Xiaotao slammed the table, "Watch your mouth! Why are girls so rude nowadays?"
Glaring at her eyes, Shen Lijuan replied, "If someone suddenly came up to you and asked if your family is dead, would you be polite, Aunty?!"
"What do you mean by Aunty!”
Just as they were about to start arguing, Bingxin politely interjected, "Jiejie, have you been mistaken for someone else before?"
In fact, Bingxin was actually older than her. However, Shen Lijuan's attitude immediately eased up. "Well, I went to the bank once to deposit money and the staff handed me a remittance slip with my name on it, so I spent it. There was 4,000 yuan!"
"What happened then?" I asked.
"Later on, a middle-aged woman found me and explained that I got it wrong. But I already spent the money and could only return 3,000 yuan to her."
"How old was that woman? What did she look like?" As I spoke, I pulled out the file of the 38-year-old Shen Lijuan.
"Yes, that's her!" she nodded.
After leaving the Internet cafe, Xiaotao said, "The woman we are looking for is 38 years old. Twenty years ago, she was 18 years old. She’s not the victim's family."
"I'm afraid she was the tenth victim!"
"This is a great discovery!” exclaimed Bingxin. “Shall we visit her now? It's almost ten o'clock."
"It's not too late. Let's go!"
When we arrived at Shen Lijuan's address, we were greeted by a pregnant woman with a big belly. She was the person in the photo. Upon seeing Xiaotao’s ID, Shen Lijuan looked surprised. "What are you here for?"
"My name is Song Yang,” I tentatively began. “I am Song Zhaolin’s grandson."
She was suddenly overjoyed and welcomed us in. "So you’re my benefactor's grandson. Please come in! Sweetheart, we have guests."
It turned out that her husband was also home. The three of us exchanged a meaningful look, unsure if it was alright to speak about her past.
"I know what you’re here to inquire about. It’s alright, I’m no longer afraid of it. My husband knows everything," assured Shen Lijuan.
"Thank you," I nodded.
"No, I want to thank your grandfather. He saved me!"
Shen Lijuan explained that she was friends with the seventh victim. When they were walking home that fateful night, a cyclist rushed towards them and sprinkled a handful of powder in their faces.
Next thing they knew, they woke up in a dim, basement-like place. There were cockroaches and mice crawling in the corners. Their hands and feet were bound, mouths stuffed with cloth. Naturally, the girls were frightened.
They sat in the dark for an unknown period of time when someone entered the room. When the door was opened, she noticed it was dark outside.
The man walked over, removed the cloth from her friend's mouth and tried to kiss her. When her friend screamed for help, he slapped her and knocked her to the ground, kicked and beat her over and over, before violently tearing off her skirt and raping her. Her friend struggled desperately as the man bit her shoulders and chest bloody.
At this point, Shen Lijuan's eyes filled up with tears. The influence of that nightmarish still haunted her till this day.
After raping her, the man grabbed her friend's neck till she was blue in the face, eyes bulging and tongue sticking out. She stared straight at Shen Lijuan, as if calling for help, but she could do nothing.
Then, the man dragged her body away, and the room fell into darkness once more.
Shen Lijuan sat in the dark, weeping. Her first thought was to find something to commit suicide, but her hands and feet were too tightly bound. In the dark, a mouse licked the blood on the ground, brushing against her legs and feet, but she felt nothing. All she could think of was the torture she was about to experience.
Finally, in the midst of crying, she fell asleep. In her dreams, she had been saved but when she woke up, she found that the ground was still cold and her hands numb from being bound, so she burst into tears once more.
It had been a whole day since she ate, drank, or used the restroom. At this point, she was extremely weak.
An unknown period of time passed before the door opened once more. It was still dark out. As the man approached, Shen Lijuan screamed with fear. Whisking her away, he slapped her and warned her not to scream. Frightened, she had no choice but to obey.
The man removed the saliva-soaked cloth from her mouth, opened a lunchbox, and began roughly feeding her. Then, filling up an enamel jar with water from a rusty faucet, he force-fed her while rubbing her legs with his big, rough hands, all the while laughing strangely.
Unexpectedly, the man left without raping her, which only prolonged her fear and suffering.
Every second of being imprisoned felt infinitely long. Shen Lijuan cried so much her eyes were swollen and her body feverish from the lack of water. On the third day, when the man entered the room once more, Shen Lijuan was already burning up. The man threw cold water on her face and slapped her several times. However, Shen Lijuan was unconscious. Later, when she regained consciousness, she felt as if she had been torn apart and found blood between her legs, only to realize that she had lost her virginity.
After the fever, the man no longer bound her hands and feet, but chained her neck with a dog leash. He visited her every night, gave her food and water, and sometimes raped her. Shen Lijuan didn't dare to resist.
She fantasized about being killed or saved by the police countless times. Day and night she experienced indescribable suffering over and over again until–
"One day, the murderer let me go!" said Shen Lijuan.
"What?" I was shocked at such a development.
"He came in as usual, unlocked the chain, and put a bag over my head. I thought he was finally going to kill me and begged for mercy, but he just pushed me roughly upstairs. We went out the door and got into a car. I smelled smoke in the car and heard someone talking. Then suddenly the door opened. Next thing I knew, I was pushed out and helped up. That’s when I saw your grandfather!"
The three of us were too shocked to speak. "You mean the murderer directly brought you out and drove you to hand you over to my grandfather?"
"Yes!"
"What happened after that?"
"At the time, Uncle Song put me up in a motel. I had serious psychological problems and didn't say a word for three days, but he didn’t ask me anything. Later on, he said he was a policeman and showed me a photo, asking me to identify if that was the man who kidnapped me," Shen Lijuan recalled.
"You have seen the murderer's face. Do you still remember what he looks like?" asked Xiaotao.
Shen Lijuan shook her head, "No, it’s very fuzzy and the basement was dim. I can't remember clearly."
I pulled up Ma Sanyou’s photo on my cell phone and showed it to her. "Is this the man my grandfather showed you?" I asked.
"Yes!" she nodded.
"And what was your answer?"
Shen Lijuan bit her lips, "I said yes, but... I lied!"