The elderly social worker spoke of the past with eyes full of sympathy and a tone heavy with helplessness.
To give the child a fresh start, the welfare home had sealed her original name through proper procedures and given her a new one.
“It wasn’t until more than half a year later that her father’s case was decided — life imprisonment. Around that same time, a couple came to adopt her.”
“We never hide anything from adoptive families. I was the one who told that couple everything about the child.” At this point, the social worker’s expression softened, a trace of relief finally showing. “After hearing it all, they didn’t mind at all. They looked at her with such kindness and said they would take good care of her. You could tell they were well-off — their manners and speech were very refined. The child should have been able to live a stable life with them.”
After that, Yeung Ching Sing’s daughter left with them — and there was no further news.
“It’s normal to lose contact after that,” the social worker explained. “Most adoptive families don’t want the child to dwell on their time in the home. It’s best to leave those unhappy memories behind.”
“What name did the child take afterward?”
“Do you have the adoptive parents’ names or contact address?”
“The welfare home moved a few years ago and lost some paper records — a lot of the files weren’t kept intact.” The social worker said, “I’ll try my best to have someone look for you, but it’ll take some time to dig through everything.”
Li Heng nodded and thanked her.
The two turned and left the reception room.
Walking through the hallway, they saw the children in the courtyard playing — far less lively than the kids at a kindergarten.
Shen Zhicheng had always known that Li Heng had grown up in an orphanage.
Looking around at the surroundings, he softened his voice: “Seeing all this — are you okay?”
Li Heng’s brow furrowed slightly.
Shen Zhicheng sighed quietly to himself.
On Temple Street, Li Heng had gone out of her way to use one fortune-teller’s words to overturn another’s lies. Someone so decisive could still be so careful — the relief in her eyes when his lucky lot fell from the tube was all for his sake, to help clear the shadows from his heart.
But Shen Zhicheng knew — she was the same.
Her heart couldn’t be without shadows either.
“That’s all in the past.” Shen Zhicheng’s expression was earnest, his voice warm. “Now you have family…”
Li Heng had already smoothed her brow and cut him off: “Check the name the welfare home gave Yeung Mong Suet — see if it matches anyone in the population system.”
“Quickly.” She quickened her pace, not looking back. “What time is it now — still got time for this?”
“Wow — you really are cold-hearted…” Shen Zhicheng followed behind, complaining. “Heartless!”
…
The police searched using the name the welfare home had given Yeung Mong Suet — still nothing.
No match in the population system.
Where had that little girl from Temple Street gone?
It was well past quitting time.
The lights in Team A’s office area at West Kowloon Regional Headquarters were still blazing. No one had gone home — everyone was focused, going over the leads from the beginning.
Pan Liqin was also still there, his expression grim, his tie already loosened — a far cry from his usual polished appearance on the police show Police Report.
“How is this case getting more and more complicated?” His tone was full of frustration. “Every time we think we’re getting somewhere, the lead goes cold again. First with the Ku Cheung Fung arrest, and now this.”
Hearing Sir Pan’s words, the officers kept their heads down in the files, not daring to speak.
“If Yeung Mong Suet arranged to meet Ng Mei Yan and made her change into that red dress before the murder… since the dress wasn’t bought domestically — it went on sale abroad in May — that line of investigation is still the right direction,” Li Heng said, staring at the evidence photo of the red dress. “But the chances are still slim.”
“Slim is an understatement — it could take forever,” Lin Jiacong ran his hands through his hair, looking exhausted. “Even if the dress was brought back from abroad, how can we be sure it was Yeung Mong Suet herself? What if a friend bought it for her, or she picked it up secondhand?”
“We couldn’t find any information under Yeung Mong Suet’s new name in the system. Even if we filter out males and exclude those outside the age range…” Gao Zijie placed a thick stack of names on the table. “We’re still left with this many people. Are we supposed to go door-to-door checking every single one? And if she had a friend buy it for her, or it was just a secondhand dress, the scope only gets bigger. Three and a half months’ worth of records — it’s impossible to go through them all.”
“The adoptive parents’ information is completely blank. Ten years ago, Yeung Mong Suet disappeared. Ten years later, she reappears as a female journalist. She’s got such strong anti-surveillance skills — leading us around in a game of cat and mouse. How are we supposed to find her?”
“Here we are, a bunch of cops — and she’s got us running in circles!”
They couldn’t find her. It was nearly impossible.
But no matter how slim the chance, they had to keep moving forward, step by step.
Pan Liqin paced back and forth in the CID room, hands clasped behind his back.
His leather shoes clicked against the floor — one after another, a dull, heavy rhythm that only muddled everyone’s thoughts.
“Sir Pan,” Li Heng looked up, “if you keep pacing, I can’t focus.”
Pan Liqin stopped abruptly, his mouth twitching as he shot her a look.
Old You was practically sweating from the tension. Young people spoke so directly — no tact at all. Unlike him, who knew to flatter and placate Sir Pan with smooth talk.
“Fine, I’ll stay still.” Pan Liqin leaned against the edge of the table. “So — have you come up with anything?”
Li Heng didn’t respond.
The CID room fell into a deathly silence.
Her gaze remained fixed on the evidence photo of the red dress, unmoving for a long time.
“If the killer is so meticulous, why make the victim wear a branded red dress that could be traced?” She pressed her fingertip against the edge of the photo, speaking softly. “Why not choose the most ordinary, unremarkable style?”
Several officers chimed in.
“Right — that was our biggest breakthrough early on. She thought of everything — there’s no way she overlooked this.”
“Could it have been a careless slip? She planned everything, but perfect crimes don’t exist.”
“The dress is so expensive — it’s unlikely she just grabbed it. I don’t think it was a mistake — it feels deliberate…”
Li Heng remembered what Tong Yi Wei from the Psychological Support Unit had said in the car that day.
The killer deliberately left talismans at the crime scenes — not necessarily for profit, but more likely driven by a strong desire for revenge against the victims.
Also, the crimes had a strong ritualistic feel — the killer seemed like someone desperate for attention.
“The killer isn’t running — she’s waiting.” Li Heng looked up, enunciating each word clearly. “Waiting for us to follow the red dress brand lead and dig up that old wrongful conviction case.”
Everyone was taken aback.
“Tracing the source of this dress takes a lot of time.” Li Heng’s gaze grew heavier. “If she calculated from the start that we’d be stalled — then what else does she plan to do in that time?”
Fang Zhishan’s heart tightened: “Could it be… after two murders, there’s a third?”
“Who would the target be?” Shen Zhicheng interjected. “If she believes Yeung Ching Sing’s case was a miscarriage of justice, her targets could be the real killer, the informants, or even the investigating officers.”
At that, the officers drew in sharp breaths.
The killer was waiting — stalling for time.
And the police had to race against time — to get ahead of her.
But right now, the case was stuck — at a dead end with no way forward.
Pan Liqin’s expression also grew grave: “Contact the Witness Protection Unit immediately. All colleagues who handled this case back then and any witnesses who provided leads must be protected.”
He picked up the thick stack of entry records from the table.
“This is the only lead we have for now. We’ll just have to stick with it.”
…
By the time they left the station, it was already late.
There was a long list of women around Yeung Mong Suet’s age. The team split into pairs, each taking a district, and went door to door.
But in one night, they couldn’t possibly cover everyone.
Li Heng drove the police car, going from address to address — each trip coming up empty.
When Shen Zhicheng had first joined as an auxiliary officer and followed Li Heng to the scene, the case was still in its early stages — all the leads came easily. He’d thought, how hard could being a cop be? But now, after following a case all the way through, he finally understood — this job was far from as easy as he’d imagined.
They were looking for one person. But the list of names and addresses was endless — going door to door — how long would that take?
Were they really going to have to request the full force of West Kowloon to throw everything into the most tedious, likely futile, brute-force screening, as Old You had suggested?
And everyone knew — from the start, the red dress lead might not even point to Yeung Mong Suet herself.
A seemingly key clue, yet always uncertain.
“On the day Ng Mei Yan went out, and the days before, there were no unusual calls or pager messages at home,” Li Heng said, trying to shift her thinking. “How did she get in touch with the killer?”
Shen Zhicheng’s voice unconsciously dropped: “We must have missed something — there are still details we haven’t straightened out.”
The atmosphere in the car was suffocating.
It was 11:30 at night when they finally got home.
Shen Zhicheng forced himself to stay alert: “Let’s see if Aunt left us anything to eat.”
He pushed the door open — the house was quiet.
Only a strong perfume scent lingered in every corner, impossible to ignore.
“Your aunt’s probably out,” Shen Zhicheng said.
The two collapsed onto the sofa, not even bothering to turn on the lights.
They didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to think — just sunk into the soft cushions, utterly drained.
The room was silent.
Li Heng remembered the old days — when a case hit a dead end, she’d come home like this, racking her brain with no answers.
But back then, there was no one beside her.
Shen Zhicheng also remembered — in the past, he’d drink half-drunk in Lan Kwai Fong, the alcohol blown away by the wind on the way home, yet still wide awake when he got back.
Alone in the empty house, waiting until the sky outside began to lighten.
But now it was different.
They had each other — the closest family in the world.
Leave a Reply