by Cai Jun
He Qingying rushed to the hospital. Half of Si Wang’s hair was burned away, and his forehead and mouth were wrapped in gauze. Severe burns covered his body. The doctor was putting a cast on his leg. The nurses said he was lucky not to be in the ICU. He was hooked up to an IV; after being unconscious in the ER for a while, he woke up and saw his mother, which made him cry.
She asked nothing, she only held him lightly as to not disturb his wounds. She whispered, “Wang Er, everything is over now.”
Ye Xiao came to the hospital, too. He saw them hugging and wanted to give them privacy. Si Wang stopped him. “Is she still alive?”
Ye Xiao shook his head and Si Wang broke into sobs. The cop let the mother and son have their privacy. He walked out of the hospital. It was still pouring outside.
One hour later, He Qingying came out to talk to him. “Ye Xiao, Wang Er wouldn’t go to sleep—he wanted to ask you something. Please make it brief.”
The cop and the teenager talked for most of the night. By dawn, the rain had stopped.
Si Wang insisted on leaving the hospital. Ye Xiao drove them home. He wanted to carry Si Wang upstairs, but the proud teenager refused. He insisted that if his mom helped him, he could hop up the stairs.
6:00 a.m.
With great effort, He Qingying helped her son to their apartment. Someone dashed in front of them. Alarmed, she turned on the hallway light, revealing a familiar face. She rubbed her eyes.
The man looked at her and the young man. He was in his fifties, with white hair and a wrinkle-etched forehead. A giant suitcase sat next to him.
Si Wang sidled closer. He hadn’t sleep all night, but he felt energized now. “Dad?”
“Wang Er!”
The man shook as he held Si Wang in his arms and asked how he’d gotten hurt.
He Qingying took out the key and opened the door.
It had been twelve years. On Pre-Lunar New Year’s Eve in 2002, her husband had hastily come home and they had a big fight as he packed up. Some thugs were coming to collect on his debts, and he needed to get far away.
He never came back.
For a few months Si Mingyuan stayed out of town, at first just wanting to pay off the gambling debt and save his family from more trouble. Then he arranged to be smuggled into Brazil in exchange for becoming a contract laborer. After cutting sugar cane for eight years, he finally saved enough to pay off the smugglers. But he hadn’t the money to come back and face his son. He opened a small store in Sao Paolo, working day and night to make more money. He’d sold the store last month and now had $500,000.
Three days ago, he’d returned to China. His old home was now a skyscraper. Si Mingyuan had to ask a lot of people before finally finding his family. He wanted to surprise his wife. The useless husband and pathetic father was at last a man, able to support his family.
Si Wang rested on the bed, listening to his dad recount his South American adventures. The man had been through a lot. His face had many scars.
Si Wang remembered once suspecting that his mom had killed his dad.
He’d never dared speak of that hunch, though he’d often been tempted to ask Huang Hai and Ye Xiao.
Si Wang fell asleep in his father’s arms.
CHAPTER 84
July 7.
Si Wang received his college acceptance letter. Of all the liberal arts students at the high school, he scored the highest on the exams. He would start college in just a few weeks. The cast on his right leg had been removed, but he still had to be careful. It was a boring summer for him since he wasn’t allowed to box. But now that Lu Zhongyue was dead, he had no reason to keep doing it.
His father opened a franchise supermarket next to Wilderness Books. During the days, he kept busy doing renovations in preparation for the grand opening. The two of them played Xiangqi; his dad played worse than ever.
Even with her missing husband back home, He Qingying rarely smiled. They slept in separate beds.
One evening Ye Xiao came by the apartment to speak with Si Mingyuan. Afterward, the cop wanted to take He Qingying and Si Wang for a ride.
“As long as you’re not arresting them,” Si Mingyuan joked. He was a simpler man after spending years abroad.
Ye Xiao drove to Nanming Road.
“If you have anything to say, tell us now.” Si Wang seemed anxious in the front passenger seat. “Why are we here?”
“Wang Er, listen to Policeman Ye.” He Qingying was in a serious mood. She rolled down the window to look at the unusually clear sky as the car passed Nanming High.
The police car stopped close to the Demon Girl Zone. Ye Xiao told them to follow him into the abandoned factory. He led the way with a flashlight, stepping around the trash and feces. Mother and son were hesitant.
“C’mon, are you scared?” Ye Xiao’s voice echoed. “Let’s go.”
He Qingying patted her son’s shoulders. They walked in silence until they arrived at the rusty hatch door.
Si Wang pulled open the door; the hinges creaked loudly. With Ye Xiao shining the flashlight into the Demon Girl Zone, Si Wang slid in, and was followed by the other two. The dank air made them feel like they were drowning in filthy water.
The foul smells grew even worse once they reached the Demon Girl Zone.
“I’m sorry to bring you here. But I wanted to tell you that after Lu Zhongyue died, I spent a month looking at a lot of people and more files. I found something. I thought telling you here would make it easier to accept.”
“Just say it, Policeman Ye!” Si Wang backed up toward the exit, as if he would flee at any moment.
“In 1983, the victim of the Serenity Road murder case was a bureaucrat named Lu Jingnan. Lu Zhongyue’s father, Lu Jingdong, also worked for the government. The residency registration papers showed that Lu Jingnan and Lu Jingdong were brothers—meaning Lu Zhongyue’s uncle was the murder victim.”
“Right, Lu Zhongyue told me about it. That’s why he was hiding here.”
“The only survivor and witness of the murder was the victim’s daughter, Lu Mingyue. Oddly enough, her files disappeared. I spent three nights at the Archive Bureau looking for the missing files. Someone had moved her files to another index. Lu Mingyue was the victim’s adoptive daughter. Her files being moved meant someone was trying to cover up her identity. Her new adoptive dad worked at the postal office. Her new adoptive mom worked at the Archive Bureau, so moving the files was easily done.”
He Qingying’s low voice rang out. “Yes, my adoptive father arranged the postal service job for me, and my adoptive mother hid my files so I could say good-bye to my past.”
“In 1984, a coworker introduced you to Si Mingyuan. He worked at Nanming Steel Factory, and the two of you married the following year. That spring, the factory had an employee party. People remember you coming. Someone else came, too—the factory’s youngest engineer, Lu Zhongyue.”
“What are you trying to say?” Si Wang walked in front of Ye Xiao.
The cop pushed him away and stared at He Qingying. “I talked to many of the Lu family relatives. For two months during the summer of 1983, when Lu Zhongyue was thirteen, he stayed at the Serenity Road house—his uncle’s place. You were cousins, close in age, and lived under the same roof. You couldn’t have forgotten him.”
“Yes.” He Qingying paused a long time. “I remember him.”
“Your husband also remembers Lu Zhongyue. He said you became depressed after that party, but he didn’t ask why. He didn’t want to pry. On more than one occasion I’ve asked you about Lu Zhongyue. You’ve always claimed not to know him. You said that even if Lu worked at the same factory with your husband, you rarely went there. Obviously, you’ve been lying to me.”
“Mom, you don’t have to answer.”
He Qingying shook her head. “I’m sorry, I did lie. I do know Lu Zhongyue. But after the murder, I didn’
t see him again until 1995.”
“Why did you lie?”
“It’s my secret.”
“Here is my theory. I don’t think Lu Zhongyue killed Shen Ming. Destroying Shen Ming was all he really wanted to do, and he’d achieved that. Shen Ming became a killer on June 19—that’s a fact. He was either going to be a fugitive or be caught and executed. Lu Zhongyue didn’t need to kill Shen Ming.”
“My mom had no motive to kill, either! She had nothing to do with Shen Ming!”
“Wrong. When Shen Ming lived in that basement across from the murder house, he could have had some interactions with Lu Mingyue or Lu Zhongyue. Furthermore, according to your uncle and aunt, when you were five, Si Mingyuan suspected you weren’t his son. He was cold toward you and alienated your mom. He suspected that Lu Zhongyue was your father.”
His face contorting like he’d been punched in the chest, Si Wang grabbed He Qingying and shouted, “Mom, who is my real dad? Please don’t say Lu Zhongyue!”
“Please don’t doubt me. You’re Si Mingyuan’s son. I swear it!”
Ye Xiao cut in. “Si Wang, I do not doubt your paternity. But why did Si Mingyuan suspect your mom and Lu Zhongyue? Was it because they lived together as kids? This is just my speculation. But there were many loose ends around the 1983 murder. A lot of people thought the killer wasn’t an intruder. No one suspected the victim’s daughter. However, I think the 1983 murder was done by one of these three people: He Qingying, Lu Zhongyue, or Shen Ming. Or maybe all three. The secret stayed hidden for twelve years, until someone wanted to expose it. Lu Zhongyue wanted to open it back up when he recognized He Qingying. There were threats and extortions. Someone wanted to use the secret to get what he wanted, and someone wanted to keep the secret hidden.”
“You have no evidence.”
“The person who killed Shen Ming is standing in front of me.” Ye Xiao’s flashlight shone on He Qingying’s face.
Si Wang grabbed the flashlight and shielded his mom. “Ye Xiao, you’re not speculating, you’re imagining. This is not what the police do.”
Ye Xiao effortlessly pushed Si Wang to the ground, making sure he didn’t fall too hard on his bad leg, and retrieved the flashlight. “You’re right, Si Wang. Most of the evidence is gone, including the murder weapon that killed Shen Ming. It’s never been found. The most important witness, Lu Zhongyue, has taken all of his secrets to the grave. You two can deny everything. I have no evidence to arrest anyone. I just needed to say this tonight. I’ve known you two forever, and I needed to prove something so you can’t call me a moron later.”
“Can we go home now?” Si Wang said.
“Of course. Sorry to take up so much of your time. Go home.”
Every pore on Si Wang’s body throbbed. He tried to pull his mom out of the Demon Girl Zone, but she resisted, shedding heavy tears.
Raising her head calmly and exuding a haunting beauty, she said, “I killed Shen Ming.”
CHAPTER 85
1983.
Teresa Teng songs were popular. The sounds of “Green grass, white fog, a beauty is waiting far away” could be heard from the second floor of Serenity Road Number 19.
The music came from a stereo Lu Mingyue’s uncle got her as a birthday present. Since her uncle worked for the district government, he could always get nice things like this. The Teresa Teng tape came from a street vendor, and she wanted to fall asleep listening to it every night.
Lu Mingyue had just turned thirteen—she wasn’t a little girl anymore. She liked watching the teenager who lived across the street, though she never talked to him. None of the neighborhood kids played with him. Everyone knew that his father had poisoned his mother and been executed for it. Many nights she could see the illuminated basement window and the boy reading in the faint light, his face painted golden.
She asked one of the older neighbors about him and learned that his name was Shen Ming.
The old man was over eighty and had a lot of stories. Important bureaucrats from Beijing visited him; some foreign reporters came to see him, too. At the other end of the block lived a woman in her sixties called Miss Cao. She and the old man often took walks under the ginkgo trees, talking in some foreign language no one understood. They’d part with a smile.
A year earlier, Lu Mingyue’s adoptive mom had drowned herself in the Suzhou River, all because of her adulterous husband.
After that, happiness drained out of Lu Mingyue’s life, especially on nights when her adoptive father got drunk.
She wanted to kill him.
That summer, a young man moved into her home. He was her adoptive uncle’s son, Lu Zhongyue. His parents sent him there while they were on a two-month trip abroad.
Lu Zhongyue didn’t like to study. He collected a lot of cigarette cards and played them with other kids. He liked to gossip and soon learned that Lu Mingyue was adopted and had no blood relation to the Lu family.
One night, the thirteen-year-old Lu Zhongyue told her that he liked her.
Lu Mingyue slapped him.
After that interminable summer ended, Lu Zhongyue’s parents returned from their trip and took him back home. He still liked to visit his cousin from time to time. But he never used the front door, preferring to climb over the wall to scare her.
She was terrified whenever she saw Lu Zhongyue coming.
Late fall 1983.
It was raining lightly that night, Lu Mingyue was cornered by her drunk adoptive father. She fought him, grabbed a broken piece of glass, and slashed his neck.
As she was panicking, she noticed a face outside the window.
Lu Zhongyue had seen everything.
Her face covered in blood, she charged to the window, still clutching the broken glass. Lu Zhongyue was scared. “I didn’t see anything! I swear I’ll never tell a soul!”
He scrambled back over the wall and ran away.
Lu Mingyue cleaned up the crime scene, smashing the broken glass into pieces. She then walked out of the house and cried on the steps. She didn’t know that Shen Ming was watching her from across the street.
The police interrogated her many times. She said she never saw the intruder and had only come downstairs after hearing strange noises. That’s when she’d found the body.
No one doubted her.
The following winter a childless couple adopted Lu Mingyue and renamed her He Qingying. She moved into the house where Si Wang would be born.
Her adoptive mother worked at the Archive Bureau. After she begged repeatedly, her files were changed so there was no connection between Lu Mingyue and He Qingying.
She wanted to say good-bye to her past.
Her new family wasn’t rich, but her new adoptive parents were very good to her. They supported her through high school, and then she was assigned a job at the post office. She didn’t suffer anymore and never spoke of her past; no one she knew looked her up. It was a good thing her adoptive parents had few relatives.
When she was twenty-four, her adoptive parents died in a car accident. She met Si Mingyuan that same year.
He Qingying didn’t know if she really loved him, but he loved her.
She married him in April of 1995.
Two weeks after their wedding, she went to a party at Nanming Steel Factory for employees and family members. Someone recognized her.
“Mingyue?”
The man with the birthmark on his forehead stared and kept asking her questions until Si Mingyuan stopped him.
She didn’t admit to who she was, but that night she saw the Serenity Road murder house in her dreams.
Lu Zhongyue invaded her life. He’d wait in front of the post office or follow her home. One day, he visited her with an envelope. The addressee was in Beijing. He wanted He Qingying to make the postal stamp read six months earlier. She refused, saying it was illegal and could get her fired.
&
nbsp; He said, “I know what you did on Serenity Road. I saw everything.”
He Qingying had no choice but to give in to his threats. She altered the stamp on the alleged letter from Shen Ming to He Nian.
Lu Zhongyue made her meet him under the factory in the mythical Demon Girl Zone, where he’d often played during high school.
“Mingyue, you’re my demon girl,” he said, stroking her hair softly and staring into her eyes. “You’ve killed. I admire that. I’ll keep your secret, in exchange for—”
He Qingying kicked him in the balls and fled.
She knew her secret couldn’t stay buried forever. Lu Zhongyue wanted her and would just keep blackmailing her. She couldn’t tell her husband about it.
She had to solve the problem on her own.
She wrote a letter to Lu Zhongyue, asking him to meet her at 10:00 p.m. on June 19, at the Demon Girl Zone. She said she didn’t really like her husband and was making plans for the future.
She packed a sharp knife.
On June 19, 1995, she left home early in the morning and hid all day in the dark of the Demon Girl Zone, just waiting for Lu Zhongyue to appear.
10:00 p.m. Thunder rolled outside and was followed by the dull sound of steady rain.
The moment the hatch door opened, she saw the shape of a young man. As he was about to turn around, she stabbed him in the back.
The knife pierced the man’s heart.
She turned on her flashlight to examine the body. It wasn’t Lu Zhongyue.
He Qingying cried over her victim and begged his ghost to forgive her. She had to keep this a secret, just as she’d kept the secret from Serenity Road all of these years. She removed the knife from Shen Ming’s body and made sure to clear the crime scene of anything that might incriminate her.
She quickly got out of there, leaving her victim in the dark cycles of reincarnation.
It was already midnight when she got home. Si Mingyuan was still playing mah-jongg somewhere, as she had expected. She washed all her clothes but burned her bloody jacket.