Reunion (3)

The woman who turned herself in was named Hu Fang, 48 years old, a rural laborer.

She wore a faded white floral shirt over black synthetic trousers; her hands were a lattice of deep wrinkles, with black soil from years of labor embedded under her fingernails.

As Zhao Yu and another officer sat across from her, she began to recount her crime, her face masked in a layer of profound guilt.

“This morning, before dawn, I went to harvest rice.

It’s been too hot lately, so I head to the fields as soon as it’s light, work until noon, and go back to cook for the kids.

On the way, I ran into Uncle Zhang and his wife.

They came to ask for the land lease fee again, but my family already paid that 28,000 to the village chief—their son—last year.

Since we didn’t have a written receipt, they refused to acknowledge it.

I didn’t have the money, so they started cursing me. Things got heated, and then… it turned physical.

I didn’t mean to kill them.

But they kept grabbing me, so I gave the auntie a push, and she fell off the embankment.

Uncle Zhang came at me, and I was scared, so I picked up a beer bottle by the road and hit him…”

When Liu Huisheng entered, Hu Fang was curled into her chair, head bowed and shoulders slumped, her hands clenched beneath the table, not daring to look at anyone.

She closed the door silently, meeting the questioning gazes of Zhao Yu and the other officer.

“Captain Zhao, sorry to interrupt. I have a document here she needs to sign.”

Hu Fang looked up timidly. “What document? I don’t know how to write.”

Liu Huisheng replied, “A confirmation of your surrender. If you can’t write well, can you at least sign your name?”

Hu Fang hesitated for a moment before nodding. “I can.”

Across the table, the officer responsible for the transcript stood up to block Liu Huisheng.

During an interrogation, to maintain the suspect’s flow of confession, no one is permitted to enter the room unless it is an emergency—especially not a newcomer who had been on the job for barely an hour.

“The documents can be signed later. The interrogation isn’t over.”

Han Bing’s voice was low, attempting to use his masculine physique to create an atmosphere of overwhelming pressure.

Liu Huisheng looked up through that pressure, unaffected, and offered a faint smile:

“Hasn’t she already confessed to the entire incident? What else is there to ask?”

As she spoke, she placed a newly printed photo from beneath the file onto the table and pushed it toward Zhao Yu—a front-facing close-up of the male victim.

Zhao Yu said nothing, but her gaze toward Liu Huisheng was thick with displeasure.

In the police force, following orders is often more important than individual talent—especially in the high-stakes Major Crimes Unit.

“Get out.”

Two crisp words, sharp as a blade.

Liu Huisheng had expected this, and she wasn’t afraid of Zhao Yu’s blades.

The wounds this woman had left on her heart had already spent years scarring over.

“In a moment.”

Acting out the role of the clumsy rookie, she placed the A4 document in front of Hu Fang, uncapped a pen, and set it on the table.

She tapped the bottom-right corner of the paper, indicating where to sign.

Then, she turned and began walking slowly toward the door.

Hu Fang’s attention was not on the officers; her right hand picked up the pen and honestly scrawled her name in a crooked fashion where Liu Huisheng had pointed.

In Zhao Yu’s eyes, this sight was like a bolt of lightning hitting the night sky.

She looked back at the photo of the deceased, and an answer surged to the surface.

5, 4, 3, 2—

Liu Huisheng counted down in her mind as she walked away.

“Wait.”

Zhao Yu’s voice sliced through the air. Liu Huisheng stopped exactly as she had intended.

Not bad, she thought. Slightly faster than the five seconds I predicted.

She turned to look at Zhao Yu’s cold profile and asked, feigning ignorance: “Captain Zhao, is something wrong?”

Zhao Yu didn’t look at her. The flicker of shock from a moment ago was gone.

She placed the photo of the male victim on the table and said coldly, “You take over the rest of the transcript. Han Bing, step out.”

“Huh?”

Han Bing was stunned. He was halfway through sitting down, his backside suspended in mid-air.

He didn’t dare sit, but he didn’t know why he should leave.

“Why?”

Zhao Yu pulled her gaze away from Hu Fang and offered no explanation, only looking at him.

“I’ll explain later. Out.”

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

“Senior, what’s going on?”

In the observation room next to the interrogation chamber, the rest of the Major Crimes Unit huddled around in confusion.

Han Bing still hadn’t processed it. “I have no idea.”

“Doesn’t Captain Zhao hate people who break the rules? Why did she let Liu Huisheng stay?”

“No clue. Liu Huisheng gave her a photo of the victim, and she suddenly changed her mind.”

“Hiss… so, what did they say to each other?”

“Nothing.”

“Eye contact?”

“None.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t know!”

They discussed it in a daze, looking at one another for answers.

Finally, the Vice-Captain entered to assess the situation and settled the crowd:

“Don’t panic. Liu Huisheng must have found a critical clue. Otherwise, Captain Zhao would never break protocol to let her stay.”

Eventually, everyone crowded around the monitor, turning the audio from the interrogation room to maximum volume to see exactly what this newcomer had discovered.

Inside, Liu Huisheng sat side-by-side with Zhao Yu, facing Hu Fang.

Hu Fang had already recounted the “incident” in full.

However, the questions Liu Huisheng began to ask seemed entirely unrelated.

“How many people in your family?” she asked.

“Four,” Hu Fang stammered, then continued, “Me, my husband, and two sons.”

“And your parents’ family? Where do you fall in the birth order?”

“I’m the second.”

“Are you the only daughter?”

“No, I have an older sister. And three brothers.”

“Are your three brothers also farming in Tonghua Village?”

“No, they’re all working in the city. They only come back for New Year’s.”

“And your parents? Are they still alive?”

“My mother is. My father passed. My mother is in the village helping my brothers with their kids.”

…

The questioning seemed like idle chatter, but it extracted one crucial piece of information: the only man living in close proximity to Hu Fang was her husband.

“What is your husband like?” Liu Huisheng asked naturally.

“He… he is very honest and hardworking. We have two kids, which costs a lot. We work from dawn till dusk to make money.”

“Is he left-handed?”

“Yes. Officer, why are you asking this?”

“I’ve heard left-handed people are more diligent. Just curious.”

“Oh… right, he is left-handed.”

“I heard from the villagers that he enjoys drinking?”

As these words landed, the observation room grew noisy again.

This case hadn’t even reached the stage of field interviews; before Hu Fang turned herself in, no one had even linked the victims to her family.

The officers had only done a cursory check on the victims’ background. No one knew Hu Fang’s husband liked to drink.

Yet, Hu Fang didn’t question it at all. She even began to explain.

“No, no, he usually only drinks a little bit, not all the time.”

“Does he hit people after drinking?”

“No! We are very honest people.”

“What was your husband doing at the time of the incident?”

“He was sleeping.”

At this point, Hu Fang grew anxious.

To an outsider, it was understandable—she had killed someone and was afraid of bringing trouble to her husband.

“Officer, why are you asking all this? My man has nothing to do with this! I killed them, and I’ve confessed to the crime. There’s no point in asking more, just arrest me!”

At this, Liu Huisheng finally got the answer she wanted.

She leaned forward slightly and said:

“Hu Fang, we will indeed prosecute you. But not for murder—for obstructing justice.”

Hu Fang froze, her wrinkled eyelids twitching. “What do you mean?”

Liu Huisheng picked up the photo of the male victim. Hu Fang flinched and quickly looked away.

“The victim’s right forehead was smashed, and there is a diagonal wound on the bridge of his nose running from the top right to the bottom left. Only if the killer is left-handed would the injury be on the victim’s right side. And you… are right-handed.”

It took Hu Fang three seconds to understand.

She recalled that when she signed the paper just now, she had indeed used her right hand.

It was because of this—watching her posture while signing—that Zhao Yu realized this surrender was merely a sacrificial play.

Liu Huisheng continued: “Furthermore, there is an injury on the very top of the victim’s head. You are barely 150cm tall, while the victim was 175cm. Even if you struck downward, the wound would be on the forehead, not the crown. We haven’t found the weapon yet, but there were tiny shards of a beer bottle at the scene. The shards were clean, with no dust accumulation. They weren’t ‘picked up by the road’ as you claimed; they were from a fresh bottle.”

As Liu Huisheng laid out her analysis piece by piece, Zhao Yu watched her from the side.

When Liu Huisheng was in her “serious mode,” she practically glowed.

Unaware of the gaze beside her, Liu Huisheng rationally announced her verdict:

“Therefore, my profile for the killer in this case is simple: Male, height between 175cm and 185cm, left-handed, with a habit of drinking. I asked about your family just to see who you were covering for. Clearly, that person is your husband.”

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

An hour later, the Major Crimes Unit and the Tactical Team headed to Tonghua Village to arrest Hu Fang’s husband.

The remaining members continued the transcript with Hu Fang, having her recount how she helped her husband cover up.

The team whispered among themselves, amazed that a closed surrender could be overturned.

After all, Hu Fang had memorized every detail of the incident based on her husband’s description; her attitude, emotions, and expressions had been nearly flawless.

“If we had a few more days, we probably would have figured out she was a fake. But the fact that Liu Huisheng caught it on the spot… she really has some skill.”

With this first victory, Liu Huisheng secured her place in the station.

But at this moment, the subject of everyone’s gossip encountered her destiny in the restroom.

“Captain Zhao.”

The restroom was silent and peaceful, containing only two figures.

Liu Huisheng stopped her tall, graceful frame at the sink.

She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and looked at her long-lost acquaintance through the mirror, her lips curving.

“Long time no see.”

In an instant, the battle lines vanished.

Liu Huisheng was no longer the iron-faced judge from the interrogation room, but the lover from memory—the one in the white dress, hair fluttering under a sky full of ginkgo leaves.

The act of being strangers had been played enough in front of others; Zhao Yu felt a wave of exhaustion.

She turned off the tap, turned around, and leaned against the sink.

Her eyes held neither joy nor anger, looking like a bowl of cold water that had sat by a well for years.

“We just saw each other last night. Why pretend to be strangers?”

Liu Huisheng’s eyes focused as she smiled candidly. “I thought a person of your status might be too busy to remember.”

Zhao Yu’s reply was pointed: “Some things, I will remember for a lifetime.”

“Is that so?”

“Why did you come here?”

“For work.”

“You said you liked psychology. You should have been a psychiatrist, not a profiler.”

A psychiatrist faces patients; a profiler faces murderers. The latter’s work is far bloodier and more taxing.

Liu Huisheng pondered for two seconds, catching the hidden meaning, and countered:

“Is Captain Zhao… worried about me?”

Zhao Yu didn’t answer.

Liu Huisheng’s lips curved higher, her beautiful eyes crinkling.

“Being a profiler gives me more of a sense of achievement. I studied criminal psychology for my Master’s, and took an extra course in behavioral psychology for my PhD. Only by understanding what a killer thinks can you know why they commit crimes—and why they lie.”

Liu Huisheng was just as brilliant as she had been years ago.

However, the person standing before her was no longer the Zhao Yu of the past.

“Do you use those skills to scrutinize the criminals, or everyone around you?”

Liu Huisheng froze for a moment, leaving the question unanswered.

She narrowed her flirtatious eyes, scrutinizing every muscle on the face before her.

“There is no one in this world who doesn’t lie. All that exists is the momentary sincerity of human nature.”

She said.

For example, Hu Fang’s panic when her husband was mentioned.

No matter how perfect her testimony, it couldn’t hide the fact she was lying.

Or, for example, the way Zhao Yu’s toes remained pointed toward her while she spoke, exposing that she wasn’t as indifferent as she appeared.

Liu Huisheng mentioned human nature.

As a cop, human nature was what Zhao Yu thought about most.

She met those clear eyes and reminded her:

“But the origin of crime is exactly that: human nature.”

Liu Huisheng smiled softly and said in a deep tone:

“What stops crime is also exactly that: human nature.”

The air settled.

In the silence, a metaphorical chime rang out—like a microwave finishing its cycle—opening a door that had been sealed for many years.

Zhao Yu looked at her silently—at the former lover she hadn’t seen for so long.

The face was still just as beautiful, but something had vaguely changed.

Seeing her silence, Liu Huisheng decided it was time to end this “reunion” act.

She touched up her orange lipstick in the mirror and turned toward the door.

“Well then, Captain Zhao. I’ve passed the profiling test and solved the Tonghua Village case. I’ve passed the bureau’s test and your test. From now on, I am a member of the Major Crimes Unit. If there’s nothing else, I’m going back to work.”

As she brushed past Zhao Yu, a cold voice spoke again:

“The scars on your back… how did you get them?”

Winding, jagged scars ran along her shoulder blades.

They were clearly old, but the long, rugged, dark-red marks announced the agonizing pain the owner of this body had once suffered.

It was hard to imagine how the naturally slender Liu Huisheng could have survived such extensive injuries.

Tap! The flat leather shoes paused.

Two tall, elegant silhouettes stood side-by-side, one facing out, one facing in.

Fear flickered in the depths of Liu Huisheng’s eyes—a pain that even years could not erase.

Fortunately, she was used to being asked.

With a blink, she turned her head toward Zhao Yu, her eyes returning to their enchanting, playful state:

“Is Captain Zhao… heartbroken for me?”

Zhao Yu turned to face her fully. “I’m in no mood for jokes.”

“It seems you really are.”

Liu Huisheng nodded in cooperation.

She turned to face Zhao Yu and began unbuttoning her shirt, one by one.

The crimson marks from the previous night were scattered across her porcelain-white skin, like cigarette ash dropped on expensive silk—mottled and messy.

She leaned her upper body forward, her voice as bewitching as a flute melody from an ancient desert city:

“If you’re so heartbroken, why didn’t I see any of this ‘tender pity’ last night?”