Wang Yu had intended to take advantage of Huo Li’s intoxication and force himself on her. Huo Li resisted with everything she had and screamed at him, calling him a fraud and a pauper.

Wang Yu lost control. He seized her by the throat — and then forced himself on her. By the time the frenzy subsided and Wang Yu came back to himself, Huo Li was no longer breathing.

Panicked and terrified, Wang Yu lay awake through the entire night, keeping vigil beside Huo Li’s body.

At the first crow of the neighborhood roosters the following morning, he snapped to clarity. He decided to see it through to the end and destroy all evidence completely.

Wang Yu went to the kitchen for a cleaver and a pointed knife, and savagely cut Huo Li’s body into several pieces.

When it came time to pack the remains, he found that the torso would not fit into the leather case no matter what he tried, so he wrapped it carefully in a bedsheet and secured it to the outside.

In the quiet of the night, Wang Yu dragged the case and the bundled sheet down to the bank of the Liao River, intending to throw everything in and leave no evidence behind.

But human calculations cannot always outrun fate. The bedsheet wrapping the torso came undone in the current, and the body part drifted downstream, eventually to be scooped up in a fisherman’s net. The leather case, meanwhile, caught on an iron anchor and remained — to become the very evidence that would condemn him.

Wang Yu could never have imagined that a mere four days after killing Huo Li, the Military Police Directorate would descend upon him like a swift and unstoppable force. Confronted with incontrovertible evidence, he had no choice but to bow his guilty head at last.

The Directorate’s cracking of the Liao River dismemberment case was widely reported across every major newspaper, sending its reputation soaring among the public and lifting spirits throughout the organization. The dark cloud that had hung overhead dissipated without a trace.

The sounds of celebration drifted into Yan Qing’s ears, reminding her of the scenes at her bureau when a major case was broken — cheers, laughter, people jubilant with relief.

She had not been in this world long. And that other world — what was it like now?

Had her body been cremated and buried? Were her second uncle and his wife beside themselves with grief? Would her friends miss her? And the person who had killed her — were they still free, untouchable?

Whatever the case, all that remained of her in that world was a grave — and a record tucked into a faded file, stamped “accidental death.”

“Miss Yan.” A clear, unhurried voice pulled her thoughts back. Shi Ting stood before her, his eyes deep and calm, the dark pupils reflecting a small, unfocused image of her.

“Director Shi, what were you just asking me?” She admitted it openly — she had been lost in thought.

“I was simply curious,” Shi Ting said. “Where did Miss Yan come by all this knowledge?”

“From books.” Yan Qing dreaded questions like this and forced a light laugh. “And a great deal of muddling through on my own. Pure luck, really.”

Shi Ting naturally did not believe this explanation, but he could see she was deliberately concealing something. He was not a man who pressed people where they did not wish to be pressed, and so he let the matter drop.

As they spoke, E’Yuan knocked on the door from outside, revealing a pair of eyes that had something to say but did not quite know how to begin.

Shi Ting read his young forensic examiner’s mind at a glance and stood up. “I’ll step out for a moment. I’ll arrange a car to take you back.”

After Shi Ting left, E’Yuan came shuffling over to Yan Qing, the thin skin of his face flushed apple-red, his eyes unable to quite bring themselves to meet hers as she sat in the wheelchair, considerably shorter than him.

Yan Qing met his gaze evenly, her expression composed.

“Miss Yan.” E’Yuan drew himself together, as if summoning courage. “If I have been disrespectful toward you in any way before this, I hope you will forgive me.”

This proud young forensic examiner had set aside every sharp edge and every ounce of arrogance. In the set of his brows there was nothing left but respectful humility.

—