Tiny Spear
The fifth letter arrived as scheduled. Its content likewise described a traffic accident, and likewise involved a death.
The incident had occurred the previous week, and the location had leaped across more than half of China from the previous letter's Yangzhou, landing in Dunhuang.
Marcus Shaw increasingly felt that these mysterious letters might be connected to Daniel Shaw's death. So while working the case, he carved out a lunch break—skipping a meal—and rushed to find the corresponding mailbox. Then, in nearby late-night surveillance footage, he spotted a figure coming and going in a hurry.
The person wore a hat and a mask, so their facial features remained indistinguishable. They weren't short, and looked quite stocky.
Who on earth was this person?
His brain ached from thinking, but he still had no leads. Marcus Shaw rubbed his blurry eyes and headed back empty-handed on an empty stomach.
That evening before leaving work, his father called to ask if Marcus Shaw was coming home—he wanted to drop off some of the sugar triangle pastries he'd steamed. Before heading home, Marcus Shaw stopped by his usual bakery and bought a small cream cake.
After three days away, the living room seemed to still hold the stale air of three days prior. Everything was familiar—so familiar it felt almost bland. The only change was the large plastic bags on the dining table, stuffed with colorful food and household supplies. Two multipacks of toilet paper stood on the floor.
That woman's handiwork—a fanatic for every discount and promotion.
As he was thinking, the frosted glass door of the bathroom slid open, and Nora poked her head out. Her gaze was like water from a showerhead—direct and unblinking. Seeing Marcus Shaw's expressionless face and his silence, she quickly deflated and retreated.
Marcus Shaw guessed she was washing her hair again. That long hair—taking it down, wetting it, lathering, scrubbing, rinsing, toweling, blow-drying, combing, braiding—was a major production every single time. Why wash it so often?
Marcus Shaw retreated to his small room, opened the window, shut the door tight, and ate the cake one spoonful at a time. In a daze, he recovered a precious childhood feeling—his father coming home tired from work, his mother saying a few more words than usual, their scattered family briefly reassembling to celebrate his or his brother's birthday.
As the dream spun on, a doorbell interrupted.
He opened the door to find Nora with her hair loose and swollen eyes. She'd already ushered his father inside.
The old gentleman wore his newsboy cap and a short-sleeved shirt, still with a tie knotted at the collar. He smiled and asked, "Where should I put the pastries?"
Nora said softly, "I'll take them." She accepted the bag, set it on the kitchen counter, murmured "Have a seat, Dad," and ducked back into the bathroom.
She hadn't finished washing her hair.
His father's tie was blue today. Marcus Shaw stood in the doorway of his small room, his mind empty.
Seeing Nora washing her hair, Arthur Shaw stood awkwardly in the living room for a while, then bid his daughter-in-law farewell and followed his son to the small room. As soon as he entered, Marcus Shaw closed the door again.
Arthur Shaw frowned, his face stern. Seeing the clutter on the desk, his expression softened, and he asked, "You ate cake again?"
Marcus Shaw said nothing. He quickly snapped the cake box shut, tossed it in the trash, and casually slid the coloring book into the file holder on the desk. He'd just sat down on the bed when he suddenly stood back up and pointed to the chair. "You sit too."
Once both were seated, silence filled the room. They looked at each other, neither knowing what to say. Arthur Shaw managed a strained smile and suddenly asked, "Got any alcohol? I'd like a drink. Your mother never lets me at home."
Marcus Shaw hesitated, but eventually opened the door, went to the kitchen, and returned from the fridge with a can of beer and a can of cola, plus two sticks of red sausage—hurrying back and closing the door again as if executing a covert operation.
His father twisted the sausages apart and shared them, cracked open the beer, and took a long swig. Only then did the awkwardness lodged in his throat wash down.
"You're not drinking?"
Marcus Shaw replied, "I'll drive you home later." He took a sip of cola. The icy liquid was like a hook—once it entered his esophagus, it gave his heart a sudden tug.
Arthur Shaw said, "People are strange. When I was doing business, I didn't want to drink but forced myself to. Now that I'm retired, I still crave it for no reason."
"That's how it is. As if you can't get anything done without drinking."
Arthur Shaw tilted his head back for another gulp, gripping the can with both hands. "All those years, I was only focused on work. I never had time for you boys. And your mother suffered too—like living as a widow."
Marcus Shaw set down his cola. "What did she suffer? She had it easy. I was the one taking care of us both."
Seeing his father shake his head, he pressed on: "When we were kids, there were always punks calling Danny a bastard with no parents. He'd be furious, but he was small—he couldn't win a fight. One time, he came home with a lump on his forehead and tried to hide it from me, sneaking his dirty clothes into the washing machine. I pressed him until he finally burst into tears. I took him to settle the score with those kids. I got hurt, but we won. That evening, the sun was huge and red. He threw himself into my arms, crying, snot all over his face, asking, 'Marcus Shaw, did Mom and Dad abandon me? Did they abandon you too?'"
His father coughed twice. Only then did Marcus Shaw shift his tone: "You were posted away on assignment—I can sort of understand that. But her? How many days did she ever fulfill her duty as a mother?"
His voice grew louder. His father quickly made a calming gesture and glanced toward the door. Marcus Shaw stopped, and after a pause, heard his father say, "You shouldn't say that. She had a hard life before."
Marcus Shaw said, "So because she had it hard, she gets to neglect her children? If you don't want them, don't have them. She suffered, so she has to make her children suffer even more? By what right? When Danny died, she barely seemed to grieve. She never cared about either of us, or this family!"
After saying this, Marcus Shaw suddenly regretted speaking so loudly—Nora must have heard everything outside. But his face showed no concern.
Arthur Shaw said nothing for a long time, then asked out of nowhere: "Have you ever read Rashomon?"
Marcus Shaw was taken aback. "No. Why?"
Arthur Shaw smiled, slapping his knee. "If you have time, I recommend it. It'll help with your casework."
Marcus Shaw said nothing, thinking, What—is everyone convinced I'm uncultured?
After a while, Arthur Shaw said again, "She just has her own interests. She doesn't want to live a cookie-cutter life... Ultimately, it's my fault. I couldn't stand up to the family and forced her to have children. You don't know what it was like back then—if you were of age and unmarried, or married without children, you became a laughingstock."
He took another sip of beer and continued: "But I know she cares about us, in her own way. She cares about this family."
"Let's not talk about her. Let's talk about something happy." With that, Marcus Shaw downed the rest of his cola.
Arthur Shaw paused. Seeing his son's face still dark, his tone grew even softer. By the end, he was almost speaking to himself: "No matter what, we're still a family."
The two of them chewed sausage in silence, washing it down with resignation. Not a sound from beyond the door, not a breath of wind outside the window. The whole world seemed to have melted in the heat, congealed into a vast puddle of mud—no one could struggle free, no one could escape.
Arthur Shaw suddenly grimaced and doubled over, clutching his stomach. Marcus Shaw asked what was wrong, but he waved his hand and said it was nothing, just sit tight.
"I went to Qingyifang this morning to look at fish, and your mother went out singing. At noon I grabbed a bite by myself—two leek turnovers. They might not have been clean, upset my stomach. And the beer was a bit cold, so it flared up. Don't make a fuss."
With that, he shakily slipped off his sandals, drew his feet up onto the chair, curled into a ball, and hugged his knees, sitting like a child. Marcus Shaw thought again that the summer heat really did cause stomach troubles—he'd need to be careful himself.
Before long, his father's forehead was beaded with sweat. Marcus Shaw stood up and said, "It's probably the sausage—it wasn't fresh. I'm never home, and I don't know what she's thinking, always buying more than we can finish and stuffing the fridge."
Arthur Shaw quickly told him to stop talking and said, "Pour me a cup of hot water."
Marcus Shaw rushed out and returned with it. His father blew on it as he drank, then stayed curled in the chair for a good while before his expression finally relaxed.
Arthur Shaw looked around the room and said, as if making conversation, "Danny's things are all still here?"
Marcus Shaw stared at the big-headed plush doll on the desk and gave a noncommittal grunt.
But then his father shifted gears and asked, "You've been sleeping in this room the whole time? Isn't that... not quite right?"
When Marcus Shaw didn't respond, he added, "Don't blame her anymore. That incident back then—she wasn't really at fault. She couldn't have predicted what would happen."
Marcus Shaw suddenly turned to face his father, eyes locked on him. He leaned in and whispered, "Dad, I think something's off. I passed by the park a few days ago, and they told me they never run promotions, never sent out any discount text messages. Don't you think it could have been her—"
His father immediately cut him off. "Nonsense! How could she possibly do something like that?"
"Maybe because after the marriage, Danny lived with us, and she wanted to take my attention away. Maybe she thought it would be better if Danny were gone?"
Arthur Shaw's eyes shifted, but his face remained stern. "Don't forget—she nearly died too. The way I see it, your occupational paranoia is acting up again. You're seeing shadows everywhere. How can you suspect your own wife?"
"Wife? I've never considered her a wife. Even if she had nothing to do with it, you can't force feelings. If she wants to blame someone, she can't blame me—she should blame her brilliant mother-in-law, who handpicked her as the ideal daughter-in-law."
Right then, Helen Shaw called. The phone made Arthur Shaw jump. He turned away to answer, nodding and bowing repeatedly, yet wearing a smile.
By the end, Marcus Shaw could tell she'd slammed the phone down on the other end. He couldn't help imagining her habit of scraping the receiver with her purple fingernails while on a call, producing a grating sound. Just thinking about it made him shudder.
His father tucked away his phone, shook his head with a laugh, and said, "She's really something—she knew I came out to steal a drink. Now she's throwing a tantrum at home, telling me to hurry back."
Marcus Shaw drove his father home without going upstairs, then turned around and headed back. At a red light, the wait felt as long as a century.
In the distance, the sun that had hung in the sky all day was finally exhausted, its chin resting on the city's spine, slumped and sinking like a giant salted egg yolk. He suddenly didn't know where he was rushing to, or where his heart ought to rest.
Just as he neared the parking garage, he heard a strange sound. Almost immediately, the car felt like it was tilting. He braked in a hurry, got out, and crouched down to look. The left front tire was half-flat, with two triangular spikes embedded in the outer sidewall.
These spikes were highly unusual. And how could two of them end up in the same tire at once?
He carefully eased the car into the garage, then retraced his route on foot. Just outside the residential compound, in a narrow alley he had to pass through, he found several more spikes, their tiny spears pointing up, lying brazenly in the middle of the road.
Marcus Shaw stood frozen, his skull throbbing, and couldn't help drawing in a sharp breath.