The secret Liang Wei had guarded for six full years had finally cracked open.
He was willing to tell the whole truth—only because this inspector’s tone was unwavering, and she had promised to do her best to help Chi Ah Min.
He was already at the end of his rope, with no other choice left.
“Back then, I worked several jobs. During the day, I was a shop assistant at a convenience store. If I got off early in the evening, I’d go around to tea restaurants and eateries asking if they needed delivery help. The pay wasn’t much, but it was daily—every bit I saved I gave to my parents. They were in poor health and wouldn’t even spend money on medicine—that little bit at least made their lives a bit better.”
“The work was hard enough as it was. Sometimes I’d run into difficult customers, and the tea restaurant owners would deliberately shortchange me on wages. Once, I received a fake hundred-dollar bill—I had to pay it back out of my own pocket. That day was just terrible luck. But right before closing, I saw Ah Min for the first time.”
As he spoke of the moment he first met Chi Ah Min, his expression softened imperceptibly.
After they started dating, Ah Min took him to rent a place in Haddon House in Sham Shui Po. The building was old, but for Liang Wei, who had grown up in a cage home, it was already a wonderful place to live.
On moving day, what Ah Min brought wasn’t luggage—but a stack of university entrance exam study materials she’d bought from a bookstore.
“She knew I’d always wanted to study, but I never dared to hope.” Liang Wei’s voice cracked. “Ah Min said she’d support me through school.”
Those days were some of the few happy times in Liang Wei’s life. Every time Ah Min came over, he’d go to the market and cook a simple home-style meal. Ah Min had a small appetite, but she’d linger over her chopsticks, unwilling to put them down. Liang Wei knew that this ordinary warmth was something she had longed for her whole life—and she cherished it deeply.
“Only after we’d been together a long time did I learn that she had a rough childhood.”
“She had a twin sister, but her sister was luckier. Her mother would buy little pastries for her sister and take her out to play—she never did that for Ah Min.”
“Later, her parents divorced, and her mother left with Xiao Jing. That night, Ah Min chased after the car and softly asked if she could come too.”
Li Heng and Gao Zijie sat quietly the entire time, not interrupting.
“After they left, Ah Min’s father stayed the same—whenever he made a bit of money, he’d stop working. He spent all day drinking and playing mahjong. When he was drunk, he’d beat people—using Ah Min as his punching bag.”
“Ah Min was actually very smart. Her grades had never been bad. But when she was sixteen, her father flat-out refused to let her continue school. Crying and begging didn’t help. The blow was too much for her—and from that day on, she ran away from home.”
After that, Ah Min never went back—until her father died of a severe illness.
Li Heng made a note on the statement at the mark “sixteen years old.”
That was the year Chi Ah Min applied for an ID card and name change for her deceased sister. How she convinced Chi Guodong to sign the consent form was unclear—but he probably didn’t care, as long as it didn’t affect the disability allowance he collected for his dead younger daughter.
“Ah Min was usually cheerful, but whenever she mentioned her sister, she always seemed downcast.”
“She said her sister and mother used to snuggle up in front of the black-and-white TV watching the eight o’clock dramas. When her sister didn’t understand something, her mother would patiently explain—but she was never invited to join, so she pretended not to be interested.”
“Her sister got to study properly with their mother, and could even get an extra roast goose leg with her meal…”
“Ah Min also said her mother was pretty, worked as a clerk at a cosmetics company, and later remarried a colleague and started a new life—maybe she’d eventually move overseas.”
Liang Wei’s voice trembled slightly: “I never thought to ask her then how she knew all that. I just remember her acting like a sulky child—and I got swept up in her emotions, resenting her sister for taking everything from her.”
After that came the nightmare Liang Wei least wanted to recall.
Chi Ah Min’s father fell gravely ill, and her heart softened—she decided to go back and see him. Liang Wei had wanted to go with her, but at that very time, his own mother also collapsed.
“The only one who could give us that money was Zhang Pingxuan,” Liang Wei said hoarsely.
Li Heng’s pen paused slightly: “Zhang Pingxuan knew Ah Min.”
Liang Wei closed his eyes, his face twisted in pain. “Yes.”
In Granny Chow’s eyes, her grandson was gentle, honest, and still a child. But the first time Liang Wei saw him, it was in Tsim Sha Tsui. Zhang Pingxuan had low intelligence, but he could manage daily life on his own. He spent his days being taken around entertainment venues by fair-weather friends and had long grown used to paying for company.
At the time, Liang Wei hadn’t noticed anything unusual—he just saw Zhang Pingxuan staring, like other men, at Chi Ah Min as she got off work.
Liang Wei desperately needed surgery money—and what Zhang Pingxuan wanted was for Chi Ah Min to keep him company.
“That happened around the time of the Mong Kok dai pai dong class gathering,” Gao Zijie interjected. “His night school classmates said he seemed troubled during those days.”
Liang Wei had never intended to push Ah Min into the fire—but his mother’s medical bills were an astronomical sum, leaving him no way out.
“And then you ran into ‘Zhang Huijing,’” Gao Zijie pressed seriously, following the key lead.
Liang Wei nodded slowly.
Communication was inconvenient back then. He and Chi Ah Min didn’t keep in touch often—he’d only heard that her father had passed away and she would return after the funeral. So when he ran into “Zhang Huijing,” he was initially surprised, but quickly recognized her as Ah Min’s twin sister—the one he’d never met.
And in that moment, he made a decision that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
“I’d heard her name. I found her company and waited downstairs.”
“I told her I knew her sister Chi Ah Min and invited her over to my place. Her reaction… she seemed uncertain, but also happy.”
“I’m not saying I had no guilt. But on one side was my mother, hanging by a thread—and on the other was the sister Ah Min bitterly resented. I convinced myself I’d made the right choice.”
“I’d heard Xiao Jing was meek and weak-willed. I gambled on her not reporting it to the police.”
And so, absurdly, it happened.
Liang Wei took Zhang Pingxuan’s money, brought him home ahead of time, then left and hid downstairs.
“I saw her coming, standing at the base of the tenement building.” Liang Wei’s clenched hands were drained of color. “Zhang Pingxuan was simple-minded. He liked Ah Min, but even if it was the sister who showed up, he couldn’t tell the difference.”
He had planned to go back home after two hours, but he couldn’t sit still—in less than thirty minutes, he hurried upstairs.
The moment he pushed open the door, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
Zhang Pingxuan lay on the carpet in a pool of blood—no sign of life.
And she—hair disheveled, clothes still neatly in place—sat expressionless at the coffee table, writing something with a pen.
On the paper was the hide-and-seek nursery rhyme.
She looked up, met his eyes, and softly called his name.
In that instant, he stared back at her, frozen—and his whole body jolted.
“You realized the person before you wasn’t Zhang Huijing at all—but Chi Ah Min.” Li Heng said quietly. “The sister was the sister, the sister was the sister. There was never a second person.”
While Liang Wei buried the body, Chi Ah Min crouched beside him, holding the note, softly chanting.
Worried about her mental state, as she repeated the rhyme over and over, he tossed the note into the wet cement.
As they left, Liang Wei gripped her shoulders and told her, word by word.
Forget everything.
Chi Ah Min’s gaze was distant.
Liang Wei realized that might have been the last time the real Chi Ah Min had recognized him with clarity.
“One, two, three—quickly hide. Four, five, six—can’t be found. Seven, eight, nine—caught you.”
“Ah Min once said that as a child, she always played hide-and-seek with her sister. Every time, her sister hid, and she looked.”
“But from that day on, Ah Min hid herself. And she stayed hidden—for six full years.”
Over the next six years, Liang Wei couldn’t let go—he often went to see her quietly.
Perhaps it was subconscious self-preservation—she truly forgot Liang Wei, forgot all the painful memories, and completely became Zhang Huijing.
“From then on, there was only Zhang Huijing in the world—the innocent, kind younger sister who, from age twelve onward, had never been hurt again.”
“Why are you certain the sister died at twelve?” Li Heng asked.
Liang Wei shook his head—it wasn’t certainty, but inference.
Over those long six years, he’d replayed that day countless times, picking apart every detail.
“The year she turned twelve, before her mother took her sister away, something happened in the family.”
“Because of a spilled bottle of beer, her father beat her sister badly. After she drank some water, she coughed up a mouthful of blood—she was badly injured.”
“Her sister did leave that day,” Gao Zijie said, his tone heavy, “and the one who gave her the water was Chi Ah Min.”
“That’s not all.” Liang Wei was silent for a long time. “Actually, it was Ah Min who accidentally knocked over that bottle of beer. She was too scared to admit it—and in her panic, she blamed her sister. Her sister took the pain and didn’t expose her.”
From age twelve onward, Chi Ah Min’s mind had begun to unravel—she had lived in self-deception. Overwhelmed with guilt, she stubbornly told herself her sister hadn’t died—she’d just left with their mother. She projected all the good things in life onto her sister—yet at the same time, resented her mother for not taking her along.
That obsession took root deep in her heart.
Being forced to drop out of school at sixteen by her father was the second psychological blow.
It wasn’t until she started working that her condition gradually stabilized. But then her father fell gravely ill and passed away—and she had to go back to handle the funeral.
Liang Wei guessed: “I’ve always thought—maybe on his deathbed, her father brought up her sister’s death.”
The painful childhood memories were stirred up again. Chi Ah Min’s mind fell into chaos, swinging back and forth between the two sisters’ identities.
That was also why, when she happened to run into the night school classmates back then, none of them noticed her limp.
And then Zhang Pingxuan’s appearance became the final straw.
The approach of this stranger triggered memories of childhood violence. In an instinctive act of resistance, she unleashed an unprecedented burst of strength—and killed him.
From that day on, Chi Ah Min disappeared completely.
Zhang Huijing came to life.
“I thought about it later—even if the one who was really hurt was her sister, she was actually quite innocent.” Liang Wei’s voice dropped low. “It was my fault alone.”
At this point, the truth of the case finally came to light.
Liang Wei finished telling the secret he’d buried for six years and let out a long breath—but there was no relief on his face.
“Ah Min can’t handle it.” He looked at Li Heng, his eyes full of pleading. “Could you… not push her like this?”
Page after page of the statement was filled with dense handwriting.
Liang Wei had taken one wrong step—and from there, there was no turning back.
For six years, he had dreaded the police knocking on his door every single day. Yet at the same time, he thought that even if he took all the blame himself—as long as Chi Ah Min could go on living as Zhang Huijing forever—he would be willing.
But it was also he who had pushed the person he most wanted to protect straight into the abyss.
At the end of the interrogation, Liang Wei asked the question that mattered most to him: “Ah Min… what will happen to her?”
Li Heng paused for a moment, her tone growing more serious.
“We’ll verify what you’ve told us first.”
“If it checks out, we’ll arrange for Chi Ah Min to be admitted to a hospital for a full psychiatric evaluation.”
“Until the formal report is issued, as a matter of procedural consideration, the police will not conduct separate questioning of her for the time being.”
Liang Wei listened, and his tense shoulders slowly relaxed: “Thank you, Madam.”
…
That afternoon, as Pan Liqin passed by the interview room, he glanced at Chi Ah Min inside. Since meeting Zhang Fengying, she hadn’t spoken a word—her eyes empty and distant.
He had been pushing for closure for so long, but it was only now that the stove-bottom body case was finally entering the formal closing process. He had to admit—this defiant subordinate of his had been right all along about the direction of the investigation.
Liang Wei’s confession was still just his side of the story. Chi Ah Min’s exact mental state at the time of the crime would require professional evaluation. But the overall outline of the case was now largely clear.
That evening, Li Heng and Old You parked the police car in Cheung Sha Wan.
“Let’s go. Once we get the corroborating statements from Chi Ah Min’s colleagues and complete the case file, this case will be settled.”
The two went upstairs. The process went smoothly, and before long, they had gathered the materials and walked out of the office building.
Old You rubbed his stomach, a little sheepish: “Madam, I’m going to grab some cart noodles up ahead. There’s always a queue at that stall—wait for me?”
Li Heng glanced at the sky: “You knock off here. I’ll take the documents back to the station myself.”
Old You broke into a grin and hurried off toward the food stall.
Li Heng got into the car alone. As she merged into traffic, her mind kept circling back to the case.
The younger sister—who seemed quiet and timid—was resilient. The older sister—who seemed sharp and shrewd—was sensitive. Their fates had been tangled since childhood. In that first statement, the “younger sister” had said her older sister must hate her. But in reality, the older sister had woven a peaceful, safe life for her in her heart—a life free from suffering. And out of envy, she had even split off a personality that belonged to her sister.
Lost in thought, Li Heng drifted and took a wrong turn.
By the time she realized it, the police car had already entered the bustling Apliu Street.
Apliu Street was always crowded with people, and Li Heng had to slow down.
As she crept along, her gaze swept casually across the storefronts.
Suddenly, her eyes stopped.
At the end of the street was a repair shop, with a sign that prominently read “Tai Lung Electrical” and “Repairs & Buybacks.”
On the counter sat a familiar music box. Beside it, a small cardboard sign offered a high price for old music box cylinders.
Li Heng had seen this music box countless times in her dreams—the delicate, intricate carvings, the soft melody it played when opened.
A tinkling tune etched into her fragmented dreams.
The case was finally entering its final stages. It was time to handle her personal matters.
Should she just drop a DNA report in front of Shen Zhicheng? Or find a better moment? She still hadn’t decided how to broach the subject.
Caught in her thoughts, Li Heng had already parked the car and pushed open the door to the repair shop.
The shop owner was bent over fixing a radio, using small tweezers to take apart parts. He didn’t look up at the sound of the door: “Take a look around if you want.”
Li Heng walked to the counter, gently picked up the music box, and ran her fingers over its carvings.
“Boss, how much is this?”
The owner finally looked up and quickly reached out to take the music box back: “Sorry, that’s not for sale. A customer brought it in for repair. I put it out front hoping to get lucky and find some matching old parts.”
Just then, Shen Zhicheng arrived at the shop entrance, following the pickup time on his repair receipt. He spotted Li Heng’s back in one glance.
What a small world!
Inside the repair shop, the crackling static of a malfunctioning radio filled the air.
“Such a shame—the customer is willing to pay any price to have it fixed. But the parts are too old—I just can’t find a match.” The owner fiddled with the sputtering radio and sighed. “This old thing—it might just be beyond repair.”
Shen Zhicheng stood outside the door, his heart sinking.
This music box was the last thread tying him to his family—something he desperately wanted to hold onto. They’d been gone too long, and the few bonds that remained were fading away with time.
“I can see you really like it. I’d sell it to you if I could, but I really can’t,” the owner said to Li Heng again. “I’d have no way to explain it to the customer.”
Li Heng pulled out her police badge from her pocket and placed it on the counter.
“Just register it as—”
Shen Zhicheng’s chest tightened. From behind her, he cut in coldly: “Hey—are cops just allowed to rob people now?”
Almost at the same instant, Li Heng’s clear voice landed—overlapping with his.
The ambient noise around them seemed to fall away. Even the radio static seemed to disappear.
All that remained was her unfinished sentence.
“—as being taken by his sister.”
The air froze.
Their eyes met. In that moment, Shen Zhicheng’s heart jolted—and he stood rooted to the spot.
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