Bamboo Pole set down his chopsticks, wiped his hands, and only then took the paper. He read it carefully from beginning to end, twice.

“This girl called Cuicui — she was assaulted by Hu Sizhu last summer. When she told her mother about it, her mother brought people over and gave Hu Sizhu a beating. He swore revenge at the time, but nothing came of it in the end.”

“And then there’s Hu Yongfu’s household. In terms of family rank, he’s Hu Sizhu’s grandfather. His daughter, Hu Fen’er, is Hu Sizhu’s paternal aunt. Something happened between Hu Sizhu and Hu Fen’er — she came home and hanged herself.”

“Hanged herself?” Bai Jin nearly choked on his rice. “And then what — didn’t Hu Fen’er’s family go after Hu Sizhu?”

“Of course they did. They wanted to drag him straight to the public security post. Hu Zaiquan handed over ten silver coins from the family savings, and that settled the matter.”

“One human life for ten coins?” Yan Qing said, deeply affected. It was a staggering cheapness.

Bamboo Pole said: “Ten coins is what a farmer here earns from a year’s worth of corn. Of course Hu Fen’er’s father would take it.”

Shi Ting asked: “How old was Hu Fen’er when she hanged herself? Was she married?”

“It happened just this past May. She would have been seventeen or eighteen. Word was she’d already been betrothed — just waiting for autumn to complete the marriage. Poor thing.” Bamboo Pole shook his head. “Hu Sizhu really brought this on himself. The whole village was cheering when they heard he was dead.”

Bai Jin said bitterly: “Hu Sizhu truly deserved to die, Brother Seven. What do you say we leave this one alone? He got what was coming to him.”

Shi Ting said in a low, even voice: “We govern by law, not by force. If everyone thought the way you just described — if everyone decided they could appoint themselves a righteous avenger — what kind of society would that become? Can you guarantee that every person who answers violence with violence is acting out of justice, and not personal vendetta?”

“I was just saying.” Bai Jin grinned. “We’re law enforcement — we know better than anyone.”

Bamboo Pole nodded. “Director Shi is right. Even if Hu Sizhu deserved to die, it should have been the public security post that dealt with him. The trouble is that people around here have little sense of the rule of law. When something goes wrong, the first instinct is to settle it privately. And with the way men are valued over women here, and how much people fear the shame of speaking out — nobody went to report Hu Sizhu. The villagers’ timidity and ignorance fed his behavior as surely as anything else.”

“Look at you.” Bai Jin clapped Bamboo Pole on the shoulder again. “That’s real insight.”

Bamboo Pole’s face flushed red. He quickly placed the chicken leg into Bai Jin’s bowl. “Eat, eat.”

After dinner, Bamboo Pole had already heated water for everyone to wash up.

Shi Ting took a towel and gently wiped Yan Qing’s face. Bamboo Pole came in carrying a large red quilt and went into the small room. “Director Shi, Forensic Examiner Yan — this quilt is newly made. It was meant for my wedding. Since my fiancée left, it’s been sitting in the cabinet untouched.”

Yan Qing quickly demurred: “This is your new quilt — we couldn’t possibly use it. Please just give us an old one.”

“Please, don’t stand on ceremony,” Bamboo Pole said, laying the quilt at the head of the brick bed. “I’m not close to finding a wife anytime soon. When the time comes, I’ll have my mother make another.” He turned to go. “I’ll go fire up the stove. Without heat this time of year, these brick beds are just blocks of ice.”

“Thank you, truly.” Yan Qing felt a genuine warmth toward Bamboo Pole — simple and perceptive, honest and quietly sharp. She wondered whether the woman who had left him would one day come to regret losing someone like this.

“You rest. I’ll go over the case with Bai Jin for a bit.” Shi Ting crouched and lifted Yan Qing from her wheelchair.

Yan Qing quickly said: “I can manage myself.”

“When I’m here, you don’t have to.” He set her down, but didn’t step away immediately. He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “Wait for me.”

“Who’s waiting for you? I’m going to sleep.” Yan Qing turned her face away at once, pulled the quilt up with both hands until only her eyes were visible above the edge.

Shi Ting smiled, pressed his face briefly against her hair, and left.

Bai Jin was sitting cross-legged at the head of the brick bed. When he saw Shi Ting come in, he scooted over eagerly: “Brother Seven, do you think we should focus our investigation on Hu Fen’er tomorrow? It went as far as a death, after all — it makes sense that her relatives might want to kill Hu Sizhu in revenge.”

“Hu Fen’er’s case deserves investigation, but we can’t let that prejudice us now,” Shi Ting said. “Hu Sizhu assaulted so many women that his death could very well be revenge by a victim or a family member — but we can’t rule out other possibilities. He was killed on the hillside at night. Whoever accompanied him there at that hour must have been someone he knew. And the killer brought red cloth strips in advance, specifically as restraints.”

“Hu Sizhu wasn’t a fool. You’d think he wouldn’t just stand there and let someone tie him up without putting up a fight. That’s a bit hard to explain.”

“If the perpetrator were male, Hu Sizhu wouldn’t be so complacent. The only possibility is that the one who bound him was a woman — and a woman he didn’t consider any threat. A woman would be at a severe physical disadvantage against Hu Sizhu. In order to kill him, she’d need to restrain him first. A man, on the other hand, could lure him up the mountain and strike before he had any chance to react — no need to tie him up first.”

Bai Jin’s eyes lit up. “Brother Seven, that’s exactly right. A woman has no physical advantage. If Hu Sizhu fought back, she might have been the one to end up dead. To be safe, she lured him in and tied him up first.”

He rubbed his palms together. “So it seems we need to focus our investigation on women.”

“Get some sleep. Tomorrow morning, first thing, we visit every household on that list.”

“Understood.” Then Bai Jin broke into a grin and gave Shi Ting a nudge: “Brother Seven, you’d better get back to your room — sister-in-law is waiting for you.”

Shi Ting said: “Stop talking nonsense. Your sister-in-law is a respectable young woman.”

“Sister-in-law may be respectable, but Brother Seven isn’t necessarily, is he?” Bai Jin, anticipating punishment, dove swiftly into his blankets. “Ah, poor me — a lonely beauty, condemned to share a bed with Brother Bamboo Pole tonight.”

Shi Ting grabbed a nearby pillow and hurled it at him. Bai Jin yanked his head under the covers just in time and played the part of the retreating tortoise with perfect commitment.

The village night held none of the city’s noise. Only the occasional bark of a dog drifted through the stillness.

Bamboo Pole had heated the brick bed until it was thoroughly warm. Yan Qing lay nestled in the new quilt, but sleep refused to come.

Then she heard the creak of the door — someone treading very carefully as they came in.

She recognized Shi Ting’s footsteps, and quickly buried her face in the quilt, closed her eyes, and feigned sleep.

After a moment, she heard the soft sound of clothing being set on a chair. Quiet as it was, in the deep stillness of the night it seemed impossibly clear.

Yan Qing’s heart beat at an improbable speed. Beneath the quilt, her hand clutched the front of her own clothes. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was nervous about. When he lifted the quilt and slid in beside her, her heart missed two full beats in a row, and her mind went entirely blank.

She kept her eyes squeezed shut, not daring to move. She didn’t know whether he had noticed she wasn’t actually asleep. All she could do was lie still and wait, quietly anxious.

After a moment, she seemed to sense a faint breath near her face — close, very close.

She held out for a long time. Curiosity won in the end. She opened her eyes — and found herself gazing directly into eyes as deep and dark as the sea.

He had been watching her the whole time. Watching her lashes flutter like two small butterflies. Watching her eyes dart back and forth beneath their thin lids. Watching her, flustered and uncertain, curl herself up into a tight little ball like a caterpillar.

“What are you doing? I was asleep,” Yan Qing said quickly, looking away.

Shi Ting didn’t call her out on it. He simply lay down beside her, in exactly the position he was already in.

“Shi Ting.” Yan Qing was far from sleepy. Seeing him settle himself calmly at her side, she quickly grabbed a pillow and placed it between them. “This is the boundary line.”

“The boundary line? What’s that?”

“It means a dividing line,” Yan Qing said, flushed. “You are not allowed to cross it.”

Shi Ting gave a low laugh. “Miss Yan thinks one pillow is enough to stop me?”

“This pillow stops gentlemen, not scoundrels. Unless Director Shi is admitting that he is—”

Before she could finish, the pillow had vanished. In its place were his solid arms, pulling her close.

“Shi Ting — mmph!”

In the darkness, his expression was hidden. But his breath was burning, and his kiss came fierce and sweeping, like a gale that upended her entire world.

She pushed against his shoulder, only to find it immovable — as unyielding as iron, entirely beyond her strength to shift.

Her small resistance finally gave way. Beneath the assault of his lips, she had no choice but to surrender. Her hands, without her willing it, climbed to his firm shoulders, and she let him claim her freely, heart and will both yielding.

After a long while, he reluctantly let her go. The lingering intensity of the kiss left her eyes soft and unfocused, her breath shallow and fragrant, every thought scattered.

When her reason slowly returned, she realized he was smiling. Fury rose in her chest, and she struck him in the chest with her fist.

“Scoundrel! Shi Ting, you absolute scoundrel.”

“If it makes you happy, you can call me anything you like.”

Shi Ting drew her closer, tucking her head against his neck, and pressed kiss after kiss to her forehead.

Yan Qing, flustered, burrowed a little deeper into his arms. “Are you going to sleep or aren’t you?”

“May I be honest?”

“What?”

Yan Qing’s bright eyes lifted to look at him.

“With you like this in my arms, I can’t sleep.”

“Then go find that pillow.”

Shi Ting laughed softly. “Entirely useless.”

“Back at the inn in the poplar forest, you were every bit the proper gentleman,” Yan Qing muttered. “Now your true nature is showing.”

“That was different.” Shi Ting’s low voice carried a certain warmth. “At that time, we hadn’t confirmed our relationship. Now you are my fiancée. Though we haven’t yet held the wedding banquet, our horoscopes have been matched and the date has been set. In every meaningful sense, we are already lawfully as good as wed.”

“Director Shi speaks so uprightly, yet his mind is elsewhere.” Yan Qing poked him in the chest without ceremony.

Shi Ting’s lips curved. He looked down at the person in his arms. “And what would that ‘elsewhere’ be?”