You have become a ghost

Forgotten

But before my eyes

If you are leaving

When that strange land

The season of apple blossoms

You're under that distant night sky

Star-studded above

Maybe there is spring and summer

There will be no rush to alternate

- You have not been for me

Yan Ran smiled

- and never with me

Whispering

You get sick quietly and die quietly

It's like chanting a little song in your sleep

Thou hast mourned for the night

The wick was turned on

I offer you a few branches

Thank you for the roses

This is my vigil for you

With the moonlight of the waning moon

Maybe in your mind

There is no shadow of me

Nor will they accept me

This sorrow

May you be under a tree full of green apples

Rest forever

- Michizo Tachihara "Dedicated to the Dead Beauty"

Chapter I

The first day of 2013.

Ye Xiao sat alone in Officer Huanghai's house, looking at the character relationship diagram drawn in red ink on the wall in the small room. The house has been empty for more than two years, and it has not been sold, and all the case materials have long been removed, except for the graffiti on the wall.

The big "statement" in the middle, after eighteen years, even though the owner of the house has long since died, is still bright and unfading, like a cavity of blood oozing from the cracks in the wall.

On the night of his murder, in addition to the teaching director Yan Yan, who was killed by him, there were several related people nearby-

First, the current biggest suspect, Lu Zhongyue, is also a high school classmate of Shen Ming's middle school, and he was an engineer at the Nanming Iron and Steel Plant at the time of the crime. Lu Zhongyue later married Shenming's fiancée and became Gu Changlong's son-in-law, but in the 2006 bankruptcy case of the Gu family, he played a very disgraceful role, but he had nothing. His ex-father-in-law came to seek revenge, but he was killed instead. Gu Qiusha, who was killed soon after, is probably also Lu Zhongyue, and the motive is that Gu Qiusha castrated him with drugs, causing him to permanently lose his fertility. He is still at large, and Officer Huanghai died in the pursuit of him.

Second, there is also a name on the wall - Ouyang Xiaozhi, who was in the third (2) class of Nanming Middle School at the time of the crime, and is said to be Liu Man's best classmate. It was she who was the first to report to the school that it was possible to be in the witch quarter, so that the police found Shen's body three days later. After the college entrance examination, she entered Normal University, disappeared for more than ten years, and returned to Nanming High School two years ago to become a Chinese teacher in Siwang's class.

Thirdly, it is horsepower without a name on the wall, which has never entered the sight of the Yellow Sea. Ye Xiao checked the high school students brought by Shen Ming, and found that in this person's later resume, there was actually Erya Education Group, whose position was the assistant to the general manager, from August 2005 to January 2006, which happened to be the most critical half year before the Gu family went bankrupt. After that, Ma Li went to the United States to start a business, and soon returned to China to get married and have a daughter, and returned to the city to settle after the divorce.

Who else?

Is it loose to ask for aid and chatter? Now Si Wang's homeroom teacher is also a special mathematics teacher at Nanming High School, in fact, the police have confirmed that this person has a sufficient alibi.

Ye Xiao added a name to his notebook - Si Mingyuan.

He is Si Wang's father, who disappeared mysteriously in 2002, and his household registration was cancelled. But he was a worker at the Nanming Iron and Steel Plant before he was laid off, did he return to the factory on the night of the crime? There was no evidence at the moment, and Ye Xiao felt that there was no need to ask He Qingying about this—after all, she was Si Wang's mother.

Si Wang.

In any case, this man was certainly not the murderer who killed Shen Ming, as he was born a full six months after Shen Ming's death.

He is studying in the third (2) class of Nanming Middle School, and he has actually become a friend of Officer Ye Xiao. He said that he was affirming that he had all the memories, personalities, emotions, and even the handwriting of the deceased who was exactly the same—probably because he spit out the mouthful of Meng Po soup.

He vows to avenge his past life and catch the murderer of Shen with his own hands.

Then, kill him.

But Ye Xiao never believed that Si Wang was a statement - Si Wang was indeed a special child, but there was absolutely no such thing as reincarnation.

There must be an even more terrible secret behind Si Wang.

Suddenly, Ye Xiao's mobile phone broke the silence of the empty room, and a colleague from the bureau called, telling him that a corpse had been found near Si Wang's house.

Quickly rushed to the scene.

The demolition team was shoveling the houses of the nail households, surrounded by the roar of bulldozers and the smashing of walls. Many people rushed to the demolition team to stop them, but they were dragged away by more than a dozen big men, crying out to the sky. In front of one of the ruins, there were already onlookers.

The house had just been demolished, about the bottom of the patio next to the wall, and a nearly shattered skeleton had been excavated—a complete skull, ribs and thigh bones scattered everywhere, indicating that it was a real dead man.

Ye Xiao crawled through the ruins, walked over to it and squatted down, almost reaching out to touch it. Two deep black holes looked at him, as if they had endless words to confide.

Who are you?

Suddenly, feeling a pair of eyes looking at him, Ye Xiao suddenly turned around, and there was a young man's face in the crowd.

Eighteen-year-old Si Wang.

The next day, there was more information about the body - it is not yet possible to confirm its true identity, and the forensic examination report showed that it was a man about 1.76 meters tall, between the ages of 35 and 40, and died about ten years ago. A fatal wound was found on the vertebrae of the deceased's neck, pierced by some kind of sharp awl, which could be concluded to be a murder. The demolished house has long since changed owners, and the police are looking for a suspect who lived there ten years ago.

Late that night, Ye Xiao came downstairs to Si Wang's house, and the surroundings were almost demolished, leaving only a big locust tree standing bare.

There was a dark shadow jumping in front of a ruin, Ye Xiao vigilantly bent down to observe, there are usually many hooligans here, not to mention the dangerous period of demolition.

In the cold moonlight, Si Wang's face was faintly illuminated, and he knelt down among the rubble and wept bitterly.

"Who are you crying for?"

Ye Xiao stood coldly behind him, and a young man jumped up and flew at him with a Muay Thai kick.

The officer deftly dodged and grabbed his throat with one hand: "It's me!" ”

He broke free of Ye Xiao's hand in a panic: "I'm sorry, I thought it was a damn demolition team." ”

"How are you doing?"

"It sucks!"

It was the first time I saw Si Wang look so depressed, crouching on the broken brick wall.

"You still have a lot to hide from me, don't you?"

"Ye Xiao, I'll tell you all slowly, but can you please help me investigate someone first?" Without waiting for the other party to nod, Si Wang said to himself, "In 1983, the survivor of the murder on Sabbath Road, that is, the girl who reported the crime, was the only daughter of the deceased. ”

"Why do you want to check this person?"

"Please."

Looking at the young man's pleading eyes, Ye Xiao agreed with a wry smile.

A week later, the results of the investigation were surprising, and the girl's file disappeared. Ye Xiao visited the relatives of the victim, and only then did he find out: The girl who survived that year was originally the adopted daughter of the deceased, and no one was willing to accept her, but she was adopted by a strange couple and never heard from again. As for the girl's photo, there is only one left, a black-and-white photo taken at school when she was thirteen years old.

He gave the photo to Si Wang.