The person who died was male.

He was also a young, refined person with a kind and harmless smile.

Of course, Fang Qing had only gleaned this from the identity card found on the dead body. As matter of fact, this poor man had been thoroughly mashed up into pieces, as he lay next to Fang Qing’s feet.

“Fu Wei, 25 years old, native of Gansu. He’s a tourist visiting from Beijing and these past few days he has been staying at the Yao’s courtyard inn.*” The investigator reported with a cold and solemn voice.

*TLN: A courtyard inn is like an antiquated inn, where they convert ancient Chinese buildings or replicate ancient Chinese buildings and make them into inns.

Fang Qing used his hand to block his face from the sun. He picked up the white cloth covering the body and looked at the body once more. However, he only felt like cursing in his head, Damn it! He wanted to be transferred to another post, but such a big case had occurred now. Was God trying to mess with him? But silent curses were still silent curses. Fang Qing stared into the corpse’s eyes, which looked crueler than that of an eagle.

“What did the forensic investigator say?” he asked.

“From my initial deductions, I can conclude that the time of death was today in the early morning between one to three a.m. The murder weapon stabbed his chest. The majority of the stabs occurred in his abdomen and caused him to bleed to death. Additionally there are wounds from his wrists being slit, so he probably grappled with other people. The weapon is a wide and thin blade, ranging from 15-20 centimeters in length. It is about 8-10 centimeters wide, and the knife will have a certain weight. Specifically, the material and model number of the weapon will need to be further investigated…”

“How many cuts were there altogether?” Fang Qing asked.

“… around forty cuts.”

After he finished his examination of the dead body, Fang Qing leaned against a police car, smoking a cigarette. A young police officer looked at the dead body but he wasn’t able to stop himself from holding his stomach and throwing up next to the gutter. Fang Qing’s complexion did not change. He took out another peppermint and chewed on it to freshen his breath.

The sun was bright. Outside the police cordon region, the area around them was full of people who would not go away no matter what. Fang Qing slowly inspected the crowd. Perhaps, the murderer could be in the crowd at that moment.

However, it was only a thought. With such a huge crowd, he couldn’t even tell. Plus, the murderer wasn’t stupid.

He lifted his head, looking around at the little alley, as he began to outline last night’s circumstances in his head.

It had rained hard in the latter half of the night. As Fu Wei returned, it should have been raining. He returned via an isolated path that led to the back of the inn and Fu Wei was your average guy so it wasn’t weird for him to be taking a shortcut.

In the ancient city, many tourists would stay out until midnight or even stay out all night. So, Fu Wei hadn’t returned at an abnormal time either.

Even though the rain removed most of the traces, the soil by the dead body was already immersed in a crimson red color that had penetrated extremely deeply. Moreover, the dead body showed no evidence of being moved. It could be assumed that this was the primary crime scene of the murder case.

At one a.m., Fu Wei had walked over to this area and came across the murderer.

Would the murderer hide himself? Or was meeting Fu Wei a coincidence? Both walls of the alleyway were low and convex so there was no place to hide. So, the murderer could only stand in the rain and wait for Fu Wei.

Did Fu Wei knew the murderer? If he did, he probably would have stopped walking. If not, he would have just walked by him.Then the murderer made his move.

One slash, two slashes, three slashes … twenty slashes! Forty slashes! This person had slashed into this young man until he was unrecognizable, practically turning him into a pool of mud!

Fu Wei wasn’t tall, and he was rather skinny. The murderer evidently had not considered absolute convenience and advantage otherwise Fu Wei’s wrists would not have traces of being caught in a scuffle. So, the murderer wasn’t a strong and robust man.

What happened afterwards?magic

Then the murderer ran away and Fu Wei lay there, his body and the floor covered in blood, waiting to be found.

Blood.

That’s right, blood.

Fu Wei’s main artery bled. Although the rain had washed off a lot of the blood, the ground and the walls still had a horrifying amount of blood. Plus, the murderer had wrestled with him so it was inevitable that his body would be stained with blood as well.

a.m, 2 a.m… Although it was late at night, this was the ancient city, so it wasn’t that late yet. Every alleyway was a bustling street, and inns were located everywhere. Where could someone covered in blood and someone who held a knife in his hand go?

……

Fang Qing suddenly lifted his head and said to two police officers, “Go collect the surveillance from the surrounding five streets at once! I don’t believe this Sun Tzu [1] can get out of this situation undetected!”

[1] Sun Tzu- Also known as Sun Wu, he was a general, strategist, and philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period. Believed to be the author of the ‘Art of War’

——

It was simply unbelievable that a case like this would happen in a tourist city. Fang Qing’s boss couldn’t avoid his important meetings, so he gave Fang Qing some sincere advice and ordered him to solve the case within a week.

Fang Qing didn’t say anything. The next moment, he became as busy as a bee. As the commanding officer, he had to go in primarily with a strong investigative direction. Fang Qing was now concentrating his attention on searching for the ‘bloody person’. At the same time, he would have to investigate the victim, Fu Wei, and his life.

A day later, after enquiries were sent to the Gansu Provincial and Beijing Police departments, the police received some data after cooperation with the local police.

Fu Wei’s hometown was in a county located below Gansu. His family consisted of one bedridden mother with his father working to support the household. It was harder for them to get by, but they were able to afford food and clothes without much of a problem. When they heard of his death, the whole family grieved. But because transportation was inconvenient and his father needed to sort out family logistics, it would take a few days to rush over there.

Two years ago, Fu Wei graduated from Beijing’s Min Sheng University, a National Key University, majoring in a National Key Discipline*. Then he went to work at an internet company and was regarded as a young, promising talent. After investigation, he never had any injustices or enemies. He did not have a girlfriend, and did not have any emotional disputes. Everyone close to him had been investigated but no one had the motive to kill.

*TLN: National Key Universities previously referred to universities recognized as prestigious and which received a high level of support from the central government of the People’s Republic of China. National Key Disciplines is a list of key disciplines currently recognized as important and receiving support by the central government of the People’s Republic of China.

As far as his conduct, the police were able to gain a little more knowledge about him. According to his dorm mate, “Big Wei was a pretty good person most of the time. He was a gentle person and never got into disagreements with people. His shortcomings … he was a little lustful. He played with prostitutes when we were in college, but it only happened twice. It’s college, so lots of boys have done it. Oh yeah, he also had an online relationship before. I heard that the girl later suddenly stopped talking to him, they just broke up.”His roommates in Beijing all said, “Fu Wei didn’t have any enemies, his income at the company wasn’t bad, and he didn’t have any financial pressures or disputes. He saved up his annual leave this year and was going to go to the ancient city, which was a spontaneous decision. Only a few of his friends knew. He even said he might be having an affair, so who knows …”

……

Fang Qing investigated Fu Wei’s whereabouts in the ancient city ever since he had arrived. Besides the inn he resided at and the nightclubs he went to at the city, the girls he had hit on at the bar and the owners of the restaurants he ate at had all been questioned as well. Surprisingly, Fu Wei had not created any conflicts with anyone.

Even the prostitute that he had hired for the past few days had been invited to the police station and had answered the questions very carefully. “Oh, that young lad … I remember him. He gave me money and I became his tour guide, going around the city for a few days.”

The police officer laughed, not wanting to expose her lie.

“There was nothing special, we just had a little sex, and he was always touchy. He was a little stingy. When it was time to pay, he only paid me fifty yuan. We encounter these types of customers quite often. Who killed him? That’s too scary …”

The inn that Fu Wei had been living in was also under investigation. It wasn’t the tourist season but business wasn’t slow either. There weren’t many guests at the inn, but there also wasn’t that few. There were a little over ten people living in the same building Fu Wei was staying at. All had been investigated. None of them had any connection with Fu Wei.

Even the front desk receptionist had been asked about key details. She was a local, a little over twenty years old and wasn’t bad looking. She told the police, “He was pretty charming, always coming back past midnight … Did he take the initiative to hit on me? Yes, he left me his QQ number. He was very pushy, but at the time, the aunty who sweeps the floors and the other waitresses laughed at me. However, I didn’t plan on adding him.”

——

It was late now. Fang Qing and his partner had just sent off the last interviewees. Fang Qing tiredly massaged his eyebrows, and the two of them lit their cigarettes.

The neighboring monitoring group was still looking and going through the boxes of camera surveillance recordings. He could guess that by this time their eyeballs were about to fall out, but they still hadn’t found any traces of the murderer.

Ding. Fang Qing’s phone rang, and he picked it up to look at it. It was a notification for some entertainment news he was subscribed to: [Jin Xiaozhe to Take the Lead Female Role in a Large Epic Movie Production. Filming Begins Today.] With a bang, Fang Qing threw his phone on the table.

“Team leader Fang, this case will not be easy to handle,” his partner said, inhaling another puff of smoke.

Fang Qing picked up his big mug and took a huge mouthful of his drink.

Was there any point in pointing out the obvious?

In most of the murder cases the police encountered, most murderers killed people whom they worked with, love and hate being intertwined with love affairs. At worst, the murderer would be murdering for money. This case that looked to be simple but, after searching for 24 hours there wasn’t a single lead.

There was no motive or suspect. The surveillance had actually been taken away by someone. A huge downpour of rain had acted as an exceptionally good shield for that person.

“Hey, we won’t have encountered that right?” Fang Qing’s partner asked in a low voice.

Fang Qing was silent.

His partner softly sighed, “If we really have met that, we’ll have stumbled upon extremely bad luck this time around!”