by Cai Jun
Lu stroked his face. “President Gu, everything happens for a reason. I’ll see you at your funeral. Good-bye.”
He shoved the old man aside, causing him to tumble to the ground, and sped off in a new Mercedes.
Light snow began to fall. The snowflakes looked like shreds of foil and paper money on Gu Changlong’s white hair.
It was the day before Chinese New Year.
Gu Qiusha rushed to help up her fallen father. The wind mussed her hair, making her look like a bewildered middle-aged woman. She had no words for her father. All she could do was give him a coat. She’d already dismissed both the maid and the driver. The Gus needed to move out by tomorrow, and they’d already sold anything valuable.
Wang Er walked out in his puffer coat, his cheeks rosy from the cold air. The ten-year-old boy had grown bigger and more handsome. He carried a medium-sized backpack, ignoring his adopted family struggling on the ground.
“Wang Er.” Gu Qiusha grabbed him by the leg. “Where are you going?”
With a tinge of sadness in his eyes, he looked down at her. “I’m going home.”
“We’re not moving until tomorrow.”
“I’m going to my mom’s house.”
“I’m your mom.”
Gu Qiusha let go of her dad and tried to hold on to Wang Er.
He struggled out of her grasp. “Sorry, Qiusha.”
“What did you call me?”
“It’s getting dark. I need to make the last bus into the city.” He looked up at the dark, snowy skies, his face expressionless. “I’ll be in touch in a few days.”
As her tears melted the snow on her face, she couldn’t stop thinking: Why did he call me Qiusha?
CHAPTER 28
A chilly morning in the early spring of 2006.
The shabby corridor was crammed with people. The police had cordoned off the entire fifth floor, and the medical examiners were on the scene.
Gu Qiusha had not worn makeup for three months. Her black hair had grown long, and she was afraid to look into the mirror, scared others would think she was Sadako. She panted as she climbed up the stairs to get to the crime scene, shoving aside the throng of gawkers.
Officer Huang Hai blocked her way. “Sorry, Ms. Gu, we haven’t finished our investigation. You can’t go in.”
“Where is he?” She couldn’t care less about how she appeared. She screamed, “Where is he?”
His face was as still as stone. Gu Qiusha wasn’t going to overpower him.
A few minutes later, they removed the body from the room. The police had been holding her back, but she pushed through and grabbed at the stretcher. The white sheet fell, revealing a twisted, old face.
When Shen Ming had died in 1995, she never went to see his body. She hadn’t known what a murder victim looked like. Now she did. This corpse was fresh. The skin had cooled, but the muscles weren’t yet stiff; the joints could still move. The face was horrific—filled with shame, regret, anger, shock, and desperation.
It was Gu Changlong.
His chest was stained with blood, and a deep wound was visible on the left side of his ribs. He must have been stabbed in the heart.
Huang Hai pulled her away. She turned around and slapped him. His only reaction was to say, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Who did it? Did you catch him?”
She kept her head lowered as she wiped away the tears, not wanting the policeman to see her vulnerability.
“You don’t know where you are?”
“What do you mean?”
“Your husband, Lu Zhongyue—”
“Ex-husband.”
“This is where he lived.”
“Karma!” Gu Qiusha spat out the word.
After Erya Education Group went bankrupt, Lu Zhongyue’s good life lasted only a month before his account was frozen. His Hong Kong company was also shut down due to illegal operations. Some debt collectors came out of nowhere. The courts seized his new house and car. He became poor in just a few days and had to move to a bad neighborhood.
The door opened and a cop wearing a white coat stepped out. He held an evidence bag, and another cop held a heavy black bag. He whispered to Huang Hai, “We found the weapon.”
“It’s pretty clear now.” Huang Hai leaned against the wall and lit up a cigarette. “The building surveillance showed your father coming here at around 1:00 a.m. He knocked and went into Lu Zhongyue’s room. After an hour, a frantic Lu left with a travel bag.”
“He killed his own father-in-law?” Gu Qiusha felt stupid as soon as she said it. When did Lu Zhongyue ever treat Gu Changlong as his father-in-law? Plus, they were divorced.
“The tapes showed no one else coming in or out as of this morning. A neighbor lady who was up for her morning exercise complained that it was really loud last night. She heard two men fighting. Security pulled the tape from the surveillance cameras and called the police, then we found the body.”
“But why did my dad come here in the middle of the night?” Gu Qiusha felt more and more afraid. She pulled Huang Hai’s arm. “Can I see the weapon?”
The cop opened the evidence bag to bring out a large Swiss Army knife, the kind that could be lethal. The blade and the handle were covered in blood.
“I know this knife. I brought it back last year from a vacation in Switzerland. It was a limited-edition knife. It’s not sold here yet.”
“Did Lu Zhongyue take it with him?”
“No, I gave the knife to my dad as a gift. I saw him holding it and staring outside just a few days ago. I was worried he’d do something crazy like this.”
“So, your father took the knife with him to look for Lu Zhongyue, maybe to talk about something, or maybe to kill Lu. Now he’s dead and Lu has run away. The weapon is still at the scene. The medical examiner will confirm if the knife was the weapon.”
She crumpled to the floor. “My dad was sixty-five, in poor health, and heavily medicated. How could he kill anyone?”
“It’s simple. Erya Education Group’s bankruptcy was rumored to have been caused by an insider—and that is the son-in-law, right?”
“I wish I could have killed Lu Zhongyue!”
“We’re monitoring the whole city. APBs went out to the airports, and also to the train and bus stations. We’re searching for him everywhere. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
“I don’t know. Even before the divorce, we rarely talked. I have no idea where he could be.” Gu Qiusha looked bewildered. “Officer Huang, he is very dangerous. He might come after me.”
“I’ll catch Lu Zhongyue.” Huang Hai’s curt statement was calm yet forceful.
What went through Gu Qiusha’s mind was the eleven-year-old boy who’d just dissolved their legal relationship.
He’d changed his name back to Si Wang.
CHAPTER 29
Gu Changlong’s funeral was sparsely attended. All the people who used to visit just to kiss up to him were nowhere to be found now. Even his relatives shied away, fearing trouble. Everyone knew the sordid details of his death and that the killer was still at large.
The night before he was killed, he had a long talk with Gu Qiusha. He said living with nothing in his old age was worse than dying alongside the man who caused the scandal. She tried to talk him out of it, even though she was just as bitter. She also mentioned another name.
“Shen Ming?” Gu Changlong jumped up angrily. “Are you still thinking of him?”
“What if you’d saved him? If you hadn’t fired him, you could have given him another chance. Would he still have tried to kill someone? Would he have died underground? If you hadn’t done those selfish things, Shen Ming would still be my husband. He accepted me. We would have lived a happy life. We wouldn’t be like this today.”
“Shut up!”
“Before our engagement ce
remony, Shen Ming told me all about how you made him frame Vice President Qian. You have no idea how guilty he felt. He thought he was a killer, that he’d caused an honest man to kill himself. He didn’t dare expose you, because we were becoming family. He said he would wait for karma, an eye for an eye. Dad, you used Shen Ming and tossed him aside like a sick dog. You’re a despicable man.”
“I gave him the best payment. I let my precious daughter marry a poor kid like him!”
“Go to hell.”
Gu Changlong ran out of his home in shame. Gu Qiusha didn’t know he had the knife.
Did I cause my father’s death?
Even after Gu Changlong had turned to ashes, this question haunted Gu Qiusha. She could cry no tears.
After the ashes were put away, Huang Hai was waiting for her. His strong features made her think of the Japanese movie star Ken Takakura.
“Ms. Gu, we’ve confirmed the Swiss army knife as the weapon that killed your father. We found Lu Zhongyue’s fingerprints on the bloody handle. We’ve officially identified him as the killer.”
“Then catch him,” she said coldly, walking out of the funeral home.
Huang Hai followed her. “Lu Zhongyue may have gone to another city. The manhunt is nationwide, but we need your help.”
“You think this is more than just a regular murder?”
This made him pause. “You know perfectly well that we’ve been watching your place ever since He Nian’s body was found.”
“He Nian, me, my father, and Lu Zhongyue. We all had something to do with Shen Ming’s death back in 1995.”
The four of them used to be Shen Ming’s closest friends, but they betrayed him at his most perilous time. They all were plagued by inescapable guilt.
“Since 2002, two have died of unnatural causes, and one is on the run as a killer. I believe none of this is a coincidence. They all can be traced back to Shen Ming.”
“I’m the only one left, so I guess I’ll be dead soon.”
“I’m sorry.” Huang Hai showed some expression for the first time. It was regret.
“If you really wanted to solve this, go investigate Si Wang, a fourth-grader.”
“The boy you adopted?”
“I think he must have known Shen Ming even though he was born after Shen Ming died.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Me, either. Why did I meet him? How did he come into my life, make me love him, and then destroy me?”
Huang Hai nodded and said coolly, “I’ll investigate him.”
“The boy has a mark on his back.”
“What is it?”
Gu Qiusha didn’t want to linger. She walked out of the funeral home and left in a taxi.
There were so few friends and family at the funeral that she had to cancel the memorial dinner. She observed the cold city from the backseat of the car.
In just three months, she’d lost her company, her wealth, her power, her home, her husband, her father, and her most precious son.
She had never dared to think about how Shen Ming must have felt ten years ago after being jailed under false charges, robbed of his beloved teaching job, losing everything he’d worked for—and even losing his bride. How pained and desperate he must have been.
Just like she felt now.
Shen Ming?
If there were another life, who would you be?
Were you that foil-burning boy in the backyard last June?
Wang Er?
As the adopted son of the Gu family, he knew every secret. Gu Qiusha’s oversight enabled Lu Zhongyue and Ma Li to have all the power at work. She had looked into Ma Li’s past and found that he’d lied on his résumé. He did graduate from Tsinghua, but his high school was Nanming High. He’d graduated in 1995, and no doubt he was one of Shen Ming’s students.
Si Wang—Ma Li—Shen Ming.
How terrifying could a fourth-grader be?
The taxi stopped on a narrow street—not where Gu Qiusha rented an apartment, but in front of a blooming locust tree.
Spring was finally here.
She stared at the third-floor window. Women’s and kids’ clothes were hung out to dry. She looked through the mail—there were letters for He Qingying, but most of it was junk mail. They still lived here.
Gu Qiusha didn’t want to go up, so she had to hide. Day after day, night after night, she would keep watching until she had evidence, until she discovered the secrets the boy held.
She was more afraid of the boy, someone who used to call her Mom, than of Lu Zhongyue, who killed her father.
As she turned to leave, a voice sounded.
“Ms. Gu, I’m glad to see you again.”
It was a warm female voice. She turned to see He Qingying. She still had a pretty face and trim figure. Her shopping basket held some fresh ribbon fish, Si Wang’s favorite.
“Oh, hi. I was just in the neighborhood.”
Gu Qiusha avoided eye contact. A year ago, she’d had the upper hand, but now their fortunes had been reversed. They were the same age, but Gu Qiusha looked a lot older.
“Is everything OK?” He Qingying said, pointing at the black mourning sash on Gu Qiusha’s arm.
Gu Qiusha smiled bitterly. “I have nothing.”
“What happened?”
“Stop acting so innocent,” Gu Qiusha retorted. “I was just at the funeral where my dad was turned to ashes.”
“I’m sorry.” He Qingying backed away, staring at Gu Qiusha.
“I must be wrapped in the stench of the dead. Don’t get too close!”
“I’m . . . sorry about your loss. I’m grateful for the help you gave us in the past. Do you want to come up?”
“No need. I don’t want to disturb Wang—” She caught herself. “Si Wang.”
“Classes are over. I don’t know if he’s home yet.”
“Ms. He, I need to say something. Your son may be a genius, but don’t you think he’s really odd?”
“What do you mean? Wang Er is definitely extraordinarily smart, but he’s still just a kid. He needs warm clothes when he’s cold, he needs the doctor when he’s sick, he likes my cooking . . .”
He Qingying’s expression made it clear that she was lying.
“Do you believe in reincarnation?”
“Ms. Gu, what are you talking about?”
“At birth, every kid has past-life memory, whether it was a long and happy life or a hard and short one. All happy, sad, conflicted, or painful memories are stuck in the infant’s brain, which is why they cry so much. They gradually forget, until nothing is remembered. Their brains are wiped clean as a toddler.” Gu Qiusha looked up at the window. Her mind was filled with images of that man and how they met. “Maybe, many years later, they would meet someone from a past life. They think they remember, but it was a lifetime ago.”
Visibly rattled, He Qingying said, “People have to forget. Isn’t it better to forget?”
“Do you know someone called Xiaozhi?”
It was a name Si Wang had murmured in his sleep. He Qingying shook her head.
“If you haven’t found his secret, either, you’d better be careful. The kid is cursed. He’ll make everyone around him suffer—including my family, your husband, and you.”
“That’s enough. Don’t you think you’re being out of line?”
“I’m sorry, you’re a mom. I’m a woman, too. I don’t want anything to happen to you. I hope you think about what I’ve said before it’s too late. Good-bye.”
Gu Qiusha turned and left. She didn’t get home until after dark. Her apartment wasn’t too awful, and the rent was only 5,000 yuan a month. She had some money tucked away, thanks to the jewelry she’d sold, so she was able to live comfortably.
As she walked into the apartment, she heard a noise behind her. But before she could t
urn around, she felt a freezing pain in her back. The stab pierced her heart before she could struggle or scream.
The last thing Gu Qiusha saw was the photo of her and Si Wang on the wall.
“When you kill someone, everything changes. Your life changes. You’ll live the rest of your life in fear.”
In 1995, she and Shen Ming watched a tape in bed. A month later, he died.
PART 3:
BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER
CHAPTER 30
Do you believe in reincarnation?
Humans have souls. Souls and breathing have a subtle and intertwined relationship. Sleep is a temporary separation of our souls and bodies; death is a permanent separation. Animals and plants also have souls. Souls can move from one life to another.
The ancient Egyptians believed in reincarnation. In The Republic, Plato said that he believed in reincarnation. Pythagoras was the first philosopher to deeply study the concept. Judaism believes in reincarnation of the body. Jesus Christ reincarnated.
In the Song Dynasty Novel Anthology, Liu Sanfu remembers three lifetimes. He was a horse in his previous life. He was happy whenever he saw a stable, and his heart hurt when his hooves were damaged. So as a human, he always slowed down over rocky roads and took care to remove pebbles from horse’s hooves.
Buddhism believed that after death, the Seventh Awareness leads the Eighth Awareness out of the body—that happens after Zhong Yin, the intermediate existence between death and reincarnation, is reached. The soul can reincarnate as human, animal, ghost, or god, as in the Six Realms. Some reincarnated souls have memories of past lives.
Zhong Yin is a transition from the end of the current life to the next one. The Zhong Yin body has special abilities and can see worlds that human eyes can’t. The forty-nine days after death make up the Zhong Yin phase, which is why the Chinese have the 49th-Day Ceremony for the dead. The Zhong Yin in Hell is parched like burnt wood; Zhong Yin in life is like smoke; Zhong Yin in the Hungry Ghosts realm is like water; Zhong Yin in the Desire realm has a gold color; and it is bright white in the Color realm.
