Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Prologue : 8

Unable to tell whether the rain had intensified or lessened, before entering the small restaurant, Li Ziyong glanced up at the light bulb above the door. The pale yellow light illuminated the scattered raindrops, dancing aimlessly. He was surprised by their delicate and translucent nature, as if each drop possessed its own life, even its own destiny, hence their sensitive and uneasy state.

This small restaurant, located in the Qingta Residential Area, was small both inside and out, with only four tables in total. The yawning proprietress recognized Li Ziyong and first asked what they wanted to eat, then muttered, “There’s not much left in the kitchen. If you don’t have any dietary restrictions, I’ll just pick a few things and make them for you!” With that, she lifted a blue curtain beside the counter and went into the kitchen.

Li Ziyong picked up a chipped white porcelain teapot from the table and poured a cup of hot water for Lin Xiangming. “Going back to school tomorrow?”

“Yes.” Lin Xiangming took the cup and sipped.

Li Ziyong suddenly felt he had so much to say to him, yet didn’t know where to begin. Lin Xiangming always possessed a distant warmth that made one feel comfortable but not intimate. Perhaps his relationship with Hu Yanyun was an exception? In any case, in the past two weeks of working together, while Li Ziyong had become increasingly familiar with him, he had also become increasingly distant, so distant that he had to carefully consider his words before daring to speak.

Perhaps realizing the reason for the restaurant’s silence, Lin Xiangming broke apart a pair of disposable chopsticks, rubbing off the splinters as he asked, “I heard the entire Special Task Force team was on the list for commendations and awards, but you were the only one removed?”

“Yes, because I beat Zhou Liping too badly. According to discipline, I should have been discharged from the police force, but Old Du pleaded with the higher-ups, and they gave me a clean break.” Li Ziyong pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, fumbling for a lighter for a while without success. “But I don’t regret it. I just wanted to beat him, beat him to death!”

Lin Xiangming asked calmly, “To force him to reveal where the murder weapon was?”

“Those are all excuses; I fucking want to beat him up!” Li Ziyong said, snapping a disposable chopstick in half before realizing it should have been broken by bending it. He angrily threw it on the table. “He killed so many people? Doesn’t he deserve to be beaten?!” As he said this, he glared defiantly at Lin Xiangming, but faced with Lin Xiangming’s calm expression, his fierce gaze gradually softened, and he turned away. He stared at his disheveled yet bloodshot reflection in the windowpane, and after a long while, he let out a long breath, creating a large, invisible white patch on the glass that concealed his beast-like, frenzied face.

From the kitchen, behind the blue curtain, came the clanging of a spatula clattering as they cooked. Li Ziyong took a sip of hot water and asked Lin Xiangming in a low voice, “I heard you reported to your superiors, insisting that Zhou Liping isn’t the real culprit behind the ‘Western Suburbs Serial Murders.’ Is that true?”

Lin Xiangming nodded. “Yes.”

“Why? On what grounds?” His barely suppressed anger flared up again. “Just because the hammer wasn’t found, you’re letting a murderer of four lives go unpunished? Don’t underestimate him just because he’s a minor; four lives are enough for him to spend his entire life in jail!”

“Perhaps you haven’t read my report,” Lin Xiangming said calmly. “I’m not denying that he killed Fang Zhifeng, but I don’t believe he killed the other three victims: Yang Hua, Xiao Wu, and Gao Xiaoyan. There are many reasons, besides the fact that the murder weapon wasn’t found; the most important reason is that in the Fang Mei attack, the perpetrator’s methods and patterns of behavior were fundamentally different from the previous cases—”

“How come I don’t see any difference?” Li Ziyong interrupted him angrily. “Isn’t it just that this time it wasn’t a surprise attack from the stairwell, but rather knocking on the door and entering before smashing the victim’s head!”

“Just based on what you said, that’s already a huge difference. According to your reasoning at the case analysis meeting, the victims in the first three cases all knew the killer, but not very well. This only lowered the victims’ guard, but it wasn’t enough to make them open the door and let the killer in—which is precisely the prerequisite the killer set when choosing victims. If you understand behavioral science and criminal psychology, you’ll understand that serial killers follow extremely strict standards in selecting victims. This isn’t because they’re used to savory tofu pudding and can’t stomach sweet tofu pudding, but rather based on the need for self-preservation and concealment.”

“One thing proves this: in the first two cases, why did you and Gao Xiaoyan spend so much time investigating and interviewing, yet you couldn’t find a single suspect connected to both victims. They were chosen because the killer selected victims based on the absolute premise that no connection could be established between himself and the victims during the police investigation. This was his cloak of invisibility and protective shield, one that couldn’t afford even a small breach, otherwise he would be exposed and arrested.”

“As for Fang Mei, she was a classmate of Zhou Liping, someone he borrowed books from. Before going to Fang Mei’s house that night, Zhou Liping even called her landline to ask if she was home. He didn’t wear gloves when he ‘committed the crime,’ and he made no attempt to conceal or disguise himself when he fled. Even without Hu Yanyun’s deduction, the police would have easily identified him during their subsequent investigation. This hardly seems like the behavior of a killer who had already murdered three people! Moreover, after his arrest, the police found absolutely no connection or link between him and the previous three victims.”

“As far as I know, for serial killers, excessive pressure from the police or external environment can cause their behavior to change like a genetic mutation,” Li Ziyong said defiantly. “Before Zhou Liping was arrested, the police, community security forces, and the public had already woven a tight net to capture him, constantly closing in. He couldn’t launch surprise attacks on people he knew slightly as before, because those people were on high alert. But his lust couldn’t be satisfied, so he could only target acquaintances who were completely unsuspecting. Anyway, he could kill the victims in the end, so he wasn’t afraid of being exposed—”

Suddenly, he froze.

He realized the huge flaw in his statement.

“Yes!” Lin Xiangming said quietly. “The problem is, since he had already killed Fang Zhifeng, why didn’t Zhou Liping kick down that thin door and kill Fang Mei to silence her?”

Li Ziyong was speechless for a long time. Just then, the proprietress placed a plate of garlic-flavored oat vegetables and two bowls of rice on their table and turned to go back to the kitchen. The two men picked up their chopsticks and began to eat slowly, remaining silent for a while. Finally, Li Ziyong spoke first: “You just mentioned Hu Yanyun’s reasoning. Wasn’t it precisely because Liu Simiao found shards of glasses while reconstructing the broken glass fish tank, and Hu Yanyun made a deduction based on these shards, that we were able to quickly arrest Zhou Liping after the crime? Although that scumbag remained silent after his arrest, like Xu Shu entering Cao Cao’s camp, his classmates said that the day after Xiao Yan was murdered, he wasn’t wearing his glasses. Because he couldn’t see the blackboard clearly in class, he borrowed notes from a classmate to copy. When his classmate asked him where his glasses were, he said they were broken. Does this reasoning also seem worthless to you?”

“I don’t deny that reasoning is a way of restoring the truth based on science and logic, but this restoration must rely on evidence. Otherwise, no matter how brilliant it is, it’s only the greatest possibility of the truth—99% close to the truth doesn’t equal the truth,” said Lin Xiangming. “Hu Yanyun did deduce that the real culprit might be someone who likes to read mystery comics, but many people like to read mystery comics. Just because Zhou Liping likes to read mystery comics doesn’t mean he’s the real culprit. This evidence is insufficient; for identifying someone as the same as the murderer, there’s only probability, not certainty.”

“Yes, through Hu Yanyun’s reasoning, we apprehended Zhou Liping. But what about the subsequent ‘reverse deduction’ of evidence? We found no evidence linking him to the previous three cases; the evidence we could find was all ‘suspected connection’: Zhou Liping’s shoe size and gait were highly similar to the suspect’s footprints, but we couldn’t find the same pair of shoes; the wounds appeared to have been caused by the same murder weapon, but we couldn’t find that hammer; the auxiliary police officers who chased the suspect on the night of the second murder thought that Zhou Liping’s build was very similar to the person being chased, but it was only a very slight similarity—”

“Aren’t so many ‘suspected connections’ enough?”

“Not enough!” Lin Xiangming said gently but firmly. “All wrongful convictions throughout history have been due to mistaking ‘suspected connections’ for ‘facts.'”

Li Ziyong’s face flushed red. After a long pause, he slammed his chopsticks on his rice bowl and sneered, “I think you’re just trying to save face because Old Chai’s psychological profile was right; that’s why you’re so desperate to clear Zhou Liping’s name!”

In fact, the Special Task Force and even the entire police force thought so. According to Chai Yongjin’s Criminal Personality Analysis, the real culprit should be “under twenty years old, physically strong and burly, with severe violent tendencies, likely to have served time in a labor camp for rape or fighting, living in a basement for a long time, and a migrant worker without a fixed occupation.” Except for the “migrant worker” part, the rest of the characteristics were exactly the same as Zhou Liping’s. Incredible!

Recalling Lin Xiangming’s doubts and objections to the psychological profile, even Du Jianping couldn’t help but pat Chai Yongjin on the shoulder and say, “In the end, solving cases still depends on us old guys who have actually done it. Those kids who spout foreign jargon are still too green. They’ve read a lot of books but haven’t experienced much, so they’re not reliable.”

After learning that Lin Xiangming had submitted a report to his superiors disagreeing that Zhou Liping was the real culprit of the “Western Suburbs Serial Murders,” many detectives were chilled to the bone, and there were sarcastic remarks both to his face and behind his back. When Lin Xiangming left the Special Task Force team, no one even offered to see him off. Li Ziyong stood on the windowsill watching him walk out of the courtyard filled with withered branches and fallen leaves, his lonely figure disappearing into the distance. Feeling a little sad, he made a special phone call to invite him to get together tonight.

Upon hearing Li Ziyong’s words, Lin Xiangming showed neither surprise nor anger; only a barely perceptible sadness flickered in his eyes.

Li Ziyong felt a pang of regret. Although they hadn’t known each other for very long, he had already developed a complex feeling towards Lin Xiangming. He admired Lin Xiangming’s composure, maturity, and restraint at such a young age, deeply captivated by his extraordinary personal charm. Yet he also felt a vague fear of him, unable to see through his hidden depths or fathom his unpredictable schemes…

Perhaps there was also a hint of jealousy—not only because Lin Xiangming was a top student at China Police University, but also because Lin Xiangming’s insight into human nature and worldly affairs far surpassed that of someone much older than Li Ziyong. Li Ziyong knew that his words wouldn’t hurt Lin Xiangming, but only their relationship, which was far from friendship and was destined to end with their working relationship. Now, because of this sarcastic remark, it was likely to prematurely end. And so, the mixed emotions and guilt coalesced into a rude shout—”Boss lady, a few bottles of beer, please!”

Before they knew it, they’d drunk too much again.

When they left the small restaurant, the rain had stopped, leaving only cold, damp air floating in the air. Lin Xiangming pushed his bicycle, while Li Ziyong, holding onto the seat, staggered along beside him… A gust of cold wind blew by, and the bare treetops along the street seemed to whistle in unison, almost like weeping. A few last fallen leaves turned to dust in the swirling motion. A black tarpaulin covering a chemical drum used for roasting sweet potatoes on a street corner seemed to flick its tongue, as if laughing, but the laugh was particularly sinister.

The two walked like this for a long time, neither speaking. Suddenly, a cheap sliding door creaked open as it was forcibly pulled open from a roadside “leisure massage parlor” with a half-drawn curtain and a red light bulb. A woman in a tight-fitting top and black stockings appeared in the doorway, her voice seductive: “Two handsome gentlemen, want to come in for a massage?”

“Get lost!” Li Ziyong cursed immediately.

“I’ll f*** your mother!” the woman retorted, about to utter something even more offensive, when Lin Xiangming flashed his temporary work ID from the city bureau. The woman turned ashen-faced, bowing and scraping profusely as she backed into the shop, slamming the door shut, pulling the curtain, and turning off the lights without a word. Immediately afterward, the other massage parlors on the street also went out in unison, like candles flickering in the wind.

The street fell into a deathly silence, like ruins.

They continued walking, unknowingly circling back to where they had met—the entrance to Wangyue Garden.

Looking up at the eerie white marble sculpture “Grandpa Moon” on the high platform, Li Ziyong suddenly became angry for some reason.

“I don’t understand. I just don’t understand! We, police officers, are here to wipe out all the bad guys, right? Why are you so insistent on protecting Zhou Liping?!”

“All beings suffer. Evil is easily defined, but people are not,” Lin Xiangming said calmly. “Zhou Liping isn’t a bad person; he just took a wrong turn and did something wrong… Life is inherently a journey of stumbling and falling in the dark. Some people take a wrong turn by coincidence, some by helplessness, and some deliberately for strange motives. A wrong turn isn’t necessarily a wrong turn, and someone who does something wrong isn’t necessarily a bad person… Besides, the worst people in this world aren’t necessarily those who seem the worst.”

“Then what is it?”

Lin Xiangming thought for a moment and slowly said, “It’s that idea of ​​’wiping out all the bad guys at all costs.'”

Li Ziyong’s eyes widened, turning bloodshot: “Isn’t our goal to create an era where even bad people can’t survive?”

Lin Xiangming stared into his eyes, saying each word carefully: “Is an era where even bad people can’t survive really a good era?”

Those words were like a bucket of ice water poured over his head, making Li Ziyong shudder: What is Lin Xiangming saying? I don’t understand. He found Lin Xiangming’s words utterly absurd and laughable, yet they possessed a sharp, incisive edge, much like the sudden “harmonica” sound before their meeting that evening—enough to keep him tossing and turning, utterly perplexed, during sleepless nights…

Just as he was about to ask Lin Xiangming for clarification, Lin Xiangming extended his hand to say goodbye: “It’s too late. Go home and rest early, or your mother will worry about you again. We’ll have plenty of opportunities to work and meet again in the future.”

Li Ziyong suddenly felt sad, extending a hand to firmly shake Lin Xiangming’s, then asked with a hint of resentment, “Xiangming… I always feel like you know the truth about the ‘Western Suburbs Serial Murders,’ but you just don’t want to tell me?”

Lin Xiangming paused, pondered for a moment, then suddenly looked at the steps leading to the top of Wangyue Garden and asked Li Ziyong, “Tell me, how can a person climb fifteen steps in one go?”

Li Ziyong gazed at the long, upward-reaching staircase. It had just rained, and under the mushroom-shaped park lights, each step shimmered irregularly from the puddles.

He thought for a long, long time but couldn’t come up with an answer. He could only shake his head. Lin Xiangming, however, simply smiled, turned, and left.

Watching Lin Xiangming’s figure gradually disappear into the vast night, Li Ziyong felt a profound sense of bewilderment towards Lin Xiangming, Zhou Liping, “Western Suburbs Serial Murders,” and the fifteen steps before him. This bewilderment was as intense as when he stood on Sweeping Mouse Ridge ten years later.