Jia Chong and I sat face to face in the interrogation room. After a few days of running from the law, he looked haggard, his cheeks sunken. Still, he smiled at me and said, "I have to admit I admire you for forcing me to the point."

I placed Jia Chong’s lunch and water on the table and watched him hungrily gulp.

"Let's talk,” I began. “Why did you kill them?"

"Atonement!" he replied.

"For Mr. Xu?" I asked.

"Looks like you know quite a fair bit. Yes, I did all this for him. When I was young and ignorant, I did a stupid thing with some friends. We didn't expect this thing would destroy Mr. Xu's family. I have been living in deep guilt for ten years! I thought my friends were the same. However, on the day of our class reunion when Da Zhuang...