Closing the Case

The early morning roads were nearly deserted. Occasionally, a night-shift car would streak past, the sound of tearing air piercing the silence of the asphalt.

A black sedan glided into an underground parking garage. As it hit a slight bump at the entrance, the passenger in the front seat stirred from sleep. Her thin eyelids fluttered open, taking a few seconds to realize where she was. The car pulled into a private garage bay with professional precision—no sudden jerk of the brakes, just a smooth transition into stillness.

Liu Huisheng rubbed her weary eyes, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Captain Zhao has impressive driving skills.”

Zhao Yu cut the engine. “After driving for so many years, it’s just basic muscle memory.”

“Mhm, not bad. I’m planning to buy a car next month. I’ll need you to give me some advice then?”

“Sure.”

“It’s late.” Liu Huisheng shot her a sideways glance. Zhao Yu was still gripping the steering wheel, her seatbelt still buckled, looking as though she intended to sit in the dark for a while. Huisheng unclicked her own belt. “I’ll head up first. Take your time.”

Click.

Just as she unlatched the door, Zhao Yu’s voice came from behind her:

“What happened to Xue Yu?”

The question came out rushed, as if it had been bottled up for far too long—an impulsive yet cautious burst of bottled-up tension.

Xue Yu. The name that had turned the first half of Liu Huisheng’s life into a thicket of thorns.

Huisheng’s hand on the door froze. For a brief second, the delicate bones on the back of her hand protruded. She pushed the door open, her voice sounding hollow in the cavernous garage, easily swept away by the draft.

“Dead,” she said.

***************************

The next morning, Liu Huisheng was her usual composed self, as if the previous night’s exchange had never occurred. Zhao Yu cooperated, playing the role of the diligent Captain, leading Jiang Feng to the scene of the crime for identification.

Identifying the scene is a critical part of the process. The suspect must reconstruct the crime—where they hid, where they started the fire, how much gasoline they used.

It was a sweltering day. The gates of Greenlight Kindergarten were swamped with people: grieving parents, furious neighbors, and onlookers packed wall-to-wall down the entire street.

“Murderer! Animal! How could you touch such small children? Are you even human?”

“Execution is too good for you!”

“Give me back my son!”

“Go to hell! Rot in hell!”

The air was thick with curses, flying objects, and the flashes of cameras. Zhao Yu and the Major Crimes Unit formed a human wall, coordinated with two other squads just to get Jiang Feng through the gates.

Meanwhile, Liu Huisheng didn’t go to the scene. She went back to the tube building. Her luggage was still at Ba-mei’s place.

She arrived in the afternoon, knowing that was when Ba-mei usually woke up. But when she opened the door with her key, her suitcase was already packed and standing neatly by the door.

“You’re back.”

In the dim, cramped space, Ba-mei’s voice drifted from the corner of the peeling wall. The room was a stifling oven; an old electric fan rattled, merely circulating the hot air. Ba-mei sat there, one leg tucked onto her wooden stool, clutching a bottle of ice-cold beer while leaning haphazardly against the wall.

“I packed your things. Check if I missed anything.”

Ba-mei hadn’t been at the building during the raid. She had been out all day and night. Theoretically, she shouldn’t have known Huisheng was a cop.

Huisheng closed the door and flipped the light. “Why?” she asked.

Ba-mei let out a self-deprecating chuckle and took a swig of beer.

“I knew from the first day you weren’t one of us. Your eyes were wrong.”

“How so?”

“I told you, you don’t have the look.” She paused. “That look of having no interest in life, no hope for the future… like a bug in a gutter just living one day to the next. You don’t have that.”

A gap in the drawn curtains cast a triangle of light across Ba-mei. The light slashed across her neck and shoulder, looking like a beggar’s rag or a starlet’s evening gown—beautiful yet ruined, a jarring contrast.

Liu Huisheng watched her for a long time. “Was it you at the door the other day? Eavesdropping on my phone call?”

Ba-mei blinked. “Phone call?”

A micro-expression lasting a quarter of a second doesn’t lie. Ba-mei’s eyebrows shot up and her eyes widened in genuine confusion.

It wasn’t her.

Liu Huisheng withdrew the suspicion. “Alright. Not you.”

Ba-mei ignored the remark. “I don’t care what you do—whether you’re a cop playing dress-up or just testing the waters. Just stay on the right path. Don’t think about doing this for a living. You stay too long, you can’t get out.”

The tone of self-loathing stung Huisheng. She saw Ba-mei as a soul halfway submerged in a swamp, desperately clutching a single straw of hope. She took a step forward.

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“You can get out right now.”

“Are you joking?”

“You said it yourself the other night. Once you saved enough money, you’d open a small shop and live a quiet life.”

Ba-mei had mentioned she only needed another 20,000 yuan to reach her goal.

“Twenty thousand,” Ba-mei whispered the number, looking deep into Huisheng’s eyes. Her lips trembled. “That’s a hundred ‘clients.’”

She closed her eyes, and a single tear traced a path like a falling star down her cheek. She wiped it away roughly and forced a bitter smile.

“People like us… we’re doing well if we don’t cause trouble for the country. Your things are ready. Take them and go. Don’t ever see me again.”

Ba-mei was a soul in the gutter, but unlike those who wish for others to fall into the mud with them, she wished for those walking by to reach the heights she never could. Deep in the hollows, her spirit remained noble.

Two evenings later, Liu Huisheng reappeared at Ba-mei’s door. This time, she carried a certificate and an envelope.

“Jiang Feng was the arsonist. I’m sure you’ve heard by now,” Huisheng said, handing her the items. “The information you provided was crucial in catching him. I applied for a ‘Good Citizen’ award for you. It’s exactly 20,000 yuan.”

Ba-mei clutched the envelope, tentatively opening the certificate. She only recognized a few words, including her own name.

“Who… who are you?”

Liu Huisheng didn’t explain.

“It doesn’t matter who I am. Just know that this money is enough to open that shop in Wengcheng. And…” she paused, emphasizing her words, “you are not ‘trouble’ for this country.”

**********************************

“Officer Liu, done with work and starting a charity business?”

Zhao Yu was leaning against her car, wearing a black ribbed tank top and dark green cargo pants. Her arm was propped against the roof, showing lean muscle.

Caught in the act, Huisheng wasn’t annoyed. She teased back, “Captain Zhao has started stalking people now?”

Zhao Yu unscrewed a water bottle. “Just on a mission.”

Huisheng stood by the passenger door. “Oh? Is that so?”

Zhao Yu put the water away. “Thought you were buying a car. Why the sudden philanthropy?”

If Ba-mei had any legal knowledge, she would have noticed the certificate lacked an official seal and the header for the “Wengcheng Public Security Bureau” was blank. The money had come from Liu Huisheng’s personal savings.

Huisheng smiled, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “The car can wait. Some ways of spending money are more meaningful than a vehicle.”

Zhao Yu nodded thoughtfully. “True.”

“Well, Captain, can I catch a ride home?”

“After I finish my mission.”

“You really have a mission?”

“You think I followed you here?”

“Didn’t you?”

As they spoke, Huisheng’s eyes darted to the side. A nondescript figure in the distance suddenly froze like a startled animal and bolted into an alleyway.

Crack.

The phantom pain in Huisheng’s neck returned. Memory flashed back to two days ago—the uninvited guest at her window.

“Stop!”

Targeting the retreating black-clad figure, Liu Huisheng sprinted after them.

“Liu Huisheng!”

Zhao Yu, unaware of the history, gave chase right behind her.