Chapter 2

“He did help you back then, didn’t he?”

Officer Zhou couldn’t meet my eyes as he said it.

I stood to leave.

“That wasn’t helping me. He was a police officer. It was his job. Besides…”

He didn’t stop me.

“Call if you remember anything.”

After I boarded the bus, a message arrived.

“My mentor spent his life pursuing the truth. Then he vanished without even leaving a note. Everyone says he couldn’t take the pressure and left. I’m the only one who doesn’t believe it.”

It stirred little in me.

I was tired. So tired.

Holding Qin Feng’s urn, I fell into a heavy sleep.

A nightmare I hadn’t had in years returned.

The driver braked sharply. I woke with a start and tightened my arms around the box.

Perhaps it was because I’d heard that name.

Huang Dashan.

Qin Xiaozhou was waiting when the bus arrived.

I’d told him in advance. The news of Qin Feng’s death had made him even more anxious than me.

After all, he was the one who’d suggested sealing Qin Feng inside the wall.

“Don’t tell Huang Fang. I can’t let her suffer another shock.”

He took the box. Veins stood out on his forearms, and something I couldn’t understand filled his eyes.

I said nothing.

After leaving him, I didn’t go home.

I took Qin Feng’s urn up the mountain alone.

I dug a hole, put it in and covered it with earth.

No marker. No words.

As I came down, gray rain began to fall.

People crowded outside my house.

“No wonder she wouldn’t sign.”

“She killed someone and hid the body in the wall!”

“Terrifying woman…”

“The police are here. She won’t get away this time.”

…

The crowd parted. Officer Zhou led a group of officers out of my house.

His earlier uncertainty was gone. Only naked hatred and cold fury remained.

He didn’t look at me.

“Restrain Lin Xiaowan!” he ordered.

The handcuffs bit cold against my wrists.

Then several officers carried a white skeleton out of the house.

Officer Zhou dropped to his knees.

“Sir… I’ve finally found you…”

He was crying.

What?

The person inside the wall was Huang Dashan?

He took everyone in the village who had spoken with me to the station.

In the interrogation room, I felt disoriented.

Yesterday, I’d been someone to pity.

Today, I was a murderer to despise.

I looked blankly at the man across from me.

“Is it… really Huang Dashan?”

Officer Zhou slammed the table, his eyes red with anger.

“His clothes! His watch! I gave them to him! I wish it wasn’t him. If it is, do you think you can escape responsibility?”

The officer beside him, surnamed Sun, kept trying to calm him.

“Perhaps it isn’t your mentor. Don’t lose your temper and compromise the investigation.”

Talking soothingly, he led Officer Zhou outside for some air.

The room fell quiet.

I stared at the ceiling, unable to make sense of it.

Before long, the door opened again.

Officer Zhou returned, his face livid.

Without sitting down, he hurled the file in his hand at my face.

It struck with a smack.

It hurt.

He stared at me.

“DNA confirms it. The skeleton is Huang Dashan.

“He died from blood loss after multiple stab wounds. In other words, he was still alive when you sealed him into the wall.”

I gave a cold laugh.

The interrogation room erupted.

Some officers tried to rush at me. Others stared in disgust.

Slowly, I said:

“I don’t know who killed him. But I think… he deserved to die.”

At least Qin Feng and Huang Dashan were both dead.

Neither had escaped alive.

“Why?”

Officer Zhou stared, eyes wide.

“He was such a good man, and you wanted him dead!”

Officer Sun restrained him and turned to me.

“Lin Xiaowan, tell us the truth.”

I looked at them calmly.

“I did hate him. But I didn’t kill him.”

After a pause, I met Officer Zhou’s eyes.

“Do you have any evidence that I did?”

He froze.

Slowly, he sat down, his chest still heaving.

When he spoke again, the aggression had drained from his voice.

“If you’re innocent, of course we’ll let you go.”

He looked at me with a child’s earnestness.

“But tell me why. Why did my mentor die there?”

I was silent for a long time.

“Then hear my whole story before you draw your conclusions.”

I was in my final year at university.

The day I learned I’d been recommended to stay on for postgraduate study, the first person I called was Mom.

She was as delighted as a child. Then she began murmuring to herself.

“I’ll find two more cleaning jobs. That way I can help you. I mustn’t become a burden.”

My nose stung, but I laughed brightly.

I lied.

“Mom, postgraduate students admitted by recommendation don’t pay tuition. We get a living allowance and a salary too! Don’t worry. It’s my turn to support you.”

Relief lightened her voice.

“Really? My daughter’s so clever!”

My mother had been rescued from a forced childhood marriage. She had been left disabled while escaping the traffickers.

Not long afterward, she’d discovered she was pregnant with me.

She never complained.

Never.

With only one arm, she had raised me alone.

To earn my postgraduate tuition, I took a job a university friend recommended.

At a karaoke club. Thirty yuan an hour.

Back then, working hard every evening could earn me several thousand a month.

I thought I’d been lucky.

I never imagined it was the beginning of my nightmare.

I looked at Officer Zhou and spoke very softly.

“I was assaulted. You all know that, don’t you?”

He nodded and looked away.

“My mentor wasn’t the man who assaulted you. Someone else was.

“Police investigations have their difficulties too.”

He paused, as though searching for a justification.

“You can’t resent us just because we still haven’t caught your attacker.”

Officers brought in the old case file and interview record.

As they opened it, memories flooded back.

The day I received my first month’s wages, my shift ended in the small hours.

The university was in the suburbs. The last bus had long since gone.

To save money, we usually took motorcycle taxis. We had a regular driver and traveled in pairs, so at least we could look out for each other.

But that day, the person who normally went back with me had taken leave.

The driver had taken another passenger and still hadn’t returned.

I waited and waited in the cold wind, menstrual cramps twisting my stomach, chilled through.

Finally, I gritted my teeth and decided to walk through the alley.

To walk home.

There were no lights.

I felt my way through the dark. The night swallowed my footsteps, and I began to hurry.

Then hands closed around my throat from behind.

I was dragged into a corner.

The moment I opened my mouth, a gloved hand clamped over it.

A man pinned me to the ground and tore my clothes.

I fought desperately, kicking wildly.

One kick landed.

He groaned, clutched his groin and staggered aside.

I seized the chance and scrambled away.

Another man appeared.

Without a word, he struck my head with a club.

As I drifted toward unconsciousness, only a trace of awareness remained.

Pain came in waves.

I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t even move my lips.

Then I knew nothing.

At dawn, I opened my eyes.

I couldn’t move.

Qin Feng was the first to find me.

“Miss, are you all right?”

He crouched. The sight of me stopped him.

Without a word, he took off his jacket and gently draped it over me.

He took me to hospital.

Through the haze, I heard a doctor say:

“The violence was extreme. Her uterus is badly damaged. She may never be able to become pregnant.”

Several days passed before I was fully lucid.

Only then did I understand that I’d been raped.

Even after I lost consciousness, the attacker hadn’t stopped. He had repeatedly kicked my lower abdomen, damaging my uterus.

I had lost the ability to have children.

Mom stayed beside my bed, her eyes swollen from crying.

When I opened mine, she tried to smile, but the corners of her mouth kept drooping.

I refused to let any male doctor near me.

A man’s voice alone made my stomach churn.

Except Qin Feng’s.

Whenever he visited, all I felt was gratitude.

When Mom learned I wanted to report it to the police, her face changed.

“Lin Jie.”

Her voice was urgent and shaking.

“Think carefully! If you report it, your life will be over.”

I stared.

Reporting it wouldn’t be what ended my life.

As far as I was concerned, my life was already over.

Qin Feng was different.

When I told him I wanted to report it, he said nothing for a long time.

Then he slowly raised his thumb, looking at me earnestly.

“You’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.

“We have to bring the bad men to justice.”

For the first time since the assault, I smiled.

Huang Dashan came to take my statement.

The first thing he said was:

“It’s been a week since you were raped. Are you sure you still want to report it?

“Why didn’t you call the police when it happened?”