Cat-Ear Wine

My good friend Peng Yu and I were traveling together, and he died in his hotel room.

And according to the police investigation,

if I hadn’t swapped rooms with Peng Yu on a whim that night, I would have died three times over…

1

Zhang Chen sat slumped behind a square table. The shirt he hadn’t changed in three days was wrinkled; dark bags under his eyes and dense stubble on his chin showed how exhausted he was.

He looked blankly around the windowless interrogation room, remembering that in the past, when he’d stepped into places like this, his identity and role had been completely different. The exhausted people on the verge of collapse hadn’t been him, but his clients.

The door of the interrogation room opened, and a dark, stocky police officer walked in, followed by a younger colleague.

“Lawyer Zhang, I’ll be honest with you. From the evidence we police have right now, things look very bad for you. If you keep hiding things, no one can help you…”

The speaker was Liu Weiwen, deputy captain of Criminal Investigation Team One of Zhongyuan City. He sat directly across from Zhang Chen, his expression stern and his voice low, his eyes so bright they seemed able to pierce all darkness and reach the truth.

Zhang Chen knew every technique criminal police used in questioning, and he could tell that Captain Liu wasn’t bluffing. It was a sincere warning.

Zhang Chen smiled bitterly. His thoughts drifted back to the morning three days ago, the end of that absurd trip.

Back then, Zhang Chen, his wife, his younger brother and younger sister, the four of them, had stood silently at the inn’s entrance.

In the open space outside were a police car and an ambulance. Busy police and doctors were carrying Peng Yu’s body down from upstairs.

The ambulance was actually unnecessary. Peng Yu’s pale, stiff face had no trace of life left in it, and the treated wound on the back of his head had long since stopped seeping blood, and stopped healing.

Zhang Chen didn’t know whether his own face looked bad, but his wife and siblings were all wearing expressions of fear and unease.

Later the police told Zhang Chen that Peng Yu’s death was very strange.

The wound on the back of his head wasn’t fatal. There was a charcoal brazier in the room, but the level of carbon monoxide in the body wasn’t high, and his hands showed signs of struggle. Strangest of all were the multiple needle marks on Peng Yu’s forearms and buttocks.

Finding those needle marks had taken the forensic examiners a lot of effort, but what had directly caused Peng Yu’s death was hard to determine. The technical section hadn’t had such a challenging body in a long time.

In the end, the police narrowed the suspects down to Zhang Chen’s family.

Peng Yu had been Zhang Chen’s good buddy since college. On this trip too, it was Zhang Chen who’d invited him, and he’d come along to Langu Township, Baima Town, on the outskirts of Zhongyuan City, planning to spend the weekend together in that place of clear water and green hills.

After being brought to the police station, the first thing Zhang Chen said when questioned was: “The person who died should have been me. Before the power went out, Peng Yu and I swapped rooms…”

Although there were few guests at the inn, and in the end the only suspects left were Zhang Chen’s family of four, Liu Weiwen soon realized how complex the case was. This family was not as simple as it looked.

Zhang Chen didn’t remember how many times he’d recounted those two days, but Liu Weiwen’s instincts from years on the job told him he was still hiding something…

2

This family trip had been organized by Zhang Chen.

That evening, he sat in a little eatery in a corner of the city, a dark-brown briefcase beside him, along with a CT scan from the hospital.

Looking dejected, he stared at a bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup but didn’t pick up his chopsticks for a long time. Behind the steaming stove, the proprietress, her long hair loosely tied back, was slender, with delicate features.

But she wore no makeup and didn’t pay much attention to her clothes, and she looked pale and haggard. The steam from the wok had brought out a layer of sweat on her forehead, faintly glistening under the light.

The proprietress set a plate of fried squid tentacles in front of Zhang Chen and gave him a meaningful smile.

“Eat before it gets cold.”

Zhang Chen turned to look at her, sighed very softly, and took out his phone. He pulled his wife, sister and brother into a group chat and sent a message.

After sending it, he put the phone face down on the table, then took a pair of chopsticks from the holder and started eating.

On the third day, a Saturday, Zhang Chen and Peng Yu each drove a car, taking Zhang Chen’s wife and siblings toward Langu Township, Baima Town, on the outskirts. His wife and sister rode in Zhang Chen’s car, and his brother rode with Peng Yu.

They seemed never to have traveled together like this before, and the air in the car was as silent and dull as if it had solidified. After a long while, the sister in the back seat spoke.

“Ge, why are we going to some countryside place at a time like this? Whatever else, we should be going to the hospital.”

Her voice carried a hint of complaint and confusion.

Translator’s note: Ge (哥) is short for gege, “older brother.”

“The hospital is pointless now. I just want to spend some time with you all. I’ve already arranged the hospice. I’m moving in on Monday.”

Zhang Chen’s voice was calm, as if he were talking about something unimportant.

His wife, Qiu Ping, sat with her arms crossed over her chest, her head turned to the window, saying nothing. However beautiful the scenery outside, none of it registered; Qiu Ping’s mind was in turmoil.

Two days earlier, her husband had announced some news to them: he was ill, a late-stage tumor. The doctor recommended palliative care. Zhang Chen’s life had entered a countdown of roughly 4 to 6 months.

Zhang Chen had declined the doctor’s advice to be admitted to the hospital and had found a hospice specializing in terminal patients.

It could provide full end-of-life care and comfort. None of the treatments were aimed at prolonging life, only at reducing pain and discomfort and improving the quality of the time remaining.

As a lawyer, Zhang Chen had dealt with many people and many families, and he knew that when a life reached its end, suffering less was a blessing.

He had no children. He told his wife and siblings he hoped they could spend a good weekend with him and settle his affairs. And Peng Yu, as Zhang Chen’s best friend, had been invited along too.

Such a shabby trip to the outskirts wasn’t what Zhang Chen had really wanted, but no one would agree to a long trip. They had no time to put their lives on hold for something like that, nor did they want to risk caring for a patient who might collapse on the road.

3

“The proprietress is A-Qing. She’s a friend of mine.”

Zhang Chen said this to everyone as he took a duffel bag out of the trunk.

Qiu Ping glanced at the woman standing to one side with a smile: slender, delicate features, red lips so lush they seemed to glisten, and clear bright eyes as lively as if they’d been soaked in water.

Her husband was a lawyer, and though he knew a lot of people, he was dull and boring, always carrying the pedantic habits of his profession and never knowing how to please anyone, so she’d never worried that Zhang Chen would get involved with other women.

The younger brother, Zhang Bin, glanced at the proprietress and marveled inwardly that such a backwater could produce such a pretty girl.

But he didn’t show it. He just lazily dragged his suitcase through the inn’s door. Above the door hung a wood-colored sign that read “Lanzhi Inn.”

Peng Yu went up warmly to say hello, praising the clear water and green hills and the inn’s quiet, rustic décor over and over.

The proprietress smiled: “I didn’t decorate it. I only took it over not long ago.”

Zhang Chen walked over, a smile in his eyes as he looked at her: “A-Qing used to run an eatery. After she took over the inn her uncle used to run, she still didn’t come here much. They’re short-handed these couple of days, so she closed her shop to come help.”

“Oh, Miss A-Qing is so capable…” Peng Yu cheerfully offered some bland compliments, then felt they were pointless himself.

But everyone was so cold, there wasn’t any feeling of a trip at all, and he felt very uncomfortable.

A-Qing arranged five rooms for Zhang Chen’s party of five, all on the third floor.

Closest to the junction of the T-shaped corridor were Zhang Chen’s and Peng Yu’s rooms. Zhang Bin was next to his brother. Qiu Ping’s room and Zhang Chen’s sister’s room were next to each other at the other end of the corridor.

A-Qing didn’t seem at all curious that Zhang Chen wasn’t sharing a room with his wife, and briskly handed out key cards to everyone.

After they’d settled in, everyone went downstairs for lunch, which had been set up on the inn’s ground floor facing the lush front courtyard.

The sky was clear and the air was fresh, and the early autumn wind now and then blew leaves off the trees, which spun slowly down through the air. Because the surroundings were pleasant, the mood at the table was a little more relaxed than on the way there.

Zhang Chen’s sister, Zhang Yun, had changed clothes and redone her makeup in her room, and she looked much brighter and prettier. She asked with a smile:

“Ge, what are we doing this afternoon?”

“There’s a lake here called Lanshui Lake. It’s beautiful, and the fish are fat. Fishing would be nice.”

Zhang Yun pouted: “Boring.”

At the mention of fishing, Peng Yu was very keen: “I’ll go with you. The last time we brothers went fishing together was four or five years ago.”

Zhang Chen knew his wife Qiu Ping wouldn’t be interested, so he looked at his brother. His brother was focused on picking up food; when he came back to himself and saw his brother looking at him, he refused at once.

“I’m not going.” Then he went on eating as if no one else were there, indifferent to everything.

Just as the family fell silent again, A-Qing walked over.

She wore a blue-gray qipao, with a small magnolia hairpin in her glossy black bun. Her makeup was fresh and elegant, and set against the inn, she looked like a woman who’d walked in from another time. It was hard to look away.

Zhang Chen politely invited her to eat with them. A-Qing declined: “I’ve already eaten. If I’m not looking after you well enough, please forgive me…”

This version of A-Qing and the woman behind the stove at the little eatery, full of everyday bustle, were like two different people. It wasn’t the first time Zhang Chen had seen her change her look so dramatically, so he wasn’t surprised.

The others had never seen the proprietress without makeup, so they all assumed A-Qing had always been this alluring. Even Peng Yu and Zhang Bin stopped eating, their eyes full of admiration.

Qiu Ping felt a bit uncomfortable. She coughed lightly twice, pulling the men’s attention back.

Zhang Chen understood that A-Qing had come over to play hostess, so he introduced his family to her.

“This is my wife, Qiu Ping. She runs a flower shop. You love flowers too, so you two can trade notes. Those two young people are my younger brother and sister, Zhang Bin and Zhang Yun. My brother is still studying abroad and is back for a few days on break. My sister already works.

“And this is my good buddy, Peng Yu. He runs a business on his own in Zhongyuan City. He’s a boss…

“A-Qing used to be my client. This inn was taken over by her uncle, who bullied her and her mother. I got it back for her through legal channels.”

Hearing this, Qiu Ping looked A-Qing over with her almond eyes and smiled: “So young, I’d never have guessed you had a child.”

A-Qing smiled faintly too: “No. When Lawyer Zhang said ‘her and her mother,’ he meant my mom and me. Thanks again to Lawyer Zhang. Don’t stand on ceremony here. If you need anything, just tell me…”

“We’re going fishing this afternoon,” Zhang Chen said.

“Yes, the fish are fat right now. I’ll arrange a boat for you. The big fish are in the middle of the lake.”

“Thank you,” Zhang Chen replied.

After the pleasantries, A-Qing left. Her back was slender, and she moved gracefully in her high heels. The men watched her until she disappeared down the wisteria-covered corridor…

4

The little boat cut through the waist-high reeds and slowly came out into open water. Peng Yu looked out at the hazy green expanse of Lanshui Lake and felt instantly refreshed.

Zhang Chen had brought the boat to a stop and was already threading line and baiting his rod. Peng Yu cheerfully started fiddling with his own rod too.

“Didn’t expect you could drive a boat, Lao Chen.”

“It’s easy. It’s an ordinary fishing boat with a little motor the fishermen added. You just have to handle the tiller at the back.”

Peng Yu was quiet for a moment, then brought the conversation back to what they’d been discussing after lunch:

“Buddy, not to butt in, but does your dad and mom know about this?”

“No. They’re old. I don’t want them worrying again before they’ve even had a few peaceful days of retirement. Honestly, since there’s no cure, why make the old folks suffer along with me for a few extra days?”

“True. But the rest of it, you’re handling it a bit too rashly. Look, I’m an outsider, it’s not really my place, but since you trust me so much, I think…”

Zhang Chen stood up and, with a flick of his arm, cast his line far out into the water, then cut Peng Yu off.

“A-Yu, what I told you in the tea room earlier, I’m bringing it up with them at dinner. So I’m not asking for your opinion. I just hope that as my good friend, you’ll support me.”

Peng Yu stopped what he was doing and adjusted his hat. The words he’d been about to say got awkwardly stuck in his throat. But after thinking it over, he decided to say them anyway.

“Ai, Lao Chen, I know things between you and Qiu Ping have cooled, but you’ve been married all these years. You know that flower shop of hers can’t even support her. Without you, what’s a woman like her supposed to do?

“And your brother and sister. Your brother’s still in school, and you’ve always paid his tuition and living costs. If it’s suddenly gone, is he supposed to really work his way through school?…”

“They need to rely on themselves now.”

Zhang Chen gazed out over the lake, his face as calm as the water.

Peng Yu looked at his friend’s profile, half in the shadow of his hat brim. All he could see was the tightly pressed corner of his mouth, holding both loneliness and resolve.

He said no more. He took two bottles of wine out of the cooler and handed one to Zhang Chen.

“From the proprietress. Some kind of cat-ear wine, she said. I had a sip. It’s good, so I brought you some.”

“I can’t hold my liquor.”

“Ah! Enjoy life while you can! Drink up. I’ll drive the boat back later…”

As he said this, Peng Yu took a big swig himself, then looked back at the canvas bag he’d brought with him, and his face darkened without his meaning it to.

Zhang Chen unhurriedly picked up his bottle too, clinked it against Peng Yu’s, and started sipping slowly.

Before long, Peng Yu was more and more obviously drunk. He’d dropped his fishing rod and was sitting in the middle of the boat clutching the bottle, his head swaying a little.

By now Zhang Chen had already landed two big fish, enough for a meal for the family. He reeled in his line, and his gaze stopped on the canvas bag Peng Yu had brought.

Then he picked up the bag and set it by his own feet, and his gaze returned to the lake in the distance. Among the shimmering ripples, it seemed as if only this boat were left in the world.

Zhang Chen’s brows were knitted, as if he were savoring or pondering something painful.

Behind him, Peng Yu, who was used to drinking in the business world, had a vacant look in his eyes and a strange half-smile on his face, as if lost in a world of his own.

Zhang Chen sighed, went to the stern, started the boat, and headed for the shore…

5

Qiu Ping sat in the courtyard. The whole afternoon, she’d idly watched the chickens and dogs of this countryside place chase each other around. She didn’t want to go anywhere. Going anywhere felt exhausting.

Her husband was not long for this world, and Qiu Ping didn’t seem to feel anything about it.

The two of them had been together since college and had once been very much in love, but twelve years later, a dull marriage had gradually worn away the last bit of that love.

Qiu Ping had no children. That wasn’t her problem. It was Zhang Chen who couldn’t have children.

When they were in love, Qiu Ping hadn’t cared, but now that she was getting older, she grew more and more desperate.

What Qiu Ping despaired of wasn’t really the lack of children. She was free-spirited by nature and only wanted to live in the moment.

But Zhang Chen couldn’t give her the present she wanted, nor the future she wanted. The emptiness of her inner world was devouring Qiu Ping’s vitality.

Yet she couldn’t leave Zhang Chen either. It was her husband who gave her material comfort…

As Qiu Ping sat lost in thought, the inn’s bamboo gate suddenly swung open, and Peng Yu came hurrying in, held up by Zhang Chen and A-Qing.

His eyes were half closed and his head drooped slightly. There was a wound on the back of his head; blood had run down his neck to his back, staining a patch of his T-shirt.

Qiu Ping hurried over: “What happened?”

Zhang Chen glanced up at her: “He got drunk. While the boat was moving, he stood up and hit his head on a branch sticking out from the shore.”

Qiu Ping stared at Peng Yu’s face. He showed no reaction at all, only moaned softly. She couldn’t tell whether he was still drunk or had hit his head badly. He let Zhang Chen and A-Qing help him into the inn and back to his room.

A-Qing brought a doctor from the Langu Township clinic, who gave Peng Yu’s wound basic treatment. The doctor said the wound wasn’t serious, but it would be best to go back to the city tomorrow and get properly checked at a hospital for a concussion.

Qiu Ping suggested heading back right away, but all five of them had drunk wine at lunch, and Peng Yu’s condition really wasn’t urgent. It was already past 6 p.m., so everyone agreed it would be fine to go back first thing tomorrow.

At dinner, Peng Yu was missing from the table. He was still resting in his room. A-Qing said she’d bring his food up when he woke.

Zhang Bin hadn’t come out of his room all afternoon. He was yawning nonstop and looked like he hadn’t woken up yet. His sister, on the other hand, had wandered around the area and thought Langu Township was quite beautiful.

At the table, she kept trading voice messages with her boyfriend in such a coy tone that everyone listening got goosebumps.

While everyone was busy with their food and phones, Zhang Chen spoke.

“There’s something I need to announce.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing. They all had a feeling that what came next would concern them directly.

Zhang Chen looked very tired, his eyes a little unfocused, his right hand absently turning the water glass in front of him. It was a long time before he spoke.

“Mom and Dad don’t know about this yet. You don’t need to tell them too soon. Let them have a few more days without worry.

“As for the property and savings in my name, apart from what I’m keeping for my own costs at the hospice, I’ll have my friend Lawyer Liu handle the rest and transfer all of it to Songshan Nursing Home, to secure Mom and Dad for the rest of their lives.

“There are also several insurance policies. The beneficiaries were originally the three of you, in equal shares. But tomorrow I’m having Lawyer Liu come with me to change them.

“Everything I leave behind will go only to Mom and Dad’s care, and it won’t be handed to them directly. So don’t think about finding ways to get it out of them either…”

The first to recover from the shock was Zhang Yun. Her eyes went wide: “Ge, what do you mean by this?”

Zhang Chen didn’t answer. He just picked up his glass and slowly drank some water.

Qiu Ping looked at her husband. There was no surprise in her eyes, but the disappointment and resentment were undisguised.

There was a crash as a glass shattered on the floor, drawing everyone’s eyes.

Zhang Bin had shot to his feet. He swayed a little, and the way he looked at his brother seemed slightly out of focus.

“What about my tuition? You promised Mom and Dad you’d pay for my school.”

Everyone could tell Zhang Bin had been drinking. He’d been drinking the cat-ear wine the inn provided to guests without limit. A-Qing brewed it herself, from a secret recipe handed down from her grandmother’s generation.

The wine was very popular, both at her eatery and at the inn, and she never sold it. She only gave it away.

Zhang Bin hadn’t drunk so much because he loved it. He’d figured that tomorrow morning, without Peng Yu, someone would have to take over as driver.

And he only wanted to curl up in the back seat with his game console, so he’d deliberately drunk more so he’d have an excuse not to drive.

Now everyone just assumed he was drunk, so he spoke without restraint.

Since someone had already torn off the masks, Qiu Ping didn’t hold back either. She asked Zhang Chen:

“I’m not afraid to say it in front of your brother and sister. All these years married, and you never gave me a child. Now you’re leaving so neatly, without a shred of feeling for the past.

“I’m your lawful wife. A big-shot lawyer like you can’t not know that I have inheritance rights and disposal rights over this property. That’s not something you can change just by arranging a few things!”

Zhang Chen looked at his wife and brother, and his body began to tremble uncontrollably.

Extreme anger together with extreme grief can make a person unable to breathe, and that was how Zhang Chen was now. He clutched his chest, his face twisted in pain.

Everyone at the table thought his body was giving out, and immediately didn’t dare say another word.

“Qiu Ping, since you mention all these years married, don’t you know what you’ve done? You really want to talk law with me? What you’ve done, I’m afraid it’s not as simple as just losing your inheritance rights.”

Zhang Chen said it through gritted teeth, one word at a time.

Qiu Ping had looked indignant a moment ago. Now she froze, and only after a while did she answer bitterly: “What exactly are you trying to say?!”

Zhang Chen ignored her and pointed at his brother.

“You got to study abroad because Mom and Dad begged me to arrange it. And what have you been doing over there? Smoking weed, skipping class, changing girlfriends like a revolving lantern, hitting a teacher… Be honest. Can you even graduate?”

Zhang Bin had never seen his brother, who’d never raised his voice, this worked up.

His face was flushed red with anger, the fury in his eyes turning into flaming arrows flying straight at him.

But Zhang Bin wasn’t frightened off. He shoved his chair over and, a bit unsteady on his feet, turned without hesitation and left the table, tossing back only one sentence before he disappeared around the corner of the corridor.

“You have no right to tell me what to do!”

The unpleasant dinner couldn’t continue. Zhang Chen’s decision had offended his entire family.

After everyone left, only Zhang Chen sat at one end of the long rectangular table, facing the leftovers.

He felt a complete, bone-deep cold and loneliness. Whether he lived or died, it seemed no one in the world cared.

At some point A-Qing had come to stand beside him, her eyes full of pity.

6

Every time Liu Weiwen saw Qiu Ping, she looked languid and cold. Once you talked to her for a while, you’d find that was simply how she always was.

Qiu Ping was a beautiful woman, shapely, with fair skin and lips that turned down at the corners.

When she stared at you, for a moment it was like seeing a Hong Kong film star from the last century, stunning and full of personality.

“When can I go?”

That was the question Qiu Ping asked most. Every time, Liu Weiwen told her that as long as she told the truth and could prove she hadn’t been involved in the killing, she could leave soon.

“Everything I’ve said is the truth.”

“Is it?” Liu Weiwen raised his eyebrows. “You say you didn’t enter your husband’s room or Peng Yu’s room at any point that night, but there’s no way to verify that.

“After the power went out, Zhang Yun saw you go into the storeroom off the corridor. And before she saw you, you had plenty of time to go into Peng Yu’s room.”

Qiu Ping crossed her arms over her chest, her voice a little deflated.

“I’m not afraid to tell you, I couldn’t have killed Peng Yu. He and I had that kind of relationship…”

“What kind of relationship?” Liu Weiwen looked her in the eye.

“I love him.”

“Does Zhang Chen know?”

“He knows.” Qiu Ping paused, then suddenly looked up at Liu Weiwen. “He must have done it on purpose. He invited Peng Yu on purpose, injured him on purpose while fishing, swapped rooms on purpose!”

“You’re saying your husband killed Peng Yu?”

“I don’t know, but isn’t it very possible? He had a motive, and since he doesn’t have long to live anyway, he didn’t need to worry about anything.”

There was already hatred in Qiu Ping’s voice. She didn’t notice Liu Weiwen’s sharp eyes fixed on her face.

“Then how do you think Zhang Chen killed Peng Yu?”

Qiu Ping gradually relaxed. She tilted her head and thought for a while before answering: “That’s for you to investigate.”

Liu Weiwen didn’t take the conversation any further. After Qiu Ping left, he had his colleagues bring Zhang Chen in.

Hearing that his wife had accused him, Zhang Chen smiled bitterly, then asked a question.

“Did you tell her you found needle marks on Peng Yu?”

Liu Weiwen’s tone became a lot harsher: “We ask the questions here, not you.”

“I know where those needle marks came from.” Zhang Chen wasn’t intimidated. After all, he’d been a criminal defense lawyer for a few years.

Gao Hao, who was beside Liu Weiwen taking notes, stopped writing and looked up at Zhang Chen.

The forensic examiners still hadn’t reached any conclusion about the needle marks. They’d tested the victim’s blood and bodily fluids and found no toxic substances.

“I saw a large amount of injectable insulin at home. Neither Qiu Ping nor I have diabetes, so it was very likely meant for me.”

“But it’s Peng Yu who’s dead.”

“Because the bed in Peng Yu’s room was smaller and it had a desk. I swapped with him so that with the wound on the back of his head he could sleep comfortably on his stomach, and because I needed a desk to work on some documents.

“By evening he wasn’t in good shape. He was a bit disoriented. And that night, sometime after 12, the power went out…”

“You seem to know a lot about Peng Yu’s condition.”

“Before 11, I did go into Peng Yu’s room several times to check on him. But I wouldn’t kill anyone, because if I wanted to punish Qiu Ping and Peng Yu, I had a better way. I have evidence of their crimes.

“Through Qiu Ping’s flower shop, they defrauded a large number of customers of membership fees and put the money into risky investments, and now it’s all gone. That’s financial fraud, involving over a million yuan. If I wanted to make life hard for them, it would be easy.”

Liu Weiwen frowned: “Isn’t Qiu Ping’s flower shop small, can’t even support itself? A million-plus in membership fees?”

“That’s why it’s serious fraud. They built a fake website imitating another well-known online flower brand, used some of the shop’s flowers and mailed them to customers at a low price as bait, and lured a large number of customers into buying memberships.”

Liu Weiwen leaned back. He’d never expected a financial crime case to be tangled up in this criminal case.

Zhang Chen was a lawyer; he couldn’t be talking nonsense. And he told Liu Weiwen they could send someone to his home right away to pick up the evidence report he’d compiled.

“I always intended to make them face the law. There’s some personal motive in it, true, but it’s entirely just,” Zhang Chen said calmly.

Zhang Chen’s eyes were fixed on empty space. He didn’t have Qiu Ping’s flailing hatred; he was frighteningly calm.

7

Early the next morning, as soon as Liu Weiwen walked into his office, he found Director Wang of the forensic science lab standing there waiting for him.

“We’ve found something.”

With that, Director Wang handed over several pages of reports. Liu Weiwen took them and flipped through. The more he read, the more serious his expression became, and by the time he looked up, his brows were twisted into a knot.

“There’s tissue from Zhang Bin under Peng Yu’s left fingernails?”

“Yes. Usually that happens when the deceased struggled before death and fought with the attacker, so their nails dug into the other person’s skin and left traces.”

“Zhang Bin killed Peng Yu?”

“The body shows signs of suffocation, and the head wound has secondary compression injuries. And there was a bloodstained pillow on the bed at the scene, with marks matching the wound on the back of Peng Yu’s head…

“We can infer that Zhang Bin used the pillow to press down on Peng Yu while he was lying face down, causing him to suffocate and struggle, and his nails scratched Zhang Bin.”

Liu Weiwen put down the report and thought for a long time, running through the case again in his mind. Then he asked Director Wang:

“Was the stuff injected through the needle marks on Peng Yu really insulin?”

“After you pointed us in that direction, we immediately took tissue from around the needle marks for testing. The results will be out in a couple of days. In my view it’s very likely. An overdose of insulin dissolves in the blood and is normally very hard to detect.”

Leaving the office, Liu Weiwen had Gao Hao arrange to question Zhang Bin.

Zhang Bin was one of the suspects, but because his mental state wasn’t normal, he hadn’t been questioned the day before.

Now Zhang Bin sat numbly in the bright interrogation room, eyes glazed, lips pale.

His mind had dropped out of the euphoria and hallucinations of alcohol and weed, as if he’d been thrown into a boundless wilderness, lost and helpless.

What had happened in Langu Township slowly washed back over him like a tide.

He remembered that night was especially dark. No lights, no moon, just a cold room full of smoke, his sister’s shrill crying, the chilly wind outside the window ledge, and that struggling man.

After leaving the table that night, Zhang Bin went straight back to his room, took out the joints he’d brought back from abroad, and couldn’t wait to light up.

The buzz from the cat-ear wine at dinner combined with the high of the weed made Zhang Bin shiver with pleasure.

Time hung suspended in the smoky air, space became infinitely vast, and his thoughts became unusually clear.

Zhang Bin thought about his free and easy life abroad, his beautiful foreign girlfriend. He also thought about how once his brother Zhang Chen changed the insurance beneficiaries, he’d be left with nothing.

He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let his good life suddenly be dashed to the ground and shattered.

Just then, noise came from next door. His sister was crying and making a scene in their brother’s room.

To Zhang Bin, his hearing was even sharper than usual right now, so he naturally heard all of it clearly.

His sister Zhang Yun worked as a clerk at a friend’s company their brother had introduced her to. She came in late and left early, made mistakes and slacked off, embarrassing Zhang Chen, and spent all her energy on boyfriends who were nothing but trouble.

Of the boyfriends she met, nine out of ten claimed to be artists, either singers or filmmakers, and they all had the same traits: broke and arrogant, arrogant and rotten.

Right now his sister was making a scene with their brother Zhang Chen. She said Zhang Chen’s arrangement went against their parents’ wishes and ignored the bond between siblings.

“…Back then it was me and our brother who stayed with Mom and Dad. We were the ones always on the move, while you lived a nice stable life with Grandma back home.

If life hadn’t been so hard back then, having to help Mom and Dad and look after our brother, would I have had to drop out of school? Mom and Dad gave you the chance, and now you’ve made something of yourself, and this is how you treat us…”

Zhang Yun cried as she spoke.

Zhang Chen’s voice was much lower, but it still carried to Zhang Bin’s ears.

“The bond between siblings? How many years of sibling bond have we had?”

Zhang Chen smiled bitterly. Since he was little he’d been left in the poor countryside, living with his grandmother. How he’d once envied his younger siblings for getting to live with their parents and go to school in the city.

If his grandmother hadn’t kept working in the fields in her seventies and insisted on paying for his schooling, he could never have become who he was today.

Now he was this age, and his grandmother had long since passed away.

He didn’t want to dwell on why his parents had been partial back then. Instead he’d faithfully looked after the two of them, and used his money and connections to take care of his younger siblings, treating his family so well that no outsider could say a word against him.

Too bad no one seemed to value what he’d given. They all took it for granted.

His sister was still sobbing, which irritated Zhang Chen. He wanted very much to throw her out, but he couldn’t bring himself to.

He had always played the good son, the good brother, the good husband, successful in his career, his life perfect.

This pretty sister of his never got the important things right but was full of petty cleverness, and she knew Zhang Chen’s weaknesses: perfectionism and an excessive sense of responsibility.

But she couldn’t see through what Zhang Chen had done today, so Zhang Yun assumed it was just her brother acting on impulse, and that making enough of a scene would change his mind.

Zhang Bin listened, smiling mockingly in his own room.

He looked down on his shallow sister, and he looked down on his brother’s stifled life too.

Even though his whole extravagant, pleasure-filled life depended on the support of this stuffy, boring brother…

8

“So when your sister Zhang Yun was arguing with Zhang Chen, that’s when the power went out?”

“No. Afterward she came into my room and wanted to talk about how to change our brother’s mind. That’s when the power went out.”

“She came to you right after the argument?”

“The inn’s proprietress brought a pot of cat-ear wine to every room, which interrupted their argument. That’s when my sister came out of our brother’s room.”

“And what did the two of you talk about?”

“Nothing much. She saw my room was full of smoke and started yelling at me…”

Liu Weiwen found Zhang Bin unusually candid. He even quickly admitted that after the power went out, he’d climbed through the window ledge that connected the two rooms into Zhang Chen’s room, meaning to kill his brother.

“He takes sleeping pills at night, so he sleeps very deeply. Maybe because of the alcohol and weed, it didn’t feel like I was killing anyone… but I really didn’t realize the person in the bed was Peng Yu.”

“Did Zhang Yun know you were going to do this?”

“No. After she finished yelling at me for being useless, she left.”

Liu Weiwen thought the thing that made Zhang Bin and Zhang Chen most like brothers was that calm in front of the police.

Zhang Bin was a pleasure-seeking young man, but now he wasn’t flustered at all, very composed.

Liu Weiwen had once thought Zhang Chen’s calm was just from his profession, but now it seemed it was more his personality, and Zhang Bin had the same personality.

“But I can say with one hundred percent certainty that Peng Yu wasn’t smothered by me with the pillow. Even though he was lying face down, his hands kept struggling, and he scratched my arm and drew blood. Then the proprietress suddenly came in, and I got such a fright I let go.”

“Why would the proprietress come in?”

“I don’t know. It was very dark in the room. Suddenly the door opened and a woman in a dress walked in. She had a key card and was wearing a long dress, so it must have been that A-Qing.”

“Then what?”

“She probably got a fright too, because she turned and left. I stood there stunned for a moment, and when I chased after her she was gone. But in the corridor I ran into my sister and sister-in-law. They said the power was out and they’d come out to get flashlights…”

“What time was it?”

“How would I know? That night was like a dream.”

“You thought the person in the bed was your brother, but he was sleeping face down with a bandaged wound on the back of his head. You didn’t find that strange at all?”

“No. The room was very dark. I didn’t care how he was sleeping. I just thought that if my brother couldn’t go change the insurance beneficiaries tomorrow, that would be fine…”

“Why are you confessing?”

“Because I didn’t kill anyone, and my mental state wasn’t normal at the time. Honestly, telling the truth is better for me.”

Zhang Bin answered very calmly.

Liu Weiwen didn’t find any holes in Zhang Bin’s story, and his attitude was very candid. But either way, this was attempted murder, and Zhang Bin was definitely going to prison.

Then, putting it together with what Qiu Ping and Zhang Yun had told him, Liu Weiwen suddenly noticed something off.

According to Qiu Ping’s statement, after the power went out, when she came out into the corridor she saw two women’s figures, one at each end of the corridor. She thought they were A-Qing and Zhang Yun.

Then Qiu Ping went into the storeroom, and Zhang Yun followed her. Then they ran into the proprietress A-Qing together. A-Qing told them there were no candles in the inn and took them to get flashlights…

The timing was so tight. And after witnessing Zhang Bin trying to kill someone, how could A-Qing calmly walk to the storeroom at the other end of the T-shaped corridor and run into Qiu Ping and the others?

Zhang Yun had also mentioned that after going back to her room, she felt cold and hungry, so she went to the kitchen, ran into A-Qing, and the two of them talked for a while.

Liu Weiwen felt that after the power went out at the inn, this family had been far too busy moving around. How much of what they’d told him was true, and how much was hidden?

Liu Weiwen felt he needed to make another trip to Langu Township.

9

The last time he’d entered the little courtyard of the Lanzhi Inn, Liu Weiwen had only been thinking about assessing the scene and looking for clues. The whole criminal investigation team had swarmed up to the third floor and turned the little guest room nearly upside down.

Coming back now, he realized how clean, elegant and simple this little courtyard and building were. Standing in these woods, it had a charm all its own.

A-Qing sat behind the counter beside the ground-floor entrance. Today she wasn’t wearing a qipao, but a vintage polka-dot dress with a gray knit cardigan, her long hair slightly wavy and falling over her shoulders to her chest.

Her makeup was light today, and her face was somewhat pale. She saw Liu Weiwen and wasn’t surprised. She slowly got up to make tea and welcome him.

“Sorry to bother you. We’d like to go into more detail on the questions we asked you the other day.”

“Of course.”

Liu Weiwen and Gao Hao sat down. The inn was a bit desolate; there didn’t seem to be many guests.

A-Qing seemed to know what they were thinking and said: “I want to hand the inn over to someone else to run. Unfortunately, after what happened, I’m afraid it’ll be hard to find anyone willing to take it.”

Liu Weiwen smiled awkwardly, not knowing how to comfort her. Watching A-Qing’s quiet, gentle manner, he thought any man who saw a woman like this would like her.

The next moment, he quickly pulled his mind back and started on business.

“We’d like to know in more detail what you did after the power went out. Did you go into the room Peng Yu was in?”

“After the power went out I went to the power room to check, but it wasn’t the first time, so I didn’t think much of it. Then I planned to go floor by floor to let the guests know. That night, apart from Zhang Chen and his family, there were only two other groups staying, so I soon got to the third floor.

“I happened to see someone running in the corridor. I followed and found it was Miss Qiu and Miss Zhang Yun. They said they’d gone into the storeroom to look for candles…”

What A-Qing said basically matched Qiu Ping’s and Zhang Yun’s accounts. So who was the woman Zhang Bin had seen in Peng Yu’s room?

There was no need for Zhang Bin to tell such a lie; it would be exposed immediately. Liu Weiwen couldn’t figure it out.

“And later, when Zhang Yun ran into you in the kitchen, what did you talk about?”

“Zhang Chen and I are good friends, and I know something about his family. I was trying to get Zhang Yun to understand her brother better.”

“How did Zhang Yun react?”

“She seemed a bit distracted, like she wasn’t really listening to me.”

“Where are the charcoal braziers usually kept in your inn?”

“The storeroom. The braziers and the charcoal are both there.”

A-Qing frowned, thought for a moment, and continued:

“Zhang Yun told me she felt a bit cold and asked if I had an electric heater. I said no, only a small charcoal stove. There was one in the kitchen at the time, and I told her to warm herself by it.”

“You didn’t mention this last time.”

“Although there was a brazier in Peng Yu’s room, I didn’t think the two things were connected. You can’t suspect Zhang Yun of having something to do with the brazier in the room just because she saw the charcoal stove in the kitchen. So I didn’t bring it up.”

“Whether something’s connected is for us to decide. You should cooperate and tell us everything in as much detail as possible.” Without meaning to, Liu Weiwen’s words came out harsh.

A-Qing wasn’t annoyed. She nodded: “That was careless of me.”

Liu Weiwen confirmed again and again with A-Qing that she hadn’t gone into Peng Yu’s room. There were four key cards that could open Peng Yu’s room from outside. One was in Peng Yu’s own bag, and the bag had stayed in the room the whole time.

One A-Qing had given to Zhang Chen, because she knew the two of them had swapped rooms and that Zhang Chen was looking after the injured Peng Yu.

There were also two master key cards for the inn. A-Qing said one of them, which had been kept on the counter, had indeed gone missing.

At the time she’d thought she’d misplaced it, but over the past couple of days she’d searched high and low and still couldn’t find it.

“I did think about telling the police. But now that you’ve come in person, I don’t need to agonize over it.”

Liu Weiwen silently watched A-Qing. She was pouring the jade-green tea into the cups, so composed that you couldn’t help believing the key card story was exactly as she said.

“According to Zhang Bin’s and Qiu Ping’s statements, there were two of you at the same time. Now it looks like Zhang Bin very likely lied,” Liu Weiwen summed up, as if in passing.

The hand pouring the tea paused, and A-Qing’s eyes left the tea set.

“Maybe he didn’t lie.” For the first time, a trace of unease appeared on A-Qing’s face. She went on.

“That woman really wasn’t me, but it could have been Zhang Chen.”

For a moment Liu Weiwen and Gao Hao didn’t understand. Their eyes went wide and they froze.

“Zhang Chen is a cross-dresser. I’m the only one who knows…”

Liu Weiwen’s and Gao Hao’s eyes went even wider.

So A-Qing told them, as briefly as she could, how she’d learned Zhang Chen was a cross-dresser.

When she met Zhang Chen, she was still running a shabby little eatery in a corner of the city to make ends meet. Her mother was seriously ill, and the medical bills poured out every day like water.

Zhang Chen started out as an ordinary customer. As he came more often, they got to know each other. Zhang Chen sympathized with A-Qing and even got the inn back for her for a very low lawyer’s fee.

A-Qing’s mother died in the end, but her friendship with Zhang Chen grew deeper and deeper. Zhang Chen trusted A-Qing completely, and even let her know he was a cross-dresser.

In front of others, Zhang Chen was an elite lawyer, a good husband and a good son, playing by the rules, respectful and thorough with people, doing his utmost for his clients. Everyone praised him as a good man.

But some outstanding people carry inner strain and repression that ordinary people can’t understand.

He’d given so much, yet never received real understanding or love.

Meanwhile his selfish, willful wife and sister, and many other women he’d known, seemed free and happy in his eyes.

Several years ago, he’d started dressing as a woman when no one was around, especially late at night, to release that pressure, which had become twisted.

When A-Qing learned of this, she chose to understand. So to Zhang Chen, A-Qing was the person in the world who understood him best.

Once again Liu Weiwen sighed over this new development.

When he got back, he asked the colleague who’d searched the family’s luggage, and learned there really had been a red dress in Zhang Chen’s suitcase. At the time they’d assumed it was his wife’s and hadn’t paid attention.

But looking at it again, the dress was very large, definitely not Qiu Ping’s size.

10

When Liu Weiwen walked into the interrogation room again, his face was grim. He was carrying a thick stack of documents.

When he saw Zhang Chen behind the table, he didn’t hold back. He slammed the papers down on the table.

Zhang Chen wasn’t intimidated by Liu Weiwen. It was his third day in the detention center, and apart from the exhaustion he couldn’t hide, Zhang Chen’s eyes stayed calm throughout.

“Lawyer Zhang, the evidence we have now looks very bad for you…”

Liu Weiwen was angry. Over the past few days, besides discovering that Zhang Chen was a cross-dresser, they’d made other progress.

The forensic examiners had found large amounts of unabsorbed insulin in the tissue around the needle marks on Peng Yu’s body, confirming that Peng Yu had died mainly from an insulin overdose.

The criminal investigation team had also found several empty insulin syringes under the back seat of Zhang Chen’s car.

Most critically, when they were sent to the fingerprint section for comparison, one of them had Zhang Chen’s fingerprints on it.

Not only that, Liu Weiwen had also gotten a medical record from the hospital. What he’d just thrown on the table was that record.

“You don’t have cancer at all. Why did you lie?”

The corners of Zhang Chen’s mouth twitched. He stared at the folder on the table and said nothing.

Liu Weiwen planted both hands on the table, his sharp gaze seeming to pierce right through the man in front of him.

“Lawyer Zhang, you should understand the position you’re in now. I advise you not to hide anything else from us.”

Zhang Chen shook his head: “I’m not hiding anything. But the fingerprints were very likely left when I saw the insulin at home. I picked it up and touched it. And the syringes, Qiu Ping probably hid them in my car when I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Lawyer Zhang, perhaps you could explain why you lied to your family about your illness, and why, knowing your wife might want to kill you, you got them all together for a holiday?”

“Officer Liu, have you ever felt despair in an intimate relationship?

“I just wanted to struggle a little. I wanted to spend a special weekend with these people, my family and friends, who should have cared about me most. I thought maybe because I was about to leave this world, they’d change.”

“But they let you down.”

Zhang Chen smiled bitterly and didn’t answer.

“There’s no point saying all this now. The fact is that you’re under heavy suspicion right now, and in court this will look very bad for you…” Liu Weiwen said seriously.

“Do you have a complete chain of evidence proving I killed someone?” Zhang Chen cut Liu Weiwen off impatiently.

“You can’t find the real killer, so you keep suspecting someone who was originally the victim. By the principle that doubt favors the accused, you’ve found nothing!”

Liu Weiwen hadn’t expected Zhang Chen to suddenly drop the docility and cooperation of the past couple of days and lose his temper.

“I’m sick of this goddamn world.”

“Watch your language!” Liu Weiwen said sternly. But he had to admit Zhang Chen was right. After all these days of investigation, they still lacked key, substantive evidence.

After leaving the interrogation room, Liu Weiwen pinched the bridge of his nose, a little worn out.

Peng Yu’s case involved few people, but the way it was carried out was complicated. There was plenty of evidence, but none of it directly identified the killer.

Since the chain of evidence was hard to complete, maybe it was time to change approach. An idea that had been hovering in Liu Weiwen’s mind for days was gradually becoming clear.

11

When Liu Weiwen saw Qiu Ping and Zhang Yun again, he told them the missing master key card had been found, and it had their fingerprints on it.

And the injected insulin in Peng Yu’s body had been confirmed as the main cause of his death.

Qiu Ping heard this fairly calmly, but she was nervous for a moment. The way her eyes flickered without her meaning to, and the way she swallowed, didn’t escape Liu Weiwen.

Qiu Ping stuck to her statement. Apart from going out to look for candles after the power went out and seeing her sister-in-law and A-Qing, she hadn’t done anything.

With Zhang Yun, it was different. When she heard what Liu Weiwen said, a flash of panic crossed her eyes. After two days in custody, Zhang Yun’s nerves were on the verge of collapse.

She suddenly burst into tears. Those big eyes that had once looked so innocent were now brimming with aggrieved, frightened tears.

“I didn’t kill anyone. It was my sister-in-law. I saw her hand a canvas bag to Peng Yu in the back courtyard after lunch… And that night I saw her come out of my brother’s room, but she wouldn’t let me tell anyone…”

Liu Weiwen hadn’t expected that after all this, it would take so little effort in the end. It seemed the key breakthrough had been the key card, and this emotionally fragile young woman.

Liu Weiwen continued fiercely: “She wouldn’t let you tell, so you didn’t? I think you were an accomplice!”

Zhang Yun cried even harder: “No, I only did what they told me. I used the key card to open the door and put a charcoal brazier inside.”

“They?”

“My brother knew too. He came out of my older brother’s room and ran into me and my sister-in-law, and we… we worked it out together.”

By this point, Liu Weiwen had more or less straightened out what had happened. He immediately had Qiu Ping brought back to the interrogation room for one last round of questioning.

Qiu Ping was trying hard to suppress her unease. She covered her panic with anger, demanding to know why Liu Weiwen was bringing her in every two hours. Was he trying to force a confession by tormenting her? She said she’d file a complaint against him.

Liu Weiwen was unhurried and got straight to the point: “Your sister-in-law has changed her statement.”

Qiu Ping suddenly had nothing to say. After a while she insisted, almost hesitantly: “I don’t know what you mean.”

“It means she’s told us everything. After the power went out, you went into your husband’s room, mistook Peng Yu in the bed for Zhang Chen, and injected him with an overdose of insulin.

“Zhang Yun and Zhang Bin saw you. Luckily for you they had bad intentions too, so the three of you worked out a plan to stage a charcoal-burning suicide…”

Qiu Ping shook her head but couldn’t speak. In truth she wasn’t much tougher than Zhang Yun.

For days she hadn’t been able to sleep a single night. Apart from the poor conditions in the detention center, it was mostly because of the fear and confusion in her heart. There were things she just couldn’t figure out.

“The killer is Zhang Chen!”

Tears finally ran from Qiu Ping’s bloodshot eyes.

“He planned all of it! I got a message from Peng Yu. He said that while they were fishing he’d already injected Zhang Chen with a syringe of insulin, and Zhang Chen takes sleeping pills at night, so he’d definitely be out cold.

“But in case it wasn’t enough, Peng Yu told me not to worry and go inject the rest of the insulin too. Who knew the person in the bed would be Peng Yu himself? Zhang Chen must have set this up!”

Liu Weiwen was startled too. They hadn’t found any message sent from Peng Yu’s phone; it had very likely been deleted.

“If Peng Yu could send you a message, why couldn’t he do it himself?”

“He said he was hurt, his head ached and he couldn’t get up…”

Looking at Qiu Ping, her face streaming with tears, Liu Weiwen felt a mix of emotions. He knew that whether or not Zhang Chen had set anything up, Qiu Ping was the one who killed him. She was the murderer.

Back in the office, Gao Hao kept marveling at how clever Liu Weiwen’s move had been. For days the investigation couldn’t pierce that last layer of paper over the truth, and a few words in the interrogation room had done it.

Liu Weiwen shook his head. Without the information from the past few days of investigation, he couldn’t have used psychological tactics to get the suspects to confess.

In fact, they’d never found the key card at all. Saying it had been found with their fingerprints on it had been a bluff to fool Qiu Ping and Zhang Yun.

If they were innocent, they naturally wouldn’t be afraid. Otherwise they’d think they’d been exposed. Qiu Ping’s reaction had almost fooled Liu Weiwen.

But later Zhang Yun confessed that she’d stuffed the key card into a crack between bricks in the inn’s back courtyard.

Liu Weiwen sent someone to get it, and sure enough there were fingerprints on it, only Zhang Yun’s. Combined with the fact that only Zhang Chen’s fingerprints were on the insulin syringe, it was clear Qiu Ping had worn gloves or something like them when she did it, and had some awareness of how to avoid detection.

That was also why she wasn’t as panicked as Zhang Yun. But however steady she was, she couldn’t withstand being exposed by her own clumsy teammate.

Now the sequence of events was complete. Zhang Chen had gathered his wife, siblings and Peng Yu at the inn, falsely claimed to be gravely ill, and arranged his affairs.

Peng Yu was the first to know of these arrangements. When they went fishing that afternoon, he brought wine and insulin, meaning to strike, but instead he came back injured himself.

Zhang Chen knew what his wife and Peng Yu were planning and turned it against them. He used Peng Yu’s phone to text his wife, had her steal a key card, and swapped rooms with Peng Yu.

That night, the power went out at the inn. Qiu Ping, groping in the dark, carried out the plan and, mistaking Peng Yu for Zhang Chen, injected him with an overdose of insulin.

Not long after, Zhang Bin, having drunk too much and taken drugs, argued with Zhang Yun, climbed through the window ledge into his brother’s room, and nearly smothered Peng Yu with a pillow thinking he was Zhang Chen, until Zhang Chen, dressed as a woman, walked in on him.

Earlier, Zhang Yun had left Zhang Bin’s room to see why the power was out and saw Qiu Ping coming out of their older brother’s room.

When Qiu Ping saw the two women’s figures at either end of the corridor, one was actually Zhang Yun, and the other was Zhang Chen dressed as a woman. Zhang Chen then went into his original room to see what was happening and, to his surprise, found his brother trying to kill someone.

Zhang Yun followed Qiu Ping into the storeroom. Seeing she couldn’t cover it up, the two decided to work together. Just then A-Qing arrived and took them to get flashlights.

After getting the flashlights, Qiu Ping and Zhang Yun went back to the third floor and ran into Zhang Bin, still in shock. The three had the same goal: as long as Zhang Chen didn’t live through the night, they’d get the inheritance.

So the three of them worked together and had Zhang Yun, who hadn’t done anything yet, stage the charcoal-burning suicide.

That was why Zhang Yun went to the kitchen, ran into A-Qing, and learned where the charcoal was kept. In the end, Zhang Yun used the key card Qiu Ping gave her to take the final step.

But she was too flustered and didn’t light the charcoal properly. The brazier went out after burning only a short while, nowhere near enough to kill.

In the end, Peng Yu, who had been half-unconscious since the evening, died when his heart stopped from acute hypoglycemia caused by the overdose of insulin in his body…

12

Two months later, on an ordinary evening, Liu Weiwen left work. He didn’t drive; he took a ride-hailing car to a row of old houses on Wangjiang Road.

When he got out, Liu Weiwen ducked into a narrow alley and followed a delicious smell to a little eatery.

Zhang Chen, in casual clothes, was sitting inside. When he saw Liu Weiwen, he nodded by way of greeting.

At the half-open stove beside them, A-Qing was busy. Translucent vermicelli was tumbling in the steaming broth.

“This place only sells duck blood vermicelli and fried squid tentacles, but it’s very good,” Zhang Chen said.

“Not only that, is it? Proprietress, a bowl of duck blood vermicelli soup for me, and a pot of cat-ear wine.”

Liu Weiwen said this as he sat down across from Zhang Chen.

A-Qing smiled and brought a pot of wine first. The clear cat-ear wine poured into the white porcelain cup, its fragrance filling the air.

“Don’t put anything extra in mine. I have work tomorrow,” Liu Weiwen said, looking at the wine.

A-Qing froze for a moment, then smiled again and didn’t take up the remark.

As for a detail like the cat-ear wine, no one at the Zhongyuan City Public Security Bureau except Liu Weiwen had noticed it.

He’d found that this wine kept coming up in Peng Yu’s case. Nearly everyone had drunk a lot of it over those two days. Although the case had been resolved in legal terms, Liu Weiwen still felt something wasn’t quite clear.

He’d specially asked A-Qing for some cat-ear wine, and also took what Peng Yu had bottled and brought fishing, and had them analyzed.

The mushroom used to brew cat-ear wine was slightly toxic. Combined with alcohol, the toxicity all but disappeared, but it had a certain depressant effect on the nervous system, making people feel drunk more easily and loosening their inhibitions, so they’d do whatever they liked.

And the wine in Peng Yu’s bottle seemed to have had something extra added, strengthening the effect even more.

Liu Weiwen had heard that some poisonous mushrooms in Yunnan could cause hallucinations when eaten, but his old classmate who did chemical analysis told him this mushroom wasn’t nearly that toxic.

You could only say that in Peng Yu’s case, the wine had given the people involved a certain push, letting them release the devils in their hearts more easily.

Liu Weiwen recalled A-Qing’s unusual air and suddenly felt that the woman who could brew cat-ear wine was not simple.

He’d come today only to hear the complete story.

Zhang Chen’s wife and siblings had all been sentenced to prison by now. And although he wasn’t gravely ill, he did have some health problems and was scheduled for surgery soon.

Zhang Chen was actually grateful to Liu Weiwen, and was willing to satisfy the veteran detective’s curiosity.

After all, if people have no devils in their hearts, no one can lure them out.

Zhang Chen had first met A-Qing through someone else’s introduction.

That friend brought him to the eatery, mysteriously ordered a pot of cat-ear wine, then told Zhang Chen this was no ordinary eatery: the owner also offered special services.

Zhang Chen understood right away. He looked at the pale, tired-eyed A-Qing and felt no desire, only sympathy.

After that, he came back several times for duck blood vermicelli soup, but he never ordered the free cat-ear wine, and never asked for any special services.

Gradually, he came to understand A-Qing. This young woman couldn’t possibly cover her mother’s huge medical bills with the eatery alone.

Faced with a family member’s life, she couldn’t care about anything else, and didn’t care what the world thought.

Many of the men who came here weren’t there for the duck blood vermicelli soup. They wanted something else.

From her sexual transactions with these men, A-Qing made much more than from selling duck blood vermicelli soup.

Until one day, Zhang Chen dragged his exhausted body into the shop, his eyes red, and said to A-Qing: “My wife wants me dead…”

That night, Zhang Chen went up to A-Qing’s room above the shop. A-Qing put on glamorous makeup and a long dress that showed off her curves, and slowly came close to Zhang Chen.

This time, she truly wanted to comfort this lonely man.

But what Zhang Chen wanted most wasn’t A-Qing’s body. It was to be dressed up like A-Qing, as a beautiful woman.

A-Qing went from surprise to understanding almost in an instant. So she carefully dressed him up, turning him into an enchanting woman.

Zhang Chen stood in front of the mirror and smiled from the heart. It was their secret, and their unspoken understanding.

These two people, worlds apart on the surface but both actually walking along the edges, recognized each other and felt for each other.

As for the holiday in Langu Township later on, Zhang Chen and A-Qing had indeed arranged it, but things had gone beyond what they expected.

A-Qing had said that as long as Zhang Chen’s family was given the chance, they would definitely kill him.

Zhang Chen didn’t want to believe it. They made a bet, and in the end A-Qing won. She won so completely that even she found it frightening.

That day while fishing, Zhang Chen knew Peng Yu wanted to get him drunk and then inject him with insulin in the middle of the empty lake. Allowing for the time it took to work, he’d most likely start feeling unwell that night and then die.

But Peng Yu didn’t know how “strong” the cat-ear wine he was drinking was. He was the one who got drunk.

After Peng Yu got drunk, Zhang Chen injected him in the arm with a syringe of insulin instead, then steered the boat toward the shore where the branches were thick and cut open Peng Yu’s head.

That wouldn’t kill Peng Yu, but it would leave him with no strength to cause trouble.

A-Qing helped Zhang Chen swap rooms with Peng Yu, sent the message from Peng Yu’s phone, and caused the power cut too, all so that Qiu Ping would make her move and be caught in the act.

But they didn’t get the timing right. Out of a desire for revenge and release, Zhang Chen wanted to face Qiu Ping as a woman, but he hadn’t expected that the one committing murder in his room would be his brother Zhang Bin…

Later Zhang Chen realized that if the person in that bed had been him instead of Peng Yu, he might have died three times over.

In the little eatery, drinking his wine, Zhang Chen told Liu Weiwen everything except having injected Peng Yu with one syringe of insulin.

He smiled bitterly and asked: “Does this count as luring and inciting others to commit murder?”

Liu Weiwen was silent. He knew that even if he wanted to pursue it, in court, Zhang Chen could simply deny it.

Liu Weiwen sighed and slowly took a sip of cat-ear wine. The sweetness of the wine rushed over his tongue and throat, and a wave of comfort and relaxation spread from his heart through every bone in his body.

In a daze, life seemed like a dream, and the dream turned into the flavor of passing years, melting into the bustle of this little eatery.

He knew the case was over.

(The End)