Chapter 3

His father, Dương Huy, had beaten her and driven her away.

Domestic violence.

The source of Dương Chí Nghị’s illness could hardly have been clearer.

Our visit to that home was deeply unpleasant.

They lived in an old residential block. We rang the bell for a long time before a rough, hostile voice finally came from inside.

“Why the fuck do you keep ringing? Who are you looking for?”

I quickly identified us and held my credentials up to the peephole.

His voice softened a little. Even so, he muttered as he opened the door.

“What is it? At this hour of the morning...”

He must not have looked at a clock. It was already noon.

Presumably, this was Dương Huy.

When he opened the door, I saw that he was unkempt and bleary-eyed, as though he had just woken from a drunken sleep.

The living room was dim, its furniture old. Above all, it was filthy and cluttered.

Dust covered the floor. Used tissues lay everywhere. Empty takeaway containers had been tossed beneath the coffee table, which was crowded with beer bottles.

Triệu Tuấn and I sat down and quickly explained whom we had come to see.

Dương Chí Nghị.

Dương Huy flew into a rage. He got up and headed toward an inner room, swearing as he went.

“Fuck! What’s that idiot done now? Never gives me a moment’s peace. Fucking hell...”

Triệu Tuấn and I exchanged a look.

I had never heard anyone speak about their own child that way.

Honestly, at that moment I thought that if I had grown up in that home, with a father like him, I might have lost my mind, too.

Before long, Dương Huy came back “carrying” a tall young man.

Dương Chí Nghị.

“Carrying” is not quite right. He had him by the back of the collar. Dương Huy was only about a meter seventy tall; his son was at least a meter eighty.

But the boy hunched his shoulders and lowered his head, apparently helpless against his father.

“Tell the officers yourself. What have you done this time?”

Dương Chí Nghị stood blankly with his head bowed, like a child waiting to be punished.

Dương Huy dropped onto the sofa and spoke as though washing his hands of the matter.

“I’m telling you, the moment his teacher said yesterday that the little bastard had a problem, I brought him home and locked him in his room. I’ve done everything I can... I’ve contacted the hospital, too. If this doesn’t work, I’ll have him locked up there...”

At the word “hospital,” Dương Chí Nghị shuddered.

For the first time, he spoke.

“I’m not going!”

“You useless little shit! Talking back now? Why don’t you just die?”

Dương Huy shot to his feet, strode over and slapped him hard across the face.

Triệu Tuấn and I leaped up, but we were too late to stop him.

Triệu Tuấn had a temper of his own. He seized Dương Huy by the shoulder, shoved him back onto the sofa and shouted, “Sit down! Shut up!”

I turned to the boy.

He still stood straight and motionless, head lowered. He had not even turned his face away.

It had been a hard slap, yet he seemed not to feel it.

As though he was used to it.

“Dương Chí Nghị, it’s all right. We only want to ask a few questions...”

I hurried to do what we had come for.

“Chu Oánh Oánh. Was she your girlfriend?”

Dương Huy exploded again.

“What? That fucking crazy girl thought she could have a boyfriend—”

“I told you to shut up! You just have to keep talking, don’t you? Come on. In here! I’ve got questions for you, too. Let’s have a proper talk!”

Triệu Tuấn hauled him into the dining room.

Dương Chí Nghị and I were left alone.

Even then, he stayed where he was, completely still.

Only the mention of Chu Oánh Oánh’s name had brought any reaction.

“Oánh Oánh. I like her,” he said. “She... she’s like me, but she’s a good person. A really good person...”

He made no attempt to hide his feelings for her.

“Do you know why she took her own life?”

He shook his head.

“You haven’t done anything unusual because of her?”

Another shake of the head.

“May I see your hands?”

After a few seconds’ hesitation, he held them out, palms up.

They were large, strong-looking hands.

But the webbing between thumb and forefinger bore several small wounds, apparently tears caused by gripping a tool with excessive force.

It would take a great deal of force, for example, to break someone’s limbs or shatter their skull with a hoe.

“What size shoes do you wear?”

“Forty-four.”

We had no proof yet, but everything fitted.

For the rest of the interview, he gave the briefest possible answers unless I mentioned Chu Oánh Oánh.

To him, she had been a beautiful angel.

She could calm his mind, ease his restlessness and make the hallucinations stop.

The happiest moments of his life had been their walks and conversations around the school sports field.

They had even promised to work hard and get into universities in the same city.

If they could, they would live together one day.

Yet as he spoke, his expression never changed. He might have been describing someone else’s life, someone else’s dreams.

As though none of it had anything to do with him anymore.

By taking Dương Huy into the dining room, Triệu Tuấn had given me a chance to question the boy alone. He had also extracted quite a lot from the man who called himself his father.

After leaving, we compared notes. Dương Chí Nghị was a strong suspect.

We had not found athletic shoes whose soles matched the print at the scene. But Dương Huy, with no idea of what had happened, had volunteered that his son did seem to be missing a few pairs of shoes.

Dương Chí Nghị also claimed he had spent the morning of the murders at home. His father could not confirm that: he had been asleep all morning.

To clarify the point, Triệu Tuấn and I knocked on doors throughout the old residential block.

Unfortunately, the neighbors did not seem close.

Never mind whether anyone had seen him go out that day; several households did not even know who he was.

Still, we found a lead.

Their apartment was on the second floor. A drainpipe ran outside his bedroom window. Given his build and physical ability, he could easily have climbed out and down it.

There were also plenty of security cameras around the neighborhood. We recorded their identification numbers and asked colleagues to obtain the footage from the security unit.

After that, all we could do was return to the division. We still had no evidence, and Lương Nguyệt Nga was not talking.

The investigation nevertheless looked promising. If the cameras showed him going out that morning, establishing that he had had time to commit the murders, we could be almost certain he was the killer.

There was, in fact, a simpler approach than the cameras.

We could confront Lương Nguyệt Nga with what we had learned that day and question her again. That should clear things up.

After all, she was a rural woman. Once we exposed the lies, she would not be able to hold out for long.

It was dark by the time we returned.

Old Xu had news of his own.

He had obtained Chu Oánh Oánh’s phone and checked the WeChat history. Some of it contradicted Lương Nguyệt Nga’s account.

First, she had told us she sent Trịnh Minh Hạo a message asking them to come the following morning and “get the money from my mother.”

That was not what it said.

The message sent from Chu Oánh Oánh’s account read:

“My family has agreed to pay. Come to my house at ten tomorrow morning. My older brother will give you the money.”

Not her mother.

Her older brother.

But she was an only child. What older brother?

That pointed directly to Dương Chí Nghị. He could well have played that part.

Second, during the negotiations, Trịnh Minh Hạo had not been asking for “money to buy back the photos.”

He wanted “the money that was mine in the first place.”

What money was that?

Old Xu had already investigated. He had questioned Lương Nguyệt Nga.

Disturbingly, she had not initially understood what it meant, either.

But he kept pressing her about the eighty thousand yuan until she finally remembered something.

Something shameful that had happened ten years earlier.

It was the second year after her husband’s death. Chu Oánh Oánh was six. Lương Nguyệt Nga had to shoulder every expense for the two of them.

She grew some produce and sold it at the town market. Her daughter had not yet started school and naturally went with her.

The market was crowded, full of all kinds of people.

While she was busy selling, a fifteen-year-old boy led Chu Oánh Oánh into a secluded corner.

He molested her.

She was only six, a little country girl who did not understand what was happening. She was too frightened even to resist.

Fortunately, her mother soon realized something was wrong, found her and caught the boy in the act.

His father arrived shortly afterward.

Lương Nguyệt Nga was conservative in her thinking. Afraid that gossip would ruin her daughter’s reputation, she agreed to settle the matter privately.

She accepted compensation.

Eighty thousand yuan.

The fifteen-year-old boy was Trịnh Minh Hạo.

Old Xu had specifically checked with Trịnh Kiến Hoa. He admitted that it had happened and confirmed the amount: eighty thousand yuan.

Ten years later, when Trịnh Minh Hạo encountered Chu Oánh Oánh again, he recognized her.

And began taking revenge on her.

The seeds of this case had been sown ten years before.

Following that lead, we uncovered still more of its roots.