While Xie Lin and Chi Qing were visiting the orphanage, the police station remained the same as usual. Everyone was at their respective workstations handling issues for local citizens, except for one person who simply could not settle down.
From time to time, Ji Mingrui would wander into Wu Zhibin’s office: “Brother Bin, how is that case at the bureau going?”
“Brother Bin, is there anything I can do?”
“Sigh, Brother Bin, I’m quite free today. Shouldn’t I be doing something?”
“……”
No matter where Wu Zhibin walked, Ji Mingrui followed him like a shadow.
Holding his thermos, Wu Zhibin felt as though he were being trailed by a large dog that refused to leave after spotting a bone. At first, he tried to reason with Ji Mingrui: “The Municipal Bureau has specialized personnel working on this case. Our local station was only responsible for assisting with the initial screening. Now that the assistance task is over, just return to your own post. There’s no need to worry about it.”
But Ji Mingrui remained relentless. In the end, utterly annoyed and exasperated, Wu Zhibin casually assigned him a task, if only to stop him from buzzing around: “Fine, then go back to Tianxin Neighborhood and continue the screening. See if there are any suspicious figures entering or leaving.”
Ji Mingrui snapped to attention and saluted: “Understood!”
Ji Mingrui drove to the entrance of Tianxin Neighborhood. The parking spaces in this old residential area were all on the ground level, with pedestrians and vehicles constantly weaving past each other. After parking his car, he rolled down the window and stared outside for a long time. In truth, as a place where “Z” had previously appeared, Tianxin Neighborhood should have been a key area, yet the previous round of screening had yielded absolutely nothing.
This actually didn’t make much sense.
Why would “Z” come here?
He couldn’t have boarded a car from here for no reason, nor could he have appeared in this neighborhood on that day without a purpose.
But if he left no traces of living in this neighborhood and had no acquaintances here, why did he appear here?
As soon as Ji Mingrui approached Tianxin Neighborhood, the memory of being choked from behind that day flashed vividly in his mind. He raised his hand to touch his neck; even now, he could still feel a trace of that slightly chilly body temperature.
Ji Mingrui pondered all of this, and finally thought:
I wonder what my ‘risen from the dead’ good brother is up to right now.
He sent a few messages to Chi Qing but received no reply. He got out of the car and wandered around the neighborhood. After walking just a few steps, he accidentally bumped into someone. The woman was carrying large and small bags, walking with her head low, concealing her face. Precisely because she was walking with her head down, the two of them collided head-on.
Clatter.
The items scattered all over the ground.
“I’m so sorry,” Ji Mingrui instinctively squatted down to help pick up the items. When he raised his head again, he discovered that the woman possessed a very familiar face. “Ms. Yang?”
Yang Yan was dressed almost identically to how she had been at the police station that day, still wearing worn-out clothes. The only difference was that she had changed into a grey sweater, making her entire presence look dusty. The items scattered on the ground were highly miscellaneous, mostly daily necessities, but Ji Mingrui noticed that mixed among them was a men’s woolen sweater and a newly purchased razor.
……These were items used by a man.
Yang Yan hurriedly stuffed everything back into her bag, preparing to head home.
Ji Mingrui suddenly pressed her hand down: “You have so many things. Let me walk you back.”
—What are you doing?
—How is the case going?
—Can you please reply to me? It was fine when you didn’t reply while playing dead, but now that you’re alive, you still won’t reply to me??
By the time Chi Qing saw these messages, over an hour had already passed. During this hour, he and Xie Lin had been flipping through a mountain of archives, and now his head throbbed just looking at Chinese characters.
The records from Huanan Orphanage from ten years ago were relatively well-preserved. However, because the facility had relocated once, they were not arranged in a proper chronological order and were scattered all over the place. By the time they finished unearthing all the files from ten years ago, a large part of the day had already passed.
“There are indeed several children in the missing persons records,” Chi Qing picked out the files related to “missing” cases. “Out of these three, two of them were too young. The killer wouldn’t target children under five years old. Excluding those who don’t fit the age range, only one person is left.”
In the end, only a single, solitary file remained in front of the two of them.
The thin file envelope was placed on the desk.
The black ink handwriting on the cover, dating back ten years, read a scribbled string of serial numbers: 101709262.
—Most of these children did not possess their own names. Especially for abandoned infants who were cast aside at birth, they had no surnames, and no one gave them names. The only thing belonging to them was a string of numbers.
The moment he opened the file, Chi Qing became incredibly and clearly aware: this might be the closest they had ever been to “Z.”
Flipping open the file, a photograph was pasted on the upper-left corner of the first page.
The boy in the photograph looked about twelve or thirteen years old, with rather sharp facial contours, thin lips, and drooping corners of his eyes. Perhaps because too much of the whites of his eyes were showing, looking straight ahead carried a very obvious sense of gloom. It was a face with a very strong sense of aggression.
“It should be him,” Chi Qing said.
Xie Lin asked, “Intuition?”
“Aside from intuition,” Chi Qing’s black-gloved finger landed on that string of numbers, “this final ‘2’ doesn’t seem to be a number. The handwriting is slightly different from the ‘2’ in front. This should be a ‘Z’.”
“Furthermore, the timing of his disappearance isn’t quite right.”
Chi Qing’s finger slowly slid downward, resting on another string of numbers: “This date is exactly three months prior to the occurrence of the first kidnapping case.”
Three months before the first victim met with misfortune, he had already crossed paths with the killer.
In other words, the Z from ten years ago had highly likely lived day and night with the antagonist for three whole months.
Even for someone like Xie Lin, who excelled at cognitive empathy and psychological profiling, it was difficult to imagine what had transpired during those three months.
The people who had stayed at the Huanan Orphanage ten years ago were now scattered all over, with only a few still remaining in the city.
The process of finding them was far longer than imagined.
Xie Lin drove the car around the city for two entire laps, visiting the few who still remained.
Among them, one was already a moderately successful company owner, another was a primary school teacher, and some had already married and had children.
“Most of us didn’t have names. Usually, the teachers would call us A-Li, A-Hua, Xiao Qiang, Xiao Gang… these names didn’t feel like real names to us.”
“They weren’t good to us. Or rather, how they treated us depended on whether we were obedient enough. The teachers at the orphanage didn’t have much patience; they didn’t have time to deal with a child’s rebellion and minor mood swings. Honestly, that period was the darkest time of my life. Being abandoned, waking up every day not knowing where I would end up, or if someone would suddenly take me away.”
“Being taken away wasn’t something to be happy about either. No one knew if the new ‘family’ would like you, or if they would throw you back again.”
“At that time, every single day, all I wanted was to grow up quickly. Once I grew up, I could work and earn my own money.”
After listening to their words, Xie Lin handed over the photocopied picture from the archives and asked them, “Do you still remember this person?”
Some shook their heads, while some stared at the face in the photo for a long time and said, “I have some impression.”
Ten years had passed.
The information stored in human memory gets replaced; many things previously thought to be unforgettable had also grown blurry and indistinct.
The person who vaguely recalled him was now a chef. Wearing a white apron and smelling of kitchen grease and smoke, he had been stir-frying in the back kitchen when Xie Lin and Chi Qing found him. The man put down his work, wiped his hands on his apron, and only then took the photo.
He stared at the photo for a moment before capturing some images from the depths of his memory.
“He…” The man opened his mouth, wanting to address the child in the photo, but when the words reached his lips, he couldn’t call out anything. “He didn’t seem to have a name. Oh, yes, he didn’t have a name. It’s not that I can’t remember clearly, but that he truly had no name.”
Xie Lin raised his eyebrow slightly, not expecting to hear such an answer: “No name?”
By the time they found this person, it was already close to evening. The restaurant was bustling with people, and the sound of ordering food was constant.
The smell of grease and smoke, as well as the sheer volume of people in the restaurant, made Chi Qing feel suffocated. He raised his hand, using his cuff to cover his nose and mouth as he stood to the side.
Chi Qing stared unblinkingly at the clock on the opposite wall.
Tick-tock.
The hands of the clock on the wall rotated.
This was already the fifth day since the first round of the game began.
“He was the most disobedient among us. He hated the way they casually named us like stray cats and dogs on the street. Because he refused to respond to the name, he was even locked in the punishment room.”
“Then how did you usually call him?”
” ‘Hey’ ,” the man said. “We usually just called him ‘Hey’.”
“He went to the punishment room constantly. Everyone else was terrified of that place—it was pitch black, with absolutely nothing inside, just like a tiny dark room. But he was the only one who wasn’t afraid. His longest stay in there was a full seven days. The teachers almost forgot he was still inside. By the time he was let out, he was nearly in a state of coma.”
“……”
Xie Lin held a notebook in his hand, clicking the cap of his pen: “Can you think of anything else regarding him?”
“Not much else I can recall, it’s been too long. I just remember he was very solitary, didn’t like to speak, and almost no one wanted to play with him, but his classroom grades were always excellent… Later, he went missing. I heard the teachers went out to search for a bit, but when they couldn’t find him, they just let it be. Anyway, he was always disobedient; in everyone’s impression, his leaving the orphanage was only a matter of time.”
The man pondered for a moment, and actually recalled another matter from the past: “Do you… have the surname Xie?”
Xie Lin’s name was written on the notebook he was holding.
“Is there something wrong?” Xie Lin asked.
The man looked at the name on the notebook and continued, “This surname is very unique. Years ago, an older brother with the surname Xie also came to our orphanage, and even brought us a bag of candy. I remember it very clearly because life was too bitter back then, and we rarely got to eat candy.”
Xie Lin, who had been leisurely clicking his pen cap, suddenly stopped his clicking finger upon hearing these words.
Chi Qing also hadn’t expected to hear Xie Feng’s name during this visit.
The two returned to the car and sat in silence for a very long time. Both of them were in a poor state; the lack of sleep made Chi Qing look even more “listless.” He had dark circles under his eyes, which overlapped with the bangs covering his forehead.
He should be thinking about what Xie Feng had discovered back then.
And why Xie Feng chose to tear out the page containing “Z’s” name.
……
He should be contemplating these things.
But at this moment, he did not focus all of his thoughts on these most crucial questions.
Chi Qing blinked, and then slid his hand out from his sleeve. Wanting to offer comfort but not knowing how to comfort the man beside him, and noticing that Xie Lin seemed to want to light a cigarette, he suddenly pressed down on the cigarette pack Xie Lin had just pulled out: “Don’t smoke.”
Xie Lin raised his eyes.
Chi Qing continued with some unfamiliarity, “I’ll… let you hold me for a bit.”
