Zhen Wuyu and Chen Liao were both young. They hadn’t participated in the old 1991 case at all, and they didn’t even know much about it. Facing questioning from the family of a bureau chief who had been murdered, no matter how much they explained, it would only sound redundant.
And Zhen Wuyu had that strange personality. So when Chen Liao was left speechless, not knowing how to respond, Zhen Wuyu looked at Mr. Su, then tilted his head to look at Su Li on the hospital bed.
He said, “I won’t try.”
The lawyer and the others, who were already rubbing their hands together with their high salaries, ready to show their skills: “?”
Zhen Wuyu: “If the people at the police station were wrong about the past, I didn’t do it. I don’t care.”
Su Li smiled. “Classmate Zhen, what if the police station wasn’t wrong? Are you bowing your head to the powerful?”
This girl was weird. Who talked like that? Wasn’t she back to seek justice for her mother?
Zhen Wuyu flicked her a glance, cold and restrained.
“Mr. Su wasn’t specifically scolding me; he’s not as direct as Miss Su.”
“Sorry to disturb you.”
He retreated immediately. Chen Liao, as a police officer, was wary of lawyers; mainly because he had suffered too many losses. So he followed at once.
Once they left and the door closed—
Only Su Li and Mr. Su remained in the ward.
Mr. Su walked over and stood at the bedside. He looked at Su Li for a long time before finally saying one line.
“You shouldn’t have come back. I can’t let what happened to your mother happen again.”
Su Li frowned and looked out the window, the corners of her mouth pressed down.
“But you’re the only family I have left.”
“Dad.”
In the hospital corridor, Zhen Wuyu wasn’t walking fast, but his legs were long. Chen Liao chased after him with effort, running a few steps to catch up, complaining that Mr. Su was truly forceful, nothing like his gentle appearance.
“People who can build a business to that level; how many of them have mild tempers?” Zhen Wuyu wasn’t being biased. In this era of rapid economic growth, competition was brutal. Big waves panned for gold; fierce dragons crossed rivers. Even though he handled criminal cases, he still heard plenty from colleagues in the Economic Department.
One colleague with an extreme personality had even said this line: when it comes to big money, expecting it to be completely clean is impossible. Opportunity, in some periods, meant loopholes before laws were fully developed.
But you couldn’t call it a crime. Every era had its own character.
Like the timber business in Baimu Town. Who knew how many dirty things came from the rampant logging back then. Could you pursue all of it?
A heavy snow fell; everything became white. Spring came, winters passed; everything renewed.
But one common point was always the same: those bosses who crossed the river and made it ashore were definitely smart and calm enough.
He didn’t know if Mr. Su was clean, but he was certainly very smart.
Very much like his daughter.
Chen Liao sighed. “Good thing Miss Su has no suspicion at the moment. She even gave us a lot of clues. Without her, we might not have reached this point so fast. What do we do now?”
A rooftop paraglider transfer meant they had entered the mountain forest. It was hard to track now. The snow had stopped, but the forest environment was dangerous, roads were blocked, manpower and resources couldn’t support it effectively.
And most importantly, you didn’t know where they landed. There were no snow vehicle tracks to follow.
Zhen Wuyu knew it was hard to investigate, so he didn’t plan to pour time and energy into going back to the shoe factory. Let the officers there investigate.
“If Zhang Baoli’s goal is to lure us into reopening the 1991 Snow Spirit Path cold case, then the clues he’s left us now, besides Lin Zong and the other two, and the old case files, there’s only one more.”
Chen Liao: “What?”
Zhen Wuyu: “The 315 case.”
“Go back to Baimu Police Station.”
Another day of eating instant noodles.
In Changlin, Chen Liao was a professional instant noodle master. After coming to Baimu Police Station, he fully lived up to the title. He busied himself boiling steaming noodles for everyone, and didn’t forget to add eggs, ham sausage, vegetables, and so on.
“Even if we’re going for convenience, we can’t lack nutrition. Otherwise how can our stamina keep up.”
It sounded like a mom, but the male and female officers all appreciated it. The two police stations’ teams had long since become familiar. Someone asked where Liu Duan and Zhen Wuyu had gone.
The bureau chief’s office.
In the office, the bureau chief provided the archive materials and also pulled out one file separately: the fifth case, Snow Spirit Night Walk.
“This is all the information on Qing Zhan, who was the bureau chief of Baimu Police Station in 1991, and her murder…”
Zhen Wuyu didn’t open it immediately. He looked at Liu Duan and the bureau chief and brought up Mr. Su directly.
“Su Ye’s attitude is connected to what happened back then? What did he mean by what he said?”
He knew what Su Ye referred to would definitely not be recorded in the file bag.
So he asked outright.
The bureau chief looked awkward. After frowning, Liu Duan finally loosened the wrinkles in his face and sighed.
“Back then, Bureau Chief Zhan was young, with remarkable achievements. She kept solving major cases and kept getting promoted, becoming the only female bureau chief. It was famous at the time because the four Baimian Chang cases in 1991 were happening frequently, and the pressure inside the station was huge. She investigated day and night.”
“But for some reason, not long before she was killed, she became a little strange. She kept avoiding other officers. She hid some leads and chose to investigate alone. At the time I was an officer in Changlin, and I thought she was odd, but I didn’t suspect her. Until the end, she left the team, shut off the police communication system, and we couldn’t reach her…”
“And when we finally found her, she was a corpse.”
“There were no footprints on the ground, no signs left by a second person. There was no drug in her body that would have rendered her unconscious. She was burned alive, obediently, and didn’t move. It was like a ghost did it.”
“Actually, the five Snow Spirit Path cases, and even the current 315 case and the kidnapping that just happened, all have this feature; they use blizzard-day conditions to hide traces, creating a bizarre effect of leaving no tracks on snow.”
“And in Bureau Chief Zhan’s case, the only thing left was the phone that burned with her body. The phone had no investigative value; it was just residue. But when we checked her number through the Telecommunications Department, there were no communication records.”
“The lead was cut.”
“A bureau chief died. It was too big. All our manpower went into the investigation. But at that time, one rumor spread like wildfire.”
Zhen Wuyu frowned. “What rumor?”
“They said Bureau Chief Zhen was actually adopted. Her adoptive parents died early, but her birth mother was… um…”
“You know how, more than twenty years ago, when Baimu Town’s business was at its peak, merchants from all over and outside workers poured in. For a while, there was every kind of business.”
“People said the economy was developing, but the ones making money were the merchants. Many locals were still very poor. And if you wanted to get money from merchants, women sometimes were… merchandise.”
“We couldn’t arrest them fast enough.”
Zhen Wuyu’s brow jumped.
“Bureau Chief Zhen’s birth mother was an illegal worker. Once that got exposed, her good reputation was ruined in an instant. Many locals turned on her and cursed her. They even pushed the responsibility for failing to solve the terrifying Snow Spirit Path cases onto her. Some even claimed the Snow Spirit existed because she was unlucky and unclean, and that she angered the Snow Spirit and brought disaster…”
“The station couldn’t find the real killer. The Baimian Chang, to us, was like a devil who appeared and vanished; we never knew who he really was. The case became cold. But we also have to admit: under that kind of pressure and helplessness, Bureau Chief Zhan’s strange behavior before death, plus her background… were used by some bad officers to talk a lot of crap, to shift the public’s blame.”
“On paper, the files listed it as a cold case, but because there were no more killings afterward, in society it basically became… a smear.”
“But we all know the real killer is still out there. These years we’ve kept investigating in secret, and we’ve always believed Bureau Chief Zhan’s abnormal behavior back then must have had a reason.”
Zhen Wuyu: “If she wasn’t the murderer, then she must have believed the station had a problem; the real killer was inside the system, or an accomplice was inside the system. That’s why she had to avoid colleagues and investigate privately.”
Liu Duan smiled bitterly. “See? That’s the gap between us. We were ordinary cops. We weren’t capable. The things we couldn’t understand back then, you saw instantly.”
“Yes. Later we thoroughly searched her home and found she had been checking the personal information of all members of the investigative team at the time.”
“Upper management then believed the mole’s identity was unknown. If they dared to kill a bureau chief, they were vicious. They worried Su Ye and his daughter would be harmed, so they restricted their identity information. Most internal personnel couldn’t access it.”
“And that’s how the years passed.”
“But we’ve never had results on the Snow Spirit Path case.”
Zhen Wuyu put away the files and lifted his eyes to glance at the two of them.
He said lightly, “Were you ever relieved that no more cases happened?”
What? What kind of line was that? What was he taking them for?!
Liu Duan was stunned, then furious. He sprang up. The bureau chief’s face also darkened.
But Zhen Wuyu never needed to give anyone face. He picked up the files and stood. “But you know which colleagues showed their filthy faces, and even how some higher-ups shirked responsibility and wrapped it up carelessly. Because of workplace ecology, you couldn’t reverse any of it. You could only stay silent.”
“In a sense, there are countless Baimian Chang among human groups.”
“Ungrateful. Turning their faces without remorse.”
What was the human heart?
Hell.
Even police could go bad. They could have selfish motives. They could chase achievements.
Zhen Wuyu walked out. Liu Duan lost his strength and sat down, exhausted, exchanging looks with the bureau chief.
Finally Liu Duan said, “Do you ever regret it? Back then, not fighting those people to the end.”
The bureau chief said dully, “I took her position. I became the biggest beneficiary. What do you want me to say?”
“Since that masked man dug the case back up, it means the Baimian Chang is still around. At least, the masked man is looking for him.”
“We can’t sit still either.”
“My words are here. If we can’t solve this case, I resign.”
During the meal, everyone summarized the current investigative results and clarified tasks.
Before that, Liu Mei was the first to be questioned. Actually, she didn’t need to cooperate; there was no evidence at all linking her to the case. But because of Huang Xiuling’s matter, Liu Mei found it funny herself and came to the station on her own.
As soon as she sat down, she asked if she could smoke. When she was refused, she rubbed her nose. Liu Duan said awkwardly, “Sorry, we’ve been busy and eating instant noodles the whole time. We’re not used to this smell. Want to switch meeting rooms?”
“No need. I’ve eaten more instant noodles during overtime than you ever have.”
“Ms. Qi is so rich and still works overtime? And eats instant noodles?”
“You haven’t seen the outside world. People like me are at most agents; we move money and take a cut. The truly rich create projects and have agents like us manage a bunch of human resources to work overtime turning materials into products, then sell them to the crowd… They even eat instant noodles. Isn’t that terrifying?”
It was terrifying.
Liu Mei looked at Zhen Wuyu and Liu Duan, smiled, took a sip of water. “Back to business. I know what you want to ask; Liu Aidi, right? I went back and thought about it, and realized my memory of her is pretty deep. Do you know what a changgui is?”
Both of them felt their brows twitch.
“The reason I targeted her back then was because I felt she was like a changgui. On the surface she looked pure and innocent, and she and Chen Shengnan were extremely close. But in truth she pushed everything onto Chen Shengnan.”
“She would pretend to endure in advance, pretend to suffer. Then when Chen Shengnan asked, she would casually mention who bullied her… Chen Shengnan was a fool with no schemes. She thought she was a righteous heroine and protected people everywhere.”
“Once, she thought I bullied Liu Aidi. She arranged to meet me, brought me a box of cookies, and said I shouldn’t bully people anymore. If I agreed, I should eat the cookies, and we’d swear a blood oath.”
Pfft…
Liu Duan, who was drinking water, sprayed it out. “Then did you eat that box of cookies afterward?”
Liu Mei wiped her face and said expressionlessly, “You think I’d let a fool buy me off with a box of Jia Shili sandwich biscuits? I cursed her out. After that, she went missing.”
“I can’t say more. I can’t frame people. But I’m sure Liu Aidi ate that box of Jia Shili. She didn’t have a habit of brushing her teeth. The next day I could see the grime between her teeth. I even felt annoyed at the time, thinking those two were insane. But not long after, I found out Chen Shengnan didn’t come to class, and then she was missing.”
“But can this be used as evidence? No. She just vanished beautifully.”
Liu Duan and Zhen Wuyu both straightened up.
Liu Mei: “Can I smoke? I really want one.”
Her eyes were red.
Because of regret, or remorse; if she had taken that box of Jia Shili, it would have been better.
Only much later did she learn from Chen Shengnan’s family that the box of Jia Shili was something that idiot had saved pocket money for a long time to buy.
Lin Zong, Zhang Cheng, and Huang Xiuling, plus Luo Hong and Chen Qing, five people in total, were investigated deeply. Their real and fake identities and their past experiences were all dragged into the open.
“Luo Hong, real name Zhang Han, 44 years old, from Zhao County under Changlin City. He ran a small slaughterhouse. He was physically strong and well-known locally. But in 1985 he was caught injecting hydrochloride adrenaline into the pork he sold and was arrested. He was sentenced to three years. After he got out, his wife sold the slaughterhouse to a local food company, took the money, and ran off with someone…”
“Luo Hong lived in poverty for a long time, doing odd jobs everywhere to support his elderly parents. Later, in 1989, after his parents died of serious illness one after the other, he last appeared at the county hospital, and then disappeared.”
Xiao Li: “Did he change his name to ditch the past and start over? He already did time. What is there to hide?”
The female officer from the information unit shook her head. “No idea. We’re still investigating. For now, that’s all we have.”
“Next is Huang Xiuling. She’s from Baimu Town. Her original name was Liu Aidi. Her file is the simplest. Besides changing her name, her life traces are all here. Two sons and one daughter, all very young. Her husband drank and gambled. Later he took the family’s money and ran. There’s been no word since.”
“Zhang Cheng, from Baimu Town. Original name Cheng Zhang. In 1991 he was a local apprentice in Chinese medicine under an old doctor. After the old doctor died, he took over a small clinic. Later, because the local economy was bad and people left, business was poor, so he left Baimu Town.”
“Lin Zong, from Baimu Town. Original name Li Wen. In 1991 he was a fifth-grade homeroom teacher at Baimu Town Primary School. He had a good reputation and good connections, and was famous locally. Later, because his health was poor, he retired from the school and said he went to live with his children elsewhere.”
“Chen Qing, from Baimu Town. Original name Qin He. Unemployed, drifting around. Married, with a wife and daughter. Has domestic violence tendencies; neighbors often heard him beating and cursing his wife and daughter. He had a terrible reputation and loved gambling.”
“Except for Luo Hong, these four left Baimu Town in 1991 for various reasons. And the places they later settled were all around the Baimu Town region. They never truly left. They even stayed under Changlin City’s jurisdiction. But the strange part is: they all, without arranging it, changed their real names, cut off their former social ties with Baimu Town, hid their identities, and started over. Even their current families don’t know their past.”
After summarizing the files, the female officer added. Zhen Wuyu asked one question.
“Are they connected to the Snow Spirit Path cases back then? Their names aren’t in the case files’ witness records or related statements.”
Female officer: “I checked. No connection. We still don’t know what case they committed that made them flee Baimu Town so urgently and so in sync.”
Zhen Wuyu: “Then, their former residences in Baimu Town.”
He stood up and marked four red points on the map board.
Lines rapidly connected them.
They encircled a place.
The officers stirred…
Chen Liao put down his chopsticks and blurted out, “Baimu Station?”
Zhen Wuyu said coldly, “Luo Hong, Zhang Han. In 1989, at Baimu Hospital, where his parents were treated, a female doctor named Shen Hui went missing. She was the attending physician for Zhang Han’s parents. After she vanished, someone at the hospital had seen Zhang Han arguing with her. The hospital thought he harmed the doctor and accused him. Later the police investigated and found it wasn’t him, so he wasn’t arrested. The hospital had no choice. Zhang Han later changed his identity.”
“But the final place Shen Hui disappeared—was Baimu Station.”
“That’s the connection between all five of them.”
“Luo Hong came back for revenge; he believes Shen Hui’s disappearance is connected to these four.”
Liu Duan was there too. He had adjusted his mindset. He asked in confusion, “How do you know this?”
It wasn’t in the materials. Even the female officer couldn’t find it. But he knew?
Zhen Wuyu pressed his lips together. “I’m from the Provincial Bureau. The files I know are in the provincial archive. I know Shen Hui’s case because her mother kept pushing for it. She believes her daughter was trafficked, right at that station. And their last call record was Shen Hui sounding urgent, saying she saw someone injured.”
“As a doctor, because of professional instinct, she walked into someone’s trap.”
“But as a highly educated person, she wouldn’t blindly follow a stranger too far. So she must have gone to a nearby residence. And that person was a local, so she didn’t suspect much.”
“Where are Huang Xiuling’s children? Take Shen Hui’s photo and ask them… see if they recognize her.”
Zhen Wuyu’s suspicion was—back then, Huang Xiuling used her children as bait to lure Shen Hui to her home, and then…