Baby Yesi held her mother's photo in both hands and generously offered it to Jin Bao.
"My mommy said that when I miss her, I should look at her picture," she said in her sweet, childish voice.
This was the solution Yesi's mother had come up with the previous night when the Yesi household was filled with loud cries. It wasn’t the first time they had used this method—back when Baby Yesi was first sent to kindergarten, the same trick had helped her through the worst days of separation anxiety.
"I don’t want it," Jin Bao refused, waving his little hand before turning away sadly.
The other children gathered around, their teary eyes fixed on the photo, tiny hands reaching out. But as the photo passed from one child to another, their little lips trembled even more, their sorrow deepening.
This was Yesi’s mother, not theirs!
Jin Bao scratched his head. "Did you guys just realize that?"
"Waaah—" The children burst into loud sobs, crying so hard their throats were exposed.
Teacher Ji had been comforting them for a long time—wiping tears here, blowing noses there—running around in circles. Amid the group of inconsolable toddlers, Sheng Fang stood out as the picture of optimism, moving around with ease.
The young master of the Sheng family never followed the usual script. In the past, he had been Teacher Ji’s main focus of concern, but today, he turned out to be the most well-behaved of them all.
During the holidays, Teacher Ji often thought about these children. But now, their cries were like a symphony, their delicate little faces streaked with tears, and her head was buzzing.
Sheng Fang encouraged everyone to be strong and pull themselves together. The children let his words go in one ear and out the other, but Teacher Ji took them to heart.
She needed to stay strong too—she couldn’t let temporary difficulties defeat her.
"Come on, everyone—look over here!" Teacher Ji took out colorful building blocks, trying to grab their attention.
"Let’s have a competition—who can stack the blocks the highest?"
Sheng Fang was already seated, his short legs tapping rhythmically on the floor as he quickly built a towering structure.
"Look at mine!" he declared proudly.
In no time, he had constructed a perfect skyscraper!
"Let’s all learn from Fangfang, okay?" Teacher Ji continued gently.
The children turned their gaze to Sheng Fang, their little chests still heaving, tears still glistening on their cheeks like tragic protagonists from an eight o’clock drama.
They were still young, their emotions slow to adjust. Their little brains whirred as they debated whether to lift their hands and join in.
Sheng Fang sighed softly.
This wasn’t how he had imagined the first day back at school. He had expected everyone to be playing joyfully, but instead, they were all crying in each other’s arms. He hated the sadness in the air and casually set down his blocks.
He had been trying to cheer them up for so long—apparently, taking care of kids wasn’t easy.
"Boring," Sheng Fang said, standing up and dusting off his pants. "Teacher, I want to go home."
The children erupted into another wave of commotion.
Teacher Ji’s eyes widened, but before she could tell the young master to hush, the other kids chimed in with tearful pleas.
Inspired by Sheng Fang, they all had the same idea.
Little hands shot up one after another, timidly echoing his words.
"Can we really go home?"
"Teacher, I want to go home too."
"Me too!"
"Call Mommy and Daddy."
"I also want to..."
Teacher Ji slumped into a tiny chair, staring blankly at the ceiling.
She began to seriously question why she had ever thought becoming a kindergarten teacher was a good idea.
......
Eighteen years later, the same bloody scene played out again.
The forensic team worked meticulously at the crime scene.
A colleague from the forensics department crouched beside the sofa, carefully picking up a crumpled candy wrapper with tweezers and sealing it in an evidence bag.
"Found a candy wrapper—looks like it was crushed forcefully," he analyzed, tilting it under the light. "Judging by the creases, it was probably handled recently."
"What brand is this? Never seen it before."
"Did their kid eat this?"
Forensics Officer Ma turned his head. "Take it back for testing first."
Zhu Qing and Zeng Yongshan went door to door, taking statements.
The victims were a middle-aged couple. The wife, Lai Danhe, 41, was known for her gentle and patient nature, always greeting neighbors with a smile. Her husband, Bao Cailiang, 43, had a short temper but was meticulous in his work. Their six-year-old daughter was quiet and introverted, rarely seen playing outside like other children.
"That Mr. Bao..." The neighbor across the hall hesitated before speaking. "He was always in a rush. You could often hear him shouting in the hallway, ordering Mrs. Bao to do this or that."
"Were they not getting along?"
"They weren’t newlyweds—what does 'getting along' even mean at that point? Mrs. Bao was just the type to endure everything. But their daughter was very well-behaved, always holding her mother’s hand quietly. She spent most of her time practicing piano at home—back then, their apartment didn’t have soundproofing, and Wenwen’s playing was really lovely."
"Who knows what’s happened to that child now..."
The neighbor shook her head with a sigh.
The property manager recalled, "Mrs. Bao picked up her daughter from school on time every day—she took great care of her and never let her go out alone. Yesterday afternoon, around four, I saw her coming back with groceries and her daughter. The child definitely came home, but whether she left again later, I don’t know."
"Our building isn’t high-end—no 24-hour security, let alone surveillance cameras."
"The daytime manager works from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. After six, the guard booth is empty."
"I’d just started my shift this morning when I heard about this."
At first, residents were merely frightened upon hearing that Mr. and Mrs. Bao had been murdered. But when news spread that their child had also been taken, a chill ran through the building. Fear slithered through the whispers in the hallway. Many parents, originally set to send their kids to school, hesitated before hastily packing a few clothes and sending them to stay with grandparents.
Reporters swarmed the scene. By the time Weng Zhaolin arrived, he had to push through the crowd. Microphones were immediately shoved in his face as journalists fired questions.
"Is it true the killer took the little girl too? Was this a revenge killing?"
"The parents were killed, but the child was spared—was the perpetrator someone they knew? Or was the child the real target?"
"Officer, we overheard discussions about an old case. Is this connected to a past crime?"
"Is the police department hiding something?"
A few young officers stood behind the police tape, murmuring in low voices.
"How do these reporters always get their information so quickly? It’s only been a short while, and suddenly they’ve all swarmed over… Inspector Weng is going to have another headache."
"It’s us who’ll really suffer!"
"When Inspector Weng is under pressure, we’re the ones who end up paying for it…"
Realizing their conversation might be overheard by reporters, the officers fell silent, staring grimly at the gruesome crime scene.
Most of the officers in the Major Crimes Team B were young, and while many had heard bits and pieces about the old massacre case connected to Dr. Cheng, they knew better than to treat it as mere office gossip. This wasn’t just a scandal—it was a heartbreaking tragedy. Out of respect, they had always avoided the topic.
Dr. Cheng was always warm and cheerful, dedicated to his work. Over time, his colleagues had almost forgotten the dark past he carried. But today, standing at this eerily familiar crime scene, the sheer brutality of it shook them to the core.
If this case followed the same pattern as the one from years ago, then Cheng Xinglang had survived in the midst of such bloodshed.
"Wouldn’t that leave psychological scars?" Zeng Yongshan murmured, her voice laced with pity. "Dr. Cheng was only eight at the time… How awful."
Zhu Qing’s gaze lingered on the meticulously kept children’s room.
When she first learned about the old case, she couldn’t access the official files, so she had pieced together the details from old newspaper reports. The articles mentioned that the Cheng family had two children’s rooms—one drenched in blood, while the other, belonging to Cheng Xinglang’s younger brother, remained untouched, as if never breached.
"Wrap it up," Mo Zhenbang’s voice snapped Zhu Qing out of her thoughts.
"We’ll discuss the details back at the station."
…
Back at the Yau Ma Tei Police Station’s CID office, every officer was immersed in the intense investigation.
"Check the victims’ social connections, track the missing child, analyze the physical evidence…" Mo Zhenbang swiftly assigned tasks.
As the officers dug into the middle-aged couple’s lives, one question weighed on everyone’s mind:
The killer from eighteen years ago had supposedly died in a car crash. So why was the same modus operandi resurfacing now?
Zhu Qing mechanically filled out the request form to retrieve the sealed case files from headquarters. She knew the procedure by heart, but this time, the case number wasn’t just a string of digits—it carried the weight of history.
At eleven in the morning, the victims’ parents arrived to identify the bodies.
In the temporary morgue, Lai Danhe’s father and Bao Cailiang’s mother wept until they nearly collapsed. But when they learned their granddaughter Wenwen was missing, their cries abruptly stopped.
"No, she didn’t come to our place…"
"Where’s Wenwen?"
Grief had clouded their minds, leaving them unable to provide any useful leads.
"They never made enemies. How could they?"
"She was a nurse, he drove an ambulance—they saved lives. Who would want to hurt them?"
Just as the questioning was about to wrap up, Bao Cailiang’s mother suddenly grabbed the officer’s wrist.
"Could it… could it be her ex-husband?"
"During the divorce, it got so ugly. Back then, he cursed them, said they’d die horribly."
Before she could finish, she broke down again.
"I told him not to marry that woman!"
"She’s a jinx… she got my son killed!"
…
After crying themselves out, the toddlers in Weston Kindergarten’s little class finally settled down.
During free play before naptime, they wandered out to the playground. Sheng Fang had missed the monkey bars the most during the break.
He was the first to climb up, followed by Baby Yesi and Jin Bao, who hung upside-down with ease, swinging lazily like little monkeys as they chatted about their holiday adventures.
"I went to the zoo and saw real monkeys!"
"I caught Marisa! She’s not as fast as me."
Baby Yesi’s eyes sparkled. "I went to a dance competition with Mommy and Daddy!"
She held up one tiny finger. "We got first place!"
"Wow!" Jin Bao exclaimed. "Why didn’t you invite us to cheer for you?"
Sheng Fang nodded vigorously. "Cheer squad."
They had just met a few days ago and shared their holiday stories, but retelling them now felt just as exciting.
Even the usually serious little rule-follower, Baby Juan, wandered over.
Normally, he’d have run to tattle about the dangerous upside-down hanging. But lately, he had bigger aspirations—Mom and Dad said he could join the ICAC when he grew up, catching bad guys instead of policing his classmates’ mischief.
"Juan," Jin Bao called, still upside-down. "Come join us!"
After a brief hesitation, Baby Juan climbed up. To everyone’s amazement, he didn’t even need practice—he just hooked on perfectly!
"Juan, you’re amazing!" Baby Yesi gushed.
Baby Juan couldn’t help but smile—until plop, his glasses fell off.
Now there were four little ones hanging upside-down, blinking at each other, none willing to climb down first.
"What do we do?" Sheng Fang wiggled his round little body gently.
They swayed back and forth, back and forth…
Like a row of tiny sausages drying in the sun.
Teacher Ji approached, torn between scolding and laughing at the ridiculous sight.
Basking in the sunlight, not one of them could be bothered to retrieve the glasses, lazily whining, "What do we do?"
"Glasses don’t grow wings and fly back onto your nose," Teacher Ji said, unable to hide her amusement.
The little faces, still upside-down, blinked up at her with big, pleading eyes.
The school had taken every precaution, padding the ground beneath the bars with thick mats. The children stretched their short arms, but the glasses remained just out of reach.
"Teacher Ji, help us!"
"Were you waiting for me?"
They all nodded in unison, their round, flushed cheeks utterly endearing.
Finally giving in, Teacher Ji shook her head, picked up the glasses, and settled them back on Baby Juan’s nose.
With his world clear again, Baby Juan swung even more enthusiastically.
"I’m a little swing—"
"Me too, me too!"
"Swinging time…"
…
By afternoon, the officers returned from their rounds, filing into the conference room with new leads.
The whiteboard stood nearly empty, bearing only the victims’ photos.
One by one, the officers stood to report their findings.
"Initial investigations show no financial disputes between the two victims, and no obvious grudges within their social circles."
"Bao Cailiang and Lai Danhe were in a second marriage. They registered eight years ago but had actually known each other for a decade. The delay was because both were already married at the time."
"An affair?" someone asked.
"A double betrayal," Xu Jiale interjected. "They worked at the same hospital and divorced their spouses to be together. The divorces were messy, drawn-out battles. Bao Cailiang’s ex-wife even remarked today, 'Was happiness ever possible for a relationship built like this?'"
"Neighbors reported frequent arguments after their marriage," Zeng Yongshan said, consulting her notes. "Lai Danhe’s colleagues also confirmed the couple fought constantly—small quarrels every few days, major blowouts every week. Recently, Lai seemed distracted, likely due to another clash with her husband."
Uncle Li flipped a page in the case file, reminded of his own failed marriage.
Marital spats were nothing unusual. Compared to life and death, they meant little. Now that both were dead, assigning blame was pointless.
"The divorces were bitter, but that was years ago. Hardly motive enough to kill them both…"
"One more thing worth noting: both had children from their previous marriages. Bao Cailiang has a 14-year-old son in boarding school. Lai Danhe had a daughter—"
A knock interrupted the briefing. An officer peered in.
"Sir Mo, Lai Danhe’s daughter from her first marriage is here."
...
Qiu Xien, Lai Danhe’s 19-year-old daughter, stood in the police station hallway, insisting on seeing her mother one last time.
"My grandfather called me," she said. "After identifying the body this morning, he had chest pains and went home before contacting me. That’s how I found out."
After obtaining consent, officers took her statement.
"When I was little, they fought all the time," Qiu Xien murmured. "Mom was gentle—even when angry, she’d hide and cry quietly."
"At around ten, she told me she’d found true love with Uncle Bao and asked for my blessing." The girl lowered her eyes, lips twisting. "What could I say?"
Now, Qiu Xien lived with her father, stepmother, and a half-brother.
With both parents remarried, she felt like an outsider in either home.
"Did your father stay in touch with your mother after the divorce?"
Qiu Xien shook her head. "At first, Dad was devastated. But he remarried, had a son, and now takes trips with them. He resented Mom—didn’t even want me contacting her, let alone doing so himself."
Officers led her to the temporary morgue.
Before her mother’s body, Qiu Xien finally broke down.
"Who would... why...?"
Asked about their relationship, she recalled, "Mom was young when she had me. Her family arranged the marriage—she met my dad three times before the wedding. She never loved him. And me? Maybe just duty."
"But with my sister, it was different. Mom planned every little thing for her."
"Like last week..."
Suddenly, she stiffened. "Last week, Mom said if anything happened to her, I had to protect my sister."
Qiu Xien gripped an officer’s sleeve. "Madam, did she know this was coming?"
A full statement was taken.
According to her pager, Lai Danhe had reached out abruptly three days prior.
"We rarely spoke, but every time, it was about my sister. 'Take care of each other,' she’d say. But my sister’s only six—what could she do for me? Those words were for me alone." Qiu Xien exhaled. "I brushed it off. But now... that was the only time she mentioned something happening to her. She told me to take my sister and leave immediately if it did."
As questioning wrapped up, Hao Zai passed by with a file.
"Just picked this up from Records," he said, waving it. "Surprisingly fast for them."
...
In the conference room, pages rustled.
"If the victim had forewarning..." Zhu Qing scanned statements from Lai Danhe’s daughter and colleagues, "her recent distress wasn’t just marital strife."
"She knew she was in danger?"
Mo Zhenbang frowned. "Check her recent contacts."
Uncle Li stood, pinning old case photos to the board.
Eighteen years ago, he’d worked the Cheng family case in West Kowloon’s Major Crimes Unit.
"The perpetrator was a psychiatric patient who escaped Ming Tak Mental Rehabilitation Centre’s Sai Kung branch. The unprovoked frenzy wasn’t his first offense. Evidence was airtight—weapon fingerprints, fabric fibers, everything matched."
Photos showed the Cheng brothers’ rooms.
The elder, Cheng Xinglang’s, was chaotic; the younger’s eerily tidy, with clothes and a teddy bear missing.
"Medical records noted the killer’s brutality, yet he spared the six-year-old."
Zhu Qing studied the file.
Bloodstains smeared across master bedroom and living room—traces of the victims’ final struggle.
"Dr. Cheng was unconscious in the hospital for three days," Zeng Yongshan said softly. "Lucky he didn’t witness it..."
Zhu Qing lingered on Cheng Xinglang’s childhood photo.
Unimaginable, what he’d endured—and survived.
"Xinglang recalled nothing, so we theorized the killer struck him first," Uncle Li continued. "Fiber analysis showed his parents fought back, grabbing the assailant’s pants as they crawled. They drew the killer away, buying time."
"With that blood loss in the child’s room, the killer likely assumed he was dead and moved on."
The team could picture it: parents dragging themselves through gore, shielding their sons with their bodies.
Uncle Li recounted that in the case from years ago, the two victims were both prominent figures in the medical field. The father was an internationally renowned neurosurgeon, while the mother was a leading scholar in genetic psychiatry. Despite their busy schedules, the couple always made time to take their children out for trips.
Uncle Li pinned a photo of the brothers at the beach onto the whiteboard.
The brothers, two years apart, bore a faint resemblance in their eyes and brows. In the picture, the older brother, Cheng Xinglang, had water droplets still clinging to his hair, grinning carefreely, while the younger brother stood quietly beside him, a water gun gripped in his left hand.
It had once been a happy and loving family.
"The case was closed long ago, but eighteen years later, the same modus operandi..." Liang Qikai mused. "Actually, the evidence chain back then was quite solid. The only oddity was that the mentally ill perpetrator, who had no relatives or friends and had been confined to a psychiatric hospital for years, specifically took Dr. Cheng's younger brother... The child vanished without a trace for so long. By now, he should be twenty-four."
"Upon closer comparison, the methods differ," Zhu Qing said, flipping through the old forensic report. "The killer back then was brutal, but the wounds were clean and fatal. This time, the victims were... mutilated."
"I remember Doctor Ye mentioning at the crime scene this morning that the killer seemed to be left-handed," Xu Jiale added.
"The perpetrator from eighteen years ago wasn’t left-handed," Uncle Li said. "There’s also a height discrepancy—the current killer wears a size eight-and-a-half shoe, suggesting a height of at least six feet one. The original killer—"
"—was definitely not that tall," Mo Zhenbang frowned. "Could this be a copycat? Replicating the signature details... But why replicate an eighteen-year-old case?"
"Someone directly connected to the original case?"
"There was a two-day gap between the crime and the killer’s fatal car accident," Uncle Li suddenly straightened up. "Forty-eight hours is enough time to do a lot. Could he have arranged for the child’s safety during that window?"
The investigators’ gazes all landed on the photo.
In the picture, the younger brother held the water gun with his left hand.
"If the original killer entrusted the child to someone before dying..."
"The candy wrapper found at the scene has been identified," Little Sun walked into the meeting room with an evidence bag. "It’s an imported soft-centered chocolate, popular years ago but rarely seen these days."
Uncle Li frowned, staring at the wrapper.
He quickly flipped through the case files, searching the inventory list from the Cheng family’s records.
"Back then, both brothers had a box of these chocolates on their desks."
"Find out where this candy can still be bought now."
"A month ago, I saw someone at Jianuo’an Sanatorium," Zhu Qing suddenly looked up. "Wearing a mask and a cap... he looked a bit like Dr. Cheng."
The room fell silent as everyone’s eyes darted between the two photos on the whiteboard.
A child from eighteen years ago, and the current crime scene.
"Do you think it’s possible..." Zeng Yongshan asked, "...that his brother has resurfaced?"
"Xinglang has been searching for his brother all these years," Uncle Li’s brow furrowed. "Has the forensics department informed him yet?"
Eighteen years later.
If Cheng Xinglang had finally found his brother, only to discover he was entangled in a new murder case...
The thought left everyone speechless.
......
The school bell rang, and Sheng Fang stood in line with his little backpack, eagerly rising on his tiptoes and glancing around.
It was his first day back after the New Year, and Fangfang was certain Qing Zai would come pick him up—she’d been so free lately!
The school bus waited at the gate as children filed aboard.
The driver leaned out and urged, "Little one, time to get on!"
"You go ahead," Sheng Fang waved his small hand, eyes still fixed on the road outside.
The driver sighed and stepped out.
Under the kindergarten’s strict new policy, every child taking the bus had to be checked off by the driver. If parents changed pickup plans last minute, they had to register in advance.
"Your guardian didn’t sign you out. Rules say I can’t leave you alone," he pointed to his ID badge. "If every kid said someone was coming and something happened, what then?"
Sheng Fang’s little head drooped. "My niece was supposed to get me."
"Did you two agree on that?"
The boy froze.
How could they forget to confirm something so important?!
Just as the driver prepared to patiently persuade the little lord—
Sheng Fang suddenly scurried toward the bus.
Qing Zai must be busy again, too swamped to come.
The tiny realist flexibly hopped aboard.
"Uncle Hu, to Yau Ma Tei!"
From the back seat, Baby Yesi piped up, "Me too!"
"Why are you going?" Fangfang turned.
"Why are you?" Yesi puffed her cheeks defiantly.
Sheng Fang, A-sir, spread his chubby palms with an air of resignation.
"Qing Zai says the police station can’t function without me."
Baby Yesi’s mouth fell open. "And you believe that?"
