Just as Shi Ting was lost in the sight of her, someone suddenly came rushing out from behind, heedless of where they were going, and collided straight into Yan Qing’s shoulder.
Yan Qing was caught completely off guard and stumbled to one side from the momentum.
“Watch out.” Shi Ting reached out swiftly to steady her, and she landed squarely against his chest, her hands instinctively clutching his lapels.
Before Yan Qing had even regained her bearings, someone suddenly cried out, “Thief! Stop that thief! That man stole my bag!”
“Wait here.” Shi Ting murmured the words close to her ear, and the next moment he was gone.
By the time Yan Qing came to her senses, she rushed after him — and outside the cinema, a man was already face-down on the ground, completely stripped of any ability to resist.
“Thank you, thank you so much!” The woman whose bag had been snatched took back her purse from Shi Ting’s outstretched hand and thanked him profusely.
Several bystanders who had witnessed Shi Ting apprehend the thief burst into applause.
When Yan Qing ran over, the first thing she did was not to check on the thief, but to ask anxiously, “Are you hurt?”
“No.” Shi Ting paused for a moment. In a corner she couldn’t see, the corners of his mouth seemed to curve slightly upward. He suddenly recalled the time his face had been cut — the image of her carefully and methodically tending to his wound.
If he were actually hurt right now, would he receive her even more attentive care?
He really should have given himself an opening just now.
Of course, Yan Qing had no idea what was going through Shi Ting’s mind. She turned her attention to the thief still sprawled on the ground. “I’ll call the police now.”
Before long, officers from the local precinct arrived. The two young policemen didn’t recognize Shi Ting, and treated him as an upstanding citizen, thanking him warmly.
“That thief really had terrible luck,” Yan Qing thought about it and started laughing. “He just had to run straight into the head of the criminal investigation unit. What’s the expression — a sheep walking into a tiger’s den? No, no — that’s not quite right. It should be walking right into a trap.”
Shi Ting watched her entertaining herself with her own running commentary, while his thoughts drifted back to the sensation of holding her in his arms just moments ago.
Brief as that instant had been, it had struck a chord deep within him and lingered in his mind.
The sharp ring of his phone cut through his thoughts.
One glance at the number told him it was from the unit.
“Is there news on Zhai Xiaoqiu?”
Shi Ting nodded. “Old Fan says Chen Mingzhi’s bank card was used to withdraw one hundred thousand yuan in Pingjiang City. The Pingjiang police are currently tracking down whoever made the withdrawal. It won’t be long before Zhai Xiaoqiu is brought in.”
Shi Ting was right. The following morning at ten o’clock, Pingjiang City sent officers to escort Zhai Xiaoqiu back into custody. When Shi Ting arrived, Old Fan had just seen the Pingjiang officers off.
“This Zhai Xiaoqiu — not only did she take Chen Mingzhi’s bank card, she also took his ID. She used his ID and bank card to withdraw one hundred thousand yuan from the bank.”
Chen Mingzhi’s bank card had already been flagged in the bank’s monitoring system, set to trigger an alert the moment any transaction occurred. So Zhai Xiaoqiu had been identified by the Pingjiang police before she even stepped out of the bank.
Zhai Xiaoqiu sat in the interrogation room, her expression perfectly composed.
It was entirely consistent with the steely nerve it took to commit murder and dismember a body — even under arrest, she showed not the slightest trace of panic.
Faced with Old Fan’s questioning, Zhai Xiaoqiu chose not to stonewall him with silence. Instead, she confessed to her crimes without reservation.
Zhai Xiaoqiu had met Chen Mingzhi during a surgical procedure. As the attending physician, Chen Mingzhi was exceptionally skilled — something of an idol to many of the younger staff at the hospital.
Zhai Xiaoqiu had always addressed him as Dr. Chen.
But this seemingly upright and respectable Dr. Chen had set his sights on Zhai Xiaoqiu’s beauty. Using his position and authority, he had made her professional life at the hospital a continuous series of difficulties — she was passed over for every opportunity that came her way.
At one hospital gathering, Zhai Xiaoqiu poured out her frustrations to Chen Mingzhi. She told him she wanted a raise and a promotion, because she still had a younger brother in university and her parents were growing older and no longer able to carry the financial burden on their own.
Chen Mingzhi seized the opportunity to put forward his own proposition. He could give Zhai Xiaoqiu money and provide her with a comfortable life, but on one condition — she would have to offer her body in exchange. Zhai Xiaoqiu had never imagined that the man she had always respected could be like this, and she rejected him outright.
But not long afterward, Zhai Xiaoqiu — desperate to earn money — was lured into online gambling through the introduction of a friend. Tempted by early wins, she bet more and more, until in the end she had lost everything, including the money she had set aside for her brother’s tuition.
Her parents were pressing her for money, and her brother called one after another. Left with no alternative, Zhai Xiaoqiu thought of Chen Mingzhi. He brought her to a hotel, where the two became intimate.
Zhai Xiaoqiu felt utterly degraded by the experience. Chen Mingzhi was a pervert — he constantly demanded she perform acts she found deeply humiliating, and insisted on recording everything.
Afterward, however, Chen Mingzhi was generously compensating, giving Zhai Xiaoqiu twenty thousand yuan — enough to get her out of her immediate bind.
Far from being cured of her habit after this, Zhai Xiaoqiu’s addiction to online gambling only worsened. As one might expect, she had been caught in an elaborate scam — no one ever comes out ahead at these online gambling dens in the end, and every player eventually loses everything.
Each time Zhai Xiaoqiu lost, she would go to Chen Mingzhi — enduring whatever humiliation he imposed, and taking the money afterward.
To make their liaisons more convenient, Chen Mingzhi suggested that Zhai Xiaoqiu rent a place outside. Zhai Xiaoqiu also feared that her close friends might find out about her involvement with him, so she found a rental listing through an advertisement, contacted the landlord by phone, and moved in after a single call.
Zhai Xiaoqiu was a proud person. She had kept her arrangement with Chen Mingzhi extremely well hidden — even her closest friends had not the faintest inkling.
Though every encounter required her to satisfy Chen Mingzhi’s demands before she received any money, she had endured his perverted behavior for the sake of the payment.
What finally made Zhai Xiaoqiu unwilling to continue this degrading arrangement was that she had fallen for a doctor at the hospital. This doctor was a foreign-educated returnee — talented, cultured, and gentle in manner.
Many people at the hospital admired this doctor, Zhai Xiaoqiu among them.
And this doctor seemed to hold some affection for her as well — the two of them had shared a few meals and seen a few films together, though in the eyes of everyone around them, they still appeared to be ordinary colleagues.
Just as Zhai Xiaoqiu found herself falling deeper, Chen Mingzhi came to her again and made his usual demands.
Chen Mingzhi took Zhai Xiaoqiu to get a tattoo, forcing her to have his name tattooed on her leg — a mark that had been a source of shame to her ever since.
After the two of them had finished at the rental apartment, Zhai Xiaoqiu received a message from the doctor, and she was deep in conversation with him when Chen Mingzhi noticed. Chen Mingzhi threatened her — he would send those photographs to the doctor, and have them spread throughout the entire hospital.
Thinking of all the indignities she had suffered, Zhai Xiaoqiu’s desire to kill was born.
She dissolved sleeping pills into Chen Mingzhi’s water glass. After he fell into a deep sleep, she strangled him with a necktie.
After killing Chen Mingzhi, she used a surgical scalpel to dismember the body. The soft tissue she flushed down the drain; the bones she placed in a suitcase and hid under the bed.
Zhai Xiaoqiu was clever about it. She moved her belongings out over the course of several days, and disinfected the entire room thoroughly with antiseptic solution.
Had the flushed remains not blocked a neighbour’s drain, her crime might not have come to light so quickly.
But the net of justice is wide — and though its mesh is coarse, nothing slips through in the end. Zhai Xiaoqiu ultimately paid the price for her impulsive act, and what awaited her was a lifetime of regret behind cold iron bars.
With the Zhai Xiaoqiu case successfully solved, the criminal investigation unit received commendations from above. Director Liu was in high spirits and gave everyone three days off.
But the criminal investigation team’s days off were always an unknown quantity — sometimes the rest had barely begun before it was already over.
Yan Qing had just finished a follow-up case autopsy report when her phone rang.
She still had other work on her hands, so she put it on speaker.
“Qingqing, busy with a case again?” came the voice on the other end.
“Just finished the autopsy for an appeal case. And there’s a medical evaluation to get through.” Yan Qing sorted through the documents in front of her and glanced at her watch. “Second Aunt, didn’t you go to square dancing today?”
“The weather’s not great today — danced for a bit and came back. Afraid it might rain.” Second Aunt said warmly. “Let me tell you, I just ran into an old classmate of mine in the square — someone I haven’t seen in years. This old classmate married into money, and she’s living so comfortably now.”
Yan Qing knew this wasn’t the point, because Second Aunt had never been a vain or materialistic person.
Second Uncle was a deputy bureau chief, but his salary wasn’t all that high — nowhere near the wealthy by comparison — yet Second Aunt had followed him all these years without a single word of complaint.
Sure enough, after a few more sentences, Second Aunt steered the conversation to her real purpose. “This old classmate of mine has a son who’s a lawyer. He just came back from overseas and went into practice with partners — he’s one of the partners now. My old classmate even showed me photos. The young man is really quite handsome, every inch the picture of a talented and promising young man…”
Yan Qing was long accustomed to Second Aunt’s approach. Whenever these recommendations came, she let them go in one ear and out the other.
“I’ve already arranged it with my old classmate — tomorrow is the weekend, and you’ll meet him.”
Yan Qing put on a wheedling pout. “Second Aunt, I really don’t want to go on a blind date right now. It makes it sound like I can’t get married on my own.”
“That’s exactly what I’m worried about — that you won’t be able to get married! You’re almost twenty-seven and you still have no one. Don’t you think that’s alarming? While you can still be picky, be picky — once you’re past thirty, it’ll be everyone else doing the picking…”
Second Aunt’s “leftover woman” speech came crashing down on her without mercy, and Yan Qing knew that if she didn’t go, Second Aunt would never let up.
So she had no choice but to relent with a gesture of surrender. “Fine, fine, I’ll go.”
Second Aunt’s tone immediately softened, and her voice grew cheerful. “That’s more like it — better to cast a wide net than to let any fish slip away.”
Yan Qing stared at the phone in silence.
What a grim metaphor.
“His name is Shen Liang. I’ve booked you both a table at that Rose Western Restaurant — the one you’ve been to before. I’ll send you his photo, so don’t go greeting the wrong person. All right, that’s it — I’ll be waiting for your good news.”
Yan Qing picked up her phone and looked. The man in the photo was certainly decent-looking, but not at all her type.
He’s nowhere near Team Leader Shi.
She muttered to herself inwardly.
And at that very moment, the person she was muttering about happened to be walking to her doorway. He had intended to ask her for some documents, but seeing she was on the phone, he hadn’t wanted to disturb her — only to find himself accidentally overhearing the entire conversation.
—