For the rest of the afternoon Fang Mu did nothing but research and take notes. Besides getting up every now and then to find new books and return old ones, he barely moved.
People came and went. Sometimes the reference room was noisy, sometimes it was quiet. But none of this affected Fang Mu in the least. Every bit of his attention was focused on the materials before him. Floating down the river of humankind's criminal history, he brushed past butchers of all kinds, from hulking behemoths to wretched wraiths. Hurtling through the decades, he read about crimes so blood-drenched that they threatened to soak the very pages of his notebook, and entered the minds of criminals from 10, 50, even 100 years ago. All the while, he felt himself drawing steadily closer to the truth.
By the time he was finally so exhausted that he could write no more, the sky outside was already growing dark. Massaging his temples, he got up and walked to the water cooler, filled a paper cup full of cold water, and downed it in one gulp.
By now he was the last person left in the reference room. He looked at his watch. The library would be closing soon. Returning to his table, he slowly gathered up his belongings. All of a sudden, he felt an extreme tiredness creep over him.
How am I this exhausted?
His hands and feet felt as if they were filled with lead, his eyelids fought to close, and his chair felt more comfortable than it ever had before…
The sun is blazing hot. Out on the sunbaked basketball court with all my friends from the dorm, wearing shorts and no shirts, playing ball. Third Brother is being too competitive. We had to win, and if we lost he wouldn't let us leave.
The dorm hallway. Passing silent, grim-faced students, blankets held tightly over their shoulders. Sun Qingdong from Room 351 is sitting in front of the door to the bathroom stall, shaking all over. Someone whispers to me: Zhou Jun died in there.
The library. Flipping through the pages of a book, the sound like a tree full of dry leaves rustling in the breeze. Shock as I look at the library card at the back of the book, at all the familiar names that have checked it out.
The little market. Her hair fluttering, Chen Xi laughs and says, ‘It's up to you. Which one do you think is the best?’
The Route 25 bus station. Chen Xi rests her head against my shoulder.
The student club. Savagely, the demon raises his axe high. Blood spurts into the air. Chen Xi's pale, tranquil face.
Room 352. Wang Jian and Fourth Brother's bodies lie twisted amid the flames. A scorched odor fills the air. Wu Han stands before the door. Slowly, he turns around. Panicked, I say, ‘You were the seventh reader.’ Smiling thinly, he walks slowly toward me, the military dagger in his hand.
Then he whispers, ‘Actually, you and I are the same…’
No…
Suddenly Fang Mu leapt to his feet, startling the dark shape before him so it moved back a few steps.
"Are you okay?"
It was Librarian Sun. Fang Mu could see his own disturbed, sweat-soaked face reflected in the glasses perched on the bridge of the librarian's nose.
"Oh, uh, I'm fine," said Fang Mu, taking his hand from out of his bag, where he had been grasping the handle of the military dagger.
"The library is about to close," said Librarian Sun, still badly shaken, "so when I saw you lying on the desk fast asleep, I figured I'd go wake you up. I didn't expect you'd scream and leap up like that. Scared me half to death."
"Sorry," said Fang Mu, "I was just having a bad dream." He forced himself to smile.
"Don't worry about it," said Librarian Sun, patting him on the shoulder. "You may be young, but you still need to take care of yourself."
Fang Mu nodded, but said nothing more. After gathering his things, he grabbed his bag and left the reference room.
The deceased was one Thomas Gill, 41, a white male from the United States, formerly in charge of hiring at the JiangbinCityUniversity foreign teachers administrative department. On the night of the murder, he took a cab from the school gate to the nearby Evening Breeze Jazz Club. There he had several drinks, but no one paid attention to what time he left. This above information was gleaned from his cab driver, who often picked up people outside the school gates, and the staff at the club.
Cause of death was shock due to blood loss. According to the autopsy, by the time his body was discovered, the victim had already been dead for at least 15 hours. He had been stabbed a total of 21 times in the chest by a sharp blade measuring five to seven inches in length and approximately 1.5 inches in width. Based on the location and appearance of the victim's wounds, the killer seemed to be a right-handed adult man standing between 5'7" and 5'10".
Other than the victim's watch, which had been set to 5:25:25, none of his belongings had been touched. His money, bank card, and credit card were all still in his wallet.
Based on an investigation of the crime scene, it was determined that the pigpen where the victim was found was not the scene of his murder. Since the victim was quite heavy, the killer had probably used some sort of vehicle to transport his body. The testimony given by the individual who reported the crime and the results of the autopsy both indicated that the victim was probably left in the pigpen between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Police interviewed people living near the crime scene in hopes of finding someone who had seen a suspicious vehicle that day, but they came away with just about nothing. Only one person, a roughly 70-year-old woman, said that on the day the body was discovered, she happened to spot a white car parked near the crime scene. Unfortunately, she was unable to provide the car's make, model or license plate number. And because so many cars had driven past the crime scene by now, even if the killer's car had been parked there, its tracks would be impossible to find.
Interestingly, according to the victim's coworkers, he had been gay. This made police suspect that perhaps the killer was gay as well, or rather had merely pretended to be so that he could trick the victim into accompanying him to the murder scene, where he then took the man's life.
The U.S. and Chinese heads of state had visited each other's nations at the end of 2001 and the beginning of 2002. This was perhaps even more significant for the new American president, who was making his first visit to China. A high-ranking U.S. military officer was also set to visit China at the end of the year, and now the whole world was watching as military relations between the two countries appeared to warm. Therefore, the U.S. consulate in JiangbinCity was paying close attention to this case and had spoken on multiple occasions with the city government and Public Security Bureau in hopes of obtaining a speedy resolution.
The special investigation team could feel the pressure.
Another bright afternoon. As usual, Tai Wei and Fang Mu were sitting on the bench beside the basketball court, a stack of absurdly thick folders beside them.
First, Tai Wei updated Fang Mu on their current progress investigating the case. Fang Mu listened closely, rarely interrupting. Finally, with a downcast look on his face, Tai Wei said that they still hadn't found any clues as to the next murder. Fang Mu thought for a moment, and then grabbed one of the case folders and began reading.
While he was looking through the evidence photos, Fang Mu paused on one of the pictures for a long time. In it, the contents of the victim's wallet were spread out on a table. In addition to a bank card and credit card from the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and a certain amount of U.S. dollars and Chinese renminbi, Fang Mu also saw a strangely-colored bill, but because it was halfway covered by some of the other items, he couldn't make out its denomination or form of currency.
"What's this one?" asked Fang Mu, pointing at the unknown bill. "The one in the middle."