“Chen can be like that,” she said. “If the murderer is a nut, it can be really difficult, since he acts out of a logic comprehensible only to himself.”

He waited for her to go on, but she didn’t seem to be concentrating on the discussion.

“What about your chief inspector’s literature program?” she asked, changing the subject unexpectedly. “Do you think he’s going for a career change?”

“He’s unpredictable,” Yu said. “I don’t know.”

“He may be facing a midlife crisis-too much work and stress, and no one there for him back at home. Is he still seeing that young girl, White Cloud?”

“No, I don’t think so. He’s never talked to me about her.”

“But the girl had a crush on him.”

“How do you know?”

“The way she helped take care of his mother during his delegation trip.”

“Well, that Big Buck could have paid her.”

“No, she did a lot of things she didn’t have to just for the sake of money,” she said. “The old woman likes her a lot too. A college student, clever and presentable. In the old woman’s eyes, she must be a good choice. And he is a very dutiful son.”

“That he is. He keeps talking to me about his not having provided better care for his mother, about his having let her down by not following in the academic footsteps of his father and by not having had a family of his own.”

“When he called in yesterday, we talked a little. He explained that his decision to enroll in the special program was partially made for her. In spite of her deteriorating health, she’s still worried about him. He thought that, if he could do little to change his bachelor status, then at least an MA degree might comfort the old woman a bit.”

“According to a fortune-teller, he has no peach-blossom luck,” Yu said, sighing. “Like in a Chinese proverb, one with good luck in their career may have none in love.”

“Come on. He’s had his share of peach-blossom luck. Like his HCC girlfriend in Beijing. Things just didn’t work out. Still, White Cloud could be the one.”

“I’m not surprised about her crush, but I don’t think it will happen. There are so many rivals watching over him. What happens when they find out about her K girl background?”

“She might have worked as a karaoke girl, but a number of college students work at jobs like that today. It shouldn’t matter much, as long as she didn’t go all the way, and I don’t think she did,” Peiqin said. “What matters is whether she will make him a good wife. Clever, young, and practical, she may be a good match for your bookish boss. It’s not just his rivals that matter, though. I don’t know if he himself is capable of disassociating her from her K girl experience.”

“You are so perceptive, my wife.”

“It’s time for him to settle down with a family. He cannot remain single forever. It’s not good for his health either. And I don’t just mean somebody taking care of him at home.”

“Now you are talking like his mother, Peiqin.”

“As his partner, you have to help him.”

“You are right, but at the moment, I wish he could help me.”

“Oh, the red mandarin dress case. Sorry about the digression,” she said. “That case is urgent. You have to stop the perpetrator before he kills again. So what’s your direction?”

“We don’t have a workable direction,” he said. “And it’s the first case for me as acting head of the squad. I don’t think Liao is going to get anywhere with his routine focus. So I think I have to try something different.”

“You saw a mandarin dress in a store-not for me, for your case,” she said with a smile. “Perhaps more than one store. What did the clerks tell you?”

“Liao and I both visited boutiques specializing in the dress, as well as high-end department stores which carry them, but none of them carried such an old-fashioned mandarin dress. According to the store clerks, no store in the city would stock anything close to it. The specific style is too old. At least ten years old. In the mid-nineties, a mandarin dress usually comes with higher thigh-revealing slits and more sensual curves. It’s sleeveless and sometimes backless too, not at all like the ones on the victims.”

“Do you have a picture of the mandarin dress with you?”

“Yes,” Yu said, taking several photographs out of the folder on the nightstand.

“The dress may be worth further study,” she said thoughtfully, examining the pictures closely. “Also, there might have been something about the first victim which sent the murderer over the edge.”

“I’ve thought about that too,” Yu said. “Before his first psychopathic action, before he turned into a nut, his initial attack-the one on Jasmine-could have been triggered by something in her, something still comprehensible to us.”

As always, the discussion with Peiqin helped. Especially with regard to Jasmine. Yu had talked to Liao about it, but Liao insisted that his squad had already done a thorough job checking on her background and that there would be no point in repeating the effort. Lying beside Peiqin, however, Yu decided he would reexamine her file the next day.

Stretching himself under the quilt, his feet touched hers again. Slightly sweaty, he reached to caress her hair, his hand gradually moving down.

“Qinqin may come back soon,” she said, sitting up. “I’ll warm the cake in the microwave for you. You have not had your dinner yet, and we both have to get up early tomorrow.”

He was disappointed. But he would have to go into the bureau for an early morning teleconference tomorrow, and he was tired.

DETECTIVE YU WAS AT his office early the next morning.

Sitting behind his desk, he steadily drummed his middle finger knuckle on the desktop, as if counting the efforts made by the cops. Dozens of political lectures delivered by Party Secretary Li; the crime scenes photographed and studied hundreds of times; thousands of tips from the public registered and followed up on; the meager material from the victims examined time and time again by the forensic laboratory; two more computers installed for their group; numerous known sexual deviants checked and double-checked; several detained and questioned about their activities during the time of the first and second murders…

For all their work, there was little progress made in the investigation, but a considerable number of theories and speculations kept popping up both in and outside of the bureau.

Little Zhou, the bureau driver who had just started taking an evening police course, barged into Yu’s office.

“What do we find in common between the two cases, Detective Yu?” Little Zhou started dramatically. “The red mandarin dress. A dress known for its Manchurian origin in the Qing dynasty. What else? Bare feet. Both victims had no stockings or shoes on. Now, a woman may appear sexy walking barefoot in a bathrobe, but in a mandarin dress she has to wear pantyhose and high heels. It’s the basic dress code. Otherwise she simply makes a laughingstock of herself.”

“That’s true,” Yu said, nodding. “Go on.”

“The murderer was able to afford the expensive mandarin dress and had the time to put her body into the dress. Why would he have left off her stockings and shoes?”

“So what do you think?” Yu asked, beginning to be intrigued by the would-be detective’s argument.

“I was watching a TV series last night, Emperor Qianlong Visiting South of the Yangtze River. One of the gifted and romantic emperors in the Qing dynasty. There are different versions about his real parentage, possibly Han instead of Manchurian, you know-”

“Come on,” Yu said, cutting him short. “Don’t try to talk like a Suzhou opera singer.”

“Now, what set the Manchurian apart from the Han ethnic group? The Manchurian women did not bind their feet, and were able to walk barefoot. But the Han women in the Qing dynasty, though their bound feet received erotic comparison to three-inch-long golden lotuses, could hardly walk at all, let alone go barefoot. And the mandarin dress, of course, was only for a Manchurian woman-at least at the time.”