Yan Qing’s single command—”Get out of the way”—brought Yan Qi to a standstill. Without thinking, he took a step back.

Yan Qing paid him no further attention. She knelt before the small child, quickly unfastened the girl’s clothing, tilted her chin upward, and leaned down to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

She breathed in, breathed out—repeating this sequence several times. Little Nuo’er remained still.

“She’s already gone. There’s no bringing her back.”

“Sixth Miss is wasting her effort.”

Ignoring the murmurs around her, Yan Qing placed her hands one over the other on the child’s chest and began compressions. It was an extraordinarily taxing effort—especially as Yan Qing was forced to hold herself upright on her weakened legs—and before long, beads of sweat were rolling down her temples in steady streams.

Yan Qing continued the rhythmic compressions, pausing at precise intervals to give breaths again. Soon the clothes on her back were soaked through with perspiration.

Jiang Shi knelt nearby, appearing dazed and hollow. Yan Qi’s expression was deeply creased, his fists clenched tight at his sides.

“Come on, Sixth Miss.” A small voice somewhere in the crowd offered hesitant encouragement.

Yan Qing was fighting for the child’s life with everything she had. The onlookers, moved gradually by her relentless determination, began to add their voices.

“Come on, Sixth Miss!”

Though they could do nothing to help, the chorus of encouragement quietly fortified Yan Qing’s resolve.

No one knew how much time had passed when, suddenly, the motionless Little Nuo’er’s head stirred slightly. Her mouth opened. Yan Qing quickly turned the child’s head to the side—and a large mouthful of filthy water came pouring out.

Little Nuo’er’s breathing resumed.

Jiang Shi and Yan Qi cried out in joy. Jiang Shi moved to rush forward, but Yan Qing stopped her. “Take her to the hospital immediately. The child was submerged too long—we need to make sure there are no lasting effects.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Yan Qi, setting everything else aside, scooped Little Nuo’er into his arms and called out, “Driver—quickly. The hospital.”

Murong and Jing Zhi hurried to help Yan Qing back into her wheelchair.

“Are you all right, Miss?”

“I’m fine.” Yan Qing waved her hand and let out a long breath. “Thank goodness we found her in time. Any later and the child truly couldn’t have been saved.”

“Surely First Young Master will properly thank you for this,” Jing Zhi muttered under her breath.

“I’m not expecting his gratitude. Regardless of how he treats me, Little Nuo’er is sweet and innocent—and she’s my niece. It was what needed to be done.”

“Miss, what was that thing you were doing earlier—pressing on the little miss’s chest?” Jing Zhi asked curiously.

Yan Qing said, “That’s called cardiac compression. It’s a resuscitation technique…”

And then, mid-sentence, Yan Qing’s eyes went wide. The fog that had clung to her thoughts suddenly lifted—as if a wind had swept it away, revealing just the tip of an iceberg.

“I understand now.” Yan Qing couldn’t contain the excitement rising in her expression. “Quickly—call the Military Police Bureau.”

~

Shi Ting and Zheng Yun were in the car. Zheng Yun asked, “Which hospital do we start with, Seventh Brother?”

White bedsheets were used not only in school dormitories but in hospitals as well.

“The First Hospital,” Shi Ting said. “We don’t need to check the others.”

“You’re so certain the sheet is from the First Hospital, Seventh Brother?”

Shi Ting nodded. “Let’s go.”

When the two arrived, they went directly to the inpatient ward at the rear of the building.

After presenting their credentials to the head nurse, she cooperated fully and handed over a freshly washed sheet. “Officers, this is the standard sheet for our inpatient ward. We’ve used the same design since the hospital opened—it has never changed.”

Zheng Yun took the sheet, unfolded it, and immediately saw that its size closely matched the sheet that had wrapped the body. In the lower corner, printed in red in a semi-circular arc, were clearly legible words: Shun Cheng First Hospital Inpatient Ward.

Zheng Yun said, “The three characters left on the body’s wrapping—’Cheng,’ ‘Yi,’ and ‘Bu’—are all present on this sheet.”

Shi Ting said, “The position matches exactly. The sheet used to wrap the body is the same type as this one.”

“But Seventh Brother, didn’t you also find a white sheet at the Shun Cheng University dormitory with those same three characters—’Cheng,’ ‘Yi,’ and ‘Bu’?”

“Think carefully about the body sheet and where the missing characters would fall. Then try fitting the text from both sheets into those gaps.”

Shun Cheng University First-Year Women’s Dormitory

Shun Cheng First Hospital Inpatient Ward

“You’ll find that if you use the university sheet’s text, one character is left over with nowhere to go. So the sheet used to wrap the body came from the hospital.”

“The killer is connected to the hospital? I recall that Nannan’s father, Old Liu, works there—and his behavior today was quite suspicious. As the father of Cailing’s friend, Old Liu may have been driven by desire. He has motive.”

Shi Ting asked the head nurse, “Who has access to the sheets in your ward?”

“The nurses and doctors on duty, and the logistics staff responsible for laundry.”

“Is inventory management strict?”

The head nurse replied, “Items are recorded and logged, but when it comes to sheets, no one truly notices if there’s one more or one less. Old sheets, or ones that have been torn—staff can take them home if they need them. No one questions it.”

“Could you please provide a complete list of all staff in the inpatient ward who have had access to the sheets—ideally from the hospital’s founding to the present?”

Given the heavy wear on the killer’s sheet, suggesting it was several years old, and given staff turnover over that time, the killer might no longer be working at the hospital.

“That’s… rather a large request.” The head nurse hesitated, but evidently made a concession given the face before her. “Very well. I’ll speak with the personnel office—my husband oversees it.”

“One more thing.” Shi Ting called after her. “You have a furnace worker here with the surname Liu?”

“Old Liu?” the head nurse said. “He’s down in the boiler room.”

“Does anyone at the hospital know about the female student murder case at Shun Cheng University?”

“Everyone does—the whole hospital has heard.” The head nurse was forthcoming. “Our deputy director’s wife is a teacher at Shun Cheng University and happened to be teaching the victim’s class.”

In a place like this, news spread from person to person until it reached every corner—including the boiler room.

Shi Ting and Zheng Yun exchanged a glance.

That Old Liu, Nannan’s father, knew about Cailing’s case was no longer remarkable.

But it didn’t rule him out as a suspect either.

While the head nurse went to retrieve the records, Zheng Yun asked curiously, “How did you know Old Liu works in the boiler room, Seventh Brother?”

“All ten of his fingers were blackened, with coal dust under his nails and coal residue on the soles of his shoes. In a hospital, the only place you’d pick those up is the boiler room.”

The head nurse proved remarkably efficient. Half an hour later, she returned with a list.

“This is a record of all staff who have worked in the inpatient ward and had access to the sheets since the hospital’s founding.” She added, “Many of these people have already left. Please don’t ask me for their current addresses or contact information—I genuinely have no way to obtain those.”

Zheng Yun accepted the list and stared at the densely packed names filling the page. His head throbbed at the sight.

“Do we really have to investigate every single person on this list, Seventh Brother?”

Shi Ting said, “For now, it appears that’s the only way.”

“Understood.” Zheng Yun didn’t waver. “The sheet is the most direct evidence pointing us to the killer. Go through everyone on the list and we’ll root them out.”

“Wait.” Shi Ting’s gaze fixed on one name. “Why is this person on the list?”

Zheng Yun looked in the direction Shi Ting was pointing and his brow furrowed slightly. “This is unexpected.”

Shi Ting pointed to the name and asked the head nurse, “Do you remember this individual?”

The head nurse wasn’t entirely certain. “I’ve been here since the day the hospital opened, but with so many staff coming and going over the years, I can’t remember every face.”

She glanced at the name—and recognition came at once. “Oh, him. I remember. He left two years ago.”

“Did he resign voluntarily?”

“No.” The memory was clearly fresh. “There was a patient with a growth on his leg who didn’t want to pay hospital prices for surgery. He sought out this man and paid him to perform the operation privately. The surgery went badly—the patient’s condition deteriorated—and eventually the patient returned to the hospital demanding compensation. The hospital dismissed the man.”

“He was a doctor?”

“No. He handled medication distribution in the inpatient ward.”

Zheng Yun was bewildered. “Someone who handed out medicine had the audacity to perform surgery on a patient?”

“Everyone who works here has some form of medical training—it simply varies by role.” The head nurse seemed entirely unsurprised. “He was just unlucky. The growth was in a difficult location.”

Zheng Yun was speechless.

At that moment, a young officer came sprinting over, breathless, and saluted. “Report, Director—Miss Yan has telephoned.”

The officer had run all the way; his uniform was soaked through with sweat.

Communication in this era was slow and circuitous—information had to travel through many channels. Yan Qing had called the Military Police Bureau, and someone had then driven to the hospital to find Shi Ting and relay the message in person.

“What did Yan Qing say?” Shi Ting knew that if Yan Qing was calling at this hour, she must have thought of something connected to the case.

The young officer worked to steady his breathing and collect himself.

“Miss Yan said—she knows why the killer used scissors to cut open the ties on the victim’s undergarment.”

Shi Ting and Zheng Yun’s eyes both lit up.

“Miss Yan said the killer was performing cardiac compression on the victim.”

“Cardiac compression—isn’t that a resuscitation technique? Why would the killer try to revive the person they were trying to kill?”

The young officer’s breathing had finally calmed, and he was able to speak in complete sentences. “Miss Yan said the victim was in respiratory distress at the time. The killer cut the undergarment ties to help the victim breathe. The skin beneath the ties was completely undamaged, which means the killer’s movements were careful—deliberately avoiding injury to the victim. The killer therefore had medical knowledge and had quick access to scissors. Cutting the undergarment ties was done to clear the airway—the most basic preparatory step before cardiac compression.”

Zheng Yun grew even more perplexed. “Based on what Miss Yan is saying, the killer was trying to save the victim—not kill her? Then why dump the body in the reservoir? Isn’t that an attempt to conceal a crime?”

“I understand now.” The darkness lifted from Shi Ting’s eyes, replaced in an instant by perfect clarity. “Let’s go. We’re making an arrest.”

—