Chapter 3
THE AREA AROUND Nanping Boulevard was a rush-hour disaster zone, typically congested from six thirty in the morning to ten at night. The road was full of a hodgepodge of upper-class white-collar workers heading east to the business district and people on motorbikes weaving through traffic. A large bus chugging slowly down the street to lodge itself into the mix would have produced the standstill of a century.
Roads on the West Side were especially convoluted, with wide lanes and narrow alleys crisscrossing haphazardly. It was also something of a trend for locals to erect unauthorized structures wherever they liked, which meant there were random dead ends everywhere. A misdirected vehicle that headed down one of those streets would find itself trapped like a bug in a spider’s web, forced to struggle along left and right turns before it could free itself and see the metaphorical light of day again.
Luo Wenzhou stuck his head out the car window. He let the siren blare for a moment, then yelled, “Hey, mister, we’re on official business here, and we can’t get past. Mind moving that BMW at the gate?”
An old man emerged from a small single-story house nearby. Pursing his lips, he gave Luo Wenzhou a look, then pushed the offending mobility scooter off the street and into the yard with trembling arms. A sticker on the left side of the scooter read Designated for Grandkid Pickup, and a sticker on the right read The more you honk, the slower I go! I win!
As the man plodded inside, Luo Wenzhou heard a loud woof. Puzzled, he lifted his sunglasses off the bridge of his nose and saw that a large yellow dog had run out from behind the scooter. The dog approached the side of the police car, met Luo Wenzhou’s eyes, and lifted its hind leg unmistakably toward the car tire.
Luo Wenzhou whistled. “Piss, little darling,” he said amiably, “and I’ll cut off your tiny wiener to make braised huibing noodles.”
The hound had never heard of such a bizarre method of consumption, and it was thoroughly unnerved by Officer Luo, who had the air of a seasoned scoundrel. With a yelp, the dog ran away, tail between its legs.
Lang Qiao hid her face behind a tablet. “Boss, did you forget that you have an unmarried young lady in your back seat? The district bureau sent over all the details they’ve got, by the way.”
“In that case, may I trouble my easily forgotten female comrade for an objective, unbiased summary of those details?” Luo Wenzhou asked, easing the car out of the narrow alley. “Ignore the subjective parts for now. Wang Hongliang is a bootlicking bastard, and the rest of the Huashi District Bureau are made in his image. They’re all useless.”
“The deceased is He Zhongyi, male, eighteen years of age,” Lang Qiao began. “He was a laborer from out of town, working as a delivery guy for a chain of cafés. Grooves and indentations were found in his neck. Cause of death: asphyxiation… So he was strangled. Preliminary conjecture is that the murder weapon was a long strip of something cloth-like. The time of death is estimated to have been between eight and eleven last night. Everything else is pending confirmation from forensics… Oh, and the body was found just a little ways from the back of the deceased’s shared accommodations. That’s how they identified him so quickly.”
Luo Wenzhou was a capable driver. Despite the hazards that surrounded them, he navigated the tight alley with absolute precision, and even had spare brain cells to ask, “Where did that rumor about a steal-and-strangle gang come from?”
“It seems like it started because all the victim’s valuables were taken. His phone was gone, and they found his wallet empty next to him. But it’s hard to say whether it was the murderer who took them.” Lang Qiao scanned the email again. “Right—also, the individual who reported the body stated that there was a piece of paper on the deceased’s face. It was taped to his hair, and the word ‘money’ was written on the underside.”
Tao Ran turned off the GPS. “Turn right, and we’re there.”
“Okay.” Luo Wenzhou rapped the steering wheel. “This case is under the district bureau, not the municipal one. Do you know why they want us there?”
“For guidance and supervision?” Lang Qiao suggested tentatively.
“Know who used to get sent out to ‘guide and supervise’?” asked Luo Wenzhou.
Two dots connected in Lang Qiao’s head. “Eunuchs!”
In the front passenger seat, Tao Ran turned to glare at her.
“Is that how young women from your village think?” Luo Wenzhou clenched his jaw as if he had a toothache. “Buzz off. I’m being serious. Director Gen Zhang’s a few years from retirement, and his deputies are all around his age. Everyone else is either too inexperienced or, like Director Zeng, too obsessed with their niche to care about anything else. Chances are that, when Director Gen Zhang goes, they’ll bring people in from the district bureaus.” Luo Wenzhou swerved around a trash heap at the side of the road and lowered his voice. “I suspect the old man wants to get rid of idiots like Wang Hongliang before he retires, so the bureau won’t be stuck with someone brainless as head when the time comes. So do you know what our main task is now…?”
As he asked that question, he rounded the corner. There, amid the shoddy old apartment blocks and the uneven thicket of single-story houses, was a patch of utterly barren land. Located right behind a row of small, unauthorized warehouses, it was overgrown with weeds and contained few traces of human life. Puddles pooled at the bases of the surrounding walls, and a persistent, perpetual stench filled the air.
The police had secured the crime scene, and forensic staff were rushing in and out. Wang Hongliang, the head of the Huashi District Bureau, had taken charge of the scene himself and begun to await Luo Wenzhou’s team. He was well aware that his visitors weren’t going to be friendly toward him.
Wang Hongliang was a middle-aged man whose bald spot extended all the way to his forehead. His eyebrows were so sparse that their furrowing was barely discernable. Hot sweat dripped from his forehead as he greeted Luo Wenzhou with a three-pump handshake. “I’m really sorry about all this—I mean, alarming the director general and forcing you fine people to come all the way down here.”
Luo Wenzhou tugged him forward by the hand and patted his shoulder, smiling good-humoredly. “Come on, Laoge, what are you talking about? You can drop the formalities with me.”
Wang Hongliang was far better at networking than actual work. Hearing Luo Wenzhou’s tone, he went with the flow immediately, calling Luo Wenzhou “brother” as well as he proceeded to unload all sorts of grievances onto his newest family member. Luo Wenzhou pulled out a box of cigarettes and lit one for Wang Hongliang, simultaneously shooting Tao Ran a look that told him to check out the crime scene with Lang Qiao.
Wang Hongliang began with casual chitchat that lasted the length of a cigarette, asking after Luo Wenzhou’s entire family before getting down to business. “It was someone he knew—it had to be,” he said, his beady little eyes flicking all over the place. He gestured at the crime scene. “Look at this place. It’s a maze. An outsider could never find their way through it. Who’d dare commit a murder here? You’re the expert, Laodi—don’t you think I’m right?”
Luo Wenzhou knew that this was a sensitive time and the last thing Wang Hongliang wanted was a mugger-murderer roaming his jurisdiction, hence his blind insistence on the “acquaintance with a personal motive” narrative. He took off his sunglasses and hooked them on his collar, squinting in the direction of the busy forensics team. “Me, an expert?” he asked lightly, rather than responding to Wang Hongliang’s question. “I’m just the son of a public servant, here so I can pay my bills. I trust your expertise.”
Wang Hongliang sighed and spread his hands. “Who isn’t here to pay their bills, huh? Come on. Let’s go take a look.”