Miss Forensics – Chapter 36

Part One

Released from Prison

The one who could never stay calm was her own heart.

“All personnel, pair up and fan out in a carpet search! Disperse!”

            

Out in the wilderness, at the command, rifle-bearing criminal police and armed police scattered.

A police dog dropped to the ground, nose to the soil, and worked through the low brush. It barked, tail wagging, and trotted back with a shoe in its mouth.

The handler took the sneaker from its jaws, pulled out his phone, and compared it with the clothing the suspect had been wearing when he fled. His face lit up. He held the shoe back to the dog’s nose, then patted its back.

            

The dog quivered, ready.

The handler released it. “Good job, Zhui Feng. Go!”

A black blur shot toward the woods like a loosed arrow, and the armed officers behind scrambled after it.

            

Moments later, the phone on Zhao Junfeng’s desk rang.

He was holding a cup of hot tea, listening to the Vice Director and the Criminal Investigation General Detachment brief him on Operation Aurora.

Before the person on the other end could finish, he slammed the cup down. Scalding tea spilled across his hand.

            

“What? They found him? He’s dead?!” He shot to his feet and slammed the desk so hard it shook. “Investigate! Investigate thoroughly!!”

The on-scene commander was the deputy captain of the Criminal Investigation General Detachment of Binhai Province. He held the phone slightly away from his ear, waited for Zhao Junfeng to finish roaring, then saluted.

“Yes, sir. The forensic examiner is on site and conducting a preliminary external examination of the body!”

            

After hanging up, he pulled on gloves and walked to the riverbank.

The body had already been pulled from the water. Several forensic examiners in white protective suits were working around the corpse.

Leading them was Old Qian¹, Forensic Director of the Technical Investigation Division of the Binhai Province Criminal Investigation General Detachment—no match for Lin Yan’s raw gift, but a veteran examiner with more than thirty years on the job.

            

“Old Qian, how’s it going?”

Forensic Director Qian peeled back the dead man’s eyelids, then turned. “The preliminary external exam is consistent with antemortem drowning. No external injuries. Mud and sand in the nostrils and under the nails, caused by struggling in the water. There’s no doubt he drowned.”

A trace-evidence examiner ran over to report. “We didn’t find a second person’s footprints at the scene, except… except…”

            

They had thought catching “Vulture” would be a major coup. Who knew a corpse was so fucking useless?

The captain was already irritated. “Spit it out! ‘Except, except’ what? Finish the sentence!”

The trace examiner squeezed his eyes shut. “Except… except the captain’s footprints, sir!”

            

He had come in a hurry and hadn’t put on shoe covers. The captain looked behind him. On the muddy bank, a ragged line of footprints stretched back—his own, and those of other search-team members.

He swung a slap at the man. “I—”

---

The eighth day of her hunger strike.

            

Lin Yan had not expected him to come.

Twenty-six years ago, he had been a green rookie cop. Now a silver olive-branch rank insignia² gleamed on his shoulder. He had indeed risen far.

The two of them regarded each other coldly through the iron bars.

            

Lin Yan had been young, and much of that time had blurred, but she still remembered that night of torrential rain—she and Lin Cheng kidnapped, a factory in the suburbs, the ransom exchange that failed, the police rushing in.

The first thing he had done was not save her, but level his gun at her, half-dead as she was, finger tightening on the trigger.

She was six years old.

            

The darkness blurred everything. She was too weak to move, only barely able to make out the blue-black stubble and trembling lips beneath the brim of his lowered cap.

Rainwater ran down his chin.

It was in that moment of hesitation that the others rushed in.

            

“There’s a survivor! A survivor!”

Dazed, she was lifted by a pair of arms. A police officer carried her out as they ran; Lin Cheng’s cold corpse was also carried out.

That night, the rain had fallen harder than ever.

            

Even now, remembering it made his blood run cold.

In the dilapidated factory, raindrops pelted down like beans. Beneath where the girl lay, a pool of faintly red blood had formed.

When they pulled the suspect off her, the girl’s lower body was bare; a lethal dagger jutted from the suspect’s chest.

            

She had saved herself. Lin Cheng—the eldest son Lin Youyuan had been desperate to save—was dead.

To this day he remembered the look in the girl’s eyes as she lay motionless on the ground: cold, despairing, hatred that reached into the bone.

It was exactly the same as Lin Yan’s now.

            

The officer standing outside the iron gate felt an inexplicable shudder. He waved his hand, signaling the prison guards to unlock her handcuffs.

“Medical parole.”

---

When Lin Yan woke again, she found herself lying in the Lin Family Convalescent Home. The one attending her was her personal butler.

            

She knew she was free.

Only then did she open her mouth and swallow, spoonful by spoonful, the hot congee the butler held to her lips. She ate too quickly and soon began to cough, choking up tears.

She was so hungry. Truly hungry—both hungry and cold.

            

She thought that there was probably nothing left in this world that could warm her.

The only person who had ever warmed her heart had died many years ago.

How she wished it had all been a dream.

            

Lin Yan sighed inwardly and closed her eyes again.

Sleep. Once asleep, she could see her.

---

“Lin Yan?!”

            

Song Yuhang sat bolt upright in bed, heaving for breath, sweat across her forehead. She wiped a hand across it, still shaken.

She had just dreamed—dreamed of Lin Yan pointing a gun at her.

The scene had been red, flooding everything.

            

Song Yuhang wanted to give back to her the words Lin Yan had once said to her.

Don’t die… Don’t die.

She closed her eyes, swallowed hard, and took deep breaths to calm herself. From under her pillow she pulled out her phone and called her. The moment the number went out, she regretted it—Lin Yan’s phone had long since been crushed.

            

Even so, she clung to a faint hope and waited for the call to connect.

Until—

“Sorry, the number you have dialed is not in service.”

            

Song Yuhang realized that she and Lin Yan were completely cut off from each other.

Just as Ji Jingxing walked in carrying the meal, a blue-and-white blur shot past her.

Song Yuhang didn’t even stop to change clothes. Ji Jingxing shouted after her, “Song Yuhang, where do you think you’re going?!”

            

She paused briefly, turned, saw the medical staff rushing up behind Ji Jingxing, and bolted.

A moment later, Ji Jingxing’s phone lit up with a message from Song Yuhang: “Jie, I’m going to the detention center to see a friend.”

---

“Forensic Examiner Lin? She left long ago. She applied for medical parole yesterday.”

            

It was the same junior prison guard.

Song Yuhang was still in a hospital gown, her shoes on the wrong feet. “Which hospital did she go to? Why did she apply for medical parole? What happened to her in there? How could it be so serious that—”

The detention center had complete medical facilities and services; the wound on Lin Yan’s shoulder was no big deal.

            

Only inmates with life-threatening critical illnesses could apply for medical parole.

In other words, the police only agreed to medical parole when a prisoner was about to die.

Song Yuhang’s heart sank.

            

The guard’s mouth opened and closed. “That’s not something we’d know. Where she went isn’t our jurisdiction. Hey, you have to hand it to Forensic Examiner Lin. In all my years here, I’ve never seen anyone try to kill themselves in prison. Once didn’t work, so she tried again… and then a hunger strike! She scared our warden half to death!”

Before he finished speaking, someone grabbed him by the collar and slammed him into the iron gate with a loud bang.

The alarm blared.

            

Song Yuhang’s eyes were red, her teeth gritted. “What did you do to her?! What?! Why would she try to kill herself? Why?!!”

Armed police from the guard post quickly surrounded her. Someone fired a warning shot. Song Yuhang released the guard and staggered back a few steps, then was immediately pressed to the ground by the swarm of officers.

---

“Well done, Song Yuhang, Deputy Captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment, Jiangcheng City Public Security Bureau! Forcing your way into a detention center in broad daylight and assaulting a prison guard—even the higher-ups called to ask me about it! A real credit to me and the Jiangcheng City Bureau!”

            

Zhao Junfeng sprayed saliva as he slammed the desk. “I see you’re pretty much recovered. Since you want to keep Lin Yan company so badly, I’ll grant your wish! Guards, put her in solitary confinement! No visitors except doctors! Until she knows she was wrong!!”

Clang—the iron door locked. Lin Yan was out; Song Yuhang was back in.

When Ji Jingxing came to see her, she was doing rehabilitation exercises, braced on one hand against the floor. A small window opened in the door, and Ji Jingxing’s face appeared.

            

Song Yuhang scrambled up from the floor and ran over. “Jie, why are you here?”

“I brought you some daily necessities.” As she spoke, Ji Jingxing noticed the gauze showing under Song Yuhang’s white short-sleeved shirt and couldn’t stop her eyes from reddening. “What kind of nonsense are you pulling? You haven’t even healed and you insist on running off. What kind of person is so important that you’d do this…”

Song Yuhang was silent.

            

Seeing she wouldn’t answer, Ji Jingxing added, “Yuhang, you were never this impulsive before. Tell me—who is this Lin Yan to you?”

Song Yuhang’s heart gave a lurch.

She really hadn’t been.

            

It was as if, from the moment she met Lin Yan, her emotions had found another outlet. Whenever something involved her, it was always hard to stay calm.

At first she thought it was Lin Yan’s arrogance and disdain—no one could stand that.

Then came the things that happened afterward: her walking toward her with a wineglass, lotus blossoms seeming to bloom beneath every step³. Drunk, she had leaned weakly against her shoulder. The fight in the rainy night. The two of them smoking opposite each other on the rooftop. Her lying across the car seat, waistline exposed, and the nape of her neck. How she had faced four opponents without fear, yet smiled the instant Song Yuhang appeared. How she’d held her hand and said, “Don’t die.”

            

The one who could never stay calm was her own heart.

Song Yuhang rubbed her face hard. “I…”

“Don’t talk. Just answer my question.”

            

Ji Jingxing leaned against the small window, able to see only half of her fine jawline. For some reason her own voice had gone hoarse. “Fang Xin told me you were distracted trying to save her when you got hurt?”

The slender jaw nodded once.

“You ran out again and again, all to find her?”

            

Song Yuhang answered dully, “Yeah.”

“And you hit someone because of her?”

“I didn’t think he’d be so easy to knock out. One shove and he fainted…” Song Yuhang’s voice grew smaller and smaller, then she nodded. “Guess so.”

            

Ji Jingxing asked the last question. “Do you regret it?”

Song Yuhang considered for a long time, then shook her head firmly. “No regrets.”

Ji Jingxing smiled bitterly and said nothing. In the place Song Yuhang couldn’t see, a trace of loneliness crossed her face.

            

“Jie, I’m sorry… This time… I was impulsive. Tell Mom I’m almost recovered and I’ll be home in a few days. Don’t tell her I’m in solitary confinement; it’ll only make her imagine the worst.”

This time it was Song Yuhang who pressed herself to the small window to look at her.

Ji Jingxing looked at that face, seven or eight parts like Song Yichen’s, and her smile was a little forced. “All right, I understand. It’s getting late; I should go.”

            

Song Yuhang knew Ji Jingxing had only been allowed in as a special exception by Zhao Junfeng.

She swallowed, glanced left and right with her peripheral vision—no one around—then crooked a finger at Ji Jingxing. When Ji Jingxing leaned close, she pressed a small scrap of paper into her hand.

“Call this number. He’ll know what to do.”

            

Ji Jingxing’s heart was thrown into turmoil by this cloak-and-dagger routine. “What… what is it…”

Song Yuhang had already pushed her away. “Jie, take care.”

She mouthed, Look when you get out.

            

Ji Jingxing looked back uncertainly, not unfolding the paper until she had walked out the main gate of the detention center.

The fingernail-sized scrap was damp and wrinkled from being clutched in some palm for who knew how long. With difficulty she made out a string of digits, then turned the slip over. Three crooked characters read: Find. Lin. Yan.

Ji Jingxing pressed her lips tight, crumpled the paper in her palm, and kept walking. Passing a trash can, the scrap accidentally fell out.

            

A scrap of paper that small—who would notice? She reached out to hail a taxi and climbed in.

“Driver, the train station.”

---

To call it medical parole was, in fact, tantamount to an acquittal.

            

Lin Yan had carved herself a way out with ruthless absoluteness.

During the days she recuperated, Operation Aurora, following Vulture’s death, officially moved toward its close.

A sweeping anti-vice campaign swept through every street and alley of Binhai Province, from the provincial capital down to prefecture-level cities and townships. The police deployed more than ten thousand officers, over five hundred police dogs, and several thousand staff from other departments, conducting coordinated raids on entertainment venues, karaoke parlors, massage shops, bars, private residences, and more. They arrested 61 suspects in the June 1 case, including two government officials who had made things easy for Vulture and served as his protective umbrella.

            

He Miao’s uncle was among them.

With that, the June 1 case was declared solved.

As for the other vice-related establishments, those ordered closed were closed, those ordered sealed were sealed, those due for arrest were arrested, all handled as separate cases. A profit chain built around female victims was completely dismantled.

            

The People’s Daily ran the story on its front page, giving it high-profile coverage, yet blurred the names and backgrounds of the two police officers who had made outstanding contributions.

Lin Yan turned a page of the newspaper in her hands. She gave a lazy tug at the corner of her lips, removed her glasses, and was about to sleep when her gaze slid over the legal affairs section.

Her brow furrowed, and she put the glasses back on.

            

The headline in bold black type read: “June 1 Case Ringleader ‘Vulture’ Accidentally Fell into River and Drowned While Fleeing to Escape Punishment.”

The page was mostly blacked out; the photo was pixelated, too blurry to make out.

Lin Yan held out a hand. “Magnifying glass.”

            

The butler attending her handed it over. Lin Yan spread the newspaper flat across her knees, removed her glasses, and moved the magnifying glass across it inch by inch.

She was examining the corpse.

The clothing was intact. One shoe was missing; the paper said it had fallen off while he fled. The face was pixelated, so specific external features were unreadable. Details like fingernails were even less visible. Lin Yan fixed her eyes on the body’s build, converting in her mind from the photo’s scale to real-world scale.

            

Long limbs, a streamlined body, broad shoulders, tall and heavily built—he almost certainly knew how to swim.

She jerked upright in bed. “Change my clothes. I’m going out!”

---

During her month of solitary confinement, Song Yuhang didn’t stay idle either. While doing rehabilitation exercises, she began working on restoring Lin Yan’s mechanical baton.

            

She wasn’t serving a prison sentence but undergoing confinement, and had a certain degree of freedom. For two hours each day she holed up in the library and managed to get in touch with an old classmate who was now a nationally famous firearms expert.

After sending him the photo, he quickly replied: Can’t be repaired; it would have to be melted down and recast.

Song Yuhang typed at an old desktop computer in the detention center: How do you melt it down?

            

He sent back a long set of illustrated diagrams.

Song Yuhang downloaded them. A prison guard called out, “Time for exercise; time’s up.”

She shut down the computer, looking back every few steps, still thinking about the diagrams.

            

Once back in the solitary cell, she turned on her desk lamp and began redrawing from memory.

Day after day.

Zhao Junfeng took a sip of tea and set it down. “What’s Song Yuhang been doing lately?”

            

“Drawing.”

“Oh?” He lifted his head slightly.

“Seems like she’s drawing some sort of blueprint.”

            

Zhao Junfeng lowered his head again to the newspaper. “Look at the life she’s living—more leisurely than this Department Director’s.”

Feng Jianguo had finally made a trip to the provincial department to report on work and was utterly frazzled. “Director Zhao, you may be relaxed, but the grassroots units under us are running their legs off.”

The unspoken message was plain enough: get her back to this daddy, now.

            

He certainly didn’t dare say it, but that was the meaning between the lines.

Zhao Junfeng knew well enough that the closer it got to wrapping up, the busier it became. Without Song Yuhang, a capable officer, the Jiangcheng City Bureau would be a mess.

He had been waiting for Feng Jianguo to come ask for her back. Proud as he was, he showed nothing on his face.

            

“Go tell that insolent wretch to get out and get to work. The leaders are running themselves ragged every day while she sits there drawing blueprints, taking it easy!”

When Song Yuhang’s incident happened, Feng Jianguo had been furious too, but he had always felt it was understandable. If a prisoner had committed suicide on his watch, even he would have lost his temper, to say nothing of an old colleague. Besides, the guard was barely hurt, while Song Yuhang, still injured, had been badly beaten by the swarm of armed police.

He had meant a Party warning and suspension without pay as a token punishment. Who knew Director Zhao would be even harsher and send her straight to solitary confinement; he couldn’t stop it.

            

Song Yuhang’s merits and faults canceled each other out, and she still ended up with a disciplinary demerit.

What was she even thinking?!

Bureau Chief Feng thought and thought and couldn’t figure it out. Forget it, forget it. Then came the wind-down of Operation Aurora and a series of anti-vice operations, and more than a month of busy work before he had time to come to the provincial department to ask for her.

            

Now, hearing Zhao Junfeng show signs of relenting, he hastily cupped his hands. “Thanks, brother. You really saved my hide.”

When Zhao Junfeng had been director of the Jiangcheng City Bureau, Feng Jianguo had still been a beat cop under him. He could take being called “brother.”

That one word, though, made the old department director remember the stirring years of the past. The wrinkles on his face seemed to come alive, and a trace of a smile touched the corner of his mouth.

            

“Don’t thank me yet. She still needs tempering. Stay humble, stay calm! Look at how impulsive she got the moment she panicked—how can someone like that accomplish great things? Don’t let down the expectations of her father and brother.”

Feng Jianguo’s heart tightened. Director Zhao was pinning high hopes on Song Yuhang.

Yes, she had served as deputy captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment for many years. There was nothing left to reward her with, except…

            

Feng Jianguo’s expression turned serious. “Director Zhao, rest assured. When I get back this time, I’ll give her a serious talking-to.”

---

“Captain Song, Officer Song—sorry for the trouble. You’ve worked hard, worked hard.”

A prison guard came to escort Song Yuhang out and returned her belongings, including her phone and backpack.

            

She took them and opened the bag. The mechanical baton was still inside. She let out a breath and said to him, “I’m sorry about last time…”

As she spoke, she raised her right hand and saluted him. “Sorry. I offer you a formal apology.”

The guard froze. Her rank was so far above his that he couldn’t quite collect himself, stammering as he returned the salute. “Ah… no… it… it’s… it’s fine.”

            

Duan Cheng had been sent by the Jiangcheng City Bureau to pick her up. Lately there had been no homicide cases; work was light and people were bored. He had waited early at the detention center gate and started honking the moment he saw her.

“Captain Song, over here.”

Song Yuhang ran over. After more than half a month without sunlight or human conversation, everyone looked friendly.

            

“How come it’s you? Is Forensic Examiner Lin back at work?”

Duan Cheng clutched his chest like a heartbroken beauty⁴. “Ah, I feel heartbroken on behalf of every officer in the Jiangcheng City Bureau. We pined for you day and night, off our food and unable to sleep—and the first thing Captain Song thinks of is Forensic Examiner Lin.”

Song Yuhang laughed and cursed, “Get lost. You should all be relaxed without me around.”

            

Duan Cheng opened the car door and helped her in, weakly saying, “Relaxed, yes, so relaxed. Even the cooks’ unit was almost sent out on the anti-vice raids. How could we not be relaxed?”

Song Yuhang wanted to laugh, but the smile on her face faded. She said no more.

Duan Cheng glanced at her as he drove, as if he knew what she was thinking. “Forensic Examiner Lin has taken long-term leave. I heard… I heard she’s pretty badly hurt. The red-headed document⁵ from above says… says her merits and faults cancel out. They won’t pursue criminal responsibility, but she has to pay corresponding civil compensation, and she’ll receive Party criticism, a major demerit, and suspension without pay.”

            

Song Yuhang pressed her lips tight and clenched the hand on her knee into a fist. After a long while, she opened her closed eyes and let out a long breath. “Do you know which hospital she’s in?”

Duan Cheng shook his head. “No idea. No one knows. Forensic Examiner Lin’s kept her whereabouts too well hidden.”

The car pulled into a gas station to refuel. Duan Cheng jumped out and ran to the convenience store. “Captain Song, I’ll buy some food. We still have a few hours back.”

            

Song Yuhang got out too. “Sure, you go. I’ll look around.”

Next to the store was a small news kiosk. She walked over, picked up a newspaper, and turned to the legal affairs section. She frowned and called the Criminal Investigation General Detachment office of the Provincial Public Security Department to verify.

“This is Song Yuhang, badge number…” She briskly gave her name and rank, covered the receiver, and walked farther away.

            

“Have you performed the autopsy on Vulture’s remains? What was the cause of death? How could a vicious criminal make a stupid mistake like accidentally falling into the water?”

The operator answering the phone had nearly talked himself dry replying to such questions lately. “Absolutely. The provincial department organized dozens of forensic experts from the judicial system and social scholars to perform the autopsy together. The results couldn’t be more conclusive. He truly drowned; there are no signs of homicide.”

“All right, thank you.” Song Yuhang hung up, still uneasy.

            

She took out her phone, intending to call Director Zhao to demand the case be reopened, but hung up halfway through dialing.

No, she couldn’t call. Without evidence, Director Zhao wouldn’t believe her, and this whole thing looked too coincidental.

She and Lin Yan had gone to the provincial capital on impulse; they hadn’t told anyone.

            

On the way, they had run into two coincidences: Lin Yan’s car broke down, and then her own car broke down halfway. Fine, she could accept those as coincidences.

Then how had Scar Face recognized Lin Yan?

She had been in disguise—sunglasses, mask, carrying a vegetable basket. She hadn’t been recognized by anyone along the way. Why had Scar Face picked her out?

            

Far too… co… in… ci… den… tal…

Thinking of this, Song Yuhang couldn’t help grinding her teeth.

Or had he met Lin Yan before, or studied her photo hundreds of times, so he could spot her at a glance in a crowd, or…

            

A possibility occurred to her, and a chill rushed up from the soles of her feet.

Song Yuhang threw down the newspaper and ran. A bus heading back to the city happened to be passing; she rushed to the roadside, waving, and got on. By the time Duan Cheng came out of the store with his purchases, the gas station was empty.

---

The author has something to say:

            

Say it out loud with me: it’s sweet! Sweet! Sweet!

Thank you for reading. I love you all today too, quack!

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