“Similar things,” Tao Ran confirmed. “When no leads were left in Guo Fei’s case, it went cold—there was nothing else they could do. Later, my shifu returned to the city. While he was on Xitai District Bureau’s criminal investigation team, another child was kidnapped there—also a girl of eleven or twelve who disappeared on her way home from school, without the kidnapper leaving any message. And scariest of all, a couple of days after she disappeared, her family likewise received a call on which they heard a crying child. My shifu immediately realized that something was very wrong and reported the situation to the higher-ups. When the Xitai District Bureau’s director escalated it to the municipal bureau, it turned out that in the whole of Yancheng—including all the districts and counties within its jurisdiction—there had been a total of six similar child kidnappings.”
“Seven, actually,” said Luo Wenzhou. “The last girl survived. At that point, the municipal bureau chose a few people from each area and formed a special investigation team. That was how Lao-Yang ended up at the municipal bureau—but after several rounds of investigation, the team was still coming up empty-handed. There was no connection between the kidnapped girls, except…” A sudden thought seemed to come to Luo Wenzhou, and he glanced at Chenchen, who was listening to the whole story with rapt attention. He paused, then abruptly changed the end of his sentence. “Except that the methods used were all the same.”
“When Guo Fei’s father heard that, he took a long-term unpaid leave of absence from work and came all the way into the city. He wanted to stay until the team solved the case and gave him answers, but in the end, he was disappointed.” Tao Ran carefully placed the old officer’s notebook back in the box. “Eventually, the team dissolved. The only people who still cared about the case were the victims’ families and my shifu, who’d first handled it.
“Half a year later, Guo Heng suddenly came to find my shifu. He said he’d found a suspect. A teacher named Wu Guangchuan—the guy in the portrait. Wu Guangchuan was a teacher at Brocade Junior High, one of the earliest private junior highs. It was a boarding school that accepted students from the entire city. It was expensive, but the education was good. Plenty of parents from farther-flung areas thought that their local junior highs weren’t up to snuff and sent their kids to Brocade instead. At the time Guo Fei went missing, Wu Guangchuan was on the team sent to Lianhuashan to recruit students.”
Chang Ning held her breath. “Well…was it him?”
“Wu Guangchuan was thirty-six that year. He was divorced and lived alone, so it was a possibility that he’d committed the crime. Lao-Yang went to investigate him privately once—he even used some illegal methods—but he never found anything. Wu Guangchuan was even-tempered and had a good reputation. Everyone said he was a good man. He wasn’t antisocial, he worked with kids, he’d never done anything that crossed a line, and he wasn’t nursing any grudges against the victims’ parents. Lao-Yang followed him for a while and really didn’t think it was him. But it was like Guo Heng was possessed. He swore on his life that Wu Guangchuan was the kidnapper. Later, when Lao-Yang stopped following Wu Guangchuan around, Guo Heng went to find Wu Guangchuan himself and stabbed him.”
Lang Qiao let out a soft exclamation. “Did he die?!”
“Yes,” Luo Wenzhou said. “He was already dead when he arrived at the hospital. And the police found the seventh kidnapped girl in his basement, in addition to the six previous girls’ clothes. The garments had been cut into strips, but there were blood stains on them that matched the victims’ blood types. That’s how the case was solved. But they never found the first six girls, dead or alive, and they could no longer question the suspect.” He stood and stretched. “Guo Heng was charged with first-degree murder and found guilty. Lao-Yang never let that go. He thought that his own error in judgment had resulted in the tragedy. He never stopped talking about it for the rest of his life. All right—enough. Let’s eat.”
The gathering at Tao Ran’s apartment lasted until that afternoon, at which point those who’d arrived via taxi or subway left. The guests who’d driven themselves stayed behind to help Tao Ran unpack while they sobered up. Chang Ning and Chenchen went home too. A few more drinks were forced onto Tao Ran, and when he went to do the dishes, he ended up dropping a plate. At that point, Luo Wenzhou chased him away. At least it was good luck—the “pieces” of such a shattered plate were said to bring “peace.”
Sergeant Luo quickly washed a whole stack of plates and bowls. When he returned to the living room, he saw Fei Du flipping through the old officer’s notebook idly. He had his back to Luo Wenzhou, but he apparently had eyeballs on the back of his head, because he asked, “You wanted to say that, in addition to the method in which the lost girls were kidnapped, there was another similarity between them. It was their clothes, right?”
Leaning against the wall, Luo Wenzhou burst out laughing. “How did you know? Are you the murderer reincarnated?”
“You looked at Chenchen and swallowed your words. She was wearing a floral dress today.” Fei Du turned around. “The clothes found in Wu Guangchuan’s basement—were they all dresses with a floral print?”
Luo Wenzhou glanced at him, remembered the embarrassing gaming console, and awkwardly avoided Fei Du’s gaze. “Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“There wasn’t anything to say. You can teach a child to be wary of strangers, to be more alert, but you can’t let her be afraid to wear a floral dress. Otherwise, what’s the point of us police?”
“Mm.” Fei Du nodded lightly. “You’re right, Sergeant Luo.”
When Luo Wenzhou finally heard something nice come out of Fei Du’s mouth, he was suddenly afraid. A second later, his intuition proved correct.
“Other than the little bouquets and the console, what else was there…?” Fei Du asked quietly.