Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter Eleven : 2

The wind stopped, and a milky white twilight drifted through the nursery. The twilight grew thicker, enveloping the fruit trees, the dirt road, the subway station resembling a sliding coffin, the tunnel ventilation shafts, and the two people standing opposite each other beside one of the shafts, all in a mysterious, pervasive mist.

Zhou Liping’s once sharply defined features were now indistinct, as if viewed through frosted glass.

Huyan Yun didn’t care at all about his current expression: “Now, I want to change the subject and talk about Zhang Chunyang’s death, because this matter is intricately linked to the later Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case. Whether Zhang Chunyang’s sudden death was real or not is a matter of debate within the police. Based on my investigation, I tend to believe that the ‘stroke’ incident that occurred that night at Hefeng Hotel was actually a staged performance by Zhang Chunyang and Xing Qisheng.

“For Tao Zhouyao, who’s about to get married, Zhang Chunyang, her former sex toy, has lost all meaning and value. This is fatal for Zhang Chunyang. If he loses Tao Zhouyao as his backer, what is he? To put it bluntly, just a ‘gigolo.’ He used to be able to swindle and cheat under the guise of a mistress at the foundation’s subordinate units, but who would still care about him now?

“Therefore, Zhang Chunyang was definitely eager to salvage this ‘relationship,’ but Tao Zhouyao’s marriage to her fiancé, Jiang Lei, had multiple purposes; it was a ‘deal’ concerning whether the Tao family could continue to stand firm in the Love Charity Foundation, and they couldn’t afford to make the slightest mistake. So no matter how hard Zhang Chunyang tried, he couldn’t win back her heart…

“Perhaps we should change our perspective and put ourselves in Zhang Chunyang’s shoes, think about his situation, and how he, who had become accustomed to living off women, would continue to survive in this big city after leaving Tao Zhouyao. We would then realize that he had no other way out, and the only solution was to extort a sum of money from Tao Zhouyao one last time.”

As he spoke, Huyan Yun raised his right hand, making a circle with his index finger and thumb. “When I was inspecting Tao Zhouyao’s bedroom at Hefeng Hotel, I noticed that when the solid wood sliding door separating the bedroom and the living room was opened, there was a hole above the two overlapping door frames. My companion, Li Ziyong, thought it was for peeping, but he was wrong—that hole was specifically designed to install a miniature camera.

“I examined the inside of the hole. Judging from the color of the debris around it, it was recently dug, meaning the plot to blackmail her using a video was recently planned. The problem is, simply filming her having sex with Tao Zhouyao won’t work. Frankly, how many of those socialites in high society have clean private lives? Even if they blackmail her with a sex video, they won’t get much money.

“But death is different. Once someone dies and the lover’s body is disposed of ‘privately,’ circulating in society, it’s not only obscene but also illegal. This would be a fatal blow to Tao Zhouyao. Even if they are married, they’ll divorce. The Tao family’s position in the Love Charity Foundation will definitely be in jeopardy!”

At this point, Huyan Yun suddenly lowered his voice: “However, there’s one hurdle we have to overcome. Capturing surveillance video is easy, but convincing Tao Zhouyao that Zhang Chunyang is truly dead is not. It definitely requires a professional doctor to determine the cause. And even if Tao Zhouyao has a modicum of sense, even if she believes Zhang Chunyang is dead on the spot, she might still try to verify it after calming down.

“Therefore, it’s best to find a real doctor to act as a ‘plant,’ minimizing or even eliminating Tao Zhouyao’s suspicions. This doctor must be someone Tao Zhouyao absolutely trusts, the only one she can turn to for help in the event of a ‘scandal.’ Of course, he also has to be a close friend of Zhang Chunyang, and besides Xing Qisheng, there’s no one else I can think of.

“But—sorry, I have to say ‘but’ again.” Huyan Yun looked at Zhou Liping and said, “But don’t forget, while Xing Qisheng is indeed in cahoots with Zhang Chunyang, ultimately, Tao Zhouyao is his real backer. He’s at odds with his little brother, Xing Qixian, and has a lot of dirty laundry to his name. For years, it’s been the Tao family protecting him, allowing such a worthless scoundrel to live a respectable life. What benefit would Xing Qisheng gain from helping Zhang Chunyang extort money from Tao Zhouyao? Xing Qisheng is despicable but not stupid, and Zhang Chunyang knows that very well.

“To get someone to submit, you either have to give them benefits or find something to hold against them. When Xing Qisheng hurriedly told Zhang Chunyang about the suicide of Tongyou Nursery’s three children, Zhang Chunyang knew he had found something to hold against them. He quickly devised a plan for Xing Qisheng to destroy the evidence, dispose of the body, and frame someone else. In exchange, Xing Qisheng had to perform a ‘death certificate’ in front of Tao Zhouyao.

“Then, he would take advantage of Tao Zhouyao’s inattention to remove the camera. After settling the matter with Sweeping Mouse Ridge, he would hand it over to Zhang Chunyang. Zhang Chunyang would then go into hiding, pretend to be dead, and find a relative to blackmail Tao Zhouyao with the video. This was a ‘super credit card’ with no limit on the amount that could be withdrawn and an unlimited number of withdrawals.

“Of course, Zhang Chunyang probably had an even more evil plan. Afterward, he could not only blackmail Tao Zhouyao with the video but also extort money from Xing Qisheng using the corpse under the tunnel ventilation shaft. He could take advantage of both, leaving Xing Qisheng with no choice but to accept his misfortune and let him take whatever he wanted.

“Besides the hole, there’s another point that supports my hypothesis. On the day of the incident, Xing Qisheng arrived at Hefeng Hotel as early as 2:30 p.m. to meet Zhang Chunyang. After Zhang Chunyang arranged to meet Tao Zhouyao, he went to the bar on the first floor of Hefeng Hotel and called Tao Zhouyao around 7 p.m., using the excuse of ‘reporting on work’ to say he was coming to see her, actually implying that he was nearby. The bar’s security camera captured Xing Qisheng frequently checking his phone while eating, and when the phone rang at 8:20 p.m., the whole show began.”

Huyan Yun made a gesture of pulling back a curtain. “Things happened so suddenly, just as Zhang Chunyang had predicted. Tao Zhouyao, that naive and spoiled young lady, was terrified and completely disoriented upon seeing a corpse lying on the bed. She not only called Xing Qisheng for help but also, after Xing Qisheng issued the death certificate, decided to flee by plane. To make the act convincing and ensure that others witnessed Zhang Chunyang’s death, Xing Qisheng first transported Zhang Chunyang to the Love Hospital morgue, placed him on a mortuary table, and obtained a death certificate. Then, he drove the Spire back to Tongyou Nursery, loading the bodies of the three children into the trunk while calling you to come and drive—”

“You mean—” Zhou Liping suddenly spoke up, “…when Xing Qisheng asked me to be his designated driver, Zhang Chunyang, who had faked his death, slipped out of the morgue and came to this Sweeping Mouse Ridge to wait for him and finish the rest of the ‘job’?”

“No, no, no!” Huyan Yun shook his head vehemently. “Zhang Chunyang couldn’t possibly be that ‘X’! Yes, after Xing Qisheng left, he disguised himself as a family member mourning the deceased and walked out of the morgue. Anyway, those two workers on duty are always drunk; they wouldn’t care if a ‘dead person’ came back to life—but Zhang Chunyang didn’t go to Sweeping Mouse Ridge; he walked to another place nearby; we’ll talk about that later…

“Don’t forget, if he really is that ‘X,’ then he also faces the same insurmountable difficulty as you: how could he kill Xing Qisheng at 10:30, dispose of the body, set it on fire, move the car, and then arrive at the Love Hospital morgue at 10:50, lying on the mortuary table? You know, they found his phone in the freezer; he didn’t use any ride-hailing apps that night. The police investigated the CCTV footage of all the taxis and unlicensed taxis passing through Sweeping Mouse Ridge that night and showed no driver recalling ever picking up such a person…

“I considered other possibilities: for example, the voice making the 110 emergency call at 10:30 might have been pre-recorded and played back after the call connected to create an alibi. However, the forensic report from the criminal case department confirmed that the voice was definitely Xing Qisheng’s, and it was a natural, synchronous sound; the background noise even included the clicking sound of the windmill (he pointed to the tree branch). Therefore, Xing Qisheng was 100% alive at 10:30. There were other similar hypotheses, but I ultimately rejected them all…

“Of course, there was the most crucial question: after Zhang Chunyang returned to the morgue, who, and how, moved such a living person into the freezer? This is truly a headache-inducing case! But the more troublesome it is, the more it fuels my interest in tackling it.”

Huyan Yun tapped his head and turned his gaze back to Zhou Liping. “I know you’ve read a lot of detective novels, so you must know that a ‘detective’ and a ‘reasoner’ are completely different kinds of people. Criminal investigation requires finding complete and sufficient evidence and building a rigorous and logically sound chain of evidence to trace the criminal.

“Reasoning, on the other hand, is different. The premise for reasoning is that the evidence is insufficient, inadequate, or incomplete. So, among a limited number of suspects, logical deduction is used to find logical loopholes in confessions and behaviors, forcing the real culprit to surrender. That’s the specialty of a reasoner.

“So when I got involved in this case, I found it particularly funny. How come the police did the work of a reasoner this time, and the more they tried to find suspicion in the suspect, the more they cleared his name?

“Fine, since you’ve taken my path, I’ll wander into yours. When I started analyzing the case from the beginning, following the ‘positive’ approach the police should have taken, I discovered something the police had overlooked—a sense of incongruity that permeated the entire case.”