Attending ex-girlfriend's wedding, arresting the groom's officer on the spot

On the phone, Zhao Gang deliberately lowered his voice, speaking with a non-local accent: "Is this Accountant Zhang? I was introduced by Lao Li. I have some foreign trade accounts I'd like you to help me with." Zhang Baohua hesitated for a moment, but still agreed to meet at the reservoir: "It's quiet there, suitable for discussing business." As Zhao Gang drove past the betting station, he deliberately took a detour, and Zhang Baohua's figure in the rearview mirror gradually shrank, like an ant about to be swallowed.

The streetlights on the reservoir dam were broken, and only moonlight illuminated the water. Zhang Baohua stepped into a mud puddle as he got out of the car, complaining, "Why did we choose a place like this?" Zhao Gang pointed to the workers' shed in the distance: "The documents are inside. Old Li will be there soon." The moment he pushed open the door, he smelled the familiar rusty smell—it was sprayed on the iron cages three days in advance to cover up the luster of the new metal.

Before taking action, Zhao Gang drank half a bottle of baijiu (Chinese liquor). The smell of alcohol mixed with the dampness of the reservoir emboldened him. As Zhang Baohua looked down at the "documents," he suddenly swung a climbing rope from behind and looped it around Zhang's neck. "He reacted quickly, striking my ribs with his elbow." Zhao Gang touched his right chest, as if he could feel the excruciating pain from years ago again. "I heard him call 'Xiao Meng,' the same voice Haozi used to call for his mother when he had a fever. But Li Jing said that as long as he lived, Haozi had no way to survive."

The cage door warped as it struggled. Zhao Gang pressed down on it with his full weight, hearing Zhang Baohua's fingers scrape against the bars like chalk on a blackboard. "His glasses fell off, and his eyes were filled with a particularly venomous resentment, just like the old ox that drowned back in my hometown." The moment the lock snapped shut, Zhao Gang saw Zhang Baohua's wedding ring stuck in the gaps of the bars, its platinum surface scratched with deep marks—it was Li Jing's wedding gift to him, now sinking into darkness along with the cage.

The reservoir water was colder than he had imagined. As Zhao Gang sank into the iron cage, his trouser legs were filled with silt. "I brought two flashlights and shone them on him inside the cage, pounding on it with his mouth wide open, as if he wanted to swallow all the bubbles." As the bubbles rose to the surface and burst, Zhao Gang suddenly remembered his childhood experience of drowning, and his chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. "The moment I let go, the iron cage plummeted, and his shadow grew smaller and smaller until it became a black dot, as small as a lottery number."

On his way back to the work shed, Zhao Gang tripped and fell three times, his knees hitting the gravel. He used a dagger to cut open the surface of the iron cage, creating the illusion of "natural rust," but laughed when he cut his palm: "The blood drips onto the chains, just like red ink; it'll wash away with water anyway." Before leaving, he stuffed the lottery ticket holder into Zhang Baohua's trench coat pocket, and the combination lock clicked shut, as if locking away this murder.

On the day he claimed his prize, Zhao Gang wore three masks, his fingers trembling so much he couldn't type the password at the counter. "When the five million yuan prize money arrived, I was buying Haozi a new schoolbag. He touched the leather schoolbag and smiled, saying, 'Dad finally has money.'" Zhao Gang suddenly burst into tears, his tears falling onto the table. "But every time it rains, I dream of the reservoir releasing water, the iron cage slowly emerging from the water, and Zhang Baohua's hand reaching out from the gap in the iron bars, her fingernails still covered in the mud from back then."

After Li Jing got the money, she changed. She bought designer bags, went to beauty salons, and even forbade Haozi from calling him "Uncle Zhao." "Once, when she was drunk, she said that Zhang Baohua wet his pants when he died, and the cage smelled terrible." Zhao Gang wiped his nose, his eyes vacant. "That's when I found out that he didn't die immediately. He struggled in the cage for a long time, and maybe he even cried for help, but the reservoir was too remote, and no one heard him."

The interrogation room door opened and closed. Zhao Gang watched Lu Chuan come in with the DNA report and knew it was all over. "Actually, I've been waiting for this day," he said, touching the burn scar on his wrist. "Every time I pass by the reservoir and see the word 'happiness' on the sluice gate, I feel like it's mocking me. Happiness my ass. Ever since I was pushed into that iron cage, I haven't had a single good night's sleep."

Finally, Zhao Gang stared at the ceiling, as if he could see the moonlight from seven years ago again: "When Zhang Baohua sank down, the water in the cage slowly rose over his chest, neck, and eyes. He didn't struggle anymore, he just stared at me until the flashlight could no longer reach him. Thinking about it now, he probably already knew it was us, so he set the lottery ticket password to his daughter's birthday, waiting for us to steal it, waiting for the police to come and arrest him."

The sound of police sirens wailed outside the window. Zhao Gang suddenly laughed, his shoulders shaking with laughter: "Do you know? The day the body was dumped, all the fish in the reservoir swarmed around it, their scales reflecting in the water, like Zhang Baohua was draped in a silver coat. He never wore nice clothes in his life, but he died dressed quite decently." Before he finished speaking, he suddenly vomited violently, vomiting up nothing but the fear and regret from seven years ago, mixed with the smell of disinfectant in the interrogation room, the vomit snaking out in a twisted trail on the ground.

At the end of the interrogation, Zhao Gang volunteered to draw a map showing the route the body was taken to the bottom of the river. He used a red pen to draw a crooked iron cage on white paper, inside which was a small figure gripping the bars, its eyes gazing at the water. "Here," he pointed to the figure's chest, "his wedding ring was stuck here, and it didn't fall out until the cage sank to the bottom." The sound of the pen cap closing was as soft as a sigh, yet it was exceptionally clear in the silent interrogation room—this was the final piece of the puzzle for a seven-year-old injustice, and also the mental cage from which Zhao Gang could never escape for the rest of his life.

In late autumn, the Happiness Reservoir was shrouded in leaden-gray clouds, its surface shimmering with tiny, rippling waves, like a handful of rusty nails scattered across it. Zhao Gang was escorted out of the police car by two special police officers. The sound of the snow chains crunching over the gravel made his temples throb—seven years ago, on that rainy night, his van had run over the same gravel in the same way, except that back then, Zhang Baohua's gradually cooling body lay in the trunk.

The day after Zhao Gang's arrest, as soon as the police tape was set up on the embankment, he smelled the familiar stench of decaying water plants. This smell, mixed with the damp earth, instantly pulled him back to that rainy night of November 17, 2015. He stared blankly at the water until Lu Chuan's hand landed on his shoulder: "Let's begin, starting from where you parked your car."

Zhao Gang's Adam's apple bobbed as he pointed to a depression on the west side of the embankment: "The car was parked there, seventeen meters from the workers' shed." His leather shoes unconsciously traced marks on the ground, as if replicating the footprints from years ago. "When Zhang Baohua got out of the car, he stepped into a mud puddle, splashing mud onto his beige overcoat like a handful of black sesame seeds." At this point, he suddenly squatted down, digging his fingertips into the damp soil—where a clump of reeds now grew, their leaves rustling in the wind, sounding exactly like the scraping sound of Zhang Baohua's shoes against the ground when he was dragged into the workers' shed years ago.

As the forensic examiner placed the retrieved iron cage on the embankment, Zhao Gang's breathing suddenly quickened. The smell of rust mixed with the pungent odor of water plants filled his nostrils. (End of Chapter)