Chapter 3

Our colleagues had searched the entire apartment.

There were no signs of an outsider entering and no unfamiliar footprints.

That fitted our current line of investigation.

The person who pushed Hân Hân was very likely a family member.

But they had made another important discovery.

On the balcony floor, right beside the railing, was a deeply impressed shoe mark.

It came from a large slipper.

Anyone could have slipped it on, so it couldn't tell us who had worn it.

“The mark is fresh and quite deep,” my colleague explained.

“It shows someone stood firmly there, and stayed for a considerable time.”

A considerable time?

That differed from our original theory.

We had thought she was pushed without warning.

Clearly, though, the person hadn't just appeared.

They had been standing there already.

What came next surprised me even more.

The two handprints on the railing were indeed Hân Hân's.

But from the details of the prints, our colleagues concluded that she had placed her hands behind her to brace herself.

Before she fell, she hadn't been facing outward.

She had been facing into the apartment.

That fitted the slipper mark.

Very possibly, she had stood on the chair facing her killer.

She had seen her own relative push her off the balcony.

How desperate must she have felt in that instant?

We didn't dare imagine.

They had also brought back a notebook.

Hân Hân's diary.

Her handwriting was still childish, with many words written in pinyin.

She had known for a long time that her family wasn't happy.

Her crooked letters formed heartbreaking sentences.

“I love Mom, but Dad doesn't love Mom. Dad loves someone else.”

“Mom loves me very much.”

“I'm the only one at home who loves Mom.”

“Grandma always says I'm useless. But I think I'm useful because I can make Mom happy.”

“Dad wants to make Mom leave. I told Mom I wouldn't leave her. I hugged her.”

“I want to grow up quickly so I can protect Mom. But I'm scared of growing up too, because Mom will get old.”

Every line was full of love for her mother.

That family was no longer a home.

Yet the love between mother and daughter was pure enough to move anyone.

There were also a few strange sentences.

Unfortunately, I didn't understand them then.

And so we failed to see what we should have recognized earlier.

Night fell.

Triệu Tuấn returned with the surveillance footage from Trương Đức Dân's convenience store.

It shifted all suspicion onto Chung Trạch Hoa and Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn.

Though its contents were deeply distasteful.

That was why Trương Đức Dân had initially refused to mention the camera and only revealed it after Triệu Tuấn shouted at him.

It wasn't in the shop.

It was in the little room at the back.

At first, the recording showed Lý Hồng Mai and Trương Đức Dân tugging back and forth.

Then he bent and kissed her.

Yes.

He really kissed her.

She wasn't alarmed.

She made no serious attempt to dodge or push him away.

Only a token show of resistance.

Before long, they were embracing and kissing passionately.

Every officer present looked uncomfortable.

After all, both were single, one widowed man and one widowed woman.

But seeing them entwined like that at their age was still somewhat unsettling.

More importantly, the recording covered the time when Hân Hân fell.

They had conspired to sell her.

But they hadn't killed her.

We had no choice, then, but to release them.

Lý Hồng Mai and Trương Đức Dân were allowed to leave that night.

Suspicion against the father and his lover grew.

Their messages had already revealed a motive.

Evidence?

We were still looking.

Normally, a summons for questioning could last no more than twelve hours.

In a complicated case, it could be extended to twenty-four.

Ideally, within that time we needed to expose an inconsistency and obtain solid evidence.

But before we could continue questioning Chung Trạch Hoa, something stranger happened.

It began with a call directly to the bureau chief.

He then called our criminal investigation captain, Old Từ.

Fortunately, the captain was still at the office and came to find out what was happening.

After hearing our summary, he frowned.

“So... there's no evidence yet. That's troublesome.”

Neither Triệu Tuấn nor I understood.

Troublesome how?

Then he continued.

“Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn is a ‘friend’ of someone influential. That person called the chief directly.

“Their point is that if there's nothing against her, let her go.

“This case isn't necessarily that complicated. The summons period has expired too.

“Why not release them for now? If we find evidence later, we can arrest them then. They won't get far.”

We exchanged a look.

There was clearly more to this woman.

Perhaps Chung Trạch Hoa wasn't her only lover.

What a tangled set of relationships.

Still, we truly had no evidence proving he had committed a crime.

Under the presumption of innocence, we couldn't keep them indefinitely.

“All right. Release them.”

We went to complete the paperwork.

Before long, both were free.

Our investigation team could only helplessly carry on working overtime.

But when we assembled all the evidence and leads, more suspicious details emerged.

“Something isn't right,” Triệu Tuấn said.

“Hân Hân had almost no one but her mother. Surely Lý Ngọc knew there were problems with her husband and mother-in-law?

“Why leave her daughter with the grandmother today?”

“Maybe she had no choice,” I answered automatically. “Perhaps she didn't realize what the grandmother intended.”

“No.”

He shook his head and handed me a sheet.

“These are today's neighborhood interview notes.

“On earlier medical visits, if Hân Hân wasn't at school, she always asked a neighbor to watch her. She never left her at home.”

I read it.

He was right.

“Have the records from her specialist hospital arrived?”

He handed me another stack.

“Medical records are highly confidential. The transfer paperwork probably won't be completed until tomorrow.

“But we have her appointment details. The times match the neighbors' accounts.”

He had checked before raising the question.

Now I was puzzled too.

Why had she not asked anyone to watch her child this one time?

And why had this happened on that very occasion?

I opened the file.

It included a profile of her doctor and a list of his specialties.

At that moment, I remembered the strange lines in Hân Hân's diary.

I opened it to the right page.

“Sometimes Mom is very gentle. Sometimes Mom is very strict.”

“It's nice. It's like I have two moms, and both of them love me.”

On the final page, one line stood out.

“Mom says she'll play with me tomorrow morning.”

Could she have written that the day before she fell?

If so, how could Lý Ngọc have promised to play?

Her appointment had to be booked several days in advance.

Suddenly, a more frightening possibility occurred to me.

I immediately told Triệu Tuấn everything I suspected.

“There's something wrong with her account. And yet... I still don't really suspect her.”

He was equally confused.

“Her behavior at the scene, the overwhelming grief, the way she reacted to us... none of it looked wrong.

“She was so distraught she collapsed and had to be hospitalized.

“An ordinary person couldn't act like that. It can't have been her.”

“The problem is...”

I pointed at the doctor's file.

“She isn't an ordinary person.”

I continued.

“What if the Lý Ngọc we met today genuinely doesn't know who the killer is?

“What if her grief isn't false?

“What if all her reactions are real because she herself doesn't know she killed her daughter?”

My words confused him further.

He frowned, looking as if he had no idea what I meant.

Then he followed my pointing finger.

His confusion turned to horror.

“You mean...

“There's someone else inside her?”

My finger rested on the words:

Dissociative identity disorder.

“Call! Call now!”

I hurriedly took out my phone.

“I'll call the hospital where she's staying and tell them to keep an eye on her.

“You call her treating psychiatrist and ask him to confirm verbally whether she has this condition. Quickly!”

He immediately dialed.

The moment I reached the hospital, I received even more shocking news.

Lý Ngọc had disappeared.

She hadn't been discharged.

When the sedative wore off, she had secretly left alone.

I hung up.

Triệu Tuấn was still growing anxious. The doctor plainly refused to disclose any information.

I leaned close to his ear.

“She's missing.”

He started.

Then he shouted into the phone.

“This is an emergency! Your patient Lý Ngọc is confirmed missing.

“If you still refuse to tell us and she does something irreversible, can you take responsibility?”

Under that pressure, the doctor finally yielded.

Yes, he told us.

She had been diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder.

And her appointment that day had been fairly short.

Given the timing, she could easily have returned home before Hân Hân fell.

The doctor kept stressing that her other identity was gentle and showed no violent tendencies.

We still couldn't relax.

Perhaps she was the one who had killed her daughter.

The motive?

By then, it no longer seemed very important.

She was a psychiatric patient.

The urgent question was where she had gone.

It was past midnight.

We had no grounds to mobilize the entire team for a search.

But uneasy, we went to her apartment.

It had been sealed for the investigation.

Naturally, no one was there.

Inside, it was empty.

No Chung Trạch Hoa.

No Lý Hồng Mai.

No Lý Ngọc.

With nothing found, we returned to the team and discussed it for a long time.

In the end, we could only wait until morning.

We didn't get to wait that long.

Shortly after one, the alarm sounded.

A homicide.

Patrol officers nearby had secured the scene.

The killer had been arrested there too.

We immediately set out.

The address was an apartment complex.

The moment Triệu Tuấn saw its name, he sprang up.

“Damn it! Our colleagues went there today. That's where Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn lives!”

I stood abruptly too.

Lý Ngọc had been missing for only a few hours.

Now another killing.

I desperately hoped it was coincidence.

Reality showed, once again, that things often took the worst possible turn.

When we arrived, the dead were indeed Chung Trạch Hoa and Tiêu Hiểu Nhàn.

The killer was no surprise.

Lý Ngọc.

But after her arrest, her eyes were cold and deep.

There was no grief at all.

Nothing like the woman who had cried herself unconscious that day.

As though she were someone else entirely.

Triệu Tuấn and I quickly examined the scene.

Both victims were dead.

She had attacked with extreme brutality.

Their bodies bore countless knife wounds.

Both had been killed in their sleep.

Her fingerprints were on the weapon.

Suspect, weapon, evidence.

We had it all.

We took her back for questioning that same night.

But both of us felt hopeless.

Because we understood that the person before us was no longer Lý Ngọc.