Profiler

CHAPTER 24

Unexpectedly, Du Yu was already back in their dorm room. When Fang Mu walked in, Du Yu was leaning back in his chair and talking on the phone, still wearing his garish new Nikes. A half-empty beer bottle was on the desk.

"What are you doing back here?" Fang Mu peeked behind the door. "Where's Zhang Yao?"

Du Yu waved for him to be quiet and listened closely to whoever was on the phone. After a few seconds, he threw it against the desk with a bang, grabbed his beer, and took a huge gulp.

Fang Mu frowned. "What's wrong with you?"

Putting the beer down, Du Yu burped and said, "I'm…I'm fine."

Noticing his roommate's red eyes, Fang Mu asked again, "Seriously, what is it?"

"Man, I don't even know myself," said Du Yu at last. Then, as if he was finally letting something out that he had been holding back a long time, he continued. "Right when we arrived at the karaoke club someone called me, but when I picked up, the person on the other end was silent. Then just as I hung up, they called me again and still didn't say word. While I was standing there confused, Zhang Yao became suspicious and demanded that I tell her what was going on."

Fang Mu laughed. "I'm not surprised. If I were Zhang Yao and I saw someone was calling you that late, and especially on Christmas Eve, I'd be suspicious, too. Not to mention, you do have a wandering eye."

"I swear to God," said Du Yu, talking faster, "I've never done anything to dishonor Zhang Yao."

Fang Mu chuckled. "All right, I believe you. Then what happened?"

"Then she got angry and stormed off. When I tried to stop her, the crazy woman turned around and slapped me across the face." He rubbed his cheek as if it still hurt. "After that I was too pissed off to care, so I ignored her and caught a cab back here."

Fang Mu looked at his watch. It was almost 4 a.m. "Where is she now? Back in her dorm?"

"I don't know; no one's picking up the phone in her dorm room. I called her cell several times, but every time she just hangs up immediately."

Fang Mu smiled. "She's probably just still angry at you. Tomorrow — oh, I mean today — you'd better just humor her."

Du Yu didn't respond directly, just glared at his cell phone and muttered, "This girl, man. Her temper is too goddamn bad, and I normally just put up with it." He kicked his leg out, causing one of his shoes to fly into the corner of the room.

"Jeez, don't take it out on the shoes, man."

Fang Mu was in slippers. He shuffled over and grabbed the shoe. Just as he was about to pass it back to Du Yu, he saw something that made him freeze.

The word "AIR" was written on either side of the shoe in huge letters, and on both sides the designer had very skillfully transformed the shape of the A and the R. On the outer side, the R was placed beside the toe cap, while on the inner side, it had been subtly altered and was sewed by the heel of the shoe in a fluid way that looked extremely well-coordinated.

This meant that the placement of the A and the R was reversed on either side, and through some minute tweaks in their design, the two letters looked very similar.

It made Fang Mu think. Could the right-hand symbol he had seen on the window that night have actually been an R?

R? What was that supposed to mean?

When Du Yu saw that Fang Mu was staring blankly at his shoe, he asked curiously, "What's up?"

Coming back to reality, Fang Mu shook his head and said, "Oh, nothing." Then he tossed the shoe back to Du Yu.

"Jeez, a little softer, please. These are brand new."

This guy, thought Fang Mu. How come it wasn't a problem when he was the one kicking his shoe into the corner of the room?

Smiling to himself, Fang Mu grabbed his washbasin from beneath his bed and headed to the bathroom.

After he finished washing up, he returned to the room to find Du Yu on the phone again.

"Well," he said, "did she pick up?"

"Her phone's off," said Du Yu, tossing his phone on the desk. "What the hell? Where could she have gone?"

"There's nothing to worry about. It's really late; I'm sure she's just asleep." Fang Mu took off his glasses and then hopped in bed and pulled the covers up.

Du Yu didn't seem ready in the least to go to sleep. He just continued to lean back in his chair, staring at his shoes, lost in thought. After a while, he suddenly said, "Fang Mu." His voice was slightly trembling.

"Yeah?"

"You don't think…something happened to her, do you?"

"I don't think so." Fang Mu paused. "People were out all over the city tonight; nothing bad could have happened. You should get some sleep and not worry about it."

Du Yu stood up and walked anxiously around the room several times. Then he once more grabbed his phone and dialed.

"Hey, where'd you run off to…? Oh, Deng Linyue. Did Yaoyao come back yet?… Oh, I see… Yeah, he's here… You want to talk to him?… Oh, okay. Talk to you later."

Du Yu sat heavily at his desk. Without turning around, he said, "Deng Linyue asked if you were back."

"What about Zhang Yao?"

Du Yu didn't say anything.

"Maybe we should go look for her," said Fang Mu, reaching for his pants.

"No way!" yelled Du Yu suddenly. "Let her be an idiot if she wants!" He leapt to his feet, strode over to the door and angrily switched off the light. "Go to sleep!"

At 6:30 in the morning Fang Mu was woken by the sound of his ringing phone. He groggily sat up and reached for it, only to see that Du Yu was still sitting at his desk, phone in hand.

"You didn't sleep at all?" Fang Mu asked.

Du Yu's face was covered with stubble and he looked a lot more haggard. Squinting his eyes, he nodded at Fang Mu.

Fang Mu noticed that Du Yu's other hand was holding his stomach. "What's wrong?"

"My stomach hurts a little. I probably drank too much last night."

Fang Mu climbed out of bed and pulled on his clothes. "Come on. Let's grab some porridge at the dining hall and then find Zhang Yao."

The dining hall was fairly empty. Most people had probably stayed out late the night before and were sleeping in. Fang Mu had Du Yu find them seats while he went and bought them breakfast.

Two girls were standing beside him, scooping tea eggs onto their plates and chatting about the party they'd went to the night before.

When Fang Mu had stacked his tray high with food, he headed back to his table. As he passed the two girls, he happened to hear one of them say, "…It's really strange. It's so cold out today, but for some reason the pool's full of water…"

Fang Mu suddenly slowed his pace, and as he walked toward where Du Yu was sitting, he looked back at the two girls.

Abruptly, he placed his tray on one of the tables beside him and began running for the exit.

R was for river!

The symbol on the left wasn't a q — it was an uppercase G! Water droplets had dripped down the two letters, elongating them, which had made the G look like a q with a line through the middle.

GR. Green River!

The Green River Killer.

As Fang Mu burst out of the dining hall doors, he knocked a male student to the ground, but at this point he no longer cared.

Run! Run! Run!

Don't die! Don't die! I'm begging you…

He sprinted over the withered yellow lawn, darted around the tennis courts… He could see the outdoor swimming pool, its gray water rippling faintly.

No matter who you are, don't die!

He ran around the chain-link fence bordering the pool as fast as he could. The branches from the pine trees surrounding it struck his face, but he felt no pain. When he reached the entrance, he saw that the chain lock had already been pried off and was lying curled on the ground like a dead snake.

He pulled open the gate and ran inside.

Before him was a huge pool, already filled with water. He circled it, anxiously searching the depths. Before he had gone more than a few steps, he saw something moving underwater in the deepest part of the pool.

Someone was down there.

My God! The thought froze in his mind.

Without thinking, he took several hurried steps and then dove headlong into the pool.

The ice-cold chill spread from the tips of his fingers to the bottom of his feet. In a flash, he felt like he was going to suffocate.

When his feet touched bottom, he kicked off hard and rose back to the surface. With his head above water, he oriented himself, took a deep breath, and dove back under.

Although the water was extremely murky, Fang Mu could still see a young woman standing on the bottom of the pool. She was wearing a yellow tube top, short leather skirt, and black platform heels. Her arms were slightly raised and her head drooped, and her dyed-blonde hair fluttered with the movement of the water.

Fang Mu swam over, grabbed her clothing, and pulled as hard as he could, but she didn't move at all. Looking down, he saw that her ankles were tied to the drain with a piece of thick rope. This was why the girl had looked like she was standing up at the bottom of the pool.

Fang Mu swam back to the surface and dug wildly through his pockets. When he found the dagger, he put it between his teeth, took another deep breath, and swam back down.

As soon as he reached the bottom, he used all his strength to hack the rope in half. At once the girl's feet lifted off the bottom. Grabbing her clothing, he struggled to swim her back to the surface.

At last, using his final bit of strength, he heaved the girl onto the side of the pool. There she lay, eyes closed, not moving at all. With no time to rest, Fang Mu slapped the girl back and forth across the face, trying to wake her up. He head lolled, but her eyes did not open.

Wake up, please wake up! I'm begging you!

Lifting the girl's upper torso, he desperately shook her back and forth. The movement caused some water to trickle from her mouth. Seeing this, Fang Mu quickly hoisted her onto his shoulder and ran like madman back and forth beside the pool.

A few students who were walking by the pool caught sight of this frightening scene and ran to get a closer look. Dumbstruck, they watched as a man, who appeared to be a lunatic, sprinted about with a corpse held over his shoulder.

Fang Mu's hair had already frozen solid and his pant legs and shirt sleeves were stiff from the cold. Shivering all over, he continued to run rigidly back and forth, carrying the girl all the while.

More and more people continued to surround him. Some called the police, some whispered to each other, some cried softly, and some screamed aloud.

Fang Mu wasn't aware of any of this. His mind blank, he ran mechanically, repeating the same thing over and over to himself.

Wake up, wake up, I'm begging you…

At last, his strength gone, his legs went limp and he collapsed to the ground. The girl fell beside him.

Panting for breath, he crawled over, laced his hands over her chest and pushed down forcefully. After doing this several times, he pinched her nose closed and breathed deeply into her mouth.

Wake up! Wake up…

He repeated this several times, but the girl still didn't show any response. Still he gritted his teeth and continued on, hot tears rolling down his face.

Wake up, please wake up!

Fang Mu felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. It was Du Yu.

"Enough, Fang Mu, give it up. She's dead."

Fang Mu pushed his hands away and again placed his mouth over the girl's.

Taking hold of Fang Mu, Du Yu pulled him away from the girl. But as he did, Fang Mu reached out and, unwilling to give up, grabbed onto her hair.

The two of them fell to the ground. In Fang Mu's hand was a blonde wig.

The dead girl's hair was short and black.

Du Yu sat on the ground and stared at the corpse, his eyes wide. After several seconds he suddenly cried out: "Yaoyao?"

Fang Mu's heart sank. He clambered toward the girl and looked at her face.

Sure enough, despite the heavy makeup, she was Zhang Yao all right.

In an instant, everything around Fang Mu seemed to go silent.

He saw Du Yu kneeling over Zhang Yao's body, holding her and rocking her back and forth, calling out her name.

He saw all the people around them looking around and whispering to one another.

He saw police cars outside the pool area, their lights flashing.

He saw policemen rushing inside, yelling at the crowd to get out of the way.

But he didn't hear a sound. It was as if everything around him had become pure chaos.

Something sickly-sweet was churning in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly, he felt like he was about to explode.

"Aghh!" A howl loud enough to raise the dead roared out of Fang Mu. "Why? Why? If you want to kill me, then come and do it! Why do you have to kill so many people? Come on, kill me! Kill me!"

At once all the faces turned toward him. His features were distorted by anger and anguish, the sounds around him difficult to distinguish.

For a moment, Du Yu stared blankly at Fang Mu. Then he leapt on him and grabbed his collar. "What the hell was going on?" he demanded, shouting. At a loss, Fang Mu just looked away. He saw Deng Linyue staring at him from the crowd, her expression terrified.

Two police officers pulled Du Yu off of Fang Mu, and then someone else hauled Fang Mu to his feet and pushed him toward the exit.

The crowd automatically parted to let them through. All the faces were turned towards them, their expressions suspicious or panic-stricken or both. Fang Mu walked stiffly, a dull look in his eyes as the person behind him pushed him through the crowd and out of the gate. After they had walked for some ways, Fang Mu struggled to look back. It took him a long time to recognize that the man behind him was Tai Wei.

"Let's get you back to your dorm," Tai Wei said, his voice unusually gentle, almost soft, as he held tightly to Fang Mu's shoulders.

When they reached Fang Mu's dorm room, Tai Wei maneuvered the soaking, shivering student onto his bed and wrapped him in his blanket. He tossed him a towel, but Fang Mu just let it fall to the floor.

Sighing to himself, Tai Wei opened Fang Mu's dresser.

"Where do you put your clothes?"

As soon as the words left Tai Wei's mouth, Fang Mu threw off his blanket, staggered to his feet, and tried to run out the door.

Tai Wei quickly stopped him. "Where do you think you're going?"

"I'm…I'm going back there…" Fang Mu mumbled, pushing Tai Wei away from him.

"Oh, yeah, and what are you gonna do?"

"Search the scene!" said Fang Mu, the past hour's defeat suddenly exploding out of him. "Bastard! Bastard! I swear I'll get you!"

Tears welled and fell from his bloodshot eyes. His lips were pale and shaking.

Tai Wei grabbed hold of him firmly. "Let us take care of this."

Struggling with all his might, Fang Mu threw Tai Wei off him. When he flung open the door he ran smack into Du Yu.

Du Yu didn't say a word, just shoved Fang Mu backwards.

Unprepared, Fang Mu fell to his back on the floor of their room.

Before he could get up, Du Yu pounced on him and grabbed his collar.

"Fang Mu, who the hell are you?" The normally cheerful Du Yu instantly changed, his actions those of a man-eating lion, his tear-streaked face twitching with rage.

Fang Mu could only stare back. "What are you talking about?"

"I said who the hell are you?" Du Yu demanded and wrapped his hands around Fang Mu's neck and viciously shook him back and forth. "Just now you said that that person wants to kill you! What's that supposed to mean? That time when your old roommate visited, he said that a bunch of people died in your old dorm room. Why is all this happening? Now I'll ask you again; who the hell are you? Tell me now!"

Du Yu's hands closed tighter and tighter around Fang Mu's neck. Fang Mu could barely breathe, his face turning purplish-red.

Tai Wei intervened and quickly pulled Du Yu off of Fang Mu. Struggling, Du Yu wouldn't give up. "I want to hear it!" he roared. "Who the hell are you?"

Fang Mu sat up weakly, his body racked by a fit of coughing. Eventually he began to retch, spouting a thin strand of saliva that trailed from his mouth and to his chest. Tai Wei held tightly onto Du Yu, who continued to struggle, still yelling. "If you have something to say, then say it! No more fighting!" Tai Wei warned. "Otherwise I'm gonna stop being so polite!"

"All right!" said Du Yu, making a show of putting his hands up. "I'll stop. Now let him talk!"

Fang Mu slowly climbed to his feet, wiped the corners of his mouth and then took several deep breaths. "That's right. The killer is after me." He gasped for air. He's…testing me…I'm sorry…"

Du Yu glared at him, his jaw clenched. "So you're saying that everyone who was hurt or killed — Deng Linyue, Liu Jianjun, Meng Fanzhe, and…" he choked back a sob, "and Yaoyao… It was all because of you?"

Fang Mu said nothing, just returned Du Yu's stare. He quickly hung his head, nodding.

Du Yu pointed at Fang Mu, his arm shaking. "In other words, you've known for a long time that he was going to kill people," he said through trembling lips, "and probably people close to you. Is that correct?"

Tears fell from Fang Mu's eyes. "I'm sorry…"

Du Yu's pain suddenly burst open again. "Then why didn't you say something sooner? Why didn't you warn everyone? Why did you let so many people die?"

Shaking all over, Fang Mu just mumbled, "I'm sorry…I'm sorry…"

Du Yu rushed forward and grabbed Fang Mu's hair. He struck Fang Mu wildly across the face. "Speak! Speak up, goddamn you…!"

Tai Wei immediately reached for Du Yu, but before he got close, Du Yu abruptly shrunk back.

The dagger was in Fang Mu's hands.

There was a long tear across the front of Du Yu's jacket. He stared dumbstruck at the tear, and then at Fang Mu, who was bleeding from one corner of his mouth.

Du Yu laughed through his misery. "You want to kill me, too, huh? Then do it! Save the killer the effort. Come on!"

"No!" yelled Fang Mu, his voice hoarse. "It wasn't like that. I wasn't intentionally hiding it from all of you… I…"

"Give me the knife," said Tai Wei, stepping between them. "And you," he said, pointing at Du Yu, "do me a favor and get out of here!"

Du Yu glared viciously at Fang Mu, and then turned and left.

At once the room was quiet, the only sound Fang Mu's ragged breathing.

Fang Mu let the blade clatter to the floor and sunk to his heels. He squatted down and began to scream, pulling at his hair as the tears rolled down his face. The only sound was his angry, mournful wailing cry. "Aghh…!"

Tai Wei had never seen Fang Mu cry before, much less sob with the kind of extreme grief he now witnessed. Not knowing what to do, he just stood there, completely at a loss.

Fang Mu cried for a long time, the pent-up emotions releasing. When he had calmed down a little, Tai Wei helped him onto his bed, wrapped him in his blanket and poured him a cup of hot water. After thinking about it, he passed him a cigarette.

His face covered with tears, Fang Mu sat there expressionlessly, taking a drag every now and then from his cigarette. The cup of water he just held. He didn't sip it once.

"You need to change out of your wet clothes, otherwise you're gonna get sick." Tai Wei dug through Fang Mu's drawers and tossed him several pairs of clean clothes.

With much effort, he helped Fang Mu change into dry clothes. Fang Mu's spirits improved slightly after the change of attire and he no longer shivered so badly.

"I was wondering," said Tai Wei tactfully, pulling Fang Mu's chair over beside his bed, "that thing Du Yu just said about your old roommates dying. What was he talking about?"

Fang Mu took several deep drags from his cigarette and was silent for a long time. "When I was in college," he said slowly, "one of my roommates had an illicit relationship with one of the building attendants. Later she became pregnant and wrote him a letter to tell him. My roommate then mistakenly believed that he had placed this letter in one of the books that he had returned to the library. And because of some unkind treatment he received soon after, he suspected that someone must have read the letter and told people what it said."

"Then what happened?"

"He was the seventh person to have checked out the book," Fang Mu relayed. "To avenge himself, he decided to kill every person who checked it out after him. By the time he discovered that no one had actually read the letter, he had already begun to enjoy the feeling of control he found by ending other people's lives. I later discovered that check-out card and realized that someone was going down the list of readers, killing one after another. The victims included one of my other roommates, as well as the first girl I ever loved… I was the only survivor."

"Is this that murder case that happened at Changhong City Teacher's College? I heard that in the end the killer also died."

"That's right." Fang Mu trembled. "He was burned to death. I was…there at the time."

Tai Wei was silent for a moment. "That's when you became really interested in criminal profiling, correct? Everything you've done, all those cases you've cracked — it was all because of this experience, wasn't it?"

Fang Mu tossed away his cigarette. He grabbed his hair with both hands and tried to smooth it down. "I don't know the best way to say this. I've been having nightmares for the past two years. I'm scared of hallways, scared of the smell of roasting meat. I don't dare get close to other people. Only by ceaselessly investigating cases and ceaselessly helping the dead find justice am I able to get a measure of peace… Because," Fang Mu paused, and then his voice suddenly dropped, "in the final analysis, the deaths of all those people — they were because of me."

Tai Wei nodded. Out of all of the human senses, smell stayed in the memory longest. At last he now understood why Fang Mu was such an unusual person, and also why the pain he felt this time, with the killer challenging him by murdering all these people, was so unimaginably severe. "The victim was Du Yu's girlfriend?"

Fang Mu nodded.

"Are you certain that it's the same killer?"

Fang Mu shook his head, smiling wryly. "You still don't believe me." He stared at the floor. "It's definitely him. He understands me extremely well; he knows how important Du Yu's friendship is to me. This was number six. Regardless of whether or not I'm seven, he's trying to destroy me psychologically, bit by bit."

Tai Wei hesitated for a moment, and then said, "When I was at the scene just now, I noticed that the place where the victim had been tied underwater was at the end of lane six."

Fang Mu stared at Tai Wei for several seconds, and then threw off the cover and got out of bed. "Come on," he said. "Let's go to the scene."

The body had already been taken away, but the crowd remained. Fang Mu was surprised to see Professor Qiao among them; he was looking at the pool and frowning. Seeing Fang Mu, he didn't even wave; just turned and left.

The police had placed a filter over the drain to collect any suspicious objects as they emptied the pool. Zhao Yonggui was standing beside the pool, staring at the slowly draining water with his arms crossed and a very dark look on his face.

Tai Wei walked over and patted him on the shoulder. "Find anything, Old Zhao?"

Zhao Yonggui looked at Tai Wei and then at Fang Mu. He shook his head. "Nothing."

His answer didn't surprise Fang Mu in the least. As he watched the cops searching carefully through the waist-deep water, he really wanted to tell them that it was pointless, that the killer wouldn't have left any stray clues behind.

Looking at Fang Mu's red, puffy eyes, Zhao Yonggui said, "You were the first to discover the body, correct?"

"Yes."

"Did you notice anything unusual at the time?"

Fang Mu thought about it and then said, "No, nothing."

"Then how did you know that someone would be in the pool?"

"I heard two girls talking about how the outdoor pool was unexpectedly filled with water. Also, while at Meng Fanzhe's house, I saw two symbols on the window — "

"Enough!" Cutting Fang Mu off, Zhao Yonggui glanced over at Tai Wei. "Are you still insisting that we caught the wrong person?"

For a moment, Fang Mu was speechless, and then as he was about to argue with Zhao Yonggui, he saw Tai Wei nod at him to keep quiet.

"In a little while we're going to take you back to the station to get your statement," Zhao Yonggui said. Without another word, he walked over to the other side of the pool.

On the way to the city bureau, Fang Mu couldn't resist asking Tai Wei, "Why does Zhao Yonggui always act like that towards me?"

Tai Wei hesitated for a moment. "You need to understand his perspective. Although the Meng Fanzhe case was closed without a trial, the bureau commended Zhao Yonggui and me. There's no way he's going to be able to accept your telling him that we made a mistake. Also, I don't think he really trusts in your methods."

Fang Mu considered this for a moment. "In that case, do you trust me?"

Tai Wei was silent for a long time. "We'll see."

It was already afternoon by the time Fang Mu got back from the police headquarters. Standing in front of his door, key in hand, he felt a weighty hesitation. If Du Yu was in the room, he didn't know what he should say to him.

He opened the door. The room was empty. Seeing Du Yu's new Nikes still sitting neatly beside his bed, Fang Mu felt a catch in his throat.

One day ago, he would have been more than happy to list all of Zhang Yao's many faults. But at that moment, all he could think of were her positive qualities.

If only I could open the door right now and see Du Yu and Zhang Yao quickly leap off his bed as if they hadn't just been hooking up, Fang Mu thought, for that I would trade anything.

The room was eerily quiet. Fang Mu found himself desperately wishing Du Yu would appear before him. He felt there was so much he wanted to say to him.

And yet, if Du Yu really did appear, what was he supposed to say?

Should he apologize? But that seemed so pointless. It wouldn't change a thing.

With his thoughts in conflict, he sat there in silence. The sun went down and the moon rose, and then the first rays of dawn lit the morning sky. Fang Mu never moved or said a word. People kept knocking on the door, but he ignored them. All he wanted to hear was the sound of a key sliding into the lock and opening the door. Yet at the same time, he was worried that in that moment he would be so frightened that he would hide.

That whole night Du Yu never returned.

Fang Mu didn't move until, after a day and a night of sitting there and not eating, his stomach began hurting him worse than he could endure. He finally got up and went to the dining hall.

The hall was packed. The recent murder had not affected people's appetites in the least. The victim was someone else; their bodies were their own. So as before, what they cared about most was whether the steamed buns were a day old, whether the soup had cockroaches in it. To them, those were the things that mattered.

There was a long line for food. Head down, Fang Mu went and stood at the end. The person in front of him glanced back. Suddenly the student gasped and jumped back a step. His face filled with fear, he stared at Fang Mu and then grabbed the person next to him, saying, "You see that! It's him! Let's get out of here!"

As the two of them hurried off to another food station, the rest of the line turned and looked back at Fang Mu, who was still standing at the end. Then, as if by tacit agreement, everyone scattered at once, allowing Fang Mu to walk up to the front. As they hurried away, everyone had the same expression on their face: panic.

The cafeteria worker himself was stunned. He stared at Fang Mu for several seconds, and then yelled roughly, "Hey, are you gonna order food or not?"

Gritting his teeth, Fang Mu walked slowly forward, feeling as if the looks from everyone's eyes were stabbing into him like needles.

His vision started to blur and the short distance in front of him suddenly felt as long as a football field. "A bowl of porridge and two tea eggs."

Fang Mu sat in a corner of the dining hall and ate his breakfast. Although he kept his head down the whole time, he could still feel everyone's eyes as they watched him and hear their voices as they whispered to each other.

No one would sit anywhere near him, making the area around his table seem like a strange no-man's land.

It was like he was a poisonous plant with long, spreading vines, and if anyone got too close, their life would be at risk.

After eating half his breakfast, he found his appetite was gone, so he got up and quickly left the dining hall.

As soon as he entered the third floor corridor, Fang Mu saw that a big mess had been made in front of his door. His computer monitor and tower were sitting on the floor, covered by a bunch of his clothes. A crowd of people were standing around his open door, watching the person inside.

Had Du Yu returned?

He hurried forward, reaching his room just as Du Yu threw his blanket out the door. Seeing Fang Mu, Du Yu seemed to pause for an instant, but then he bent over, grabbed Fang Mu's washbasin from beneath his bed, and tossed it outside.

Fang Mu dodged out of the way and the washbasin smacked against the opposite wall, causing his soap and toiletries inside to fall to the floor.

"What are you doing?" Fang Mu asked.

Du Yu didn't respond, just walked over to Fang Mu's bookshelf and knocked all the books onto the floor. Then he picked them up and threw them out of the room one by one. All the people watching outside quickly got out of the way.

Fang Mu didn't move, letting book after book strike his body and legs.

This behavior enraged Du Yu, and he grabbed several more books and hurled them directly at Fang Mu's face and body.

Blood was soon flowing from Fang Mu's nose and mouth, running down his chin and dripping onto his clothing.

Zou Tuanjie had been watching and he couldn't bear to watch this, so he grabbed Fang Mu and pulled him to the side. "Come on, man," he said to Du Yu. "Don't do this…"

The words hadn't even left Zou Tuanjie's mouth when Du Yu hit him in the forehead with a book. Zou Tuanjie gave an outcry of pain and shrank back.

Soon all of Fang Mu's belongings had been thrown into the hall. Clapping the dust off his hands, Du Yu walked out and stared at him for several seconds.

"Beat it!" he barked through clenched teeth.

Wiping his bloody nose, Fang Mu squatted down and began picking up his things.

"Go!" yelled Du Yu, his voice rising in volume.

Seeming not to hear him, Fang Mu patiently organized his things. When he couldn't find the cap to a pen, he began carefully looking for it in a pile of clothing.

"Get out of here," said Du Yu, his voice a little quieter, but still ice-cold. "None of us want to die!"

Fang Mu stopped what he was doing, stood up and turned around. He felt Du Yu and everyone else's eyes boring into his face.

He looked at them one by one. As soon as they met his eyes, almost everyone quickly looked own. Only Du Yu glared firmly back at him.

Fang Mu looked into Du Yu's eyes for several seconds. He slowly said: "I won't leave until I've caught him."

Then he grabbed his blanket and clothes and walked down to Meng Fanzhe's already locked room. With the creak of wood, he swiftly kicked it open. He tossed his things inside, went back to the hallway, collected more, and did the same.

No one stopped him. No one helped him. As everyone else just stood there and watched, Fang Mu picked up the last of his belongings. He walked inside the room that once belonged to Meng Fanzhe and slammed the door shut.

After standing empty for several days, Room 304 finally had a new resident. Fang Mu took the left side of the room, making the bed and placing his things on the left desk and in the left cupboard. Only once everything was neatly put away did he realize that the left bed had been Meng Fanzhe's. For an instant he considered moving his things to the other side of the room, but then he took off his shoes, lay down on the bed, and that was it.

Fang Mu sized up his new lair. No one had lived there after Meng Fanzhe died, so everything was covered in a thick layer of dust. The walls were badly watermarked, as if someone had splashed them with cups of liquid. In short, the place looked awful.

Fang Mu thought and looked around, looked around and thought. After not sleeping for a whole night, his eyelids began to feel heavier and heavier, until sleep won out.

When he awoke it was already night. Even though his stomach was growling from hunger, Fang Mu had no desire to get up. The lights from the dormitory across the way shined into his dark room, sending shadows across the walls that moved faintly.

Feeling a little cold, Fang Mu involuntarily curled up under the covers. By force of habit, he glanced at the other bed across the room, but now there was only a thin straw mattress.

So this is how cold it is, sleeping alone in a dorm room.

Compared to Room 313, which had always been packed full of his and Du Yu's stuff, Room 304 seemed terribly spacious.

So spacious, in fact, that it made him nervous.

Suddenly Fang Mu wondered whether, during Meng Fanzhe's final days alone in this room, he had also laid here in the dark, silently savoring the feeling of solitude.

Until he truly lost his mind.

Will I go mad, too?

Fang Mu hopped out of bed and looked at the dim lights from the distant dormitory. Seeing them, he felt a little better, a little less alone.

First, he told himself, you need to get something to eat.

But no matter what, he was not going back to the dining hall. He reached out and turned on the light and then grabbed a pack of instant noodles. He shook his kettle. Luckily, Du Yu hadn't broken it. It was empty.

Holding the kettle, he stood in front of his door for several seconds. Then, with what seemed a great deal of determination, he opened it and walked out.

Something fluttered to his feet. Fang Mu picked it up. It was an envelope with a letter inside.

He looked down either end of the hallway. It was very quiet. No one was there.

Fang Mu sat down on his bed and took the letter out of the envelope. It was from Deng Linyue; he recognized her handwriting.

My Dearest Fang Mu,

Please allow me to call you this one final time, and please believe that as I do so, I love you. Perhaps this love will gradually disappear with the passage of time, but at the very least, I firmly believe that at the moment in which I write these words, I do still love you.

By the time you read this letter, I will probably already be on my way home. Don't try to find me (although perhaps this is just wishful thinking on my part; you would probably never consider looking for me if I left). I will not be returning to school for some time; I have entrusted my family with handling the necessary procedures to apply for time off.

Perhaps you will despise me. Despise me for leaving without saying goodbye, despise me for my weakness and my cowardice. I am just an ordinary girl, longing to be protected, yearning for a peaceful and romantic life. The instant you rescued me in the gymnasium, I fell in love with you. Just as when a princess is rescued by a prince, I had no choice but to fall in love with you.

And yet I know that you are not my prince. And I am neither as brave nor as strong as I imagined.

Yesterday morning, I saw everything that happened at the pool with my own eyes. When you finally revealed that the killer was after you, my first reaction was fear. I didn't even have the courage to go hug and comfort you; instead I fled back to my dorm by myself. Yes, I was scared, more scared even than that night in the gymnasium. The killer had already murdered your best friend's girlfriend, and I was probably next. Waiting for death is more frightening than death itself — at last I understood what this saying meant.

Why does he want to kill you? Why did he have to kill so many other people? I know you will not be willing to answer these questions, but that is all right. At this point, the answers are no longer important to me. Although I once believed that I was brave enough to stand by you through every trial, when I was truly confronted by the possibility of death, I chose to do the same thing that any normal girl would do.

Forgive me, forgive me for being an ordinary girl who once thought she was something more. Perhaps you never did love me; now I truly hope that is so. Because if it is, then for both you and I, this will be a little easier to bear.

I will pray for you.

Deng Linyue

12/25/2002

Although the letter was short, Fang Mu was still reading it over half an hour later.

His mind and heart were at ease.

He tried to tell himself: She has left you. You should be filled with sadness.

And yet, feeling a chill unlike any he had ever experienced, he couldn't keep from laughing aloud.

Good, very good.

At last, you are alone again.

Though perhaps, you have always been alone.