Chapter 5

His son's name was Zhang Mingjie. He had graduated from university and worked elsewhere.

At the funeral, he wore mourning clothes and knelt beside Zhang Delin's coffin, thanking the relatives and friends who came to pay their respects and bowing as they left.

I noticed him because of his shoes.

Size 42.

And because there seemed to be no real grief on his face. It was as though he was deliberately furrowing his brow, pretending to cry.

After the funeral, as dusk fell, I approached him while he was seeing the guests off at the door.

When no one else was nearby, I offered my condolences and chatted with him.

Learning that I was a police officer and the case was still under investigation, he paused.

“The case… Hasn't it been solved? Wang Zhifeng's father was the killer.”

“There's another killer,” I told him.

For a moment, panic flickered in his eyes. He quickly regained his composure.

But he said nothing more.

I pointed to his shoe cabinet.

“You have a pair of shoes you wore the night you took that note to Lin Zhijian. You may not have noticed in the dark, but the ground was damp. The prints were very clear. I don't think you've thrown those shoes away yet. If we have them examined, they'll match perfectly.”

In truth, I was only guessing.

To my surprise, Zhang Mingjie let out a long breath.

Then he said quietly, “All right. I'll come with you. I'll tell you everything.”

It really was him!

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that the other killer was the victim's own son.

Beyond the shock, my mind was a jumble.

At last, I understood why Lin Zhijian had been so easily persuaded to go to the hunting cabin for safety.

The person who warned him was his accomplice's son.

Of course he would trust someone from his accomplice's family.

And as Zhang Delin's son, Zhang Mingjie would naturally know about the cabin.

But what could make a son turn on his own father with such cruelty?

Zhang glanced back at his mother and little sister, deep inside the living room.

“Let's slip out quietly,” he said in a low voice.

On the drive back to our unit, he offered no resistance.

Calmly, he told me why he had taken part in the killings.

His father had always been violent at home.

The previous month, he had almost beaten Zhang's mother to death.

At the root of it was his resentment that she had not given him more sons.

In other words, she had endured nearly thirty years of domestic violence. Things had been a little better only in the few years after Zhang Mingjie was born.

Because he was a boy.

“Now that I'm working, I wanted to bring my mother and sister out to live with me. But he found out. He went mad again and beat my mother. He didn't even spare my little sister. He hit her too.”

“So there was no other way. Only when he was gone could they have a normal life.”

I remembered the age gap.

Twenty-five and seven. That was hardly an ordinary interval between children.

Did it mean his mother had been forced to have abortions for more than a decade?

I asked.

He gave a cold smile and answered, slowly, sentence by sentence.

“It was worse than you think.”

“We lived in the countryside. There was nowhere to check an unborn baby's sex. Doctors elsewhere weren't allowed to do it either. So when my mother got pregnant, she had to give birth.”

“Yes. She gave birth. And if it was a girl, my father sold her, gave her away, or abandoned her.”

His voice was casual. My scalp prickled.

“I remember five little sisters disappearing. All of them were newborns. Then… I never saw them again.”

“The sister who's still with us is here because I was older by then. I'd gone to university. I told him that if she disappeared, I would never come home again.”

His composure went far beyond anything a man his age could have feigned.

Perhaps he was not feigning it.

Perhaps it was the calm of someone who had spent years in a violent household, always suppressing his feelings.

At that moment, I found myself agreeing with him almost without thinking.

Who needed a father like that?

But there was still another question.

When had he learned that his father was a trafficker?

And how had he come to an agreement with Wang Guohao?

His answer shocked me all over again.

There was another heartbreaking story behind it.

Eighteen years earlier, Zhang Mingjie had been seven.

Withdrawn, lonely, and gloomy.

He was old enough to understand some things. That year in particular, he had witnessed something terrible.

After his mother gave birth.

After his little sister was born.

He remembered it clearly.

It was a beautiful day, warm with spring, flowers blooming everywhere.

The afternoon sun fell across the courtyard. Blue sky, white clouds, spring all around.

His mother gave birth at home that day.

He was happy. A little nervous, but mostly excited.

Then his grandmother, who was still alive then, came outside, muttering:

“A girl.”

He thought he was about to have a little sister.

Instead, he saw his father carry the newborn outside and set a basin of water in the middle of the courtyard.

He put the baby in it.

Zhang Mingjie thought he was going to bathe her.

He was not.

He saw his father hold his sister under the water.

The baby struggled instinctively. Her tiny, thin arms flailed, throwing up clear splashes.

The water soon covered her entire body.

She was completely submerged.

It was a terrifying sight.

She struggled violently. The little basin rocked for a long time.

Watching from his hiding place some distance away, Zhang Mingjie was paralyzed with fear.

Only when the water grew perfectly still did his father lift her out again and hurry away from the house…

Then Zhang Mingjie understood.

He no longer had a little sister.

Perhaps he would never have one.

After witnessing that, he grew even more frightened and dazed.

He had no friends. No one he could talk to.

He could only keep it all inside. But that small heart could not bear so much.

Then summer came.

He wandered about alone until he reached a deserted stretch of river.

Looking at the still surface, he could not stop seeing his sister sink beneath the water.

For some reason, his mind went blank.

Without thinking any further, he jumped in.

But he could not swim.

The river was deep enough, at least, to swallow a seven-year-old.

After gulping down a few mouthfuls of water, fear quickly took hold. He began frantically beating at the surface, struggling and crying out.

Fortunately, a bigger, older boy appeared.

He jumped in without a moment's hesitation.

Zhang Mingjie knew how dangerous that was.

When people are terrified, they can struggle blindly and grab anything within reach—even drag their rescuer under with them.

But the older boy came straight toward him and used all his strength to pull him ashore.

Once out of the water, Zhang Mingjie brought up a great deal of river water and coughed for ages.

At last, utterly limp, he lay down on the grass.

He narrowed his eyes and felt the sun.

The air.

Life.

Beside him, the older boy kept scolding him. Calling him an idiot. Telling him he could have died, jumping in when he did not even know how to swim…

He did not know that dying had been Zhang Mingjie's intention.

They rested for a while.

Zhang could stand again, but after inhaling all that water, he felt awful and could barely walk straight.

The older boy offered to help him home.

At first, Zhang was going to refuse.

Then something the boy said startled him.

“Don't do anything stupid again. You're still so young. I used to be unhappy all the time when I was little too… Listen, I've definitely had it worse than you. My mother died because I was born… But look at me. I'm doing all right now, aren't I?”

Zhang Mingjie looked up.

Sunlight fell across the older boy's face.

He was only a child himself, barely half a head taller than Zhang, yet he spoke with the gravity of an adult.

Only then did Zhang understand.

The boy knew he had meant to die.

“I'll take you home. Next time, I'll teach you to swim. What's your name?”

“Zhang… Mingjie.”

“I'm Wang Zhifeng.”

When I heard that, my scalp suddenly prickled. A chill ran down my spine.

“Could it be…”

I murmured.

I wanted to say more, but something seemed to have lodged in my throat.

I could not speak.

I suddenly remembered something.

In Lin Zhijian's account of what had happened, the men had not known why Wang Zhifeng had appeared in such an isolated spot that day.

Could it be…

Zhang's next words confirmed my suspicion.

“He took me home. Then my father and his friends dragged him into the bamboo grove and beat him to death.”

Tears slipped silently down his face.

It felt as though something had struck my heart.

A heavy blow.

That was the truth.

And the truth hurt so much.

That was why Wang Zhifeng had been there.

If he had not been so kind—if he had not insisted on taking Zhang Mingjie home—he would not have died, would he?

Zhang must have been heartbroken too.

Because he said:

“If I'd died that day, he… wouldn't have had to.”

Back at our unit, I made a point of reporting to Captain Xu that Zhang Mingjie had surrendered voluntarily.

Moreover, his involvement had been limited to preparing the poisoned liquor, delivering it, and luring Lin Zhijian away.

He really was intelligent. The delivery had been cleverly arranged.

He had first visited Chen Jianzhong himself and mentioned that Auntie Kong wanted to send him something, lowering his guard.

Then he had hired a stranger from out of town to take the liquor to Chen's door.

Kong Meilian's death, however, had long since been classified as a suicide. There was no need to pursue it further.

Wang Guohao had also taken all the blame from the beginning. When he heard that Zhang had been caught, he even broke down, crying and insisting that he had forced Zhang to take part in the killings.

So Zhang Mingjie's sentence would not be too severe.

Later, after a long search, we found Wang Zhifeng's remains in the bamboo grove.

Horrifyingly, even the bones bore evidence of the brutal beating he had suffered while alive. There were multiple comminuted fractures. The fatal injury had been to the back of his head, and his skull was cracked.

It showed just how viciously those men had attacked him.

I also found time to visit the river.

The sunlight was beautiful and dazzling.

This was where their lives had crossed.

I seemed to see two boys, soaked through, resting on the grass.

In a haze, I saw them become close friends.

I saw one teach the other to swim.

I saw them grow up, each with a peaceful life of his own, still returning here together to remember the old days.

But I blinked, and it was all…

Gone.