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墨書 Inktalez
In the world of love, what is it but a bond that binds life and death together?
Love has always been something people yearn for; it seems to symbolize innocence, kindness, and beauty. But when someone writes such verses in blood on a gray wall, it becomes rather chilling. At this moment, Gu Chen and I are standing in a building that has yet to be completed.
This building has reached its top, with a total of thirty floors.
The floor where the poem was written in Blood Characters is the fifteenth, perfectly positioned neither too high nor too low. There are no elevators, and as I climbed those fifteen flights, I felt as if I might collapse from exhaustion.
The construction of this building had been halted for some time. It was said that the real estate developer miscalculated the budget by omitting a zero; they realized halfway through that the funds were far from sufficient, which led to the project being stopped. Old Zhang has been working here for over a month now, tasked daily with preventing anyone from sneaking onto the site to steal steel materials. He eats, drinks, and sleeps at the construction site.
Although the developer miscalculated the budget, they still have more than enough to keep someone like Old Zhang around.
Last night, Old Zhang killed another dog. He noticed that there had been an increase in stray dogs and cats lately. Perhaps it was because this vast construction site lacked any human presence, making it a paradise for animals; those cats and dogs slipped through gaps in the fence to come inside.
Old Zhang refers to dog meat as "delicious meat," and he has his own special techniques for dealing with dogs.
He generally avoids attacking those with collars or purebred breeds; clearly, those are pets owned by someone. Sometimes Old Zhang finds it strange that people in the city call their children "puppies" while referring to their dogs as "sons." Once, while riding a bus, he saw a young woman cradling a dog that was nursing from her breast—she was actually feeding the dog milk.
Old Zhang feels crushed by the wheels of time.
But when it comes to stray dogs that have no owners, he never shows any mercy.
Old Zhang believes those stray cats should be thankful their meat is sour.
He lures the stray dogs with hotdog sausages and then strikes them hard on the head with his homemade spiked club. Approaching seventy years old this year, Old Zhang is still quite strong. The stray dogs are instantly knocked out, their brains splattering, and then Old Zhang uses a kitchen knife to skin them.
The dog meat had turned into a fragrant stew, ultimately finding its way into Old Zhang's stomach.
This was the reality. When we received Old Zhang's call and arrived at the construction site, we saw that outside his makeshift dwelling, there were piles of dog skins, stacks of bones lying nearby, and pools of blood that had already turned black. Swarms of flies buzzed around these remnants.
This place seemed like Old Zhang's kingdom.
Until last night, when Old Zhang discovered an intruder.
Every night, Old Zhang had to inspect the various buildings; it was a rule—like a turtle's shell. In truth, even if he skipped a few days, no one would likely notice. Yet, Old Zhang continued this routine, not out of a sense of responsibility but because he was on the hunt for dogs.
Ever since he noticed an increase in stray dogs, Old Zhang had been setting traps in the hallways each night, successfully catching dogs every time.
Last night was no different; however, instead of a dog, Old Zhang caught a person. As he approached, the individual had just managed to free their foot from the ropes.
Old Zhang wondered what this person was doing here in the dead of night. Just as he intended to give them a piece of his mind, the person took off running. In the darkness, Old Zhang couldn't make out the young person's face; all he knew was that they were about 1.7 meters tall and he couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman.
Old Zhang didn't think much of it; he assumed it was just a clumsy thief who had accidentally triggered his trap. But then he heard something moving in the empty building. When he shone his flashlight upstairs, he found nothing.
Yet he distinctly heard a sound: "tick-tock."
A chill breeze swept through.
The construction site was pitch black; keeping the lights on at night cost more than Old Zhang's daily wage, which clearly wasn't worth it. The only source of light was an old flashlight in his hand. As he walked further away and turned back to look at the towering buildings, each window resembled a monster's eye staring back at him.
Old Zhang felt a surge of fear but decided to go upstairs to investigate.
Sometimes curiosity is a stronger emotion than fear. Old Zhang climbed step by step up the stairs, the silence of the night only broken by the echo of his footsteps reverberating through the building. With each step, he reached the fifteenth floor.
As soon as he arrived on the fifteenth floor, Old Zhang caught a whiff of a metallic scent. He hurriedly shone his flashlight around, and saw that someone had written on the walls. Old Zhang was illiterate; he couldn't even write his own name. His parents had died when he was very young, and he had never attended a single class.
Old Zhang understood; he had recently learned a new term called Shamate, referring to foolish people. He thought that the boy who had just run away must be one of them, as they enjoyed scribbling on walls.
He brought the flashlight closer to the wall, examining the incomprehensible words. Suddenly, he stumbled over something that rolled away from under his feet. He quickly shone his flashlight down.
In the corner, Old Zhang discovered a bucket, blood splattered all around it. He hurriedly picked it up; this bucket was very familiar to him.
Old Zhang was never one to waste food; every part of a dog was valuable. Not only did he eat dog meat, but he also made blood tofu from dog blood. In this regard, Old Zhang could be considered a foodie. This bucket was usually used to collect dog blood, and he never expected that little brat would steal it to make a mess.
Old Zhang cursed loudly as he carried his bucket of blood back.
Halfway down, he couldn't resist dipping his finger into the blood and tasting it. As soon as his finger touched his lips, he froze in place.
The next day, after much contemplation, Old Zhang chose to call the police: "I drank a sip of human blood."
That’s how Gu Chen and I ended up here, where we found someone had written a line of poetry on the wall.
It could be determined that when that person wrote this poem last night, the blood had not yet congealed; several streaks of blood slowly dripped down the wall. However, we couldn't conclude based solely on Old Zhang's word that this blood was definitely human; it would need to be tested.
"Coming here in the middle of the night to scribble like this—who knows if it's bloody or romantic," Gu Chen muttered.
"Officers! Come down!" Old Zhang shouted from below. "This is serious! A dog is carrying a head!"
A dog was carrying a head.
We stood on the fifteenth floor, looking down.
A Husky was parading through the streets with a woman's head in its mouth. Long hair obscured her features, making it impossible to see her face. It appeared that there was no blood on her head, and there were no drops of blood trickling from her neck; it seemed that the blood had already congealed. One side of her head was slightly dented, as if something had smashed into it.
The surrounding citizens were in a daze, even forgetting to scream. The dog's owner stared at his Husky as it approached him, mouth agape in shock. He could never have imagined that what he had thrown was a frisbee, and what the dog had brought back was a head.
"What the hell!" I exclaimed upon seeing the head in the dog's mouth. "What the fuck is going on!"
When Gu Chen and I reached the ground floor, the female owner of the Husky was sitting on the ground in shock. The crowd around us began to shout, and I quickly called out, "We're undercover! Everyone stay back!"
"You need to get that head out of the dog's mouth," I said to Gu Chen, who looked completely bewildered.
"How am I supposed to do that?" Gu Chen replied.
"Beauty Trap, Sacrificial Strategy—do whatever you want," I said.
Gu Chen tried various methods but couldn't get the head out of the Husky's mouth. As he saw more and more people gathering around, anger surged within him, and he tackled the Husky. It was ridiculous to see a would-be police officer reduced to fighting a dog.
Fortunately, Gu Chen's skills were impressive; he finally managed to wrest the head from the dog's jaws.
I quickly took off my short-sleeved shirt and wrapped up the head before getting into the car.
"Last night, what Old Zhang mentioned about the rolling thing is likely this Head," I said to Gu Chen.
Gu Chen replied in a somewhat awkward tone, "So you're saying that the young man from before carried a Head upstairs in the middle of the night and wrote a few love poems with the blood that flowed from it?"
Chilling.
In the pitch-black night, a person stealthily entered the construction site carrying a Head. First, he secretly took Old Zhang's bucket of dog blood, then poured it out and placed the Head inside. He climbed up the stairs of a building, slowly making his way up while holding onto the wall in the dark environment.
When he reached the fifteenth floor, he took out the Head and used it as a pen to write a love poem on the wall.
During this time, it should have been Old Zhang setting traps at the stairway on the first floor.
Then, when he went downstairs, he stepped into Old Zhang's trap.
Logically speaking, that makes sense, but from an emotional standpoint, it shouldn't be like that. If I were such a calm and fervent poet, I definitely wouldn't panic and expose myself just because I stepped into a dog-catching trap. So what was that young man trapped that night doing? Who was the one writing with the Head?
"Why are you shirtless?" Xiao Liu saw me and said, "Damn, what's wrapped up in your clothes? A watermelon? It looks like it's been chilled!"
As Xiao Liu spoke, he followed me into Captain Shao's office. "Let me show you how to handle this melon; I'm an expert."
With that, Xiao Liu pulled open his short sleeves.
"Damn, this—this is a Head!"
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