Chapter 10

Chapter 10

I pulled out my phone, scrolled through my contacts, and found a cousin-uncle from my father’s side of the family.

When I first moved back to Cang City, my parents were worried about me and told me to contact this cousin-uncle if anything came up.

I vaguely remembered my dad once mentioning that he used to work at the Cang City Second Machinery Factory.

I called him, exchanged a few pleasantries, then asked if he could help me find out about Bai Yanmei’s relatives.

My cousin-uncle was quite enthusiastic and agreed right away.

But after two days of waiting, I still hadn’t heard back from him.

Whenever I asked, he just said he was still looking into it and told me to be patient.

Suddenly, inspiration struck. On the evening of the third day, I took a bottle of Feitian Moutai and two cartons of cigarettes and went to visit him.

We chatted about this and that for ages, and after a few rounds of drinks, my cousin-uncle, now tipsy, started telling me what he remembered about the “Bai Yanmei Dismemberment Case.”

The night the case happened in ’93, he had been scheduled for the midnight shift. That evening, he and his girlfriend had gone to a dance hall.

They were young and got carried away, losing track of the time.

Around half past midnight that night, my cousin-uncle rushed to change into his work clothes and get to work. But as soon as he reached the factory gate, he found that the police had already locked down the entire plant.

The workers arriving for their shifts were gathered outside, not allowed in; those whose shifts were ending were sealed inside, not allowed out.

At the time, my cousin-uncle and the others saw large numbers of police officers and forensic examiners going in and out, and they vaguely guessed that something must have happened-and that it was something major.

Sure enough, the next day they heard the news: that exceptionally pretty young woman from Building 5 had been murdered. After that, people from the factory security section and the police went almost door to door, investigating and taking fingerprints.

They focused on screening young men between the ages of twenty and thirty-five.

My cousin-uncle said that back then, everyone’s biggest pastime before and after work was gathering to discuss the investigation, speculating that the killer might be a factory worker, or maybe some young punk from outside.

Later, as time went on, everyone got busy with their own jobs, families, and children. Who still had the energy to care?

Every now and then, they would see a few wreaths set up by the office building, and a woman sitting on the ground, wailing and making a scene.

When they asked around, they learned it was Bai Yanmei’s aunt-Bai Haiping.

It was pitiful. She wasn’t even fifty, but her hair had gone almost completely white.

I asked my cousin-uncle whether he had contact information for any of Bai Yanmei’s relatives, or if he knew where they lived.

He said that although they had worked at the same factory back then, they hadn’t been in the same workshop and had never spoken to each other.

I repeatedly asked him whether he could ask around among his old coworkers some more. I told him I was making a show, and that this case was truly important to me.

Maybe that bottle of Moutai had done its job, because my cousin-uncle thumped his chest and gave me his word, saying he would definitely get it done for me.