Chapter 107

"Feng Bin is dead!"

"What? How did he die? Heavens!"

"Could it be because of… Shh!"

The news online had spread at the speed of electromagnetic waves, instantly covering a great swath of cell phone screens. First thing in the morning, Ge Ni's English class was taken over by a substitute teacher. The empty seats of the absent were unusually striking to the eye. Between classes, the atmosphere in the school was extremely strange.

Yufen Middle School's classroom building was luxuriously fitted up, bright and clean, the marble floor as bright as a mirror. On each floor was a school custodian wearing a standard uniform, ready to sweep at any time. The smell of orchid-scented cleaning liquid spread through every corner.

The female student was wearing a sweater and a short skirt with her school uniform casually draped over her, pretending to comply with the school's dress code. She stepped on the floor the school custodian had just gone over, her foot covered in mud picked up from who knew where, leaving a trail of muddy footprints. The school custodian couldn't scold her to her face and could only sigh in complaint.

Hearing this, the girl's steps paused. Then she spit a mouthful of gum covered in clear lip gloss onto the clean floor and stepped on it, striding away without a look back.

She showed herself at the door of each class, not saying a word, not calling anyone, but at each class, someone came out in tacit understanding. There seemed to be some bizarre silent agreement among these boys and girls; they exchanged silent looks and went together to senior middle Year 1's Class 2.

Year 1, Class 2's classroom had the most empty seats. The main characters of this running away business that had kicked up such a fuss were all in their class. The male class monitor was standing at the whiteboard holding a marker. He was tall, thin, and upright, with one hand stuck casually in his pocket, writing on the whiteboard a notice that the Christmas activity had been suspended. He had a particularly calm and composed elegant bearing.

The girl in the short skirt waited a while, saw that he didn't turn his head, then stuck her head inside and yelled, "Wei Wenchuan!"

All the students lying on their desks making up sleep were jolted by her yell, but seeing who it was, no one dared to say anything.

The class monitor heard; the tip of the marker paused. But he took no notice, unhurriedly writing out the last few careful words. Then he turned around and looked expressionlessly at the students gathered at the classroom door. He dropped the marker onto the desk of a classmate sitting in the front row, then strolled out of the classroom.

The somewhat fretful group seemed to find their backbone at once, spontaneously surrounding the boy named Wei Wenchuan. Wei Wenchuan pushed away gum that one of them passed him and nodded briefly to the crowd. "This isn't a good place to talk. Come with me."

The girl wearing the short skirt had reddened eye rims; the arrogance with which she'd spat out her gum had gone away. She went along, aggrieved.

Wei Wenchuan took them right upstairs to the locked "multifunctional classroom." He took a ring of keys from his pocket and, as familiarly as though he were coming home, opened the door and led the group inside, ordering, "Close the door."

The lock clicked shut. The girl in the short skirt couldn't hold out any longer. "Feng Bin is dead. What's going on here? Why did Feng Bin die?"

The others looked at each other, at last turning their gazes on Wei Wenchuan, none of them making a sound.

"All right, so he'd dead," Wei Wenchuan said indifferently. "What does it have to do with you?"

"But I heard Ge Ni say that Xia Xiaonan is at the public security bureau now. Is she going to blab to the police?" another male student said with a gloomy expression. "I said before that we shouldn't have chosen Xia Xiaonan, but Liang Youjing just had to have her. Isn't it all because she's rather good-looking and did better than you on the mid-term exams?"

"I just don't like her, what about it?" the girl in the short skirt screeched. "She played simple and stupid all day and had all you blockheads running after her. Feng Bin was doing it, and so were you! You're outraged on her behalf now, so why didn't you run away with them!?"

"Who was running after her? I…"

Wei Wenchuan reached out a hand, inserting it between the two of them, crisply snapping his fingers. The boy who was about to retort immediately came to a halt and shut his mouth, enduring his residual anger.

"If you're noisy again, you can beat it." Wei Wenchuan looked coolly at the girl, then calmly said, "Feng Bin left school on his own and was unluckily murdered out there. So what? And so what if Ge Ni and Xia Xiaonan are at a public security bureau? One is a good-for-nothing who doesn't dare to raise her head when the principal walks by, and the other is a nothing of a girl who wouldn't dare to complain if you slapped her. Would they really dare to say anything?"

The boy who'd just shut his mouth endured for a while, but he couldn't hold back. "What if the others…"

"If there really is someone who can't hold their tongue and reveals something—" Wei Wenchuan slowly walked to the window and pulled open the multifunctional classroom's thick UV-protection curtains. A big slice of sunlight poured in; countless dust particles floated in the light. He narrowed his eyes idly. "Isn't it enough if you guys don't admit it? Do the police have evidence? Even if they do have evidence, can they arrest the whole school? Don't worry, the police are under so much strain, they have no time to pay attention to the private disputes of a bunch of middle school students like you. If they have the energy, they're better off chasing after the murderous wanted criminal."

While the news of Feng Bin's murder had appeared in the newspapers and online, the police couldn't have revealed all the details of an unsolved case. At present, the news only said that the student who had left a letter upon running away had unexpectedly been killed by a wrongdoer; the means of Feng Bin's death and the identity of the suspect hadn't been made public. And, of course, no one knew that the killer was a criminal who had escaped during the National Road 327 case fifteen years ago.

When the students heard his words, they froze. The girl in the short skirt hesitantly asked, "The one who killed Feng Bin…was a wanted criminal?"

"Of course someone who committed a murder is going to be wanted." Wei Wenchuan looked at her, not turning a hair. "What's the problem?"

For no reason, the girl felt a chill. She firmly shut her mouth.

Just then, the bell rang, calling them to class, interrupting the ad hoc meeting. Wei Wenchuan waved a hand. The teenage girls and boys didn't dare to pester him any longer; they scattered at his sign. He went last, closing the door of the multifunctional classroom behind him, planning to lock it again.

The boy who'd had a spat with the girl in the short skirt stayed a few steps behind the others. He walked up hesitantly in front of Wei Wenchuan.

Seeing his companions turn towards the stairs, he lowered his voice and quickly said to Wei Wenchuan, "Wenchuan, when Liang Youjing brought up Xia Xiaonan, why didn't you resist? Da- Bin was in a panic, then—you should have resisted! If…"

"Why should I have listened to Feng Bin? In his heart, Feng Bin hadn't been with us for a long time. Don't tell me you hadn't noticed. I have no objection to Xia Xiaonan as a girl, but don't you think it's convenient how she can expose the traitors among us?" At this point, Wei Wenchuan suddenly laughed and patted the boy on the shoulder. "You're very clever, but sometimes your thoughts go all over the place. You're better off thinking of how to deal with the police. Traitors will always have retribution visited upon them, if not now, then in the future.—Who knows? Everyone can take this as a warning, not follow in his footsteps."

The boy understood his implication. Looking at Wei Wenchuan's particularly meaningful smile, he faintly guessed something. Disgust and fear instantly flooded him, as if his shoulder had been licked by a poisonous snake.

At the same time, the City Bureau's Criminal Investigation Team was also holding a meeting—

"This student is named Liang Youjing." Tao Ran put a photograph up onto the projection screen. "She does a lot of extracurricular activities, and she's good at forming cliques. She's the 'Queen Bee' among the female students. But her grades have always been very good. She's always been called 'clever' and 'a genius.' No matter what she did, it didn't impact her grades. She prides herself on her talents and appearance. Because Xia Xiaonan took the first spot from her, her parents thought her grades had gone down and ran to the school as though facing a great foe. They didn't accept her explanation, feeling that she'd shamed them tremendously, so she's been harboring resentment towards Xia Xiaonan—that's what Ge Ni told us. She was likely the one who directed the strike against Xia Xiaonan."

"Phone her guardians and call her in for questioning." Luo Wenzhou turned to Lang Qiao. "Is Xia Xiaonan still not saying anything?"

Lang Qiao spread her hands helplessly.

Xiao Haiyang suddenly put in a word. "I don't think there's any use in going at it from this angle. As long as the business at the school doesn't produce grave consequences, what can you do about things like stripping people's clothes off and beating them when so many people took part? At most it'll be a round of collective critical education—and they didn't do any serious damage. If you call in the students, there'll be a crowd of parents and lawyers behind them. I guarantee you won't get anything."

Luo Wenzhou said, "What do you mean?"

Xiao Haiyang said, "My recommendation is that we work from Lu Guosheng."

"Lu Guosheng murdered Feng Bin. There's no need to question that point. If we could find Lu Guosheng, we wouldn't need to match ourselves against a group of brats—but right now we can't find Lu Guosheng," Tao Ran said. "After he finished the murder at the Drum Tower, he swaggered off, and there was clearly someone there to receive him. Is a wanted criminal who's lived comfortably for fifteen years going to be easy to catch? If we hadn't found out there was a problem with Xia Xiaonan, we wouldn't even have the lead with the students. We might be looking for a needle in the ocean."

Luo Wenzhou declined to comment, moving directly to handing out assignments. "Tao Ran, you take some people to the school to find out what's going on. Xiao Lang, notify Liang Youjing's parents and get the girl over here for questioning.—Fei Du, if you're not in a hurry to get back to school, could you say a few words to Xia Xiaonan for…"

Before he'd finished, Xiao Haiyang suddenly interrupted him. "Lu Guosheng couldn't have been lying low for fifteen years."

Normally, when everyone was fooling around together, they'd exploit Luo Wenzhou, eating the breakfast he bought and giving their loyalty to others. But while they were working—especially when he was handing out assignments—no one would interrupt him. At Xiao Haiyang's words, absolute silence fell over the conference room. Everyone's gazes fell on him.

Fei Du, sitting in a corner, looked up from his phone's screen. On the screen was Gu Zhao's brief and mysterious CV.

Xiao Haiyang involuntarily pushed at his glasses. "Lu Guosheng has been wanted for fifteen years. Evidently he's only been hiding, not had plastic surgery, and he hasn't scrubbed off his fingerprints. That shows someone's been protecting him.—I investigated Lu Guosheng last night. His only close relative was his older brother, who was arrested and brought to justice in the 327 case. After that he only had distant relatives left who couldn't say enough to distance themselves from him, he didn't have any friends, and he didn't have any female partner he was close to before the warrant was issued for his arrest. He's an anti-social element, a bane to others' existence. Who would have that much power and dare to run the risk of harboring him?"

Fei Du took up his words. "A person who wanted to use him for something."

"Right." Xiao Haiyang stood up. "Captain Luo, I recommend that you search through all the cases that have occurred within the last fifteen years for cases with suspicious points, with suspects whose physical appearance is similar to Lu Guosheng, even his fingerprints…"

"Haiyang, that's much too heavy a work load. To go through fifteen years, you'd have to search through the whole file room," Lang Qiao said from beside him. "Anyway, aren't these all just your guesses? Even if your guesses are correct, perhaps this person who was keeping Lu Guosheng was saving him for a special occasion and hasn't used him before? Why would we set aside the lead in front of us to advance by a circuitous route?"

Xiao Haiyang had been with the City Bureau half a year, and he didn't fit in any more than he had at the Flower Market District Sub-Bureau. He was normally taciturn and never took part in after hours activities with his colleagues. While his work was energetic and conscientious, his thought processes were sometimes totally different from ordinary people's. His mental circuit looked like a convoluted labyrinth.

Lang Qiao's questions rendered him speechless. He stood awkwardly where he was, tightly pursing his lips.

Luo Wenzhou closed his notebook. From some meters away, his searchlight-like gaze fell on Xiao Haiyang's face. "As far as I know, there hasn't been a case involving dismemberment and digging out eyes in this city in the last fifteen years. Are you really planning to expand the scope of this investigation to the whole country? Xiao Haiyang, we can't muster such a large force based on your guesses. Do you have any other reliable evidence?"

Xiao Haiyang couldn't get any words out.

Luo Wenzhou waited for him for three seconds. "Okay, everyone move.—There are many people outside scouting out the details of this case. Until the case has been solved, mind your mouths. Meeting adjourned!"

Everyone filed out of the conference room, each hurriedly setting out on their own assignment. Xiao Haiyang stood alone where he was, clutching his phone. After a good while, as if he'd come to a decision, he noiselessly went into the men's bathroom at the end of the hall.

There were many men on the Criminal Investigation Team, so when the place had originally been fitted up, an extra men's bathroom had been specially added in the little compartment where the cleaning supplies were kept—anyway, normally when there was clean-up to be done, they couldn't stand to order the rare policewomen to mop up—but because this bathroom was far from the office, and the space was rather small, it wasn't normally used much.

Xiao Haiyang opened the door and went in, cautiously determining that there really was no one inside, even opening every stall to have a look like a weirdo. Then he closed the door, got out his phone, and quickly dialed a number.

"It's me, Xiao Haiyang," he said in a quiet but urgent voice. "You gave me a business card last time…"

The person on the phone said something excitedly.

"Oh," Xiao Haiyang said, keeping watch in case anyone came, "we have discipline here. I shouldn't be letting out information that the bureau hasn't determined to publicize, but since an old school fellow is involved, I'll do it just this once—

"Concerning this case that's being so hotly debated online, the facts are more complicated than you imagine. The person who murdered the runaway middle school student wasn't some delinquent mugger with a knife, it was one of the killers who committed serial robbery and murder on National Road 327 fifteen years ago. The security cameras caught him, and we've found his fingerprint. He's been on the run after a wanted notice was put out for him fifteen years ago. No one knows how he's been hiding. We suspect that the killer specifically went after the murdered boy… That's all, I can't tell you the rest, you can look up the 327 case yourself."

Being unexpectedly inundated with information, it could be imagined that the ear of the person on the phone was filled to bursting. A string of questions came out, shaking Officer Xiao's none too durable locally-produced knockoff cell phone so it squeaked. But Xiao Haiyang expressionlessly hung up the phone and noiselessly opened the bathroom door, glancing out at the already empty hall, then quickly walking out.

A moment later, there was a creak in the empty bathroom as the door of the cupboard where the cleaning supplies were kept opened. Fei Du casually flicked dirt off his sleeve and walked out. When he put his hand on the door handle, Fei Du heard Luo Wenzhou's voice saying outside the door, "You've been in the bathroom so long. Diarrhea?"

Fei Du paused slightly. Then he quickly realized these words weren't addressed to him.

Xiao Haiyang's somewhat panicked voice came from slightly far off. "A…a little."

Through the door, Luo Wenzhou's footsteps passed in front of Fei Du, at first near, then growing distant. Then they stopped.

"I searched through your records," Luo Wenzhou said. "Your family background is very simple. At first glance, there's nothing unusual to see—later I went home and thought it over carefully and found something. You have a younger half-brother, taking his university entrance examinations this year—with such a grown-up little brother, you may not even have started school when your parents divorced. The materials say that your mother was regularly employed, had a source of income, and didn't have any negative record, and your father re-married. Reasonably speaking, I think your mother must have had custody of you until she died from illness. Only then did you go to live with your father. So I found a buddy who deals with household registries to investigate, and that's how it was."

Xiao Haiyang said, "What about it?"

"You lived with your mother for four years. She was busy at work. It's hard bringing up a child on your own. When she didn't come home in the evening, she'd send you to be taken care of by a neighbor—and that person just happened to be one of the Criminal Investigation Team's elders." Luo Wenzhou paused. "His name was Gu Zhao."

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