And more terrifying yet, before they had even realized it was a test, each of the first five questions had been crossed out with a bloody X. They would never have the chance to get those questions correct.
"In that case," said Tai Wei, "what's the total number going to be?"
"Seven, nine, eleven," Fang Mu said, deep in thought. "It has to be an odd number. It's unlikely to be eleven, because that would make the crimes go on for too long. He's probably anxious to face-off with me, and I doubt he's patient enough to wait until then. Seven." He nodded thoughtfully. "Seven seems to be the most likely."
"Why seven?"
"I'm a psychological profiler, so I think he wants to have a bit of a psychological competition with me. And in psychology, seven is considered an unusually attractive number."
"Attractive?"
"That's right. For example, when it comes to remembering strings of numbers, people are generally able to remember one or two less or one or two more than seven. From five to nine, in other words. After nine, most people's memories become hazy. So when people try to remember fairly long chains of numbers, such as pi, for instance, they often break them up into groups. In addition, there are many notable parts of human history that happen to involve seven, such as the seven days in a week, seven notes in the diatonic scale, seven colors in the visible spectrum, seven deadly sins, the seventh…" Suddenly Fang Mu stopped talking and the color drained from his face.
"The seventh what?"
"Oh, nothing." Very quickly Fang Mu's expression returned to normal.
Tai Wei lowered his head, as if he were considering something. After some time, he looked up. "Fang Mu."
"Yeah?"
"What were you just about to say?"
Fang Mu stared at him for several seconds. Then he smiled. "I don't know. If I really am part of this test, then I must be the last part. And if I'm not part of it, then my time's going to come immediately after it's over. In short, I can't escape."
Seeing the calm look on Fang Mu's face, Tai Wei didn't know what to say. The kid was discussing his own murder in the same manner as one might discuss football or the weather or some other totally inconsequential topic. It was absurd.
Tapping the gun on his waist, Tai Wei said slowly, "I won't let anything happen to you."
Fang Mu smiled indifferently. "I hope that's the case. But like you said, this is my fate. If I really am meant to die, then there's no avoiding it."
He walked to the window and looked out. Through the frost that was already covering the glass he could vaguely make out the streetlights below, as well as the students who passed beneath them, talking and laughing loudly.
"Death," said Fang Mu quietly. "Actually, heaven has already been looking after me."
Then with one by the bed and the other at the window, the two men in Room 313 lapsed into silence. Fang Mu looked outside and Tai Wei looked at Fang Mu.
The light through the window gave him a slightly golden silhouette. After a while, Tai Wei got up and stood beside him.
"Assuming you're right," said Tai Wei slowly, "then there's still two more." He looked out at the darkening campus. Even now it was still buzzing with life.
After a long time, Fang Mu spoke. His voice was soft and sounded as if he were speaking only to himself.
"There's still two more."
The days grew colder and colder. Soon girls had no choice but to abandon their more fashionable, revealing clothing for heavier attire. And as the summer colors quietly vanished from campus, the whole place became much lonelier and more desolate.
Great swaths of leaves were now daily blown from the trees by the fierce autumn wind and floated gently to the ground. When stepped on, they crackled softly, as if not yet resigned to their fate. The day before a light snow had blanketed the ground, but now the ground was covered in mud and slowly rotting leaves. It seemed as if overnight the once bustling campus had been filled with the air of death.
But what the students found truly unsettling wasn't this bleak scenery; it was the presence of all the stern-eyed policemen constantly hurrying about.
The special investigation team had already been stationed at the campus for over a week. They could be seen in academic buildings, dining halls, dorms, and library, either in uniform or plainclothes. Many students, used to their previously unencumbered lives, felt increasingly uncomfortable, and a sense of antipathy slowly spread among the student body. Nearly every day some kind of dispute between a student and a police officer was reported to campus security. For the pair of provosts individually in charge of student affairs and campus management, every day was a headache. They each prayed for no one else to die and that the police would catch the killer as soon as possible.
Unlike his peers who were either indifferent to or annoyed by these recent developments, Fang Mu was much more concerned with the progress of the investigation. As Tai Wei had requested, no word of Fang Mu's connection to the case was being aired for the time being and all investigations into his background were conducted in secret. This allowed Fang Mu to continue searching undisturbed for clues to the sixth crime. Of course, unless he was forced to be elsewhere, Tai Wei was by the kid's side nearly every day-just in case.
Today was another busy afternoon. Fang Mu was in the reference room poring over the thick book before him while Tai Wei was sleeping soundly at the next table over, flecks of saliva hanging from the corners of his mouth.
The reference room was crowded. It was almost finals, and with everyone busy writing their term papers, students were constantly arriving to checkout books. When they saw Tai Wei passed out on the table, more than a few eyebrows were raised, and Librarian Sun kept worriedly glancing over at the brand new edition of 200 Years of Western Crime (1800–1993) propped under the policeman's head.
Fang Mu rubbed his temples in exhaustion and then flipped to the next page. While reading one of the paragraphs, his breath suddenly caught in his throat.
He quickly read it again two more times, his face reddening with excitement. He jumped out of his seat, ran over to Tai Wei, and shook him awake.
"Hey," he said, "you need to look at this."
Tai Wei leapt to his feet in surprise, saliva hanging from his mouth, one hand going to his sidearm.
"What's going on?" he cried.
At the sound of his voice, everyone in the reference room looked up in surprise. One student who had been climbing a stepladder to reach a book on the top shelf was so startled he fell to the floor.
Ignoring all the displeased looks around him, Fang Mu merely smiled apologetically at Librarian Sun, who appeared stupefied, and impatiently placed the open book in front of Tai Wei.
Buttoning the holster on his gun, Tai Wei awkwardly looked down. He immediately frowned. When he had finished reading, he took out a pack of cigarettes and placed one in his mouth. Seeing this, Fang Mu quickly pulled him out into the hall.
The two of them smoked in silence in the stairwell. When their cigarettes were half gone, Tai Wei looked at Fang Mu and asked probingly: "The Yorkshire Ripper? You think that's who the killer's going to copy next?"
"I think it's a definite possibility." Fang Mu tossed his cigarette to the floor and slowly crushed it with his foot. "You just read it yourself. That five-pound note matches him perfectly."
Tai Wei nodded and thought back on what he had just read.
Dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper", a British man named Peter Sutcliffe had killed thirteen women between 1975 and 1980. His method of choice was to beat his victims over the head with a ball-peen hammer and then stab them in the chest with a screwdriver. After killing them, he liked to place a five-pound note in one of their hands.