Chapter 131: Is There Another Hidden Truth?

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The Harbor District had become the most sensitive place-name in my mind, as though everything had begun there. Three Pines Temple, the old Taoist priest, Xuan Yi, the little ghost, Xiao Mei—they had all come from the Harbor District. The Ghost Delivery Meal case and the Kuman Thong case were also inseparably connected to it.

What I had never expected was that Hu Yufang, the victim in this case, had also come from the Harbor District. And when Xuan Yi, from Three Pines Temple in the Harbor District, deliberately lured me to the crime scene, I finally became certain that he had done it on purpose. As for his objective, I had no idea. I only knew that I had to find out.

I continued questioning the student. He seemed to sense how deeply I cared about the case. After looking me up and down, he asked whether I was a student at the medical university. I thought for a moment, then lied and said I had graduated several years ago and had come to look into the matter after hearing about the case.

The student did not suspect anything. He told me everything he knew about Hu Yufang. A year earlier, he said, Qiu Xiao and Hu Yufang had both been students on the verge of graduating from the medical university. Hu Yufang had transferred two years before from the medical college in the Harbor District.

She had been the first—and only—exchange student between the Harbor District Medical College and Yu City Medical University. After she arrived, everyone became intensely curious about her. Plenty of people wanted to be her friend, especially the male students. Deep down, most of them believed that girls from the Harbor District were more liberated, and they all tried various ways to get close to her.

But after several months of spending time together, something surprised everyone: only Qiu Xiao had succeeded. Many people found it hard to believe. Qiu Xiao appeared refined and mild-mannered. Aside from studying, he was usually devoted to managing student affairs at the medical university. Everyone had assumed that Qiu Xiao would never date anyone.

I was slightly taken aback. Being refined and mild-mannered had no necessary connection with whether someone could fall in love. I asked the student why everyone had thought that way.

He could not explain it clearly. He said that was simply what everyone had said, though he himself did not know the specific reason. He was two years below Qiu Xiao. The students who had been in the same year as Qiu Xiao and Hu Yufang had all graduated by then.

Most students from other years had merely heard about the matter and did not know the details very well.

I set aside my doubts and let the student continue. He told me that after Qiu Xiao and Hu Yufang got together, they became inseparable. The two often stayed out all night, which made the people who wanted to pursue Hu Yufang extremely envious. Some even played petty tricks to harass Qiu Xiao.

But no matter what anyone did to him, Qiu Xiao never showed any intention of giving up. They were all university students and did not dare go too far, lest they ruin their own futures. In the end, they abandoned the matter and let the couple be.

As he spoke, the student made a mocking remark. Perhaps, he said, everyone had decided that since Hu Yufang was always spending the night away with Qiu Xiao, she was not exactly a virtuous girl. So they stopped pursuing her.

At that time, traditional attitudes still ran deep.

During the first few months of their relationship, Qiu Xiao and Hu Yufang were very happy. But gradually, they began to quarrel. They fought every few days, and no one knew why. The student had heard that Hu Yufang’s roommates had even asked her about it, but Hu Yufang would say nothing. She was merely anxious and troubled from morning to night.

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That pattern of quarrelling every few days continued until a year ago.

Hu Yufang died and was found on the rooftop. At first, no one suspected Qiu Xiao. After her body was discovered, someone immediately informed him. He rushed to the rooftop and wailed while clutching her corpse. He continued sobbing until the body was taken to the medical university’s morgue. Once he could no longer remain with Hu Yufang, he sat foolishly outside the morgue, refusing to leave.

In the end, it was said that Qiu Xiao was so overcome with grief that his roommates carried him back to the dormitory.

The university had reportedly arranged for Hu Yufang’s autopsy the following day. But that very night, her body suddenly vanished from the morgue. A year ago, surveillance cameras were still a rare luxury at the medical university. At first, no one knew who had inexplicably stolen the corpse.

The holiday break was about to begin, and few people remained on campus. The student volunteers who usually took night shifts in the morgue had already gone home. In other words, no one was guarding the morgue at the time. Nothing had ever happened before, so the university had never imagined that anyone would steal a body.

It was said that after the theft, the medical university—and indeed every institution in Yu City equipped with a morgue—began enforcing strict security measures. The stringent guarding of morgues had begun with that incident.

The disappearance of Hu Yufang’s body was discovered early the next morning. The lock on the morgue had not been damaged; it had simply been opened. During the investigation, the university suspected that the culprit must have possessed a key. Their thoughts immediately turned to the student volunteers who normally managed the morgue. Qiu Xiao was one of the principal people in charge, and he had a key.

Sure enough, at almost the same time, Qiu Xiao’s roommate hurried to inform the university that Qiu Xiao was missing.

The police searched desperately for several days but still found no trace of him. It was said that, judging from the way Qiu Xiao had appeared utterly devastated, the police had made a very bold conjecture: he might have taken Hu Yufang’s body and gone to die with her.

After searching for nearly an entire month without success, the police investigation remained fruitless. That conjecture came to dominate both public rumor and the direction of the investigation.

“But Deputy Captain Lu, the case-solving king of the North District, said Qiu Xiao was definitely still alive. He ordered that the case was never to be closed until either the man or the body had been found.” The student seemed to idolize Fatty Lu. He laughed twice. “You have to admit, that case-solving king really is more perceptive than everyone else. And look—one year later, both the man and the body were found.”

Actually, after hearing the police’s theory, I had also felt that it was unlikely Qiu Xiao had taken Hu Yufang’s body away to die with her. If he had wanted them to die together, he could simply have killed himself in the morgue. That would have guaranteed that they died side by side. And if one wanted to imagine a more romantic possibility, perhaps Qiu Xiao had intended to die with Hu Yufang somewhere meaningful to them—a place where they had fallen in love, or somewhere they often visited.

In that case, if the police had concentrated their search on those places, they should certainly have found the bodies.

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Yet the truth was that the police had searched desperately and found nothing. During the investigation, they must also have questioned the nearby residents, but no useful information had emerged. A person determined to die with a beloved would not deliberately conceal every trace while carrying away the body. At the very least, he would not have the presence of mind to make the disappearance flawless.

Therefore, Qiu Xiao had absolutely not taken Hu Yufang’s body because he intended to die with her.

“No matter what, Hu Yufang was pitiful. Such a beautiful girl was killed by Qiu Xiao, and then her corpse was violated and denied burial. Qiu Xiao was simply not human.” As the student spoke, he suddenly began cursing indignantly.

What Qiu Xiao had done to the corpse had long since spread throughout the medical university. These students were at an age when emotions were easily stirred, so how could they not be furious? Yet I suddenly felt that the matter was not so simple. Although Qiu Xiao had already confessed and said that he was the one who had killed her, he might not have told the truth. Something about it was deeply wrong.

He might not have been the one who killed her.

Suppose Qiu Xiao really had killed Hu Yufang in a fit of rage after an argument and lost control. In that case, he would more likely have used some direct, violent method—strangling her, smashing her head, or something similar. Such methods were more consistent with a person’s behavior in the heat of the moment.

But according to the student, there had been no blood on Hu Yufang’s body, nor any obvious injuries. That made it more likely that she had died from poisoning or some other such cause. At the North District Precinct, Fatty Lu had also told me that Qiu Xiao himself had admitted to poisoning Hu Yufang.

I felt that something did not add up.

Poison required preparation, even for a medical student. If the killing had truly been driven by a momentary burst of anger, the process of preparing the poison should have given Qiu Xiao enough time to calm down. If his fury had been intense enough, it was barely conceivable that he might still have poisoned Hu Yufang. But if he had prepared in advance, then the place where he acted should not have been somewhere like a rooftop. It should have been somewhere much more concealed.

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