2007, Autumn Night.

"Boy, do you know why I told you the secret in this little room last Christmas?"

Huang Hai played chess with Si Wang at home, and if someone saw it in the opposite window, he would definitely think that it was a deep relationship between father and son.

"You're drunk."

"Phew! Lao Tzu is notoriously not drunk with a thousand cups! Actually, I deliberately let you know, because you must have your own secrets, about the death of the 1995 declaration......"

"At least our purpose is the same."

"So, this is a deal, I told you the truth that the police have, and you must also tell me all the secrets you have discovered in the Gu family for more than half a year - about Gu Qiusha, Gu Changlong, and Lu Zhongyue, who is still at large."

Si Wang was already in the general, but he withdrew the chess pieces: "Can I not say it?" ”

"No—because I still have a lot of secrets that I have hidden in my heart and haven't said, and if you don't exchange them, then I will never say them."

"You've lost." He ate the veteran of the Yellow Sea and took a deep breath, "Let's start with Gu Qiusha." ”

"Okay."

"Gu Qiusha has a terrible secret, she has a small medicine box in her room, but the drawers are locked. I stole her keys and when I opened them, I found many imported medicines, most of which were not in English with instructions on the labels. I copied the words with my pen and locked the drawers again, so that there was no sign of movement. I searched the internet again, and found out that it was in German, to the effect that it was used to inhibit the release of luteinizing hormone, resulting in a decrease in testosterone production—"

Huang Hai scratched his head and interrupted: "I don't understand. ”

"To make a long story short, it's drug castration - by giving people medicine, you unknowingly become a eunuch."

"It's too ruthless!"

"Obviously, these medicines are aimed at Lu Zhongyue, and I understand the reason why Gu Qiusha is not allowed to drink piped water, and only lets me drink bottled water."

"No wonder this bastard looks like a yin and yang, he doesn't even know that he is a father-in-law." Huang Hai lit a cigarette and wandered by the window, "If Lu Zhongyue knows this secret, he will naturally hate Gu Qiusha to the core, and it is logical to kill her." ”

"For a year, I was very scared, will he come to me again? I reminded my mother every night to lock the doors and windows of the house, and not to open the door if a stranger knocks. ”

Huang Hai scratched the boy's nose: "Boy, if only I had a son like you - don't worry, as long as I am for a day, your mother and son will be safe." ”

"Really?"

"I promise, as soon as this guy shows up, I'll catch him!" The policeman looked at the time and said, "Go home early, your mother will be calling later." ”

After the boy left, Huang Hai opened the secret little room, looked at the red patterns painted on the wall, and lit another cigarette. He touched the center of the wall and said the word "affirmation" in a big voice.

In June 1995, a week before he was killed, he was locked behind bars and strongly requested to meet with the Huanghai police officer, saying that there were important leads to be provided. Huang Hai got out of bed overnight, left his son, who had just turned one, and rode a bicycle to the detention center.

In the interrogation room, Shen Cheng was not like a human or a ghost, and he was clutching his hair in despair, and his dignity as a high school teacher was gone, and he knelt on the ground and begged for Huang Hai's help: "I didn't kill anyone...... I didn't kill anyone......"

"What clues are you going to give?"

"Officer Huang, there are two rumors circulating about me in the school, one of which is true."

"You have a teacher-student relationship with Liu Man?"

He wiped away his tears, his lips trembled, and he seemed ashamed to speak: "No, I am an illegitimate child. ”

"Your biological father is not the man who poisoned his wife and was shot?"

"Yes, that guy doesn't have the surname Shen, that's why everyone said that I wasn't born by him." Shen Ming coughed violently a few times, "My true father is a decent man like you, with a decent job and status, and I swore to him that I would never reveal his identity. ”

"I see, if he has nothing to do with your case, I respect your secret."

"When I was born, my name was Shenming, and when my mother got married when I was three years old, I took my stepfather's surname. The man was a brute, and he had another woman outside, and he had to rely on his wife's work to support him. Because I wasn't born to him, he always used me to get angry, and as long as my mother wasn't at home, he would beat me without leaving any scars. When I told my mom the truth, he said it was a kid talking nonsense. The earliest memories of my life were filled with crying and screaming, and the way he approached me, and every step made me tremble so much that I had to crawl under the bed and hide, when I was only five or six years old. ”

Although Huang Hai had heard enough of such tragic stories, he still silently recited in his heart: "Create evil! ”

"When I was seven years old, my stepfather poisoned my mother, and then when I called the police, he was also arrested and shot. My grandmother became my only relative, and I could no longer take that man's surname, so my grandmother took me to the police station and changed my name back to the statement. ”

"That's what makes me look at your file strangely."

"My grandmother has no education, she has always been a nanny for other people, and she lives in the owner's house all the year round. Do you know the Sabbath? From the first grade to the third year of junior high school, my grandmother and I lived in the basement, cramped, dark, damp and full of rats. I grew up like a lonely ghost, don't look at the weak way I am now, when I fought with people every day, and the children joined forces to bully me, throw stones at me, pick my pants, and even pee on my face. Each time I would resist more violently, and eventually I would be beaten and swollen and come home, and my grandmother would be distressed to rub some useless red potion - in the end, no one could beat me, and they were so frightened that they fled when they saw me, and they all said that I would become a big hooligan, even a murderer like my stepfather. But my academic performance was surprisingly good, relying on a few tattered textbooks and the ballpoint pens left over from the owner, I was admitted to the city's key Nanming Senior High School. After graduating from university, my grandmother lived in a wealthy family and worked as a maid, and I moved into the dormitory of the unit. ”

"I can sympathize with you, but it won't change my opinion on the merits of the case."

"I want to tell you that man, although he was shot and burned to ashes, he has always lived in my heart, and from time to time he appeared in nightmares, the drunk black figure, with the sound of footsteps in tin shoes, approaching me little by little......"

Huang Hai, who was a first-time father, was a little sad when he heard this: "Don't say it. ”

"Let me finish! In the past few days in the detention center, I would dream about him again every night - that dirty face, gradually came to my nose, and then tightened my neck, he wanted to avenge himself, if I hadn't reported it to the police, my mother would only have died of an ordinary illness, how could he be sentenced to death? Every time I wake up after being strangled to death in a dream! ”

"Such a nightmare, as a police officer, I have occasionally dreamed of gangsters who I shot and killed."

Huang Hai really wanted to slap himself, how could he show his cowardice in front of the suspect?

Suddenly, Shen Ming's hand reached over the iron railing, grabbed Huang Hai's sleeve, and said with a shudder: "Last night, I dreamed that I was dead, I was stabbed to death from behind with a knife, and then turned into a child. ”

Twelve years later, Huang Hai had a few more wrinkles on his forehead, and he looked at the figure relationship drawn in red ink on the wall, and the shocking word "Affirmation" in the middle drew another red line under it, pointing directly to another name - Si Wang.