Crimson Instinct

*Bai Li*

It wasn't now strange why the cops weren't able to find this building.

It had only one answer.

Tian Song.

He didn't lead the investigative team to search in this part of the Natural Park, or maybe he took charge in searching this area, so he conveniently said that there was nothing here.

And then the chairs here. Twenty-one?

So were there twenty-one people here who watched Liao Chuntao die?

It was bizarre. Who were these people? What had they to do with her?

Whoever they were, I was confident that they didn't have any personal grudge with Liao Chuntao, neither her nor any other victims. Every victim was a simple middle-class worker.

Why did they kill them? I didn't know yet.

As Xin Lei said, the chairs were positioned in four rows on one side of the room, and Liao Chuntao might be beaten in front of them.

Something was clicking in the back of my mind. It felt like this was so familiar. The scene and setting she described felt like something I had seen before. But I couldn't put my finger on it.

I heard Xin Lei type. "It smells like blood, but I don't see it anywhere."

I could also taste the air and a sense of something metallic settled on my tongue. I smelled the musty scent that was imbued with blood and dust.

The victims were killed here. They cleaned the place.

But was it only Liao Chuntao's?

If this was the base where Liao Chuntao and the others were killed, then where are the dead bodies? Liao Chuntao was found in an alley in a dumpster. But what about the others?

And where was Fu Meili?

"Hey!"

I heard Liao Huifang whisper, but I sensed her sound coming from above me.

"Come up here."

Xin Lei led me to the place.

I heard her type. "Steps are starting from here."

We climbed the staircase, and I heard Liao Huifang say, "There is one chair here. It is well cushioned and different from the chairs below. It looks kind of royal. And you can see everything that is happening below. It is such a clear view."

I heard Xin Lei type again. "Indeed. This place is one floor above, and a lone chair is here."

So someone sat here too? The chair was different, and the place was at a higher altitude...

I said, "This gives a feeling as if a king or an emperor sits here from where he looks down on his subjects."

"Exactly."

I heard the robotic voice. "So it was the boss who sits here. He saw everything happen here from his seat."

"What else is here?"

"I see this light apparatus here at the back of the chair. Umm…"

After a pause, she slowly said, "The angle and direction of this light fall exactly on the place where...sister Chuntao might have been. What were these people doing?"

We had yet to find that.

I heard Xin Lei type. "I see something there."

"What?"

I heard her steps going a little farther, and then she came back.

Liao Huifang said, "Huh? This is a video recorder."

"Turn it on."

I heard them shuffling the recorder in their hands. But even after two minutes, I didn't hear any sound coming from it.

"This is not working. Its the battery is either discharged, or it doesn't work anymore. We cannot see anything."

"Keep it with you. We will look into it. Maybe if someone repairs it, we can retrieve the footage inside. Do you find anything else?"

"No." I heard the robotic voice again. "It's just the chair, the light apparatus, and this video recorder."

"Hm. Okay. Let's go down again. Maybe we will get some clue about Fu Meili."

We reached the room with the chairs again. Xin Lei guided me so that I didn't step on any blood trail.

We searched some more, and then I felt Xin Lei tug my hand after a few minutes. I heard the rapid pitter-patter of her typing.

"Bai Li, this is strange."

"What is?"

"Hey, what did you find?" I sensed Liao Huifang came too from her side. "There is a small drawing here."

Drawing?

I heard Xin Lei type. "It was hidden at the back, and I saw it when I pushed the wood log away a bit."

"What does it look like?"

I heard Xin Lei type. "From what I can see, it looks like a triangle. And then there is a line starting from the apex point of it towards the base of the triangle. But it's not straight as in perpendicular. The line is tilted at the right side and rests on the base."

Liao Huifang said, "There are some dots around the triangle too. This drawing looks something like a...kid would draw."

Fu Meili.

I said, "This drawing then… perhaps point to something that can help us identify the killer. She saw something that got imprinted in her mind, and she drew that. Xin Lei, draw the shape on my hand."

She took my hand, and on my palm, I felt her fingers tracing the picture.

A straight line slanting towards the bottom left of my palm, then from the top point, a straight line leaning towards the bottom right. Then she joined those two far points to make a straight line segment completing the triangle. Then from the top vertex of the triangle, she drew a line tilting towards the right until she reached the base.

I was now able to picture the shape in my mind.

Then I felt Xin Lei poking her finger around the triangle in small dots.

But I really couldn't understand what the drawing meant.

Liao Huifang said, "As someone studying arts, I am really curious about what this drawing means. But a triangle and a tilted line inside it...I don't understand. What is Fu Meili trying to tell?"

I said, "She has drawn a thing that looks like that. Maybe she saw the thing on one of those people here, and she drew the shape how much ever she could understand."

I heard Xin Lei type. "But what is this thing? What is something that looks like this triangle? I can't think of anything."

Well, me neither.

I said, "Take lots of pictures of this drawing and from as many angles as you can take. Maybe we might find something later on."

After a few minutes, Xin Lei typed. "Done."

"I have taken some as well." Liao Huifang said.

As expected, Fu Meili wasn't here. Then where is she?

I sighed.

I missed Cocoa. If he had been here, then his sharp nose would have definitely sniffed out a clue by now.

Hey buddy...You are safe, right? You have to be. I will come to you as soon as I can. But till then, you have to protect yourself and Chu Jie. I will kill you if you let anything happen to yourself.

Wait.

Sniffed out?

I recalled Liao Huifang saying...

"What are these weird plants and mushrooms around this place?"

Suddenly I felt a sense of dread in the pit of my stomach.

Liao Chuntao was found in the dumpster as opposed to the other victims. Fu Meili and Fu Jun's sudden interference might not have given them the time to do the same to Liao Chuntao.

It caused a ruckus when Fu Meili disappeared, and the people here didn't know what to do with Liao Chuntao. They thought if somebody came looking for Fu Meili, then they would discover about Liao Chuntao, so they took her out of Natural Park.

Even if this place might be well hidden, they didn't want to take a chance.

As for Fu Meili, those culprits did the same with her as other victims.

I said, "They buried all the victims."

"What?"

I heard Xin Lei typing with a sense of urgency. "Buried? What are you talking about?"

"How else can they deal with the victim's bodies? There have been so many of them. What do they do after they are killed? This area is as good as a forest. What is a better place than this to bury them here? Nobody would know. Maybe they didn't have the time to dig for burying Liao Chuntao. She is an adult. It takes time to dig one hole big enough. So they took her out and cleaned this place of blood. But Fu Meili...she was just an eight-year-old kid. How long would it take to dig for someone with a small height and body?"

I felt Xin Lei clutching my hand tightly. It was trembling, just like my irregular heartbeats.

I heard Liao Huifang take a sharp breath. "You-you mean to say that Fu Meili is d-dead? They killed her?"

I went numb.

The truth was that a part of my mind always gave me a nagging feeling that we were perhaps already too late.

I have investigated numerous cases while I was in the army. I knew how things worked. I had a fair idea about the timeframes till which anybody would still be alive after they are kidnapped.

But she was just a child—an innocent kid who had just started to see and understand this world. So I refused to believe that nagging feeling.

I wanted her to be alive.

"The drawing...perhaps, that was the last thing she did before they killed her."