As we were leaving the fried chicken shop, a car passed by and stopped. The window rolled down, and Uncle Zhou waved at me: "Xueming, are you off work?"
"Ah... I took half a day off to attend an educational lecture for a friend." I told a truth that wasn't quite true. There was someone in the back seat of Uncle Zhou's car, a little girl. I knew it was his daughter, Qianqian, a freshman in high school.
Although Uncle Zhou was a few years older than my dad, he married late and had children later, so Qianqian was much younger than I. She looked much the same as I remembered her: glasses, short hair, plain features, timid, and preoccupied with her book.
"There was also an expert lecture at her school today that parents could attend, but I was busy and didn't go. Qianqian, why didn't you say hello to Brother Xueming?"
She shuddered, slowly rolled down the window, nodded at me, and quickly rolled it up again. Uncle Zhou scolded his daughter and, before leaving, instructed me, "When you go to work next Monday, there should be a document from our team on the table. Look carefully for me. If you find anything, you'll be awarded first-class merit."
We then returned home. Xu Tuo still needed to take medication for his injury, which made him a little sleepy, so I drove.
"Uncle Zhou's daughter seems to be attending that high school," I said.
"...Um..." He responded vaguely.
"You go to sleep, I'll stop by the office to get it—Ugh!"
With a sudden brake, a black Ferrari stopped in front of us. I knew who was looking for trouble by the look of the car, so I rolled down the window and yelled at him, "Qi Mengzhu, are you crazy?!"
People on the street started to notice us, and Xu Tuo also woke up, looking at him impatiently with a bad temper. Xu Tuo rarely showed this expression, and I even worried that he would chop Qi Mengzhu in the street.
He got out of the car and walked towards us: "I have something to ask you."
Xu Tuo narrowed his eyes, reached out from the car window, grabbed his tie, and pulled him towards him fiercely: "...Did you know that mobile phones have been invented?"
"Xue Ming blocked me," he said.
I coughed. "What's going on?"
"Is that singer, Jackman, one of your kind?"
Xu Tuo's hand loosened, his eyes flickering for a few seconds. Then, he rolled up the window and said, "It's okay, let's go."
Qi Mengzhu got his answer from his reaction and made way for the car. Everyone went their separate ways and nothing else happened.
On the way, Xu Tuo called Xia Mo: "Teacher, it's me... There's a person named Qi Mengzhu... Oh, you already know... Did you introduce him?... Okay, I don't care."
He hung up the phone and let out a long sigh.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"The teacher seems to have found out that Qi Mengzhu and we have some... entanglement. He was afraid that Qi Mengzhu would cause trouble, so he simply introduced Ajie to him and let Ajie take Qi Mengzhu out to play."
It's almost like, in order to prevent the cat from knocking over the water cup on the table, I bought a cat climbing frame for it to play.
"...Is everything okay?" I thought about how Jackman looked in private and felt a little uneasy.
"Ajie is just trying to be tough and intimidating, but he's actually very gentle." He turned on the car radio. The entertainment channel was broadcasting the music charts for the previous week, and Jackman's songs happened to be playing in the background.
"Famous singer Jackman assaulted a staff member on stage during a private performance the day before yesterday. This is the third time this has happened to this god, right? The organizers have stated their response to this incident..."
Xu Tuo turned off the radio: "As a human being, there are always a few days every month when you feel irritable. It's normal."
I went to work first and pulled out the copies of the documents I'd saved from a drawer. The number of these female suicides by hanging was increasing. At first, a colleague had just gone to several city departments to get research materials for me. Later, he muttered, "Why are the rope marks all the same?"
There is something strange about these cases. I always feel that they are related to the female killer that Xu Tuo is tracking down.
Besides that, there was a file on my desk that Uncle Zhou had sent me that afternoon, but it was marked as an open case and couldn't be taken out of the office yet. I opened it and took a look, and my scalp tightened—it was a robbery and murder case.
It's been so long since my dad's incident, but when I see cases like this, I still get distracted for a moment.
In any case, these kinds of documents can't be taken away, and there's no way to look at them carefully now, so I stuffed it into the drawer and hurried back to the parking lot.
But when I got closer to the car, I found Xu Tuo outside, leaning against the door, with two men standing in front of him.
They were both white and tall. I had no idea how they knew each other or what they were talking about. Suddenly, without warning, one of the men raised his hand and slapped Xu Tuo hard.
Xu Tuo's body swayed, then he stood up again and leaned back against the car door. The two men just left like that.
I rushed over and asked, "Who are they?"
"Let's talk about it in the car." He unscrewed the mineral water and rinsed his mouth. There was probably blood in his mouth.
However, on the way back, Xu Tuo didn't explain anything, but just repeatedly dialed the channel of the car radio, and finally started listening to storytelling.
"Don't you want to explain?"
"There are some complicated relationships with the teacher, it's not interesting for you to know about it."
"I don't understand. Isn't Xia Mo the manager of Class L? Did someone bypass him and send someone to teach you a lesson?"
He gave a very concise and easy-to-understand answer: "The chat group's group administrator and the owner of the chat group's server platform company."
"... Class L has a controller who is higher in status than Xia Mo?"
"Training, funding, intelligence... all require capital. I know you're tight-lipped, so I'll keep it. Most people in Class L don't know about this."
"So, how many 'chat groups' are there in this world?"
Xu Tuo glanced at me and smiled: "I don't know."
I tossed him the bag of documents. "Never mind. Let's not talk about that. This is information about the suicide case, the one I told you about before."
"Do you think these cases are related to the freshman the teacher asked me to kill?" His brows furrowed. "Dear, the case started half a year ago, and that freshman has only been in Class L for two months."
"Does anyone who wants to kill have to join your class before they can go on a killing spree?"
In other words, perhaps someone who couldn't control his hunting urges joined Class L.
While waiting at a red light, I looked over the information Xia Mo had given Xu Tuo. It included photos of female victims, the marks on their necks inflicted by imported climbing ropes, faked to look like suicides.
Unless two people happen to like to use the same brand and model of climbing rope to kill people, the possibility of this is extremely small.
But things got weird again. Joining Class L was much harder than joining a chat group, so Xia Mo would have done some research beforehand. Why did they know about this freshman preying on women for the past two months, but not his performance in the previous four?
According to the information, this person's name is You Zili, and he is only 20 years old. He has been to and from this city many times, the most recent visit being a week ago, and there are three possible temporary residences.
"He's so vigilant. He has three temporary places to stay..." Xu Tuo threw away the documents and rubbed his temples. "This damn kid. I can't handle this by myself."
"Let me help you." I tried to act calm and not show any excitement.
"No need to talk. Class L has its own tools. I'm currently in a state of redeeming myself from my crimes. If I cling to the teacher's thighs, I can still use a few tools."
In the next few days, Xu Tuo went about his business. One day at noon, I received a call from Xia Mo. When I answered the call, the soft and clear voice that flowed out made my ears itch.
"Xu Tuo should go study hard. Xueming, are you free to come over for afternoon tea?" he asked. "I'm at the riverside restaurant with a view, the one converted from an old cruise ship."
I know that restaurant with a view is one of the city's landmarks.
Twenty minutes later, I arrived at the agreed location and took the elevator to the landscaped level. The circular restaurant with panoramic glass windows was sunny and full of guests. Sitting by the window, Xia Mo was smiling and waving at me.
The two waiters were talking about how he looked like Zun Long. Although this restaurant often had stars and celebrities coming, Xia Mo's temperament was still outstanding.
Across from him sat a thin figure at the four-person table. When I saw her, we were both stunned.
That's Uncle Zhou's daughter, Qianqian.
I'm not sure why she's here. Did she skip class? Or was Xia Mo bringing her here? Because the child's schoolbag is still lying next to her.
"Zhou Qian, would you like anything else to eat?" he asked. "Who is this...ah, do you know him?"
Zhou Qian nodded. I noticed her eyes were red.
Xia Mo asked his assistant to take Zhou Qian back to school for her afternoon class. We were left alone at the table. He looked out the window at the river, a look of helplessness on his face. "She was bullied at school. We were just talking about something very unfair, and she was crying so hard."
I was shocked.
After hearing about my relationship with Zhou Qian's father, Xia Mo sighed, "Don't worry, I didn't pick her out on purpose. I was visiting her school a few days ago, and during my lunch break, I went for a walk in the garden and found her crying in a corner. I wanted to know what was wrong."
"Uncle Zhou may not know yet... He's busy with work."
"Being bullied at school is the teacher's responsibility. Actually, the teacher knows everything: who's bullying and who's being bullied... but teachers are becoming increasingly timid. As long as things don't get out of hand, they'll pretend they don't know. Even if the bullied kids can't stand it anymore and fight back, the teachers will only punish them and not the bullies themselves."
"Because those who are bullied are often easier to deal with, both students and parents."
"So, modern education is very complex." The shimmering water of the river, like gilded gold, reflected into the dining room, and his eyes sparkled. "It requires love, responsibility, and some decisive...maneuvering."
I wanted to send a message to Uncle Zhou, but after thinking it over, I decided not to. I knew Uncle Zhou's temper. He would never talk too much when he could use his fists. Otherwise, he might cause a big scene at school.
"Xue Ming, send a message to Zhou Qian's father." At this time, Xia Mo urged me to change my mind, "If a child is bullied, the first thing to do is to let her know that her family will always stand by her side."
Indeed, I have something else to contact Uncle Zhou about this afternoon. The details of the case he asked me to look at are starting to come together. It was a spur-of-the-moment robbery and murder, and the surveillance cameras in the area had been out of service for two hours due to a network upgrade. However, based on the angle and density of the weapon's penetration, as well as the footprints at the time, it's possible to calculate the assailant's size.
Besides the middle-aged male victim, A, there were three young men present. Uncle Zhou had already obtained this data, and I assisted them in reconstructing the shoe prints that had been blurred by the rain.
There is a surprising result, but it needs to be checked more carefully.
"Xue Ming, what time does your lunch break end?" Xia Mo asked.
"Two o'clock."
"It's time to go back. Did you drive here?"
"subway."
"I'll take Line 9 back. Let's walk together for a while."
The restaurant is in the city center and there was a huge flow of people at noon, but as it approached one o'clock, the crowded people quickly returned to the various office buildings and the subway station was empty.
Although it is a subway station in the city center, you can transfer to three lines here, and Line 9 is an old line.
"Did you ever skip classes in junior high and high school?" Xia Mo asked me as we took the escalator down.
I nodded. "One day at noon, I sneaked out with Xu Tuo and squeezed out through the side door of the school garden."
"Skipping classes is one of those school traditions, right? Look." He pointed at a child in school uniform at the end of the waiting area. He wasn't carrying a backpack, and was listening to music with headphones in his ears. Judging by the school badge on his uniform, he must have been from the same middle school as Zhou Qian. He'd obviously sneaked out during lunch break.
Even in good schools, there are some children who are not very focused on their studies.
"This waiting station on Line 9 has eight surveillance cameras in front, behind, left, and right, leaving no blind spots." Xia Mo suddenly said, "Also, the old line hasn't installed subway safety doors yet."
He walked toward the child. Golden headlights appeared at the end of the tunnel.
The boy didn't realize someone was approaching; his headphones blurred his perception. At noon, at the deserted old railway station, I stood stiffly at the elevator entrance, watching Xia Mo get closer and closer.
That day on the cliff in Iceland, Xu Tuo said, "Push her down and don't ask why."
But why?
The subway roared by. Xia Mo smiled at me and returned to the elevator entrance. A broken earphone flew out and slid a long way on the ground.
The screams of the people finally arrived, and he pulled me onto the elevator back to the ground. It was late summer, early autumn, but my hands felt like ice.
"It doesn't matter whether I tell Mr. Zhou or not. The child who bullied Zhou Qian is no longer with us."