Imprisoned with a Wife (On the Psychology of Being F***ed) - Chapter 3
As soon as she exited the terminal, Yan Jingyao spotted the incredibly flashy fan sign from afar.
The colorful lights twinkled, and the letters were cute and childish. If they weren’t in the VIP channel, passersby would probably think it was for some celebrity’s fan club.
She pulled out sunglasses from her pocket and put them on, the formidable Lawyer Yan strutting proudly. Then she saw Pei Jinxi and Shen Jin waving the sign like two children. “Yan Jingyao, over here, over here!”
Licheng was also cloudy today, so the sunglasses somewhat obstructed her vision. She tried hard not to walk into a wall, determined to keep up the facade. “Hmph, do you guys want an autograph or something?”
“No, we think it’s a miracle you didn’t miss your flight.”
The two finally put down the childish fan sign. Shen Jin snatched her sunglasses. “Alright, act’s over, huh?”
Yan Jingyao was speechless. “Can’t you have some fun?”
“Wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day is fun?”
“Of course, these are X-ray sunglasses. You’re wearing a black bra today, aren’t you?”
She winked at her. Shen Jin quickly put on the sunglasses, then looked at Pei Jinxi. “Wow, polka dot undies!”
“Who told you to look!”
What kind of black technology was this?! Pei Jinxi grabbed Shen Jin’s sunglasses and put them on, excitedly looking at the two of them. “I saw yours too…”
“You can’t see anything at all!”
There was no X-ray function at all; it was just a pair of ordinary sunglasses. She frustratingly took them off. “Are you just guessing what kind of underwear I’m wearing?”
Shen Jin scratched his hair, smiling cunningly. “I saw a polka dot one on your bedside table when I went to your place yesterday.”
Pei Jinxi: “…”
Brain-dead! She concluded, then suddenly lunged forward to tug at Shen Jin’s collar. “Let me see if it’s black!”
“Don’t you dare stick your hand in there!”
“Let me see!”
“Don’t grab my tits!”
The two of them actually started wrestling like that. Shen Jin desperately clutched his clothes, while Pei Jinxi shamelessly tried to pull them open to find out, her lecherous hand grabbing his chest. “Is it black silk?”
Yan Jingyao was happy to watch the show until both of them simultaneously turned to look at her, sharing a creepy smile.
“You, you two stay away!”
The formidable Lawyer Yan was terrified, her face drained of color. She sprinted down the empty corridor like lightning, with two big hooligans chasing after her!
The three of them chased each other from the VIP channel to the underground parking lot. This special parking area had no other vehicles, and they dashed down the ramp, letting loose.
Yan Jingyao couldn’t stop. Wham! She slapped the door of a white Bentley Bentayga. Shen Jin and Pei Jinxi rushed over right behind her, piling up like a human pyramid, one on top of the other, all collapsing on her.
Three childish women. Lawyer Yan’s face was squashed and distorted against the glass. She propped herself against the car door, gritting her teeth. “Get off me! I refuse to be fucked from behind!”
Pei Jinxi: “…”
Shen Jin: “…”
••••
At 12:30 PM, also at Licheng International Airport, Ji Lan walked off the plane with her carry-on travel bag.
Her flight was actually the same as Yan Jingyao’s. In fact, they had spent two and a half hours in the same first-class cabin.
Their seats were staggered. Yan Jingyao was to her front right. Ji Lan hadn’t paid much attention to this woman, not even making eye contact.
Only before the plane took off, when she instinctively observed her surroundings, did she notice the woman’s hand on the armrest, constantly tapping.
The rhythm was fast, perhaps she was anxious about something. Ji Lan naturally made this judgment, then became absorbed in her own thoughts, eventually falling into a hazy sleep as the plane soared into the clouds.
They brushed past each other when disembarking, neither noticing the other.
After exiting the terminal, Ji Lan wasn’t in a hurry to go home. She found a McDonald’s in the arrival level’s food court, ordered a black tea and a burger, and had her lunch.
She had temporarily parked her car at the airport before leaving. After paying the parking fee, she took the receipt and went down to the third basement level to retrieve her car.
The car was a white Volkswagen. Ji Lan tossed her bag onto the passenger seat and sat there blankly for a while before driving home.
Upon entering the door, she heard a perfectly fluent British accent accompanied by Chinese explanations; her mother, Ji Wanyan, was recording an online course.
Not wanting to disturb her, she quietly drank some water, took a shower, and then went for a nap.
Tired from the journey, she slept soundly until six in the evening when Ji Wanyan came in to wake her for dinner.
The mother and daughter chatted casually about everyday matters. After dinner, Ji Lan took out her laptop and a black notebook from her backpack.
Back in her room, she turned on the desk lamp. Lost in thought, she stared at the children’s drawing pressed under the desktop glass, her brow furrowed.
A half-drawn rabbit, red in color, neither perfectly round nor square, just crude, naive lines drawn by a child, with no discernible composition, merely a random scribble.
Almost thirty years had passed…
“Lanlan,” Ji Wanyan had appeared behind her at some point, her voice soft. “Still no clues this time?”
“Mm,” Ji Lan mumbled. “The old police officer involved said it absolutely couldn’t have been him. The interrogation was very thorough back then.”
Opening the black notebook, she crossed out “May 10, 1989, Hongbao Village Serial Rape-Murder Case” at the top with a red pen.
The first dozen pages recorded various heinous serial murder cases solved by police in different regions in 1986, 1987, 1988… with varying months, some having four or five cases, others one or two.
All dozen pages only had a single title line, no clues. Ji Wanyan gently stroked her daughter’s hair, feeling a pang of heartache.
“Mom,” Ji Lan wasn’t experiencing frustration for the first time. “If we never find her, is it possible that girl is still alive? Based on her age, she’d be almost forty now.”
After so long, the once vivid Houjia Village serial murder case, the first case she participated in with Ren Jingxi, had almost faded into obscurity. Only the old woman’s cloudy eyes in the village remained fresh in her memory.
The white-haired, blind old woman tremblingly knelt before her and her teacher, bringing her ten-year-old granddaughter to kowtow heavily to them. Her forehead bled and was bruised after a few bows, and they couldn’t stop her.
Her young granddaughter disappeared in April 1986, barely three years old at the time. Only this half-drawn picture was left at the doorstep, her fate unknown.
The county police bureau had once dedicated personnel to searching and investigating, but neither a body nor a living person was ever found. Over twenty years passed, and the old woman, hearing that the county had new investigators looking into old cases, insisted on waiting for several days, pleading for renewed efforts to find her granddaughter.
The situation was utterly pitiable. The old woman cried heartbrokenly, begging only for an answer, dead or alive. This was why Ji Lan had persisted for so long.
“Current communication and transportation are different from before. Many places are clearing up wrongful convictions and cold cases, and many organizations involved in trafficking and prostitution have been dismantled. Plus, with the population censuses over the years, my teacher and I have asked around a lot, but we haven’t found anyone who matches.”
She flipped through the major cases she had listed, finally stopping on the page for 1998. “Ten years. Using ten years as a boundary, forensic technology became more advanced, and surveillance gradually improved. If she’s not in any cases after that, then…”
Unable to continue, Ji Wanyan understood her meaning. Ten years. Either she was still alive and hadn’t been found, or there was still a case hidden in the shadows that hadn’t been discovered.
“Mom,” Ji Lan looked up at her, her eyes helpless and lost. “Do you think that child might be buried somewhere no one has found?”
Her grandmother never rested in peace until her death. Her sister still stubbornly went to the police station every month to inquire, still waiting for news of her…
“We’re also persisting, aren’t we? The local police, you, and Ren Jingxi—everyone is still looking.”
Ji Wanyan comforted her. “As long as we keep searching, one day, no matter where she is, she will be found.”
“…Mm.”
Feeling her mother’s warmth in her palm, Ji Lan felt some peace and reassurance. Just as she was wondering when the feedback for the next case would come, she suddenly heard Ji Wanyan say:
“Hmm, ’97. Didn’t you write down a case for ’97? I remember there was one that year…”
“What was it?”
Cases where both the victim and perpetrator were clearly identified were not within Ji Lan’s scope. She had been checking serial murder cases where some victims’ identities hadn’t been confirmed at the time, which might yield clues.
There were a few clear murder cases in ’97; she didn’t recall any solved serial murder cases among them.
She looked at her mother in confusion. Ji Wanyan hesitated for a moment. “Actually, I don’t know the clear inside story. If you don’t know about this case, it might have been sealed.”
Sealed? Everything suddenly became perplexing. Ji Lan pressed her. “Why sealed? Could it be that…”
“I don’t know the specifics. It’s very likely because of Yan Rui,” Ji Wanyan frowned, looked at her daughter, and seemed to hesitate before speaking.
After much deliberation, seeing that Ji Lan wouldn’t give up asking, she finally said, “Three years ago, I went to Shan City to give a training session for a company. I went drinking with Yan Rui, and when she was drunk, she told me something.”
“Although she only said a little bit… Uh, Lanlan, have you heard of a woman named Fu Chaoyu?”