by Gangxueyin
“What happened?” Han Yin asked.
The old lady sighed heavily. “Those years while he was caring for his dad, he wrote a novel. He gave it to a close friend in J City to read, some book publisher. The friend said it was extremely well written and that he’d definitely help my son get it published. When my husband got sick, the friend would often come and see how we were doing. My son trusted him completely, and his friend had given him his word. So he was hopeful and waited for any news. He even turned down a different publisher’s invitation to submit the manuscript. But that friend let my son down. He made excuses, saying he hadn’t applied for a book publication permit and set aside the project. My son got really angry and completely broke all ties. After that, he grew more dejected and listless. Night after night, he couldn’t sleep. And during the day, he went around like a zombie who wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t talk, and didn’t seem interested in anything. The morning he died, there was no sign or omen. He didn’t leave a note. He just jumped off the building and was forever gone.”
As Ma Wentao’s mother began to sob, Han Yin contemplated what he’d just heard.
The signs pointed to suicide brought on by deep depression. Nothing too odd about that. Only the reasoning didn’t seem as simple as that. Maybe there was a hierarchy of causes. For example, the terror, loss of self-confidence, and sense of guilt embedded within him by the murder of Yin Aijun.
“Ma’am, I wonder if you can remember an event that happened in 1996. It was around the time of the Spring Festival. Was there anything unusual about your son then?”
“Nineteen ninety-six? Why then? Why are you looking for Young Tao?” Doubt and suspicion was all over her face.
“There was a small case that may have involved your son. That’s why I’d like to do some investigating.”
She nodded and thought carefully. “That Spring Festival, Young Tao really was acting a little strange. He came back for the holiday earlier than usual and not in good shape. It seemed he’d suffered some kind of scare, and he had this dazed look. Almost every night, he woke from nightmares, and he was very jumpy. It was only after the New Year that he slowly returned to normal.”
So after the dismembered corpse case of 1996, Ma Wentao demonstrated unusual behavior, and maybe the clue Xu Sanpi provided had a certain credibility. The problem was more about the timing of when he gave this clue that raised suspicion. Did he know that Ma Wentao was dead? If so, then his motives were suspicious, and this would be worth following up on.
“After your son’s accident, did any of his friends ever come by?”
She rubbed her eyes. “Just that manuscript publisher. He seemed bothered by it.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“Only that his name’s Sun Jian.”
“Sun Jian?” Han Yin frowned. “Not very tall, balding, with a little beard?”
“Exactly.”
Sun Jian and Xu Sanpi were friends. The two of them and Ma Wentao saw a lot of each other in those days, and it would have been impossible for him not to have told Xu Sanpi the news of their friend’s death. So Xu Sanpi had provided the clue, knowing full well that Ma Wentao had died. The file showed that Yin Aijun had frequented Ma Wentao’s bookstore, but their so-called acquaintance was just a biased statement by Xu Sanpi. It might have been true, or it might have been made up. Unfortunately, dead men don’t talk. It looked like the investigation was finally pointing toward Xu Sanpi.
Han Yin was allowed to go through some of Ma Wentao’s things but didn’t find anything suspicious. After obtaining a picture of Ma Wentao, he said good-bye.
At the door, he suddenly thought of the manuscript. If Ma Wentao had been Yin Aijun’s killer or had been brought into the investigation as a person of interest, might he have unwittingly incorporated details of the crime into his novel? Even if he wasn’t the killer, could he have had some knowledge of the matter?
Before leaving, Han Yin turned and asked, “What was the name of your son’s novel?”
“He never told me,” she said and went back to her room. A moment later, she came out and handed Han Yin several pages. “After he passed, I was never able to locate the manuscript. I only found these few pages. Just fragments of the novel.”
Han Yin took the pages and glanced through them. It was basically an outline. But what happened to the manuscript? “Maybe your son’s computer has an electronic copy?”
“We never had one. He wrote everything by hand.”
Han Yin said good-bye again and hurried back to J City. Midway, he revisited Yin Aijun’s home.
He had asked for the photograph of Ma Wentao to see if Yin Dexing would identify him as the so-called reporter who’d visited him.
The timeframe of the so-called reporter’s visit coincided with Ma Wentao’s depressive state. If he’d been Yin Aijun’s killer, then perhaps he’d been tormented by guilt and had wanted to somehow compensate for the offense, hoping it might release him from his despair. Unfortunately, Yin Dexing did not recognize Ma Wentao. Then Han Yin had Ye Xi send Xu Sanpi’s photo to his cell phone and showed the image to Yin Dexing. But he didn’t recognize Xu Sanpi either.
Han Yin returned to J City and went to the task force.
It was after hours, and only Ye Xi was there. She was leaning over her desk, studying the case. Ye Xi was delighted to see Han Yin and gave him a big hug that made him blush. Then she brought him a glass of water, and their hands touched when he took the glass. They looked in each other’s eyes for a moment, and then, embarrassed, Han Yin quickly gave a detailed report of his trip to Z City and left.
Han Yin went over to the cold case group.
Fu Changlin was still there, putting in overtime. Han Yin brought him up to speed on the recent findings in the Yin Aijun investigation, as he’d promised, and Fu Changlin was very grateful that he’d kept his word. They exchanged ideas, and then Han Yin returned to the matter at hand. He wanted to see if he could find any mention of Sun Jian and Mou Fan in the Yin Aijun case files.
There was probably no one more familiar with the case than Fu Changlin. He practically knew all the entries in the files by heart, and if Fu Changlin helped, Han Yin would certainly save a lot of time and energy. Fu Changlin recalled having an impression of Mou Fan, but remembered nothing about Sun Jian.
They only found a file on Mou Fan, and the notes were very basic. He was a local. At that time, he rented a place near Jade Bird Road and ran a bookstall. After hours, he wrote fiction. During the routine police investigation, he said he didn’t know Yin Aijun and couldn’t remember if she’d ever visited his stall. On the day she disappeared, he had, as usual, closed his stall and went back to his apartment and wrote. An inspection of his place came up clean, and he was removed from suspicion.
“Sun Jian’s lifestyle was almost identical to Mou Fan’s, so why wasn’t he investigated?” Han Yin asked Fu Changlin.
Fu Changlin smiled and pondered for a moment. He picked up a cigarette from his desk, lit up, took a few puffs, and said, “First answer this question. After you read the Yin Aijun case file, what was your initial reaction? Don’t worry about sparing my feelings, just tell me the truth.”
Han Yin understood the reason for the question. And since Fu Changlin already knew what his answer would be, Han Yin gave a thin smile of apology.
Fu Changlin nodded. “You felt it would be easy to break this case. Even though the killer’s method was traceless, if we’d taken the proper direction and done a careful and thorough investigation, then finding him shouldn’t have been difficult, right?”
Fu Changlin was agitated, though he wasn’t directing his words at Han Yin. Inevitably, after years of rash accusations against the police by the media and the local citizens, his patience was running thin.
“It had taken nine days to find Yin Aijun’s corpse after she went missing. The killer had plenty of time to clean up the site. Also, our methods weren’t so advanced back then. If the killer was careful and covered his tracks, it’s doubtfu
l that a later examination of the scene would turn up any clues. And it took four days for the body parts to be identified as belonging to an Old Capital University student, which was during exam week, followed by winter break. The students and teachers came from all over China, so a large-scale investigation within the university was only feasible after classes resumed. Such an interval would have given sufficient time for the killer to regain a calm state of mind and rehearse what he would do, what he would say.
“So that was how the university investigation went. Outside, it was more troublesome. Throughout history, the Old Capital University area has been the richest creative cultural force in our capital city, and, indeed, all of S Province. Including the press, humanities companies, publishing houses, the New China Bookstore, private bookstores, bookstalls, all kinds of book business, and all the crowds of people involved in related industries are concentrated here. This is an extremely large group to comb through. Not to mention the even larger group of people who just love to write and dream of becoming published authors. They rent places near the university for literary and academic connections and seek opportunities to publish. They come from every corner of our province, and most are not local. Their highly transient and isolationist nature caused us such huge problems. Most of them rent single spaces, and in those days, rental contracts weren’t very refined. No registrations. As long as they had money, they had a place. It was all so time-consuming and frustrating to no end.”
Fu Changlin spoke the bitter truth. All of these feelings had been within him for years, and every word revealed frustration. Han Yin could vividly sense how hard it had been to work that case. Everything had seemed to go against the police. Someone like Sun Jian, the sort of person who fit the potential killer’s profile but had never been investigated, would have been among hundreds of others. The killer had escaped the chase.
Han Yin comforted Fu Changlin as best he could. Then, seeing the time, he said good night. As he was going out the door, he turned back and saw Fu Changlin enveloped in a fog of bluish smoke. That craggy face looked so sad and pathetic, as though tangled in a past from which he could not escape. Han Yin felt a twinge of deep sadness.
It was very late, but Han Yin was restless. He lay in bed, tossing and turning.
He had been running around for days. Now he was more exhausted than ever, and just when he would close his eyes, one face after another would flash through his mind: Feng Wenhao, Yu Meifen, Xu Sanpi, Sun Jian, Mou Fan . . . were they the killers? Who killed Wang Li? And Yin Aijun? And then there was that pair of obsessive, resentful eyes and the telephone calls from hell. Was it one of them? And who was that woman who had appeared at Yin Aijun’s grave and vanished?
He needed to get up. Han Yin flipped on the light, propped himself up against the headboard, and took out the sheets of paper Ma Wentao’s mother had given to him: five pages of disjointed thoughts.
In some places, Han Ying could only get a general idea of the meaning. Clearly, this was not the so-called outline of a novel, but just Ma Wentao’s ramblings as he searched for inspiration.
Han Yin read the pages over and over. Suddenly he felt he recognized some of the passages, and it seemed he’d read them elsewhere. But where?
As Han Yin pondered this, he looked around the room. His eyes stopped on a book on the nightstand, and he realized something important.
“Oh my God! Those passages are in Gift!”
Han Yin grabbed the book and carefully went through it, comparing it with Ma Wentao’s pages. Some of the passages were identical. Could it be that Gift was Ma Wentao’s lost novel? If so, how did the manuscript get into Xu Sanpi’s hands? And how were Ma Wentao, Sun Jian, and Xu Sanpi connected to this book? Han Yin looked for clues in the book and discovered a notation at the bottom of the cover: Sun Jian’s Book Studio.
This was enough for Han Yin to answer a number of questions. First, Sun Jian agreed to assist Ma Wentao in publishing his novel, but, due to a number of issues, it never came to pass. But he didn’t give the manuscript back to Ma Wentao. Then, Ma Wentao throws himself off a building. Sun Jian gave the manuscript to Xu Sanpi, who published the book under his name. The whole thing was so simple. But why didn’t Sun Jian publish it under his own name? Why would he want to give the credit to Xu Sanpi?
The following day
In Han Yin’s profiling report, the killer in the Wang Li case was someone lacking creativity, someone who was only mediocre in his endeavors. So, the bestselling author, Mou Fan, flushed with success, would naturally not fall within this picture. And the highly successful publisher, Sun Jian, would also not be a match. The person who required a close investigation was Xu Sanpi. But first, Han Yin decided to go a few rounds with Sun Jian. After Yin Aijun was murdered, Sun Jian may have abruptly vacated his apartment, a very suspicious act, and he was close with Xu Sanpi.
Sun Jian Book Studio’s was now the Sun Jian Cultural Publishing Company, a big operation that leased a whole floor in the Epoch Building.
Han Yin waited outside Sun Jian’s office for a while before the CEO finally brought him in.
The office, with its luxurious interior, was spacious and imposing, making it difficult to connect with the short, bland Sun Jian, who sat behind an enormous desk. At a time when the publishing industry was on the ropes, this man had still been able to create a large, profitable company and certainly had success written all over him. Han Yin had to handle him extremely carefully.
After he sat down, Han Yin paid a few standard compliments about the office and the fine job Sun Jian had done in operating the company. Sun Jian’s face crinkled with smiles as he basked in the praise, but he was self-effacing and claimed it had all been a matter of luck.
With these pleasantries out of the way, Han Yin led in with the Yin Aijun case. “Mr. Sun, have you heard of the Old Capital University dismembered corpse case?”
“Of course.” Sun Jian looked uninterested and said, “I’d been running a bookstall a couple streets over from the university. Students often came by, but I can’t say I ever saw that girl.”
Sun Jian was trying hard to make it clear that he and Yin Aijun didn’t know each other. What he strongly inferred, however, was his displeasure at the police linking him with the case. Han Yin was set on knocking some sense into him.
Han Yin smiled and, looking sincere, said, “Mr. Sun, let me explain. At the time, the police felt that males in single rentals near the university needed to undergo questioning. That included you, Xu Sanpi, and Mou Fan, among others. You all fell within the scope of our investigation. The strange thing is, while our case files have records of questioning the other two, we don’t have yours. In our analysis, you vacated your apartment after the crime, exhibiting somewhat unusual behavior and inevitably raising suspicion. I’m here so that you can explain your side clearly, and we can avoid disturbing you with frequent visits.”
There was a harshness in the polite words he used. Sun Jian had to calculate clearly. The best thing to do would be to come clean; otherwise he’d be taken to the PSB for questioning, and there’d be no end to the police coming around and stirring things up, negatively affecting the company image.
After weighing the pros and cons, an unhappy Sun Jian said, “This, uh, matter, I can explain. I did leave after the crime, but it wasn’t because of that. At the time, we operated a roadside stall. To put it plainly, we were selling used and pirated books. Our main customers were the students from Old Capital University. Once they went on winter break, business got pretty slow. We were also nearing the Spring Festival, so I closed the stall and returned to my hometown to celebrate New Year’s and didn’t come back, something I’d been planning. Starting in 1992, I drifted around the Old Capital University area. I did that for about four years and never had a good opportunity to publish. So at the end of 1995, I decided that after New Year’s I’d head to Beijing to start anew at the capital and cultural center of the country. I thought there’d be a lot more opportunities there.” Then he smiled
. “But I’d overlooked one thing. There were lots of opportunities, but also lots of people there hoping to realize their dreams, too. In the end, I never published anything, but due to some strange events, I made some money. After that, I came back here and started up this publishing business.”
“Oh, I see.” Han Yin nodded and reflected on this. Sun Jian’s reason was perfectly logical, reasonable, and bulletproof. There were no signs he’d rehearsed it, and he was probably telling the truth.
“Were you and Ma Wentao very good friends?”
“Pretty good. Why?” he asked. The sudden mention of Ma Wentao took him aback, and fear and doubt flashed across his face.
“I heard his mother say that you once promised to help him get a novel published, but because of some problem with the publishing permit, you weren’t able to. Correct?”
“That’s right. That’s what happened,” Sun Jian said hesitantly. “Oh, the hell with it. I’ll be honest with you. The permit thing was only an excuse. The truth is that the material wasn’t mainstream enough. And, at the time, my company had a bit of a funding problem. Because I’d let the thing drag on too long and had given him my word, I never told him the truth.”
“Do you still remember the book?”
“No. I only skimmed it. The only thing I remember was that the writing stood out.”
“You’ve forgotten it? Then let me refresh your memory.” Han Yin took a book from his bag and dropped it on Sun Jian’s desk. “Do you recognize Gift? The book written by Ma Wentao.”
“Um . . . uh . . .” Sun Jian was panicking, and he broke out in a sweat.
Han Yin gave a scornful laugh. “You don’t have to answer. Your face says it all. But I don’t understand. Why publish the book under Xu Sanpi’s name?”
