“Are you ok?” asked Lu Xiaoqiang as he ran over and squatted next to the woman who had just fallen, “Are you hurt?”

“No…” the woman shook her head.  She used her arms to prop herself up into a half-p.r.o.ne position, cowering in fear and said, “Don’t… don’t kill me please… I don’t know anything…”

“Hehe!  So I look like a killer to you, eh?” Lu Xiaoqiang shook his head and laughed in response to the woman’s statement, “So tell me what I want to know about A-Di, and I won’t kill you!”

“Heh!”  Once she heard Lu Xiaoqiang’s tone of voice, an awkward smile appeared on her face as she grumpily shouted at Lu Xiaoqiang, “You’re not a killer, so why I should I tell you?  Come help me up.  This floor’s freezing!”  Clearly, the woman’s fear of Lu Xiaoqiang had decreased significantly.  Deep down inside, she felt that Lu Xiaoqiang wasn’t someone who would do her harm.

“Alright!” acknowledged Lu Xiaoqiang as he helped the woman up.  She used Lu Xiaoqiang’s strength to pull herself up and then leaned her body over in Lu Xiaoqiang’s direction.  She batted her eyelashes and curiously asked Lu Xiaoqiang, “So, big boy, who was A-Di to you anyway?  Was she your old lover, or did she owe you money?”

“Old lover?  Owe me money?” Lu Xiaoqiang asked in surprise.

“What, neither of those?” asked the woman as she glanced at Lu Xiaoqiang, “If it’s neither, then why do you want to find her?  Am I not good enough?”

“You?”  Hearing what the woman said, he somehwat understood but was also somewhat confused.  As a 25-year-old young man, he has had some interaction with women of his age, but his profession and regimented life at the academy meant he had a below-average understanding of women and relations.h.i.+ps.

“That’s right,” the woman nodded earnestly, “Whatever she can do, I can do, too, and I don’t do it any worse than her!”

“Oh!”  Even if Lu Xiaoqiang were full-blown stupid, he would’ve understood what the woman was getting at after that last bit.  This woman must’ve thought he was one of A-Di’s regulars, which is why she was trying so hard to sell herself.  But there was something more.  Lu Xiaoqiang also felt that this woman had just the slightest romantic interest in him.  Prost.i.tutes were human, too, and it was not unusual for them to develop feelings for their regular customers.  Finding a long-term boyfriend was something that these women in the alley longed for as well.  After a few years walking the streets, what they needed wasn’t money but rather affection.

“How would you reward me if I told you what I knew about A-Di?” asked the woman as she leaned even closer to Lu Xiaoqiang.  She was practically on top of him at this point.

“I…” Lu Xiaoqiang hesitated.  He then pulled out his police badge from his pocket and said, “Sorry, I’m a cop.”  He didn’t want to reveal his ident.i.ty, but he knew that if he didn’t tell the woman about his real ident.i.ty now, then things were going to get a whole lot more complicated tonight.

“A cop?”  The woman looked at the badge in Lu Xiaoqiang’s hand and sure enough stopped dead in her tracks.  She stood there blankly for a bit.  Lu Xiaoqiang was clearly a cop, something she hadn’t foreseen.  “Are you… aer you going to arrest me?” asked the woman as she raised her head and looked at Lu Xiaoqiang with a certain amount of terror in her eyes.  Before Lu Xiaoqiang could answer, however, she laughed, “No, you won’t arrest me!  But you’re a cop, and I’m a hooker, so why should I help you?”

“So… you don’t want to avenge your fallen sisters?”  Lu Xiaoqiang had originally wanted to ask, “Don’t you want to have a stable job?” but that would have clearly been a nonsensical thing to ask.  What did cracking this case have to do with getting these women legal and stable jobs?

“Ai!  Sit down.”  The woman walked back from Lu Xiaoqiang’s face and sat down on the bed.  When she walked past Lu Xiaoqiang, she didn’t so much as glance at him, as if to say she had no real interest in him from the start.  When Lu Xiaoqiang saw the woman sitting down, he decided to sit down right next to her.

“If I told you about A-Di, will you really give me that money?” asked the woman as she picked up the 200 yuan that Lu Xiaoqiang had thrown onto the bed and played with it in her hands.

“Yes,” Lu Xiaoqiang resolutely answered.

“This truly is the Information Age,” the woman laughed at her self-deprecating joke, “It looks like selling information is a lot more lucrative than selling s.e.x these days!”

“Hehe,” Lu Xiaoqiang chuckled before sighing.  He didn’t know how to respond to what the woman just said.  After all, he had just graduated from the police academy, which meant he didn’t have a lot of experience dealing with women.  However, if he weren’t a rookie cop, he wouldn’t have come to the alley and done this crazy thing either.

“Alright, my name is A-Ping,” declared the woman as she glanced at Lu Xiaoqiang, almost as if to tell him that he needed to remember her name.  She then continued, “Well, I’d say you found the right person.  I came with A-Di from the provincial capital.  They’ve been cracking down on prost.i.tution there as well, and it was getting too hard to make a living there, which is why we came over here.”

“Really?” asked Lu Xiaoqiang before he laughed noncommittally at what A-Ping said, “Looks like life’s hard wherever you go.”

“Ai!  Only after the two of us came here from the provincial capital did we realize that this city is haunted!” A-Ping said slowly as she lowered her had and stared at the floor, “Besides this alley, other places are being cracked down harder than any place in the provincial capital!”

“Haunted?”  Lu Xiaoqiang thought what A-Ping said was kind of funny.  Although he came from a poor rural family, Lu Xiaoqiang wasn’t someone who believed in ghosts and superst.i.tion.

“That’s right!  How else did all of these people die and you cops haven’t been able to find the killer?” A-Ping said with a wry laugh as she looked at Lu Xiaoqiang.  This woman was obviously not afraid of Lu Xiaoqiang on account of him being a cop.  Actually, she was right.  This cop was a man, too, and she has seen plenty of men over the course of her career.  Underneath their clothes, there were all the same, and they all came to her to satisfy their primal urges.  However, Lu Xiaoqiang was perhaps the first man she has met after becoming a prost.i.tute who came to her for emotional support.

“Fine, you have a point there,” acquiesced Lu Xiaoqiang as he knew there was no way he could argue with her.  If he were to insist that it was a human being who killed all those prost.i.tutes, then it would be as if he admitted that he was worthless as a police officer.  Even the most worthless of men did not easily admit they were worthless, much less a man like Lu Xiaoqiang, who did not at all believed he was worthless.

“Both A-Di and I are from Guangxi,” A-Ping continued when she saw Lu Xiaoqiang wasn’t going to rebt what she said, “My home village is very poor.  It’s close to the border with Vietnam.  When we first came here from our village, we first started out as waitresses, but we just weren’t making enough money to support ourselves, so… we eventually decided to change jobs.”

“Really?” asked Lu Xiaoqiang as he heard A-Ping’s endless complaints.  He kenw she wasn’t making things up because she wouldn’t have included all the fine details of her life if she were making up this story.  The problem was what she said was wholly unrelated to A-Di’s death and the case in general.

“Yes, really!  What, you think we were born to do this job?”  At this point, a hint of anger flitted across her face, but it disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared, and her expression returned to its former serene self.  “Alright, what else do you want to know?”  Clearly, chatting with Lu Xiaoqiang just now greatly relaxed her state of mind.

“Then did you and A-Di go directly to the provincial capital, or did you come by here first?” Lu Xiaoqiang asked bluntly.

“We went straight to the provincial capital,” A-Ping answered without hesitation, although she did pause for a second after she spoke, “You asked if we had ever come to this city of yours, right?”

“Yes,” Lu Xiaoqiang nodded.

“I haven’t been here before,” said A-Ping.  She then bit her lips and thought hard, “But… I think A-Di might have been here around two or three years ago.”

“She might have?”  Hearing what A-Ping just said caused Lu Xiaoqiang’s heart to skip a beat, but he hoped A-Ping could tell him some more.

“Yup!” A-Ping nodded in response, “Based on what I remember, I think she mentioned this place to me before.  Also, she seemed like she didn’t want to come here this time around.”

“Really?  How many of you came together?” Lu Xiaoqiang continued asking.

“About five or six,” A-Pig replied, “But after A-Di died, all of the other girls left this place.  The rest of them all came together, and I came with A-Di, so I decided to stay.”

“What do you mean by ‘together?'”  Lu Xiaoqiang was a bit confused.  Didn’t they all come together?

“Oh, they were from one village, and the two of us were from another village,” A-Ping laughed as she responded to Lu Xiaoqiang’s question, “When we’re out here, those of us from the same village have to stick together and take care of each other.  If I had known that she would die here, I never would’ve talked her into coming with me.”  At this point, A-Ping’s eyes began to get teary as she gently rubbed her face.

Lu Xiaoqiang understood why A-Ping felt the way she did, so he changed the subject, “Do you know why A-Di didn’t want to come here?”

“No, I don’t,” A-Ping shook her head in response, “How would I know?  She never told me, but I think I heard her say once that she had a sister here.”

“Alright, thank you!”  Lu Xiaoqiang asked everything he wanted to ask and thus concluded with the questioning.  He stood up and was about to big A-Ping farewell when she stood up as well and asked, “The money…”

“It’s yours!” said Lu Xiaoqiang with laughter.  He turned around and was about to leave the room when A-Ping suddenly ran up and gave him a back hug.  “Could… could you hold me for a while?”