As for the one in the New World, he had simply run out of symbolic targets. Another murder in a central location would have called for a lot of attention, particularly with the speculation about the serial murders already abuzz online.

He did have a specific one in mind for the seventh-seven, though: the former government spokesperson who had repudiated the air quality report of the American Embassy. For some reason, the spokesperson now worked as an official in the Shanghai Propaganda Ministry.

Lou was not unaware of lives being lost for his plan; to him, they were just the unavoidable casualties for a must-fight battle.

After reading through the statement, Inspector Chen was not in a hurry to leave the eatery. In addition, he had a bowl of steaming hot soybean soup with dried shrimp and purple seaweed after an old waiter had walked to the table a couple of times.

He was sad, placing the cellphone beside the bowl without taking a spoonful of it.

The earthen oven cake was already cold, and the fried dough stick limpid; he had neither the mood nor the appetite to finish the Shanghai snack.

It was also long after the breakfast hour.

Picking up his cellphone, he pulled out the draft of his report saved on the phone and started writing a postscript for Zhao.

P.S. Remember the case I told you about, Comrade Secretary Zhao, when I first got the assignment from you at the Hyatt Hotel? I’ve been concentrating on your assignment, but as you may imagine, Party Secretary Li and other colleagues in the bureau have kept me in the loop about the progress of the investigation.

Just this morning, my partner, Detective Yu, has informed me that the criminal in the ‘yellow mask serial murder’ was caught in the New World, another central location of the city. You don’t have the time for the details of the investigation, I understand. In a nutshell, it is a serial murder committed by a grief-distraught husband surnamed Lou, whose wife Shen recently died of lung cancer, possibly a victim of the air pollution. Lou set out to avenge her by killing persons he saw as related to her death. And he planted the masks beside the bodies as his signature; also as a protest against the air pollution that claimed her life.

It might not necessarily have been true, with so many possible causes for the disease, but she was young and she never smoked. Lou insisted on seeing the cause and effect here, and he struck out in a frenzied plan – one victim on a seven-day cycle, in observance of the seven-seven ritual service to her memory. The serial murder, if not stopped, would have continued and coincided with the session of the National People’s Congress. That could of course have been so disastrous in its political impact.

With the justification resonant in his twisted mind, he prepared a message to be released upon the completion of the seven-seven ceremony. The statement ends like this:

‘Personally, there’s nothing left for me in the world with her departure from it. After the seven-seven, everything will be finished for me. So I want to send a message. It’s a matter of time for many more people, millions and millions of people, to fall prey to the disastrous pollution. So it’s a call to arms. Maybe it’s not too late. If so, I have done something meaningful for her.’

There’s no excusing the killings, but what he says about ‘a matter of time’ worries me. I shudder at the consequences if we don’t do anything about it. This time, it’s just by a stroke of luck that Detective Yu caught him. But luck cannot always be on our side.

There’s no telling whether there could be another case like this, or when. Such crimes have to be stopped, but I could not help putting myself in his shoes. His blaming the uncontrollable air pollution for his wife’s death is not without some justification.

In spite of the tremendous progress China has made in its unprecedented reform, the social stability would be shattered if people were unable to have clean air for long.

So we have to convince our people that our Party government is doing everything possible on their side. For that purpose, the documentary I’ve told you about might really help.