Luo Wenzhou in fact had a private office, but perhaps for the sake of more convenient communication, or because the chatterbox didn’t want to be on his own, his office was open to the outside. Though there was a door in between, it hadn’t been closed in donkey’s years; it had been flattened against the wall by a heap of odds and ends others had put there, no different than if it hadn’t been there at all.
The vegetation in the room was painstakingly cared for. The flowers and plants by the windowsill appeared to be flourishing. The ones that liked light were placed on the outer layer, and the ones that liked shade were in the corner, all picturesquely arranged. Only the two potted money plants by the door were living eventful lives, getting watered every morning with the remains of tea from the night before by his lazy bum coworkers until they were on their last gasps, the dregs in the flowerpots on the point of turning toxic.
Luo Wenzhou’s wallet and keys had been carelessly thrown onto the desk, with no fear of anyone taking them—though as far as Fei Du could see, there really wasn’t anything worth taking.
Fei Du obediently sat waiting in his office for a while until he got bored. The surrounding smells really were hard to bear. He had a foreboding that Luo Wenzhou wouldn’t be back soon, so he sent him a message: “Do you need me to feed your cat?”
Among his multitude of cares, Luo Wenzhou responded with a period. Presumably he was too busy to take time to answer. Fei Du took this as tacit acknowledgement, picked up his keys, and left.
Luo Wenzhou’s house wasn’t far from the City Bureau, close enough to ride a bike. Taking a taxi barely went over the minimum fare. Fei Du had learned from experience; as soon as he opened the door a small crack, a ball of fur impatiently stuck out its head. The next instant, the fur ball noticed this was the wrong person, slipped back in, and flashed under the couch, extending its neck to look anxiously out.
The night before, the two of them had gotten halfway through the meal before being called out by Tao Ran and hadn’t had time to clean the room. Luo Wenzhou, as if facing a surprise inspection in a university dorm, had cleared away the plates and bowls from the table and crammed them into the fridge. Because he hadn’t allocated the space properly, there’d been no place to put the last plate of croquettes. He’d had to temporarily shelve it on top of the 1.8-meter-high fridge—relying a great deal on luck when it came to a cat’s ability to climb to high places.
Evidently, luck was all that would have done.
Shards of porcelain were scattered “like stars across the sky” in a trail from the dining room to the living room. The corpses of croquettes littered the ground, each bearing toothmarks. Comrade Luo Yiguo’s scientific method was unsurpassed; only after exhaustive testing had it reached the conclusion that none of this suited its taste.
The cat’s food bowl was empty, faintly glimmering under the lights; perhaps the cat itself had licked it.
Fei Du poured out dry cat food like Luo Wenzhou had, thought about it, then also opened two cans and put them next to the bowl.
Luo Yiguo, hungry enough to lick its bowl, couldn’t resist this temptation. It quietly stuck out its little head, immediately met Fei Du’s gaze, and tremblingly withdrew once again.
Fei Du ignored it. He washed his hands twice before feeling they had been washed clean of cat food smell, then took a broom from the kitchen and tried to sweep the mess covering the floor into a pile—he really didn’t have the makings of doing this kind of labor. After a while, he still hadn’t gotten the hang of it.
President Fei, one arm hoisted up, stood to one side leaning on the broom, objectively evaluating the fruits of his labor. He felt his sweeping had produced an oil slick, by a different path reaching the same result as the City Bureau’s dining hall’s greasy floor.
He determined to give it up. He found a familiar cleaning company on his phone and invited an hourly worker to come over.
Just then, he suddenly felt something touch the backs of his heels.
Fei Du turned his head and found that Luo Yiguo had at some point come over. A portion of the cat food in the bowl was gone. It had eaten and drunk its fill and finally gotten up its courage. It thoughtfully circled Fei Du, sniffing uncertainly around his legs.
Finding that Fei Du was looking at it, Luo Yiguo turned its head and retreated two meters. After a while, seeing no reaction from him, it turned back again as if venturing into the unknown.
Fei Du lifted his pant legs, crouched down, and offered it two fingers.
At first Luo Yiguo dodged instinctively. Then, seeing that he didn’t move, it approached, shaking its whiskers. Perhaps smelling the friendly scent of its cat food, it gradually let down its guard and touched Fei Du with the tip of its nose. Not meeting with any harmful treatment, it boldly lowered its head, using the top of its head to rub against the palm of his hand.
Fei Du’s hand stiffened.
Seeing he was slow to respond, Luo Yiguo became even bolder. Raising its large tail high, it rescinded its alarm and made a circle around Fei Du, sniffing this way and that, letting a soft, delicate sound out of its throat.
At last, Fei Du put his suspended hand down on the cat’s back and gently stroked the sleek fur. Luo Yiguo pressed against him, looking for a more comfortable place, occasionally pushing at his sleeve, rising when Fei Du lifted his arm.
“You don’t remember me?” Fei Du asked quietly.
Luo Yiguo, with its brain smaller than a fist, looked at Fei Du in ignorance and some fear. Animals abide by instinct, and instinct was telling it to be afraid of Fei Du, even though it didn’t know what it was scared of. At the same time, Luo Wenzhou had raised Luo Yiguo into a creature that remembered kindness and forgot mistreatment; a bowl of cat food had made it overcome its instincts.
But looking at it, a thin layer of sweat suddenly appeared on Fei Du’s palms. He gently set Luo Yiguo aside and quickly drew back his hand.
The small animal’s soft body, the rise and fall of its breath, its heartbeat, were all hard for him to bear.
He stood at once, ignored the curious Luo Yiguo, and pressed his back closely to the wall.
What was “life”?
This seemed to be a biological definition, but the average person understood it long before starting to attend biology class.
Some people experienced situations of birth and old age, sickness and death, very early, and adults used their own experiences to explain them in plainer or more romantic ways.
Some people meanwhile developed their own blurry ideas from ceaseless repetition in books and movies.
Fei Du groped around for his phone and earbuds, sticking the earbuds into his ears with something like the haste of an addict. The familiar and grief-laden singing immediately flooded his world. He instinctively held his breath, gaze falling on the cat not far from him. The cat really was annoying. Eating its fill and having nothing better to do, it had pulled down and broken the porcelain and covered the ground with croquettes, enjoying itself awfully, getting grease all over the floor.
“What is life?” The man’s voice seemed to echo beside his ear.
The man held his hand and made him put it onto a small animal, perhaps a little hamster, or a little quail or little rabbit. Fei Du didn’t remember anymore. At any rate, it had been a very small animal, small enough for a child to hold in his hand. He only remembered a tiny ball of fuzz curled up in his palm, warm and soft, its heart beating, the heartbeat seeming to tremble.
It felt like a wonder.
“This is life,” said the voice.
Suddenly, the hand that had been gently guiding him contracted all at once, like an enormous iron clamp, squeezing his hand closed, forcing him to grab that little thing’s neck, rigidly holding his fingers. The small animal struggled, letting out dying moans. He instinctively struggled as well, but the man could control him easily, until the trembling heartbeat and fruitless struggles had ceased in the palm of his hand.
“This is death,” the man’s voice said to him. “You see, the transition from life to death is in fact very prosaic. It isn’t at all as serious as in people’s exaggerations. The reason why they exaggerate it is that man is a social animal with very grave inherent weaknesses. On the one hand, he wants to improve his existence with the help of the community and of society. On the other hand, he can hardly control all kinds of bizarre evil urges and desires. Therefore he has to agree on mutually restrictive rules, for example ‘law’ and ‘public policy doctrine’. The former is a contract with society. To guard against you privately going back on the agreement, there’s also the latter, making a person accept the brainwashing of the community’s values and willingly conform to the behavior of the majority. Having recognized this point, you have escaped the pattern of the majority.
“Do you want to see the truth about life and death again… What are you shaking your head for? Children ought to be modest. You have to repeatedly reinforce the things you’ve learned before they can become your own. Come, we’ll start again—”
The sound of the hourly worker knocking at the door interrupted his thoughts. Fei Du gave a fierce start, his temples already soaked in a cold sweat.
An hour later, Fei Du returned to the City Bureau carrying some cups of freshly ground coffee.
At this time, the victims’ relatives who had been pacing around had basically all left. There were only Qu Tong’s parents and Guo Heng left sitting across from each other. On one side were people who still didn’t dare to believe the reality and were looking towards a one-in-a-million hope; on the other side was someone who has waiting for the truth, coming more than twenty years late. Guo Heng was engaging in small talk with Qu Tong’s father, the dialogue regularly interrupted by the young couple’s sudden tears. When they had calmed down, each struggled to comfort the other.
Fei Du had just reached the Criminal Investigation Team’s offices when he saw a stocky middle-aged man with a scar on his brow quickly walking by leading a crowd of people. “…Still at home. It’s enough for each department’s necessary personnel to stay. The others go assist. Xiao Tao doesn’t have enough people over there, I’ll submit a report to the dispatcher and request concerted action with the local police…”
He saw Fei Du, and his speech suddenly paused.
Fei Du deduced that this must be one of the City Bureau’s leaders. He didn’t know what account Luo Wenzhou had given to his superiors. He was just planning to go up and introduce himself when the middle-aged man made a gesture at the people with him, making them hurry up and move. Then he walked up to Fei Du and held out his hand. “You must be President Fei. I’m Lu Youliang, the temporary head of the City Bureau. I was the one who issued your silk banner last time.”
Fei Du put the coffee down and shook his broad hand like a decent person. “Director Lu, nice to meet you.”
Lu Youliang uttered some conventional greetings, then said, “Tao Ran and the others have already found the suspects’ burial site. We’re deploying a mass action. The excavation work should go very quickly. We’ll very soon be able to provide society with a result.”
In the memorial hall, Luo Wenzhou had mentioned that Su Hui’s hometown had been in Pinghai County, a county under Yan City’s jurisdiction and one of the city’s reservoirs; it was likely to be where the bodies in this case had been disposed of.
So Fei Du very politely inquired, “Is it in Pinghai County? There’s a project going on over there that I have some shares in. They’re building it now. The construction site is rather amply staffed. If there’s a need, I can call and have some people go over to help.”
“Huh?” Lu Youliang froze. He must have thought that Fei Du had heard wrong. He deliberately explained, “They must have not said it clearly. It’s not in Pinghai, it’s in ‘Binhaiʼ [20], three or four hours’ drive from here. Though it’s the nearest marine resource, the administrative partitions take it out of the province. Ah, it’s going to be trouble coordinating this…”
[20] Respectively “calm seas” (平海) and “seaside” (滨海).
In the dimly-lit corridor, Fei Du’s pupils contracted sharply. After a good while, he found his voice. “Did they sink the bodies into the sea? But hasn’t it been typhoon season? Wouldn’t there be problems throwing the bodies into the sea?”
“Yes, the bodies that couldn’t be thrown into the sea were buried,” said Director Lu. “We’re looking for those now, especially Qu Tong. That girl is crucial.”
Just then, Qu Tong’s parents and Guo Heng, who had been alerted by Director Lu’s deployments, came over together, planning to ask about the progress of the case. A few officers on duty rushed over, wanting to prevent them from entering the offices.
“Hey, hey, don’t,” Director Lu said quickly, “let them come and sit. Everyone understands the family members’ feelings. I’ll go say a few words to them.”
Fei Du cleared his somewhat dry throat and said a timely, “You’re busy, sir. I won’t bother you.”
Lu Youliang nodded to him and sighed deeply. “The suspects in this case really are… Having arrested them, we still may not be able to get a satisfactory result. I’m afraid what happened twenty years ago will happen again.”
Then he nodded to Fei Du, quickly went past him and left.
Perhaps because society had strengthened its views on environmental protection in recent years, the supposed plans to develop Binhai had failed to pass some credentials and procedures relating to environmental protection and had thus been put off to this day.
On the small surrounding islands there were convalescent estates that could be considered flourishing. Nearby there was an oil-painting village. At a fixed time each year, fixed schools that had signed an agreement would bring their students to do drawings from life, which could also bring some business to Binhai’s “holiday village”, which was like an agritourism spot. The rest of the time, the visitors were few and far between.
Away from the coastline, there were many mountainous places, rising and falling in unbroken stretches, entirely uninhabited. Only a few old roads passed through. The green of the grasses and the untouched deep forests was strong and thick among the faint salt sea breeze.
All the roads had been closed. The locations of all the clear and beautiful scenery on the wall of photographs had been marked one by one. They extended over close to ten kilometers, unexpectedly following the same little road with indistinct boundaries. The Yan City police and the police officers dispatched from Binhai’s town followed the route, making countless circles of yellow tape.
“Deputy-Captain Tao, we’ve found a place… Oh, wait a minute! This corpse is fresh!”
Qu Tong’s little body had been cut into seven or eight pieces, buried separately. By daybreak, it had finally been completely assembled. The cutting marks on the body matched the cutting tools in the apartment in the Sunward Estate. The medical examiners even managed to extract some bodily fluids from the corpse.
This sheer luck in the midst of misfortune made the middle-aged man Lang Qiao had arrested collapsed on the spot.
“I was following another child then. I already knew her parents were busy at work, she usually went home alone. I never expected I’d run into a bizarre thing like a hijacking… I wanted to call the police. It was that little girl, that Su Luozhan, who bewitched me. She said she liked this one, desperately urged me to grab this one. I just happened to be familiar with West Ridge, my brain heated up…”
“I didn’t kill her! I absolutely didn’t kill her! I left when I was finished, really. Then that man—the janitor—he furiously barged in and grabbed Su Luozhan. I saw something was off and quickly ran away… I really didn’t know they would be so deranged, really. Trust me!”
“I love them so much. How could I stand to hurt them?”