi and hated thinking of herself as a substitute. She’d never been particularly fond of Dong Jing, but once the urge to win took hold, she felt she couldn’t lose to Zhu Yi and began alternately encouraging and rejecting his advances.
Their push-and-pull relationship continued until they left Yongshen Law Firm one after another.
Si Wei stressed that she’d never intended to hurt Zhu Yi and knew perfectly well that Zhu Yi was not responsible for the problems between her and Dong Jing. But she couldn’t get past the feeling. Every time she saw Zhu Yi, she wondered: What makes her better than me? Why am I the substitute?
That feeling peaked after the interns reached Yuanshu Township. Conditions in the village were much worse than in the city, of course. Even Zhu Yi and Du Ying found it hard to adapt, let alone Si Wei. Before leaving, He Mei had instructed the four men to take good care of the three women.
Whether because of that instruction or his own nature, Dong Jing became a man who showed concern for every woman around him. He looked after Du Ying and Zhu Yi attentively, while Si Wei also received her share of his warmth.
Seeing Dong Jing fuss over Zhu Yi irritated Si Wei. With the villagers rejecting their legal-outreach work too, her frustration kept building.
Every day in Yuanshu Township felt like torture, and she desperately wanted to leave. She hated the enslaved women whose eyes nevertheless remained numb. She hated the supposedly ancestral customs that kept them there. For a time she seemed to hate men and women alike, the old and the young, and even her own job. Weren’t lawyers supposed to help solve people’s problems? Then why, after so many years of study, could she change nothing at all?
She didn’t want to be a lawyer anymore. She wanted to return to Junan City immediately, tell He Mei and quit.
She called her parents, who consoled her. She didn’t leave the internship right away, but the idea of switching careers took root.
After so many failed attempts to communicate with the villagers, Si Wei had effectively given up helping the women there. She thought coldly, Respect other people’s fates.
She could tell the others felt similarly. The only reason they hadn’t left was that they needed to complete the required time before going home. Yet one person was still racing about tirelessly, trying to help people Si Wei considered unworthy of help.
That person was Zhu Yi.
Zhu Yi was full of energy every day, her eyes bright as if the village were her battlefield and she was determined to set its women back on a normal path.
Si Wei thought it was laughable. These women didn’t respect themselves. They treated themselves as slaves to their husbands and in-laws. What could Zhu Yi accomplish, however willing she was to help? Si Wei even thought Zhu Yi might be trying to distinguish herself, to improve her chances of staying at Yongshen afterward.
But she soon reconsidered. Of all seven interns, Zhu Yi had the least need to show off. She was an exceptional student at Han Province University of Political Science and Law, with professional knowledge surpassing that of her peers. Even if she chose a career other than law, she’d have plenty of prospects.
Si Wei refused to admit she was jealous, but the darker side of her nature surfaced. If you love it here so much, why not stay forever? she thought.
She had no concrete plan at that point. She simply repeated to herself: Zhu Yi, don’t come back to the firm.
Despite her efforts, Zhu Yi’s legal education work wasn’t succeeding, and she was distressed by the lack of progress.
One evening, the interns gathered to review what they’d learned. Everyone was discouraged. Zhu Yi held her head and said, “What are we going to do? I really want to help them. Their lives are so awful. Li Jiangbao’s wife, for instance, I suspect she was trafficked here, but she refuses to talk to me. And so many wives in other families were traded between villages. What century are we living in? How can things like this still happen?”
Dong Jing replied, “Forget it. Respect other people’s fates. You can never help someone who doesn’t want to be helped.”
Si Wei saw Dong Jing responding to Zhu Yi and immediately felt irritated again.
Du Ying and the others, equally exhausted, agreed. “Why don’t we leave it? There’s no reason to stay any longer.”
Si Wei was about to agree when Li Ren, who rarely spoke, said, “We’re outsiders, so we can’t help them. But what if we became one of them?”
Si Wei didn’t understand. “What do you mean?”
Zhu Yi froze, as though an idea had occurred to her. “How could we become one of them?”
Du Ying picked up the idea. “For example… by marrying into Yuanshu Township?”
“Hey, that’s crazy! Who’s supposed to get married here?” Dong Jing protested, immediately putting an arm around Si Wei. “I’m saying this upfront: our Weiwei isn’t doing it!”
Si Wei was just about to feel pleased when she noticed Dong Jing watching Zhu Yi anxiously. It was like having ice water poured over her. He claimed to worry about Si Wei, but he was thinking about Zhu Yi. In that instant, a thought came to her.
She gently pushed Dong Jing away and moved to stand beside Li Ren. “Brother Ren has a point. Only by becoming one of them can we gain their trust, and then the work will be easier.”
Zhu Xiaodi’s eyes moved across the three young women. “Then which of you would do it?”
Zhang Pin joked, “Weiwei, you’re the prettiest. You go!”
Si Wei was startled and about to object when Dong Jing said coldly, “Zhang Pin, that’s not funny.”
The atmosphere turned awkward. After a moment, Zhu Yi broke the silence. “Actually… I think this is an opportunity. And I’ve noticed someone who might be suitable.”
Du Ying asked, “Someone? Who?”
Zhu Yi was nervous but excited. There was a villager named Yi Lei, she explained, a man in his thirties who had never married. From what she’d observed, he differed from the others. He didn’t show their crude male chauvinism, was very dutiful to his mother and treated women politely. If the plan to work from the inside was viable, she could try approaching him.
Clearly, Zhu Yi was uneasy when she proposed it. If Li Ren hadn’t mentioned infiltrating the village, she’d never have considered such a thing. And even now that she had, she couldn’t have put it into practice without the others’ encouragement.
For all her sense of justice, she was still a young person only just entering society. She could be scared and hesitant. Like many young people, she could also be urged onward and lifted onto a pedestal so high she no longer knew how to step down.
“I think it’s worth a try!” Si Wei said. “At least let’s find out what kind of person this Yi Lei really is!”
“I agree,” Li Ren said. “There are plenty of us, and we’re all law professionals. If it fails, we withdraw. What could they possibly do to us?”
Zhu Xiaodi said, “So it’s settled that Zhu Yi goes? Why do I think Weiwei would be more suitable?”
Dong Jing snapped, “Not again!”
Everyone began teasing Dong Jing that Si Wei was the apple of his eye. He’d rather go himself than let her do it.
“Of course I’ll be the one to go. I’ve already spoken with Yi Lei.” In that moment, Zhu Yi must have believed she wasn’t alone. Her earlier fear vanished. Her colleagues were standing behind her in support. What was there to be afraid of?
Du Ying said, “I’d love to try myself, but I agree Zhu Yi is the better choice. She’s much better at talking to people.”
From that day, Zhu Yi began implementing her plan. She found excuses to visit Yi Lei’s house and shared whatever she learned with her colleagues. Growing more enthusiastic by the day, she believed a bright future lay ahead for the women of Yuanshu Township.
Yi Lei was gentle with her, almost like a gentleman with a university education. He kept a large collection of books and seemed far more thoughtful than the other villagers. He claimed he’d never married because he wanted to care for his mother and believed arranged marriages were unfair to women. He couldn’t end those customs himself, but at least he could refuse to take part.
Zhu Yi was touched. Later she brought back another piece of news: Yi Lei had injured the part of his body needed for sex.
Zhang Pin sprayed tea from his mouth when he heard. The men exchanged looks and actually began to pity Yi Lei.
Du Ying said, “That’s good news for us. If, and I mean if, Yi Lei tried to do anything, he wouldn’t be physically capable.”
Si Wei agreed eagerly. “Exactly, Xiao Yi. You’ll be safe!”
Safety had been Zhu Yi’s first thought too. Before learning Yi Lei was supposedly incapable of sexual relations, she’d been deeply conflicted. To carry out the plan, she would eventually have to become his wife. She hoped that after building a closer relationship, she could tell him the truth and persuade him to join her cause. She’d even considered asking He Mei to help find Yi Lei a job afterward.
But those possibilities were still far off, and she couldn’t count on his help. For now, she’d have to deceive him with the prospect of marriage. Once they were husband and wife, if Yi Lei wanted intimacy, she felt she would have no standing to refuse. That was the most frightening part of the plan. His supposed inability felt like heaven itself coming to her aid.
The subject embarrassed the four men. Dong Jing went outside to smoke. Du Ying enthusiastically helped Zhu Yi think through ideas, and Li Ren took part more actively than usual. Zhang Pin and Zhu Xiaodi offered suggestions too.
“Every one of us harbored a cruel thought,” Si Wei said, lifting her head to look at Chen Zheng. The light in her eyes was cold. “Du Ying and Li Ren were the ones most jealous of Zhu Yi. Only if she withdrew from the competition could they feel completely secure.”