by Zhou HaoHui
‘Perhaps Yuan was right about some things,’ Pei said. ‘We stand on opposing sides, but we can have similar goals.’
Wen Chengyu flashed a large smile. ‘Well, since you didn’t apprehend me at the scene of the crime, what evidence do you plan to use to bring me in? After all, my credentials will stand up to scrutiny. You’ve already admitted that.’
‘It’s been difficult, trying to get evidence on you. I didn’t want to be on the same flight to Haikou as you and risk being discovered. As soon as I got off the plane, though, I followed Chen Tianqiao. I knew that you’d turn up eventually. When he got to the restaurant earlier this evening, I finally spotted you. Even though you were dressed as a waiter and wore a fake beard, I could tell from the way you moved that it was you. I watched you kill Chen, and I watched as you merged into the crowd and crossed the street. You were so fast that I actually lost you for half a minute. When I spotted you again, you’d already discarded your disguise.’
Wen Chengyu looked pleased. ‘My question remains: where’s your evidence?’
‘I wouldn’t have handcuffed you without evidence,’ Pei said confidently. ‘Specifically, a photo that I took.’
‘Of me killing Chen? How are you going to prove that the man with long hair and a beard covering half his face is actually me?’
‘Remember when you were ripping off your disguise? When you crossed the road, a black Nissan nearly hit you. You dodged it, but you also touched its bonnet as you got out of the way.’
‘That’s right,’ he said, sighing. ‘My middle finger touched the bonnet.’
‘I took a picture when that happened. I was several storeys up. High enough to get a full shot of the vehicle’s licence plate.’
Wen Chengyu’s eyes widened in realisation. ‘You’ve already got my fingerprint, haven’t you?’ Though he sounded unruffled, Pei noticed that his chest had begun to rise and fall more quickly.
‘With this fingerprint, the photograph of you touching the car, and the testimonies of the driver and the witnesses in the photograph, I’m sure I’ll have enough evidence.’
Surprisingly, Wen Chengyu smiled again. ‘Captain, do you remember which of my hands touched the car?’ he asked.
Pei frowned. He wasn’t sure where Wen Chengyu was going with this, and there was something unsettling about his question. ‘Your left hand. I remember that very clearly.’
‘Then you shouldn’t have handcuffed my right.’
Wen Chengyu raised his left hand. As Pei watched, he stuck the first joint of his middle finger into his mouth and bit down.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ Pei yelled. His heart raced as he tried to think of a way to stop Wen Chengyu. Was he already too late?
Blood flowed from Wen Chengyu’s lips and dripped down his chin. When he took his finger out of his mouth, the first joint was missing.
Pei watched, stunned. Wen Chengyu’s blood spattered into the pool like raindrops, quickly staining the water a sickeningly bright shade of red.
Wen Chengyu showed not even the slightest hint that he was in pain through any of this. With an expression as serene as a monk’s, he swallowed.
‘My name is Du Mingqiang. I’m an online journalist. Tong Mulin and I worked together. We both used the same pseudonym: Zhen Rufeng. It’s true that I infiltrated your task force and even installed a listening device in your colleague’s phone. But I had a reason for doing all of that. You see, a journalist needs to seek out the truth.’ His lips spread into a smug, familiar grin. ‘My mission is to become the world’s greatest journalist!’
Epilogue
11 February 2003, 4:07 p.m.
Chengdu Intermediate People’s Court
The members of the court stood as the judge prepared to deliver the sentence.
‘The People’s Procuratorate of the city of Chengdu has charged the defendant, Du Mingqiang, with falsifying identification credentials, illegally obtaining national secrets, the illegal use of audio recording equipment, and multiple counts of homicide. After accepting this case and assembling a full court in accordance with the law, we have called this court to order and held a hearing. A verdict has been reached.
‘This hearing has ascertained that during November 2002 the defendant misused the police protection afforded him and used electronic listening equipment to monitor an ongoing police investigation for his own purposes. These actions satisfy the charges of illegally obtaining national secrets and the illegal use of audio recording equipment.
‘Due to the plaintiff’s failure to provide the necessary evidence of falsified identification, this court finds no basis for this charge. Due to the inconclusive evidence submitted regarding the murders of Tong Mulin and Chen Tianqiao, this court finds no basis for this charge.
‘According to the stipulations as detailed in Clause 282 and Clause 284 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China, the court’s decision is as follows. The defendant is sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for the crime of illegally obtaining national secrets. The defendant is also sentenced to two years’ imprisonment for the illegal use of audio recording equipment. In total, the defendant is sentenced to five years’ imprisonment.’
The members of the April 18th Task Force shook their heads. Just as they had expected, their most important charges had failed to hold up under the scrutiny of the court.
Out of all of them, Captain Pei took this news the hardest. It was his negligence that had allowed Wen Chengyu to bite off and swallow the tip of his finger, thus erasing conclusive evidence that would have finally linked him to murder. Even though this action had raised no small amount of suspicion in court, it wasn’t found to be sufficient for a guilty verdict.
Nevertheless, Wen Chengyu was going to prison. And his missing fingertip would help them identify him when they went looking for him after his release. A distinguishing feature like that would be hard to overlook.
As Pei thought about how he would still be able to track Eumenides in the future, his guilt lessened. He even felt slightly relieved. Somewhere deep in his heart the captain didn’t wish to send Wen Chengyu to his end just yet.
*
Wen Chengyu concealed a faint smile beneath his expressionless face. He was still alive and that was the most important thing.
His survival was partly down to luck, to be sure, but it was also thanks to his own meticulous planning.
Caution had guided his every action during the month he’d spent with the April 18th Task Force and he’d made sure that they’d not obtained so much as a single fingerprint from him. Before he’d gone to the bathhouse, he’d wiped down every surface in his apartment. He’d actually felt conflicted at the time, wondering whether that was really necessary, but his training had kicked in. Yuan had saved him once again.
Although the remaining evidence had allowed the court to sentence him to several years in jail, he was not afraid of prison. At Yuan’s prompting, he’d once spent an entire year in prison. He knew all too well how those places operated and how to deal with the people inside.
‘Du Mingqiang’ now had a criminal record. But Wen Chengyu still had more than a dozen identities that had never been linked to a single crime. He also knew that Pei would never be able to discover them. When he walked out of prison a free man, he would easily be able to vanish into the shadows once more.
He had lost part of his left hand, but he had not lost everything. The path of Eumenides was still his, and he knew that he was fated to follow it to the end.
END OF PART TWO
About the Author
ZHOU HAOHUI was born in 1977 and lives in Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province. His Death Notice trilogy is China’s bestselling crime series. An online TV drama based on the novels has received more than 2.4 billion views, making it one of China’s most popular online shows ever.
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