Na San and I went back to outside Huang Li’s interrogation room where we found Zheng Shuang waiting for us. He gave us two sets of lunch boxes. I pried open the chopsticks and opened my box, saying, “Let me speak to Huang Li and the four stupid dead logs. Do not let anyone in. And, it would be best to have…” “Already done, Shiyan,” Zheng Shuang mentioned, “All recording apparatuses have been shut off. Apparently, our reputation and exploits have impressed the top brass of the District Headquarters and they are doing their best to fulfill any requirements we’ll need.” I nodded, ignoring the strange and curious stares from the other officers around us as we went into the interrogation room with the lunch boxes.

We pushed through the doors and two other officers were on watch inside, one of them being the chief of the District Headquarter’s Criminal Investigations Division whose name I could no longer recall.

I gave them a knowing look and a curt nod, implicitly signaling our wish to be left alone. The captain, despite the sour look on his face, obliged and left the room without any objections.

I moved quietly and sat down on the chairs formerly occupied by the two officers, looking Huang Li face-to-face in the eye. Her expressionless countenance suggested as if she was here to help solve an investigation rather than serving as a suspect. I held aloft the lunchbox, waving it in front of her face, and said then, “Some food?” She narrowed her eyes, shot me an ugly look, and ignored my jibe. I chuckled and dove into my lunch.

I nibbled my food and wondered aloud, saying, “Wow, how time has passed! It’s been years since that military exercise and these beef potatoes are bringing back memories of our times then. I could still see this very same dish when Lu Shengnan dragged me off to buy me lunch for the first time.” “Humph,” Huang Li snorted suddenly, saying, “I’m sure I can rely on you to remember how much trouble you had given me back then!” At least I have managed to get her to talk, I mused and I continued the charade by talking about our yesteryears, “Oh, how you’ve wronged me. I was trying to help you! Surely you can see that yourself!”

My words seemed to have struck a nerve; Huang Li shot a piercing glare at me so intensely that I could instantly feel the scalding heat from her eyes. “Xuedong and I would never have had so many troubles if not for your meddling,” she hissed coldly. I munched on my potatoes as I mumbled, “And you just have to see the negative side of things. Did you not see during then that your contrivance could land Cao Xuedong into heap loads of difficulties? For all we know, he could be cursed for his entire life.” Another snort came from opposite the table, followed by a tense silence. “I did help you, truth be told,” I went on, “I destroyed your malicious spirits and by doing so, I had given you both the chance to be together. Moreover, I have had no less of predicaments all thanks to you seeking revenge after that episode. Did I seek retribution from you? Let’s be reasonable. If I was who I am now, I would have just slaughtered you and then get good riddance from all this brouhaha.”

Either she could find nothing to counter me or she chose to ignore me, Huang Li averted her eyes. I continued munching away at my food and tried to sound nonchalant as I threw another question at her, “So, what have you been through these past few years? You’ve changed so much.” For that very moment, she stared at me with such surprise, as if she had been slapped right across the face. She looked stunned for several seconds until she finally turned back to look at me. She regarded me once more through narrowed eyes, observing dryly, “And you too. You looked like a completely different man after just a week.” “It might seem like a week to you. But to me, it was a few years!”

Huang Li did not comment. Or rather, she looked like she could not understand what I was saying. “Remember when I was arranging to leave university?” she said suddenly, with no less sullenness as I noticed the hint of change in her eyes.

“Of course, I do,” I replied hastily, bobbing my head. Huang Li let loose another snort before saying, “I admit, I was ashamed to stay. I felt that I was no match against you. That was why I decided to leave.” I shrugged. “You could have stayed,” I muttered, “We could have just let bygones be bygones. At least, I would.” A weak smile broke across her face as if she looked genuinely sorry for her brashness, although it vanished just as fleeting as it came. “You know nothing. You know nothing of what happened to me after I left.” “Enlighten me then.”

Huang Li threw another look at me. Then she began saying, “Xuedong left the army on the second year after I left university. We operated a little florist shop. Things went well for us then.” I tilted my head inquisitively and asked, “I heard your father runs a booming business of his own too. What made you refuse to join him and strike out on your own?”

Her eyes took on more another sparkle of emotion the moment the question left my lips. “My father no longer cared about me ever since I left university,” she disclosed, saying, “In fact, he never cared at all.” I shrugged and said, “Many a time I would wonder if my father too was totally dispassionate about my wellbeing. But time and time again, I have been proven wrong and I have never been any more glad to be wrong. So you should feel the same as well. Don’t begrudge your father.”

What I said struck another chord. Huang Li stomped to her feet suddenly and lost control of otherwise frigid temper. “WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT ME?!” She screamed, “You would not have said the same if you knew what my father had done to Xuedong and me! Not everyone can speak from the same high moral horseback you’re on! Not everyone has the same happy family that you have! Do you think all children are the same to each and every parent? That they are the most precious to them?!” She was extremely agitated as if I had just pricked the deepest wound still raw in her heart. Her eyes were flaring with swelling emotions, a stark contrast from the chilly serenity before. Yet, the same dreamy and misty look in her eyes remained. An awkward sluggishness as if her soul was going to break apart from her body whenever her mood swung.

But Huang Li’s sudden outburst did not go unnoticed. Lin Feng barged in, demanding, “What’s happening here?!” Trying to calm him down, I shook my head and answered, “Nothing. We’re just talking. Passionately.” Lin Feng saw the look in my eye and understood me, retreating quietly out of the room.

Huang Li glowered at me with intense anger, her teeth gnashing with rage as if she was screaming and howling like a demoniac beast on the rampage inside.

I took the last bite and tossed my lunch box into the dustbin sitting quietly in a corner. Then I sighed. “I’m sorry, if something I said had rubbed you the wrong way. But I’m honestly curious. What happened between you and your father?”

It was a purposeful question I deliberately tabled. I saw how her supposed-serenity broke right at the moment when she lost control, so I knew I had found the chink in her armor and I intended to wheedle and pry at it even more.

Her face flushed defiantly with a furious shade of red, indicating how painful a tale it was to her. For seconds, she wrestled with herself mentally until she finally simmered down and she stroked her hair, saying, “My father came to me somewhere a couple of years ago, saying that he wants Xuedong and me to join him in his company. Little did I notice then that my father has ulterior motives…”

She spoke in broken sentences, leaving her message pockmarked with missing details. But from what I understood from the story that she then told me, she and Xuedong were asked to return to her father’s company but they were subjected to abuse and treatment so cruel that she no longer wished to say. But I could only imagine it must have been ordeals both harrowing and traumatic. So traumatic that she would hit herself in the head like a demented woman in a streak of insanity whenever she reached the parts where she should be describing what she went through and that would interrupt her story.

At the end of her eventful and painfully-memorable account, I paused for several silent beats until I finally spoke. “So, can I surmise that you became the person you are today after what your father has done to you?” Huang Li made no attempt to answer the question. But she calmed down, reverting back to her loftily cold demeanor as before and that made me felt anxious. But before I could utter another syllable, Huang Li cut right to the chase, “Enough story-telling for now. I’ve lost and that’s it. While I’m still conscious, I’ll take the blame. Consider this the prize of your victory. But be quick; I don’t have much time left.”

Reeling with surprise, I twisted my head to face the room’s one-way mirror. The look on my face must have been an odd and peculiar one for Zheng Shuang stormed in almost at once with a worried and inquiring look. I nodded gently to him, saying, “She’s making a confession. But we need to be fast.”

The chief of the District Headquarter’s Criminal Investigations Division rushed in when he heard me and sat beside me, preparing to write down everything.

“I killed him,” Huang Li confessed blandly. “For what purpose?” asked the chief. “I suspected him of cheating on me,” she replied flatly. One of the chief’s brows furrowed with doubt, but he went on nevertheless, “How?” “I stabbed him. Three times. And when he’s on the floor, I got my people, four of them, to set him on fire.” The chief nodded as he scribbled everything down on his notepad. Huang Li then said, “There’s no need to question the others. You will get nothing from them.”

By now, Huang Li’s eyes were two orbs of sparkling crystals. Cold and frigid like ice with only her final shreds of life. With what seemed to be her final strength, she heaved hoarsely with apparent difficulty and spoke her final sentence, “Everyone like me is the same. We all have the same hatred and malice towards you…” And that was it. Her eyes went completely lifeless. Two lightless crystals staring back at me like frozen ice, her final expression frozen in ice as Huang Li spoke her final words.

The chief looked oddly at me and I offered him a cigarette. “So, what happens to Huang Li and her four accomplices now?” I asked and the chief responded, “It’s not enough to make a case, I’m afraid. I guess this is where this score is officially a cold case—she might be sentenced to life imprisonment.”

I nodded and walked out of the interrogation room, leaving a trail of fumes that reeked of tobacco and nicotine in my wake.