Chapter 5

After the case was fully investigated, the invitation my father had received on the day of the murder finally revealed the whole truth.

Liu Detai had told him that an old pocket watch at home had stopped working and asked him to take a look. He knew my father was sentimental. He also knew Dad had repaired watches when he was young. It sounded like an ordinary favor from one neighbor to another.

My father believed him and went over with his tool kit.

There was no watch on the table.

Only Liu Zhiyuan’s IOU and some documents for a mortgage on the house, awaiting a signature.

At first, they begged my father for a loan, saying they only needed to tide themselves over for a few days. They even offered to put the interest in writing. When he refused, they locked the door and forced him to hand over his bank card and password.

Once they got the money, they wanted the building, too.

My father refused.

In his statement, Liu Detai remembered one thing my father had said:

“Take the money. I’ll consider it bad luck. But you can’t touch the house. Where will Ningning live when she comes home?”

For eight years, he had protected a roof over his daughter’s head. Even at the very end, he wouldn’t give it up.

While the two men were searching through the papers, my father made a dash for the gate. The narrow alley was close to the main road; a few more steps would have brought him to where there were people around.

That was what the supermarket footage had captured.

The father and son dragged him back and kept beating him until he could never stand again.

Then came the freezer, the phone, and the keys.

Liu Detai moved into my house and told his mahjong friends he’d gone back to his hometown. Using my father’s account, he messaged me that Dad had gone on a trip. Every message was brief, as though he were afraid that one extra word might give him away.

Liu Zhiyuan arranged to pay off the debts and looked for buyers for the old building. They discussed the stairway, the direction the house faced, and its floor area in detail, but never mentioned that anyone was living there.

They hoped I’d be delayed a few more days on my business trip.

But I came home on time.

When the lights upstairs came on, they hurried to force me out. They had even calculated eight years’ worth of imaginary rent.

The move-out agreement was meant to reassure prospective buyers. If I signed it, then to anyone looking at the property, the old building would appear to have no disputes and to be ready for sale.

They could copy my father’s clothes. They could memorize his ID number.

But they could never understand this:

My father had given me that room without ever expecting anything in return.

When the case file was sent to the procuratorate for prosecution, I went in to give a supplemental statement.

Captain Chen showed me a printout of the rent bill and asked me to identify it.

“Is this the one?”

I nodded.

The figure—192,000—was printed so neatly it hurt to look at. The dates went back to the year I left home to start working, with each month itemized as if they had truly kept track of the debt for my father over all eight years.

But I knew the truth. My father had never even opened the New Year’s cash envelopes I gave him. He hid them in the back of a drawer and said he’d return every cent when I was short on money.

In their eyes, the home a father left for his daughter was nothing more than rooms to clear out before selling.

But to my father, it was a place I could return to, no matter how far away I went.

9

More than six months had passed since that night by the time the case went to trial.

Liu Detai’s hair had turned much grayer, and his back was more hunched. As court officers led him in, his feet dragged along the floor. He looked as if he’d aged ten years overnight.

Liu Zhiyuan had grown gaunt, his cheekbones jutting out. From the defendant’s dock, he called me “Sis.”

“Sis Ning, I’m still young. I was forced into it, too!”

The court officers restrained him.

He wouldn’t stop. His voice trembling, he shouted again, “Just have mercy on my father! I’m his only son!”

I looked at him.

For a moment, I remembered the cold lights in the basement, and my father pinned down beneath them, unable to get out a single complete sentence.

“When you held my father down, did you have any mercy on him?”

Liu Zhiyuan’s lips moved. At last, he turned away.

The defense argued that the two men had played different roles, that Liu Detai was old and poorly educated, and that he had lost control in the heat of the moment. They asked for leniency. When Liu Detai stood, gripping the edge of the table, he kept repeating that he regretted it and had never expected things to go this far.

But this hadn’t been a crime committed on impulse.

The prosecutor presented the evidence one piece at a time.

The freezer they’d bought in advance.

The messages discussing when to strike.

The roles they had assigned each other during the crime.

The records of money transfers, the forged signature, and their hurried attempt to sell the building afterward.

And the conversations they’d deleted but the police had recovered.

One by one, those cold words, images, and records were laid out in court. They spoke more clearly than any cries or pleas.

I heard someone behind me struggling to hold back their sobs.

When it was my turn to speak, I stood, my palms slick with sweat. I had written down a great deal, but when I opened my mouth, I didn’t read from the page.

I didn’t say how they deserved to die.