March 5. Luocheng, provincial police headquarters.
Liang Yueze looked around the cramped interview room, then turned his gaze toward Chen Zheng, who was closing the door. His expression gradually hardened. “If you took me back to when I was seventeen or eighteen, the last thing I would’ve imagined is meeting you in a place like this.”
“When I was seventeen or eighteen, I never imagined you’d take over Yunquan Group either,” Chen Zheng replied.
Liang Yueze frowned. “Chen Zheng…”
“So perhaps we’d better stop bringing up the past.” Chen Zheng’s tone was cold and official. “President Liang, from the moment you chose your path, you should have anticipated today.”
“You’re making assumptions again,” Liang Yueze protested. “I’d really like to know what kind of person you’ve become. You’re investigating a case. Fine, I understand, and I’m cooperating. But you can’t assume I’m a criminal when you have no evidence!”
“Reasonable suspicion is an essential skill for every detective. If I didn’t even have that ability, I’d have worn this uniform for the last decade and more for nothing.” Chen Zheng sat down. “Wu Mo is dead. You know that, don’t you?”
Liang Yueze let out an irritated breath. “I heard. Isn’t that why you’ve dragged me here?”
“Yes, but not only that,” Chen Zheng said. “Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals has been manufacturing illegal drugs. As an investor, you didn’t hear even a whisper?”
Liang Yueze smiled bitterly. “I knew you’d try to pin it on me again. Nanfeng isn’t a subsidiary of Yunquan Group. Apart from the one investment all those years ago, we have had no business dealings whatsoever. Even then, I was only fulfilling an elder’s wish. I had no involvement in Nanfeng’s management or how it distributed its funds. You can verify all of that!”
“If Wu Mo hadn’t died so suddenly, it would indeed be simpler,” Chen Zheng said. “But he did die, and now the people manipulating him from behind the scenes have hidden themselves away, perhaps watching the show from somewhere.”
Liang Yueze stared at him. Hurt and indignation filled his eyes. “You think I killed Wu Mo to silence him? Because he had evidence of my crimes? Chen Zheng, all your suspicions about me stem from the fact that I once helped Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals.”
“And following that lead revealed that Nanfeng was indeed involved in illegal activities.”
“You!” Liang Yueze seemed close to losing control.
“President Liang, there’s something else I should tell you.” Chen Zheng continued, “Or perhaps you learned it before I did. The drug used to control Tang Xiaowan was manufactured at Nanfeng. The Azure Sky Cult has obtained this drug and recruited large numbers of followers. Someone attacked me in Zhuquan too, and that person was another puppet of the drug.”
Liang Yueze’s expression turned terrible. There was surprise he was holding back, along with other emotions Chen Zheng could not identify.
“The Azure Sky Cult, Heaven-Measuring Ruler, Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals. All three have some connection to you,” Chen Zheng said. “Yet you still try to act as if you’ve forgotten the Jinsi Island case.”
“Chen Zheng!” Liang Yueze suddenly shouted.
“There’s another question about Nanfeng that can’t be overlooked.” Chen Zheng changed the subject. “In the year of your investment, when Huyun Tea Factory was restructuring, six teenagers went missing. Do you know what I was doing before coming back to Luocheng? I was comforting their desperate parents in an interview room. They’re ordinary people, but even they have begun to suspect that drug traffickers killed those children. It’s possible Nanfeng’s drug operations didn’t begin only three years ago.”
Liang Yueze burst out laughing. By the time the laughter subsided, the last scrap of friendship between him and Chen Zheng seemed to have evaporated.
“You think I’m a drug trafficker? I helped Nanfeng so that I could manufacture drugs? Chen Zheng, how could you think that? No matter how desperate things were for Yunquan Group, I never resorted to making or selling illegal drugs!”
His anger was real and painful. The accusation was harsh enough to shake Chen Zheng too. The Jinsi Island case had changed Liang Yueze. He might long since have taken the path of revenge, but Chen Zheng still could not bear the thought of him being involved with drugs.
The interview room fell quiet. Liang Yueze’s breathing gradually steadied. Chen Zheng abruptly stood and switched off the recording equipment.
Liang Yueze was not the only one taken aback. Lu Hejing and Tang Xiaoli, watching the monitor, were startled too.
“I’ve kept investigating you because you’re a very important friend to me,” Chen Zheng said. “I know you can’t let go of Jinsi Island. Over the years I’ve thought many times about when you asked whether what happened was really an accident. If I’d given you a different answer, how different would your life be now? But you and I both know that the answer I didn’t give was the real answer.”
Some of the hostility faded from Liang Yueze’s face. He regarded Chen Zheng not as a police officer but as an old friend sitting across the table.
“I lied to myself for years. I watched Yunquan Group rise again and watched you become completely different from the boy you once were. I told myself that was simply what growing up meant. After losing the people who sheltered you, you had to become the one who sheltered everyone else. You had responsibilities. If you didn’t shoulder them, the Liang family would fall apart,” Chen Zheng said. “I deliberately ignored the fact that you’d lost the people you loved most. I convinced myself you had to think about the bigger picture for your family.”
Liang Yueze’s lips moved faintly, as though Chen Zheng had touched something buried deep in him.
“But did you really let it go?” Chen Zheng asked. “Yueze, I’m not asking about anything else. What you say now won’t be used as evidence. I only want to know whether you can truly accept that Xiao Bin, Xiao Qing, and Second Uncle are gone.”
Liang Yueze looked at him for a long time. Weariness spread across his eyes, and he forced a helpless smile. “Chen Zheng, I have wished countless times over the years that what happened on Jinsi Island was only a nightmare, one I could wake up from and forget. Whenever I thought I’d moved on, reality reminded me that they died there in the best years of their lives. Someone stole those years from them.”
As Chen Zheng listened, his heart sank further. Liang Yueze had seemingly avoided the question, but in another way he had confirmed Chen Zheng’s suspicion.
“They’re here with me. I’m the one keeping them here, unable to rest even in death.” Liang Yueze touched his chest, his smile growing gentle. “I know what you want to find out, and now you should understand what’s in my heart. Chen Zheng, we’ve known each other for so many years. I’m not asking you for much, only a little more time. There are things I still have to finish. When it’s all over, I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Chen Zheng drew a deep breath. “Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals…”
“I can promise you, I knew nothing about Nanfeng manufacturing illegal drugs, whether eight years ago, three years ago, or now!” Liang Yueze said solemnly. “I had nothing to do with Wu Mo’s death. More than anyone, I wish he were still alive, because he could have proved my innocence!”
Resolve shone in his eyes, but after a moment he closed them, sank into his chair, and covered the upper half of his face. “Officer Chen, go ahead and investigate me. I’m no longer the Liang Yueze who watched planes and clouds with you. We’ve both grown up. You have your path, and I have mine. But have you considered that someone might be exploiting your suspicions about me?”
Chen Zheng met his gaze again.
“I’m not clean,” Liang Yueze said, “but that doesn’t mean every dirty accusation should land on me. When everyone is busy throwing mud at me, where are the people who are truly responsible hiding? Does Nanfeng necessarily point to me? Or has someone guided you into keeping your eyes on me so that you won’t look away?”
After leaving the interview room, Chen Zheng spent quite some time in the emergency stairwell.
Liang Yueze’s words amounted to a partial confession of the heart. He had all but admitted he was planning revenge and had significant ties to Heaven-Measuring Ruler, but insisted he had never participated in drug production.
They could get no more from him now. And the Mobile Unit had no grounds to arrest him. Detaining him for forty-eight hours was as far as they could go.
There was sense in his final words. The police had to investigate far more than Liang Yueze; there were people much more dangerous than him. Chen Zheng’s excessive focus on Liang Yueze might be giving those people room to breathe. If Liang Yueze was not behind Nanfeng’s crimes, then the mastermind’s actions had left both the police and Liang Yueze at a disadvantage.
Warm shower water poured over Chen Zheng’s head. He stood with his eyes closed and brow furrowed as memories from his youth passed through his mind.
The unusually mature Liang Yubin seldom smiled, while the lively Liang Xinqing was his opposite. When Liang Xinqing was little, she’d watched too many melodramatic television dramas. One day she took Liang Yueze’s arm and asked, “Big Brother, in a family like ours, won’t I have to be married off for an alliance someday?”
Liang Yueze sprayed out his cola. “Absolutely not! Big Brother will make sure you marry for love!”
Liang Xinqing pouted. “But that’s not following the family traditions. I should make a contribution by entering a marriage alliance.”
“Then which family do you want to marry into?” Liang Yueze asked.
With a sly grin, Liang Xinqing said, “The Chen… Chen family isn’t bad.”
Liang Yueze was outraged. “You little brat! You’ve already set your sights on my brother!”
When she grew up, Liang Xinqing considered the remark the darkest embarrassment of her childhood and got furious whenever anyone mentioned it. Every time she saw Chen Zheng, she would salute him with cupped fists, as if determined to become sworn brothers instead.
Liang Xinqing looked and acted almost exactly like Liang Yueze. Liang Yubin, meanwhile, resembled a weary old father who worried constantly about them.
One year Liang Yueze was taking part in a school sports meet and asked Chen Zheng to bring the twins along. The moment they arrived, Liang Xinqing joined the cheerleaders and shouted more energetically than their captain. Liang Yubin stood straight on the bleachers like a little pine tree. Liang Yueze moved from third place to first during his leg of the race, sending everyone else into a frenzy. Chen Zheng looked at his younger brother and saw that the boy was merely applauding calmly.
Chen Zheng was only a middle-school student himself then. He could not understand how a child could be so dull. He stuffed a pair of cheering sticks into Liang Yubin’s hands. “You’ve got to bang these together if you want your brother to hear you.”
Liang Yubin tapped them twice. His expression remained solemn, but a faint smile finally touched his lips.
Chen Zheng ruffled his hair. “What’s wrong, little brother? Your big brother came first. Is that all the reaction he’s getting?”
Liang Yubin shook his head. “Too much joy invites sorrow.”
Chen Zheng was speechless. He had no idea how the Liang family raised its children. Liang Yueze and Liang Xinqing were free spirits, yet Liang Yubin had somehow become an ascetic.
He pinched the boy’s cheek. “Kids should smile more, you know. Otherwise you’ll never be as handsome as your big brother.”
“I have responsibilities,” Liang Yubin said out of nowhere.
“What?” Chen Zheng asked.
Cheers thundered across the track. Liang Yubin lifted his head and looked at Chen Zheng seriously. “I want my brother and sister to be carefree like they are now forever. When they’re happy, I’m happy too. But happiness always comes at a price.”
Chen Zheng and Liang Yueze usually exchanged nothing but idle chatter. Hearing this, Chen Zheng found himself listening seriously.
Liang Yubin turned toward Liang Yueze in the middle of the track, his eyes full of hope. “The burden of the Liang family’s generation is mine to carry. I’ll take on all their responsibilities so they can simply enjoy life.”
Chen Zheng was silent for a long moment. At last he patted the boy’s shoulder, at a loss for words.
Before Liang Yubin and Liang Xinqing died, Liang Yueze had genuinely lived a life of freedom and pleasure. Few people were as fortunate. He was born to wealth and a harmonious family, with a younger brother who took on all its duties. It was as if wings had sprouted on Liang Yueze’s back, allowing him to fly anywhere.
The twins’ deaths tore him apart, leaving him in pieces. His love for them had never been any less than theirs for him. The Liang Yueze who assembled himself again was not the man of old. He was a creature whose flesh, organs, and soul had all been put back in the wrong places.
“Bro, how much longer are you going to shower?” Ming Han knocked on the bathroom door. “I’m about to mix the cold noodles.”
Chen Zheng came back to himself and turned off the water. “I’ll be right out.”
Five minutes later, Chen Zheng emerged in a loose old-fashioned undershirt, drying his hair as he walked toward the kitchen. Ming Han was tossing cold noodles in a huge steel basin, moving his chopsticks with mighty, sweeping strokes. They had finished work so late that the canteen had little food left. Upon seeing only noodles available, Ming Han had turned to Chen Zheng and said, “We might as well make our own at home, and pick up some braised meat on the way.”
On the way back he had bought braised beef and pig tails. The stall had prepared the seasonings, so all they needed to do was mix everything together. The weather had started warming over the past two days, and Chen Zheng wanted cold noodles. Ming Han bought three yuan’s worth, boiled them at home, tossed them with sesame oil, and let the fan cool them.
Ming Han was fairly good at mixing cold noodles. He put a little of every seasoning in the kitchen into the bowl, then scattered a generous handful of chopped scallions on top. At least it looked very appetizing.
Carbohydrates and meat felt particularly precious amid the stress of the case. Chen Zheng finished his whole serving in one go. After recovering a little, he looked up at Ming Han, who was slowly nibbling meat from a pig tail.
Remembering that Ming Han had bought pig tails on a previous occasion too, Chen Zheng smiled. “You like these?”
Ming Han picked up a section from the middle of a tail and offered it to Chen Zheng’s lips. The tip was too thin to be satisfying, while the base was too fatty. The middle had the best texture.
Chen Zheng accepted it and joined Ming Han in nibbling the meat.
“Bro, Old Tang said you shut yourself in the emergency stairwell after meeting Liang Yueze today, and even switched off the recording,” Ming Han said. “He and our uncle couldn’t see a thing. They’re angry.”
Chen Zheng had shut off the camera only for Liang Yueze’s benefit. He had never intended to hide the conversation from the Mobile Unit. Now that he had eaten and organized his thoughts, he recounted everything in detail. Ming Han listened attentively, nodding from time to time and setting down his pig tail.
“I was sorting through it in the shower. Liang Yueze must have learned the truth about Jinsi Island a long time ago, including who wanted the Liang family destroyed and who carried it out. He needed an extraordinarily strong reason to survive the worst years,” Chen Zheng said calmly. “Heaven-Measuring Ruler is his enemy, but his relationship with it isn’t completely hostile. We’ve considered before that the organization can’t have remained united throughout its development. Now it makes sense. At least one faction within Heaven-Measuring Ruler is allied with Liang Yueze. They have a shared objective.”
“Liang Yueze wants revenge on those who killed his family, and he also wants to destroy Heaven-Measuring Ruler. The faction inside Heaven-Measuring Ruler that stands with him wants to destroy Heaven-Measuring Ruler too,” Ming Han said. “That’s their common goal.”
Chen Zheng nodded. “That would gradually explain the contradictions we noticed earlier. Huo Xiling and Bu Yangyun were among the people who orchestrated the Jinsi Island case and profited from it. Liang Yueze didn’t initially direct his revenge at them, but at their children, just as they killed the Liang family’s children.”
As he spoke, Chen Zheng looked at Ming Han with a trace of worry.
Ming Han, however, was frank. “The attacks on Huo Yewei and me came from Liang Yueze. He’s begun putting his revenge into action, and he goes straight for a killing blow without hesitation.” Suddenly he smiled. “But he didn’t expect my bro to arrive like a godsend and save my life.”
Chen Zheng sighed. “The Azure Sky Cult is either another faction inside Heaven-Measuring Ruler or connected to one. That group is wary of Liang Yueze and wants to eliminate him. They used Tang Xiaowan to cause the car accident, then Cao Mei to take revenge on me. Liang Yueze warned me today that those people may be exploiting my suspicions of him, drawing every clue toward him so that others can escape. Nanfeng Pharmaceuticals was a fuse. The drugs clearly went to the Azure Sky Cult, but if we fail to realize that it and Liang Yueze are on opposing sides, we’ll believe Liang Yueze is the mastermind behind the drug operation.”
After a brief pause, Chen Zheng added, “I thought earlier that Nanfeng was exposed much too easily. Wu Mo was silenced at just the right moment, too. Perhaps the drug operation isn’t over.”
Suddenly Ming Han said, “Bro, there’s one place you’re deliberately avoiding.”
Chen Zheng looked up. “Hm?”
“The time you were attacked at home. Looking at it now, Liang Yueze, or somebody working with him, was warning you. Whatever the details, Liang Yueze must know about it,” Ming Han said. “Killer A murdered Huo Yewei with appalling cruelty and killed Bin Fa almost effortlessly. Yet when he came after you, he only threatened you. I’m ninety-nine percent sure Liang Yueze ordered it. He wants you to see the danger and back off.”
Chen Zheng was quiet for a long time. “Yes, I understand that too. But we have no evidence.”
“Your childhood friend seems to want to avoid hurting you if he possibly can. But people change all the time. When he finally realizes that you’re an obstacle to his revenge, what will he do?”
“I won’t let him get away with it either,” Chen Zheng said.
They were both silent for a while. Then Ming Han said, “That makes Han Qu’s situation rather dramatic.”
Of all the people Chen Zheng and Lu Hejing were thinking about now, Han Qu was undoubtedly at the top of the list. Not long ago, Lin Dong, who had gone missing, returned with news that Han Qu was dead. Judging from Lin Dong’s description, it was entirely possible Han Qu had been executed after his cover was blown. But Lin Dong had not actually seen him die.
Years earlier, Han Qu had supposedly been killed by a cult, and the Special Operations Team had hastily confirmed his death. Yet he had survived. This time they had only Lin Dong’s word.
Perhaps Heaven-Measuring Ruler was creating a scheme to discredit all intelligence Han Qu might send in the future. Or perhaps it was another of Han Qu’s own plans, whether voluntary or forced.
Chen Zheng certainly hoped Han Qu was alive. If he was, had he now reached Heaven-Measuring Ruler’s highest ranks? Had he dealt with Liang Yueze? Which of the organization’s factions had he infiltrated? Heaven-Measuring Ruler was so hard to combat not because it trafficked drugs, ran illegal gambling, or committed murders everywhere, but because outsiders could not identify its true decision-makers. The world seemed full of men called Mr. Jin, but which of them was the Mr. Jin at the top of the pyramid? Lu Hejing’s ultimate mission for Han Qu was to uncover that person. Had he managed to lift the mask before communication was lost?
“Bro, I just thought of something a little outrageous,” Ming Han said. “It was terribly risky for Old Lu to send Han Qu into Qiusai as a traitor. With no other route available, Han Qu was gambling with his life. We never realized someone close to you had such deep connections with Heaven-Measuring Ruler. Now that we do, could Liang Yueze have had a hand in getting Heaven-Measuring Ruler to accept Han Qu?”
A chill spread from the soles of Chen Zheng’s feet up his spine. Whether Liang Yueze had helped Han Qu infiltrate Heaven-Measuring Ruler depended on how far his cooperation with the organization extended. Two years earlier, when Han Qu first “defected,” Liang Yueze had expressed great concern for him. What had he been calculating then?
“Last two pieces. Let’s split them.” Ming Han picked up the final two pieces of pig tail and offered one to Chen Zheng.
Besides Liang Yueze, the Mobile Unit was closely watching another person: labor intermediary Jin Xiaoquan. He had already shown suspicious behavior when Ming Han and Wen Wu infiltrated the intermediaries’ banquet. While Chen Zheng survived his ordeal in Zhuquan and the Nanfeng drug operation was exposed, Jin Xiaoquan had remained under police observation, apparently doing nothing wrong.
Yunquan Group’s labor-placement fair was long over. Jin Xiaoquan’s company had recruited more than a hundred workers, soon to be dispatched to different countries for different jobs, mostly agricultural and service work. He had not yet left the country because there was still a great deal of paperwork to process. That gave the Mobile Unit additional time to investigate.
The guards from Nanfeng’s security company were all under the control of Junan Municipal Bureau, and their identities and backgrounds were being verified one by one. One man, known as A Hu, had a fierce appearance. Chen Zheng suspected he had blood on his hands.
At first A Hu insisted that he had grown up on the border, was an orphan from birth, and could not even say which country he belonged to. He was very uncooperative. But the police discovered he was no border orphan at all. His DNA matched relatives surnamed Zhang from a village in Han Province.
The Zhang parents hurried to Junan. Upon seeing him, they burst into tears and berated him for being an unfilial son.
According to his family, A Hu had been full of energy and fond of fighting since childhood. In primary school, he had cruelly killed and dismembered a large black dog belonging to the village, making the Zhang family the target of everyone’s anger. His parents had tried everything: locking him up at home, sending him to boarding school. Nothing worked. Teachers said perhaps only suffering hardship in the real world would straighten him out. When he was older, A Hu ran away and never contacted them again. For years his parents believed he had died. They never imagined the next news of him would involve an illegal-drug investigation.
A Hu admitted that after leaving home, he had traveled through several large cities in Han Province but could not find work. Then he met a group of foreigners offering to arrange profitable jobs abroad. He was so poor by then that he could scarcely afford food. Forget making a fortune; he would have gone anywhere that could keep him from starving.
He and a group of others went to the border and crossed illegally into Southeast Asia. That part matched what he had already told police. He learned to use firearms, moved among mercenaries and armed groups, killed people, was wounded, and had several children while living in Southeast Asia.
Three years earlier, he was told there was an easy job back home and plenty of people wanted it. After years of fighting abroad, returning seemed attractive. Among the men who came to Nanfeng with him was a close friend he’d made in Southeast Asia, A Jiao. Unlike A Hu, who worked as a guard, A Jiao was employed on the production line making Black Mark.