6. The Cannibal's Confession

The Memorial Park stood on the northern edge of Tianhai, where the Huaixi River bent like a broken arm before emptying into the sea. The dedication ceremony had been scheduled for dusk, but by mid-afternoon the grounds were already filling with mourners. They came in black, carrying white chrysanthemums and photographs of the dead, their faces marked by a grief that twenty years had not diminished.

Chen Yunsheng stood at the edge of the crowd, watching the stage where Lin Yusheng would soon deliver his speech. The stage had been erected in front of a massive granite monument carved with the names of the two hundred and thirty-seven victims. The names were arranged in columns, their characters etched deep into the stone, and from a distance they looked like the bars of an enormous cage.

"Lin Yusheng is inside the memorial hall," He Jianshe said, appearing at Chen's elbow. "He has four private security guards and two of my officers with him. No one gets within ten meters of him without being searched."

"And Chen Fang?"

"She is in a holding cell at the Central Precinct. She has not spoken since we brought her in. She sits on the bench and stares at the wall, and when the guards look through the window, she smiles at them. It is unsettling." The detective paused. "The coin was examined by the coroner. The needle contained a concentrated extract of monkshood. Death would have been nearly instantaneous."

"The poison used on Wu Dalang in Water Margin," Chen said. "The author describes it as 'medicine that turns the face purple and the tongue black.' Monkshood does precisely that."

"Then she is the killer. The literary references, the delivery method, the selection of victims. It all fits."

"Yet you have no evidence that will hold in court."

He Jianshe's silence was answer enough.

Chen turned his attention back to the monument. The names carved into the granite seemed to shift in the fading light, as if the dead were rearranging themselves. He counted the columns, then counted them again. "Detective, how many victims were there? The official number?"

"Two hundred and thirty-seven."

"This monument lists two hundred and thirty-six."

He Jianshe frowned and stepped closer to the monument. Together they counted the names, their fingers tracing the cold stone. When they reached the bottom of the final column, the detective's hand fell to his side.

"One name is missing."

"Whose name?"

"I do not know. The manifest from the ferry has been sealed for twenty years. Access requires authorization from the Port Authority." He paused. "The Port Authority that Zhao Mingde controlled."

A bell rang, calling the mourners to the stage. The crowd began to gather, their white chrysanthemums glowing pale in the twilight. At the front of the stage, a man in an expensive black suit climbed the steps. His hair was silver at the temples, his posture impeccable, his face composed into an expression of dignified sorrow.

Lin Yusheng.

He approached the podium and adjusted the microphone. The sound of his breathing filled the park, amplified by the speakers. When he spoke, his voice was smooth and practiced, the voice of a man who had given many speeches to many audiences.

"Twenty years ago, on a night much like this one, the Huaixi River took from us our mothers and fathers, our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters. The disaster was a wound that time has not healed. It was a wound that time cannot heal."

The crowd was silent. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked.

"In the years since, I have dedicated my life to ensuring that the victims are remembered. This park, this monument, this ceremony—they are my offering to the dead. They are my apology to the families who lost so much. They are my promise that the fallen will never be forgotten."

Chen watched Lin Yusheng's face as he spoke. The man was an actor performing grief, and his performance was flawless. But there was something beneath the performance, a tension in the muscles around his eyes, a tightness in his jaw. He was afraid.

"He knows," Chen murmured.

"Knows what?"

"That he is on the list. That the killer is coming for him."

The speech continued for another fifteen minutes. Lin Yusheng spoke of hope and healing, of community and remembrance, of the resilience of the human spirit. The words were beautiful and empty, the kind of words that politicians and businessmen used to cover the bones of their misdeeds.

When the speech ended, the crowd applauded politely. Lin Yusheng descended from the stage and was immediately surrounded by his security detail. They moved him toward a waiting car, a black sedan with tinted windows, its engine already running.

Chen and He Jianshe pushed through the crowd. They reached the car just as Lin Yusheng was climbing into the back seat.

"Mr. Lin," He Jianshe said, flashing his badge. "I need to speak with you. It is a matter of life and death."

Lin Yusheng looked up, and for a moment, his mask slipped. The fear beneath was naked and raw. "I have nothing to say to the police. My lawyers will handle any inquiries."

"This is not about legal matters. This is about the Huaixi Ferry. This is about the missing name on the monument."

The developer's face went pale. His hand, resting on the car door, began to shake. "I do not know what you are talking about."

"Two hundred and thirty-six names, Mr. Lin. The monument lists two hundred and thirty-six victims. But the official manifest records two hundred and thirty-seven. Who is missing? And why?"

Lin Yusheng stared at him for a long moment. Then he gestured to his security guards. "Get in the car. We are leaving."

"Mr. Lin, two survivors are already dead. Feng Xianting and Wu Kaicheng. Zhao Mingde died tonight. You are on the killer's list. If you do not speak with us, you will be dead before morning."

The developer hesitated. His eyes darted between Chen and the detective, searching for something, perhaps a reason to trust. Then he shook his head and climbed into the car. "I cannot help you. I am sorry."

The door slammed shut, and the car pulled away, disappearing into the evening traffic. Chen watched it go, his mind working through the implications.

"He knows the missing name," Chen said. "And whatever he knows, it frightens him more than the threat of death."

"Then why not tell us?"

"Because some secrets are more dangerous than murder."

They returned to the bookshop on Lantern-Tail Street. The night had grown cold, and Chen lit the iron stove in the corner, feeding it with scraps of waste paper. The flames cast dancing shadows on the walls, and the smell of burning ink filled the room.

He Jianshe sat at the desk, his head in his hands. "The Commissioner has given me three days to produce results. After that, the case will be transferred to the Central Bureau. They will bring in their own investigators, their own methods. Chen Fang will be released for lack of evidence, and the killings will continue."

"Three days is more than we need."

"How do you figure?"

Chen walked to his shelves and withdrew a thick volume bound in cracked leather. It was a copy of the Huaixi County Gazetteer, a local history compiled in the years before the disaster. He opened it to a marked page and spread it on the desk.

"The Huaixi Ferry was not the first tragedy on that river. Twenty years before the ferry sank, there was another disaster. A passenger barge capsized during the Dragon Boat Festival. Forty-seven people died. The barge was owned by a company called the Jade River Transport Guild."

He Jianshe looked up. "And?"

"The Jade River Transport Guild was founded by a man named Lin Baichuan. He died in the barge disaster. His son inherited the company and rebuilt it. The son's name was Lin Yusheng."

"The developer inherited his father's company?"

"He did not merely inherit it. He expanded it. Within five years, the Jade River Transport Guild controlled nearly all shipping on the Huaixi River. It operated the ferry that sank twenty years ago. It owned the cargo that the ferry was carrying. It profited from every ticket sold, every ton of goods transported, every life that was lost."

He turned the page. "But there is more. The investigation into the ferry disaster found that the ship had been overloaded. The manifest listed two hundred and thirty-seven passengers, but the ferry was designed to carry only one hundred and eighty. Lin Yusheng's company had sold fifty-seven extra tickets. They had put profit over safety, and two hundred and thirty-seven people had died as a result."

"Then the missing name," He Jianshe said slowly. "It belongs to someone who was never supposed to be on the ferry."

"Someone who was not a passenger. Someone who was not recorded on the manifest. Someone whose death would have exposed the company's negligence." Chen closed the book. "Lin Yusheng has spent twenty years hiding a name. And Chen Fang has spent twenty years waiting to reveal it."

The doorbell chimed.

Both men turned. Standing in the doorway was a woman they had not expected to see again. She wore a simple grey dress, her hair loose around her shoulders, her face pale and expressionless. It was the woman who called herself Wang Xiulan, the woman who had returned from the dead.

"You are supposed to be in protective custody," He Jianshe said, rising from his chair.

"The officers assigned to me were called away. An emergency at the Memorial Park." She stepped into the shop and closed the door behind her. "I came here because I need to tell you something. Something I should have told you from the beginning."

"And what is that?"

She looked at Chen Yunsheng, and her eyes were the eyes of someone who had seen things that could not be unseen. "My name is not Wang Xiulan. It never was. The real Wang Xiulan died five years ago. Luo Zhenguo buried her body in the forest. I am someone else."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Yang Hui. I am the daughter of Yang Hongsheng, the scholar who spent his life investigating the Huaixi Ferry Disaster. And I am the sister of Yang Xiao, the boy who died in the cargo hold."

The room seemed to contract. The flames in the stove flickered and died, and the shadows swallowed the corners of the shop.

"Yang Hongsheng had two children," Chen said. "A son and a daughter. The son died on the ferry. The daughter..."

"The daughter was raised in hatred." Yang Hui's voice was flat, emotionless, the voice of someone reciting a text from memory. "My father devoted himself to uncovering the truth about the disaster. He discovered that the ferry was overloaded, that the inspectors had been bribed, that the survivors had survived by committing unspeakable acts. But he could never prove it. The records were sealed. The witnesses refused to speak. The guilty men prospered while my brother's bones rotted in the river mud."

She took a step forward, and the lamplight caught her face, revealing lines of grief and rage that her youth had not earned. "My father died last spring. On his deathbed, he made me promise to finish his work. To bring justice to the guilty. To ensure that the dead were remembered."

"And Chen Fang?"

"Chen Fang is my cousin. She was raised by my father after her own parents died in the disaster. We grew up together, sharing a room, sharing a purpose. We planned everything together. The false identity, the return from the dead, the murders. All of it."

He Jianshe's hand moved toward his weapon, but Chen raised a hand to stop him. "You are telling us that you are the killer. You and your cousin."

"No." Yang Hui shook her head. "We are not the killers. We are the librarians. The curators. The storytellers." She reached into her sleeve and withdrew a folded piece of paper. "The killings are not our work. They are the work of the city itself."

She unfolded the paper and laid it on the desk. It was a map of Tianhai, annotated with dozens of marks in red ink. Each mark was labeled with a name and a literary reference.

"The names on this map are the names of survivors of the Huaixi Ferry Disaster. There are thirty of them. Feng Xianting, Wu Kaicheng, and Zhao Mingde are already dead. Lin Yusheng will be next. But he will not be killed by me or by my cousin. He will be killed by someone else. Someone who read our research. Someone who found our notes. Someone who has taken up our cause without our knowledge."

Chen stared at the map. The red marks spread across the city like a disease, each one a death waiting to happen. "You are saying there is a copycat."

"We are saying that the story has escaped our control. We set out to write a book of justice, and the book has begun to write itself. The city is filled with people who have reasons to hate the survivors. Families of the dead. Victims of their corruption. Ordinary citizens who have been cheated and abused. Someone among them has decided to become the author of the next chapter."

"Then who killed Feng Xianting and Wu Kaicheng?"

"I do not know. We provided the research. We selected the victims. We chose the literary references. But we never intended to kill anyone. We only wanted to expose the truth. Someone else has taken the final step."

He Jianshe stood and paced the room. "This is absurd. You expect me to believe that an unknown person is committing murders based on your research, and you have no idea who it is?"

"I expect you to believe that the truth is more complicated than you want it to be." Yang Hui met his gaze without flinching. "Chen Fang allowed herself to be arrested because she wanted to speak with you. She wanted to explain. But you would not have believed her if she had simply walked into the station and confessed to being part of a conspiracy that she did not fully control. She needed you to see the pattern for yourself."

"She killed Zhao Mingde. I watched her do it."

"You watched Zhao Mingde open a package that she gave him. You do not know that she placed the needle inside. Anyone could have done it. The package sat on his desk for an hour before you arrived. Anyone could have tampered with it."

Chen Yunsheng had been silent throughout the exchange. Now he spoke, his voice quiet but firm. "The missing name on the monument. Who is it?"

Yang Hui closed her eyes. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. "His name was Zhang Wei. He was thirteen years old. He was a stowaway. He had no ticket, so he was not counted among the passengers. When the ferry began to sink, he was locked in a storage closet below deck. The crew forgot about him. He drowned in the dark, alone, while the ship went down around him."

"Thirteen years old," Chen repeated. "A child."

"A child whose body was never recovered. A child whose name was erased from history because his death would have exposed Lin Yusheng's crime. A child whose mother spent twenty years searching for answers that never came."

"And where is Zhang Wei's mother now?"

Yang Hui opened her eyes. "Her name is Zhang Meizhen. She lives in the old textile district. She works as a seamstress. She has never stopped mourning her son. And she has been reading the newspapers. She has been following the killings. She knows that justice is finally being done."

She reached into her sleeve again and withdrew a small object wrapped in silk. "I found this in my apartment this morning. Someone left it on my doorstep."

She unwrapped the silk. Inside was a silver needle, identical to the one that had killed Zhao Mingde, and a torn page from a book. The page was from Dream of the Red Chamber, and it described the death of a character named Qin Keqing, a young woman who hanged herself from a beam in her bedroom.

At the bottom of the page, written in a hand that was not Chen Fang's, were three characters: Lin Meixiang.

"Lin Meixiang," Chen read. "Lin Yusheng's daughter. The one who has not spoken since the night of the disaster."

"She is in the Phoenix Rest Mental Institution," He Jianshe said. "She has been there for fifteen years."

"And now someone intends to visit her." Chen folded the page and tucked it into his pocket. "Someone who has read Chen Fang's research. Someone who has decided to become the author. Someone who is not waiting for the police to act."

Yang Hui stepped back toward the door. "I have told you everything I know. Chen Fang is in your custody. She will not resist. She wants the killings to stop as much as you do. But we no longer control the story. The city has taken it from us."

She opened the door and slipped out into the night. By the time Chen reached the threshold, she was gone, swallowed by the shadows of Lantern-Tail Street.

He Jianshe was already reaching for his telephone. "I will send officers to the mental institution. If the killer is going after Lin Meixiang, we can intercept them."

"No," Chen said.

"No?"

"If we send officers, the killer will simply wait. They will choose another victim, another death, another page from another book. We need to catch them in the act. We need to let them come to us."

"And use Lin Meixiang as bait?"

"We use the story as bait." Chen walked to his desk and began to write. "The killer is following a narrative. They believe they are the author of a great work of justice. If we give them a chapter that they cannot resist, they will walk directly into our hands."

He wrote quickly, his brush moving across the paper with the precision of a calligrapher. When he finished, he held up the page.

It was a public notice, written in formal language, announcing that Lin Meixiang would be moved from the Phoenix Rest Mental Institution to an undisclosed location for her safety. The transfer would occur at midnight, and only authorized personnel would be present.

"This will be in the evening edition of every newspaper in Tianhai," Chen said. "The killer will read it. They will know it is a trap. But they will come anyway, because the story demands it."

"Why?"

"Because the author of a great work cannot allow another writer to dictate the ending. They must assert their control. They must prove that they are the true creator. The killer will come to the institution tonight, not in spite of the trap, but because of it."

He set the brush down. Outside, the wind had risen, rattling the shutters and carrying the smell of the river into the narrow streets. Somewhere in the city, a person who had read too many books and suffered too much pain was preparing to write the next chapter in blood.

And in the bookshop on Lantern-Tail Street, the man who sold stories for a living prepared to write one of his own.