Read Chapter 20: — A SECRET DISCOVERED

Police searched official records for Zou Shiyuan.

He existed on paper and seemed to disappear whenever anyone reached for him.

Old photographs showed the brothers as young men: near-identical faces, different postures. Shiming smiled rarely but directly at the camera. Shiyuan leaned toward him in almost every frame, as if competing even for space.

Hospital IT pulled old badge logs. Surgical schedules were reconstructed. Nurses and trainees were interviewed again.

This time, investigators did not ask what Zou had done.

They asked how he behaved.

Which hand did he use for small tasks?

Did he wear the same watch?

How did he sign informal notes?

What phrases did he repeat?

Memory proved dangerous. Once people heard there might have been two men, they began unconsciously editing the past.

Chenxi warned everyone against turning suggestion into evidence.

“We need independent structure.”

They still needed Susan Merlin.

Some officers wanted to detain her immediately because she had monitored the Zou family.

Li refused.

“Pain is not proof.”

Chenxi looked at him. The phrase had become theirs.

Then Susan called Li herself.

The number was unfamiliar.

“Doctor Li?” a tired female voice asked.

“Yes.”

“My name is Zhou Xinying. Online, I use Susan Merlin.”

Li stood so quickly his chair rolled backward.

“I’ve been trying to reach you,” she said. “There’s something you need to know about Professor Zou.”

“Where are you?”

“Somewhere safe.”

“From whom?”

There was a pause.

“From the wrong Professor Zou.”

They met away from the hospital in a private room chosen by police, though Susan insisted on entering alone.

She looked younger than Li expected and much more tired.

“My mother was loved by both brothers,” she began. “She chose Shiming.”

The family story that followed was not romantic.

Shiyuan never accepted the choice. Resentment became obsession. Family conflict hardened into manipulation, intimidation and violence. Susan’s parents separated. Her mother later died after trying to protect her daughter from consequences that had followed the brothers for years.

Susan had spent much of her adult life watching them from a distance.

“What did you discover?” Li asked.

She met his eyes.

“That the Professor Zou you all knew was not one man.”

Li said nothing.

“There were two.”

Eighteen months of memory rearranged themselves.