Chapter 004: The Bloody Handprint and the Ghostly Face

This rental apartment was extremely old, yet not at all dirty; there wasn’t a speck of dust on the floor. I’d read the police interrogation transcript, including their questioning of the landlord. The landlord claimed that, before Old Nine and his companions rented the place, it had sat vacant for a whole year. Too busy to clean, the landlord hadn’t visited.

The landlord had a solid alibi and the police had ruled out his involvement. He’d also identified the bodies, saying that about ten days prior, Old Nine himself had come to retrieve the keys and paid a substantial sum for rent—the exact night Old Nine and the other three arrived in the port district.

Those men were never short of money; they had no reason to stay somewhere like this. I still recall how, before they set off, they joked about finding some Hong Kong girls once their mission was accomplished. Even more suspicious was the fact that, after arriving in the port district, they disappeared without a trace, and three days later—precisely the timeframe the forensic examiner established as their time of death.

What transpired in those three days before their deaths remains a mystery.

Luo Feng asked if I’d discovered anything. I pointed to the floor. The entire room was free of dust. In an old apartment left uncleaned for so long, dust was inevitable. Dusty surfaces are more likely to preserve footprints and fingerprints, so its absence suggested the killer had deliberately cleaned before committing the crime.

Sure enough, we searched the apartment and found no cleaning tools, and the police inventory of extracted items listed no such equipment either. Luo Feng wondered if Old Nine and his friends had cleaned it themselves, but I quickly dismissed the idea. If they had time to clean, they would have had time to call me.

They moved into this shabby place for reasons unknown; had it been voluntary, they wouldn’t have cared about dust on the floor—at most, they’d wipe the table or bed and make do. Yet, the reality was that the room was nearly spotless.

Luo Feng cursed the cunning of the murderer, but soon grew puzzled, asking what significance this discovery held.

I placed a hand on Luo Feng’s shoulder, smirking, and told him I’d basically locked in the suspect’s personality.

Luo Feng wasn’t surprised, but Chen Fan was. He asked how I could determine the suspect’s character after just a glance.

The killer had prepared extensively, leaving no trace for the police to find. Analyzing this from a criminal psychology perspective, it suggested the culprit was introverted—never crude or careless. Their occupation or hobbies might be unusual, even innovative.

Chen Fan pressed further, asking how I deduced ‘unusual and innovative.’

I continued: “If the murderer had such skill, they could have committed the crime without any evidence, turning this case into an unsolvable mystery—thus achieving the goal of challenging judicial authority. There was no need for the elaborate ‘ghost feast’ theatrics. It seems more like the murderer is toying with the police and society’s opinion.”

Criminal profiling posits that a person’s character and habits often manifest in their methods. I’d sketched out some preliminary traits of the killer, although the accuracy remained uncertain.

Chen Fan was even more astonished, asking who I was and why I knew so much about investigative techniques.

I didn’t answer. Luo Feng grabbed Chen Fan’s collar, threatening him to stop asking or he’d kill him—complaining about the standard of Beijing’s police.

By then, I was standing before the wall. The bloodied handprints had already been collected by the police; the blood came from all four victims. I stared at the dense array of prints, scrutinizing them. The colors varied in depth, but every print was from a right hand.

Each print was relatively complete. Upon closer examination, the handprints could be sorted into four distinct types by size and other features, each belonging to one of the four men, and each type was nearly identical in shape.

I sensed that the variations in color and form held great clues, but couldn’t put my finger on it yet. Luo Feng asked again if the prints truly belonged to the four men. I nodded; the forensics lab wouldn’t make mistakes.

I paced around the apartment—it was bare, with just a living room, two bedrooms, and a bathroom.

I entered the bathroom, which reeked heavily. There was an old washing machine and plastic pipes for water drainage. Combs, toothbrushes, and a hair dryer were also present.

I memorized all these items. Luo Feng asked why, and I replied that every object at the crime scene could be key to solving the case.

We soon returned to the living room. The mahjong tiles had been taken by the police. On the mahjong table, four upper-body silhouettes—drawn by the police—marked the positions where Old Nine and his companions had died. I shone my flashlight at the ceiling; the living room had only a yellowed, antique light bulb.

I asked Luo Feng to turn on the light, then switch it off quickly. He complied; the bulb flickered dimly and went out. Luo Feng and Chen Fan wondered what I was up to, but I told them not to move and dashed out of the apartment.

I hurried down the stairs and, minutes later, reached the rooftop of the building opposite.

I pulled out my phone and called Luo Feng, instructing him to stand by the mahjong table. The rooftop wind was biting. From my vantage point, I could see the apartment’s window. The building was pitch-black; not a single light was on.

I told Luo Feng, “Stay put. Have Chen Fan turn on the light quickly, then switch it off.”

Luo Feng agreed. Soon, the opposite window lit up briefly and went dark. Turning the light off immediately was to avoid alerting neighbors. Impatient as ever, Luo Feng demanded to know what I was doing. I told him, “I understand now.”

But as I began to explain, a chill ran down my spine. A sound came from behind me. Instinctively, I turned—at the entrance to the rooftop, a head moved back and forth. The hallway was so dark that you couldn’t see your hand before your face. The head had no body, its face glowed faintly green, and I could clearly see its eyes—only whites, no pupils.

I couldn’t tell if it was male or female; its mouth was twisted into a smile, emitting a hair-raising sound. In the instant I turned, the face vanished. Without hesitation, I yelled into the phone, “Come down immediately! Help me intercept someone in the building opposite!”

I gave chase at once. My leather shoes echoed in the stairwell, but aside from my footsteps, I heard nothing else. The upper floors were unlit; only farther down did light appear, my footsteps causing several doors to open.

As I exited the stairwell, I collided with Luo Feng and Chen Fan, who had rushed over. Luo Feng anxiously asked what had happened. I countered, asking if he’d seen anyone suspicious. He said no. The commotion drew more and more people, and we had no choice but to leave the old residential block.

We found a spot nearby to sit. Only then did I recount what had happened. Chen Fan’s face went pale; he asked if I’d made a mistake, but I shook my head firmly. I’d seen it clearly—it was impossible to be mistaken. Even the brave Luo Feng doubted: “Could you really have run into something supernatural?”

“It was probably some optical trick,” I said, frowning. Encountering such a bizarre event in this neighborhood, I wondered if it was another stunt by the murderer. The night grew colder, the wind harsher. Chen Fan wrapped his coat tightly, urging us to leave; he insisted the place was cursed.

He kept looking around, claiming he felt something watching him from the shadows.

I checked the time—it was midnight. I stood up; it was time to meet the priestess. Glancing back at the block, every building’s outline was drowned in darkness, truly unsettling. My mind was consumed by that terrifying ghostly face.

On the way to the nightclub, Luo Feng asked what I’d intended to say on the phone.

I told him I’d discovered an issue the police had overlooked. The transcript mentioned that someone across the street saw the shadows of four people playing mahjong cast on the curtain. Under normal circumstances, that was impossible. The living room only had a single dim bulb, and the mahjong table was some distance from the window, directly under the bulb. When I saw the light turn on, I realized that with this angle and lighting, the shadows couldn’t possibly be cast on the curtain.

Standing on the opposite rooftop, I confirmed my theory.

There are only two possibilities: either the eyewitness lied, or it was a trick by the murderer. Only a strong, diffuse light could accomplish it, and the window, table, and light source would need to be nearly aligned.

Luo Feng finally understood. He said we’d have to investigate the eyewitnesses as well.

As we spoke, Luo Feng led us to the front of the nightclub. The place was crowded; many women wore revealing outfits despite the winter chill, their curves barely concealed.

To avoid arousing the priestess’s suspicion, Luo Feng and Chen Fan didn’t accompany me inside.

Wandering through the noisy club, it didn’t take me long to find the person I was looking for. But when I saw her, I was stunned for more than ten seconds.