The higher-ups were calling several times a day, pushing for the case to be closed. Chief Inspector Pan Liqin had already made three trips to the CID room that morning alone, and each time the team members had found some way to brush him off.
Li Heng kept her office door firmly shut. Whenever Pan Sir asked, everyone put on a serious face and helped cover for her.
“She’s in the photocopy room printing case documents,” Old You said with a straight face.
“She went to the tea restaurant to get milk tea,” Lin Jiacong’s voice followed almost simultaneously.
Old You immediately narrowed his eyes and shot him a sideways glare.
Always so talkative at times like this—where was this enthusiasm when they were working overtime on the investigation?
In the CID room, the officers fell into a guilty silence for a moment, afraid that if they opened their mouths, they’d clash with someone else’s story again—the more they said, the more they’d mess up.
Pan Sir’s shrewd eyes swept across the room, finally landing on the quiet newcomer in the corner.
He walked up to Fang Zhishan and said in a low voice: “Zhishan, you tell me.”
Fang Zhishan quickly looked up from a pile of case files: “Pan Sir, our Madam went to the tea restaurant to buy milk tea first, and she’ll pick up the documents on her way back up.”
“It better be that way.” The Chief Inspector was momentarily at a loss for words, his face darkening. “Anyway—just close the case as soon as possible.”
After finally sending Pan Sir off, the originally scheduled case meeting could finally get back on track.
On the whiteboard in the meeting room, Zhang Huijing’s ID photo had been moved to the center. Beside it were the nightclub group photo, Zhang Pingxuan’s skull reconstruction, and more—various clues tangled together, yet no core connection had emerged.
Old You flipped open his notebook: “After work yesterday, I pulled a few strings through several layers of contacts and finally tracked down an old neighbor of Ah Min’s father. That old building was torn down over a decade ago, but I managed to get in touch with a resident from back then and asked about those days.”
“Ah Min’s father, Chi Guodong, was a drunk. When he drank, he’d lash out and hit people—his wife, both daughters—he’d lay hands on all of them. The neighbors tried to talk sense into him back then, but it was useless.” Old You paused, then continued. “Ah Min and Zhang Huijing took after their mother, Zhang Fengying. Zhang Fengying was quite pretty. If she dressed even slightly nicely, Chi Guodong would get irrationally jealous, accusing her of being unfaithful and messing around with other men. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore—she packed her things and left.”
“The neighbors only found out later that on that night, Zhang Fengying had taken her younger daughter with her when she left.”
Gao Zijie handed another document to Li Heng: “Madam, this is what I reported to you earlier—Zhang Fengying has no exit records.”
Fang Zhishan quickly flipped through Zhang Huijing’s statement: “She said her mother is with a man and now settled overseas—why would she deliberately lie?”
Li Heng pressed her fingertips lightly against her temples.
Because of last night’s dream, she hadn’t slept well at all. She was still holding herself together. “Has any substantial connection between Liang Wei and Zhang Huijing been found?”
Lin Jiacong leaned back in his plastic chair, twirling a pen in his hand: “Zhang Huijing’s life is very routine—back and forth between work and home. Occasionally she’d go to the supermarket or the wet market for groceries. She rarely ate out—always went home to cook dinner herself.”
“On holidays and weekends, she’d go to the library to borrow books—there are detailed records in the registration logs.” He pulled out the records, passed them to the colleagues in the front row to hand to Li Heng, and continued: “She also likes to travel—nearby places like Lamma Island, and farther destinations too. But checking the airline ticket records, she traveled alone every time—no companions.”
After finishing, Lin Jiacong added: “Last night, I took a detour to the Shek Kip Mei estate. Her neighbors said Zhang Huijing is definitely single—they’ve never seen a man coming or going from her place.”
The meeting room fell silent for a long while. Everyone was mulling it over—if the two really had a secret relationship, over such a long period, there was no way their paths wouldn’t have overlapped at least once.
“Maybe it’s like in the TV dramas? One goes first, the other follows—even at the cinema they’d sit two rows apart.”
“You think they’re big movie stars? Afraid of paparazzi?”
A few people exchanged jokes, relaxing for a moment—until the meeting room door swung open.
An officer walked in, holding a file bag.
“Madam, the surveillance footage from around Cheung Sha Wan is in.”
Street surveillance cameras weren’t widespread, but near Zhang Huijing’s company in Cheung Sha Wan, there was a jewelry store and a cinema.
Li Heng had assigned her subordinates to start from that angle, and they’d finally obtained surveillance footage from the past seven days.
“Don’t get your hopes up too high, though,” the officer said. “The cameras aren’t directly facing Zhang Huijing’s company—we might not catch anything.”
…
In the audio-visual room, the lights were off and the curtains drawn tight, though a sliver of sunlight still slipped through the gap in the fabric and fell quietly on the floor.
Several officers sat together. Lin Jiacong loaded a surveillance tape into the VCR, and the screen flickered to life.
The surveillance footage was extremely grainy.
The first round of screening was very targeted—narrowing the timeline based on Zhang Huijing’s statement. The jewelry store was some distance from her company. The team rewound the footage by an hour and stared intently at the stream of passersby on the screen, reviewing it again and again.
“Nothing. No sign of Liang Wei at all.”
“Have we been looking in the wrong direction?”
“At this point, the only overlap between them is that one time at the Mong Kok dai pai dong.”
Li Heng’s gaze remained fixed on the screen.
From Cheung Sha Wan to Haddon House in Sham Shui Po was only a three- to five-minute walk—which was why she’d deduced that Liang Wei had turned himself in to protect Zhang Huijing.
Zhang Huijing’s statement about her mother living overseas had already been proven false. But all those suspicions were built on the premise that she and Liang Wei had a private connection. If the two really had nothing to do with each other, then whether Zhang Fengying had left the country or not had nothing to do with this murder case—and the police had no reason to dig deeper.
“Watch all the footage first. Don’t miss a single frame.”
There were still other tasks to handle, so Li Heng sent the rest of the officers back to their posts, leaving only Fang Zhishan behind in the audio-visual room to continue reviewing the surveillance footage one by one.
Fang Zhishan was meticulous and responsible. She took the task and sat in front of the screen, eyes fixed on the footage without blinking. The video quality was blurry, with frequent frame skips, but she patiently persevered, not letting up.
Before long, the door to the audio-visual room creaked open—Li Heng had returned to check on the progress.
Fang Zhishan looked up sharply, her eyes alight with excitement: “Madam! Come look!”
Li Heng strode quickly to the screen and hit pause.
Fang Zhishan pointed at the street corner in the frame: “Look here.”
On the VCR screen, the resolution was extremely low and the distance was far—faces were completely indistinguishable.
They rewound the footage, playing it back in slow motion dozens of times, but could only make out a fleeting silhouette.
“It looks like the clothes Liang Wei was wearing when he jumped, and the build is similar too.” Fang Zhishan’s tone shifted from hesitant to increasingly certain. “It’s him!”
This segment came from the cinema’s surveillance, which happened to capture Liang Wei appearing at the street corner. The timestamp in the bottom right corner showed that it was exactly the same period when the police had gone to take Zhang Huijing’s statement.
That meant Liang Wei had been lingering around Cheung Sha Wan at that time, and afterward, he’d gone straight to the rooftop of Haddon House in Sham Shui Po.
“Good work. Keep at it—note down the exact time Liang Wei appeared.”
Fang Zhishan nodded firmly, her eyes brightening and the corners of her mouth lifting unconsciously.
Madam praised her for doing well!
A few minutes later, Li Heng’s voice came again from outside the audio-visual room with additional instructions.
“Keep a close watch on Zhang Huijing. Don’t alert her for now.”
“Once we have more leads from the field visits, we’ll arrange to interrogate Liang Wei.”
…
In the afternoon, Li Heng took the printed surveillance stills and Liang Wei’s photo and went alone to Cheung Sha Wan.
She went from shop to shop along the street, asking each one, trying to find any trace of Liang Wei’s presence.
A tea restaurant had a promotional sign out front. When Li Heng walked in, the owner was busy wiping tables and didn’t even look up.
“Find yourself a seat.”
“Police.” Li Heng showed her badge and handed over the surveillance stills and photo. “Have you seen this man?”
The owner finally looked up, glanced at the photo, and shook his head: “Don’t remember, Madam. At Wai Kee, we turn over hundreds of tables a day—people come and go—can’t keep track.”
He then pointed to the tea restaurant across the street: “Go ask them. Their food’s terrible—business is dead—they might remember.”
Li Heng went across the street, but got the same blank look.
She then realized she’d unwittingly stumbled into a tea restaurant “rivalry.”
After that, she went to the cinema, an electronics shop, and a grocery store. The staff all said the foot traffic was too heavy—they really couldn’t recall.
The jewelry store clerk even laughed and said: “Madam, unless he bought a large amount of gold, we’d hardly recognize him.”
The door-to-door inquiries were tedious and fruitless. Li Heng stood on the street corner, about to head to the next area, when she suddenly saw Zhang Huijing walk out of her office building.
It was past lunch break, and nowhere near quitting time—why would she suddenly come out?
Zhang Huijing wasn’t heading toward the MTR station, nor was she going into any of the street-side shops. She paused briefly, as if on guard, then turned directly into a narrow side alley.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Li Heng followed.
The alley was tight, flanked by old buildings. Zhang Huijing already had trouble with her legs and walked slowly, so Li Heng deliberately kept a safe distance, lightening her steps to make no sound.
Throughout the investigation, Zhang Huijing had been flawless—not a single slip.
Now, with her moving so suspiciously, if Li Heng lost her—or if Zhang Huijing realized she was being followed—the lead would be gone for good.
Just as Zhang Huijing was about to reach the end of the alley, Li Heng’s heart was in her throat—when suddenly, a hand landed on her shoulder.
It was Shen Zhicheng.
He stood in the alley with the light behind him, tall and lean, holding a repair receipt from a secondhand shop on nearby Apliu Street. He’d just dropped off his broken music box for repair and had cut through the alleys as a shortcut—only to wind up running into her.
Li Heng spun around and saw this stubbornly persistent wealthy young master. Her heart tightened.
Every time they met, he’d call out in that mocking tone: “Police Madam.”
If he called out now, Zhang Huijing would definitely turn around. Once she grew wary, finding evidence would only get harder.
“Poli—”
Shen Zhicheng opened his mouth as expected, but the moment he got out the first syllable, his gaze met the warning in Li Heng’s eyes. Following her line of sight, he caught a glimpse of Zhang Huijing’s retreating figure up ahead.
In an instant, he shifted sideways to shield Li Heng, let out a whistle, and smoothly changed his tune: “Damn—pretty lady!”
This was a busy commercial area—street catcalls were common.
In the end, Zhang Huijing didn’t turn around. She kept her original pace, walking away with her uneven gait.
The two of them immediately followed.
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