Chapter 3 Thirteen Years Later 1
The spacious office echoed with the clacking of keyboards. Though dozens of people were sharing the room, not a single whisper of gossip could be heard. It felt like a college entrance exam hall, everyone preoccupied with the final sprint, too busy to pay attention to anything else.
After a brief meeting with the general manager, I returned to my workstation, woke up my computer, and re-examined the details of the bid documents for the "Polka Shanghai International Jewelry Exhibition." The bidding meeting, which would determine success or failure, would take place in two days. As a small and micro enterprise, our company's turnover has been far from stable over the past two years. If we can successfully sign this contract, it will not only cover our operating costs for the entire year, but as my direct supervisor, my position in the company will also become even more central.
The problem was the tight deadline. The general manager had only learned about the project a week ago through a connection and had hastily decided to take it. Meanwhile, our competitors—the other two advertising agencies—had already been fully prepared for over a month. To catch up, the entire team, myself included, had been working late into the night every day for the past week.
Even so, the progress was still behind schedule. As the person in charge, I was already overwhelmed. Suddenly, my phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number. I didn't want to answer, but I was worried about who was calling, so I pressed the answer button anyway.
A woman's voice said, "Hello, this is the Wudu Lakeside District Police Station..."
Another scam call! I hung up immediately, but the caller persisted and replayed the call four or five times.
I answered the phone again, furious, ready to vent my frustration. But the caller accurately reported my name and household registration, insisting they were indeed from the Public Security Bureau. If anyone didn't believe me, they could call the police.
"I'm busy. I don't have time to waste with you scammers." I interrupted her. "Change your target." The voice on the other end remained calm. "Remember 'The Videotape Murder Case'?"
I hadn't heard that word in years, and I was stunned. When did that happen? Time was tangled in my memory, and I couldn't find a ruler to measure it.
"There's been new progress in that case. I hope you can cooperate with the investigation and answer a few questions."
"It's been so many years, thirteen or fifteen? You haven't given up the investigation yet." I realized that my voice was unusually dry.
“That’s our responsibility.”
I remembered the plot of a crime movie. "Don't they say that cases have a statute of limitations? If it's been more than ten or fifteen years, you can't prosecute anymore."
She smiled and said, "There's no such thing as a statute of limitations in China. As long as a case is filed, we will continue to investigate it forever."
"Okay." I stood up from my workstation, lowered my voice, and headed for the stairwell. "Ask whatever you want."
"Not over the phone. I want to meet you and ask you in person."
"Hey, hey, I don't have time to go to your Wu City."
"That's not necessary. You live in Shanghai right now, right? We're going there to investigate a case and will be there early tomorrow morning. We can just arrange a time and address that's convenient for you."
I sighed deeply. "It's not that I don't want to cooperate, but I've been so busy with work these past few days that I don't have time. Besides, I know very little about that case. I confessed everything I should have at the police station, and there's nothing more I can say. Could you please go back and look through the dusty files?"
"We're just doing our jobs, and I hope you understand." The woman's tone remained calm. "If the time isn't convenient, we can go directly to your company to discuss it. It won't take much time. We're all in police uniforms and have our IDs, so you don't have to worry about being scammed."
"No, please, don't come to the company..." If the police came to our office, there would definitely be rumors and gossip in the company. I had no choice but to think, "How about this? I'm going to the printing shop near the company at 3 pm tomorrow to pick up the printed bid documents. We can meet there."
I gave them the address of the printing shop, and they said "thank you for your cooperation" and hung up.
The next day, I arrived at the print shop ten minutes early and found a police car parked outside. The paint was worn, and the lights weren't on. A young, bearded officer got out of the driver's seat and beckoned me in.
He opened the back door, and I followed his instructions and got in. Next to me sat a middle-aged policewoman, her face etched with nervous fatigue, as if she hadn't slept well for several nights. She said to the bearded man, "Thank you for your hard work. I'd like to talk to him alone." He nodded, closed the car door, and sat on the curb not far away, smoking a cigarette.
This wasn't my first time riding in a police car. I'd given rides with my father once or twice as a child, but this was my first time being questioned in one. My father had explained that the rear doors of police cars were designed differently from those of ordinary vehicles, with a special locking mechanism. The thought of being unable to escape unless the female officer beside me opened the door for me sent a strange sense of pressure through me.
"Shanghai's traffic is so congested. We arrived in the suburbs this morning, but it took us four hours to get here." She looked out the window. "So many cars, I feel dizzy just looking at them. Can you get used to it?"
I didn't expect the opening remarks to be small talk. I hesitated a bit before answering, "I guess so. You'd never drive if you can take the subway here; it's actually faster that way."
"I see. I understand." She nodded in admiration. "As expected of a young person from a big city. Did you come to Shanghai after graduating from university?"
"I came here in my second year of high school."
"Oh, you're borrowing it? Your parents are quite willing to spend money on it."
"No, my mother is originally from Shanghai. She returned to her parents' home after the divorce."
"I see." She nodded repeatedly. "According to the timeline, it must have happened within six months of the incident, right?"
I felt a chill run down my spine. The person before me was so well-informed about my age and history. No one enjoys having their privacy intruded upon. I changed the subject. "Speaking of the case, did you mention any new developments on the phone?"
"I guess so. Ah, it's a bit cold." She rolled up the car window, took out a recorder in front of me, and pressed the record button. "Do you still remember the name Zheng Kun?"
For a moment, I thought they knew everything, but then I noticed the female officer observing my expression. Thinking carefully, I'd already confessed everything during the interrogation that year, how Zheng Kun coerced me and how I accidentally met Li Zitong. When I checked the files, I didn't find this name strange.
"Remember, I was badly bullied by that guy back then. Is he a suspect?"
"It's just a hypothesis at the moment. Modern forensic technology is advancing rapidly, and old cold cases need to be re-examined from time to time. New technology can bring new evidence and new inferences. Last month, using the latest generation of acquisition technology, we unexpectedly collected an unfamiliar fingerprint from a key piece of evidence in the "videotape" case. After entering it into the system, it matched the database with a man with a criminal record named Zheng Bin."
A current ran through my nerves, and I suddenly remembered that it was someone's real name, and I blurted out, "Beggar."
"Indeed, it seems you know a lot about Zheng Kun's family situation."
"During the time he was using me as his subordinate, he often boasted about his father's imprisonment. I was forced to listen to it too many times."
"I see. I wish I had come to ask you for advice sooner. When I first discovered this clue, I had absolutely no clue. Over the years of investigation, the interpersonal relationships of the Li couple had been thoroughly investigated. Zheng Bin had no connection to them at all. It's not an exaggeration to say he was completely unrelated. No one could figure out how he was involved in this case. It wasn't until we started researching family relationships that we discovered a person named Zheng Kun. He has connections to you, Li Zitong, and the music store, and he happens to be Zheng Bin's only son."
I said "hmm".
"There are even more coincidences! First, Zheng Bin was released from prison just before the crime. Second, the Chengguan City police released a simulated photo of the suspect that year, and it bears a striking resemblance to him."
I didn't say anything in response.
"You don't seem surprised?"
Come to think of it, it's been so many years. Even if I reveal the secret now, it's unlikely that Beazi will suspect me, let alone come looking for revenge. These days, cameras are everywhere, especially in a metropolis like Shanghai. Once the police receive a report, they can quickly retrieve the suspect's whereabouts for the past 24 hours.
As a law-abiding citizen, I am happy to report suspected crimes as long as my life is not threatened.
"Actually, there was a time when I was very keen on deducing the truth of the 'videotape' case - after all, I was suspected as a suspect - and at the time I came up with a barely tenable conclusion and told my father about it, but he didn't believe it. Now that I think about it, it's consistent with the newly discovered clues."
I faithfully recounted my experiences thirteen years ago. How I had encountered the suspicious Zheng Kun at the music store and begun tracking him. How, with Gao Yang's help, I had solved the mystery of the body removal. Finally, I stumbled upon a simulated portrait of Besie at the police station, and began to realize new possibilities. Finally, I concluded that Besie was Li Xueqiang's murderer. While Xu Lan's murderer was difficult to pinpoint, Li Xueqiang was the most likely suspect.
I didn't mention the incident of being kidnapped and nearly killed by Beisi; it wouldn't affect the investigation anyway. The project I'm currently working on would be ruined without me in charge, and I can't afford the time and effort of being taken to Wudu City for a formal statement.
After listening to me, the female police officer remained silent for a long time. She stared into my eyes, like a hydrology expert measuring the water depth and assessing the potential for a dam to burst.
"What a novel and bold hypothesis," she finally concluded, "but unfortunately there's no evidence to verify it."
An undercurrent of emotion in her words caught my attention. It was the tone of someone leaving a crucial fact unsaid, a tone my father had used years ago to try to defer to me, even though I wanted the full story. In the cramped carriage, that lingering thought swelled like a cloud, making it difficult for me to calm down.
"If you want evidence, wouldn't it be better to track down Zheng Kun and his son and interrogate them directly?"
"I'd like to do that if I could. The problem is that those two have completely disappeared."
"Huh?"
"Just two months after the incident, they both disappeared. They told their friends and family they were working in the south, but in reality, they simply vanished from the face of the earth. For all these years, there's been no record of them. They never bought train or plane tickets, didn't pay into social security...nothing. Luckily, Zheng Bin had a criminal record, otherwise we wouldn't even be able to verify his fingerprints—in the 1990s, only criminals had their fingerprints filed."
Afterward, she asked a lot of questions about Zheng Kun, like what kind of personality he had, who his friends were, and so on. I answered them one by one, but most of the answers were just a simple one: I don't know. After all, we didn't have a very close relationship.
The female officer didn't show any obvious disappointment at such a meaningless answer. Perhaps she had already anticipated the scope of my knowledge. She selected a few key words and wrote them down in her notebook. Then, she closed the recorder in front of me and said it was over.
I felt relieved and offered a few bland pleasantries, "It's not easy for you either, coming all the way here to conduct this investigation."
"Actually, it was just a side trip. I told the truth on the phone. I just happened to be here investigating another case. Otherwise, I definitely wouldn't have been able to get the travel expenses reimbursed. I do feel a little guilty about you. I'm sorry to bother you again. I'd be grateful if you could cut back on your work schedule and come here to cooperate with the investigation."
"again?"
"Well, that's what happened back then. I submitted that VHS-C tape as important evidence without conducting a thorough investigation. You must have suffered a lot, right? I'm really sorry."
I stared at her face and then I remembered that she was the female police officer who had identified me that year.
"Are you Officer Xu?"
"I didn't expect you still remember me." Xu Wenjing smiled lightly, wrinkles gathered at the corners of her eyes, reminding me of the rippling surface of a lake on a summer morning.
"After all these years, you haven't given up investigating this case?"
"This was the first case I took on after joining the industry, and it is also the most memorable one."
"It takes extraordinary patience to persist for so long." I was in awe.
"A senior colleague named Qin once told me that 98% of a criminal police officer's work is wasted searching the wrong places. You have to learn to enjoy the process, otherwise you'll end up retiring due to illness or early retirement."
We chatted for a while. With the recorder off, the conversation became more casual. She asked about my experiences over the years, and I gave a brief but frank answer. "I went to high school and college in Shanghai, and after graduation, I stayed in the city. Because jobs were hard to find, after much deliberation, I ended up working in the advertising industry, which has nothing to do with my undergraduate major."
"It's not easy for you either."
"Same here."
"Speaking of which, are you still in touch with that little girl from the Li family?"
My heart suddenly started beating faster. "Are you talking about Li Zitong?"
The corners of her straight lips curled up slightly. "Yes. Your story was very famous back then. A young man and a young woman filming a movie together, traveling thousands of miles on a train just to see each other. How romantic! Several young female officers in our department have been secretly supporting you two."
Although many years have passed, my cheeks still feel hot when I think about how my confession was read through in detail by the police officers handling the case.
I took a deep breath and managed to regain my composure. "She and I haven't been in touch for many years. The last time we met was in high school."
"Hey, why?"
"No reason. We were on opposite sides of the world, and over the years, our relationship gradually faded. I don't know when we lost contact. This kind of story is perfectly normal."
"That's a real shame."
After the police car drove away, I stood in front of the printing shop for a while.
My forehead felt cold, and when I touched it, it was damp. I looked up, and raindrops hit my eyelids. The weather forecast had clearly said it would be sunny.
I wanted to hide back in the printing shop to avoid the rain, but suddenly, I realized something.
What I just told the police was a deduction I made when I was sixteen. Back then, I was young and naive, unsophisticated. But once I looked at it with the perspective of an adult, I immediately realized that while my conclusion was logically sound, it was emotionally flawed.
A chill permeated my body. The truth came knocking on my door, banging on my head, waiting for me to open it.
But then my phone rang. It wasn't until the third ring that I realized I needed to answer it. It was the general manager, and his first words were blunt: "The plan needs to be changed. The client has new requirements."
I felt my blood rushing backward, my heart nearly giving out. I immediately shook off my nostalgic feelings and protested, "This is outrageous! We've been working overtime to meet the deadline, and now the bid documents are printed. There's only one night left..."
"I understand. I certainly understand the difficulties," the general manager said. "But we have to make changes. The new requirements were put forward by the client's vice president."
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