Chapter 3
Edward Quan ·
10
My mentor opened Li Yun's phone and showed him the disturbing photographs.
“Do you know anything about these, Mr. Liu?”
“No.”
Liu was perfectly at ease. Not a trace of awkwardness.
“Did you bring me here just to look at pictures?”
My mentor shook his head.
“The boy in these photographs is Li Yun.”
The room became so quiet you could have heard a pin drop.
A fleeting expression could give a person away.
Liu's pupils shifted. First surprise, then a frown, as though he didn't understand.
My mentor leaned closer, his gaze frighteningly cold.
“Do you know the other man?”
“No.”
Liu denied it immediately.
He checked his watch.
“You've kept me here for fifty minutes. I need to get home.”
Someone knocked.
I got up and went out.
The technician held Liu's phone and shook his head.
“Nothing.”
“That message wasn't sent to him.”
My heart sank.
Inside, Liu had risen to his feet. He took back his phone and gave us a polite wave.
“I'll be going, then.”
My mentor said nothing, tapping a finger against the table.
Only after Liu was well away did he stand.
11
“Li Yun's house.”
In the car, I tried to contact Lu Yu.
“Liu Changming really can handle pressure,” my colleague remarked. “All that, and he barely changed expression.”
We'd lost our bearings again. We were back in the fog.
It was dark. Few pedestrians remained on the streets.
The car turned into a narrow lane, wound through several bends and stopped outside an old apartment building.
My colleague had been there before. He led us straight to the fifth floor.
The stairs were too narrow to walk abreast. I brought up the rear.
My mentor knocked on apartment 506.
After a moment, the door opened.
Li Yun's mother peered out, a thin jacket around her shoulders.
“Officers...?”
“May we talk inside?”
She stepped back to let us through.
We filed in.
The apartment was old and small, furnished in dated yellows and browns. The light was dim.
A photograph of Li Yun stood in a corner. His eyes looked cool, his expression peaceful.
The wall opposite me was covered in certificates.
His mother huddled at one end of the sofa. Her eyes were swollen and red, her gaze lifeless.
“Have you found anything?”
My mentor didn't mention the photographs.
“The evidence we have so far suggests that he went into the sea willingly.”
Her eyes filled again. Her composure broke. She scrubbed at her face.
“He was such a good boy. So obedient. Usually so lively...”
“How could he have done that?”
Her head sank lower and lower until her face was buried against her knees.
Her quiet sobs sounded like the whimpering of a wounded animal.
I sighed and passed her some tissues.
She wiped her eyes hurriedly.
“His father and I were busy working. We didn't pay him enough attention. But he never told me what was troubling him. Always the good news. Never the bad.”
“I always thought he was strong.”
My mentor clasped his hands and looked up at her.
“Where's his father?”
We hadn't seen him since we arrived.
“At the factory.”
Her voice was thick.
“When he's upset, he buries himself in work.”
My mentor sighed silently.
“You took everything from Li Yun's desk that day. Where is it now?”
“In his room. We've kept it all safe.”
She opened a door.
One look inside made my heart lurch.
The bookshelves. The wardrobe. Even the walls.
Sticky notes covered them all.
So many they seemed to have swallowed the room.
12
I picked one up.
A physics problem.
Li Yun's mother opened a drawer.
It was stuffed with exam papers and workbooks.
She sniffed.
“We were strict with him. He hardly ever used a phone.”
“His father and I are factory workers. We know education is the only way to change your life. We expected him to understand that too.”
My mentor pressed his lips together. After a long silence, he asked, “How often did Liu Changming tutor him privately?”
She looked flustered.
“Two or three times a week...”
“He said his teacher was very good to him. But I never knew... that he liked men.”
“Where did the tutoring take place?”
“Wherever the teacher arranged,” she said haltingly. “With the other physics competition students.”
My mentor said nothing. He began going through the papers.
I crouched on the floor to look through Li Yun's rough work.
Then my breath caught.
I picked up one particularly disturbing sheet.
A heart-shaped collage had been made with biological material. It had an odd smell I couldn't quite describe.
I held it up cautiously.
“This heart... was it for someone? Lu Yu?”
His mother looked bewildered.
“I don't know.”
“Who's Lu Yu?”
“Li Yun's girlfriend,” my colleague explained kindly. “Perhaps he didn't tell you about her.”
His mother's face went white.
“No... he didn't have a girlfriend.”
We all fell silent.
“He didn't have a phone. When he went out, it was for extra lessons.”
“His teacher showed me security footage. He wasn't close to any of the girls at school.”
“Are you sure?” my mentor asked sharply.
She nodded firmly.
“He hardly had any friends at all.”
I drew a sharp breath.
Lu Yu had lied.
Then perhaps...
What was on the phone could be false too.
13
We immediately drove back toward the bureau.
I sent Lu Yu message after message. Not a single reply.
The technician called. I answered and put him on speaker.
He sounded urgent.
“There is something wrong with those pictures. Most have been digitally altered.”
“But one or two are genuine.”
I remembered Liu Changming's fleeting expression.
It fitted.
His surprise had been real too.
A vein stood out on my mentor's forehead.
“Have you reached the girl?”
“No. She's not answering.”
He slapped the driver's shoulder.
“Lu Yu's house!”
The driver wrenched the wheel around, throwing us sideways as he turned.
“Keep calling,” my mentor told me. “We can't let anything happen to her.”
I clenched my teeth and dialed again and again.
Each tone seemed to strike against my pounding heart.
Then several messages arrived.
[I'm sorry. Have you found out I lied?]
[But I did it all for Li Yun. I didn't mean any harm.]
“She's answered!” I cried.
My mentor took the phone, scanned the messages and typed quickly.
[Why did you lie? What else do you know?]
[Where are you? We'll come and get you.]
Nothing.
He called her directly.
We all held our breath.
After two seconds of ringing, she answered.
“I'm sorry...” she sobbed. “I really didn't know what else to do. That's why I gave you false evidence.”
My mentor's experience showed. He softened his voice first, trying to calm her.
“It's all right. Don't blame yourself. I know you wanted to help.”
“Where are you now? We can talk in person.”
“Nobody's going to hurt you.”
Her voice was hoarse.
“Li Yun asked me to do it.”
“He messaged me and asked if I'd come and see him.”
“Where?” my mentor interrupted.
“Fuhai. I went. He gave me his phone. Told me to alter the pictures, pretend to be his girlfriend and give it to you...”
My heart thudded.
We were so close to the truth. The thought made my blood race.
My mentor frowned.
“Do you know why he went into the sea?”
“Yes. In my room, there's...”
Lu Yu drew a breath. She struggled to get another word out.
Then stopped.
A muffled sound came through the phone. Labored breathing. A struggle, by the sound of it. Something toppled, followed by a series of crashes.
Before we could speak, the call ended.
Lu Yu was gone.
14
We rushed into her home as soon as we arrived.
Her parents stared at us, startled and confused.
They didn't know where she was.
“She said she had something to do and went out,” her mother said, her voice shaking. “She didn't say where.”
My mentor arranged for officers to check the surveillance cameras, then went into her bedroom.
It was warm and inviting. A poster of a famous singer hung on the wall.
I remembered her.
She'd suffered horrific abuse and sexual assault at her company. Her mental health had collapsed, and she'd attempted to take her own life several times.
After the case became public, online supporters encouraged her. She won her lawsuit, underwent therapy and returned to the stage.
My mentor opened a desk drawer.
A set of physics papers lay inside.
He felt beneath them and pulled out a diary.
Cheap yellow paper covered it. The thick notebook was almost full.
I leaned over to read.
Most of it was about things that had upset the writers.
Writers.
The handwriting changed from page to page.
“This wasn't written by one person,” my colleague said in surprise.
Some pressed hard, leaving thick, heavy strokes. Others wrote lightly, their lines long and thin.
After a few scattered pages, I guessed five or six people had used the notebook.
They all mentioned Liu Changming, respectfully calling him “sir.”
My mentor stopped turning the pages and looked at me.
“This drawing... Li Yun made one like it, didn't he?”
Another heart, filled in with black ink, with little raindrops above it.
I blinked.
“Yes.”
I still had the sheet of rough work.
This time, he'd added words.
[Sir, do I have to give you my body to come first?]
[Would love be enough?]
[I can be number one in Paradise.]
He'd crossed out that last line and replaced it.
[I hate you. You've made me feel there's something wrong with me! I don't like men! I don't like men! I don't like men! I don't like men! I don't like men! I don't like men! I don't like men! I don't like men!]
[Someone help me... I think I'm already dead.]
Enjoyed this story?
Discover more completed short romance stories at NovelPotato.asia.