119 Ol' Xia

 

Other than the police station, the rest of the town was shrouded in darkness. It was already very late at night. Other than the wind outside, I couldn’t hear anything else. We returned to our own rooms. Wrapped inside the thick blankets, hearing the plaintive howling of the wind, I fell deeply into sleep. Early the next morning, I was woken up by the sounds outside. The heater inside the room was working. I looked out through the window and saw Chief Zhou and his men shovelling the snow outside the station. Currently it was not snowing as heavily as it was yesterday night, if they didn’t remove the snow now, it would be impossible to leave the station later. Walking out from the room, I waved at Chief Zhou’s team.

Seeing me, Chief Zhou walked over and said, “You’re an early riser! How did you sleep yesterday night?”

“Not bad,” I answered honestly.

As he chatted, the hands never stopped. It was cold but Chief Zhou was pouring with sweat. “I’m glad. The Elm Town Police Station might not have much but the heating is always on. That is a basic creature comfort.”

I smiled and looked around. There was white everywhere. Occasionally, there was a thud as the snow dropped to the ground. The police cruisers all had a thin layer of snow on them. This weather would hinder our investigation. I said worriedly, “I doubt someone is clearing snow for the path heading to First Drain Village. We still need to return to the crime scene for another search.”

Chief Zhou stopped working, stuck the shovel into the ground, leaned into it and looked up into the sky, “Yes, this kind of weather comes perhaps only every few decades. I don’t know whether you guys are lucky or unlucky. I’m afraid the snow would be quite thick along the road that leads to First Drain Village.”

“We’ve already encountered a murder that is even rarer than that, so what is a little bit of snow?” I also looked up into the sky. “Looks like it snowed for about 10 cm yesterday night, the snow depth almost reaches one’s ankle. Combined with the accumulated snow from before, the snow around the village would be around 20 cm?”

Chief Zhou sighed, “If you ask me, the accumulated snow would be around 30 cm thick. If it continues to snow, it’ll eventually bury us in it!” Chief Zhou turned to the side and shouted, “Guys, time to take a break!” The officers shuffled back into the station, to find comfort in the heat. After the people were gone, Chief Zhou turned to me. “With this weather, I’m afraid we’ll be receiving quite a few distress calls. As you know, we are short-staffed here. With regards to the dismemberment case, do you think I should request for reinforcement from the higher-up?”

I shook my head. “That won’t be necessary, I’ll request aid from Captain Zhao. He has much more influence than we do. The few of us can go around First Drain Village to ask if anyone has gone missing recently. Currently we only have a leg, we don’t even know if it is a man or a woman’s leg. I believe we should do some information-collecting for now.” Chief Zhou nodded. He tapped my shoulder and signaled me to join him for breakfast.

After a simple breakfast, we departed. Chief Zhou was still the driver. Chief Zhou drove very slowly and carefully. We didn’t have much hope for the search, for one, we didn’t have enough manpower and for two, the snow was too thick. The footprints of the entire team probably had been eclipsed by now.

Reality proved that we were being too optimistic because we were stopped halfway. A bank of snow blocked our path. Chief Zhou couldn’t tell where the road was and where the fields were. If he continued to drive, he might drive into a hole and put us all in danger. Neither of us wanted to risk our lives. Chief Zhou got out of the car and looked around. Eventually he said, “There is only one path heading to the village and the path is twisting and narrow. The snow has covered up the path completely, I don’t think I will be able to recognize the path under all these snows.” Chief Zhou got back into the car, took out his phone and told us, “I’ll give the head of First Drain Village a call, perhaps he can send some people to guide us.”

Sounds like Chief Zhou was quite familiar with the head of First Drain Village. 10 minutes later, Chief Zhou said, “The village head told me that he has sent Ol’ Xia to come to us as a guide. But as you know, I don’t have trust in Ol’ Xia to be able to guide us in an automobile. I predict we’re only 1 hour of walking distance to the village, shall we walk then?” Chief Zhou appeared to have been scarred by Ol’ Xia’s behavior from the night before, then again, it was also extremely dangerous to drive in this kind of snowy terrain. Walking was not a bad choice even though the journey was going to take longer. Then something hit me. Wouldn’t the killer face the same problem as we did now when they needed to dispose of the leg, it was snowing too heavily for driving, so they would have walked too. If the killer had walked, then they must live not far from First Drain Village, but it wouldn’t be too close either. If it was too far, the leg wouldn’t be dumped there; if it was too close, they risked being exposed by the other villagers.

We waited in the car for about an hour before Ol’ Xia arrived. Through the window, we saw Ol’ Xia shuffling towards us. He wore a thick cap that covered his ears, but his mouth was left exposed to the elements. It was as heavily scarred as I remembered. When Ol’ Xia saw us, he stopped and waved his hands to signal for us to come to him. Chief Zhou locked the car, looked at Ol’ Xia and then us. “We shall park here then. We’ll follow Ol Xiao. When we reach the village, we’ll first visit the village head, perhaps he can tell us more about the village.”

Ol’ Xia moved silently and quickly. He had come up with a way to walk through snow, it didn’t hinder his speed at all. The rest of us needed to test the ground before we took any step because one false step, and we might sink through the snow. Ol’ Xia appeared to have eyes on his back because when we slowed down, he slowed too; and when we sped up, he did as well. He maintained a firm 3 metres from the rest of us as if he was unwilling to mingle with us.

‘This is such a strange man,’ I thought to myself, ‘But then again when you look like that, no matter how sunny your personality, you’ll eventually become silent and reticent.’ The journey would take more than 1 hour. Ol’ Xia could maintain radio silence but not the rest of us. Along the way, we started to share our opinion of this case, whether my criminal profile was reliable or not and eventually the topic of conversation fell on Ol’ Xia.

Guan Zhenglin whispered, “To be honest, I was quite frightened when I first saw Ol’ Xia. I’ve met quite a number of burn victims before but not one so serious. And that is because a person normally wouldn’t survive after such heavy burns.” Guan Zhenglin didn’t want to offend Ol’ Xia but from the way Ol’ Xia kept moving, he probably didn’t hear her. Gu Chen glanced at Ol’ Xia and said, “There’s a famous game recently called Dead by Daylight, Ol’ Xia reminds me of one of the killers in the game, the Trapper who wields a cleaver. Speaking of, Wu Meng, there’s a detail in your criminal profiling that’s quite interesting. You mentioned the killer might be a butcher?”

I nodded. “My instinct told me that the killer should be a butcher and an experienced one at that. They are already used to gore, perhaps to them, dismembering a person is no different from butchering livestock.” Perhaps it was Gu Chen and my words taking effect, I noticed Chief Zhou had been staring hard at Ol’ Xia, like trying to see through his heart. I knew that Chief Zhou had started to suspect Ol’ Xia. I quickly whispered to Chief Zhou, “I say, Chief Zhou, Ol’ Xiao might look like a killer but that doesn’t mean anything. Appearances deceive.”

“Ol’ Xia is 1.8 metres tall.” Chief Zhou started to analyse, “Wu Meng, of the few conditions you listed, Ol’ Xia fulfils quite a number of them.” Clearing his throat, Chief Zhou became more serious, “Plus his frame is indeed large. He is wearing rain boots and leather gloves. Even though he doesn’t have a gut and doesn’t swing a machete around, a killer wouldn’t expose himself so openly, right?”

I was tickled by Chief Zhou. “Of course, I was only describing the killer when they were in the midst of killing. During other times, most killers would look like you and me. After all, everyone is multi-faceted. Perhaps for our killer, the true self will only surface when they are killing.”

Chief Zhou nodded.

Gu Chen passed us a cigarette each and he lit one himself. “But Ol’ Xia isn’t a butcher, right? We can’t assume he is one, simply because of his looks. If that’s the case, does that mean I have to quit and become a gym trainer?”

Chief Zhou suddenly stopped me and regarded us strangely. He pointed stealthily at Ol’ Xia and whispered, “But what if Ol’ Xia used to be a butcher?”

We all turned to look at him.