No Verdict
“I just made a mistake every man in the world makes. Tian Yu, I know I wronged you, but I’m not reconciled, not reconciled!”
After he finished speaking, Lin Hao’s pupils dilated, the rise and fall of his chest went from violent to still, and he gradually stopped breathing.
1
“Tell me, do people know they’re about to die before they die?”
“They do.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I feel like I’m about to die right now.”
“And you can still talk to me so clearly? As expected of a doctor.”
“Physicians can’t heal themselves. This is just the last flicker before death.”
“I never imagined you could be this calm, especially after I cut your hand and foot tendons.”
Lin Hao gave a bitter laugh: “Actually, since the day you died, I haven’t slept well a single night. Every time I wake up in the middle of the night, I feel like you’re standing by the bed watching me.”
“Well, I’m standing right in front of you now. Aren’t you scared?”
Lin Hao shook his head: “Not scared. I actually feel at peace now.”
“Didn’t expect the wicked Lin Hao to face death so calmly.”
Lin Hao shook his head again, smiling bitterly: “This isn’t calm… if I had to say what I feel, it’s probably unwillingness!”
“You’re unwilling? Back when I lay under you begging in agony, were you willing then?”
Lin Hao didn’t answer. His eyes were somewhat unfocused, and he went on as if to himself: “I’m 35 this year, the most outstanding surgeon in the history of Suzhou Medical College. I’ve been a lead surgeon in cardiothoracic surgery at Suzhou Chest Hospital for 5 years, averaging 8 operations a day. I’ve saved more than 12,000 people. Isn’t that enough to make up for one tiny mistake I made when I was young and ignorant? I just made a mistake every man in the world makes. Tian Yu, I know I wronged you, but I’m not reconciled, not reconciled!”
Translator’s note: This Suzhou (宿州) is a city in Anhui, not the famous Suzhou (苏州) near Shanghai. Same pinyin, different characters.
After he finished speaking, Lin Hao’s pupils dilated, the rise and fall of his chest went from violent to still, and he gradually stopped breathing.
The woman who’d been talking with Lin Hao quietly looked at the corpse before her, eyes open, mouth open, wrists and ankles bleeding, and put a plastic Sun Wukong mask on Lin Hao’s face.
“However you did it back then, that’s how you’ll die now!”
2
The woman sprinkled two one-jin bags of white sugar over the corpse, tidied everything up, and, wearing shoe covers and protective clothing, carried all the waste out of the abandoned factory in a hollow of Beishan, Suzhou.
She walked all the way to the summit before taking off all the lead weights and protective gear. She put them, along with the leather shoes three sizes too big that she’d been wearing, into her backpack, changed into a pair of light, well-fitting sneakers, and, stepping only on low shrubs, quickly left Beishan.
The rats came scurrying and gnawed freely at Lin Hao’s body, while the Sun Wukong mask watched the dead Lin Hao just as it had once watched the dead Tian Yu. Only one looked outward, and the other looked inward.
At 5:30 p.m. on October 22, 2005, an unidentified male corpse was discovered in the abandoned factory of the timber mill in Beishan Town, Suzhou, a place of simple and honest folk.
After a joint on-site examination by the Suzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau’s criminal police team and forensics department, the death was confirmed as unnatural.
Time of death was around 5 p.m. on October 21.
The corpse had been gnawed by rats, wild dogs and other wild animals.
Criminal police captain Tian Liang and forensic examiner Lin Shu found suspicious footprints outside the scene that led all the way to the summit of Beishan.
They were presumed to be the suspect’s. Further calculation indicated the suspect was tall and thin, about 178 cm and about 60 kg.
“I keep feeling something doesn’t match between these numbers and the evidence at the scene,” Tian Liang said, rubbing his little mustache.
“The forensics department’s on-site examination won’t be wrong,” Lin Shu said. “If you have doubts, raise them after the autopsy report comes out!”
With that, Lin Shu packed up her tools and left first, leaving Tian Liang at a loss.
“Did I say something wrong?” Tian Liang asked, puzzled.
“Captain, Teacher Lin is so meticulous about her work and never allows herself a mistake. You can’t tell her to her face that forensics got the scene wrong!” Officer Xiao Zhang patted Tian Liang on the back.
“I never said the evidence was wrong!” Tian Liang protested.
“But what you just said meant exactly that, to us.” After Xiao Zhang said this, several officers nearby nodded repeatedly.
“Never mind, never mind. Back to the case,” Tian Liang said. “Xiao Zhang, Xiao Li, come with me to Beishan to look at the footprints again.”
3
The three of them went to Beishan and studied the clearly visible footprints back and forth, walking all the way from the foot of the mountain to the summit.
Xiao Zhang and Xiao Li couldn’t see anything wrong. Tian Liang kept following the footprints until they disappeared in front of a large patch of low shrubs.
The shrubs also looked trampled. The footprints vanishing here meant the suspect had gone down the mountain this way.
“Come look at these shrubs,” Tian Liang said, squatting down. “See anything wrong?”
Xiao Zhang and Xiao Li looked left and right for a minute. Suddenly Xiao Li seemed to remember something: “I remember Teacher Lin estimated the suspect at about 1.78 meters and 120 jin, about the same as Xiao Zhang. But the trampled parts of these shrubs are a bit too intact. Only a few little twigs are pressed down.”
“You mean Teacher Lin’s height and weight estimate was wrong?” Xiao Zhang said incredulously. “Teacher Lin’s mentor is Li Hao, a towering authority in forensics. As Li Hao’s favorite disciple, their line of examiners can estimate a suspect’s height and weight just from footprints. I’ve never heard of any of them getting it wrong.”
Tian Liang frowned: “We all respect Teacher Lin, but we can’t fall into the trap of going by experience alone. You match the height and weight Teacher Lin estimated for the suspect, don’t you? Evidence collection at the scene is finished. Walk up from the foot of the mountain once, then come down through the shrubs from this spot. Try it.”
Xiao Zhang and Xiao Li exchanged a look and hurried downhill. Starting from the foot of the mountain, Xiao Zhang walked up to the summit, then stepped through the shrubs and kept going down.
“Okay, okay, stop there, don’t move,” Xiao Li said.
“Look where Xiao Zhang walked. The shrubs are trampled harder, and more twigs are broken,” Tian Liang analyzed. “Since the suspect left footprints, they weren’t particularly careful. By that logic, the shrubs should be at least as damaged as where Xiao Zhang walked, if not more. But…”
Tian Liang didn’t need to finish; Xiao Zhang and Xiao Li understood. This time, it was Lin Shu who’d made an error.
“Impossible.” When everyone got back to the team, Tian Liang went to find Lin Shu specially, but after hearing his analysis, that was the only word Lin Shu said.
“Teacher Lin, I’m not doubting your ability,” Tian Liang hurried to reassure her. “Look, these are comparison photos Xiao Zhang, Xiao Li and I took after an experiment on site.”
Lin Shu took the photos from Tian Liang and examined them carefully, then compared them with the scene photos, shook her head, and said, puzzled: “It shouldn’t be possible! Could the suspect know qinggong?”
Translator’s note: Qinggong (轻功, “lightness skill”) is the wuxia art of moving weightlessly: running on rooftops, skimming over water.
4
The speaker meant nothing by it, but the listener took it to heart. Lin Shu’s remark woke up Tian Liang, who’d been puzzled just a second earlier: “Teacher Lin, what if this person is actually very light?”
“I’ll say it again: I couldn’t have calculated wrong. Forensic science is a precise science,” Teacher Lin said, pushing up her glasses.
“I’m not saying you miscalculated. I’m saying, could this person have disguised their height and weight?” Tian Liang asked back.
“That…” At Tian Liang’s words, Lin Shu carefully went through all the evidence photos again, took off her glasses, and as she wiped the slightly worn lenses with a cloth, said: “In theory it’s possible. For example, if the suspect wore shoes of a different size from their actual feet, or carried weight on their body. If so, the footprint itself would be lower in the middle and higher at the edges, not like a normal person’s, and there’d be no way to infer their real height and weight.”
Tian Liang nodded and for a moment didn’t know what to say. It was Lin Shu who broke the awkwardness: “This time it’s on me. It won’t happen again.”
Tian Liang smiled at Lin Shu, with no hint of blame: “Okay, carry on, Teacher Lin. I’ll come back when the autopsy report is ready.”
With that, Tian Liang walked toward the door of the forensics office. Just before he left, Lin Shu called him back.
“Xiao Tian,” Lin Shu said, “if it really is as you think, this suspect is going to be very tricky!”
Tian Liang understood this was the usually “keep-out” Teacher Lin offering friendliness, so he quickly said: “It’s fine. Heaven’s net is wide and loose, but nothing slips through. The suspect will always show a horse’s hoof eventually.”
5 hours later, the autopsy report was handed to Tian Liang.
It showed the deceased was male, 33 to 35; some tendons in the hands had been cut with a sharp instrument, suspected to have been done while he was alive as torture; the body’s surface was covered with large amounts of C12H22O11 (white sugar) and rat droppings; there was chyme in the stomach; injection marks were found on the left forearm, and the pethidine level in his blood was fifteen times higher than normal…
5
“Captain, what’s pethidine?” Xiao Li asked.
“Dolantin,” Tian Liang answered.
“Good grief, that’s way too cruel,” Xiao Li couldn’t help commenting.
“Isn’t it? What kind of grudge is this, what kind of hatred?” Xiao Zhang was indignant too.
“Have we got an ID?” Tian Liang asked.
“Teacher Lin is still screening useful physical evidence and comparing identities. She said if we give her some time, she can roughly reconstruct the victim’s face,” Xiao Zhang said.
“Gnawed by rats like that, nobody can recognize him, and nobody’s reported him missing. We can only pin our hopes on Teacher Lin.”
22 hours later, Teacher Lin brought the portrait to Tian Liang’s office with a dark face and said: “I may need to recuse myself.”
Tian Liang was clearly stunned, because this meant the deceased very likely had some special relationship to Lin Shu, such as being blood relatives.
Before Tian Liang could ask, Lin Shu said: “Although this portrait is only about 80% accurate, the deceased is very likely my cousin Lin Hao. He’s been a lead surgeon in cardiothoracic surgery at Suzhou Chest Hospital for 5 years and is well-known around here. His wife’s number is in the lower right corner. Please try not to have his parents identify the body. They’re old, and I’m afraid they couldn’t bear it.”
“I understand,” Tian Liang replied.
“Thank you.” After thanking him, Lin Shu went back to the forensics office and never asked about the case again. The lead examiner was switched to another colleague in forensics.
Then, after confirmation from several sources, the deceased was confirmed to be Lin Hao, director of cardiothoracic surgery at Suzhou Chest Hospital.
Just as everyone was rushing to investigate Lin Hao’s social circle, a suspect who matched Lin Shu’s original height and weight estimate, Zheng Guangming, turned himself in.
Hadn’t they said those numbers were wrong?
And a suspect actually turned himself in?
6
“Talk. Why did you hate Dr. Lin so much? If you confess now, you can strive for leniency.” In the interrogation room, Tian Liang and a colleague sat across from Zheng Guangming. Tian Liang frowned as he asked.
“I don’t need leniency. He deserved to die!” Zheng Guangming said through gritted teeth.
Tian Liang shook his head, looked at the case report in his hand, and said: “According to what we know, your wife needed a heart valve replacement because of congenital heart disease, but something went wrong during the operation. Despite all-out efforts by Dr. Lin Hao and the other medical staff at Suzhou Chest Hospital, she unfortunately died. Is that right?”
“My wife couldn’t possibly have had something like that happen. It was that quack Lin Hao’s fault!” Zheng Guangming suddenly got agitated.
“Sit down!” the other officer barked.
Zheng Guangming sat down and wiped away tears: “That bastard came out of the operating room reeking of alcohol. He must have been drinking before the surgery, and that’s why it failed and my wife and child died. Officer, we’d been married less than a year. My wife wasn’t even 25. My child wasn’t born yet…”
“We’ll note down what you’ve said,” Tian Liang said. “According to our information, the medical accident assessment report from the Suzhou Medical Association clearly states that the patient and family didn’t disclose the pregnancy before surgery, which caused the patient to go into acute shock during the operation. The hospital bears some responsibility, true, but at most half.”
“Officer, we’re not doctors. We didn’t know about the pregnancy,” Zheng Guangming said. “If we’d really known, we’d never have signed the consent form.”
“If you have any objection to the Medical Association’s report, you can hire a lawyer and go to court, not take revenge through criminal acts like this,” Tian Liang urged earnestly.
“Easy for you to talk standing there with no pain in your back. Have you ever lost the person you love most?”
At Zheng Guangming’s question, Tian Liang visibly froze.
Hearing Zheng Guangming talk like that, Xiao Li, who was beside them, immediately opened the interrogation room door, called his colleague Xiao Zhang over, and said to Tian Liang: “Captain, go take a break. Xiao Zhang and I will handle the interrogation.”
Tian Liang didn’t reply, just nodded. After leaving the interrogation room, he stood at the hallway window, lost in thought.
Have you ever lost the person you love most?
How could Tian Liang not have?
On December 31, 20 years ago, Tian Liang’s own little sister Tian Yu died mysteriously. When she was found, her body was badly decomposed.
Apart from some evidence that didn’t matter, all they found were plastic masks of Tang Seng and his three disciples.
Translator’s note: Tang Seng (the monk Tripitaka) and his disciples Sun Wukong (the Monkey King), Zhu Bajie (Pigsy) and Sha Heshang (Sandy) are the pilgrims of Journey to the West.
At the time, criminal investigation and forensic techniques were very backward, and there was no surveillance equipment, so there was no direct evidence. They couldn’t find any solid evidence to convict a suspect.
And this year happened to be the 20th since his sister’s mysterious death. That is, after December 31 this year, even if they knew who the suspects had been, the case would become very complicated because of the statute of limitations, and the suspects might even get away with it entirely.
“Identical masks. What does that mean?” Tian Liang muttered to himself.
7
Tian Liang looked down. At the compound gate stood a woman who looked a lot like his sister.
The interrogation just now, the identical mask in the evidence, and now this woman who looked so much like his sister.
Without thinking, Tian Liang ran downstairs to her.
“I wondered who it was!” When he saw clearly who it was, Tian Liang teased.
“Mistook me for Tian Yu?” Wang Xiaoxiao looked at Tian Liang curiously.
Tian Liang didn’t answer, but silence was as good as a yes.
“No wonder. She and I did look alike. You even said we were long-lost sisters with different fathers and different mothers,” Wang Xiaoxiao said.
These two had been bickering sweethearts for more than 20 years, a lingering regret for all their friends and relatives.
Anyone could see they loved each other, but they hadn’t married, hadn’t even dated. Neither of them could ever get past Tian Yu’s death.
But fortunately the two of them had an unbreakable bond: Niuniu.
Niuniu was a little girl they’d adopted together, both as a good deed and to better honor the late Tian Yu.
Niuniu knew she was adopted, but that didn’t affect her feelings for her dad and mom.
“You’re dressed very much in her style today,” Tian Liang answered.
“She was my only friend. I knew her better than you did, her own brother,” Wang Xiaoxiao laughed. “Don’t keep drowning in this grief! You can still live while accepting reality.”
“You’ve been telling me that for almost 10 years.”
“You’re such a block of wood,” Wang Xiaoxiao laughed in exasperation, “the kind of beam over a dirt latrine. Smelly and hard.”
“Want to go to Lao Gandie tonight?” Tian Liang asked.
Translator’s note: Lao Gandie (老干爹, “Old Godfather”) is a restaurant name riffing on Lao Gan Ma, the famous chili sauce brand.
“Craving their spicy crab?” Wang Xiaoxiao asked back.
Tian Liang nodded. Wang Xiaoxiao knew him too well. Every time he was in a bad mood, he’d ask her to go eat Lao Gandie’s spicy crab. Every time, he’d get drunk, and once drunk, he’d have Wang Xiaoxiao take him to see Niuniu.
“Then I’ll go reserve a table first. Come find me when you’re done with work,” Wang Xiaoxiao said.
“Mm.” Tian Liang nodded, said goodbye to Wang Xiaoxiao, and went back to his office to wrap up.
They’d eaten plenty of food but hadn’t started drinking, nor reached the go-home-to-see-Niuniu stage, when a phone call made Tian Liang, who’d just raised his glass to his lips, nearly drop his jaw. He almost spilled the whole glass of beer.
“Captain, there’s another one,” Xiao Zhang said on the phone.
“Another what?”
“Another case. This time the deceased is wearing a Zhu Bajie mask.”
8
Tian Liang shot to his feet. Half the beer in his glass sloshed out, and the force of his legs knocked over the rosewood chair he’d been sitting on. It crashed to the floor, drawing the attention of every diner in the hall.
“Sorry, sorry.” Wang Xiaoxiao hurriedly apologized to the diners and the owner and picked up the chair.
“There in five minutes.” After hanging up, Tian Liang said: “Sorry, there’s a case.”
“Go. I’m used to it,” Wang Xiaoxiao said. “Be careful.”
Tian Liang pulled Wang Xiaoxiao into his arms, held her for two seconds, then ran out the door, leaving Wang Xiaoxiao frozen where she stood.
The last time they’d hugged this tightly was ten years ago on the anniversary of Tian Yu’s death, when Tian Liang had broken down, held Wang Xiaoxiao and wouldn’t let go.
“What’s the situation?” Tian Liang arrived at the scene and found it was the heavy-truck parking lot near Lao Gandie. “In such an open place, anything you do is visible at a glance. I can’t tell if this suspect is stupid or just confident in their skill.”
“Over there.” Xiao Zhang pointed to a local Suzhou light high-sided semi-trailer. “The person was run over. The driver’s in shock. He reported that he ran over Zhu Bajie while backing up.”
“The driver was drinking?” Tian Liang asked, puzzled.
“No,” Xiao Zhang answered.
“Then why’s he talking nonsense?” Tian Liang said. “Backing up and running over Zhu Bajie? What is he, an assassin on Tang Seng’s road to the Western Heaven?”
Xiao Zhang clearly sensed Tian Liang was in a bad mood and quickly said: “The driver wasn’t drinking. The deceased might have been, he reeks of alcohol, and he’s wearing a Zhu Bajie mask. Most likely he got drunk, lay down under the truck’s wheels to cool off, and got run over…”
“Don’t jump to conclusions. There’s been no autopsy yet. We can’t decide anything lightly,” Tian Liang said. “Come on, let’s go look.”
Looking at the Zhu Bajie mask on the body at the scene, Tian Liang’s suspicion surged.
The problem now was that two masks alone weren’t enough to convince anyone. He couldn’t write in a case report that the two cases were related, much less that they were related to his sister’s mysterious death twenty years ago.
No pattern in the times or places, nothing in common in the methods…
Outside the cordon, Wang Xiaoxiao had followed. She stood on tiptoe trying to see what Tian Liang was doing, but accidentally caught sight of the body before it was put into the body bag.
One glance at the body, its chest and abdomen crushed flat, sent Wang Xiaoxiao running to a tree pit at the roadside not far away, where she vomited violently.
Hearing the retching, Tian Liang looked over, saw it was Wang Xiaoxiao, and hurried over to comfort her: “Are you okay? Why did you follow me this time? You’ve never followed before.”
9
“Ugh… ugh…” Wang Xiaoxiao was still throwing up.
“Do you need me to pick up Niuniu?” Tian Liang asked.
“Ugh… ugh…” Wang Xiaoxiao took the tissues Tian Liang handed her and wiped her mouth. “No, Niuniu’s taking the school bus home herself today. Don’t worry about her. That… the dead man, I know him.”
“You know him?”
“He was a classmate of Tian Yu’s and mine. One of the bad boys in our class back then. His name is Li Huai.”
At Wang Xiaoxiao’s words, Tian Liang seemed to suddenly figure something out and quickly said: “Rest here a bit. Hey, Xiao Zhang, get your Xiaoxiao-jie a bottle of water. Xiaoxiao, I’m going to work the case first. Go home and wait for me. I have an idea I want to talk through with you.”
Translator’s note: Jie (姐, “big sister”) is a respectful suffix for a slightly older woman.
Watching how excited and intent Tian Liang was, Wang Xiaoxiao felt a pang of heartache. Tian Liang hadn’t been this worked up in many, many years.
Since Tian Yu died, Tian Liang seemed to have no emotions at all, facing everything with almost the same attitude.
But Wang Xiaoxiao knew that under that “eternally unchanging” attitude lay endless sorrow, pain and loneliness, and a suppressed anger too.
Tian Liang didn’t sleep all night. The suspicion in his mind kept crashing like waves, chasing away all sleep.
First the Sun Wukong mask, now the Zhu Bajie mask, but both cases had suspects who’d landed in their laps: Zheng Guangming, who turned himself in, and the unlucky truck driver Li Jianguo.
Everything seemed to fall into place naturally, but everything was too smooth, almost no effort at all.
Even with the two masks, there was no evidence at all that the two cases were actually connected.
Without evidence, the cases couldn’t be merged. Without merging, Tian Liang had no way to get his suspicion across to his colleagues.
10
Early the next morning, Forensic Examiner Wu delivered the autopsy report to Tian Liang.
Tian Liang read it over and over. The deceased Li Huai’s blood alcohol was very low, nowhere near drunk.
From the scene examination, there was no sign of abnormal undressing, so a drunken accident could be ruled out.
But large amounts of undigested midazolam were found in his stomach contents, and the midazolam level in his blood was higher than any normal patient would take. Injection marks were found on the left forearm, and the pethidine level in his blood was extremely high.
The main problem was the heart. From the autopsy, it was suspected that an allergic reaction after taking and injecting the drugs had caused tachycardia, triggering ventricular fibrillation and death.
In other words, Li Huai had very likely died before the truck ran over him, but suicide couldn’t be ruled out.
From yesterday afternoon’s visit, Li Huai’s parents said he’d had severe bipolar disorder and had long taken olanzapine, alprazolam, paroxetine and other drugs.
The medications Li Huai had been taking and the prescription lists from his doctors were all brought back to the criminal police team.
Questioning Li Huai’s attending physician confirmed it: the patient had never been emotionally stable and had relied on medication for years to keep his moods in check.
But midazolam appeared on none of the prescriptions and in none of the medication. This high dose of a drug the patient didn’t normally take was the biggest question mark.
But just as Tian Liang and his colleagues were still working out whether Li Huai’s death was an accident, a suicide or something else, they received a request for assistance from the Suzhou Municipal Narcotics Detachment.
“Liangzi, I got an anonymous tip and busted a contraband drug smuggling case.” Suzhou Narcotics Detachment captain Bai Zhu had called Tian Liang’s office. “It’s a pretty big quantity, and some of it’s already been sold illegally.”
“Are there sedatives in the contraband?” Tian Liang asked.
“Yes. Why, you have a case?” Captain Bai asked automatically. Years of experience told him at once that Tian Liang might have a related case.
“Mm. And an autopsy report,” Tian Liang said gravely. “Wait for me to come over. There’s something fishy here.”
11
“First tell me whether you’ve slept!” Bai Zhu said.
“I slept… I really slept…” Tian Liang repeated without thinking.
“You stutter when you lie,” Bai Zhu laughed. “Sleep on that little sofa of yours first. I’ll do a quick interrogation here and then come find you. I’ll have Teacher Lin keep an eye on you.”
Tian Liang wanted to argue, but at that last line, all the fight went out of him.
Lin Shu was intensely controlling about everyone’s sleep on the criminal police team. People like Tian Liang, who’d go two days and nights without sleep during a case, were already on Lin Shu’s watch list.
The list was on a little blackboard outside the forensics office. Tian Liang, Xiao Zhang and Xiao Li already had two stars after their names.
Once someone had more than two stars, Lin Shu would quietly appear in front of them. She wouldn’t speak, wouldn’t get angry, would just stare at them like an executioner staring at the back of a condemned man’s neck.
Stared at like that by the never-smiling Teacher Lin, even the toughest nerves would waver.
If they still didn’t rest, Teacher Lin would silently put her own ground-up sleeping pill powder into the offender’s cup or instant noodles.
The dose wasn’t big, wouldn’t count as poisoning, but it was guaranteed to knock them out for a day.
“I’ll sleep. Uh, Lao Bai, I’m counting on you,” Tian Liang said.
“What’s with the politeness! We’ve been through life and death together. But I have to remind you: as police officers fighting on the front lines, we have to keep ourselves healthy. We’re the shield between ordinary people and criminals. If we fall, people will have to face the criminals directly,” Bai Zhu said. “So you go sleep, and I, who already slept, will go work.”
After hanging up, Tian Liang thought about what Lao Bai had said, recalled his sister’s case from 20 years ago, lay down on the little sofa and fell into a deep sleep.
He slept until he opened his eyes and saw Lao Bai’s big, pale, fat face in front of him.
“You’re here?” Tian Liang stretched.
“Good news and bad news. Which do you want first?” Bai Zhu asked.
12
“Good news first!” Tian Liang got up to make tea.
“The good news is,” Bai Zhu very naturally set his thermos down next to Tian Liang’s cup, “the midazolam in your case was sold by my suspect.”
“Good, good, good.” Tian Liang poured tea for both of them. “So why is there bad news?”
“The bad news is my suspect, Liang Ping, says a strangely dressed person, whose age or even sex he couldn’t tell, bought midazolam and Dolantin from him. We’ve found the midazolam, but not the Dolantin.”
“With a range that wide, finding it is like fishing a needle out of the sea.” Tian Liang sipped his tea.
“Not necessarily. Whoa, this year’s pre-Qingming Longjing, good tea,” Bai Zhu said. “That Liang Ping kid was unlucky. He sold this one batch and got reported. When we went in, it was effortless. Caught red-handed with the goods.”
“Could the buyer have reported him?” Tian Liang asked.
“I’d hope so. At least then the damage would be minimal.” Bai Zhu drank. “I’ve had my people take the victim’s photo back to see if Liang Ping recognizes him. One victim has already turned up. We have to move fast.”
“Mm.”
Just as Tian Liang spoke, there was a knock on the office door.
“Come in,” Tian Liang said.
“Captain Bai, Captain Tian,” Xiao Liu from the Narcotics Detachment saluted. “We had the suspect Liang Ping look at the photo. He’s sure it’s not the deceased. He said the person who came to buy the drugs was very likely a woman.”
“A woman?” Bai Zhu asked.
“Something this important, why didn’t he say so during the interrogation?”
“The suspect said you were too fierce. He was so scared he forgot,” Xiao Liu explained.
“He smuggled and sold contraband illegally, very likely already killed someone, and he’s blaming me for being fierce?” Bai Zhu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
“Lao Bai, it’s not your fault.” Tian Liang patted Bai Zhu on the shoulder. “Only I know how gentle you are inside. If a criminal sees your face and doesn’t wet himself, it’s only because he went to the toilet thoroughly beforehand.”
After everyone had a good laugh, Tian Liang shook his head helplessly.
The trail ended at “the drug buyer was a woman.” No witnesses, no surveillance footage, and no way even to know if “possibly a woman” was true.
Going back to the deceased Li Huai wasn’t simple either, because his social circle was too simple. Someone who never left the house didn’t even take much effort to investigate.
“What are you planning next?” Bai Zhu asked. He knew perfectly well the existing evidence and leads weren’t enough to keep investigating.
13
“When there isn’t enough evidence, we still have to go back to the case itself, work backward from the results to the causes, and find the underlying logic of the whole thing.
At the same time, we need to go through the evidence we’ve already sorted one more time,” Tian Liang said.
“Let’s have a meeting! The people working both cases are here. Let’s analyze it together.” Bai Zhu clapped his hands and got up.
At the meeting, while the others went back over the evidence, Tian Liang kept remembering his sister when she was alive.
Back then, his sister Tian Yu was introverted and didn’t like to talk. Wang Xiaoxiao was the only best friend she told everything to.
Thinking this, something seemed to flash through Tian Liang’s memory: “Lao Bai, if a depressed, anxious person almost never leaves home, how do they communicate with other people?”
Lao Bai rubbed his hands and asked back: “Bipolar patients have a hard time communicating with real people, right?”
“What about fake people?” Xiao Zhang asked.
“You’ve read too many novels? What is this, Pili puppet theater? Fake people…” Xiao Li mocked.
“No, listen! When we went to Li Huai’s home to ask questions, I saw a computer in his room,” Xiao Zhang said.
“We didn’t check his computer?” Tian Liang asked.
“No. Because Li Huai was a ‘victim’ of contraband drug trafficking, we only did routine questioning of his parents at his home,” Xiao Zhang replied.
“Let’s go to Li Huai’s home,” Tian Liang said, grabbing his jacket. “There’s a good chance we’ll find what we need on his computer.”
Beep beep beep beep beep beep— Tian Liang, Bai Zhu and Xiao Zhang went to Li Huai’s home and explained why they’d come to his parents. As soon as they turned on Li Huai’s computer, QQ logged in automatically, and a string of message alerts rang out.
They opened the chat window. There was a new message from a QQ friend called “Little White Dragon”: “You can do it!”
But the message seemed to have been sent after Li Huai’s QQ went offline.
They clicked into the other person’s QQ profile but couldn’t find any trace of anything.
The three of them read through the chat history between Li Huai and “Little White Dragon” and found the two seemed to be planning to die on the same day.
Li Huai said he’d done something wrong when he was young. He never said exactly what, but it was serious enough that he’d developed bipolar disorder.
Li Huai had never had the courage to face death until “Little White Dragon” came along.
“Little White Dragon” said they were in the same situation as Li Huai, tormented by depression for years, and had recently gotten hold of a batch of midazolam and Dolantin that would let them leave this world painlessly.
Li Huai envied “Little White Dragon” for being able to leave without pain. “Little White Dragon” said they had a lot and could give Li Huai some.
They agreed to meet at the heavy-truck parking lot to hand over the drugs, and then each go home to kill themselves.
“So Li Huai very likely took the drugs as soon as he got them, before he got home,” Bai Zhu reasoned.
“But no leftover drugs were found at the scene!” Xiao Zhang said.
14
“The suspect must have watched Li Huai take the drugs. Otherwise the Zhu Bajie mask couldn’t have been placed so neatly on his face.”
Bai Zhu and Xiao Zhang nodded in agreement. They could only go with the most reasonable inference, since the heavy-truck parking lot was huge, with no surveillance and no witnesses.
“Xiao Zhang, can you trace the other person through QQ?” Tian Liang asked.
“Hard,” Xiao Zhang shook his head. “You can tell from the number it’s a new account. We just looked through their QQ Zone and other info and didn’t find anything personal. I can try to reverse-trace the login address. Give me some time.”
After some work, Xiao Zhang did manage to reverse-trace the account’s login address.
“Well? Where are they logging in from?” Bai Zhu asked.
“Madagascar,” Xiao Zhang said.
“Where?” Bai Zhu couldn’t believe his ears.
“Don’t bother. The address is fake,” Tian Liang said.
“The captain’s right. The address is in Madagascar right now; in a moment it’ll be somewhere else on Earth. From how carefully the address is disguised, this ‘Little White Dragon’ definitely doesn’t want us to find them.”
“And they’ve succeeded,” Bai Zhu said. “We can’t find them at all. The trail ends here.”
“Actually, it doesn’t,” Tian Liang said.
“You know who Little White Dragon is?” Bai Zhu asked.
“No,” Tian Liang answered.
“Then what the hell do you mean it doesn’t end!” Bai Zhu smacked Tian Liang on the shoulder.
“Captain, did you think of something?” Xiao Zhang asked.
“When Lin Hao died, there was a Sun Wukong mask. When Li Huai died, there was a Zhu Bajie mask. I know where the next mask is,” Tian Liang said.
“We’ve got no leads right now. Stop beating around the bush and tell us!” Bai Zhu said.
“Let’s go to Suzhou No. 1 People’s Hospital,” Tian Liang said.
15
No. 1 People’s Hospital, special care ward.
In the ward lay Huo Dantian, one of the four bad boys in Tian Yu’s class back then, quietly, wearing a Sha Heshang mask.
Ten years ago, Huo Dantian had become a vegetable after a drunken brawl and had lain in a hospital bed for ten years.
“If it really is what I think, he had a part in it back then too!” On the way there, Tian Liang told Bai Zhu and Xiao Zhang what had happened back then and what he suspected.
Back then, those bad boys avoided talking about Tian Yu’s death and vouched for each other as if they’d colluded. The four of them’s accounts formed a perfect alibi.
Now it seemed someone had reached the same conclusion as Tian Liang: the ones who killed Tian Yu back then were Lin Hao, Li Huai, Huo Dantian and Yuan Deman.
Tian Liang stared at Huo Dantian on the bed, his eyes bulging so wide they seemed about to split.
Seeing that Tian Liang wasn’t in a good state, Xiao Zhang quickly said: “Captain, you and Captain Bai go ask around outside! Maybe someone saw who put the mask on Huo Dantian!”
“Right, right, right, let’s go ask first.” Seeing Tian Liang’s livid face, Bai Zhu also pulled him out of the ward.
Though he was full of hatred, Tian Liang knew a police officer’s responsibility well. The mask on Huo Dantian’s face was the strongest evidence connecting these cases, and nothing could go wrong with it.
“Liangzi, any ideas?” Bai Zhu asked.
“This isn’t really my case, but now the cases are merged and the lead points to the third mask, so I still have to ask you.”
“I understand.” Tian Liang didn’t want to put Bai Zhu in a difficult position either. After pulling himself together, he said: “Let’s ask the nurses’ station first! They should know who’s been in and out of the special care ward.”
“Okay.”
The two went to the nurses’ station and, after some questioning, learned that except for the hospital’s own medical staff and registered family members, nobody could come and go freely in the special care ward.
After all their inquiries, there were no useful leads.
Tian Liang called the team and had colleagues come and keep watch over Huo Dantian with Xiao Zhang for 48 hours, in case the suspect came back.
Bai Zhu and Tian Liang walked through the big garden behind the hospital. Neither spoke, and they just headed toward the exit.
Suddenly, a little boy in a Sun Wukong mask appeared beside them. Bai Zhu and Tian Liang both jolted and hurriedly stopped him.
Bai Zhu asked: “Where’d you get this mask?”
The little boy burst into tears: “Waah! A demon!”
“Who’s a demon? I’m a police shushu,” Bai Zhu explained.
Translator’s note: Shushu (叔叔) means “uncle,” what children call any man of their parents’ generation; ayi (阿姨) is the matching “auntie.”
Hearing the boy cry, an old couple not far away rushed over and gave Bai Zhu a scolding.
“Shushu, Ayi, we’re police, not bad guys,” Tian Liang explained.
“So what if you’re police? Police are so special? Police can bully our grandson whenever they like?” the boy’s grandmother scolded.
The boy’s grandfather pushed up his gold-rimmed reading glasses: “You’re Tian Liang?”
“You know me?” Tian Liang asked.
16
“We met last year. Your daughter dislocated her arm and came to me,” the boy’s grandfather said.
“Oh, it’s you!” Tian Liang smiled and shook his hand. “Divine Doctor Xue. Lao Bai, when Niuniu dislocated her arm, Divine Doctor Xue put it back in five seconds.”
“Oh my, forgive me, forgive me. Hello, Divine Doctor Xue.” Bai Zhu escaped the grandmother’s scolding and shook Divine Doctor Xue’s hand too. “I’m Bai Zhu, captain of the Suzhou Narcotics Detachment.”
“So young and both of you already detachment captains. The young really are to be feared!” Divine Doctor Xue laughed. “Just now you and my grandson were…”
“Oh, here’s the thing. We can’t go into details because it involves a case, but the mask the child is wearing could be a very important clue for us,” Tian Liang explained.
“Our grandson picked it up on the lounge chair by the main gate. You can ask him,” Divine Doctor Xue said.
“Chenchen, quick, tell the police shushus.”
“Little friend, did you pick up this Sun Wukong mask?” Tian Liang squatted down and asked.
The boy wiped his tears: “I picked it up from that lounge chair over there, police shushu.”
“Did you see who left the mask there?” Tian Liang went on.
The boy shook his head, looked at Tian Liang and asked: “Police shushu, are you a criminal police officer?”
“You even know about criminal police?” Tian Liang patted his head.
“Tian Siyu’s dad in our class is a criminal police officer,” the boy answered.
“You’re Niuniu’s classmate? What a coincidence,” Tian Liang said. “I’m Tian Siyu’s dad. My name is Tian Liang. What’s your name, little friend?”
“I’m Yuan Chen, 7 years old, Suzhou Shengli Road Primary School, Grade 2, Class 3. My mom is Pei Linlin, and my dad is Yuan Deman.” The boy, Yuan Chen, introduced himself, and his grandparents looked at him with satisfaction, apparently not at all surprised by their grandson’s answer.
“Good grief, kids these days are something else. Second grade and he remembers so much about himself,” Bai Zhu marveled. “When we were his age, all we knew was where we lived. Couldn’t remember anything else. Right, Liangzi? Liangzi?”
Tian Liang was stunned. He’d never imagined this old couple were Yuan Deman’s in-laws, and this little boy was Yuan Deman’s own son.
“Lao Bai, wait here for my team. I need to go ahead. Wang Xiaoxiao might be in trouble.” Tian Liang said this with a grave face as he ran toward the parking lot.
Bai Zhu had no idea what Tian Liang meant, but out of trust, he did as he was told.
Driving to Wang Xiaoxiao’s, he figured Niuniu should be home from school by now.
If Wang Xiaoxiao was helping Niuniu with her homework as usual, the two of them should be at home.
Tian Liang tentatively called Wang Xiaoxiao. When it connected, what came through was Niuniu crying.
“Daddy, Daddy, waaah…”
17
“Niuniu, don’t cry. Niuniu, don’t be scared. Daddy’s coming right now.” With no time to call for backup, Tian Liang went down and drove like a madman toward Wang Xiaoxiao’s. “Niuniu, where’s Mommy? Let Mommy talk.”
“Mommy, Mommy, Mommy was bullied by a bad man, the bad man stopped moving, Mommy went out…” Though Niuniu was only a child, she’d heard plenty of Tian Liang’s case stories and had been trained. After forcing herself to calm down, she got the important information across.
“Okay. Niuniu, find a safe place to hide. Daddy will be right there.”
A drive that usually took 20 minutes, Tian Liang made in 5.
On the way, he called for backup, and they arrived at Wang Xiaoxiao’s home almost at the same time.
The door showed signs of being forced. Tian Liang and the officers behind him burst in and found a short, stocky man lying at the door of Wang Xiaoxiao’s bedroom, but no sign of Niuniu.
“Niuniu, Niuniu, where are you?” Tian Liang shouted.
“Daddy, I’m here.” Niuniu’s voice came from the wardrobe.
Tian Liang opened the wardrobe and lifted Niuniu out, comforting her as he looked at the man lying at his feet: Yuan Deman.
Beside Yuan Deman lay a Tang Seng mask.
“Captain, he’s still alive,” Xiao Zhang said.
“Get him to the hospital, quick!” the forensic examiner beside them shouted.
Tian Liang carried Niuniu to her own room, comforting her as he asked: “Niuniu, don’t cry. Daddy’s sorry. Daddy came too late.”
Niuniu wiped her tears and snot and said to Tian Liang: “Daddy, Mommy said she’s waiting for you on the roof.”
Niuniu’s words confirmed Tian Liang’s earlier ominous feeling: “Examiner Wu, please look after Niuniu for me. Niuniu, go with Auntie Wu for now. Daddy’s going to find Mommy, okay?”
Niuniu reluctantly let go and burrowed into Examiner Wu’s arms.
Tian Liang didn’t wait for the elevator. In a few bounds he was at the stairwell, heading straight for the roof on the 18th floor.
18
“Wang Xiaoxiao, come down. Whatever it is, we can talk it over. There’s no need for something this extreme. There’s no need to atone with your death!”
“Atone? I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. I only punished the people who deserved it.” Wang Xiaoxiao paced back and forth along the edge of the roof, even humming a little tune.
“Tian Liang, I asked you to come up because I know that in your heart, you think of me as your partner. You know what I did was right. You’re on my side,” Wang Xiaoxiao went on.
“Honestly, everything I want in my heart is on your side. But I’m a police officer. Behind me stand the people, and in my heart there’s the law.”
Wang Xiaoxiao looked tenderly at this man who was upright to the bone. Because his little sister had been gang-raped to death, he’d become a criminal police officer with a chest full of rage and hate, yet the moment he put on the uniform, reason defeated emotion.
No matter how angry, no matter how full of hate, this man could never do the slightest thing against the law. The same inner uprightness Tian Yu had had.
“People. Clearly not understanding each other at all, completely misjudging each other, yet thinking of each other as their one true friend, and when one of them dies, the other weeps and reads a eulogy,” Wang Xiaoxiao said out of nowhere.
Tian Liang froze. It was a famous line from his sister’s favorite book, Dazai Osamu’s No Longer Human: “I know. I know all of it. You’ve been determined to avenge her. So have I. I want to avenge her too. But the country has its laws. No one can put themselves above the law. When someone commits a crime, only the law can judge them, never an individual.”
“Do you know why you live so exhausted? Because you’re too upright. Upright to the extreme turns into hypocrisy. Every day you’re torn between the hatred in your heart and your extreme reason. Your mouth is full of strict law, while in your heart you want to kill those four a thousand, ten thousand times.”
Tian Liang’s face darkened. He didn’t know how to answer. Wang Xiaoxiao was terrifying. She’d seen completely through him, and she’d also seen that these 20 long years had worn Tian Liang down into neither man nor ghost.
When Tian Liang didn’t respond, Wang Xiaoxiao continued: “You’re the police officer. You know the law better than I do. The 20-year statute of limitations has passed, and there’s no valid evidence proving those four did it. Tell me, how will the law judge them?”
“I…” Tian Liang was speechless for a moment.
“Their clever crime dodged the few surveillance cameras of that time. They gave each other alibis and perfectly covered the time of the crime. A huge rainstorm washed away almost all possible physical evidence. By the time anyone found Tian Yu, her body was badly decomposed… So tell me, without evidence, how do you prove they committed an unforgivable crime?” Wang Xiaoxiao “pressed her advantage.”
“I…” Tian Liang had no idea how to answer.
“I might as well tell you one more thing.” As she spoke, two lines of tears ran from Wang Xiaoxiao’s eyes, yet you couldn’t tell from her face whether it was joy or sorrow. “That bastard Yuan Deman tried to kidnap Niuniu today. If I hadn’t come back in time, who knows what would have happened to her.”
“What?” Tian Liang ground his teeth. Shock wasn’t enough to describe what he felt.
19
“Niuniu hid in the wardrobe and locked it from inside. When I got back, Yuan Deman was trying to get it open. I had no choice but to stop resisting, let him take me hostage, let him strip off my clothes, let him press me down under him.”
Wang Xiaoxiao wiped her tears and suddenly laughed: “While he was moving, he said that Tian Yu’s death back then was the four of them.
Yuan Deman egged Lin Hao, Li Huai and Huo Dantian on to rape Tian Yu, and they dumped her body outside. But what he didn’t know was that while he was moving, the recording pen in my bag recorded every word he said.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“What use would calling you be? 20 years ago it was no use, and it’s no use now. 20 years ago, when Tian Yu was attacked, where were you?” At this, Wang Xiaoxiao’s voice cracked from shouting.
“And what about you?” Tian Liang roared. “Xiaoyu had only you as a friend. If you hadn’t deliberately not walked home with her that day, she wouldn’t have been taken by those four scum, and she wouldn’t have died.”
Clap clap clap— Wang Xiaoxiao applauded, smiling: “Right. You’re right. For these 20 years, I’ve thought that every single moment. Just when I’m about to forget, a strange bird flies in and pecks open the wound in my memory with its beak. The shame and sin of the past flash before my eyes in an instant. I can’t sit still; I’m so afraid I want to scream. But on the day I turned eighteen, I suddenly realized I was a girl too, a weak, frail girl. If I’d walked home with Tian Yu that day, two of us would have died. So all these years since, I’ve lived carrying Tian Yu’s life along with mine, and I put all my feelings into Niuniu.”
“If that’s really true, you should keep living, not kill people!” Tian Liang shouted.
“The wicked will be ground down by the more wicked. These four villains. If heaven won’t take them, I will.” Wang Xiaoxiao’s willow-leaf brows shot up.
“But you didn’t kill Huo Dantian.”
20
“No need for me to kill him. Multiple organ failure. He won’t last a week.”
“But you…”
“But what? There’s no but.” Wang Xiaoxiao smiled. “Let’s stop fighting. Let me tell you a fun fact about Journey to the West! Everyone always talks about the four pilgrims who went west for the scriptures, but there were actually five. Protecting Tang Sanzang on the journey west were Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Heshang, and… the White Dragon Horse!”
As she finished, Wang Xiaoxiao took a White Dragon Horse mask from her bag and put it on, threw the bag toward Tian Liang, and leapt off the roof…
Thanks to the evidence on the recording pen, the case still within the statute of limitations was solved.
Zheng Guangming wasn’t the culprit in the first case. Because his mental state was unstable, he was released without charge. The unlucky truck driver Li Jianguo had no subjective intent to damage the body and received only an administrative penalty. Yuan Deman died of multiple organ failure on the fourth day after Wang Xiaoxiao jumped, despite efforts to save him.
Wang Xiaoxiao had always blamed herself for everything. Her twisted crimes had twisted her personality too.
Niuniu lost her mom, and Wang Xiaoxiao was buried next to Tian Yu’s grave.
(The End)