Chapter 7

She had some idea of the truth.

But perhaps out of love, or guilt over her inability to have children, she chose not to expose him.

Chen Bing had never done anything like this before. He lived in constant fear.

After his father died, he immediately left Zhang City and moved to Ping City.

Fourteen peaceful years passed.

Then one day, on a street in Ping City, he saw Zheng Luoshan again.

Chen Bing was shocked, and frightened.

Zheng Luoshan was delighted.

After making some money, he had decided he no longer wanted to live in fear. When his parents died, he took his younger brother, Zheng Luohai, and left home.

By chance, he too chose Ping City.

Hoping to leave his old life behind, he tried his hand at a small business.

He had no talent for it.

Before long, he had lost everything.

He had no skills and couldn't bear hard work. With no alternative, he drifted around on the fringes of society.

Feeding and clothing himself wasn't too difficult.

The problem was his younger brother.

Just when he was worrying about their future, he ran into Chen Bing.

Chen Bing had inherited a substantial sum from his father-in-law. His own business was doing well. He lived comfortably.

Zheng Luoshan shattered that peace.

Using Chen Yu as leverage, he demanded money.

At first, Chen Bing tried to resist.

That very evening, he learned Zheng Luohai had been bullying his son.

He knew he was trapped.

He had no choice but to pay.

But Zheng Luoshan's appetite kept growing.

Within a year, he had almost drained Chen Bing's savings.

Chen Bing could take no more.

If it continued, he knew Zheng would drag him down completely.

So the next time Zheng came for money, he refused.

That same day, the conflict between Zheng Luohai and Chen Yu reached its breaking point.

We knew what happened next.

Chen Yu stabbed Zheng Luoshan to death and went to prison.

With his brother dead and nowhere else to go, Zheng Luohai returned to his hometown.

He contacted people his brother had once introduced him to and entered that trade that could never withstand the light of day.

32

So that was the truth.

Zheng Luohai said he knew all this from his brother.

To threaten Chen Bing, Zheng Luoshan had sent him to bully Chen Yu at school. That was why he told him about their history.

I took a deep breath.

His account matched Chang Fei's.

It seemed this really was the truth.

A few details still troubled me.

“Did you ever tell Chen Yu?”

He thought.

“Not everything. But he could probably work out he wasn't his father's real son.”

“Did Chen Bing ever threaten you?”

He shook his head.

After thinking carefully, he spoke again.

“He never came after me directly. But he once had Chen Yu pass on a message: if I pushed him too far, he'd kill us.”

Something clicked.

“You mean Chen Yu was passing on Chen Bing's threats?”

Zheng Luohai lowered his head and said nothing.

I slammed my hand on the table.

“Why didn't you tell the truth back then? Do you know how much Chen Yu suffered because you kept quiet?”

His face darkened.

“How could I dare? If Chen Yu could kill my brother, Chen Bing could kill me. How could I tell anyone?

“Besides, it wouldn't have changed the outcome. Why bring trouble on myself?”

Scum.

An entire village of scum.

I clenched my jaw until it hurt.

32

Leaving the detention center, I immediately called to ask when Chen Yu's case would go to trial.

The procuratorate told me the hearing was in three days.

There was no time to lose.

All I had was Zheng Luohai's statement. I still lacked decisive evidence that Chen Yu had been trafficked.

That evidence, however, shouldn't be difficult to obtain.

Find his real family and a DNA test would establish the truth.

According to Zheng Luohai, Chen Yu had been sold in Xing City at the age of two.

That would have been around 1994.

By chance, I knew someone at the Xing City Public Security Bureau.

I immediately called him and asked him to check whether any family had reported a two-year-old boy missing in 1994.

It had been so long.

I expected a painfully difficult search.

Half an hour later, he called back.

“What a coincidence. There was a couple here who kept searching for their missing child. Quite a high-profile story. They appeared in the news about once a year, so I remember them well.

“I checked their missing-person report. It matches everything you told me.”

Wonderful.

I hurriedly asked for the family's details.

He searched for a while.

“Ah, it's a shame. The couple died in a road accident eight years ago, while looking for their son.

“I think they still had a daughter. Let me check her name…

“Yes. Liang Shuang, I think.”

“Who?”

33

I could hardly believe my ears.

Liang Shuang, Chen Bing's neighbor for the past year, was Chen Yu's biological sister.

Could there really be such a coincidence?

For a moment, I almost wanted to believe it was simply someone with the same name.

I hung up and called Liang Shuang immediately.

“Listen. This is urgent. I need to ask you a few questions. Just answer yes or no.

“Are you from Xing City?”

“…Yes.”

“Do you have a younger brother who disappeared?”

“What? How do you know?”

“Did he disappear in 1994, when he was two?”

“You… yes.”

“Did your parents die in a road accident eight years ago while searching for him?”

“Yes…”

I drew a deep breath.

Could such a coincidence really exist?

“Liang Shuang, listen carefully. What I'm about to say may sound unbelievable, but I assure you it's true. Please listen and do as I ask. This is very important.

“Your missing brother may be your former neighbor… Chen Yu.”

There was no reply.

“Liang Shuang? Can you hear me?”

After a long silence, I heard a faint sob.

“I'm listening, Mr. Wu. Could you say that again?”

I spoke slowly.

“From what I've found, Chen Yu may not be Chen Bing's biological son. He may be the brother you've spent all these years looking for.”

At last, she broke down.

Much later, a small voice came through the phone.

“Thank you, Mr. Wu.”

“Don't thank me yet. His trial is in three days. You need to submit the relevant evidence before the court delivers its first-instance judgment. Do you still have anything that belonged to your parents?”

She answered without hesitation.

“Yes. I've kept some of their hair. So that if we ever found my brother, we could have a test done.”

“Good!”

I immediately explained how she could apply to the procuratorate for a kinship test, then booked a ticket back to Ping City.

34

The results arrived on the very day Chen Yu went on trial for killing his father.

As expected, he was not Chen Bing's biological son. He was the son of Liang Shuang's parents.

Hearing that, he wept in court.

At last, he told the whole truth.

Years earlier, when Zheng Luohai had bullied him and called him an orphan, he had gone home to confront Chen Bing.

Chen Bing lied. He said Chen Yu's birth parents had abandoned him and he had adopted him.

After that, Chen Yu's mental state deteriorated. He became withdrawn and hardly spoke.

Then Chen Bing refused Zheng Luoshan's blackmail demands. Zheng ordered his younger brother to keep bullying Chen Yu.

Eventually, Chen Yu could bear no more and fought Zheng Luohai.

But, Chen Yu said, that wasn't really why he had fought back. It was because of another lie Chen Bing told him.

Chen Bing said Zheng Luoshan was trying to destroy their family.

Chen Yu spoke sadly.

“I really thought he had adopted me. I wanted to repay him for raising me. That's why I thought of killing Zheng Luoshan.”

His resistance enraged Zheng Luohai, who brought his older brother to teach him a lesson.

Zheng Luoshan intended to use that opportunity to intimidate Chen Bing directly, so he beat Chen Yu himself.

Even then, Chen Bing refused to pay.

Just then, Chen Yu invited Zheng Luoshan to the karaoke bar. He accepted without much thought, not realizing he was walking into Chen Yu's trap.

Whether his stab had actually killed Zheng Luoshan, Chen Yu said he didn't know.

His reason for telling me Chen Bing had killed him was a diary.

There really had been a diary.

But it belonged to Chen Yu's mother.

She had written that Chen Bing went to the karaoke bar that day too.

Combined with my subsequent investigation, it led Chen Yu to suspect Zheng Luoshan had still been alive then. Chen Bing might have delivered the fatal stab.

During his first year out of prison, Chen Yu had gone to his father hoping to live with him again.

Chen Bing refused to acknowledge him.

Only then did Chen Yu realize he had been deceived.

He felt like a pawn, used and discarded once he was no longer valuable.

He repeatedly went to Chen Bing's apartment and cursed him for his heartlessness.

He had told me he rarely visited that year because he didn't want me to know he had deceived me eight years earlier too.

So that was it.

At last, the final knot loosened.

He only learned he had been trafficked in his second year out of prison.

At first, he visited Chen Bing several times and never found him home.

Curious, he secretly studied the positions of the complex's surveillance cameras, then climbed through a window into the apartment.

He felt certain Chen Bing was hiding a secret there.

From time to time, he slipped in and searched.

After more than six months, he finally found the diary hidden under the bed.

Reading it, he realized he might have been deceived all those years.

Abduction and trafficking had robbed him of the happy life he should have had and plunged him into hell.

His hatred of Chen Bing became overwhelming.

On his final visit, he meant to steal the diary and use it to find his birth parents.

Chen Bing unexpectedly came home.

It wasn't Chen Yu who burned the diary, he said. It was Chen Bing.

That was what pushed him over the edge.

They argued fiercely. During the struggle, Chen Yu lost control and stabbed Chen Bing to death.

35

His account ended.

The courtroom fell silent.

I submitted Zheng Luohai's statement to the procuratorate, corroborating what Chen Yu had said.

From the witness stand, Liang Shuang tearfully described her parents' years of searching.

Her family had once been comfortable. Both parents were teachers: educated, knowledgeable people.

After her brother disappeared, they both left their jobs.

From Mohe to Xisha, they traveled almost the length of the country without finding him.

In time, she said, searching had become a kind of job.

They might say they would stop, but the slightest lead sent them out again, even in the middle of the night.

Until the day of the accident.

Their deaths devastated her.

She had been an excellent student, but performed badly in the university entrance examinations and failed to get into any university.

The search had consumed the family's savings and left enormous debts.

Instead of retaking the exams, she began working to repay them.

She was still doing so.

Her parents had spent more than a decade searching for their son—longer than many traffickers spent in prison.

For a moment, I could no longer tell—

Who had really been sentenced?

36

The first-instance trial ended.

Chen Yu received fifteen years for intentional homicide.

He did not appeal.

I visited him in prison.

He said he hadn't expected me to uncover the truth so quickly.

“What if I hadn't?” I asked. “Would you have changed your statement in court?”

He shook his head.

“I would have pleaded guilty and accepted the punishment.”

His explanation was just as I had suspected.

He knew the case had attracted enormous attention.

If he suddenly changed his story in court and told everything without evidence, he might fail to reopen the old case and alert those involved. Every lead could disappear.

So he chose me.

He hoped I would understand his hints and uncover the truth.

It had been a gamble.

A gamble that I was still the Wu Zheng of eight years ago, still committed to justice and principle.

He had won.

He had one last wish.

He hoped I would help Liang Shuang seek compensation.

Her life had been destroyed too.

I nodded.

It was the least I could do.

I helped her gather and organize the documents, then pursued compensation through the legal process.

Because Chen Yu had intentionally killed Chen Bing, he lost his right to inherit.

Chen Bing had no other immediate relatives.

His estate would therefore pass to the state.

There were almost no obstacles. A large portion of his assets was used to compensate Liang Shuang.

She showed no happiness.

She simply sat there in silence, staring into space.

I knew no amount of money could bring back the happy family she had once had.