Po Sir's Police Affairs: The Hunter

The news that Ding Laosan wanted to see Jiang Bo came at 4:07 a.m.

Jiang Bo recalled that time countless times afterward. 4:07 AM. The darkest hour, also when people are most vulnerable. Choosing to make a call at this time meant either he truly couldn't hold on any longer, or someone was pressuring him.

The on-duty police officer at the detention center said on the phone that Ding Laosan had been restless all night, acting strangely since 10 p.m. First, he paced around his cell for two hours, ignoring the insults from his cellmates. Then he started banging his head against the wall, making dull thuds like drumming. When a guard went in to stop him, he knelt down and kowtowed, saying that if he wasn't allowed to see Jiang Bo, he would die inside.

"Did he say anything?" Jiang Bo asked, holding the phone.

"I did say it. I kept repeating the same sentence over and over—'That letter, that letter, she came to find me.'"

Jiang Bo remained silent for two seconds.

"I'll be right there."

He hung up the phone and sat in the dark for a few seconds. The light from the streetlamp outside shone through the slightly ajar curtains, casting a blurry yellow glow on the wall. Tangyuan, already awake, was lying by the bed, looking up at him, her eyes reflecting a faint light in the darkness.

Jiang Bo patted its head, got out of bed, and put on his clothes. As he pulled on his pants, the thought kept replaying in his mind—"She's come to find me." Who is she? Ah Zhen? Or the little girl from 1999?

He'd been having recurring dreams these past few days. The little girl in the floral dress kept appearing in his dreams, sometimes standing by the river, sometimes crouching in the reeds, sometimes standing right by his bedside, looking down at him. He wanted to see her face clearly, but she never looked up. Once, he couldn't resist reaching out to touch her shoulder, and she suddenly looked up—

It was Yang Tianzhen's face. Twenty-four years old, wearing glasses, with two purplish-black marks on her neck.

He woke up from that dream with a start, covered in cold sweat.

Tangyuan followed him downstairs. The lights in the stairwell were still out, and he groped his way down five floors in the dark. The early morning in November was bitterly cold, and a gust of wind blew down his neck as soon as he stepped out of the building. He shivered, opened the car door, and Tangyuan jumped into the passenger seat and settled in.

The car started and drove into the empty street.

The detention center was on the outskirts of the city, a twenty-minute drive away. There weren't many cars on the road, and the traffic lights were flashing intermittently, like some meaningless ritual. Jiang Bo gripped the steering wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, but his mind was replaying the events of the past few days—

Huang Binbin is dead, Yang Tianzhen is dead, and Zhang Xiaoyu is dead. Four corpses, four women, all connected to the A-Zhen case thirty years ago. Fang Min investigated the death of her mother, Xiuying; Huang Binbin investigated the death of her cousin, A-Zhen; Yang Tianzhen helped Huang Binbin investigate; Zhang Xiaoyu is A-Zhen's daughter. They were all killed just as they were getting closer to the truth.

Who is the killer?

Ding Laosan is in the detention center. It can't be him. Chen Zhiming has already been arrested, so it can't be him either. Then who is it? That limping figure, the one standing at the door watching Ding Laosan kill someone—who is he?

It was still dark when the car turned into the detention center gate. The police officers on duty were already waiting at the gate, and they quickly walked up to greet Jiang Bo when they saw his car.

"Captain Jiang, the person is already in the interrogation room. He's still emotionally unstable, so please be careful."

Jiang Bo nodded and led Tangyuan inside.

The interrogation room was dimly lit, casting a pale, bluish light on faces. When Ding Laosan was brought in, Jiang Bo almost didn't recognize him—in just a few days, he had become unrecognizable. His eyes were sunken into dark holes, his cheekbones protruded high, his lips were dry and cracked, and he looked like a walking skeleton. He sat in the chair, his hands twisting incessantly, his knuckles white, and there was blood under his fingernails—he had picked at them himself.

But his eyes were the most strange. There wasn't just fear in them, but also a strange, unfocused light, as if he were looking at something that didn't exist. He kept muttering to himself, in a low voice, like chanting.

Zhang Yuhang sat next to Jiang Bo, a notebook open in front of him. Tangyuan squatted by the door, staring at Ding Laosan, motionless. But Jiang Bo noticed that Tangyuan's fur was standing on end, and it was making low whimpering noises.

Ding Laosan raised his head and glanced at Jiang Bo. Just one glance, then quickly lowered his head again. In that glance, Jiang Bo saw not fear, but something else—was it pleading? Or relief?

"You want to see me?" Jiang Bo asked, his voice flat.

Ding Laosan nodded. The nod was very light, as if a heavy weight was hanging around his neck.

"Speak."

Ding Laosan remained silent for a long time. The only sound in the interrogation room was the buzzing of the fluorescent lights, a sound like countless flies buzzing around his ears. His Adam's apple bobbed, and he opened and closed his mouth several times. His lips moved, as if he were talking to himself.

Jiang Bo didn't urge him, he just watched him. He knew that in this situation, the more anxious he was, the less useful it would be.

After a full five minutes, Ding Laosan finally spoke. His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper scraping against stone, or as if it came from deep underground.

"Ah Zhen wrote a letter before she died."

Jiang Bo gripped the pen tightly.

"She's hiding. I know where."

Jiang Bo's heart skipped a beat, but he remained outwardly calm. He looked into Ding Laosan's eyes, which were filled with fear—not fear of death, but fear of the unknown. Jiang Bo had only ever seen that kind of fear on the faces of one type of person—those who had seen things they shouldn't have seen.

Why are you only saying this now?

Ding Laosan lowered his head, his voice even softer: "Because...she came to see me."

"Who?"

Ding Laosan raised his head, his eyes filled with even deeper fear. His lips trembled, and it took him a long time to manage to utter a single sentence:

"Ah Zhen. She comes every night. She stands by my bedside and looks at me. She holds that notebook in her hand and points to the words on it for me to see. I can't see them clearly, so she leans closer and closer, until her face is touching hers and her mouth is almost touching her mouth—"

He suddenly covered his mouth and began to tremble.

"What did she say?"

Ding Laosan squeezed out a few words through his fingers: "She said...find the letter. Otherwise...she'll come again."

Jiang Bo remained silent for a few seconds.

What was written in that letter?

Ding Laosan shook his head: "I don't know. I really don't know. That night when I pinched her, she took out that notebook from her pocket and wrote a few words by the moonlight. I saw it, but I didn't see it clearly. Later, when I threw her away, the notebook wasn't on her. I thought it had fallen into the river. Now that I think about it, she probably stuffed it into a crack in the wall."

Which crack in the wall?

"The room she lived in. The old pontoon bridge, the third house from the east in the row of houses by the river." Ding Laosan closed his eyes, as if recalling, "There was a crack in the wall, about the width of a thumb, big enough to stuff something in. That's where she usually hid her money."

Jiang Bo stood up.

"Get the car ready, we're going to the old pontoon bridge."

When Ding Laosan was put into the car, it was just dawn. Grayish-white light pierced through the clouds, shining on the river with a cold gleam. He huddled in the back seat, his eyes fixed on the window, watching the streets, buildings, and trees rushing past, his gaze vacant, as if he were looking at something from another world.

Zhang Yuhang sat next to him, listened for a while, and then his expression changed.

"Polish Sir, he's still studying."

"What should I say?"

Zhang Yuhang leaned closer to listen, then looked up: "'I didn't kill her, she made me kill her, she made me kill her...'"

Jiang Bo glanced at Ding Laosan in the rearview mirror. His face looked deathly pale in the morning light, his eyes were rolling, and his mouth was moving constantly, as if he was chewing something.

"Drive faster."

The car drove to the old pontoon bridge demolition area and stopped in front of a pile of ruins. Ding Laosan was forced out of the car and stood there in a daze for a long time. He looked around blankly, as if he was looking for something, or as if he was hiding from something.

Everything has changed. The houses he remembered, the familiar streets and alleys, are gone. All that's left are rubble and a few partially demolished walls. Bulldozers stand in the distance, like sleeping behemoths.

He walked slowly forward, his steps deliberate, as if each step was on a knife's edge. He stopped in front of a house that was mostly collapsed.

"This is it."

It was a dilapidated house, half of the roof collapsed, and the remaining half of the wall stood crookedly. On the wall were New Year pictures from the 1990s, faded and white. In the pictures, a chubby baby was holding a fish, smiling eerily. The baby's face was blurred by the rain, but the smile remained, twisted, eerie, as if mocking something.

Tangyuan sniffed around in the ruins, looking here and there, when suddenly it cried out at a crumbling wall. The cry was urgent and shrill, sounding particularly jarring in the morning silence.

There was a crack in the wall, plugged with bricks. Jiang Bo walked over, squatted down, and took a look. The bricks were stacked neatly, not like a natural collapse, but more like someone had deliberately stuffed them in. The crack was filled with dried grass, but the grass still looked fresh.

"Move it away."

Several police officers stepped forward and moved the bricks down one by one. When they got to the last few bricks, Tangyuan's cries became more urgent, and it frantically pawed at the ground with its paws, as if it couldn't wait any longer.

All the bricks were moved aside, revealing a dark hole. It was pitch black inside; nothing could be seen. A musty, rotten smell wafted out, mixed with the stench of earth.

Jiang Bo shone his flashlight inside.

The beam of light cut into the darkness, illuminating a rusty iron box.

The tin box wasn't big, about the size of a palm, and it was badly rusted. The paint on the surface had peeled off, revealing the mottled rust underneath. But you could tell it was originally a biscuit box, the kind of tin biscuit box that was common in the 80s and 90s, with a peony printed on the lid.

Jiang Bo reached in and took it out.

It was very light. He shook it gently, and something was rolling inside, like a dried-up bean or a broken pencil.

Upon opening the box, the rusted hinges emitted a harsh creaking sound.

Inside was a small, yellowed notebook. It had a plastic cover, was about the size of a palm, and the cover was printed with a few faded, white flowers. The notebook was curled at the edges, damp, and the plastic cover was stuck to the pages inside.

Jiang Bo carefully turned to the first page.

The blue ballpoint pen handwriting is neat and tidy, each stroke written carefully.

"March 1, 1993. My belly was getting bigger and bigger. He said he would come to pick me up and told me to wait. I waited for him."

After flipping through a few pages, the handwriting began to become sloppy:

"March 5, 1993. He still hasn't come. I'm scared."

"March 7, 1993. I saw Xiaomei by the river today. She was standing in the water, waving at me. I wanted to go over, but my belly was too big and I couldn't move."

On the last page, the handwriting was crooked and illegible in places, and some parts were blurred due to water damage. But the words were still legible:

"March 8, 1993. That man came. I saw him. He killed Xiaomei, and now he's coming to kill me. His name is Ding Laosan. He has an accomplice, a policeman surnamed Dong, at the Zhongshan Road Police Station. They said someone is protecting them. If I die, they'll be the ones who kill me. My child, if you see this, get as far away from here as possible. Mom loves you."

Below that is another line of text, even more hastily written, like a struggle before death:

"He's here. I can hear his footsteps."

This concludes my diary entry.

Jiang Bo held the notebook, his hands trembling.

His surname is Dong. He works at the Zhongshan Road Police Station.

A name flashed through his mind—Dong Jianguo, Dong Jianjun's older brother.

Ding Laosan watched from the side, his face ashen. He suddenly knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly, his forehead hitting the ground with loud thuds.

"Officer Jiang, I didn't do it on purpose! Xiao Mei threatened me first, saying she would accuse me of rape! Ah Zhen saw it, and if I didn't kill her, she would tell everyone! I had no choice! That policeman, he's the one who told me to handle this! He said we can't let any survivors live!"

Jiang Bo ignored him. He continued flipping through the notebook, where a note was tucked between the last few pages.

The note was torn from another notebook, its edges uneven. The handwriting on it was different from the diary entries; it was neater, as if it had been written intentionally.

"If you see this, I'm already dead. That man's surname was Dong, and he walked with a slight limp in his right leg. He called Ding Laosan 'Old Ding.' They had known each other for many years. He was there the night Xiaomei died. He stood at the door, watching."

Jiang Bo's hand stopped.

His surname is Dong. He is lame.

He touched the note, and the moment his special skill was triggered, images flooded his mind.

In the dimly lit room, a kerosene lamp flickered on the table. Ah Zhen lay on the floor, Ding Laosan straddled her, his hands gripping her neck. Ah Zhen's face was turning purple, her eyes bulging, and she desperately reached out to grab a notebook, using her last strength to write a few words.

In the corner of the screen, a figure stands at the doorway.

Backlit, his face was obscured. But the man's figure was visible; he was wearing a police uniform, his hat pulled low. He stood there, motionless, watching everything unfold. He was positioned in the shadows, only half his shoulder illuminated by the kerosene lamp—his rank insignia gleaming faintly on his shoulder.

Then he turned and left. As he walked, his right foot dragged on the ground.

The screen disappeared.

Jiang Bo leaned against the wall, his head throbbing with pain. He knew this pain all too well; it felt like a nail was driven into the back of his head and twisting inside. He gritted his teeth, trying to endure it, cold sweat beading on his forehead.

But this time, the pain wasn't just in my head. It was also in my chest. That spot ached faintly.

He touched it subconsciously.

There was nothing there.

But the feeling was like being gently touched by something.

Zhang Yuhang ran over and helped him up: "Officer, are you alright?"

Jiang Bo shook his head and carefully put away the suicide note. He looked at Ding Laosan, who was still kneeling on the ground, trembling all over, with a bruise on his forehead.

"Take him back."

On the way back to the station, Jiang Bo remained silent. He watched the scenery rushing past the window, his mind filled with the image of that limping figure.

Is Dong Jianguo lame? He checked the records, and there's no record of Dong Jianguo being lame. Then who is this person?

The phone rang. It was Liu Tong calling, and she sounded very anxious.

"Officer Bo, Ma Xiuying has been found. She's in a small hotel in Zengcheng, Guangzhou. Our men have her under control. But she refuses to say who that 'acquaintance' is, only saying she wants to see you alone."

Jiang Bo held his phone and remained silent for a few seconds.

"Book a flight. I'll go tomorrow."

He hung up the phone and looked out the window. It was already broad daylight, and sunlight shone on the river, shattering into countless pieces of gold. But his heart remained ice-cold.

That limping figure was like a thorn stuck in his mind.

Tangyuan lay at his feet, raised her head, looked at him, and let out a low whimper.

There was a kind of indescribable sadness in that sob.

Jiang Bo patted its head.

"fine."

When he said he was fine, he was saying it to Tangyuan, but also to himself.

But is everything really alright?

he does not know.

Outside the window, the river flows silently.