There was no need for Luo Wenzhou to investigate carefully. From the lawless way she spoke, he could roughly tell what kind of a person Wei Lan was. His gaze as he looked at Fei Du became increasingly stormy. He didn't flare up, waiting for Wei Lan to hang up, then gravely asked, "What did you promise her?"
"To take care of Weiwei."
Immediately after, Luo Wenzhou asked, "When did you contact her?"
Fei Du's gaze flashed. This business was a whole story that would take a long time to tell.
"Well?" Luo Wenzhou said.
"When I'd just gotten out of the hospital," Fei Du answered, treasuring words like gold. Then, perhaps his eyelashes had smeared his lenses or something; he earnestly wiped his glasses and directly changed the subject. "Su Cheng will turn himself in and give evidence. There's Zhang Donglai's photograph. With luck, we'll be able to lure the person who contacted Su Cheng back to the country. Do you think that with these conditions, you'll be able to request an arrest warrant for Zhang Chunling?"
Luo Wenzhou stared at him expressionlessly.
Fei Du didn't respond to the invitation. He reached out to do up one button on the jacket Luo Wenzhou was wearing open, his gaze sweeping over his waistline, delineated by his clothing; the corners of his eyes narrowed. "Zhang Donglai posted that status update five minutes ago. I've seen it, and Zhang Chunling and his brother will see it, too. If you don't hurry, it'll be too late."
"I'll settle things with you when I get back!" Luo Wenzhou took up his phone, turned, and ran.
He'd only heard the tip of the iceberg and knew that Fei Du was hiding more than just this. Luo Wenzhou faintly felt something was wrong, but the moment was urgent, and he had no time to spare to look into it carefully.
Fei Du watched Luo Wenzhou leave. Then he put his hands on the windowsill next to him and let out a long breath.
Midnight passed and the last day of the lunar year began.
The zodiac animals changed places. The prohibition on firecrackers was lifted.
Having "accidentally" learned from Fei Du that Zhang Donglai and his sister had secretly left the country, the investigation team had increased surveillance on the Chunlai Conglomerate and the Zhang brothers, watching the Zhang house non-stop around the clock. Each car going in or out was carefully investigated to make sure that Zhang Chunjiu and Zhang Chunling stayed in the investigation team's line of sight.
At 1:30 AM UTC +8:00, an enormous sound woke the night. Something seemed to have exploded in the tranquil Zhang house. The windows splintered to shards, and tongue-like flames poured out. The "eyes" ordered to keep watch over the Zhang house was stupefied, but before he could react and report it, he received an order to cooperate with the arrest of the Zhang brothers.
In a place like Yan City, the lowest density estate still had neighbors. There happened to be a wind. The dry wind scattered the strange fire everywhere. In the blink of an eye, it was uncontrollable. Cries for help and fire alarms rose and fell. The police and the investigation team, arriving at the same time, impenetrably surrounded the scene.
There was an accelerant in the fire. The more it was suppressed, the more arrogant the flames became, the heat wave nearly dispersing the chill of the winter night. The fire department kept calling for backup, throwing all their efforts against the fire. A moment later, a very realistic fire truck silently stopped outside, fully-equipped "firemen" going in and out. No one knew when it drove away again.
A full half hour later, the intensity of the fire was finally under control and the police impatiently charged in to search. They saw a complete mess; everyone was gone!
At this time, Zhang Chunjiu, who had been requested to remain in contact, had certainly absconded.
Howling police cars speeded away. The airports, the train stations, the traffic network, and the surrounding provinces all received notifications to assist in the arrest of Zhang Chunjiu and Zhang Chunling.
At the same time, the escaped Zhang Chunling was staring at the the photograph "posted by Zhang Donglai." His expression extremely grim, he contacted the people keeping an eye on his unfortunate son. "That scoundrel Zhang Donglai…what!"
The news of Zhang Donglai's disappearance could finally no longer be contained, coming over across the ocean.
At 2:15 AM, an abandoned firetruck was found near the Dongba River, and the widespread surveillance network finally found a trace nearby—the security camera footage showed people suspected of being the brothers Zhang Chunjiu and Zhang Chunling inside a black business car. After crossing the Dongba, they drove southeast, on the way out of the city.
Roadblocks and unmanned drones urgently set out. At the same time, the investigation team, monitoring the Chunlai Conglomerate, saw a member of the conglomerate's senior management left behind to hold down the fort silently change his clothes, dress up as a take-out delivery person, and ride away with the usual large bag of a take-out delivery person on his back. He was also heading southeast, out of the city!
The investigation team at once dispatched personnel to follow him and stop this person, who believed he was being covert.
"Chase them! Chase them immediately!"
"Wait!" As soon as he heard a bit of this, Luo Wenzhou, who'd hurried over with some people, felt something was wrong—he had no basis, but given Zhang Chunjiu's experience and anti-reconnaissance abilities, his tracks shouldn't have been found so quickly. "Wait a bit, I advise you to closely investigate the surveillance footage around the Zhang house for the last few days…"
"Captain Luo, Zhang Chunjiu's fingerprints have been found in that firetruck."
"Captain Luo, have a look at this. This is security camera footage from a private car nearby."
The police had done a blanket search around the abandoned firetruck. There had been a private car with a security camera at a perfect angle. It had caught the scene of the people in the fake firetruck abandoning it. One of the men peeled off his disguise as he walked. This person's gait and minute gestures…
He suddenly turned his head and looked around thoughtfully, and the camera caught his face. It was Zhang Chunjiu himself!
"Is that Zhang Chunjiu? Really?" an investigator clamored at Luo Wenzhou. "You've been at the City Bureau so many years, you wouldn't mistake him, would you? He must be brought back at any cost!"
Like an inescapable net, the pursuit spread over the quiet southeast of the city, waiting for the poisonous insects to charge in.
Fei Du was waiting at the open window for the night wind. Suddenly there was the creaking of a wheelchair beside him. Without even turning his head, he said, "Why aren't the wounded personnel resting yet?"
"I can't sleep." Tao Ran, shuffling, pushed his wheelchair up beside him.
Fei Du put a hand on the arm of the wheelchair to stop it, closed the window, then took off his jacket and put it over him.
In his capacity as a frail mummy, Tao Ran didn't decline his care. He stared emptily for a while in the dimly lit corridor.
"When shiniang gave me shifu's relic, I also didn't sleep. I can recite every punctuation mark of that testament. I feel it's more frightening than any vicious criminal. I spent all night reading it, and the next day I thought I was prepared…" Tao Ran lowered his head and laughed bitterly. "I didn't think I'd prepared in the wrong direction."
Lao Yang had said, "There are people there who have changed." It really was ridiculous, because it now seemed that the chief culprit, unlike what they had guessed at the very beginning, hadn't been corrupted by the influence of money. He'd been solid as a rock, bad from beginning to end. It was the person who'd preserved that testament who had been carved into another form by the piercing winds and biting frost.
Tao Ran asked hoarsely, "Why did Director Zhang do it? Was he short of money? Short of power?"
"I think it may have been because of this." Fei Du got out his phone and showed Tao Ran an old black-and-white photograph.
It was a rather ancient group photo. There were around a dozen children in the photograph, from young children to teens, all of them expressionless, standing in two rows, clustered around two men. One of the men was wearing a Western suit and standing ramrod straight, lifting his chin; the other man was shiny-faced and balding. Each of them was holding one corner of a cardboard sign reading "Donation from the patriotic overseas Chinese Zhou Clan Conglomerate" and so on.
The smug middle-aged men made a stark contrast to the lifeless-looking children around them. Looking closely, you could nearly feel some of the dread.
In one corner was written "Yan City Heng'an Orphanage"; the date was over forty years ago.
"Lu Jia just sent this. They found Zhou Yahou's assistant from back then."
The old fart Zhou Chao hadn't been cooperative at first, but he'd been scared out of his wits by the murderous pursuit. He'd learned that his whereabouts had been revealed, and not cooperating would have been a dead end. While he was old, he still feared death; he had handed everything over without another quibble—the person in the photograph representing the Zhou Clan Conglomerate in delivering the donation was Zhou Chao himself.
"Heng'an Orphanage." Tao Ran looked closely under the light. "That's…where Su Hui used to live? Oh, I think I can see which one is her."
"Have another look. There are other acquaintances there," Fei Du said. "The little boy curled up in the corner, and the teenager standing next to the orphanage's director."
The little boy was five or six, as skinny as the end of a radish. He was tightly clutching the teenager's clothes, his grim gaze projecting from the photograph, the little fist at his side tightly clenched. At first glance, Tao Ran thought the boy looked familiar. Frowning, he carefully examined him for a while, then suddenly saw a clue in that old black-and-white photograph.
Tao Ran looked up at Fei Du in disbelief. "That…that's…"
It seemed that the boy's face, smaller than the size of a palm, could fit nothing but a pair of eyes. Fifty years of extravagant living had been unable to remove the thinness ground into his bones during his youth, and in his features there was some shadow of the way he would look when he had grown up—Tao Ran remembered the photograph he'd seen countless times on Director Lu's desk of all of them when they had been young. "That can't be Director Zhang?"
"The Chunlai Conglomerate's big boss doesn't show his face very much, but there are photographs of him from public occasions." Fei Du searched on his phone for a moment and found a photograph of Zhang Chunling online. He put it next to the teenager standing beside the orphanage's director. "Does that look like him?"
"Director Zhang… Zhang Chunjiu and Zhang Chunling came from Heng'an Orphanage? They were orphans?" Tao Ran adjusted his sitting posture with difficulty. "No, wait, I remember you said this orphanage was a den of human traffickers, so…"
"Lu Jia says that the director who received the donation was named Hao Zhenhua, of Yan City, born in May of 19—. With a full name and a place and month of birth, can you find out what happened to him?"
"Wait a moment." Tao Ran swept away his earlier dejection and indicated for Fei Du to push him into the office. He started making calls and investigating.
With concrete information, it was much easier to search. Apologizing, Tao Ran woke up a string of sleepy on-duty personnel. A moment later, they really did scout out a person whose name and age matched.
"There was a case—the deceased was Hao Zhenhua, male, forty-six years old, stabbed to death. The killer came to the door and stabbed the victim three times in a row in the chest and abdomen. The victim experienced heavy internal bleeding and fled inside the house. The bloodstains extended from the door to the bedroom. The killer chased him inside, picked up a copper flowerpot belonging to the deceased, and pounded on the deceased's head several times in a row, until he was dead… The scene was a disaster. It says the corpse's head had been crushed like a watermelon. All the valuables and cash in the house were taken. The police at the time determined that it had been a burglary."
"And after?" Fei Du found a bag of instant milk powder somewhere and dissolved it in warm water, then added extra sugar and put it next to Tao Ran. He asked, "When did this burglary and murder happen?"
"After, it came to nothing. Later, the city concentrated on an organized crackdown, dismantling a few violent criminal gangs. There were some vicious ones who perhaps didn't even know themselves how many cases they were responsible for. They confessed to it along with the others in their confusion." Tao Ran took the milk, drank a mouthful, and nearly spat it out. He suspected that Fei Du's hand had slipped and he'd poured the whole sugar bowl in. It was so sweet it had become bitter. "The murder took place two years after Zhou Yahou's death. What Captain Luo and the others said that day makes sense—Heng'an Orphanage didn't close down because of Zhou Yahou's death… Comrade Fei Du, this is more sugar than goes into candied fruit."
"Too sweet?" Fei Du raised his eyebrows very innocently and reached out a hand towards him. "Then you can give it to me to drink."
Tao Ran had felt uncomfortable leaving food for other people to eat since he'd been three years old. He quickly waved a hand as if to show he could make do. He drank a large mouthful, finishing off half the cup. "In other words, it's likely the orphanage's director was the first victim. The orphans planned their revenge and feigned a burglary, killing the director. Criminal investigation techniques weren't developed then, and the deceased's relatives didn't insist afterwards, so it was resolved in this muddled way."
"Director Hao Zhenhua's relatives probably knew what business he was in," Fei Du said. "Even if they'd known who the killer was, they still may not have dared to look into it. You can seek sympathy for someone who died in a burglary, but if the truth came out, they may have brought shame and ruin upon themselves… They probably got a taste for it then and began to follow this road.—Ge, are you sleepy?"
Perhaps the heat was on too high in the room, and perhaps Fei Du's low, gentle voice was too soporific. Tao Ran thought that hearing this shocking inside story, he ought to have been excited, but now he inexplicably felt that his eyelids were somewhat heavy.
"No." Tao Ran blearily rubbed his eyes. "Keep talking."
Fei Du raised the volume on his phone, playing Lu Jia's voice.
Lu Jia said, "Most of the children the institution took in to raise were girls. Each year on Christmas, the orphanages Zhou Yahou donated to would send over photographs of girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen for him to pick from. The ones he picked would be sent abroad and payment given to the orphanage's director in the form of a donation, according to the number. The girls sent over were normally kept in Zhou Yahou's villa. Sometimes he entertained friends that were as scummy as him.
"The rest of the girls would be sold to human traders when they grew up. As for the boys… Boys were more likely to be adopted then, so there weren't many healthy boys remaining at the orphanages.
"The girls had to be kept to be given to the bankrollers. They had to look somewhat presentable, so the orphanage wouldn't normally go overboard mistreating them. So the boys those bankrollers didn't want would experience even more intense abuse. As long as they could walk straight, they couldn't be idle. Starting from when they were seven or eight, they had to earn the cost of their provisions for the orphanage, whether they did it by hiring themselves out as child labor or by pilfering and stealing. If they couldn't pay up, the outcome would be even more terrible. Beatings and scoldings were nothing out of the ordinary, and then…"
Lu Jia's voice recording cut off midway, as though his hand had slipped and he'd accidentally sent the message before it was finished.
After a while, Lu Jia's voice continued: "And then, the girls waiting to be sold had to be 'intact,' but that problem didn't exist for the rest of them, so… President Fei, you understand."