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Red Ballet Shoe Mystery
墨書 Inktalez
I stood in the archives of Mingde Girls' High School, the musty smell mingling with the scent of ink, assaulting my nostrils. The autopsy report of the third victim, Kim So Yeon, revealed an old fracture in her left fibula—this contradicted the evidence found on the first two deceased, creating a chain of inconsistencies.
My fingers paused on the yellowed student roster. A name crossed out in red ink from the 1986 dance major list suddenly caught my eye. "Officer Zheng, is the forensic doctor who handled the autopsy still alive?" I grabbed my coat and rushed out of the archives, only to catch a glimpse of a deep red skirt disappearing at the end of the hallway.
That shade of red resembled congealed blood, strikingly vivid against the dreary backdrop of a rainy day. The security guard mentioned that there were no visitors in red dresses today; the surveillance footage showed only my solitary figure running.
When I finally located the retired Old Forensic Doctor, he trembled as he pulled out a Kraft paper bag from deep within an iron cabinet. On a faded photograph was Cui Meishan, who should have appeared on the dance student list, wearing those iconic red Bloody Ballet Shoes, her left ankle wrapped in thick bandages...
**2002 - Reopening the Investigation**
The iron door of the Evidence Room slammed shut behind me, and the stale odor mixed with rust-proof oil hit me like a wave. I found the switch on the wall; as the harsh white lights flickered to life, countless transparent evidence bags seemed to open their eyes in the darkness.
July 17, 2002—this was my first day taking over the Mingde Girls' High School Serial Murder Case. "From 1986 to 1990, four rainy seasons, three lives lost," Old Pu tossed a set of keys onto the registration desk. He had been here for twenty years as an evidence custodian, his police uniform sleeves worn shiny. "You’re lucky; you’ve picked a moldy case to investigate."
I put on latex gloves and opened a cardboard box labeled with file number 860714. Inside lay three pairs of Bloody Ballet Shoes quietly resting in their evidence bags. The satin had oxidized to a dark brown, but the wear on the forefoot was striking—each shoe had frayed at the same spot as if scraped repeatedly by a single steel wire.
"Page 17 of the crime scene photos," Old Pu suddenly spoke up. I hadn’t noticed him creeping up behind me; his bony finger pointed at the shoe's toe. "Look at this crescent-shaped impression; back then, they said it was left by a dance bar."
I flipped through the yellowed album and indeed found an arc-shaped blank area amidst splattered blood on the dressing room mirror. However, when I focused my magnifying glass on the edge of the photo, I noticed a series of dense round indentations at the top of the frame, as if struck by some protruding metallic object.
"I want a list of everyone who came into contact with this evidence," I said, brushing dust off the table with my sleeve to reveal several numbers written in marker beneath. "Including records of evidence transfer."
Old Pu's pupils dilated sharply; he snatched up a cloth and wiped away those numbers furiously. "Two registration books went missing during spring cleaning in 2001; anyway..." He turned his back to organize files, and the clattering metal drawers drowned out his last words.
As I scanned the surface of one ballet shoe with a laser detector, blue light revealed patches of fluorescent traces. These irregular spots concentrated along the inner arch; I collected a small sample into a test tube, watching as the pale yellow liquid gradually transformed into cobalt blue—the reaction characteristic of Sacred Heart Hall's specially formulated ink.
Suddenly, a low rumble of thunder rolled outside, and the sound of raindrops hitting the Bulletproof Glass made the back of my neck tense.
The circular indentations on the mirror frame, the crescent-shaped imprints of dance shoes, and the Church Ink—these fragments spun in my mind, attempting to piece together a coherent image.
When the third flash of lightning illuminated the sky, I finally realized the pattern of those indentations: they resembled a cross-section of the pipes from the Seoul Diocese's organ.
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