Read Chapter 18: — THE RED-DRESS WOMAN

Not every case led back to Zou.

That was one of the reasons Li remained functional.

A young woman found dead in a red dress triggered another cross-disciplinary review. Early assumptions travelled faster than evidence. People talked about diet, family cancer history, smoke exposure from food stalls, psychological stress and lifestyle as though a human death ought to have one morally satisfying cause.

Chenxi cut through the speculation.

“Association is not a confession.”

Li looked at her.

“You’ve stolen my job.”

“Someone had to improve it.”

Further examination found a parasitic infection that helped explain some of the woman’s long-standing gastrointestinal and neurological distress. Homicide was eventually ruled out.

The case left Li subdued.

He had spent years believing that if medicine gathered enough information, it could always intervene in time.

That was not true.

Sometimes the decisive moment had already passed.

Sometimes medicine could explain without saving.

He called Chenxi after the final report.

“I’m sorry we couldn’t help her.”

“We established what happened.”

“That isn’t the same.”

“No,” Chenxi said. “But it matters.”

The line stayed with him when he returned to the Zou case.

Their job was not to create an ending that felt satisfying.

It was to establish what happened.

Even if the answer was ugly.

Even if it came too late.

That evening, Old Zhao joined a departmental discussion while waiting for a follow-up appointment. The subject was prevention and the dangerous tendency to shame patients for habits that contributed to illness.

Tang wanted to frighten trainees with worst-case outcomes.

Wang argued that addiction, poverty, stress and access to care complicated every simple morality tale.

Li agreed.

“If shame cured people, hospitals would be empty.”

Old Zhao raised a hand from the back.

“I would like the official record to show that doctors are equally bad at following medical advice.”

Everyone turned toward him.

He grinned.

For a few seconds, cancer did not own the room.

Chenxi watched her father laugh.

Li watched Chenxi watch him.

No one said what they were thinking.