Chapter 1

The first weekend of September, it finally rained heavily at night.

In the morning, Yan Dongcheng opened the balcony screen door, and the damp, cool wind blew straight at him. As usual, he picked up the watering can and watered the flowers.

Several pots of gardenias were watered every day, growing lushly and vigorously, with thick branches and sturdy leaves, as if they were green foliage plants.

Once, much like this scene, his ex-wife picked up her phone and took a photo of Yan Dongcheng. In the photo, his handsome side profile looked focused, the flower branches partly obscuring him. He appeared extremely literary, like an elegant and refined weak scholar.

However, he was the captain of the criminal investigation team at the municipal bureau. His daily work was handling all kinds of strange and bizarre cases. He had gone deep into danger countless times and personally captured criminals.

A sharp single-tone ringtone came from the living room. Yan Dongcheng put down the watering can and quickly walked to the coffee table to answer the phone.

"Yan Team," Wang Rui's voice came from the other end of the phone, "A body has been found in the Que Ming Mountain forest..."

"I'll be there right away!"

Yan Dongcheng did not ask further. He had just wrapped up a serial case, and this week he should have been on leave. If it were not something urgent, the bureau would not have looked for him at this time.

He put on a gray parka over his shirt. Even now, he still kept the habit he had formed back in school, of getting himself neatly dressed and taking only the necessities before going out. It only took a few dozen seconds.

The sun was bright, the streets were wet, and the reflections on the ground shone dazzlingly. Yan Dongcheng held the steering wheel and, without realizing it, narrowed his eyes.

The green, continuous mountain on the horizon was Que Ming Mountain. It looked close at hand, but driving to the foot of the mountain still took more than half an hour.

After going over the mountain top and into the valley, he saw a collapsed mountain hollow in the distance, and several police cars were parked in the low-lying area. Yan Dongcheng slowed down, parked by the roadside on the side close to the mountain, got out of the car, and walked toward the roadside stall selling breakfast.

The stall was doing good business, and several small stools were already occupied.

"Sir, would you like a bowl of pea jelly?" the woman running the stall called to Yan Dongcheng.

"Mm, give me a bowl."

The boss lady cut the jelly and put it into a bowl, sprinkled on all sorts of seasonings, and briskly picked up the long-handled ladle to stir the pea paste simmering on the fire as it bubbled.

She scooped up a ladleful of pea paste and poured it into the bowl, then looked up at Yan Dongcheng. "Cilantro?"

"Yes."

The finely chopped cilantro was fresh and tender green, scattered over the pale yellow pea jelly, giving off an enticing food fragrance.

"Chili and soy sauce are both here. Add whatever else you want yourself." The boss lady handed the large celadon bowl to Yan Dongcheng and pointed to the bottles and jars on the wooden counter.

Yan Dongcheng took the scalding bowl and sat down on an empty square stool nearby.

"Auntie, business is good!" A farm woman on a bicycle braked to a stop on tiptoe and greeted the boss lady.

"Alas, I thought there would be no business today, but it's not bad."

"Last night the rain was really heavy, and over there there was a landslide... I was just planning to go see the excitement, but the police came and cordoned it off, saying no one was allowed to look!"

"What's so good about that? You're bold, but if I saw it, I’d probably have nightmares tonight!"

"Auntie, you heard about it too? This morning Old Sun and his son from Lower Street passed by there, and saw a white bone hand sticking out of the dirt..."

"Good heavens, just hearing that makes the hair on my back stand up!"

"Old Sun's son was the bravest of all. He picked up a pair of black leather shoes beside the white bones and even took them home to wear himself, saying they fit perfectly!"

"Oh my, that's asking for trouble, wearing a dead man's shoes..."

Yan Dongcheng finished every last bite of the bowl of pea jelly. He put the bowl and chopsticks into the bamboo basket for washing and nodded at the boss lady.

"Take care!"
"......"

Yan Dongcheng started the car and headed straight for the mountain hollow where the landslide had occurred.

"Yan Team!" Wang Rui spotted Yan Dongcheng's car at a glance and ducked under the cordon to come over.

Wang Rui was wearing a crisp police uniform, with a high nose bridge and phoenix eyes, and a tall, straight build. When he first came to the police team for an internship, the auntie in the cafeteria who served the food always liked to joke that he was a star here to experience life in the police team.

"Wang Rui," Yan Dongcheng got out of the car and closed the door behind him, "Is the informant here?"

"The report was filed by two villagers surnamed Sun. They were passing by here this morning, saw the bones, and called the police. Their statements have already been taken, and they've gone home."

"The Sun father and son found a pair of black leather shoes at the scene, they may be the dead man's shoes."

"Black leather shoes? They didn't mention that just now. I'll go find them right away!"

Wang Rui turned and left without hesitation. He had long since become used to Yan Dongcheng's style. This criminal investigation captain always had unexpectedly useful sources of information.

Yan Dongcheng greeted the officers he knew and entered the cordoned-off area.

The slope in front of him was about ten meters high. At the landslide site, a patch of red soil was exposed. Dense plants grew above the slope, and the wall of a residential area was faintly visible behind the bushes and grass.

The ground showed traces of being dug with a shovel. The body had probably been buried in the dirt and had just been dug out.

Forensic doctor Ning Yuan was examining the body. Yan Dongcheng walked closer. This body had been buried for at least a year and was already beyond recognition.

Yan Dongcheng glanced at Ning Yuan. The young female forensic doctor was focused on her work and was not frightened by the horrific sight.

Ning Yuan was not yet thirty, and she had been working as a forensic doctor for several years. She had handled countless similar scenes on her own.

"Yan Team," Ning Yuan said through her protective mask, her voice muffled, "it may be carbon monoxide poisoning. The time of death is about a year and a half ago. This is only my personal judgment. It still needs to be confirmed by testing. The result will be out tomorrow."

Yan Dongcheng examined the dead man. He was about 1.82 meters tall, between thirty-five and thirty-eight years old, with a solid, lean build. The clothes on him had already decomposed, and their color was impossible to make out.

"Yan Team, the shoes have been brought over." In Wang Rui's rubber-gloved hand was a transparent sealed bag, and inside it was a pair of clean black leather shoes.

"Were the shoes wiped clean?" Yan Dongcheng frowned slightly as he took the sealed bag.

"The Sun son cleaned the mud off the shoes, wiped them inside and out until they were spotless, and has already put them on his feet."

Yan Dongcheng's brow suddenly shot up. Crocodile-pattern patent leather shoes, with a striking gold buckle on the front side of the tongue...

"Bai Yong?" he blurted out.

"Yan Team, do you know him?"

"A missing persons case from last year. The person had traveled to Hokkaido and disappeared there."

"This person?" Wang Rui looked at Yan Dongcheng in surprise.

"Tell the DNA identification team to compare the DNA of this body with Bai Yong's DNA."

Last year during Spring Festival, Yan Dongcheng was on duty. On the evening of the fourth day of the first lunar month, the community police station received a report from a woman, saying that her husband had gone abroad on a trip and was missing.

The police station called the municipal bureau to report it, and the municipal bureau duty room transferred the call to the criminal investigation detachment. Yan Dongcheng, who was on duty for the New Year holiday, just happened to answer the call, and immediately asked the police to bring the woman over.

Yan Dongcheng clearly remembered that the young, thin wife was wearing a wool cape with embroidered lace, and her thick-soled high-heeled leather boots clicked loudly against the floor of the criminal investigation office.

Her husband should have been over 1.8 meters tall, Yan Dongcheng habitually inferred.

The wife, around twenty-five or twenty-six years old, was no more than 1.57 meters tall barefoot, and wore a pair of ten-centimeter high-heeled ankle boots.

Outside, a light sleet was falling. Her thick-soled shoes left a string of muddy prints on the light-colored floor tiles. Yan Dongcheng was a little worried that she might slip, but she herself did not mind.

She should have been accustomed to wearing thick-soled full high heels, and while walking, she made every effort to straighten her body and make herself look taller, so that she would match her tall husband.

"Your husband, Bai Yong, traveled alone during the Spring Festival?" Yan Dongcheng poured a cup of hot water and placed it in front of her.

"Yes," Sun Yiyi said awkwardly, slightly bowing her body, her fingers combing through the straight bangs on her forehead, "Our son is only four years old. There's no way he could go to such a cold place as Hokkaido, right..."

"Why did he go to Hokkaido?"

"My husband, he's an artist, so he likes doing unusual things."

"What is your husband's profession?"

"Singer, host, and also a performance agent." Sun Yiyi lowered her eyelids, and a thin layer of powder had gathered on her pale double eyelids.

"Does your husband often travel alone?"

"No. Sometimes he takes the performance troupe out for shows, but he doesn't go very far, basically only within the province."

"Excuse my impertinence, how did the two of you meet?"

"I used to do accounting at a company. In my free time, I liked dancing, so I joined a belly dance troupe. I met my husband at a performance."
"......"

At the time, Yan Dongcheng asked very carefully, and later he also went to visit Sun Yiyi.

Yan Dongcheng had seen some photos and videos of Bai Yong while he was alive. Among the recent footage, Bai Yong was wearing the same pair of shoes, the black leather shoes with a crocodile pattern and a gold buckle.

If it were not for these shoes, the body lying in the mountain hollow now would have been hard to connect with the smiling man in the photos, who was dressed brightly and looked cheerful.

A cool, damp wind blew through the mountains, and the treetops rustled. Yan Dongcheng pulled his collar together.

After Wang Rui finished calling the DNA identification team from the forensic department, he quickly walked over.

"Yan Team, the Bai Yong disappearance case you mentioned, I remember it now! Last year we verified Bai Yong's departure records, and there was also boarding information. He really went to Hokkaido."

"Right, he never came back." Yan Dongcheng looked at the body on the ground.

Last year, the criminal investigation detachment had contacted the Hokkaido police many times and confirmed that Bai Yong had checked into a local hotel at the scheduled time, gone out alone to sightsee the next day, and never returned to the hotel.

At the time, the Hokkaido police inferred that Bai Yong may have accidentally fallen into an icy lake.

A year and a half had passed since the disappearance, and the family had also accepted the inference of an accidental death in Hokkaido. Who could have imagined that the missing person's body would now appear in the city?