Chapter 2
Edward Quan ·
The man was breathless, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“Director Huang said you wanted to see the security footage. I've been waiting ages. Thought you might have lost your way.”
Then he spotted Lu Yu behind me.
His gaze darkened. He forced a smile.
“Which class are you in? School's over. Why aren't you home? Stop getting in the officers' way!”
Lu Yu shook violently. She stumbled back a few steps, then fled in terror.
I quietly put the phone away.
My mentor stepped in front of me.
“The footage first.”
The administrator nodded repeatedly and led us on.
At first, nothing looked unusual.
Li Yun sat in the back row. If he wasn't working on problems, he was reading. His routine was simple.
At three in the afternoon on the nineteenth, he wasn't in class.
At four, a couple in factory uniforms came into the room.
The woman collapsed over his desk, sobbing.
The students turned to look, curious.
Their teacher banged hard on the lectern, making them face the blackboard again.
A few minutes later, security guards pulled the couple out.
Two minutes after that, Li Yun's desk was carried away.
It wasn't returned until five.
The desktop and storage compartment had been emptied. Nothing remained.
At seven, Li Yun disappeared at Fuhai.
Perhaps his parents had known beforehand that he intended to die.
The corridor cameras confirmed that they had packed up all his belongings and taken them away.
Not so much as a sheet of rough work was left.
I rubbed my stinging eyes. I was about to shut down the computer when an accidental movement of the mouse paused the video.
Someone stood in the farthest, most secluded corner of the corridor.
She was watching Class Nine from a distance, her face full of pain.
The image was blurred, but I could make her out.
Lu Yu.
6
Back at the bureau, my mentor handed the phone to the technical team and asked them to look for other leads.
An hour later, one of the technicians called out excitedly.
“Come here!”
I hurried over, carrying my cup of instant noodles.
He unlocked a private album.
The screen filled with intimate photographs of two people.
One was Li Yun.
The other was a man.
I choked on my noodles and coughed until a few mouthfuls of water settled me.
“Who's the other one?”
“Didn't his girlfriend say he wasn't gay?”
For a moment, we didn't know whom to believe.
The technician went through the whole album and sighed helplessly.
“Not a single picture shows the other man's face.”
There were nearly two hundred photographs. Only Li Yun's face was visible, his expression changing from one image to the next, sometimes showing anguish.
I stared at the other man's neck.
Stopped.
“It's the same man in every photograph.”
My colleague looked at me in surprise.
“How can you tell?”
I pointed to the scar.
“I can even tell you who it is. Liu Changming.”
I'd noticed a scar on his neck as soon as we entered his office earlier that day.
It was old and faint.
Easy to miss if you weren't paying attention.
My colleague clapped his hands.
“Sharp eyes.”
“So the physics teacher lied.”
“They'd already been involved. More than once.”
The technician propped his chin on his hand, clicking the mouse.
“There's more. Li Yun sent messages to two people on the nineteenth.”
He opened the evidence.
“One was to his parents, at three twenty.”
I leaned toward the screen and read the long message to myself.
[Mom, thank you for giving me life. Please don't work so hard anymore. Don't keep doing two jobs every day. Have a good life with Dad.]
That message alone suggested he'd entered the sea of his own accord.
The technician opened the other one.
“This went to an unknown number. It's been disconnected. We haven't been able to trace it.”
The message was brief.
[Will you come and see me?]
Who was he asking?
We were all at a loss.
My colleague stroked his chin.
“Could that be his physics teacher?”
Nobody said anything.
For now, all the leads did seem to point toward Liu Changming.
7
My mentor came in.
We immediately told him what we'd found.
He considered it for a long moment.
“Do you have conclusive evidence that the other man is Liu Changming?”
I started.
“No.”
His penetrating gaze made me tense.
“The scar gives us grounds for suspicion. But the next time you see him...”
He pointed to my neck and spoke softly.
“That scar may have disappeared.”
A chill ran down my back. I nodded repeatedly.
He gave a short laugh.
“Bring Liu Changming in. Don't give him time to destroy the evidence.”
“Yes, sir!”
Less than two hours later, Liu and I were face-to-face again.
He'd changed into a black shirt with a high collar. The scar was hidden.
My mentor sat opposite him, turning through Li Yun's file without a word.
The seconds dragged past. The air grew suffocating.
Liu broke first.
“Officer, is there anything else? I have classes tomorrow.”
My mentor closed the file and looked straight at him.
“May we borrow your phone, Mr. Liu?”
Liu remained composed.
“Of course. Check whatever you like.”
A technician took the phone away.
I kept my head down, recording the exchange, looking up from time to time to observe Liu.
At some point, he'd undone his top button.
The scar on his neck had vanished.
It had only been two hours.
For a few seconds, I stared. I even began to doubt myself.
Had I imagined it in the first place?
Liu tilted his head slightly, meeting my eyes.
He smiled.
There was no warmth in his gaze.
I forced down my unease and returned to taking notes.
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