Episode 19: The Mysterious Voice Recorder

After Qian Musheng reported the case, the police offered an explanation that sounded reasonable yet chilling — with cyberbullying incidents so frequent, the victim had been under immense pressure, which may have led to depression and suicide.

And they closed the case in just three hours. Instinct told him this was no accident — she had been pushed. Song Yiyi was not the kind of person who would take her own life. There had to be something more behind it.

Every nerve in his body was telling him: she had not jumped on her own.

Just as he was about to speak up in protest, the letter the Judge had given him flashed through his mind. Clearly, this was beyond him now. He no longer knew whom to believe.

Situ Hengyi frowned deeply. There was no way for him to get involved in this case — a special task force sent down from above had taken over the entire investigation, leaving him to handle other cases. "Qian Musheng, you're a gossip blogger. What were you doing at the crime scene?"

Thinking fast, Qian Musheng broke into a grin, his eyes going vague as a comical smile spread across his face. "Officer Situ, I'm a gossip blogger — where there's gossip, that's where I go. I'm just a concerned citizen."

Situ Hengyi saw straight through the wariness and panic in his expression. He understood that Qian Musheng was definitely hiding something. This was no longer a simple entertainment story — behind it lay a vast web, and perhaps a shocking secret. There was a mole inside the police force, and he would have to investigate in secret.

After Qian Musheng returned home, he received a mysterious email: "If you want to stay alive, you'd better cooperate. Otherwise, you're next."

His face went pale and his heart began to race. He was afraid of dying, yet he wanted to uncover the truth. On his own, he was clearly not enough — he needed help from others to peel back, layer by layer, the truth hidden in the dark.

Clutching his phone, he replied nervously, "Who are you?"

A few seconds later, a reply popped up on the screen: "Someone here to help you, of course."

Qian Musheng was suspicious. "Why should I believe you?"

"You didn't tell the truth at the police station."

"You've been watching me!"

"What did Song Yiyi tell you?"

"Then let's meet somewhere and talk face to face!"

Qian Musheng waited under the bridge at the agreed spot. The cold wind carried the smell of petrol and dampness, leaving him uneasy. Somehow, as if possessed, he had believed the other person's words. His heart was still trembling, and the distant sound of cars drifting closer only made him more nervous.

By the riverbank, a black sedan sat parked in a dim corner. Qian Musheng clutched his briefcase, nervously rubbing his hands together, his palms slick with cold sweat.

He felt a nervousness he had never known before — this moment might lift the veil on everything, or it might mean he could never return to his ordinary life.

Qin Shaohua stood beside the car, gold-rimmed glasses on, polite and refined, his suit immaculate, his expression as calm as ever. He had been waiting under the bridge for Qian Musheng for some time; only the hand beneath his sleeve moved slightly. "Hello, Reporter Qian!"

Seeing it was him, Qian Musheng gladly let his guard down. He drew in a sharp breath and said with a self-deprecating laugh, "Lawyer Qin, couldn't you have picked a nicer place to meet? You scared me half to death!"

Qin Shaohua gave a cold smile. "It's quiet here, and no one comes to disturb us. In the movies, isn't a meeting to pass on important information always the more secretive the better — with plenty of atmosphere?"

Qian Musheng stepped forward, sighing, torn between laughter and tears. "This isn't a performance. We're risking our lives!"

"Risking your lives!" Situ Hengyi snapped from inside the car. "I knew you weren't telling the truth!"

Qian Musheng looked down, frowned, and gave an awkward smile. "Officer Situ is here too!"

Qin Shaohua cleared his throat, glanced at the folder Qian Musheng was clutching, and said coldly, "Let's get back to business. Time to talk about what matters."

Situ Hengyi asked, "What did Song Yiyi ask you to meet her for?"

Qian Musheng grinned, playing dumb with a cheeky smile. "She wanted to meet me to chat about gossip—"

Situ Hengyi cut him off, his face stern, and barked, "Qian Musheng, you know this is a matter of life and death, and you're still thinking about an exclusive story."

Just then, a light breeze swept through, rustling a few leaves loose. They drifted down onto the lake, rippling the surface, and in an instant the atmosphere turned awkward.

Qian Musheng dropped the act, a half-smile on his face. He cleared his throat and said it all in one breath: "Song Yiyi asked to meet me because she wanted to blow the whistle on Yu Mengge's case. She said he didn't die in an accident — Fan Zhiqi, Fang Jin, and Shen Yao were all involved in his murder, and Song Yiyi herself may have had a part in it too. The Judge is settling accounts for their crimes."

Qin Shaohua didn't answer. He simply opened the car door and gestured for him to get in. Inside the car it was silent — not even the radio was on. "Go on. What else do you know?"

Looking at Situ Hengyi's grave expression, Qian Musheng nodded, his voice hoarse. "The police say she fell by accident, but I don't believe it. The last thing she got was a phone call telling her to go upstairs and wait…"

Qin Shaohua said coldly, "What evidence do you have?"

Qian Musheng handed over the file bag, his fingertips trembling slightly, his whole body shaking. "The Judge gave me this. The voice recorder has a conversation between Song Yiyi, a producer, and Tian Sirong… They mentioned 'the Yu case,' 'the drinks reception,' 'settling accounts,' and 'arms' — and also, 'if anyone else talks out of turn, deal with them the same way.' Song Yiyi also said they would kill again."

Qin Shaohua took the voice recorder but did not plug it into the laptop. Inside the file bag there was also a contract and a box containing a music master tape. He turned the master tape between his fingertips a few times and asked lightly, "Aren't you afraid I'll sell you out?"

"Because… I don't believe the police could conclude that Song Yiyi fell by accident," Qian Musheng said, his voice almost shaking. "From my years in the media, I can tell that although you're Tianze Entertainment's legal counsel, you're no ordinary lawyer. You're qualified to investigate — and you can stay alive doing it."

Situ Hengyi looked thoroughly gloomy. He turned to Qian Musheng, his expression hardening, and said with a self-deprecating laugh, "Looks like the police have become the villains here."

Qin Shaohua turned to Situ Hengyi and smiled faintly, a smile cold and without warmth. "You think I'd investigate because of justice?"

He said in a low voice, "Reporter Qian, I investigate because I want certain people dead too."

His tone was utterly calm, and utterly ruthless, and there was no trace of emotion on his face as he spoke those words.

Qian Musheng froze.

In that instant, he could not tell whether this man was an ally or a devil.

Qin Shaohua turned to gaze at the river in the distance, where the setting sun's reflection looked like blood, yet he remained unnaturally calm. "Not one of these deaths was an accident. Song Yiyi was only the beginning. The game is getting more and more interesting."

Qian Musheng asked, "Then what do you want me to do?"

"Keep being your blogger," Qin Shaohua said coldly, "but only post what they want you to post."

"What do you mean?"

"They'll feed you false leads, and I'll find the real leads hidden in them. All you have to do is be the bait."

Qian Musheng's face turned pale as he cried out, "You're crazy! I'll die!"

Situ Hengyi looked at Qin Shaohua, his expression severe, a murderous glint in his eyes, and gave a faint smile. "He was always a madman. And you're still cooperating with a madman."

Qin Shaohua put away the file bag and turned to look at him, his gaze calm to the point of cruelty. "Whether you live or die depends on whether you can outlive the truth."

Back at his law firm, Qin Shaohua switched on the desk lamp in his office and opened his laptop. Situ Hengyi looked around the room — its furnishings matched the man perfectly, clean and silent. He gazed out the window, directly facing the Tianze Entertainment building, then turned back to watch Qin Shaohua typing earnestly at the keyboard. What kind of person was Qin Shaohua, really?

Qin Shaohua plugged the voice recorder into the laptop. The screen flickered twice. There were several conversations, seemingly between Song Yiyi and different people, and one passage stood out in particular: "Just how much does Yu Mengge know? We must never let him make this public. If necessary, he can be eliminated…"

Situ Hengyi listened closely. The voice was clearly hoarse and sinister — and utterly cold-blooded. "Can you tell whose voice this is?"

Qin Shaohua did not answer the question. He had found an encrypted folder containing a recording. The static was heavy, but Song Yiyi's voice could be heard: "They're going to seal off all the old file records… HX-17 is the starting point… Tian Sirong said that's 'the File-Burning Plan'… They've been conducting biological experiments all along, and Yu Mengge was one of their test subjects…"

Qin Shaohua tapped his fingers lightly on the desk a few times, his expression focused, his eyes cold and disdainful, a dark shadow passing through them. He looked up at the clock on the wall, thinking through a map of how everyone was connected.

Situ Hengyi said in a low voice, "HX-17… that code name again."

Qin Shaohua picked up the coffee on the desk and took a sip. After a moment of silence, the screen's reflection fell on his face, the cold white light making him look like another person entirely.

He murmured to himself, "Situ, are you hungry? Let's eat something first. I ordered takeout — there's a Japanese place that's especially good."

Situ Hengyi grunted in agreement. "You've ruined a perfectly good atmosphere!"

Qin Shaohua said with a self-deprecating laugh, "You still have to eat to solve a case. Even villains have to eat — even murderers can't do without it."

After dinner, Qin Shaohua finally brought the conversation back to the matter at hand. His face was grave as he looked at the contract and the box of master tapes, and he said coldly, "Officer Situ, this time you may have to tear open the truth with your own hands. Perhaps the truth is beyond our reach."

Rain tapped against the windowpane, and the corridor outside was eerily quiet. Qin Shaohua looked at the contract — a signing contract between Tianze Entertainment and another artist, Qiao Lingchuan. He recalled that this, too, had been a very famous singer, who had died by suicide nine years earlier.

That box of master tapes must have been Yu Mengge's final work, kept all this time by Song Yiyi. She had held on to this song to protect herself, but in the end it could not save her life. One wrong step, then every step wrong, until at last she too was swallowed up by this man-eating machine.

Situ Hengyi leafed through the contract. Its terms were nothing short of an indenture, astonishingly harsh on the artist: once signed, there was no escape. The artist had to perform, and of all performance fees the agency took 70%, leaving the artist only 30%. The artist could not break company rules, nor refuse any social engagements the company arranged. When the contract expired, it renewed automatically, and all earnings belonged to the agency. Breach it, and the penalty was ten percent—

Qin Shaohua picked up his coffee and smiled coldly. "What a miserable way to be an artist — practically selling yourself into slavery."

Situ Hengyi thought for a moment, an idea forming. He looked at the clock on the wall, his expression grave, and said slowly, "Let's go to the records room at the bureau and find the file on his case. If we can't investigate Yu Mengge's case, we'll start from another one."

He contacted Lin Fan and asked her to get Old Zhao to let them in, so they could gather material from the records room without being entered in the visitors' log. He took Qin Shaohua along to look for the file on Qiao Lingchuan's case.

Qin Shaohua patted him on the shoulder, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly, his gold-rimmed glasses gleaming brightly, and said coldly, "You've finally had a clever idea for once."

In the records room, the light around Situ Hengyi glowed cold and white. Row upon row of dust-covered filing cabinets stood like sleeping tombstones, filling him with a strange, inexplicable sadness.

Qin Shaohua leafed through the old case files lined up in the cabinets, as if this place held the record of every case — and behind every case, its heartache and grief.

He flipped through a stack of yellowed files, a cloud of dust hitting him in the face, and said coldly, "This might be a breakthrough. This case is getting more and more interesting."

Situ Hengyi stood beside him, looking at the dust-covered files. The records room still carried a musty smell. He coughed, then frowned. "Qiao Lingchuan, nine years ago. I remember this case — it was ruled a suicide."

Qin Shaohua looked up at him. "You've looked into it?"

Situ Hengyi kept searching through the files, blowing the dust off them, squinting as he waved the dust away from his face. "A few days ago, I asked Lin Fan to put together a report on artists who died by suicide. Over these nine years, seventeen artists have died in total — and Qiao Lingchuan is on the list."

Qin Shaohua said coldly, "That year I was still interning at law school. The news said he hanged himself, but the autopsy report was never released."

He walked to the cabinet, his fingertips gliding over row after row of labels, and finally stopped at the compartment marked [J-0927].

He pulled out the file. Its cover was yellowed, marked in red letters: Qiao Lingchuan, suicide.

Situ Hengyi opened it—

The photographs were blurry, the timestamps were jumbled, and pages were missing from the scene examination results. Strangest of all, the autopsy signature box read: Qin Lang (signed on behalf).

Situ Hengyi frowned and muttered under his breath, "Qin Lang? Why is it him?"

Qin Shaohua looked at the signature and smiled coldly. "I met him when I was at university. He's an expert in 'atypical deaths.'"

Situ said in a low voice, "Then let's go and ask him."

Qin Lang was thirty-five and had always worked in autopsies. He loved dealing with corpses more than anything, and in the forensic lab he rarely spoke to anyone about his past — all anyone knew was that he liked studying dead bodies. When Situ Hengyi stood before him and pressed him about Qiao Lingchuan's case, Qin Lang remained remarkably calm, letting out only a sigh. "The living are nothing but trouble!"

Qin Lang was an expert in "atypical deaths." In the past he had won many outstanding honours and produced several experimental findings — it was rather incredible that he was working here as a forensic pathologist.

Qin Lang looked at them as they came to find him, not surprised in the least. He had dealt with corpses for many years, and had entered this forensic system to leave the worldly dust behind, seeking only quiet. He set down his scalpel, removed his gloves, took off his mask, and, seeing the questions written all over their faces, said slowly, "Qiao Lingchuan — I remember that case. But the report you're holding is not one I signed."

Situ Hengyi froze. "Your name is on it."

Qin Lang picked up a cup of cold coffee, took a sweet, and popped it into his mouth, his tone calm. "My teacher signed that one — Sun Chong."

"He performed the autopsy himself back then, but not long after, he… died of a heart attack."

Qin Shaohua, unusually calm, his eyes darkening, pressed on. "Before he died, did he say anything?"

Qin Lang hesitated for a moment, then finally took out an old envelope. "Before he died, he gave me this, and said that if anyone asked about the Qiao Lingchuan case, I should give it to 'someone who understands the truth.'"

The envelope was yellowed. Inside was an autopsy photograph. In the photo, Qiao Lingchuan had no head, and all four limbs had been sawn off — the body was not even whole. This was clearly not suicide. It was murder…