Chapter 2

“After Shouzhong killed himself, I went through his belongings and found his suicide note.

“This is what he wrote:

“Dad, I don’t want to die!

“But I have no choice.

“You and I are the same. We’re both strange people who never fit into the world around us.

“You told me the stories of Qu Yuan, Fang Xiaoru, and Socrates. You used them to encourage me to remain true to myself and not live for other people’s approval.

“But Qu Yuan drowned himself in a river and was eaten by fish. Fang Xiaoru’s entire clan was exterminated. Socrates drank poison in prison.

“Dad, you were wrong.

“We aren’t sages. We’re patients.

“We have Asperger syndrome.

“You never saw a psychologist, so you don’t know about it. It’s a form of autism. Both of us live shut away in worlds of our own.

“Mr. Guan in the counseling office explained it to me. Once I understood, I resolved to change—to become one of them.

“They pretended to accept me, but they were only using me to help them cheat. If we were caught, they had nothing left to lose, while my entire future would be destroyed.

“I refused. They began bullying me and forcing me to give in.

“In the cafeteria, they invited me to sit with them, then stuck an acupuncture needle into a piece of corn and left it on my chair. When I sat down, the pain made me want to scream, but they all hissed at me to keep quiet.

“They knew I was shy, so they shoved me into the girls’ restroom and accused me of being a voyeur.

“One student stole his policeman father’s handcuffs and locked me inside a pigpen all night.

“Then they discovered my secret.

“They threatened to tell everyone unless I helped them cheat. I had no choice but to agree.

“Mathematics creates the widest score gap in the entrance examination, and it was their weakest subject. That was the paper on which I would help them.

“But the examination is so strictly supervised. How could anyone cheat?

“Only by creating chaos.

“And nothing creates chaos like a student jumping from a building.

“While the proctors were distracted, they could pass the answers out.

“That secret matters so much to me that I am willing to protect it with my life. Besides, I already don’t want to live.

“So I might as well make the entrance examination my farewell performance.

“I will achieve the most dazzling scores of my life, then leave this world at the height of everyone’s admiration—like fireworks vanishing at the instant of their greatest brilliance.

“Dad, you’ve already been to prison once. Don’t do anything foolish. Don’t obsess over who they are. Don’t obsess over the secret.

“At the end of the math paper, I left a string of numbers. Inside it are the words I most want to say to you.”

I was stunned.

Zhong Qiu had once stolen my handcuffs to play with. He washed them before returning them, but a faint stench of pigs remained. I beat the little bastard soundly for it.

I never imagined he had used my cuffs on Chen Shouzhong.

Before the entrance exam, Zhong Qiu had boasted that the “God of Exams,” Chen Shouzhong, would be sitting in front of him, so he was sure to march to victory and cross the general high school cutoff.

I had given up on his studies by then and paid no attention.

Now I knew how he had crossed that line: by forcing Chen Shouzhong to help him cheat.

No. Something was wrong.

I called Wang Guoqing and ordered him to bring Chen Shouzhong’s autopsy report immediately. In front of Chen Zhenshi, I read it word by word until I reached the medical examiner’s signature and seal.

Then I flung the report into his face.

“You’re lying! We conducted a detailed examination for mechanical injuries. Apart from the multiple comminuted fractures caused by the fall and the damage to his organs from the impact, there were no old injuries anywhere on Chen Shouzhong’s body.”

Chen Zhenshi took one last drag, spat out the cigarette butt, and looked at me with open provocation.

“Must bullying always leave a mark?”

I could bear no more. I pulled the handcuffs from my belt, clenched them in my fist, and snarled, “Enough games. Where is Zhong Qiu? If you don’t tell me now, I will make you regret it.”

I drew my fist back, the steel cuffs aimed at his eye.

At a time like that, the son of a bitch still mocked me.

“Well, well. Officer Zhong, the incorruptible man who once refused to use torture, wants to take the law into his own hands? Perhaps I misjudged you. If you’re a man, hit me. Otherwise you’re a spineless coward—no wonder you raised a little bastard who bullies the weak.”

The last thread of my self-control snapped. I drove my fist into his left cheek.

Police handcuffs were stainless steel, and I put most of my strength behind the blow. They tore his cheek open. Skin split, muscle bulged through, and blood ran from the gash to the corner of his mouth.

He licked it.

“Are you going to talk?” I shouted. “Keep quiet and I’ll make your life worse than death.”

He smiled, revealing a row of blood-red teeth.

“The secret of your son’s disappearance lies in that sequence. If you can’t solve it, perhaps we can make a trade.”

“What kind of trade?”

“A clue for evidence.”

At last Chen Zhenshi had shown his hand.

“What evidence do you want?”

“The audio and video recordings of Director Wang Zhen interrogating me on March twenty-fifth and twenty-seventh, 2000.”

Until then, for all my hatred of the man who had abducted my son, part of me had sympathized with him. If someone drove my child to death, perhaps I too would seek revenge by extreme means.

Now I saw that Chen Zhenshi was nothing like the grieving father I had imagined. He was scum. A beast.

“You’re using your son’s death to overturn your rape conviction?”

I could not imagine a father capable of such a thing.

He glared at me. “Yes. I intend to clear my name. The case was decided solely on my confession. Produce proof that I was tortured, and the confession can be thrown out. Without it, the chain of evidence is incomplete. My conviction can be overturned.”

I stared at a man reputed to possess a brilliant mind as though he were an idiot.

“Do you think any policeman would be stupid enough to torture a suspect in front of a camera?”

Chen Zhenshi smiled knowingly. “Are you sure you never did, Officer Zhong?”

What sort of scheming villain did he think I was?

“Never,” I said without hesitation.

“Very well. To show my sincerity, I have already given you the first clue. You were too agitated to listen or think. Put yourself in my place. If you were me, what would you do?”

I forced myself to calm down. My eyes fell on the handcuffs in my fist, and suddenly I understood.

“The pig farm?”

Chen Zhenshi glanced at the clock on the wall. “Officer Zhong, the twelve hours are up. It is time to release me.”

I ignored him and ordered Wang Guoqing to gather the men. We raced to the only pig farm in the city.

It was enormous. We urgently requested support from the local station and searched every inch. In the most remote pigsty, we found Zhong Qiu’s watch, what appeared to be his feces, and a pool of dark red blood.

I told the evidence technicians to test everything immediately.

From the scene, Zhong Qiu had plainly been held there for some time.

Where was he now?

What had happened to him in that sty?

By the time we returned to the station, Chen Zhenshi had been released.

“Who let him go?” I roared.

Wang Zhen, deputy chief and head of criminal investigation, answered without expression. “I did. We had held him for the full twelve hours. The law required us to release him.”

I was furious but did not dare challenge him openly. “Zhong Qiu wasn’t at the pig farm. Chen Zhenshi moved him.”

“Do you have direct evidence that Chen Zhenshi did any of this?”

“His fingerprints were on the pipe.”

“Were his the only fingerprints on it?”

Of course not.

A scaffolding pipe was a common, circulating object. Its surface was covered in prints. In evidentiary terms, one old pipe carrying dozens of fingerprints could not identify Chen Zhenshi as the offender.

I nearly jumped with frustration. “He told us Zhong Qiu was at the pig farm, and we found the boy’s watch there. That proves he knows where my son is. He is a major suspect. We should ask the procuratorate to approve an arrest.”

Wang Zhen did not budge. “Where is your proof? You turned off the recording equipment. Do you expect the procuratorate to issue an arrest based on your word alone? Chen Zhenshi can simply deny telling you anything.”

Ice flooded my veins.

At last I understood: my emotions, my reactions—Chen Zhenshi had calculated them all. He had pushed me toward violence and waited until the cameras were off before feeding me clues.

Step by step, he was luring me across the line and into breaking the law.

Wang Zhen delivered the final blow. “The moment Chen Zhenshi left the interrogation room, he reported you for torture. He demanded a police escort to the hospital for an examination and said he would file a complaint with the procuratorate at the next level. I sent Li Zhen with him and called the hospital, asking them to phrase the report as cautiously as possible. Old Zhong, you are in trouble.”