Chapter 1

When the police called to ask me to identify a body, I was feeding my mother-in-law rice porridge.

Five years ago, she’d suddenly had a stroke that left one side of her body paralyzed. Since then, she’d been bedridden, unable to move on her own or even speak clearly. All day, she could only make inarticulate sounds.

That same day, my husband, Qin Feng, had packed his bags and left to work on a ship.

I hadn’t seen him since.

Cleaning up after his mother, feeding her, washing her—all the dirty, exhausting work had fallen to me.

“What? A man’s body?”

My voice rose without my realizing it.

My mother-in-law grunted impatiently and craned her head toward the spoon, urging me to feed her.

Perhaps afraid I hadn’t heard, the officer on the phone lowered his voice and repeated himself.

“Is this Lin Xiaowan? We found a man’s body in a rented apartment in the city. Please come to the Criminal Investigation Unit at city police headquarters at three tomorrow afternoon to identify him.”

My mind went blank.

Why would they need me to identify a man’s body?

My mother had raised me alone. I had no brothers.

When I didn’t answer, he sounded a little impatient.

“Lin Xiaowan? Are you still there? I’m Officer Zhou. Ask for Officer Zhou when you arrive tomorrow.”

“Yes. Yes!”

I kept nodding, mechanically lifting spoonfuls of porridge toward my mother-in-law.

I didn’t even notice it smeared across her nose.

She soon fell asleep after eating.

I sat beside her bed, my palms cold and clammy. Fearful thoughts circled endlessly through my mind.

A trip to the city would take more than half a day, there and back. I couldn’t leave her alone.

I had to prepare a day’s food and find someone I trusted to look after her.

On the way to the market, the villagers watched me as they always did.

They had long resented my insistence on waiting for Qin Feng to come back and sign the demolition agreement.

Every day I refused to sign delayed the entire village’s compensation by another day.

To pressure me, the developer had announced that if I still hadn’t signed next month, our compensation would be halved and we would lose our replacement apartment.

The fate of the village lay in the hands of a woman who had married in.

Naturally, the complaints grew louder.

“I was against Qin Feng marrying her from the start. See? Was I wrong? Since she joined the family, his father’s died and his mother’s been paralyzed. She hasn’t even given them a child. Now she’s blocking the whole village from getting rich!”

“Exactly! All the good girls in this village, and the Qins had to marry a university graduate…”

Since the demolition notice, the gossip once whispered behind my back was spoken to my face.

I was used to it.

Others did speak up for me.

“She’s a university graduate. Qin Feng hasn’t come home in years, and she’s looked after his bedridden mother all by herself, cleaned up her mess and everything. Could you do that?”

“Yes. Could you?”

“Xiaowan! Buying something nice for your mother-in-law again?”

The fishmonger, Qin Xiaozhou, waved me over.

He and Qin Feng had grown up together. He’d helped me a great deal over the years.

I approached and lowered my voice.

“The city police want me to identify a body tomorrow.”

His knife stopped.

A flicker of worry crossed his eyes.

“A body? Do you want me to come?”

“No, it’s all right. But my mother-in-law needs someone with her all day. Could you—”

“No problem.”

He cut me off and thumped his chest.

“I’ll send Huang Fang over.”

His wife, Huang Fang, was a slender, pretty woman who had been unable to speak since childhood.

She’d been pregnant the year Qin Feng and I married.

But an accident late in the pregnancy had caused a miscarriage. The baby hadn’t survived.

Five years had passed, and she’d never become pregnant again.

In that respect, we were alike.

I trusted her to care for my mother-in-law.

The next morning, I got up early, washed my mother-in-law and left the food ready in the kitchen. After repeating my instructions again and again, I hurried out to catch the bus.

A chill ran down my spine the moment I stepped into the police station.

Officer Zhou paused when he saw me.

“Lin Xiaowan? I have the feeling… we’ve met before.”

I studied him, keeping my expression calm, and shook my head.

“I don’t remember you, Officer. Perhaps you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

He showed me photographs of the dead man’s clothes and identifying features.

The more I saw, the more frightened I became.

Finally, they took me to the morgue.

Officer Zhou rested his hand on the white sheet and hesitated.

“Ms. Lin, prepare yourself.”

On the way here, I’d thought about it carefully.

Should I look shocked first, then cry?

Or start wailing the moment I saw the body?

I’d even adjusted my breathing, ready to let the sobs out at once.

But…

When the sheet came down, I gasped.

My legs gave way.

I sank to the floor.

“Officer… Zhou… who is this?”

I could barely form the words.

Perhaps he thought grief had overwhelmed me. His voice softened.

“Look carefully, Ms. Lin. Is this your husband, Qin Feng?”

I stared at that face.

My mind was in turmoil.

I shook my head frantically, then found myself nodding.

Was it him?

Wasn’t it?

I didn’t know.

Fear shook my whole body.

I covered my eyes, then forced myself to look again.

“That isn’t my husband! It can’t be! It’s impossible!”

“Based on the documents found on him and identification by people who worked with him, we’ve provisionally established that it is.”

“No! It isn’t him!”

I kept denying it.

I couldn’t believe that the man lying before me was Qin Feng.

Officer Zhou had his colleagues arrange a DNA test.

The others watched me pityingly and murmured:

“So young, and she’s lost her husband. Who would want to accept it?”

“Poor woman. All those years of waiting, and this is how it ends.”

Before long, the DNA results came back.

There was no mistake.

The dead man really was Qin Feng.

Tears spilled down my face as I held the report.

“Officer Zhou… it really is… Qin Feng.

“But how… how did he die?”

He took me to an interview room and placed a cup of warm water in my hands.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Ms. Lin.

“We received a report early the day before yesterday. He was already dead when officers reached the apartment.”

My sniffling became loud sobs.

Officer Zhou passed me tissues.

Why?

Why was Qin Feng’s body here?

I couldn’t understand.

If this really was Qin Feng…

Who was the man I’d sealed inside the wall of our old house with my own hands five years ago?

“Officer, how did he die? Can I take him home? Please. Let me take him home!”

My voice caught.

“His mother’s bedridden. She’s still waiting for him!”

The two officers exchanged a look.

Something passed between them that I couldn’t read.

Officer Zhou suddenly asked:

“Your mother-in-law is paralyzed?”

“Yes.”

I lowered my head and voice.

“For five years…”

“Lin Xiaowan, do you know this woman?”

He interrupted me and handed over a photograph.

The woman in it was fashionably dressed and smiling brightly.

The glittering stones on her nails reminded me that I hadn’t had a manicure in almost five years.

A manicure?

I hadn’t even been willing to spend money on new clothes.

I shook my head.

“I’ve never seen her.”

“When did you last see your husband?”

“Five years ago.”

The answer slipped out. I hurried to explain.

“That was when his mother became bedridden. Everything cost money. I may have gone to university, but she’s a woman, after all. How could Qin Feng care for her as thoroughly as I could? Of course I had to take on the household.

“I hadn’t given the Qins a son or a daughter. I already felt I’d let them down. When Qin Feng said he’d work on a ship and earn enough to support me and give me a better life… I was so moved.”

I covered my face and choked out:

“I never imagined the next time I saw him would be like this…”

“Five years without seeing him? Weren’t you worried?”

Officer Zhou frowned.

“How long had you been married?”

“He sent money from time to time. Tens of thousands of yuan each time.”

I looked up.

“I can’t imagine how hard he worked out at sea, Officer…”

“No contact for five years?”

“The ship often had no signal. And he traveled all over the seas, in different time zones. It was hard to get in touch.”

I began to grow impatient.

“What has that got to do with how he died?”

Officer Zhou was silent for a moment.

“The woman in that photograph is Huang Xiaoyan. She was Qin Feng’s lover.”

He pointed at the picture.

I froze.

“Before he died, he took an overdose of sildenafil.”

I didn’t understand.

“What medicine is that? Was he ill?”

Officer Zhou turned away, visibly uncomfortable.

“Sildenafil is… medication for erectile dysfunction.

“Your husband died in another woman’s bed.

“We’ve investigated Huang Xiaoyan. She’s married. She and Qin Feng met online, and this was their first meeting in person. We found no suspicious individuals around Qin Feng. Essentially, the case is ready to be closed.”

My head rang.

Everything went blank.

As far as everyone knew, I’d spent five years caring for his paralyzed mother.

Five years scrimping and saving.

Five years waiting for him.

And he’d died in another woman’s bed after taking pills for sexual performance.

Everyone looked at me with pity.

It turned out that when words failed you completely, you really could laugh.

“I’m sorry for your loss. You can’t take the body back to your village. Once you sign the death notification, we’ll complete the case paperwork and send him to the funeral home for cremation.”

I took the paper.

My hands shook violently.

The cremation arrangements were completed quickly.

I held Qin Feng’s urn in my arms.

There was no grief inside me.

Only numbness.

And the fear I’d buried at the bottom of my heart for five years.

An older policewoman walked me out.

Holding my hand, she chatted as we went.

But I had to get home.

I had to break open that wall.

I had to see who I’d sealed inside it.

“Women have such hard lives. Marriage, children, mothers-in-law… none of it’s easy.”

She took out her phone and showed me a girl with a ponytail.

“My daughter. These days, she barely wants to talk to me…”

I said nothing.

She paused.

“How old are your children?”

She hadn’t been present for the interview, so she didn’t know my circumstances.

Perhaps she thought my children would give me a reason to go on now my husband was dead.

“I don’t have any.”

My voice was calm.

She looked taken aback, then awkward.

Her eyes kept drifting behind us, as though she were waiting for someone.

Then I saw Officer Zhou hurrying after us.

“Lin Jie!”

I went still.

How many years had it been since anyone called me that?

Lin Jie was my real name.

I’d changed it to Lin Xiaowan to escape the past.

For years, I’d avoided everyone who had known Lin Jie and hidden myself in this village, caring for my mother-in-law day after day.

No one knew my past.

How did he?

He sent the policewoman ahead. Without giving me a chance to refuse, he led me into the café beside the station and pulled out a chair for me.

He looked utterly certain.

“I knew we’d met somewhere.”

Sitting across from me, he tore open a sugar packet and tipped it into my coffee.

“You used to be Lin Jie. You changed your name to Lin Xiaowan, didn’t you?”

I stared at him, turmoil surging inside me.

I searched my memory but couldn’t remember where I’d seen him.

“Do you remember me?”

He pushed the coffee toward me.

“I’m Xiao Zhou.”

I shook my head. My throat was dry.

“I really don’t. Officer Zhou, have you forgotten? I identified a body yesterday. My husband’s. Can’t this wait?”

His expression didn’t change.

“I’m sorry. But there’s something I need to ask.”

Slowly, he said a name.

“Officer Huang Dashan.

“He was my mentor.

“Do you remember him?”

How could I forget that name?

I blinked, deliberately looking puzzled.

“Oh. Him. I remember. What about him? He was a police officer. I cooperated with an investigation once. That’s all.”

“He disappeared.”

Officer Zhou’s eyes were stubborn.

“A few years ago, not long after your case. He went missing.

“We still haven’t found him.

“Perhaps…”

It was absurd.

“Officer Zhou.”

I couldn’t contain my anger.

“Are you serious?

“You’re a police officer. I’m an ordinary citizen. At a time like this, you’re asking me where to find someone who barely mattered in my life.

“Have you considered how I feel?

“Is this how the police investigate cases?”