Chapter 3

He had also shared the manipulative thinking behind it.

“Remember the key point. The idea here is to seize on her mistake, make her feel guilty and use that to make your demands. But remember to take it one step at a time. As soon as you sense resistance, back off a little. Don’t push so hard that she turns against you. Keep that in mind.”

Curious, Zhao Jun swiped the screen. Sure enough, the other members were eagerly agreeing and showering him with praise.

To these men, every woman was someone to manipulate and control, simply waiting to be exploited.

The group was full of sickening comments, objectifying women, insulting and degrading them.

Worst of all, Zhang Bin had proved that it could work.

I checked the timestamps. This was happening right now.

Li Zhihui was dead. Zhang Bin knew he might be in danger and had even come to us for help. Yet the moment he walked away, he went straight back to deceiving another woman.

It was frightening.

Chen Yongkang continued.

“If you want to do something about this QQ group, I’m happy to cooperate. But as things stand, they’re just saying some unpleasant things. They haven’t broken any laws, have they?”

Zhao Jun and I exchanged a look.

He was probably right.

Besides, our priority was solving a murder, not getting bogged down in investigating a QQ group.

Chen Yongkang smiled again.

“I knew it. That’s why I joined. I’ve already learned a little. Before long, I’ll be able to turn a woman into my own private toy.”

“You little bastard! Shouldn’t you be studying something worthwhile?”

Zhao Jun slammed the desk and raised his hand, looking ready to slap him.

I quickly held him back.

Chen Yongkang remained seated, perfectly composed and unafraid.

“Either shut down the group and bring Zhang Bin to justice, or admit you can’t do anything. If he hasn’t broken the law, neither have I.”

Zhao Jun gritted his teeth, but there really was little we could do.

I turned back to Chen Yongkang.

“What do you think Chen Linlin would say if she could see what you’ve become?”

At last, something stirred in him.

He visibly forced it down.

After several seconds of silence, he spoke.

“She’s dead. She can’t see anything. But do you know why she died?”

His gaze was unusually sharp as he stared at us.

Yes.

He was taking his anger out on us.

Because we had been unable to bring Zhang Bin to justice, he had chosen to become another Zhang Bin in protest.

That was what I thought then.

But we were still seeing only the surface.

Chen Yongkang was not as shallow as we imagined.

He had his reasons.

And those reasons would matter a great deal to what happened next.

Back at the unit, we reported to our captain, Xu, paying particular attention to the QQ group’s current activities.

In his conversation with Xiaohua, Zhang Bin had said he was busy and could not go out. The matter keeping him “busy” was most likely Li Zhihui’s murder.

In other words, if we intervened now, we might still have time to save Xiaohua.

But on what grounds?

Was Zhang Bin committing fraud?

No.

He had not swindled her out of any property.

Could we treat it as coercing her into sex or rape?

That would be difficult too.

He had not acted against the woman’s wishes, and they really were in a relationship.

Captain Xu thought for a long time before deciding.

“Go to the technical investigation team and identify Zhang Bin’s current girlfriend. Work on this alongside the murder. They’re all connected to the case, after all.”

With our superior’s permission, we got to work.

We soon identified the owner of the QQ account called Xiaohua and phoned her at once.

Her real name was Xu Wenjia. She was twenty and, like Chen Linlin, worked in a factory.

The call did not go well. She was wary and thought we were scammers.

Zhao Jun and I went straight to her factory.

Incredibly, even after we showed her our credentials in person, she still did not entirely trust us.

After we told her everything Zhang Bin had done, she merely frowned and asked:

“Even if what you say is true, isn’t it possible he’s changed and made a fresh start?”

I was at a loss.

Xu Wenjia’s ability to explain things away went far beyond anything we had expected.

She added:

“He went to the police himself, didn’t he? Isn’t that enough to show he’s genuinely sorry?”

Before I could untangle that logic, Zhao Jun asked:

“Did Zhang Bin tell you that?”

Xu Wenjia thought for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes. He’s told me about all of it. He was terribly upset about his ex killing herself too… Why do you think it was his fault? He couldn’t control it, could he?”

Zhao Jun froze for two seconds, then raised his voice.

“He was controlling her!”

Startled, Xu Wenjia lowered her head and did not dare say more.

I understood immediately.

Our visit had failed completely.

Zhang Bin’s sweet talk really was powerful.

And our impatience had only made things worse.

Perhaps he had anticipated that someone would use his ex-girlfriend’s death to warn Xu Wenjia. He had already presented his own flattering account of everything.

We had to admit he was far too calculating.

With a woman as inexperienced as Xu Wenjia, manipulating her came easily.

After that, whatever we said, she remained unmoved.

We had lost.

But with no real progress in Li Zhihui’s murder, we could not spend much more time on Xu Wenjia.

Given the gravity of the case, Zhang Bin would also be cautious. We could return to her situation later.

So we left.

And because of that, we never noticed that Xu Wenjia was the most important link in the whole affair.

At the time, finding Li Zhihui’s killer remained our most urgent task.

What we did not expect was this:

We would not catch the killer.

He would turn himself in.

Early the next morning, we received a call.

Huang Yong.

He was surrendering.

He asked us to come and collect him and gave us an address.

With the case so urgent, Zhao Jun and I drove there at once.

It was the village where they had grown up.

Chen Linlin, Chen Yongkang and Huang Yong’s village.

The place he described was in the woods west of the village, but there were no houses there.

Following his directions, we reached a large tree.

Only then did we notice something unusual about the huge old trunk.

We looked up. Two or three meters above the ground, among the branches, stood…

a small wooden house.

“What the hell?”

Even Zhao Jun could not help saying it.

We called Huang Yong again.

Instead of answering, he poked his head out of the treehouse.

“I’ll be right down.”

He climbed out, grabbed a rope and slid to the ground.

He did not even shut the door.

“Huang Yong? We need you to cooperate—”

Before I could finish, he interrupted.

“I’ll cooperate. I’ll tell you everything. But you have to do me a favor.”

Zhao Jun and I exchanged a glance.

Normally, we did not negotiate terms.

But Huang Yong’s next words gave me pause.

“You haven’t found any evidence yet, have you? Help me with one simple thing, and you’ll have it. Ask the village officials to leave that little house up there alone.”

What gave me pause was…

he was right.

We had no physical evidence.

The scene of Li Zhihui’s murder had been cleaned too thoroughly.

And with so little time, we had not yet found a lead in the surrounding surveillance footage.

I believed we would if given a little longer.

But nothing would be as quick or straightforward as Huang Yong surrendering himself.

Zhao Jun must have thought the same. Cautiously, he asked:

“Why?”

Huang Yong turned and pointed to the rough little treehouse.

“I’ve spent the past month building it. It’s the last thing I’ve put my heart into. I want it left standing.”

Once again, Zhao Jun and I looked at each other.