That night, Mu Dai couldn’t sleep.
After one o’clock in the morning, she climbed out of bed, threw on some clothes, and went downstairs to check all the doors and windows. Several times, she reached out and shook them.
Fortunately, they were all secure.
Mu Dai took liquor and a wine glass from the bar, then sat down in a corner of the bar by the window. Although there were no lights on, it wasn’t dark. Every few steps along the street, some signs never went dark, and the water in the canal gleamed with a faint light, with the duckweed below forming clusters of pitch-black shadows.
Mu Dai slowly poured herself a drink. She wasn’t particular about drinking, unlike Yi Wansan, who mixed cocktails, adding ice cubes and knowing exactly how long to chill for the best taste, with a whole set of procedures.
After receiving Li Tan’s message, she had immediately called him back. Li Tan said the incident had occurred near Xiaoshan River in Yinchuan.
However, to trace it to its source, they had to start from Luoma Lake over two years ago.
Li Tan remembered clearly. That day marked exactly twenty years since the Luoma Lake case. It was an overcast day, with gray clouds massing on the horizon. The older folks all said it looked like snow was coming.
After being dismissed from his job, Li Tan had opened a small supermarket, but his heart was never in the business—it was barely enough to make ends meet.
That day, he closed early and went to the old building where Li Yaqing had once lived. Halfway there, snow began to fall.
Twenty years had passed in a flash. The old building was now uninhabited, its gray cement walls against the gray, snow-flecked sky presenting a scene of infinite desolation.
Li Tan visited Li Yaqing’s home. The homes of the other residents were all empty, but in her home, all the furniture remained, probably because the whole family had suddenly departed, and no one cared about these material possessions anymore.
The bloodstains on the floor were long gone, but the holes in the walls made by nails remained eerily present, like eyes peering from the walls.
Feeling suffocated inside the apartment, Li Tan went to the stairwell to smoke. Just as he put a cigarette to his lips and was about to light it, hollow footsteps suddenly echoed from the stairs.
As if possessed, Li Tan ducked into the neighboring apartment, leaving the door slightly ajar to peer out.
The visitor was of medium build, wearing a wool overcoat, work boots, a brimmed hat, a woolen scarf, and a mask. The snow outside must have intensified, because as he walked by, snowflakes were still falling from his body.
The person paused briefly at Li Yaqing’s door, then slowly walked in.
Li Tan’s heart pounded fiercely. Over the years, though not professionally, he had read several books on crime. What left a deep impression was that some psychopathic killers would return to the murder scene on anniversaries to savor the scene and feelings of that time.
Though one shouldn’t jump to conclusions, at least appearing here on this particular day was quite significant.
Li Tan held his breath and followed the person downstairs stealthily, clearly seeing the salt-and-pepper hair exposed beneath the hat.
The age also seemed close to what he had expected.
But that person was more alert than anticipated. After just a few alleys, Li Tan lost track. He asked residents in the alley, and a barrel-maker remembered seeing the person asking about Li Yaqing’s family case, noting that the accent wasn’t local.
This gave Li Tan a clue. Outsiders would eventually leave, and Luoma Lake wasn’t big, with only one bus station. Since he’d lost the trail, he would wait at the bus station.
Li Tan withdrew some money, packed simple luggage, and wandered around the bus station for three days until he finally spotted the person again.
He followed him onto a bus, trying several times to see his face from the side, but the person kept his hat brim low and never removed his mask.
They switched stations and buses several times in between. Fortunately, his luck held, and he managed to keep up each time. He finally lost track completely in the Xiaoshan River, Yinchuan.
Speaking of Xiaoshan River, one must mention China’s fourth-largest desert, the Tengger Desert.
The Tengger Desert lies between the Helan and Yabrai Mountains, at an altitude of about 1200-1400 meters. Unlike the arid deserts one might imagine, the Tengger Desert contains hundreds of pristine lakes that have remained for millions of years. The vast, desolate desert and the gentle, meandering lakes coexist interdependently, forming a rare landscape, with residents naturally living by the lakes in this desert steppe.
Xiaoshan River was such a place—not large in scale, with a relatively simple lifestyle, yet not lacking in liveliness.
Li Tan instinctively felt that the person was in the Xiaoshan River. He checked into a hotel in town and wandered around the Xiaoshan River every day. With frequent sandstorms here, headscarves and masks were essential attire, and medium-built men were plentiful. In this setting, that person was truly like a grain of sand mixed into a sand pile, leaving Li Tan at a loss.
After several days, though he hadn’t found the person, he had become thoroughly familiar with the housing distribution in Xiaoshan River.
The houses here were mostly rammed earth flat-roofed structures. Rammed earth was used firstly because the area lacked stone materials and could only use local soil, and secondly because the strong winds and sand made heavy earth walls good for resisting both. As for flat roofs, with hardly any rain year-round, there was naturally no need for sloped roofs.
The only exception was a courtyard house in the style of a low fortress—previously the home of wealthy gentry, now occupied by someone who must be no ordinary person. Curiosity aroused, Li Tan had peeked secretly and seen a black Hummer H2 parked in the courtyard.
Li Tan later spotted this car once on the street. At the time, he didn’t see the driver, but the rear window was half-open, revealing the face of a young woman. Her head was slightly tilted, her eyes red, as if something was troubling her deeply.
But doesn’t everyone have sorrows? Like himself—white-haired, career stalled, still alone, and now traveling thousands of miles. For what?
That night, Li Tan got completely drunk at a small restaurant facing the street. He shouted for a pen to draw, then suddenly began sobbing into his hands. Close to midnight, as the owner wanted to close, he was half-pushed, half-shoved out.
Heavy-headed, Li Tan walked a few steps before sliding down to sit beside a trash can on the street.
Footsteps passed by him. Li Tan muttered something, barely managing to open his eyes.
From his angle, he saw a pair of work boots, hands in black leather gloves, and clutched in those hands… fishing line.
Bile rose, and Li Tan wearily closed his eyes. After a moment, he suddenly opened them wide. The cold bottles of liquor he had drunk turned into cold sweat pouring out.
Fishing line!
He staggered to his feet, running in the direction the person had gone. Unlike the city, it was pitch black at night here. Li Tan looked around helplessly on the street, then slowly made his way into a low, narrow alley.
Only one household had lights on, with the rich aroma of old mutton soup wafting from the door crack, strong enough to mask even the smell of mutton.
Passing by, Li Tan sniffed once, then sniffed again.
Something was wrong. There seemed to be… the smell of blood.
With his heart pounding wildly, he stood on tiptoe to peer in through a high, small window. They were indeed brewing soup, using an old-fashioned earth stove. The soup was already boiling, steam pushing the wooden pot lid up and down. The fire in the stove was burning fiercely, casting eerie shadows on the wall.
One person stood rigidly motionless, arms raised high, as if about to chop something, but swaying. A line connected to the arm was being positioned by another person. The shadow of the line on the wall trembled, like a string about to cut fingers.
Li Tan shouted and kicked open the door, rushing in.
Later, he regretted it, feeling he should have been more cautious, perhaps calling the police first. But at that moment, with the obsession of over twenty years suddenly before his eyes, blood rushed to his head, and he could think of nothing else.
He grappled and rolled with the man who was threading the line, knocking over the corpse, rolling in a pool of blood, overturning the soup pot, smashing bowls and plates. Fire spread from the stove. He finally pinned the bastard to the ground, one hand clutching his throat, the other reaching to pull off his mask.
At that moment, something struck his head with a heavy blow.
Li Tan fell to the ground, gasping for breath, seeing a man’s increasingly blurry face.
When he regained consciousness, he was in a sand dune outside the Xiaoshan River. The night was still dark, and in the distance, part of Xiaoshan River was engulfed in flames.
Later, he heard that the household sold spicy mutton and was cooking mutton soup late at night when the fire accidentally spread from the stove.
The air was dry, and with the wind, the fire nearly burned half the alley. When the fire was extinguished, the whole family had been burned like dry wood.
So, they died in the fire.
In this world, only he and the murderer knew that before the fire, puppets had been connected with fishing line in that house.
He hesitated for a long time outside the tiny police station in Xiaoshan River, no larger than a small shop front, but eventually left quietly.
The fire had destroyed everything. He had no evidence, and worse, he might even have been considered the only suspect.
Of course, he also had selfish reasons: if he reported it, if they caught that person, who would only receive legal punishment, wouldn’t that be too lenient?
Countless times, he violently struck his head, thinking how good it would be if he could remember the accomplice’s face.
Wan Fenghuo had suggested he try hypnosis.
Hypnosis? That sounded like something from abroad or movies, not something practiced in daily life. In the whole of Luoma Lake, one would be hard-pressed to find even a psychologist, let alone a hypnotist.
But with a one-in-ten-thousand hope, he had gone to Beijing and nervously entered an office decorated in dark tones, understated yet luxurious, with bookshelves full of foreign hardcover books.
The person seated behind the desk, supposedly certified as a GPST-IH International Hypnotist, politely gestured to him: “Please sit.”
When he received Mu Dai’s call, Li Tan was sitting on the steps of a fountain plaza, looking at the pen-drawn portrait. Around him were various passersby, each with a face, and on each face, a pair of eyes.
Which pair of eyes was maliciously watching him?
Li Tan said, “I woke up in the dunes outside Xiaoshan River. That person must have dumped me there. I had my wallet with my ID card, so he knew all about me.”
“If he is truly the suspect, he must be very wary of those who are still investigating this case. Cen Chunjiao’s story was false, but part of it was very real. Could Cen Chunjiao be bait to lure fish like us?”
“Mu Dai, you need to be careful.”
In the silent night that made one feel disoriented, Mu Dai raised her glass and drank it in one gulp.
Previously, she had thought: If you want to come, then come. Bring your knife, make your move, let’s see who’s tougher.
But after one glass of liquor…
Did Yi Wansan take her for a fool? How could this be real liquor?