Liu Zimo seemed to realize her reaction had come across as extreme. She pursed her lips and added, “Still — they were Mingming’s biological parents. Now that they’re gone, Mingming must be devastated. She hasn’t come to school in days. I thought she was sick.”

“Does Fan Mingming have a phone?”

“No. Why? Her mom wouldn’t buy her one. She has her own money, but she didn’t dare buy one herself.”

“You’re certain?”

“Absolutely — I’ve never once seen her use a phone.” Liu Zimo was entirely confident.

Yan Qing and Shi Ting exchanged a glance, each reading the puzzlement in the other’s eyes.

“Besides you, does Fan Mingming have any other friends?” Shi Ting asked.

“No. Mingming is very introverted. With her classmates she’s barely on nodding terms. But she’s a kind person — if anyone came to her with a question, she’d answer patiently.”

“Think carefully — besides you, is there truly no one else she had contact with?” Shi Ting’s gaze was piercing. Liu Zimo met it for just a moment before quickly looking away.

Her hand tugged at the fabric of her jeans. “No one,” she said with certainty.

“Liu Zimo, there are two lives at stake here. You’d do best to answer my questions honestly. Who else, besides you, did Fan Mingming have dealings with?”

Liu Zimo’s eyes dropped to the floor. Behind her thin eyelids, her pupils shifted.

“You officers are so annoying,” she suddenly burst out, shooting to her feet. “I said nobody, nobody! If you don’t believe me, don’t come asking me! This is completely pointless.”

With that, Liu Zimo stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

Listening to the sound of it closing, Shi Ting said, “She’s lying.”

“Fan Mingming must have had contact with someone besides Liu Zimo.” Yan Qing looked at him. “But if she won’t talk, how do we investigate?”

“Follow her. She’ll tell us.”

After leaving the office, Liu Zimo hurried to the girls’ bathroom and locked herself inside one of the stalls. After a few moments to collect herself, she pulled out her phone.

It rang for a long time without an answer. She waited, stomping her foot and muttering to herself, “Pick up, pick up, why aren’t you picking up?”

After several repeated attempts, someone finally answered.

“What do I want? What kind of time do you think this is — you’re still sleeping?” Liu Zimo’s voice climbed despite herself.

“Has Mingming been in contact with you recently? No? Good — it’s better if she hasn’t. Do you know what happened to her family?”

“You don’t know? Good. I hope this has nothing to do with you. Mingming has a lot of hatred for those two parents of hers — you know that better than anyone…”

“Okay, okay, no more. Just be careful from now on. If any officers come looking for you, don’t say anything extra.”

“Alright, hanging up.”

At that moment, the bathroom door swung open. Liu Zimo looked up and found herself face-to-face with Yan Qing. Her mouth fell open.

Yan Qing placed a finger to her lips, then took the phone from her hand.

Liu Zimo snapped back to herself and shoved Yan Qing aside, bolting for the door like a startled rabbit — only to be caught at the threshold by Shi Ting, who grabbed her by the arm.

“Let go of me! Let go!” Liu Zimo struggled desperately to break free of Shi Ting’s grip. She couldn’t. At last, she dropped heavily onto the floor and broke into loud, heaving sobs.

Liu Zimo was a minor, and so her mother was quickly summoned to the station after she arrived.

The Liu family was prominent in their community — having her daughter dragged into a police station was deeply embarrassing for her mother. She wanted nothing more than to smooth it all over.

“Zimo, just tell the officers what they need to know. Don’t be afraid — you haven’t done anything wrong. Nothing bad will happen to you.”

Liu Zimo kept her head down and said nothing.

“What point is there in being loyal to a friend right now? Besides, all they’re asking is who Fan Mingming has been in contact with. They’re not asking you to testify against her. What is there to hold back?”

Liu Zimo’s mother pressed on with gentle persuasion, but Liu Zimo refused to budge. Then she rounded on her mother and screamed, “What do you know? All you do is beauty treatments and mahjong — what do you know about anything? Mingming cares about me. She treats me well. What have you done? You give me money and tell me not to cause trouble for you — that’s it. Have you ever genuinely cared about me? Do you know what day my period comes? Do you know I was hospitalized for days with appendicitis? I called you and you told me I was faking it. It was Mingming who stayed by my side in that hospital, twenty-four hours a day. Yes, I have loyalty. Because Mingming is my real friend. She’s worth a hundred times more than you as a mother. A thousand times more—”

Crack!

A slap landed hard across Liu Zimo’s face. The sound was sharp and clear. Everyone in the room went still.

It was Old Fan who recovered first, quickly stepping in to pull Liu Zimo’s mother aside. “Calm down. There’s no need to hit the child.”

“If I don’t hit her, am I supposed to just let her keep saying whatever she wants?” Liu Zimo’s mother was shaking with fury.

Old Fan couldn’t help but say, “Is what the child said true?”

That one question struck Liu Zimo’s mother dumb. After quite a long pause, she offered a somewhat sheepish defense of herself: “I really did think she was faking… I had a foreign beauty therapist coming that day — I couldn’t cancel, he was very busy…”

Yan Qing looked at Liu Zimo’s mother — immaculately groomed and preserved — and felt a wave of quiet sadness. No matter how carefully you maintained your complexion, it would age in the end. But the window to nurture a child’s growth came only once. If you let it pass, you might never be able to repair the damage.

“Chief Shi, we’ve traced the phone.” Jian Zhigang from the tech unit came in at a brisk pace. “It’s at Xilin Residential Compound.”

Shi Ting said, “Old Fan, send someone back to Fan Mingming’s home to do another search. I suspect she hid the phone somewhere she could always access easily but keep out of sight.”

An image flashed quickly through his mind, and his eyes suddenly lit up. “On the right side of the first-floor lobby, there’s a row of newspaper boxes — probably installed when the building was first put up. Fewer and fewer people read physical newspapers these days, but some still use them. Check whether the Fan family had a newspaper box.”

“Yes, Chief Shi.”

“Put someone watching the Lin family’s place, and keep an eye on Fan Mingming.” Shi Ting issued his orders in quick succession. “Da Peng — take your team to Xilin Residential Compound. Locate the person who was on the phone with Liu Zimo and bring them in. This individual is a prime suspect. Handle it with care.”

“Yes, Chief Shi.”

After Old Fan and Da Peng departed with their teams, Shi Ting turned to Yan Qing beside him. “Have the lab results come back on those kitchen knives?”

“Should be soon. They’ve already been handed to the tech unit.”

“Let’s go check.”

Bai Le was still over in the other room taking statements from Liu Zimo and her mother. Shi Ting and Yan Qing walked together to the analysis lab, arriving just as Chief Liu from the lab was coming out with a few report sheets in hand.

“Chief Shi — the results are in.” Chief Liu called out to Shi Ting, then noticed Yan Qing. “Dr. Yan is here too, perfect.”

Chief Liu said, “Of the four kitchen knives, only one had human blood on it. After analysis and comparison, the blood belonged to the deceased Fan Wenzhi and Lin Yuqin.”

He held up the evidence bag containing the knife. “They tried to clean the blade, but they couldn’t outwit our technology.”

Shi Ting turned to Yan Qing with open admiration. “Dr. Yan really is remarkable — she was able to deduce the murder weapon just from the wounds on the bodies.”

“It was only a hypothesis. My uncle always says — never rule out any possibility.” Yan Qing shrugged.

“Oh, and there’s something else. A third person’s blood was found on the knife.” Chief Liu paused for breath. “After DNA comparison, it shares a direct blood relationship with the deceased Fan Wenzhi and Lin Yuqin. We haven’t obtained a blood sample from Fan Mingming yet, but there is a ninety-nine percent chance the blood is hers.”

Yan Qing suddenly thought of Fan Mingming’s bandaged finger. She had said she accidentally cut herself while helping her grandfather chop vegetables. If the blood on the knife was truly hers, then that cut was almost certainly a self-inflicted wound sustained while wielding the blade.

More and more evidence was pointing toward Fan Mingming — confirming Shi Ting’s reasoning. The one who had seemed the least likely to be responsible had become the most likely.

At the thought of this, Yan Qing felt a chill settle over her.

Before long, Da Peng returned to the station with two young men.

One was named Wang Feng; the other, Zhang Zetian. Both were unemployed drifters.

A quick search by Jian Zhigang revealed that three years ago, Wang Feng had been involved in a violent altercation in which he had severely injured a street vendor. As he had not yet reached adulthood at the time, he was sent to a juvenile correctional facility. Zhang Zetian was someone Wang Feng had met there. After their release, the two had become close.

Wang Feng had been raised by his grandparents from childhood. His parents had left to find work elsewhere from the time he was born, returning perhaps once a year. His grandparents, feeling he had missed out on parental love, had given him whatever he asked for — which led to Wang Feng developing a self-centered, domineering personality from an early age, behaving like a tyrant at school.

After his release from the correctional facility, Wang Feng made no effort to find honest work. He and Zhang Zetian scraped together money through petty deception and schemes.

The two had met Liu Zimo at a bar, the way drifters tend to find their kind. Zhang Zetian had a glib tongue and a convincing air of loyalty, while Wang Feng was loose with money. Liu Zimo naturally came to regard them as good brothers.

Shi Ting looked across the table at Wang Feng. Wang Feng kept his head down, his hair dyed a conspicuous shade of yellow.

Old Fan rapped on the table in front of him. “State your name.”

“Wang Feng.”

“Don’t make me pull everything out of you word by word.” Old Fan’s voice had an edge of impatience. “On the night of the 2nd, in the early morning hours — where were you?”

“I… I was home sleeping.”

“Anyone who can confirm that?”

“I live alone. No one can confirm it.”

“Do you know Fan Mingming?”

Wang Feng remembered what Liu Zimo had told him and shook his head. “No.”

“You’re certain you don’t know her?”

“Yes, I don’t.” Wang Feng’s denial was firm.

Old Fan shot Shi Ting a look.

Wang Feng had a prior record. He was fully accustomed to police questioning and could remain entirely composed even while lying, without a trace of a flinch.

A man like this would be difficult to deal with.