Chapter 51

Chapter 51: Shan Zhuo (11)

After returning to the city bureau, Hai Shu carefully reviewed the scripts she had copied. She was a complete layperson, but she could tell these scripts were uninteresting.

Now another key figure in the Tang Jinli case had emerged: Li Siwei. Although there were no clues indicating he had contact with Tang Jinli after March of last year, their relationship was complicated, and Li Siwei was clearly hiding something.

Hai Shu decided to make him a breakthrough point and went to the old residential area on Naihe Lane in Qianxin District.

“I’ve seen this man!” said Mrs. Gao, who rented a place to Tang Jinli. “For a while, Xiao Tang always rode in his car. Parking here isn’t easy, you know? I even gave them directions.”

Hai Shu asked, “When was the last time you saw him?”

Mrs. Gao thought for a long time. “Oh, that was a long time ago, I hardly saw him last year.”

“Did Tang Jinli ever appear with anyone else?”

“Yes, another man, but I can’t describe him. If you have a photo, I might recognize him. But this man I saw the most; others, even if you show me, I might not know.”

Hai Shu contacted Li Siwei to come to the city bureau. Li Siwei said, “Is this about the scripts, Officer Hai? I haven’t found them yet.”

Hai Shu said, “It’s not about the scripts. Someone said they saw you near Tang Jinli’s residence, taking her home.”

Li Siwei fell silent.

Hai Shu said, “If it’s inconvenient, I can come to you.”

Li Siwei lowered his voice, “I’m at home, Officer Hai. Don’t come—I’ll go to your bureau immediately!”

In spring, Huiyong City often had light rain, enough to make someone rushing look disheveled. Li Siwei came without an umbrella; his hair was wet when he arrived at the bureau. Hai Shu handed him a form to sign; his hands trembled slightly as he bent to write.

Hai Shu poured him a cup of hot water. He thanked her repeatedly and said, “Tang Jinli’s death really has nothing to do with me!”

Hai Shu signaled him to calm down. “Besides the employer-employee relationship, what other relationship do you have with Tang Jinli?”

Li Siwei gripped the cup tightly; water spilled out, scalding him.

Hai Shu said, “Since I found you, it means I have some clues. Mr. Li, why not take out Tang Jinli’s other two scripts now?”

Li Siwei anxiously said, “I really haven’t found them!”

Hai Shu said, “Then answer my question: you, and Tang Jinli—what is your relationship?”

After a long silence, Li Siwei sighed deeply, raising both hands in surrender. “I pursued her.”

As Ms. Qu had guessed, on the day Tang Jinli interviewed at Tianming Media, Li Siwei fell for her at first sight and intervened in recruitment, making Tang Jinli a part-time screenwriter at the company.

In fact, most employees at Tianming Media were part-time. Besides writing scripts according to provided outlines, they could do other tasks. Tang Jinli showed eagerness to learn and often sought advice from the chief screenwriters.

At that time, Li Siwei didn’t openly make advances toward Tang Jinli. Although she was beautiful, her personality was somewhat unusual, occasionally expressing strong opinions on social issues, and she didn’t understand the tool-screenwriter work.

Li Siwei was married. Although he had long been separated from his nominal wife, having a mistress who was too emotional was never ideal. But over time, Li Siwei realized he was truly captivated by Tang Jinli, even paying extra to have a chief screenwriter “polish” her scripts.

By then, their relationship had grown intimate. Tang Jinli seemed to think he was an open-minded boss willing to listen to employees, often talking to him about scripts, the industry, and sometimes life. He used these opportunities to show his affection, often finding excuses to escort her home.

He saw that Tang Jinli rented an old building without an elevator or property management and felt sympathy, gently suggesting she move, offering to handle the money.

Tang Jinli said, “Mr. Li, I’m already grateful for this job. How could I ask you to solve my housing problem too?”

Li Siwei’s inner balance tipped further. Knowing Tang Jinli’s skill couldn’t meet client demands, he still assigned her new outlines. If her scripts were poor, it didn’t matter—he would have a chief screenwriter “polish” them. If the scripts failed, she wouldn’t earn money, so he paid her personally through finance as script fees.

Over time, although he never made it explicit, their relationship grew closer. He was certain Tang Jinli understood his intentions. He wasn’t just giving without expecting; all he did was to make Tang Jinli his mistress.

After Tang Jinli submitted another “trash” script, he invited her out under the pretense of discussing the script. In the upscale restaurant meeting, he intended to confess.

Tang Jinli smiled at him without surprise or delight, as if she had expected this. He had researched her family: her parents were businesspeople, financially comfortable, but she had a younger brother. She never returned home for the holidays, living alone in a dilapidated old house, likely due to a family preference for sons. In other words, she had no family to rely on, a woman he felt he had every right to pursue.

But Tang Jinli didn’t immediately agree; she asked about his wife. He calmly said their marriage had elements of mutual benefit and that they hadn’t met in over six months.

Tang Jinli asked, “Then will you get a divorce?”

Li Siwei knew in his heart he would never divorce, but he said, “As long as you agree to me.”

Tang Jinli smiled, and by the end of dinner, she still hadn’t explicitly said yes or no. But in practice, their relationship had already become that of lovers. Li Siwei took Tang Jinli to a hotel, promising to buy her bags and jewelry, but Tang Jinli refused these. Li Siwei asked what she wanted; she smiled and said she’d think about it later, she hadn’t decided yet.

At the company, Tang Jinli kept her distance from Li Siwei. She appeared very proactive at work, but her scripts not only didn’t improve, they got worse each time. Li Siwei noticed she was posting on video platforms; she asked if she could sign with the platform. Li Siwei didn’t stop her, thinking, “Taking photos suits you better than writing scripts.”

Almost a year passed this way. Li Siwei’s initial excitement had worn off, and at this time, Tang Jinli proposed wanting to write her own script—no outlines, no edits from others, and once finished, Tianming Media would produce it.

Li Siwei almost laughed when he heard this. All those times he offered to buy her jewelry and bags, and she refused—it was just to save this big move. But how could he possibly invest in her script? He wasn’t crazy. After all, Tang Jinli was just his mistress, and an older mistress at that. He looked down on her deeply.

But Tang Jinli seemed to believe he would actually pay. That day at the hotel, she worked hard to please him and asked, since they had been together so long, when he planned to divorce. He was annoyed and said, “We’ll see.”

After that, he deliberately ignored Tang Jinli. There happened to be a project out of town that required him to go. He expected Tang Jinli to message him often, but she never contacted him. This piqued his interest. Every day he checked “Huanhuan Ah Huanhuan,” seeing her video posting frequency increase, seemingly getting platform recommendations, with followers growing fast. He was annoyed, cut his work short, and the first thing he did upon returning to Huiyong City was arrange to meet her.

Tang Jinli refused, saying she was tired from filming videos all day.

He gradually realized Tang Jinli had changed, distancing herself and coming to the company less often. Men are cheap—he had looked down on Tang Jinli, but when she seemed ready to end the relationship, he panicked. He asked repeatedly, until his tone revealed impatience, and Tang Jinli reluctantly came to the hotel.

“Mr. Li, I want a family. If you can’t give me a family, don’t cling to me anymore.”

Li Siwei, drunk, wasn’t thinking clearly. “You know I can’t divorce her! Half of my company’s money came from her family; a divorce would ruin me and her career!”

Tang Jinli’s eyes were sorrowful. “So I’m to be your mistress for life?”

“What’s wrong with that, darling? I give you all my money. You don’t have to work; do whatever you want.”

“I want to act, to produce my own script.”

Li Siwei, drunk, said, “Fine! But you need to give me time; I’ll make arrangements!”

Words spoken under the influence aren’t to be taken seriously. Li Siwei regretted his promise the next morning, but didn’t care much—keeping Tang Jinli close was enough.

Afterward, whenever Tang Jinli mentioned scripts, he brushed her off. At the end of February last year, Tang Jinli formally resigned, hitting him like a sudden blow.

“Mr. Li, I’ve told you many times, I have two wishes: one, to produce a TV series of my own; two, to marry and have a family of my own,” Tang Jinli said calmly. “I thought you could give me this. You promised, but neither happened.”

Even then, Li Siwei thought she was threatening him. “I said I would arrange it. Xiao Jin, don’t be impatient.”

Tang Jinli shook her head with a smile. “I don’t want to wait anymore. Thank you for taking care of me.”

Li Siwei was furious. Tang Jinli was only his mistress; he had always been the one to kick mistresses out, never the other way around. He said coldly, “Think carefully. Once you leave me, no one will provide for your life. You may forever live in that shabby house!”

Tang Jinli said, “No need to worry.”

After Tang Jinli left, Li Siwei grew increasingly frustrated and couldn’t resist following her, quickly discovering she was laughing and talking with other men—not just one.

Li Siwei flew into a rage and rushed to Tang Jinli’s home to explain.

Tang Jinli said, “Mr. Li, my original family brought me only harm, so I must create a new family. You can’t give me that, so don’t cling to me anymore.”

Li Siwei sneered, “So you were seeing several at once?”

Tang Jinli paused, “When I only had you, I had no choice.”

That day ended in discord, but after a brief loss of control, Li Siwei quickly came to his senses. No need to get upset over a mistress. Tang Jinli, compared to career, was just a fart you let go.

Hai Shu asked, “So after leaving Tang Jinli’s place, you never saw her again?”

Li Siwei nodded. “I had a project and left Huiyong City. After that busy period, she was no longer on my mind. I didn’t kill her—really, there was no reason.”

Hai Shu thought for a moment. “You said you saw her with many men?”

Li Siwei smirked with contempt. “Now I understand what kind of person she is—she never loved me, only what I could give her. She said she wanted choices. Hear that? Innocent words, but it just means she wanted a bunch of backups around her. Cheap, isn’t it?”

Hai Shu’s expression hardened. Li Siwei stopped immediately, awkwardly adding, “I mean, in terms of feelings, she wasn’t a good person either. She broke up with me so cleanly, maybe she had already hooked up with someone else.”

Hai Shu asked, “Do you know who the men she was with were?”

“No idea. From their looks, they weren’t wealthy.” Li Siwei suddenly realized, “Could those men have killed her?”

Hai Shu asked, “When you realized you were being ‘betrayed,’ did you ever feel an impulse to kill Tang Jinli?”

Li Siwei responded quickly, “Why would I? We were just playing around.”

After sending Li Siwei off, Hai Shu stared at her notebook, thinking: Tang Jinli, in order to have “choices,” had simultaneously “assessed” multiple men. Unlike Li Siwei, who was just playing around, if someone developed real feelings but realized Tang Jinli was only gathering backups, what would they do?

The suspect knew Tang Jinli’s residence. From the videos released afterward, he was very familiar with her life—perhaps he was one of the men Li Siwei had seen accompanying Tang Jinli.

So what role did Liu the Fool play in all this?

Hai Shu drove to Guibai Village and received a call from Sui Xing on the way. New leads had emerged during the investigation—besides the Liu family, two other families had disappeared before the village began developing its tourism resources.

“What happened with the two missing families?” Hai Shu asked as she arrived at the Guibai Village police station. She rushed upstairs, slightly out of breath. Suddenly, a small bottle of cola appeared beside her. Without looking, she grabbed it, twisted it open, and took a sip. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

Hearing this, Hai Shu turned and saw Xie Jingyu leaning against a table across the room, waving at her boredly.

Hai Shu furrowed her brows. “What are you doing here?”

Xie Jingyu countered, “I have duties too. Why can’t I be here?”

Sui Xing glanced around, sensing something strange in their conversation, and tried to smooth things over. “Weren’t you surrounded by villagers last time? Luckily, Brother Xie was there. Captain Qiao had them come as special security to keep us safe.”

Hai Shu twitched her eyelid. “Brother Xie?”

Sui Xing didn’t understand. “Ah, Captain Qiao said that, right Brother Xie?”

Xie Jingyu smiled. “Yes.”

Hai Shu had no time for small talk and returned to the main topic. “Which two families disappeared?”

Sui Xing gestured for her to check the inquiry records at the computer. “Cheng Wei has been chatting with villagers recently. One villager casually mentioned that Liu the Fool used to be popular with girls. Before he went dumb, many girls in his class liked to play with him.”

Hai Shu was speechless. “Before age ten, that counts as popularity with girls?”

“Let me finish,” Sui Xing said. “He fell into the water at age nine and went dumb. He was still cute, but he couldn’t speak clearly, his eyes looked vacant and silly, and sometimes he drooled. The girls didn’t want to play with him anymore. Except for one girl, Li Yunting.”

“Li Yunting?” Hai Shu ran through the villagers in her mind. She didn’t recall anyone with the surname Li in Guibai Village.

Sui Xing said that when Cheng Wei heard this girl’s name, he sensed a lead and immediately brought the villager to the station to record a statement. The villager was scared and reluctant, but Cheng Wei half-reasoned, half-threatened, and eventually got the villager to reveal Li Yunting and her family’s situation.

It turned out that the Li family had moved to Guibai Village from another place, and their move was somewhat related to Liu the Fool’s family. The villagers only knew fragments: the men of Liu’s family worked outside the village, met the Li family men, and somehow convinced the Li family to come to this poor, remote village—which at the time was really poor, with nothing but mountains.

After moving, the Li family’s life was manageable. In the countryside, having land to build a house and grow a little food was enough to survive. When the Li family arrived, Li Yunting was a little girl who hadn’t started school yet, about the same age as Liu the Fool, in the same class.

Li Yunting wore two pigtails, danced well, and was the class arts representative. Boys loved to show off around her. But because of family connections, Li Yunting often played with Liu the Fool, who was always alone.

Later, when Liu the Fool drowned and stopped attending school, Li Yunting skipped many arts activities. Classmates guessed she must have gone to see Liu the Fool.

As the children grew, more people forgot about the once-talented boy. But Li Yunting occasionally visited the Liu family. By then, they were sixteen or seventeen; Liu the Fool had become useless, while Li Yunting had grown into a beautiful young woman. Many in the village chased her, but she rejected them all, only caring for Liu the Fool.

Of course, no one could truly forgive Liu the Fool, but he was a fool. They had healthy bodies and minds—why compete with a fool for a girl? The men would gather, belittle Liu the Fool, rebuild their pride, and next time they saw Li Yunting, they’d fawn over her again.

Cheng Wei asked the villagers, “What exactly was Li Yunting’s relationship with Liu the Fool?”

The villagers said firmly, “Impossible. Li Yunting didn’t even look at us capable men, why would she like Liu the Fool? She just felt sorry for him. Women like to sympathize with the weak. Liu the Fool was ignored at home; what’s wrong with her caring for him a little?”

How the villagers evaluated Li Yunting’s feelings for Liu the Fool wasn’t important. The key was that the Li family no longer lived in Guibai Village. According to their recollection, after Liu’s parents went looking for their two sons, the Li family moved away. No one knew where, and Li Yunting had left even earlier, reportedly finding work in Huiyong City.

Using this as a lead, Cheng Wei found more villagers, whose stories aligned: Li Yunting went out to pursue a career, and possibly succeeded enough to bring her parents along. The Li family never rooted themselves in Guibai Village, always outsiders, so no one cared where they went. Years later, aside from some men occasionally missing Li Yunting, no one mentioned the Li family again.

While investigating the Li family, another departing family surfaced, the Si family. Although they were native to Guibai Village, they were even more easily forgotten. Before the village prospered, the Si family was the poorest, with the worst houses. The men often fell ill, with both elderly and children to care for, and medical expenses alone burdened them heavily.

Fortunately, the Si family had a capable daughter-in-law, who supported the struggling household year-round like a man. The village women, when idle, liked to gossip, but she never joined because she had no time. Being shunned by the women meant the Si family was isolated, an island within the village.

But the Si family had a notable tragedy—one year, of the two children the daughter-in-law had raised, the elder went missing.

It was a boy.

The mother went mad searching, but there was no trace. People said the child had been abducted by traffickers.

The incident made the mother severely ill; she blamed herself for losing the child. No words from others helped, and not long after, she passed away in despair.

After her death, the Si family seemed spineless. The two elders died one after another, leaving only a sickly father and a young daughter. Those years, no one knew how they survived. People assumed the father wouldn’t live long, yet he made it until the village began its tourism projects.

Just as better days approached, the Si father fell ill and needed treatment at a major hospital. His young daughter accompanied him to the city, but they never returned. Liu the Village Chief went to visit and returned with news that the man had fled from the hospital.

“Fled? Where did he go?” everyone asked in confusion.

“It’s because he felt living was too exhausting, and there wasn’t enough money for treatment, and he didn’t want to burden his daughter,” Liu the Village Chief explained to the villagers, eyes red. When they went, the Si family’s young daughter was also gone—she must have gone to find someone.

That year was when the village started building farmstay businesses. Everyone had endless work and an unceasing future. Although the Si family was pitiful, that fleeting sympathy didn’t last long. Besides Liu the Village Chief and a few others, no other villagers went to the city to help search. In less than half a year, it seemed everyone had completely forgotten them, and they never returned.

Sui Xing crossed his arms. “Captain Hai, these three families supposedly left Guibai Village, but in reality, they disappeared. Although our investigation isn’t detailed enough yet, over the past ten years, they seem to have left no trace in society. This is the timeline I drew; take a look.”