Yan Qing turned to look, catching the moment Bai Jin stepped back two paces, a look of bewilderment crossing his face. She frowned slightly, turning the observation over in her mind.

Zheng Yun straightened the collar that had been yanked askew and walked into the house without a word.

Bai Jin seemed to want to call something after him, but held back.

“How old are you?” Shi Ting fixed him with a look. “Getting physical with a colleague over something this trivial?”

“Seven, I…”

“That’s enough. Write me a self-criticism when we’re done. Now get back to work.”

“…Alright.” Bai Jin trailed after Shi Ting with a thoroughly aggrieved expression.

Once the three had gone inside, E’Yuan muttered, “Old Bai must have swallowed gunpowder today. He normally has the best temper of anyone.”

It was true — Bai Jin was known for his easy-going nature, with his handsome face and perpetual grin, an air of harmlessness about him that put everyone at ease. Even E’Yuan, who had worked alongside him for years, had never seen him as volatile as this.

Zhu San’s residence was a three-room earthen house, dirty and cluttered inside, crammed with odds and ends.

In the east side room, Zheng Yun found Zhu San’s hunting rifle and remaining ammunition. The rifle was a modified military rifle, and given its age, both its range and stopping power were severely limited.

The ten members of the Xu family had been killed by the triangular military bayonet of an M782 rifle — a world apart from Zhu San’s homemade hunting piece.

Besides the rifle, the walls of the side room were hung with the hides of various animals. In addition to the tiger skin at the gate, there was even the pelt of a black bear. It seemed Zhu San had been bold enough to hunt even tigers and bears.

Shi Ting’s attention was drawn to a lighter and several receipts in Zhu San’s sleeping quarters.

The lighter was an imported foreign model. Each lighter of this type bore a different pattern, and they were sold at only one import goods shop in Shun Cheng.

Foggy Hollow Village was more than three hundred kilometers from Shun Cheng. Where had Zhu San’s lighter come from?

As for the receipts, they were all issued by a gold shop in Wenshan County — a shop Shi Ting had noticed during their time in Wenshan, situated not far from the Xu family’s pharmacy.

According to the receipts, Zhu San had, over the past three years, purchased three gold rings, two gold bracelets, and a gold necklace from that shop. Yet none of these items had been found in Zhu San’s home.

Shi Ting bagged the lighter and receipts as evidence. Bai Jin, standing behind him, said, “Zhu San has rheumatism. There are several packets of medicated plasters in the drawer, and the prescription label bears the name Xu’s Pharmacy.”

So the beggar’s words had been truthful after all. Zhu San had indeed made regular purchases at the Xu family’s shop.

“Seven, could this lighter have belonged to one of the Xu brothers?”

Shi Ting said, “I found no ashtray or cigarette pack at the Xu residence, and neither of the Xu brothers showed any nicotine staining on their fingers. No one in the Xu household smoked.”

“That’s strange then — where did this lighter come from?”

Shi Ting turned the lighter over. On its base was a production date: the first month, three years ago.

That also ruled out the possibility that Zhu San had acquired it by chance during his military service.

When the three came out of the house, Zhu San’s body had been laid out on a makeshift examination table fashioned from two long benches, and Yan Qing and E’Yuan were conducting an on-site autopsy.

There was no forensic autopsy room in this village. Working on the spot was the most practical and efficient option available.

Outside the gate, a cluster of villagers stood pressed against the crime scene tape, watching and murmuring.

Shi Ting noticed a bald middle-aged man standing at the very front of the crowd. He wore an old-fashioned suit washed to near-white, a fountain pen tucked into his breast pocket.

Shi Ting stepped forward. “Are you the village chief?”

The man nodded right away. “Good day, officer.”

“Come inside and confirm whether the deceased is the hunter Zhu San.” Shi Ting lifted the crime scene tape.

The village chief entered and approached the body with some caution. The blood had been wiped from Zhu San’s face, revealing features wearing something that looked almost like a smile.

The chief stumbled back a step, his expression alarmed.

“Yes — yes, that’s Zhu San.”

“Three years ago — your son also died from self-inflicted cleaver wounds, is that correct?”

The village chief had not expected Shi Ting to already know about that. His head drooped at once, and he shook it wearily. “My son Da Zhu — it was also on the fifteenth of the fourth month, three years ago. He suddenly went mad at home, wounded my wife with the cleaver, then hacked himself to death.”

“Was there anything unusual about Da Zhu before he attacked himself?”

“Da Zhu had a fiery temper in his day-to-day life, quick to act, the sort who could ignite over nothing. The villagers all kept their distance from him. But if you said a few kind words to him, his bad mood would dissolve by half. On the day it happened, he was in the courtyard roasting a wild pheasant — that pheasant had been given to him by Zhu San here. He had gotten it about halfway done when he suddenly started screaming and raving. My wife came out to see what was happening, and found him swinging the cleaver at himself. She tried to stop him and got cut on her hand and head. In the end she could only stand there and watch him hack himself to death.”

The village chief’s face fell into grief. “When Da Zhu died, he had that same expression on his face — that smile. People say a man who dies with unfinished business can’t close his eyes. But Da Zhu was smiling. Even now, when I think about it, it still frightens us.”

“Are you certain Da Zhu had no contact with any other person just before he attacked himself?”

“None. At the time, my wife was home, but Da Zhu was alone in the courtyard tending the fire. The gate was shut. No one came.”

Shi Ting instructed Bai Jin to bag the fully cooked rabbit from Zhu San’s brazier as evidence as well.

The sky grew steadily darker. Bai Jin pulled the string on the electric light inside Zhu San’s room.

The village had only recently been connected to electricity, and the current was still unstable. The bulb had too low a wattage to do more than barely fill the room with dim, flickering light.

Yan Qing and E’Yuan bent over the makeshift examination table in these rudimentary conditions, fully absorbed in their work.

The villagers outside watched for a while before growing bored. Most drifted away, leaving only two or three with nothing better to do, who stayed on in quiet vigil.

At eight o’clock that evening, the autopsy concluded. When Yan Qing set down her scalpel, she felt stiff all over, as though she might snap if someone bent her the wrong way.

“The right common carotid artery and trachea are severed, the cut ends are clean, tissue damage is severe, with no hesitation wounds. The deceased’s expression is calm, with a slight smile. Additionally, the deceased’s right hand is holding a kitchen cleaver consistent with the one that produced the wounds.” Yan Qing said, “The wounds resulted from multiple cleaver strikes. During the striking, the deceased’s body position remained fixed with no defensive wounds. If being pursued and struck by an attacker, the deceased would have been moving erratically in all directions, and could not have remained stationary while being struck. Furthermore, Bai Jin personally witnessed the deceased’s self-inflicted attack — it can be confirmed that the deceased died by suicide.”

Shi Ting said, “The deceased was wearing a slight smile, and the village chief said Da Zhu wore the same expression at death. Is that a coincidence?”

“Ordinarily, someone who dies from self-inflicted cleaver wounds would suffer intense pain and should not be smiling. However, the deceased was in an abnormal psychological state at the time of the attack — his emotions were in a sudden, uncontrollable surge — and that could very likely account for the expression.” Yan Qing shook her head. “That is only my conjecture.”

“Both Zhu San and Da Zhu were preparing food over a fire when they attacked themselves. I suspect there is something wrong with the food.”

“The conditions here are limited — toxicological testing is not possible.”

“If we can’t run toxicological tests, we can run a field test.” Shi Ting glanced at Bai Jin. “Here’s your chance to make up for earlier. Go catch a rat.”

Bai Jin stared at him for a moment.

Zhu San had kept no cat, and stored a great deal of game in the house, so rats had overrun the place.

It did not take Bai Jin long to catch two. They were fat and plump — clearly living the high life under ordinary circumstances. Now caged, they scrambled frantically up and down the bars in their desperation to escape.

Shi Ting tore off two small pieces of wild rabbit meat and offered them to the rats. The animals sniffed cautiously at first, then began to eat with gusto.

“So that’s how rats eat,” Bai Jin said, watching them for the first time and finding the spectacle genuinely fascinating.

The people outside had no idea what was going on in there, but a few of them ended up gathered around the rat cage, watching with considerable interest.

Once the rats had eaten their fill, they resumed hunting for an exit, doing everything in their power to find a way out of the cage.

Shi Ting checked his watch. More than half an hour had passed, and both rats were still at it — still trying to escape, still showing no sign of distress.

“Looks like the rabbit meat contains no poison,” Zheng Yun said, somewhat disappointed. Both rats had, from first bite to this moment, shown absolutely no abnormal behavior — no frenzy, no sudden death.

Another hour passed. The rats remained lively as ever. Bai Jin released them.

Throughout all of this, the village chief had stayed at the scene, which showed how invested he was in the progress of the investigation.

“Village Chief, does your village have any temporary lodgings available?” Shi Ting asked him.

“There’s a household at the east end,” the village chief said. “The husband and wife took their child and went to work outside two years ago. They’ve never come back. If you don’t mind, officer, you’re welcome to stay there.”

Shi Ting thanked the village chief, made a simple arrangement for Zhu San’s remains, and followed the chief’s lead to the abandoned small courtyard.

The owners had been gone for two years. The village chief suspected something had happened to them elsewhere — otherwise they would not have abandoned a pair of elderly parents without a backward glance.

“Where are the elderly parents now?”

“Starved to death.” The village chief said it without particular feeling. “No one to care for them — what else could happen but starving to death?”

“The village didn’t help?” Zheng Yun was taken aback.

“We can barely manage ourselves. Where would we find the energy to look after others?”

The village was small, and all the villagers knew one another, but its remoteness, scarce resources, harsh environment, and slow-growing crops meant that even getting enough to eat was a struggle. Mutual aid was a luxury no one could afford.

And it was precisely this that had driven so many people to abandon elderly parents, spouses, and children to seek work elsewhere — and often those who left never came back, vanishing without a trace.

The family who had owned this house had not necessarily met with disaster. More likely they had been drawn in by the brightness of city life, had come to live in a world without thick fog and empty stomachs, and the yearning for that new existence had given them the heart to leave behind what had once weighed them down, to boldly set out and begin again.

The courtyard had been uninhabited for a long time and lay under a thick coat of dust. In the center stood a well, two iron-pail buckets still resting on the rim, both rusted through. The doors and windows had fallen into disrepair, several panes of glass broken, the door lock hanging half off, cobwebs thick on every surface.

“Officer, you’ll have to make do here for now,” the village chief said.

Shi Ting handed him five yuan. “Please trouble yourself to bring some food over.”

The village chief’s eyes lit up at the sight of the five-yuan note. He rubbed his hands together and accepted it. “Of course, of course.”

Five yuan — more than enough to buy food, or even a modest plot of land.

“Let’s get this place cleaned up first,” Shi Ting said. “It seems the cases of Zhu San and Da Zhu are not as simple as they appear.”

Everyone pitched in, and the courtyard and interior were swept and tidied in short order.

When they finished, the village chief brought people carrying basic food supplies and bedding. Shi Ting could see that the food itself was worth less than a single yuan, but they were guests on someone else’s ground, and he was not one to make an issue of such things. There would be use for the village chief yet.

—