He Yunqin’s expression improved slightly, and he said to Yu Chongyi: “Lu Jingheng is often together with the driver. Even if Lu Jingheng is careless, he should have noticed something unusual about the driver to some degree. For now, we can’t rule out whether Lu Jingheng is the driver’s accomplice. We can only interrogate him in detail first. No matter how much Lu Jingheng knows, we should be able to find some clues from his testimony.”
Yu Chongyi nodded: “I’ll go back immediately and request instructions from Commissioner Bai. One team will go pursue and capture the Lu family’s driver, and another team will interrogate Lu Jingheng with me.”
About an hour later, just as Hongdou was about to start dozing off again, Yu Chongyi finally came back: “Lu Jingheng doesn’t seem much like an accomplice. I questioned him for a long time and couldn’t get a single useful word out of him. He knows nothing at all about what the driver did. All we know now is that the driver’s name is Chen Jinsheng, a Taoist priest who returned to secular life. A few years ago during the fighting, the Daoist temple where Chen Jinsheng lived was greatly affected. To make a living, Chen Jinsheng left the priesthood and came south. It happened to coincide with the Lu family recruiting servants eight years ago, and he settled with the Lu family afterward. Because he’s steady and reliable, everyone in the Lu family liked him. Lu Jingheng saw that he was skilled, and specially asked for him to be his driver. Seven years ago, Chen Jinsheng married another servant of the Lu family named Li Guihua. Their son is now four years old.”
Wang Bide looked at He Yunqin and said: “So this person used to be a Taoist priest? If Wang Meiping’s case really was his doing, that would explain how he knew such strange and bizarre techniques. But looking at this man’s family circumstances, he has a wife and son, and his life seems stable enough — why would he suddenly want to commit a crime?”
He Yunqin said nothing. Lu Jingheng was always arrogant and paid no attention to others; he wouldn’t necessarily have noticed anything unusual about a mere driver. He asked Yu Chongyi: “Did you ask the other servants in the Lu family whether there was anything unusual about Chen Jinsheng’s household?”
Yu Chongyi’s mind worked nowhere near as quickly as He Yunqin’s, but he had the advantage of being careful and patient. He hurriedly said: “I asked. Chen Jinsheng’s wife Li Guihua seems to have some kind of physical deficiency. She was pregnant twice before, but neither pregnancy was carried to term. Only this last one finally held. Unfortunately, this child came down with a strange illness at the start of the year — a low fever that wouldn’t go away for months, and he could barely eat. They first went to Yuren Hall for treatment with no effect, then went to several well-known Western clinics in the city to have him examined. All of them said he had some strange ailment in his bone marrow, and that at most he could last a few more months — there was no possibility of a cure. To treat their son, the Chen couple spent all their savings and went into debt, and Chen Jinsheng frequently asked his employer for leave. In the past month or two, the couple had probably given up hope, and things had quieted down considerably. The other servants in the Lu family all advised them that this child simply wasn’t fated to be theirs — neither of them was very old, and though having children had been difficult before, that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be able to conceive again in the future. Everyone urged them to look on the bright side.”
“Does this have anything to do with him killing someone?” Hongdou asked, stunned.
“Not yet known,” Yu Chongyi said, one hand resting on the car window, anxiously glancing back at the entrance to the police station. “The trunk of the Lu family’s car has already been inspected — it had already been cleaned by Chen Jinsheng, not a single trace left. Right now I’m just waiting for word from my colleagues at Chen Jinsheng’s home. Chen Jinsheng has a wife and son — even if he means to flee, he’d surely go home first, especially since his son is so sick and frail. At this point, our only hope is that my colleagues can catch him along the way.”
He Yunqin said: “The key issue is that we still don’t know the whereabouts of the other two missing women. We need to find them alive or find their bodies — if Chen Jinsheng refuses to talk even under threat of death, we’ll have no way to search for them. Even if the murderer is caught, it will all have been for nothing.”
“Does this have anything to do with that bizarre evil technique?” Wang Bide had borrowed the book Records of the Mysterious Sect from Hongdou and was flipping through it. “Could the whereabouts of the two missing women have something to do with this? He Yunqin, should we go to Liuyun Temple later?”
None of the four of them understood any occult arts at all. They stared at the strange diagrams in that book, which might as well have been written in heavenly script, for a long time without gaining the slightest clue.
Hongdou frowned with worry. Cousin Yuqi had been missing for six days now. If what they found was a corpse — or if they couldn’t even find a corpse — her uncle and aunt would likely go mad with grief.
They waited most of the night, until dawn broke, and there was still no word from Yu Chongyi’s side.
It wasn’t appropriate to keep waiting — not to mention the sky was gradually brightening, making it hard for the car to stay hidden. If Commissioner Bai or others saw them, it might cause trouble for Yu Chongyi.
Besides, Hongdou also needed to return to school for class.
They waited a while longer, but Yu Chongyi still didn’t come out. He Yunqin decided to drive the car away, and asked Hongdou: “I need to go home and change clothes. Detective Wang will go back to Fuhua Lane once. Miss Yu, will you go home or straight to school?”
Hongdou thought it over: “The first class today is Professor Yan’s Chinese Literature lecture — I can’t be late, let alone absent. Please, Mr. He, send me to school first. After the first class is over, I’ll go home and change clothes. Oh, and Mr. He, when are you all going to Liuyun Temple? Could you take me along after my class ends?”
He Yunqin was about to answer when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught Wang Bide’s bright, knowing gaze fixed on him. His expression cooled at once. “I’m afraid we won’t have time. Miss Yu should go home early and rest.”
Hongdou saw how readily he refused, and figured he clearly didn’t want her tagging along with them. She glanced at him once in the mirror, said “oh,” and didn’t press further.
By the time they reached the gates of St. John’s, students were already arriving one after another in a steady stream.
Hongdou got out of the car, and just as she managed to say goodbye to He Yunqin and Wang Bide, she spotted the He family’s car.
He Zhuyun and Duan Mingyi were getting out of it together.
Because Hongdou dodged out of sight in time, the He family members didn’t see her.
Before long, He Zhuyun turned her head and indeed caught sight of He Yunqin’s car. She walked over with delight written on her face. “Oh, Second Brother, why are you here so early?”
Duan Mingyi also got out of the car, but merely stood quietly beside it, not following along.
He Yunqin had earlier remembered that Hongdou hadn’t eaten breakfast, and out of gentlemanly courtesy had been planning to find a snack stall to buy her something. But running into his sister forced him to abandon the idea. He smiled. “I was passing by on an errand.” As he spoke, he glanced idly out the window, and saw that Hongdou had already quietly moved to the other side.
He Zhuyun had always paid close attention to her second brother. Following his gaze, she then spotted Hongdou behind them.
Before Hongdou could manage to feign the expression of someone who’d just noticed He Zhuyun, she felt two gazes land on her face. She turned to greet them and realized it was Duan Mingyi, and was about to force a smile and say hello when someone suddenly blocked her view.
Qin Xuekai said: “Hongdou.”
Hongdou’s smile faltered slightly. “Senior Qin.” She thought to herself — she’d run into quite a lot of people this morning.
Qin Xuekai said to Hongdou earnestly: “Didn’t you ask about that book, Records of the Mysterious Sect, yesterday? I asked many people, and none of them knew where the book came from. Later I checked the fellowship’s collection register and discovered that this book was catalogued by the senior Deng who founded the fellowship back then. So I made inquiries through various channels to find out where senior Deng is now, and as luck would have it — yesterday afternoon I went to a professor’s home in my department, and he happened to know senior Deng. He said senior Deng recently returned to Shanghai from Beiping and is now living near St. John’s, and he even gave me senior Deng’s address. This morning I plan to go pay my respects to senior Deng — first, to arrange a welcome gathering for him, and second, to ask him about where this book came from. He originally studied mathematics, but he seems to have quite some expertise in the mysterious sect too, and since he was the one who catalogued this book back then, it’s not impossible he could explain this strange formation.”
His voice was loud, and he was standing close by. With every sentence, He Yunqin felt the air in the car grow a degree more stifling. By the time Qin Xuekai finished speaking, he could barely sit still in the car anymore, feeling deeply that something was off. He got out of the car, and looked at He Zhuyun without quite knowing what to do, finally just frowning and saying: “What classes do you have today? If your brother has time, I’ll come pick you up.”
Over there, Hongdou was still dazed. Who would have thought that her casual remark would be taken so seriously by Qin Xuekai? She stood stunned for a good while before saying bashfully: “Thank you so much, Senior Qin. I really do have something extremely urgent I need to ask senior Deng about.”
Author’s note: Second update delivered. The author is going to visit relatives tomorrow, so taking a day off.
A friend told me they think Hongdou is a bit more delicate/fussy than Qinyao from Hua Zhongli. I said, what’s wrong with a slightly more delicate Hongdou? He Er likes that type, haha.