Shen Zhicheng hated the smell of hospitals.
Even in the most premium private ward, that piercing, sterile scent of disinfectant was still pungent and inescapable.
But at this moment, the look in this police madam’s eyes was even colder than the antiseptic.
Li Heng dropped a perfectly cutting remark, couldn’t even be bothered to say goodbye, turned around, and left—seeing her lack of manners through to the end.
Shen Zhicheng had never been treated like this by anyone. Frowning, he turned to the nurse beside him: “Is she snapping at me?”
The nurse, caught off guard, tried to smooth things over vaguely: “Not really… Madam’s just busy.”
Shen Zhicheng didn’t say another word.
Busy or not, the case was closed anyway.
From now on, he probably wouldn’t have any more run-ins with this madam and her fiery temper.
…
Li Heng walked out of the hospital entrance and stopped to wait.
A few moments later, several officers came downstairs and joined her. Liang Wei still needed to be kept under observation at the hospital for one more night, but since the suspect had already confessed, there were officers posted outside his ward. All that remained for Team A was to wrap things up.
The officers chatted and joked among themselves, the atmosphere in the vehicle noticeably lighter.
As soon as the car pulled into the police station and the door to the CID office swung open, Pan Sir was already beaming as he greeted them.
This case had drawn a lot of public attention—rumors were flying everywhere. The higher-ups were breathing down their necks, and the media kept hounding them for answers. Now that Liang Wei had turned himself in and confessed, everything fell into place, and Pan Liqin finally felt the weight lift off his shoulders.
“Finally back,” he said breezily. “Everyone’s worked hard—afternoon tea’s on me.”
The moment he finished, his colleagues erupted in cheers.
Sang Kee Tea Restaurant in Kowloon City was the most famous spot. Before long, a delivery guy in the restaurant’s uniform walked in carrying paper bags. Lin Jiacong hurried over to take them, set them down, and started calling out for everyone to grab their share.
“Anyone want iced lemon tea with less sugar?”
“Egg tarts—be careful, they’re hot—”
It was standard practice for the team leader to occasionally treat the squad—practically a tradition. But ever since Li Heng had been transferred to Team A, no one had even seen a whiff of afternoon tea. They could only watch longingly as the aroma drifted over from Team B next door.
Now that the Chief Inspector was hosting, the office buzzed with life, the heavy gloom of the past days swept clean away.
Li Heng walked straight to her office and pulled out Liang Wei’s confession again, rereading it word by word.
The timeline and motive in this confession were perfectly aligned. His mother’s medical expenses and the hundred thousand missing from the deceased Zhang Pingxuan’s account corroborated each other.
But aside from the pending reports, there was still one link missing.
In his statement, Liang Wei had explicitly mentioned that during the time of the crime, Ah Min was in Yuen Long caring for her seriously ill father, and that days later she observed the mourning period and stayed at the funeral home throughout. But that was just his word. The veracity of the confession had to be verified and cross-referenced.
“Knock knock knock—”
Old You tapped on the door, carrying an egg tart box as he walked in.
Only one tart was left in the box. He smiled and said, “Saved this one specially for you. Those guys were like starving ghosts—almost got wiped out.”
Old You had an egg tart in his own hand too, flaky crust crumbs scattered all over his chest as he munched. He pushed the box toward her.
“Go on, try it—fresh out of the oven from Sang Kee. Even with money, you might not get your hands on one!”
“This confession hasn’t been fully verified yet.” Li Heng stood up. “We’re going to check Ah Min’s father’s death certificate and funeral records to confirm the alibi.”
Old You paused for a second, then caught on.
“Madam, Liang Wei already confessed. Verifying it a day earlier or later won’t make a difference.”
Li Heng casually grabbed the car keys and walked toward the door. The buttery aroma of the egg tart wafted past her nose.
She hesitated for a moment, then still picked up the tart.
Old You had no choice but to hurry after her. Before leaving the CID room, he turned back and shrugged at his colleagues.
If he’d known Madam would be this relentless about following procedure, he would have had someone fax over the documents in advance!
“Even a hanging man needs a breather…” Old You muttered.
Li Heng took a bite of the egg tart.
It was pretty good.
…
The old address registered for Ah Min in the population system had long been demolished, so Li Heng started with her father’s death certificate and went directly to the funeral home in Yuen Long to pull the records.
Old You sat in the passenger seat with a resigned look.
Ah Min wasn’t a suspect. At most, the police could issue a request for information—there was no reason to hound her.
Yuen Long was far, and the round trip was a hassle—
Old You shook his head. This superior of his was still too young.
When the two arrived at the funeral home, an administrative clerk received them. After verifying the information, he went to the archives to look up the documents.
“I remember that daughter of his,” the clerk said. “A few of us colleagues thought she was quite pretty back then, so we took a few extra glances.”
“Six years ago—and you still remember that clearly?” Li Heng asked.
“It’s mainly because her name was so plain and unremarkable.” The clerk smiled, flipping through the funeral records, his finger landing on the signature on the last page. “A young girl, yet she had the same sort of name as an old granny from the streets—what was it… ah, Chi Ah Min.”
The file contained Chi Ah Min’s signature and a temporary address.
“The originals can’t leave the premises,” the clerk said, closing the file. “Wait a moment—I’ll make a copy for you.”
As he spoke, he pushed open the door to the photocopy room.
“That family member really had it tough.” The clerk operated the copier as he chatted casually. “I remember back then, she ran around handling everything herself. For such a big matter, she didn’t have a single person to help her.”
Old You had stepped out to get a cup of water. He said to Li Heng, “Come to think of it, Ah Min’s parents had been separated for eleven years by then…”
Li Heng’s eyes swept over the dates on the file: “Once the family member takes care of all the relevant procedures here, is everything considered done?”
The clerk was about to speak when his peripheral vision caught the funeral home director walking out of the hallway with documents in hand.
The director said, “No, it’s not done once the paperwork is finished. You have to wait for the ashes.”
“In those days, unlike now, there were more bodies than cremation ovens. Cremation required queuing—you couldn’t get it done the same day.”
“From filing the paperwork to waiting for cremation to collecting the ashes—you couldn’t step away for a single step of it.”
Old You immediately took out his notebook and jotted it down: “So that means she couldn’t have left at that time?”
“At least three full days—from morning to night, signing here, signing there, running in and out for everything herself.”
As they spoke, the clerk handed over the photocopy of the funeral records.
Old You tucked it away, and the two of them finally left the funeral home.
“Now that’s fully verified.” Walking toward the parking lot, Old You said, “No holes in Ah Min’s side of things. She had no one to help her during those funeral days—she stayed at the funeral home the entire time, didn’t leave for three days. And it was right within those three days that Zhang Pingxuan met his end. Even if she could have made it from Yuen Long to Sham Shui Po, she wouldn’t have had the chance.”
“Her biological father had just passed, and then she got that breakup call—who could handle that? I figure Ah Min just left that place of heartbreak, changed her number, and started over somewhere else.”
“She’s not a fugitive, not an emigrant—it’s normal that we can’t track her down.”
“Maybe the police assumed she was missing because we had it backward from the start.”
…
The police car finally stopped at the old building in Yuen Long where Ah Min’s father had rented.
The father and daughter had lived there since Ah Min was fourteen. The hallway was narrow, cluttered with odds and ends, and a musty smell hung in the air.
After several rounds of inquiries, they got in touch with the landlord.
The landlord was a middle-aged auntie who came rushing over in slippers, carrying a ring of keys.
“This building is old, the lighting is terrible, and the layout is stuffy. No one’s wanted to rent it for years—it’s been empty for a long time.”
After unlocking the door, she let the officers in and started rambling.
“Ah Min went out to work when she was barely in her teens—rarely came back.”
“A few years ago, her dad had a brain hemorrhage. No one found him until he was nearly gone, and only then did someone notify me.”
“I was the one who called her back. That girl—poor thing—never had a mother’s love growing up, and didn’t have a single relative by her side.”
The landlord said that year, Ah Min stayed at home for a few days and only left after she’d completely taken care of her father’s funeral arrangements.
When she left, she looked haggard, her eyes swollen and red from crying.
“She didn’t even leave a little something for the trouble of cleaning up the place.” The landlord turned and went into the room, then came back out carrying a plastic bag. “This is what they left behind. I didn’t throw it away in case she ever came back looking for it. You police officers take it back with you.”
Li Heng opened the plastic bag.
Inside were a few old clothes, a small mirror, a worn makeup bag containing a powder puff and an old comb. At the very bottom, pressed beneath everything else, was a photo frame—it turned out to be a childhood photo of Chi Ah Min and Zhang Huijing together. The two sisters in the picture were easy to tell apart: one had an innocent, carefree smile, while the other had been quiet and delicate since childhood. And because Zhang Huijing had trouble with her legs, she was seated, with Chi Ah Min standing beside her.
Old You was right, actually.
Ah Min’s alibi was solid. Where she was didn’t affect Liang Wei’s eventual conviction.
This trip was just about following procedure to the letter.
Li Heng handed the plastic bag to Old You: “Take it back to the station and file it.”
…
Old You drove on the way back.
With the case nearing its end and the long drive ahead, the two of them started debriefing.
“At the end of July six years ago, Liang Wei met Zhang Pingxuan, and they became friends. In early August, Ah Min quit her job, and Liang Wei was preparing for his exams.”
“Everything was moving in a positive direction—but then Ah Min’s father suddenly passed away. She rushed back to Yuen Long alone. Around the same time, Liang Wei’s mother was hospitalized with a serious illness and needed expensive surgery immediately.”
Liang Wei set his sights on Zhang Pingxuan. After taking the money, an argument and a shove led to the other’s death.
“Liang Wei had worked as a cement laborer before—he knew the trade well and buried the body directly. Afterward, not wanting to drag Ah Min down, he called her and broke up.”
Old You stepped on the brake at a traffic light and let out a chuckle. “If you ask me, the strangest thing about this whole case is Liang Wei’s so-called ‘deep feelings’ for Ah Min. He said he didn’t want to hold her back—but then he didn’t turn himself in either. He just went on scraping by for six years.”
Li Heng’s gaze flickered. She turned to look at him.
“Madam, ever heard of the tale of ‘Du Shiniang’?”
They say students are the most devoted in love. Ah Min was the one who got chosen.
But being chosen also meant handing over all the power to someone else.
“Du Shiniang drowned her treasure box in anger—a devoted woman scorned by a faithless man.” Old You teased. “What if it’s the other way around?”
Leaving aside the subjective testimonies of the nightclub employee, Maggie Cai Meiqi, Mrs. Wong, and others—
If you flipped the roles—what if Ah Min was the devoted one, and Liang Wei the faithless?
“Then Ah Min’s leaving was just an ordinary breakup.” Old You tried to put her at ease. “Thinking of it that way, there’s even less reason to care about her whereabouts—it’s not that relevant to the case anyway.”
The car entered Cheung Sha Wan.
Old You, afraid that saying too much might upset his superior, cleared his throat and changed the subject: “Almost there—we’re in Cheung Sha Wan now.”
Li Heng suddenly looked up: “Cheung Sha Wan—is it close to Sham Shui Po?”
Old You glanced out the window and casually replied: “Close—just a few minutes’ walk.”
In an instant, the scattered clues in Li Heng’s mind snapped together.
A bold thought suddenly sprang forth.
“We’ve always assumed that Liang Wei saw the skull reconstruction on TV and in the papers, had a psychological breakdown, and went to the rooftop.”
Old You nodded: “That’s what his own confession says too.”
“But Sham Shui Po and Cheung Sha Wan are this close.” Li Heng’s tone turned heavy. “Is there a possibility that Liang Wei actually saw us walk into Zhang Huijing’s company with his own eyes, knew the police had found her, and only then went to the rooftop of Haddon House in Sham Shui Po?”
“Madam, you’re saying that Liang Wei and Zhang Huijing…” The smile on Old You’s face froze as he stared in shock. “Have been in contact all along?”
Calculating the timing—it really was too coincidental.
The police had barely set foot in Zhang Huijing’s company when Liang Wei showed up right after.
In Old You’s mind, the joke he’d just made echoed back at him.
What if Liang Wei—always seen as the devoted one—was actually the faithless one all along?
Li Heng pondered for a moment, then spoke slowly: “Liang Wei didn’t turn himself in for himself—he did it for Zhang Huijing. By confessing, he could cut off all the leads and let Zhang Huijing walk away completely.”
If that were the case, then all of Zhang Huijing’s previous statements—
her innocence, her timidity—would have to be completely overturned.
Perhaps from the very beginning, the truth had been buried entirely—because of some people’s selfish motives.
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