Chapter 7: The Hidden AIDS Patient (5/5)

After reading it, Zheng Huiwen asked, "Officer He, is there a backup of the surveillance footage from around the crime scene?"

"Yes, on my computer. Let me find it for you." He Shaobin got up and came over to Zheng Huiwen's side, searching through the tens of thousands of files on his computer. He found it quickly—all the surveillance footage from the day of the incident had been compiled together. The footage showed the following:

After leaving her dorm, Dong Qian had been looking at her phone the whole way, passing by the library, the sports field, the boys' dormitory, the storage building, the electrical room, and finally the woods behind the hill, at 18:02 in the evening.

Before Dong Qian went in, at 17:38, Ren Jie had already walked into the woods behind the hill.

At 18:17, another boy went in. Investigation showed this person was not a student at the school.

At 18:43, the sky had already gone dark, and Ren Jie walked out, his steps quick.

At 19:20, the sky was completely dark, and a figure dressed entirely in black walked in.

At 19:36, a figure walked out, moving quickly. This happened to be the time when large numbers of students were leaving class and heading back to their dorms, and the figure quickly disappeared into the crowd. He couldn't be found in any of the later footage.

At 20:04, a figure ran out, looking panicked, stumbling as he ran, all the way out of the school.

There wasn't much in the surveillance footage. After watching it, Zheng Huiwen said, "I can recognize Ren Jie, but I can't identify the other two—especially the one who went in after it got completely dark. I think that one is the most suspicious. Do you know who it is?"

"We don't know yet either," He Shaobin shrugged. "But Ren Jie and these two people all went to the scene on the day of the incident, so they're all suspects."

"Ren Jie mentioned in his statement that Ren Jingting is his sister. Have you done a paternity test on them?"

"Not yet. The chief thinks whether or not they're siblings has little bearing on whether the case can be solved."

"That's a pretty weak excuse," Zheng Huiwen smiled. "Is that the chief's thinking, or is it yours too, Officer He?"

"I think—it's a bit hard to believe, isn't it? Why would siblings pretend to be a couple? Could it be... to shake off someone who was pestering them? After all, I have to say that Ren Jie is quite the flashy dresser."

"That has nothing to do with how he dresses. Try putting yourself in Ren Jie's shoes: both parents dead since childhood, growing up dependent on others, finally finding his birth sister after so long, but not daring to openly acknowledge her—why would that be?"

"You mean Ren Jie can't openly acknowledge his sister?"

"Exactly. If Ren Jingting hadn't said it herself, I never would have known that Ren Jie's girlfriend was actually his own sister. The last time I encountered something this incestuous was in *Thunderstorm*. Officer He, have you read *Thunderstorm*? Cao Yu's play."

"I have. I remember Zhou Ping and Lu Sifeng were half-siblings from the same mother but different fathers, who fell in love without knowing it, and she even got pregnant. But that was because thirty years earlier, Zhou Ping's father had abandoned Zhou Ping's mother, and thirty years later this tragedy happened. Are you saying Ren Jie and his sister can't publicly acknowledge each other because of something from the previous generation?"

"Something like that. I think they must be under some kind of threat—otherwise why would perfectly ordinary siblings pretend to be a couple? They themselves would surely feel it was incestuous."

He Shaobin seemed to catch on a little, and asked, "Do you know something?"

"I'm not the only one who knows. My friend knows too. Do you remember that fifteen years ago, in the same woods behind the hill at Jiangzhu University, the body of the university's first president was discovered?"

"I remember. I was a teenager then, saw it on the TV news. Does that have something to do with them?"

"Jiangzhu University's first president was named Ren Jiahua—he was Ren Jie and Ren Jingting's father. But after their parents died, the two siblings became separated. And the current president of Jiangzhu University has no blood relation to them at all. Don't you think there's a lot of suspicious circumstances here?"

"That may be, but Ren Jiahua clearly committed suicide."

"Do you know why he committed suicide? People don't just suddenly kill themselves for no reason."

"I don't remember that clearly either. He left a suicide note—do you want me to show it to you?"

"Not right now. Actually, I just want you to think about whether there might be more to this story."

He Shaobin didn't answer right away. His brow furrowed slightly, and after thinking for a moment he said, "Then, following procedure, I'll arrange for a paternity test for Ren Jie and his sister tomorrow, and get their birth certificates while I'm at it."

"Good, will you bring me along?"

"Of course, but you'll need to bring Ren Jie's sister along too."

"All right."

Before they knew it, it was past nine o'clock. Zheng Huiwen and Tang Haoyang got into the car together again, and He Shaobin drove them straight to the school gate. After getting out and saying goodbye to He Shaobin, the two of them walked back toward their dorms.

"Huiwen, what did Officer He say to you?"

"He said that without official police authorization, he can't disclose the progress of the investigation to anyone." After saying this, Zheng Huiwen even gave him a smile.

"I see." Tang Haoyang didn't ask any more questions, but he couldn't help glancing at Zheng Huiwen now and then. He had to admit that this stealing of glances felt like a kind of staring. When there were many people around, he could temporarily push this fondness to the back of his mind and speak to Zheng Huiwen naturally and openly. But in situations where it was just the two of them alone, he couldn't be natural at all. When Zheng Huiwen was the only person before his eyes, this feeling was something he could neither forget nor cast off—it was a painful thing. Perhaps Zheng Huiwen could sense this feeling of his, but she would never know how deep it ran. Affection like this simply couldn't be hidden, nor could it be extinguished. He had read *Phoenix Seeks Its Mate* closely, and dared not compare himself to Sima Xiangru, yet in his eyes, the one in his heart was just like Zhuo Wenjun—moth-eyebrows and starry eyes, radiant with every glance, a beautiful, virtuous woman in her chamber; though her room was near, she herself felt distant, and it poisoned his heart with longing.

He raised his head to look at the gray, hazy night sky. There were no stars, only a crescent moon, and he said, "Huiwen, do you remember *Spring River Flower Moon Night*?"

"Of course I remember. Which lines do you mean?"

"Who by the riverbank first saw the moon? In which year did the river moon first shine upon a person?"

Zheng Huiwen continued with the next two lines: "Generation after generation, human life goes on without end; year after year, the river moon remains just the same. Why did you suddenly think of that? *Spring River Flower Moon Night* is supposed to describe a full moon, isn't it? Tonight it's a crescent moon."

"It's nothing," Tang Haoyang said, as if lost in thought. "I was just thinking, the moon's lifespan is so much longer than a person's. And yet the moon itself is only full for a few days at a time—how much more so for a person?"

"Actually, you could think of it more optimistically. Scientifically speaking, the moon is always round—it just doesn't emit its own light, only reflects it. The amount of sunlight it reflects to Earth varies from day to day, which is why people perceive it as waxing and waning, cloudy and clear. People simply can't see its wholeness, and so instead they call it incomplete. I think anyone who defines the moon that way has a rather narrow view."

Tang Haoyang had nothing to say to that. Zheng Huiwen always spoke with gentleness edged with sharpness, always able to say the most incisive things in the calmest way. He looked at the girl's profile and said, calm yet admiring, "Your way of thinking is always so remarkable."

"Not really. Just the basic debating skills of a law student. A frog in a well cannot be spoken to of the sea, for it is confined by its space; a summer insect cannot be spoken to of ice, for it is bound by its season."

Listening to her confident words, Tang Haoyang couldn't help but smile. The frost goddess and the moon maiden both endure the cold, vying for beauty amid moonlight and frost. The one in his heart, even beneath this dim, crescent-moon light, was just as fair and graceful, unforgettable to him.