The group of men who just attacked us were all handcuffed. I remembered one of them shouting about us killing his brother. I asked him what his name was, but he ignored me. He just glared at us with eyes full of vengeance and gritted his teeth. It seemed that he really didn’t like the ‘experts from the city.’

“Trust me, we’re nothing like those people,” I assured him. “If you cooperate with us, we’ll be able to clear your brother’s name!”

“That bastard named Qin said the exact same thing, and my brother ended up getting executed anyway!”

He then burst into tears and lost control of his emotions. I asked him his name again, in a much gentler tone, and he finally answered that he was Wu Laosan, Wu Mou’s brother.

He worked in a factory in the city. Yesterday, he saw how the police welcomed the task force from the city and was so infuriated that he sneaked into the hotel parking lot and smashed the windows of our cars. He was told that we’d fallen into his trap and came to the village ourselves, so he rounded up the other villagers and attacked us.

Assaulting police officers was indeed a serious crime, the punishment of which ranged from spending a few days in the cell to prolonged imprisonment. In theory, Wu Laosan could’ve been sentenced to more than five years in prison for armed assault, but Xiaotao gave this order instead, “Let all the other guys go, but take Wu Laosan back to the station and put him in jail for five days!”

It would be New Year’s Eve in six days, and Xiaotao would only hold him for five days, meaning that he would be able to return just in time to reunite with his family for the new year. Wu Laosan didn’t seem to appreciate it, though. As he was taken into the car, he yelled, “These bastards are trying to kill me too! You must avenge me if I never come back!”

“Ungrateful bastard!” sneered Xiaotao as she rolled her eyes.

Director Feng looked at us anxiously, as if waiting for his own punishment. I didn’t think that he was responsible for this injustice, but he still shouldn’t have hidden it from us.

“Director Feng,” I said, “if you fully co-operate and assist us in the investigation and help us catch the real killer, we promise not to investigate the matter again.”

“Yes, Detective Song!” he nodded enthusiastically. “I’ll do anything you ask and cooperate with you fully!”

“Have you heard of the story about the ghost in the well?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied. “The villagers told us about it when the first murder occurred.”

“Do you believe it was a ghost who killed those women, then?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I’m a firm materialist. I’m convinced that it was a human being who did it!”

“What ghost are you guys talking about?” asked Xiaotao in confusion.

I waved my hand and told her, “We’ll talk about it later in the car.”

Once we got into the car, I relayed the folklore that the villager told me earlier in the afternoon. Xiaotao laughed and commented, “What a story! A killer ghost out for young and beautiful women!”

“So you don’t believe it?” I asked.

“I believe that ghosts can’t murder anyone, only humans can. You always say that yourself, don’t you?”

So it seemed that none of the police believed that ghosts could kill humans. I assumed that the real killer had utilized the folklore in order to defect the suspicion away from themselves, but it obviously wouldn’t work. Why would they do it, then? One reason could be that the killer wasn’t highly educated and perhaps superstitious. The other reason might be that it was all just a coincidence that the victims fit the narrative of the folklore.

I wanted to go out and investigate later in the day. I wondered if Xiaotao had the time, so I asked, “Is there any progress in the case of the dismembered corpse?”

“Tests are still being done,” she replied. “We should have the results tonight.”

“I’m going out later this afternoon to do some investigating. I think we should bring Bingxin along too…” I was concerned that Xiaotao would be upset about that, so I cautiously asked her, “Are you okay with that?”

She nodded. “I worry about her when she’s left alone. At least we can look out for her if she’s with us.”

Bingxin was very happy to hear that we would be out investigating together.

Later that day, we went out into town to inquire about the story of the ghost in the well. We first asked the shopkeepers. It turned out that almost all of the local people here were familiar with the story, but those that came from other places were not. We then went to a bookstore there and I found a book that contained the collection of local folklores which included the full version of the story.

“Why are you so interested in the ghost story, Song Yang-gege?” asked Bingxin. “You know that ghosts can’t kill people!”

“Why don’t you take a guess?” I smiled.

She held her chin and contemplated it. “Are you trying to mislead the killer into thinking that you believe the story, so as to lull them into a false sense of security?”

“It’s not that complicated, Miss Sun,” said Xiaotao. “I bet Song Yang just wants to find out how far the story had spread. That way we can narrow down the search for the killer.”

I nodded. “That’s right. It seems that the story isn’t so popular. Only people who grew up in this town are familiar with it. This means that the real killer is definitely a local.”

Bingxin sighed. “Not only do we have to solve the dismembered corpse case, but now we’ve got to find a serial killer too? Will we ever make it back in time for the New Year?”

“Well, you can experience New Year’s Eve like a police officer—eating instant noodles in the car while listening to the sound of fireworks and firecrackers,” answered Xiaotao.

Bingxin stuck out her tongue and cried, “No thanks!”

At that moment, we passed by a tailor’s shop, where I noticed a red dress hanging on the wall. I stopped in my tracks and stared at it. Xiaotao noticed this, and asked, “Should we go in and take a look?”

I nodded. We entered the tailor’s shop and found a woman hard at work at the sewing machine. She greeted us without even looking up at us. I signalled to Xiaotao not to show her police badge.

“Can you make a down jacket?” I asked the seamstress.

“Is it for you?” she asked.

“Yes!” I answered.

The seamstress got up and picked up a tape measure. I noticed that her face looked unusual for some reason. It seemed that half of her face was strangely stiff, and her eyelids were a little crooked. Noticing my gaze, she immediately lowered her head shyly as she came over to measure me.

“Have you had plastic surgery done on your face before?” Xiaotao asked.

The seamstress didn’t answer her, so Xiaotao added, “I’ve had it done before myself. It caused some complications though, and it nearly wrecked my face! It cost me a fortune to fix it! Even now I’m still feeling the effects from it! I’m allergic to everything now!”

That got the seamstress’s attention. “Where did you fix it?” she asked.

Xiaotao gave the name of a random hospital as an answer, then added, “You suffered complications from a plastic surgery too, don’t you?”

“Yes…” the seamstress replied meekly. “I made a bad choice of the hospital that time, and I suffered for it. I couldn’t even go out and meet people for a long time. Thankfully, it gradually got better after all these years.”

A man walked out of the back room and asked the seamstress, “Who are you talking too, Qin?”

“Just the customers,” the seamstress replied. “They’re ordering a down jacket.”

The man seemed to be her husband. His face was unremarkable, but he had a strong and muscular body. He eyed us up and down and asked, “You don’t sound like you’re from around here. What business do you have in this town?”

“Visiting relatives!” I answered.

The man nodded. “The town hasn’t been very safe lately. You people should be careful.”

I asked him their names, and the man handed me a business card. His name was Zhang Qiang, and his wife was Li Qin. I pointed at the red dress on the wall and asked, “Who would order that kind of dress these days?”

“Oh, that?” replied Zhang Qiang. “We couldn’t sell it for ages, so it stays there on the wall as a decoration of some sort…”

Xiaotao grabbed my arm and cooed, “It’s beautiful, darling! Would you buy it for me?”

I asked them the price, bought the dress, and we left the tailor’s shop.

Bingxin later asked, “Have you had plastic surgery before, Xiaotao-jiejie?”

“What a question!” Xiaotao feigned indignation. “Why would a natural beauty like me ever need plastic surgery? I was only pretending back there so we could tease out more information from them.”

Bingxin was shocked. “You mean you guys are suspecting the couple in the tailor’s shop?”

“Everyone is suspicious to the police,” Xiaotao replied.

We then returned to the police station. Xiaozhou had tested some trace components in the victim’s bone marrow. Xiaotao and Bingxin went back to work. Meanwhile, I asked Officer Chen to bring me the files of the serial murders.

I found that the victims of the four murders were all young and beautiful women. Hot cooking oil was used to disfigure them. When their bodies were found, they were wearing a red dress and there were traces of them being bound on their hands and feet. None of them had been sexually assaulted except for the fourth victim.

My gaze turned to the photo provided in the case files, where I noticed an alarming detail—the red dress that the first victim was wearing looked exactly like the one hanging on the wall of the tailor’s shop!