The smoke from the wooden cigarette drifted lazily in the air.
In Yi Sa’s mind, it was as if a hand had reached out, firmly grasping onto this thought and refusing to let go, rapidly following it to its logical conclusion.
That early morning, Chen Tu had left before dawn. While it would have been normal to speak softly or move quietly to avoid disturbing those who were sleeping, he absolutely couldn’t have avoided the roaring sound of the boat’s engine.
There had been no engine sound, yet the boat was undeniably gone, which meant the boat had departed in complete silence.
How did it leave?
Yi Sa picked up her pen and, after long contemplation, hesitantly wrote the words “pole pushing” on the blank paper.
This was the only method that could have achieved such silence.
The pole pusher couldn’t have been Chen Tu or Zong Hang – they lacked both the strength and reason to do so.
It couldn’t have been multiple people, as a group would inevitably create noise and chaos.
It must have been one person – someone familiar with water currents and boat navigation, possessing exceptional arm strength, extremely cautious, and someone who had Chen Tu and Zong Hang aboard.
Chen Tu had always been secretive about his medicine business, not even allowing her to accompany him, and wouldn’t have suddenly added such a person unless… it wasn’t by choice.
Could it be that something had happened to Chen Tu and the others even earlier before they had set sail?
A chill slowly crept up Yi Sa’s spine.
Suppose something had happened to Chen Tu and Zong Hang that night, or even that they had been killed – the murderer, to avoid alerting her, chose to pole the boat away and dispose of the bodies, creating the illusion that Chen Tu and the others had left before dawn – after she woke up, she indeed hadn’t suspected anything, because Chen Tu and the others leaving had seemed perfectly reasonable…
Who could this person be?
Yi Sa’s gaze fell on the two characters “Ding Xi.”
This most unlikely person somehow perfectly fits all her assumptions.
– He possessed extraordinary physical strength and, having grown up by the Yellow River was familiar with boat navigation;
– He was wary of her and knew she had taken sleeping medicine – as long as there wasn’t much noise, she wouldn’t notice;
– He knew of Chen Tu’s plan to send Zong Hang away before dawn, and knew Chen Tu would be going out to purchase goods and wouldn’t return for some time;
– Moreover, that night she had instructed him to stay alert and preferably not sleep – with his capabilities, if someone else had done it, he couldn’t have failed to notice;
…
No, no, Yi Sa pounded her head with her fist. It couldn’t be Ding Xi – even Su Cai was more suspicious.
She pulled out another blank sheet of paper, preparing to start over from the beginning.
But once certain thoughts take root, they writhe and squirm, impossible to silence.
As if possessed, she wrote “Ding Xi” on the paper again.
What if it was him?
Setting aside motive for now, if she were the murderer, after killing Chen Tu and Zong Hang, what would she do to cover her tracks?
Yi Sa closed her eyes, her breathing gradually becoming rapid.
She would need to destroy the bodies – various methods: drowning, burial, burning.
She would need to dispose of that boat – repaint it, quickly resell it…
Yi Sa’s heart suddenly skipped a beat.
For most people like Su Cai, Chen Tu’s boat was an asset, with various ways to disguise and monetize it. But uniquely for Ding Xi, it would be a burden.
Because he was a transient, coming and going quickly, with no channels for resale. The boat was too large to take with him, so his only options for “disposal” would be abandonment or destruction.
Abandoning it on the Great Lake was too risky – everyone in the floating village had boats, and many went deep into the lake for fishing. Chen Tu’s boat was too conspicuous; abandoned there, it would quickly be discovered and word would spread.
It could only be destroyed.
Scuttling it wasn’t practical, as it wasn’t an old wooden boat. The best option would be to find a hidden place to conceal it, dismantle it, or burn it.
Since arriving at the floating village, Ding Xi’s range of activity had been limited, the farthest he’d gone was…
The peat swamp forest.
At dawn, Yi Sa’s boat had been traveling along the peat swamp forest’s riverbank for a long time, but nothing seemed unusual – everything was lush and green. The weather was hot, and it was the rainy season; the green algae on the river’s surface and the various tropical plants in the swamp were growing wild. Just a few days away, and the landscape could completely transform.
The wooden cigarette in Yi Sa’s mouth had been chewed to bits. She felt somewhat irrational focusing so intensely on Ding Xi, but she couldn’t help it – the thought in the depths of her heart was both frenzied and stubborn, refusing to rest until she found something.
It was time to employ the water ghost’s methods.
She moored the boat to the shore, and opened a bottle of baijiu, gripping the neck with one hand while tapping the gunwale with the other.
Wu Gui, standing at the bow, wobbled over.
Yi Sa grabbed Wu Gui’s neck, forced its beak open, and raised her hand to pour the baijiu down its throat.
Those who raise fishing cormorants generally treat them as companions, and won’t kill them for meat even when they’re old, but they also won’t keep them until natural death, as maintaining a cormorant that can no longer fish isn’t economical.
They follow a method that has long been passed down in the trade: getting old cormorants drunk on baijiu, then burying them alive.
Thus, for most cormorants, becoming drunk meant death wasn’t far away.
The three Water Ghost families had carefully raised Wu Gui and intentionally trained its alcohol tolerance because they believed: that the more a cormorant could drink and the more intoxicated it became, the more its soul could separate from its body, its drunken eyes able to see things invisible to humans.
After administering the baijiu, Yi Sa opened the water ghost bag, picked out three incense sticks from the incense box, and just like last time, held them between the fingers of her left hand (excluding the thumb), lit them, waved them in front of Wu Gui’s eyes, then held them steady.
Wu Gui’s green-glowing eyes fixed on the incense tips then wobbled forward in a specific direction.
Yi Sa carried the water ghost bag, following behind with bated breath. Sometimes, when Wu Gui hesitated, she would move forward and steady the incense in front of its eyes again. If too much time passed and the incense burned out, she would light three more sticks.
This method was used to find corpses near the water’s edge.
It was said that people who died violent deaths in remote areas, having no one to burn incense for them, would draw away unclaimed incense smoke.
The unclaimed incense you lit would naturally drift toward them – invisible to human eyes, but visible to Wu Gui.
After walking for an unknown length of time, Wu Gui stopped – not because it had lost direction, but because the path ahead was difficult to traverse.
The area ahead was filled with fallen trees and overgrown grass, combined with entangling vines, flooded with water and more, making it difficult to find footing.
While Wu Gui was still circling and probing, Yi Sa had already stepped into the swamp, trudging through the mud, ducking under the slanting, luxuriant branches.
She saw it.
Within a nearly continuous expanse of green, there was a black area – charred black, gleaming from the constant rain of the rainy season. At its center was a mud pool with a boat, mostly sunken into the muddy water, with only one side of the bow slightly raised, like a person being swallowed by the swamp desperately raising one hand.
At the bow was a charred skeleton in a sitting position, its two eye sockets black and hollow, looking directly at her, as if it had been waiting specifically for her.
Occasional mud bubbles surfaced near the boat’s gunwale.
Yi Sa stood motionless, the mud already past her knees, the ground beneath very soft. This kind of pond bottom couldn’t support heavy weights for long – brief standing or walking was possible, but extended time would lead to sinking.
She recognized the boat’s outline and saw the familiar paint color that remained on the gunwale where the fire hadn’t reached.
A few days later, after more rain, with more water accumulating in the mud pool and the silt becoming more diluted and unstable, this boat would completely disappear.
She was fortunate – both the boat and the person had held their last breath, waiting for her to take one final look, to be the sole witness.
Behind her came the sound of splashing.
It was Wu Gui, who had finally found its way over, its webbed feet slapping against the pool’s surface, mud splashing in all directions, occasionally stumbling and rolling in the mud before getting up again, like a bedraggled mud duck.
Yi Sa finally snapped out of her trance.
She retreated to slightly firmer ground, set down the water ghost bag, took out and put on rubber gloves, then removed the military shovel and assembled it. After taking a deep breath, she began digging a grave in the ground.
After two shovelfuls, she suddenly couldn’t contain herself anymore. A surge of rage rose from her chest, and she abruptly stood up, stepped down into the mud pit, rushed to the boat’s side, raised the military shovel, and began violently hacking at the boat’s hull like she was venting her fury.
The shovel blade’s violent collision with the fiberglass hull produced sharp, jarring sounds that startled many birds, sending them flying chaotically through the trees. The boat’s hull tilted to one side from the impact, while Wu Gui curled up, its head almost completely buried.
As she continued striking, Yi Sa suddenly stopped.
She noticed black blood vessels bulging on both her hands, blood rushing through them rapidly. When she touched her face, it felt the same – line after line, like twisted roots.
Yi Sa dropped the shovel, stumbled through the thick, murky mud back up the bank, rushed to the riverbank, and fell to her knees, anxiously pushing aside the dense green algae on the water’s surface.
In the wavering reflection, her face was covered with twisted black protrusions, ugly, fierce, and sinister.
Yi Sa placed her hand over her chest, trying to breathe as calmly as possible, then muttered to her reflection:
– “Don’t get angry, don’t be angry, anger isn’t good.”
– “It’s okay, it’s not a big deal, there’s a way to resolve this.”
– “Smile, it’s not hard, take it slowly.”
She smiled at her reflection in the water – if once wasn’t enough, then twice. At first, the smile was horrifying, the distorted water reflection making even her heart race, but gradually it softened, and finally, those black protruding blood vessels slowly faded away.
Yi Sa wiped the sweat from her forehead – it was cold.
She collected herself and went back.
After retrieving the military shovel and thoroughly searching both the boat and the mud pit, Yi Sa moved the skeleton to firm ground. Looking at the pelvis and tooth wear, and estimating the height, this skeleton should be Chen Tu’s.
She continued digging the grave.
When finished, she looked at the basket-sized hole, then at Chen Tu’s bones, and suddenly felt heartache.
Chen Tu liked things big – he lived in a big house and wanted a big boat. Such a small hole in his bones seemed too disrespectful.
She dug a new one, shallow but long and rectangular, like a coffin, before placing the remains inside.
At least he could lie comfortably stretched out.
After mounding the grave, Yi Sa stuck three incense sticks in it.
She found it somewhat amusing: what began as a vague hypothesis had actually led her, step by step, to an ironclad conclusion.
But this result wasn’t enough to convict Ding Xi.
Because everything was speculation, there was no direct evidence pointing to Ding Xi, and questions remained: what was his motive? Also, she hadn’t found Zong Hang’s body – if Ding Xi was the killer, why hadn’t he disposed of both bodies together?
After the first three incense sticks burned out, Yi Sa lit three more, feeling she needed to explain some things to Chen Tu: in their previous conversations, they had both been guarded, only revealing thirty percent of what they knew, but now there was no need to hide – he was dead, and dead people should understand everything you tell them.
Yi Sa said: “Chen He Ji, I’m sorry you have to lie here for now. I’ll keep your death secret from others for now, to make it easier for me to handle things.”
Just like Old Man Ma, who always pretended he didn’t know Ma You was already dead.
She too needed to feign ignorance, to lull certain people into complacency.
“Right now, I suspect Ding Xi the most, but I don’t have solid evidence to confront him. You might not know this, but among us three Water Ghost families, none truly submits to the others.”
Each family controlled their own great river, conducted their own business, and ate their rice – superficially polite, with artificial colorful plastic flower friendships, but actually quite prideful. Privately, they looked down on each other, which was exactly why she dared to challenge Ding Chang Sheng, and why he dared to disregard her Water Ghost status.
“I’ll start investigating Ding Xi, but I can’t return to China immediately. The sudden return would arouse suspicion – better to wait for the right moment… but don’t worry, as neighbors, I’ll give you closure.”
After speaking, Yi Sa felt somewhat dazed.
If she hadn’t asked Chen Tu to help set up a bed for Ding Xi at her home, perhaps none of this would have happened.
Chen Tu had experienced many things and seen numerous examples of people in their line of work meeting bad ends. As he grew older, he became more cautious, often rambling during their drinking sessions, advising her to mind her own business, avoid confrontation, and stay away from trouble if possible – peace was a true fortune.
Yi Sa lowered her head, reaching down to scrape off the mud caked on her ankles – after all this activity, the mud on her legs had dried and hardened.
As she scraped off one piece, the adjacent mud cracked and fell away, revealing two characters on her ankle.
“Go die.”
Some fates cannot be escaped no matter how hard you try.
When the boat approached the floating village, it was almost noon, and the diesel fuel ran out, causing the engine to die.
Yi Sa got up to add oil to the propeller. After finishing, something occurred to her, and instead of starting the engine, she first called Long Song.
She kicked Wu Gui into the water: “You’re filthy, go wash yourself.”
She was even dirtier than Wu Gui.
When the call connected, she stated her name: “Long Song, I know you work in hotels and have many industry contacts. I need a favor, I can pay. Could you check the guest records for the past forty days for a man named Ding Xi? The ‘Xi’ character is uncommon, it’s the ‘stone’ radical plus the ‘responsibility’ from ‘responsibility’…”
“I want to know where he stayed, and if possible, ask the staff if anyone remembers who he contacted after checking in.”
After hanging up, she took her boat to Chen Tu’s boathouse, used his water heater to shower, changed into clean clothes, and was drying her hair with a towel when Long Song called back.
Yi Sa pressed the answer button.
Long Song said: “Miss Yi, it’s quite a coincidence. This Ding Xi previously stayed at our Angkor Grand Hotel, then checked out, probably to travel elsewhere. When he returned to Siem Reap, perhaps unsatisfied with our service, he switched to the Palmyra Resort Hotel. At both hotels, he called for massage services…”
At this point, he felt he should explain to Yi Sa: “In our legitimate hotels, even when guests contact massage girls themselves, they still need to register when entering the hotel…”
The industry took a cut of the income, after all, they provided the venue, so registration was generally required, recording which establishment the massage girls came from, to facilitate later commission calculations.
“Ding Xi called for the same woman, should be Chinese, named Jing Xiu.”