Su Xue. The name echoed in Chen Wei's mind as he drove through the rain-slicked streets of Luming. Lin Meiying worked her contacts in the records department, searching for any trace of the surviving twin, while Chen Wei followed a different lead-the glass figurine left at the crime scene.
The swan's broken neck had been no accident. Someone had snapped it deliberately, with force and precision. A message, perhaps, or a signature. Chen Wei found himself at the door of Master Glassmaker Liu, an artisan who had trained three generations of craftsmen in the delicate art of glass sculpture.
Liu's workshop was a converted warehouse near the river, filled with the heat of furnaces and the smell of molten sand. The master himself was a wizened man in his eighties, his hands steady despite his age, his eyes milky with cataracts.
"A glass swan," he said, turning the broken figurine over in his palms. "Fine work. See the detail in the feathers? This was made by someone who understood birds, who studied them."
"Can you tell who made it?"
Liu shook his head. "Not by name. But I can tell you where. See this mark?" He pointed to a tiny imperfection in the glass, a bubble no bigger than a pinprick. "This is from a specific furnace, one that runs hot and fast. There are only three workshops in Luming that use this technique."
He wrote down the names, and Chen Wei thanked him. But as he turned to leave, the old man's voice stopped him.
"Detective. The swan-it was broken intentionally, yes?"
"Yes."
"In the old symbolism, a broken swan means a broken promise. Whoever left this wanted Mrs. Zhao to know that a debt was being collected."
Chen Wei found the first workshop abandoned, the second closed for renovations. The third was a small studio in the arts district, its windows filled with delicate glass sculptures-birds, flowers, abstract shapes that caught the light and held it prisoner.
The woman behind the counter looked up as he entered, and Chen Wei felt his breath catch. She was beautiful, with high cheekbones and dark eyes that seemed to hold depths of sorrow. But it was not her beauty that struck him-it was her face.
She looked exactly like the photograph of Su Yue.
"Can I help you?" she asked, her voice soft, musical.
Chen Wei showed his badge. "Detective Chen Wei, Luming Police. Are you Su Xue?"
The woman's expression didn't change, but her hand tightened on the counter's edge. "I am. Is there a problem, Detective?"
"I'd like to ask you about your sister. And about where you were three nights ago."
Su Xue smiled then, a slow, sad expression that transformed her face from beautiful to haunting. "I wondered when you would come. Please, Detective. Sit. I'll make tea, and I'll tell you everything."