We walked in silence. Toward Evergreen Court. Apartment 5C. The phone. The evidence. The thing I couldn't touch.
The streets were empty. The hour was late enough that even the city had stopped pretending to be awake. Streetlights flickered. Shadows stretched. A cat watched us from a doorway, then looked away.
She stopped at the corner.
I looked at the building. The fifth floor. A single window with a light that had been off for hours. The building was quiet.
We passed through the front door. Through the lobby. The elevator opened for no one. Ruan Qing pressed the button. The doors closed. We rose.
The elevator hummed. The numbers above the door changed. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
The doors opened.
The hallway on the fifth floor was empty. Fluorescent lights flickering. The same smell of cooking oil and cigarette smoke. Ruan Qing walked without hesitation. Her footsteps were quiet. Her hands were in her pockets. Her face was calm.
She stopped at 5C.
Looked at the door. Then at me.
"You're sure he's not inside."
"At times like this, he is at a bar. Maybe for another hour or two."
She pressed her hand against the door. It didn't open.
She looked at me again.
"Can you —"
"No."
She exhaled through her nose. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a thin piece of metal. A bobby pin. She straightened it against her thigh.
"Damn, you can do that too? Who are you? A master thief?" I said.
The lock clicked.
She opened the door and said, "You talk too much for a dead lawyer."
---
Inside, the apartment was dark. The TV was off. The bottle was on the floor beside the couch. The same bottle. The same spot.
Ruan Qing didn't turn on the lights. She moved through the living room with ease. Her eyes moved across the room. The couch. The bottle. The TV. The kitchen. The dishes. The takeout containers. The trash that hadn't been taken out.
I followed.
The bedroom doorway.
She stopped.
"The phone?"
"On the nightstand."
She stepped inside.
---
The room was worse than I remembered. Clothes everywhere. Drawers open. The closet full of suits no one wore anymore. The smell of dust and neglect. The silence of a place where nothing had been moved in a long time.
Ruan Qing walked to the nightstand.
The phone was there. Old model. Plugged in. Screen dark. The cord was tangled. The screen was cracked in one corner.
She picked it up.
I watched her fingers close around it. Easy. Natural. Something I couldn't do, made simple.
She turned it over in her hands and pressed the power button.
The screen lit up.
---
Locked.
She tried a few patterns. Obvious ones. Her fingers moved quickly, practiced. 1234. 0000. His birthday. The date of the murder.
Nothing worked.
She looked at me and said, "What now? We got the phone but can't open it. What else is here?"
---
I didn't answer.
She moved to the dresser. Opened the top drawer. Clothes. Socks. Nothing.
Second drawer. More clothes. A receipt from three years ago. She held it up, read it, set it aside.
Third drawer.
She paused.
Her hand hovered over the handle.
"What?"
She opened it.
Inside, there was a box. Small. Wooden. The kind that might have held something valuable once. The wood was dark. The edges were worn. He had touched this box. Many times.
She lifted it out. Opened the lid.
---
A photo.
A woman. Young. Dark hair. Smiling.
I recognized her.
"Lin Yue."
Ruan Qing looked at me.
"Her husband's business partner kept a photo of her. In his bedroom. Hidden in a drawer."
She turned it over.
On the back, written in handwriting I didn't recognize:
"I'm sorry."
---
Ruan Qing stared at it.
The room was very quiet.
"He wrote this?"
"I don't know."
She placed the photo on the nightstand. Beside the phone. She looked at them together. The phone. The photo. The words.
Then she took out her own phone. She took a picture. Of the photo. Of the handwriting. Of the way they sat together on the nightstand.
She put everything back. Closed the drawer. Adjusted it exactly as it was. The same angle. The same gap.
She turned to leave.
Then she stopped.
---
"What?" I said.
She was looking at the closet.
"The suits," she said. "They're expensive. He doesn't wear them. Why keep them?"
I didn't answer.
She walked to the closet. Pulled the door open wider.
The suits hung there. Dark. Unworn. Untouched. The tags were still on some of them. She pushed them aside.
Behind them, a bag. Small. Canvas. Stuffed in the back corner. Hidden. Deliberate.
She pulled it out.
---
She unzipped it slowly.
Inside, there were papers. Old documents. Bank statements. A contract with a name I recognized.
Her husband's name.
And at the bottom, a phone charger. Wrapped around something.
She pulled it out.
A second phone.
Old. Same model as the one on the nightstand. But this one wasn't plugged in. Its screen was cracked. Not a small crack. A deliberate one. Someone had hit it. Hard. Enough to break the screen. Enough to hide whatever was inside.
She pressed the power button.
Nothing.
"It's dead."
She held it up to the light.
"Doesn't matter. Look."
I looked.
The phone was cracked, yes. But the damage was old. Deliberate. Someone had wanted to hide something. Someone had wanted to forget.
She turned it over in her hands.
"He kept two phones," she said. "One on the nightstand. One hidden in the closet."
She met my eyes.
"Which one mattered?"
---
She put everything back.
The charger. The papers. The bag. The suits. She closed the closet door. Adjusted it exactly as it was.
She picked up the old phone from the nightstand and pressed the power button again. Tried another pattern. His wife's birthday. The day she died. The day Lin Yue went to prison.
Nothing.
She set it down.
Then she looked at the crack in the wall. A thin line running from the window frame to the floor. It was new. The paint hadn't been touched up. The dust hadn't settled.
She touched it.
"When did this happen?"
"I don't know."
She traced it with her finger.
"It's new. Something happened here. Something that cracked the wall. Something that broke a phone. Something he's been hiding for three years."
She turned to me.
"We'll come back later."
She walked toward the door.
I followed.
---
On the street, she stopped.
She took out her own phone. Looked at the photo she had taken. The handwriting on the back of Lin Yue's photo.
"I'm sorry."
She looked at me.
"This doesn't prove anything."
"I know."
"It's a photo. A note. A crack in a wall."
"I know."
She put her phone away.
"It's not evidence."
"No."
She was quiet for a long moment.
Then she said, "What happens now?"
---
I looked at the building. The fifth floor. The window where a man slept, unaware.
"Now we wait."
She pulled her coat tighter.
"I don't wait."
She started walking. I followed.
After a block, she said, "The second phone. The broken one. It has the messages. The proof. The things that would have saved her."
"Yes."
"He kept it. He couldn't destroy it. He couldn't let it go."
"No."
She walked faster.
"That means something."
"It means he knows what he did."
She didn't respond.
We walked in silence until we reached her street. The funeral home. The quiet building with no sign out front.
She stopped at the door.
"You said his name was Zhang Feng."
"Yes."
She unlocked the door.
"This isn't over."
"Yes, I was hoping you'd say that. Hahaha."
She stepped inside.
For a moment, she paused. She didn't turn around.
"If there was a trial," she said. "If she could have one now..."
Her voice trailed off.
What? What trial? What do you mean? Hey kid. Answer me.
Then she closed the door.
---
I stood outside.
The night was cold. The streets were empty.
Somewhere in that apartment, Zhang Feng was probably drinking alone, pretending nothing had ever happened.
But Ruan Qing had seen what he left behind. The photo. The note. The crack in the wall. The phone he couldn't destroy.
It was only a matter of time.
But time was something I had plenty of. And patience was something I had learned.
Suddenly I remembered — that kid, she hasn't answered me. What trial? What did she mean? Should I knock on the door and ask her again?