Volume One: First Scroll
Evidence
“Destroy the evidence. Make it clean.”
“They’ve already found the Guo Xiaoguang lead.” Listening to the voice from the receiver, the man brought his fingers to his brow. A moment later, as if having made a momentous decision, he lowered his hand.
“Destroy the evidence. Make it clean.”
Guo Xiaoguang moved the tables and chairs from outside the shop back inside. He poked his head out and looked around. Seeing that there weren’t many people left on the street, he brought the shop sign in as well and pulled down the rolling shutter door.
Inside, only a single dim, grease-stained lightbulb was lit. An old woman sat on the bed, a walking stick leaning beside her.
This bedroom, converted from a storage room, was narrow and cramped. It was right next to the kitchen and didn’t have much space for people to sit. Song Yuhang cleared off a cardboard box, took off her own jacket, and placed it on top for Lin Yan to sit on, while she herself remained standing.
To ensure this statement was formal, reliable, and admissible in court, she took out a recording pen and first stated their identities.
“Hello, I am Song Yuhang, Captain of the Criminal Investigation Detachment of the Jiangcheng City Public Security Bureau. Beside me is Chief Forensic Examiner Lin Yan from the Municipal Technical Investigation Department. She was also a classmate of the deceased in the ‘Fenyang Pier Dismemberment Case’. I guarantee that our conversation will be recorded in its entirety, open and transparent. We will properly secure this evidence, and it will not be used for any purpose other than as court testimony.”
When the old woman heard her say that Lin Yan was a classmate of the deceased, her lips trembled, and tears suddenly rolled from her eyes, which had gone blind and now only showed the whites.
“Fourteen years… fourteen years… I’ve finally waited for this day…”
“Mom, Mom, don’t get worked up.” Guo Xiaoguang sat on the bed, wiping his adoptive mother’s tears with the back of his hand.
Song Yuhang squatted down and held her hand. “You’ve been through a lot. Please, slowly tell us everything you know. We will clear Zhu Yong’s name.”
The old woman’s hand trembled as she wiped away a tear. “Yong-ge1… Yong-ge was framed… He couldn’t possibly have killed anyone…”
Song Yuhang and Lin Yan exchanged a glance. “What do you mean by that?”
At this question, a look of embarrassment appeared on the old woman’s face, but to uncover the truth, she cast aside her pride.
“Back then… you police all said that Yong-ge killed for revenge. Because… because the victim’s father killed his wife, so… so he chopped up his daughter…”
The old woman shook her head, her voice hoarse. “That’s not it, that’s not it… Yong-ge, Yong-ge had long wished his wife was dead, he just never had the courage… He was such a coward… He’d mumble for ages even when slaughtering a pig… How could he possibly kill a person?”
Guo Xiaoguang’s eyes also turned a little red. “The police, the media, the lawyers at the time… not a single one of them was willing to listen to us. My dad was branded a murderer just like that. He already had high blood pressure, and not long after entering the detention center, he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.”
Lin Yan’s gaze turned somewhat pensive as she looked at him. “You and your biological mother…”
Guo Xiaoguang’s throat moved. He closed his eyes, the memory still agonizing.
“She didn’t deserve to be a mother.”
Through Guo Xiaoguang’s fragmented narrative, a love story—somewhat twisted by the pressures of society at the time, and deeply tragic—emerged.
Zhu Yong2 and Guo Yuezhen3 were childhood sweethearts4 who grew up in the same village. They had planned to go to the big city to work together and had already privately pledged their lives to each other, but they ended up marrying people they didn’t love.
Guo Yuezhen’s family had married her off for a few silver dollars to a somewhat wealthy country squire from the same village, a widower a full twelve years her senior.
By the time Zhu Yong rushed back home, what was done was already done5.
He tried to crash the wedding and take her away but was slapped back by his father. “What’s the use of you being so devoted to Yuezhen! You’re both just as poor! I’m telling you, now that you’re back, don’t leave again. Stay home obediently. Your mother has found several nice girls for you, all from well-off families. Their dowries alone would be enough to set you up for life!”
Just like that, the two young lovers were torn apart.
After her marriage, Guo Yuezhen moved to the city with her husband. Zhu Yong also married another woman, and the couple went to the city to work as well.
Relying on his experience from working in a slaughterhouse, Zhu Yong opened a butcher’s stall in the wet market, toiling from dawn till dusk to make a living.
His wife, Guo Xiaoguang’s biological mother, was a selfish and cruel woman. The only reason she married him was that he was honest, weak-willed, and a hard worker. Aside from the portion he sent home, Zhu Yong gave her all the money he earned through blood and sweat. The woman took this money and went gambling with some “sisters” she met at a hair salon, staying out all night. This continued until Zhu Yong went to her workplace to find her and witnessed her being intimate with another man. In a fit of rage, Zhu Yong demanded a divorce, only to discover she was pregnant.
The woman cried and begged him. Zhu Yong was already a weak man who couldn’t make his own decisions. Besides, other than her philandering, the woman hadn’t done anything terribly wrong and would even send money home on time every month. In the countryside, being filial to one’s parents was the greatest virtue.
Zhu Yong decided to wait until the child was born to see if it was his. If not, he would get a divorce.
When the baby was born, and the soft little boy wrapped his fingers around his, Zhu Yong looked at the weak woman lying in bed and suddenly couldn’t bear to leave her.
At that time, he firmly believed that everything would be alright. Life would get better, the woman would get back on the right track, and their family of three would live happily ever after.
But the good times didn’t last. A leopard can’t change its spots. As soon as the woman recovered, she went back to her life of debauchery, only returning home when she ran out of money. Having seen the glitz and glamour of the city, she increasingly looked down on a poor, honest, and weak man like Zhu Yong.
The rich men she associated with could spend more on opening a single bottle of wine than what her family lived on for a month.
In Guo Xiaoguang’s childhood, he was often carried on his father’s back while he went to sell meat.
When Zhu Yong was too busy, he would crawl around on the ground by himself. Not knowing what was edible, he would pick up bone fragments and raw pork and stuff them into his mouth.
“Hey, a child can’t eat raw things! Why are you letting him eat this?!”
By a chance encounter, Guo Yuezhen came to the wet market to buy vegetables. She slapped the raw meat out of his hand, then patted his back and dug out what was in his mouth.
Fate had brought the two young people together once more.
Their love had not faded much.
Zhu Yong’s sense of responsibility to his family was real; he had buried his love for Guo Yuezhen deep in his heart.
But he didn’t know that the more something is suppressed, the more astonishing its explosive power will be when it erupts.
They still did it. They betrayed their respective families, tearing at each other, and sank forever into the pleasure of their immoral affair.
In Guo Xiaoguang’s childhood, his mother either beat him or cursed him. His birth hadn’t brought her back to the family; instead, she saw him as a burden who hindered her from carousing with those men, because a woman who had given birth was no longer valuable.
He didn’t know which time it was, or perhaps it happened many times, but once when Guo Xiaoguang called her “Mom” outside, the woman slapped him across the face, giving him a nosebleed.
“Don’t call me Mom. I don’t have a son like you. You’re as useless as your father!”
Gradually, he stopped calling her that.
Sometimes when Zhu Yong went to sell meat and left him at home alone, the woman would bring all sorts of men back and make him stand guard at the door for them.
The small child would stand barefoot, dressed in rags, squatting at the door of the dilapidated wooden house, his eyes wide as he watched the pedestrians come and go.
As time went on, nosy neighbors would see him out and grin with their yellowed teeth. “Yo, open for business again, are we?”
Guo Xiaoguang didn’t understand. By the time he was old enough to understand, he wished he never had.
Sometimes, when the woman earned a lot of money and was in a good mood, she would give him a few cents to buy bubble gum.
More often, she would take out the anger and abuse she suffered from other men on him.
A child of three or four could barely stand on his own, walking with a stagger, yet Guo Xiaoguang had to pour her foot-washing water, throw out the water she used to bathe, wield a broom taller than himself to sweep the floor, use a rag to wipe the tables, and roll up his sleeves to wash her socks and underwear.
If anything was slightly amiss, the woman would press his head into a basin of water or beat him with a washboard until he screamed.
Thinking back on it now, it was still a nightmare. The more Guo Xiaoguang spoke, the more breathless he became. He clenched the fabric over his knees. Guo Yuezhen felt her son’s hand clenching forcefully and placed her own old, wrinkled hand over his, their hands gripping each other tightly.
During those darkest days, only Guo Yuezhen, his father’s mistress, would be good to him, would smile at him, because she loved the father and extended that love to the son. She would even scrape together money from her own meager living expenses to buy him candy, pat the dirt off his clothes, and speak to him in a soft voice.
A child doesn’t really understand. They will instinctively rely on whoever is good to them.
Once, when Guo Yuezhen was passing his house after buying groceries, she saw him squatting by the courtyard gate in the dead of winter, playing with mud. She asked him, “Why don’t you go inside?”
He answered sullenly, “Mom won’t let me in.”
Pity filled Guo Yuezhen’s eyes as she looked at him “Are you hungry, child?”
He nodded. “Hungry.”
Guo Yuezhen rummaged through her grocery basket and pulled out a freshly bought steamed bun, still warm, and handed it to him.
Just then, the woman came back drunk and saw them. A huge fight broke out, but luckily Zhu Yong also returned in time.
That was the first time Guo Xiaoguang had ever seen his father so angry. It was also the first time in all those years that he had laid a hand on the woman, shoving her to the ground.
“Let’s get a divorce!”
The woman started sobbing, suddenly unwilling to divorce. Although Zhu Yong was poor, he treated her extremely well and had never said a single word against her.
Not only did the woman refuse the divorce, but she also threatened that if they divorced, she would tell their parents back home to return the dowry and let everyone in the surrounding villages know that Zhu Yong had abandoned her, that he was a heartless man!
She also said she would take their son and jump into the river, that she would rather drown than leave a descendant for the Zhu family.
That night, Guo Xiaoguang peeked through a small hole in the wooden planks of the inner room. His father sat on the bed, his back to his mother, smoking.
The woman was fast asleep.
The man got up and retrieved the butcher’s knife from the kitchen.
His silhouette, with the knife raised high, was cast upon the mosquito net.
Guo Xiaoguang was so frightened he collapsed onto the floor.
But in the end, that knife never came down.
In Zhu Yong, Guo Xiaoguang witnessed a man’s weakest, and also his kindest, side.
He had obeyed his parents’ orders and the matchmaker’s words, marrying a woman he didn’t love. He had endured being cuckolded for years and failed to protect his own child from violence. Yet, when pushed to the brink, he had laid down the butcher’s knife.
How could such an honest, weak, incompetent, and easily swayed man commit such an inhuman act as murder and dismemberment?
Guo Xiaoguang wouldn’t believe it even if he were beaten to death.
If Zhu Yong had that kind of courage, the one who died all those years ago wouldn’t have been Chen Chunan, but his unfit mother.
As Guo Xiaoguang spoke, he closed his eyes, and two streams of clear tears rolled down. He quickly wiped them away with the back of his hand and sniffled.
“My dad didn’t even divorce her after all that… so how could he possibly kill for revenge? To say something I shouldn’t, we were all relieved when she died…”
As for her death, it truly was a complete accident. Chen Chunan’s father went to buy meat, just as the woman had returned to ask Zhu Yong for money. Zhu Yong told her to wait a moment while he went to the restroom, begging her to watch the stall for him.
The woman reluctantly agreed. She got into an argument with Chen Chunan’s father over twenty cents, which escalated to personal attacks. Chen Chunan’s father then gave her a shove.
The woman grabbed the butcher’s knife and struck first, but she missed, and he disarmed her.
She lunged at him again. “Go on, stab me! Stab me! Hmph, I dare you to stab me right here!”
Then, whether she pulled him or Chen Chunan’s father lost his footing, the blade went in and came out bloody.
In the past, Chunan had never mentioned these things to her, and Lin Yan had never asked. This was the first time she had heard the full story of her father’s killing.
How to put it… Lin Yan felt a little… a little…
She closed her eyes slightly, her breathing growing unsteady. Her right hand clenched into a tight fist.
It wasn’t fair to Chunan’s father, it wasn’t fair to Guo Xiaoguang, and it wasn’t fair that Chunan was called “the murderer’s child” for so many years.
Song Yuhang didn’t shy away from being close to her just because others were present. She walked over and pressed Lin Yan into her embrace. Lin Yan wrapped her arms around her waist, sniffled a couple of times, and quickly pushed her away.
“I’m fine. Let’s continue.”
Song Yuhang noted down everything they said. “So, after your father died, you went to live with Guo Yuezhen?”
Guo Xiaoguang nodded, then patted his mother’s hand and said with a tearful smile, “Yeah. If it weren’t for my mom, I probably would have starved to death by now.”
Lin Yan still had a question. “Ma’am, do you not have any children of your own?”
Guo Yuezhen shook her head, a hint of regret on her face. “I was never able to conceive after getting married. At first, we thought it was because my husband was older, but later a hospital check-up revealed the problem was with me. My in-laws despised me for it and kicked me out of the house. Luckily, Yong-ge didn’t mind. After he died, it was just me and Xiaoguang, depending on each other.”
Song Yuhang felt a pang of sorrow. She didn’t know whether meeting Guo Yuezhen was a fortune or a misfortune for Zhu Yong.
But one thing was beyond doubt: for Guo Xiaoguang to have met Guo Yuezhen was certainly his greatest fortune.
“Ma’am, Xiaoguang, think again. Is there anything else that can prove Zhu Yong’s innocence? The fact that he lacked a motive alone is not enough to clear him of suspicion.”
Song Yuhang did not let her emotions affect her judgment, calmly and clearly pointing out the difficulty.
Guo Xiaoguang shook his head dejectedly. “If there was, my dad wouldn’t have died in the detention center.”
The two exchanged a look. Lin Yan rephrased the question. “Where was your father from the night of June 15th, 1994, onwards?”
Guo Xiaoguang thought for a moment, then looked them straight in the eye and replied, “He was at home the whole time. He never went out.”
“Can you guarantee that?” Song Yuhang frowned at him, feeling that this case was becoming more and more bewildering.
The other man raised two fingers in a pledge. “I am willing to bear legal responsibility for my words. If I’ve said a single false word, may I die a horrible death.”
Lin Yan looked at him. “I believe you.”
Guo Xiaoguang scratched his head. Hearing her say that, a smile appeared on his face, but it quickly turned into a frown, clearly still pained by the topic.
“He usually finished work at the market at five-thirty, rode his tricycle for an hour to come home and pick me up from school, and then after making me dinner, he had to chop pig feed and feed the pigs, and select the piglets to be slaughtered the next day. He often got up before dawn to work. Where would he have had the time?”
The old woman also began to speak, her voice trembling, her cloudy eyes glistening with tears. “If… if you don’t believe him, I can also testify. I was the one who picked Xiaoguang up from school that day…”
Song Yuhang sensitively detected something unusual in her words. “Why did you pick him up?”
“Because my dad’s tricycle was stolen, so he walked back,” Guo Xiaoguang answered. “I remember it vividly because I waited at school for a long time and was starving. Guo-yi6, as was her custom, came to bring us food around dinnertime. She found the lights off and no one answered when she knocked, so she thought something had happened and ran to the school to get me.”
The recording pen blinked. Song Yuhang also used a pen and paper to write down their conversation word for word.
The timing of this stolen tricycle is far too coincidental.
Lin Yan: “When was it stolen?”
Guo Xiaoguang thought for a bit. “The night before the incident. In the early morning of June 15th, when my dad got up to slaughter the pig, the tricycle was gone. I had to borrow a flatbed cart from a neighbor to help him transport the pork to the market.”
After they got together, their gazes would often meet unconsciously. Lin Yan glanced at her. Song Yuhang freed one hand to take her palm, releasing her fingernails that were digging into her flesh, and held it on her knee.
Lin Yan struggled for a moment but couldn’t break free, looking slightly peeved.
Guo Xiaoguang watched their series of actions, which were far too intimate. “You two…”
A slight smile appeared on Song Yuhang’s lips, her grip on Lin Yan’s hand still not loosening. “It’s just as you see. Let’s talk about the case. The tricycle was stolen, did you report it to the police?”
“We did. My dad reported it as soon as he got back from the market that afternoon. The police said it wasn’t valuable property, and it was dark, so they couldn’t guarantee they’d find it. They just registered it and left.”
“Who knew that three days later, on the 18th, the police would show up at our door again. I thought they were here to return the tricycle, but as soon as they came in, they pinned my dad to the ground, saying he was a major suspect…” Guo Xiaoguang’s voice broke, unable to continue. Song Yuhang pulled a tissue and gave it to him.
“I’m sorry for making you recall these painful memories, but please believe us, the suffering you’ve endured all these years won’t be in vain. I will definitely see that your father’s—”
“Name is cleared.”
“Name is cleared.”
Their two fists bumped together. Song Yuhang, in the manner of men, as a police officer, made a solemn promise to him.
Before signing the statement, Guo Xiaoguang knelt down again. Facing the recording pen on the table, he swore a devout oath, reiterating his previous statement.
“I, Guo Xiaoguang, swear that everything I have said is the absolute truth. I am willing to bear legal responsibility for my words. If I’ve said a single false word, may I be struck by lightning and die a horrible death.”
After speaking, he lowered his head, picked up the pen, wrote his name, and pressed his fingerprint.
The old woman also stood up, leaning on her cane, and fumbled her way over. Lin Yan supported her, picked up the ink pad, and held it out for her.
The old woman pressed down hard, her fingertip sinking deep into the ink.
Her lips trembling, she followed Song Yuhang’s guidance and pressed her bright red fingerprint onto the black and white paper.
As she stood up, she could no longer support herself. Two streams of clear tears rolled down her face. She gripped Song Yuhang’s arm, about to kneel and kowtow to her.
“Please… I’m begging you… you must… you must clear Yong-ge’s name… and clear Xiaoguang’s name… I’m holding on with these old bones, and if I don’t see the day the truth comes out, I won’t be able to rest in peace, I won’t be able to rest in peace!”
The old woman wailed. Guo Xiaoguang immediately helped her up, wiping her tears.
“Mom, what are you doing, what are you doing? Have you forgotten how you lost your sight? The doctor said you can’t cry, you can’t cry…”
Although Lin Yan felt sympathy, another matter came to mind.
She took her business card out of her wallet and handed it to him. “You can’t live here anymore. Move out tomorrow at dawn. This is my card. Take it and find the Fangyue Cleaning Company. They will give you a new job and a place to live.”
Guo Xiaoguang looked at the gold-embossed card, hesitating. “You…”
Lin Yan shoved it into his hand. “Just take it when I tell you to. Stop being so fussy!”
Song Yuhang also left him her phone number. “If you run into trouble or danger, call this number. I will do everything in my power to help you.”
Their solemnity made Guo Xiaoguang feel uneasy.
“Is there some… issue with solving the case?”
Song Yuhang shook her head. “I can’t tell you anything right now. You must remember, we came here today as tourists. We just happened to eat a meal at your place, helped you deal with a few local thugs, and then left. Nothing else happened.”
“The words you’ve told me today must be buried in your hearts. You absolutely cannot leak them to anyone else, or else—”
She paused slightly, the unspoken words sending a chill down the spine.
Guo Xiaoguang broke out in goosebumps, a numb feeling spreading through him, but he nodded solemnly and gripped the business card tightly.
“Okay, rest assured. I won’t let another soul know you were here. This is our secret.”
“As long as I can clear my father’s name, I’m not afraid. I’ll do anything.”
Lin Yan stood up. “Then we’ll take our leave. You two…”
Her gaze swept over the young man’s face and the old woman’s wrinkled one.
“Take care.”
“Take care.”
Guo Xiaoguang saw them out. Just as he was about to close the rolling shutter, he brought out a packed meal box from the kitchen.
“Here, sweet soup. Didn’t you say you wanted to take a portion to go? I figure, I can’t do this job anymore, so this might be the last sweet soup I ever make. You like it, so it’s for you.”
“Hey, it doesn’t have to be the last one. Your cooking is pretty good. After this case is settled, you can come cook for the Lin family. I’m still short a Cantonese chef.”
At that moment, she didn’t know that when Guo Xiaoguang said it was the last one, he really meant it.
Lin Yan was taken aback for a second, then accepted it with a grin. After the shutter door closed, she slipped a wad of cash through the gap at the bottom.
She always had a flippant air about her, often speaking wildly, her words a silver-tongued torrent. Most of the time, she was aloof, stubborn, and sharp, with a certain cruelty in her words and actions.
It was a good thing Song Yuhang had spent so much time with her to be able to see the softness and kindness wrapped beneath this hard shell.
She pulled Lin Yan up. “Let’s go. We need to find a place to sleep.”
The winter weather was cold. Lin Yan stuffed her hands into Song Yuhang’s jacket pockets to warm them, idly tracing her palm with her fingernails.
“Getting a room?”
Song Yuhang turned her head to look at her, feeling those knuckles curl and uncurl in her palm. It inevitably made her think of how, in the heat of passion, she would also clutch the bedsheets so forcefully, so futilely.
“Let’s go. A couple’s room or a king-sized bed? With or without a bathtub, or maybe outdoors—”
She wrapped an arm around Lin Yan’s shoulders and smiled meaningfully. She breathed warm and fragrant air7 by her ear, but what she said was:
“Don’t look back. Keep walking. Did you bring your ID?”
Lin Yan’s expression instantly turned cold.
“I did.”
“We’ll split up at the intersection ahead. Find your own hotels to check into. We’ll contact each other in half an hour.”
Song Yuhang squeezed her palm. “Be careful with everything.”
Lin Yan nodded. Just then, a bus stopped to let off passengers.
When the light turned green again, the intersection was empty.
The man in black who had been tailing them threw down his earpiece. “F#ck, we f#cking lost them again!”
LP: Re-translated on June 16, 2025
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