Chapter 3: The Cold Case Files

About half an hour later, the exhausted doctor on duty emerged from the emergency room to inform them that the old man’s life had been saved and he was currently out of danger.

However, whether he would make a full recovery depended on the treatment of the intracranial hemorrhage. If the treatment went well and his recovery remained steady, he could potentially be discharged in as little as a week.

Upon hearing this, the group showered the doctor with thanks. Zhou Yi, in particular, finally felt the heavy weight lift from his heart. He never imagined that just after his rebirth, he would have already saved his grandfather’s life.

Following the doctor’s instructions, Zhou Yi’s grandfather was moved from the emergency room to an inpatient ward, connected to an array of monitoring equipment to track his condition at all times.

Zhou Yi ran back and forth, busier than he had ever been, dashing out to buy hospital supplies and fetching various lab reports. He had wanted his father and aunt to go home and inform the rest of the family, but his father insisted on staying, so his aunt eventually returned home alone.

Zhou Yi’s father remained glued to the bedside, his eyes bloodshot, staring intensely at the monitors despite not understanding the data. By the time Zhou Yi finished his tasks and returned to the ward, he found his father sound asleep, snoring loudly against the foot of the bed.

Zhou Yi took a deep breath, pulled his jacket tighter around himself, and dragged a stool against the wall to sit down. He yawned, a wave of exhaustion hitting him so hard that his eyelids felt like lead, forcing them shut. Yet, his sleep was restless; his heart remained anchored to his grandfather, fearful that something might go wrong.

He didn't know how long he had slept before he was woken by thirst. Finding his father still snoring, he stood up to check on his grandfather. The monitoring equipment appeared to show everything was normal. Wanting a drink of water, he realized the thermos was empty, so he picked it up and stepped out of the ward.

Unable to find a place to refill the hot water, he headed toward the nurses' station to ask. The station was empty, likely because the staff were busy elsewhere, so Zhou Yi decided to wait.

On the wall nearby was a display of the emergency department’s medical staff. Zhou Yi glanced at it casually and caught sight of the young nurse who had been so short with him earlier. Beneath her photo was a name: Du Xiaolin.

Oh, so she was his grandfather’s primary nurse.

Wait.

Du Xiaolin…

That name…

That face…

Zhou Yi suddenly jolted, his sleepiness vanishing instantly. He finally remembered where he had seen that wide-eyed young nurse before.

In a trance, he felt as if he were back in the archives room where he had spent eight long years. The stuffy air, the dim lighting, and the countless cold, aged filing cabinets surrounding him. He, with his temples already greying, had been wearing a pair of reading glasses.

On the desk before him lay an old file:
—Baicheng Municipal Public Security Bureau, Criminal Investigation Dossier.
—Case: Homicide.
—Date of Filing: March 16, 1997.

These were the faded lines on the cover of the dossier. The case was already twenty-seven years old, yet it had never been stamped with the word "Closed." This meant that a lost soul had been denied peace for twenty-seven full years. The shelves around him were filled with such unsolved cases.

He opened the file and flipped through the records page by page until he reached an oxidized, yellowing photograph: the ID photo of a young woman. She had a beautiful face with large, striking eyes. On the back of the photo were written the words: Baicheng Third People’s Hospital, Du Xiaolin. Above this, in blurry, nearly illegible handwriting, were the words: Victim.

He remembered! He finally remembered! The information about the case, once buried in a forgotten corner of his memory, all came rushing back.

Decades later, after being sidelined to the archives, he had organized the unsolved criminal case codenamed "The 316 Case." Du Xiaolin was the victim. She was a nurse in the emergency department of the Third People’s Hospital. On the day of the crime, she had worked the evening shift and left at midnight after the handover. The hospital was about three kilometers from her home, and she had been walking back that night.

In Shangyang Lane, nine hundred meters from her home, Du Xiaolin was brutally murdered, struck six times. The fatal blow was a slash to the carotid artery, which caused her to bleed to death. The murder weapon, a knife with a blade width of 2.4 centimeters, was never found. The body was discovered by passersby around 5:20 AM. However, a heavy downpour after 3:00 AM had destroyed the scene, leaving virtually no useful clues—no weapon, no fingerprints, no footprints. With no surveillance cameras available at the time, the investigation hit a dead end and became a cold case. The killer had been aided by the storm and had remained at large for twenty-seven years.

At the time, Zhou Yi had been a junior officer with no qualifications to handle such a violent homicide. Furthermore, he had been on bereavement leave for his grandfather’s funeral and had no time to focus on anything else. He only heard about the case later at the station. It wasn't until twenty-odd years later, in the archives of the provincial municipal bureau, that he officially encountered the 316 Case through that cold file.

"The 316 Case, March 16, 1997," Zhou Yi muttered to himself. "Tomorrow?"

He remembered his grandfather’s death anniversary clearly—it was March 15th.

"No!"

Zhou Yi looked around, searching for a clock. He finally spotted a round wall clock inside the nurses' station. It read 12:27 AM.

So, it was already March 16th. The crime wasn't happening tomorrow; it was happening today! It might even be happening right now!

"Which patient's family member are you?" a voice suddenly asked.

Zhou Yi turned around. It wasn't Du Xiaolin, but a young nurse with a round face whom he hadn't seen before.

"Where is Du Xiaolin?" Zhou Yi asked urgently.

"She’s off the clock."

"She’s already left?"

"She left right after the shift change." Seeing the panic in Zhou Yi’s expression, the nurse immediately asked, "Did she mess up the patient's medication again?"

Zhou Yi didn't have time to explain. He bolted back to the ward and fished the keys to the motorized tricycle out of his father’s pocket. His father, still groggy with sleep, was left in a daze, unable to even ask a question before Zhou Yi vanished.

Zhou Yi jumped onto the tricycle and, relying on hazy memories, sped toward Shangyang Lane. This wasn't one of the later electric versions; it was a diesel-engine model common in the 90s, often modified in small workshops. It lacked power but was much faster than walking. It was incredibly noisy, clattering loudly as it moved.

In the pitch-black night, the cold wind cut into his face like a knife. In 1990s Baicheng, most places didn't even have streetlights. It was a new moon, and the darkness was so thick he could barely recognize the road, forced to rely on fragmented memories to find his way.

After about ten minutes, the tricycle crossed a bridge, and Zhou Yi finally remembered: Shangyang Lane was just ahead. He recalled the stone lion with the missing head at the bridge’s entrance, which he had always stared at as a child.

Once over the bridge, Zhou Yi twisted the throttle, but the engine sputtered and died. He cursed in frustration, jumping off to run the rest of the way.

In the 90s, the pace of life was slow, and with little consumerism or entertainment, the streets were deserted at night. Usually, the only people out at this hour were factory workers finishing night shifts. He remembered that after the bridge, a few dozen meters to the south was Shangyang Lane—a narrow, hundred-meter-long alleyway, barely a meter wide. To the east of the alley was the machinery factory; to the west was a cluster of abandoned residential buildings, allegedly built by the Japanese before the founding of the PRC and later used as dormitories for the No. 8 Cotton Mill. Because the buildings were so dilapidated, a storm in 1994 had caused several to collapse, killing two people. The government had subsequently banned habitation and relocated everyone. The area had been empty and desolate ever since.

Still, many people used the alley as a shortcut, as the main road required a two-kilometer detour. Under the faint moonlight, Zhou Yi found the entrance. Though it was late and freezing, he was drenched in sweat. He didn't know if he would arrive in time to save Du Xiaolin.

It was only then that he realized he was empty-handed, without even a flashlight. He looked around for something to defend himself with—a sturdy tree branch, a wooden stick, anything. He found nothing. He couldn't afford to waste another second; every moment lost diminished the chances of Du Xiaolin’s survival.

Zhou Yi took a deep breath and plunged into the dark alley. He didn't dare run too fast, both because of the absolute darkness and the fear that the killer might be lurking nearby. He realized that his eight years on the "cold bench" had truly changed him—he was actually feeling nervous, something that rarely happened to him before.

Despite his caution, his pace quickened. In the narrow alley, the faint draft blowing from the windward side carried a subtle, metallic scent of blood.

Suddenly, Zhou Yi saw a figure lying on the ground ahead, motionless.

His heart sank.

Damn it! He was a step too late!