Red Mandarin Dress

energetically. Within the stove there was a layer of pebbles, burning red above the charcoal at the bottom. She first poured the pebbles into the pot, and then the shrimps. In a hissing steam, the shrimps were jumping and turning red.
    “Like his victims,” Chen said, “without understanding their doom, still trying to escape.”
    “You’ve spared no pains in preparing this feast, Chief Inspector Chen.”
    “Now I’m coming to the climax of the story. For this part, I still need to fill in some details here and there, so the story may not read that polished yet.
    “Turning, turning, turning, like a caged animal, he found himself dazed against thousands of bars. So he decided to take a most controversial case, at the possible cost of his professional career. In China, an attorney has to stay on good terms with the government; this was a case that could damage the government’s image, exposing a number of Party officials who were involved in a housing development scandal, though also a case that could bring justice to a group of poor, helpless people. Whether it was a desperate effort to find some meaning in his life or an attempt at self-destruction, an end—possibly any end—to his straw-man-like existence might not be an unacceptable alternative to his subconscious. Unfortunately, the difficulties of the case added to his tension too.
    “Prior to the case, he was already on the verge of breaking down. Despite how he appeared to the outside world, he was torn and tormented by a split personality—an advocator for the new legal system and a lawbreaker in the most devilish way. Not to mention the helpless mess of his personal life.
    “And of all a sudden, Jasmine was killed.”
    “So are you saying, Chief Inspector Chen, that he turns into a killer because of his breakdown under too much stress?”
    “The crisis had existed long before the breaking point. But in spite of all the abovementioned factors, there must have been something else that set him off.”
    “What set him off?” Jia echoed in a show of nonchalance. “Beats me.”
    “It was panic that his plan for revenge was falling through. He had intended to see Jasmine into depravity, supposing that her complete downfall was just a matter of time. But she then met a man who was going to marry her and take her away to the United States—out of his reach. J had reduced her to a dead-end job in the hotel, where she met the love of her life. What an irony! The prospect of her living happily with a man in the States was more than he could stand. That pushed him over the edge. So he took her out one night.
    “It’s difficult to say what exactly he did to her—sexually, there was no real penetration or ejaculation. But he strangled her, put her into a dress similar to the one his mother wore in the picture, and dumped her body in front of the music institute—a location symbolically important to him. It was like a sacrifice, a statement, a message to his mother, in revenge for those wronged years, but also a message he could hardly analyze for himself. So many were entangled together in his mind.
    “But the story doesn’t end there. As the girl breathed her last, he experienced something new and unexpected, something like total freedom. It was all he could do to hold on to the appearance of his old self. Once the demon was out, like the genie out of the bottle, it was beyond his control. Considering the repression or suppression he had suffered all those years, it’s understandable to an extent why the murder provided him a release. A satisfaction previously unknown to him. A sort of mental orgasm—I doubt he attacked her sexually in an exact sense. It was a sensation so liberating that it worked like a drug, and he craved the experience.”
    “Now that reads like something from one of your mystery translations, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jia commented. “In those books, a madman kills for the thrill of it, like a drug addiction. It’s easy to write him off as a psycho. You don’t really buy such crap, do you?”
    The mahogany clock started striking, as if in echo of his question. Chen looked up. It was eleven. Jia didn’t appear so eager to leave. Rather, he was talking in earnest. That didn’t bode too badly for Chen.
    “Let me go on with my story first, Mr. Jia,” Chen said. “So he started his serial murders. It was no longer revenge, but an uncontrollable killing urge. He knew the police were on high alert, so he focused on