Chapter 2

“Don’t let me see you, or I’ll kill you with my own hands!”

Zhang Bin swiped to the next screenshot.

“That was Chen Yongkang. This one is Huang Yong.”

The abuse in this screenshot was even worse. It dragged in everything from genitalia to parents and ancestors.

Death threats appeared again and again, as though they were mortal enemies.

“Who are they?” I asked. “Why are they threatening you both?”

Zhang Bin answered without hesitation.

“Old friends of Chen Linlin’s. There’s been a little misunderstanding. They both mistakenly believe her suicide had something to do with us. Ah…”

His quiet sigh sounded utterly sincere.

Had I not known what he had done, I might have begun to feel sorry for him.

The disturbing part was that he surely knew we knew.

He could lie brazenly without blushing, without his pulse quickening, without so much as a blink.

That level of self-possession was astonishing.

Beside me, Zhao Jun could not hold back any longer.

“You know perfectly well what you did. Stop playing innocent. And there’s clearly something wrong with these screenshots. What did you send them to make them so angry?”

I had noticed it too.

Zhang Bin had deleted several of his own messages from the conversation.

They were surely what had provoked such furious replies.

He merely nodded and answered calmly.

“Just videos. They’re not important. What matters is that those two are highly suspicious. I hope you’ll investigate them thoroughly.”

I understood.

He had most likely sent them videos of Chen Linlin’s abuse.

In that case, both men might once have pursued her.

We had not found their details before because shortly after getting together with Zhang Bin, Chen Linlin had cut off all contact with her male friends.

Zhao Jun had a quick temper. He immediately warned him:

“If we find evidence that you caused Chen Linlin’s suicide, you won’t escape the law.”

Zhang Bin showed no surprise. Instead, he asked:

“Is that so? Would you like to detain me now, then? I’m happy to cooperate. I can stay here until you reach a conclusion.”

His voice did not change. He sounded less as though he were defying Zhao Jun than seriously making an offer.

Even Zhao Jun was taken aback.

I quickly moved on.

“That won’t be necessary. You can go. Thank you for your cooperation. We’ll contact you if we need anything else.”

Zhang Bin said nothing more and accepted the arrangement.

After he left, Zhao Jun asked angrily:

“Was that bastard… trying to move in here?”

I nodded.

Zhang Bin had not said it merely to argue with us. He might genuinely have considered staying.

Li Zhihui’s killer was still at large.

This was the safest place for him.

But we had no grounds to keep him. If we detained him anyway, all he had to do was lodge a complaint or even seek an administrative review, and we could all be in trouble.

Letting him go while we continued our investigation was the best option.

Zhao Jun’s verdict on him afterward was:

“There’s something about that man… as though he was born without feeling.”

Zhao Jun did have a way with words. Such a polite way to say “inhuman bastard.”

Exactly.

Zhang Bin was like a cold-blooded creature, barely showing any emotional fluctuation.

Beneath that polished exterior lay nothing but cruelty.

Our superiors insisted that every homicide be solved, so Li Zhihui’s murder became our top priority.

The information Zhang Bin supplied proved useful. It saved us a great deal of time tracing Chen Linlin’s connections.

But relying on it also caused us to miss something important. More on that later.

Huang Yong had vanished completely.

We went to the factory where he used to work and learned that he had left without notice more than a month earlier. Nobody knew where he was.

He was also an orphan, with no relatives to ask.

All we established was that he and Chen Linlin came from the same village, had attended the same primary school and even the same middle school.

It was not hard to guess that Huang Yong might once have admired her, perhaps secretly loved her.

But she had probably blocked him long ago as well.

His factory accommodation had already been cleared out. We found no lead connected to the case.

So we turned to the other man, Chen Yongkang.

He was in his second year at a nearby university and had also been Chen Linlin’s classmate in both primary and middle school.

The household records showed a single-parent family. His father appeared to be seriously ill and bedridden.

When we found him, he was studying on his own.

To avoid causing him unnecessary trouble, we took him to an empty classroom to talk.

For the second time, Zhao Jun and I were surprised.

Chen Yongkang possessed that same extraordinary calm.

Once he learned why we had come, he showed no alarm. He simply sat down properly and spoke with us.

We asked whether he knew Li Zhihui.

“Yes. An animal who deserved to die.”

Brief, clear and entirely unguarded.

“What do you think about his death?” I asked. “Were you on campus when the murder happened?”

“Yes. There are security cameras in the dormitory. Check them. But honestly, I’m delighted he’s dead.”

He even gave a faint smile, making no attempt to hide his feelings.

But security footage was solid evidence.

With that alibi, he could indeed establish his innocence and be ruled out.

Zhao Jun was puzzled too. We rarely encountered two young men so composed in the same case.

As the questioning continued, he sternly asked about Chen Yongkang’s relationship with Chen Linlin, his thoughts on her suicide and his attitude toward Zhang Bin and the others.

Chen Yongkang answered everything without a trace of fear.

He and Chen Linlin had played together in the village as children. They had grown up together.

He also freely admitted that he liked her.

“Yes. I was a hopeless fool in love. The first thing she did after getting a boyfriend was block me. But I still couldn’t forget her. So her death hurt me very much.”

He was remarkably frank and cooperative, serious in manner and sincere in his words.

Eventually, we ran out of questions. By then, we had more or less ruled him out.

Out of curiosity, though, I asked one more.

“Your manner… why does it remind me a little of Zhang Bin?”

Chen Yongkang paused for a second, then laughed.

“Yes. I’m glad you noticed. He’s my teacher.”

Zhao Jun and I exchanged a look.

Only a minute earlier, we had believed he hated Zhang Bin and his friends with a passion. He had certainly cursed them viciously in the messages Zhang Bin showed us.

Yet barely a month later, all his anger was gone?

And what did he mean by teacher?

Before we could ask, Chen Yongkang showed us.

What we saw shocked us.

It was a QQ group.

A group Zhang Bin had created.

Apparently, admission required meeting certain conditions and paying a tuition fee. Members could learn all sorts of “advanced knowledge.”

Zhang Bin called himself the group’s “teacher.” He offered a course on relations between men and women called PUA—short for “pick-up artist,” or the art of picking up women.

Put simply, it meant playing with people’s feelings.

In 2010, the internet was still much less developed, and the term was not widely known.

Zhang Bin was something of a pioneer.

In the group announcement, he emphasized the most important thing.

Detachment.

You had to separate yourself from your own emotions and remain calm at all times.

Suddenly, I understood how Zhang Bin and Chen Yongkang could be so composed.

They had trained themselves.

What I could not understand was why Chen Yongkang would willingly embrace the very thing that had killed Chen Linlin.

His explanation was:

“Because this is the only way to be sure you can get everything you want from women. And it’s legal.”

He gave us a thoughtful look.

Then he raised a finger, swiped the phone lying on the table and continued.

“There’s no harm in showing you. You can’t do anything about it anyway. Both sides are willing.”

Zhao Jun and I stared at the screen, dumbfounded.

Chen Yongkang was showing us a “practical example” Zhang Bin had shared with the group as their “teacher.”

It was part of his chat with his current girlfriend, whose screen name was Xiaohua.

Zhang Bin: “You’ve hurt me, so I need you to make it up to me.”

Xiaohua: “I’ll do whatever you say, as long as you forgive me. Please?”

Zhang Bin: “All right. Send me some pictures, then. Without clothes. Take them now.”

Xiaohua: “I’m not sure that’s a good idea. I don’t look good in photos either…”

Zhang Bin: “Then I’ll meet you halfway. Next time we see each other, I’ll take them for you. I promise I’ll make you look beautiful. Okay?”

Xiaohua: “Um… let’s talk about it next time. Didn’t you say you were busy lately and couldn’t go anywhere?”

Zhang Bin: “Yes. Then it’s settled!”

…