Chapter 21

"Officer Tao, just in case the test results come in and prove I was overreacting, could I ask you to keep this a secret for me?" This was Attorney Liu's third phone call to Tao Ran, the gist as before being "I would love nothing better than to go back in time half an hour and cut off the hand that phoned you."

Tao Ran sighed helplessly, feeling that this Attorney Liu really was a little neurotic.

Attorney Liu then jabbered, "Otherwise I'll really have no way to carry on in this profession. What would you call this thing I've done? You absolutely can't tell anyone else about this. My well-being and my family's are in your hands."

Tao Ran could only reassure him for the third time, all but raising his hand to heaven to swear and signing his mark. The overcautious and indecisive lawyer on the other end was finally forced to agree to bring the tie to the City Bureau at once for testing.

Having dealt with him, Tao Ran very apologetically turned his head and smiled at the young woman in the backseat. "Sorry."

He'd been disturbed by Attorney Liu in the middle of watching a movie. The movie had just gotten to the part where the male and female main characters were having a falling out—he and the young lady had walked out amidst the crying, sniveling, and mutual accusations; it really wasn't a very auspicious beginning for a relationship.

But the young lady hadn't said anything about it. Even if she was inwardly cursing, she had the self-possession not to show it. She very understandingly said, "If you're busy, there's no need to see me home.—Driver, please stop a moment by the subway entrance up ahead. Then you can take him where he's going."

The roots of Tao Ran's ears turned red—he was all embarrassment. "That's not…not very…"

"It's fine. We also regularly get called out to work overtime on the weekends," the young lady said. "And when we work overtime, it's only to make money for our boss. You're working for public safety.—And I've read about that case of the rich kid killing someone online. You have to hurry up and solve it."

Stuttering a little, Tao Ran said, "It's not, not necessarily the rich kid, we…we're still not sure of the killer."

As they spoke, the taxi had already come to the subway entrance. The driver, all smiles, stopped the car, and waited for the young lady to wave Tao Ran goodbye.

Before leaving, the young lady remembered something and turned back to say to him, "It's very nice to be able to meet an old classmate when I'm away from home, even if the way the two of us met was a little awkward."

If there had been a hole in the ground, Tao Ran definitely would have jumped in without a backward glance.

This far from home, what were the chances of ending up on a blind date with your senior middle school classmate? And then what were the chances that the senior middle school classmate would just happen to be the person you had a crush on back then?

Of course, there was nothing worth celebrating about here. Even if he'd managed to get a date with Audrey Hepburn, at this moment he'd still have to throw her aside and go work overtime.

When he had seen the girl go into the subway station, his critically obstructed intellect at last returned to its regular path. Deputy-Captain Tao shook his head to force the porridge in his head to turn back into normal brains and once more focus on the case.

Looking on from the sidelines, the taxi driver issued a conclusion: "Young man, you have hope."

Tao Ran laughed bitterly. "Driver, turn back up ahead, go to the City Bureau."

When it came to watching the fun, the middle-aged-to-elderly driver didn't distinguish between big and small matters; he was very interested in both emotional disputes between men and woman and in "rich kid killing people" cases. He really wanted to corner Tao Ran and have a nice chat. At this point, Tao Ran began to regret that he'd turned down his two asshole friends' suggestions of borrowing their cars. To make the chatterbox next to him close his mouth, he had to pretend to be nearly asleep, put on his headphones, and play a random app with sound to stop up his ears.

The audiobook on the phone flowed into his ears amidst soothing background music: "…And what will be left for me," answered Julien, coldly, "if I despise myself?…"

This was a very niche audiobook platform—there weren't many best-sellers on it; for the most part, it was long-in-the-tooth masterpieces, always broadcasting hypnotic prose. And only customers who presented themselves as "reading leaders" could request items to be broadcast.

A "reading leader" had to submit a lengthy original essay analyzing the merit of the work, then be selected by the editor. Only then would the platform broadcast the chosen audiobook, and when the reading was complete would also share the "reading leader"'s commentary.

Tao Ran didn't listen very attentively. He only used the music playing in the background to block out the noise as he arranged his train of thoughts.

The taxi quickly drove onto a side road and was about to reach the City Bureau. Tao Ran was about to turn off the audiobook when he heard the concluding statement: "Well, having played the famous French author Stendhal's The Red and the Black for you to this point, next we'll share the commentary of the reading leader, whose ID is The Reciter."

This ID seemed to be a sudden bolt of lightning, instantly striking Tao Ran where he was—

Friday evening ought to have been pleasant and relaxed, a whole city full of people welcoming the weekend, but everyone at the City Bureau was either working overtime or on the road hurrying back to work overtime.

After receiving Tao Ran and Lang Qiao's phone calls, Luo Wenzhou couldn't sit still in the hospital anymore. His ideas just happened to coincide with Fei Du's—though President Fei didn't have anything to do; his main issues were that the public hospital had too many people, and the conditions were poor.

The two of them were for once of one mind, but their actions diverged: Fei Du quickly called his assistant and had her bring over a car, while Luo Wenzhou shamelessly hitched a ride.

It was already nearly ten. Lang Qiao sent Luo Wenzhou a message on WeChat, reporting the latest developments. He didn't speak for a good while.

After a long time, he finally opened his mouth and spoke without preamble: "The medical examiner's preliminary determination is that Chen Zhen died of a single drug overdose."

Having heard Luo Wenzhou's unilateral "chat" at the hospital, Fei Du more or less understood the circumstances in which his dear car had been scrapped. He knew who "Chen Zhen" was.

There was no smell of blood next to him, the temperature in the car was comfortable, and Fei Du had just eaten the midnight snack brought over by his assistant. He firmly stopped the car at a crosswalk to wait for the red light, taking this time to drink a few mouthfuls of banana milk to fill in the gaps. The banana milk made him very even-tempered. He answered, "That sounds a little strange—it doesn't seem very civilized."

Hearing the word "civilized," Luo Wenzhou shot him a look. "I don't dare to have such high expectations of criminals."

Fei Du said, "However bad a person is, he still wouldn't be willing to take just any desperate risk. For example, those people who wanted to wipe you out and finally turned to shooting up the street—that was because they had already exposed themselves in front of you. If you got away, they were done for—they only became frenzied because they were afraid of that outcome. There's causality there. They wouldn't devolve for no reason. True lunatics find it very hard to stay submerged in society for long."

On this point, great minds thought alike. Wu Xuechun had confirmed that Chen Zhen was "safe," and if the girl hadn't been lying, then it proved that at least as far as she had witnessed, the sub-bureau's captain and the others hadn't intended to kill him. Moreover, if they'd wanted to kill Chen Zhen in the first place, they never would have permitted Luo Wenzhou to talk so much nonsense with Wu Xuechun.

But Chen Zhen had died of a drug overdose, which didn't sound like an accidental death.

"They may have been the ones to inject the drugs," Fei Du said unhurriedly. "Although it strains the understanding that people who have regular contact with drugs wouldn't manage to control the dose and slip up and kill someone. If I were suspected of harboring a drug trafficking gang, and a stranger barged in and blindly started asking sensitive questions, I certainly wouldn't kill him without careful consideration."

Hearing his tone, which sounded like he was discussing the weather, Luo Wenzhou's scalp went numb. But at the same time, he still asked, "And then what?"

"Step one, control him. Suss out just how much he knows, how deep he's gotten, and whether there's anyone behind him prompting him. Then use drugs, force, threats, and other such means to chip away at his willpower. Once I understand that the victim has only started his contact with you and isn't altogether your informer, that he doesn't dare to trust you entirely, and moreover comes from a simple background and has no close connections, then I move on to step two." Fei Du continued his banana milk-scented speech: "Step two, use a very small dose of drugs to force him to develop an addiction, and while he's in a confused state, repeatedly inculcate the idea that it was you who sold him out. Brainwash him, make him believe that you're wallowing in the same muck as these people. This way, he'll easily become filled with despair and come to believe there's no such thing as so-called 'justice,' and for someone like him, the only means of survival is learning to compromise."

Luo Wenzhou looked at him for a while, then commented, "That's really sick."

Fei Du was unconcerned. He continued, "Step three, when he's already addicted, let him taste some benefits. Let him know we aren't so scary, that we're really humanitarians.—That will settle it, establishing two serious constraints on his mentality and physiology. Afterwards, this person will be mine to use. When you and your people come in full force to scoop him up, I only need to tell him that our two sides have just had a little conflict over splitting the profits unevenly and are in a mutual struggle right now. Carrying resentment towards you, he'll become a plant in your organization."

Perhaps it was because the atmosphere between the two of them had just eased, and perhaps it was because the scent of banana milk suffusing the inside of the car made it impossible to be serious—for the first time, on hearing this unique discourse of his, Luo Wenzhou didn't erupt. He was silent for a while, then suddenly said, "If you decide to break the law one day, we really may have a lot of trouble."

Fei Du made no comment and next heard Luo Wenzhou say, "But you're just saying that, and you're only saying it to me. You haven't put it into practice, and you haven't filled the world with Killing Without a Trace training programs, so my colleagues and I can occasionally have a little break from work and go on dates. Therefore I should thank you on behalf of the organization."

Fei Du: "…"

How come this reaction wasn't the same as usual?

Luo Wenzhou nodded to himself and very kindly said, "We should give you an extra silk banner. Is there anything else? Give us a consult."

Fei Du thereupon shut his mouth tightly and didn't utter so much as a punctuation mark all the way to Yan City's City Bureau.

At the City Bureau's gates, Luo Wenzhou had just stepped out of the car when a police car drove up and parked next to him; before it had come to a full stop, Lang Qiao ran over. "Chief, Ma Xiaowei is gone!"

"Don't shout." The wound on Luo Wenzhou's back had only just scabbed over. He was still somewhat immobilized. He used one hand to get out his cigarettes and put one in his mouth, then unhurriedly said, "It's a good thing that he's gone."

Lang Qiao's unusually large eyes widened two sizes as she stared at Luo Wenzhou. She opened her mouth and had yet to speak when her gaze suddenly went past Luo Wenzhou and fell on a place not far behind him. "Th-that's…"

Luo Wenzhou accordingly turned his head and saw that a cowering human figure had appeared across the street, sticking out his head in the direction of the City Bureau. Another person came over and led him across the street.

"Ma Xiaowei and the sub-bureau's crooked-legged Little Glasses!"

Xiao Haiyang had finally swapped out his broken glasses. The rather stiff square frames made him look a few years older. He led Ma Xiaowei across the street and in front of Luo Wenzhou. "Captain Luo."

Luo Wenzhou didn't seem at all surprised to see him. He nodded genially. "You're here? Do come in."

There wasn't a bit of weekend ambience inside the City Bureau. Those performing the autopsy, those examining the tie, those questioning the witnesses and interrogating the prisoners—the Criminal Investigation Team and the Forensics Department were so busy they were all over the place. Mother He, put up temporarily in the duty room, couldn't avoid being alarmed by this. At the least sign of disturbance, she anxiously stuck her head out to look.

When Ma Xiaowei and the others walked in, they saw Mother He hesitating in the corridor. She saw Luo Wenzhou, then transferred her doubtful gaze onto Ma Xiaowei.

"This is He Zhongyi's mother," Luo Wenzhou said to Ma Xiaowei.

Ma Xiaowei's already listless steps paused. He looked at her in terror.

The frail woman and the haggard teenager looked at each other helplessly. After a while, perhaps because the teenager's appearance had made her think of her son, Mother He tentatively asked Ma Xiaowei, "Do…do you know my son?"

Ma Xiaowei immediately backed up half a step.

"My Zhongyi is a good boy. You know him, don't you?" Mother He took half a step forward, looking ardently at Ma Xiaowei. As she looked at him, tears began to stream down her face. She straightened her neck and took a long, thin breath. "Who killed him? Huh? Child, you can tell Auntie. Who was it that killed him?"

Ma Xiaowei's eyes reddened. Without warning sign, he knelt on the floor with a thump.

"Me, it was me!" He began to wail. "I wronged Zhongyi-ge, I wronged you… I'm sorry…"