“The three were poor young men.” Having heard Bai Fengfei’s words, they were unable to come up with the money and felt utterly at a loss. Fu Zixiao, through skillfully currying favor with Young Master Cheng Guanzhi, had already secured a position at a foreign trading firm, but he was habitually extravagant and had saved nothing. However, he had always been known for his glib tongue. Bai Fengfei had not yet been claimed, and he could not bear to see her bought as a concubine by someone else. After much thought, he went to persuade the theater troupe’s owner at the time — that is, the father of the current owner.

“Since this man was purely profit-driven, Fu Zixiao tailored his approach accordingly, saying that Bai Fengfei’s singing style was unique, and if given time she would surely become a renowned star in her own right. If she were sold off now, the troupe would be losing a cash cow prematurely — undoubtedly a losing proposition. The troupe owner was somewhat swayed by this and changed his tune, saying he could refrain from selling Bai Fengfei, but they would need to come up with a thousand silver dollars to cover the cost, otherwise she would still be sold to that wealthy old man.

“Bai Fengfei’s indenture contract was in the owner’s hands, and if the troupe had nothing else, it had plenty of hired thugs — running away was out of the question. So Fu Zixiao and Yang Yutian and the others spent their days scheming over how to raise money. They had once borrowed money from Deng Guizhuang, whose family was relatively well-off, but a thousand silver dollars was an enormous sum at the time — even wealthy people would have to think twice, let alone a student like Deng Guizhuang.

“Before long, an opportunity arose. In order to give his son experience, Master Cheng of the prosperous Furong Trading Firm handed over an important order to his son Cheng Guanzhi, sending him to the docks to negotiate business. Fu Zixiao, who often accompanied Cheng Guanzhi, saw that this was a rare opportunity and discussed with Yang Yutian a shocking plan of coordinating from inside and outside. Xu Yishan originally found the idea shameful, but at the time he was worried about tuition money, and hearing Fu Zixiao describe the plan as flawless, he thought that if they were careful enough, it likely wouldn’t reveal any flaws. Moreover, Fu Zixiao kept saying “wealth is sought through risk,” and Xu Yishan and Yang Yutian, both men who had known poverty and feared it, gradually gave in under Fu Zixiao’s constant persuasion.

“When the day came, Fu Zixiao went with Young Master Cheng to the docks, staying there a full three days. Once the cargo transfer was complete and the payment received, Cheng Guanzhi wanted to head home that evening, but suddenly remembered he had promised to visit Miss Pan (that is, Hongdou’s aunt) at Chunying Li. He changed his plans at the last minute, not returning home with the trading firm’s main group, but instead having the driver take him to Chunying Li separately. Who could have known that when the car reached a secluded spot, the wheel ran over a steel spike planted on the road and the car broke down. The driver got out to inspect it and was knocked unconscious with a club from behind.

“Fu Zixiao jumped out of the car making a great commotion, and was quickly beaten until his head bled. Cheng Guanzhi was badly frightened, and only then saw two tall, burly masked men approaching the front of the car, appearing to be con-men bandits come to rob them. To save his life, he hastily offered up the money himself — only to be knocked unconscious the moment he handed it over.

“When Cheng Guanzhi woke, it was already the middle of the night. The money on him had been swept clean away, and Fu Zixiao and the driver were still unconscious. He could only struggle up and call the trading firm for help. When Master Cheng arrived, he had at first suspected Fu Zixiao and the driver, and investigated for a while without result. Combined with the fact that there truly were many such robber gangs at the time, his suspicions were dispelled. Cheng Guanzhi also said that Fu Zixiao had followed him since childhood and was utterly loyal to him, and moreover, of the three, Fu Zixiao had been hurt the worst. So the Cheng family sent Fu Zixiao to the hospital, engaging doctors and medicine daily, nursing him carefully back to health.

“From this scheme, the three had robbed a total of five thousand silver dollars. After setting aside the thousand to pay off Bai Fengfei’s debt, four thousand remained — an extremely large sum for the time. While Fu Zixiao was still hospitalized, Xu Yishan and Yang Yutian divided the money into four shares ahead of time, giving one thousand each to themselves and Bai Fengfei. One day, Deng Guizhuang came to discuss scholarly matters with Xu Yishan, and happened upon Xu Yishan and Yang Yutian drinking, with an unusually lavish spread of food on the table. Surprised, he joked that just a few days ago they’d needed to borrow money, yet now, in such a short time, they’d become so flush. The remark was made carelessly but landed heavily — both Xu and Yang’s faces changed at the time. Deng Guizhuang had seen in the papers a few days earlier about the robbery of the young master of Furong Trading Firm, which, as it happened, occurred near Chunying Li, with two bandits involved. Afterward, back home, he recalled Xu and Yang’s reactions and kept feeling the coincidence was too great — but he could never bring himself to connect Xu Yishan, whom he had always admired, with the kind of behavior only petty criminals engaged in.

“After this incident, Bai Fengfei was temporarily out of danger, but she also knew this could not go on forever — there was no guarantee some other lecherous old man wouldn’t set his sights on her again. Among the men she’d come into contact with at the time, only Deng Guizhuang was presentable in appearance and came from a well-off family. Although he reportedly had a young girlfriend, he was still unmarried. Hearing that Deng Guizhuang was interested in supernatural matters, she racked her brains to fabricate strange tales to lure Deng Guizhuang to visit her, deliberately trying to seduce him. Miss Ding quarreled with Deng Guizhuang several times over this; Deng Guizhuang was single-mindedly devoted to studying the occult arts and thought Miss Ding was being unreasonable, refusing to back down. Bai Fengfei, seizing every opportunity, went out of her way to devise all manner of strange topics to keep Deng Guizhuang tied to her.

“Meanwhile, Fu Zixiao, having recovered and been discharged from the hospital, immediately went to Xu and Yang to demand his share of the money. To his fury, he learned they had divided it into four shares without consulting him. He flew into a rage, saying it was he who had come up with the plan, he who had laid the groundwork with the trading firm, and he who had been most severely injured — why should he get only one thousand? He insisted he alone deserved two thousand, with the remaining two thousand split among the other three. They argued for days, none willing to yield. With prying eyes and ears among the neighbors, and the matter being one that could never see the light of day, the four of them had no choice but to go to a nearby, rarely visited girls’ middle school to discuss redividing the loot.

“While they were arguing over the division of spoils, Cheng Guanzhi, the young master of the trading firm, had been carrying on a romance with Miss Pan (Hongdou’s aunt) for some time, then turned around and pursued the daughter of a silk shop owner instead. Miss Pan wanted to confront Cheng Guanzhi in person, but he avoided her. That night, on her way home, Miss Pan suddenly remembered that Fu Zixiao, who lived in Chunying Li too, was Cheng Guanzhi’s attendant, and would surely know Cheng Guanzhi’s usual whereabouts, so she went to find Fu Zixiao. Passing by the middle school, she happened to see Fu Zixiao entering the school grounds with others. Determined to get an explanation from Cheng Guanzhi, she followed them in as well. When she reached the classroom at the very back of the school, she happened to overhear Fu Zixiao and the others discussing the division of the stolen money. Miss Pan was shocked — only then did she realize that the robbery of Young Master Cheng some days earlier had been Fu Zixiao’s own scheme.

“Seeing their scheme exposed, the group was terrified out of their wits, especially Fu Zixiao — if Master Cheng ever learned that he himself had orchestrated the whole affair, he would surely be chopped up and thrown into the Huangpu River to feed the fish. Xu Yishan had still been struggling with his conscience, but the thought that if this were exposed, he would be utterly ruined, unable to continue his studies, doomed to live as a lowly person for the rest of his life — this pushed the group to rush out of the classroom and seize Miss Pan. They first thought to buy her silence with money, but feared she would eventually tell Cheng Guanzhi anyway. So, resolving to see the matter through to its worst conclusion, they fetched a rope and together hanged Miss Pan from the roof beam, alive.”

Hongdou listened, filled with grief and rage, clamping a hand over her mouth to stifle a low cry. Yu Chongyi, mild-tempered by nature, found his eyes reddening as well. He had been thirteen or fourteen when his aunt died — old enough to remember clearly. The image of his grandmother’s heartbroken, sky-crying grief when her daughter died remained vivid to him even now. So-called empathy was, until now, just a hollow phrase — but at this moment, brother and sister could finally understand the depth of Reverend Yan’s visceral, personal anguish.

The room fell into a heavy silence. Once He Yunqin saw that the siblings’ emotions had settled somewhat, he spoke again in a low voice: “After the four of them strangled Hongdou’s aunt to death, they hurriedly scrambled to clean up the scene. As they were leaving, Bai Fengfei glimpsed a figure flash by under the trees in front of the classroom — a female student, whose back looked extremely familiar. She recognized her as Miss Ding, Deng Guizhuang’s girlfriend, and told the others: could it be that Miss Ding had come to Chunying Li looking for Deng Guizhuang, and had accidentally wandered into the school?

“As it happened, Miss Ding rarely came around, so Fu Zixiao and the others didn’t really recognize her — only Bai Fengfei, because of her connection to Deng Guizhuang, remembered Ding’s appearance. All of them, already guilty and afraid, worried that Miss Ding might have witnessed their killing. The following days were agonizing for them. Later, when Deng Guizhuang came to see them, Xu Yishan deliberately steered the conversation toward Miss Ding, but Deng Guizhuang, protective of her reputation, refused to say much. No matter how they pried, all they learned was that her surname was Ding — they didn’t even know which middle school she attended or where she lived, much less that her father’s surname was not actually Ding. They wanted to track her down but had not the slightest clue how.

“Later, sure enough, Miss Ding never came to see Deng Guizhuang again, and the group grew increasingly fearful — especially Bai Fengfei, who could not believe that Miss Ding would willingly accept her sweetheart being stolen away without protest. So she became convinced that Miss Ding must have witnessed their crime and was too afraid to return to Chunying Li. Even if Miss Ding hadn’t actually seen the murder scene, the Pan family, over their younger daughter’s suicide, had gone several times to make trouble at the trading firm — the matter was currently at a boiling point. If it were to hit the newspapers someday, there was no guarantee Miss Ding wouldn’t grow suspicious of them.

“The more they thought about it, the more uneasy they became, and eventually they began following Deng Guizhuang. After a few days of this, they happened upon Miss Ding coming to Chunying Li to see Deng Guizhuang. After exchanging only a few words, the two quarreled again — Miss Ding was reduced to angry tears, and Deng Guizhuang stormed off. Seizing the moment while Miss Ding was alone, the group knocked her unconscious, and under cover of night, using the same method as before, hanged her from the roof beam of a classroom in the girls’ middle school. Since the coroner had failed to determine the cause of Miss Pan’s death, naturally he would fail with Miss Ding’s death as well — this method was, by their calculation, the safest of all.” The next day, Deng Guizhuang learned of Miss Ding’s “suicide” and believed she had taken her own life because of him, and was so consumed by regret that he nearly fell fatally ill. Once he had barely recovered, disheartened, he left for Peiping.

“Reverend Yan waited anxiously for days and finally received the coroner’s report. Miss Ding, like Miss Pan, had died by hanging herself, with no external injuries and no signs of assault before death. Reverend Yan had already suspected before his daughter’s death that she was in love, but because she had kept it so tightly hidden, he and his wife never learned who the young man was. After her death, the couple searched her room for a long while and found, under her bed, a pair of men’s shoe patterns, size 42. Recalling that she had visited Chunying Li several times before, he suspected the young man lived there. Besides carefully collecting newspapers from the preceding months that mentioned Chunying Li, he also carefully preserved a Changle-brand cigarette butt found at the scene.

“Afterward, he took his daughter’s photograph to Chunying Li to make inquiries, but since Miss Ding had visited so rarely, and Deng Guizhuang had deliberately protected her reputation, few people had ever seen her. Reverend Yan, fearing that further inquiry would alert the culprit, went to Chunying Li every day just to look around. Whenever the opera stage was set up for a performance, he would pretend to be listening to the show, searching among the young men in the audience for someone close to his daughter’s age.

“Months passed this way, and he began to suspect Xu Yishan, since Xu Yishan had studied at Nanyang Public School and was strikingly handsome, and moreover, because of his romance with the heiress of Lulu Department Store, was about to become engaged. He wondered: could it be that his daughter had killed herself because Xu Yishan had betrayed her affections for another? But after checking Xu Yishan’s shoe size, he immediately dismissed this suspicion, since Xu Yishan wore a size 43, not 42. Among the other young men, Reverend Yan also noticed the strikingly handsome Fu Zixiao and Yang Yutian, but Yang Yutian wore a size 44, not matching the criteria. Fu Zixiao wore size 42, but his speech and conduct were truly unpresentable — Reverend Yan couldn’t imagine his daughter caring for someone like that.

“During his investigation into his daughter’s death, he had once caught sight of these young men going to the girls’ middle school together with Bai Fengfei, but at the time he could not fathom why they would want to harm his daughter. According to the newspapers he had gathered over those months, before his daughter’s death, only two incidents at Chunying Li stood out as unusual: one was the robbery of the young master of Furong Trading Firm, and the other was Miss Pan’s hanging. Coincidentally, Miss Pan had reportedly once dated the young master, and there had also been a cigarette butt at her death scene; the Pan family had also gone to make trouble at the trading firm over it. Yet no matter how hard Reverend Yan racked his brain, he could not work out what connection this might have to his daughter’s death.” Afterward, he spent a full year investigating in Chunying Li, but as the theater troupe relocated elsewhere, the clues he could gather grew fewer and fewer, and he had to set the matter aside for the time being.

“Half a year ago, Deng Guizhuang, due to his mother’s illness, decided he wanted to transfer back to Shanghai, and through connections found Reverend Yan, hoping to ask him to write a letter of recommendation. Back when Deng Guizhuang was dating Ding Qi, she had often mentioned her parents, and Deng Guizhuang had always assumed her parents were professors at Shanghai University — since her name was Ding Qi, naturally her father’s surname must also be Ding. So when he first visited Professor Yan at St. John’s, he had no idea whatsoever that Reverend Yan was Ding Qi’s father.

“On one occasion, Deng Guizhuang brought an old book he had authored for Reverend Yan to look over, and accidentally a photograph clipped from a newspaper fell out from between the pages. This photograph was the one taken by a foreigner back then, beside the theater troupe at Chunying Li — since it happened to include both himself and Ding Qi, Deng Guizhuang had specially clipped it out, and had kept it for eleven years since.

“Although Deng Guizhuang casually retrieved the photograph as if nothing were amiss, Reverend Yan’s eyesight was excellent, and he not only recognized his daughter in the photograph at a glance, but also recognized the young man beside her as Deng Guizhuang. Only then did he realize that the young man who had dated his daughter all those years ago was the very person before him now. Shocked and furious in equal measure, he nearly lost his composure on the spot, but fearing that Deng Guizhuang himself might be the murderer, he forced himself to act as if nothing had happened. To pursue the truth, from then on he often invited Deng Guizhuang to his home for conversation.

“On one occasion, Reverend Yan got Deng Guizhuang thoroughly drunk, and Deng Guizhuang tearfully confessed that the greatest regret of his life was that after quarreling with his girlfriend, he had failed to go coax her back, leading her to feel so wronged that she took her own life. Reverend Yan asked him why they had quarreled that day, and what his girlfriend had said. Deng Guizhuang said his girlfriend had wanted to tell him about something strange, concerning several of his friends, and wanted to discuss it with him. Before this, she had constantly tried to restrain him, always limiting who he could befriend, and they had quarreled over this many times before, so he already had a stomach full of resentment, and he had refused to hear more than the opening of what she had to say. Reverend Yan, holding his composure, still remembered which day the quarrel occurred, and what the opening words his daughter had said were.

“Because Deng Guizhuang was so consumed by regret, he remembered every word precisely. In a mumbling, hesitant way, he said it was the twenty-second day of the ninth month of the year of Jiakui. What his girlfriend had said at the time was: ‘Last time, I saw Xu Yishan and three others go into the girls’ middle school together.’ And he had cut her off, saying: ‘Are you going to say again that I only keep bad company?’ His girlfriend had a huge fight with him over this, and in a fit of anger he had left her and walked off.

“Reverend Yan then asked Deng Guizhuang, besides ‘Xu Yishan,’ who his girlfriend had mentioned, who were the other three? Deng Guizhuang said they were Yang Yutian, Bai Fengfei, and Fu Zixiao. Reverend Yan asked, after all these years, did Deng still remember which of them smoked Changle-brand cigarettes? Deng Guizhuang said Fu Zixiao and Yang Yutian both especially favored Changle cigarettes.

“Reverend Yan then dug out all the old newspapers and reorganized the clues he had gathered over the years. The young master of Furong Trading Firm had been robbed on the third day of the ninth month; at the time of the robbery, only the driver and an attendant surnamed Fu had been with him. On the sixteenth, Miss Pan had hanged herself in the girls’ middle school, with a cigarette butt found in the classroom at the time of death. His daughter had very likely seen Fu Zixiao and the other three entering the middle school that night, and finding it strange, had gone to discuss it with Deng Guizhuang on the twenty-second — but unfortunately, Deng Guizhuang had refused to listen, and that very night, his daughter had ‘killed herself’ at the middle school as well, with a cigarette butt found in the classroom at the time of her death too — and it was Changle brand. Most intriguing of all was that the young master of Furong Trading Firm had fallen gravely ill that year and died by year’s end, and after Fu Zixiao left the employ of Furong Trading Firm, far from falling into poverty, he had instead become remarkably well-off, soon securing a position through connections at Daxing Trading Firm, and gradually climbing to the position of chief comprador.

“A few days later, while chatting idly with Deng Guizhuang, Reverend Yan waited until Deng Guizhuang was drunk, then deliberately brought up the robbery of the trading firm’s young master, saying the matter had seemed too suspicious at the time — he suspected that the servant surnamed Fu had staged it himself for personal gain. Deng Guizhuang, having had years to settle his thoughts, had already begun to suspect that Fu Zixiao and the others were the true instigators of that year’s robbery — he had merely lacked proof — and so he told Reverend Yan everything he had seen and heard at the time, along with his own speculations.

“On one occasion, when Langhuan Bookstore invited several university figures to a tea gathering, Reverend Yan saw that Xu Yishan was present, and deliberately, under the guise of criticizing free love, steered the conversation toward Chunying Li, saying that such a moral climate was terrible and truly ought not be encouraged — that years ago, several female students had run off to schools to kill themselves over romantic affairs. Xu Yishan, though a man of considerable guile, changed expression the moment he heard this. Reverend Yan thus became even more convinced that the so-called suicides of Miss Pan and his daughter were both connected to this man. Every time he thought of his daughter’s death, he could hardly restrain himself from wanting to personally kill these men with his own hands. He thought to himself: if his daughter truly had been murdered by these men, how could he go on living?” He thought about it day and night, and eventually spent two months crafting a set of tools for strangulation with rope. For ease of transport, he specially took apart a large birdcage, placed the tools inside it, put a bird in with them, and covered the outside with cloth. At the same time, using the pretext of writing his book and attending operas, he gradually grew close to Xu Yishan, Yang Yutian, and the others.

“Of the four, he tested Bai Fengfei first. Taking advantage of listening to operas at Keyu Theater, he waited patiently in the back courtyard for half a month, and finally the opportunity came. While Bai Fengfei happened to be alone, he deliberately dropped his daughter’s old photograph on the path where she would pass. When Bai Fengfei walked by and saw the photograph, she was so frightened she turned and ran. After she left, he retrieved his daughter’s photograph and replaced it with a recently published photo of a film actress. Not long after, Bai Fengfei returned with her attendants, but not daring to pick up the photo herself, forced a servant to do so instead. The servant, upon looking, said it was a photo of a movie star. Bai Fengfei, not believing it at first, stared at it warily several times before finally relaxing. But from then on, Bai Fengfei grew increasingly paranoid, and unless she had a rehearsal, she was reluctant to come to Keyu Theater at night.

“The closer he got to the truth, the more Reverend Yan’s heart was tormented. Eleven years had passed, and his daughter had long since turned to dust. Yet the four murderers all lived in glory and comfort — Xu Yishan was now a bookstore manager, with a harmonious family and a dignified life, having achieved exactly the upper-class existence he had once dreamed of. Fu Zixiao had accumulated a fortune beyond count; Bai Fengfei had become a celebrated star of her generation; even Yang Yutian enjoyed a life of comfort and plenty — all utterly transformed from their former circumstances.

“To finally get to the bottom of the matter, Reverend Yan decided to start with Yang Yutian, the easiest to approach. He went to Keyu Theater every day to listen to opera, pretending to be an ardent fan of Yang Yutian’s, occasionally giving him tips. After more than a month of preparation, he had thoroughly mapped out every corner of the theater, front and back. That night, the theater wasn’t putting on any of Yang Yutian’s performances, and the front of house was especially busy — several of Yang Yutian’s disciples had to go on stage. Reverend Yan, taking advantage of the chaos, brought along the ketamine and birdcage he had long prepared, and went to visit Yang Yutian in the back courtyard. Aside from a few disciples, hardly anyone came to see Yang Yutian in the evenings, so no one would be returning to that courtyard for some time.” Reverend Yan carefully measured the dose, and while the two chatted idly, slipped the drug into Yang Yutian’s tea. Before long, Yang Yutian lost consciousness. Reverend Yan stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth, put a rope around his neck, and hoisted him up onto the roof beam with a hook. When Yang Yutian regained consciousness, he never could have imagined that he would be secretly murdered by such a venerable and respected old professor — he was utterly stunned with disbelief. Reverend Yan told him the truth as he had deduced it, and with every sentence he spoke, Yang Yutian’s face grew paler. When Reverend Yan finished, he asked Yang Yutian whether he was right or not.

Naturally, Yang Yutian would not admit to it.

“Reverend Yan said only that if Yang Yutian could name the true mastermind, he might consider sparing his life. Yang Yutian, at first, held out hope that someone would burst in from outside to save him and simply tried to stall for time. Reverend Yan would not allow him this, and slowly tightened the rope around his neck. When Yang Yutian had only one breath left, he could no longer bear it and begged for mercy, indicating with his eyes that others were responsible for harming Reverend Yan’s daughter. Reverend Yan held up a list on which he had written the names of Bai Fengfei and the others in front of Xu Yishan— going one by one from Bai Fengfei, to Xu Yishan, all the way to Fu Zixiao’s name, asking with each name whether Yang Yutian would nod. When he reached Fu Zixiao’s name, Yang Yutian nodded desperately. From this, Reverend Yan understood that Yang Yutian, Bai Fengfei, Xu Yishan, and Fu Zixiao had all participated in his daughter’s death, and that Fu Zixiao was the chief culprit.

“Reverend Yan then asked further — of the four, only Fu Zixiao and Yang Yutian smoked Changle cigarettes. Given how many Changle cigarette butts were found in the classroom the night his daughter died, was it Fu Zixiao who smoked more, or was it him, Yang Yutian? What manner of stone-hearted person could smoke a cigarette while committing murder and not even think twice about it?

“Yang Yutian, by this point, knew he was doomed to die, and his face ashen, refused to reveal anything more. Reverend Yan then, with trembling hands, took out the pack of Changle cigarettes he had prepared in advance, and while smoking one himself, tightened the rope around Yang Yutian’s neck. There were, in truth, safer and more reliable ways to kill, but Reverend Yan felt that ever since learning the truth of his daughter’s tragic death, it was as if a hole had been torn open in his heart, bleeding endlessly every moment. He had buried his own child before his time, and his wife had passed before him — now utterly alone in the world, with nothing left to hold him back, the only thing that could bring him any peace was making these people suffer exactly as his daughter had suffered.

“After killing Yang Yutian, Reverend Yan attended a wedding, where he met Fu Zixiao. Later, hearing that Mrs. Xu had taken the children back to her natal family, he went that very night to visit Xu Yishan, and with the Xu household empty, killed him using the same method as before. But afterward, when planning to kill Fu Zixiao, he ran into difficulty. He wasn’t sure whether Bai Fengfei had tipped Fu Zixiao off after Yang Yutian’s death, but Fu Zixiao had stopped going out at night, and had also begun gathering information on families surnamed Ding across the Shanghai Bund, seemingly investigating the background of that girl from years ago — not knowing that her father, originally surnamed Yan, had not yet been traced back to him.

“Reverend Yan knew he had to act quickly, before Fu Zixiao could strike first and harm him instead. He scoped out the places Fu Zixiao usually frequented for leisure, rented a rickshaw-car from a car rental shop, and waited every night for his chance. This night, Fu Zixiao had arranged to play mahjong with others and drove out from home alone. Reverend Yan had not held out much hope of acting that night, but as it happened, when Fu Zixiao drove past a noodle shop on the roadside, he actually stopped the car and went in to eat. Reverend Yan parked his own car as well and went into the noodle shop, pretending to run into Fu Zixiao by chance.

“Although Fu Zixiao had been investigating the background of the Ding family student, ever since learning that Deng Guizhuang had transferred back to Shanghai, he had already placed his suspicions on Deng Guizhuang. Thinking back over the cause and effect, the more he thought about it, the more he suspected that Xu and Yang’s deaths were because Deng Guizhuang had uncovered the truth about his girlfriend’s hanging years ago and had come back specifically to take revenge on them. Given his own temperament, he was the type who only harmed others, never the one to be harmed — these past few days he had been plotting how to deal with Deng Guizhuang. It was in this state that he happened to encounter the old professor from St. John’s, and he thought this was a great opportunity, deliberately trying to win him over and inviting Reverend Yan to sit down.”

Author’s note: There’s a red packet this chapter, and another update at 10:30. Someone complained the crime scenes weren’t clear enough; a reply already said what I wanted to say, thanks. Indeed, two victims died (the aunt and Miss Ding), four murderers died, and although Reverend Yan is the one who killed the four murderers, since he couldn’t let them make noise while committing the act, he had no way of getting them to recount the events of that year in their own words — he could only confirm “yes” or “no” from them. And now that Reverend Yan himself has died too, the narrator is He Er (second brother He). So while I did want to make it more dramatic, I have to follow my own logic.