CHAPTER 16

The Number Killer

Dragging a broom and dustpan, cleaning woman Zhang Baohua climbed wearily to the fourth floor of the MultidisciplinaryBuilding. This was supposed to be Tian Cuixia's responsibility. Zhang Baohua didn't know how that old shrew had gotten so lucky, but after getting divorced, she had been able to marry the boss of a snack food wholesaling company. And then recently, after the wife of Pang Guangcai, one of the electricians from the maintenance department, was killed, police had come snooping around and discovered that he and Tian Cuixia had once had an affair. Even though she was proven to have had no part in the murder, she was obviously not going to stick around there any longer, so without even a word of warning, she quit. Since there already weren't enough cleaners to begin with, the maintenance department had had no choice but to temporarily assign the job of cleaning the MultidisciplinaryBuilding to Zhang Baohua. Her reward would be an extra 200 renminbi a month.

After quickly cleaning several rooms, Zhang Baohua glanced down at her watch. It was already almost 7 a.m. According to regulations, the whole building had to be finished by eight. Thinking of the three floors she still had left to clean, Zhang Baohua massaged her waist and then pushed open the door to Room 404.

Huh? she thought. What were people doing studying here this early?

Amid the empty desks in the classroom two people sat side by side. In the faint morning light, Zhang Baohua could just make out that one of them was dressed all in red.

If they had come there to study, why'd they leave the lights off?Hmph, she thought, they probably just snuck in here last night to have sex.

Curling her lips in contempt, Zhang Baohua switched on the light.

Eating as fast as they could, Fang Mu and Du Yu hurried to the MultidisciplinaryBuilding, but when they arrived they discovered that there was no reason to worry about being late for class. Several hundred students and teachers were already gathered outside the building, the scene as noisy as a food market. But although everyone was saying something different, they all wore the same panicked expression.

What had happened?

Fang Mu was about to ask one of the students beside him, when he noticed police cars parked on the street side of the building, their lights flashing. His face fell. Could someone else have died?

Abandoning Du Yu, he did his best to squeeze through the crowd. When he finally made it to the front, a policeman abruptly blocked his way.

"Can't you see the police tape?" he asked.

Behind him, a blue-and-white cordon separated an empty space in front of the building from the crowd of onlookers. The main door was wide open, and policemen could be seen rushing up and down the stairs. Through the window of the on-duty room, Fang Mu watched one of the building attendants haltingly explain something to an imposing veteran officer. In the chair beside them sat a cleaning lady. She was holding a cup of water with both hands and shaking all over, her eyes absolutely blank.

Suddenly there was a disturbance within the crowd. It was the dean, a rather heavy man, doing his best to wade through the onlookers. Once he had pushed his way to the middle, he lifted the loudspeaker he was carrying and turned it on.

After clearing his throat, he began to speak at the top of his lungs. "Students, teachers! All classes in the MultidisciplinaryBuilding have been canceled for the day! Makeup times will be posted at a later date. As for all other buildings, classes will proceed as scheduled. Again, all classes in the MultidisciplinaryBuilding are canceled for the day! Classes in all other buildings will proceed as scheduled!"

An excited murmur ran through the crowd, for even though they were all terrified of what might have happened inside the MultidisciplinaryBuilding, the prospect of skipping class that morning was still enticing. Yawning, students who had been up all night returned to their dorms to get some sleep, while those who hadn't yet eaten hurried to the dining hall. Whoever was inside the building, whatever had happened to them-it all seemed much less important than catching a few more hours of sleep or eating a good breakfast. After all, the lives of other people were just that-other peoples'.

Very quickly the crowd dispersed. Figuring that even if he waited around no one would tell him what was going on, Fang Mu also turned to leave. But just as he was about to walk away, he spotted Tai Wei's jeep parked outside the building.

Fang Mu was surprised. What was he doing here? Shouldn't this case be handled by the State Enterprise and Nonprofit Institution Investigative Division? And if so, why was he getting involved?

Fang Mu thought for a moment, and then he pulled out his cell phone and called Tai Wei.

The phone rang for a long time before Tai Wei picked it up. He sounded exhausted.

"Who is it?" he grunted.

"It's me. What's going on?"

"Oh, Fang Mu. How'd you know I was at your school?"

"I saw your car. What are you doing here? What exactly happened?"

"There weren't enough people on duty so I'm helping out for the time being. It's another goddamned murder."

"Who?" asked Fang Mu, his voice anxious. "What happened?"

"Don't ask. Right now I'm extremely busy. I'll contact you in a few days." Then without saying anything more, Tai Wei hung up.

Although it was clear from his abrupt tone that Tai Wei was upset, this was hardly surprising. Even as a cop, to be faced with one murder after another like this was enough to make someone curse-out their best friend.

And indeed, at that moment Tai Wei really did want to curse someone out. Zhao Yonggui had already run to the fourth floor bathroom to throw up, and although Tai Wei wanted to do the same, at least one of them had to remain at the scene at all times, so he had no choice but to stay put.

So summoning up his courage, he turned around and faced a sight unlike any he had ever seen before.

They were in a fairly large classroom, with enough seats for 80 people. In the fourth row sat the victim's corpse. Its skin had been peeled off.

Because nearly every inch of skin had been removed-including from the corpse's face-it was difficult to determine its gender. But given the adipose tissue remaining on the victim's chest, it was most likely female.

The skinless corpse sat at the desk with its face lowered, as if filled with shame. The crown of its head, once covered by long, thick hair, was now a bloody mess. A tapestry of muscles and veins covered its body, as if the victim were wearing some motley red-and-blue attire. Without any lips to cover them, the corpse's white teeth glistened brightly in the light of the flashing cameras.

Next to the corpse, a plastic male mannequin sat quietly. A strange kind of outfit was stretched tightly across its muscular frame. On closer inspection, this was revealed to be blood-spattered human skin. A pair of breasts hung loosely from the mannequin's chest, the nipples already dark purple. If this was a woman's skin, then its owner was most likely the corpse sitting at the next desk. Sitting next to its bloody, ravaged female companion, the mannequin looked perfectly innocent. The thin smile that crossed its lips made the crime scene photographers shudder as they snapped its picture.

Dizzy from the constantly flashing cameras, Tai Wei increasingly felt the need to vomit. Breathing heavily, he pulled aside one of the photographers and asked roughly, "Are you guys done yet?" When the man said yes, Tai Wei waved his hand and said, "Everyone else, get to work!"

With that, the medical examiners and crime scene investigators sprung swiftly to action.

Silently, Tai Wei gazed at the two motionless figures before him. The sun was climbing higher in the sky, and the once dark classroom was now filling with light. As bright rays poured through the window, he grew distracted, and for a moment he imagined that he was a teacher, and these two "students" were his class. But what would he be teaching them? Human anatomy?

Suddenly, one of the medical examiners gave a shout. Then a moment later, he cried: "Tai Wei, come look at this!"

His reverie interrupted, Tai Wei quickly walked over.

"What is it?" he asked.

"See for yourself," said the medical examiner, clearly astonished. He pointed at the corpse's head.

Tai Wei looked to where he was pointing. Two thin black cords ran from somewhere inside the desk drawer, up the corpse's body, and then into either ear.

It was a pair of earphones. As Tai Wei reached out to open the drawer, the medical examiner quickly tried to stop him. "Be careful," he said, "inside there's probably a — "

Ignoring him, Tai Wei slowly opened the drawer. A small CD stereo had been placed neatly within.

After putting on a pair of rubber gloves, Tai Wei carefully lifted the stereo out of the drawer. Through the plastic covering, he could clearly make out the sound of a rapidly spinning disc.

This horrifying, skinless corpse was actually listening to music.

Tai Wei signaled for the medical examiner to remove the corpse's earphones.

Confronted by this strange scene, the medical examiner started to tremble, but composing himself, he reached forward and removed one of the earphones. However, when he tried to take out the other it wouldn't budge. Redoubling his efforts, the medical examiner gave it a much stronger yank, but rather than pull out the earphone, he instead nearly tore the stereo from Tai Wei's hands. Although Tai Wei was quick enough to hold onto it, the force of the maneuver caused the earphone cord to pop out of the stereo.

Instantly an explosion of noise erupted within the classroom, so deafening it seemed like a sledgehammer was smashing against the skull of every cop in the room. One of the men who had been carefully examining the back of the classroom was so surprised that he immediately fell onto his backside, but no one laughed. Everyone was too busy staring with fear and alarm at the stereo in Tai Wei's hands.

As for Tai Wei, he very nearly threw the screeching thing to the ground, but then he quickly got ahold of himself and hit the "Stop" button.

Her head lowered, the female corpse seemed to be secretly laughing at Tai Wei and the rest of the cops, while beside her, jostled by all the commotion, the straight-backed mannequin clothed in human skin appeared to rock with amusement.

The event that morning caused a great deal of discussion across campus, and as the days passed and Fang Mu waited to hear the real scoop from Tai Wei, he also did his best to collect what clues he could about what actually took place. He listened to both official news and rumor, and heard stories true and obviously false. But a few things were certain: someone had been killed in the MultidisciplinaryBuilding that morning, the victim was a woman, and from what he had heard, the crime scene was truly horrifying.

Sure enough, Tai Wei showed up at Fang Mu's dorm three days later. As soon as he walked inside and saw no one else was there, he flung himself onto Fang Mu's bed.

"You have anything to eat?" he asked. "I'm starving."

"Just instant noodles," said Fang Mu. Noticing Tai Wei's unkempt hair and bloodshot eyes, Fang Mu thought he looked more like a migrant worker who hadn't eaten in days than an officer of the state.

"Let me go to the dining hall and buy you something," said Fang Mu.

"Don't worry about it. Instant noodles will do fine. And if you have some hot Sichuan pickles to put on top, that would be even better."

Fang Mu poured some boiling water into a bowl of instant noodles, and then added a pack of Sichuan pickles whose month and even year of expiration were totally unknown. Before the noodles were remotely soft, Tai Wei began wolfing them down, all the while pointing at the black briefcase he had brought with him.

"Take a look at what's inside," he said, his mouth full of food.

The victim was a sophomore physics student named Xin Tingting. She was 20-year-old and from the city of Zhouxi in Sichuan province. When the crime was committed, she had already been missing for 36 hours. However, because she had numerous online friends and had left the city unannounced to meet them on previous occasions, none of her roommates had been concerned and no one had notified any of her teachers.

The victim's body was left in Room 404 of the MultidisciplinaryBuilding. It was found by a cleaning lady, who in the dim morning light believed that the victim was wearing red clothing. But when she turned on the light, she discovered that in fact the corpse had had all of its skin peeled off.

According to the interviewer's notes, the cleaning lady had seen two people when she entered the room. So without lifting his head, Fang Mu asked Tai Wei, "Who was the other person?"

Tai Wei stopped chewing at once. Based on the look on his face, he seemed to be remembering something awful.

"It wasn't a person," he said, forcing himself to swallow the food in his mouth. "It was a plastic mannequin."

Fang Mu frowned. "A plastic mannequin?" he repeated, and was about to ask more when he saw that Tai Wei had already begun to retch. Fang Mu quickly pointed at the trash can beside his desk.

Feeling rather embarrassed, Tai Wei gulped down several mouthfuls of water and cleared his throat. Then pretending as if nothing had happened, he said, "Damn, I ate way too fast."

When Fang Mu didn't respond, but rather just gave him a long look with a hint of derision in his eyes, Tai Wei got a little annoyed.

"All you students are real wusses, you know that?" Tai Wei snapped. "From what I've heard, none of you are willing to even step foot in that classroom anymore. Small wonder, given that it's Room Four-Zero-Four on the fourth floor. With that many fours, it's bound to be unlucky." (Translator’s note: In Chinese, the number four is pronounced almost the same as the word for death.)

Fang Mu smiled and asked again, "So a plastic mannequin, huh? What kind, and where are the crime scene photographs?" But then, with no warning whatsoever, he suddenly leapt to his feet and cried, "Wait! What did you just say?"

Caught completely off guard, Tai Wei swallowed the water in his mouth too fast, and started coughing violently. Fang Mu immediately began hitting him hard on the back, all the while continuing to loudly ask, "What did you just say?"

"What did I say when?" said Tai Wei, panting for breath. "Are you trying to scare me to death or something?"

"Think," said Fang Mu anxiously. "What did you say just now-it was something about the number four."

"Oh, um, I was saying… The fourth floor, Room Four-Zero-Four. What about it?"

Fang Mu didn't respond, just stared at the corner of the room, lost in thought.

Tai Wei watched him, completely baffled. After a while, he realized the kid was mumbling something under his breath: "One, two, three, four…"

Just as he was about to ask him what was going on, Fang Mu turned around and began to speak. "Tai Wei," he said slowly, a strange light flashing through his eyes, "you need to combine the cases. It's the numbers."

"What numbers?" asked Tai Wei, even more confused.

"I can guarantee that all of these murders were committed by the same person, because at every crime scene the killer left behind a number," said Fang Mu, sitting down on the bed. "It's just that this number doesn't refer to the individual victim per se, but rather to where the crime falls in the overall sequence. At this point, murders one through four have already happened."

"I don't understand."

"In the seven-one double murder, the male student whose hands were cut off-what do you remember about him?"

"That case I don't know much about, but I think he was the goalie for the school soccer team."

"What number jersey do goalies usually wear?"

He paused. "I don't know, but the French goalie Barthez wears number sixteen." On the day that Fang Mu had nearly been killed by Ma Kai, Tai Wei had happened to notice this piece of information while walking past the TV in the on-duty room.

Getting back on topic, Fang Mu said, "Number one, they generally wear number one. And I know for certain that Qu Weiqiang did, too, because I went to his jersey retirement ceremony."

"One. Now I understand. The hospital murder took place in Observation Room Two. That was two. But what about three?" Scratching his head, Tai Wei puzzled over this question.

But Fang Mu had long since thought of the answer.

"The packing box that the little girl's corpse was delivered in," he said slowly. "Do you still remember what it looked like?"

"That Adidas box?" said Tai Wei, not seeing where this was going. "What was special about it?"

"The three leaves," said Fang Mu, smiling bitterly. "I should have noticed it much sooner."

But Fang Mu wasn't the only one upset; Tai Wei now felt the same way. At that moment he clearly recalled the trademark logo that had been printed on the side of the Adidas box-the three-leaved trefoil. He had looked at that box hundreds of times. Why had this thought never occurred to him before?

"Room Four-Zero-Four on the fourth floor, and the corpse was even found sitting in the fourth row," muttered Tai Wei. "Obviously, this was four."

In an instant, it seemed as if the two people sitting in Room 303 were enveloped by a heavy sense of fear, one that came with the smell of blood. For a moment, neither of them spoke. Fang Mu looked at the ground. Tai Wei looked at him. All the while the fear slithered back and forth between them like a long serpent, smiling wickedly, baring its poisonous fangs, and shooting out its forked tongue as it arrogantly enjoyed their terror and helplessness.

After a long time, Tai Wei forced himself to say: "How many more will there be?"

Fang Mu took a deep breath, and then shook his head. "I don't know."

The dorm room fell once more into silence. After some time had passed and Tai Wei felt a little better, he asked: "Couldn't this all just be a coincidence?"

"I don't think so," said Fang Mu, his expression grave. "Not only have the crimes been numbered one through four, they've all taken place around Jiangbin City University, and when the victims weren't students, they were the family of faculty members. This is too much to be simply coincidental."

Suddenly he stood up, grabbed the thick folders of case data, and dropped them down on the desk with a bang.

"I recommend that you combine these cases into one," Fang Mu said, eyes now blazing as he stared at Tai Wei. "As for me, I will continue to analyze the murders committed thus far. I hope…" he paused to lick his dry lips, "that we can stop him at four!"

Xin Tingting's cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation, the murder weapon most likely a length of rope. Because trace amounts of the sedative Alprazolam were found in the victim's bloodstream, she was believed to have been drugged prior to being killed. Afterwards, the victim's skin was entirely peeled off, and then draped like clothing over the plastic mannequin that had been placed next to her. As demonstrated by photographs of the scene, even though the victim was nearly 5'7", her skin was still a little small for the male mannequin to wear. Except for its torso, arms and thighs, all of which had been forcibly covered, the rest of the mannequin's plastic body was revealed. Although the killer's method of skinning the victim made clear that he was no expert, the neat and meticulous stitching he had done to make this set of "clothes" for the mannequin showed that he was a careful, patient individual.

A CD stereo with a disc still playing inside was also found at the scene. From the stereo display, it seemed that the disc had been playing since 1:45 that morning-which must have been roughly the time that the killer placed the corpse and mannequin in the classroom.

The song that the corpse happened to be listening to was an old one: "Revolution 9" by The Beatles, from their popular self-titled CD.

The police and Fang Mu found this discovery extremely perplexing. Killing a person, skinning her-these things obviously carried deep significance. But making a corpse listen to music, what was that supposed to mean?

Although more than a few people felt the rationale for combining the investigations was a little farfetched, it was ultimately given the director's approval and a special team was formed, with Tai Wei and Zhao Yonggui in charge. All the abandoned leads from the three previous murder cases were once more taken up and thoroughly investigated. Initially, two of these were given precedence above the rest.

The first was the source of the heroin used in the hospital murder. A drug like that was not the sort of murder weapon a person just happened across. Therefore, police believed that if they investigated heroin buyers across the city, they might be able to identify the killer himself and at the very least may learn some of his characteristics.

The second important lead was the car. Previously, Fang Mu had suggested to Tai Wei that the killer was probably a car owner, and on this point the police happened to be thinking the same thing. Their reasoning was that the first, third, and fourth murders all took place in a different location than where the bodies were found, and therefore would have required the killer to transport his victims. Were he to have moved them on foot, not only would he be wasting time and energy, he might also be discovered. Because Jiangbin City University's three gates-at its north, east and west entrances respectively-closed every night at roughly 11 p.m., any cars that tried to get in afterwards would be discovered by campus security. As a result, the police began to consider the possibility that the car came from somewhere inside campus.

One week later, the officers investigating the two leads reported back to the special team. The group responsible had spoken to informants among the city's addicts, but had not found any buyers who fit the description of the killer. They did, however, learn one important piece of information. While one of the addicts was returning home from buying heroin late one night in mid-September, he was attacked in the street and his wallet and the heroin he had just purchased were both stolen. Although the man had been injured, he had not reported the crime to the police for fear of being arrested himself. Police later interviewed the addict in question, but he had nearly lost his mind to the ravages of drugs and could remember nothing about the person who had mugged him. In the end, police had no choice but to send him to a prison labor camp.

The group responsible for locating the killer's car set to investigating the source of all the cars frequently parked on campus. They found nothing. However, while later searching the school boundaries for entry points, one sharp-eyed policeman located a hole in the iron fence on the north side of campus. One of the bars had been sawed off and then replaced so that the fence still appeared continuous while still allowing someone to easily remove it whenever they wanted. The hole itself was big enough for an adult to climb through. Once inside, it was a one-minute walk to the MultidisciplinaryBuilding (scene of the fourth crime), and a five-minute walk to the track and field stadium (scene of the first crime). Tire tracks had been left on the street beside the fence, but too much time had already passed to identify them. All the same, police decided that, until proven otherwise, this was where the killer had entered the campus.

From these findings, along with the analysis of the Department of Public Security's criminal psychology research division, it was determined that the killer was relatively well-off, strong-bodied, and intelligent, and quite familiar with the campus of Jiangbin City University as well as the surrounding area.

This conclusion was essentially identical to the one Fang Mu had reached earlier.

It was a bright afternoon in late fall, while Fang Mu and Tai Wei were sitting on one of the benches beside the basketball court. Tai Wei had just told Fang Mu their latest find: the factory that produced the plastic mannequin from the fourth murder had been found. However, over a hundred stores in the city sold this model, so it would be very difficult to determine who purchased it. Although Tai Wei said "We're still working on it," Fang Mu could tell that he wasn't very optimistic.

The sun was unusually pleasant, and Tai Wei leaned back and stretched. It felt as if the sunlight was slowly entering the spaces between his bones, warming him to the core. The sensation was delightful. Lighting a cigarette, he slumped back against the bench, thinking how nice the day would be if only he didn't have to worry about the grisly case before them.

Beside him, Fang Mu was thinking the same thing. Bathing in the warmth of the sun, he felt his muscles ache and his eyelids grow heavy. Over the past week, Fang Mu had been studying the case day and night, poring over the data, taking notes, and avoiding Du Yu, who was now more curious than ever. Seriously short on sleep, all he wanted to do at that moment was lie down and rest for days. And yet even on this blissfully warm day, with his eyes comfortably shut and his body relaxed, all the words and photos from the case files continued to flash through his mind, as if someone had taken a knife and carved them onto the surface of his brain.

The police analysis had not been wrong-this guy was inordinately smart. If they were hoping he had gotten sloppy and left some major clue behind, they were going to be out of luck. The only way to catch him would be through meticulously analyzing his behavior and then piecing together a picture of the man himself. And yet, what exactly could Fang Mu hope to learn from these increasingly puzzling cases?

This was what had most perplexed Fang Mu over the past several days. Through research and personal experience, he knew that in committing their crimes, serial killers always acted in a way meant to satisfy some psychological or emotional need. This sort of behavior was often known as a serial killer's personal mark. Determining and then analyzing a serial killer's personal mark was critical to cracking the case. First of all, this behavior was the basis for identifying several murders as the work of one individual, and second, it was a window into the killer's overall motive. And because the personal mark often accurately reflected the character, lifestyle, and experiences of the killer, it could lead to important clues found at the intersection of the killer, his victims, and his chosen crime scenes.

Without a doubt, the killer had meticulously arranged for the number of each crime to be hidden somewhere within the crime itself-this was not just some coincidence. At this point, not knowing anything more about their meaning, there was no choice but to understand these numbers as a kind of provocation. As for the rest of the killer's unusual behavior, could any of it be seen as his personal mark?

Superficially, some of it did seem possess the characteristics of a personal mark: dismembering Wang Qian, and then transporting Qu Weiqiang and cutting off his hands in the first crime; placing a piece of broken ceramic pottery in Jin Qiao's hand, filming her genitals and then returning her to her parents in the third crime; skinning Xin Tingting in the fourth crime. All of this behavior clearly required that the killer expend additional time, patience and skill, while also increasing his risk. And all of it was far in excess of what he needed to do avoid detection; rather, it seemed to have been performed for his own satisfaction.

Even so, this was what most puzzled Fang Mu. Because from said behavior, which at first might seem to so obviously display the killer's personal mark, it was not only impossible to determine how the killer's obsessions were either increasing in force or shifting from crime to crime, it couldn't even be claimed that there was any consistent information about the man at all. In other words, these so-called examples of the killer's personal mark were unable to fully reflect the killer's character or his psychological characteristics.

During the first crime, after the killer raped Wang Qian, he dismembered her and then pieced her back together. According to Professor Qiao, this came from a desire to "build her anew." And as for Qu Weiqiang, the severing of his hands after he was killed was supposedly motivated by jealousy. But at this point, the investigation had found no evidence that this had been a crime of passion. And the syringe that was plunged in Wang Qian's breast also remained unexplained.

During the second crime, a middle-aged woman had been killed. She was not raped, and the crime did not appear sexually motivated. As for the pornographic manga found in her bag, Fang Mu believed it had been placed there in an attempt to dishonor her. But again, the information currently available about the crime could not prove this point.

During the third crime, the killer sexually tortured the victim to death, filmed her genitals and placed a piece of broken pottery in her hand. All this demonstrated a psychosexual disorder, as well as a violent need to control the female body.

During the fourth crime, the killer skinned the victim and then clothed the male plastic mannequin beside her in her skin. This demonstrated a tendency toward transvestism. From the standpoint of academic sexual psychology, transvestism may dispose a person toward torture fetishism, but it is extremely rare for a torture fetishist to transform into a transvestite, and almost unimaginable for such a thing to occur in so short a length of time.

If this was a case of multiple personality disorder, then most likely there weren't just two or three personalities at work here, there were a whole bunch.

When this guy got out of bed each morning, he probably had no idea who he was going to be that day.

What kind of person were they dealing with here?

"I just had an idea," said Tai Wei, who up until then had been lounging idly and not saying a word. "I'm sure you've noticed it yourself. Every one of these murders has at least one unexplainable element that does not appear to have anything to do with the crime itself. The syringe in the first murders, the pornographic manga in the second, the CD in the fourth. These all seem to hint at something about the killer's methods and the victims themselves."

"Oh?" Fang Mu said. "Tell me what you're thinking."

Sitting up, Tai Wei turned to him, his eyes bright. "Actually, I've had a feeling about this ever since I heard about the first crime scene, where a syringe was discovered in the victim's breast. Because the thing is, during the second crime, the victim was killed in a hospital. You think that's a coincidence? And don't forget how the manga found in her bag was filled with scenes of torture porn, and then the third victim just happened to be tortured to death."

Chopping the air with his hand, Tai Wei continued. "I think that every one of these murders can be looked at in two ways. In all of them, the elements that don't seem to fit are actually hinting at the characteristics of the next crime."

Fang Mu said nothing. In fact, this sort of thought had occurred to him as well. Although Tai Wei hadn't mentioned the broken pottery from the third crime, Fang Mu had already done a good deal of research on the piece as well as Grayson Perry, its creator. As he discovered, Perry himself was a transvestite, and in the fourth crime, the killer had dressed a male plastic mannequin in the female victim's skin, demonstrating a desire to change genders.

If this hypothesis was correct, then they were faced with two questions. First, what was the killer's motive? And second, what was being hinted by the CD left at the fourth crime scene?

Exhausted, Fang Mu massaged his temples. The degree of difficulty in figuring out what was going on in the mind of someone this psychologically unstable was enormous.

"Regardless," Fang Mu said, "I think the next victim will be someone from this school and…"

"And will somehow be related to the number five," said Tai Wei, gloomily completing his thought.

They both wondered if they should tell everyone on campus to avoid everything related to the number five. At a loss, the two of them gazed at all the people passing by, cheerful smiles on their faces, hearts full of hope for the beautiful future they knew life held in store for them.

Lecture Theater 5.

Men's Dormitory 5.

Dining Hall 5.

The fifth lane on the racetrack.

The fifth basketball court.

…Perhaps more…

Even though the sun was shining just as brightly as before, Fang Mu and Tai Wei felt a cold breeze blow through them.

It was already late fall.

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