5 - Who would not want a man like Wu Fengrong to promise to do something, ne?

Zhou Yanling, from inside his briefcase, took out one leather pocket file. Hesitating over and over, he still placed it in Wu Fengrong’s hands. Wu Fengrong first fished out one photograph. It was a close up of the victim’s corpse, a complete field of view, the image clear and detailed.

The photo of Xiao Quan showed him lying on a damp cement floor. His skin was a bluish-green, pupils enlarged, dilated because of a broken skull. Blood from his nose and ears was flowing out. Lips were blanched. The corner of his mouth was stained. His chin was concealing one extremely small wound, seemingly as if fine and delicate lines of pencil lead were hidden in the groove of his chin. By striking the hind-brain with a blunt object, there was only swelling, no bloodstains, indirectly indicating he’d had an intracranial hemorrhage. Both of his hands were unnaturally clasped to his chest, his school uniform jacket dislodged from his left shoulder, tangled around his upper arm, exposing the inside of his turtleneck sweater. The one who took the picture had taken a close up of the badge and school motto on his school uniform, “Tongzhou City First Middle School”.

Wu Fengrong scrutinized the soft and slender features spread across this young face. The face’s main expression was that of both fear and pain. He was looking at the cause of his death, a haze swallowing him at each step—-intracranial hemorrhage could directly cause the inside of the skull to swell. The brain suffering from increased pressure would cause the brain matter to entirely shift against the spinal cord. Ultimately, due to the increased pressure to the brain, respiratory arrest would cause death. Victims of intracranial hemorrhage could take several days to die, the shortest may last several minutes. The entire process, while the victim suffers psychological torment together with bodily suffering, was already quite difficult to imagine.

Chilliness passed through Wu Fengrong from the soles of his feet rushing straight to his forehead. Anyway, murdering a minor was already an extremely vile crime. Who hated this much, had so much desire to want to put a schoolchild to death with such fierce killing intent.

“ What did the autopsy report say?”

Zhou Yanling was in the middle of flipping through the autopsy report, both ends of his brows deeply furrowed, resembling two continents unceasingly nearing.

“ A head section CT was performed. The fatal wound was confirmed to be to the hind-brain. Explosive force from the beating caused the skull to fracture. In addition, there was a tear to the superior meningeal artery. The arterial bleeding was so fast that losing consciousness and suffocating to death shouldn’t have taken more than ten minutes. Apart from this, both the internal organs and the bones did not suffer any damage, indicating that the murderer only struck with a blunt object one blow, one unusually precise killing strike.

Before death, there were signs that he’d had a fight with someone. Bruises on the skin of the thigh, arm and neck, scrapes on his back which were possibly caused by being thrown to the ground. The stain on the corner of his mouth was tested and appeared to be his own blood, suggesting that this was a very fierce fight. The jacket ought to have been pulled down during the fight.” Speaking up to here, Zhou Yanling paused then continued to read further: “Trace amounts of blood and subcutaneous tissue were detected underneath the fingernails on the right hand, quite possibly from scratching o pen the murderer’s skin, possibly illustrating that the murderer also has marks on his body.”

“ Was the murder weapon found?”

“ Police have already confirmed that the murder weapon was a cut off length of disconnected water pipe, less than 50 centimeters in length, that was immediately discovered at the crime scene. It’s believed that it was thrown down by the murderer. Rust that had fallen off the water pipe was found in the tissue of the wound at the back of Xiao Quan’s head. According to what the internet cafe said, one week ago the shop’s building had had a damaged water pipe. Because it was adversely affecting the normal water usage, in the end the owner was asked by the property management to come to repair it by switching the old water pipe for a new one. The old one might have then been placed in the internet cafe’s junk heap and conveniently been picked up by the murderer to use.”

Wu Fengrong asked keenly: “Why say ‘conveniently’? How can you verify that the murderer did not deliberately commit this violent act?”

Zhou Yanling analyzed: “These two people before must have fought with their bare hands. After, the murderer seized the water pipe to give it one last go. In the event that the murderer had been armed with a weapon from the start of the assault, Xiao Quan’s first response should have been to run since he wasn’t armed. With such a large disparity in force, a normal person would have already fled. If the murderer was holding a weapon and fighting him, then Xiao Quan’s whole body, and not just one area, ought to have had marks from having been beaten with a blunt weapon. Therefore, it’s possible that in the beginning they just wanted to scuffle until the murderer was struck by the urge to kill and Xiao Quan 1 was viciously beaten. This is the first.

“ Secondly, the motive for this premeditated murder is difficult to grasp. Did you see the video of the victim’s parent’s interview? It’s online. Xiao Quan was a very ordinary student, good grades but not top-notch, and normally no interest in hobbies except for weekend gaming at the internet cafe. On that day, it just so happened to be a Friday. After school, he usually went right away to the internet cafe. Moreover, his parents were aware that he was going to the internet cafe and allowed him to go. A well-behaved person 2 , a child who didn’t have any area over which to be criticized, who could he have offended to produce such great hatred that it resulted in premeditated murder? Of course, on this earth, the causes of a lot of such desires for revenge are themselves unimaginable, such as over extreme beliefs and killing over things of little consequence. I can only say that I hope that this child did not provoke a person like that.”

Wu Fengrong, he took the offered case material from his hands and read it carefully page by page. Zhou Yanling listened to the brushing sounds of the flipping pages mixing with that of the train’s iron wheels into a tone of eternal reincarnation. He thought, life is also like this, brushing past and being carried away with a great rumbling.

“ First keep what evidence of this matter you don’t have, ba. To start with, you’re going to explain this.” Wu Fengrong pointed to the test result: “Your fingerprints were left on the the murder weapon. How did this happen? Did you touch that water pipe?”

Zhou Yanling found it laughable: “I’d gone over to touch Xiao Qian’s face in order to check his mouth and nose for breathe. This I admit. However, I had not seen that broken pipe before. Inside that alley it was very dark. Where would I have been able to take note of something like that pipe? I reckon that the murderer placed this piece in my hands in order to leave my fingerprints. In this way, the police immediately can find me by means of the murder weapon, leaving me to be fingered as a possible perpetrator.”

After a moment, Wu Fengrong snapped the files closed with a pā, the small resulting wind blowing this bangs to stick up at the top of his head.

Immediately he said, with his hair like beansprouts on his head: “This person was killed to the side of the internet cafe. Likewise it’s possible people from the internet cafe did it. Now, to be certain, there is no way to go to the internet cafe to ask to see what happened from the security footage. Similarly, with a large train full of people, altogether three hundred or so, it would be a nightmare 3 to investigate each and every one of them. We can only eliminate some first to shrink the range, concentrate on a few suspicious targets, then carefully ask.”

Zhou Yanling agreed: “In that case, since the murderer wants to go to Baihe, those on this train who are not going to Baihe can first be left aside. You have the passengers’ information, ma? Is it possible to learn of everyone’s destination?”

“ This is not difficult. Yet leaving aside this condition, not many would be lost in filtering.” Wu Fengrong explained: “Baihe is a small industrial town. Usually at this time, not many people go there. However, in prior years a piece of forest became protected. Later a tourist attraction was developed, and tourists began to arrive. Today is the second day of National Day’s holiday. Can you guess how many traveling on this train are not going to Baihe? I’ll make you a bet; more than eighty percent of the all the passengers are going to have fun. If you walk through the train from the first car to the last car, you might still be able to see university students organizing social activities to go play during many inexpensive school trips. Students have a voracious demand to buy tickets for cheap seats, and mixed groups of men and women together play noisily to quickly pass the many hours.”

Zhou Yanling’s’s heart, as if bound with those words, sank. This train had two dangerous people. Just in case something unexpected happened, he together with Wu Fengrong was entirely unable to bear the responsibility for these schoolchildren. One child had just died. How confident could they be in holding the lives of these other children who were going to play?

“ The murderer quite possibly may mix with those on this train going to play, pretending to be traveling for tourism to Baihe. Maybe he’s alone, maybe with a companion. It’s quite difficult to discern.” Zhou Yanling, gazing at the mess of the case files, could not help but sigh.

Wu Fengrong began to rearrange his train of thought. “First, according to the content of the text message, the murderer was together with you in the same place at Tongzhou to board. Therefore, you can immediately eliminate the people from the approaching station. We only need to search among the current passengers inside. Secondly, according to the autopsy report, there’s traces of subcutaneous tissue and blood underneath the fingernails of the one surnamed Xiao. There’s a very large possibility that the murderer’s body has marks. The injuries might not only be fingernail scratches; fractures, bruises, swelling and abrasions are all possible.”

Trace amounts subcutaneous tissue and blood were not enough to test DNA in order to match and compare, and it could only prove that the murderer might have a wound. But this wound ought to be quite easy to distinguish. Now, because of this current weather, their body was dressed in at least two players of clothes. Further, if fighting, it was quite difficult to grab and advance past a coat’s thickness to injure a person by scratching, therefore the wound ought to only be on exposed skin such as the face, neck, chest, hands, forearms, etc. Fingernail scratches were unlikely to be very serious and were also unremarkable. If that were the case, not paying meticulous attention will not lead to suspicion, so much so that the murderer will not deal with it very carefully. As a result, covering it tightly would instead be strange. If even only patrolling the train once, immediately one might clearly understand and distinctly know.

It didn’t matter that there were quite a few people going to Baihe. But on the other hand, he feared that there weren’t many with injuries.

Zhou Yanling straightened out, tidied up and stood up to walk outside. Wu Fengrong pulled with one hand to stop him.

“ I still have a question. The first text message said to find this person before reaching Baihe station or else it won’t work. Why?”

“ What are you trying to say?”

“ He’s suggesting that upon arrival at Baihe station 4 , the murderer 5 can’t be caught. Why can’t he be caught upon arrival? Even if the murderer flees beyond the province, it’s still possible to leave the province, grab him and return. When he arrives in Baihe would the murderer 6 only then be safe? Because someone could shelter him, ma? In that case, the murderer would also know that only by arriving in Baihe would he be safe. Then why would he want to take this train? By plane it’s less than three hours. High speed rail, eight hours. Why wait two days and one night?”

“ Because his economic circumstances are especially lacking?”

Wu Fengrong sneered: “You’ve 7 killed. The Ministry of Public Security has issued a countrywide warrant for your arrest. There’s one person who might be able to guarantee your safety and security so you’d need not be imprisoned. You’re afraid to spend money in excess of several hundred, even a thousand, more? Just like emptying out the house 8 , you still can’t afford to ask a friend to lend some money for a plane ticket, ma? You can always get more money but if you’re caught there 9 would be nothing left.

At once, that only left one type of possibility–

“ He can only take this train. He’s very infamous, so he can’t take a plane or a high speed rail.”

Wu Fengrong also stood up immediately afterwards. “I will go patrol first, then I’ll return to the back-end computer system to try to find passenger information and, with the blacklist, give it a go comparing them, okay. You wait here for me. I will return in an hour at most.”

After speaking for quite a while about his work, Zhou Yanling interrupted him: “I will go patrol the cars. You just go to straight the back-end system.”

“ That won’t do. The murderer can recognize you. If he sees you aboard, it cannot be said that he wouldn’t take the risk to report you to the police. Additionally, outside there’s a lot of train personnel and transit police. I allowed them all to look over your picture. At the moment, it’s best if you don’t show your face. The more ostentatiously you act, the more dangerous.”

“ At least allow me to do a little something. I can’t always allow you to rush about by yourself.”

Wu Fengrong thought for a moment, turned on the computer on his office desk, and logged in using his own username and password. Inside was the Ministry of Railway’s internal back-end computer system: “Here you can check all passengers’ information. Name, ID, destination, all are there. With the blacklist, you’ll have to look on your own. There’s no automatic filtering system to match and compare, so you can only look at each entry one by one. As soon as possible, I can again try to find my deputy conductor to quickly consult with him. Some of what’s said I won’t be able to speak frankly about. It’s possible, for the time being, to fabricate lies to deceive. The rest is up to you.”

Zhou Yanling leaned over, kissing the corner of his mouth, which Wu Fengrong began to continue by lifting his head upwards. He smoothed down the creases on his clothes on Zhou Yanling’s behalf and lowered his voice: “Be clever, be safe, do not let that person discover you. I’m still worried about one thing. The reason why Baihe is safe is either that there’s a rich honorable household giving him shelter, which can just be passed over, or there’s still one type of possibility……”

Zhou Yanling’s voice became very serious: “He will die on arrival at Baihe station.”

It was only natural that dead people couldn’t be caught. At that time, it would also be awfully difficult to prove that the deceased killed Xiao Quan. That Zhou Yanling was making the same trip would make it even more suspicious. Instead, the matter would come to seem as though Zhou Yanling was slinking around en route to kill again. Then, in that case, he would never be able to be rid of suspicion 10 .

Wu Fengrong was gripping Zhou Yanling’s shirt collar to return the kiss. Of course he must be used to swaying along with the train, but now he was half leaning against Zhou Yanling’s chest, causing a kind of misconception that he needed to rely on him. The collar of his woolen army coat lightly brushed against his down-filled clothes, as though it was lovable and meek animal’s tail. Zhou Yanling was supporting his waist, closely kissing the gap between his lips. For a moment, the hot air from his mouth managed to pass heat along his windpipe, entering the cavity of his chest, the pit of the stomach resembling the base of an old oven little by little warming up.

He was prepared for Wu Fengrong to not at all help. They were adults who’d had the pleasure of close intimacy. Adults spoke about clearly dividing public and private interests. But this kind of intimate kiss made Zhou Yanling unsure. When it came to Wu Fengrong, to the limits of a conductor’s duty, the first several attempts at seduction were already sufficient to sound him out. Achieving this single step and then claiming occupational demands as an excuse was really unreasonable. If saying he’d touched a heart set on the mundane, Zhou Yanling didn’t believe it either. They were far from arriving at that step, and what’s more, this stage of the relationship was still mixed with very many schemes (11). Wu Fengrong’s flirtatious expressions were genuine, but his infatuation was false. However, he had to pretend to be sincerely, deeply passionate. Zhou Yanling believed himself to be an expert in this way of acting in an affected manner in order to sell insurance. Unexpectedly, the conductor was also able to do this confidently and effortlessly (12).

Then there was only one possibility. Wu Fengrong regarded holding him as an insurance policy. A man treated someone well, treated a woman well, pursued a woman, possibly pursued anyone, not necessarily out of fondness but because he wanted to accomplish an “objective”, just like completing a business purchase. He had made a firm resolution that he was going to take this list and work hard to finish it, and finishing the list was for the same reason as accomplishing an achievement at work. Wu Fengrong wanted to capture Zhou Yanling possibly because of a work objective, also possibly, occasionally, it was out of a male desire to possess.

Zhou Yanling used to have the mentality of “accomplishing a goal”. Later, he drifted along turning into an old salesperson. There were no more mandatory job performance requirements and right away nothing to hope for. His unmarried life was a desolate shadow. Only because this occupation was comparatively unusual, he wanted to be one of the crowd, but also could not be one of the crowd. Other people regarded him as being a thoughtless unstinting scoundrel, so in that case he might as well act like a ruffian out of convenience for others and out of convenience for himself.

Even though Wu Fengrong simply promised on his own, he also promised to work hard which satisfied Zhou Yanling’s vanity as a man. Who wouldn’t want someone like Wu Fengrong to promise, ne? In order for him of the secular world from among thousands 11 to ask and receive a benefit from this heavenly person, he, Zhou Yanling, had been blessed for three lifetimes 12 .

The author has something to say:

At this time, I’ve seen many many comments. I’m so moved. Also a little stressed. I will try hard, sparing no effort.

Thank you, everyone~ Me me 13 for everyone~

The train conductor and Mr. Zhou at the moment are still not in love, just that, after all, they’ve just met. These two are old rogues, therefore running into true love, they’re instead a little unconvinced but not anxious, ha.

______

T/N:

Haha, sorry. I know this is a shorter chapter and, in my mind at least, should’ve been up yesterday. Unfortunately, there’s a hurricane/tropical storm on it’s way and I’ve already started getting migraines (or maybe they’re from stress, who knows?). This chapter has been edited but still might be incoherent, so I apologize for that, too. Depending on how I feel (and if I still have power), the next chapter might be delayed. Stay safe, everyone!

added for clarity 一个规规矩矩 : a reference to “The dream of the red chamber” by Cao Xueqin 天方夜谭 lit. fantasy story added for clarity added for clarity added for clarity I’m pretty sure WFG isn’t directly accusing ZYL of being the murderer; he’s using you as a pronoun in place of the murderer to try to get ZYL to think it through 是掏空家 : using up all your financial resources 进去了可就什么都没有了 : literally going from outside to inside but not specifying where. From the context, I can only assume either jail or death, both stemming from being caught 跳进黄河也洗不清了 literally jumping into the Yellow River to wash unclean. reference to qixi festival poem. 三生有幸 had really good fortune kissing sounds