Chapter 50

Lu Shimiao walked upstairs and took off her watch. The weather was sweltering, and sweat had pooled beneath the watchband.

Lu Shimiao didn’t like the sticky feeling of sweat; she preferred dryness. Xue Tong was dry enough. Even though she wore a blouse in the summer heat, her body never seemed to sweat. At this thought, Lu Shimiao pulled out her phone and glanced at it.

No messages from Xue Tong whatsoever. Only two missed calls from Lu Yuan while she was interrogating Hong Moli. She checked WeChat—Lu Yuan hadn’t said anything specific, just asked her to call back when she was free.

“Dad, you were looking for me?” Lu Shimiao stood in the hallway and obediently called back.

“Darling, when are you coming home?” Lu Yuan’s voice was very low, as if he was covering his mouth. “Just apologize to your mother and come back home to live. Dad is really worried about your safety.”

“Dad, I’m twenty-seven years old, and I’m a police officer. What are you worried about?” Lu Shimiao could tell Lu Yuan had snuck this call without Qiu Wen’s knowledge. She closed her eyes.

“Worried I won’t get married?”

“Oh, darling, you and your mother have been in a cold war for a week now. That’s long enough.” Lu Yuan suppressed his voice, his footsteps hurried, followed by the sound of a door opening on the phone. “Your mom is just waiting for you to apologize! Apologize, and you can come right home!”

“Look me in the eye and tell me which Shanghainese person lives outside their home before they’re married!” Lu Yuan’s voice returned to normal; he’d clearly escaped from Qiu Wen.

“…..” Lu Shimiao was speechless.

Shanghainese.

In the eyes of outsiders, Shanghainese people are refined, self-interested, risk-averse, superior, and forever arrogant. Shanghai has 24-hour convenience stores, the lingering scent of perfume that never dissipates from the subway, overflowing alcohol, and a night sky that’s always bright. Compared to Shenzhen, Shanghai is more like a somewhat alluring Miss of a wealthy family.

But those “Shanghainese” are one thing. Shanghai locals are something else entirely.

They’re timid, always play by the rules, just want a safe and comfortable life for the family, can never out-hustle the transplants, and don’t even know where they’d run away to. Their only advantage is having lower sunk costs than the transplants.

Lu Yuan had once said: an honest person paired with another honest person—that’s the standard for Shanghai local marriages. No need for great ambition, just follow the established social conventions honestly. Late marriage and late childbearing were acceptable, but if she didn’t marry or have a kid, Qiu Wen would jump off a building.

Moving out—to Shanghai parents, this was a stranglehold. She had clearly been driven from the house, but her daughter’s escape still overwhelmed their worldview. No other only daughters they knew were this rebellious, leaving home before marriage. Lu Shimiao had become a special case, a thorn in their side.

Lu Yuan, seeing Lu Shimiao had fallen silent again, sighed into the phone.

“What did I do wrong?” Lu Shimiao laughed softly. “Dad, you tell me. What am I supposed to apologize for? I didn’t do anything wrong, so what’s there to apologize for? Why not just be blunt and tell me what I owe you? What do I have to do to not be an ungrateful wretch?”

“Darling, you…” Lu Yuan was so choked up he couldn’t get a word out.

“I’m not coming back. I think my life now is pretty good, very happy. I can breathe fresh air every day. Comfortable. Free. Something I’ve never experienced in my life.

Dad, before, when I came home every day, I was terrified out of my mind. The moment I saw Mom’s figure, my body would tremble involuntarily. Even if she just sighed, I’d feel like such a failure, like it was all my fault, like I’d harmed her.”

“Oh, dear, your cousin’s wedding is next week. Our whole family gathering will be there. If you don’t come back, Dad will lose a lot of face.” Lu Yuan finally voiced his real purpose.

“Why would you lose face?” Lu Shimiao leaned against the hallway wall, her eyes fixed on the lights in the lab across the way. She asked, confused, “Because if I don’t return, we’re not some perfectly harmonious family anymore?”

“I’m on duty every day, catching criminals, keeping you safe. What is it that makes you lose face? Dad, I’m exhausted every day, work is very busy. When I go home and face Qiu Wen, two people eating across from each other, I can’t even swallow my food. We’re fundamentally unsuited to living together. Why must I return?”

Lu Shimiao rarely argued with Lu Yuan. But today, she wanted that transient glimpse of freedom she’d seen in Hong Moli’s eyes.

“Darling, Dad’s always wanted to have a real talk with you. You say this job of yours is so tiring and dangerous. Why not just quit, come home and help Dad with…”

“Dad, is the main point really that my job is tiring?” Lu Shimiao heavily interrupted Lu Yuan.

She took a deep breath, patiently collected herself, and said: “I’ll explain the situation in the family group chat. I’ll personally give Cousin his red packet. Once this case I’m on is finished, I’ll take them out to dinner to apologize.”

“Don’t bring up quitting my job again. It makes me feel like no one loves me.” After speaking, Lu Shimiao pulled the phone away from her ear.

“I have to go. I have a mission tonight. Don’t call.”

She pressed the screen to hang up. Lu Shimiao stood there, stunned for a moment, until the elevator door opened and a colleague waved a case file in their hand.

“Team Lead Lu, the case file is here.”

“Thanks.”

Lu Shimiao had no time for guilt. She took the file and walked into the lab across the hall. “The whole team is on standby tonight.”

With that, she walked back to her office, sat down, and spread the file in front of her open.

Downstairs, the Field Operations Team was on standby. The wiretap unit had already deployed. The arrest warrants were on their way.

But the story concerning Chen Si still wasn’t complete.

What exactly happened on the day of 2022.9.13? Lu Shimiao was somewhat curious.

The Criminal Procedure Law stipulated: for an offender under eighteen years old, sentenced to less than five years, the record shall be sealed.

It was clearly an incident from just last year, yet the sealed file was coated in a layer of dust. The officer who retrieved it hadn’t bothered to clean it before delivering it. Lu Shimiao blew a puff of air at the file cover.

She opened the file, which contained only thirty pages. The first page was an incompletely filled-out criminal case file directory. There were no front or profile photos of Chen Si, only a two-inch photo of him from school.

In the picture, Chen Si was wearing a school uniform, smiling. He had thick eyebrows and big eyes. He could be considered handsome. If he were still alive now, he’d probably be quite good-looking.

She read on. A Notice of Appearance for the legal representative of the minor suspect, followed by Chen Guoping’s crooked signature on it. A Notice of Appearance for the victim’s legal counsel.

Below that, the directory listed an empty section for the arrest warrant, an empty section for the arrest notification form… Lu Shimiao helplessly flipped to the second volume: the Directory for Collation of Evidentiary Materials. Inside rested technical appraisal materials, on-site inspection reports, witness interrogations, and victim statements.

September 13, 2022, 23:00: Statement from Victim Cheng Guang.

Cheng Guang stated: “Around 9 o’clock, my mistress and I had just finished eating and were leaving my office when I saw him. He was flailing around, shouting threats at me.”

Cheng Guang stated: “He said something about wanting to blow me up, telling me to give the money to his father. Officer, it’s not that I didn’t want to pay. You know the construction business, capital turnover problems happen all the time. I didn’t want to owe the workers their wages. I genuinely couldn’t pay it back. I told him, put that down, let’s talk this over nicely. I’ll sell my house to get you the money. Keep this up and I’m calling the police.”

Cheng Guang stated: “Why didn’t I call the police? He was holding this remote detonator. I didn’t know if it was real or not. He said if I called the police, he’d blow the wall up. So I just had to try and pacify him. My mistress was there too; she was scared to tears.”

Cheng Guang stated: “He demanded I give him the money right then and there, otherwise he’d push the button. What bank is open late at night? So I told him tomorrow, let the company’s legal department figure out a way to pay it all back. Just as I finished speaking, the explosion happened.”

“If you don’t believe me, go check the surveillance footage. We have cameras all over the construction site, even on the tower cranes.”

September 13, 2022, 23:00: Witness Interrogation Transcript. Interviewee: Zhang Lin.

“What is your relationship to the victim?”

Answer: Mistress.

“What were you doing at the construction site that night?”

Answer: “Cheng Guang was working overtime. I was keeping him company. We had some food in his office and were about to leave.”

“Do you remember what time the incident occurred? Describe the process.”

Answer: “Around 9 PM. We walked out of the office and were heading towards the parking lot when we suddenly saw a kid in the shadows. He was wearing a hat, holding something in his hand, and there was a black duffle bag at his feet.”

“I saw him first. I was startled and patted Cheng Guang’s shoulder. Cheng Guang asked, ‘What are you doing here?’ and said he was going to call security. Then the kid threatened Cheng Guang, saying he had a bomb or something.”

“Cheng Guang didn’t believe it at first and insisted on calling security, but then the kid opened his bag. Cheng Guang shone his phone flashlight on it; there were indeed a lot of tube-like things inside. I screamed in fright. Cheng Guang said he was calling the police.”

“The kid said if he called the police, he’d blow this place up. The kid was here to demand unpaid wages, said if Cheng Guang just gave him the money, he’d leave. Cheng Guang said no bank is open this late, come to the office tomorrow to discuss it. Just as he finished saying that, it suddenly exploded, without any warning. The sound was incredibly loud. My ears instantly started ringing. I was so terrified I turned and ran away.”

Lu Shimiao flipped a few more pages.

The construction site security guard said he rushed over immediately after hearing the explosion. He saw the Boss reporting it and telling him to call 120, so he dialed right away. He saw that the Boss’s clothes had several holes burned in them, and his face was even cut and bleeding from flying stones.

A construction worker said Cheng Guang rarely cursed at people normally; he was fairly friendly to the workers. He came to the site three times a week, always at set times.

…

Lu Shimiao got up, poured herself a glass of water, and took a sip.

These interrogation transcripts and statements were starkly different from what Hong Moli had described that afternoon. Moli said she heard Cheng Guang cursing before the explosion, and she heard him say “fucking” and heard a kid crying for help.

But Cheng Guang had called the police immediately after the incident and even asked someone to call an ambulance for the other party. There were no logical loopholes between his and Zhang Lin’s statements; they almost matched perfectly.

Too perfect, which made it imperfect.

Cheng Guang had time to move the prostitutes off the construction site, time to pull up surveillance footage for the police. Everything he did seemed to be a frantic effort to prove his own innocence.

Lu Shimiao opened the trace evidence documents.

Scene reconstruction photos emerged, one after another, showing the accident’s original state.

It had been drizzling that day. The soil was damp but not sinking, so the footprints at the scene were very clear.

Outside the office, at the eastern wall, near the tower crane, at the crime scene—there were footprints of him pacing back and forth everywhere.

He had climbed in over the wall from outside the site and circled around the office repeatedly.

Reading those footprints, Lu Shimiao understood Chen Si instantly, with just one look.

He was anxious. He was nervous. He even seemed to be carrying fear. He paced back and forth, as if caught on the road, unable to go forward or back. His gait was repetitive, his footprints overlapping.

She flipped further to the evidence identification documents.

DNA from black fiber fragments. DNA from the remote detonator fragments. Handprints on the tower crane. Components for the explosives found in his rented apartment. Handwriting analysis of his diary… All of it pointed to one person: Chen Si.

Lu Shimiao quickly turned to the back of the forensic handwriting authentication page. A photo of a diary page was filled with Chen Si’s 17-year-old life.

“A cowardly father. The only thing he taught me in this life is not to become someone like him. Not to become such a cowardly and lowly person. Mom is lying in bed. I wish I could die in her place, so they could live—live with this identity, live in this small county town, live in these mountains you can’t fly out of, live in this tiny rented room of a few dozen square meters. I wouldn’t have to feel pain, and neither would she.”

“She wouldn’t have to say anymore, ‘Son, I hurt so much.’ And I wouldn’t have to endure this tearing pain anymore. She makes me feel guilty. She says, ‘If you just study well, Mom won’t hurt.’ Ridiculous. I know she just wants me to feel guilty. But I love Mom so much. I hope her body can get better. I’d rather live a lifetime of being ordinary and helpless, as long as she can live.”

Reading this line in the diary, Lu Shimiao felt a jolt in her heart.

“She lives like a dying candlewick, her life’s flame about to reach its end. But he still does nothing. Every day he comes home and just says he can’t get the money. How can he live so calmly? Calmly telling his own son, ‘Sorry, I probably can’t save your mother.’ That’s my mother, not his mother… How could he possibly know my pain? He’s so out of place in this city. I said let’s just go back then, go back to the county town, back to the mountains.”

“But he said your education is better here. You have to do well. Only when you’re well can I be well. The purpose of my life is just to let you live well. I look at those eyes of his, eyes that stand on the rammed earth with their back to the sky, yet feel so strange and distant. He gave me life as a human, but brought me endless disaster. Fortune and misfortune alike. I’ve never been picky about leftovers. Never complained about them leaving me behind to earn money. Never complained about the inferiority and self-blame I felt in childhood.”

“But my ‘nevers’ can’t make this family improve any. It’s still poor, still broken, still irreparably declining into ruin. He doesn’t care about my mother. He only cares about me. But I only care about Mom. It’s fine. Let me complete a man’s mission in his place. I won’t become someone like him. I will go save my mother, and take her away in my own way.”

The diary entry broke off there.

Below it, the forensic report had a single cold, detached line: Handwriting Analysis Conclusion: The questioned sample and the standard sample are concluded to have been written by the same individual.

Lu Shimiao was so sleepy.

Holding the case file, she lay down on the sofa, pulled out her phone, and made a call. “Brother Zhang, have you looked into Chen Guoping’s wife? See if she was sick or something around 20… 2020. I suspect she might be dead.”

“No time to check. We have to wait until after the arrest.”

“Alright. What are you checking now?”

“Looking into Chen Guoping’s place of residence. You know how hard it is to find someone in those group-rental apartments. The latest census data wasn’t even reported there. So annoying.”

“Okay. You guys keep at it.”