Chapter 5
Edward Quan ·
He was her boyfriend.
Her university classmate. Her lover.
Their first love.
They had been about to graduate. They had agreed to stay in the city and build a future together.
Then Xie Miaomiao disappeared.
She had been abducted and sold.
From that day on, Li Shihao had never stopped looking for her.
As he told us, tears began to run down his face.
“I promised I'd protect her for the rest of her life. I promised...”
He had traveled all over the country, searching anywhere he thought she might be.
From 2009 to now. Six years.
Since graduation, he had never truly given up.
His social media accounts were full of posts about the search.
Zhao Jun had discovered this very quickly.
But he had kept it from us.
Everything Li had done over those six years had moved him.
He had approached Li himself and learned the whole story.
Then he had helped him contact Miaomiao's mother, arranged to have hair follicles sent by courier, and passed the sample to Dr. Zhong for testing.
Once the results confirmed that the victim was Xie Miaomiao, the faith that had sustained Li through years of searching collapsed.
He begged Zhao to release Yongdong, the man we had no evidence to prove was the killer.
And Zhao, overcome by emotion, had actually done it.
Only after showing Yongdong a photograph of Miaomiao, of course.
His reaction had been very abnormal indeed.
That was how Li had ended up trying to kill him tonight.
The longer Li spoke, the more distraught he became.
He clenched his teeth and sobbed until he could barely get the words out.
“I can't imagine what she went through in those years after they took her...”
“I can't sleep. Whenever I close my eyes, I see her face. I can't imagine how much it must have hurt when they tortured her...”
“I don't know what else to do. I just want to kill him. I have to kill him!”
“Locked in some dark corner where she never saw daylight. Beaten, abused, tortured until she barely looked human... Just thinking about it hurts so much I panic.”
“She was so kind. She never hurt anyone. Why did this have to happen to her? And then, even after they killed her, they put her in salt...”
“Do you understand? She was the person I loved most in the world!”
“She had dreams too. She wanted to pass the civil service exam, become a teacher, make a difference...”
“I keep thinking: if none of this had happened, maybe she'd have made it. Maybe she'd be standing in front of a classroom now, teaching children...”
“If it hadn't been for this nightmare, we might have been married for years. We might even have children of our own...”
“We had everything planned. Our future—it was so bright. But she ended up dying in the dark...”
“I can't accept it. I just can't.”
“Please... you have to help me. Please help me...”
“I really can't control myself anymore. I will go and kill him. A hundred times, ten thousand times—it still wouldn't be enough...”
...
Long before he finished, Xu's anger had drained away.
I had no idea what to say to comfort him.
Neither did Xu.
All we could offer was a promise.
“We will bring the killer to justice.”
12
Li would be held for the time being.
We hadn't yet formally opened a case over the injury he had inflicted.
Zhao was removed from the investigation for breaching procedure. His conduct would be dealt with separately.
Next came Zhou Yongdong.
As soon as his shoulder had been bandaged, we questioned him again that night.
He had said something crucial.
“I didn't kill her. It was Zhou Jianhua.”
No wonder Jianhua hadn't reported him after being stabbed so many times.
He hadn't simply been a victim.
In the interview room, Xu and I worked together, warning Yongdong that if he didn't tell the truth, Li would come after him again. We couldn't protect him forever.
Today's stabbing would only be the beginning.
We had stopped it this time. Who knew what would happen the next time, or the time after that?
Li was young and strong. Yongdong was almost certain to end up dead.
If he wanted to live, he had to tell the truth.
If he hadn't killed her, he wouldn't be sentenced to death.
All he needed to do was tell us everything he knew and identify the real killer.
He might still go to prison, but at least he would live.
And Li would turn his anger on the actual murderer.
Already terrified by the stabbing, Yongdong trembled as he confessed.
But what he told us was far more evil than anything we had imagined.
When Xie Miaomiao was abducted and sold to the village in 2009, she had been bought by both Yongdong and Jianhua.
Two longtime bachelors, neither able to find a wife, neither rich enough to pay what the traffickers were asking.
They had agreed to split the cost and buy her together.
Miaomiao was then confined in Jianhua's house.
He had recently rebuilt it as a multistory home and added a basement.
She was tied up in that basement and sexually assaulted by Jianhua.
Yongdong also came over from time to time to satisfy his own desires.
They hadn't bought her to “marry” or to “carry on the family line.”
They had bought a woman to satisfy their lust.
But the arrangement couldn't last.
In 2010, they fell out. Each wanted Miaomiao to himself.
Neither would give way.
The dispute became an argument, then a fight.
That was the real reason Yongdong had stabbed Jianhua and fled.
After that, Miaomiao had been left entirely in Jianhua's clutches.
So Yongdong didn't know exactly when she had been killed.
There was another question he couldn't answer.
Why had Jianhua dismembered her body, preserved it in salt, and hidden it in Yongdong's old house?
Yongdong had no idea.
But that didn't matter now.
The case was becoming very clear.