Chapter 196: The Red Phantom

I asked Officer Chen if they still kept the material evidence from the case. He told me that they were all gone because they thought the case was solved. There was an expiration date on the evidence and it had to be disposed of after that date.

I pulled out the red dress that we bought earlier and showed it to Officer Chen. I asked him if he’d seen it anywhere before.

“Yes, of course I’ve seen it!” he answered without hesitation. “The first victim wore the exact same dress! Where did you get it?”

I told him what happened and what we found. Officer Chen fell into deep thoughts and muttered, “Zhang Qiang... Zhang Qiang… Ah, yes! The first victim was his sister-in-law! Zhang Qiang made that dress for her himself! He wasn’t our suspect, though.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“He had a solid alibi,” Officer Chen explained. “He was with his wife at a hot pot restaurant at the time the murder occurred. They had a receipt from the restaurant to prove it. Besides, there had been no problems between him and his sister-in-law.”

“I want to see the evidence collected in the recent case!” I told him.

Officer Chen took me to the evidence room. I compared the red dress in the recent case and the one worn by the victim. They didn’t match. The one on the victim looked nothing like the one from Zhang Qiang’s shop. It looked like it was bought online.

“How did you come to the conclusion that the victims in the first three cases were killed by the same person?” I asked.

“Based on the two details that have not been disclosed to the public,” he replied. “One was the knots tied on the ropes around the victims’ hands and feet, which were identical in all cases. The second detail was the fact that all the victims were killed by getting hit on the back of their heads with a heavy blunt object.”

I flipped through the case files. The four victims were indeed all hit on their heads with a heavy object, but there was an anomaly here. Unfortunately, I couldn’t directly examine the victims’ bodies anymore, so the amount of information that could be obtained was greatly reduced.

Xiaotao came to the room and told me to follow her. We ended up in the laboratory, where Bingxin and Xiaozhou were. It turned out that Xiaozhou had detected traces of manganese residue and some fluoride in the victim’s bone marrow, but they just couldn’t figure out what that meant and what the victim’s occupation was.

“He was a car mechanic, of course!” I remarked.

“That’s right!” exclaimed Xiaotao. “That’s amazing, Song Yang!”

“Yeah!” echoed Bingxin. “How did you find out so quickly?”

I smiled and admitted that I’d been suspecting the fact since earlier that day when we were examining the bones. People engaged in heavy labor their whole life would normally have deformed vertebrae, but the victim’s vertebrae were completely normal. This meant that his job involved physical labor, yet he often lay flat on the ground while working—which fit the description of a car mechanic. The finding from Xiaozhou’s testing just corroborated that.

The sky was dark now, and I was pretty sure the auto repair shop that the victim used to work in must’ve been closed. Xiaotao suggested we rest for the day and investigate the victim’s identity tomorrow instead.

I thought the progress we were making was too slow to rest now, to be honest, but this was a cold case, and one must be patient and not rush things when investigating a cold case.

Director Feng invited us to dinner again, but Xiaotao plainly refused to eat fancy food for the day. She said it was in the middle of winter and nearing the end of the year, so it was the perfect occasion to have a big hot pot meal together to boost our morale! Bingxin clapped excitedly and agreed immediately. I had no idea why girls always got so excited about hot pot.

Xiaotao sent a message to everyone in the task force, telling them we’d have a hot pot meal together tonight and everyone should buy some ingredients and the pots. At around eight o’clock at night, we all gathered at the hotel. Yuanchao turned up with enough alcohol for the whole police force. Xiaotao had bought expensive and high-quality lamb meat for everyone.

It got lively and rowdy pretty quickly. I looked around and suddenly noticed that Bingxin was nowhere to be found. I checked my phone and saw a text message from her that read, “Song Yang-gege! I’m in the room. Can you buy me some sanitary pads please?” There was an embarrassed emoji at the end of the text too.

I replied, “Give me a minute.” Then I walked into town. It was already about nine o’clock at night, so the streets were pretty dark. I went to a convenience store and bought two packs of sanitary pads, one for day use and one for night use. I bought a pack of ginger tea as well, as it would alleviate symptoms of menstrual cramps.

I paid the money for the items, then walked back to the hotel. On my way, I suddenly felt as if someone was following me. I looked behind, and my eyes widened in horror!

It was a woman in a red dress! She had long hair which covered her face completely. Seeing such a thing in a dark street frightened me of course, but I knew right away that this was no ghost—someone was trying to trick me!

The woman in red and I stood there facing each other for a few seconds, then she turned and fled into an alley. Her footsteps were so light it almost looked like she was floating instead of walking.

I knew that this woman must’ve had something to do with the murders. I didn’t have the time to contact Xiaotao now—I had to follow her!

“Stop right there!” I shouted.

I chased after the red phantom. Although the alley was dark, I had no problem seeing at all with my Cave Vision. The woman was very fast. As I ran after her, I used my phone to check the map of the area and found that there would be a fork in the road up ahead.

I tried to intercept the woman by using a shortcut, but then realized that the woman was gone. I stood there completely alone in the dark alley, and my heart was racing like crazy in my chest.

I thought it would be best to call Xiaotao over anyway. As I lowered my head to dial her number, a pair of cold hands suddenly wrapped around my neck from behind me. A voice whispered in my ears, “Anyone who is against me must die!”

I was suffocating, but I desperately tried to hit her with my elbow, and it worked! I turned around and saw the woman’s hair flying in the air, revealing a face that looked like it was melting like hot wax. I froze. My brain went blank. Was the legend true after all?

The woman stretched out her arms and tried to choke me again. Fortunately, I was quick enough and flung the plastic bag in my hand straight at her face. She screamed in pain, and that emboldened me.

The woman turned to run away, her hands covering her face. I shouted for her to stop and chased after her. But before I could get anywhere, a blinding bright light suddenly appeared. I couldn’t see anything else for a moment. I raised my hands to cover my eyes. I heard some movements, but before I could identify what it was, I felt a sharp pain in my arm—someone had hit me with a heavy metallic object! Moments later, I could feel that the heavy object was going to hit my head. In my mind, I was thinking to myself, “I’m done for.”

But just before the object hit me, I heard a rustling noise, like that of a gust of wind. Then it sounded like a heavy object had just fallen to the ground. I heard the sound of footsteps scurrying away, getting further and further away from me.

Because of that bright light, I still couldn’t see anything. That was the biggest weakness of my Cave Vision. If I was in a dark place, sudden bright lights would blind me for up to a few seconds.

Judging from the series of movements just now though, I knew that someone had appeared to save me just in time.

A hand pulled me up to my feet. It was a delicate hand, like that of a woman. But when the person spoke, it sounded unmistakably male, and it was a familiar voice, too.

“You won’t give me a break, will you, Young Master?”

I was stunned. It was obviously the man in the trench coat who’d saved me before.

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

“Go back to the hotel now!” he answered. “It’s not safe out here!”

He then turned away. All I saw was a faint figure in a white trench coat, as my eyes hadn’t readjusted to the darkness yet.

“Did you see who attacked me?” I shouted.

“You do the investigating yourself,” he answered without looking back. “My only task is to protect you.”

“Would it kill you to help?” I argued.

He was silent for a while, then replied, “They were wearing masks, but it looked like they were a couple.”

He then disappeared into the darkness. Only a cut steel pipe was left on the ground. The cut was both smooth and neat, as if it was done at a high speed with a sharp blade. The mysterious man’s fighting skills might well be far above even Yuanchao’s. Who was he? How did he always end up appearing at the most critical time to rescue me? Had he been secretly tracking me all along?