The Blade of Silence (Fang Mu Eastern Crimes Series Book 3)

by Mi Lei

  Old Ghost was beaming with joy. Kneeling down, he embraced his son. "Do you want something? Let Daddy get you a treat!" He paused, his expression suddenly dead serious. "But no pearl milk-tea."

  With a twist and a turn, Yang Yang freed himself from his father's embrace. He spun around to face Fang Mu, staring with open hostility. "He's police. Have you done something wrong again?"

  "No, no. Your father always…you know…" Old Ghost stumbled over his words. "Your father promised you ..."

  "Your father has done nothing wrong," Fang Mu said consolingly, kneeling down as well. He patted Yang Yang's head. "He's on a secret mission for the police."

  "What mission?" The boy was not entirely convinced.

  "I can't tell you," Fang Mu explained. "It is a secret mission after all."

  "All right then. My father knows lots of things," he said importantly, buying the excuse. "Then...should I pretend that I don't know you?"

  "That's all right," Fang Mu said with a grin. "Go get yourself something. Let Uncle treat you."

  As Yang Yang hurried off, Old Ghost heaved a sigh of relief. He turned to Fang Mu and offered an awkward, "Thank you."

  Fang Mu didn't respond, instead pulling five 100-yuan notes from his wallet. "For your CI work," he said, giving Old Ghost the money. He received no thanks as Old Ghost indifferently stuffed the bills into his pocket. He was about to leave when Fang Mu stopped him. "Wait."

  Old Ghost's face was a mask of misery. "Really, I don't know anything, Fang..."

  "Take this."

  Old Ghost stared in confusion as Fang Mu handed him another two 100-yuan notes.

  "It's cold; get your kid a new pair of shoes." Fang Mu looked over to Yang Yang, gaze dropping to the boy's feet. "I can see his toes poking out of the old ones."

  Old Ghost hesitated, but then took the money. He obviously wasn't sure about this. He continued looking at Fang Mu out of the corner of his eyes as he turned, unwilling to stay, but not ready to leave.

  "Go on." Fang Mu waved him off. He stood and took his first step toward the door. "Your kid is waiting."

  Old Ghost didn't move. Licking his lips, he held the money tight, and for a fleeting moment, fierce determination flashed across his face. "Officer Fang?" he quietly said.

  "Hm?" Fang Mu didn't look back.

  "Just a short while ago, somebody saw someone named Ding have a look at the Baixin Bath Palace. He went in, but no one saw him come out," Old Ghost whispered.

  Fang Mu instantly spun around, eyes again fixed on Old Ghost. "Thank you," he said softly and sincerely.

  Old Ghost just shrugged his shoulders and awkwardly mumbled. "You take good care of yourself."

  Then the father walked over to his son. Taking Yang Yang by the hand, he left the restaurant.

  The Baixin Bath Palace was located at the edge of town. Its legal representative was listed as Li Shouqing, a 47-year-old man. The tax records showed that the establishment paid a considerable amount of taxes every month; apparently business was booming. When Fang Mu arrived at the Baixin Bath Palace, however, he was in for a shock.

  Despite its grandiose name, it turned out to be nothing more than a small, two-story building. Maybe its facade had once done it justice, but now it had fallen into a bad state of disrepair. Time and neglect had stripped the ornate carvings on its walls of all their luster and filled every nook and cranny with grime. Circling the building, Fang Mu found all its windows blocked by thick curtains. Nothing on the outside offered even the slightest hint of what was going on inside the walls.

  A yellowed, crumbling piece of paper hung next to the door. It read: "Closed for renovations".

  Considering his options, Fang Mu decided to walk away for the moment. He crossed the street to a bicycle repair stall on the other side. After offering the old man attending the stall a cigarette, Fang Mu and he began to chat. As they talked, Fang Mu casually inquired about the Baixin Bath Palace. The old man told him that his stall had been in that same location for years, and he had even been around when construction first began for the Baixin Bath Palace. The strange thing was that just after the workers finished the decoration on the walls, the site had been completely abandoned. From then on, he had not once seen anyone enter the building. The Baixan Bath Palace had never officially opened for business.

  Fang Mu, of course, had his suspicions of what was really going on.

  As soon as he was back at the Bureau, he searched the records for material on Li Shouqing. It was as he expected. "Li Shouqing" was indeed a real person and he was listed with the correct identity number, but he was a peasant from Hebei Province's Gu'an County who had never once set foot outside of his native jurisdiction.

  Obviously, the Baixin Bath Palace was just a legal invention, an empty shell whose real value lay in its ability to launder money from some illicit activity or…

  Fang Mu did not really want to contemplate the alternatives; after all, Ding Shucheng was probably still inside.

  Night is night because the sun ceases to illuminate the Earth, but it isn't the end of light, not these days. An ocean of lamps shines on the world of man. Some, like bedside lamps, are warm and soft; others, like the neon signs of the city, are harsh and flickering in restless disharmony. In the depth of night, they all shine with unbridled enthusiasm. To them, the coming dawn is no more than a half-forgotten legend.

  In this night, some cannot find sleep. Others do not want to sleep.

  In the lockup, he was lying on his cold bunk, staring up at the slivers of moonlight falling through the tiny window of his cell.

  She quietly slid out of bed, leaving her boyfriend to his thunderous snoring. In the dark of the living room, she lit a cigarette. Slowly inhaling, she thought of the policeman and the few short hours they had spent together.

  Sitting behind the wheel of the jeep, he stared through weary eyes at the never-opened bathhouse.

  And they: They huddled together against the cold, alone in the dark, surrounded by the eternal silence of the towering forest of stone. Their only company was the quiet of the river.

  They haunted this night like restless ghosts, drifting through the silent ruins that mankind had wrought.

  Jing Xu, too, was awake. It wasn't that he was not tired; he just didn't want to sleep. Every second was a new beginning and every second, all things ended.

  He had grown tired of each supple breast and and every silky thigh. Yet, he continued to stroke them as if they could all vanish in an instant and be lost to him forever. In truth, he knew that he could never have them.

  Still, facing his judgment day, he wanted to savor every second.

  Jin Yongyu entered the private room. Seeing the decadent excess inside, he frowned ever so slightly. He would have never let it show, but the sight amused him more than anything else. There were four naked girls and one fully dressed Jing Xu.

  Drunk and high on Special K, Jing Xu stared at the man in the doorway with a half-conscious daze. When he finally realized who it was, he nodded slightly, but made no effort to rise from where he was seated.

  With a mere flick of his wrist, Jin Yongyu let the girls know that they were no longer needed. They scrambled for their clothes, hastily got dressed, and one by one darted out of the private room.

  After the last of the girls had left, Jin Yongyu took a seat beside the befuddled Jing Xu. For a while, he stared at the young security guard's expressionless face. He hardly seemed ready for a conversation, so Jin Yongyu instead concentrated on the room's TV set. A black man was on top of a white girl, and she was screaming and squealing. It was exciting for a second, but grew stale just as quickly.

  "Having fun?" Jin Yongyu lit a cigarette.

  Jing Xu was vacantly staring at the screen. After what seemed like an eternity, he nodded.

  "Then enjoy." Jin Yongyu drew a thick envelope from his pocket and dropped it on the table. "It's from the boss."

  Jing Xu stared at the envelope for a few seconds before his eyes wandered away again. He seemed to
nod, but his head barely moved.

  Jin Yongyu smiled and stubbed out his cigarette. He stood back up. "Enjoy. The boss is always happy to reward loyalty, and punish failure." Finished, he turned to head for the door.

  Jing Xu, who had a moment before barely managed to nod, suddenly spoke up. "I want girls," he said, stressing every word. "I want four new ones."

  The brazen demand caught Jin Yongyu off-guard. For a second, he just stood there. Then, he slowly replied, "Sure."

  He left and closed the door behind him and turned to the attendant standing at the ready. "Get him four girls, and make it new ones."

  "Oh?" The attendant seemed reluctant. "Elder Brother Jin, the girls say that Elder Brother Jing is too rough with them." His eyes darted to the door. "He even draws blood..."

  Jin Yongyu didn't respond. His lips drew into a firm line, his level gaze fixed on the attendant.

  The man felt himself shrivel at the callous stare. Taking a few steps back, he hung his head. "I'll make the arrangements." He turned quickly around and almost jogged away.

  With a derisive snort, Jin Yongyu walked off. After just a few steps, he felt the cell phone in his pocket vibrate. He answered the phone and his face immediately darkened. He hung up and quickly dialed another number. "Boss, there's a situation at the cage!"

  It was after two o'clock. At this time, the lonely street at the edge of the city seemed completely abandoned. Fang Mu crumpled the empty pack of cigarettes in his hand, then he grabbed his backpack and got out of the jeep. The area around the Baixin Bath Palace was covered in thick weeds. In the dead of the night, the sound of every rustling step seemed maddeningly magnified. Every few steps, he felt something hard break under his shoes with a much too loud crack. He could only guess they were old pieces of bottles, snapping under his feet. With each noise he froze in his tracks. Standing absolutely silent, he carefully listened for any sound other than his own quiet breaths. But nothing ever stirred. Only the occasional distant barking of a dog disturbed the perfect silence.

  Fang Mu slowly approached a window on the building. Crouching under the frame, he retrieved a glass-cutter from his backpack. He attached its suction disk to the window and began drawing an almost two-foot circle with the tool's blade. The circle complete, he carefully removed the cut section of the pane and placed it on the ground. He reached through the hole and carefully opened the curtains. Barely inside, Fang Mu's hand was stopped.

  Behind the dusty velvet of the curtain his hand had hit cold steel. As expected, the window was barred.

  Unperturbed, Fang Mu quickly disassembled the glass cutter. After he had carefully packed it away, he stood up and made his way around to the back. There he found a raised terrace attached to the rear of the Baixin Bath Palace. He stepped onto it and cautiously approached an iron door that he assumed would lead to the kitchen. Shining his flashlight, he saw that the door was blocked by a thick iron bar held in place by a large lock. Weighing the lock in his hand, he estimated its cold, rusted heft. Confident that it would pose no problem, he retrieved a crowbar from his back pack. He jammed the bar into the lock's shackle and forced it with all the strength he would give. With a loud, metallic snap, the lock broke open.

  The moment he felt the metal give, Fang Mu crouched down. He waited, silently watching and listening, until he was sure that he was indeed alone. Only then did he slowly pull the door open.

  Once inside, Fang Mu found himself standing in a windowless room. The ceiling, walls, and floor were still unfinished, revealing nothing but bare concrete. A multitude of empty, discarded food wrappers, bottles, and eggshells littered the floor. A gas stove in one corner confirmed that this was once meant to be a kitchen.

  Across the room Fang Mu saw a wooden door. He gave the latch a try and it compliantly opened with a creak. He was immediately hit by a cold draft, suggesting a large room on the other side. He shone his flashlight into the darkness. Four steps led down to a large hall. Two large rectangular pits in the ground dictated that this would have been the actual bath area. He carefully walked down the steps and continued his exploration. Here everything had the impression that construction work had just been completed; apparently, the crews had not even gotten around to cleaning up the site before they'd left.

  Fang Mu walked over to the edge of one of the pits and shone his flashlight down. What he saw could hardly be called a pool, as there was no sign of tiles that should have covered its walls and floor. Construction had obviously never proceeded further than a crude layer of cement slapped across the exposed surfaces. The beam of his flashlight also revealed straw mats and blankets strewn haphazardly across the bottom of the pit. Something about them caught Fang Mu's attention and he let himself drop down into the pit.

  His feet hit the bottom with a squelch. Looking down, he saw that he had landed on a blanket, rolled up and decayed beyond all further recognition. He carefully examined the detritus, pulling a few pieces of straw from one of the mats.

  They were wet, but not yet rotten.

  Fang Mu looked about with a frown. Someone had obviously been here and it certainly had not been the construction workers. In this damp environment, the straw should have rotted years ago. It was a shocking realization, and Fang Mu hardly wanted to imagine the squalor of living in the ruin. With a plank from the side of the pit, he began flipping the blankets and mats. They were wet and heavy and despite the cold, they released a pungent stench. Several minutes later, he found a tattered shred of cloth. Shining his flashlight on it, he could barely make out its washed-out, pink color. He looked more closely and saw that it had probably once been a shirt. Given its size, its owner must have been small, almost tiny. Grinding his teeth, Fang Mu dropped the plank. If he was not mistaken, this was where they had kept kidnapped girls.

  In one corner of the unfinished pool room, a simple, open set of stairs led up to the second level. Climbing the stairs, Fang Mu saw that the second floor was much like the first and covered in the remains of unfinished construction work. The central hall was a wide open space, perhaps once destined to be a lounge area. It was surrounded by smaller rooms, most likely the empty husks of private rooms-to-be. With the exception of a simple toilet, there seemed little else of interest up there. That was, until he walked down the corridor.

  He had stumbled upon a part of the building in complete chaos, even when compared to the rest of the unfinished and dilapidated bathhouse. Broken chairs, tables, and bottles covered the floor and a steel girder hung from a crack in the ceiling above. As Fang Mu swept his flashlight across the area, he noticed that its beam cast curious shadows on the walls. Stepping closer, he saw that the wall was marked by what looked like cuts and gashes. Then he noticed holes, small, round, and the size of bullets. He investigated further and discovered a brownish stain on the wall. It had not yet dried completely. Judging by the height, it was probably the splatter left as someone's head met a gruesome and final fate.

  Fang Mu carefully examined the floor and soon found many more traces of blood. He realized that his hands were trembling only when he saw the beam of his flashlight shake.

  He was standing in the aftermath of a fierce battle. He barely wanted to imagine who the victims might have been. Forcing himself to move on, he walked over to the next room.

  Inside, a shadow waited for him. Someone was in there, gun in hand.

  An ambush.

  Fang Mu twisted away from the door and flicked off his flashlight. With his back to the wall, he frantically searched his backpack. When he finally wrapped his fingers around the crowbar, his hands were covered in cold sweat.

  It took him another second to realize that the ambusher hadn't fired his gun. In fact, apparently he hadn't moved at all.

  Pushing his glasses back up his sweat-slick nose, Fang Mu tried to calm his ragged breathing. Verging on panic, he strained to hear what his ambusher was doing. Whoever it was, he was incredibly patient. Fang Mu hadn't heard a single noise from the other side of the doorway.

  As t
he tension grew unbearable, Fang Mu shouted, "Who are you? Drop you weapon and come out! I'm a police officer!"

  The empty halls and rooms magnified his voice, echoing it through the building before fading. A long silence followed; maybe it was a minute, maybe ten, perhaps even longer.

  There was no answer.

  It made no sense. If this was an ambush, there would be more than one attacker. The others should have long joined in the attack or at least done something. And the silhouette had the opportunity to shoot, why didn't he? Fang Mu reasoned.

  Taking a deep breath, he squatted down and carefully sidled up to the doorway. He twisted at the waist and shot the beam of the flashlight right into the center of the room.

  It hit the ambusher straight in the face. Fang Mu had planned to harness the element of surprise and throw his crowbar. Instead, he only gasped in shock. All plans and thought left his mind the moment he saw the face.

  It was the visage of a dead man. His lifeless eyes were barely open, his face deformed by swelling. A deep cut across his cheeks had peeled his lips back, giving him the appearance of a pouting child. But despite it all, Fang Mu immediately recognized Ding Shucheng.

  Why was he here?

  Who had killed him?

  Was it to silence a witness or had he sacrificed himself after his true identity had been exposed?

  A torrent of questions crashed down on Fang Mu's mind, leaving him frozen in mid-motion. Slowly, he clawed his way back up to the pressing matters at hand. He stood and walked over to Ding Shucheng's corpse and shone his flashlight over the body to take a closer look.

  Ding Shucheng had apparently been dead for some time. His body had already begun to rot. Only the cold of the past few days had prevented a more total state of decay. As it was, enough of his corpse remained intact to bear witness to the tragic tale of his death.

  His hair was tangled and caked with dried blood. So much brownish-black blood covered his scalp that it was almost impossible to see the wounds beneath. Even in death, his narrowed eyes seemed vigilant and ready.