Iris 5

"Where did she run off to?" Mu Qin looked around the dilapidated corridor but saw no sign of the female teacher. He could not help asking Cheng Guoxu and Qiu Zijia beside him, "Did either of you see which way she went?"

"How the hell should I know? The moment I came out, she was gone." Qiu Zijia was both frustrated and angry. "What is wrong with that woman? She was supposed to keep watch at the door, not run around. Did she just ignore everything we said?"

"Could someone have abducted her?" As Mu Qin spoke, he looked at Cheng Guoxu. Cheng Guoxu had been closest to the doorway while they searched, so he should have been able to see where Han Li went.

Cheng Guoxu understood Mu Qin's look. He shook his head and said, "I didn't see where she went. One second she was there; the next, she had vanished."

"That makes things troublesome." Cheng Guoxu's words made Mu Qin frown uneasily.

Qiu Zijia said, "Forget about her. If she fell behind, that just means she is looking to get herself killed."

"What I want to know is whether she left on her own or someone took her. If it is the former, fine. We can leave her alone. But if it is the latter..." Mu Qin sighed. "Then it is going to be a problem."

Qiu Zijia said, "Do you think that woman would leave by herself?"

"I don't know." Mu Qin shook his head.

The moment Mu Qin finished speaking, they suddenly heard a shrill scream from the stairwell at the far end of the corridor.

It was clearly a woman's scream. Mu Qin and the others instantly recognized Han Li's voice. They exchanged looks. Qiu Zijia was still hesitating, but Mu Qin had already started toward the sound.

"Wait!" Qiu Zijia reached out, intending to stop Mu Qin, and said, "Don't go over there. What if it is a trap?"

Mu Qin turned to look at Qiu Zijia. "So you do not want to save her, do you?"

Qiu Zijia was a little embarrassed and did not answer. He truly did not want to save Han Li. To put it bluntly, Qiu Zijia was no paragon of justice. Faced with possible, unknown danger, all he wanted was to protect himself.

Mu Qin said nothing either. He fixed Qiu Zijia with those black, unfathomable eyes, and his calmness made Qiu Zijia shudder despite himself.

Qiu Zijia realized that Mu Qin seemed almost too calm. Ever since they had first met, there had never been much change in Mu Qin's expression. Whether he smiled, grew angry, or looked surprised, it was all faint and restrained; his tone was equally detached.

Mu Qin said, "We are on the second floor. This apartment building has five floors in all, and the only staircase that goes up and down is at the left end of the corridor. Unless we jump out one of the corridor windows, we have to pass through that stairwell whether we are going upstairs or down."

"And Han Li's scream just came from that stairwell. No matter what, if we do not want to get trapped here, we have to go over there." As Mu Qin spoke, he looked toward the end of the corridor. The lights there seemed to be malfunctioning, flickering on and off.

After that one scream, Han Li made no further sound. The orphanage's apartment building sank into a deathly silence.

Mu Qin took the lead. From a heating pipe along the window side of the corridor, he casually broke off a length of steel pipe to use as a weapon. It was badly rusted, making it easy to snap off.

Cheng Guoxu and Qiu Zijia followed behind him. Moving lightly but quickly toward the stairwell, they discovered that someone had turned off the light at the bend in the stairs, even though they had turned on every light when they came up.

"Han Li?" Mu Qin called into the pitch-black stairwell. His voice echoed through the narrow passage, but there was no reply.

If only they had a flashlight.

Mu Qin thought this to himself, but he could only tighten his grip on the rusty steel pipe, hunch close to one wall, and begin making his way downstairs.

Qiu Zijia and Cheng Guoxu hesitated at the stairway entrance for a moment, then tiptoed after him.

Keeping close to the wall, Mu Qin went down one flight and felt along the corner of the stairwell until he found the light switch. At that moment, he caught a strange, bloody smell in the air. The scent was familiar enough that he steeled himself, then pressed the switch and lit the small landing.

"Oh my God!" The instant the light came on, Qiu Zijia cried out in terror. He practically leaped three feet in the air and involuntarily pressed himself against Mu Qin's back.

Before them, a person, dead or alive, lay on the steps of the landing. He was covered in blood, with spatters splashed across the walls. A huge wound ran across his back, clearly inflicted by some sharp weapon.

The man seemed to have struggled for a long time before he died, leaving bloody handprints on the wall beside him.

"Is... is he dead?" In his twenty-eight years, Qiu Zijia had scarcely ever seen blood. His family was well-off, and his parents had spoiled him. He had never had to do much hard work, had not even killed a chicken, let alone suddenly come face-to-face with such a blood-soaked corpse.

Qiu Zijia was trembling all over with fear, shaking behind Mu Qin. Cheng Guoxu, beside him, was much calmer by comparison, though his face had gone somewhat pale as well.

Mu Qin steadied himself and walked over to crouch down. He reached for the pulse at the man's neck. The skin was still a little warm, perhaps retaining heat because he had only recently died, but there was no pulse.

"Looks like he is dead," Mu Qin said gravely.

Qiu Zijia trembled. "That is not Han Li. Judging by the build, it seems to be a man."

"It is not Xu Fu either. The build is wrong. It should be the one among the six Xu Fu mentioned whom we have not found yet." As Mu Qin spoke, he grabbed the corpse's arm, intending to turn him over and see his face.

"Don't, he is covered in blood!" Qiu Zijia seemed frightened and tried to stop Mu Qin, but Mu Qin had already turned the man over. It did not help much, though. Once he was faceup, they found that his face was covered in blood as well, seemingly slashed open by an enormous wound running from his left eye to the right side of his chin. His entire face was a mangled blur of blood and flesh.

Qiu Zijia leaned over for a look at the corpse's horrific face, then could not help covering his eyes. "God, that is awful. You cannot even tell what he looked like."

Mu Qin was not concerned with that. He carefully examined the corpse's build. The dead man had actually been quite well built, probably around six feet tall, with powerful arms, chest, and abdomen. When Mu Qin pulled aside his sleeves and collar, he could see taut, solid muscle.

A man of such height and build should not have been killed easily, especially when he had made no sound at all before dying.

Mu Qin, Qiu Zijia, and the others had just been searching the second floor, while this man had died on the stairwell landing between the first and second floors.

If he had struggled and cried for help, Mu Qin and the others should have heard him.

Unless this stairwell was not the primary scene of the murder, and someone had dragged his body to the landing after killing him.

But there was no point in doing that. It would take time and effort, and Mu Qin could not think of any reason the killer would do it.

Deep in thought, Mu Qin could not help gripping the corpse's arm and pulling at his collar as he studied the body closely, trying to find more details.

Then Mu Qin discovered that the fatal wound was likely a gash in the neck, so deep that bone showed through. It may have severed the carotid artery, which would explain the massive amount of blood everywhere: on the floor, the walls, all around them.

Mu Qin was not a forensic examiner and could not determine how fresh the injuries were. But he guessed that the man had probably encountered the so-called "killer" or "ghost," which had slashed his neck. He had clutched his neck and tried to flee, only for the ghost to inflict further wounds to his face and back.

With his neck slashed, his vocal cords may have been damaged, leaving him unable to call for help. That would explain why Mu Qin and the others had heard nothing upstairs.

And besides...

Mu Qin followed the bloodstains beneath the corpse down the stairs with his eyes. This man might have come in from the courtyard outside. A great deal of blood had dripped along the way, and following the trail should lead them to the first place he was attacked.

Qiu Zijia had calmed down somewhat now and was no longer shaking nonstop. Though his face was still deathly pale, he gathered his courage, covered his mouth and nose, and crouched beside Mu Qin.

"The female teacher probably screamed when she saw this corpse," Qiu Zijia said to Mu Qin in a muffled voice. "Maybe she saw that killer too, so she ran away."

Mu Qin made no comment on Qiu Zijia's theory and continued examining the corpse.

"There are two sets of footprints," Mu Qin suddenly said.

Qiu Zijia did not understand at first. "What?"

Mu Qin pointed to the blood beside the corpse. Clear footprints had been left where someone had stepped in it.

"One belongs to a woman." Mu Qin pointed to the smaller prints, then to the noticeably larger print beside them. "This one should belong to the killer."

"The two sets are very close together, and the woman's prints disappear after only a few steps. The killer probably caught her and carried her away." From the simple traces, Mu Qin inferred what may have happened at the scene.

Qiu Zijia stared at Mu Qin in shock. "You are good, man. Were you in the military or are you a detective?"

Mu Qin sighed. "These are basic investigative skills."

With that, Mu Qin rose from beside the corpse. He was still holding the corpse's arm and instinctively went to let go. But at that moment, perhaps it was only an illusion, Mu Qin felt the arm in his hand suddenly twitch.

Mu Qin's heart jolted. His eyes flew wide as he lowered his gaze to stare at the corpse.

But a corpse was still a corpse. This well-built man lay on the ground, nothing more than a strip of dead flesh beginning to rot.

Maybe it was a postmortem muscle contraction caused by nerve spasms, Mu Qin thought, but he still narrowed his eyes and watched the corpse for a long while.

Not until Qiu Zijia sensed that something was wrong. Nervously alert to every movement around them, he noticed that the sky had gone completely dark and that rain had begun to fall. The air turned damp and cold, and they could faintly hear raindrops striking the concrete and dirt outside.