14 The Child of Prison

 

“Someone like Lai San takes months or maybe years of planning to capture, but now let’s talk about you.” Captain Zhao placed Lai San’s files on the table and picked up his old tea cup instead, before continuing, “I said that if you helped me solve this case, I’ll spring you out from the mental hospital. You did, and so consider yourself free.”

Mary and Gu Chen stood on either side of Captain Zhao, they both looked at me. Xiao Liu had just found out about my background so he gasped, “Wait, you’re an actual mental patient?! I thought that was just an inside joke between you guys!”

“I’ve contacted the hospital admin.” Captain Zhao continued, “You’re no longer a patient there. You are free to do anything you wish now.” Before I could say anything, Mary chimed in. “Zhao Shilin, I have no idea you are such a callous person, slaughtering a donkey after it has exhausted its use is not something you’d normally do. Even though this basketcase can get annoying at times, he has been a big help to us. It is undeniable that without his help, we wouldn’t have found the killer so soon. Therefore, if you ask for my opinion.” Mary sat on the Captain’s table and said, “How about we keep him around as a temp worker? If anything happens, we’ll just shove him out to take the blame.”

This was Mary’s way of living up to her promise of helping me put in a good word if I could find Lin Su. Captain Zhao tapped on his cup lightly, “It’s only been a few days, and you two are already plotting behind my back?”

Mary grabbed the tea cup away from Captain Zhao, “What do you mean by that?” Captain Zhao shrugged and then pulled out another file from his drawer. The name, Wu Meng was written clearly on the cover of the file. This was my file.

“Wu Meng, a boy found abandoned at the doors to Qing Cheng Prison at age 1. When the prison master found you, you were already purple from the freezing temperature. At the time, the snow was so heavy that the roads were blocked, it was impossible to send you to the hospital. The prison doctor was off duty that day and the prison master had no idea what to do with a dying baby. The only thing he could do was to put a cover over you and pray for the best. But then a female inmate approached the prison master with a solution.” Captain Zhao took a glance at me before he continued with my life story, “She had the prison master order the kitchen to boil a few pots of water and then place them strategically near your armpits and crotch. The female inmate was not a doctor, this was merely something that she had seen on the documentary, the only channel that they had inside the prison. Apparently this was the way to save someone suffering from freezing if you had no access to medical treatment.” Captain Zhao explained, “None of the prison inmates or the guards had hope that you would survive the winter. The snow that year was heavy and the wind chilly but miraculously you survived.

“A prison is often a place of death but at this place, a life was preserved and flourished. The guards and inmates were touched by this small miracle. The prison master even allowed the inmates to use the entertainment room through the night, a privilege that was only given at new year.

“Just as the prison master sighed in relief and went to check on you, he found a note inside your clothes. The note said the following, ‘This boy is yours, I can’t wait for you forever. I named the child Wu Meng (meaning lack of dream) because I’ve been tortured by nightmares since you were imprisoned. I hope now that he is with you, I’ll be spared from them.’ From that, the prison master found out you were the progeny of a criminal. However, he later discovered your mother got the wrong prison. There was indeed a male prisoner with the surname Wu in his care but he was never married. Later when the prison doctor returned, he took your DNA and compared it with all the male prisoners at Qing Cheng Prison, none of them was your biological father.

“That placed the prison master in quite a quandary. China was so big, where was he going to find your father? Looking into your blinking eye, this single prison master who was in his 40s decided to raise you as his own. He taught you the alphabet and sent you to school. Your childhood basically revolved around 2 places, the school and the prison. Your whole life was thus linked to the word, criminal. Your father was a criminal, you were saved by a criminal and you were literally fed the milk of a female criminal. The criminals at the prison raised you and they taught you things that a normal person would never have learned.

“You know how to make drugs, how to pick locks, you know basic human anatomy, and you know how to hide from the law enforcement. You were raised not on conventional fairy tales like Snow White and the Seven Dwarves but tales of the inmates’ pasts, colorful stories involving murders, rapes, street fights, brawls and gangs.

“As your interaction with the inmates got more frequent, the prison master was afraid that you might be persuaded to walk on their path. So he recommended you to join the local police, to be a reserved officer. With your knowledge of criminology and ability to see things from the criminals’ perspective, you helped them solve a lot of cases. But starting from then, your superior already noted a burgeoning sign of your mental problem, which was later diagnosed as delusions of guilt. Probably you’ve placed yourself within the criminal mind too often that whenever a case was solved, your symptom would worsen.

“Your mind finally collapsed when you were faced with a very hard case. There were so many puzzles that you had to sink yourself deep into the killer’s consciousness to solve it. You eventually surrendered yourself to your superior and admitted to the crime. But all the evidence proved that you were not the killer. After a psychological assessment conducted by the police, you were confirmed to suffer from paranoia and schizophrenia. You were thus admitted into Qing Cheng Mental Hospital. I’ll be honest with you, if not for us, you probably will spend the rest of your life rotting in there.”

Xiao Liu sighed softly, “Jesus, what a life.”

Captain Zhao ignored Xiao Liu and continued, “When you were in the reserved force, you already showed plenty of ambition to turn official, to wear the uniform and become a real member of the law enforcement. However, due to your unique background and psychological issue, that is impossible.”

“There is not even a slight chance?” I looked at Captain Zhao with barely disguised hope. I prayed that Captain Zhao would deliver me some hope but I knew that it was not possible. As the captain said, that day would never come.

“Yes, not even a slight chance.” Captain Zhao confirmed. Seeing the disappointment on my face, Captain Zhao asked, “I’ve asked you this question before, why do you want to be a police officer.”

“I don’t know.” I still answered honestly. Certain people had goals that they needed to accomplish in their lifetime. However, when questioned about their driving force behind it, some of them couldn’t give you a straight answer. I was one of those people.

“Then why did you go to get him out in the first place?” Mary huffed. “You might as well let him rot inside the hospital.” I knew Mary was being indignant on my behalf.

However, I had my own analysis of the situation. Captain Zhao hauled me out from the mental hospital definitely not just to solve a simple case. To be honest, without me, Captain Zhao’s team would have found Ye Zhi’s killer eventually. “Sister Mary, since Captain Zhao had gotten me out of the hospital, I’m sure he has a greater purpose in mind for me. All I have contributed to this case is to speed up the progress, it would have been solved with or without me. If my guess is not wrong, this case is just a test for me, to see if I can reach his standards. Am I right, Captain Zhao?” I voiced my thoughts.

Captain Zhao shook his head. He grabbed the cup from Mary and teased, “Mary, you’ve been with me for almost 10 years already but you still know me less than Wu Meng does. If I really help Wu Meng get out of the hospital just for that one case, then I wouldn’t be the leader of this unit until now.”

Mary asked, “Then what exactly do you need Wu Meng for? No, wait… Is it?”

Captain Zhao nodded and signalled for Xiao Liu to close the door. Then he said, “The case that broke Wu Meng and got him committed to the hospital is a locked room mystery. After the incident with Wu Meng, the case got passed down to me. After I did some research, I realized the culprit might be our old friend.”

“Your old friend?” I repeated in confusion.

“Do you remember the born criminal that I told you about?” Captain Zhao enquired. I nodded and explained, “But didn’t you say he’s in prison? How can he commit this crime then?”

Captain Zhao elaborated, “It’s not him, but the culprit is very close to him. When we caught him many years ago, one of his people escaped from our grasp. I suspect she is the one behind this locked room murder. I am very familiar with her style. But I couldn’t figure out her motive.” As mentioned above, I was part of that locked room mystery murder, but I couldn’t visualize the killer in my head. I pushed my mind and paid a heavy price. Now that I heard this new info from Captain Zhao, I realized perhaps I might not have been given access to the full scope of the case yet.

“I’ve fought with her too many times before.” Captain Zhao stared at his cup and said softly, “Just like how I know it’s her doing, she also knows how to perfectly evade my detection, and that’s where you come in.”

“But why me?” I pointed at myself.

Captain Zhao placed the cup on the table. “Because you have immense power of analysis and observation, you’re just like me 10 years ago.” He paused before adding sternly, “However, the vice minister was adamant that a mental patient couldn’t be brought into this case again.”

“Then how did you manage to persuade him?” I asked.

Captain Zhao laughed. “Simple. I told him if we do not get you on our side, you’ll be the second genius born criminal we’ll have to deal with down the line.”

“The woman that you said is behind the case.” I probed, “Who is she?”

“Zhao Mingkun.” Captain Zhao said, “A very cunning woman.”

 

This marks the end of the first case. Based on the statistics, the story is quite unpopular on the blog, which honestly I've expected, cause this is niche beyond niche genre. If there is a genre more niche than horror, it's true crime. lol. The book's biggest strength is also its weakness. The book focuses a lot on characterization. Every character you meet has their own background, because any of them might contribute to the case somehow. However, for those unfamiliar with crime writing, it'll be viewed as nothing more than info dump. Personally, I love this kind of book, they're a rare breed among webnovels. 

I don't know, what do you think? :)