"According to this inference," Lang Qiao, sporting dark circles about the same size as her eyes, said faintly, "either Wu Guangchuan climbed up out of the morgue, or we got the wrong person back then and over twenty years later the real killer has resurfaced to offend again."
"If a person succeeds in committing six crimes, with the police unable to catch a shadow and even helpfully finding someone to take the blame for him, an ordinary person would already be self-satisfied enough to go insane. If he's a real psycho, would he have stopped for so many years?" Luo Wenzhou said. "If we really got the killer wrong back then, the last twenty years and more are long enough for him to have filled up a mass grave."
Lang Qiao turned her head. "Captain Luo, what you're saying is appalling."
"What you're saying is pretty appalling, too." Luo Wenzhou rolled the shaft of his pen around in his hand. "However it is, I've already sent people to stake out Qu Tong's house to look into the person who left the flash drive."
"Don't quote me on it, but they're unlikely to turn anything up," said Lang Qiao. "I just got through asking the parents. Qu Tong's house is on an old estate, and the property management doesn't do anything thirty days out of the month. It's basically an open-door policy over there. Just last month they had some things stolen. Think about it, someone takes something from your house and they don't get caught; forget about someone leaving something."
Tao Ran asked, "What about other leads?"
"The flash drive is one of those ordinary cheap kinds, you can find exactly the same thing on hundreds of sites online. It's been wiped very clean, not half a fingerprint on it. The techs are stepping up their analysis of the contents of the recording, but the suspect's anti-reconnaissance awareness is evident." Luo Wenzhou paused and shook his head. "The outlook isn't optimistic."
The possibility of leads was very small, and the possibility that the girl was still alive was also very small.
The golden seventy-two hours had passed; the recording sent to the girl's parents seemed like some kind of preening "summing up"—I'm still here, I'm the victor again, you can't catch me.
"There's actually another line of thought," Tao Ran said after quietly muttering to himself for a moment. "On the night this happened, who would have been passing by? At the time, we investigated the security camera records of some nearby scenic spots, industrial parks, and major roads. If the person who took the girl had been driving past by coincidence, it would have been very hard for him not to leave any traces. But thus far, we haven't found any traces along that route. So is it possible that someone had been following Qu Tong all along—or perhaps his aim was another girl on that bus similar to Qu Tong, and he just happened to run into the hijacking?"
Having heard this, Lang Qiao already grasped his meaning. "You're saying that the stalker didn't succeed on his first try!"
On the last day of summer camp, the students had gone to the outskirts, but before that their activities had always been in the city, near the school. If this mysterious kidnapper had been tailing one of the students, then it would have been far more difficult for him to hide his tracks in the city. The traffic cameras and the surrounding residents may have noticed him!
Lang Qiao stood immediately. "I'll go arrange it."
"I've arranged it." Luo Wenzhou waved a hand towards her. "Sit down for now. After we finished investigating the scene that day without finding any suspicious individuals, I had people investigate following the tracks of some of the girls in their class. Of the eighteen students, eleven were girls, all around the same age as Qu Tong, with six of them who resembled her in stature and appearance. Even focusing our attention on those six, investigating everywhere they went, what people they passed by, it would still involve over a hundred people. After conducting a survey of the scene, we only know that this person wears size forty-two shoes. It's too little information; we can't even be sure of the person's age or sex. We have nothing to go on, unless his appearance is very suspicious, which at present it seems evident that it isn't."
Listening from beside him, Lu Youliang couldn't resist sighing. He acknowledged to himself that even if he had personally been in charge, he couldn't have been more thorough. But sometimes opportunity and luck were both indispensable.
"Back then the kidnapper called the victims's families directly. Now that he knows we can trace calls, he's changed to an untraceable means of delivery. He's really advancing with the times." Lang Qiao sighed. "Isn't this what you call good advances a chi and evil advances a zhang (13)?"
In a different tone, Luo Wenzhou said, "I remember the victims back then were never found, dead or alive. In the end, why did we think that Wu Guangchuan was the culprit behind the serial kidnappings? Just because he had the children's bloody clothes on him?"
"No, we handled cases somewhat irregularly back then, but not that irregularly," said Director Lu. "Aside from the cut-apart clothes, the primary reason we determined that Wu Guangchuan was the culprit was the seventh girl. There were signs of sexual assault on her, and after she woke up, she named Wu Guangchuan. What was the child's name, now? I think she was surnamed Su, Su…"
"Su Xiaolan," said Tao Ran. "She's mentioned in my shifu's notebook. She was Wu Guangchuan's student."
"Right, that was it." Having thought for an age, Director Lu truly hadn't been able to come up with it. He had to sigh. "Ah, it's been too long, my old brain isn't any good. There's a lot of things I can't recall clearly anymore. You go ahead and request the files be transferred over."
Luo Wenzhou kicked the inattentive Lang Qiao with the tip of his foot, and she reacted, hastily agreeing and running off to start the procedures.
With Director Lu's name on the request, the old case's records were transferred over very quickly. Twenty years of dust was finally brushed off of notes more detailed and objective than the Venerable Yang's, once more revealing them to the light of day.
"Right, it must have been this girl." Director Lu pulled out a photograph.
Because she had still been alive then and wouldn't have wanted to be disturbed, the Venerable Yang hadn't kept her photograph in his personal notes.
The seventh victim, Su Xiaolan, was a very good-looking young girl. She had apricot stone eyes with long corners extending towards her temples. When the photograph was taken, she'd put on a little makeup, looking red-lipped and white-toothed, with her chin in her hand; she had an odd precocious look.
"Su Xiaolan was a student at Jinxiu Middle School then. When the crime occurred, she was in Year 2 of junior middle school."
Lang Qiao asked, "Didn't I hear that the girl's family background was very bad? She was missing for days without her mother knowing. How could she have afforded to attend a private school of the time?"
"She was a specially enrolled dance student. Her elementary school dance troupe teacher liked her very much and recommended her to Jinxiu. Jinxiu had a policy of waiving tuition fees for all specially enrolled students. Although because of her unusual family background, and because she was always practicing with the dance troupe, Su Xiaolan often missed class. As time went on, she didn't fit in with students her own age, and she didn't have any friends. Wu Guangchuan was her Year 1 homeroom teacher and used that to lure her in and compel her, carry out a violation against her."
"That's strange." Tao Ran couldn't resist putting in a word. "If Wu Guangchuan kidnapped and murdered six girls, why did he leave this girl alive?"
"I had only just started working then. I was doing legwork for the investigation team and didn't participate in much." Director Lu thought back for a moment. "The killer was already dead. We couldn't force his motive out of him. All of this is my elders' conjectures at the time they wrote the concluding report after the fact. There were two presumed reasons—first, many people around them knew that Su Xiaolan and Wu Guangchuan were regularly in close contact. If anything had happened to Su Xiaolan, it would have been very easy for the police to find him. So Su Xiaolan was a very dangerous target for a murderer. There was even an elder who concluded at the time that the other six girls could have been substitutes for Su Xiaolan.
"The second one is pure supposition on our part—unlike the other victims, Su Xiaolan's family background was particular. The killer couldn't use a phone call to torment Su Xiaolan's family. If the process of making the phone call had some special meaning and purpose for him, then he would have been unable to obtain a sense of satisfaction from Su Xiaolan."
It sounded like there were no problems anywhere in this course of events; the human testimony and material evidence were all there, the logical and psychological motives all made sense. The only problem was, if the murderer from twenty years ago had already passed on, then who had taken Qu Tong?
Who would have known the details about the metal pencil box and the little bells?
There could only be the relatives of Guo Fei, the victim in the first case…as well as the old criminal policemen who had handled the case at the time, including Director Lu.
In front of Director Lu's face, the people in the small conference room all fell silent for a time.
Director Lu, however, rather calmly broke the silence himself. He stood and patted Luo Wenzhou on the shoulder. "You take the lead on this. If there are any questions, report to Lao Ceng. I'll step back for the time being to avoid suspicion. In a while, I'll do a clear write-up of my whereabouts for the past few days. I'm afraid it won't be very easy to investigate the others who handled the case. I'll go ahead and say a few words for you, to forestall them feeling insulted and not cooperating when the time comes."
"We also have to question the victim's relatives in the Lotus Mountain case. They may have said something to someone." Luo Wenzhou raised this awkward point lightly. "There's also Su Xiaolan. She was around Wu Guangchuan the longest, it's likely she knows something—we'll split up along three lines. Tao Ran, continue following the tracks of those eighteen children before the crime occurred; just in case, don't overlook the boys. Xiao Lang will be responsible for leading the people investigating the area around Qu Tong's house; don't overlook the security cameras of any of the miscellaneous little shops around there. I'll think of a way to handle the rest."
The rest were all the things likely to offend people—investigating the elders within their own system and making inquiries about the victims.
Tao Ran wanted to say something but was cut off by Luo Wenzhou's raised hand. "Hurry up, don't waste words. It's been over twenty years. The evidence has disappeared and the witnesses are gone. The hopes for a result are remote. Your investigations are of the highest priority, in case the child is still alive."
With this being brought up, Tao Ran didn't dare to tarry; he had to file out along with Lang Qiao.
Lu Youliang tore open the packaging of a new pack of cigarettes and pushed it across the table towards Luo Wenzhou. "You've left all the glorious but arduous tasks for yourself. You're keeping up a pretty good style."
"If I go," said Luo Wenzhou, "at most I'll get a telling off. The two of them, if they mess it up, it may come to a fight.—Of course, whether I can find anything out when the telling off is over will depend on borrowing your venerable face."
"Of the old boys from back then, some have left, some have passed away. The ones who worked from beginning to end have mostly retired. And now Lao Zhang has been transferred away." As he spoke, Director Lu inexplicably felt rather melancholy. "I'm the only one left to lead you passel of monkeys. It won't be many years now."
"Is retirement a bad thing?" Luo Wenzhou smiled at him. "My dreams are all about retiring. Waking up naturally every day, going wherever I want, collecting my pension every month, taking my old spouse around everywhere, having all the little brats give up their seats for me when I get on the subway."
Lu Youliang very much wanted to foster his development; although Luo Wenzhou was a little too young, luckily the old man wouldn't be retiring immediately. There were still some years left; if he pushed him along, it was possible he would amount to something. Hearing this feckless discourse, Director Lu filled with anger; then he once again thought of some gossip concerning Young Lord Luo that couldn't be mentioned in polite society and became even more vexed. Pointing at Luo Wenzhou, he said, "You don't even have a 'young spouse.' Shut up. If you won't talk sense, get the hell out of my face."
Luo Wenzhou put a cigarette in his mouth, tucked the old case file under his arm, and duly prepared to get the hell out. But when he reached the door, Director Lu called him to a halt.
"Do you have any rough ideas about this case?"
With one hand on the conference room door, Luo Wenzhou's steps paused. "There are two unresolved questions from back then. First, where the missing girls' bodies went. Second, Wu Guangchuan's motive for calling the victims' families. I talked this case over with some people, and a friend said that it sounded like he wasn't aiming at the children, but at the grown-ups—that doesn't seem much like the average psychological characteristic of a pedophile… Also, while I think the two cases are connected, they weren't necessarily committed by the same person."
"How do you figure?"
"Making a phone call and going in person to the victim's house are two different things. One is hiding behind the curtain, the other is being unable to resist personally taking the stage. The latter runs a much greater risk, and the criminal has to be more arrogant, too. It's not just the anti-reconnaissance methods Lang Qiao mentioned."
All of Yan City was like a river; after decades of waste management, you could see though to the silt on the riverbed, almost comprehend it all at a glance. It was clear and safe; but there were still rapids, and there were still undercurrents.
The odds of the missing girl Qu Tong being found alive were growing increasingly remote, but for the countless other children her age, this was just an ordinary summer vacation, crammed with unremarkable make-up classes and extracurriculars, accompanied by the listless humming of cicadas and the drowsiness of waiting adolescents.
Chenchen had her portfolio on her back and was waiting for her tardy parents at a bus stop by the Children's Palace's back gate. Bored, she took out her tablet to play. Suddenly, a shadow fell in front of her. Chenchen looked up and saw a blind, humpbacked old man arrive near her, his face unwittingly turning towards her.
Chechen felt oddly uneasy. She remembered what the dagege who had treated her to a cream puff had said that day, and hastily moved a few cautious steps away, drawing closer to the crowd waiting for the bus nearby while stealthily keeping an eye on the stranger.
Just then, the bus pulled up to the stop, and the tight-packed crowd boarded one after another. The area around the bus stop's sign emptied; only she and the "blind old man" were left.
Suddenly, the blind old man tapped the ground and stepped over towards her. In an instant the hairs rose on the back of Chenchen's neck, and she turned and ran towards the Children's Palace. Turning a corner, she accidentally bumped into someone. The other person cried "Ow!" and the things she was holding fell and scattered over the ground.
This person was a girl a little older than her, wearing a floral-patterned dress, her hair done in two braids.
Chenchen hurriedly apologized. "I, I'm sorry."
The girl looked at her and didn't get angry. As she crouched to pick up her books, she asked, "Why were you running?"
Chenchen hurriedly helped her. "There's a weird person over there, I was a little scared."
Hearing this, the girl looked over to where she was pointing. "There's no one there. Where?"
Chenchen turned her head. The bus stop was deserted; there wasn't a single person.
The girl looked at Chenchen. "What grade are you in?"
"I'll be in sixth grade when school starts."
"Oh, then I'm a year older than you." With her books under one arm, the girl naturally took Chenchen by the hand with the other hand. "Are you scared? How about I wait with you for a while."
Chenchen couldn't have asked for better.
"I'm attending the summer photography class here." The girl's long lashes drooped, and she looked at Chenchen and smiled. "I'm called Su Luozhan."
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Author's note:
(13) Traditional measurements, a chi is a little over a foot, a zhang is 10 chi.