Ruide’s clinic mainly handled outpatients on ordinary days, rarely keeping patients overnight; the facility wasn’t large, with only two hospital rooms available. Mrs. Pan was staying in the inner one.
The group entered the room; Yuqi was bent over, wiping her mother’s hand with a damp cloth, tears falling steadily. “Mom, the bleeding’s stopped. Dr. Ruide said you’re not in serious danger, you’ll just need to change the dressing a few more times.”
Yuyuan sat at the foot of the bed, wiping her mother’s feet, equally distressed. “Don’t be afraid. Dad and all of us are here. Don’t scare us like this—say something.”
Mrs. Pan lay stiffly in the bedding, her gaze unfocused, murmuring something under her breath, her voice extremely low, only audible up close.
Pan Maosheng leaned in to listen, and realized his wife was repeating over and over: “Murder, murder…”
It seemed his wife hadn’t just injured her neck—her mind had been badly frightened too, and there was no telling when she’d recover. He felt thoroughly troubled.
He sighed, pacing in circles by the bedside, then turned and saw Wang Bide and He Yunqin, hurrying over to greet them. “Inspector Wang, Yunqin—could this criminal have mistakenly thought my wife was carrying money on her, and tried an opportunistic robbery? Otherwise why not rob someone else, but specifically target her?”
Wang Bide shook his head. “It wasn’t robbery. I examined the scene just now—this person was bold and meticulous, clearly certain of success before targeting Mrs. Pan. To escape in such a short time after being interrupted shows this person’s skill and quick reactions are both extraordinary. If it were simply for money, why would someone with such skill stoop to robbing at a school?”
Pan Maosheng threw up his hands. “If it’s a vendetta, who would hold a grudge against this half-old woman of mine? She’s barely had any schooling, and honestly, she can be quite worldly and grasping—”
At this, Mrs. Pan’s eyes, though still fixed in the middle of their sockets, flickered.
Mrs. Yu discreetly shifted her position, coughing once toward her elder brother.
Pan Maosheng, oblivious, continued more and more freely. “Sharp-tongued, likes to take small advantages, never lets things go even when she’s in the wrong—sometimes even I find her irritating—”
Mrs. Pan choked on her own breath, her face flushing redder and redder, until finally she couldn’t hold back and burst into a fit of coughing, accidentally pulling at her wound, moaning in pain. The room instantly fell into chaos, with Yuqi and Hongdou rushing to her bedside to help ease her breathing, while Yuyuan, terrified her mother’s wound might reopen, hurried outside to fetch Ruide to check on her.
Once Mrs. Pan finally settled down, Pan Maosheng wiped his sweat and said, “But she’s usually quite savvy when she’s out and about—she wouldn’t easily offend anyone. I really can’t figure out who would hold such a deep grudge against her, wanting her dead.”
He Yunqin, who hadn’t spoken up until now, finally said, “The reason the culprit hid in the women’s washroom is either because they were certain Aunt would come to use the facilities and hid there in advance, or this person had no specific target at all, and the goal was simply to kill—if it’s the latter, then whoever entered the washroom could have become their target. But if it’s the former, how did the culprit know Aunt would definitely go to the washroom?”
Pan Maosheng exchanged a startled glance with his two daughters. “Ever since your aunt gave birth to Yuyuan, she’s had this problem of needing to use the toilet frequently—the symptoms have gotten especially bad these past two years, needing to go every hour or so. She even went to Renhe Hall to get medicine for it. Could this culprit have known about your aunt’s strange condition too? But not many people know about this—how could he/she possibly have found out?”
Wang Bide said, “If the culprit’s target really was Mrs. Pan—just now when I checked the washroom, there was blood on the floor, but no blood was found on the windowsill the culprit escaped through, or on the lawn outside. This suggests the culprit put on shoe covers the moment they entered the washroom—such caution suggests they’d prepared thoroughly beforehand. I suspect the culprit had been following Mrs. Pan beforehand, and had some understanding of her daily habits.”
Yuyuan’s face went pale; she touched her cheek. “I remember, before we even entered the little chapel, Mother said someone was following her, and said that ever since coming back from the tea gathering, she’d kept feeling like someone was tailing her. At the time I thought she was just being paranoid, but it turns out it was real.”
He Yunqin’s brow furrowed. “The tea gathering? Which tea gathering, when?”
“Just yesterday’s tea gathering.”
Hongdou was puzzled. “If she only started feeling something was wrong yesterday, then so far the culprit has only been following Aunt for a day and a night. In such a short time, how could they have gotten to know her habits so thoroughly? Knowing she’d come to St. John’s to watch the play might not be so surprising, but this frequent-urination problem—how would that person know about it?”
The room fell silent for a moment, then Yu Chongyi said, bewildered, “Could this person be an acquaintance of Aunt’s?”
Not only was the Pan family startled, but Mrs. Yu grew alarmed too. “If it’s an acquaintance, what grudge couldn’t be resolved without needing to take her life? And I don’t recall my sister-in-law knowing any acquaintance so skilled and quick on their feet.”
He Yunqin thought for a moment, then walked to the bedside, and seeing Mrs. Pan showing signs of coming around, said gently, “Just now when the culprit stabbed you in the washroom, did you get a look at their face?”
Mrs. Pan’s teeth chattered; she swallowed several times before beginning to speak, though she stammered with every few words, taking a full minute to get out a short passage. “No, no. There was no one in the washroom. I was afraid Fourth Miss He might have fainted inside, so I checked stall by stall—still no one when I got to the very last one, so I was about to turn back, to go tell you outside. But I’d only taken two steps when someone jumped down from behind—must have been hiding on top of a cabinet or on the rafters. The moment they came down, they grabbed my shoulder—oh, the strength was like being clamped by iron pincers, I couldn’t move at all. That’s when you came looking for me, calling out ‘Mrs. Pan’ as you searched. That person seemed startled, and right after, I felt something cold at my neck, then heard glass shatter behind me. I thought I was going to die—all I wanted was to survive, so I used all my strength to run out. I didn’t have any thought left to spare for looking at that person.”
Hongdou asked carefully, “So you don’t even know if it was a man or a woman?”
Mrs. Pan, still shaken with fear, said, “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Yuyuan and Yuqi hurried to embrace their mother, comforting her. “Don’t be afraid. Try to remember anything you can. If this person is so vicious and we don’t catch them, it’ll be trouble if they come back again.”
Mrs. Pan, trembling, pressed a hand to her chest, thinking hard for a good while, then said timidly, “But my mind is all in a jumble right now, I really can’t remember.”
“Aunt,” He Yunqin had no choice but to try a different approach, “has someone been following you since yesterday?”
Mrs. Pan rolled her eyes toward He Yunqin. “Yes. Yesterday evening, coming back from the tea gathering, I saw it was still early, so I went to the trading company to pick up some newly made clothes, since it wasn’t far from home—I didn’t call a car either. On the way back I felt like someone was following me. This morning when I went out to get my hair permed, I had that same feeling again.”
He Yunqin glanced at Hongdou, then continued. “At the time of the tea gathering, did you go inside the venue? Do you remember seeing or hearing anything?”
Mrs. Pan shook her head desperately. “The driver and I were both outside. I fell asleep because we waited so long, and only found out the Police Commissioner had died when I saw many people coming out from inside.”
Hongdou felt a rush of suspicion—could this be the root cause of it all?
Mrs. Pan, badly shaken, still spoke somewhat incoherently, and it seemed there was nothing more to be learned for the time being, so the group returned outside the room. He Yunqin asked Wang Bide, “Did you see any size-39 footprints at the scene?”
Wang Bide and Hongdou both looked startled. Size 39?
“No. As I said before, that place had a lot of foot traffic, with many footprints on the floor—not to mention the earlier ones. The culprit, anticipating there’d be blood from the attack, put on shoe covers the moment they entered, so by the time I went in to look, the only footprints on the floor were Mrs. Pan’s own, stained with blood.”
“But before the incident, I saw a fresh footprint with mud stains at the washroom entrance. Coincidentally, the size was 39. If this footprint belongs to the culprit, then this person, coming out to commit the crime, wouldn’t wear ill-fitting shoes—so this person is either a tall woman, or a small-statured man. And according to what the Pan family just said, Mrs. Pan’s daily activities are quite fixed—nothing beyond the Pan mansion, the trading company, and the few households she regularly visits. The Pan mansion obviously wouldn’t be convenient for an attack, and other occasions would carry too many risks. It happened that Mrs. Pan came out tonight to watch the play, and the culprit, knowing she’d need to use the washroom frequently, hid in the washroom beforehand to strike quickly and be done with it.
“Looking back now at the scene of Bai Haili’s murder—this person habitually uses a dagger, is agile and skilled, quite possibly wears a size 39 shoe, and tends to scope out the environment before acting—a seasoned professional. It’s worth noting there are several similarities between this person and tonight’s attacker against Aunt.”
Hongdou said, “But if it’s the same person, why would they do this? Just because Aunt dozed off outside the tea gathering? Aunt still hasn’t remembered anything at all.”
He Yunqin said, “That’s exactly why I suspect your aunt knows the culprit, and that this person has also heard about your aunt’s chronic condition.”
Just then Yuqi and Yuyuan came out from inside; Mr. Pan stayed in the room to look after Mrs. Pan. He Yunqin said to the two of them, “That person might come back to try to harm your aunt again. Someone will come to keep watch here shortly. These next few days, while you’re recovering here, it’s best you don’t wander about.”
Yuqi and Yuyuan were deeply grateful.
Before long, Ruide came over to advise them on precautions for caring for the patient, speaking with great patience throughout. Yuyuan, uncharacteristically not prickly, listened attentively and took notes, even remembering to thank Ruide gently at the end.
Mrs. Yu pulled Hongdou aside. “Don’t just busy yourself with your own affairs—spend more time going out and about with Yunqin.”
Hongdou immediately guessed what her mother meant to say, glancing at her. “What is it?”
Mrs. Yu looked back at He Yunqin, who leaned against the back of his chair, eyes fixed on the table, his expression grave, as if lost in thought.
The nurse Ruide employed was just about to bring over some tea.
Mrs. Yu said quietly, “I trust this son-in-law of mine’s character, but I don’t trust the women out there. Yunqin’s the type that women can’t help but like—don’t be careless about it.”
Before Hongdou could respond, He Yunqin had already stood up, saying to Mrs. Yu, “Mother-in-law, let me take you all back to Tongfu Lane. Tomorrow we still need to help you move.”
Author’s note: I kept this case fairly short, because after this I want to focus more on writing about Second He and Hongdou’s married life.