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“It’s the Murderer,” Gu Chen said. “Given the Murderer’s speed and familiarity with this place, there’s enough time for him to return. But what does the Murderer want with a corpse?”
I shook my head and looked at Gu Chen. “I don’t know, but Wu Xiufen must hold significant meaning for the Murderer. There are many things we don’t understand right now: who the Murderer really is, why he kills, and what those bowls mean to him.”
I raised my gaze to the sky, where the branches intertwined, creating irregular shapes. It felt like a birdcage in the ground, and we were the birds trapped inside, unable to escape.
“Regardless of whether we can find answers to these questions, our time is running out. Based on the Murderer’s patterns, if he plans to strike, it will be no later than tomorrow night. That means from now until ten o’clock tomorrow night, we have only one day left.”
One day left—that was the most optimistic estimate. I couldn’t be sure that the Murderer wouldn’t cruelly kill Guan Zengbin while we were talking. All I could do was pray that Guan Zengbin was safe. Ultimately, it all depended on her fate.
“Let’s go!” I said to Gu Chen.
Before we descended the mountain, I called the village chief. At that moment, he was waiting for us to return home and hadn’t fallen asleep. As soon as he picked up, I got straight to the point. “Chief, Guan Zengbin is lost in the mountains and her phone is unreachable. I’m afraid she might be in danger. You need to arrange for some young adults to search the mountain immediately.”
Upon hearing this, the chief replied, “The villagers really don’t dare to go up there because it’s said that the mountain is haunted at night…”
I had no patience for his excuses; I coldly interrupted him. “Chief, I’m speaking very seriously about this matter—it’s a matter of life and death. I don’t care what means you use; by the time I return to the village, you must have twenty people ready to search the mountain. Do you understand?”
Without giving him a chance to respond, I hung up.
The chief was over fifty years old, while I was just in my twenties—a young man shouldn’t speak this way to someone older. But this was an emergency; I couldn’t afford to negotiate with him—I needed absolute compliance.
And surely, he wouldn’t dare delay at this moment.
Gu Chen and I hurried toward the village and eventually broke into a run until we reached the village entrance.
Gu Chen glanced at me, seemingly lost in thought but remained silent.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
Gu Chen walked alongside me, speaking as we moved forward. "I've never seen you with such stamina. We've been running for twenty minutes, and you look completely fine. Also, the tone of your words is something I've never encountered before. You must be feeling something, right?"
"Feeling something?" I didn't stop, but my heart skipped a beat.
Gu Chen continued slowly, "I can tell that Guan Zengbin seems to have some interest in you..."
I waved my hand dismissively and replied, "If it were you who had been captured, I would do the same. But let's not dwell on this. We don't have much time left. If we keep lingering here, when will we rescue Guan Zengbin? Time is life; every minute we waste puts Guan Zengbin in more danger."
As we approached the village entrance, I noticed that the households had turned on their lights. Many people were watching from their doorways, and the sound of barking dogs filled the air. I understood that tonight, the villagers of Xingdong Village would not be getting a good night's sleep.
A young man at the village entrance spotted us and shouted, "Hey, police comrades! The village chief asked me to wait for you here. He wants me to tell you that he's waiting for you at home."
I glanced at Gu Chen and said, "See? Sometimes being a bit forceful can yield unexpected results."
When we reached the center of the village, we saw the village chief dressed in autumn clothes with a coat draped over him, gathering a group of young men. Noticing my stern expression, he approached and asked, "Brother Wu, what’s going on? Why the rush?"
I looked at the twenty or so assembled men and said, "A twenty-year-old girl has been kidnapped by a bad person up in the mountains—what you call a ghost. As men, we can't tolerate this happening. Even if there are ghosts up there, what are you all afraid of? Let’s go find her!"
Interest waned when it wasn't their own problem, but as the saying goes, 'great rewards bring forth brave men.' When I announced that everyone participating tonight would receive one hundred yuan and that whoever found Guan Zengbin would be rewarded two thousand yuan, the villagers began to stir with excitement.
Human nature is always like this—without exception. But I couldn't blame them; after all, they had never seen Guan Zengbin and didn't know who she was. To them, her life or death was just a few words in a newspaper.
With that said, those men set off towards the mountains in a large group.
I turned to Gu Chen and said, "Using these people is just a delaying tactic. Call the City Bureau immediately to dispatch personnel here. If the murderer who produces sharp laughter is indeed what the villagers refer to as a ghost, then he must have transportation to get to the city. Have the City Bureau send people to block several streets leading into Dongxing City."
Gu Chen didn't hesitate and immediately set to work.
I handed the village chief a cigarette and said, "I apologize for the harsh tone on the phone. I was just anxious. Lives are at stake; I hope you can understand."
The village chief waved his hand and replied, "I understand. There's nothing hard to comprehend about it. If my wife went missing, I would probably be even more impulsive than you."
I took a drag from my cigarette and asked, "What exactly is up there on the mountain that makes you all afraid to go?"
The village chief tightened his coat and, while smoking, said, "Honestly, I didn't want to think about these things. We're both party members, and it's not good to spread tales of ghosts and spirits. But many villagers from Xingdong Village have seen and heard things; with so many witnesses, it can't all be false, right?"
"What exactly did they see?" I pressed further.
The village chief began, "At first, it was the children from the village. You know how it is; there’s not much for them to do, so they run around the mountains. Even though all households prohibit it, kids will be kids. Initially, some children heard a woman crying on the mountain."
I had heard the Murderer's laughter and cries before. When the Murderer killed, he always marked it with that sharp laughter. But during the time in the sewer, I had indeed heard the Murderer's sobs. The Murderer had multiple personalities; we could never be sure who was acting out during those moments.
The village chief continued, "At first, we thought it was Wu Xiufen."
He shook his head. "But it wasn't her. Most of those kids went up to watch Wu Xiufen burn paper offerings out of curiosity. It’s normal for Wu Xiufen to cry for her late husband. But the children wouldn’t mistake her voice if it were really Wu Xiufen."
"Not Wu Xiufen?" I asked.
"No." The village chief took a deep drag from his cigarette, smoke billowing from his nostrils. "At first, we didn’t think much of it. But later on, adults who went up to chop wood at night also heard a woman's crying and ran back in fear. Some people didn’t believe in such things and went up at night anyway."
"Sometimes it sounded like a baby's cry; other times it was a man's laughter or a mix of voices," he said as he gazed into the distance at the mountain. "Until someone saw a female ghost by a tombstone on the mountain. That villager described the ghost as just a head, facing that tombstone and crying."
I frowned. "A head crying at a tombstone? Zhang Qiang's tombstone?"
The village chief nodded heavily. "That head was floating in mid-air with long hair. The villager hid in a spot directly opposite the ghost's profile. At first, she was crying, but then a man's voice came out of her mouth followed by a girl's voice. It was as if there were many people speaking at once, but there was only that one head."
"The more bizarre thing is," the village chief took a couple of deep puffs from his cigarette before tossing the butt to the ground, then spoke, "they seemed to be conversing about life and death, and something about sleep. That villager was frozen behind the tree, but at that moment, the Head suddenly turned to look at him."
"What happened next?" I asked. "Did he get a good look at the ghost's face?"
The village chief shook his head. "Afterward, that villager fell seriously ill; no matter what he did, he couldn't recover. It wasn't until he sought out a yin-yang master that he managed to scare away a wandering soul. It's strange, though; after the master performed a ritual, he got better. Then that villager recounted everything he encountered on the mountain in vivid detail, and combined with the sounds he had heard before, the rumors of ghosts haunting the back mountain spread."
Hearing the village chief's words, I already had a rough answer in my mind.
The village chief continued, "So no one dares to go to the back mountain anymore, except for Wu Xiufen, who goes there every year to burn paper. By now, she should have come down from the mountain. You must have encountered her, right? Where is Wu Xiufen? Could it be...?"
Seeing my grim expression, the village chief swallowed his words.
I coldly replied, "Wu Xiufen is dead. If we don't hurry and find Guan Zengbin, she will also die."
"Wu Xiufen is dead?" The village chief couldn't accept this situation at first. "But she's been going to the back mountain for over thirty years without any issues. Could it be that ghost did it?"
I shook my head. "It's not a ghost; there are no ghosts in this world—it's people."
"People?"
Before the village chief could finish his sentence, Gu Chen shouted, "Wu Meng, the City Bureau can't send anyone out..."
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