Jiang Zhengkai sat in front of the computer monitor in his office.  On it was displayed a map of Guangxi Province.  Jiang Zhengkai pored over the electronic map in search of A-Xiu’s hometown.  The border hamlet was just a tiny dot on the screen, but Jiang Zhengkai did manage to find it in the end.

“So it’s here!” exclaimed Jiang Zhengkai as he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his weary eyes.  Staring at a computer monitor for extended periods of time definitely takes its toll on a person’s eyesight.  On the map, it appeared that A-Xiu’s hamlet was no more than a few kilometers away from A-Di’s hamlet.  The tiny dots representing these two neighboring hamlets were practically next to each other on the map.  Combined with information provided by A-Jiao and A-Ping, there was now sufficient circ.u.mstantial evidence to determine that A-Di’s first trip to this city was in fact to look for A-Xiu.  Furthermore, it was highly likely that A-Di already knew A-Xiu while still in Guangxi.  Again, this was corroborated by A-Ping’s statement.

If that were the case, then why did A-Di not want to come to the city this time around?  Was it because she knew A-Xiu had already left and had gone missing, or was there another reason?  Perhaps he was approaching this from the wrong angle.  Was it possible that A-Di didn’t want to come here because she didn’t know A-Xiu had gone missing?  If so, then didn’t that imply A-Di and A-Xiu had some kind of a falling out since their last meeting?  At this point, Jiang Zhengkai was somewhat vexed.  It looked his top priority right now was to figure out the exact nature of A-Di’s relations.h.i.+p with A-Xiu and whether the two had any sort of conflict between them.  You never know, maybe their relations.h.i.+p must just turn out to be the key to cracking this case.  At the thought of that, Jiang Zhengkai picked up his phone and dialed Zhang Qian, “h.e.l.lo, Zhang Qian.  This is Jiang Zhengkai.”

“What’s going on, my dear Inspector Jiang?” said Zhang Qian over the phone.  The two of them had a close relations.h.i.+p as both had been “apprentices” to Yao Tianyu.  As such, they liked to make fun of one another every time they saw or talked to one another.

“Hehe, greetings, my fair comrade sister!  How is the old man doing?”  Seeing how Zhang Qian was in a mood to joke around, Jiang Zhengkai dropped any pretense of formality as well.

“My my, dear brother, your timing is impeccable!” Zhang Qian said in a weird voice, “He just came back a few minutes ago at around noon.”  Zhang Qian lowered her voice considerably and said, “The old man looks like he’s in a pretty good mood.  If you want to talk to him, now’s the time to do it!”

“Excellent!  Remind me to buy you dinner the next time I see you!” said Jiang Zhengkai before he hung up the phone.  On the other side of the call, Zhang Qian heard the line click as the call ended and muttered to herself, “Buy me dinner?  Ha, from a cheapskate like you?  No freaking likely!”

When Jiang Zhengkai heard from Zhang Qian that Yao Tianyu had returned from the provincial police department to the munic.i.p.al police bureau and that his mood was not bad, he immediately gathered up all relevant doc.u.ments and drafted a formal request for temporary a.s.signment in Guangxi.  He then darted out of his office and speedily drove to munic.i.p.al police headquarters.

Cui Jing returned to the preschool.  Her present unstable mental state coupled with her disheveled clothing made it impossible for her to teach the audited cla.s.s.  Princ.i.p.al Li made a last minute decision for A-Jiao to take over responsibility for the cla.s.s.  Luckily for Cui Jing, her friends.h.i.+p with A-Jiao meant that she managed to teach A-Jiao the basics of piano-playing.  As a result, A-Jiao was able to muddle her way through the afternoon’s audited cla.s.s without bringing too much embarra.s.sment to herself and her preschool.

But if Cui Jing thought her troubles were over, she was gravely mistaken.  The auditors from the school board may not have been tell who was Cui Jing and who was A-Jiao, but Princ.i.p.al Li sure as h.e.l.l knew which one was which.  After the school board representatives had left, Princ.i.p.al Li tore Cui Jing a new one.  Princ.i.p.al Li had purposely scheduled this audited cla.s.s to provide Cui Jing an opportunity to score a high a.s.sessment from the higher ups at the school board.  However, Cui Jing repaid Princ.i.p.al Li’s kindness by completely s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the audited cla.s.s and bringing shame to the preschool’s reputation.  No wonder Old Lady Li completely lost her cool.

Princ.i.p.al Li yelled at Cui Jing for a good ten minutes, but she soon realized there was something else on Cui Jing’s mind as Cui Jing seemed to not have heard anything she had said.  For those who dealt with young children everyday, their tempers flared quickly but also subsided quickly.  Otherwise, the preschool’s children would have driven them crazy ages ago.  Princ.i.p.al Li saw something wasn’t quite right with Cui Jing, so she quickly changed from criticism to support.  “Cui Jing, are you feeling alright?  Do you have something on your mind?” she asked in her normal friendly tone of voice.  Deep down inside, Princ.i.p.al Li still very much liked Cui Jing, just like how she liked A-Jiao.  One of them excelled at music while the other excelled at painting.  The two of them were the main money makers for the preschool.  If it weren’t for the fact that her afternoon cla.s.s was being audited by the school board, there was no way Princ.i.p.al Li would have summoned enough anger to yell at her.

“No, it’s nothing…” replied Cui Jing as she stiffly shook her head, “I’m sorry!  It was my fault!”

“It’s alright.  It’s all in the past now.”  Princ.i.p.al Li detected that something was wrong with Cui Jing’s mood, but she also knew about Cui Jing’s stubborn personality.  There was no way you were going to get her to tell you something if she didn’t want to.  “How about you take the rest of the day off and go home to rest?”

“Oh, ok!”  After receiving permission from Princ.i.p.al Li to leave work early, Cui Jing turned around and slowly walked out of the princ.i.p.al’s office.  Once she got to the door, she felt as if she were forgetting something.  She then turned back around and said, “Thank you… thank you, Princ.i.p.al Li!”

“Ai!  You people these days,” remarked Princ.i.p.al Li as she couldn’t help but shake her head.  After Cui Jing was out of view of her office, Princ.i.p.al Li picked up her desk phone and called A-Jiao’s art studio.  First, she wanted to compliment A-Jiao on a job well done this afternoon.  Second, she asked A-Jiao to pay extra attention to Cui Jing.  She knew these two young women had a good relations.h.i.+p, so perhaps Cui Jing would be willing to tell A-Jiao what she wasn’t willing to tell Princ.i.p.al Li.

Inside Yao Tianyu’s office, Jiang Zhengkai reported the progress he has made on the case over the last few days.  He then described all of the questions and points of doubt he had about the case to Yao Tianyu as well.  The only thing he hid from his boss was A-Jiao’s role in the case’s progress.  He didn’t want to explain to Yao Tianyu the fact that A-Jiao was the same person as Ren Ziyuan and was no his live-in girlfriend.  He didn’t believe such an explanation would help solve the case.  More importantly, revealing that information would jeopardize his goal of protecting A-Jiao’s true ident.i.ty.

“Very good!  You’ve made excellent progress!” Yao Tianyu nodded in satisfaction in response to Jiang Zhengkai’s report.  He had no idea that after just a few days at the provincial police bureau, Jiang Zhengkai and his colleagues would have made such a major breakthrough in the case and collected so many credible leads.

“Commissioner Yao, there is… there is one thing that I was hoping you could help me with, namely talking with Deputy Commissioner Zheng,” said Jiang Zhengkai with an awkward smile.  Seeing how Yao Tianyu had just lavished him with praise, Jiang Zhengkai felt out his boss by saying, “Many of the doc.u.ments on A-Xiu are in Deputy Commissioner Zheng’s possession.”

“That is something you don’t need to worry about!” declared Yao Tianyu as he smiled understandingly, “Zheng Yueshan and I are old co-workers.  I know him.  He’s not reckless.  Also, it was indeed my idea for him to a.s.sist the anti-narcotics operation in the alley.  The reason being Sui Dequan was one crafty son of a b.i.t.c.h.  I was afraid he would sniff us out if I sent the narcs in to investigate.”

“Then what about A-Xiu…”  Jiang Zhengkai paused and looked at Yao TIanyu.  He was thinking over how best to say what he wanted to say.  Could a prost.i.tute really obtain a position of authority in a drug trafficking ring?

“I heard that woman A-Xiu was from Guangxi,” replied Yao Tianyu as he recalled his memories of that case, “I don’t remember the specifics, but I can tell you that she played a major role in Sui Dequan’s drug trafficking operations.  She got her drug supply from Sui Dequan.  She would then distribute the drugs at a low price to her fellow prost.i.tutes, who in turn would sell the drugs at a slight markup to their john.  This strategy allowed her to buy quickly, distribute quickly, and sell quickly.”  At this point, Yao TIanyu glanced at Jiang Zhengkai before continuing, “Don’t underestimate that woman.  Her methods were quite clever!  She would buy only a small quant.i.ty of drugs from Sui Dequan, but the drugs she did purchase would be sold very quickly to buyers.  I suspect there might have been some additional channels between herself and Sui Dequan.

“Commissioner Yao, during the course of your investigation, did you come across any woman who was particularly close to A-Xiu, someone who could be described as her accomplice?” Jiang Zhengkai asked probingly, “Perhaps a woman named A-Di?  Based on my understanding, A-Di and A-Xiu were together at the time.”

“A-Di?” repeated Yao Tianyu as he furrowed his brows and thought about it for a while, “Isn’t that the latest victim in the serial murders?”

“Yes,” nodded Jiang Zhengkai.

“At the time, we interrogated several women who were close to A-Xiu.  I don’t recall whether one of them was named A-Di,” Yao Tianyu honestly replied, “Although I do seem to remember that there was another woman living with A-Xiu, but she had no connection to the case since she had only just arrived from out of town.”  After Yao Tianyu finished, he picked up his office phone and said, “Go see Zheng Yueshan.  I’m going to have him hand over all related doc.u.ments over to you.”

“Excellent!  Thank you, Commissioner Yao!” Jiang Zhengkai said politely as he got up to leave.  He could already confirm that there were indeed doc.u.ments related to A-Di from the anti-narcotics case of two years ago.  Unfortunately, she was hastily determined to be a non-suspect and was thus overlooked.