Gong Yingxian said in a low voice, “He told me something. Something even we didn’t know.”
“What?”
“Do you remember how we analyzed the arson method and how the killer disguised it as a suicide, based on the structural model of my house, the reconstructed crime scene photographs, and the physical evidence?”
“I remember.”
“At the time, we believed there were two points of origin. The first was the kitchen, where the explosion had destroyed much of the evidence. The second was the living room sofa, which the killer had set on fire to make it look like a suicide and give himself a chance to escape. Considering how the killer could have entered and left my house, the kitchen window had security bars, so no one could get in that way. The killer could only have entered and exited through the front door. That made it crucial to determine whether there were signs of forced entry on the lock. That was also why the first person to enter the house… became a suspect.” As he spoke, Gong Yingxian stole a glance at Ren Yi’s expression.
Ren Yi didn’t seem particularly concerned. “Go on.”
“If the lock was intact, that would prove no outsider had entered my house, which would also prove that my father had set the fire himself. But what if the living room door lock had been intact all along? What if the killer had never used the living room door to enter or leave?”
Ren Yi frowned. “Then how did he get in? Your house only has the main entrance to the living room and… Could it have been the garage? But we ruled out the garage from the beginning. The garage has two doors, a rolling shutter and an interior door leading into the house. Forcing either lock would leave traces. And didn’t you say the garage door could only be closed with a remote control when leaving?”
“Yes.”
Ren Yi was a little confused. “The way you describe it, someone would have to force open two doors to get in, then use a remote to close the garage door when leaving. That sounds much harder than using the living room entrance.”
“Exactly. That was why the original investigators and we ourselves ruled out the garage so quickly.”
“So the killer really did enter and leave through the garage? How? And how does Bai Chicheng know?”
“The entrance to my living room is a double-leaf bronze door with nine locking bolts extending in both directions. It uses Grade B cylinder locks, the best available at the time. Even with professional lockpicking skills and tools, opening it without damaging the lock would take fifteen to thirty minutes. There were also people patrolling the residential complex at irregular intervals throughout the night, so breaking into the house through that door would have been extremely difficult.
“By comparison, although the garage had two doors, it was actually easier to get in. First, there was the outer rolling shutter. Its lock was an ordinary one. With a little practice, someone could open it with a piece of wire without leaving any marks. Once the lock was open, the shutter could be lifted. The inner door leading into the house was a standard security door and wasn’t difficult to open either.
“I really want to know whether that inner door had ever been forced open. It’s crucial evidence. But I searched through the entire investigation report, and this was all it said about the garage door: ‘Garage door intact.’”
Ren Yi stared at him for a moment. “Which garage door?”
“Exactly. Which garage door? Did that refer to the rolling shutter or the inner door? None of the case files described the two doors separately. They simply stated that the garage door was intact. I don’t know whether the original investigators were required to document the condition of every lock individually, or whether the case was so hastily classified as a suicide that these details were deliberately or inadvertently overlooked.”
“Impossible. Back then, the police were still responsible for fire investigations. I can’t say for certain, but how could they overlook something as important as a door lock? These days, we examine doors and windows carefully during every fire investigation. However, we only record specific details in the report when we find something abnormal. If none of the doors, windows, or locks throughout the house shows any irregularities, we simply state that there are no signs of forced entry. So if the report says the garage door was intact, then it was intact. There would have been no reason to examine it further. Whether a lock is intact is obvious at a glance. Even if the investigators deliberately concealed something, they couldn’t have hidden it. It would have been far too obvious.”
“If both doors were intact, then what Bai Chicheng told me wouldn’t make sense.”
Ren Yi felt his heart tighten. “What did he say?”
“He said the killer never used the living room entrance. He entered and left through the garage.”
Ren Yi’s eyes widened. “How could he possibly know that? Besides, using the garage seems impossible… Wait. You said the rolling shutter could be lifted once the lock was open? Then why could someone lift it but not lower it again? Maybe the killer left through the garage and then lowered the shutter from the outside.”
Gong Yingxian shook his head. “When I said the garage door couldn’t be lowered from the outside, I’d already investigated that. Although we call it a rolling shutter, my garage door isn’t the thin kind you see on storefronts. Mine consists of several long metal panels joined together and weighs more than two hundred pounds. When opened, it slides along three tracks on the ceiling and disappears into the space above the garage. It can’t actually be rolled up. Calling it an overhead door would be more accurate.
“When you unlock it from the outside, an adult man can use momentum to lift it. But when he leaves, the door is suspended more than two meters above the ground, near the ceiling. Given an adult man’s height and weight, even if he climbs a ladder and manages to reach the door, how is he supposed to pull down something that weighs dozens of pounds more than he does while balancing on that ladder?”
“The more you explain, the more confused I get. Don’t you think this is even more far-fetched than the theory that the killer entered through the living room? First, we don’t know whether there were signs of forced entry on the inner garage door. Second, we still can’t explain the problem with the rolling shutter. Given all that, it seems far more reasonable that the killer entered through the living room entrance.”
“That was exactly how I argued with Bai Chicheng at the time. Do you know what he did?”
“What?”
“He set Yue Xingu on fire. Then he told me that whatever Yue Xingu knew, only he knew now. He had evidence proving that the killer entered and left through the garage. So I had to help him escape. If he was arrested, he wouldn’t say a single word.”
Ren Yi drew in a sharp, icy breath.
“I considered every possibility. Deep down, I could no longer bring myself to suspect your father, so I tried to follow Bai Chicheng’s reasoning and reconsider the case on the assumption that the living room door had remained intact and the killer had entered and left through the garage.”
Ren Yi looked at Gong Yingxian, waiting for him to continue.
“The killer entered your house through the garage and poured an accelerant in the kitchen, living room, on the stairs, and in other areas. At that point, there were two possibilities. First, to ensure his own safety, he didn’t start the fire immediately. Instead, he opened the kitchen window, left through the garage, returned to ground level, and threw the fire through the kitchen window from outside. Second, he started the fire before leaving through the garage, and the kitchen window was blown open by the explosion.”
“And then? The two garage doors are still a problem.”
“What if someone could enter the house, take my father’s keys, go into the underground garage, lower the rolling shutter, and then make it look as though firefighters had forced open the inner door?”
Ren Yi stared at him in shock. “You mean…”
“The main living room entrance was also damaged by external force. But it was the firefighters who had to break it open during the rescue. To the investigators, that meant it was ‘intact.’ It was damage that raised no suspicion, an ‘intact’ door under specific circumstances.”
Ren Yi fell silent. He already knew what Gong Yingxian was about to say.
“That person absolutely could not have been your father. As the squad captain, he would certainly have been the first one rushing into the fire. He would have been the first to break down the living room door, then the first to run upstairs to rescue people. But he would also have directed the other firefighters to search the remaining areas for anyone trapped inside and for dangerous materials.”
“You mean one of the people working under my father could have been the killer’s accomplice.”
“It’s a possibility. And that’s exactly what Bai Chicheng said. He claimed he had evidence that could prove it, including the identity of that person. The missing information was precisely what Zhang Wen had secretly altered or stolen, to prevent us from discovering the truth.”
Ren Yi’s face grew paler and paler. His father’s former colleagues were a group of uncles who had watched him grow up. He had eaten at every one of their homes and received New Year’s money from every family. Being asked to suspect these men was hardly any easier than being asked to suspect his own father.
He hesitated before speaking. “Like you said, this is only one possibility. So far, we’ve come up with three different explanations for this case. The first is the official investigation. The second is the analysis we made last year. And the third is this new theory. So much time has passed, and the evidence is such a mess. I can’t feel confident about any of them anymore.”
“Now we can only make a judgment after seeing the evidence Bai Chicheng claims to have. But I’m certain he has something important, or Yue Xingu told him something significant. Otherwise, he wouldn’t know so much about the arson case involving my family.”
“Then where is he now? Did he give you the evidence?”
Gong Yingxian shook his head. “I locked him up somewhere. I planned to starve him for a few days. He’ll be easier to interrogate when he’s mentally weakened.”
Ren Yi shook his head. “You risked all this just to help him escape? Even if it meant breaking the law?”
“I didn’t break the law. I didn’t kill Yue Xingu. Bai Chicheng coerced me into leaving with him,” Gong Yingxian said calmly. “Things are difficult right now, but I have to take risks if I want to uncover the truth. Besides, I’m confident I can use Bai Chicheng to draw Purple Flame out into the open. Bai Chicheng knows too many of Purple Flame’s secrets. I believe Purple Flame wanted him dead in that hotel, but something must have gone wrong between them. Maybe Bai Chicheng wasn’t ‘devout’ enough. He doesn’t want to die. He knows he’s reached a dead end: either he dies or he gets arrested. What he wants is freedom.”
“That’s not what the police are saying. They claim the audio recording from the scene incriminates you. The evidence found at Zhang Wen’s residence incriminates you too. And the footage from the underground parking garage shows that you weren’t being coerced when you left with Bai Chicheng.”
Gong Yingxian narrowed his eyes. “Purple Flame has gone to extraordinary lengths to stop us from investigating the case from all those years ago. They tried to murder us, killed Zhang Minde to silence him, threatened Yue Xingu into taking the blame, and framed you. After all those attempts failed, they decided to frame me instead.
“The fact that things have escalated to this point proves that some greater, more powerful force is helping Purple Flame from behind the scenes. Or perhaps Purple Flame is working directly for that person. If we investigate the old case to its very end, we’ll inevitably threaten the interests of someone powerful. That’s why my father was made the scapegoat.”
Ren Yi still had some doubts, but the sheer amount of information he’d just received was too much for his mind to process all at once.
“…So what are you going to do next?”
“Ren Yi, I need your help. After dark, come with me to a place.”