Chapter 9: A Woman’s Motive

2022-05-20

The details of Sister Mao’s lifeless face were still clear. Her brows rested calmly, not a hint of emotion on her skin, as if she were quietly studying a painting. That image brought to mind a little story Brother Huang Er once told me about her.

Sister Mao and Brother Huang Er grew up as neighbors. One day, the kids in the village dared each other—whoever could spend a night at the mass grave would become their Big Brother and all the kids had to listen to them. Everyone talked big but never acted, except Sister Mao, who marched straight up there without a word. When her family found her that night, she was curled up by a tombstone, sleeping soundly.

That said a lot about how Sister Mao managed to build her little empire—it was never just about her looks.

“Not one of ours,” Sister Mao said. “Leave your number. If I find out, I’ll let you know.”

“Thanks, Sister Mao,” I replied.

After we left, Gu Chen glanced at me, frowning. “Who exactly are you? That Sister Mao is clearly not someone who got where she is by honest means, and she’s running some shady businesses on the side. How do you even know someone like her? Let’s head back. We need to look into her properly.”

I handed Gu Chen a cigarette and said, “That’s not our job, and anyway it’s not something we could solve overnight. You’ve been in one place too long—you start believing the world is just black and white. But is it really? When we handed her the photo, she immediately knew what we were about. Which brings up the real question: why would she help us at all?”

Gu Chen pressed, “So she knows what we do?”

I shrugged, lit my cigarette, and offered him another. “Of course she does. She’s not naive. That photo was obviously taken by a professional—it’s not the kind you snap passing by.”

“Then why help us? Isn’t she worried about getting burned herself?” Gu Chen wasn’t stupid.

“See, that’s what I’m saying. The world isn’t so simple.” I puffed out a smoke ring. “We’re all just regular people. Who hasn’t had a dark thought, or done a good deed now and then? That’s all it takes. That’s why she’d help.”

Gu Chen took a drag and said, “This world really is complicated.”

“It’s the human heart that’s complicated,” I said. “Just wait. We’ll get news soon enough.”

A few hours later, sure enough, Sister Mao called me. We finally had an ID on the victim. The woman really was part of her line of work. She called herself Ye Zi, though of course that was just her stage name.

According to Sister Mao, Ye Zi had changed dramatically lately. She used to be timid with everyone, but in the past few months, she suddenly gained confidence.

Now she carried a real LV bag, wore Dior perfume, and drank twenty-yuan-a-cup coffee. Previously, Ye Zi wouldn’t spring for a three-yuan bottle of soda. Rumors spread that she’d landed a rich man, stirring up endless envy among her peers.

We started digging from there and quickly uncovered the truth: Ye Zi hadn’t found a sugar daddy. In fact, she had picked up a kept man instead. When we tracked down this so-called kept man, he was having the time of his life with his girlfriend.

Turns out, he had dated Ye Zi before, but when he found out what she did for a living, he broke things off. Then a few months back, Ye Zi suddenly reappeared, tossed ten thousand yuan in his face and said, “Get down and pick it up.”

He shot back, “What kind of person do you take me for?”

But right after that, he got on his knees, picked up the money and even kissed the top of her foot.

Some people, it seems, have no use for dignity.

From then on, they were a couple again, affectionate as ever. When he learned Ye Zi was dead, he sighed and said, “Guess nobody’s going to keep me anymore.”

Still, we got a clue out of him: every Friday night, Ye Zi would go out alone and not come back until around ten the next morning. She never told him where she went, but every time, she brought back an extra ten thousand yuan in her bag. Ye Zi never explained, and he never bothered to ask.

I met eyes with Team Leader Shao and, in unison, we said, “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, right?”

Exactly. With that, we finally understood why Ye Zi was out by those railroad tracks in the Western Suburbs in the middle of the night. There’s a train that passes through between 2 and 2:30 a.m. every Friday—an old green train, the kind that moves slowly and still has windows you can open.

A woman sneaking out at that hour isn’t doing it for fun. She was there to pick up three packages.

So, here’s what we figured. Someone boards the train every Friday, sneaks past security, and rides it all the way out here. Around two in the morning, when everyone’s fast asleep, they toss the three packages out the window as the train passes by Luo Yongjun’s stretch of track. By then, Ye Zi would already be waiting behind the wire fence.

The fence isn’t far from the tracks, and even a kid could throw something over it. That’s why Ye Zi was there that stormy night—it all makes sense now.

Except this time, she never imagined that something even darker than the night would be lurking out there. For Ye Zi, the darkness was protection—and her greatest danger. By pure chance, Luo Zhongcheng ended up picking up those packages.

We still didn’t know what drove Luo Zhongcheng. Killing someone? Probably not.

We may never know his reasons, but the end result’s the same—he became just another cold corpse.

“Check every Friday passenger on that train,” Team Leader Shao ordered.

Mary pulled out her laptop.

It was slow going. We had to search through every passenger who took that train on Fridays, then narrow it down to those that looked suspicious. With all the tech and brainpower Mary had, it still wasn’t going to be a quick job.

Xiao Liu just stared at the screen as data flew by, looking dizzy. He got bored and flipped through a book on the desk, then suddenly remembered, “Oh right, Team Leader Shao, we’ve confirmed the caller’s identity. This Zhang Xutong is really the girl who went missing in the mountain village years ago.”

“The world really works in strange ways, doesn’t it?” Team Leader Shao said, cradling his old ceramic tea cup.

“Tell me about it,” Xiao Liu agreed. “Since we needed her statement, we checked out her background. Turns out she graduated from Jingzhong Normal University, and had a classmate named Zhang Hui. One night, the two of them were taking an unlicensed taxi back to school from the city, and the driver took them somewhere unfamiliar.”

Xiao Liu shrugged and went on, “Once they realized something was wrong, a bunch of men climbed into the car, snatched their phones and gagged them. Three days later, they showed up in that same little mountain village. After that, the homeless guy, Li Cunzhuang, spilled the rest.”

“It was pitch dark and the taxi took small roads without cameras,” Xiao Liu mused. “That’s why the two girls vanished without a trace.”

As I watched Mary work on her laptop, I asked, “When Zhang Xutong escaped, she never reported it to the police?”

Xiao Liu nodded, then gave a bitter smile. “When Zhang Xutong managed to get away years ago, she didn’t call the police. Even though she knew the kind of hell Zhang Hui would be left in. She chose to forget the whole ordeal. We found out a weird detail—when she came back, she claimed she’d gone abroad, said nothing about being kidnapped, and insisted she’d never seen Zhang Hui again.”

“Yet this time, Zhang Xutong saw a total stranger on the train and went straight to the police.” Xiao Liu shook his head. “What do you make of that?”

There’s just no answer to that. I’m not Zhang Xutong, after all. Faced with her best friend, she hid everything. But for a stranger, she stepped forward. Maybe that’s just how it is—sometimes our kindness is reserved for strangers.

Because you’re my friend, I can’t help but resent you.

“Any reaction from Zhang Xutong? Does she know about Zhang Hui yet?” Team Leader Shao took a slow sip of tea from his ceramic cup.

Xiao Liu shook his head. “We looked into Zhang Xutong—she still hasn’t heard anything. She doesn’t know Zhang Hui’s been found, either. The reason I brought this up, Team Leader, is to get your opinion. Should we tell her what we know?”

Team Leader Shao fell silent for a long while, then finally said, “Human nature tends toward selfishness. Even if we told her, there’s nothing more we could do. Let’s leave things be—let the truth stay buried.”

“Some truths just aren’t meant for everyone. Sometimes, it really is better to live in a dream.”