Chapter 149

Tao Ran's left arm and right leg hung in a diagonal line. He looked like a salted fish laid out to dry in the sun outside a fisherman's house. When the salted fish suddenly performed such a difficult gesture, the IV in his arm flew right up into the air.

Xiao Wu jumped up in fright. "Ge, what are you doing? Lie—lie down… Lie down quickly, I'll call…"

The edges of Tao Ran's forehead were soaked in cold sweat. His misaligned bones collectively voiced their protests. His soaring heart rate made him gasp for breath, but he had no attention to spare to cry out in pain. Tao Ran gripped Xiao Wu's sleeve firmly with his swollen hand. "When did you…when did you go see shiniang?"

"Shiniang?" Xiao Wu was all at sea, not understanding why he would ask this. "Well, shiniang…shiniang has cancer, doesn't she? So I had to go. When she came here to the Second Hospital for her surgery, I was the one who drove her. I'd wanted to stay to help take care of her after the surgery, but then this happened—what's the matter?"

Tao Ran didn't answer. His heart was like the Arctic Ocean in a storm—perilous, full of snow and ice.

When they had been eating hotpot at Luo Wenzhou's house and had found the listening device in his bag, they'd discussed how it was very possible it hadn't been put there by someone on their team; everyone Tao Ran had seen going out on his own, witnesses, informers…even victims' families, could have placed it.

When he'd lain down that night, he'd tossed and turned, unable to sleep, inwardly reviewing all the people he'd seen alone. There really had been a moment where their shiniang Fu Jiahui had flashed through his mind—shiniang had called him to the Yang house and handed Lao Yang's testament over to him. And Lao Yang's testament had just happened to mention the then very mysterious-seeming Gu Zhao and the National Road 327 case.

Hardly any time had passed after they'd gotten hold of that top secret testament, with Lao Yang's shocking statement that some people had changed, when before they could digest it, the main character of the National Road 327 case had entered the arena, killing Feng Bin at the Drum Tower.

Had it been a coincidence?

A murderer wasn't a jukebox; how could it be a coincidence?

But it had been shiniang.

While they'd been discussing listening devices, moles, traitors, and other filthy subjects, thinking of her for an instant would have seemed to be profaning her.

Who would dare to suspect her in the least?

And why had she wanted to hand over Lao Yang's…unverified testament to him?

Tao Ran clearly remembered the day he'd gotten shiniang's phone call. He'd quickly picked up a box of cured meat and gone to answer her invitation. Lao Yang's home was in one of those old-fashioned six-story buildings. There was no elevator. The cured meat had been homemade by his relatives back home, and the box was insecurely wrapped, nearly falling apart as soon as you picked it up. He'd had to strain to prop up the bottom of the cardboard box in order to heave the thirty jin plus of stuff up to the sixth floor. His hand had trembled when he'd knocked on the door.

Then, with the distinctive smell of cured meat on his hands, he'd received the grievous news and the truth like a thunderclap.

When Fu Jiahui had seen him out the door and given him the testament, her expression had been very complicated. It had seemed pained, but there had also seemed to be a strange light flashing in her eyes.

Tao Ran remembered her saying, "These things need to be settled."

But he hadn't recovered from the hit yet. When he'd taken the testament, his hands had still been shaking uselessly. He hadn't been able to understand the heavy meaning behind her words.

Lao Yang had said, "There are some people there who have changed."

So…had you changed, too?

"I have to go out," Tao Ran suddenly said directly. "I have to go out and see someone, right now. I must go. Xiao Wu, help me!"

Xiao Wu looked at Deputy-Captain Tao's dried fish appearance, then looked at his expression, and nearly blurted out, "Are you crazy?"

Luo Wenzhou, who'd wanted to pick up Director Lu, was a beat too slow. Learning that Director Lu had already gone home, he really didn't want to wait even a minute. He wanted to find out everything there was about Fan Siyuan at once. So he very annoyingly drove to Director Lu's address, not expecting to come up empty again—

"The hospital?" Luo Wenzhou looked helplessly back at the equally bewildered Mrs. Lu. "Auntie, did Uncle Lu say why he was going to the hospital?"

"No." Mrs. Lu shook her head. "From the moment he walked in the door, he seemed possessed. He charged right to the study without even taking off his jacket or changing his shoes, stayed less than two minutes, then suddenly ran out again. I don't know what he's up to."

Luo Wenzhou frowned, absently saying goodbye to Mrs. Lu.

Director Lu had just come back from the investigation team. Instead of staying with his alarmed wife or going to the City Bureau to take charge of the general situation, he'd gone to the hospital alone—where was the reasoning in that?

What did he know?

Luo Wenzhou walked slower and slower. He stopped with one hand propped on the roof of his car for a good while. Suddenly he thought of something, opened the car door, and got in, ramming the gas pedal and howling towards the Second Hospital.

Lu Youliang walked into the inpatient building empty-handed, at odds with the visitors carrying bags of all sizes. When he came to Fu Jiahui's door, he stared at the doorplate with a complicated expression for a long time, took a deep breath, then knocked.

The woman in the hospital bed slowly turned her head to look at him. She was emaciated and pale, so white she almost blended with her hospital gown. There was no color in her lips. There was an IV in the back of her almost transparent hand, which was purple from being used as a pincushion by successive IVs. She looked horribly frail.

When Fu Jiahui saw him, she didn't speak or smile. Her face was still unchangingly cold, her gaze haughty and indifferent, paring away the power and position of the middle-aged man in front of her. She only said, "You're here? Sit."

Lu Youliang pulled over a little stool and sat down, curling up his legs. "Is your daughter not here?"

"No need for small talk. You haven't come to visit the sick," Fu Jiahui interrupted him without answering. "You don't come without even a piece of fruit when you're visiting the sick."

Lu Youliang only then came to himself and lowered his head somewhat abashedly to look at his empty hands. "I…"

"Say what you have to say," Fu Jiahui said dully. "I don't have long to listen, so spare me the extraneous bits."

Lu Youliang was silent for a good while, fingers lightly tapping on his knee. Using all his deliberation, he spoke: "I only found out about your diagnosis last month. I was startled and afraid that a widowed mother and her daughter wouldn't be able to deal with all the petty business that comes with treating an illness long-term, and I didn't know how much money a major illness like this would cost and how much insurance would cover. I was afraid your means would be straightened and rushed over to bring money to your house."

Fu Jiahui pursed her lips; it might have been a smile. "Director Lu, I thank you for that."

"But while I was on the balcony smoking, you put the money back into my bag."

"I've been quite well-off these last few years. I have no use for your money," Fu Jiahui said. "What, was there any missing?"

"There wasn't." Lu Youliang looked at her with a sorrowful and bewildered expression, gently saying, "There was something added."

Fu Jiahui realized something and immediately closed her eyes. The two of them, one sitting and one lying down, were like two not especially aesthetically pleasing human statues, each frozen in the passage of wearying ages. Then Director Lu gently took out the little listening device and put it at Fu Jiahui's bedside.

"I knew someone had touched my bag, but I wasn't overly suspicious, because I knew at a glance that it had been you secretly putting the money back. I wasn't going to carefully go through it because of that." Lu Youliang's eyes were a little bloodshot. He said, "Sister-in-law, when Lao Yang was alive, when he talked about you, he always said you were bold but cautious, that there was nothing you wouldn't dare to do. We all joked and said he was crazy about his wife. I believe it now."

Fu Jiahui was looking at him expressionlessly. "How restrained, Director Lu."

"I'm an open book. If you're willing to listen, then listen. Anyway, I'm an unprepossessing old man. I'm not afraid of anyone taking advantage of me, and I have nothing to be ashamed or angry about." Lu Youliang looked down, tightly clenching his fists, and took a deep breath. "Sister-in-law, let me ask you something—that day when Luo Wenzhou and the others went to arrest Lu Guosheng and the information nearly got out ahead of them, was that…was that you?"

Luo Wenzhou, standing at the door of the hospital room with his hand raised to knock, froze.

Suddenly he heard the sound of a wheelchair next to him. Luo Wenzhou stiffly turned his head and saw that Chang Ning had gotten a wheelchair from somewhere and was pushing over Tao Ran, who ought to have been in bed. Luo Wenzhou blankly met his eyes, then suddenly felt that he'd returned to the day three years ago when he'd learned of Lao Yang's death. His ears had heard it and delivered it to his central nervous system, and his central nervous system had been unable to handle it, leaving him looking on helplessly at himself.

After a long time, a light laugh came from the hospital room. Fu Jiahui said, "Director Lu, you're infinitely perceptive. Don't you know everything?"

Luo Wenzhou shook, clutching the door frame.

"Why?" Lu Youliang had come emotionally prepared, but when he heard these words, his chest ached. He spoke almost a little incoherently. "I don't understand, it's… Did someone coerce you? Huh? It must be the child—it must be… You can tell us, I'll send people to guard her twenty-four hours a day, if we can't even protect our brother's wife and child, how the fuck can we have the face to continue in this profession…"

Fu Jiahui interrupted him. "Lao Yang himself didn't know who killed him, what do we amount to!"

Lu Youliang looked at her in disbelief.

"What, did I say something strange?" Fu Jiahui sneered. "Hey, Director Lu, haven't you just gotten through being investigated? Don't you know how Gu Zhao died, how Lao Yang died, too? Lao Yang even wrote a testament, made all his preparations, but as always evil advances faster than good. Could you save him? Were you in time?"

Lu Youliang said, "Lao Yang… Lao Yang also…"

"I'll be gone soon," Fu Jiahui continued, completely ignoring him. "I'll be dead soon… Lao Lu, they didn't only find this illness at the end of the year—there were signs long ago. When you reach this stage, you know that people can get premonitions of the time they'll die. So I said to my brothers and sisters, I may not be able to wait."

"Your… What brothers and sisters?" Lu Youliang felt absolute terror.

"Brothers and sisters with the same fate as me." Fu Jiahui's voice lowered. "Those who have met with the greatest injustice in the world. The police have no way to catch the criminal for you, the law has no way to give you justice. You raise a cry, everyone looks at you and accords you a few tears and says you're pitiable. You think the whole world will support you, but times change, and you find that people forget you as soon as they're done pitying you, and you have to deal with it yourself. If one person can't deal with it, then all of you join hands—isn't it effective? You've finally started ferreting out the mole, reopening the old case.

"As for leaking information, I'll apologize to you for that. All of this was rushed because of my health. Some details weren't perfectly prepared. Our enemy is sinister and cunning, and very dangerous. During the business of the Zhou family, we already put them on alert, and even more so during the time with Wei Zhanhong. They seized one of our brothers and got our communications record from him, but luckily it didn't impact the grand scheme."

Lu Youliang heard something in her few glancing words. His ears hummed. "The Zhou Clan… Wei Zhanhong… Lu Guosheng committing murder, it was led by you people, planned by you? The 'go ask shatov' in the Lu Guosheng case was one of your people? You knew ahead of time that that little boy was going to die, and, and you sat there waiting and watching? Sister-in-law, that child was younger than Xinxin, are you…are you crazy? Does Xinxin know about this?"

Fu Jiahui didn't answer him. She calmly said, "Haven't you heard? 'Bad people are carved out of the good7.'"

In a flash, Luo Wenzhou remembered—Xiao Haiyang had mentioned that he'd only noticed something was wrong because he'd heard Yang Xin "inadvertently" mention the gossip she'd heard in the dining hall. Had she really inadvertently heard the gossip? Or had she known that someone was putting on a performance of a murder attempt on Yin Ping and had purposefully prompted an obtuse performer into position?

Yang Xin knew. Not only did she know, she had taken part. Only she was young and her performance was a little stiff. She couldn't be as smooth as an adult… but it had been enough to fool Xiao Haiyang.

This was a little girl he had watched grow up. When she'd been in junior middle school, Luo Wenzhou had taken some people to beat up a delinquent who'd been pestering. In senior middle school, he'd helped her contact teachers for makeup lessons. Every time she'd succeeded on a mock exam before her university entrance exam, Lao Yang had given him an earful about it…

Luo Wenzhou heard Lao Lu ask loudly, "Who are you people? Who's leading you? Who's planning this?"

Fu Jiahui said almost inaudibly, "We are…the people who…bring past stories…one after another, without error…in front of you once again. We are the reciters of the stories. We…"

The hospital room was suddenly silent. Then came Lao Lu's voice, a mixture of anger and shock: "Sister-in-law!"

Luo Wenzhou pushed open the door and saw that the ashen-faced woman in the hospital bed had her eyes closed. There was a trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth. While it was cold, it wasn't mocking. It was almost serene.

Full of the serenity of sleep.

In all these years, Luo Wenzhou had rarely gone in front of her to invite a snub. It had been a long time since he'd had a good look at her. Even since she'd come to the hospital, he'd always hurriedly called in with others. For a moment he nearly thought she was a stranger he didn't recognize.

Director Lu looked up and called to him, "Get a doctor!"

Luo Wenzhou woke as if from a dream. He ran.

When he'd just run out of the hospital room, he saw a human figure flash by in the corridor. It had looked like Yang Xin!

Luo Wenzhou turned his head and hurriedly said to Chang Ning, "Call someone!" Then he took to his heels in pursuit.

Fei Du was ensconced in the couch in Luo Wenzhou's house, staring at the clock on the white wall going forward bit by bit. He was frowning as he pondered something.

Suddenly, there was a clatter in the kitchen, interrupting Fei Du's train of thought.

He turned his head in time to witness Luo Yiguo's "heroic bearing" after falling on its butt from somewhere.

When Luo Wenzhou's parents had come at the end of the year and bought too many snacks for Luo Yiguo, the cat of their own flesh and blood, they hadn't all fit into the original place, so Luo Wenzhou had freed up a special cupboard to put President Guo's cat products into. The cupboard was in the kitchen, up by the ceiling. There was no handle on the door. A human had no trouble opening it, but it was rather difficult for a cat's paw.

Normally, as long as it wasn't locked, Luo Yiguo could easily open the door to any room or cupboard; it was rather skilled in the profession of sneaking food. Adding in that it had recently been ordered to watch its weight, its gluttony had become towering, and it couldn't resist using its own paws to assure it was well fed. First it leapt from the top of the fridge, hitting the cupboard door with matchless precision, attempting to pull the cupboard door open. Not expecting there to be nowhere to grab hold of on the smooth door, Luo Yiguo smacked itself into a wedge of cat, then slipped down, flailing its claws and baring its fangs.

But it wouldn't admit defeat. It climbed up to try once again.

Fei Du unsympathetically looked on as Luo Yiguo suffered a crushing defeat, his gaze falling on an empty can in the trash, which hadn't been taken out yet.—Right, he really had taken out a can for Luo Yiguo that day and had later been distracted by other things and forgotten about it. He hadn't expected that he would remember it in his dream.

He opened a notepad on his phone and looked at the vague notes he'd left himself that morning—the can of cat food, Luo Wenzhou angry, Tao Ran injured, suffocation, the origin of the code, the woman's scream…