Spring Festival

The Spring Festival is an investigative time marker in the inquiry into Jiang Baofu: the university holiday gives Li Yan a way to test where Jiang was when a young woman was killed in Beijing. Its importance lies not in the celebration itself but in the dates and movements that can be checked against Jiang’s account.

The Holiday as a Timeline

Li turns to the previous Spring Festival while questioning Jiang, after the delays in obtaining Jiang’s financial and employment records leave Li searching for another way to examine his apparent affluence and the suspicions around him. He asks what Jiang did during the holiday and whether he was working. Jiang eventually says he went home, recalling that this was the previous winter. Li establishes with Nien Mei-Ling that Shanghai Medical University is usually closed for about a month, making the holiday a substantial period away from the university rather than a brief break.

Yanqing and the Beijing Murder

Li places Jiang at his grandparents’ home in Yanqing for most of February. The timing matters because the young woman Margaret Campbell had just re-examined in Beijing was found in mid-February and had been buried for about a week. Li’s follow-up question about the rail journey—whether Beijing was less than an hour away—brings the geographical proximity into the alibi test: being in Yanqing would not, by itself, make a trip to the city impossible. The holiday therefore frames a question about opportunity, not proof of innocence or guilt.

Verification and Limits

Detective Dai later reports that Jiang’s family in Yanqing confirmed he had not gone into Beijing during that Spring Festival and said he never went into the city. They also contradicted one detail of Jiang’s account: he had not seen friends there, because he had none. The check supports his claim that he remained in Yanqing while exposing a lie about his social life. Li treats the report as useful but not decisive; his attention turns to identifying the Beijing victim and tracing the girl Jiang had said he bought a bracelet for. The Spring Festival thus narrows one part of the inquiry while leaving the larger questions unresolved.