CHAPTER 22
Fang Mu's wound wasn't long, but it was very deep. After cleaning it out, the tired-looking doctor on duty at the hospital closed it up with two stitches. When Fang Mu left the examination room, Little Zhang, the cop that had escorted him, was on the phone. Seeing Fang Mu emerge, he quickly hung up. He then asked him a few brief questions about his injury, and said that he would take him back to the school.
Fang Mu shook his head. "Take me to the city bureau."
"Absolutely not." Little Zhang's tone was firm. "Captain Tai ordered me to take you back to school."
"I was the victim of this crime. Don't you have to take my statement?"
Little Zhang seemed stumped by the question, but after hesitating for a moment, he still insisted on taking Fang Mu back to his dorm.
"Well, I don't need an escort!" Fang Mu yelled. "I can get there myself!" He stormed out of the hospital.
As soon as he was outside, he hurriedly hid around the side of the building. A few seconds later he saw Little Zhang sprint out after him. The cop looked all around, swearing beneath his breath. Then he hopped into his car, started it up, and sped off.
When Little Zhang was far enough away, Fang Mu left his hiding place and walked straight to the line of cabs waiting outside the hospital.
The entrance to the city bureau was ablaze with light. Cars packed the courtyard. After hopping out of the cab, Fang Mu approached the heavily-armed policeman guarding the entrance.
"Officer Tai asked me to come and give my statement," he told the cop.
The cop nodded and went into his sentry box to make a call. A few minutes later, Little Zhang came running out of the building.
"I knew you were going to follow me here!" Little Zhang snapped at Fang Mu. "Don't say anything else. As soon as you finish your statement you're leaving. Captain Tai said he'll contact you in a few days."
Fang Mu had no choice but to follow him as he walked away.
After bringing Fang Mu to one of the detainment rooms, the cop told him to wait there a moment and to not do anything stupid, and then left the room.
As soon as he left the room, Fang Mu snuck out after him. The corridor was jammed with people. Uniformed and plainclothes police officers hurried from one room to the next. Occasionally someone would look suspiciously at him, but no one ever stopped to say anything. As he walked, he kept hearing things like, "Bring these documents to the third floor as fast as you can" and "To the interrogation room."
Everyone seemed to be paying close attention to what was happening on the third floor.
Doing his best to stay inconspicuous, Fang Mu hurried up to the third floor.
A large iron door stood open at the end of the corridor. Beyond that was another room. Its back wall was all glass. At the moment, over a dozen policemen were standing quietly near the glass wall. Fang Mu could hear Tai Wei's voice coming from within the crowd.
"…At that moment I feigned having diarrhea, and hid in the bathroom and listened for sounds of movement," he was saying. "Sure enough, I soon heard someone climbing the stairs, so I quietly followed behind him. After he entered the third floor hallway, I watched as he walked a few steps, stopped, and then walked a little farther, until he was standing in front of Room Three-Thirteen. There he seemed to either knock or write something on the door — I couldn't tell at the distance. Afterwards the victim spoke briefly to him, and since I figured that they knew each other, I turned to leave. But before I had gone ten feet I heard the sound of fighting, after which I restrained him and then brought him back here…"
Fang Mu walked quietly farther into the room. Everyone was watching Tai Wei with bated breath, so not a single person noticed him.
"Can you guarantee that this is the killer?" asked one of the listeners, a stern-looking man with a beer belly.
"I can!" Tai Wei's voice and expression were both resolute. "First of all, we discovered that he had indicated the number seven on the victim's door; second, one of my men from the special investigation team recently finished checking the scene — including the suspect's room — and he just called me to say they made a huge discovery."
Several female officers now rushed over and handed several thick stacks of documents to Tai Wei. After briefly flipping through them, he turned to the fat, grave-faced man and said, "Director, we can begin."
The director nodded. "Then let's get started."
Everyone turned toward the glass wall. Not daring to get too close, Fang Mu did his best to catch what was happening through a space in the crowd.
The wall was actually a one-way mirror. On the other side of it was the interrogation room.
Inside that room, it was sparsely furnished, containing only a single table with a lamp, two chairs on one side and one on the other. Two policemen sat side by side, one flipping through the documents that had just been given to him, the other writing something on a piece of paper. The chair opposite them was fixed to the floor, appearing horribly cold and uncomfortable. A camera monitored the scene from the ceiling. It was equipped with a microphone, which amplified all the sounds within the interrogation room and transmitted them to the room on the other side of the glass wall where the onlookers observed.
The small door on the right side of the room opened and Meng Fanzhe was led in by two policemen. His hands and feet were shackled.
He kept his head down and appeared extremely weak, swaying when the police forced him into the chair. The blood had already dried around his mouth and his face was covered with dark red splotches.
The two policemen stared at him for several seconds. Then the older one said: "Name?"
Keeping his head down, Meng Fanzhe made no response.
The other officer turned the desk lamp to face Meng Fanzhe. Enveloped by the bright light, Meng Fanzhe's body made a twisted shadow on the back wall of the room.
"Name?"
Meng Fanzhe still said nothing. He was so motionless he could have been sleeping.
The older officer calmly lit a cigarette and opened one of the files in front of him. "Where were you on the morning of July 1, 2002, between one and three a.m.?"
No response.
"Where were you on the morning of August 10, 2002, between eight and nine a.m.?"
Still no response.
The other officer looked at the mirror on the wall behind him. He knew that many of his colleagues as well as the director himself were all watching from the other side. Turning back to Meng Fanzhe, who was still sitting as lifeless as a block of wood, he couldn't help but be shamed into anger.
Slamming a fist down on the table, the interrogator yelled, "Meng Fanzhe! Don't think that if you stay silent everything will be okay. According to the code of criminal procedure — "
Before he could finish what he was saying, Meng Fanzhe's head suddenly jerked up. Although he was facing the bright light, his eyes were wide open. If looks could have killed, the two officers opposite him would have been dead instantly.
"Aghh!" The same wild howl that Fang Mu had heard in the hallway roared again.
Although shackled to the chair, Meng Fanzhe struggled forward with all the strength he had, looking like he might snap his fetters at any moment and leap on the two officers. The younger one was so startled by the outburst that he recoiled back in his seat. The two cops standing behind Meng Fanzhe hurried to hold him down, but in that moment he seemed to have acquired superhuman strength at odds with his feeble appearance. Despite their superior size, the cops were unable to control him as he thrashed about in his confines, and one was nearly bitten in the commotion.