Luo Wenzhou upended the package; there was nothing else in it. But just then, his phone vibrated as a photograph arrived. It was of an out-of-the-way gravel path, decorated with neatly laid-out vegetation and a water feature, secluded and narrow, with a solitary garbage can sticking out in the middle. Underneath was a message without beginning or end: in passing.
Luo Wenzhou stared thoughtfully at the photograph for a while, but next to him, Master Cat wasn't having any of this.
Master Cat's full name was "Luo Yiguo." It was a seven-year-old middle-aged cat, round-faced, large-eyed, and sleek—it was just a little bad-tempered.
Luo Yiguo batted at Luo Wenzhou's leg with its paw; twisting its butt, it went over to the corner and crouched down, full of accusation, displaying an empty food bowl to its litter box attendant.
Unexpectedly, the stupid tall one only gave it a glance and remained wholly unmoved.
Suffering this rebuff, Luo Yiguo was enraged. It charged truculently and stood up on its hind legs hugging Luo Wenzhou's calf, yowling as it tore at his pant leg.
Luo Wenzhou bent and picked Luo Yiguo up by the scruff of its neck, holding it aloft. "Have you had your fill of living?"
Paws dangling, Luo Yiguo rumbled out a purr, then complacently stuck its tongue out at him.
Luo Wenzhou rolled his eyes and loosened his grip. The kitty deftly freed itself, gave an elegant roll in midair, and landed on all fours. Its wish was quickly fulfilled: it received adequate dry food, as well as a supplemental can of cat food.
Luo Yiguo was deeply satisfied; it found that the principle that "a stick makes a filial son" hadn't led it astray; indeed, the litter box attendant wouldn't behave unless he was bitten.
Luo Wenzhou crouched haphazardly and petted the cat for a while. Suddenly remembering something, he looked down at Luo Yiguo's stuck-up large furry tail—Tao Ran had found this ancestor while strolling through the morning market and bought it to give to Fei Du. At first Fei Du had seemed to like it, but a few days after carrying it off he'd somehow gotten annoyed and absolutely refused to keep it.
Tao Ran had come from out of town. When he'd just started working, he couldn't afford to buy a home and rented all over; there was no saying when he would have to move, so it really wasn't convenient for him to keep a pet. He'd had to put the cat up with Luo Wenzhou.
Luo Wenzhou hated cats, hated dogs, hated children sixteen years old and under. He'd been mad enough to lose his mind. He had issued a solemn ultimatum to Tao Ran, swearing that if he hadn't found another home for the cat within a month, he'd stew the four-legged nuisance in a pot (22).
The upshot was that seven years had passed in a flash, another home hadn't been found, and Luo Wenzhou had gone from a foul-mouthed carnivore to a hard-working and ungrudging litter box attendant, while Luo Yiguo had gone from reserve provisions to the master of the house.
This shows that worldly affairs really are hard to predict.
Luo Wenzhou pondered a while as he pet the cat, then suddenly stood up, took some leftover bread from the fridge, and walked out.
The streets were relatively uncrowded as Captain Luo, who liked nothing better than to arrive at work and leave exactly on schedule, returned to the City Bureau. When he walked into the office, aside from the officer on duty, he found one other person, who was still rubbing his eyes as he replayed the surveillance footage.
Luo Wenzhou's steps paused. He sighed. "I knew you wouldn't have left yet."
Tao Ran stretched. "I have nothing to do at home, anyway.—What are you doing back here?"
"I felt sorry for you following this solitary path working overtime in the middle of the night, so I came to offer help to the needy." Luo Wenzhou swaggered over next to him and sat down on his desk. "Model Worker, have you discovered anything?"
"Chengguang Mansion's security cameras are all external. Our technical staff has investigated all the footage from 8 PM to 10 PM on the night of the twentieth. The external cameras caught Zhang Donglai's face clearly four times in all; going by facial recognition, there are forty minutes during which he was neither on camera nor inside the club. But those 'forty minutes' are the product of addition. Each time he left, it was for a comparatively short time. He only went out of his way to avoid the cameras twice: once was around ten, when he left with a girl for about fifteen minutes; he deliberately looked up at where the camera was positioned. The second time was shortly before 12 AM. After midnight, the cameras in the club's courtyard are all turned off, so I don't know what time he returned."
Luo Wenzhou rubbed his chin. "Fifteen minutes?"
Tao Ran nodded very earnestly. "Right. If we find the girl, she should be able to act as a witness."
Luo Wenzhou shook his head. "That's really fast."
Tao Ran: "…"
Before he could react, Luo Wenzhou's tone changed. Like an upright gentleman, he asked, "Is He Zhongyi on camera?"
"No. This afternoon they picked out twenty-some cameras that may have caught He Zhongyi, but none of them have his face on them. There are some that are further out; I've been replaying them to have a look. I think there's no one who looks like him. Do you really think that if the murderer had killed He Zhongyi at Chengguang Mansion, he would have inadvertently gotten caught on camera?"
"If the cameras at the entrances and exits didn't catch him, it's also possible that He Zhongyi himself was avoiding the security cameras." Luo Wenzhou stood and paced behind Tao Ran's back. "But if there really wasn't anything there, Fei Du wouldn't have given it to us."
"With over four hours and so many cameras, how could he have seen anything? He probably gave it to us as reference."
Luo Wenzhou shook his head. After a while, he suddenly remembered something. "What did you just say? They turn off the cameras in the courtyard after midnight?"
"That's right. Only the ones in the parking lot and some surrounding paths stay on."
"The cameras are probably turned off so they don't catch a throng of drunkards making fools of themselves. The ones left on are to ensure security." Luo Wenzhou gripped the back of Tao Ran's chair. "The security cameras in the courtyard must be placed where they can be seen by the guests, so they can easily avoid them if they want to. But outside the club, to make sure that no unidentified individuals make their way in, some of the cameras will be hidden… Pull up the footage from the ones that stay on all night."
Before he'd finished speaking, Tao Ran had already pulled them up.
Luo Wenzhou got out his phone and looked at the photograph he'd received. "Is there a security camera installed on a gravel path next to a water feature?"
"There is, actually," Tao Ran said a little doubtfully.
The timestamp on the security camera footage was 8 PM exactly. The whole screen was unmoving pitch black. As they played it through on fast-forward, the dark shadow blocking the screen hopped away and freed up the camera lens—it had been a bird.
The four corners of the recording were dark, with an image in the middle; it was obstructed from time to time by birds coming and going. Possibly the camera was concealed in a tree. Shortly before 8:50, a swaying human figure appeared near the garbage can under the security camera. Tao Ran quickly paused the image.
This person must have come to smoke beside the garbage can; he hadn't noticed the security camera in the tree.
"Wait, this person… I think he looks about right!" Tao Ran carefully scrutinized the image for a moment, then sighed. "If the cigarette ends were still there, we should be able to tell with a DNA comparison. But there was that rainstorm this afternoon… By now it'll be—what are you smiling about?"
Luo Wenzhou pulled an evidence bag containing some cigarette ends from his pocket. "Go ahead and compare."
Tao Ran was astonished. "How did you… Where did you…"
"Shh—quietly." Luo Wenzhou put a finger to his lips and said almost inaudibly, "A very obnoxious young person sent it to me."
Tao Ran seemed even more astonished. "Have you two called a cease fire?"
Luo Wenzhou put a hand on the back of his head and returned it to its previous orientation. "Are there any other leads nearby?"
"Um, wait a second." Saying this, Tao Ran rolled out a marked-up map. "This path only goes to two places, Chengguang Mansion at one end and a public area at the other. This person clearly didn't go towards Chengguang Mansion when he left, he went the other way… As soon as you get out onto the road, there's a bus stop."
"I like public areas," said Luo Wenzhou with a smile. "You can investigate around them without needing to play nice with these rich people."
The two of them quickly left the City Bureau, headed straight for the Traffic Police Team near the bus stop.
The night was thick, the dew about to descend. Luo Wenzhou turned off the car's air-conditioning and opened the window to air out the car.
"Any lead we find tonight," said Luo Wenzhou, "don't tell anyone else yet, including our colleagues on the team."
Tao Ran froze. "What?"
"Nothing. I figure that in a few days, the sub-bureau will formally request that the case be transferred to us," said Luo Wenzhou. "At that time, you'll concentrate on He Zhongyi's case; leave the rest alone. Before we've tracked down the real killer, let Zhang Donglai stay 'under suspicion' for a few days. Maybe he'll even develop some memory."
Tao Ran heard an unusual trace of solemnity in these words and couldn't resist tilting his head and looking at him.
The corners of Luo Wenzhou's eyes turned up. "We're both single men. If you look at me like that again, I'll act like a brute."
"Flirting with me is free, right?" Tao Ran very magnanimously waved his hand. "That's right, I haven't seen you go out with anyone in a long time. What happened to that guy who came to play pool with us last time?"
Luo Wenzhou said, "Oh, he went to study abroad. He's studying Chinese in Italy."
Tao Ran nearly choked on his own saliva. "That unreliable? How come?"
Luo Wenzhou shrugged expressionlessly. He had one hand on the steering wheel and the other on the half-opened window. "What do you want him to be reliable for? Anyway, my dad hasn't retired yet. Though he's never said anything to me, it doesn't make a very good impression, after all. When he retires in a year or two, maybe I'll think about finding a proper one. Being on my own is pretty good, too.—The old man truly is addicted to work. I really can't comprehend it. I've wanted to retire for ages."
Tao Ran sighed. "You should be content with your lot. Your family's very open-minded."
Luo Wenzhou heard the meaning behind these words and immediately asked, "Your family's pressuring you to get married?"
"Like you wouldn't believe," said Tao Ran.
Luo Wenzhou looked at him. "I have niche interests. What's your problem?"
Tao Ran thought, then issued a short but forceful answer: "I'm poor."
Luo Wenzhou couldn't help it; he laughed out loud.
"What are you laughing at? My pitiful salary is just enough to pay back a housing loan. 'Poor' is an objective fact." Tao Ran pulled his rumpled hair carelessly. "Although I've managed to scrape together a down payment, so at any rate I qualify to go on a blind date. I think that's about enough for this lifetime. I don't think it's absolutely necessary to marry a goddess."
Luo Wenzhou shone the car's headlights on a street sign and found they weren't far from their destination. His gaze rested calmly on the road ahead. "Is there a goddess?"
"In senior middle school, there was a classmate in the class next-door who looked like Angie Chiu (23)," said Tao Ran. "We haven't been in touch for years. Maybe she's already married, and if she isn't married, that still doesn't mean I have a chance.—We're nearly there, wait while I call and have a word with the guys on duty."
Five minutes later, Luo Wenzhou parked the car. Tao Ran was about to get out when Luo Wenzhou, suddenly turning to him, said, "I want to ask you something rather serious."
Tao Ran was bewildered. "What?"
"Supposing—I say just supposing you were a woman," said Luo Wenzhou, "would you want to marry me or Fei Du?"
Tao Ran: "…"
"Supposing."
Tao Ran considered it for a long time and then issued a conclusion: "If I were a woman, I doubt I'd have any attention to spare for the two of you. I'd be spending all day worrying about how to come out to my mom."
"No coming out. All the women have died off."
"Then the other…"
"All the other men have died off, too." Saying this, Luo Wenzhou didn't manage to keep a straight face. Laughing, he said, "It's just the two of us."
With over six billion people annihilated by Luo Wenzhou's brief words, the corners of Tao Ran's mouth twitched. At last he unfeelingly said, "Then I guess it has to be you."
Despite all he could do to hold it back, Luo Wenzhou didn't manage to restrain the wily smile of someone who had just pilfered a chicken. "You'd choose me? You're sure?"
Tao Ran counted on his fingers. "I can only choose you. I think Fei Du won't be of legal age to marry (24) for another two months… What are you doing?"
Luo Wenzhou was leaning back in his seat and laughing as if he'd just scored a signal victory.
Tao Ran entirely failed to understand what he had to be pleased about. He thought back a bit, then he was struck by something that made him break out in gooseflesh. Shaking his head, he got out of the car.
…He didn't see that Luo Wenzhou was so despicable that he recorded this conversation.
As long as it wasn't on private property like Chengguang Mansion, investigating security camera footage was pretty easy for the City Bureau's personnel.
The camera at the bus stop hadn't caught what time the person they suspected of being He Zhongyi had arrived in the neighborhood of Chengguang Mansion, but it did give them an enormous pleasant surprise—around 9 PM, it caught that person coming out of the path, then going directly towards the bus stop, waiting a few minutes, then getting on the Number 34 bus.
During this time he looked up to examine the route information, which was sufficient for Luo Wenzhou and Tao Ran to determine that he was in fact He Zhongyi.
Meanwhile, a psychological counseling clinic had reached the end of its business hours. The last client stood, graciously said goodbye to the consultant, and got out a beautifully packaged box of chocolates. "You've worked hard, Dr. Bai. I thought you would like this flavor, so I brought some for you to taste."
The counselor was already accustomed to this. This client named Fei Du was very good at appealing to people. He handed out sweet talk free of charge, never came late, never lost control of his emotions, and usually brought along an exquisite but not overly expensive little gift; even all the cleaners at the clinic knew him. She hadn't thanked him yet when his phone vibrated twice.
The counselor swallowed her words and smiled to indicate that he should go ahead and see to it.
Fei Du made a gesture of thanks and found that there were two messages on his phone.
The first message was very brief: "Many thanks."
The second had an audio recording attached and a message that read: "Courtesy demands reciprocity."
Fei Du put the phone speaker next to his ear.
"Supposing you were a woman, would you want to marry me or Fei Du? … All the other men have died off, too. It's just the two of us."
"Then I guess it has to be you."
"You'd choose me? You're sure?"
"I think Fei Du won't be of legal age to marry for another two months…"
Fei Du: "…"
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Author's Note:
(22) The cat's name, Yiguo (一锅), in fact means "a pot."
(23) An actress from Hong Kong, currently aged 65 and still exceedingly beautiful.
(24) 22 for men in China (and 20 for women).