“I’ll go to the hospital too. After all, Hua was my colleague for many years. It is up to me to accompany him, I think, for the last part of his journey.”

Lou drove at the back of the convoy of vehicles that took Hua’s body to a special army hospital. As before, Lou had to wait outside in the corridor, watching the old cop under the white sheet pulled in, followed by Internal Security. Again, he could do nothing but smoke, affixing a second cigarette to the butt of the first one. All these years, Lou recalled with a bitter taste in his mouth, Hua had smoked Flying Horse, one of the cheapest brands. It spelled a face loss in this gilded age, but Hua had no choice. The medical bill for his wife was no longer covered by the state-run company on the edge of bankruptcy. How could Hua have had the money to be a regular customer in a karaoke club-with Flying Horse in his pocket? Lou added a third cigarette to the first two. It looked almost like an antenna, trembling in a pathetic effort to catch imperceptible information from the surrounding blank walls.

Initial test results came out. The medical examination proved that the girl had had sex earlier that night and the remaining semen detected in her vagina was from Hua. The autopsy had to wait until morning. According to the doctor, an overdose of the Tiger and Dragon Power could have led to a heart attack. Internal Security had found a package of the drug in Hua’s pocket.

That was the last nail knocked into the coffin. Lou staggered. The cell phone started ringing like bells. Calls from people both in and out of the bureau. He was surprised at the speed the news spread around. It was still early. Everyone was shocked, and no one believed that Hua could have done something like that.

Lou even got a long-distance call from Yu Keji, nicknamed Old Hunter, who was a retired Shanghai cop with a national police information network. Perhaps people did not have to be too cautious talking to a retired man. Old Hunter seemed to know a lot about the Xing case assigned to Detective Hua.