NOS Chapter 99

Chapter 99: The Border Marker (7)

Yu Chunming didn’t know that the only person in the world who would recognize him at a glance after more than twenty years was Jiang Min.

It must have been an evening. Jiang Min’s memory was poor after taking medication for a long time. Now she could only recall that the first time she saw Yu Chunming should have been an evening.

At that time, she was standing on the balcony smoking. The sky outside was very dark, and the Linchang Staff Family Compound was deserted. Qin Tian didn’t know where he had gone gallivanting, and Kong Dahui had gone out of town on business. Jiang Min was alone at home, listening listlessly to an old song being played on an antique record player, making “yi yi ya ya” sounds.

It was also at that time that Jiang Min saw Yu Chunming sitting on the steps of the doorway downstairs.

Like her, Yu Chunming was smoking, one cigarette after another. He seemed to be waiting for someone, his eyes occasionally drifting towards the entrance, and the expression on his face was quite anxious.

Waiting for whom? Definitely not waiting for me, Jiang Min thought calmly.

For a long time, the drugs had kept her in an almost numb indifference most of the time. She didn’t have much extra emotion, and she didn’t need any extra emotion. After all, excessive love and hate were already a thing of the past for her. Having lived for more than fifty years, Jiang Min suddenly felt that numbness was the best state.

But at this moment, when she saw Yu Chunming’s face, her heart, which had been numb for who knew how long, suddenly skipped a beat, and a thought instantly popped into her mind:

Jiang Xin is back.

How could Jiang Xin be back? He had been Yu Zhenshan’s son for more than twenty years. Would he still remember her, this terrible mother?

Does he hate me? Does he despise me? Can he recognize me?

A series of questions made Jiang Min’s hand holding the cigarette suddenly tremble. This was not a side effect of mental illness, but a normal physiological reaction to tension and anxiety. Jiang Min hadn’t experienced what a normal physiological reaction was for a long time. She had a mental illness, the doctor said so, and others said so. But right now, a trace of normal human emotion was indeed surging in her heart.

Jiang Xin… Jiang Xin is her son.

Jiang Min gasped heavily. She hurriedly pulled the curtains shut and stumbled back into the house.

But a moment later, Jiang Xin’s voice came from downstairs again.

He was talking to Guan Yao. They didn’t know what they were talking about. They first went to the shed, and then went out the gate.

Jiang Min sat in the room, listening to their voices, sometimes far, sometimes near, sometimes loud, sometimes soft. Then, this woman suddenly remembered the night before she abandoned Jiang Xin in Songlan.

The night before was spent on the train.

That year, Jiang Xin was nine years old, and Jiang Min had just turned thirty. Such a young mother and son sitting on a messy train immediately attracted the attention of many passengers.

“Comrade, please show your letter of introduction,” a train attendant said.

Jiang Min quickly found a letter of introduction from the Songlan Grand Theater in her backpack. She handed it over properly to the train attendant.

The train attendant only glanced at it before frowning: “Comrade, the date on this letter of introduction is eleven years ago. Did you get the wrong one?”

“No,” Jiang Min replied expressionlessly. “This is it.”

The train attendant had to ask further: “Comrade, where is your work unit and home address? And what are you going to Songlan for?”

Jiang Min seemed not to hear. She sat steadily on the chair, but her hand, hidden under the table, was tightly gripping the corner of Jiang Xin’s clothes.

How this matter was finally resolved, Jiang Min no longer remembered. She vaguely remembered that Jiang Xin seemed to be crying all the time, crying so much that some people around were annoyed, some were sympathetic, and then, it ended without a conclusion.

In this way, she was able to take this innocent child, wandering through the streets and alleys of Songlan, all the way to Yu Zhenshan’s address, shouting loudly, and then, abandoning the child, and walking away.

Without Jiang Xin, Jiang Min felt relaxed all over. Like when she first arrived in Songlan more than ten years ago, she walked along Ulrich Street to the river, and then stood on the cross-river bridge, gazing at the sunset on Falling Sun Plains.

She recalled the scene when she first met Yu Zhenshan at the Songlan Grand Theater, recalled holding Jiang Xin and watching the smoke curling up in the Jin A Lin Mountain, recalled when she was a daughter, leaving her hometown with her luggage on her back. She couldn’t help humming that song softly, singing “My Hometown Jin A Lin.”

The singing floated on the river, flowing along with the evening breeze into the branches and leaves of the weeping willows and the fragrance of the sedges.

In the distance, the afterglow sank into the earth, and the wilderness held the falling sun. Jiang Min followed the last trace of light, climbed onto the railing of the cross-river bridge, ready to jump down.

“Mom!” Suddenly, a heartbreaking voice rang in her ears.

Jiang Min woke up suddenly. She looked back and saw a boy grabbing the corner of her clothes, crying with his face full of red. The boy shouted, “Mom, don’t leave me!”

Jiang Min muttered to herself, I didn’t leave you. I just sent you to live a better life.

But the corner of her clothes was heavy. Jiang Min understood that Jiang Xin wasn’t here. What she heard and saw was just an illusion. Who exactly was pulling her, wanting her to live?

Jiang Min didn’t know, and she still doesn’t know.

After noon, the car drove out of the mountains and came to a deserted plain. Jiang Min stuck her head out and looked at the road outside the window, saying, “It’s almost to the border line.”

From morning until now, they had been driving for almost three hours. Calculating carefully, it was indeed almost to the border line.

Yu Chunming had already crossed two cross-river bridges along the Ning Nie Li Qi River, and still had nothing to gain. Now, only the last one on the border line remained.

Jiang Min said silently, “Why didn’t you notify your colleagues?”

Yu Chunming’s hand holding the steering wheel paused. He replied with a cold face, “It’s none of your business.”

Jiang Min blinked, not knowing what she was thinking of. After a long while, she said, “You want to protect me.”

Yu Chunming turned the steering wheel and drove towards the flat bridge across the wilderness in the distance.

“Officer Yu, are you planning to protect me?” Jiang Min pressed on.

Yu Chunming slammed on the brakes. He looked ahead, then turned and opened the car door: “Walk over there yourself. The bridge is all rocky underneath. It’s easy for the car to overturn if it drives on it.”

After speaking, he looked down and checked his police baton and mobile phone, saying to Jiang Min, “Don’t give me any other reasons. Lead the way ahead.”

Jiang Min sat still.

“I’m telling you to get out of the car and lead the way ahead,” Yu Chunming raised his voice.

Jiang Min suddenly asked very solemnly, “No matter what you find out, you can protect me?”

“I didn’t say I was going to protect you. I’m a policeman, and it’s impossible for me to protect you,” Yu Chunming said impatiently. He pointed out of the car, “Lead the way first.”

It was deep winter, and the northern border line was a vast expanse of white. Not far away were several rolling hills, covered with evergreen pines and cypresses. Yu Chunming knew that it was already the other side of the Blackwater River.

“Go this way,” Jiang Min exhaled a white breath, pointing to her left.

The snow under their feet was almost over their calves. They walked with difficulty, but before long, they saw a flat bridge standing in the wilderness.

Half of this bridge had already collapsed, leaving only two bridge piers standing on the thick ice of the Ning Nie Li Qi River. The bridge piers were also covered with snow. From a distance, it seemed that no one had set foot here.

“Looking at the map, this place is fifty kilometers away from the Jin Gou Mountain No. 1 Patrol Station. Why did Qian Guowei ask you to hide the money here?” Yu Chunming asked.

Jiang Min shook her head: “I don’t know.”

Yu Chunming asked again: “Then why were you willing to run so far in the first place to deliver that 40,000 yuan to Qian Guowei?”

Jiang Min’s steps faltered, and her expression paused slightly.

“You said before that you only had contact with Qian Guowei once. Now I’m asking you, besides that one time, have you had any other contact with him?” Yu Chunming continued.

This time, Jiang Min answered very straightforwardly: “No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Then why do you believe that the person who sent you the message was definitely Qian Guowei?” Yu Chunming pressed closer.

Jiang Min turned her head, standing in the snow, she looked at Yu Chunming earnestly, and replied, “I just know.”

Yu Chunming snorted coldly, shook his head, walked past her and continued forward.

Jiang Min stood there, shouting inexplicably, “Don’t you believe me? Why don’t you believe me? Do you think I’ll kill you?”

Yu Chunming stopped and turned to look at her.

After shouting, Jiang Min immediately fell silent. She was trembling a little, not knowing if it was because she was having an episode or because it was too cold.

After a long while, Yu Chunming said, “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but I’m a policeman, and interrogating suspects is part of my job.”

Jiang Min had calmed down again. It was unknown if she had understood Yu Chunming’s words, because the woman lowered her head, then walked forward quickly, stepping one foot deep and the other shallow towards the bridge piers.

“Qian Guowei is a rapist,” she said.

Yu Chunming’s forehead twitched: “I know.”

“He and Xu Wen and Ai Hua raped me in the forest behind the No. 2 Timber Factory warehouse,” Jiang Min said again.

Yu Chunming’s stomach clenched violently. He frowned and remained silent.

“After raping me, these three people killed me to silence me, tied me with stones, and prepared to drown me,” Jiang Min continued.

Yu Chunming stopped moving.

“So, I’m the person in this world who wants him dead the most, do you understand? You’re a policeman, do you understand?” Jiang Min shouted.

Yu Chunming looked at Jiang Min’s back, listening to the voice carried by the wind, vaguely realizing that something was wrong.

Jiang Min suddenly stopped, turned around, and said loudly, “I hate Qian Guowei, hate Xu Wen, and hate Ai Hua. I dream of killing them. If they don’t die, I’ll never have peace in my life!”

Yu Chunming’s breath trembled, and he blurted out, “What exactly did you hide here?”

Jiang Min’s eyes were bloodshot. She said tremblingly, “Qian Guowei, I hid Qian Guowei here.”

Yu Chunming’s mind buzzed, and he froze on the spot.

What does it mean to hide Qian Guowei here?

Yu Chunming couldn’t react for a moment. He didn’t know what Jiang Min’s words meant. He looked blankly at the bridge piers in the distance, and then looked blankly at Jiang Min’s beautiful and desperate face. His heart sank.

“Qian Guowei is dead?” Yu Chunming murmured.

Jiang Min bit her teeth and didn’t speak.

Yu Chunming repeated incredulously, “Qian Guowei is dead? You killed Qian Guowei?”

Jiang Min still looked at him like that, her eyes stubborn, as stubborn and fierce as Li Hongge, who was born under Rhododendron Peak. She nodded and said loudly, “Yes, I killed Qian Guowei. Three weeks ago, Qian Guowei forced me to help him contact a snakehead. I pretended to agree and sent what he wanted to Beilin Village and Baihua Yu Ning Town. After he left Baihua Yu Ning Town, he asked me to come here to give him the 40,000 yuan he wanted, and then…”

Jiang Min’s voice became ethereal. She said, “Then, he wanted to get handsy again, so I used the telescopic iron shovel that Lao Kong put in the trunk to knock him to death. The body is under the bridge piers over there.”

Yu Chunming looked wooden. He watched Jiang Min swear to the sky: “Everything I said is true. You can go look in the trunk of Lao Kong’s car. The blood-stained shovel is in there.”

“Blood-stained shovel…” Yu Chunming repeated.

“I knocked him from behind. Qian Guowei didn’t resist. He fell directly to the ground and died quickly,” Jiang Min said.

She was like a puppet who had been stripped of her soul, with no joy, anger, sadness, or happiness on her face, and only emptiness and nothingness in her eyes.

Yu Chunming heard her say, “I used the shovel to push Qian Guowei’s body and threw him into the Ning Nie Li Qi River. Unfortunately, unfortunately, the Ning Nie Li Qi River is frozen now. I can’t tie stones to him and throw this rapist into the river… Too bad, too bad…”

Jiang Min repeated these words over and over again. She suddenly broke down and cried. This woman, who seemed to have let go of everything in the past, hysterically said, “I killed him, kill me! Kill me!”

The north wind howled and swept across the hills, blowing the densely packed clouds in the afternoon to the other side. Yu Chunming saw that under the white snow, there were vaguely a few streaks of scarlet, and the scarlet meandered into the distance, finally stopping under the bridge piers.

“Where’s the body?” Yu Chunming asked blankly.

Jiang Min didn’t hear him.

Yu Chunming walked past her, taking a few quick steps. He frantically brushed away the snow on the ground, trying to find the “drag marks” that Jiang Min mentioned.

But following this “drag mark” forward was the empty river surface. Under the bridge piers lay a patch of blood that had been dry for a long time, but the body was nowhere to be found.

A buzzing sound rang in Yu Chunming’s ears. He grabbed Jiang Min and dragged her to the bridge piers.

“Where exactly is the body?” Yu Chunming roared.

Jiang Min was also stunned. She shook her head, “It’s right here. I clearly threw him here.”

Yes, she clearly threw Qian Guowei here. In the cold winter months, how could a person whose back of the head had been smashed survive?

Yu Chunming’s voice trembled: “A beast, maybe a beast carried him away, like Lin Zhimin…”

Indeed, it was indeed possible that it was a beast, but where were the traces of beasts on the surrounding snow?

But if it wasn’t a beast, what could it be?

“There are footprints,” Jiang Min said suddenly.

“What footprints?” Yu Chunming raised his head and looked in the direction she was pointing.

Sure enough, at the end of the bridge piers, there was a string of messy footprints pointing towards the distant forest. Next to the footprints, there were also scattered bloodstains, as if someone was carrying an injury when they left.

Jiang Min screamed, “Qian Guowei isn’t dead?”

Yu Chunming’s brow tightened. He chased the footprints all the way forward, but saw that the footprints finally stopped on a patch of frozen swamp.

Three weeks had passed. If there were no outsiders present here besides Qian Guowei, then the person who left this string of footprints could only be Qian Guowei himself.

Where is he now?

Yu Chunming felt a chill down his spine.

Whoosh—

At this moment, the engine of the car started. The two people under the bridge piers were shocked and turned to look in the direction they had come from. They saw the car, which had been parked properly, suddenly crossing the flat ridge and driving straight towards them.

Yu Chunming was quick-witted. He grabbed Jiang Min, dodged, and hid behind the bridge piers.

But as the roar rang out, Jiang Min suddenly pushed Yu Chunming away, turned around abruptly, and stood in front of him.

Before Yu Chunming had time to turn his head, he heard a “bang,” and then, a stream of hot liquid splashed on his face.

Someone had fired a gun, and a bullet had pierced Jiang Min’s forehead.