The white-haired man wore a jacket washed so many times it was turning white. He seemed to be unable to sit still from discomfort. A volunteer went over, and like an elementary school student who had done something wrong, he stood up to talk to her.
The volunteer was only around twenty, perhaps still in school. She quickly said, "Uncle Guo Heng, please relax, don't be so polite. Do you want water?"
Guo Heng smiled cautiously at her. "No need, thank you. Is it my turn to talk?"
"My schoolmate is just checking the microphone. It's nearly time for you to go on, they told me to tell you."
"Oh, that's good…" Guo Heng pulled his jacket down. As if feeling that his left and right shoulders were asymmetrical, he gave them a shake. There was faint sweat at the corners of his forehead, and he called the volunteer back incoherently. "Hey, young lady, they all know I'm coming, right? And they know who I am? Did you tell them?"
"They've all been informed," the volunteer said. "We didn't expect that so many people would come. I just heard that someone's coming from the City Bureau, too. I don't know if they're here yet…"
Just as she said this, the other volunteer waved at her from afar. "The microphone is ready."
Guo Heng stiffened all over, quickly taking the opportunity to drink a mouthful of water to wet his throat. Hearing the host call his name, he stiffly walked out. He took the microphone, his gaze sweeping the audience.—This was a lecture hall in Yan City University. The students hadn't started school yet, so it had temporarily been lent out for their use.
There were over twenty people sitting down there. The youngest was thirty-five or thirty-six, and the rest were all middle-aged and elderly. Perhaps they weren't as old as they looked, but they'd been reduced to shadows by the ravages of time. Guo Heng pursed his lips, gaze sweeping over the front row, seeing a somewhat familiar woman—she seemed to be the mother of Qu Tong, the girl who was murdered last year. Guo Heng had seen her in the newspaper.
All the people sitting there had once had a lively, clever little girl, but the little girls had all remained buds at the tip of a branch, gradually growing further and further from their parents in the mortal world.
"My…" Guo Heng accidentally aimed at the microphone's amplifier, and the speakers instantly produced a sharp cry, going through his ears. The audience was silent; no one protested. The sharp cry faded. Guo Heng cleared his throat, bowing deeply towards the people below, bending his waist at a ninety-degree angle.
"My name is Guo Heng," he said, raising an old photograph. "This is my daughter, Guo Fei. Over twenty years ago, we lived in Lotus Mountain…"
Luo Wenzhou silently came in by the back door and sat in the very last row, listening to the man on stage telling stories about his daughter's childhood and tearfully apologizing—for impulsively stabbing Wu Guangchuan, leading the real killer to evade retribution for over twenty years.
An hour later, the presentation was over. Guo Heng, red-eyed, got off the stage. Qu Tong's mother hesitated, then gave him a paper towel.
Guo Heng was speechless. He could only take it with both hands.
Just then, someone slowly walked up beside him and patted Guo Heng's arm.
Guo Heng stared. "Captain Luo?"
"I've come over today representing the City Bureau to give everyone an accounting." Luo Wenzhou was for once in uniform. The tidy uniform suppressed his usual slovenly air. "At the end of the year, we arrested Zhang Chunling, the chairman of the board of directors of the Chunlai Conglomerate, as well as his brother and all their associates. The principal persons involved have now confessed to the whole course of their financial support for and taking part in Su Hui, Su Xiaolan, and Su Luozhan's kidnapping and killing of female children. According to the criminal gang's confessions, we've found two more locations where bodies were buried. This time the evidence ought to be conclusive. We now know the whereabouts of all…all the children we were unable to find or find in their entirety before. When the medical examiners have finished making an inventory, we can let you take them home… My condolences."
Before he'd finished speaking, someone had already begun to sob.
Luo Wenzhou sighed and nodded towards everybody in apology. Leaving the echoing lecture hall, he had somewhere else to hasten to—he bought some things and went to the home of the South Bend police station's Civil Policeman Kong Weichen.
Because he had called Zhang Chunjiu ahead of time on the day they'd gone to arrest Yin Ping, he not only hadn't had the honor of a "martyr," he'd always borne suspicion. Now that the criminals on both sides had been brought to justice, that complicated and confusing silencing case had finally seen the light of day.
Lu Guosheng had been arrested, Gu Zhao's case had been dug up without warning, and the nails planted inside the City Bureau by Zhang Chunjiu had basically all been exposed. He'd lost his source of information, but he had been at the City Bureau for many years and understood all the working habits of the Criminal Investigation Team; he knew that if they wanted to investigate Gu Zhao's old case, the police would have to go find the key witnesses from back then. All the witnesses had of course been dealt with, vanishing off the face of the earth, and the police could only go visit their friends and relatives—there had been someone watching Yin Ping for a long time, but at the start, even Zhang Chunjiu hadn't expected that the unassuming boiler attendant would have been bold enough to substitute himself for another.
"On the day it occurred, after our colleagues left Yin Ping's home, one of those pickup trucks began tailing the police car and midway found that they had turned around and gone back. At the same time, Old Cinder fled and the suspect realized something was wrong. He quickly determined it would be better to kill the wrong person rather than forego the planned silencing…" Luo Wenzhou spoke in as gentle a tone as possible to Kong Weichen's family. "It was our slip-up, nothing to do with Xiao Kong's phone call.—The suspect acknowledged that if he had known earlier that there was a problem with Yin Ping, he wouldn't have taken Xiao Kong's call to avoid attracting suspicion."
Kong Weichen's family was in financially straitened circumstances. Even after he'd started working, it would have been hard to build up a family fortune relying on the small salary of a civil policeman at a local police station. His house was still rundown, part of the couch caved-in, making it hard to receive a guest. They could only have Luo Wenzhou sit with his legs uncomfortably curled up on a small stool.
"Kong Weichen's name has been cleared," he said. "Set your minds at ease. I…and my colleague, who Xiao Kong saved, will do everything we can to fight for him to be recognized as a martyr.—You have my condolences."
After leaving Kong Weichen's home, Luo Wenzhou went to Feng Bin's home, to the home of the art teacher Yu Bin's student… He felt like he was an announcer of death, delivering condolences as he went. At last he came in front of Yang Xin.
After Yang Xin had been arrested, it had always been Tao Ran who had come into contact with her. Luo Wenzhou hadn't come to see her—he truly had nothing to say to her.
Now, past a table and a set of handcuffs, both sides thought the other was a stranger. Yang Xin had her head down and her hair, freshly cut short, tucked behind her ears, facing Luo Wenzhou with the whorl at the top of her head, not daring to look at him, quietly saying, "I told Tao Ran-ge everything."
"I didn't come to interrogate you," Luo Wenzhou said. "I came here today on purpose to tell you the truth behind your father's sacrifice—Yang Xin, lift up your head and listen to me."
Yang Xin somewhat flinchingly raised her head.
"Three years ago, Lao Yang received an anonymous report from Fan Siyuan and started investigating Gu Zhao's old case. They used an anonymous radio station as their means of communication. Lao Yang mistakenly trusted Zhang Chunjiu, who plotted his death in the underpass—I think Fan Siyuan must have told you about that."
Yang Xin nodded.
"There are also things he didn't tell you," Luo Wenzhou said expressionlessly. "Three years later, under your mom's manipulation, Fan Siyuan went to see Pan Yunteng, wanting him to report that Wang Hongliang at the Flower Market District Sub-Bureau was involved in drug dealing and take the opportunity to pull down Zhang Chunjiu. He went in person that time. Don't you think it's strange? Why was he so furtive contacting your father but went to see Pan Yunteng out in the open?"
Yang Xin was at a loss.
"Fan Siyuan must also have told you that he didn't have proof that Zhang Chunjiu was the mole, so he wanted to force them to reveal themselves step by step.—Haven't you wondered why, since he didn't have evidence, he so sure that Zhang Chunjiu was the mole? He went to so much trouble; wasn't he afraid he suspected the wrong person and that in the end he would fail for want of a last effort? If he really did suspect Zhang Chunjiu from the beginning, why didn't he ever reveal that to your father, letting him be easily tricked into trusting Zhang Chunjiu, dying a violent death? Also, don't you think that compared to his method of finally bringing the Chunlai Conglomerate down three years later, sending an anonymous report to an old police officer three years earlier is too crude, too unlike the style of a battle plan?"
Yang Xin opened her mouth. "Luo-dage…"
The corners of Luo Wenzhou's mouth curled. One word at a time, he said, "When Zhang Chunjiu was arrested, he still couldn't understand why, when he'd tried misleading the enemy by restarting the Picture Album Project, Fan Siyuan, like a turtle in its shell, still had his mind fixed on him.—I'm here to tell you the answer."
Yang Xin seemed to have realized something and opened her eyes wide in panic, beginning to shake all over, subconsciously shaking her head.
"It's very simple. Fan Siyuan found out at the time that he was seriously ill and had to accelerate his actions. His suspicions were concentrated on two people. One was Lao Yang, who had partnered with Gu Zhao most often, and the other was Zhang Chunjiu, who had been promoted because of that business. First he sent Lao Yang an anonymous lure. After a few contacts, he'd basically eliminated Lao Yang from suspicion and concentrated on Zhang Chunjiu.
"Why would Lao Yang have trusted Zhang Chunjiu so easily?" Luo Wenzhou stared hard at Yang Xin. "Let me tell you, it wasn't because Zhang Chunjiu was brilliant, and it wasn't because your dad was carelessly credulous—it was because Fan Siyuan was hinting to him that Zhang Chunjiu was trustworthy."
Yang Xin said, "No…"
"Your Teacher Fan used your dad as a pathfinding stone, deliberately wielding him to expose Fei Chengyu to Zhang Chunjiu, conveniently using the Zhang brothers' hands to dispose of Fei Chengyu, taking on Fei Chengyu's power and hiding himself behind the scenes—the Zhang brothers thought they had discovered Fan Siyuan's virus, but in fact the virus was deliberately revealed, and their positions were determined."
Yang Xin rattled the handcuffs. "No! You're wrong! Impossible!"
Luo Wenzhou said callously, "Whether you believe it or not, those are the facts."
This was his last visit to a victim's relative today, and she also the one he most didn't want to see. Yang Xin cried bitterly as though collapsing. Luo Wenzhou didn't want to see her anymore. He stood up and went to the door.
"Luo-dage!" Yang Xin called to him in helpless panic.
Luo Wenzhou's steps paused slightly, but he didn't look back, leaving her with his disappointed back view.
The weather had warmed up a little today. There was a bit of hidden moisture in the wind, foretelling of warm breezes to come from the southeast north to Yan City.
It was evening when Luo Wenzhou returned home, pushed open the door holding a bag of roasted chestnuts and a stack of blood-enriching ingredients, and found that the cat ordinarily guarding at the door was gone.
Luo Wenzhou closed the door with his foot and whistled towards the house. "Children?"
There was no answer to his call, and Luo Wenzhou broke out in a cold sweat. This was an issue left over from when he'd carried Fei Du back from Binhai. If he couldn't see him for a moment, his pulse would rise at once to 150. Tao Ran said he also had mild PTSD.
He tossed aside what he was holding and charged inside without changing his shoes—living room, study, bedroom…balcony. No one there. An indescribable terror gripped his chest.
Luo Wenzhou said, "Fei Du!"
This voice-breaking cry was probably loud enough to startle the neighbors. There was a sudden crash in the basement, as though something had fallen.
Luo Wenzhou turned his head and went down.
The lights were on in the basement. Fei Du's injured ankle still couldn't take weight; he stood with his back towards Luo Wenzhou, leaning on a crutch…confronting a fat cat.
Truly seeing him, Luo Wenzhou let out a long breath. His legs went weak, and he hastily touched the wall.
Fei Du was at last alerted by his quick steps. "When did you get back? I didn't hear."
Luo Wenzhou focused, walked over without a word, and hugged him. Inexplicably pressed to his chest, Fei Du seemed to lean over. He really couldn't stand firm on one leg, so he could only reach out and put his hands on Luo Wenzhou's back, inadvertently touching his rapid heartbeat. He stared. "You…"
Luo Wenzhou smacked his ass, vaguely saying, "You scoundrel. Are you deaf?"
He didn't want to excessively display his unease in front of Fei Du and pulled a long face as though nothing were the matter, pulling Fei Du's crutch aside and picking him up. "Who told you to take the stairs? What did you come down for?"
"To look for the cat," Fei Du said. "It's angry."
Luo Wenzhou only then noticed that Comrade Luo Yiguo was standing on top of a storage closet, staring at the two of them with a cynical look. There seemed to be…something missing.
Luo Wenzhou was shaken by Luo Yiguo's new appearance. "Who shaved the cat?"
"Your mom," said Fei Du.
"Who?" Luo Wenzhou glared at him a little unhappily. "Did you take that red packet at New Years for nothing?"
Fei Du obviously went still.
Luo Wenzhou had only been casually joking. Seeing him hesitate, he suddenly came around, feeling a pain at his heart—for Fei Du, the "mom and dad" that an ordinary person could blurt out were a barrier he couldn't walk over.
Perhaps it would take a long time to stride over, even a whole lifetime.
Luo Wenzhou knew he'd said something wrong and could only force a change of subject. "What's Female Comrade Mu Xiaoqing doing shaving the cat's fur on a cold day like this…"
Fei Du suddenly spoke: "Mom says it'll help it face facts, so it won't think it's only fluffy from the fur…"
Everything he said after didn't go into Luo Wenzhou's ears. He put a foot on the bottom basement step, turning to Fei Du in astonishment—
As though nothing were the matter, Fei Du avoided his burning gaze. "I think I smell roasted chestnuts."
Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.—The Old Man and the Sea