232 Where

 

Xiao Liu led me outside, my footsteps echoing in the empty underground. This appeared to be an abandoned underground warehouse, but I couldn’t care less at the moment. I just wanted to get out. Being disconnected fully from the world was very great pressure. After moving through the winding path, we finally exited the underground space, and a ray of sunlight shot in from the entrance. The dawning sun shone weakly. The chilling winds blew, and I shivered.

A paddy field greeted me. The field was still empty, and no farmer was working. Further down the distance was the street I passed that morning. I could see the bridge. I wondered if the bicycles were still there. The police cruisers were outside, and Xiao Liu opened the door for me. I saw my clothes folded neatly on the backseat. I crawled into the car and put my clothes back on. I pulled out my phone from my shirt pocket. Since I didn’t have many friends and didn’t talk to others, the only few numbers I had were of the people in the special task force.

I looked into my messages tab. Other than the spam, there were only messages from Mary. I scrolled down, and I couldn’t find the message that ‘I’ had sent to Xiao Liu. This meant that someone had deleted that message or someone used the same number as I had to message Xiao Liu.

Using a pseudo base station, one could mimic any number, but the station had a limited range. It was around 1000 meters. If the message was sent using a base, others couldn’t call the number back. My clothes were folded neatly, so it was only logical to assume someone had gone through my phone. If ‘I’ had sent a message to Xiao Liu, then ‘I’ could have sent messages to others, or that person could have used my phone to gather info on the other members of the team. If that was the case, who could the culprit be? Zhao Mingkun?

As I thought about it, I called Gu Chen.

“Wu Meng? How is your situation over there?” Gu Chen asked immediately.

“I’m fine.” I replied, “Did you find the underground space at Xing Dong Village? Is Guan Zhenglin okay?”

Then, there was a momentary silence before Gu Chen said, “Wu Meng, you were the one who messaged me to tell me that Guan Zhenglin is safe and to pull back all the people. Why are you asking me that now?” Hearing that, my heart chilled. The uncle persona wanted to start a new life, so if he knew where Guan Zhenglin was, he would have told me. So who sent the messages? And where was Guan Zhenglin?

“Where are you now?” I asked.

Gu Chen answered, “We’re halfway back to the city.” I said, “Turn back to Xing Dong Village. We need to go back there. Guan Zhenglin is not with me. Someone has used my phone to message you and Xiao Liu, but I don’t know who that is.”

On the phone, I heard Gu Chen say, “Everyone, go to the gas station to fill up on fuel. We need to go back to Xing Dong Village. Sorry for the trouble, we’ll take turns driving. We need to be fast.” Then Gu Chen spoke to me. “What about you?”

I said, “I will head Xing Dong Village now. I’ll meet you there. I’ll fill you in later.”

“Understood.” Gu Chen said.

After hanging up, I got down from the cruiser. “Where’s the killer?”

An officer said, “Here.”

The killer had a mask over his head. The public assumed this was to protect the killer’s privacy, but in reality, it was to prevent the killer from recognizing the officers who arrested him. I yanked off the mask. The killer looked at me with confusion. I said, “Even though you don’t know where Ze has kidnapped Guan Zhenglin, you must know about that underground location.”

The killer said, “But I really don’t.”

I frowned. “Villagers of Xing Dong Village said that they would hear a woman crying on the mountain at night, and that should be Ze.”

The killer didn’t deny it.

I continued, “You dress in black because you don’t want people to notice you in the dark. Black clothes moving in the black background, from a distance, it would look like a floating human head. Someone saw that and took Ze as a female ghost. So the entrance must be on the mountain!”

The killer looked at me. “I really don’t know. This is why I have to take over the body. I don’t like not knowing things. I don’t like having lost hours and having no idea what I have done in those hours.” The killer was apprehended by two officers, but he tried his best to look at me. His eyes were red. “If I didn’t appear, they couldn’t even do anything. But even so, there are still hours in the day when I have no idea who has controlled the body. I know each one has their own privacy, but we share this body!” His voice was coarse. “They had no right to hide that from me.”

Every human had curiosity even when they were sharing the same body. Even though the killer knew most of the time what he was doing, there were hours that were lost to him. This was why he needed to eliminate all the other personas.

So what was this persona who didn’t want the other personas to know what they were doing? Was it the little girl, Ze or Yama?

Based on the villagers’ description, this persona should be female, and she cried at the tombstone, so she must be related to the people mourned by the tombstone. “You can’t sense any other persona?” I asked, “Is it possible that there are other personas who have hidden away from you?”

The killer was startled before he said, “That’s impossible. I’m the first persona to realize the existence of other personas, and I am the first to make sure that we can meet. There are no other personas, and now I am the only one that remains!”

I tapped my forehead. If this uncle persona didn’t know where the underground space was, how could we find it? What was Ze doing alone underground? The uncle said he was not the one who wrote the stories, then which persona did?

I paced around and got nothing. I turned to Xiao Liu, “Xiao Liu, I need to bring the killer to Xing Dong Village. Even though he was not the one who controlled the body, he must have had the impression. After all, five years ago, he was the one who came to find Wu Xiufen, the mother of this body. Assign us a cruiser, and I need to look into who had entered the yard after I had left it.”

Xiao Liu looked at me with complicated emotions.

I said, “I know. The team to catch the killer will stay at Dong Xing City, you caught the killer, and you even saved my life. I owe you one.”

Xiao Liu shook his head. “It’s not that. Guan Zhenglin is still in danger. Why would I fight you now? But there’s one thing, you… Never mind, I’ll do what you ask. The few of you drive Team Leader Wu to Xing Dong Village. Contact me if there’s anything that happens on the road.”

“Understood.”

Xiao Liu nodded and patted my shoulders. “Don’t be so nervous, and don’t push yourself too much. Sinking into anxiety and fear is the first step to failure. Do you understand? After this case is over, buy me a lottery ticket.” I looked at Xiao Liu, and it felt like the old Xiao Liu was back. However, he seemed to have hidden meaning in his words. Nevertheless, I didn’t have time to ponder his words.

I hopped into the car. An officer sat at the back with me, and we squeezed the killer between us. Two officers sat at the front. We moved towards Xing Dong Village.

I saw Yama’s notebook on the headboard. It looked like Xiao Liu had already read the notebook. I wanted to know what happened 15 years ago, but the killer was sitting beside me. Furthermore, worrying about Guan Zhenglin had occupied most of my mind.

From yesterday 9 pm to 8 am, it had been almost 12 hours. In these 12 hours, Guan Zhenglin hadn’t eaten or drank. She didn’t even have clothes. I couldn’t imagine the state she was in if she was still alive. Was she alone, despaired, or afraid?

Guan Zhenglin was afraid of the dark, but she had stayed alone in the dark for 12 hours already. Could the person who sent the messages using my phone have done something to Guan Zhenglin? I had no idea.

But I knew that as long as there was a shred of hope, I couldn’t give up. I had to get her back.