Chapter 81

Chapter 81

Only then did I learn the name of the dead woman who had sought me out.

She was Zhou Min.

Looking at their daughter’s portrait, the elderly couple could not help wiping away tears again.

I felt terribly sorry for them, but had no idea how to offer comfort. All I could do was ask whether I might see Sister Zhou’s room. Since she had visited me in a dream, I said, there must be some connection between us.

Her parents gave the request little thought. Assuming I was merely curious about the person who had appeared in my dream, they let me enter.

I pushed open the bedroom door and stepped into Zhou Min’s room.

There was little furniture or decoration inside. Almost nothing suggested that the room belonged to a woman.

That made sense. From her parents’ rambling account, I had learned that Zhou Min had left to work in the city ten years ago. She had rarely come home over the years, returning mainly at Spring Festival to reunite with her parents. The bedroom was merely a place for those brief stays and bore few traces of her life.

This year, however, Zhou Min had returned to Lianghe Town and rested for several months. Perhaps she had also hoped to find a partner in her hometown.

She was already in her thirties, and given her circumstances, finding a man from the city would have been difficult.

But no one could have imagined that she would vanish by the river two months ago.

After the elderly couple reported her missing, the police searched the riverbank and concluded that she had fallen into the water by accident.

The Chuan River was fast and rough, making corpse retrieval extremely difficult. Once the police ruled the death accidental, the couple had no choice but to give up.

That surprised me greatly.

Zhou Min harbored no intense resentment and had killed no one. How could her transformed floating corpse have become so powerful in only two months?

It made no sense.

The whole affair was shrouded in mystery.

As I looked around Zhou Min’s room, I murmured with a rueful smile, “Sister Zhou, your parents couldn’t retrieve your body or uncover the truth, so you chose me? I’m only a middle-school student. There’s only so much I can do.”

Worse, she had never consulted me. She had simply forced the bargain on me.

Still, I had already accepted the reward, so I had to see the matter through. Perhaps her belongings would contain a clue.

A cardboard box sat on a table in the corner, filled with a jumble of objects. Her parents had probably gathered her possessions there.

I carefully sorted through them.

There were books, magazines, shoes, clothes, and various cosmetics, but nothing seemed useful.

Just as disappointment set in, I spotted something unusual at the very bottom of the box.

It resembled a hardcover book, yet not quite.

I picked it up, and delight surged through me.

“A diary?”

If Zhou Min had kept a diary while alive, that was wonderful. It would surely be the most valuable clue.

“But that’s odd. Didn’t her parents read it?”

On second thought, perhaps neither of them could read. The police had already closed the case, so naturally they would not pay her possessions much further attention.

I opened Zhou Min’s diary.

[First day back home]

After spending so long in a city of concrete and steel, coming home is rather nice. The air is fresh and life is easy. I was too tired before. I want to rest. It would be even better if I could find a boyfriend whose background I know well.

[Second day back home]

Did nothing today, just rested. Dug sweet potatoes from our field and roasted them the way I did as a child.

[Third day back home]
Home is nice, but it’s too boring. The movie theater only has one film and keeps showing it over and over. I’m sick of it.

…

Zhou Min’s diary entries were brief, only a few sentences each day about what she had done and what she was thinking.

Nothing appeared useful, but I patiently continued reading one day at a time.

Gradually, a picture formed in my mind of an unmarried woman in the late 1990s who was already considered past the usual marriage age. She was ordinary, accustomed to life in the big city, and deeply conflicted about her hometown. She felt lost about the future but longed for love. Her state of mind was common in an era of dizzying social change and development.

At last, in some later entries, I found details worth noting.

[Thirty-fifth day back home]

I met a handsome man today. I’m so happy. We seem to get along very well. He treated me to hot pot, then took me to a movie. Has my romantic luck finally arrived? He said he wants to see me again tomorrow.

[Thirty-sixth day back home]

I went out with the handsome man again today. I happened to mention that I wanted a relationship. He asked for my birth date and time, then said in surprise that our bazi were extremely compatible. Who would have thought someone so handsome, good-natured, and rich would understand things like that too?

…

Those two entries gave me a faint sense that something was wrong.

A person’s birth details were highly private. Apart from official records and one’s parents’ memories, they should never be revealed to a stranger, since someone with ill intentions could easily exploit them.

Yet the mysterious handsome man in Zhou Min’s diary had asked for her bazi on only their second meeting. I could not explain why, but the request felt extremely deliberate.

Perhaps Zhou Min’s death was connected to him.

I kept reading.

[Thirty-ninth day back home]

Today I learned that the handsome man knows almost every rich person in town. His own wealth must put him among the ten richest people here. What did I ever do to deserve meeting such a wonderful man?

I’m wondering whether I should put aside a woman’s reserve and confess my feelings tomorrow.

The diary ended there.

Roughly forty days had passed between Zhou Min’s return from the city to Lianghe Town and her mysterious disappearance two months ago.

In all likelihood, she had fallen into the Chuan River and died one or two days after writing that final entry.

Snap!

I closed the diary, already forming a plan.

“Obviously, if I want to discover how Zhou Min died, I need to start with the mysterious handsome man in her diary. Even if he wasn’t the killer, he must be closely connected to whoever was.”

“Judging by the way he casually pretended to ask for Zhou Min’s bazi, he certainly wasn’t an ordinary man. He may have approached her with an ulterior motive from the very beginning.”

“He’s handsome, well connected with the rich people in town, and wealthy enough to rank among the top ten. I can investigate those clues first.”

“At the same time, I need to arrange the retrieval of Zhou Min’s body. I’ve saved a fair amount of money from carrying coffins with Old Cao. I can use it to hire a reliable corpse retriever.”

Once I organized my thoughts, I knew what to do next.

There was no need to rush, however.

Unless a nether covenant specified a deadline, I could follow my own plan and fulfill it step by step. As long as I did not stop deliberately or violate the agreement, there would be no problem.

I still had classes during the day, so I could only investigate and search for the body at night, on weekends, or during school holidays.

I secretly tucked the diary inside my clothes and left Zhou Min’s bedroom.