"Heng'an Orphanage's original location was on the outskirts of Yan City, though it's been too long. That place was turned into a ski run long ago." In the temporary lodgings of the resort villa, Zhou Huaijin brought out the things he'd gotten from his old home's Filipino maid for everyone to see. "This person—this girl—is called Su Hui. President Fei said that she's a very important figure. She was one of the girls being raised at Heng'an Orphanage."
The seated circle was silent, because apart from Zhou Huaijin, all of them knew about Su Hui; there was no need for him to add emphasis.
Su Hui had sold her own daughter; then her crimes had escalated, and she'd used her daughter to kidnap and sell other girls—a full range of kidnapping, selling, and murder, a range carried down through three generations.
The girl in the old photograph was naturally delicate-featured, a little dressed up, a sight that could amount to being pleasing scenery of the human world. Who could see the debt of blood on her hands? Only when she'd been dead over a decade had her crimes been revealed to the light of day.
What stuck in the throat was that in these sensational crimes spanning over twenty years, none of the three main culprits had come to a satisfactory end—Su Luozhan hadn't been fourteen yet and had been spared from criminal penalty, and Su Xiaolan and Su Hui had died natural deaths, lying in drunken dreams on top of the girls' corpses; in the end, apart from some insubstantial reputation, to the end of their lives, they hadn't paid any price.
"Privately-run orphanages always have a problem balancing income and expenditure. In the end, there are two paths. Either they find a way to be nationalized, or they find fixed long-term contributions. In the past, some overseas Chinese established donations to orphanages, and Heng'an was one of them. Afterwards, likely because of the death of its donor, the orphanage couldn't continue and wrapped up." Zhou Huaijin paused. "Its donor was Zhou Yahou.—I was just thinking that Yang Bo's mother and Su Hui were both orphans and both came from Yan City. The cities hadn't expanded at the time. How many people could there be in Yan City? How many orphanages? Could they have come from the same one?"
"The pretty ones were sold for a high price abroad, the rest were handed over to human traffickers and fell into the human trafficking market." Luo Wenzhou thought about it and nodded slightly. "That makes a certain amount of sense, but there's a small problem—given their method of raising children and then selling them, Heng'an Orphanage not only had a source of income, it must have been making considerable profits. Even without Zhou Yahou to act as donor, I don't think they would have gone bankrupt."
Xiao Haiyang said, "Maybe they were exposed and closed down?"
"Something like an orphanage being closed down for human trafficking, even if it didn't cause a sensation, would still definitely have left a record." Luo Wenzhou shook his head. "It wouldn't have vanished without a trace like this."
For a time they were all tired and without any lines of thought. They all fell quiet. No one spoke for a long time.
Then Zhou Huaijin suddenly cleared his throat, breaking the stillness. "I want… I'm planning to go back immediately to the old Zhou home."
Seeing everyone's gazes collect on him, Zhou Huaijin added, "Following my mother's lead, I found an excuse to take a vacation and leave the Zhou Clan headquarters. After I found that Filipino maid and heard about those appalling things from her, I came right back here and found President Fei. I had no time, and I didn't think of going to carefully investigate Zhou Yahou.—If all of these things really are inextricably tied to the orphanage he donated to, I think that if a person's done something, there can't be absolutely no traces of it. There must be a lead."
"If that's the case, then I can understand why they've been so determined to kill you," Luo Wenzhou said slowly. "Mr. Zhou, I'm afraid it's not safe for you to leave the country alone. Why don't you wait a couple of days, I'll think of a way to get someone…"
"I can come along," Lu Jia put in. "I can take along a few companions and go with President Zhou. Don't worry, spending money on private bodyguards won't get you anything more reliable than us."
"Leaving the country isn't like hopping on a flight to Hainan Island." Luo Wenzhou frowned. "It won't be very convenient for you to get visas at the moment."
"We already have visas, all current." As soon as Lu Jia smiled, his eyes vanished. He looked like an image of good fortune. "President Fei said before that this year's employee benefit is a collective vacation abroad. I thought the arrangements had been made for nothing, but now it looks like it's perfect."
Luo Wenzhou stared. "When did this happen?"
"Last fall," Lu Jia said. "He took care of it when he'd just gotten out of the hospital."
Zhou Huaijin couldn't resist opening his eyes wide.—Fei Du had invited him to see him at the hospital and enumerated the suspicious details in Zheng Kaifeng's murder of Zhou Junmao. He'd also suggested that when he left, he should examine what his mother had left behind. Not long after he'd left, Fei Du had started making plans for Lu Jia and the others to go abroad… There were so many countries in the world, so many scenic spots; why had the "vacation" been arranged there?
Had he already started preparing then?
What Zhou Huaijin could understand, the criminal police officers, each more sensitive than the next, would of course understand. Lu Jia very composedly accepted their visual salute and didn't explain, only smiled meaningfully. "I'll go book a flight."
"We'll split up first thing tomorrow." Luo Wenzhou was the first to avert his gaze. "You guys go investigate the old Zhou family house, and we'll stay here and look for traces of Heng'an Orphanage. Keep in contact at all times, and be careful.—Don't think about it for now, take the time to rest, conserve your strength and build up your energy."
Everyone was used to hearing him issue orders. They stood up simultaneously and each went to their rooms, planning to make up for being forced to sleep in a cat's den by taking advantage of this rare opportunity to stay at a six-star hotel. But Xiao Haiyang's steps paused. He looked at Luo Wenzhou, who had only spoken and not moved. "Captain Luo, aren't you going to sleep yet?"
"There's been no word from Xiao Wu yet. I'm a little worried. I'll wait a while longer." Luo Wenzhou waved. "Go on."
Xiao Haiyang gave an "oh" and left, taken in.
Luo Wenzhou was left alone in the huge living room. He stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, looked up, and saw Orion suspended at the culmination. Three bright stars side by side sketched the radiant Belt of Orion, slowly moving across the clean-washed night sky.
Luo Wenzhou had taken out his pack of cigarettes. He squeezed it in his hand, looking at it, then thought of something and put it back in his pocket. He pushed open the window and used the cold wind of the winter night to clear his head. Those few words just now had made him long irresistibly for Fei Du. While they'd been apart for less than the time a short business trip took, he had the feeling that he hadn't seen Fei Du in a lifetime.
When Fei Du had just gotten out of the hospital… Their relationship had been very delicate then. Fei Du's mouth had been full of honeyed words without a line of truth, and Luo Wenzhou had on one hand been admonishing himself not to act with undue haste, on the other hand wishing he could grasp him at once.
Luo Wenzhou remembered Fei Du hadn't had much energy then. He could fall asleep anytime and anywhere, leaning against something, not even noticing Luo Yiguo. Sometimes he'd be sitting on the balcony staring into space, not making a sound, looking thoughtful.
What had he been thinking then?
Just then, someone unexpectedly spoke behind him. "President Fei said that everything must have a source. Outrageous-seeming people often have outrageous pasts. If we could find that source, some things would become much simpler."
Luo Wenzhou turned his head and saw that Lu Jia, his arm suspended, had strolled over. The injury to his arm seemed to be like scraping off some skin for him. It had no impact. Lu Jia casually took a big box of nuts from the minibar, opened the lid, and offered it to Luo Wenzhou. "Do you want some?"
"…No." Luo Wenzhou looked at the little dimples on the back of Lu Jia's hand. "If I eat away my eight-pack abs, what will I use to carry out the plans of a beautiful man?"
Lu Jia was startled into a shudder by Luo Wenzhou's impenetrably shameless posturing and hastily opened a can of coke, too, to steady his nerves.
"What are you thinking?" Lu Jia asked. "Are you thinking about why President Fei could make so many arrangements ahead of time?"
"In order to steal the Zhou family's fortune, Zhou Junmao and Zheng Kaifeng collaborated to kill Zhou Yahou. Over a decade later, their company still hadn't found a domestic foothold, so they found someone to run over an obstacle. One was murdering someone for his property, one was an assassination. Though the methods weren't very similar, the cases in fact have similarities—they're both coordinated crimes, both require a certain degree of trust between the conspirators, both are murders disguised as happenstance," Luo Wenzhou said quietly. "Were Zhou Junmao and Zheng Kaifeng going to change collaborators each time, leaving dirt on themselves all over the world? So the two cases had to have had some degree of connection. That's a reasonable guess. It's no wonder he made arrangements ahead of time. He just thought of it a little earlier than others."
Lu Jia was wearing short sleeves, sipping ice-cold coke in the cold wind as though untouched by the elements. He looked quietly at Luo Wenzhou, not making a sound.
Luo Wenzhou paused. "What, were you afraid I'd think his scheming was too deep, his foreknowledge too suspicious?"
Lu Jia shrugged noncommittally. "It's not everyone who could accept our sort of person… Hiding secrets and trauma, divided from others by a layer of something."
"Brother," Luo Wenzhou said sincerely, patting his shoulder, "if you keep worrying of behalf of someone who's already spoken for, it's easy to get a beating."
Lu Jia laughed. "President Fei saved my life. What does it matter if I get a beating for his sake?"
"Fei Du is good to you," Luo Wenzhou said.
"He isn't good to you?" Lu Jia said.
"He's all right. He's good at humoring people. He'll never do any work around the house voluntarily, only does a turn after all kinds of prodding. He's always making me angry over nothing." Solemnly, Luo Wenzhou said, "Very lacking in education."
Lu Jia was speechless, his expression disdaining this show-off.
Unable to keep a straight face, Luo Wenzhou smiled. "What did you mean when you said 'trauma?'"
"I don't know. He's never mentioned it." Lu Jia hesitated, then said, "It's just a feeling. That feeling of not trusting outsiders, living hand to mouth. Sometimes you think you're very close to him, within reach, and he looks up and suddenly you're far off again."
Luo Wenzhou stared.
Fei Du's blurry memories, his unstoppable coughing, his odd stress response, the tension in his body when he was in the basement…these were typical symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
But in the end Fei Du hadn't said anything that day, just fobbed him off again.
What had actually happened in those memories he'd forgotten?
In this lengthy process of coaxing and wheedling, Luo Wenzhou felt that he'd spent every day tearing off Fei Du's painted skins, one after another, like a Russian nesting doll, until now, when he felt he was only a layer the thickness of a cicada's wing away from the final core.
Just then, Luo Wenzhou's phone rang. He saw "Xiao Wu" on the caller ID, quickly tidied up his far-wandering thoughts, and picked up.
"Boss," Xiao Wu said in a low voice, "we've found the warehouse they're using as a stronghold. These people are on very high alert, and Yang Xin knows us, so we haven't dared to approach. We've been lying low all day, and now that there aren't a lot of people outside, we're getting ready to implement an arrest at once."
"All right." Luo Wenzhou nodded. "Be careful."
"Apart from Yang Xin, there's another person." Xiao Wu held the phone with his neck, raising binoculars his hands, saying to Luo Wenzhou, "It seems to be that Zhu Feng you mentioned, the woman whose husband was stabbed by the crazy person. She came over with another batch of people around seven in the afternoon."
Luo Wenzhou frowned deeply, remembering what Fei Du had hurriedly said to him before leaving—
The Picture Album Project had been started to assemble psychological characteristics of criminals. There'd been no need to include a case of an incompetent person impulsively killing someone in the research plans. And Fan Siyuan had said that he'd only been responsible for six cases…
So was it possible that the case of the mentally disabled killer hadn't been one of those collected by Fan Siyuan in the Picture Album Project? And someone had secretly mixed it in among the others; then, imitating the criminal method, imitating Fan Siyuan's "privately judged execution," they had killed the mentally disabled killer.
This way, after Fan Siyuan disappeared, that case would naturally be blamed on him and wouldn't attract notice!
But there were some problems here. First, you had to guarantee that Fan Siyuan would die or disappear, or else, as soon as he was arrested, what he had and hadn't done would quickly come out in an interrogation. In the end, not only could you not achieve the result of "hoodwinking the public," you'd attract others' notice—but this was easy to explain. Fan Siyuan had absconded after committing the murders; while a formal wanted notice hadn't been issued, he'd still become a wanted criminal, and wanted criminals made up those people's collection. In particular, an expert gone bad like Fan Siyuan would have been a high-end "collectible," of a grade suitable for keeping under glass, so he would very soon have been gathered up and protected. The mole had known he wouldn't fall into the hands of the police.
But why had they needed to go to all that trouble to kill a mentally disabled person?
"Got it," Luo Wenzhou said to Xiao Wu. "Zhu Feng is an important witness. You have to take her alive."
Xiao Wu hung up the phone and gestured to the colleague next to him. Under the screen of night, a sniper quickly got into position. The special police drew close to the warehouse from three sides in a practiced manner. The criminal police separated to disperse the unrelated people in the surroundings, in case violence broke out.
Suddenly, a man walked out of the warehouse. He must have been a night watchman. He was too sensitive. As soon as he stepped out, he immediately sniffed something wrong in the air. A nearby special police officer reacted with extreme speed; a dart from a tranquilizer gun whistled, hitting him precisely in the neck. The man immediately fell back. In the instant he fell, his outstretched arm prodded something, and a sharp alarm instantly began to wail. All the lights went up in the warehouse!
"Go right in! Block the doors!"
"Quick, quick, quick!"
Flickering human shadows quickly flitted over. Soon after, the stomach-clenching sound of gunfire rang out!
Xiao Wu's scalp prickled—Luo Wenzhou had ordered them beforehand that, as there were important witnesses inside and Yang Xin was with them, they had to do their best not to injure them; the police wouldn't open fire first, so…
Before, you could have said that Yang Xin had only failed to report a crime, had only run away, had even, for some purpose, deliberately had Xiao Haiyang learn about the hospital killer, and so on. These weren't major doctrinal problems. If she'd cooperated after the fact, given that she was the daughter of a martyr, she may even have avoided punishment. But now, publicly resisting arrest, illegally carrying a gun, confronting the police—that was of a different nature!
Xiao Wu clenched his teeth firmly, put on a bulletproof vest, and charged in.
While the people inside the warehouse had weapons, when it came to a real fight, they were on the level of a mob—especially the way they'd parked all the cars together. The means of transportation were contained, the surrounding special police raising a brightly-lit encirclement, police sirens echoing wildly all around, entirely blocking them inside the warehouse.
The sniper took down each of the two people guarding the gates, the bullets hitting their thighs, even basically in the same place. The two people had no time to react before they were controlled by the police who'd burst in. Xiao Wu took some people in and caught three or four people outside the warehouse. Then he saw a flash of a white down jacket heading towards a small building behind the warehouse. Xiao Wu turned and followed.
The scattered sounds of gunfire were exceptionally ear-piercing in the night. The smell of gun smoke floated through the biting cold air, pouring into people's lungs, choking them.
Xiao Wu roared, "Yang Xin! Come out here!"
Then he charged into the small building, a bullet from somewhere far off coming in with him, making a clear crash. The person who'd been hiding behind the window quickly jumped aside. Xiao Wu hollered into the walkie-talkie as if heartbroken: "Who the fuck is shooting? I told you not to shoot!"
He chased as he cursed, remembering the first time he'd gone to Lao Yang's house when he'd just started working. The girl, about to take her university entrance exam, had been unable to do a problem and had gotten into a huff, unwilling to eat. A circle of purported "university graduate" adults had been compelled by Lao Yang to tutor their little shimei. End result, it had turned out that this pack of good-for-nothings had long ago given their knowledge of the periodic table of elements back to their middle school teachers; they'd sat through a meal mutually ridiculing each other…
It seemed that the person hiding behind the window just now hadn't been Yang Xin. This was also a woman, thin and slight and seeming somewhat aged. Xiao Wu came closer and closer and saw that she looked like Zhu Feng.
Not verifying the facts of the matter, he threw himself forward. With the back of her clothes grabbed by Xiao Wu, Zhu Feng lashed out behind with something, and Xiao Wu dodged nimbly, grabbing the woman's wrist. Zhu Feng cried out, and the weapon slipped out of her hand.
Panting, Xiao Wu handcuffed her. "Where is Yang Xin? You still have…"
The sound of gunfire suddenly came from behind him.
Xiao Wu froze.
In that instant, he didn't feel pain; he only felt like he'd been pushed. The inside of his head buzzed.
The bullet had gone through his neck. The hands of the girl in the white down jacket shook. She herself stared wide-eyed in disbelief.
Xiao Wu fell over sideways, rolling uncontrollably towards a corner, his whole body twitching. He met Yang Xin's blank gaze.
"Your…"
His mouth formed words, but he couldn't make a sound.
Your mom's just died at the hospital…
Xiao Wu thought, Why haven't you gone back?
How can you be so thoughtless?
He'd planned to deliver a whole lecture, but it had all been in vain.