Chapter 616 — Childhood Playmates

"Hello? Xixing Village, who are you looking for?" Widow Wang's voice came over the line, her Mandarin thick with the tang of the countryside.

"Auntie Wang, this is Xiaoyi, from Old Lin's family. Could you call Erdoudan to the phone for me?" Wei Zhao said.

"Ah? Xiaoyi from Old Lin's household! Hang on, I'll go fetch him right now!" Widow Wang answered, and set the receiver down.

Xixing Village was a small place; practically everyone knew everyone, and everyone bought their goods from Widow Wang's shop, so she was happy enough to let folks take their calls at her counter.

Right beside Widow Wang's grocery store stood the village office, and inside it was a loudspeaker. Out in the village, finding someone came down to shouting, plain and simple — one blast from that loudspeaker could jolt a sleeping man awake.

"Erdoudan, it's your Auntie Wang — come take a call!" Widow Wang bellowed into the loudspeaker, then went back into the store.

Before long a man built like an ox came running into the shop. That was Erdoudan. One meter eighty-five of him, planted in the doorway like a wall. "Auntie Wang, a call for me?"

He had run all the way from his family's fields, a good kilometer of it, and his face was not flushed, his heart was not pounding — he was not even breathing hard. Anyone could see the man was cut from uncommon cloth.

"It's Xiaoyi on the line. Hurry up and answer — he's calling long-distance, and that costs money!" Widow Wang said, pointing at the telephone on the table.

"Brother Wei Zhao?" The moment Erdoudan heard Wei Zhao's name, he rubbed his hands together in excitement and picked up the receiver. "This is Erdoudan!"

"Heh... Erdoudan." Wei Zhao laughed. "Keeping busy back home?"

"Not too bad. We sowed a while back, and now it's all hoeing and fertilizing, just waiting on the autumn harvest. I reckon we'll have a good crop this year!" Erdoudan said.

"Good. Got yourself a girlfriend yet?" Wei Zhao asked, smiling.

"Who'd ever fancy the likes of me?" Erdoudan gave a simple, honest laugh. "My family's this poor, and I'm no oil painting either. I'll die a bachelor, sure enough!"

"Well then, if you've got nothing on your hands these days, come by my place. The old man at home has my address — bring a few things over for me, and it's a fine chance to see a bit of the world besides," Wei Zhao said with a laugh.

"Huh? Really? That's wonderful!" Hearing that Wei Zhao wanted him to go see the big city, Erdoudan was beside himself with joy. "Then I'll set out as soon as I finish up the farm work in a few days... Only, Brother Wei Zhao, we haven't had our autumn harvest yet, so I've no money for the journey!"

Erdoudan and Wei Zhao had played together since they were small, so there was no awkwardness between them at all. No money was no money; there was no shame in it.

"Heh. The old man at home will get your travel money ready. Whatever you need, just tell me before you set off," Wei Zhao said. "No standing on ceremony with me."

"Course not. You're my Brother Wei Zhao — course I won't be polite!" Erdoudan had a one-track mind, and always had, ever since he was a boy: apart from his father's word, he obeyed Wei Zhao's.

So in Erdoudan's eyes, Wei Zhao stood about where his own father did, and it was only natural that Wei Zhao should give him money to spend.

"Heh..." Wei Zhao laughed. How many years had it been since he last played with Erdoudan? Those childhood days of catching fish and scooping up shrimp were long gone, never to return.

Even after he hung up, Wei Zhao was still sunk in memory... If there was one thing he could say of his life, it was that its happiest hours numbered three.

The second of those hours had been at the training camp, with his few comrades — he had been the squad captain, leading six others through one gate and past one general after another, until in the end they came out on top. Those years had been bitter and exhausting, but they had also been the fullest he had ever lived.

Tense as it had looked, it never carried the true danger of a live operation — only the trust and friendship between brothers. Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Little Seven — where are you now? Are you well? Still rushing about the world running missions?

Wei Zhao shook his head. Ever since they walked out of that training camp, his comrades had scattered to the four winds; he had never laid eyes on any of them again.

Of course, besides those three happy stretches, Wei Zhao had plenty of bitter ones as well — though one of them did not really count as bitter. At the very least it was bittersweet, and it too had been a rare stretch of time... It was in those days that he had come to know Yang Huaijun, and Pangolin, and several other comrades-in-arms, and Xiaoning...

And it was precisely because of Xiaoning that this stretch of time had been forcibly wiped from Wei Zhao's memory. It was also why, the first time he met Yang Huaijun, Wei Zhao had chosen to run.

Even now, Wei Zhao did not understand why he had refused Xiaoning so decisively. Was it truly that power of hers, vast enough to blot out the sky, standing at her back? Or was it that he could not give her a settled life?

The Wei Zhao of back then had never imagined that one day he would retire — still less that he would retire so young. He did not know what the old man was thinking, suddenly dropping him into Songshan City for a special mission that, once completed, would keep him fed for a lifetime. It was a one-shot bargain, plain and simple.

............

Qiu Lingshan leafed through the case files spread across her desk. The kidney-harvesting ring seemed to have quieted a great deal of late; ever since their last transit point was smashed, the other side had grown markedly more cautious. But they had by no means stopped — they had simply shifted their targets and their hunting grounds to the villages and towns on the city's outskirts.

In the past week alone, two widowed farmers had been murdered, killed by the identical method, with the locations grown only more erratic. One victim was a villager from Gayazi Village in the east of the city, the other from Shenbu Village in the west — one east, one west, dozens of kilometers apart, with no pattern to be found at all.

Even if officers were sent out to lie in wait, there was no way to blanket every one of the several hundred villages around the whole city with police. Never mind whether there were enough of them to go around — even if there were, the entire bureau could hardly grind to a halt and send every last officer to stake out the kidney gang, could it?

Qiu Lingshan felt herself a poor, useless thing. Since taking up her post she had cracked several major cases and won unanimous praise and recognition from the provincial and municipal leadership, but Qiu Lingshan knew in her heart how it had all really happened, how those cases had truly been broken. She had not the face to say it aloud.

Even when others praised her, Qiu Lingshan felt herself burn with shame. She was not, by nature, a person who liked to lie or boast, so it always sat badly with her — and yet there was no way to explain a word of it.