Chapter Three

1

3:10pm, May 29. A new topic is posted regarding the 5.15 Huiyang Department Store Disfigurement Case, announcing the cancellation of Zhang Yue and Xu Mingzhi's wedding.

Some netizens have managed to pry the information out from the Garden Hotel that the wedding banquet under the names of Mr Zhang Yue and Ms Xu Mingzhi, originally scheduled for June 20, Saturday, at the Yonghua (Graceful and Gorgeous) Hall is canceled and no new date has been set at that point. It is understandable. The bride-to-be has her face slashed with a razor and it can be some time before she recovers. A wedding can wait.

Other enthusiastic netizens however have learned from the Venus Wedding Photography that Zhang Yue and Xu Mingzhi had their wedding photos taken before the May Day holidays, priced at 6,999 yuan. They decided to come and choose the photos for their wedding album on May 16. However, it has been way past May 28 and neither of them showed up at the studio. The customer service representative called them couple of times. The last call she made was logged at 9:30am on May 29. Mingzhi answered the phone, and hardly had the studio representative finished her greetings when Mingzhi cut her short. “We don’t want any of the photos. So long as we had already paid, better that you can destroy all of the negatives.”

Putting down the phone, the customer service called Zhang Yue and got the exact same reply.

What a coincidence! It is seven years since Su Ya and Zhang Yue broke up. And when Su Ya finally made up her mind to call Zhang Yue for a meeting after seven years, it happened to be just days before Zhang Yue was to get married. No wonder Zhang Yue said "How about after the May Day holidays?" And he had no choice but to go to the date with Mingzhi as it was a sensitive phase of their relationships. Like most bride-to-be, Mingzhi became increasingly nervous, sensitive and suspicious as the days of the wedding drew closer. What would have happened, if she came to know the groom-to-be went on a date with his ex-girlfriend alone before their marriage?

Then, what would have happened, if she knew Zhang Yue actually saw Su Ya at the department store but deliberately chose not to tell the police after her face was slashed with a razor blade, leaving an incision about 10 centimeters long?

Xiaoshan told me he had got in contact with another officer who was in charge of the “5.15 Huiyang Department Store Disfigurement Case.” They went together to see Zhang Yue. On hearing that Detective Wang was in charge of Su Ya’s suicidal case, Zhang Yue appeared to be a little nervous.

It wasn’t until Xiaoshan showed him the picture of Su Ya in the apricot-red leisure suit that Zhang Yue admitted he, sort of, noticed a vague silhouette like that of Su Ya flashing across them at about 3:15pm on May 15. By 3:45pm when Mingzhi was bleeding profusely in the face and people gathered around her in confusion, he saw, clearly this time, Su Ya standing some 20 meters away opposite him. At that chaotic moment as people rushed to see what had happened, she just stood there staring at him for a whole 5 seconds, then she smiled a little bit and turned round, disappearing in the dazzling light reflected from the smooth marble columns.

He wasn’t quite sure if she did smile a little bit, because the sun rays were the strongest at that time of the afternoon and Su Ya wore the dark sunglasses and a sunhat, which made it hard to see clearly the expressions on her face. But she was there at that time, dressed in the apricot-red leisure suit and an off-white wide brim hat. Rays of sunshine rained on her, giving a golden lining around her long hair. She looked gorgeous.

Zhang Yue said he believed Su Ya chose to wear the dress with an intension in mind. Years ago when they were still going out together, he bought a set of suit of the same style and color for her birthday. It was the first time that Zhang Yue ever bought a ladies dress. He made up his mind solely based on his guess of her size and his understanding of her preference for colors. He still remembered how he lingered at the counter for women’s clothes all by himself, thinking very hard. He said he never wanted to forget the torture, the embarrassment and the excitement of the moment.

When Su Ya blew out the birthday candle, unwrapped the parcel and tried on the suit, she looked as if she was bathed in the morning sunshine, even under the dim light of the night. She looked just as beautiful as she was in front of the sun-lit café on the afternoon of May 15. How old was she then? 22 or 25 years old? He just couldn’t remember how old she was then.

In fact, from the 51 screenshots the police had selected from the department store’s surveillance video, Zhang Yue had recognized the familiar silhouette, which was the No.032 female suspect. However, he didn’t mention “Su Ya” by name at that time.

It made senses for Su Ya to show up in the store at about the appointed hour if she was expected to meet them at the café. But Zhang Yue deliberately hid the fact that he had seen her there. The only possible answer was that he knew for sure that she was “The Barber.” And he decided to cover it up for her.

Right after the meeting with Detective Wang, Zhang Yue resigned from his job, while Mingzhi asked for a long leave of absence. Both of them left Shanghai, and nobody knew their whereabouts.

Police investigation also found a call was made to Su Ya’s cell phone at 3:47pm on the day of the incident from a coin telephone at the Huiyang Department Store. It was probably made by Zhang Yue. As the appointed hour neared, he wanted to make a call to Su Ya to inform her that he was already at the café. It wasn’t until then that he found he didn’t have his cell phone with him that day. However, he didn’t want to use Mingzhi’s phone either, for fear that Su's number might be left on Xu ’s mobile if he used her phone.

So, he went for the telephone booth: "Hello, is that Su Ya? This is Zhang Yue. We arrived earlier. I forgot to take the mobile with me. We are sitting at the corner seats at the café... you can’t miss us. Ok, we are waiting for you."

Hang up. The total talk time was a quick 43 seconds.

By that time, Su Ya had already reached the Huiyang Department Store, probably standing on the corridor of the second or the third floor and looking at him below while answering his call. She waited until Zhang Yue returned to his seat. Then she turned around and went to the toilet of the department store to get herself readied. She put on her gloves, slit open a seam at the bottom of the right pocket, and put both arms loose inside the pockets while holding the blade tight in the right hand. She took the escalator downstairs, chose an angle pointing to their backs so that they couldn’t see her and walked straight toward them.

I'm afraid this just might be the way it was. Pity that Zhang Yue had left Shanghai and there was no way to check and confirm with him whether he had made the call or not.

2

4:30pm on Monday, May 31. At the project meeting of Paro’s Ophthalmology Medicine Division, Vice-President Lu Tianlan suddenly diverts topic of conversation and talks about my investigation on the suicidal case of Su Ya and how my hard work steered Ai-De-Kang away from a possible scandal that could hamper its future launch into the market.

“Well done, very well done,” she says, playing with the pen in her hand. For some 3 seconds she fixes her eyes on me without a trace of smile on her face. As her seemingly cold stare sends shivers down my spine, her eyes sweep further across everybody at present and she says: “If you could all work like Zhou! Use your head at work, then I would be much relieved.”

Everybody in the company knows Lu Tianlan's a famous catch line: “Whatever work I have assigned you, don’t give me a chance to say that I could have done better. Otherwise why would I give you the work?”

Who is Lu Tianlan! Starting right at the bottom, this woman has made her way up to the top echelons of the company hierarchy by sheer dint of her hard work. Other than medicine research and development, there isn’t a single piece of work that she hadn’t tried and done before. To get a tacit consent from her for the work you have done is usually the best appraisal. But today it is incredible that she actually has praised me in front of others.

Through a cracked seam in the pocket, the most mysterious disfigurement case in Shanghai in recent days is cracked. Is it me who has done it? I can’t but feel really good about myself.

First, Su Ya had left her last words, stating that she killed herself for a very specific reason. You see, on May 15, she saw with her own eyes that Zhang Yue and Xu Mingzhi sitting close to each other in one armchair and waiting for her. That’s an incident Ai-De-Kang can’t be held responsible for. In fact, Meng Yu pointed out that as a patient of depression, if she dressed up and went out for a date, it meant that her situation had greatly improved following the medication. This only proves that Ai-De-Kang is effective to some extent.

Secondly, Su Ya committed suicide, probably due to guilt and shame. Moreover, there was a lot of pent-up anger inside her as we read from her notes. She cut the face of her ex-boyfriend's girl in a public café in broad daylight. But a revenge of “blade and blood” wasn’t enough. She needed again, in a more forceful manner, to curse and condemn them. So, she chose to use the same razor blade and thrust it into her own neck. This sudden whim of her at that time has nothing to do with her depression.

Both arguments are fairly favorable to the company.

“Yo-yo, this is simply astounding. I didn’t expect you to be so clear in the mind this time. How did you learn to to solve criminal cases? Don’t tell me it is a new course at the law school since I left, eh?” He Ying asks me right after the meeting. She has almost talked my ears off in the elevator ever since we stepped out of the public conference room on the 4th floor and all the way up to our office on the 19th floor.

“Well, Sister He, please don’t make fun of me any more lah. How could I have learned to solve cases? You are too familiar with the subjects they taught at the law school. If there ever were a course called criminal investigation, it would only teach us how to prevent a case from being solved by the police,” I say.

As I carelessly joke away her compliments, I am also thinking happily to myself: Fancy that the entire collection Sherlock Holmes Adventures that I read in my schooldays was finally paying off. Those were the days when my forehead buried in the textbooks while my eyes fixed on the dog-eared book that seemed forever hidden inside the desk.

I managed to finish the whole series of Sherlock Holmes within two years, disregarding the fact that I failed twice in the end-term exams. To be honest, Sherlock Holmes was actually the first man for whom, I can honestly say, I had a touch of affection. Cane, topper, pipe. Fencing, boxing, violin. Tall and lean, fast and agile. Sharp eyes hidden deep in the shadows of the pointed nose. What attracted me most was not his tremendous courage or wisdom but his composed manner of observing the things around him. I was once so much obsessed with the cap mark on his forehead, the calluses on his fingers, the curves of his bowlegs and the mud on his heels. I imagined walking side by side with him and wondering if he could ever read into my loneliness that was unspeakable.

We have been chatting lightly with each other all the way into our office.

He Ying walks in right behind me. Tapping the stainless nameplate of “Law Department” on the door with her finger nails, she jokes: “Now that you have grown up to be a really big fish, my office would be too small a pond for you very soon. How about I talking to President Lu some day to change our office nameplate into Criminal Investigation Department and make you the manager?”

With these words, she casually closes the door behind her. It isn’t until I scream out loud with my hands clasps over the head that she opens the door hurriedly and says: “Oops, sorry ah, Yo-yo, how could I forget?”

For two years since I worked with her in this office, she has never forgotten the peculiar request of mine. I suddenly realize that she may be a little bit angry with me because I am lucky this time.

On the afternoon of May 15, she told me she was afraid of seeing and hearing things such as a dead body or a bloody scene. She asked me to go to the police bureau on my own to find out about the case and applied for a company car for my use. She didn’t expect or think it was precisely that afternoon when she was absent that I managed to obtain the most useful bit of information from the police. Furthermore, what I discovered later helped in cracking the case in the end. So, all credits seem to have gone to me!

“Sister He…” I feel sort of guilty and call out to her.

I fully understand the pressures of workplaces. I have wanted very much to tell her that I am not interested in taking over her position as manager of the department. I enjoy very much being a clerk under her management. But I am afraid my words would be construed differently leading to further doubts about me.

He Ying brings a glass of hot water to me and touches my disheveled hair.

The two of us then go through the heaps of contracts from the Ophthalmology Medicine Division till it is pitch dark outside. We call it a day and leave the office for home.

I am completely tired out. My eyes are dry and the left side of my head aches as if it were going to explode. I also feel like having a low fever. Having no more strength to dodge the crowds on the Metro, I hail a taxi home. Thank God, my place isn’t too far away from my office building. The taxi stops at a 7-Eleven convenience store next to the lanehouse where I live. I get off the taxi, buy a sandwich and a bottle of juice at the store and go directly to my dear home.

The four-story lanehouse with a narrow courtyard on Maoming Road was built in 1934. I live on the third floor, Room 301. Walk through the shadows of the plane trees under the street light, take the stairs up to the third floor, and walk straight in along the public corridor. The one-bedroom apartment overlooking the courtyard is mine. When I was in my junior high, my father went to Beijing for work. My mother joined him a few years later when I was in first year college. From then on, I have lived here all by myself in this old apartment that was handed down from my grandparents.

Taking out the key from the deserted milk box on the left side of the window, I open the door. The living room is almost abandoned. Except for the dining table and a fridge, there is a clothes line running south to north across the room half way above the floor, where my clothes are hung to dry all year around. My time spent in the living room is limited to a minimum level of standing, if not passing by. On the other hand, the bedroom whose door forever opens is my exclusive “hot bed for corruption.” Sofa, desk, bed, TV, you name it, everything is crammed in my big bedroom. I can lie down in whatever way that makes me feel comfortable on whichever the piece of the furniture and do whatever I need to do in the bedroom, such as watching DVDs, surfing the Internet, and dining.

I toss the sandwich, juice and my backpack onto the dining table. Staring through the window at the bar opposite the courtyard, where I can see lights dazzling and hear people frolicking, I pour myself a glass of water, feeling the dizzy and heavy emptiness in the head. I pick up the half pack of Saridon left on the table, take two tablets and wash them down with the cold water. I walk into the bedroom, turn on the light, open the window, take out my contact lens, take off my coat and climb into the bed.

By the time I wake up, my headache has gone numb. I feel my eyes swollen and sting with the light still on over my head. The clock on the laptop at the desk shows it is 2:05am in the wee hours of the morning. I struggle up and go to turn off the light, barefooted.

Darkness comes the moment I press down the button. Standing in the pitch dark bedroom, a cold shiver goes through my body all of a sudden: If I could get up in the middle of the night to turn off the light, what about Su Ya? Had she ever turned on the light…

Suddenly, I am wide awake.

I still remembered it was 5:30pm on May 25 when Xiaoshan and I arrived at the scene. Su Ya’s bedroom was bright enough by then. However, when we stepped back to the bedroom after discovering the seam cut in the pocket of her leisure suit at the cloakroom, it was already 6:30pm. As it was completely dark, we had to turn on the ceiling light of the bedroom. I remembered doing so clearly because we saw lights turned on in other people’s apartments as well. We also saw the family in the opposite apartment of the other high-rise building sitting around table and having dinner, and there were the nanny and kid playing in another apartment on the right.

But at 8:20am on May 16, when Su Huaiyuan and Qi Xiuzhen pushed open the door of Su Ya’s bedroom, when they saw the bed in a semisolid mass of coagulated blood and half of Su Ya’s pale body floating above the dark red pool, they said the southwest-facing bedroom was still dim. The morning light shone through the windows, giving a tenderly warm plating to everything at the scene.

It was obvious that the light in the bedroom was off.

May 25 was closer to summer than May 15, which means the day would get dark later than 15th. If it was completely dark at 6:30pm on 25th, it could only be darker then on 15th.

As was said, Su Ya wrote down her last words and uploaded it to the online forum at 6:32pm on the evening of May 15; then she walked into her bedroom, turned on the light, closed the door, lay onto the bed, and straightened her robe. She took the razor blade which she readied before hand from the bedside table and slit her own throat, and soon drained off 4 liters of the blood in her body. Then, how did she manage to get up and turn off the light?

Suppose Su Ya, before the day got dark, had taken her shower, blown her hair dry and changed into her sleeping robe. After that, she hung the suit she had just worn back into the cloakroom. She even pulled out a piece of razor blade and laid it on the bedside table of the bedroom. Then she came out to sit quietly by the laptop in the study, brooding over the day's incident and the words she wanted to leave behind. Perhaps she once hesitated, struggled, but still was unable to quell the rage burning in her chest from humiliation brought by Zhang Yue and Xu Mingzhi. Perhaps she just wanted to sit by herself for a while, missing no one and expecting no one while giving herself a rare peaceful moment for the last time. Looking at the sky as the day faded away till night fell completely, she logged in with the newly registered ID name "Su Ya" and uploaded her last post. Then, she stood up, turned around and headed for the bedroom.

It shouldn't have been a problem if she was using the computer without turning on the light, because the laptop screen gave off enough light so long as it was on. But I doubt how far this screen light could go? She must have fumbled in the dark to the bedroom, didn't she? Did she close the door and grope her way to the bed as well? Although the razor blade on the bedside table was bigger than a flake of contact lens, I am afraid, without light, it would be impossible for her to find where the razor was.

Maybe she did turn on the light. After she picked up the razor in her hand, she especially went to turn off the light again. Of course, that seems awkward. With razor in one hand, she would have to set her hair and straighten her robe in the dark with only the other hand. It would be also very inconvenient without the light on to confirm the sharp edge of the razor was in the right position, so that when she slashed her carotid artery, it would be perfectly accurate. For someone who knew that she couldn't wake up again, would she worry about the light burning her eyes if she woke up in the middle of the night, or, would she still bear in mind her responsibility of saving electricity?

The most reasonable explanation was everything must have happened before it got dark.

Then, it couldn't be Su Ya who had written the suicide notes.

Then, who was this "Su Ya" at the forum?

I log onto MSN to look for Bill for help. After sending him a vibrating buzz thrice, Bill finally shows up with a smiley face. "Sleepwalking again?" he asks.

Aha, I know he must be hiding offline. Excited, I drag my laptop from the desk onto the bed, slip under the quilt and start pressing the keyboard frenetically, because I have so much to talk about what I have just found.

It was at 8:20am, on the morning of May 16 that Su Huaiyuan and Qi Xiuzhen found out Su Ya's death. The police arrived at the scene a little later at 8:40am. Then, how about the one who pretended to be Su Ya and left the suicide notes online? The person must have known everything before the evening of May 15, before 6:32pm, or perhaps even earlier. Maybe it was that person who had master planned everything. The person forged scene, uploaded the bogus post and even made up the reasons for suicide. Su Ya didn't commit suicide. She was murdered!

When I finally stop typing, I see that I haven’t got any response from Bill at all. How dare he ignore me! Or he isn’t a bit interested in my deduction of the case, so he has left and gone to bed? I stop and wait, tit for tat, for him to react. After a full two minutes, Bill replies with an "Oh." Hum, I restrain myself and still keep my silence so as to let him know of his indifference. As is expected, Bill starts replying:

"Whimsy Kid, I say you have been thinking too much with your little brain! When can you think logically for just one day? "

"How about U? When can your biological clock tick normally for just one day? Aren't you afraid to cut the customers' ears during the day at work ?" I retorted.

Bill is more addicted to the Internet than me. Night after night he spends hours in front of the computer, and so he has better computer skills and knowledge than I. After a while, a dialogue box from him popped up. The message was depressing:

"I remembered the weekend before last, the web server of wuya.com got hacked. The web server's clock thus mis-functioned, which means it was possible that the post showing its uploaded time of 6:32pm could have actually been done at 4 or 5pm that day. "

It seems I really need to change my online ID.

3

Mushroom is my online ID at the forum JUST WANT YOU TO KNOW. I came up with such a nickname because I would nest in the sofa with a blanket draped over my shoulder for a whole day, without moving a bit further if not necessary, which made me look exactly like a mushroom growing on a rotten tree trunk. Ever since I got to know Bill at the forum, he has suggested that I should change my ID into Whimsy Kid because that, he often teased to say, suits me best.

Bill, like me, is also a member of the online forum, plus the only one at the forum who knows I am the person behind Mushroom. Speaking of how I got to know Bill online reminds me of an embarrassing affair of mine in the past.

It was a Christmas Eve in 2007, and I had nothing to do but nest in the sofa with my laptop. I saw a new post pop up on the forum. It was uploaded at 19:52pm, December 24, just an hour ago. The ID name of the post was Shy Love, and title of the post was #After today, would I ever meet you again#.

～～

I heard someone calling your names in the bus today.

I looked back and was surprised to see you standing right behind my back, holding onto the same handle-bar.

It’s been three years since graduation. However, I would often speak your name in my heart. Xiamen is such a small city yet still too big. Why have I never run into you? When I heard others calling your name today, I thought it must have been the voice that happened to leak out of my heart. Alas…

When I didn’t see you, I would often laugh at myself. How silly it was to go into hiding every time I saw you coming around at that time.

When I did see you today, watching you pleasantly greet me in surprise and then quickly bid me farewell, I just didn’t know what to say.

You said you didn’t change your phone number. I know. But I’m afraid I would never make a call.

Darling, would I ever see you again?

～～

When I clicked the post open, my heart was suddenly filled with a vague tingling. There was a time when I would often see people whose silhouette, back, hairstyle or chin looks like that of him wherever I walked — in the department stores, at the supermarkets or on the busy downtown streets, but none was him. Such a phenomenon lasted for two years and was finally gone, for God’s sake.

However, just a week before the National Day holidays of that year, I saw a man looking exactly like him in the 8:10am train which went past the Shaanxi Road S. Station each day in the morning, for seven consecutive days. On the day when I got on the train and first spotted him there, tears came rushing down uncontrollably over my cheeks. I quickly turned my head to one side and covered my face with the collar of my coat. Half of the collar was wet with tears. I wanted to turn away from him, but I couldn’t help but keep a secret watch on him all the while. I didn’t even get off at the station where I should have. Instead, I continued my trips for four more stops, watching him lean against the handle-bar in the last compartment, yawning while sending messages, until he got off at the Hanzhong Road Station. After the week-long national holiday, every morning I waited at same Metro platform as three trains went past, but he didn’t show up. Never again.

He was…Ok, let’s call him Lemon for the moment. We used to be so much close that our smiles, our minds and bodies were like two sides of the same person. But now, his shadow is no longer my home. Sometimes I doubted it was merely an inexplicable obsession, him with me or me with him, for both of us, an obsession that had no base or for no reason.

I remembered the post by Nutcracker was published on October 23, 2003. The fall of 2003 happened to be the happiest moment I had ever had with Lemon. If there’s a word called “paradise” on Earth, I guess, I must have been there. I had thought I would be staying there forever. I didn’t expect it lasted only a short time.

With time passing by, a lot had changed since then. I was getting more and more suspicious that all of it actually did happen. Sometimes I thought probably Lemon knew far less of me than Nutcracker, a secret lover, who fell in love with Zhou You.

Lemon never noticed I had the habit of frowning. He never asked about the meaning of my new MSN title voluntarily. He didn’t even know if there was a cinema near my house. Of course, he wouldn’t get to know I had copied down every message he sent me on a big notebook with all the detailed information, including the date and the time. Neither would he get to know I had plucked a white hair from him stealthily and kept it in my plastic file till today, in addition to a pencil with his bite marks on, which he used while sitting for the College English Test Band 6.

Checking out of the dorm after the graduation ceremony, he helped me move my things back to Maoming Road. Neither of us had made it clear that be a day for us to break up. He would never get to know, I closed the door immediately as he turned around, because I couldn’t hold my tears any more and I was crying like hell, squatting on the ground. The last time he called, he said he might have left his book “The Law of Environment and Natural Resources Protection” with me and asked me to look for it. I said I had a bad cold and hung up the phone hastily because I didn’t want him to know: from the moment I heard his voice on the phone, my tears started to stream down uncontrollably, from head to toe.

Never would he get to know all these. Never. Because we stopped contacting each other from then on. Like what was said in the post of Shy Love: my heart speaks your name every day, but I’m afraid I would never ever make a call.

Memories of those bygone days would have been gradually sealed off if I hadn’t read the post at the forum that Christmas Eve. As I stared at the screen, a sharp pain arose as if reviving from an inexplicable depth. It grew sharper and sharper, like a cold long knife gouging out the inside of my heart. Outside the window, there came a cheerful Christmas music mixed with a hubbub of human voices and all the imaginations of a warm, sweet and peaceful night.

It was on that night I registered myself as Mushroom with the online forum and sent my first post. I was crying while typing. Thinking that chances could be zero for Lemon to be able to read the post, I was almost devastated. I felt it a shame on me even to this day when I recalled the situation wanting him like hell!

All right, if you insist to know what happened later. Thirty seconds after I uploaded my post, a netizen called Brother Ostrich sent his comment. Considering that I could be too shy to reply to him at the public forum, he also sent me a message via the forum’s message board, leaving me his MSN address. He said he would like to be my messenger and pass on to Lemon all those that I wanted him to know.

At that moment, I hesitated. Suddenly I realized, I didn’t even know whether those things I complained that he never got to know were what I really wanted him to know. Or perhaps, the moment when it was best for him to know was gone forever.

Finally, I asked Brother Ostrich if he would be kind enough to go and see him on behalf of me. I found out the book “The Law of Environment and Natural Resources Protection” and had it returned to him. I just wanted to know if all was going well with him. That was enough.

Brother Ostrich is Bill.

Bill, 37, wears the hair in a very short style and a beard of about half a centimeter long. He is a little less than 180cm tall and slightly overweight. He prefers leisure wear in orange, yellow or green, big-bag tether pants, and Nike basketball shoes though he never plays basketball. He may look sporty from the outside, but his eyes are surprisingly gentle and quiet. Every time I look into his eyes, I have an illusion that he were dressed in dark, and black only.

He actually works in the same office building where I work. As one of the supervisors of Creative Hair Design at the Glamour Hair Salon on the ground floor, he charges 240 yuan for a simple haircut, or a discount price of 180 yuan if you buy a membership card. The world is always full of coincidences.

Well... so long as it was the server that went wrong. I have decided not to be bothered with the whimsical ideas any more. But I am still too excited to go to sleep for the moment. As I click some online MP3 downloads, I type “Su Ya” in the Google search engine. Didn’t know she is an online celebrity now! Look at those various reports of her company and the featured interviews of her.

I browse through the web links listed on the left, page by page, just to kill time as I am waiting for the downloading of one of Wang Feng’s CDs. I have planned to shut down the computer and go to bed once it is completed. As the loading bar shows only 2 percent remained unfinished, two posts with the ID name of “Su Ya” at the online forum catch my eye. When I click the first open, it is Su’s last note written at 6:32pm, May 15. When I click the second open, which is also attached behind the topic #Actually…I do care#, on Page 202, the 2313rd result, it reads:

～～

Coldness. What terrible coldness it is! How can I make you know? Tell me, what I should do. You deliberately ignore me, when I walk past you every day. You’d rather believe that I were a born dumb than listen to the monologues I have practiced day and night in the dark stage of my heart. If only blood and death could make you hear my voice!

Well, you’d better listen now: I am still here. And all that happened is just a beginning.

If you don’t hear these words, it doesn’t matter, her blood will make you hear.

～～

Record shows the post was uploaded at 11:42 midnight, May 25, 2010, ten days after Su was found dead in a pool of blood in her own apartment.

It was also the day when a special online report from wuya.com exposed everything relating to the 5.15 Huiyang Department Store Disfigurement Case through a successful Human Flesh Search.

Ping, the MP3 download complete sound nearly scares the mouse out of my hand.

At the moment, Bill’s MSN dialogue box also pops up. This time he is typing much faster:

“Still sleepwalking eh? I’ve got something to tell U. I checked the server log files just now through the forum’s IP address and found it was hacked by a Torjan Horse virus the week before last, which was Friday May 14 to be specific. But it was fixed before 9 o’clock on the same night. Under normal situation, a server usually needs to support the operation of several websites. It will automatically adjust its clock after an interval of time. That is to say it was unlikely to have an error of about five minutes … So-- ”

So, Su Ya was indeed murdered, I conclude, and the murderer had declared that he would continue with the bloody game.

"So, your little brain isn't too bad," Bill draws a different conclusion from his angle that is obviously different from mine.

I look up to see the LED clock display in the lower right corner shows it was 3am, Tuesday, June 1, 2010.

*

Lanehouse, or "stone-gate house", is known as shikumen in Chinese. It is a traditional Shanghainese architectural style combining Western and Chinese elements that first appeared in the 1860s. In the early 20th century, up to 80 percent of the city's population lived in these townhouses with an inner courtyard protected by a high brick wall.

Maoming Road, also known as Moulmein Road between 1917 and 1943, is running north-south across the downtown Jing'an District. Famous for its rich street life, street food and open-air bars, the Maoming Road neighborhoods has the largest existing cluster of historic lanehouses.

Xiamen, also known as Amoy, is a tourist city of Fujian Province on the southeast coast of China. The city was a treaty port in the 19th century and one of the four Special Economic Zones opened to foreign investment and trade when China began economic reforms in the early 1980s. Famous for its attractive seascape, Xiamen was ranked as China's "most romantic leisure city" in 2011.

The National Day, celebrating the foundation of the People's Republic of China, falls on October 1 every year. People get a 7-day vacation which combines the National Day holidays and two weekends on either side. Besides the May Day holiday, National Day holiday is another Golden Week in China.

Wang Feng (1971-) is a Chinese rock musician. He was the founder and lead singer of the band No.43 Baojia Street. After two albums No.43 Baojia Street (1997) and No.43 Baojia Street II (1998), he signed a solo contract with Warner Music Beijing Co Ltd. With a number of songs like Flying Higher (2004) and Blooming Life (2005), Wang Feng entered the media spotlight and became popular in China's mainland.

Human Flash Search is a primarily Chinese Internet phenomenon of online “witch hunt” using Internet media such as blogs and forums. Because of the convenient and efficient nature of information sharing in the cyberspace, the Human Flash Search is often used to acquire information usually difficult or impossible to be found by other conventional means.

(Translated from the Chinese by Xu Qin)