Luocheng had a saying: the East is rich and the South is rich, while the West is poor and the north is cheap. The west of Fukang District used to be the territory of the old city. Despite its name containing ‘wealth’, it was the poorest among the five main districts in the central city. Abandoned factories, crumbling old houses, a street full of crowded and noisy counterfeit goods, and a mahjong hall where obscenities fly like confetti— all of these resembled a massive pile of difficult-to-clear construction debris, mirroring the people living within. Although long surpassed by the times, they persisted, both decadent and resilient, guarding the land beneath their feet.
The poorest Fukang District, however, was the earliest to wake up in this city.
It was still early before dawn, and the baozi and youtiao shop that looked like a black workshop was already busy. Under the dim yellow lights, couples and father-son pairs with oil stains on their faces stood by the steaming stoves, kneading dough, boiling water, and grinding meat. If they woke up late, they would miss the early market before the white-collar workers went to work.
Cooking smoke propped up the dark and gloomy dilapidated alley, creating a blurry white opening. Used dirty water was splashed outside the door, and the entire alley was filled with a nauseating fishy smell.
At the same moment, to the south, the towering office buildings in Luo’an District still slept in the tranquil night. In the east, outside the detached villas of Mingluo District, the streetlights were like well-trained guards, standing watch over the owner’s peace throughout the night.
It was clear that the phrase ‘the harder you work, the better your life will be’ was not suitable for the poor who were struggling in the mire.
•
The sky was flooded with some bright light, diluting the thick ink-like night into a greenish purple.
A few years ago, Luocheng Municipality issued new regulations that allow mobile carts to sell breakfast at designated locations in bus stations, subway stations, parks, and commercial centers, but they must close the stalls before 9:30 a.m. and take away the surrounding garbage. If they exceeded the allowed time, the mobile carts would be impounded and the owners would be fined a considerable amount.
In order to seize the busiest areas with high foot traffic, vendors trying to make a living wake up earlier, wishing they could set up stalls at bus stops even in the middle of the night.
Qiu Dakui, the son of Elder Qiu, stayed up late playing cards last night and got up half an hour late. Elder Qiu sat angrily on his tricycle, blowing his beard and staring with wide eyes, scolding his son for being disappointing.1不争气: be disappointing, fail to live up to sb’s expectations The good site near the corner of the street had been taken away by Li Baolian’s family.
Qiu Dakui was in his early thirties this year. He had no ability, was poor and unmotivated. Six years ago, he finally managed to get a wife to get by in life. However, shortly after giving birth, his wife fell ill with cancer.
How could poor families afford it? In just a few months, the wife was gone.
With their daughter losing her mother, Qiu Dakui finally started to work early and stayed late with Elder Qiu. It could be said that it was a business, but it was nothing more than getting up to fry youtiao before the chicken crows, selling lunch after selling out breakfast, and selling late night snacks after selling out dinner. He earned only a meager amount each day, practiced frugality, and managed to save up some money for his daughter’s future education.
Qiu Dakui was uneducated and lived a low-quality life. His only hobby was playing cards. Unfortunately, he was not very good at cards; he lost nine out of ten times. After each loss, he would beat his chest and stamp his feet, unable to sleep. He would only feel drowsy when it was almost time to wake up and prepare breakfast.
Just because Qiu Dakui overslept by half an hour, they lost their spot at the bus stop. By 9:30 AM, the urban management officers kindly persuaded Elder Qiu to close the stall, but there was still some leftover youtiao from the cart. On the way back home, Elder Qiu once again vented his frustrations at Qiu Dakui. He brought up old grievances, cursing and berating Qiu Dakui so intensely that Qiu Dakui couldn’t lift his head.
Since his wife’s death, Qiu Dakui had calmed down a lot. He was too lazy to argue with the noisy old man, so he parked his tricycle and went out to smoke. The door behind him was slammed shut by Elder Qiu with a loud ‘bang’. The wooden door, unable to bear the weight, creaked. With a few more slams, it might just fall off on its own.
Qiu Dakui sighed and walked toward the entrance of the alley.
•
Spring had arrived and Qiu Dakui was going to go to Erli Alley, a place that sold fake goods, to buy a beautiful dress for his daughter.
He had naturally visited the bright and palace-like shopping malls in Luo’an District and Mingluo District. He even took his daughter shopping there a year ago, hoping to give her a New Year’s gift. However, all the money he had on him couldn’t afford a dress. In the end, he could only buy a combo meal for his daughter at the nearby McDonald’s.
The people wandering around the counterfeit street were all acquaintances. Qiu Dakui took a look around and quickly bought a lace skirt for 80 yuan. Thinking that he still had to sell during lunchtime, he hurriedly made his way home.
Unexpectedly, before he got home, he caught a whiff of a strange smell.
Considering it wasn’t yet time to prepare lunch, there shouldn’t have been any unpleasant smell in the alley. He looked in the direction of the odor and found that it was actually coming from near his own house.
Could it be that the old man prepared lunch early?
He was a bit panicked, worrying that he would be scolded again for missing the cooking time. Then he smelled the odor, and felt that it was too stinky, unlike the usual stale smell.
Elder Qiu wasn’t exactly an unscrupulous seller, but poverty had made him extremely thrifty. He was reluctant to throw away expired meat. Not only did he make steamed buns with it and sell them, he also cooked his own meals and ate them stir-fried with cowpeas and pickled peppers.
Winter was one thing, but now that spring had arrived and the temperature had risen, that smell became especially nauseating.
Qiu Dakui had gotten used to eating expired meat and had never had any problems with it, but he never let his daughter eat it. Now, as he smelled it more and more, he felt that something was wrong. Pushing the door open, he discovered that the old man wasn’t preparing lunch and there was no one at home.
He opened the refrigerator, took out all the meat, and sniffed around. He thought it was strange; it wasn’t this smell.
•
The father and son of the Qiu family lived in a brick and tile house built around the 1970s to 1980s. The front door faced a small alley, and behind it was a wasteland with weeds and sewage flowing horizontally. Usually, there were not many people going up to the wasteland.
Qiu Dakui couldn’t find the source of the odor in his house, so he closed the door and made a big detour to the wasteland.
In the spring, the grass on the wasteland grows half a man high, and when the wind blows, the strange smell becomes even stronger.
Qiu Dakui, having dealt with good and bad meat for decades, concluded that this smell was unusual. Covering his mouth and nose, he fumbled around, and after walking for a while, he was overwhelmed with nausea. Suddenly, his pupils shrank as he saw several wooden boards lying horizontally in the grass. A pile of flies hovered above the boards, buzzing and buzzing, with an astonishing sound.
That was where the stench was coming from!
Qiu Dakui approached cautiously, craning his neck to look underneath the wooden boards. However, after just one glance, he was so frightened that he let out a loud scream.
Underneath the tattered and wet wooden boards was a pair of legs with both feet chopped off.
•
“A body of a single female white-collar worker tragically found brutally dumped in shocking condition. Experts advise that women should not go out alone late at night…”
Chen Zheng swiped his thumb on the phone screen, reading aloud each word of the headline news posted by the local self-media public account ‘Good Morning Luocheng’. A clear vertical line furrowed between his eyebrows.
Half a minute later, he hastily finished reading the entire report, put down his phone, rubbed his temples, and muttered under his breath: “Nonsense experts. Nowadays, anyone who flaps their lips can be considered an expert.”
The report was 3,000 words long, and if it were published in a newspaper, it would have taken up three-quarters of a page. However, it was all nonsense; the expert’s advice alone accounted for 2700 words. At first glance, it was deep and profound, but upon closer inspection, it was all rubbish.
“Hey, Captain, watch your words a bit.” Han Qu had just finished running. He was not wearing his uniform. His black tank top outlined the muscular contours of his upper body. He threw the bun on the table without knocking on the door: “Hua Hua hadn’t arrived yet? Help me give him the buns later— shiitake mushroom and beef. It used to be his favorite when he was on my team.”
Chen Zheng lifted his eyelids, gave Han Qu a sidelong glance, and picked up a bun, then stuffing it into his mouth.
“Crap!” Han Qu hurriedly raised his hand to grab it, “I bought breakfast for my Hua Hua, what the hell are you chewing on blindly?”
“Too late.” Chen Zheng chewed a couple of bites and swallowed. “Fukang branch just transferred a case, and Hua’er is already at the scene.”
“What case?” Han Qu was the captain of the Municipal Police Special Forces Unit. Although he liked to visit the Criminal Investigation Detachment when he had nothing to do, he didn’t know about every case.
Chen Zheng pushed his phone toward him. “Here. The identity of the deceased is quite sensitive —a single female white-collar worker, relatable to many. Coupled with the gruesome scene and the murderer raped and mutilated the corpse, it’s prone to incite social panic. The local police station and the precinct’s response was too slow yesterday, and pictures of the crime scene taken by nearby residents have already circulated. Since the precinct couldn’t handle it, it got transferred to us.”
Han Qu furrowed his brow: “The murder of single women has become quite common nationwide this year. The pressure from above must be a lot, right?”
“Nonsense,” Chen Zheng sighed. “We had a midnight meeting, and a bunch of instructions were given. Director Meng wants me to catch the killer as soon as possible, so we can provide an explanation to the public.”
Han Qu patted Chen Zheng on the shoulder. “I’ll leave the buns to you. About Hua Hua, he spent two years in Beixi and suffered a lot of major and minor injuries. His body isn’t the same as when he was in his twenties, you know that.”
Chen Zheng nibbled on the bun, remaining silent.
Han Qu added: “He insisted on transferring to your Criminal Investigation Detachment when he came back, so I had no choice but to respect his decision. But while he’s under your command, you as the captain of the detachment, don’t push him too hard.”
Chen Zheng sighed: “You think I want to? But Hua’er is the head of the serious crimes unit, and this case can only be entrusted to him.”
•
The wind in early spring was damp, sticky and heavy, and the smell of decomposition lingered in the air. Even after the victim’s body had been moved, the smell of the dead body in the wasteland was still pervasive and numbing.
Hua Chong lifted the police’s cordon and stood in the completely destroyed crime scene. His eyebrows furrowed deeply. After a moment, he crouched down in the grass, and his right hand wearing latex gloves twisted the folded wild grass.
There were no valuable clues left at the scene.
Yesterday, the police from the police station rushed to the scene after receiving the call, but the residents who came faster were the residents who heard Qiu Dakui’s exclamation. Everyone rushed to get into the grass, clamoring and shouting, creating a chaotic scene with waves of commotion, one after another.
When the police pulled up the cordon,the wooden board that had been placed on the body was already lifted. The muddy ground was full of messy footprints, and even the wooden board had been stepped on by more than a dozen people.
By the time the trace examiner from the precinct arrived, there were even more footprints on top of the existing ones.
It could be said that the original crime scene was almost entirely destroyed.
Hua Chong stood up and saw a circle of curious children outside the cordon.
This area was called Daqiao Road, the most challenging place to manage in the western part of the Fukang district. The economy, public security, and environment were all in poor condition. Most of the nearby houses were simple brick-and-tile houses, and the residents mostly lacked stable employment, relying on selling breakfast and packed meals to make a living. In the morning, it was the time for business, so the children left at home had no one to supervise them. They gathered in small groups to watch the hustle and bustle.
Hua Chong waved at them, and the timid ones immediately ran away without looking back, while the bolder ones took a few steps closer. A boy, dark and slender, as clever as a monkey, jumped over, his eyes darting around: “Hello, Ah Sir!”2the ‘Sir’ is in English, and as mentioned below, this Ah Sir is quite common in Hong Kong movies. Basically has the same meaning as ‘Sir’, they only add Ah in front. This term is used to address someone respectfully or to refer to a superior or authority figure, particularly in a law enforcement or military context. You’ll frequently hear it in Hong Kong movies when characters interact with police officers or figures of authority.
Hua Chong smiled, thinking that this monkey3Refer to the boy, endearingly/affectionately. Anyway, I’ll keep using Monkey in this since the author also keep using 猴儿 to refer this boy must have watched too many Hong Kong movies.
Monkey saluted in a comical manner: “Ah Sir, when will you solve the case?”
The current situation of the case was not clear. Hua Chong received a call from Chen Zheng early in the morning and brought several investigators from the Serious Crimes Unit to re-examine the scene. After waiting for the autopsy and forensic test results, they would have to go back for a specialized case meeting.
After initially sorting through the case, he had numerous doubts in his mind, so he picked a point and asked: “This wasteland has tall and wide grass, why don’t you guys usually like to come over here to play?”
“My parents don’t allow me. They say this place is too desolate, there’s a lot of garbage, and it’s easy to get sick when the weather is hot. Last year, Li Kouzi came to catch spiders and got his knee cut open by a broken bottle. There was a lot of blood…” Monkey suddenly stopped talking and looked at Hua Chong with wide eyes: “Ah Sir, how do you know we don’t usually come here to play?”
“Guessed.” Hua Chong thought that if they came here often, the victim’s body would likely have been discovered much earlier.
“You guessed it?” Monkey didn’t believe it and was about to ask more when his companion suddenly shouted, “Zhang Pi, your mom is back from selling porridge!”
Monkey jumped in fear and ran away. A few children who were not far away also quickly disappeared.
Hua Chong looked at the time and saw that it was already past 9:30. The breakfast sellers had come back one after another.
At that moment, the Deputy Captain of the Serious Crimes Unit, Qu Zhi, ran over from the nearby buildings, followed by a middle-aged man with greasy hair and a rough face.
“Captain Hua, this is the person who discovered the body yesterday, Qiu Dakui.”
