by Gangxueyin
Suddenly Xu Sanpi was back. “So many people are here, and I have to chat with everyone. I’ve been a bad host to you, Ye Xi. So sorry! Not a bad cocktail party, eh?” Xu Sanpi reeked of liquor and kept his eyes on Ye Xi, as if Han Yin didn’t exist.
“How the party goes isn’t my concern. I came here for a certain person.” Ye Xi pursed her lips.
Xu Sanpi couldn’t hide the excitement on his face. “Aw, Officer Ye, nobody else matters to me, either. In my eyes, you’re the only guest in this banquet hall. You, and you alone.”
Ye Xi smiled. “Too kind of you. But I think you’re somewhat mistaken. The person I meant was the one you promised to introduce to us.”
Xu Sanpi looked flushed and disappointed. “Oh, right, right. I haven’t forgotten. There are two of them here. Let’s go. I’ll introduce you.” He rolled his eyes and said, “But after I introduce you, you’re going to have to give me a dance.” Then he gave a cunning smile.
“Introduce us. Then we’ll see.”
Xu Sanpi led the way. Han Yin and Ye Xi followed close behind.
They went from the east side of the hall to the west. Two couples were huddled together, glasses in hand, having a cordial conversation. Xu Sanpi introduced Ye Xi and Han Yin to them.
Sun Jian was short, slightly balding, and the president of a publishing house. His wife worked in the tax department. The other man was Mou Fan, a famous writer. His wife was an extremely well-known manuscript developer and was currently in semiretirement. She spent most of the year in Singapore, looking after their daughter who was studying there. She’d made a special trip back just to congratulate Xu Sanpi on the publication of his book.
Sun Jian and Mou Fan had met Xu Sanpi at Old Capital University. At the time, the couple had been renting a place in the Pingfang District of Jade Bird Road. They supported themselves by setting up a bookstall on the sidewalk, both being lovers of literature.
Han Yin knew of Mou Fan. Over the past two years, his book series had sold very well. He truly was a bestselling author. Han Yin studied him closely.
Mou Fan was slender but looked quite sturdy. His face was lean and angular. He had long hair, which complemented his stubble. There was a certain elegance and refinement in his rough look. He exuded a strong and mature masculinity.
Han Yin and Ye Xi exchanged greetings and simple conversation. Then, after noting Sun Jian and Mou Fan’s contact details, they politely took their leave.
Not long after they met Sun Jian and Mou Fan, the banquet hall lights dimmed and romantic waltz music started playing. Xu Sanpi was just about to invite Ye Xi to dance when he discovered that she and Han Yin were already out on the dance floor, moving gracefully to the music with affection and intimacy written on their faces. Xu Sanpi was really angry now.
When the music stopped, Han Yin and Ye Xi reluctantly let go of one other. Just then, Han Yin’s phone rang. He answered and heard what sounded like a voice from hell.
“Help me! Help me! I beg you, help me . . .”
“How? Who are you? If I don’t know who you are or where you are, how can I help you?”
“Who am I? Who am I? I know who I am!”
“Fine, then! So tell me where you are, and I’ll come find you.”
“Where am I? I seem to be in bed in the dorm . . .”
The call ended.
Ye Xi realized something was wrong and anxiously asked, “That caller again?”
He nodded and frowned. “She said she was in bed in the dorm.”
“In bed in the dorm?” Ye Xi thought for a moment. “You mean Yin Aijun’s dorm?”
“Dorm 4, room 304.” Han Yin gave a start. “Let’s go! Now!”
Ye Xi and Han Yin rushed out of the hotel and sped off.
About a half hour later, they reached the university’s dorm area. Two security guards led them to Dorm 4. The total darkness and utter quiet of the building projected a ghastly awe.
Han Yin grabbed the doorknob. The security guards looked a little worried but timidly insisted that ten minutes earlier, they’d done their rounds and hadn’t found anything askew. Han Yin realized they didn’t want to go in, so he borrowed their flashlight and sent them back.
Before entering, Han Yin took off his coat and draped it over Ye Xi’s shoulders. She lightly held his hand, and her eyes, much like his heart, were full of warmth.
He led her up the staircase to room 304. The door was open, but there was no one there.
Han Yin shined the light around the room and didn’t see anything unusual. They thought maybe the security guards doing their rounds had frightened whoever it was, and that person hid, so they thoroughly searched the entire building.
Nothing. They went back to room 304.
Ye Xi shined the light outside the window and shrieked. “Professor Han, look! What’s that on the window?”
Han Yin saw three bloodred characters: Yin Ai Jun!
Horrified, Han Yin inhaled deeply and went up to the window. The characters were not yet dry. They must have been freshly applied. He smelled them. Rank—like blood.
“It looks like blood,” Han Yin said to Ye Xi beside him.
“Let’s call a pathologist to come over and take a specimen, and then we’ll have a better idea.”
Twenty minutes later, the forensic pathologist, Gu Feifei, stood in the doorway.
Surprised, Ye Xi said, “You came yourself? At this hour, the night doctor would have been fine!”
“I told them that I wanted to personally deal with any forensic evidence related to the Wang Li case.” Gu Feifei didn’t even say thank you. She simply entered the room, a cold expression on her face. She sized up Han Yin and Ye Xi and nearly snarled. Ye Xi felt overwhelmed and embarrassed that they were wearing their nicest clothes. She started to explain, but Gu Feifei went straight past her to the window.
Then she took a cotton swab from her instrument kit and dabbed one of the red characters. She grabbed a plastic bottle marked “Phenolphthalein Reagent,” unscrewed the top, and put a few drops on the white cotton, which turned pink.
“It’s blood.” Gu Feifei confirmed Han Yin’s earlier guess.
“Human?” asked Ye Xi.
Gu Feifei again ignored her. She took out another swab and dabbed it on one of the characters. Then she took a bottle of serum reagent and stuck the sample swab into the bottle and gave it a swirl. Then she put the top back on and gave it few vigorous shakes. Rummaging in her kit, she came up with something that looked like a pregnancy test kit and then dripped the reagent with the dissolved blood sample into a little hole in the top. Two red streaks appeared in the middle of the test paper.
“The blood serum tests positive. It’s human blood.” Then she extracted another blood sample and loaded it into a storage tube for later DNA testing.
Human blood? It must have belonged to the girl who had called Han Yin. But who could it have been? Was it really possible that it was . . . Han Yin and Ye Xi glanced at each other. Their expressions showed hesitancy and uncertainty.
“Could this blood have been Yin Aijun’s? Don’t tell me it could have been someone else,” Ye Xi blurted out.
“It is possible. I just can’t understand why a sample wasn’t taken from her father. Even without the availability of DNA testing, at least the blood types could have been compared!”
Ye Xi looked at Han Yin. She wanted him to decide.
Han Yin pondered this for a moment, then said, “It looks like we’ll have to go to Yin Aijun’s hometown and take DNA samples from her parents.”
“I’m going back to the forensic lab to have them take care of this sample. Tomorrow, you and I will go to Yin Aijun’s hometown.” Gu Feifei’s demand was unexpected.
Ye Xi said, “That’s good. Right now, I have tons of work to do. With both of you going, there shouldn’t be a problem.”
“We’ve got to watch Yu Meifen and Ma Wentao very closely. If any clues turn up, let me know,” said Han Yin.
Ye Xi nodded. “I know. Don’t wo
rry.”
PART 4
THE KILLING CURSE
19
A WOMAN’S HEADLESS CORPSE
Though she’d worked through the night, Gu Feifei didn’t look tired. When she and Han Yin met in the substation parking lot, she was wearing beige slacks and a blue denim shirt with a white windbreaker over it. She looked bright and sunny in her casual attire, quite the opposite of her usual demeanor.
After getting in the car, Han Yin had wanted to make a joke or two about her cute outfit, but then thought the better of it. Gu Feifei was always capricious. Maybe joking like that would rub her the wrong way, and he’d end up embarrassing himself. Surprisingly, once they got going, Gu Feifei cracked the first joke.
“From the looks of how you and Chief Ye were dressed last night, I’d think you were eloping.”
“Ha, I wish! Too bad we have this case to solve.” Han Yin explained that they were investigating Xu Sanpi.
“So nothing happened?” Gu Feifei’s lips parted, revealing her snow-white teeth.
Gu Feifei had always seemed ice-cold, and this comment surprised Han Yin. He felt like blazing sunlight had touched him.
“Nothing happened! Were you thinking it had?” He grinned as he teased Gu Feifei.
She cast him a sidelong glance. “Okay, we can drop it.”
“Really, nothing happened,” said Han Yin. He quickly changed the subject. “How long before you get the results of the DNA samples?”
“At least two days.” Then she asked, “Do you think the victim of the first crime might have been someone else, not Yin Aijun?”
“That’s hard to say. The eerie phone calls and the characters written in blood are hard to understand. If we prove the victim was Yin Aijun, then who’s playing mind games with us? Maybe Yu Meifen?”
Gu Feifei hesitated. “Have you thought of the possibility—”
“What? Tell me. I’m listening.” He turned to look at her.
“Perhaps it’s because . . .” Gu Feifei twirled her hair and avoided Han Yin’s gaze. “Never mind. Let me think more clearly about it; then we’ll talk.”
Han Yin was puzzled but felt it best not to force her to talk.
Q City, located at the center of S Province, was a three-hour drive from J City. Then it was another forty minutes to Yin Aijun’s hometown of Gaonong Village in Qianyan Town in the city’s northern suburbs.
It had been an easy trip, and they arrived around noon.
It was not a big village and was very quiet, perhaps because it was lunchtime. Only occasionally did they see people out on the streets. A green river divided the village. Ducks and geese were lazily floating on its surface. Houses lined the sides of the river, with their green tiles and gray bricks.
A wooden bridge only big enough to hold one vehicle at a time joined the two banks. Not far from the bridge, they encountered a villager who gave them directions to Yin Aijun’s home.
Her house was near the riverbank. The courtyard gate was open, and the yard was well maintained. In the center was a big date tree with leafy branches that had been growing for years.
An old man came out of the building. He was average size with a full head of white hair and warm eyes. He seemed kind. Han Yin guessed it was probably Yin Aijun’s father, Yin Dexing. Han Yin and Gu Feifei introduced themselves; then Yin Dexing led them into the house.
In the middle was the kitchen with sleeping rooms on either side. Yin Dexing’s wife and Yin Aijun’s younger sister were cleaning up the dishes. Her sister had married and moved to the city but had come back today to visit her parents.
After sitting down and exchanging pleasantries, Han Yin mentioned taking DNA samples from the parents without mentioning why. Han Yin didn’t want to give this family any unjustified hope, for fear of upsetting their lives, which now seemed peaceful. Fortunately, Yin Dexing didn’t ask many questions and cooperated, giving the samples while his wife went to boil water for tea.
Yin Dexing didn’t say much and mostly stared at the table. Yin Aijun’s sister cried and begged Han Yin and Gu Feifei to restore her sister’s honor. For a decade, some of the media had been spreading rumors of Yin Aijun as a party girl who slept around. Yin Aijun had been gentle, quiet, sensible, and kindhearted.
Han Yin was more concerned if anything unusual had happened involving this family after Yin Aijun’s death.
Yin Dexing thought about it. “Well, not recently. Three or four years ago, someone came here claiming to be a reporter. Brought a lot of expensive gifts. He also wanted to give us money. I wouldn’t accept it. He didn’t ask anything, just chatted with us. He looked around a lot, asked for some photographs of Aijun, and then left.”
“What did he look like?” Han Yin asked.
“It’s been too long now. I don’t have a clear memory of him, except he was in his forties.”
“Anything else?”
He hesitated, weighing something in his mind. His wife came in with the tea and served everyone. The couple’s eyes met, and she nodded. The father again hesitated. Then he said, “There’s one other thing. Seems incredible, and if I tell it, you might think I’m crazy. The policemen took some samples and cremated Aijun. I brought back her ashes and made her a tomb in the Back Mountain Cemetery. One evening after dinner, my wife and I took a stroll out there to have a few words with Aijun. It was quite dark, but we could see someone standing there. She had her back to us, but her build, her hairstyle, her clothes, all strongly resembled Aijun. I ran over to her. My wife slipped and fell. I turned around to help her up, and when I turned back, the girl was gone. I thought my eyes had fooled me, but my wife said she’d seen her, too. We went back home and didn’t sleep. We couldn’t figure out who or what it was.”
“When was this?” asked Han Yin.
“August, the year before last.”
“And afterward?”
“Nothing. We only saw her that one time.”
“That’s very interesting. Thank you for telling us. And if we find out anything more, we’ll definitely notify you immediately.”
Han Yin and Gu Feifei were about to leave when the family urged them to stay for dinner. Han Yin and Gu Feifei thanked them for their hospitality but insisted they had work to do. They were all saying good-bye when suddenly an ear-splitting police siren wailed, and several officers came running through the neighborhood. A tense look came over Yin Dexing, and he said to his wife, “Oh no, Teacher Zhao’s child?”
“Hard to say. Maybe they found her near here?” Yin Aijun’s mother said, frightened. Then she realized she may have said too much. Flustered, she turned to her daughter. “You should probably get packed and head back to the city. You don’t have to worry about us.”
“I know,” their daughter said, also looking frightened.
“What’s going on? What’s happening in this village?” Han Yin asked.
“It’s just . . . there’s been some horrible incidents!” Yin Dexing said.
His wife poked him and said, “Don’t talk nonsense!”
“What nonsense? Why are you so afraid of speaking up?” Yin Dexing glared at his wife. Then he said to Han Yin and Gu Feifei, “Don’t blame her. It’s just something the village is trying to keep secret.”
Han Yin realized there must have been big trouble here. He sat back down in the chair, and Gu Feifei followed suit.
Yin Dexing said, “Beginning last month, Old Li’s daughter disappeared after getting off work. The next morning, someone discovered a gunnysack by the wooden bridge. He opened it and saw a headless corpse, cut to pieces. Later, they identified the clothing and knew it was Old Li’s girl. A week later, Old Zhang’s daughter also went missing after getting off work. The next day, she was found in a gunnysack in front of the village committee gate. They said she’d been cut up the same way. Decapitated, too. Then, yesterday, Teacher Zhao’s girl also disappeared after work. I bet they’ve just found her.”
“All this has caused quite a big stir. The city has sent people, and the village cou
ncil has warned people not to go around spreading rumors, afraid it could affect the village’s image,” Yin Dexing’s wife said, unable to resist getting her say in.
“That gang of officials is just afraid that if anything happens, it will affect their image and standing,” Yin Dexing said. “The more they cover it up, the more the rumors fly. Let me tell you, all kinds of things are being said. Some people are saying those girls had become the leaders’ mistresses, and when the leaders had their fill, they hired someone to keep them quiet. Or that the girls were stealing from work and someone took revenge. And worse, some of the rumors actually involve our Aijun. Both those girls had been born the same year as she was, when there was a big flood in the village, and the Dragon King Temple on the riverbank collapsed. Now people are claiming that year has brought bad luck, with first Aijun murdered and now those two girls. I hope someone isn’t killing all children born that year.”
While Yin Dexing’s understanding of the matter was limited, the specific circumstances might still be linked to Yin Aijun. The three girls, each born in the same year, were brutally murdered and cut up in the same way. Even though a lot of time had passed between Yin Aijun’s murder and the recent incidents, some kind of connection still might exist. Han Yin was going to have to learn the details of this case from the local police to see if it might lead to a breakthrough.
20
THE UNPREDICTABLE, EVER-CHANGING NATURE OF THINGS
Not far from the riverside, a police line had formed, and two officers in wet suits were hauling a gunnysack from the river. A number of policemen stepped forward, took the sack, and laid it on the ground. The local police chief untied the rope at the mouth of the sack, and two high-ranking officers came forward, looked inside, nodded at each other, and signaled to the station chief to tie up the sack again and take it over to the police vehicle.
Some officers stayed behind to guard the site during the crime scene investigation. The rest went off with the gunnysack. A mass of onlookers spoke in panicked tones. An older woman let out a piercing cry and fell on the ground. A sturdy young man quickly helped her up. He was sobbing and calling out for his mother. He stared at the gunnysack being transported to the vehicle.