One after another the students said their goodbyes and left. When Fang Mu walked to the door, he suddenly remembered what Professor Qiao had said to him when they were standing in that same spot only a few days before. Turning to Bian Ping, he said, "Chief Bian, if there's any news, please let me know as soon as possible."
At the moment Bian Ping was speaking to the university president, so he just waved at Fang Mu and said, "I will."
After he returned to his dorm, Fang Mu sat beside his bed and was soon lost in thought. He didn't move until it was almost nightfall.
He couldn't help but connect Professor Qiao's disappearance with what he had said to him.
"Take care of yourself. This will all be over soon."
Unless Fang Mu was wrong, then Professor Qiao seemed to know who the killer was.
Had he tried to catch him single-handedly, and then…?
It was a scenario that Fang Mu was unwilling to consider.
By the time the police began officially investigating the matter, Professor Qiao Yunping had already been missing for 48 hours. They conducted numerous interviews at his workplace and apartment building, and went to the telecommunications bureau to check the call records of his cell and home phone, but discovered nothing of value.
From the time that Professor Qiao went missing, a total of four unidentified corpses were delivered to city hospitals. All four were shown to the missing person's family members, who confirmed that none were the missing professor; nor was any trace of the professor found at any of the city's homeless shelters.
The man had disappeared.
While the police were out searching for Professor Qiao, Fang Mu was also walking every avenue and backstreet of the city. He had no leads and no place in mind. At a loss, he walked down crowded, brightly lit pleasure streets and filthy alleyways, always expecting to turn a corner and see Professor Qiao walking toward him, either from across the street or out of a doorway, or perhaps sitting behind the glass facade of some storefront. Many times he thought he saw him, only to realize upon closer inspection that it was merely someone of a similar age and build.
Where are you?
Every night, as the sky began to grow dark, Fang Mu would return to campus, doleful and exhausted. After eating a quick, careless dinner, he would collapse on his bed with his clothes still on. Sometimes he would be able to sleep a little, sometimes he would just lie there with his eyes open until the morning light. Then he would get up and do it all over again, returning once more to the crowded city streets to search for the man whose fate was unknown.
Fang Mu was well aware that searching around the clock as he did was pointless; and yet he couldn't stop, couldn't bear to sit quietly in his room and wait for news. He had to do something, for Professor Qiao, and for himself.
And all the while, he avoided thinking about the one thing that was almost certain to be true: Professor Qiao had already been killed.
Fang Mu was unable, or rather not brave enough, to confront this possibility. He preferred to believe that the professor had contracted some serious illness and was lying in some forgotten corner of the city, on the verge of death.
Professor Qiao was the person Fang Mu revered most. This was a different kind of feeling than those he had for Liu Jianjun and Zhang Yao. Fang Mu had never actively sought Professor Qiao's help on the case and had been bluntly refused the one time he tried to ask for his advice. And yet, all along Fang Mu had felt that if he himself was ever killed, Professor Qiao would not stand idly by, but rather would find the murderer and bring him to justice. This was because Fang Mu deeply believed in Professor Qiao, believed in his power and experience — believed that he was his last, best hope.
But now the professor had vanished, his fate unknown. And Fang Mu felt more alone and despairing than ever before.
Sitting in a small street-side restaurant, Tai Wei smoked a cigarette and looked at Fang Mu. The kid was incredibly disheveled.
"Why don't you have a few more bites?" Tai Wei said.
The bowl of soup in front of Fang Mu was still half-full of noodles. Listening to Tai Wei, he picked it up and took several sips.
Tai Wei had met Fang Mu in front of one of the city department stores. At the time, the kid had been eating a piece of bread while scanning the faces of everyone who walked by. It was a cold, windy day, but he hadn't seemed to notice. "You want to order something else?"
Fang Mu shook his head.
Tai Wei studied the unkempt young man sitting before him. It had only been a few days since he'd last seen him, but already the kid seemed much skinnier. His big down coat looked huge on him. Seeing him searching his pockets, Tai Wei pushed the pack of cigarettes that he'd placed on the table toward him.
Fang Mu took out a cigarette, lit it, and then smoked it silently.
Tai Wei sighed.
"I'm telling you, brother, the way you're searching is no kind of method. If you're not careful, you're going to collapse before we even find him."
Fang Mu was silent for a moment. Then he asked, "How are things going on your end?"
"Still no news." Tai Wei shook his head. "This thing is mainly being investigated by the local stations, but Chief Bian Ping from the provincial PSB also pulled a lot of strings and sent people to search outside the city. However, no one's found a thing."
Seeing the news made Fang Mu even more upset, Tai Wei quickly added, "Now don't start thinking anything crazy. If Professor Qiao really did have some kind of accident, someone would definitely have reported it. Therefore, I think he either got sick out of nowhere, or suddenly went senile — which, given his age, really wouldn't be that hard to imagine."
After hesitating for a moment, Fang Mu told Tai Wei what Professor Qiao had said to him that afternoon.
Tai Wei didn't say anything for a long time, just took several vicious drags from his cigarette and then forcefully stubbed it out. "This old guy definitely knows the killer. He tried to protect him, and then got trapped himself!"
Fang Mu didn't like hearing that. "Professor Qiao wouldn't do something like that!"
"Okay, okay, okay." Tai Wei had no desire to argue over the point at the moment. "This is a very important clue. I'm going to discuss it with Zhao Yonggui. I don't care if it pisses him off." He stood up. "Fang Mu, have you forgotten what you're best at?"
Fang Mu frowned. "Huh?"
"Finding people isn't your forte; profiling them is." Tai Wei bent over and stared at him so closely that their noses almost touched. "Let us find Professor Qiao. You need to head back and get some sleep. When you wake up, I want you to make me a profile of this guy." He patted Fang Mu on the shoulder. "Right now you're our last hope."
Their last hope?
Fang Mu was back in his dorm room. As he looked at the documents stacked across nearly every inch of his desk, his spirits suddenly fell.
Tai Wei hadn't been consoling him with what he said — he had been pressuring him. The subtext was clear: If Professor Qiao really had gone to look for the killer, then things did not bode well for him.
Still, he completely agreed with Tai Wei's point of view; they needed to find the killer as soon as possible — for it was the killer himself, not Professor Qiao — who was the crux of the matter. As long as they found him, then they would be able to locate Professor Qiao as well, whether he was alive or dead.
Saving the professor or avenging his death — these things would have to wait. Right now the only thing Fang Mu could do was find the killer.
But when faced with the mountain of documents on his desk, he just sat there dully for over half an hour, unable to absorb a single word.
Over the past few days, he had been so tormented by such excruciating sadness, rage, guilt, and despair that his nerves had reached their breaking point. Now he could barely do a thing. The skill he had once had for perceiving criminal psychology seemed to have vanished.