Chapter 6

“Oh,” Vivian stuck out her tongue, straightened up and pretended to wipe the table, then said loudly to Wang Rui, “The fat guy by the bar is our boss. I’m going to get busy now. You can drink slowly, if you need anything, call me.”

The bar owner, Fan Mingyuan, was leaning lazily against the bar, puffing away on a wooden pipe.

He had also changed out of the black clothes he had worn to the funeral that morning. Now he was wearing a thick-striped suit. A tea-colored bow tie was tied around his short, thick neck, making him look even shorter and fatter.

His style of dress and his manner were very much in keeping with the bar’s nostalgic theme.

Fan Mingyuan wore a smile and nodded from afar in the direction of Yan Dongcheng and Wang Rui. It was impossible to tell whether he recognized them from the funeral, or was simply naturally familiar and treated every customer in the bar as an acquaintance.

Several singers came onstage one after another. Each sang three or four songs, imitating the format of a celebrity concert, combining singing and dancing.

The audience reacted enthusiastically. Many people clapped along and sang loudly, while some even stood up and moved with the beat.

Yan Dongcheng and Wang Rui drank half a pitcher of beer, and left before the performance ended.

After going downstairs and out into the open, the mall square was empty. When they reached the roadside, they could still faintly hear music drifting from the bar on the second floor.

The two stood by the street waiting for a taxi, when Vivian’s voice suddenly came from behind them.

“Hey, you’re leaving already?”

“It’s not early,” Wang Rui said awkwardly as he turned around. “We’re heading back first.”

“Well, you’ve got my phone number now,” Vivian said coquettishly, hooking her arm around Wang Rui’s and saying, “Remember to call me!”

“The car’s here,” Wang Rui said, pointing at the taxi driving over and gently freeing his hand from hers. “Thank you, Vivian, goodbye!”

Yan Dongcheng and Wang Rui got into the taxi one after the other. Wang Rui opened the window and looked out at the night with his cheeks flushed red.

Yan Dongcheng quietly shook his head. Situations like this, Wang Rui should have experienced quite a few already. No matter where he went, there were always enthusiastic girls circling around him.

But Wang Rui was still shy, and often felt guilty toward those girls who liked him unrequitedly.

The whole way they remained silent, and the taxi stopped at the entrance to the neighborhood where Yan Dongcheng lived.

“Wang Rui,” Yan Dongcheng said as he got out of the car, “I’ll give you half a day off tomorrow.”

“Why give me time off, I’m not even drunk!” Wang Rui protested, red-faced.

“Goodbye. Go back and get some rest early.”

Yan Dongcheng smiled and quickly walked into the neighborhood. The night was deep, and the leaves rustled, accompanying his footsteps.

When he went upstairs and opened the door, he saw the shopping bag full of food on the dining table at a glance. His mother, Peng Juan, had come by again!

Ever since Yan Dongcheng’s divorce at the start of the year, his mother, who lived in the south of the city, had often been sending food over, worried that he would go hungry.

Yan Dongcheng rarely had time to eat at home, and he repeatedly told his mother not to bring things over, but she insisted all the same.

He opened the fridge and put the two lunch boxes of braised pork inside. As for the fruit and desserts, he spread them out on the dining table, reminding himself to remember to eat them, so that he would not forget like he had the previous few times and let everything spoil in the end.

His ex-wife, who was a doctor, often worked overtime. The married couple ate separately at their own workplaces all year round, and rarely cooked at home. After the divorce, at least in terms of daily life, Yan Dongcheng did not have much trouble adjusting.

On Monday morning, Yan Dongcheng made himself a generous breakfast, ham sandwiches, orange and papaya salad, and boiled eggs. He sat at the dining table and calmly finished breakfast, then watered the flowers on the balcony and trimmed away the withered branches and yellow leaves before leaving.

When he arrived at the bureau, he was still the first one there.

In the morning briefing, the Hokkaido special case team held its usual meeting. Everyone reported their investigation progress and freely offered their views on the case.

Most members of the special case team believed that Sun Yiyi and the bar owner Fan Mingyuan were major suspects in the Bai Yong case, and that Old Liu also had many suspicious points.

“There’s also one more person related to Bai Yong and Old Liu,” Yan Dongcheng said. “We need to do a routine check.”

“Bian Ranxin?” Wang Rui asked.

“We’ll go over there later,” Yan Dongcheng nodded.

After the meeting, Yan Dongcheng and Wang Rui left the police bureau and drove toward the city center.

The autumn weather was crisp and pleasant. Wang Rui held the steering wheel, humming softly.

His short hair at the temples was trimmed neatly, and he wore an off-white jacket and gray-beige casual pants, looking very fresh and clean. He was a little obsessive about cleanliness, and the clothes he wore to the bar were thrown into the washing machine as soon as he got home.

Yan Dongcheng sat in the front passenger seat, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.

In front of the windshield, several withered yellow plane-tree leaves fluttered up and down. One of them suddenly caught in the gap of the wiper, trembling with a rustling sound, like a dead leaf butterfly caught in the mouth of a predator.

Every change of season is not as easy as people imagine.

For example, from the end of this summer into early autumn, there had been no telling how many rainstorms. The temperature kept dropping and rising again, over and over for nearly a month, and only now did the signs of autumn finally become obvious.

Wang Rui, who had been humming softly the whole way, suddenly sang out loud.

I cannot sleep night after night,
Piecing together the fragments of your crying.
Flying geese, passing years,
You said we would never see each other again.
Who loves to hear autumn cicadas, and also hates autumn cicadas...

“Huh, your memory is that good?” Yan Dongcheng said in surprise. Wang Rui was singing Bai Yong’s song.

“I listened to it a few more times afterward. This song is actually written pretty well.”

“Mm.” Yan Dongcheng nodded. “Especially the lyrics. Since Bai Yong was so talented, why didn’t he leave behind any other songs? Or even just lyrics, little poems, things like that?”

“I thought that was strange too. Someone who writes lyrics like this should at least be a literature lover, right? But there wasn’t even a single book in Bai Yong’s home.”

“The temperament doesn’t fit. I never saw Bai Yong himself, but looking at his wife, she clearly didn’t match this song. You can tell that Sun Yiyi herself didn’t like this song either.”

“Maybe, as a woman’s intuition, Sun Yiyi sensed that the emotions in this song were something she could never reach, so she instinctively rejected it?”

While they were talking, the car drove into the underground parking lot of Lideng Tower.

This building was the tallest office tower in the city center. The parking lot had a large capacity, and there were many cars. Wang Rui drove around once, then went down to the second underground level before finding a parking space.

The two took the high-speed elevator to the fifty-eighth floor. After getting out of the elevator, Yan Dongcheng looked at his watch. It was exactly ten o’clock.

The metal plaque of Bian Ranxin’s clothing design company was quite distinctive. The company name was placed in the upper right corner of the plaque, leaving a large blank space, with an abstract rectangular pattern in the center.

“Good morning! May I ask if the two of you are here to see someone?” the female receptionist greeted them with a smile.

“We’re here to see Miss Bian Ranxin.”

“Do you have an appointment? Miss Bian does not see media personnel. Please make an appointment one month in advance.”

“We’re not media. We just want to discuss something with Miss Bian.”

“Miss Bian is very busy during work hours. For private matters, please contact her assistant after work.”

“Police.” Wang Rui showed his badge.

“One of Miss Bian’s classmates had an accident. We’d like to ask about some details,” Yan Dongcheng explained.

“Please wait a moment.” No longer making excuses, the female receptionist picked up the phone, was about to dial, then put it down again and quickly walked down the corridor.

Not long after, she came back and nodded to Yan Dongcheng and Wang Rui. “Please follow me.”

After all, this was a fashion design company. Once they stepped through the company doors, it was like entering a gorgeous painted world. The relief-patterned floral tiles on the walls, and the green plants and roses placed in the hallway, all revealed an aesthetic style.

Several company employees came toward them, dressed in distinctive, fashionable clothes, like the men and women in street snaps from fashion week.

Bian Ranxin’s office was at the end of the corridor, with the double doors open. The part of the office by the window had a suspended transparent glass floor, forming a single whole with the full-length windows.

At first glance, when they walked into the office, Bian Ranxin by the floor-to-ceiling windows seemed to be standing among the blue sky and white clouds of early autumn.

Wang Rui’s heart suddenly rose into his throat. He even felt a little worried for the woman standing in the clouds and mist, afraid that if she lifted her foot, she would fall into the blue sky.

“Miss Bian, these two are police...”

“The two of you, please sit.” Bian Ranxin turned around, her voice so perfect it seemed unreal, as if it were coming from a television.

Yan Dongcheng sat on the sofa arranged in a circle in the middle of the office.

Wang Rui stood there dumbly, not moving. Yan Dongcheng coughed once, and Wang Rui seemed to wake from a dream. He widened his eyes and blinked, then strode over to Yan Dongcheng and sat down beside him.

He half-clasped his hands in front of his knees, sat up straight, and avoided looking at Bian Ranxin.

Yan Dongcheng silently studied Bian Ranxin.

If not for her height of only one meter sixty-five, anyone who saw her would think of a fashion model.

Compared with her company employees, Bian Ranxin’s own clothes were fairly ordinary, a mist-blue skirt and a white satin blouse with a pointed collar and a half-stand collar. But she carried an aura that could not be underestimated.

She was Bai Yong’s classmate, and her age should be about the same as Bai Yong’s, around thirty-five or thirty-six.

With Yan Dongcheng’s rich experience in reading people and his keen insight, he could accurately judge the ages of all kinds of people. But for Bian Ranxin in front of him, from appearance alone, Yan Dongcheng felt she could not be over thirty.

The tall, slender female assistant brought over coffee and hot tea.

There was a fluffy white waist cushion on Bian Ranxin’s single-seater sofa, embroidered with raised white shallow-grass patterns.

She sat down on the sofa, looking at Yan Dongcheng curiously, then at Wang Rui.

Wang Rui lowered his eyes and stared at the floor.

“My surname is Yan, Yan Dongcheng. This is Wang Rui. We’re from the municipal bureau criminal investigation detachment,” Yan Dongcheng introduced himself.

“Hello. May I ask what you need from me?”

“Miss Bian, you and Bai Yong were classmates, right?”

“The Bai Yong who sang?” Bian Ranxin smiled. “We were high school classmates, at Hubein No. 2 High School.”

“Bai Yong disappeared a year and a half ago.”

“I didn’t have much contact with Bai Yong, so I don’t know him very well. But people who do art, like me, mostly like an unusual life.”

“When was the last time you saw Bai Yong?”

“The college entrance examination?” Bian Ranxin tilted her head. “After graduation, I never saw him again.”

“Didn’t you classmates have gatherings after graduation? If someone got married, wouldn’t they also invite classmates to attend?”

“Mm, maybe. But I went away to university, and after graduation I came back and started my own business, so I was always very busy and never managed to keep in touch with my classmates.”

She sat in the chair with her back straight, almost leaning against it but not quite, her calves crossed and drawn inward, her hands placed casually on her lap. Her posture was not stiff at all, yet it somehow seemed as if there was a camera in front of her at all times, recording every smile and every frown.

Yan Dongcheng’s intuition told him that she was deliberately maintaining her image, every detail polished to perfection.

As for whether she was keeping her nerves taut to maintain this state, or whether she had persisted for so many years that it had already become second nature, Yan Dongcheng could not yet judge.