By the time they got home from the supermarket, it was past ten. Wan Tong helped Zhao Guoying with the cooking.
Wan Tong’s maternal grandparents had died when she was young, so she had lived with her paternal grandparents as a child. After her parents divorced, she moved in with Zhao Guoying and ate cafeteria food with her. Zhao Guoying rarely cooked, though she had a few dishes she was good at. Little Officer Wan, on the other hand, could manage little more than instant noodles, a fried egg, and rice in the cooker.
As she marinated the beef, Zhao Guoying said, “There are unused hotel toothbrushes in the storage cabinet. You can handle the crawfish.”
“Buddha preserve me, Old Zhao. You’re making me kill again.” Wan Tong muttered theatrically as she found the toothbrush and a pair of scissors and got to work.
Half an hour later, she had taken the sausage and cured pork out of the pot, sliced them, and arranged them on a plate. She had also finished cleaning half a bucket of crawfish.
“Old Zhao, the crawfish are clean and in the colander.”
Zhao Guoying turned on the stove and poured in the rapeseed oil. “Want to learn a few tricks?”
“I’ll step outside. You can put on a show.” The girl untied her apron and sniffed her fishy hands, wrinkling her nose in distaste.
Her mother picked up a bowl full of seasonings and teased her. “If you want to win someone’s heart, you have to win her stomach first. You don’t even have the basic skills. Looks like you’ll be alone forever.”
…
Some mother she was, taking every opportunity to put her daughter down. Wan Tong gritted her teeth, but in the end she relented. “Fine. I’ll watch.” She might as well lay the groundwork for a happy future.
“Once the oil is hot, add the seasonings and stir-fry until fragrant.” The ingredients hit the pan with a hiss. A wave of heat rolled up, carrying a delicious aroma.
Spicy crawfish was a classic Hunan dish, made by stir-frying crawfish with chili peppers, Sichuan peppercorns, scallions, ginger, garlic, and other spices. Nie Zhifeng came from Xiangtan, Hunan, and he’d taught Zhao Guoying how to make it. Zhao Guoying remembered that the Nie sisters had always loved the dish.
She picked up the colander and went on. “Now add the crawfish and a little oyster sauce. Stir-fry them.”
“Old Zhao, isn’t that too much chili?” Wan Tong stared at the pan, where most of the seasoning seemed to be chili. The air itself felt spicy.
“Your Aunt Yan studied and worked in Sichuan for several years. She can handle spice. Your Aunt Lan’s loved it since she was little.”
“What about me, Mom?” Wan Tong, who couldn’t even handle spicy beef instant noodles, began to panic.
“If you can’t eat it, eat less.” Zhao Guoying tossed another small bowl of dried chilies into the pan without looking back.
“I’m starting to think I was adopted.” The girl handed her the jar of chicken bouillon.
“Now that you mention it, you were. I found you on the second floor of an abandoned factory in the development zone while I was on patrol. You weren’t even wearing pants.”
Another version of the story. Wan Tong was used to it by now.
“That’s pretty much it. Add some celery at the end, then it’s ready. I don’t know if the two of them still like drinking cola. Go downstairs and get a bottle. And pick up some soy milk too, just in case.”
“All right. I’m the palace maid, you’re the empress, and they’re the two princesses. Your servant obeys.”
Before leaving, Wan Tong washed her hands at the sink, destroying the evidence of her little killing spree. Smelling the hand soap they’d bought that morning, she hummed as she headed out.
“Through wind and rain, through years gone by; through frost and snow, we surge ahead; hardships can’t shake our hearts, and youth won’t bow to sorrow…” Back in school, that song had been all the rage. They used to sing it every couple of days, sometimes humming it in the middle of the night.
Wan Tong was quick. In less than five minutes, she had two drinks in hand and was heading through the lobby on the first floor. The elevator moved just as quickly. Before she knew it, she had reached the thirteenth floor. As soon as she stepped out, she heard a door close to her left.
“Aunt Lan! Aunt Yan!” The girl spotted them carrying two bags of fruit toward her apartment and called out.
“Mm.” To her surprise, Nie Zhiyan didn’t object. She and Nie Zhilan both answered.
“Tongtong, did you buy drinks?” Nie Zhilan asked.
“Yes. Old Zhao didn’t know if you still drank cola, so she sent me to get two bottles.”
“We do.” Nie Zhilan took one of the bottles from her, and the two followed her inside.
Wan Tong took two pairs of new straw slippers from the shoe cabinet and set them in front of the sisters. “Old Zhao bought these for you this morning. She said you’d be coming over to eat a lot from now on.”
Before she could finish, Zhao Guoying hurried out of the kitchen. “Xiaolan, Xiaoyan, come in and sit down.” She poured freshly brewed black tea into the cups, then looked up at the bags in their hands. “Hey, I told you not to bring anything. Why two huge bags? Trying to bribe your big sister?”
“It’s just a few pieces of fruit.”
“Then don’t bring anything next time. Sit down. Lunch will be ready in five minutes.”
“Anything I can help with, Sister?” Nie Zhilan followed her into the kitchen.
“No, no. Out, out. Go sit down.” Zhao Guoying took her by the shoulders and tried to usher her out.
“You’re telling us not to be shy, but you’re the one being shy,” Nie Zhilan said. She glanced at the counter to her right. Nie Zhiyan was already holding a plate of meat, neatly arranged. “Sister Ying, should I put this on the table?”
“Oh, yes. Wan Tong! Where’d you run off to? Get in here and carry the dishes!” Zhao Guoying set down her spatula and shouted toward the living room.
“I’m in the bathroom!” The reply rang out from the other side of the apartment, as if the two of them were competing to see who could shout louder.
“We’ll help,” Nie Zhilan said with a hearty laugh. She and Nie Zhiyan carried the dishes and tableware to the dining room and set them out.
Zhao Guoying stir-fried one more plate of shredded beef. Five dishes and a soup were more than enough for four people.
Wan Tong filled the glasses in front of each place with cola and set out a pair of plastic gloves beside every glass. Once everyone was seated, Zhao Guoying raised her glass in a toast. “Xiaolan, Xiaoyan, make yourselves at home. Let’s get together after every case from now on. My door’s always open to you.”
“To a happy weekend.”
“To a happy weekend. Thank you, Sister.”
“Oh my god, this is spicy!” Wan Tong pulled on a glove, peeled a crawfish, and stuffed it into her mouth. She immediately gulped down water. But when she saw that the three women beside her didn’t so much as blink, she refused to admit defeat and reached for another.
“Ah, spicy! Aunt Yan, why aren’t you wearing gloves?” Of the four of them, only Nie Zhiyan was peeling crawfish with her bare, pale fingers.
“Think about what your aunt does for a living when she puts on gloves,” Nie Zhilan said for her. “Once a forensic examiner puts them on, it’s like she’s on a sacred mission.”
Wan Tong’s lips were already turning red and swollen, but she kept talking. “Shouldn’t she use a scalpel? I saw some forensic examiner in that web drama cutting things up with a scalpel.”
“Why don’t you ask her?” Nie Zhilan gave the girl a pointed look.
Wan Tong glanced at the woman, who was busy peeling crawfish and hadn’t said a word. She immediately changed her mind. “Never mind.”
Zhao Guoying kept piling food onto the sisters’ plates with the serving chopsticks. Then she brought up tomorrow’s blind date.
“Xiaoyan, Professor Chen is an associate professor in the physics department at Binnan University. He seems like a good man. I thought I’d introduce you two.”
“Thank you, Sister Ying.” Nie Zhiyan had little interest in romance, but she knew Zhao Guoying cared about her as a friend and as a superior, so she didn’t refuse.
Zhao Guoying put a piece of beef in Nie Zhilan’s bowl. “Xiaolan, I heard about the blind dates you went on before. Let’s put them on hold for now. If I find someone suitable later, I’ll keep an eye out.” The former deputy bureau chief in charge of logistics and women’s affairs had introduced Nie Zhilan to a few men. But every time she met one, she’d get called out to an emergency. Once or twice was understandable. After it happened again and again, the word got around, and nobody tried to set her up anymore.
“It’s okay, Sister. You can’t force these things. Maybe the right person just hasn’t come along yet.” What Nie Zhilan wanted most was for her sister to find happiness. As for herself, she didn’t mind how things turned out.
The blind date was set for noon. Nie Zhilan would go with Nie Zhiyan, since she already had plans to meet Xiao Bei. They were meeting on Hengshan Road, a peaceful strip in the middle of the city. A server led them into the dining room, where French plane trees decorated the restaurant. Every corner had been carefully arranged, from the Western-style chandeliers to the soft cushions. The place seemed to radiate French romance.
Nie Zhiyan didn’t seem to care about the atmosphere. She sat at a Mediterranean-blue table and waited for her date.
After a long while, she was so bored that she was about to take out her phone and watch a simulated autopsy when a man about her height, around 5’7″, appeared at her left, led in by a server.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said. “Traffic was bad.”
“That’s all right.”
He sat down and tried to get the conversation going. “Hello, I’m Chen. Chen with the ear radical. I teach physics at Binnan University. I heard you’re a doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Being a doctor is a good thing. Saving lives and helping the wounded. Shall we order? The French snails and cream of mushroom soup here are quite good.” A server carrying a beautifully decorated menu approached them at just the right moment.
After they ordered, the server had barely left when Nie Zhiyan said, “I am a doctor, but I don’t save people. I speak for the dead.”
“The dead?” The man looked confused.
“I suppose I’m more like a police officer than a doctor. I’m a forensic examiner with the police.”
Nie Zhiyan caught the slight pause in his right hand. He hesitated before replying, “Being a forensic examiner is fine too, but it must be hard. A friend told me you can be called out at any hour of the night.”
“Yes.” Nie Zhiyan’s curt answer ended the topic.
The food arrived soon after. Nie Zhiyan ate slowly. Across from her, the man sat stiffly, unable to stop thinking about her work. He watched the hands that had dissected countless corpses cut into foie gras, and she seemed to be enjoying every bite. He lost his appetite. Nie Zhiyan noticed and set down her cutlery. “Excuse me for a moment.”
She picked up her handbag and made her way toward the restroom. She had just rounded a corner of the dining room when an unfamiliar woman stepped into her path.
“Captain Nie, what are you still doing here? Didn’t you hear about the stabbing at Wandongkou? Two people attacked someone with knives. The victim’s badly hurt. It’s a criminal case, and the patrol officers are handling it at the scene.” Her tone was flat, though her expression seemed displeased.
