On hearing that the person the Mobile Unit wanted had vanished and that a murder had occurred, Wu Zhan rushed to deploy more officers. The hotel was swiftly placed under police control, and police vehicles lined the street outside.
Guests gathered in the lobby and lounge, discussing what had happened. The manager was brought to room 20-5 and recoiled on seeing the body. “Th-this seems to be one of our guests!”
Cheng Cu initially thought she meant Wu Mo, but she shook her head. It was not him. If she remembered correctly, the man was staying on the twenty-fifth floor and had checked in only early that morning.
The hotel’s surveillance recordings had all been retrieved. The man found in room 20-5 was registered as Xiang Rengang, fifty-eight, a local resident of Nanshan. At 2 a.m. on the third, he had arrived at reception with a travel bag, asking for a room. He had been wearing different clothes then, and no hat.
The receptionist found him odd. He did not look like a typical guest at a five-star hotel, especially at that hour. His breath smelled strongly of alcohol, so she called the manager in case he caused trouble. Xiang Rengang caused none. After checking in, he took his keycard, turned it over in his hands several times, and looked delighted. The manager remembered his face for that reason.
At ten that morning, the man left room 25-9 in the clothes he had worn overnight. He ate at the restaurant, drank some coffee, and wandered around the hotel as if he had never stayed somewhere like it before. Near eleven, he entered a restroom beside the sky garden.
Cheng Cu paused the footage. “There! That’s it!”
Xiang Rengang had remained inside until Wu Mo entered the same restroom. The police had been concentrating on Wu Mo, so they had failed to notice anything unusual about Xiang Rengang. At 11:40, Xiang Rengang emerged, crossed the sky garden, and went to the twentieth floor. He was now wearing Wu Mo’s clothes and hat and carrying Wu Mo’s keycard.
At noon, the real Wu Mo left the restroom in a wig and black athletic clothes.
It was the last time any camera captured his face. He could not avoid the camera at the restroom entrance, but apparently knew where the other cameras had blind spots. By keeping to them, he disappeared from police view.
Cheng Cu stared at the recordings, crushed by disappointment. “He switched identities right under our noses? Did Xiang Rengang willingly die in his place?”
The Mobile Unit kept searching. Meanwhile, the medical examiner’s preliminary findings showed that Xiang Rengang had died from poisoning, but had not taken the poison himself after returning to the room. It had entered his system between ten and ten-thirty, while he was dining. Someone had brazenly poisoned his food.
Forensic technicians hurried to collect restaurant samples. The manager went pale, insisting her staff would never do such a thing. Security footage showed Xiang Rengang at the buffet, taking a plate and tongs and helping himself generously to all sorts of food. He also slipped an unopened miniature bottle of liquor from the bar into his possession.
The manager stared in disbelief. “What’s that? Why would anything like that be in our restaurant?”
She was referring to the little bottle. The hotel did serve alcohol, but that particular little bottle was not among the drinks it supplied.
The restaurant staff could not explain how it had got there either. The bottle had stood among assorted condiments, easy to overlook; nobody else had taken it.
Xiang Rengang slipped it into his pocket. When he was almost too full to eat, he brought it out and drank some. He had taken more food than he could finish, leaving the rest with the empty bottle at the dish-return station.
His plate had already been cleared. Cheng Cu found the bottle visible in the footage among the refuse awaiting disposal.
Zhou Jue still had not found Wu Mo anywhere in the hotel. The police were just beginning to fear that he had somehow escaped without being seen when a heavy impact sounded, followed by frightened screams and people fleeing.
Someone had fallen onto the terrace of the hotel’s third-floor café, lying in a terrible, bloody sprawl. His neck was bent unnaturally, his torso broken, and his limbs still twitched. The sight was horrifying.
The man’s face could no longer be used for identification, but his clothes were instantly familiar to Cheng Cu and Zhou Jue. They matched what Wu Mo had worn after leaving the restroom.
He had evidently remained somewhere in the hotel. To escape, he had arranged for Xiang Rengang to replace him. But why had he now fallen from the sky garden?
Both bodies were moved to municipal headquarters. DNA comparison confirmed the person who fell was indeed Wu Mo. Zhou Jue and Cheng Cu were miserable, feeling as though they had been manipulated throughout by unseen criminals.
Word of Wu Mo’s death reached Junan Municipal Bureau immediately. Chen Zheng froze on hearing it, managing only, “What?”
The Nanshan police and Mobile Unit had not yet established the full sequence. Zhou Jue explained the identity swap over the phone. Officers had searched the sky garden and the other areas on that floor, but Wu Mo had not been there at the time. He entered the garden only after the officers left.
The only footage of Wu Mo showed him running in terror, glancing over his shoulder three times. There were no footprints at the point of his fall except his own. He had climbed over the edge himself, although someone might have been standing nearby watching him.
“That’s incredibly strange.” Ming Han frowned more deeply than usual. “I considered that something could happen to Wu Mo. Nanfeng is suspicious and he’s in charge of it. Since he was out of town, he might flee or be silenced. But why drag a complete outsider into it?”
The police had largely established Xiang Rengang’s background. He had once worked at a plastics factory, but lost his job in his forties. His wife took their child and left. He and his elderly father lived in a dilapidated old house, surviving on welfare and the father’s small pension.
Timid and indecisive, he was looked down on by relatives and acquaintances and had little confidence himself. He seldom socialized, but took good care of his father.
When the police visited the Xiang home, the elderly father lay in bed calling his son’s name. Age had left him confused. He said his son had promised to stay away for only one night. Why hadn’t he come home?
Investigators found no trace of strangers in the house, and the father could not explain why Xiang Rengang had gone out. Tears rolled down his cheeks, almost as though he already knew his son was dead.
How Xiang Rengang had become connected to Wu Mo remained unknown.
“Wu Mo believed he could escape,” Chen Zheng analyzed. “Either he prepared Xiang Rengang as a backup, or someone prepared him for Wu Mo. Xiang Rengang had no money and liked getting something for nothing. This may have been his first time in a five-star hotel; he was barely aware of danger. Someone paid him to be in the appointed place at the appointed time to complete the switch. He didn’t know he would be poisoned and die in Wu Mo’s room. He thought it was an easy job: sleep in a hotel room, check out in the morning, and go home.”
This seemed the most reasonable explanation. Zhou Jue had not been wrong: Wu Mo had not immediately left the hotel after disappearing from view. Either he knew that leaving would have made him easy to locate, or someone had told him to wait because he still had something to do inside.
“Even after Xiang Rengang’s body was discovered, Wu Mo might have felt completely safe. The police investigation had been thrown into chaos. The more confusion, the better his chance of escape,” Chen Zheng continued. “What he hadn’t expected was that he, like Xiang Rengang, would be discarded. Someone he met demanded something he could neither accept nor refuse. He was driven to the sky garden, and then he jumped.”
“So it was still a silencing, just by an incredibly roundabout route,” Ming Han said. “We’ve uncovered Nanfeng’s secret. Wu Mo couldn’t be allowed to live. He had information that would implicate certain people.”
Chen Zheng looked at Ming Han. Without question, they were both thinking of Liang Yueze.
Wu Mo’s body was transferred to Nanshan Municipal Bureau. In Junan, the investigation made another breakthrough. A painkiller intended for late-stage patients, found by the Mobile Unit in Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals’ Warehouse Three, could be converted into Black Mark through specialized processing.
Du Hui completely panicked. Sweating profusely, he cried, “President Wu did this! It has nothing to do with me!”
“So you knew he was manufacturing illegal drugs?” Chen Zheng asked. “Who was your partner?”
Half of Du Hui’s terror came from the evidence the police had found; the other half from Wu Mo’s death. He wiped at his face and stammered, “O-only President Wu knew who those people were! I really don’t know. He never told us!”
According to Du Hui, Nanfeng had been flourishing several years earlier. Three years ago, however, market conditions began deteriorating, and profits fell dramatically. Nothing Wu Mo tried offered much hope. Then Wu Mo traveled to Southeast Asia on business. When he returned, he gathered several close associates and said he had secured an overseas order that could save the company if they fulfilled it successfully.
Nanfeng had accepted foreign orders before, producing medicines not intended for domestic sale under strict import-export procedures. Du Hui had seen nothing unusual at first and began organizing production immediately. But he soon noticed that all the security guards had been replaced and that Wu Mo had created a security company. Every worker involved in the overseas order had been recruited separately by Wu Mo.
Du Hui watched uneasily for a while before asking Wu Mo what was going on.
They had worked together for decades, yet for the first time he saw something almost frenzied in Wu Mo’s eyes. His longtime superior seemed like a stranger.
Perhaps understanding he could no longer conceal it, Wu Mo told him the truth: the Southeast Asian contract was not an ordinary order. They were not producing legitimate medicine. The risks were enormous, but so were the profits.
Du Hui understood and nearly collapsed. “President Wu… are we making illegal drugs?”
Wu Mo quickly covered his mouth and checked by the door. “You think I want to? There’s nothing else we can do! I can’t just stand by and watch our factory go under!”
“But…” Du Hui was scarcely thinking straight. “That’s a crime! If we’re caught we’ll go to prison. No, we could be executed!”
“We won’t be caught,” Wu Mo said, suddenly calm. “The workers are kept apart. We have new security guards. Someone collects the finished stock, and what happens afterward isn’t our problem. As long as you keep quiet, the police won’t notice.”
Du Hui felt backed into a corner. He saw the threat in Wu Mo’s eyes. He already knew about the operation and had taken part in it. If he made any move, he believed someone would deal with him before the police learned what was happening.
“I was forced into it! By the time I found out, I was already trapped! President Wu said I was a drug trafficker too, and if I went to the police I’d be executed with him and my family would be ruined!” Du Hui sobbed. “If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d never have followed him back then. I never imagined things would come to this!”
Police had also detained more than a dozen Nanfeng executives. Some denied any involvement in the illegal production; others echoed Du Hui, saying Wu Mo had coerced them. Every one of them claimed not to know the identity of Wu Mo’s partners.
The clandestine production line had stopped before the Spring Festival, and its workers had disappeared. Nanfeng’s accounts had no record of their wages. According to Du Hui, they had been paid through the security company rather than the pharmaceutical business. That made the money more difficult to trace, because Wu Mo maintained an overseas account.
The Nanshan medical examiners completed their examinations of Wu Mo and Xiang Rengang. Wu Mo had indeed gone over the sky-garden barrier himself, but a large amount of Black Mark was present in his blood. Someone had been exerting control over him in his final moments.
Zhou Jue and Cheng Cu searched the hotel thoroughly, but could not find the person who had driven Wu Mo toward death. What happened after he used Xiang Rengang to evade the police remained a baffling mystery.
Chen Zheng read the report and sat lost in thought. Wu Mo had surely been silenced. He saw no other explanation. But the illegal production at Nanfeng still raised many questions.
One crucial reason he and Ming Han had investigated Nanfeng was Yunquan Group’s investment. If Nanfeng had been engaged in wrongdoing, surely that wrongdoing would have some connection to Yunquan.
Yet the evidence now pointed to the Southeast Asian order, whose details only Wu Mo knew. The illegal operation had begun three years ago. Wu Mo had taken the order to save the company and concealed an unauthorized operation behind the legitimate pharmaceutical plant. The product resembled an approved pain medication and required further specialized handling to become Black Mark.
Now that this had been exposed, Wu Mo had to die.
The people behind the operation may have shown him a way out, only to lead him into his last trap. Chen Zheng blinked as the true purpose of Xiang Rengang’s presence began to dawn on him.
Xiang Rengang had not been Wu Mo’s choice of substitute; he had been provided by those pulling the strings. When Wu Mo realized the police were onto him, he had two options: surrender, or fight until everything collapsed. Both were difficult. Wu Mo did not know what to do, and his backers could not be sure what he would choose. If he surrendered, even a portion of their hidden crimes might come to light.
Wu Mo could not be allowed to live, but police surveillance made an attack difficult. He was calculating enough not to walk voluntarily into the hands of those who wanted him gone. So his backers needed to show him where they stood.
Xiang Rengang was their message to Wu Mo. They were effectively saying: surrender to the police and you will die. But we have prepared a way out. See this man? He’s much like you in build and easy to direct. We chose him for you long ago. He will replace you and die in your room, while we meet you in the hotel and help you escape.
Wu Mo understood that surrender could not erase his crimes. His true hesitation was the fear that his backers would abandon him and make him disappear. When they produced a rescue plan at the moment he needed one most, he was elated and willingly slipped out of the police’s sight.
Once the police lost sight of him, his backers had their opportunity.
Chen Zheng rubbed his brow. The central mystery was still the identity of those people. They were linked to the Azure Sky Cult, Southeast Asia, and a Mr. Jin connected with Heaven-Measuring Ruler. But how did Yunquan Group’s investment fit into Wu Mo’s crimes?
He could not shake another impression: their investigation in Junan had been much too “smooth.” They suspected Nanfeng, and there was Black Mark. Wu Mo had dismissed the clandestine workers before the Spring Festival, suggesting that he or his associates had sensed danger. Why leave the incriminating stock behind?
The seemingly intimidating guards had been no help to the operation. If anything, their presence had made Nanfeng more conspicuous. The entire investigation seemed to have been pushed into fast-forward. It had rushed to one conclusion: Wu Mo, the man who knew every secret, was dead.
Chen Zheng’s phone rang. Li Shu’s voice came amid a deafening commotion. “Teacher Chen, Zhou Xia has brought a crowd with banners to Nanfeng. They’re demanding an explanation!”
Chen Zheng hurried to Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals. The gates were shut and the production inside had stopped. Special police were maintaining order, but the police tape had already been trampled onto the ground.
Zhou Xia held a megaphone and shouted through sobs, “Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals! Give me my daughter back! Give her back!”
Behind her stood Zeng Hong and Wang Wanjian, eyes reddened, raising their fists. “Give us our children back!”
More than a hundred people surrounded them. Many were livestreaming on their phones, and some were throwing bottles through the factory gates.
“Some of them are factory workers who’ve known Zhou Xia and Zeng Hong for years and watched the children grow up,” Li Shu explained. “Others come from outside. Their own children went missing, and the mutual-aid group Zhou Xia helped run found them. She called and they all came. Our investigation of Nanfeng and your interviews with those families couldn’t be kept separate from the news of the drug case. As soon as workers learned about it, Zhou Xia connected all our movements and concluded that drug traffickers from Nanfeng had harmed the missing children.”
Chen Zheng looked toward Zhou Xia, who was weeping as she shouted, “Pingping! Mom’s sorry! I should’ve listened to you! You knew Wu Mo and his people were monsters, didn’t you?”
Chen Zheng felt a twitch at his eyelid. His reason for questioning Zhou Xia and the others had been precisely this possibility. Apart from Mei Rui, the six other disappearances might not be what investigators originally assumed: the timing was remarkably concentrated, and the missing teenagers were comparatively old. Zhou Xia had also recalled Yan Ping’s strong opposition to the pharmaceutical factory, which was out of character for her.
It was natural for Zhou Xia to associate the disappearances with the drug traffickers now. But there was a problem. According to the evidence, Nanfeng’s illegal production had begun only three years ago; Yan Ping and the others vanished eight years ago. Had the factory been involved in something then?
Yunquan Group’s investment had occurred around that earlier time.
Chen Zheng walked toward the crowd. Zhou Xia noticed him and cried louder. “Officer Chen! Officer Chen’s here!”
Everyone turned. Zhou Xia climbed unsteadily down from the flower bed where she stood, almost falling until Zeng Hong caught her. The two women, deprived of their children and their families’ former lives, supported each other through tears.
“Officer Chen, you already knew when you visited me, didn’t you?” Zhou Xia sobbed. “Everyone at Nanfeng is a drug trafficker! Those traffickers killed my daughter!”
This was also the inference Chen Zheng felt came closest to the truth. But facing the crying woman, he suddenly could not speak. For years, Zhou Xia had survived on the conviction that Yan Ping was still alive. Desperate searching and waiting had transformed her. Envy and hatred had eaten away at her, and only the hope of her daughter’s return gave her the strength to live.
Now a cold possibility faced her. Why had there been no news, not even the slightest trace of the children? Because drug traffickers had killed them long ago!
Zhou Xia, Zeng Hong, and Wang Wanjian went back to municipal headquarters with Chen Zheng and each gave a statement. Unlike Zhou Xia, the other two looked lost, especially Zeng Hong. She had always found decisions difficult. When she heard of the drug case and Wu Mo’s death, she was merely frightened. Zhou Xia then came to her house and told her the children had been killed by traffickers. It took a long time for her to understand how Zhou Xia had reached that conclusion.
She felt cold all over. She did not want to believe it, yet found no argument against it. Zhou Xia had always been quicker-witted and must have seen things she had missed.
Wang Wanjian curled up in his chair and muttered, “It must be what she said. Our children are gone. Those drug traffickers deserve the worst!”
Du Hui’s teeth chattered when confronted with the parents’ accusations. “How is that possible? There weren’t drug traffickers there back then! President Wu did something wrong, but Nanfeng wasn’t crooked from the very beginning!”
The other executives also insisted the illegal drugs were limited to the past three years. Eight years ago nobody had been involved in such activities, much less murdered the missing teenagers.
A fierce confrontation broke out between the two sides at headquarters. Zhou Xia was now a mother with nothing to lose, afraid of no one.
“Perhaps Wu Mo was killed now partly to cover up what happened eight years ago,” Ming Han said. “It makes some sense. If Wu Mo was truly an honest businessman, would he have boarded a drug operation so readily three years ago when Nanfeng was in trouble? Maybe he’d already done it before and knew the ropes, and knew someone would protect him.”
Chen Zheng was gathering his belongings. The Junan and Nanshan investigations would continue, but he and Ming Han had to return to Luocheng. With the scandal at Nanfeng, Yunquan Group had come under public scrutiny, and the Azure Sky Cult was slowly emerging from the fog.
“Bro, when we get back, are you going to see Liang Yueze or should I?” Ming Han asked.
“You have something else to do,” Chen Zheng said. “Watch Jin Xiaoquan.”