NOS Chapter 86

Chapter 86: Rhododendron Peak (7)

By the time Guan Yao returned from the detention center, it was already dawn. Yu Chunming was still sitting in the Linchang (Forest Farm) Police Station office, waiting for him. The computer on the desk was still on, Qin Tian’s personal information glowing faintly on the screen.

“Chunming,” Guan Yao called out.

Yu Chunming looked up. “Did he confess?”

“No,” Guan Yao sighed. “But the search warrant came through. Wang Zun’s already taken people to Aunt Jiang’s house. I didn’t want to follow, so I came back. Came back… to check if the security camera at our door is working and if it can see who put the letters in the mailbox a few days ago.”

Yu Chunming lowered his eyes, saying nothing.

Guan Yao continued, “Don’t worry. As long as we find relevant evidence and the handwriting matches, we’re fine even without a confession. It’s just more trouble for the preliminary hearing.”

Yu Chunming twitched the corner of his mouth. “Before, Qin Tian was so confident, saying he recognized me at a glance even before I recognized him. I actually believed him then, thinking the guy remembered me and hadn’t forgotten he had an older brother. Who would’ve thought, his understanding of me probably all came from Li Guanglai’s mouth…”

“Chunming,” Guan Yao asked slowly, “have you ever thought about why Li Guanglai knew so much about your family information?”

Yu Chunming paused, silent.

Guan Yao stared at him, holding his breath, but not daring to say it directly. He could only say, “The suspect’s motive is important. Only by analyzing the motive can we predict what he’ll do next.”

Yu Chunming coughed softly, picked up an evidence bag from the side, and placed it in front of Guan Yao.

“When I talked to Jiang Min the other day, she admitted that Lin Zhimin had impersonated Qian Guowei to get Li Shengnan’s will from her. Later, as I was leaving, she also told me that Ai Hua had tried to contact her many years ago,” Yu Chunming said.

“Ai Hua?” Guan Yao frowned. “He didn’t mention that when we interrogated him.”

“There are a lot of things Ai Hua didn’t mention. We need to interrogate him a few more times. I just had someone bring his phone that was impounded at the bureau and looked at his communication records. Jiang Min said that about eight years ago, she often received calls from a strange number from a neighboring province. When she answered, the person on the other end wouldn’t say anything. After Wu Laosan died, this number even sent her a text message, asking if she was doing well,” Yu Chunming said. “Neighboring province—of those three, only Ai Hua is in a neighboring province.”

Guan Yao picked up the evidence bag containing Ai Hua’s phone. “Did you find anything in the communication records?”

“Nothing,” Yu Chunming said with a bitter smile. “I thought…”

“You thought what?” Guan Yao asked, seeing him hesitate.

Yu Chunming pressed his forehead hard again. He replied, “Nothing, just a bit of a pity. It could have been an important clue. And now that Li Ying is dead, what exactly happened the night before the 9.24 fire thirty-three years ago? If Ai Hua is still playing dumb, then only Qian Guowei, who’s on the run, will know. Yesterday, I actually wanted to check Zhang Nan’s files to see if he had any living relatives who could provide some useful information, but I didn’t find anything.”

“Alright, don’t think about it anymore. I’ll take you home when Wang Zun gets back,” Guan Yao said, seeing that Yu Chunming’s face wasn’t right. He reached out and touched his forehead, relieved that the temperature was normal, and he didn’t have a fever.

Yu Chunming had stayed up all night and was already exhausted. He wanted to push himself up from the table, but suddenly everything went black, and he almost fell headfirst.

“Chunming!” Guan Yao was startled.

Yu Chunming’s ears were ringing. He waved his hand, helpless. “Keep your voice down, you’re going to burst my eardrums.”

Guan Yao was both angry and anxious, but he had to shut his mouth and stay quiet.

Because Yu Chunming had a back injury, he couldn’t lift him up horizontally. And because Yu Chunming had a chest injury, he couldn’t carry him on his back. All he could do was hold him with both arms and slowly help him sit back down.

“It’s okay,” Yu Chunming took a breath, his vision clearing a bit. He comforted Guan Yao, “It’s probably just low blood sugar. My stomach hurts a bit. Do you have any White Rabbit Candy? Get me one.”

Guan Yao’s face was grave. He first made a cup of hot pear syrup and then rummaged through the drawer for two pieces of purple-wrapped candy. “Shu Wen swiped all the White Rabbit Candy. Just make do with this.”

Yu Chunming took a sip of the water, but his face was still pale.

At this moment, Wang Zhen and the others came back with a flourish. He was holding up a notebook, smiling, and said, “Look, we found little Qin Tian’s diary. I scanned it on the way back and found that the most recent date was marked November 18th. Who writes a diary every day?”

Then, he flatteringly handed the notebook to Yu Chunming as if seeking praise: “Apprentice, you want to look first?”

“I’m not looking,” Yu Chunming had recovered a bit. He got up and waved his hand, preparing to go home and sleep. “You guys can look at it slowly.”

Wang Zhen was embarrassed and had to stuff the notebook into the evidence bag, crestfallen.

Yu Chunming, who had just reached the door, suddenly stopped. He turned around and asked, “Did Jiang Min say anything else when you went just now?”

“Jiang, Jiang Min…” Wang Zhen shook his head. “She didn’t say anything.”

“Oh.” Yu Chunming didn’t seem to care much. He grabbed the railing and slowly walked downstairs.

Guan Yao was still driving that red “SUV”. Because it was cold, he had put snow tires on the car as soon as he returned from Songlan. But Officer Guan had a simple style. Not only was the car about to be scrapped, but the snow tires were also about to be scrapped.

The two sat in the car. First, it wouldn’t start. Then, once they got on the road, it started bumping up and down.

Yu Chunming’s injury hadn’t healed, and he was jolted around so much that he felt dizzy. He clutched his shoulder, his face turning pale from the pain, which made Guan Yao feel guilty and ashamed.

He had to say repeatedly, “I’ll change the car right away.”

Yu Chunming laughed instead. After the pain passed, he leaned back in the seat and said cheerfully, “People who don’t know would think Officer Guan’s family is impoverished. Actually, I found that your retirement pay plus resettlement allowance is more than I’ve earned in ten years.”

“It’s not that much…” Guan Yao was halfway through his sentence when he suddenly realized something. He slammed on the brakes, stopped the car in front of the apartment building, and turned to look at Yu Chunming. “How do you know my passbook password?”

“What?” Yu Chunming tilted his head and asked in a clear voice.

“What what what,” Guan Yao chuckled. He pinched the back of Yu Chunming’s neck and pulled him closer. “Honestly confess to the police. Where did you steal the password from? It was chaotic that night at the Baihua Bridge, and I didn’t have time to interrogate you. Now I have the chance. Hurry up and tell me, where did you find my bank card? If you don’t confess, be careful I’ll use torture to extract a confession.”

Yu Chunming pretended. “What are you talking about? Police officer, I don’t know.”

Guan Yao ground his back teeth and unbuckled Yu Chunming’s seatbelt. “Alright, get out of the car.”

But then, the person who was already very close to him suddenly leaned forward and placed a light kiss on his lips.

Guan Yao was stunned.

“What’s wrong?” Yu Chunming looked at him with bright eyes. “The kiss you gave me in the middle of the night yesterday doesn’t count?”

Guan Yao’s face turned red, and he said softly, “I didn’t say it didn’t count.”

“Then what’s this reaction?” Yu Chunming was slightly displeased.

“What reaction should I have?” Guan Yao asked a little nervously.

“You should kiss me back immediately,” Yu Chunming said seriously.

Guan Yao sat still.

Yu Chunming sighed. “Forget it, I won’t tease you.”

With that, he was about to turn to push open the car door.

But before he could turn around, Guan Yao suddenly pulled him into his arms and used his other hand to hold Yu Chunming’s chin, leaning down to cover the mouth that had just been chattering away.

It was early morning, and the snow had stopped, but the temperature was still twenty or thirty degrees below zero, making people shiver.

But it was warm in the car. The air conditioner was whirring, and the two men’s breathing became rapid. The car windows quickly fogged up, blurring the two figures merged together.

After an unknown amount of time, Yu Chunming, already a little breathless, pushed Guan Yao away with a trembling hand. He asked unclearly, “Officer Guan, is this your torture to extract a confession?”

Guan Yao chuckled, reached out and wiped the moisture from Yu Chunming’s lips. “So, are you willing to talk now?”

Yu Chunming raised an eyebrow. “110717, it’s easy to guess. Officer Guan’s thoughts aren’t that unfathomable.”

“Is that so?” Guan Yao looked a little embarrassed.

Yu Chunming added, “Besides, your bank card is under the mattress of your bed. I felt it the first day I slept on it. Officer Guan, you really don’t treat me like an outsider.”

Guan Yao laughed. He turned off the car and helped Yu Chunming adjust his clothes. “Let’s go, let’s go upstairs and see what Yu Chang left in our fridge. If there’s nothing left, I’ll pack two bowls of noodles at the door.”

The sun was shining brightly that day, casting light on the earth and suddenly making people smell a hint of warmth in the icy snow.

In the afternoon, Wang Zhen called to say that although they couldn’t see who put the letter in the mailbox from the dilapidated security camera at the entrance of the Linchang Staff Family Compound, they had entered Qin Tian’s handwriting and the handwriting on the letter into the provincial department’s identification system and confirmed that they belonged to the same person in less than ten minutes.

“The seventh letter was really written by Qin Tian,” Guan Yao said, hanging up the phone and shaking his head.

Yu Chunming sat at the table, looking at the position of the opposite door, lost in thought. “This seventh letter was received the day before we took down the Baihua Bridge. That night, as soon as you left, I heard a series of unfamiliar footsteps. When I opened the door, I saw this letter on the stairs. According to a normal person’s walking speed, I took the letter and chased downstairs, the person delivering the letter couldn’t have disappeared without a trace, but I didn’t see a single suspicious person in the courtyard. That’s when Qin Tian followed me downstairs.”

At this point, Yu Chunming sighed silently. “I thought a lot that night, but I never suspected Qin Tian.”

Guan Yao’s eyes flashed, but he didn’t speak.

“When I followed him to Baihua Bridge, looking at his rogue smile, I always felt that this kid was still young and unstable, but after a careful calculation, Qin Tian is already twenty-nine this year. He was only six when I left,” Yu Chunming said calmly, his face neither sad nor happy. “Actually, Qin Tian hasn’t been my brother for a long time. I just realized it today.”

Guan Yao was still silent, but his mind immediately flashed back to the image of Qin Tian when Jiang Xin left more than twenty years ago.

That year, the kid had just started elementary school and just knew how to sit properly in the classroom with his backpack and read. In the years when he ran around the compound like crazy, he heard his neighbors talk about how obedient and well-behaved his brother Jiang Xin was and how excellent his grades were, so this child, who had just entered school, was determined to try every means to surpass Jiang Xin, go to high school, and go to college, to make his brother look at him with new eyes.

Unfortunately, Jiang Xin didn’t have time to look at him with new eyes before Jiang Min sent him to Songlan, leaving Qin Tian alone, stunned, to face his crazy mother and abusive stepfather.

Where did Jiang Xin go? Qin Tian tried to think with his still-undeveloped little head, but he couldn’t come up with an answer. Like Guan Yao, he searched countless times by the Ning Nie Li Qi River and sat on the bridge pier waiting from sunrise to sunset, but he never waited for his brother.

If there was anyone else in this world besides Guan Yao who was thinking about Jiang Xin day and night, it must be Qin Tian.

Qin Tian had many fanciful ideas and many beautiful expectations. He even assumed that Jiang Xin would definitely come back one day. At that time, his beloved brother would rescue him from his suffering and take him to the great future that should have belonged to him.

Until a certain day in a certain month, Qin Tian, finally mature, sat in the dark home, listening to Wu Laosan’s scolding and Jiang Min’s roar, belatedly realizing that he no longer had a brother.

This miserable idea always lingered in Qin Tian’s heart, so that a long time ago, he would even bring a bag of paper money every year during Qingming Festival and sit by the Ning Nie Li Qi River to commemorate his brother.

And all of this came to an end in December of the year before last, when Qin Tian first followed “Li Qie” to Songlan to “broaden his horizons.”

“It was him, he told me,” at the moment of seeing the solid evidence, the person who had been stubbornly tight-lipped finally loosened his grip. He lowered his head, his face full of decadence. “I said I had never left Za Mu Er in my life. Li Qie listened and said he would take me to see what the provincial capital was like. If he got rich in the future, he would also take me to see what the capital was like. I thought, since I don’t have to spend money, I’ll go. Then, on the day he arrived in Songlan, he took me to a place. I remember… that place was not far from the river, it seemed to be called, Songcheng Building, yes, Songcheng Building.”

“And then?” Wang Zhen asked.

“Then,” Qin Tian took a deep breath, “then, he took me and sat in the convenience store opposite Songcheng Building for a day. In the evening, he pointed to a person across the street and said that was my brother.”

Wang Zhen narrowed his eyes. He vaguely saw the tears flowing down Qin Tian’s face.

“I didn’t believe it at the time, I definitely didn’t believe it. My brother has been dead for over twenty years, and, and Yu Chunming, does he look anything like my brother? But Li Qie said that he had to thank me. If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t be able to help me find my brother. That’s when I remembered that Li Qie’s father had asked me before what day my brother disappeared on, and what place my mother went to when he disappeared,” Qin Tian wiped his face and continued, “Li Qie told me that he found someone who knew the inside story. This person told him that my mother spent twenty yuan to change my brother’s birthday from July 17th to March 5th and then sent him to her ex-husband’s house in Songlan, who was a big official, to be his son. Now, my brother is a police officer, and I continue to be a rat in the gutter.”

“So, you became Li Qie’s messenger?” Wang Zhen asked.

“This was Li Qie’s idea,” Qin Tian suddenly felt at ease. He said, “Li Qie told me that he had a way to ruin my brother, to make him unable to be a police officer again. After listening, I felt that this method was really good. I didn’t want to see my brother looking so high and mighty. I wanted him to be with me, to be a rat in the gutter together.”

Then, he watched “Li Qie” set up the plan with great interest, sending the first letter to Yu Chunming in January of this year.

Then, because he was too impatient, without waiting for the slow-moving courier Tang Dafei to send out the seventh letter, Qin Tian rubbed his hands and, imitating “Li Qie’s” tone, personally offered his “care” to his brother.

And this also became the handle that exposed him.