When Shi Ting returned to the room, Yan Qing set down the newspaper she had been reading and used a hairpin from her hair to adjust the wick of the oil lamp.
“Well? Any leads?” Yan Qing poured a cup of water and handed it to Shi Ting.
Shi Ting sat down across from her and took the cup she offered. In the amber glow of the lamplight, her fine features were softened by a warm haze, and her long lashes seemed dusted with flecks of gold. He pulled his gaze away with effort and fixed it instead on the newspaper in her hands.
“Just now I saw the thin, tall one go into Room Three. The young couple went into Room Four. The two men who were washing their feet should be in Rooms One and Two. Based on the names in the registration ledger, the tall thin one is called Qian Jin, the young couple are Wu Yiwei and Zhang Qiu, and the other two are Zhang Da and Li Youcai — though of course these are very likely false names.”
“Do they know each other?”
Shi Ting nodded. “I observed carefully. All five of them have traces of smoke staining on their hands, blackened and yellowed teeth, a listless and dull manner, and a sallow, gaunt look about them. They are all opium addicts.”
“Five people with such similar characteristics gathering in one place — they cannot possibly be strangers to one another.”
“Moreover, when I asked them what they were digging for, all five of them became extremely tense.” Shi Ting took a sip of water. “I still cannot say with certainty whether what they have been digging for is that body — or if it is, what they want with it.”
“After reading this report, you may be able to piece together a thing or two.” Yan Qing passed a newspaper across to him. “I have been diligently reading, after all.”
“You found something?”
“Yes.”
Shi Ting reached out quickly and took the paper. In the spot Yan Qing had circled with a pen was a missing person notice, dated the sixteenth of November in the year 201.
The notice carried a photograph and offered a substantial reward for information on a young man named Le Chenghua. Le Chenghua was twenty-two years of age, one hundred and seventy-five centimeters tall. When he disappeared, he had been wearing a gray woolen sweater over a cream-colored padded jacket, black trousers, and black leather shoes. He had gone out on the evening of the sixteenth of November and had not returned. His family was offering a generous reward for information, and anyone with any leads was asked to contact Le Zainian of Le Wanjia Department Store.
Shi Ting’s eyes flashed with excitement. “This matches closely with the skeleton we found. That must be Le Chenghua himself.”
He read through the notice slowly and carefully, word by word, and when his eyes reached the name at the end, they brightened. “I remember now — this Le Zainian who posted the notice is the owner of a department store in Shun Cheng, a store called Le Wanjia. In the year 201, he came to the Military Police Department to report a missing person. But shortly after the case was opened, someone came to have it closed, saying his son had been found.”
The matter had happened nearly three years ago, and it had not been a major case — it was already notable that Shi Ting could recall it at all.
“First reporting a disappearance, then coming to close the case — that pattern has the feel of a kidnapping.” Yan Qing conjectured. “It is quite possible that his son was abducted. The kidnappers threatened Le Zainian not to report it to the authorities, warning that they would kill the boy if he did. Le Zainian, fearing for his son’s life, agreed to the kidnappers’ demands.”
Shi Ting said, “Le Zainian likely paid the ransom as the kidnappers demanded, but the kidnappers killed Le Chenghua anyway — because Le Chenghua knew who they were. If they released him, he would identify them, so the kidnappers had no choice but to silence him. Yet what is puzzling is that Le Zainian paid the money but did not get his son back. Why did he not continue to press the case? Did he not wish to enlist the help of the Military Police Department to catch the people who murdered his son?”
With that thought, Shi Ting stood up. “We have been speculating all along. To confirm whether the five people in the inn truly came here to dig up Le Chenghua’s remains, we need something more concrete. It seems I will need to trouble the innkeeper once more.”
As Shi Ting went downstairs, he came face to face with one of the men washing his feet on the way up. The man glanced at him and went into Room One.
The innkeeper was in the kitchen helping his wife prepare dinner. Tonight there was a freshly caught wild pheasant — already plucked and bled — that was to be braised with mushrooms into a soup.
Shi Ting asked the innkeeper if he could borrow the most recent week of newspapers. The innkeeper obligingly produced them.
The innkeeper had arranged every newspaper by year, month, and date, binding them together neatly.
“This innkeeper must have an extremely methodical disposition.” Yan Qing remarked with admiration as she flipped through the papers.
“A methodical disposition? What kind of condition is that?” Shi Ting was puzzled.
Yan Qing laughed. “Not a condition — just a manner of speaking.”
A week’s worth of newspapers was not many to get through. With the two of them searching separately, and before the oil lamp had burned down, Yan Qing finally discovered an important clue.
It was a notice seeking remains.
Yan Qing had seen the Military Police Department place notices in the papers seeking to identify bodies, but this was the first time she had ever seen a private individual place a notice seeking the return of a body.
The notice stated that the author’s son, Le Chenghua, had gone missing in November of the year 201 and had never been found. He was very likely to have been murdered. The author himself was gravely ill and not long for this world. Before the end, he hoped to find his son’s remains so that they might be buried together in the family plot. Anyone who could provide a lead, or who could locate Le Chenghua or his remains, would be rewarded with ten thousand yuan.
In an era where even a single yuan was a significant sum of money, ten thousand yuan was the equivalent of millions in modern times — a fortune capable of driving men to any lengths.
“Now it becomes clear.” Shi Ting read the notice and felt the fog that had obscured everything slowly lifting layer by layer. “Unless I am mistaken, these five people were the ones who originally abducted Le Chenghua. They and Le Chenghua were all opium addicts who met in the same opium den. Le Chenghua came from a comfortable background, while these five lived in desperate poverty. To obtain money for their opium habit, they conceived the plan to kidnap him. During the abduction, Le Chenghua recognized them, so after collecting the ransom, the five killed him to silence the only witness. As for why Le Zainian stopped searching and did not continue to report the crime after his son disappeared — whether he suffered some setback or whether some other family circumstance affected him — that we cannot say.”
Yan Qing took up the thread. “Le Zainian, now gravely ill and longing for his son, offered a heavy reward to locate him. When the five who originally abducted Le Chenghua saw the notice seeking remains, they saw a chance to profit a second time. But because they had buried Le Chenghua so carelessly at the time, none of the five could remember exactly where — only that it was somewhere in this white poplar forest. That is why they arrived three days ago and have been digging through this area every day with their tools.”
After laying it all out, Yan Qing’s expression turned worried. “When all is said and done, this is only our conjecture. We need evidence to prove that it was these five who abducted and killed Le Chenghua. Otherwise, if they deny it outright, there is nothing we can do.”
The case was nearly three years old. There was no one to report it. Even the victim’s body had turned to bone. Finding evidence in all of this was no small task.
Shi Ting’s bright eyes flickered slightly. “We can make them confess themselves.”
“Confess themselves? How?”
“Tomorrow I will arrange a little performance for you.”
Yan Qing had no idea what Shi Ting had in mind, but she was more than happy to look forward to it.
At that moment the innkeeper went door to door on the upper floor, knocking. “Everyone — dinner is ready, dinner is ready.”
Shi Ting said, “Let us eat first. Do not go hungry.”
The inn had only one table. All the guests from the five upstairs rooms gathered around it. In the center of the table sat a large basin of braised wild pheasant with mushrooms, steam rising from it.
During the meal, the only sounds were the clinking of bowls and chopsticks. No one spoke. No one glanced at anyone else. Each person sat lost in their own thoughts.
Li Youcai from Room One was the first to finish. He set down his empty bowl and left.
Then Zhang Da from Room Two and Qian Jin from Room Three finished in turn and returned to their rooms. Only the young couple from Room Four remained.
When the two of them finished eating, the young man, Wu Yiwei, stood up, and the chair beneath him let out a scraping clatter.
Both Shi Ting and Yan Qing looked up.
Wu Yiwei suddenly gave Shi Ting a wink, then wrapped an arm around Zhang Qiu and walked away.
Yan Qing asked, “Do you know him?”
Shi Ting thought of the conversation he had had with Wu Yiwei earlier, and replied without batting an eye, “No.”
“Then why did he wink at you?” Yan Qing felt that look had been decidedly strange.
“I am not sure either.”
Yan Qing laughed quietly. “Director Shi is both accomplished and handsome. Could it be that he has taken a liking to you?”
Shi Ting felt rather put upon. “And what about you — have you taken a liking to me?”
The question left Yan Qing speechless, her face flushing crimson. Unable to think of a reply, she heard Shi Ting let out a soft, low laugh. “And yet you dare to tease me.”
“You are such a petty man.” Yan Qing stuck out her tongue at him.
Shi Ting’s lips curved gently. “Back to the room. Tomorrow there is a hard battle to fight.”
The inn’s conditions could not compare to the city of Shun Cheng, but it could provide a steady supply of hot water.
Shi Ting went to fetch some lamp oil and relit the lamp, by which time Yan Qing had already finished washing up.
In the lamplight her face was like a piece of unblemished jade, or congealed cream — the kind of face that makes one want to reach out and touch it.
Shi Ting made a deliberate effort to pull his gaze away and turned to arrange several chairs in the room into a makeshift bed. Some of the chairs were old and battered — two of them had broken legs — and even lined up together, they made an uneven and lumpy surface.
With the chairs arranged, Shi Ting went to fetch the bedding and found Yan Qing’s gaze on him, as if she wanted to say something but held back.
“What is the matter?” he asked with concern. “Would you like some water?”
Yan Qing shook her head. Her eyes dropped to the row of broken chairs, and thinking of how he had made do on them the night before as well, she felt a pang of guilt.
“Can a person actually sleep on those chairs?” He was tall — they could barely hold half his length. And what if the chairs gave way in the middle of the night?
Shi Ting was unbothered. “During the old warlord campaigns, I have slept in muddy fields.”
She had nearly forgotten — he had fought in those campaigns too. Whatever hardship he had endured back then was beyond any comparison to this.
He laid his bedding over the chairs and spread it out, then turned back to Yan Qing. “Stop worrying about me. Get some rest.”
He bent down, lifted her from the wheelchair, and carried her to the bed. After tucking the blanket around her, he did not move away at once, but sat at the edge of the bed and looked at her.
“By the way — how are your legs?”