One rainy and stormy morning, on the thirtieth of July, twenty- twenty, the three friends, Lin Aiguo, Zhang Wei and Xiao Yin, along with Lin Aiguo’s little disciple Li Xiu Ying, were in their little private office in one of China’s most secretive police stations, having a chat about their recent cases, while sipping cups of warm coffee, when suddenly…

When Li Xiu Ying looked out of the window. He had seen a young man, on his knees, in the soaking rain, in front of the station’s main doors. That day, the police station’s power line had been cut, no policeman had left the station, the rain was loud enough to muffle the sound of hopeless raps on the door and the station’s doors were made of wood, so it was quite sensible that no one had noticed the helpless man outside. When Li Xiu Ying spotted him, the police immediately took the man (whose name was soon known to be Ming LiuLiong) into the police station, gave him some warm clothes to wear, and then poured him some hot coffee. The man seemed to be very tired and restless so chief superintendent, Li Ying let him rest on the sofa while the rest of the police cuddled up in the three friends’ private office. “Xiu Ying, wonderful of you, to have found him outside, or he would have died out there. When your sister knows…” Chief Li Ying began. “Father, don’t talk nonsense. Sister Sying is in America, why would she praise me for such an obvious action,” Li Xiu Ying snapped. The chief superintendent cleared his throat and the rest of the police gasped. There was silence for around a minute until a police woman burst into the room with news that Ming LiuLiong had woken up. “Five of you, come with me,” Chief Li Ying beckoned five policemen to accompany him in finding out the cause of Ming LiuLiong’s sudden visit and left the room. Soon, when all policemen cleared out, leaving only the three friends and Li Xiu Ying, who had now made the three friends, four friends, in their office, Xiao Yin didn’t miss his chance of asking, “You called chief superintendent, father?”

“Yeh… He’s my father.”

Lin Aiguo dissolved the abrupt answer with a little saying that he had created by himself, “When one asks, the other answers.” “Everyone knows that,” Zhang Wei corrected. “I know. I just wanted to break up the tense atmosphere.”

Soon, the four friends were called to the meeting room to discuss about the new found case, brought to the station by Ming LiuLiong. By that time the power had come back on and the storm had stopped. Everything was back to normal.

The chief superintendent was probably too shy to face his little son at that time, that he had instead sent one of his favourite officers to describe the case. Soon, after illustrating the case, the officer left the room and the four friends were left on their own.

“Missing son?” Lin Aiguo asked, “That father stayed out in the storm for so long just because of that… Because he wanted the police to help find his missing son?” “Professor, you do not have much family experience, considering yourself to have being an orphan since a really young age,” Xiao Yin said, “You would never understand a father’s feelings.” “So… This case…” Zhang Wei put in.

“I think that it was an escape. Something to do with family or school troubles. The son is handsome, the father is rich, the mother is dead. There is no necessity for the son to… Could he have been kidnapped?” Li Xiu Ying exclaimed. Lin Aiguo just nodded, “Did we receive any other information related to the case?” There were no other clues to be found that might relate to the missing son, except that he was thirteen years old and his name was Ming Wei Jie.

“I have another suggestion,” Lin Aiguo suggested, “Teenagers often tend to get mood swings. He could have gotten a terrible anger eruption or possibly depressive disorder.” His idea seemed reasonable.

Just then the officer who illustrated the case came back into the room and stated that the father had reported another clue that might get them closer to what had happened, “The boy loved playing with tarot cards. However, recently the son had kept on getting the death card. Ming LiuLiong kept reminding his son to stop his addiction of tarot cards but none of the attempts worked. When the son went missing, the father took a look at all the tarot cards and then found out that someone had replaced the entire pack with death cards. Does any of you find it strange?” “Thank you, officer. We will look into this as well,” Lin Aiguo thanked the officer.

One hour later, the four police friends arrived at the Ming LiuLiong’s house for inspection, just in case there was something in the house that might be related to the assumed kidnap.

When the father heard that his son could possibly have been kidnapped, he sat down on his chair and said, “As a father, I should have been more responsible.” Lin Aiguo opened his ears to the conversation, and what the father said, but his eyes and attention were mainly focused on a large, black bookshelf, situated at the back of the living room, leaned against the wall. Lin Aiguo’s eyes never fooled him and he was certain that he noticed the bookshelf wobbling forward slightly for one minute and then stopping. Lin Aiguo also noticed some strange, marks on the carpet that the bookshelf stood on.

“Is that bookshelf old?” Lin Aiguo asked Ming LiuLiong. “Uh… New…” “Thank you. We’ll be leaving now.” Lin Aiguo’s friends were surprised at how Lin Aiguo wanted to leave so quickly but eventually they decided to leave too.

Then when the friends arrived back at the station… “Aiguo you- “I think I’ve already traced the boy.” “Pardon, I- “The father is my main suspect. Bring him in for interrogation today or we’ll run out of time. I need to ask him a few questions, but before that, can one of you get me a warrant to do a house search in his place? It might get a little messy as well. Also, while I check the house, get the emergency medical team to join us.”

Zhang Wei arranged for all this with a little help form Li Xiu Ying, and his father, the chief superintendent, while Xiao Yin trailed after Lin Aiguo, spying on him, every single minute. And just as Lin Aiguo assumed, would happen, after five long minutes of watching Lin Aiguo sipping his coffee, Xiao Yin gave up and went off to read a book.

Within an hour, everything was arranged, and led by Lin Aiguo, the police surrounded the stunned, Ming LiuLiong’s house. The medical team, a few policemen and Lin Aiguo rushed into the house, while Lin Aiguo’s three friends guarded the borders.

As soon as the house was entered, Lin Aiguo, with a help of a few other policemen, pushed the bookshelf so that it crashed down with the weight of all the heavy books that were on it. The police were utterly surprised by what they saw behind it. There was a huge hole dug into the wall, big enough to fit a person, but it was extremely dark. Lin Aiguo shone a torch into the hole and then the medical team immediately leapt into action. The child who was reported missing, was found inside the hole, unconscious. The father was immediately handcuffed.

Young Ming Wei Jie, was taken to hospital and an orphanage had agreed to take him in.

Lin Aiguo and Xiao Yin interrogated Ming LiuLiong. “You’d best do the talking because I know nothing,” Xiao Yin smirked at his friend before the interrogation.

“I’ll start a conversation. You just keep it going,” Lin Aiguo told Ming LiuLiong, “You kidnapped… Or should I say abused, your own son due to… Maybe it was a quarrel, but I would like it if you could give the answer. I’ll just get to how I figured out where your son was. What you said or how you reacted to this case didn’t really matter at all. All that mattered was the bookshelf in your house. When you were talking, I observed the items in your room and noticed three strange things. One was that, when you answered me, saying that your bookshelf was new, I noticed a lot of dust on it, and also some dust was scattered across your carpet, which meant that you had either moved the books or the cupboard itself. I first assumed that it was just books, until I saw that, on the carpet there were also traces of two objects having being dragged. One was obviously the cupboard, due to the shape of the marks, and the other messy marks were probably made from your struggling son when you forced him into the hole. The third observation that I made was that, something was pushing the cupboard forward while I was at your house. The wind could obviously not push a heavy cupboard, so there must’ve been someone behind it. The pushing lasted only for a minute or so, so I then deducted that whoever was doing it was completely out of energy, but was in desperate need to be saved. That was how I found your son. Now it’s your turn to talk. Why did you do that to him.”

Ming LiuLiong told his story, “Ever since my son was little, we would have constant fights all the time, and the fighting only increased after his mother died. I suppose it was my fault for brining unnecessary fights up, but my son never supported me in ending the fights but just wanted to keep them going. What we fought over are private. However, since the last fight seems relevant… We fought over how my wife died. My son kept insisting that I killed her, but I knew that she had died of Leukaemia. After half an hour of arguing, I remembered the secret hole in the wall that my wife had urged me to build for fun, several years ago, and then I threw my son in there. I was so irritated that I didn’t think straight and drank a lot afterwards. Once I had drunk around five bottles, I was so drunk that I took a walk in the storm. It was probably due to the water that my drunkenness disappeared. When I went back home, I had probably developed short- term amnesia that I didn’t know where my son was so I ran to the station. You know what happened next. Sir, I didn’t remember anything until you found my son. I think… That it was also me who replaced my son’s tarot cards to ones of death. Please don’t take him away from me.”

Lin Aiguo walked out of the room saying, “You have already lost your custody as a parent.”

A day later…

“Sir, do-

“Yes, Xiu Ying, I’ll have coffee, thank you.”

“What-

“Vanilla would be nice.”

“Sir-

“Add some ice cubes as well, if possible.”

“What I meant to say Sir… Would you like to have dinner with me?” Li Xiu Ying panted.