Chapter 2

He looked at me in confusion. After a long pause, his trembling lips finally formed words.

“Wu Guohua… he… if what you say is true… maybe he couldn’t rest in peace. Maybe he’s become a ghost and come back for revenge!”

I could not help laughing.

Then I immediately sensed something was wrong.

Why would a man in his sixties, who had seen so much of life, suddenly say such a thing without a particular reason?

I followed it up.

“Chief Wu, why do you think that?”

“Because he… he…” He hesitated, then continued. “Because he came back to life in his coffin! We’d buried him. But a few days later, his body was gone…”

His face grew even paler.

I understood at once.

Perhaps no relative or friend was avenging Wu Guohua.

Perhaps it was Wu Guohua himself.

What if he had not died?

After months of treatment and recovery, he could have returned to the village.

Under the circumstances, it was entirely plausible. Even likely.

The truth, however, was far more complicated.

Once we focused on Wu Guohua, whose whereabouts remained unknown, our workload grew.

First, we needed to reexamine the exact place where he had been “buried,” with a forensic examiner accompanying us.

More than a year had passed, so we probably would not find anything. Still, we had to check.

We also urgently needed to contact the families of the other boys who might be targeted.

Apart from Wu Wenqiang, there were four.

According to Chief Wu, one family had moved away. The other three still lived in the village.

Wu Xiaofan, thirteen.

Wu Xinsheng, eleven.

Wu Kai, eleven.

All three households had something in common: the fathers were away. Only the mothers and elderly relatives were at home.

With Chief Wu’s help, we called the three mothers to the village offices.

We wanted to warn them and ask for their cooperation, to prevent further tragedy.

Everyone had seen Wu Wenqiang’s terrible fate.

If this was revenge for what had happened to Huihui, whether the avenger was Wu Guohua or someone else, Wenqiang would surely not be the only target.

We had to make sure the other boys were on their guard.

But after I briefly explained the situation, something entirely unexpected happened.

I believe Wu Kai’s mother was the first to explode.

She sprang up, pointed at me and shouted:

“Fuck you! What are you trying to do? Why are you slandering our sons? Did you see it with your own fucking eyes? Who’d want that idiot girl?!”

I froze.

Wu Xinsheng’s and Wu Xiaofan’s mothers immediately joined in.

“Don’t paint our children as monsters! They’re barely over ten. How could they do something like that? Haven’t you got it wrong?”

“Typical police. Can’t you do anything useful?”

“Even if our boys did play with that idiot girl, they were doing her a favor! Showing that useless thing some kindness!”

“Exactly! What do children know? At most, they were just fooling around with her…”

…

“All of you, shut up! Quiet!”

I recovered and shouted over their squabbling.

I was not even trying to hold those little animals accountable, yet their mothers had already begun defending them blindly.

Was this why the boys had become what they were?

“Don’t you understand? Wu Wenqiang is dead! Whether your sons did those things isn’t the point. If the killer believes they did, he’ll kill them just like he killed Wu Wenqiang. Do you understand?”

The women looked at one another for a few seconds.

Wu Kai’s mother spoke first again, launching into another tirade.

“Then what the fuck are you doing? Go catch him! Aren’t you the police? Isn’t keeping us safe your job?!”

The others immediately echoed her.

I could not go on talking to them.

Just then, my phone rang.

I asked Chief Wu to keep explaining and used the call as a reason to leave the office for a moment.

It was Zhao Jun.

He had returned to the unit and used every available means to locate Huihui’s family. He was about to go there.

But that was not the main reason for his call.

“I just heard something. The victim was another boy surnamed Wu, and there were some similarities in the condition of the body, so I looked into it…”

He slowly described another horrific case.

The previous month, in the neighboring county, a fourteen-year-old boy had been brutally murdered.

His eyes had been gouged out too.

Zhao Jun had established that his name was Wu Zhijun.

But the case was outside our jurisdiction. With no grounds for a joint investigation, he could not obtain the file.

What was more, the case had already resulted in a conviction.

The killer was said to be a wandering beggar who had murdered Wu Zhijun for his belongings.

But how much could a fourteen-year-old have been carrying?

I understood what Zhao Jun meant.

“You think they arrested the wrong man? That the real killer is the one who killed Wu Wenqiang?”

“A vagrant. A beggar. You can imagine. Never mind a wrongful arrest—even if someone beat a beggar like that to death, nobody would care…” Zhao Jun sighed. “But Wu Zhijun’s family doesn’t seem to have a phone. I can’t reach them immediately. Find out whether he came from that village.”

“I will. Go and find Huihui’s family.”

After hanging up, I sighed.

My instinct told me Wu Zhijun most likely had come from here.

Five boys had abused Huihui, framed Wu Guohua and indirectly caused his death.

Wu Wenqiang was dead. Three families were still living carefree in the village.

Wu Zhijun could very well be the boy whose family had moved away.

I hurried back inside to confirm it.

Chief Wu was still shaking his head. Even with my colleague helping, he seemed unable to persuade the three mothers.

But I knew fear could be the most persuasive argument.

As soon as I entered, I asked loudly:

“Chief Wu, was Wu Zhijun from this village?”

Startled, he nodded instinctively.

The mothers were about to speak again.

I cut them off.

“Shut up, all of you! Wu Zhijun has been murdered! His eyes were gouged out too! Clearly, it’s the same killer who murdered Wu Wenqiang. If you keep screaming and refusing to cooperate, your idiot sons will be next!”

At last, those three wonderful mothers fell silent.

Their faces had turned white.

Finally, they were prepared to listen.

Chief Wu did take his responsibilities seriously. He suggested that until the men came home, the mothers bring their sons to stay at the village offices.

There were several unused rooms in the compound. Even if no one else was around, at least he lived there.

After repeatedly asking whether Wu Wenqiang’s killer would really come for their sons, the mothers finally wavered.

They brought the little devils over and accepted the chief’s arrangements.

I felt a little less anxious.

Preventing another death was always good news for the police.

Even if the potential victims were vile little brats who deserved to die.

With Chief Wu’s help, we could concentrate on catching the killer without being distracted.

We never imagined that the killer was counting on precisely that.

While we thought matters were taking a turn for the better, this might have been the very situation the killer wanted.

After dealing with those three wretched mothers and their sons, I hurried to meet the other officers.

They had just returned from Wu Guohua’s “grave.” I wanted to know whether they had found anything.

The forensic examiner who had gone with them told me:

“We excavated the entire pit and found some cracked stones. There may still be traces of bodily fluid in the crevices. We’ll have to wait for sampling and test results. In other words, we might not come away empty-handed.”

“After more than six months, there could still be bodily fluid?” I asked in surprise.

His answer was extremely cautious.

“Whether we can recover a sample from those crevices is another question. That’s why I said we might find something. Only might. Let’s wait for the results.”

There was nothing to do but wait.

By then, Zhao Jun had returned too.

The officers working the case gathered for a short meeting. We needed to decide whom to pursue.

Wu Guohua, whose death was still uncertain?

Or Huihui’s parents?

Zhao Jun leaned toward Wu Guohua and told us about visiting Huihui’s family.

Her father, Wu Delong, and her mother, Zhang Li, had rented accommodation near the best hospital in the city.

They had taken her there for treatment. Besides depression, they hoped to treat the intellectual disability she had had since childhood.

After only a brief conversation, Zhao Jun discovered something.

They did not know Wu Guohua was innocent.

Yes. Both Wu Delong and Zhang Li cursed him constantly while speaking to Zhao Jun.

Though he was dead, their hatred was immense. When their words touched a particularly painful memory, they could not hold back their tears.

They believed that animal had ruined the rest of their daughter’s life.

To avoid further complications, Zhao Jun did not tell them the truth. He only briefly mentioned Wu Wenqiang’s case.

They knew nothing about it and even expressed sympathy for the boy.

To them, the boys had “exposed” Wu Guohua’s crimes. They were brave children who had stood up for what was right.

That led Zhao Jun to conclude that neither parent was suspicious.

But was that really true?

When he finished, I asked:

“What about Huihui? How is she? What treatment is she receiving?”

Zhao Jun had no answer.

After a pause, he said:

“I didn’t see her. She’s in a closed psychiatric ward. The case is urgent, so after speaking to Wu Delong and Zhang Li at their place, I came straight back.”

My unease deepened.

Did someone in Huihui’s situation really need inpatient care in a closed ward?

Just then, the forensic examiner hurried into the unit.

He had found something.

Something about Wu Guohua.

He brought a stack of documents and joined our meeting.

After handing them around, he got straight to his findings.

“At the location marked as Wu Guohua’s grave, we dug down about two meters and recovered scraps of clothing. Examination established that the fabric was manufactured within the past year. That suggests a body may have been buried there, though it’s also possible someone simply buried clothes.”

That alone could not establish that Wu Guohua had really been dead.

Perhaps he had been thrown into the pit but never actually buried.

Based on everything we had found so far, he remained our strongest suspect.

Most importantly, his body was missing. Not even Chief Wu knew what had happened.

Theft seemed less likely than the possibility that he had survived and climbed out himself.

But the examiner’s next words shook that theory.

“About two meters below ground, we found stones with dried traces of bodily fluid in their cracks. Rainwater couldn’t penetrate that deep. The soil was quite dry, so a small amount of residue survived.

“We can’t recover it for testing, but from our observations, there’s a ninety percent chance these are traces of decomposition fluid.

“That fluid forms after death. Bacteria and viruses, no longer controlled by the body’s immune system, begin to multiply. Through dehydration, sugars and proteins form soluble compounds. Once dried, the traces can remain for quite a long time.

“Our conclusion, therefore, is that the person buried there was very likely a corpse, not someone alive.”

Zhao Jun and I exchanged a look.

Before the meeting, we had all but settled on Wu Guohua as our suspect and were preparing to discuss how to find him.

The forensic findings had overturned our plan before we could even put it into motion.

Plenty of questions remained.

Where had his body gone?

Had someone really just stolen it?

But what use would anyone have for a middle-aged man’s corpse?

We had suddenly reached a dead end.

Then a colleague seemed to remember something.

“May I say something? When I saw the location of this grave, I remembered a related incident I handled.”

Something about the grave?

I quickly asked him to go on.

As it happened, he had only recently transferred to the Criminal Investigation Unit. Before that, he had been a neighborhood officer at a local police station.

His beat had included Huihui’s village.

And the incident concerned her.

It had happened about six months earlier.

Yes, shortly after Wu Guohua had been beaten to death.

One night, around three or four in the morning, a distraught couple came in asking for help. Their seven-year-old daughter was missing.

He found it strange.

How could such a young girl disappear in the middle of the night?

The parents could not explain. They only said they had woken to find her gone.

A missing child could mean kidnapping, so he took it very seriously. After reporting to his superior, he went out to search.

Fortunately, he was an excellent investigator. Tiny footprints left after the rain showed him which way she had gone.

Step by step, he led her parents along the trail.

At last, they found her.

What he saw sent a chill through him. That was why he remembered it so clearly.

The girl was crying over a grave.

She sobbed bitterly, making inarticulate sounds, tears streaming down her face as she clawed at the earth with both hands.

Her parents rushed to gather her up. Perhaps they too had no idea what was happening.

They might even have believed she was possessed.

As they carried her away, the officer saw her reluctance to leave. She kept reaching toward the grave.

That frightened him even more. For a moment, he wondered whether something supernatural was involved.

But not every strange event was the work of ghosts.

The girl was Wu Huihui.

And the grave belonged to Wu Guohua.