by Zhou HaoHui
Whenever he ate there, he sat at the most out of the way table he could find, in a spot that afforded a clear view of his surroundings. No matter his environment, it was imperative that he occupy a strategic position.
Soft lighting illuminated the charming sketches of bamboo that covered the wallpaper. He glanced down at the tableware set before him and noted the sophisticated design of each piece. His lips twitched into the shadow of a smile. Here, his mind was at ease.
There was only one thing at the Green Spring that he enjoyed more than its exquisite cuisine and that was the music. In the middle of the restaurant was a circular pool six metres in diameter, surrounded by delicately painted landscapes, and in the middle of the pool there was a stage.
The young man scheduled his visits to this restaurant to coincide with the nightly violin performance at nine o’clock and a quick glance at his watch revealed that it was time.
The performer, a young woman, emerged. As she worked her instrument, her graceful features were taut with concentration. Raven hair cascaded over her shoulders and a white blouse clung to her lovely figure above a long emerald skirt. She swayed above the stage like a pale lotus over a lake.
He wasn’t sure why he enjoyed her music so much, but he knew how it made him feel. It transported him far from the city, to a sea of tantalisingly unfamiliar emotions.
When the young woman had finished her first piece, he summoned a waiter. ‘Give the violinist a bouquet of your best lilies and charge it to my bill.’
The waiter bowed. ‘Yes, sir. Would you like to include a message?’
He shook his head. ‘Give them to her anonymously.’
‘Of course, sir.’ With another bow, the waiter left.
When she’d finished playing her next piece, a restaurant employee approached the stage holding a bouquet of lilies. As the young woman accepted the flowers, she raised them to her nose, sniffed and gave a low bow to the audience.
As she did so, she opened her eyes. He met her gaze and, against his better judgement, found himself willing her to notice him. Even so, he knew she wouldn’t spot him. Her sightless eyes could not even see the flowers clutched in her hands.
*
29 October, 8 a.m.
Conference room, Chengdu criminal police headquarters
The members of the April 18th Task Force had gathered in the police conference room once again. Their collective attention was currently focused on the video playing on the room’s projector screen.
The video appeared to have been filmed with a handheld camcorder. The quality was poor and shaky, and it was rather brief at only four minutes and fifty-five seconds.
‘Now this is what I call fucking geography,’ a male student said to camera. A gold hoop hung from one of his ears.
The camera pulled back, and the task force realised they were looking at the inside of a classroom. An older teacher in a white cap was standing on the dais at the front of the room, absorbed in the lecture he was giving to his two dozen students. The students, however, were doing anything but paying attention. Some had fallen asleep on their desks, while others were chatting loudly among themselves. A few were making gestures at the camera.
Seconds later, a young man with curly platinum hair let out a whoop. ‘And now,’ he proclaimed, ‘let’s welcome Xie Guanlong to the stage!’
The student with the gold earring shot out of his seat, sprinted towards the platform and snatched the hat from his teacher’s head. The teacher stared at him in silence, his face red with embarrassment. The student spun the hat twice around his index finger, then placed it back on his teacher’s head. He returned to his seat, smiling and waving at the camera.
The teacher continued standing there, flushed and humiliated. A few seconds passed and he resumed his lecture, but his voice was drowned out by loud insults and horseplay from his students. The camera followed the student with the gold earring as he raced around the room. Other students rose from their seats and joined in the chaos. In a matter of seconds, a storm of laughter and expletives was pouring through the conference room’s speakers.
About a minute later, the teenager with the gold earring returned to the stage at the front of the class. He attempted to flick his teacher’s cheek, but this time the teacher stepped out of the way.
‘Don’t distract your classmates,’ the teacher said in a lifeless monotone.
The camera turned and the curly-haired student now faced the lens. ‘This guy’s an idiot. Exhibit one.’ He leant back and tossed a half-full bottle of water. It soared towards the platform and struck it with a violent thump, scattering the teacher’s notes to the floor.
‘Behave yourselves,’ the teacher squeaked.
The camera spun around to reveal the face of a plump teenage girl. ‘You see that?’ she asked. ‘This is our class. We run this place.’
The screen went dark and the members of the task force shook their heads in silence.
Despite having already viewed the recording in preparation for the meeting, Pei was fuming. He was all too familiar with that type of behaviour – he’d sat next to students just like them, year in, year out. Even though he knew what Eumenides had done to them, a disturbing thought prodded at the edge of his consciousness. They deserved it.
‘Lieutenant Yin, fill in the rest of the team,’ he said to his new assistant.
Lieutenant Yin nodded and picked up several neatly stacked sheets of paper. ‘First, let me tell you about the circumstances surrounding this video,’ he began. ‘It was shot on the eleventh of September, a little over a month ago, at a vocational high school. The students were all seniors. The girl who shot the video – the red-haired one who spoke to camera right at the end – uploaded it to one of her social-media accounts two days later. It soon went viral. Most people online were enraged by what they saw; they started demanding that the three students be punished for humiliating their teacher. It wasn’t long before the story leaked from the internet into the real world. The media then reported that a large group of individuals had shown up at the vocational school’s entrance and refused to allow those students in. Finally, the pressure got too much for the trio and they apologised to their teacher. Teacher Wu did not press charges as he wanted the scandal to blow over as soon as possible. His employers thought differently, however. Two weeks later, the school forced Teacher Wu to resign.’
Ms Mu seemed shocked. ‘They punished the teacher instead of disciplining their own students?’ she said.
Lieutenant Yin shrugged and shook his head. ‘A lot of vocational schools are primarily concerned with how much money they can bring in. Since parents keep these schools in business, the students reign supreme. As for the teachers, they’re replaceable.’
‘And they call that education?’ she said angrily.
Pei was surprised at her reaction and wondered why she seemed to be taking it so personally. Then he remembered that before joining the April 18th Task Force she’d been a lecturer at the Sichuan Police Academy. ‘If the school doesn’t respect the teachers,’ he said, ‘why would the students? No wonder they played up.’
Lieutenant Yin nodded in agreement. ‘A lot of people were furious about that, just like you. When Eumenides started collecting the names of potential victims online, these three students were some of the most frequent suggestions.’
Pei looked up sharply. ‘If they were mentioned so often on that thread, why didn’t I know about them until after two of them had been killed?’
Lieutenant Yin gulped and stared down at the table.
TSO Zeng chipped in. ‘We started keeping track of the replies to Eumenides’ manifesto with the intention of gathering more leads. But after he killed that hit-and-run BMW driver, the number of views and replies that post received shot through the roof. It currently has more than forty thousand replies. Even sorting that thread by the names most frequently mentioned would leave us with hundreds of people to monitor. We simply don’t have the resources.’
‘We all know how im
portant Yuan Zhibang was to Eumenides,’ Ms Mu interjected. ‘His teacher and mentor. No matter how cold and calculating Eumenides may seem, he would have been hit hard by Yuan’s death in the Jade Garden explosion. These three students would have stood out to him as top candidates for his next death notices.’
TSO Zeng nodded. ‘Okay, okay. I may have overlooked that. I appreciate your attention to detail.’
Ms Mu nodded and turned back to the screen.
‘Good point, Ms Mu,’ Pei said. ‘Now, let’s talk about what happened at the hotel.’
Lieutenant Yin stood up and fiddled with the projector, and a gory image filled the screen. Two bodies lay sprawled on the floor of a luxurious hotel room. The green carpet around them was stained with dark, matted patches that looked like ghastly shadows.
‘These murders took place at the Thousand Peaks Hotel. The victims, Xie Guanlong and Yan Wang, were the same two male students who featured so prominently in the recording we just watched. They were killed in an identical manner to the BMW driver – their throats were slashed. Three death notices were found at the scene. The format and writing were exactly the same as the ones previously left by Eumenides.’
‘Three death notices?’ TSO Zeng said. ‘But weren’t there only two victims?’
‘The young woman also received a death notice, but she survived. The murderer forced Teacher Wu to chop off one of his own hands in exchange for her life.’
TSO Zeng raked his fingers through his dishevelled hair. ‘That doesn’t sound like Eumenides at all.’
‘Exactly. We’re trying to work out why he made that decision. Unfortunately, the two surviving witnesses from that day are currently in no condition to undergo police questioning. Mentally, the girl is in a fragile state. Understandable, considering the trauma she suffered in the hotel. As for Wu, he had surgery last night, but he’s still under observation.’
‘Tell the team everything we know about how Eumenides carried out these murders,’ Pei prompted.
Lieutenant Yin continued. ‘Posing as a reporter, Eumenides contacted the three students and Teacher Wu, pretending that he wanted to do a joint interview with all four of them. As an incentive, he offered each of them a sizeable fee, and he also promised to use his connections to get Teacher Wu his job back. Needless to say, all four agreed to the conditions.
‘After depositing two thousand yuan in Teacher Wu’s bank account, Eumenides asked him to reserve a suite at the Thousand Peaks Hotel for the twenty-eighth of October. Teacher Wu complied and he and his three students duly arrived at the hotel at the appointed time. Not long after, Eumenides knocked on their door.’
‘Sounds like a watertight operation,’ TSO Zeng said with a shrug. ‘I have to give him credit for one thing: he’s a good planner. Did he leave any trace evidence at the hotel?’
‘Nothing,’ Lieutenant Yin said, his frustration obvious. ‘We searched the room but found no fingerprints, footprints, hair or anything else. The hotel staff couldn’t even provide us with a description. He entered the room wearing gloves, plastic covers over his shoes, and a ski mask. He also managed to evade the hotel’s surveillance cameras – his back is all that’s visible in the security footage.’
TSO Zeng threw up his hands. ‘Isn’t that just great!’
Ms Mu looked around the table, surprised at all the pessimistic expressions. ‘But we have two witnesses who saw the murders with their own eyes,’ she said. ‘They were looking right at Eumenides.’
Pei’s face brightened. ‘That’s exactly what we should be focusing on. Ms Mu, we need you to follow up on this lead.’
‘That young woman, you mean?’
‘I want you to evaluate her psychological condition,’ Pei said, nodding. ‘If she’s stable enough, ask her to describe exactly what she witnessed. You’re the expert, so I’ll leave the details to your discretion. Just give me your report once you’re done.’
‘Of course, sir.’
Pei turned to Lieutenant Yin. ‘I want you to get in touch with the hospital regarding Teacher Wu. If his physical condition permits it, arrange a time for me to meet him as soon as possible.’
‘Yes, sir.’
TSO Zeng stretched lazily in his seat. ‘And I’ll just stay here twiddling my thumbs, shall I?’
‘Of course not,’ Pei said, shaking his head. ‘I have an important task for you. I want you to search all available databases for records of lost, orphaned or homeless children aged seven to thirteen between the years 1985 and 1992. I don’t care how you find them, I just want to see your report. Do I make myself understood?’
TSO Zeng suddenly looked fully alert. ‘You want me to search for Eumenides,’ he said.
‘That’s right. When Yuan Zhibang chose his successor, he would have looked for a child that society had long since forgotten about. A child young enough for Yuan to mould but old enough to survive without him having to be constantly at the boy’s side. So somewhere between seven and thirteen, I’d say.’ Pei grimaced. ‘It took more than six months of hospital treatment after the April 18th explosion until Yuan was deemed fit enough to be released from hospital – scars and disfigurements notwithstanding. He came out in January 1985. We’ll assume that he began searching for a successor immediately after that. And judging by what we’ve seen of the young Eumenides’ skills thus far, he’s got to have been in training for at least a decade. All of which means that Yuan couldn’t have found his new apprentice any later than 1992.’
TSO Zeng clapped his hands. ‘Sound logic, Captain. But it’s going to take a bit of effort to cover a timespan like that. You’re asking me to sift through almost a decade’s worth of records. I mean, I might actually break a sweat.’
‘I need results, TSO Zeng, not excuses. Now, does anyone else have any questions?’ Pei glanced around the room. None of the others spoke up, so he got to his feet. ‘That concludes this meeting then. You all have your instructions.’
Lieutenant Yin stood up as well. ‘Captain, about Han…’
‘I wanted to talk to you about that,’ Pei said. He glanced at his watch. ‘We’ll interview him together, at ten o’clock.’
2
UNDERCURRENTS
8:30 a.m.
The Longyu Building
A meeting was taking place inside the headquarters of the Longyu Corporation. All twelve participants were in mourning attire and their faces were even more sombre than their outfits.
The middle-aged woman in the centre seat kept her head low as she wiped away tears. A young boy was nestled against her, his eyes large with terror and incomprehension.
Mayor Deng was dead, but his spirit loomed large.
The late businessman’s bodyguards were standing beside the widow and her son. Two middle-aged men sat across from her. One was overweight, the other thin. The plumper of the two was attempting to comfort Mayor Deng’s widow with kindly, optimistic comments. His cheeks sagged with excess skin, giving him the appearance of a chronically depressed basset hound.
Mrs Deng soon stopped sobbing and looked up at the plump man. ‘That’s enough, Vice President Lin. I understand what you’re saying. No matter what happens, things will eventually get better. If you have anything significant to say, I’d like to hear it now.’
‘Well…’ Vice President Lin stammered uncertainly.
The thin man, his voice as cold as the expression on his face, interjected. ‘Allow me, Vice President Lin. Following Mayor Deng’s untimely demise, you, Mrs Deng, have become the Longyu Corporation’s majority shareholder. We’ve invited the board of directors here for a very important reason. We need to decide on potential candidates for the position of president of the company.’
‘But, Vice President Meng,’ Mrs Deng murmured, ‘isn’t this… a little soon?’
Vice President Lin shook his flabby jowls and sighed. ‘We haven’t even held Mayor Deng’s funeral procession yet. I must confess that it does feel rather improper to be bringing this up at this time. But the Longyu Corporation simpl
y cannot continue operating without someone at the helm. Not least given that bidding for the Songhua property is to begin shortly.’
‘If only my husband were still here,’ Mrs Deng said, sniffing back her sobs.
‘Indeed,’ Vice President Lin agreed. ‘If Mayor Deng were still in charge, a successful bid would be a foregone conclusion. We cannot let an opportunity like this slip through our fingers. Unless a capable individual takes charge of the company now, I’m afraid the outlook may not be so rosy.’
‘So you agree, Lin?’ Meng turned his gaze on the woman. ‘Mrs Deng, is there anything you would like to say regarding this matter?’
‘I…’ She turned towards Brother Hua, her late husband’s bodyguard, and gave him a pleading look. But Brother Hua kept his features emotionless and said nothing. Left with no other option, she forced a smile. ‘I’m not a businessperson. I simply married one. What advice could I possibly have to offer?’
‘Very well, then.’ Vice President Meng finally allowed himself a smile; his tightly stretched skin wrinkled around the edges of his face. He picked up a file and placed it in the centre of the table. ‘We’ve already drawn up the documents that will confirm the appointment of our new president. This will officially come into effect once the shareholders have signed it.’
Sheng, the bodyguard standing on the other side of Mrs Deng, scowled at him. ‘You don’t fool me, Vice President Meng. It’s obvious you all conspired together to draft this document. Don’t sign it, Mrs Deng!’
Vice President Meng glared at Sheng, who licked his lips and visibly recoiled.
‘Remember your position, Sheng,’ said Brother Hua, the senior bodyguard. ‘You think you have any say in this matter?’
Like a reprimanded dog, Sheng obediently lowered his head.