According to old Zhang’s confession, Qiao Sheng had a passion for traveling through mountains and waters and a love of exploration. When he had first come to Foggy Hidden Village five years ago, he had stumbled upon a valuable medicinal herb called fog-root growing on Kui Mountain—a herb that could only thrive in the unique environment of a place like Foggy Hidden Village.

Qiao Sheng had discovered a path to prosperity, but he was not a man who would let greed override his principles. He struck an agreement with the villagers of Foggy Hidden Village: the villagers would harvest the herb, and he would purchase it at a fair price.

Within two years, Foggy Hidden Village had transformed from a poverty-stricken hamlet into a community where people could meet their basic needs. And the warm-hearted Qiao Sheng had built a strong cooperative relationship with the local villagers.

Three years earlier, in April, Qiao Sheng had come again to Foggy Hidden Village, where the villagers welcomed the two brothers warmly.

Qiao Sheng had a small rented courtyard in the village, for each time he came to purchase herbs, he would stay for a month or two.

He would buy things at old Zhang’s general store, get his hair cut at old Li’s barbershop stall, go hunting with Zhu San, and play mahjong with the lot of them during his leisure hours.

Qiao Sheng also possessed medical knowledge, and excelled especially in acupuncture. Villagers young and old alike would seek him out for treatment. He turned no one away and never charged a single coin.

Qiao Sheng was a generous and warm-hearted person. His only shortcoming, perhaps, was his fondness for flaunting his wealth.

He never concealed from the villagers the fact that he was very rich. He would tell them about his life in Shun Cheng—of its opulence and indulgence, its bright lights and festive glamour.

He had a grand house, exquisitely carved and lavishly furnished.

Many women admired him, among them film actresses and daughters of wealthy, distinguished families.

The suit he wore could buy out old Zhang’s entire general store. A single cigarette lighter of his would cover Zhu San’s hunting costs for three full years.

Everyone in the village envied him and yearned for the paradise he inhabited. He made promises to the villagers: once his business had grown a little larger, he would take them to Shun Cheng for a visit.

He would invite villagers to his small courtyard to play mahjong, then treat them to good food and wine. To demonstrate his wealth, he would pay double when he lost, and whenever he won, he would return the winnings. Every mahjong enthusiast in the village loved to play with him—including Zhu San, Da Zhu, old Li, and old Zhang.

One day, Qiao Sheng had gathered a group of people to play mahjong at his home, while his younger brother Qiao Zhong had gone out to play with others.

Qiao Sheng had lost several rounds in a row, but was in good spirits, for such a sum of money was mere pocket change to him.

As he spoke of his lavish life in Shun Cheng, he opened the leather trunk in the room. Without any attempt to conceal what he was doing from those present, he took out some money.

He locked the trunk and the backpack inside a cabinet. The cabinet’s key was kept beneath a lamp stand above it.

“Look at this,” Qiao Sheng said with some satisfaction. “This money would be enough to buy your entire village. Though, I owe it all to Foggy Hidden Village—to the fog-root. If not for the fog-root, I would not be so wealthy.”

Inside that trunk was the money he had brought to purchase the fog-root: a full trunk packed with banknotes, silver coins, and copper coins.

Old Zhang said that when he first laid eyes on that money, his gaze had gone perfectly straight. In this lifetime—and perhaps in the next, and the one after that—he might never have another opportunity to see so much money.

The others in the room shared his reaction. It was the first time any of them had seen such a sum.

The appeal of money is boundless, and the desire for it is like standing on the edge of a bottomless abyss. To step inside may lead to heaven—or to hell.

When Qiao Sheng went to use the outhouse, old Zhang took his seat at the table. Da Zhu, Zhu San, old Li, and old Zhang sat facing one another—yet no one’s mind was on the mahjong tiles. Every gaze drifted back and forth toward that cabinet.

It was Da Zhu who finally broke the uncanny silence, for he had recently lost a great deal of money playing mahjong in the county seat, and the moneylender had given him three days to repay or have both legs broken.

He had intended to use the money his household had earned selling fog-root to repay the debt, but the fog-root had not yet finished drying, and it would be at least another month before he could collect the money.

Zhu San’s woman in the county seat had put a new demand to him—she wanted a gleaming gold ring.

A heavy rain the day before had caused old Li’s roof to leak again. His wife had called him useless, and his son had complained that other families’ houses didn’t let in rain, and had heated floors in winter besides.

Old Zhang owed no debts, kept no woman, and his house kept out the cold. But he was fond of drink—he wanted wine enough to last from morning to night, from spring to winter, and he wanted to taste the wine of Shun Cheng that Qiao Sheng had described: a red wine, made from grapes.

Four men, each harboring their own desires, reached an immediate agreement. They quickly devised a plan.

A family in the village had recently lost an elder. According to local custom, on the first night after a death, mourners would gather, and the whole village would come together to the sound of gongs and drums.

They decided to act that very night.

After Qiao Sheng returned from the outhouse, the group played a few more rounds of mahjong with him as though nothing were amiss, not dispersing until past four o’clock. When Da Zhu rose to leave, he accidentally smashed a bottle of liquor. Qiao Sheng generously did not reproach him. Meanwhile, the sociable Zhu San invited Qiao Sheng to come to his home to collect some wild pheasant.

Qiao Sheng did not yet know that he had become a piece of choice prey others had set their sights upon—that several pairs of eyes were watching him with malicious hunger, that several sinful hands were preparing to drag him into a boundless hell.

Taking advantage of Qiao Sheng’s absence, Da Zhu stole some petrol from the car outside the village and poured it into the charcoal brazier inside the room as well as onto the floor.

Da Zhu had deliberately smashed a bottle of liquor inside the room earlier—precisely to mask the smell of petrol with the smell of spirits.

Once the petrol had been poured, Da Zhu used the key from beneath the lamp stand to open the cabinet and took away the trunk and the backpack. He then nailed the windows shut from outside with planks of wood, while Zhu San busied himself roasting game for Qiao Sheng. After half a rabbit and half a bottle of wine, Qiao Sheng was thoroughly tipsy.

That evening, all four went to the mourning gathering at the villager’s home, making a deliberate point of being seen and remembered there. Old Zhang was assigned to keep watch outside Qiao Sheng’s home. After he discovered that Qiao Zhong had also returned, the four of them made their move.

The back window of Qiao Sheng’s house had a chimney for smoke ventilation, which passed through a hole in the window frame. Zhu San used this opening to fire a burning projectile inside.

The incendiary struck the petrol and the room immediately ignited.

By this time, old Li had already bolted the front door from outside, and the windows had been sealed. In their panic, the Qiao brothers instinctively rushed to escape through the front door—but it could not be forced open. They turned to the windows, but both front and back windows had been sealed shut. Like two trapped animals, they could only rush back and forth within the burning room.

While the Qiao brothers struggled desperately in the inferno, Zhu San and the others watched from atop the wall. Not a trace of compassion or remorse showed in their eyes. All they saw was the obstacle to their enrichment burning, disappearing.

The four men took the trunk and backpack to a secluded spot in the rear courtyard and divided the spoils. Once everything had been distributed, they had not yet decided what to do with the backpack and trunk, so they first concealed them beneath a haystack.

By this time, villagers had spotted the flames and come running to fight the fire, and the four men joined the crowd, feigning assistance.

The fire was too fierce. The villagers were ultimately powerless, and could only watch as the house was consumed by the blaze.

Afterward, the village chief led people to clear the scene. As for how to dispose of the bodies, some villagers said that the Qiao brothers were outsiders and had died by burning—it would not be appropriate to bury them in the village cemetery, and they would have to be interred in the common burial grounds.

Zhu San and the others volunteered to go and bury the bodies. Taking advantage of this opportunity, they secretly buried the backpack and trunk in the burial grounds.

The four of them had burned the Qiao brothers to death for their money, and believed themselves to have committed the perfect crime.

After the brothers’ deaths, each of them squandered their share of the money. Within less than a year, almost nothing remained. Yet because of their momentary greed, Foggy Hidden Village’s economic situation had plummeted once more, and young people were forced to leave for work in the cities again.

“I am sorry. I am so sorry.” Old Zhang knelt on the ground, kowtowing repeatedly before the two bodies. “Qiao Sheng, I have wronged you both. I am bowing my head to you, I am confessing my wrongs. I promise I will go to your graves to burn spirit money on every fifteenth day of the lunar month—no, I will build you proper graves with inscribed tombstones. I will give you a place to rest in peace. Please, I beg you, let me go.”

Even now, the ignorant old Zhang still believed it was the ghosts of the Qiao brothers who were killing people in revenge.

Once old Zhang had knocked his forehead against the floor until it bled, Shi Ting finally spoke from nearby. “When you were keeping watch, you saw Qiao Sheng’s younger brother Qiao Zhong return to the house with your own eyes?”

Old Zhang searched through his memories. It seemed he had not actually seen Qiao Zhong’s face. “I had wandered off for a bit to drink half a bottle of wine. When I came back, I found Qiao Zhong had returned.”

“You saw the person directly?”

“The light was on inside their room. Looking through the window from outside, I saw Qiao Sheng eating with Qiao Zhong. The person was about the same height and build as Qiao Zhong. Who else could it have been?”

Old Zhang said, “Officer, I have already confessed my wrongs. Please let me go.”

This ignorant villager seemed to believe that confessing made up for the crime of deliberate murder.

“Deliberate murder is a capital offense.”

Old Zhang said, “I do not have many years left to live. Are you going to shoot me right now?”

Foggy Hidden Village had no security office of any kind; large and small matters alike were handled by the village chief alone. There was no suitable place to detain old Zhang.

After consulting with the village chief, the Military Police Division decided to place old Zhang under house arrest in his own home, to be sentenced once the killer had been found.

By the time the interrogation of old Zhang was finished, the sky had grown completely dark. Shi Ting’s plan to conduct another round of questioning among the villagers had to be postponed.

The fog in Foggy Hidden Village grew especially thick at night. The villagers had almost all shut themselves indoors, and the killer was still lurking somewhere in this village, liable to appear at any moment.

Yan Qing and E’Yuan had completed the autopsy of the bodies and had already written up the autopsy report.

When the report was passed to Zheng Yun and Bai Jin, both of them were simultaneously stunned.

“The one who died was not Qiao Zhong after all. Then where is Qiao Zhong now?”

—