The orphanage director had suffered a loss he could do nothing about, and had even been forced to pay for Cao Shou’s treatment. From then on, he hated Cao Shou and Cao Mei even more, withheld their food, and mocked them in front of the other children.
Later, something terrible happened at the orphanage. A child was beaten to death by hooligans while stealing. The director was arrested, and all the children were dispersed. Cao Shou was already fifteen by then, old enough to support himself and Cao Mei with odd jobs.
But the injuries to his arms and legs had left serious aftereffects. He had become lame, someone others looked down upon. Cao Mei, meanwhile, was growing pretty. Even at twelve, she was frequently harassed. He wanted to protect his little sister, but what did he have with which to protect her?
He was constantly covered in injuries. The two huddled together and complained about the unfairness of the world. On damp, rainy days, his bones ached terribly. He understood he might not live for very many more years, but he wanted Cao Mei to have a good life.
Cao Mei was growing up day by day. Someday she would become a beautiful woman. Cao Shou had scarcely attended school and possessed no useful skills. His understanding of the world was narrow. The only future he could imagine for his sister was to dress her up beautifully and marry her to a rich man, leaving her secure and comfortable for life.
But even dressing her up took money, and they had none.
Since childhood, the orphanage director had filled his head with crooked ways to make money. Most of the children he knew had neither father nor mother. He understood better than anyone how lonely parentless children were. If they went missing, there would be no parents’ tears or urgent demands, and the people searching for them would not put in much effort.
He turned his calculating eye on those children who had suffered just as he had. He had come from an orphanage, and now he would go back to orphanages and welfare homes, making those unfortunate children the stepping stones that would let his sister rise in the world.
At eighteen, he began a plan to traffic orphans. At first, he chose particularly poor welfare homes, places that struggled to stay open and had almost no security, yet still received more children every year. One more mouth meant one more burden. One mouth fewer might actually be a relief.
Cao Shou secretly took children away and sold them to human traffickers. The welfare homes did not report their disappearances to police. Growing bolder, he continued stealing children. Once, he thought he had been discovered, but a teacher at the welfare home merely glanced at him as though she had no idea he was the one taking the children.
He realized it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. Becoming even more reckless, he traveled among poorly funded welfare homes across Han Province, sometimes even reaching tacit understandings with the teachers.
Over three years, he stole more and more children. Not all could be sold immediately, and his business gradually changed. He no longer sold only children. He sold organs too. He needed a fixed location where he could conceal the children.
He chose a Western-style building in Luocheng. Several volunteers who helped poor people were working there, led by an elderly man. Cao Shou told the man the children were unfortunate youngsters without household registration and nowhere to live. He was trying to secure registration for them and hoped they could stay in the building temporarily.
The old man was deeply charitable. Believing him, he made room for the children. But Cao Shou went all the way. To protect his secret, not long after moving in, he murdered the old man and the volunteers. He then sealed off the building under the pretext that it needed repairs.
The main reason the police had not noticed Cao Shou at first was that nobody had filed reports about the missing children. If he had only wanted to sell a handful and use the money to give Cao Mei a better future, the police might never have traced him.
But once he had tasted success, he forgot his original purpose. Money was astonishingly easy to make, and someone disabled like him could so easily hold other people’s lives in his hands! His appetite grew. After stealing children from impoverished, isolated welfare homes, he turned his attention to well-run facilities and even nurseries. Luocheng Municipal Bureau received several missing-child reports in a short time. Initial inquiries finally led them to Cao Shou and the Western-style building that had been closed for more than three months.
At the time, Chen Zheng had already become a star of the Criminal Investigation Detachment. He had only recently returned from Han Provincial Police Academy, and many eyes were on him. Some hoped he would shine again; others prayed he would stumble. He worked tirelessly, full of energy, personally arresting traffickers who dealt with Cao Shou and rescuing more than a dozen children from their hands.
The Cao siblings had reached the end of the road. Detectives and special police had surrounded the Western-style building. Their only option should have been to surrender. In similar cases, traffickers usually emerged and admitted defeat under such circumstances. But when Chen Zheng studied Cao Shou’s upbringing, he judged that the man’s mind was exceptionally dark and that he might choose mutual destruction rather than surrender. The building was very old, with dangerous wiring and a great deal of flammable material piled inside. Putting himself in Cao Shou’s place, Chen Zheng suspected he might deliberately start a fire.
Losing the building would be one thing, but what about the children trapped inside? If they burned to death, the Criminal Investigation Detachment could not escape responsibility. Chen Zheng immediately requested fire-rescue support from Huo Pingfeng. That prediction won the rescue team precious time: when Cao Shou set the fire, the brigade had already reached the building.
There were more than twenty children inside, including seven locked in the basement. The basement fire was extremely difficult to extinguish. Chen Zheng led from the front, taking his team inside to rescue them.
During the rescue, Chen Zheng saw the burned bodies of the old man and the volunteers. The wind sounded like sobbing amid the flames, like their cries.
Every child was saved. Only Cao Shou remained.
Outsiders never learned what happened then. Even the case files Ming Han had reviewed did not record it.
A beam on the verge of collapsing separated Chen Zheng from Cao Shou. Chen Zheng stretched out his hand. If Cao Shou wanted to live, Chen Zheng could save him. Instead, the man looked at him with a bleak smile. Burning debris struck his body, and half his face had melted in the flames.
Suddenly he sat down and spoke in a hoarse voice. “Officer Chen, I actually met you when I was a child.”
Chen Zheng had no recollection of Cao Shou. All he could think about was how to save him. The crimes Cao Shou had committed were too numerous to count, but the man could not be allowed to die here.
Ignoring Chen Zheng’s efforts to rescue him, Cao Shou looked at him with envy. “If you’d been born as me, would you be the one sitting in this place now?”
Cao Shou got unsteadily to his feet and walked toward the balcony shrouded in fire. He glanced at Chen Zheng one last time. “You were simply dealt a good hand. If you’d been dealt mine, you’d have ended up an even fouler puddle of mud than me.”
With that, Cao Shou jumped into the sea of flames, ending his tragic, wicked life without a moment’s hesitation.
In the detachment’s review afterward, Chen Zheng was commended for anticipating Cao Shou’s actions and saving all the children. Failing to save Cao Shou was regrettable, but had nothing to do with Chen Zheng. Cao Shou had chosen his own death.
Cao Mei and more than a dozen traffickers connected to Cao Shou went to trial. She calmly accepted the court’s verdict, but throughout that day her eyes moved constantly among the police officers, as though searching for someone. Chen Zheng, the hero of the Cao Shou case, did not attend. He had a new assignment.
When Chen Zheng finished speaking, he sighed deeply. Ming Han asked, “Cao Shou said you’d met before. What was that about?”
Chen Zheng had been just as puzzled by Cao Shou’s dying words. After the fire was extinguished, firefighters carried Cao Shou’s body from the ruins, and Chen Zheng was taken to the hospital for treatment.
Because the principal suspect had died during the arrest, Chen Zheng and the other officers were temporarily relieved of duty pending an investigation. Chen Zheng reported what Cao Shou had said, but still could not recall any previous encounter. Later, when Cao Mei and the others were put on trial, he was occupied with an assignment and did not attend. When he returned, he saw in internal records that Lu Hejing had sat through the proceedings.
He was surprised. As far as he knew, Lu Hejing rarely attended court. Did the Cao siblings have some connection to him?
Chen Zheng was young and stubborn then. If something did not make sense, he had to get to the bottom of it. Going to provincial headquarters to seek out Lu Hejing was awkward, but there was nothing stopping him from catching his uncle at home.
On his day off, he deliberately went home first, raided the family supplies of tea and cigarettes, picked up some chicken soup Lu Hejun had made, and knocked on Lu Hejing’s door.
“Little Uncle, Mom insisted I bring you some things,” Chen Zheng said, cutting off Lu Hejing’s objections before he could voice them.
Lu Hejing lived alone most of the time and seldom cooked. Chen Zheng poured out the chicken soup, brewed tea, and chatted idly about his recent cases.
Having accepted the food, Lu Hejing could hardly refuse to answer. “You want to know why I took an interest in that child-trafficking case?”
With the matter already laid bare, Chen Zheng stopped pretending. “Little Uncle, Cao Shou said he’d met me before he died. Why don’t I remember him?”
Lu Hejing lit a cigarette and said slowly, “You’ve always had so much that you can afford to be kind to anyone. You make people feel as though you truly care about them, but in fact it hardly matters to you. That small kindness you give is a casual scrap of affection, something insignificant.”
Chen Zheng was bewildered. Why did that make him sound like… a scumbag boyfriend?
Lu Hejing went on. “It’s normal that you can’t remember him. As a child you were forever tagging along with me. Whenever you saw children in hardship, you wanted to show them some care. But you couldn’t remember who they were, and you never bothered to. You’ve been like that since you were little.”
Chen Zheng frowned. “You took me to see him?”
He began to remember fragments. Lu Hejing, the odd one out in the Lu family, had a reputation as someone who “ate children.” The Lu children wanted to get close to him but were afraid. Only Chen Zheng was fearless, running straight up to cling to his leg whenever they met. Lu Hejing was the one frightened into immobility. His grandparents had laughed until they could barely breathe, declaring that everything had its match and they had finally found someone who could deal with Lu Hejing.
Chen Zheng had pestered his uncle mercilessly. Whenever Lu Hejing was not at work, he had to take Chen Zheng with him. One day, Lu Hejing refused, saying he had business to attend to. Chen Zheng tugged at his clothes with tears in his eyes. “But Little Uncle, you’re not wearing your uniform!”
Seeing the child really was crying, Lu Hejing had no choice but to bring him. It was work, though different from his usual assignments. His superiors had asked the officers to visit orphanages during their free time, both to offer some support and to prepare reports afterward.
The orphanage Lu Hejing took Chen Zheng to that day was where Cao Shou and Cao Mei lived. At the time, the kind old director was still in charge. The place was poor, but the children were not yet being forced to steal or perform in public.
It was Chen Zheng’s first visit to an orphanage. The sight of the children in worn, ragged clothing frightened him a little. But Lu Hejing picked him up and quietly explained, “They have no mothers or fathers. It’s very sad. Zhengzheng, don’t look at them like that.”
“No mothers or fathers.” Chen Zheng immediately thought about his own parents. Not only did he have a mother and father, he had a little uncle, and more toys at home than he could count. Thinking about it, he felt terribly sorry for these children.
He nodded solemnly to Lu Hejing. “Little Uncle, I understand. Put me down.”
The moment Lu Hejing set him on the ground, Chen Zheng ran among the children with a bright, innocent smile for each of them. “Hello! My name’s Chen Zheng. What’s yours?”
The children’s clothes were not particularly clean, nor were their faces or little hands. Chen Zheng did not mind at all. He pinched their cheeks and let them pinch his. Before long, they were playing together as if they had always known one another.
The game Eagle Catches the Chicks was popular then. Chen Zheng played the “mother hen,” doing everything he could to protect the “chicks” behind him, running until he was drenched in sweat.
By the end of the afternoon, Chen Zheng and every child had introduced themselves. He was openhearted and pretty. When he asked, “What’s your name?” even the most timid child dared to answer shyly.
“H-hello. I’m Cao Shou.”
“Cao Shou? What a wonderful name! Longevity! May you live ten thousand years!” The compliment flew from Chen Zheng’s mouth without a thought.
The thin, dark-skinned child had never been praised or blessed like that. In his astonished eyes, Chen Zheng looked like a beautiful angel.
The afternoon passed quickly. Lu Hejing called out, “Zhengzheng, time to go.”
Having played to his heart’s content, Chen Zheng waved both hands vigorously at the children. “I’m going home for today! We should play together again! I like you all so much!”
He fell asleep from exhaustion in the car and did not wake even when they reached home. Lu Hejing carried him on his back while he mumbled in his sleep, “Little Uncle, where are we going to play next time?”
“Would you like to play with the friends you made today again?” Lu Hejing asked.
Chen Zheng mumbled a few words and sank deeper into sleep.
When he woke, he had already put the orphanage out of his mind. He had so many friends, so many toys he could not find time to play with them all. Before long he could not remember the names of the children there.
“But Cao Shou never forgot you,” Lu Hejing said. “Perhaps every child who played with you that afternoon remembered you. Because you asked each one’s name seriously and did everything you could to protect them during the game. Those children, destined from birth to have difficult lives, had never been asked or protected so earnestly before.”
Chen Zheng could not speak. Lu Hejing’s judgment of him was accurate. Precisely because he had so much, Chen Zheng never hesitated to give. He had been serious when he asked each child’s name, just as he had been serious when he gave his own. That sincerity could create the illusion that the other child was the most important person in the world.
Yet he had offered that same concern and earnestness to countless people without discrimination. It was so easy, so ordinary, no different from breathing or drinking water every day.
He had long since forgotten the names of the children he played Eagle Catches the Chicks with. He remembered not one. So many people had appeared before him over the years. How could he remember everyone he had met only once?
“Then what happened to them afterward…?” he asked quietly.
Lu Hejing shook his head. “I only went that once. By the time something happened at the orphanage, I wasn’t responsible for cases in that area anymore. If I hadn’t spoken with the inspection team, I wouldn’t have remembered that Cao Shou was one of the children we met.”
Chen Zheng was silent for a long time. Objectively, the Cao siblings’ case did not implicate him. Cao Shou’s final remark had no bearing on his conduct; otherwise the investigators would never have cleared him so readily. But learning this buried piece of the past left a knot in his heart. He could not help wondering whether his personality really did invite hatred.
Perhaps unwilling to dwell on the case, Lu Hejing switched to talking about Lu Hejun. After chatting for a while, Chen Zheng belatedly asked, “Little Uncle, why were you talking to the inspection team in the first place?”
Lu Hejing’s face changed. He said nothing.
Only later did Chen Zheng learn that although Lu Hejing pretended they were not close and avoided even the appearance of favoritism, he secretly followed Chen Zheng’s work. Whenever Chen Zheng came under investigation, his uncle immediately sought information. That was how he learned about Cao Shou’s remark.
When Chen Zheng finished reminiscing, he was tired. Without thinking, he leaned against Ming Han’s shoulder and gently closed his eyes.
“Who knows the nephew better than our uncle?” Ming Han said, slipping an arm around Chen Zheng and tapping his arm with his fingers.
Chen Zheng sat upright. “Hm?”
“See? You’re charming people again without even realizing it.”
“I’m not,” Chen Zheng said instinctively.
“Oh, I know the feeling,” Ming Han replied.
“What feeling?”
“When you came to Nanxi Middle School, you were just being casually kind to a campus detective. You didn’t even remember my name. If it had been someone else, you’d have cared about him too,” Ming Han said, listing Chen Zheng’s “crimes.” “Then you went to the police academy and charmed everyone. There was food piled on your desk every day. You promised you’d come back, but after you left, you never did.”
Chen Zheng was speechless.
“Bro, if only you weren’t so earnest with everyone,” Ming Han said with a smile. “You make it terribly easy for people to cling to you. Especially people like me who grew up without enough love.”
Chen Zheng sighed and patted his forehead. “All right, Bird. Stop using this as an excuse to make your case.”
After dawn, good news arrived from the hospital. Cao Mei’s condition had stabilized.
“Let me die! Why did you save me?” she screamed in her hospital room. Her face was badly burned. Blood and yellowish-brown medication seeped through the bandages, making her look like a terrifying monster.
When Chen Zheng appeared before her, she abruptly fell silent. She stared at him without blinking. Seconds later she erupted in a still more piercing scream.
“Why are you still alive? Why does someone like you never get punished?”
Cao Mei was mentally unwell. Chen Zheng knew talking with her would be extremely difficult, but far too many questions surrounded her, not only from the past but from the present. He had to do everything possible to obtain more clues from her.
In fact, before going to the hospital, Chen Zheng had discussed with Ming Han and Kong Bing who should question Cao Mei. Kong Bing did not want Chen Zheng to do it. Cao Mei hated him so intensely that seeing him would make her even more unhinged, and the interview would become a complete mess.
Chen Zheng disagreed. It was precisely because Cao Mei hated him so fiercely that he was the best person. She needed to vent, and only facing him would she unleash all her malice.
“What kind of person haven’t I met?” Chen Zheng said, patting Kong Bing’s shoulder. “Neither she nor her brother managed to hurt me with fire. What harm can her words do?”
Sure enough, Cao Mei stared at Chen Zheng in despair and anguish. Had she been able to stand, and had she had anything to use as a weapon, she would already have charged him. But she was restrained in her hospital bed, and words were all she had.
“You did it on purpose! My brother begged you to save him, and you killed him!” Cao Mei almost tumbled off the bed, but the sub-bureau detectives held her firmly down.
“He begged me to save him?” Chen Zheng frowned. “Who told you that?”
Cao Mei did not answer the question. She only repeated, “You did it on purpose! You wanted him dead! With him gone, you became a hero who rid the people of evil. You could climb the ranks!”
During the night Chen Zheng had carefully recalled the Cao siblings’ case. The old building had been engulfed in flames. Although firefighters had arrived, the number of children trapped inside made both firefighting and rescue exceedingly difficult. The command from above matched Chen Zheng’s own decision at the scene: save the children first; extinguish the flames second.
Some detectives had never received specialist fire-scene training, while firefighters were not well placed to subdue violent suspects. Chen Zheng had selected officers on the spot, leading those experienced in fire scenes into the building. It could collapse at any moment; conditions were exceptionally dangerous. Only as the children were brought out one after another did everyone’s fear begin to ease.
The rescue drew massive public attention. Livestreaming had not yet become common, but the internet was already part of everyday life. People photographed the building and posted running text-and-picture updates to online forums, cheering when all the children were rescued. Some began calling out, “Burn all the traffickers alive in there!”
It was the rawest response from ordinary people. The Cao siblings had trafficked so many children, murdered the decent people who lived in the building, and set it alight in their attempt to resist arrest, intending to burn police officers and children alike. Why should the police save them? They had played with fire; let them burn to death in it!
“Burn them! Don’t let them out!”
“We pay taxes to support the police. Why should the police save scum like that?”
“Don’t save them! I want to see them burn!”
“Rescue them and the trial alone could take years, and they might not even be sentenced to death! Even if they are, they’ll be put down humanely. Ordinary people can’t even get euthanasia. Why should they? Wouldn’t that be a reward?”
Naturally, Chen Zheng saw none of those comments while inside the burning building. He read them only afterward. In the flames, he had no spare attention for anything else. Upon learning that Cao Mei had been rescued and Cao Shou was the only person left, he had focused entirely on bringing Cao Shou out. That was his duty as a detective.
Cao Shou had chosen to die in the flames himself. Chen Zheng was not the only witness.
The inspection team investigated thoroughly and found no possibility that Chen Zheng had deliberately refused to save Cao Shou. But ordinary people did not think that way. On hearing that the chief culprit had burned to death, they praised the detectives and firefighters who had entered the building and “let him die” as heroes. Online commenters embellished the details:
“I heard they sent the strongest team from municipal headquarters. They saved every child. How could they possibly have failed to save that trafficker? Obviously they didn’t want to. Police officers are human too, and human beings have to know good from evil, right? Scum like that deserved to burn alive in there! If I were a cop, I’d do the same!”
“Absolutely incredible! I’m proud of our Luocheng police! Spare me your laws and fairness! Letting trash like that die painlessly doesn’t qualify as fairness. I want to see traffickers burn! I’ll always support our Luocheng police!”
“Are those heroes going to get in trouble? If anyone tries to punish them, I’ll be the first to march down to headquarters and fight!”
“Count me in!”
“Me too!”
People even petitioned online, demanding that the municipal bureau publicly commend the detectives who had “burned Cao Shou alive” and promote them.
Everyone understood that was impossible. Far from receiving commendations for it, Chen Zheng and the others were suspended for a period while the incident was investigated. Municipal headquarters could only respond to the public uproar by allowing it to cool down. Later, the court handed down its verdict, the relevant suspects went to prison, and the case came to an end. People gradually forgot.
But Cao Mei clearly had not forgotten for even a moment.