Chapter 43 Humbert Humbert Ten

Chapter 43 Humbert Humbert Ten

In the past twenty years, the Lian-Huashan district had undergone such dramatic
changes that it was almost unrecognizable. The streets and the buildings now lined up
neatly in a uniform 'modern' style, looking even more imposing than an actual city
center. But the young and gangly trees alongside the roads gave away its haste and
unreadiness beneath the 'heavy makeup'.

Luo Wenzhou drove around the neighborhood several times before finally spotting the
inconspicuous magazine post.

A man with reading glasses was sitting behind the counter manning the post, his back
stooping. It was hard to tell the man's age: his face was that of a middle-aged man,
probably not yet beyond retirement, but his spirit was that of a lethargic old man on
his last legs.

It was the hottest hours of the afternoon. The scorching sun had effectively turned
the street into a sizzling pan. Luo Wenzhou pushed up his sunglasses and walked up
to the magazine post: "An iced soda, please."

Hearing this, the post owner put away his book and bent down. Shortly, he handed
over a bottle coated with a thick layer of white frost.

Under the shade of the post, Luo Wenzhou popped the drink open and guzzled almost
half a bottle.

For the whole morning he had been wrestling the senior colleagues who were involved
in the old Lian-Huashan case. Although he had Chief Lu's backing and a totally
legitimate cause, it still took a lot of beating around the bushes to feel those old guys
out. After all, having a similar background and training with the target of your
interrogation takes the whole game up a notch since both parties know the usual
tactics all too well. The endless rounds of going back and forth were more exhausting
than the plot of a Chinese 'Gongdou' drama (1).

Having slaved away the whole morning and overworked his brain, Luo Wenzhou
completely zoned out for a while, allowing himself to briefly immerse in the icy cold
beverage and the friendly shade of the umbrella.
Seeing that he wasn't going to leave right away, the owner of the post propped his
head out and asked: "Young lad, I've got popsicles here too. Do you want one?"

Luo Wenzhou waved and said: "No thanks! The air bubbles are taking up too much
space...I just need another minute."

"Sure." The post owner said, and dragged out a plastic stool for him: "Here, sit down.
It's such a hot day, and we are all hanging in there. What do you do, young man?"

Luo Wenzhou swirled the bottle above his knees as he answered: "I am a policeman."

The post owner was stepping over his door sill. As soon as he heard the word "police",
his whole body froze there. After a long while, he finally turned around, folded his
reading glasses, and spoke in a low, shaky voice: "I've already finished my parole.
And the government granted me my paperwork too."

"I know." said Luo Wenzhou, "Uncle Guo, I don't mean to bother you. I just want to
talk with you about Fei Fei's case twenty years ago."

That post owner was Guo Heng.

After killing Wu Guangchuan, Guo Heng was imprisoned for murder. His sentence was
shortened, and he was released two years ago. Obviously, by then his had lost his old
job. Twenty years had passed, and nothing from the old days remained. People left or
died, the city changed, even his wife left him before he committed the crime. He
returned to the unrecognizable Lian-Huashan district, all alone, and lived on this small
magazine post.

"There is nothing to talk about." Guo Heng's face turned dark, "She has been gone for
twenty years. I killed the murderer myself. I served my sentences. That's the end of
it. What else could you possibly want to know?"

Luo Wenzhou softened his voice: "I didn't mean to offend at all. Actually,
there is a recent case of a missing girl. Some evidence suggests that it could be
related to the cold case years ago."
"Related?" Guo Heng asked fridgidly, "How?"
"A girl, eleven years old, went missing in a floral print dress. On the third day, the
suspect sent the parents a piece of voice recording. In there, besides the girl's crying
there was also some noise. It sounded like someone was shaking a metal box with a
jingle bell inside." Luo Wenzhou knew that Guo Heng was on guard, so he tried his
best to show sincerity by looking directly into Guo's eyes, excluding any unnecessary
details in his explanation, and be as succinct and to-the-point as possible, "According
to the senior officers who handled Fei Fei's case, these details are very similar. That's
why I want to ask..."
Before he finished, Guo Heng impatiently interjected, mocking: "Ask? You mean
interrogate. Well, the murderer is dead, and the only people who might know this
detail are the police officers and me. Obviously the cops will do no evil, so who is left
to be suspected? Just this man right here, with a history."
"No, not only you. I have interviewed all of the police officers who were involved in
the old case." Luo Wenzhou said, "I am not suspecting anything. I just want to know
more about ..."
Guo Heng suddenly exploded in rage. He yelled at Luo Wenzhou: "Now you want to
know more? Really? Hah....Back then I tried everything to get people to listen to this
case, but no one would. Now I've killed the bastard, and I've served my sentences,
and here you are! My daughter is dead for twenty years, sir. I don't want to think
about her any more! I don't want to mention it! Where the fuck were you earlier?"
Luo Wenzhou's mouth opened, but the words of explanation didn't make it out of his
throat. He swallowed the excuses and only said, deeply: "I'm sorry."
"Go away. Go! Fuck off!" Guo Heng pushed him out by the shoulders, "I have nothing
to say to you. If you think I am guilty, feel free to take me in. I am no stranger to the
prison cell anyways. Except next time when you come, remember to flash your badge
up front. Had I known that you were a cop, I wouldn't even spare you my spit."
Luo Wenzhou: "Uncle Guo..."
Guo Heng's eyes were bloody red, and his veins bulged on the temples: "Go fuck
yourself!"
A quick-tempered man that he was, Luo Wenzhou couldn't allow himself to be
provoked under the circumstance.
The blazing sun scorched him from all around. He kept his lips tight before finish
counting his teeth with the tip of the tongue. Then, he took out his wallet and handed
Guo Heng a picture.
"The girl's name is Qu Tong." Luo Wenzhou said, "She is going to be a sixth grader in
the fall. She is a straight A student, and is part of the summer recruitment camp of
the Sixteenth Middle School. She is a very good kid, who listens, and behaves. She's
always been the class monitor. Today is the fifth day since she went missing. Uncle
Guo, what does it mean to be on the fifth day of a missing child case? From your
years of research I bet you know it very well: the chances that we can find her alive
are very small."
Guo Heng's eyes landed on Qu Tong's picture.
The two men, twenty years apart, stood in confrontation on a street of a hot summer
afternoon. After perhaps a thousand years, Guo Heng's heavy panting finally started
to quiet down.
"But we will not stop until we find her, or her body." Luo Wenzhou continued, "The
missing children years ago, we've wronged them and let them down. But we won't let
what happened to Guo Fei happen again. There is no other evidence that could help
us now, only you. Are we going to wait for the bastard to finish seven cases again this
time?"

Guo Heng's eyes flickered.

The girl in the photo was smiling at him, showing one of her slightly mis-alined canine
teeth. On coincidence or otherwise, she even looked a little like Guo Fei.

Luo Wenzhou continued very gently: "I only have a couple questions, and I'll be gone
as soon as I finish. I promise."

Guo Heng looked at him and fell silent, his lips tightly pursed. A while later, he turned
and walked back into the magazine post. Luo Wenzhou hurried and followed him in:
"About the jingle bell in the metal pencil case, have you mentioned it to anyone else
before?"

"I have." Guo Heng's voice was still hoarse from yelling. He said: "I mentioned it to
the police. After they gave up, I told some friends and family members who were
helping me."

Luo Wenzhou: "Can I have a list of names?"

Guo Heng threw him a look. For a second Luo Wenzhou thought that he was going to
lash out again. But the man remained sitting, and rubbed his own face tiredly: "Fei
Fei's home room teacher, a relative who worked at the telephone company, ...
Hummm... the workers at the garbage collection facility near the telephone
booth...They more or less knew about it. It's too messy. I repeated those words to
many people many times and I can't be sure now."

"Let us try to sort it out then." Luo Wenzhou took out a small notebook the size of his
palm, and sat down at the plastic stool that was dragged out for him a while ago:
"Where did you start your own investigation, and how did you come to notice Wu
Guangchuan?"

Guo Heng's eyes looked past Luo Wenzhou and landed on a little mirror hanging next
to the door frame of the post. There he saw a wrinkled face and silver hair, a
testimony of how time has flown -- Had his little girl lived, she's probably a couple
years older than this young man now.

"The police was making little progress. I couldn't bare to just sit around and wait. I
went to that garbage collection site many times -- that's the place where the abductor
made the call. Back then the garbage wasn't properly treated and the place stank.
There weren't many residents nearby, and buses don't go near it either. So, only
those with a car might drive by the place. Also, if you go from the town, you must go
past a toll station. Back then there weren't so many cars on the road, and the police
had already covered all the cars that went past there, so if there were anything worth
noting it should have already been noted. So I thought, could it be that the abductor
came from out of town? You see, there is an interstate that connected the city center
to Lian-Huashan. To avoid the mountain ridge, the interstate took a big detour, and
wind up near that place. Although there weren't any roads that connected the
interstate and the garbage center, there was a big slope in between. I went there
myself - cars can't drive through there because it was too steep, but an adult should
be able to walk down."

Luo Wenzhou: "You mean... the abductor took Guo Fei out of Lian Huashan by car.
But for whatever reason, he stopped in the middle of the interstate, climbed up half a
mountain with the child, found the telephone booth near the garbage center, and
made that call --- Why would he do that?"

Guo Heng sneered: "I said this to the policemen back then, and they asked exactly
the same question, in the same tone."

"No. What I'm trying to say is," Luo Wenzhou reorganized his thought, then
explained, "According to your thinking, the abductor is not a local -- Wu Guangchuan
was indeed from out of town, and according to our sources, he never really stayed at
Lian-Huashan for long. Then why would he know about the garbage center that not
even the locals were familiar with? He abducted a teenage child, not an infant. It is
too risky to abandon the car midway, take her up the hill on foot, and carry out the
crime in an unfamiliar surrounding. How could he be sure that no scavengers or
workers of the garbage center would pass by? The logic doesn't work out."

Guo Heng: "Did that logic of yours catch the bastard?"

Luo Wenzhou was wordless.

"The police told me it was impossible too. They formed a special unit for this case. I
thought, well the professionals in the special unit must be better at this than I do. So
I let them to their job while I waited. But in the end...Well, in the end I had no other
choice but to pick this "impossible" approach backup. I went to Fei Fei's school, and
interviewed a lot of people in the hotels and hostels near by. Her teacher helped me a
lot too -- that teacher was rehired after she had retired from another school, an old
lady. She has already passed away. Can't be the guy that you are after..."

Luo Wenzhou: "During the process, you noticed Wu Guangchuan, who was recruiting
for his school at Lian-Huashan back then. I heard that he spent some days in the
hospital during the trip. What made you think him suspicious?"

"The Jingxiu middle school was very well-funded. Their admissions team took several
vehicles to Lian-Huashan. The admission staff arrived together, but after the
recruiting events they split into groups. Some left early because of family matters,
some went on a hiking trip at the karst cave in the mountains and left late, some left
in the middle because of sickness. I found a cheap bed close to Jingxiu middle school,
and followed each of them one by one." Guo Heng said, "At the very beginning I
didn't focus on Wu Guangchuan. But once when I was patrolling the area, I saw a kid
stalking him.

Luo Wenzhou sat up straight.

"It was a boy, wearing the uniform of Jingxiu Middle School. He said that a girl in his
class often missed classes for no reason, so his head teacher asked him, the class
monitor, to check on her. The girl didn't go home. He saw her going to this Mr. Wu
after school, but when he went to ask Mr. Wu, he denied it."

"I sensed something strange right a way. Do you see? If you had a daughter that
went missing, you'd sense the strangeness too."

"So you told this to a police officer who was newly transferred to the city bureau."

"Yes. His surname was Yang. He used to be at the Lian-huashan sub-bureau, and he
was the only officer that I knew." Guo Heng answered, "But he did not believe me."

Luo Wenzhou didn't try to make excuses for his Shifu (2), only asked: "and then?"

"I could only continue the search on my own. That boy helped me a lot too. Once he
suddenly contacted me on the BB call. I rushed over, and saw Wu Guangchuan
dragging a girl. She was struggling, but he kept dragging..." After all these years,
Guo Heng still got agitated when speaking of that day, his fists clenching. After a
while, he finally calmed down and continued, slowly: "I let the boy go away first, and
then followed Wu Guangchuan into his home. I saw that he did something...
disgusting... to the girl. I ..."

In the archive, it was recorded that Guo Heng pretended to be from the electricity
company, and knocked Wu's door open. Then he stabbed him.

Luo Wenzhou: "What's the name of that boy?"

"Xu, something." Guo Heng thought for a minute, "Xu...Xu Wenchao."

Luo Wenzhou said goodbye to Guo Heng and sped his car back to the city. Before
starting the car he had already texted Tao Ran to summon Su Xiaolan and Xu
Wenchao, both sophomores at Jing Xiu Middle School twenty years ago.

On the same day, Fei Du went out of town as well.

"Mr. Fei, do you have a reservation?" The front desk lady was flipping through her
registration book while sneaking peeks at the handsome visitor in front of her.

Near the mountains and by the sea, this beautifully architected sanatorium had an
elegant back garden with a respectable artistic taste. Despite being a medical facility,
its lobby was absolutely free of the smell of chlorine or sickly people. The rooms were
bright, the windows were clear, and the welcome lady was pretty and friendly. The
soothing sounds of the waves and the piano were played in the background.

It could almost pass for a luxurious vacation mansion by the sea.

"Room 407 in the Intensive Care Unit. This way, please. Follow the nurse."

Fei Du nodded at her, and smoothly picked out a flower from the bouquet that he was
carrying and placed it in the vase of the front desk: "Thank you. This flower suits you
very well."

Afterwards, he walked in, leaving the girl blushed and flustered.

The Intensive Care mostly housed people who have lost their mobility. Consequently,
the area was especially tranquil. The only sounds of activity were the nurses' foot
steps. Looking out of the window, rich shades of the deciduous trees were
everywhere. Fei Du took a visitor's badge and arrived at room 407. A doctor was
there to greet him: "Mr. Fei. I knew you would come here today."

"Turns out I'm not very busy lately." Fei Du placed the bouquet beside a man's bed.
"How is everything?"

"All is well. The numbers are all stable." The doctor replied, "But it's been three years
and he is not very likely to wake up anymore. As a family member, it's good to
prepare yourself."

Fei Du's face lacked any emotion. He tilted his head to give the man on the bed a
closer look, then replied politely: "I see. Thanks very much for your help."

The doctor accidentally saw his eyes, and was a bit shocked. For a second, he thought
that this young man's look was so calm and apathetic that it hardly seemed suitable
for looking at any living person, let alone his own father. It's as if he was measuring
up a piece of not-so-pleasing ornament -- casual, and indifferent.

In his mind the doctor had finished imagining a whole act of modern day Wuthering
Heights, and decided not to further develop the conversation. He smiled, then left the
room.

Fei Du courteously saw him out, then turned and paced around the man's sickbed
with his hands behind his back. The man laid there, unconscious, surrounded by a sea
of medical devices. He was clearly in good hands - not even a single white hair can be
seen. Looking closely, the man's facial features looked a lot like Fei Du, but their
auras were quite the opposite. Even as he laid there, motionless, he was sharp and
gloomy, like a cold marble statue.

In the end, Fei Du stopped at the corner of the room. There was a small calendar on
the desk. Perhaps the nurses had missed it - the calendar was still turned to the page
of a couple days ago.

He flipped the calendar to the right date - the last day of July. It was his birthday. As
for the two people who gave him life, one was laying in a sanatorium, and the other
underground.

Fei Du bent down sideways and stared at the man with a perplexing look for quite a
while. Then suddenly, he reached for his oxygen tube.
The sound of the medical equipments remained mechanical and lifeless. A moment in
the room and it started to feel deadly silent.

There was not a trace of warmth on the face of the young man who just gave a flower
to a girl.

======================================

(1) Chinese 'Gongdou' drama: A type of period costume drama where the main plot is
about an emperor's concubines conspiring and trying to outwit each other to win the
favor of the emperor.

(2) Shifu: means "master", or mentor. Basically, think "master Shifu" in Kungfu
Panda lol. Here it's referring to Yang Zhengfeng, or 'Lao Yang'. He is the mentor of
both Tao Ran and Luo Wenzhou, a senior police officer who passed away 3 years
ago.