Guo Heng’s expression changed slightly. The girl in the photo smiled at him, her head cocked slightly, revealing one crooked tooth. It could just have been coincidental, but when he looked carefully, he actually saw some similarities between Qu Tong and Guo Fei.
Luo Wenzhou’s tone grew even more gentle. “I just have a few questions, and after that, I’ll leave. I won’t bother you.”
Guo Heng glanced at him and pursed his lips, not saying anything for a while. Then he turned to walk into the newsstand.
Luo Wenzhou hurried in after him. “Have you ever mentioned that pencil case full of bells to anyone?”
“Yes.” Guo Heng had gotten too emotional earlier, and now his voice was a little hoarse. “I told the officer handling the case. After you guys gave up, I also told the friends and relatives who kept helping me investigate.”
“Can you list them?”
Guo Heng gave him a look. Just as Luo Wenzhou thought he might explode again, the man instead curled up in his chair and rubbed his face as if fatigued. “Feifei’s homeroom teacher. A relative who was working at the telephone exchange then. Oh… A few sanitation workers near the garbage dump where the phone call was made. They probably all know a few things. It’s all mixed up in my head now, though. I repeated the same thing to so many people, I don’t really remember anymore.”
“Then let’s start from the beginning.” Luo Wenzhou took out a palm-sized notebook and sat down on the stool Guo Heng had brought out earlier. “Where did you start investigating? And how did you find Wu Guangchuan?”
Guo Heng looked past Luo Wenzhou at a little mirror on the newsstand door. The mirror reflected his aged face and white hair, driving home just how much time had passed. He glanced at Luo Wenzhou—if his young daughter were still alive, she might even be a few years older than this cop.
“The police investigation never went anywhere. I was so worried that I had to look into things myself. I went to that garbage dump a few times—the place the culprit had called from. Back then, they often didn’t get rid of garbage on schedule, so the stench was awful. There weren’t any residences nearby or bus routes that passed through, so anyone going there had to drive. And if you came from the county seat, there was a toll gate. There hadn’t been many cars on the road on the day of the call, and the police had looked into each car’s route. If anything was suspicious, they would’ve found out. I thought maybe the kidnapper was from out of town, because there’s only one highway from Yancheng to Lianhuashan; it goes around the mountain, and it happens to pass the dump. There’s no connecting road, but there’s a big hill that slopes down to there. I went to take a look. You wouldn’t be able to drive a car down to the dump, but any adult would be able to walk down.”
“You’re saying that Guo Fei’s kidnapper left Lianhuashan with her, then for some reason stopped in the middle of the highway, climbed down half a hill with the kid, and made that call using the phone at the nearby dump? Why?” Luo Wenzhou asked.
Guo Heng sneered. “When I told the police this all those years ago, they asked ‘Why?’ in that exact same tone.”
“I’m not dismissing you.” Luo Wenzhou wasn’t here to argue with Guo Heng. He reorganized his thoughts, then said very calmly, “Following your logic, the kidnapper wasn’t from Lianhuashan. It’s true that Wu Guangchuan was an outsider, and based on our investigation, he didn’t stay in Lianhuashan long. So how did he become familiar with a dump that even the locals barely went to? On top of that, he kidnapped an eleven-year-old, not an infant weighing only a few pounds. Abandoning his car in the middle of the highway, then climbing down to an unfamiliar place with a kidnapped child to assault her—that would have been way too risky. How would he know that no scavengers or sanitation workers would pass by? It wouldn’t have made sense.”
“Did your ‘sense’ catch the criminal?” Guo Heng shot back.
Luo Wenzhou had nothing to say to that.
“The police told me it was impossible back then too. But they formed a special investigation team just for the case. I figured that team would be way smarter than me, so I left everything to them and waited for their results. Except… Ha!” Guo Heng laughed derisively. “Eventually, I really had no other option. I had to follow my ‘impossible’ hunch. I went to Feifei’s school, and I asked staff at all the nearby guesthouses and hotels. Her teacher helped a lot too—she was an old lady who’d come out of retirement when she was teaching Feifei. She’s already passed away, so she definitely isn’t who you’re looking for.”
“In the process, you found Wu Guangchuan. He was in Lianhuashan recruiting students at the time, but I heard that he was in the hospital when the crime occurred. Why did you suspect him?”
“Brocade was well-off. Their teachers came in different cars, but at the same time. After their job was done, though, they all left separately. Some left earlier because of family responsibilities, some stayed longer to visit the karst cave in Lianhuashan, and some got sick and left halfway through. I found the cheapest accommodation near Brocade and followed each of them. I didn’t suspect Wu Guangchuan at first, but at one point, I was just strolling around the area, and I saw a kid tailing him sneakily.”
Luo Wenzhou instinctively sat up a little straighter.
“It was a boy wearing the Brocade uniform. He said that he was the class representative, and his homeroom teacher had asked him to find out why a female classmate of his kept missing classes. When she skipped class, she didn’t go home. He saw the girl meet Wu-laoshi after class once, but when he went to ask Wu Guangchuan, he denied it. I thought that was suspicious,” Guo Heng explained. Luo Wenzhou’s brow twitched slightly.
Guo Heng looked at him, then suddenly asked, “Are you married?”
“No.”
“Then you wouldn’t understand.” Guo Heng shook his head. “If you had a kid—a daughter—who’d just disappeared one day, you’d be as sensitive as I am.”
“You also told an officer who transferred from Lianhuashan into the city?”
“Yes. His family name was Yang. He’d worked at the Lianhuashan Public Security Bureau before. He was the only person I knew in Yancheng,” said Guo Heng. “He didn’t believe me, though.”
Luo Wenzhou didn’t try to explain for his shifu, just asked, “And then what happened?”
“I had to investigate myself, but that boy from Brocade helped me a lot. One day, he paged me, and I rushed to him just in time to see Wu Guangchuan dragging a struggling little girl away.” Despite how much time had passed, Guo Heng clenched his fist as he recounted this. “I told the boy to leave, and then I followed Wu Guangchuan to his home, watching him drag the girl all the way. Then he did a bunch of…disgusting things right at his front door. I… I…”
Guo Heng’s chest heaved. He couldn’t continue. According to the case file, after Wu Guangchuan pulled the girl inside, Guo Heng knocked on his door, pretending to be there to collect electricity fees, then stabbed him.
“What was the boy’s name?”
“Xu…” Guo Heng had to think about it for a while. “I think…Xu Wenchao.”
After Luo Wenzhou bade Guo Heng goodbye, he sent a hasty text to Tao Ran, asking him to summon Su Xiaolan and Xu Wenchao—both of whom had attended Brocade Junior High twenty years ago—for questioning. Then he sped back to the city.