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Beijiang City Village, 16 August 2015

Du Cheng hunches over so he can fit most of himself under a ratty scrap of awning that’s barely enough to keep his head and chest dry. Irritation buzzes just underneath his skin. His feet are uncomfortably wet in increasingly soggy trainers and he’s missing his lunchbreak because Captain Lei thought it was worth following up on an incredibly dubious note dropped off at the police station by a street kid.

Du Cheng knows why he was sent out, of course. Captain Lei has been working on the beauty salon trafficking case for almost a year, and though they made a dent into the organisation when they closed the net last month, most of what they caught were small fish. Finding and bringing the higher-ups to justice remains a priority for his shifu, Du Cheng well understands that. But to trust an unsigned scrap of paper that just happened to mention the beauty salon...

The sound of a door opening creakily catches his attention over the pitter-patter of unceasing rain. This back-alley is small and cramped and filled with rubbish heaps (a serious eye-sore and health hazard, someone should sort out why the neighbourhood association is falling down on their jobs), if there’s anyone else coming here in this weather it’s probably their would-be informant.

Du Cheng’s muscles tense.

A black umbrella hides the face of the figure heading straight for him, only tilting to the side once the man has reached Du Cheng’s shelter. They size each other up silently. The would-be informant is slender, drowning in a grey hoodie pulled up over messy hair that’s escaping to frame the sides of his face, and a good head shorter than Du Cheng. Ripped jeans cover beaten-up converse sneakers. He’s young, though not shockingly so, a clean, smooth face that looks leaner that he suspects it should, complimenting deep, tired eyes. Du Cheng frowns a little because the face is familiar, somehow. Where has he seen it recently... a casefile swims to the forefront of his mind.

“Shen Yi?” he asks, careful to keep his voice low. “Painter Shen Yi?”

Surprise flares across the man’s expression, quickly shuttered. “You know me?”

“You were reported missing to the police several weeks ago,” Du Cheng says.

The young man in the picture provided by – who had it been, his art teacher? Xu something – had been rounder-cheeked, with a sparkle in his eyes that’s now missing. Even at the time Du Cheng had wondered about a 21-year-old who had to be reported missing by his teacher, no friends or family in evidence.

“I remember the case because we found no trace of you at all.”

Shen Yi’s mouth pulls into a bitter smile. “You wouldn’t have.”

Somewhere further off a door slams shut. The tension evident in Shen Yi’s being tightens, eyes skittering back the way he came. “I don’t have much time, Officer.”

He pulls a crumpled set of papers out of the front pocket of his grey hoodie. When he reaches out to hand Du Cheng the papers, the cuffs of the hoodie ride back far enough to reveal bony knuckles and a very pale back of the hand.

Du Cheng takes the paper, two sheets of it. “This is?”

“A list of the women trafficked in the last two years. “Shen Yi’s voice is tight. Du Cheng looks up from the paper to find a briefly ferocious expression on his face. “If you could be covert about rescuing –” He breaks off. Shakes his head. “I’d like to live through the next few weeks.”

The words are light, almost a joke. Du Cheng’s gaze sharpens, but if the even voice hides fear, he can’t tell. Shen Yi, he suddenly thinks, looks drawn enough to be beyond fear.

“We’ll be careful,” he promises. There’s scenarios for this, he remembers from the academy. It should be possible to clear the grass without alerting the snake. Especially with how international these destinations are even at a cursory glance.

Shen Yi nods tightly, ragged strands of hair swaying across his eyes. There are a myriad of questions on the tip of Du Cheng’s tongue – how did he end up in this situation? How did he get the list? Is he physically safe? Where is the organisation’s new bolthole? – but Shen Yi is already turning to go, black umbrella raising.

On a first meeting, it’s not advisable to push an informant.

The umbrella obscures Shen Yi’s eyes when he turns back again. “Whoever the police officer is in charge of this case, please tell him to be careful. They have a childhood picture of his and I’m sure they want him dead. I may have refused to draw his older appearance, but there are others with that skill; and they may yet find leverage over me that I can’t ignore.”

He steps lightly back into the rain, avoiding all the deeper puddles, before Du Cheng has recovered enough from the sudden crash of the implications of that into his mind to open his mouth.

-

Beijiang Yacht Club, 20 July 2015

Shen Yi is in the middle of adding a particularly fine detail to the mirrored image in the large pupil he’s painting on the last empty support pillar when the crisp sound of high heels clacking on concrete joins the rush of the waves below.

He doesn’t look up. If it’s Lin Min, she knows better than to disturb him mid-painting. If it’s someone else, it’s not his business. Few people ever come to this abandoned yachting club – which is why he chose the location in the first place – but it is open to anyone.

“I heard you can draw a three-year-old thirty years later,” a voice says, not far from him.

The brush in his hand doesn’t slip despite the surge of irritation prickling his neck. It appears the strange woman is here to disturb him after all. He hates being interrupted in the flow of inspiration, of creating the most.

“I’m busy,” he says shortly, casting the briefest of glances at the woman. A broad hat shades a full, pretty face, dark red lipstick drawing the eye. Shen Yi notes this dispassionately and turns back to his palette. “There are others with that skill.”

“It’s an urgent matter,” the woman persists, in a tone of voice that’s likely supposed to arouse sympathy but only sounds cloying to Shen Yi’s ears. “I’m trying to get in touch with a very old friend.”

Shen Yi is too lazy to poke holes into that logic. “If you’re trying to find someone, you should go to the authorities. What would having a picture of them help?”

He turns back to the eye. It’s still missing something –

“Don’t say I didn’t try,” the woman sighs. She steps backwards and unease about that strange sentence has only just rooted at the base of Shen Yi’s spine when there are more rapid footsteps. He catches a glimpse of two black-clad men and then there are hands restraining his arms and cloth violently wrapping around his eyes from behind, stealing his sight.

-

4^th Floor Beijiang Public Security Bureau, 16 August 2015

As soon as Du Cheng returns to the bureau he barges into Captain Lei’s office, ignoring the way his sodden clothing is dripping water all over the floor.

Captain Leo looks up from his seat at the table, eyes squinting archly.

“One day you’ll learn to knock on the door and I’ll be so surprised you need to send me to the hospital.”

“You’re underselling your constitution,” Du Cheng tells him, sprawling into his usual chair with a wet squelch that has Captain Lei’s eyebrows springing towards his hairline.

“Wet meeting with the informant, was it?”

Du Cheng immediately sobers. Captain Lei’s presence relaxes him like no one else’s, but he also focuses him on task with barely more than a twitch of facial muscles. He draws the two crumpled pages out from beneath his coat, where they’ve stayed mostly dry, and places them on the table.

“The informant is Shen Yi. Do you remember that missing person’s case?”

Captain Lei frowns. “Shen Yi... the genius artist kid? Disappeared at the abandoned yacht club?”

“That’s the one.” Du Cheng taps his fingers on the table. “I remembered the case because he disappeared so thoroughly – no traces at all at the scene, just all his painting supplies left there. And his teacher and fellow students were adamant that he wouldn’t have left on his own and had no reason to commit suicide.”

“Looks like they were right.” Sympathy briefly shades Captain Lei’s eyes, before he returns to his usual placid expression. He picks up the top paper, scanning down the list of names, locations. “Is this – ”

“A list of already trafficked women,” Du Cheng says, fists tightening on his knees. There’re at least fifty women on those two pages. “Or so Shen Yi says.”

Captain Lei’s gaze is penetrating. “Do you trust his word?”

“I don’t know enough to say one way or another.” Du Cheng shrugs. “He was twitchy and said he didn’t have much time. We talked for no longer than five minutes.”

“How did he look?”

It’s clear what he means. Signs of duress, abuse. Wounds, bruises.

“Too thin.” Sharp cheekbones and a jawline that looked like it could cut swim into his mind. “He covered himself up very tightly, sleeves over his hands and hood up. I couldn’t tell whether he was hiding any damage.”

Du Cheng swallows. He knows he shouldn’t make such judgments as a policeman – solid evidence, always – but he can’t get those eyes out of his head. “He looked haunted, Lei-dui.”

Lips pulling into a tight grimace, Captain Lei nods. “He doesn’t fit the profile of either the usual abductees or the gang members, but our working hypothesis should be that he isn’t there willingly, while allowing for him to be a trap for us.”

Du Cheng almost shakes his head. “There’s another thing – he told me the organisation has a childhood photo of the police officer in charge of dismantling the trafficking ring; that they looked for him because he could draw the older appearance. Something called... sansuihualao? He told me to warn you.”

Probably recognising his worry, Captain Lei smiles at him. “I’ll be as careful as I can be, Cheng’er.”

He taps the list. “Tell me the rest and then we’ll get started on trying to find these women.”

-

The wheels turn slowly when one is putting in motion a cross-border rescue designed to fly under the radar and not alert the snake that they have a mole. In the meantime, Du Cheng, assigned to this case until further notice courtesy of Captain Lei pulling some strings, looks into Shen Yi. There’s little else he can do beside familiarise himself with the trafficking case and wait for Shen Yi to contact them again for another meeting.

Shen Yi’s life has hardly been normal, it turns out. Orphaned early, stayed at two different orphanages after the first one was closed due to malfeasance. Eventually ended up in his art teacher’s household, though there’s no record of adoption into the Xu family. A painting genius, already rising to more than local fame in his late teens. Full scholarship to attend Beijiang Art Institute, finished his degree two months ago to general acclaim (and no little jealousy, as Du Cheng gleans from various comments online). Had a gallery opening scheduled on the last day of July that was postponed indefinitely due to his disappearance. The only two people on file as related to him are Xu Yiduo – and through him his wife and son – and one Lin Min, another painting student under Teacher Xu.

Du Cheng stares down at the file he’s compiling, unseeing. There are people with still fewer connections in this world, but they are rare and not usually functioning in society at such a high level. As an artist, Shen Yi had been going places – even Du Cheng, pretty insensible to art and entertainment circles, can see that. And yet he had still been choosing to spend some of his time painting on derelict buildings at the seaside, too. That says something, though Du Cheng isn’t quite sure what yet.

If he weren’t male, he would fit the specifications of human traffickers almost too well: pretty, young, no family, few friends. Given that he is male, and apparently free enough to walk around Beijiang to covertly meet up with a police officer, he’s clearly not being trafficked. Which begs the question as to why he isn’t dead.

It’s a grim thought, that this young man needs to justify his continued existence, but Du Cheng has followed along as Captain Lei cleared this case for months and he knows exactly how ruthless that organisation is. They wouldn’t keep a witness alive if it didn’t somehow benefit them.

Shen Yi had claimed that they had sought him out because he could draw someone’s older appearance when given a childhood picture – and doesn’t that thought, applied to Captain Lei, still send a cold shiver down his back – which makes some sense. He had also claimed that he hadn’t done as asked.

Tapping a pen to his lips, Du Cheng continues to stare into nothing. Shen Yi had reached out to the police, at large risk to himself. He clearly doesn’t agree with the traffickers’ goals and methods. So why was he at liberty?

What exactly was Shen Yi doing for them now?

-

Beijiang Harbour, 20 July 2015

Shen Yi gasps in a breath as soon as the sack is torn from his head, lungs labouring to counteract the previous lack of oxygen. Even if he weren’t gasping like a stranded fish, there’s little he could do. They had bound his hands in front of him with coarse rope and the same two hulking men who overpowered him at the yacht club are keeping his arms immobilised with an iron grip.

As his vision slowly clears, Shen Yi takes advantage of his doubled-over position to cast a surreptitious glance around. He’d already guessed he was on a boat, based on the shifting, unstable ground and the sounds of water all around. Now he can see that it’s of middling size, a cabin and some rigging in his immediate field of vision. There are more people milling around on the deck, probably belonging to the same organisation, including the woman who’d asked him to draw. She’s looking straight at him, lips quirking into a humourless smile. She jerks her head and the two thugs push him forward towards a cabin.

The woman is clearly in charge here, Shen Yi thinks through the fear wanting to cloy his veins. As threatening as these people are, they haven’t killed him yet. Maybe he can find some way to get free, maybe –

The door of the cabin slams shut, leaving him huddled on the far side and the woman blocking the entrance. He’s a little surprised the thugs left them alone, then almost laughs at his own naivete. His hands are bound and he’s not a fighter to begin with; whoever this woman is, he’s absolutely certain she could eradicate him in seconds if she wanted to.

“Little Painter,” she says, leaning casually against the wooden wall, arms crossed. Her voice is low and syrupy, the sound grating down his spine. Her slim fingers, fingernails painted an immaculate and eye-catching red, flip the same faded photograph she’d tried to hand him at the abandoned yacht club, until the small boy is looking straight at Shen Yi out of the past. “You should be aware of your circumstances now. I’ll give you another chance – paint him.”

Shen Yi stares at that round, childish face. His mind instinctively ages the features, outlining the man this boy would become. He doesn’t know who this is. He doesn’t know why these people want to find him. But Shen Yi has never been stupid, had lived half on the streets for years before Teacher Xu picked him up – whatever they want, it won’t be good news for this man.

He looks up, meeting the woman’s cold gaze. Shen Yi doesn’t want to die. He’s afraid. And yet merely the thought of using his art in ways that will harm someone, a real person, turns his stomach upside down and fills his mind with a cold haze. That’s not what his painting is for. He wants to change the world, change those who look at his art; he doesn’t want to be used.

“No,” he says, and his voice almost doesn’t waver. “And if you try to force me to, I can draw hundreds of imaginary faces, none of which are who you’re looking for.”

The woman moves too quick for his eyes to follow in the dim cabin; one second she’s leaning against the wall, the next pain explodes across his cheek. Shen Yi tastes blood, can feel it trickle down his cheek from a scratch left by a fingernail. Strangely, the pain clears his mind further, kindles a stubbornness he hadn’t been certain he could hold onto in the face of this whole situation.

He opens his mouth, reckless now. “You will never know if you’re just wasting time and resources following a sketch of a mirage.”

The woman leans back. Her eyes are still cold, but he thinks there’s a considering slant to them now. “You have guts, Little Painter.” Her red lips curve, deadly. “Everyone has a breaking point – enough pain and we’ll find yours. You’ll beg to be allowed to draw him.”

“I won’t be able to draw if I’m in too much pain,” Shen Yi forces out, courage tasting like flaking ash in his mouth as it clashes with acrid fear. “And you still won’t know.”

Under her silent scrutiny, his heart beats painfully.

“Interesting,” she finally says, tilting her head.

Such a positive word, and yet Shen Yi feels the hair on his arms stand up, not daring to take his eyes off her face, the calculating gleam there. The rope around his wrists itches.

One finger lazily knocks on the door without looking. It swings open immediately. “Let the boss decide, then.”

No further instructions are needed, apparently, and Shen Yi finds himself once again bracketed by the two thugs – this time so he can be shoved down through a hatch into the hold of the ship.

The force of the shove sends him teetering dangerously down the steep wooden stairs. He manages to keep his footing through sheer momentum for most of the steps, then tumbles the last three to land painfully on his left side, unable to catch himself with his bound hands. Above him, the hatch clangs shut, leaving him in darkness.

Even as he labours for air, shifting to relieve the pressure on his chest and elbow, Shen Yi becomes aware of frightened whispering all around him.

Slowly, he pushes himself into a sitting position, trying not to make too much noise. As his eyes adjust, he finds that the hold isn’t as pitch-black as he’d originally thought. A couple of thin, dim stripes of light shine in from one end, where boards aren’t quite nailed together evenly. They illuminate several huddled shapes opposite the stairs.

Shen Yi’s breath catches because these are women, dirty and bedraggled and clearly here against their will. An acrid taste rises in his throat and he has to swallow back bile. These people, this organisation, they’re human traffickers.

Six sets of eyes are trained on him, cautious, suspicious. Shen Yi tries to calm his breathing, his rabbiting heartbeat, the sick feeling in his stomach.

“Hello,” he says, forcing his voice into something quieter, gentler than his usual tone. He doesn’t want to frighten anyone further. “My name is Shen Yi.”

No response, just some quiet noises as weights shift and glances are exchanged.

“Could someone... untie my hands?” He slowly lifts his bound limbs to illustrate. The urge to have his hands free, to be a little less restrained even in that one small way beats beneath his skin, lending his voice some desperation. “I’m not going to hurt anyone, I just – I need – ”

“You’re a man,” a thin voice says. In the gloom he can’t tell who spoke. “Why are you here?”

Shen Yi swallows hard, the full weight of his situation bearing down on him with the force of the surrounding ocean. “They want me to sketch someone, someone they’re looking for. I said no. I didn’t know... they just took me away.”

Another voice, deeper, stronger. “They took all of us away.”

Some more quiet whispers and then one woman shuffles forward, clearly wary still, but Shen Yi keeps entirely still as she reaches towards the rope on his hands, keeps his gasp as he catches sight of her pregnant belly trapped behind his teeth.

Her fingers are nimble, if shaky. The knot comes undone within moments and she retreats again. Shen Yi stays where he is.

The pregnant woman looks at him, and the sheer fear and despair on her face engraves itself in his memory.

“My name is He Hong.”

-

4^th Floor Beijiang Public Security Bureau, 17 August 2015

The two people who answer the summons to the police station are, somehow, not what Du Cheng expected. Xi Yiduo looks tired, aged beyond his years, but there is no hint in his bearing or clothing that he’s an artist. He looks neat and unfussy, more like an accountant than someone moving the entertainment circle.

By contrast, Shen Yi’s senior sister Lin Min does dress like an artist, clothing clearly chosen with care and an aesthetic flair that Du Cheng couldn’t try to match even if he wanted to. She’s also all edges, from her chin line to her eyeliner and the dagger her gaze is throwing around the room.

“Is there news of Shen Yi, Officer?” Xi Yiduo asks, a desperate hope in his voice that has Lin Min’s lips thinning. Du Cheng wonders whether she simply doesn’t care about her junior brother’s fate or if she’s the kind of pragmatist who thinks hope is dangerous.

“We are following a new lead,” Du Cheng says, noncommittal. It’s unlikely that these two people have underground connections, but it’s still much safer not to reveal that Shen Yi has made contact with the police to anyone else. “I have a few more questions about Shen Yi – more information will help us narrow down the search.”

Lin Min’s gaze cools even further. “Then why didn’t you ask when we first reported the case?”

It’s, unfortunately, a valid question. Du Cheng hadn’t been the officer in charge of handling that report and it’s now biting him in the ass.

“We had no direction of investigation at the time.” He keeps his voice bland, matching Lin Min’s attack with impregnability.

She huffs out a snide snort that says she guessed accurately that it’s more a question of strained manpower than differing directions, but otherwise keeps her peace. She clearly also knows that there’s no point picking a fight about it now.

Xu Yiduo looks between the two of them, tiredness rising again. “Ask. What do you want to know?”

The original case officer had asked the usual questions about the victim’s social connections, daily activities, places they visited, known plans for the week, that sort of thing. What Du Cheng wants to know now is about the person himself, beyond the ‘genius artist’ label.

“How would you describe Shen Yi’s personality? What are his skills beyond drawing?”

Half an hour later, Du Cheng has a mottled assortment of notes and a headache. What is he even supposed to conclude from ‘he sees to the heart of people’? From some of the descriptions it sounds as if Shen Yi is hard to get along with, quiet and a little abrasive, intelligent and knows it; a few lines further down, however, Du Cheng noted Xu Yiduo saying that Shen Yi has a core of kindness and sensitivity underneath the sharp tongue.

Du Cheng’s gaze lingers on one word. 善良. Kind-hearted.

Was that why Shen Yi was risking his life contacting a police officer rather than just running? In the few minutes they’d talked, there had been no minder observing Shen Yi; more than enough time to get a few streets away and climb into a rickshaw or a taxi or steal a bike.

But Shen Yi hadn’t done that. Shen Yi had stayed, determined to give the police more information at a later date – and give his fellow victims a fighting chance.

The picture attached to Shen Yi’s file is about a year old, according to Xu Yiduo. Du Cheng looks at the clear eyes staring out of the photo print and swallows past a nameless dread.

-

Beijiang Warehouse District, 21 July 2015

The women are gone. The last time Shen Yi had seen He Hong, she had been dragged up onto the deck, pleading for mercy.

Shen Yi hadn’t fought when he’d been tied once again, blindfolded, gagged, and then stuffed into an oversize suitcase. As the seconds tick by and the strain on his folded limbs is only outdone by the strain of trying to get enough oxygen in through his nose and the small breathing holes punched into the side of the suitcase, Shen Yi is beginning to regret that. There’s no way he would have managed to win that fight, but maybe they would’ve knocked him unconscious – a state he’d much prefer over his current suffering.

An indeterminate but too long time later, the suitcase finally comes to a stop. The sound of the zipper being pulled open is perversely loud to Shen Yi’s ears, unsettlingly like someone is trying to unzip his head. Rough hands pull him out of his scrunched-up position and Shen Yi might have screamed if not for the gag in his mouth. Restoring circulation brings with it the most painful pins and needles he’s ever experienced – and he’s slept in some terrible positions after painting binges – and he’s so busy breathing through that agony that he barely acknowledges being untied and the blindfold disappearing. The gag goes last, its removal leaving him coughing and trying to expel ghostly fibres clinging to the tender walls of his mouth. Eventually he manages to blink into what looks like a brightly lit but makeshift office. The walls are a mixture of brick and corrugated iron and there are boxes piled up along the sides. The big desk that dominates the room, however, gleams in the harsh lights, a rich dark wood, impeccably clean.

The hands disappear, leaving him wobbly but just about managing to stay upright. The woman who had abducted him is still in the room, taking an incongruously elegant seat to the side. The man behind the desk, clad in a suit and wearing a heavy gold watch, raises an eyebrow at her.

“New merchandise, M? He’s pretty enough but we don’t have buyers for men.”

“That could always be changed,” M says coolly, and Shen Yi’s stomach flips as his mind catches up to the conversation. The conversation about selling him. “But no. He’s the painter I found for this.”

She pulls out the picture of the boy. The man doesn’t even glance at it.

“So why is he here?”

M smiles, slow and sharp. “Because he refused. Convincingly. I thought you might find him interesting, L.”

Shen Yi shivers. He doesn’t much relish the thought of being interesting to any of these codenamed people, even if it had saved his life so far. And yet – below the slimy fear that coats his thoughts, a blazing anger is stirring; anger at their daring, their disregard for life, the callous way in which they refer to people as products.

L’s gaze switches to Shen Yi, as unaffected and sharp as M’s.

“And, are you interesting?” His voice is urbane, almost gentle. The accent pure Beijing.

Shen Yi makes himself meet that coldly amused gaze. “Not to people like you.”

Something sparks in those eyes. “Spunky,” L says, sounding neither pleased nor displeased. “A famous painter you said, M? What does he specialise in?”

“Portraits.” M leans back in her chair. “Portraits that look right through you.”

Not how Shen Yi would have described his work – or at least ‘into’ would be more accurate than ‘through’ – but it apparently strikes a note with L.

“Oh? Good at reading people, are you? How about a demonstration.”

The man leans forward a little, gaze sharp. Shen Yi refuses to flinch back. His brain is still working, and it’s become clear that fear isn’t going to help him here.

“I don’t need to be good at reading people to tell that your suit is from several seasons ago, the gold watch is real but too big to be tasteful, you’re smart enough never to do your true work at this desk, and neither of you is the leader of this criminal organisation.”

Shen Yi’s voice is flat. “And whether you’re the kind of person who reacts to being insulted with killing people, I’ll know in a moment.”

For a long, crystalline moment no one moves, no one speaks, no one blinks. Then L starts to laugh.

“Reminds me of you back then, M,” he says, smiling once the laugher has run its course. “Let’s see if he proves more or less malleable than you did.”

-

Beijiang City Village, 25 August 2015

At least it’s not raining this time, though Du Cheng still leans unobtrusively against the same bit of overshadowed wall. He’s a bit too tall and bulky to really blend into the surroundings, but since he’s once again squatting in a desolate small alley it doesn’t matter very much.

Yesterday, the same street kid had brought another note to the police station. Du Cheng had given him an extra 50 yuan on top of whatever Shen Yi did to solicit his services in the hopes of keeping him loyal, and received a pleased, gap-toothed smile before the boy scampered away again.

Du Cheng is hardly a green rookie anymore and yet he still hadn’t slept very well last night, knowing that today would be his second meeting with Shen Yi. No, with an informant.

It irks him that he’s so quickly started thinking of the informant as Shen Yi, breaking all the rules of engagement. Dispassionate has never been Du Cheng’s strength, though, and after spending a week digging up every piece of information on Shen Yi that he can find, it’s increasingly hard to think of him as a stranger. It wouldn’t be kind to do so either, given what he’s guessing about the man’s situation.

A guess, for now, isn’t enough for trust.

Like last time, Shen Yi slips quickly out the back door. In the better light he looks pale; not quite sickly, but only one step away from it. He’s still wearing the same grey hoodie, but Du Cheng is distracted by the limp in Shen Yi’s gait. It’s not pronounced, barely noticeable in fact; in another situation Du Cheng might have thought it benign, a slightly strained muscle perhaps. Here, now, it sends a cold shower down his back because informant or no, he doesn’t want to know he’s sending someone back to a place where they’re being hurt.

Shen Yi doesn’t immediately speak, seeming content with quietly watching Du Cheng as if his expression could tell him something important, so Du Cheng says, “Thanks to your information we have rescued one woman already. More will follow, we’re being cautious so as not to compromise you.”

“Good.” It’s more breath than word, Shen Yi’s eyes briefly closing in some kind of tired relief. His shoulders draw inward in a gesture Du Cheng thinks might be unconscious. “Maybe this will all be over soon.”

“It will be,” Du Cheng says, voice quiet in deference to the situation but strong with conviction. “If you can give us more information – ”

“I’m still missing a link.” Shen Yi sounds tired, but there’s a fire in his eyes. “I need more time, a bit more time.”

Du Cheng tries not to frown. “What can you tell me, then?”

“The organisation is shifting operations.” Shen Yi tucks his fingers into the pouch of his hoodie. “Some have gone to ground after the police cracked the beauty salon operation, but there are certain elements within the organisation who are less... cautious. There are still new women being abducted, they generally come through where I’m being held. I have had contact with two of the leaders, codenamed M and L. M is in charge of acquisitions, L is the logistics man – he’s the one who’s insisting on continuing. I also know there’s a K, who is the hitman of choice. And K...” Shen Yi hesitates, eyes going distant. “K is the only one who has direct contact with the top of the organisation.”

Du Cheng, belatedly, pulls out a notebook, hastily scribbling down the information Shen Yi is giving him. “The missing link?”

Shen Yi nods, a strand of hair falling over his forehead. The fire in his eyes grows sharper. “The one at the top – I can’t let him get away with this.”

“Are you in a position to investigate this?” Du Cheng demands. “Your life – ”

“Officer,” Shen Yi interrupts, and Du Cheng abruptly remembers that Shen Yi doesn’t even know his name, “I have spent weeks watching them treat women as products to be bought and sold and discarded if defective. I don’t care. Stopping them for good is worth it.”

When Du Cheng remains silent, stubbornly disapproving because Shen Yi is a civilian and clearly a traumatised one at that, for all his effectiveness, Shen Yi’s voice goes low and sharp. “What do you think I had to do to not be killed the moment I refused to draw that police officer for the second time? To be in a position to go pass information to the police?”

He doesn’t wait for Du Cheng’s reply, stepping back with an expression on his face that punches Du Cheng right in the gut, a desperately determined guilt tinged with sorrow.

As Shen Yi turns away and as he tugs his hand out of the pocket of his jumper, the hem briefly rides up. Du Cheng has to clench his teeth to stifle the sympathetic hiss that wants to escape his throat at the splotch of bruises he sees on the exposed skin.

As a police officer, perhaps he should worry more about what Shen Yi said, what illegal price he’s had to pay, but Du Cheng’s heart decides right then and there that Shen Yi is a victim worthy of both respect and gentleness.

-

Beijiang Warehouse District, 22 July 2015

The accommodations leave something to be desired. After the meeting with L, Shen Yi had been unceremoniously pushed back into a larger area that looks like a very strange warehouse and smells like a barnyard. They haven’t bothered blindfolding him this time, which he tries not to take as a bad sign.

It does mean he gets a good view of the various shipping containers with bars across open entrances; most of them are empty, but several are housing women in similar states to those in the hold of the ship. Anger rises again, distracting Shen Yi from the way the tight grips on his arm are probably turning into bruises as he’s pulled into the empty container at the end of the row. The click of the padlock locking into place reverberates in Shen Yi’s ears long after the sonic waves have subsided.

Rubbing at his aching arm, he looks around the small space. It’s maybe two paces by four paces, a bare rectangle that’s only not pitch black because light falls in through the barred opening. There’s a thin mattress on one side and bucket in one corner. That’s it.

The space is clean, at least – because they probably don’t want their merchandise to be sick or flea-ridden by the time they want to sell them, he thinks cynically – but that’s all the positives he can muster.

Shen Yi sinks down to sit on the mattress, feeling like every bone in his body is aching. He’d been in such a state of heightened stress he hadn’t even noticed how empty his stomach is, how dry his tongue. He’s neither eaten nor drunk anything for what feels like many hours. Pulling his legs to his chest, he lets his forehead sink to his knees and tries to think himself out of his body.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed when a whisper makes him raise his head again.

“Hey, Shuaige.”

Now that he’s looking up, he can see a thin hand waving at one side of the barred entrance. Yes, hadn’t he caught the barest glimpse of someone in the container next to his?

Biting back a groan, he pushes to his feet so he can squat right in front of the bars. “I’m here.”

“You’re the first guy they ever brought. What happened to you?”

The voice is female, and not very young.

“They wanted me to identify someone,” Shen Yi says, keeping things true but vague. “I refused. I didn’t know who these people are.”

“What, human traffickers who don’t shy away from kidnap and murder?” she says, voice bitter. “None of us did.”

“Yes, that.” He shuffles a little so he can lean against the side of the container. “What about you? How did you end up here?”

“Went to a beauty salon because I won a voucher. Should’ve thought that was too good to be true. When I woke up, I was here.”

Shen Yi is too tired to keep parsing the emotions in her voice, too numb to the pain and despair that permeates the air in this forsaken warehouse.

“You’ve been here a while?”

A quiet slide of a noise, as if she too is getting more comfortable.

“Longer than anyone else, I think. I think I was supposed to be sold but the deal fell through.” A quiet snort. “I’m older than most. Now I just do errands for them. Clean the containers, that sort of thing. Can’t expect men to clean up after themselves, after all.”

Shen Yi makes a sympathetic noise. He lived in dorms for a while – he knows just how little some boys care about cleanliness.

For a while, they’re silent. The cold of the container is sinking into Shen Yi’s skin through the hoodie but he can’t bring himself to move.

“I don’t know what they want with me now,” Shen Yi eventually says, throat raw. “They don’t seem to mind killing people who’re useless to them.”

A knock sounds right by his ear and he jolts.

“Don’t think like that, Shuaige. You’re still alive. Maybe you’ll get out of here.”

He’s grateful for the attempted comfort. But he doesn’t think she believes her own words.

“Maybe you will, too,” he says in return, and listens to her quiet, rusty laugh.

Time keeps passing. Someone comes round with water bottles and packaged food, but bypasses Shen Yi’s container entirely. Clearly they’re trying to wear his will down. For what, he still doesn’t know.

He resigns himself to the dryness in his throat, the gnawing, empty ache in his stomach that reminds him all too viscerally of parts of his childhood he has tried to forget.

A knock sounds again, further back in the container, near the mattress. Shen Yi almost ignores it, but... she’s tried to be kind to him, and passing out on this mattress isn’t particularly tempting either.

So he returns the knock and drags himself to the bars. She doesn’t say anything, but a few moments later a hand with a half empty plastic bottle of water appears in his field of view.

“Don’t you need it yourself?” he whispers.

“They like to starve the fight out of the new ones,” she returns, equally quietly. “Take it.”

Shen Yi reaches through the bars, viscerally glad that the gap between them is large enough to fit most of his arm through, and takes the water bottle. His hands shake as he unscrews the cap, and he couldn’t have stopped himself drinking all of the remaining water, despite a half formed thought that he shouldn’t take so much of her portion.

Once every single drop is exhausted, he sighs, licks along chapped lips. His throat, at least, feels a little less like he gargled sand.

He passes the empty bottle back through the bars, wondering how he can possibly thank her for this kindness, when her hand appears again, holding half of a bao.

Shen Yi cups his hand under it, unwilling to waste a single crumb, and only just manages to squeeze out “Thank you, jiejie,” past the lump in his throat.

The knock near his head sounds almost like a benediction.

-

4^th Floor Beijiang Public Security Bureau, 4 September 2015

Du Cheng is pacing in Captain Lei’s office.

Correction: Du Cheng has been pacing in Captain Lei’s office for the last half hour and is distinctly aware of Captain Lei’s fraying patience but too agitated to stop.

“Du Cheng,” Captain Lei finally says, setting aside the pen with which he’d been doing paperwork with a very solid snick. “You need to relax, you’re of no help to anyone like this.”

“It’s already been ten days. What if I – ”

“No.”

“I could just go back to – ”

“No, Du Cheng.” Captain Lei never really raises his voice, but there’s enough emphasis on the no that Du Cheng’s mouth snaps shut.

He thinks again, as he has slightly too often over the last handful of days, of the bruises underneath Shen Yi’s hoodie, that pale skin mottled with blue and green and dots of angry purple.

“But what if something happened to him? What if they found out he contacted the police?”

Captain Lei’s expression is grave but he sounds as solidly steady as always when he says, “There’s nothing you can do about it, Du Cheng. There’s a reason why we teach you to not get attached to informants, why undercover agents are handled by people who don’t know them – it’s hard and risky work.”

Du Cheng’s shoulders slump. He knows he hasn’t handled this assignment well. He also knows that it’s gone too far already for him to successfully backpedal now and, in truth, he doesn’t really want to either. He stubbornly feels that Shen Yi deserves that much, at least.

“In your current situation,” Captain Lei continues, eyes sharp. “You can only trust that Shen Yi will reach out again and keep investigating what you can investigate on the information he’s already given.”

He sighs, hand coming up to rub at his eyes. “I would pull you if I thought it would do any good, but you’ve already established a rapport with him and I doubt you’ll stop worrying if I assign someone else.”

Du Cheng nods, probably a little too fervently. Captain Lei’s lips twitch into a tired smile and he rises, stepping around the desk to pat Du Cheng’s shoulder supportively.

“We’re very close to nailing down that whole trafficking ring. It’ll be worth it.”

Du Cheng nods again, knowing that from the police’s point of view this is true.

And if doubts rise, the existential exhaustion in Shen Yi’s eyes flashing through his mind’s eye, then at least it’s not enough to shift him from his purpose.

-

Beijiang Warehouse District, 23 July 2015

There’s a tray of food sitting on that horribly immaculate desk, steaming with heat. An unopened water bottle. A cup of soy milk. In front of it, lined up just so, three photos of different women. They’re candid pictures, taken on busy streets, each woman clearly unaware she’s the focus of a camera lens.

Shen Yi tries not to stare too obviously at the food. He’s not in as bad a shape as he would’ve been if not for his neighbour’s kindness, but it takes no pretending on his part to appear weak in body and transfixed by the promise of a full meal.

“Do you want to eat?” L asks, once again seated behind the desk. M is leaning against the wall this time, silent and watchful.

The smug smile playing on L’s lips sends a strong enough stab of annoyance through Shen Yi that he manages to give him an unimpressed look instead of answering.

“Tell me which of these three women is the best target for acquisition and you get everything on this tray.”

The urge to scream, Shen Yi thinks abstractedly, would probably be greater if his throat didn’t hurt quite so much. A few mouthfuls of water in what must have been two days already is nowhere near enough. The edges of his thoughts are intolerably hazy already.

Not quite hazy enough not to understand the implications of this test, though. It seems innocuous but what it really means is that they want him to help them abduct innocent women. Make him complicit in their trafficking, make him choose who to send into this hell.

Shen Yi opens rust-tinged lips. His voice sounds like a saw scraping over bone. “And if I don’t?”

“Then you’ll go back into your cell.” L waves an airy hand at odds with the sharpness of his expression. “Maybe we’ll remember to give you some water eventually, maybe not.”

The choice that slowly seeps into his mind is crystal clear: set aside what he knows is right and help these people do terrible things – or die. Even if they don’t immediately let him die of thirst, that’s the choice that it’ll eventually come to.

Yet most binaries are illusions and this one, looked at from a different angle, isn’t any different. If he gives in, yes, he’ll become complicit and, if he survives, will have to live with the guilt he can already feel hovering on the horizon. But. If he dies here, he’ll have done neither himself nor these women any good. He’s quite sure that this organisation won’t just not kidnap women without his input – and if he pretends to cooperate, if he regains just a little, tiny bit of freedom, there’s at least the chance that he can help someone. A chance that he’ll learn enough about this organisation to bring it down from the inside and laugh as it burns.

Is compromising his own soul not a worthy price to pay for that?

It's been a long time since someone said anything, but L and M seem unbothered, even interested in watching the fight play out over his face – waiting with the patience of predators who know their prey can’t escape.

“Water first,” Shen Yi finally croaks. “Then I’ll do it.”

L raises a brow at this impertinence, then shrugs and throws the water bottle at him. Reflexes deadened by exhaustion, hunger and thirst, Shen Yi only watches blankly as the bottle hits him in the stomach and falls to the ground. He refuses to feel ashamed about having to bend down to pick it up from the floor. It’s them who should be ashamed for their lack of humanity.

Partly to be obstreperous and partly because he knows he probably shouldn’t guzzle the water in seconds if he doesn’t want to throw up most of it, Shen Yi takes agonisingly slow sips, enjoying the soothing glide of it down his throat, along his parched lips.

Once there’s only a little left, he screws the cap back on and tucks the whole thing in the front pouch of his dirtied hoodie. Then, not waiting to be threatened or intimidated again, he steps forward to look at the photos in greater detail.

It barely takes him a few seconds to tell what they’re probably testing him for.

He steps back again and says, “The middle one.”

“Oh?” L’s voice is neutral. “Why? She’s not the prettiest.”

Shen Yi only barely manages to keep his eyeroll internal. “Conventionally speaking, the one on the left may be prettier, but her dress and accessories are high-end. She either has money or knows someone who does – if she disappears, chances are people will be looking for her, causing greater scrutiny than you want.”

“And the one on the right?”

Shen Yi smiles thinly, past bothering to hide his contempt for the whole exercise. Let them interpret the expression how they want. “She’s the least pretty.”

That, in fact, is only one of two reasons for his choice; the other – and to him more important – one is that the young woman in the photo on the right looks terribly sad. For all Shen Yi knows, it’s just a fleeting emotion and she’s normally a happy person – but if she’s not, if she’s already struggling, then the nightmare of getting kidnapped and sold might break her completely when someone with a healthier state of mind at least has a chance to pull through. It’s a horrible mathematics of tragedy, but one Shen Yi can only grit his teeth through calculating.

L's chuckle tears him out of increasingly grim imaginings.

“You were right again, M.” L slaps a hand down on the desk. The tray jumps. “He does have a knack for this.”

M’s lips curl into a slash of a smile. “Eat your food, Little Painter,” she says, and Shen Yi wishes the noodles didn’t taste quite so good as he inhales them.

-

Beijiang Market District, 10 September 2015

This time they’re meeting in a completely different part of Beijiang, where it’s much harder to simply fade into the background. After some thought, Du Cheng instead arrives at the designated place next to a well-attended noodle restaurant on a motorbike, kicking the stand down in the shade of a large black locust tree and setting a toolbox by his feet. No one looks twice at a rugged guy tinkering with a motorbike at the side of a street.

It's the middle of the day, the streets here much cleaner and brighter, and yet when Shen Yi steps out the door he’s still wearing the same grey hoodie, largely disappearing in its embrace.

He doesn’t look any worse than last time, Du Cheng decides after a quick once-over he hopes wasn’t too obvious; still pale and thinner than he should be, but he’s walking normally and there are no visible injuries.

Shen Yi leans against the wall next to him with a fairly convincing show of casual nonchalance, nodding towards the bike, “If you want an upgrade on that tired paint job, I know a guy.”

“I happen to like the colour,” Du Cheng says, which is true, though Shen Yi’s unimpressed look shouts that he doesn’t agree.

Right. Artist.

Du Cheng retightens a bolt he’d unscrewed. “What took you so long.”

“Hard to get away.” Shen Yi’s voice is studiously neutral. Then he squats down on the other side of the toolbox, ostensibly to look at the bit of engine Du Cheng is futzing with. Out of the corner of his eye, Du Cheng sees him slip something into the toolbox.

“That’s all I could find out,” Shen Yi says, barely more than a whisper. “It should be... enough.”

On impulse, Du Cheng looks him straight in the eye. “Then come with me. We can keep you sa–”

“I can’t,” Shen Yi hisses. “I can talk to you because my minder is in the toilet puking his guts out but if I disappear now, they’ll go to ground – you’ll never rescue those women.”

Into the strained silence, Du Cheng huffs a chuckle. “Puking his guts out, eh?”

“I may have helped him along a bit.” Shen Yi looks grimly satisfied, an expression that sits surprisingly well on his fair face.

A gust of wind brings the sound of laughter and angry car honks.

“I’m so close.” Shen Yi isn’t looking at him, is staring sightlessly at the bright red chassis of the motorcycle. His hands are balled into white-edged fists. “I just need a little more time. I almost have him.”

“I can’t delay this operation, not when there’re lives at stake.”

Including yours, Du Cheng doesn’t say.

Shen Yi turns his head, catches Du Cheng’s gaze with eyes that blaze with desperate will. “Two more days, give me two more days.”

Du Cheng opens his mouth. The door of the noodle restaurant opens. By the time a muscled guy dressed in nondescript black and brown and looking distinctly green around the edges has made it out into the street, Shen Yi is several paces away, leaning against the brick wall, eyes closed and face turned skyward. He looks for all the world like a cat bathing in the sun.

Averting his gaze so as not to appear suspicious, Du Cheng busies himself with undoing the same bolt a second time. Ears pricked, he hears the unknown man snarl at Shen Yi, “Why didn’t you wait in the restaurant?”

Du Cheng chances a glance, stomach tightening at the bruising grip the man now has on Shen Yi’s arm. Shen Yi doesn’t seem to care, half-lidded gaze not hesitating to meet the man’s eyes.

“What, you shut me away in a windowless warehouse eighty percent of the time and are surprised if I take any chance to catch a bit of sunlight? I don’t want to get scurvy.”

The grip sinks further into the puffy sleeves of the hoodie and Du Cheng has to look away so he doesn’t do something stupid.

“Cut the nonsense, we’ll be late.”

Footsteps move away.

A solid minute later Du Cheng has screwed the bolt back in and looks up to find no sign of either figure in the vicinity. Without looking at it, he fishes Shen Yi’s small notebook out of his toolbox, transferring it to the inner pocket of his jacket.

Halfway through the drive back to the station it occurs to him that he still hasn’t asked how Shen Yi is managing to get all this information when it’s clear the organisation doesn’t trust him.

-

Beijiang Warehouse District, 30 July 2015

“I have a daughter,” the woman in the container cell next to him says. Shen Yi still doesn’t know her name and will never ask – though he would keep it safe and precious if she ever gave it to him freely. Shen Yi still doesn’t know what she looks like, only ever hears her voice floating through two sets of bars, quiet and wispy.

“I just found a good primary school for her when I was taken.”

Shen Yi swallows past one trite response after another. That’s a pain he can’t understand, not truly. There’s no one in his life he loves with such fierceness, no one he lies awake at night missing. There are people who have been kind to him, have taught him, have offered him some warmth. But always at a cost, and though he reflects what warmth he can back, there is always something missing.

“Which one?” he asks, inconsequential and easy enough that she huffs out a surprised breath.

“Have you ever been to Fenglu Tower? It’s just a street further from there, has a view towards the island.”

Shen Yi shifts to lie more comfortably against the bars. The hoodie doesn’t provide enough cushioning and neither does what flesh he still has. “It sounds a lovely place.”

“I can imagine her, laughing in that green courtyard.” The wistfulness in her voice is hard to listen to, a sheer depth of emotion Shen Yi cannot touch yet pierces his heart. “Making friends. Counting clouds.”

It’s a tether to the normal world, to everyday kindness, these conversations they have. A raft to cling to amid a maelstrom of grime that patinas this entire warehouse and everyone who chooses to be in it of their own free will.

Yesterday, through the bars, Shen Yi saw three terrified women being led away into the back of a truck.

Today, Shen Yi identified three women who might make good trafficking targets while sitting in a cheerful café, two guards nearby enough he couldn’t even think about running.

He knows by now that this doesn’t mean they will be taken. The organisation is thorough, researching potential targets before making a move – stalking on social media, analysing their support network, even sending people to shadow them for a few days.

Neither of the three might turn out to be suitable. Or perhaps all three will be deemed so, and the weight of three more souls in torment will fall on Shen Yi’s shoulders.

He wonders if his neighbour would still be talking to him if she knew. Though perhaps she has already guessed, almost certainly knows that he’d compromised to help their captors. His continuing existence, that they bring him food and water twice a day now are proof enough of that.

Maybe she needs this glimmer of humanity as much as he does.

-

4^th Floor Beijiang Public Security Bureau, 10 September 2015

The notebook contains a motley assemblage of information that adds up to a surprisingly comprehensive overview of the human trafficking organisation.

A more in-depth chart of the leaders of the organisation, setting an L (logistics) and an M (acquisitions) underneath a question mark with a note of ‘no direct communication’, while a K (assassination) off to the side does have ‘direct communication’ pencilled in. An additional note in the margin next to the K, in differently coloured ink, gives the name Zhou Jun.

An estimation of the number of people employed by the organisation.

No address for the warehouse where he’s being held alongside other victims, but instead a street name and description of landmarks and shops in the area to help narrow down further.

Another, mercifully short list of women trafficked in the last two months.

A list of five names of women currently being targeted, with a note to warn them immediately and discretely.

As they read through all the information, Captain Lei’s brows draw ever further together.

“How did he find all this out? You said they don’t trust him.”

Du Cheng shakes his head, no closer to an answer than his shifu. “I don’t know, they clearly didn’t, but this is...”

“Extensive.” There’s a hint of satisfied wonder in Captain Lei’s voice, for all that he’s usually so phlegmatic. Du Cheng can sympathise – if they can bust this whole organisation, months and months of work would finally have paid off.

He taps the question mark at the top of the leadership diagram. “Shen Yi said he was close, I think he was talking about this person. Can we give him the two more days?”

“It’ll take that long to plan an operation this big anyway.” Captain Lei’s fingers drum on the table. “I’ll go brief the bureau chief. Get started on that list of five names – we need to make sure those women are protected without startling the snake.”

Du Cheng nods, scribbling the names down on a second piece of paper so he can hand it to the technical investigation team. Hopefully Shen Yi can hold on another few days. Hopefully they can find the bastard who’s running this whole thing from the shadows.

He just can’t let his mind conjure hypotheticals in which they bust into that warehouse and find the women gone and Shen Yi dead in some dirty corner.

-

Beijiang Warehouse District, 11 August 2015

It’s not that unusual for Shen Yi to be let out and escorted to L’s office – the man likes to check in on his unwilling recruit occasionally; asserting his dominance, or whatever that kind of man might think is the use of metaphorically pissing on streetcorners.

It is unusual for it to only be M who is waiting there, dressed in a striking green dress and heels that could probably drive through a foot if she put a bit of force into it.

The desk is empty. The door closes. M steps forward, setting a sheet of paper onto the desk.

Shen Yi doesn’t say anything. Assumptions can get a person killed in this place.

“This,” M says, the red of her fingernail providing a stark contrast to the white paper, “is a list of the women this organisation has trafficked over the last ten years.”

It takes a moment for the words to fully sink in. He’s too far away to read the characters on the sheet, but he can tell that it is a list, organised in columns.

“Why are you showing this to me?”

She raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Don’t you want to rescue these women?”

Shen Yi stares at her silently. He’d believe the ocean isn’t wet before attributing any kind of good intention to this woman.

“I’m offering you the chance to dismantle this organisation.” M’s expression doesn’t even flicker. Shen Yi is normally good at reading people, but her –

He tries not to show his own disquiet. “In this office? Are you trying to get both of us killed?”

“L isn’t stupid enough to surveil this place. It would incriminate him more than anyone else.” The hint of laughter in M’s voice grates, the condescension, the patronising tone. Shen Yi has to bite his tongue not to fire anything back but he has learned that keeping himself in check is sometimes the better part of valour.

She taps the list, the white of the paper almost blinding in the drab surroundings. “Isn’t this what you want?”

He stares at her, refusing to blink. “Why would I believe you?”

“Because I’m motivated by self-interest.”

Shen Yi lets his disbelieving silence speak for itself.

M sighs, a clear affectation. “I’ll spell it out for you, Little Painter. The police has already dismantled much of our operation and they’re still sniffing around. Did you know, I came into contact with” – she waves a hand – “all this because I was caught for trafficking myself? I’m not so squeamish as you, I made myself useful, worked my way up until they almost fully trusted me. I want to get out.”

“So you want revenge?”

Her shrug is a masterclass in pure indifference. “I hold no grudges – they’ve made me rich. I just don’t want to choose between ending in a prison cell or turning into a loose end they decide to clean up.”

That, Shen Yi thinks reluctantly, makes some sense. If M consistently gives him any impression, it’s that she’s both smart and considers her own gains above anything else – if she has started to find her position in the organisation untenable...

“You could just leave,” he says. “You aren’t kept behind bars.”

“And be hunted for the rest of my life?” She snorts, the most unrefined sound he’s yet heard her make. “No thanks. The only way I survive this if the organisation is wiped out.”

It’s still a risk. A gamble. But she knows she’s offering him exactly what he wants – has clearly worked out that he’s just pretending to be compliant. He supposes he hasn’t been very subtle about it. They all know why he’s here and that it’s guards and iron bars keeping him here.

He meets her gaze. “What do you have in mind?”

She doesn’t dwell on smugness that he’s agreed, as she no doubt expected he would, but immediately moves into brisk professionalism. “Easy. I give you all the information you need and you pass it on to the police. All you need to do is keep my name out of it.”

“And how do you expect me to do that?” His eyes narrow. “I’m a prisoner here.”

“Use your initiative, Little Painter.” Ice creeps into her already sharp gaze, freezing the air in the room. “Just know that if you dare to sell me out, I will make sure neither you nor that teacher of yours outlives me.”

A shiver runs down his spine.

Two days later, he’s escorted to the city village by a guard increasingly bored with his assignment ‘babysitting the painter’. As Shen Yi watches the busy streets, ragged kids running back and forth with deflated footballs in between doing odd jobs for small amounts of cash, an idea forms.

-

4^th Floor Beijiang Public Security Bureau, 11 September 2015

Du Cheng fights tooth and nail to be included in the team scrambled to act on Shen Yi’s intelligence. Captain Lei, who shares coordination duties with a counterpart from the municipal bureau and a dour-faced man from the Wujing (rank left ominously unstated) by dint of having first broken this beauty salon trafficking case, looks at him for a long evaluative moment before he nods.

“We will need some police presence,” he says, slow and serious, “but Du Cheng – you need to think with your head. If you act rashly you’ll jeopardise the entire operation.”

Du Cheng nods in mute gratitude, experienced enough now to know how much faith Captain Lei is putting in him and blazingly determined to live up to it.

“We’ll move in two days. Until then, focus on keeping the identified targets safe.” Then Captain Lei hesitates, uncharacteristically. “I’m sure Shen Yi will appreciate having a familiar face among the rescue team.”

He pats Du Cheng on the shoulder as he walks past, leaving Du Cheng wondering what exactly his shifu has surmised about Du Cheng’s motivations.

-

Beijiang Warehouse District, 16 August 2015

The umbrella lying by the back door is a boon Shen Yi hadn’t known he would require when conceiving this mad, dangerous, risky plan. He’s distracted, a part of his mind keeping track of the time while another plots his best route through the puddles to avoid getting his shoes wet enough for his minder to notice once he returns, yet Shen Yi still instinctively notes the police officer’s features. Tall, dressed sensibly but not for a downpour in a beat-up jacket and jeans whose hems are already sodden, making a good effort at seeming casual while clearly tense. (A few weeks ago Shen Yi’s eye might not have been sharp enough to notice that; now he’s hypersensitive to that kind of body language, the coiled power being readied in legs and shoulders.) His face is not immediately remarkable, single-lidded eyes, prominent nose, thick eyebrows, one of which is bisected by a scar, and a little bit of fleshiness to his face that softens what might otherwise have been a rather severe bone structure. There’s something a little droopy around his eyes, not quite permanent sadness but a certain pensiveness that doesn’t match the markedness of his other features.

In a word: intriguing.

But Shen Yi doesn’t have the time nor the luxury of getting distracted by an interesting face, even though surprise blooms in his chest when the police officer says, voice tentative but gaining surety, “Shen Yi? Painter Shen Yi?”

It feels like an aeon since anyone has used his name.

Wariness follows hard on the heels of pleased surprise, sweeping away what roots might want to burrow through his walls. In the back of his mind, the clock is still ticking. Five minutes he’s given himself, based on previous patterns of how long it took him to go to the bathroom while out on these ‘assignments’.

Five minutes, and he doesn’t know this man, can’t even be sure that he is a police officer. Doesn’t have time to answer his questions or defuse the reciprocal wariness in the man’s bearing, nor the mind to deal with whatever police procedures the guy clearly wants to run through.

He can only jump – and trust there’s water at the bottom of the cliff so he can drown once more rather than smashing to pieces on the rocks.

-

Beijiang Warehouse District, 12 September 2015

Simultaneous attack teams neutralise those stalking the unfortunate women on the list and storm the warehouse indicated by Shen Yi as the main base of the organisation. Du Cheng, in the latter group, doesn’t pay much attention to the noise and chaos of corralling the traffickers at large, the push to arrest all those single English letter codenamed leaders; he is one of the officers set to protect and free the victims – the kidnapped women and, of course, Shen Yi.

Shen Yi’s sketch of the warehouse, he can tell immediately, is almost terrifyingly precise. Aside from the two areas that he had left blank with a note saying he hadn’t been allowed into them, he had given precise angles and distances for an office, toilet facilities, and a series of containers pushed against one wall that he had identified as the cells where most of the victims are kept most of the time.

Du Cheng and four heavily armed Wujing soldiers make their way to those containers, ducking low and keeping out of the way of stray bullets. There’s no organised defence – clearly they’ve caught the people in the warehouse off guard, which makes the going easier.

(It also gives him hope that Shen Yi is fine – these people very obviously have had no warning whatsoever.)

The first container they reach, closest to the exit, houses four women, all cowering away from the bar.

“We’re police, we’re here to rescue you,” Du Cheng calls, as one of the soldiers pulls out bolt cutters and breaks the lock. “Please follow this man to the exit so we can get you to safety.”

The soldier he gestured to peels off, waiting as the women scramble up and out of the opened container. The rest of them move on, opening three more containers the same way until there’s a whole line of women running for the exit.

The second-to-last container only houses one person, a slightly older woman who looks less jittery than the others at first glance and refuses to go towards the exit.

“I’m waiting,” she tells Du Cheng, steel in her voice as she stares at the last container. “Until you get him out.”

Du Cheng neither has time to argue with her nor the manpower to deputise someone to forcibly escort her out, so he can only nod curtly.

And then they’ve reached the last container and there Shen Yi is, standing ready by the bars. For a brief, confusing moment, Du Cheng thinks his eyes are spitting fire, but then someone’s torchlight shifts and he looks ordinary again, tired and dirty and resolute.

“It’s done,” Du Cheng says.

Shen Yi smiles. “You got them all?”

Technically, there’s still some fighting going on in the background but Du Cheng still nods. It’ll be five minutes, tops.

“Thanks to you,” he offers, because it’s true. If not for Shen Yi’s information they might never have found this place. Or if they had, the assault certainly wouldn’t have gone this smoothly.

Shen Yi’s smile turns wry, shadowed. He shakes his head a little, hair swaying, but doesn’t say anything.

For a brief moment Du Cheng feels his mind bifurcate disconcertingly – one part of him insists that he knows this man, knows his strength and that he’ll walk out of this terrible place calmly; the other part points out that they’ve only met three times, and is backed up by the fact that Du Cheng can’t seem to judge the expression on Shen Yi’s face at all.

Just as Du Cheng blinks back the weird double vision of familiar person/stranger, the woman who had insisted on waiting for Shen Yi clears her throat.

“Are we going or what?”

Shen Yi turns, and Du Cheng shakes off his distraction. He can worry about his reactions to Shen Yi later.

-

Many places, 12 September – 12 October 2015

Shen Yi hates that it feels strange to be free. Or rather, that he can’t quite convince his panicked body that he is free, and being squirrelled away in the police station immediately hasn’t really helped because while there’re no bars or ropes or handcuffs involved, there’re still many eyes watching him and asking questions and frankly the whole process doesn’t feel entirely dissimilar to being interrogated by a bunch of criminals. They seem to think the uniforms make up for all that, but Shen Yi has never had an instinctive trust of the police, even if that does make him a bad citizen.

The one bit of information he cares about the police having – Zhou Jun, Zhou Jun’s connection to the elusive leader, and the recording M had managed to slip him of said leader’s voice – he had already passed on to his contact, right outside the warehouse. Everything else they’re asking is just procedure.

Perhaps he’s a little higher on adrenaline and the knowledge that they succeeded, that the trafficking organisation is done, than he thought, or perhaps his self-control has eroded over weeks of tension because when the third person – wearing a different uniform than the previous ones, Shen Yi notes distantly, though he’s too tired to figure out what the difference means – starts asking the same questions, he snaps.

“Food. A shower. Clean clothes. Rest. Any of those concepts ring a bell for you?”

The officer blinks. The rest of the room falls into a hush.

“We need to establish – ”

“You have established. Twice already.” Shen Yi is past biting his tongue. “And there’ll inevitably be more questions, this must have been a massive operation, right? But you can’t just keep all of us here until it’s all wrapped up in a neat little bow.”

The officer looks pained. Shen Yi should probably care about that because it’s likely not this guy’s fault that hours have passed and they’re still here, and definitely not his fault that Shen Yi’s skin is crawling and he wants to breathe fresh air and have a shower and feel like a person.

He doesn’t.

“I want to go home.” His voice wants to waver but he forces strength out of his throat. “We’re victims, not suspects.”

An agreeing murmur goes through the assembled women, all as tired as Shen Yi.

“Until we have confirmation that everyone in the group is arrested you might be in danger – ”

“No. No.” Shen Yi stares him right down, something deep inside recoiling from spending another night elsewhere. Makeshift. “I want to go home for the night and I don’t think you’re allowed to deprive me of that basic comfort after weeks of being kidnapped. Post an officer on my door for all I care, but I’m sleeping in my own bed.”

A somewhat awkward silence descends after his outburst. The kidnapping victims and various officers charged with getting their testimonies are scattered over several conference rooms on this floor. The only person Shen Yi recognises in this room is his cell neighbour.

A wolf whistle, exquisitely timed, cuts through the silence.

“You tell them, didi.” His cell neighbour’s tired eyes glitter in the light. She’s pretty, of course she is, for all that he would guess her age closer to forty than thirty.

He looks at her, and only her. “My name is Shen Yi.”

Resisting the urge to hold his breath, he merely watches her, calm and as gentle as his agitated emotions allow him to be, and then, and then, a slow smile blooms on her face that briefly extinguishes the bone deep weariness previously graven there. “I’m Cao Yunhua.”

The officer who had been questioning Shen Yi opens his mouth, but before he can say anything a uniformed woman pushes through the door. Behind her, his police contact is just visible, looking grimly satisfied.

The uniformed woman is neither tall nor young but her presence unfurls in the room, immediately stilling it.

“This young man is right,” she says, authority ironclad. “These people are victims, not suspects. Further testimonies can wait until tomorrow – I’ll square that with the municipal bureau and the Wujing. Escort those who wish to go home and find places for those who don’t.”

In her wake, the room descends into chaos again, but it’s controlled chaos, various officers finding out who wants to go where. It’s Shen Yi’s contact who approaches him, stepping into the room and murmuring a quick word to the officer who was about to question him that has the man disappearing out the door with every sign of relief.

“Come, I’ll take you,” his contact says, and Shen Yi follows him all the way out of the building without another word.

Once the cool air hits his face he breathes deeply, ignoring the man’s gaze.

“I’m Du Cheng,” his contact eventually says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier.”

Shen Yi should probably call him Du-jingguang then, but he’s still feeling crabby and not like truckling to authority, and the guy barely looks any older than Shen Yi’s own age.

“I understand why,” he says. “So, Du Cheng, you’re the one assigned as my nanny then?”

Du Cheng, to his credit, huffs out a laugh. “If you mean that I’ll be the one in charge of protecting you until we’re sure we’ve got the whole organisation locked down, then yes. Though I volunteered, really. I figured this would be easier with someone whose face you know, at least – as our informant, who was instrumental in breaking this case, your situation is different from the others.”

It’s not that that doesn’t make sense or is in any way surprising, Shen Yi considers glumly, but he’s hardly going to be pleased about it.

“It shouldn’t be too long. Your information was thorough.” Du Cheng is clearly trying to sound encouraging.

“Have you figured out who the person at the top is?” Shen Yi asks and now it’s Du Cheng’s turn to look pained.

“Ongoing investigation, I’m not going to paint even more of a target on your back, Shen Yi.” He starts walking in, Shen Yi presumes, the direction of the carpark. “Didn’t you want to go home?”

Shen Yi isn’t sure he’s going to be able to let it go, but for the moment he drops the matter.

Counter to police stereotypes, Du Cheng turns out to be driving a small, beat-up car of a foreign brand Shen Yi doesn’t recognise. The car is small enough, even, that Du Cheng looks slightly comical cramming himself into the front seat.

“I bought this with money saved from my first paychecks,” Du Cheng says, catching Shen Yi’s amused look. He sounds an endearing mix of defensive and embarrassed. “I also have a motorcycle.”

Shen Yi pauses in pulling the seatbelt across his body. “What, that motorcycle with the terrible paintjob is actually yours?”

“I like the colours,” Du Cheng mutters and revs the engine pointedly.

The seatbelt clicks into place and they pull out of the parking spot with unnecessary speed.

“I’m an artist,” Shen Yi says, because riling Du Cheng is turning out to be quite a lot of fun. “I know what I’m talking about.”

Du Cheng scowls all the way to the attic apartment Shen Yi started renting just a few months ago because he’d been desperate to live alone, to have some space that’s fully his own. He accompanies Shen Yi to the door and gives him his number to call in case of emergency but doesn’t try to come in, which Shen Yi is grateful for.

The door falls shut. Shen Yi turns on the lights and feels like he can finally breathe again. The air is stuffy with disuse but it’s familiar. So is the clutter of painting materials, the unfinished painting on the easel. Though there’d probably been strangers searching for clues here at some point after he disappeared, they didn’t leave a trace behind.

With some regret he bypasses the easel for now. The urge to create, to sink his hands into paint and let go tugs at him, but for now he just wants to be clean and wearing his own clothes.

Everything else can come later.

-

Shen Yi doesn’t know if Du Cheng actually kept vigil at his door all night, but he’s there when he steps outside in the morning, once again summoned to the police station.

His questions about Zhou Jun and Chen Zhou aren’t answered, though an older officer who others call Captain Lei – and who Shen Yi immediately recognises as the person from the photo that had started all this – does tell him that everyone on Shen Yi’s list of associates has been caught bar those two – and M.

“She was your informant?” Captain Lei asks and Shen Yi nods. He never intended to hide that, once the raid had happened – he just couldn’t risk it before then. It gave M the window to escape, but weighed against the freeing of all the hostages without further injuries and his teacher’s safety, Shen Yi can’t bring himself to mind too much. He wants her brought to justice, yes, but of all the people there she had at least been helpful. Without her, none of this would’ve been possible.

He tells the Captain as much, defiant despite his expectations of hearing an earful about not sympathising with criminals. Instead, what he gets is a thoughtful look.

“Can you describe her?” he asks Shen Yi. “We’ll search, of course, but we have no picture of her at the moment.”

“If you give me pencil and paper I can do one better.”

Shen Yi neither rushes nor dawdles through drawing M’s face, the soft cheeks at odds with the sharpness of her gaze and thin lips. He doesn’t let himself be distracted by the way Captain Lei’s gaze turns considering as he sketches out her features.

In the end, the man only says, “Thank you,” and turns to Du Cheng, who gives a good – and entirely unconscious, if Shen Yi’s judgment is anywhere near the mark – performance of ‘puppy jumping up to do owner’s bidding’.

“Run this sketch, see if we get any hits.”

Du Cheng speeds out of the office, sketch in hand and metaphorical tail wagging. Shen Yi finds his eyebrows twitching upwards. “What did you do, save his entire family?”

Captain Lei chuckles, the skin around his eyes crinkling charmingly. “Not quite. I saved him from a life of crime.”

Shen Yi suspects his leg is being pulled, but he has other concerns to follow up on now that there’s someone here who’s willing to answer his questions.

“Have you managed to save all the trafficked women on the lists?” he asks quietly, mind flashing to that dark ship’s bowels – he hadn’t seen any of those women again. Thinking also of the handful of women he had pointed out as possible victims during his leashed excursions to the outside world. That guilt still gnaws at him, though he knows well enough that all his choices had been bad and the ones he made led to the best outcome he could engineer.

“Almost all,” Captain Lei tells him, sympathy softening the planes of his face. “Six names are yet unaccounted for.”

“Is...” Shen Yi swallows. “Is He Hong among them?”

Captain Lei’s brows furrow. “He Hong?”

The pencil is still in his hand. This time he does rush, creating He Hong’s face from just a few strokes, crude but recognisable. He taps the paper. “He Hong. She was one of the women on the boat where they first brought me. She was pregnant.”

The grave expression on Captain Lei’s face makes Shen Yi’s stomach sink. The man shakes his head. “We haven’t found her yet.”

Shen Yi nods mechanically, remembering the frightened but resolute woman who had untied his hands, and has to relax his grip on the pencil before he breaks it.

-

Back at home with assurances that the questioning is over for now, Shen Yi puts on one of his ratty, paint-flecked overalls and stands in front of the unfinished painting. It feels like years ago, that he had begun it; a little like it had been a different person in front of the same easel. It’s a disquieting feeling. People change, and Shen Yi himself has mapped the trajectory of his own growth from unwanted child to wanted student to freedom. People don’t usually change drastically in just a few weeks.

People also, he supposes, don’t usually get kidnapped by human traffickers.

Regardless, this is not a painting he can finish right now. He sets it aside. Preps a new canvas. Spends some time sorting and cleaning painting supplies that had been neglected for too long.

It takes a while for inspiration to connect his brain and hands – more disquiet; ideas have always sprung forth from him like an undammable stream – but once it does he loses himself in the motions, in the joy of returning to his cherished work, the slide of the brush and feeling of paint caking his hands.

He chose a fairly small canvas, comparatively quick to fill.

Hours pass. His body has lost the habit of demanding food more than twice a day but eventually he starts feeling unsteady on his legs and so he takes a break. Eats some instant noodles. Relieves himself. Stares at the mirror in his bathroom for a while, the thinner version of him it shows. Shen Yi has always been slight, but now he looks unhealthy, cheekbones too prominent behind overlong hair. He had liked the long hair, a symbol of his ability to choose – something outside the norm. Now... perhaps it’s time for a change. His heart feels older.

He paints for a few more hours and when he finally steps away and looks at the finished canvas, he almost recoils.

It’s dark.

Not just the colours, though blacks do dominate. The entire feeling of the painting is... bleak. He doesn’t remember painting those lines like bars or the distorted, frightened face in one corner, suffering of the soul taken and made manifest.

He starts a second painting. The colours are brighter, by forcible choice, but the feeling it gives him once it’s finished remains the same.

A third yields no other result.

Shen Yi stares at the row of paintings and realises, for the first time, that it might not be quite so easy to get back to his life.

-

He hears about Chen Zhou’s arrest on the news.

It ignites a deep, fiery satisfaction in his core that takes him by surprise, after days of chasing the elusive ideal of a painting that doesn’t make him want to cry or hide when looking at it.

Satisfaction, because Chen Zhou will be in prison for life at the very least, unable to enjoy the fortune built on others’ suffering. Satisfaction, because this means that at least this one organisation is fully eradicated. There will still be human trafficking, he cannot pretend otherwise, but it won’t be these people, their expertise shut away with them.

And satisfaction because Shen Yi helped make it happen.

His mind flashes to drawing M’s face, Captain Lei’s comment of ‘running the sketch’. Is there more scope, he suddenly wonders, for art skills in the police bureau? Not that he really wants to be a policeman, all those rules and regulations and conformity, but if they might need someone like him, just occasionally, as a consultant perhaps, maybe he could –

He stops that line of thought from running further away from him, but it remains at the back of his mind niggling away as he tries to sleep, tries to paint, tries to ignore that the little foreign car that had been parked outside his door for days is now gone again.

-

Du Cheng had made them share WeChat details “in case of emergency”, but Shen Yi hadn’t written any messages since then. The only thing he wants to ask about is the progress of the case, which Du Cheng wouldn’t answer; he really has no other reason to contact the man, and Du Cheng clearly doesn’t have anything to say to him either. So he’s a little surprised when a message appears on his phone screen about a week after he’d left the police station for a second time.

Probably more questions, he thinks glumly, and then finds himself pleasantly surprised when it’s a meeting request from Cao Yunhua instead, passed on through their common contact. It’s kind of Du Cheng to do so; Shen Yi pauses, then after a moment’s thought sketches a little cat telling a police dog sitting primly upright: 谢谢. Photographs that and sends the picture to Du Cheng before closing the chat.

He meets Cao Yunhua at a bubble tea café at the seaside. She waves at him through the large window as he chains his bike to a lamppost. As he waves back, the wind ruffles hair he’d had cut much shorter yesterday. It still feels a little odd to have the weight gone, to not see wisps of hair out of the corners of his eye, but his head feels lighter.

“What do you want to drink?” Cao Yunhua asks him as he sits down at the little three-legged table she’d claimed.

Shen Yi looks at the very pink and orange menu card. “I’ve never been to a place like this. Something with green tea that’s not too sweet?”

“That can be arranged,” she tells him, and heads for the counter before he can offer to pay. As he waits for her to return, it occurs to him that they’re probably meeting in this place because her daughter likes it.

A couple of minutes later Cao Yunhua is back with two plastic cups and straws, pushing the one that looks a dark amber in front of him.

“Green tea and pomelo.”

Shen Yi watches her stab the straw through the film covering the cup with surprising violence, mimicking her motion. He takes a cautious sip. The beverage is still a little on the sweet side, but pleasant enough, and the tapioca pearls are a nice distraction. It’s almost a small meal in itself – maybe he should look into having some of this around when he’s painting for hours; he finds it hard to stop for a meal, but occasionally sipping from a cup isn’t beyond him.

“Did you want to speak to me about anything specific?” he eventually asks, interrupting the comfortable silence.

Cao Yunhua shrugs, twirling the straw around the cup. “I wanted to know how you are. Now that...well.”

“Now that we are free,” Shen Yi murmurs.

Her hand makes a vague motion that could’ve been agreement or something else entirely. “You cut your hair.”

“I felt like a change.”

“It suits you.”

“Thank you.”

They each drink a sip. Then he asks, “How is your daughter?”

“Happy,” Cao Yunhua says. Shen Yi doesn’t call her out on the waver in her voice. “Confused. Not quite sure what to do with a mother who was gone for so long and flinches when someone moves quickly.”

“She’ll adjust.” Shen Yi catches her gaze. “You both will.”

Cao Yunhua sighs out a breath. “I think I just needed someone else to tell me that. Someone who understands.”

Shen Yi smiles at her, there and gone. He doesn’t tell her that he still hasn’t contacted his teacher, or anyone else from his life – not that there are many people who would’ve cared about his disappearance. It’s not her problem to bear.

For the next half hour, she tells him about her daughter and the sister who looked after her and Shen Yi offers a little bit about his painting in return. They exchange contact information before they leave. He doubts they’ll become fast friends, with so little in common beyond a traumatic experience, but it might be nice to see her occasionally. Someone, as she said, who understands.

-

It takes Shen Yi twelve days to gather the wherewithal to go visit the Xus. He isn’t quite sure whether he’s relieved that his teacher is giving him space or disappointed that he hasn’t come to see Shen Yi. He did write a text message asking whether he was feeling well, but Shen Yi’s dry single line answer had apparently been enough to set his mind at rest. Not that Shen Yi would blame him for that – he knows well how uncommunicative he can be, and he isn’t Teacher Xu’s responsibility, not truly. A star pupil is someone to nurture, but there are some invisible lines that even frequent dinners and sometimes sleeping at their house don’t erase. And Shen Yi has never pushed those boundaries.

To his surprise, only Teacher Xu seems to be at home.

“Shen Yi,” he says, eyes keen despite the clear relief in his voice. “Come in, come in. How are you?”

“I’m well,” he says, which is mostly the truth. More truth than falsehood, though largely so because he’s been much worse in very recent memory. “And you?”

“Not bad, not bad. It’s been quiet.” Teacher Xu waves him into the studio and his usual chair. “We were worried about you, of course. Disappearing like that.”

“Thank you. For reporting it to the police.”

Teacher Xu looks almost outraged. “Of course we would, Shen Yi. Were the police helpful, then? They wouldn’t really tell me what was happening, I was only contacted last week when they said they’d found you.”

So they hadn’t let Teacher Xu know about his contact with Du Cheng during his time with the organisation. It makes sense, of course. The fewer people who knew, the safer it was. But he doesn’t like to think about his teacher being left in doubt of Shen Yi’s survival for so long.

He smiles a little, moves the conversation on. “I heard Lin Min was adamant that I hadn’t committed suicide?”

“She’s a little prickly but she does know you.” Teacher Xu smiles as well, eyes suspiciously wet. He steps a little closer, lays a hand on Shen Yi’s shoulder. “I am very glad you made it through, Shen Yi.”

Shen Yi nods, manages another smile. He doesn’t quite feel like he’s through, perhaps, but at least he’s back at home.

“I’m thinking of becoming a part-time police consultant.”

Teacher Xu’s hand tightens, then retreats entirely. “What?”

“I hadn’t realised that sketch artists could be so useful to police work.” Shen Yi’s fingers draw restless circles on his trousers until he notices and retreats into his hoodie cuffs. Teacher Xu’s expression is... well. “After what I experienced, I feel like I could help more people, that way.”

“It would take re-training. Security clearance. All sorts of things.” A frown has worked itself deep between Teacher Xu’s brows. “Shen Yi, you are a born artist. The most gifted artist I’ve ever trained, set for great things. Spending most of your time on the police is a waste.”

Shen Yi’s lips thin. He does think art is important. He doesn’t want to give it up, either. But chaining him to that one career path just because he has talent?

The conversation doesn’t devolve into a shouting match because Teacher Xu and he both tend towards quiet, icy anger, but it’s the first time he truly feels that Teacher Xu doesn’t understand him at all – doesn’t understand what’s important to Shen Yi, beyond his so-called genius, beyond painting techniques and critics’ praise.

He leaves the little courtyard with a heavy heart and doesn’t look back. They both need to cool off.

-

Lin Min has never had compunctions about yelling at him. Because it’s Lin Min, he yells back and feels obscurely better afterwards, even though it’s clear she understands him even less than Teacher Xu.

-

He meets Captain Lei again at a barbecue stall not far from the bureau. It’s the lunch hour because Shen Yi hadn’t really wanted to take up work hour time and he’d vaguely thought he could buy the food as a thank-you for meeting him, but it turns out the stall owner knows Captain Lei and puts it on the man’s tab before Shen Yi can even get a word in edgewise.

“Are you doing well, Xiao Shen?” Captain Lei asks, hand on a bottle of chilled beer while Shen Yi opens a can of coke.

“Well enough,” he says. He even managed a painting that wasn’t all gloomy the other day, so things truly are looking up. There’s just still a... restlessness under his skin, an awakened instinct that he’s decided he has to chase if he doesn’t want to stagnate. “I wanted to ask about the work of a police sketch artist.”

Captain Lei’s eyebrows shoot up. “Thinking of a career change?”

“I’m a painter, and that’s not going to change.” The fizz of bubbles tingles on his tongue, distracting. “But... I keep thinking about the trafficked women. About...” He hesitates, because it sounds so simple when said out loud but means – “helping. More. I don’t want to be a full-time police officer, I don’t think I’m cut out for that, but I thought maybe you could use a consultant?”

The expression on Captain Lei’s face somehow manages to be both searching and warm. “It would certainly be foolish of me to claim we’re not always in need of talent. But even as a regular consultant, you’d need some training. Perhaps a postgraduate degree. Familiarity with police procedures. There are many things to consider.”

Shen Yi nods. He isn’t so naïve as to think he could just stroll into a police station and start sketching suspects. “I’m in no hurry.”

“I’ll get you some materials,” Captain Lei promises, and then the skewers arrive and Shen Yi watches in some amazement as the man demolishes five of them in record time.

Shen Yi barely nibbles at one, not being one for pure meat dishes in general. He doesn’t mind, though; he’s finding that being in Captain Lei’s presence has a strangely relaxing effect – something about his pure solidity spreading out into the world. He’s starting to see why Du Cheng so obviously hangs on his boss’s every word.

-

The painting he’d been working on when M had found him still weathers on the wall, unfinished. Shen Yi hadn’t brought any painting supplies on this visit, so he can only fill it in in his mind’s eye, lines and colours assembling and overlaying reality. He has stopped looking behind himself whenever he goes out to see if there’s someone following him, but he still doesn’t quite feel like painting out here, where he was unceremoniously grabbed and deposited in a nightmare.

Even just standing here is sending shivers down his spine that he has to set his jaw against. He doesn’t quite know why he’s here. Maybe he needed to see that it’s just a place, just somewhere he used to spend time. There are no traces of violence to be found on the ground, no dramatic pool of blood or scuff marks that haven’t already persisted for years. The only thing of note, really, in this abandoned yacht club, are his murals – and those he doesn’t fear.

“Didn’t think I’d run into you here,” a voice calls from the stairs, and Shen Yi turns to see Du Cheng, of all people, nimbly ascending.

He frowns. “What are you doing here? You’re not still on protection duty, are you?”

“No, no,” Du Cheng says quickly, looking a little guilty – presumably for having implied to Shen Yi that he might not be safe. “I was just looking for you. Captain Lei said you were thinking about becoming a sketch artist?”

Du Cheng looks strangely enthused about the idea, eyes light and sparkling. It’s charming, the enthusiasm. Even if Shen Yi doesn’t quite understand where it comes from.

He makes an assenting noise. “Thinking about it.”

Du Cheng leans against a bit of wall. He looks quite at home, in his beat-up boots and dark brown bomber jacket. “It’d be good to have a sketch artist in our bureau – at the moment we have to apply to the municipal bureau if we need one, and then they have to ask the province and it takes absolutely forever. Just last week we had a case where a composite sketch from the witness description would’ve saved us tonnes of legwork.”

Still a little green, Captain Lei had said about Du Cheng, at the tail-end of their lunch. But his heart is in a good place – you were his first non-police contact, he took it very seriously.

At the time, Shen Yi hadn’t understood why Captain Lei was telling him this. Now, looking at Du Cheng’s eager look, his clear interest in working with Shen Yi, he’s starting to get an inkling as to why.

“It’ll take a while,” he says, and feels the ghostly touch of hair that no longer frames his face.

Getting accepted into a postgraduate degree, especially one not obviously in his area of expertise, is no walk in the park. At least his current trouble sleeping will give him plenty of time to study as well as paint.

“The branch will still be there,” Du Cheng says, straightforward and prosaic, and Shen Yi laughs.

--