The afternoon sunlight streamed through the branches of the large tree outside the window, spilling into the hospital room and casting dappled shadows across Liang Wei’s gaunt face.
Six years—not a terribly long time for someone in the prime of their youth—but the light in his eyes had been utterly extinguished, leaving behind only a numb emptiness.
Liang Wei was silent for a long time, his lips pressed tightly together, unsure where to even begin.
“Start with how you met Zhang Pingxuan,” Li Heng said, his tone cold, his overbearing presence shattering the stillness.
Everyone said Liang Wei was born to be a scholar—that if things had gone smoothly, getting a recommendation to the University of Hong Kong wouldn’t have been out of the question.
But now, dressed in a baggy hospital gown, he lay there in drab gray, showing no trace of the former star student.
“Six years ago, I was dating a girl. I’d go to Tsim Sha Tsui every day to wait for her to get off work.”
Old You cut in from the side: “Ah Min? From Tonight’s Nightclub?”
“So you’ve already dug up that much.” Liang Wei’s voice was hoarse. He paused, then spoke again. “Ah Min’s work hours weren’t fixed. When I couldn’t wait for her, I’d wander around the neighborhood. One time, I saw someone surrounded by a bunch of triad punks. I helped him out. That person was Zhang Pingxuan.”
Liang Wei said Zhang Pingxuan had a lot of “friends” around him.
Those people fawned over him all day, taking him to high-end dance halls and nightclubs. They ordered the most expensive liquor and paid for hostesses by the hour—all on Zhang Pingxuan’s tab.
“He wasn’t all there in the head, but he was simple and guileless. Be a little nice to him, and he’d take you for a true friend. It was around that time that I found out his family had money—he had a huge sum stashed away in his passbook.”
That period was the closest Liang Wei had ever come to happiness. The university entrance exams were just around the corner. Ah Min had quit her job at the nightclub, and the two of them planned to settle down into a steady, stable life. He loved reading and growing plants. He kept their shabby rental tidy and warm, fixing it up like a real home, fully believing that life was finally on the right track.
But then his mother suddenly fell severely ill and was hospitalized.
Liang Wei rambled on and off for a long time, covering mostly what the police had already pieced together through leads—except for the circumstances of how he’d met Zhang Pingxuan.
Zhang Pingxuan was completely unguarded around people. When he casually mentioned the exact amount of money his family had in savings, Liang Wei started scheming.
“He was just a fool,” Liang Wei said. “All I had to do was trick him into going to the bank, get him to punch in the PIN, and I could withdraw a hundred thousand. A hundred thousand—where else was I supposed to come up with that kind of money? My mother was lying in the hospital waiting for that life-saving cash. He was the only one. Only he could help me…”
Liang Wei had always been calculating. He deliberately forged a fake passbook for Zhang Pingxuan to put back at home. Because of that, Zhang Pingxuan’s grandmother never even knew a huge chunk of money was missing from the passbook and never grew suspicious.
But a hundred thousand was still a hundred thousand. Liang Wei worried that Zhang Pingxuan’s family might find out later, so he found a secluded spot and arranged to meet him at his own rental.
Li Heng looked up. “You chose the place where you’d be most easily traced. Weren’t you afraid his family would come looking?”
“It was just a rental—no one would pay it any mind. Better than out in the open.” Liang Wei paused for a long while before continuing. “When he showed up, he brought an envelope. It was stuffed with cash.”
“He brought the money. There was no need for you to kill him,” Li Heng said.
“That’s not how it was—you wouldn’t understand!” Liang Wei shook his head violently. “People with intellectual disabilities think differently from normal people. The moment I had the money, I wanted to rush to the hospital. But Zhang Pingxuan clung to me, pestering me to play with him, refusing to let go no matter what.”
Liang Wei closed his eyes, his face twisted in pain.
He said that for six years, every time he shut his eyes, he saw that scene. His mother’s life hanging in the balance at the hospital, the life-saving money right in his hand—he was frantic to the point of madness—but Zhang Pingxuan was hopping around beside him, pestering him relentlessly.
Driven to the edge by sheer desperation, Liang Wei lost all patience and shoved him hard.
Zhang Pingxuan lost his balance, toppled backward, and the back of his head slammed into the sharp corner of the coffee table. He went silent on the spot.
“He fell on the carpet. He didn’t move. Didn’t move…”
“Zhang Pingxuan lay perfectly still.” Liang Wei forced himself to calm down and went on. “I checked his breath. There was nothing. Nothing… I’d killed him by accident.”
“It was too late to call an ambulance. I was terrified—terrified of going to prison, terrified of ruining my entire life.”
Liang Wei said that after dropping out of school in his teens, the first job he’d ever taken was as a cement worker.
Li Heng looked up and exchanged a glance with Old You.
This detail had been deliberately concealed in Liang Wei’s father’s earlier testimony.
“I bought cement and bricked Zhang Pingxuan’s body into the stove.”
“I got rid of the bloodstained carpet, threw away his valuables, and the real passbook too.”
After doing all that, Liang Wei didn’t know whether he should regret it or feel relieved that he’d escaped justice.
All he knew was that from that moment on, his life had plummeted into an abyss—a turning point so drastic there was no going back.
“What did the note with the nursery rhyme mean?” Li Heng pressed.
Liang Wei was silent for a long time, his gaze vacant, fixed on one spot.
During the prolonged silence, Old You wanted to urge him on, but when he met Li Heng’s signaling look to stay quiet, he held his tongue.
Fang Zhishan watched quietly from the side, her brows tightly knitted. A murder case—one dead, one on the run… Now that the truth they’d been chasing for so long was finally laid before them, the weight in their hearts only felt heavier.
“One, two, three—quickly hide.” Liang Wei’s voice grew softer, as if traveling back through time to the crime scene six years ago.
“Four, five, six—can’t be found.”
“Seven, eight, nine…”
Liang Wei raised his head again, but didn’t finish the rhyme. The bloodshot in his eyes had deepened.
“I was afraid his ghost wouldn’t rest, that it would come to me every night in my dreams demanding his life.”
“The older generation used to say that if you make the dead hide when they die, their soul will never find its way to reincarnation.”
Old You couldn’t help but curse: “How deep was the grudge? Killing the man and burying him wasn’t enough—you had to curse him to never find peace in the afterlife!”
Liang Wei turned his gaze toward him, enduring the harsh reprimand without a word of defense.
“What about Ah Min?” Li Heng asked. “Where was Ah Min at the time of the crime?”
“She wasn’t there.” Liang Wei shook his head. “Her father had fallen seriously ill around that time too. She went home to take care of him for a few days, but he still passed away. She stayed behind afterward to handle the funeral.”
After taking care of everything, Liang Wei knew he could no longer give Ah Min a stable life.
If he was lucky, he would carry this secret to his grave. If not, he’d be brought to justice—and he couldn’t drag her down with him.
“I called her and broke up with her over the phone,” Liang Wei said. “I deliberately told her I was tired of her and to stop bothering me.”
At the time, Ah Min had quit her nightclub job. With no education or work experience, finding a decent new job would naturally take time. Her father’s health had failed, she’d gone home, and she was already emotionally drained. When she got Liang Wei’s breakup call, she didn’t cry, nor did she beg him to stay.
Ah Min had always been proud. No matter how much it hurt, she would never cling.
Li Heng shot Old You a meaningful look, signaling him to immediately verify the funeral records for Ah Min’s father.
Old You acknowledged it and strode quickly out of the ward.
…
Back in the room, Liang Wei continued recounting the details of the past six years.
After taking a life, he’d burned all his university entrance exam study materials. He knew he could never have a future. He could only live under an assumed name, picking up odd jobs here and there, using only cash, careful not to leave any trace.
Over the years, he’d kept an eye on news about Haddon House in Sham Shui Po. He’d heard that a big conglomerate had acquired the plot, and rumors of demolition and redevelopment circulated again and again.
“I kept hoping for the demolition. I figured that when they tore it down, mixed in with the steel and concrete, Zhang Pingxuan’s body might turn to dust, and no one would ever find it.”
“When that day came—when even the bones were gone—I could finally come out in the open and start over.”
But what he’d never expected was that after six long years of waiting, what awaited him was a news report about skeletal remains being unearthed.
A few days later, a reconstructed image of Zhang Pingxuan’s skull was broadcast on TV in a loop.
Then the papers ran the police’s missing persons notice. Though the column was small, he recognized himself at a glance.
“I couldn’t go on hiding like a fugitive forever.”
“Six years of just scraping by—I’ve truly had enough.”
In the end, Liang Wei chose to return to Haddon House.
His life had nearly gotten a fresh start here—but a moment of greed had brought him to this end.
“A life for a life. I should have returned this one to him long ago.”
He had planned to end it all here, but who knew—he’d been saved by a passerby.
Even as the statement-taking drew to a close, Liang Wei kept murmuring to himself.
“Why did you save me… why did you save me…”
…
Li Heng stepped out of the ward, and Lin Jiacong immediately came up, handing her the DNA comparison application form for the young heir of the Shen family.
“Run it through the normal procedure,” Li Heng said. “File this one for the records.”
By then, Shen Zhicheng had already been placed in a VIP ward.
He sat in a wheelchair, pushed by an orderly, being taken for various tests.
They happened to cross paths in the corridor. Li Heng glanced at him.
“Check for a concussion while you’re at it.”
“The doctors suggested the same thing,” Shen Zhicheng replied.
Only after the words left his mouth did he catch the sarcasm in that remark. Just as he was about to say something, Li Heng had already turned and walked away.
“I heard the case is closed?” he called out after her.
Is the case closed? Li Heng wanted to ask herself that too.
Liang Wei’s confession seemed complete on the surface, but everything had come too easily—smoothly, unnaturally so. Though his statement broadly matched the on-scene deductions, it wasn’t necessarily airtight.
Was Zhang Pingxuan sealed in the cement before or after death? Whose were the broken strands of hair found in the clothing fibers? The handwriting analysis on the nursery rhyme note hadn’t come back yet…
A former top student who once had a shot at a Hong Kong University recommendation claimed that nursery rhyme was meant to prevent the deceased from reincarnating—was that even credible?
None of the critical reports had come in, yet the suspect had turned himself in and confessed to everything.
And then there was Ah Min.
Ah Min’s whereabouts were still unknown.
The case wasn’t over. She even felt this was only the beginning.
“I asked you a question—don’t you know how to show some respect?” Shen Zhicheng, ignored yet again, snapped with impatience. “Always so bloody strange.”
Li Heng’s footsteps faltered. Her back stiffened.
Strange.
That word had trailed her through her entire childhood.
Old buried memories surged up in an instant.
At age six, she was returned by her second foster family.
That couple had said with revulsion: this child has a weird personality, no manners, impossible to bond with—no one could ever raise her right.
Back then, Li Heng thought no one would ever want her again.
But not long after, another family came and still chose her.
The third time she was fostered, Li Heng learned to read people’s expressions, to sweet-talk and please, to strive to be a likeable child. At first, the smiles she forced out were uglier than tears. She practiced until the corners of her mouth ached, until she could lift them naturally.
As time passed, the adults finally began to look satisfied. She vaguely, half-understandingly, thought she might finally have a home.
But when her foster parents had their own child, she was sent back all the same.
That day, little Li Heng stood at the orphanage gate, clutching that bag of old clothes.
Once she walked back in, there was no turning back.
No one could question her.
Not as a child, and certainly not now.
“Has anyone ever taught you—” Shen Zhicheng leaned back in his wheelchair, his spoiled rich-kid temper flaring, raising his voice—”what manners mean?”
Li Heng slowly turned around.
When their eyes met, her gaze had gone cold.
“No.” Li Heng enunciated each word, her tone dripping with mockery. “Never.”
Shen Zhicheng was momentarily stunned.
—
Jinxiao Nightclub= Tonight’s Nightclub
Desheng Building= Haddon House
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