Love Me if You Dare: Pristine Darkness

When the door opened, the third wife, Zhang Jufang, stared at them in confusion.

Fang Qing looked her in the eye and lead the team in. The officers’ black uniforms and heavy footsteps startled everyone in the courtyard.

“What are you doing?”

“What’s happened?”

Bo Jinyan lifted his head and saw Ming Lan standing in front of her room, with an indecipherable expression on her face. Then, she disappeared.

The officers quickly took charge of everyone in the yard, then hurried to Yao Yuange’s room, but found no one inside. They searched every corner, but still found no trace of him.

“How can this happen?” asked Fang Qing quietly.

An inspector replied, “No way, our men have  been monitoring this place from the outside. Yao Yuange didn’t go out. How can it be that he is not here?

Only Ming Lan’s room was left. Fang Qing and Bo Jinyan looked at each other, and Fang Qing said, “Let’s go talk to her.” Bo Jinyan was calm.

“Why did you guys barge into my house?” asked Ming Lan quietly, sitting on a tatami mat beside the window.

She seemed to have expected this somewhat, and as was also as tranquil as water.

Fang Qing answered, “This is a search warrant. Ming Lan, we have evidence to suspect that you are involved in the disappearance of Zhu Fanglin and Ning Qingru in 2014 and 2015.”

Ming Lan moved her lips, but her face remained as cold as ice. “I don’t understand what you’re saying. I don’t know the people you mentioned, either.”

“What about Yao Yuange?” Fang Qing asked.

Ming Lan did not speak. Her delicate fingers gripped each other tightly.

Yet, did she have any way out?

No.

“Where are those girls now?” Fang Qing hissed.

Ming Lan kept staring out of the window. Suddenly, the corners of her mouth lifted in something resembling a smile.

“I’ve already said, I do not know. This has absolutely no connection to me, Yuange, or us Yaos. How long are you going to keep bothering us?

“Handcuff her first,” Fang Qing said.

He and Bo Jinyan walked outside.  A few officers came by and shook their heads slightly, signalling that they had not found him. Not far away, the Yao women and servants had all gathered in one place. Under the gloomy daylight, each had a different expression.

Ming Yue held on to her child tightly, her face very grim, not uttering a word. When Bo Jinyan and Fang Qing’s eyes fell upon her, she quickly turned away, as if she had been electrocuted.

Zhang Jufang and Chen Mei’s faces looked a little pale as well. Zhang Jufang stood with her arms crossed, cursing under her breath, yet she didn’t dare to openly resist. Chen Mei just kept watching the officers’ every move, as if thinking about something.

“It looks this way,” Bo Jinyan said, “Ming Lan, Ming Yue, and the deceased Zhao Xia know. Zhang Jufang and Chen Mei don’t.”

Fang Qing murmured under his breath, “He seems to be very good at exerting his control over  these women. Where do you think he hid those girls?”

“He trusted Ming Lan the most,” Bo Jinyan said. Fang Qing followed his gaze to Ming Lan’s backyard, where her two Audis were parked. Next to it was a small hut. The officers were busy prying the door open. When viewed from a distance, the inside was filled with debris, but nothing seemed abnormal.

“Do you want to make a bet?” Fang Qing said abruptly, “Whether any of the girls are still alive?”

Bo Jinyan paused for a while and replied, “You are very kind. However, I’m afraid not.”

Fang Qing did not speak.

The two of them walked into the hut. The officers were busily knocking on every surface, moving away the debris, but there didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. With his keen eyesight, Fang Qing noticed that a recently moved cupboard stood in the inmost recess of the hut, and a blanket lay on the ground. He stooped down and pulled the blanket away. Astonishingly, a movable wooden floorboard came into view. It was locked.

“Over here!” he whispered. The officers gathered around, and the board was pried open in no time. One by one, they jumped down. Bo Jinyan turned his head and looked at Ming Lan, who was being held securely at the back of the crowd. She was tottering on her feet, and her face was more ghastly than a corpse’s. He eyed her coldly, then went down.

There were very dim lights on the wall, and judging from the condition of the stone walls, this basement must have been dug a long time ago.

“The Yao family buildings were in existence in the Ming and Qing dynasties,” Fang Qing said. “This basement and passageway very likely dates from that time as well.”

After moving past the stairs and walking down a short, dark passage, they emerged into a square room, with walls and floor made of concrete. It was very rudimentary, and very clean. It was at most 30 metres square. Within stood a table, two benches, a simple wardrobe and a refrigerator.

There were only a few bottles of beer in the fridge.

Set in the inmost wall was a small, iron door. The criminal investigators broke open the door and found a room relatively smaller in size, with an elegant bed, as well as several sets of shackles. These were all firmly embedded into the wall, and were impossible to remove. The room was empty, with no sign of life.

Fang Qing walked towards the window, took a few glance, and picked up a strand of hair. But he couldn’t determine who it belonged to.

Bo Jinyan stood in the room, and looked around expressionlessly.

“Bring her here,” Fang Qing said harshly.

The officers pushed Ming Lan in.

“What else do you have to say?” Fang Qing said coldly. “What’s with this basement?”

Who could have expected that Ming Lan, even now, would still resist. She smiled and said, “What can I say? This room is where I normally rest. And those girls, I just invited them to hang out at my house, but they left later. How should I know where they went?”

An officer next to them yelled, “You still dare to object!”

Fang Qing’s expression changed as well.

At this moment, Bo Jinyan, took the bottle of luminescent from a forensic technician, and immediately cast the contents across the shackles and the bed.

None of the officers spoke. Ming Lan’s face quickly turned pale.

The lights went off. Blue, glimmering spots that were impossible to ignore appeared.

“They left?” Bo Jinyan said. “But why are their blood stains still here?”

——

Fang Qing and Bo Jinyan stood at the head of the underground passage. To their surprise, beyond the cell was another path which carried on for another 20 metres or so. They surmised that it led beyond the boundary of the Yao enclosure. Possibly, the owner of the house in the Ming and Qing dynasties had used it as an escape route.

At this point, they could hear the sounds of people and cars through the window above their heads. There were fresh fingerprints in the dusty window, so it seemed as if someone had left this place not long ago.

“Yao Yuange couldn’t have known that we were coming to arrest him.” Fang Qing said. “ Why did he suddenly leave?”

“Xie Min.” Bo Jinyan replied.

Fang Qing nodded.

“The day Zhao Xia died, something must have happened to instigate Yao Yuange to kill her. We can’t be certain, but it might have something to do what Xie Min uncovered as she dug into the Yao family secrets. Yao Yuange’s top priority would thus be to silence her.”

“So…” Fang Qing said, “Yao Yuange is also on the mountain now.”

Suddenly, an officer rushed in, “Chief Fang, Ming Lan, she, she…”

“What’s wrong”

“She just committed suicide!”

“How could this happen?” Fang Qing’s expression darkened. “Didn’t I tell you to watch over her?”

“We did watch over her the whole time. But she probably already hid the poison in her shirt while we went in. When she and the others were escorted to the car, she seized the opportunity to take the pill! She died right away!”

——

Jian Yao stayed at the police station rather than going with Bo Jinyan to the Yao household. First of all, not too many people are needed for an on-site investigation; secondly, if she stayed back, it would be more convenient to deal with other things.

However, she reminded Bo Jinyan to be careful, to not rush in again. To this, Bo Jinyan’s response was surprisingly calm. “We have Fang Qing on the front-line, do I even need to expend my strength?” This provoked Fang Qing, who was next to them, into glaring at him.

But Jian Yao thought, it will probably be all right.

Information from the crime scene had been transmitted to the police station. As Jian Yao looked at the photos of the cell and the bloodstains illuminated by the luminol, she couldn’t help but let out a sigh. Right then, an officer hailed her. “Teacher Jian, there was a call made to the police station, looking for Professor Bo, we’re not sure who it is. But Prof. Bo and company are likely underground, so we can’t get through to them.”

“I’ll get it.” Jian Yao walked over.

People in the office came and went, everyone looked very busy and productive.

Jian Yao picked up the phone. “Hello?”

On the other end of the line, silence. There was only the sound of someone breathing.

Jian Yao blanked out for a second. Vaguely, she felt something was not right. Yet, there was  also an inexplicable sense of anticipation.

So, she softened her voice, and said patiently, “I am Bo Jinyan’s wife, as well as his colleague. His phone doesn’t have a signal right now, so we can’t get in touch with him. If you have any problems, you can speak to me.”

That person paused for a long while, then said, “You are . . . Mrs. Bo who lives with him?”

The voice sounded familiar. Jian Yao thought distractedly for a moment, then she was struck by sudden realisation, and her heart kept pounding. Trying her best to adopt a calm voice, she said, “Yes, I am . . You are. . .”

“I . . . He said, he will always make criminals yield to the law?” Xie Min asked.

“Yes,” Jian Yao answered firmly. At the same time, the officer beside her responded to her gestures and checked – it was indeed Xie Min’s number.

Xie Min took two sharp breaths, and suddenly burst out in a voice choked with tears, “I’ve found  . . . I’ve found my Tong Sheng.” She laughed and sobbed simultaneously, “I heard wrongly. It wasn’t ‘mountain’, but ‘three’ . . .”

(T/N mountain (山, shan) and three (三, san) sound very similar)

——

After hanging up, Xie Min lifted her head and looked at the mountain opposite, especially at the ‘Sanqing Guan’ (三清观 i.e. Sanqing Temple) on the mountain. At this time, the evening mist lay heavily on the land, and the green hills appeared distant. The incense burning in front of the temple rose and swayed with the wind, and looked especially pure and beautiful.

Where she was currently standing was the mountain behind Sanqing Temple. People rarely visited this forested area. However, she remembered that Yao Yuange and Ming Lan had been to the mountain quite a few times. There was even a patch of forest where they had planted trees.

Xie Min lifted her head, wiping away tears on her face. Beneath her feet, were soil that has been dug out, deeper soil exposed under the sky.

“You truly are very determined.” A voice came from behind her.

Xie Min turned around and saw that person standing right behind her, blocking most of the light. His normally sanctimonious appearance now had an unspeakably malevolent cast.

“You . . .” Xie Min reached out to grab him.

But he grabbed her shoulder, plunged a knife into her stomach, and pulled it out.