Fang Mu climbed down the stadium steps to the edge of the soccer field. Then stepped onto the soft turf and walked slowly toward the north goal.
The turf around the goal had been trampled out of shape. Before it, the chalk outline of a figure lay in silence, its two shortened arms pointed at either post. Fang Mu stood and looked at the outline for a long time before walking slowly over to the left goalpost. That morning, one of Qu Weiqiang's hands had been found here. The killer had left the other by the right post.
Fang Mu knelt and looked at the grass. It was too dark to tell how much blood there had been, but he doubted it was a lot.
Most likely, Qu Weiqiang's hands were cut off after he was already dead.
He walked back to where the body had lain. Copying its position, he spread his arms wide. In a flash, he felt himself go so lightheaded that he nearly fell over. Steadying himself, he quickly stepped back.
The goal stood in silence beneath the night sky, Qu Weiqiang's chalk silhouette prostrated beneath it. The combination somehow made this normally unremarkable goal seem incredibly dangerous, as if it was death's gate itself, and this empty outline the last thing the victim had left of himself before leaving this world.
Fang Mu took a careful step forward, and then another and another. Holding his breath, he stepped over the police cordon and inside the goal.
Nothing happened. Rather than being met by the raging flames of hell, Fang Mu saw only the dark and empty stadium. Flickering stars still filled the night sky above him. He took a deep breath. There was no hint of blood in the dry air.
Then he turned and hurried out of the stadium, thinking, Fang Mu, you are goddamned crazy.
On July 1, 2002, a dead body was discovered on the JiangbinCityUniversity soccer field. A male student who had gotten to the field early to run spotted the body lying face down beneath one of the goals. As soon as the crime was reported, the PSB's State Enterprise and Nonprofit Institution Investigative Division rushed to the scene and got to work.
The victim was found to be one Qu Weiqiang, a 19-year-old physics major from LinjiangCity in Jilin province. Cause of death was a blow to the head, most likely from a hammer or similar weapon. The body was found placed beneath the soccer field's northern goal, with the head pointing south and the feet north. Both the victim's hands were chopped off and left beside either goalpost. Based on a preliminary examination of the body and the scene, it was determined that the victim was most likely killed at another location and then transported to the soccer field.
According to their initial interviews, the police discovered that the victim had been assigned to Dormitory 4, Room 611, but that he had been living off-campus with his girlfriend in a rented apartment since the beginning of the semester. With the help of the victim's former roommate, the police found the apartment. They knocked on the door for a long time but received no response. After locating the landlord, they were let inside. The scene was unimaginable, but it was also exactly what they had expected.
Wang Qian, Qu Weiqiang's girlfriend, had been killed as well, and the apartment was thick with the smell of blood. After entering the bedroom, the police found her naked corpse lying on the floor. Her head pointed north (toward the bedroom door) and her feet south (toward the open window), and her limbs were spread-eagled on the floor. After taking a closer look, the police discovered that the body had been hacked into six pieces (head, torso, legs and arms) and then pieced back together as if still whole. Even though a medical syringe was found inserted in the victim's chest on the underside of her left breast, the medical examiners determined that the actual cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation-seemingly by hand, based on the marks on the victim's neck. According to the autopsy, the victim had long since lost her virginity. There were also signs that she had been violently raped prior to her death, but there was no trace of semen in her vagina, meaning that the killer must have used a condom.
The murder scene was located in a residential area near JiangbinCityUniversity. The couple's apartment was on the left-hand side of the second floor of a small, three-story building. Their bedroom window had its screen torn open and overlooked a bicycle shed. Because of the hot weather, all the windows in the apartment had been open on the night of the murder, which had allowed the killer to climb onto the bicycle shed, break through the screen and then sneak into the apartment. On the bed were found a large amount of blood, hair, and skull fragments. These were brought in for testing, and identified as belonging to Qu Weiqiang. As a result, it was believed likely that this had been the scene of his murder. But even though two people had been killed here and one of them hacked apart, the apartment hardly resembled a slaughterhouse, and not a single fingerprint or footprint was found. Someone had cleaned the place well.
Because the murder was committed on the anniversary of the Communist Party, the director of the PSB initially took great interest in it. However, once it was clearly established that the crime had no political undertones, it was handed off to the State Enterprise and Nonprofit Institution Investigative Division.
A double homicide. Immediately the case raised an uproar at JiangbinCityUniversity, and the school began actively cooperating with the police to help solve it. Campus security was also greatly strengthened, as was supervision of the dormitories. A direct result of this was that all the young couples who had been covertly living off-campus were forced to return to their respective dorm rooms. A less direct result was that all those students who liked studying in lonely corners of campus after dark were now often treated to live shows of a most intimate variety.
Uniformed police could often be seen on campus interviewing students, especially the victims' friends and classmates. More than once the school's soccer coach suggested that the police should investigate Jiangbin City's other university soccer teams. When they ignored him, he decided to hold a retirement ceremony for Qu Weiqiang's jersey on his own.
Even though everyone had finals, the jersey retirement ceremony still attracted a lot of people, Fang Mu among them.
It was held on the soccer field. Qu Weiqiang's teammates had formed two lines, and in front of them were the team captain, co-captain and two others, each holding the corner of a soccer jersey and walking slowly and solemnly toward the north goal, while everyone else followed. There a table had been set up, and on it stood a very large, framed picture of the deceased, a soccer ball, and Qu Weiqiang's old cleats. When the team members reached the table they lined up on either side, standing tall with their hands behind their backs. The team captain bowed three times before Qu Weiqiang's picture, and then withdrew a slip of paper from his pocket and began to read aloud.
The speech was mainly a retelling of how Qu Weiqiang had first joined the team and the "outstanding contribution" he had made. The wording was ornate and the content rousing, but it all did seem rather suspiciously over the top. For example, saying that the deceased was an "impregnable god of the goal" and "the future hope of China's soccer world" might have made onlookers think that Wang Dalei had died rather than Qu Weiqiang. Still, the speech was well-received, and by the end tears were rolling down the faces of all the straight-backed players. (Translator’s note: Wang Dalei is a young hotshot Chinese goalie.) Most of those in the audience were also drying their eyes.
When the speech was over, the team captain sprinkled some liquid over the jersey and then used his lighter to set it on fire. In an instant the "1" on the back was engulfed by flames. Before the team captain could react, the jersey had been reduced to a ball of fire, burning his hand and causing him to drop it on the turf. The smell of burning fabric and plastic filled the air. A moment later, the stadium manager cried out and came running over. When he reached the still-burning jersey, he stamped wildly on it until the fire was out. This upset the members of the soccer team, who immediately surrounded the manager and began shouting at him.