Huo Zihong’s corpse was being dragged, her body scraping against the floor, making a dull sound. A wide trail of blood remained on the ground. Li Yaqing saw that man, wearing wrinkled corduroy pants and leather shoes with worn-out heels. On the right shoe sole’s grooved pattern, a piece of dried gum was stuck.

The figure seemed familiar.

There was the sound of nails being hammered into the wall. The hand was steady, the force great. One strike, then after a moment, another.

The nailing was calculated, not the kind of continuous banging that would disturb neighbors or cause annoyance. But each strike felt like a dull chisel on her skull.

She dared not open the wardrobe door or make any large movements. She could only peer through that thin narrow crack from one angle. The person passed by that direction twice, but both times showed only his back. However, Li Yaqing saw the items in his hands with particular clarity.

Fishing line, an awl, and a crochet hook dangling from the line’s end.

Why hadn’t Li Tan arrived yet?

Each second felt like a year, mingled with terror. Had she escaped this disaster? Not necessarily. Home invasions often involved robbery—would the next step be ransacking drawers and cabinets for valuables?

Countless thoughts raced through Li Yaqing’s mind: if that person opened the wardrobe door, should she take the initiative, kicking the door open to make him stumble before seizing the chance to flee? Or should she grab him tightly from inside while screaming for help?

After what seemed like an eternity, she suddenly heard footsteps gradually moving outward, then a creaking sound as the door slowly opened.

The house door—she knew it all too well. If not closed properly when leaving, the door hinge’s momentum would make it creak open slowly like this.

Had the person left?

Li Yaqing realized something: if this person escaped and fled, they might never catch him.

Blood rushed to her head, but she still exercised caution, slowly pushing open the wardrobe door. What she saw nearly made her faint.

Hundreds of tightly strung fishing lines, stained with blood. Her father, mother, and Huo Zihong were stiffly and grotesquely entangled in this web of lines, while on the floor, thin streams of fresh blood were slowly converging.

Li Yaqing held back her tears, forcibly suppressing the nausea churning in her chest, trembling as she commanded herself: “Don’t look, don’t look.”

She carefully avoided the blood streams on the floor and gritted her teeth as she rushed out.

In the corridor, there were bloody footprints that faded after a few steps. Under the tremendous shock and grief, Li Yaqing was surprisingly alert. She twisted her hair up—a hairstyle she rarely tried. She took off her coat, turned it inside out, and carried it in her arms; otherwise, she would have been dressed identically to Huo Zihong. Finally, she pulled up the turtleneck of her sweater until it covered her nose.

It was winter after all, and cold outside.

Truly cold. The sky was overcast, the wind howling, cutting into one’s brain. Even at noon, there were few people on the streets. One or two cyclists, bundled up like bears, whizzed past.

That person was right ahead, walking unhurriedly, hunched over, not at all like someone frantically fleeing after committing a crime. When his shoe sole occasionally turned up, that dried piece of gum seemed to remind her: Yes, it’s me.

Passing a dumpling restaurant, he stopped, looked up, and asked: “Do you sell dumpling wrappers?”

That voice, and that face…

Her lips trembled as her entire body shook violently, yet she walked past him without looking sideways. At the closest point, their shoulders nearly brushed, but the side of her shoulder facing him felt nothing.

She just kept walking forward without stopping.

Zhang Guanghua, Zhang Guanghua, Zhang Guanghua!

After an unknown length of time, someone stopped her, exclaiming: “Xiao Hong, why aren’t you wearing your coat when you’re carrying it? Aren’t you cold?”

She halted in confusion, only then realizing she had reached the entrance of Chen Front Alley.

Li Yaqing, claiming to have lost her key, borrowed the spare from the landlord, opened the door, entered, and collapsed on the bed. After a while, she rose as if startled, mustering all her strength to push a desk and cabinet against the door. Even after latching the window, she felt it wasn’t enough, so she pasted layers of paper over it with glue.

Why was it Zhang Guanghua?

Was it hatred toward her parents for interfering in their relationship and causing his career troubles? No, no, no. When he killed “Li Yaqing,” he showed no mercy either.

Li Yaqing’s pupils gradually narrowed, her eyes bursting with fierce hatred.

He showed no mercy even toward “her”!

Li Yaqing spent a sleepless night. The next day, as she dragged her exhausted body to move aside the desk and cabinet and open the door, she seemed to face another world.

The entire neighborhood was discussing this incident. Around 1992, despite the absence of the internet and instant messaging tools, the passion for gossip and morbid curiosity was enough to make a quiet, small town boil. Beepers rang more frequently than usual. Even when buying vegetables, both buyers and sellers exchanged knowing glances: “Have you heard?”

Li Yaqing wore Huo Zihong’s clothes—a padded jacket, large black cotton shoes with cloth soles, and a red plaid headscarf with tassels. She walked expressionlessly toward the police station, stopping at the entrance to pretend to read the bulletin board.

Several police officers stood at the door, exchanging opinions while smoking: “With what happened to Little Li’s family, shouldn’t we collect some donations?”

Collecting donations was popular then, for weddings, theft, funerals, and illnesses. It seemed impossible to remain friends or colleagues without making donations.

Family? Who was his family?

Li Yaqing turned away, clutching the hem of her scarf, suddenly realizing that in some sense, her life and Huo Zihong’s had quietly switched places—if she remained silent and was willing.

She entered the county’s Xinhua Bookstore and bought writing paper, intending to write an anonymous tip to the police station. With no tables in the bookstore, she knelt at the storage shelf beneath the bookcase, writing character by character.

“That person called Zhang Guanghua, living in the same building as the victims, is highly suspicious. Please pay attention, police officers…”

Halfway through, her knees made her dizzy. Rubbing her eyes and looking up, she discovered she was at the “Law & Punishment” bookshelf.

She casually pulled out a book on sentencing rules to read, returned it after a few pages, tore up the half-written letter, crumpled it repeatedly, and staggered out of the bookstore, throwing it into the garbage bin at the entrance.

In modern society, with increasing civilization, legal sentencing rarely follows “an eye for an eye” anymore. No matter how heinous the crime, no matter how much suffering it caused the victims, the most that would happen—”a righteous bullet ended his life.”

Too lenient for him. That righteous bullet wouldn’t even be fired by her.

Zhang Guanghua didn’t stay home for long. Li Yaqing learned he would soon leave for a business trip to Taiyuan.

At that time, the police investigation wasn’t directed at Zhang Guanghua. Old Wang, who baked flatbread at the alley entrance, had a brother-in-law working as a janitor at the police station. He vividly described to neighbors what he’d heard: “I heard it was a habitual criminal, with skillful technique and strong psychological composure. Think about it—the family’s son-in-law worked at the police station. Who else would calmly work, stitch by stitch…”

If criminal profiling existed then, Zhang Guanghua wouldn’t have matched most criteria. If she hadn’t seen it with her own eyes, she would never have believed it, even unto death.

The listeners exchanged glances, chills running down their spines. That night, everyone put a rolling pin beside their pillows before closing their doors to sleep.

Li Yaqing gave up the rented room in Luoma Lake and followed Zhang Guanghua onto the long-distance bus to Shanxi.

Dressed plainly, she curled up in the back row of the bus, pretending to doze but keeping her gaze fixed on Zhang Guanghua in the front rows.

Unaware of being followed or of approaching danger, he chatted enthusiastically with fellow passengers, asking: What’s fun in Shanxi? Being sent out was an easy assignment—idle time is still idle time.

Someone suggested: See the Great Buddha—it’s as big as a mountain.

Zhang Guanghua took the advice. After settling in the next day, he went to the station to buy a ticket to Datong, but didn’t dare announce it, as he was mixing personal pleasure with official business.

Li Yaqing followed like a shadow, but after trailing him across provinces and cities for so long, she still had no clear idea how to exact her revenge.

Killing isn’t so simple. She had never killed before and couldn’t conceive of such a twisted method as the fishing line puppet. Besides, there were people everywhere along the way.

Zhang Guanghua settled in the suburbs of Datong, convenient for catching a ride to see the stone caves the next day. That evening, he went out for dinner, walking for a long time before finding a noodle shop with only two or three customers.

He ordered a bowl of noodles with sauce and was enjoying it when someone rushed past him, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps running away.

Zhang Guanghua looked up, startled, unable to immediately comprehend what had happened. The shop assistant reminded him: “Wallet! Wallet!”

His wallet, placed at his side, had been snatched! Zhang Guanghua pushed aside his bowl and took off in pursuit.

The assistant and remaining customers laughed as if watching a show, not even bothering to collect payment for the noodles: “An out-of-towner… The thief was a young woman, head down and silent, couldn’t even see her face… runs fast…”

Indeed, she ran very fast. Zhang Guanghua chased breathlessly for a long time. Just as he was about to catch up, the person, seemingly wanting to escape, suddenly threw the wallet far away and fled in another direction, quickly disappearing.

Unable to continue the chase, Zhang Guanghua jogged toward where the wallet had landed. This was a provincial road, with mountains on one side and a large river on the other. The rapid water flow made a rushing sound that chilled anyone who heard it.

He picked up the wallet and carefully examined its contents in the faint moonlight: he feared finding it emptied of money and thrown back.

While checking it, something heavy struck the back of his head. He fell to the ground, his vision going black.

Behind him, Li Yaqing stood panting, holding a stone. This strike had taken almost all her strength.

She had considered using a knife, but there would be too much blood, messy. Originally, she had planned to strangle him and had prepared a rope…

The sound of water suddenly seemed to grow louder. Looking over the railing, the cold river gleamed black in the moonlight.

In that instant, Li Yaqing changed her mind. She tied Zhang Guanghua’s hands and feet, attached large stones to his body, and finally, using all her strength, dragged him to sit on the guardrail.

He was too heavy, even heavier with the stones attached. Fortunately, there was a river here; otherwise, she wouldn’t have known how to dispose of him.

Heaven helped her. No cars passed during that time. The small noodle shop was preparing to close, with the assistant joking about the earlier incident: “Don’t know if he caught the thief. If he did, he wouldn’t come back to pay anyway. Out-of-towners are so stingy…”

She waited patiently.

Zhang Guanghua slowly groaned and regained consciousness. Li Yaqing slapped him hard across the face: “Why did you kill my family?”

Zhang Guanghua looked at her, his gaze momentarily confused. After realizing his situation, his face suddenly turned ferocious, screaming for her to release him immediately, “or I’ll kill you too.”

How absurd! Did he know who held the knife and who was the fish on the chopping block? In the distance, there was the faint sound of a car. Li Yaqing laughed loudly and pushed his head forcefully: “Down you go.”

The sound of a heavy object splashing into water. She looked down. How swift the current was! The whirlpool created by his body’s impact lasted only a moment before being covered by new flowing water.

It was such a long story that Mu Dai’s phone battery was depleted midway, forcing her to talk with Luo Ren while plugged into the charger.

After hearing everything, there was a long silence. She didn’t know what to say, her first question being: “Will my Aunt Hong be arrested for murder?”

Luo Ren wasn’t sure either: “The statute of limitations has probably passed, right? Besides, who would report her? If she doesn’t confess, who could investigate it?”

Mu Dai was stunned: “My Aunt Hong has been checking for news about Zhang Guanghua all along.”

“A killer is ultimately guilty at heart. She was 90% certain Zhang Guanghua was dead, yet remained suspicious and fearful that he might have broken free from the ropes and been rescued after being washed downstream. So she kept inquiring—no news was the best news, and if there was any, she would be the first to know.”

No wonder she had confessed everything and left in the early morning. After revealing her secret, there were too many things she didn’t want to face and lacked the courage to confront, so she simply left.

“My Aunt Hong is very different from what I imagined.”

Luo Ren smiled: “I’m also relieved I didn’t offend her too much.”

Mu Dai felt somewhat guilty, thinking it was her questioning the previous night that forced Hong Zihong to reveal this long-kept secret: “Is it because of me, Aunt Hong…?”

Luo Ren opened the window. Small Merchant River had beautiful weather today—clear skies. The clay-yellow courtyard walls of the house gleamed golden in the sunlight. Li Tan sat on the front house roof, hand shading his eyes as he gazed at the sky, as if he had never seen it before.

The wind tousled his hair, hair streaked with gray.

“Don’t think too highly of yourself. It’s not because of you.”

Then it had nothing to do with her. Mu Dai felt empty inside. So this was the truth, but knowing it brought no joy. She said: “I’ll hang up then.”

“Mu Dai?”

“Yes?”

“Do you want to come to Small Merchant River?”

Small Merchant River? Why?

“You and I both know that this matter is far from over.”