Chapter 217: The Ghostly Head

2022-05-20

“It’s the killer,” Gu Chen said. “With the way he moves and how well he knows this place, he could’ve made it back in that time. But why would the killer need a corpse?”

I shook my head, looking at Gu Chen. “I don’t know, but Wu Xiufen must mean something important to the killer. There are still so many things we don’t know—who the killer really is, why they’re murdering people, and what those bowls actually mean to the killer.”

I looked up at the sky. Between all those tangled branches, the sky was carved up into odd, jagged shapes. It felt like we were trapped in a giant birdcage, each of us just a bird inside with no way out.

“Whether or not we’ll ever get answers to any of this, we’re just about out of time. Judging by the killer’s habits, if they’re going to act, it’ll be by tomorrow night at the latest. Which means, from ten o’clock tonight to ten o’clock tomorrow night, we’ve got just one day left.”

A single day—that was being optimistic. I couldn’t tell if the killer would just murder Guan Zengbin while we sat here talking. All I could do now was pray Guan Zengbin would be okay. Beyond this, it was out of my hands.

“Let’s go!” I said to Gu Chen.

Before we even made it down the mountain, I called the Village Chief. He was still awake, waiting for us to come home. As soon as he answered, I got straight to the point: “Chief, Guan Zengbin’s gone missing in the mountains. Her phone isn’t working. I’m worried she’s in danger. Get some young and able men together and search the mountain. Move fast.”

The Chief heard me out and replied, “No one really dares go up the mountain at night… folks say it’s haunted…”

I had no patience for excuses. My voice was ice cold. “Chief, I’m speaking to you as seriously as I can—someone’s life is on the line. I don’t care what you have to do. By the time I get back to the village, you need to have twenty people ready to search the mountain. Got it?”

With that, I hung up on him—didn’t give him a chance to talk.

The Chief’s over fifty. I’m just a guy in my twenties—a kid, really. Speaking to my elder like that would’ve been out of line any other time. But this was an emergency. There was no room for debate, just action.

I’m sure the Chief understood that, too.

Gu Chen and I hurried back toward the village, picking up the pace until we were jogging. We made it all the way to the entrance.

Gu Chen looked at me for a moment, like he wanted to say something, but fell silent.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

He kept in step beside me. “I’ve never seen you with this much stamina. We’ve been running for twenty minutes and you look fine. And your tone back there—I’ve never heard you talk like that. Are you… emotionally invested?”

“Emotionally invested?” I didn’t stop, but my heart skipped a beat.

Gu Chen went on, “I can tell. Looks like Guan Zengbin feels the same way about you…”

I waved him off. “If it were you who’d been taken, I’d be acting the same. Let’s not dwell on it. We don’t have much time. Every minute we waste is another minute Guan Zengbin’s in danger.”

As we got closer to the village entrance, I saw that every house had its lights on. People stood out front, watching. Dogs barked from every yard. I knew none of the Xingdong Village folk would be getting any sleep tonight.

A young man at the entrance spotted us. “Hey, you two,” he called. “The Village Chief asked me to wait for you—he’s back at his house.”

I glanced at Gu Chen. “See? Sometimes, being tough gets stuff done.”

We walked into the heart of the village, where the Chief stood in long johns with a coat draped over his shoulders, gathering a crowd of young men. When he saw me, his face fell and he hurried over. “Brother Wu, what’s going on? Why the rush…”

I looked over the twenty-plus people assembled and said, “A twenty-year-old girl has been taken on the mountain by a bad guy—the one you folks call a ghost. Honestly, as men, we can’t let that happen. Even if there are ghosts, what are a couple dozen grown men afraid of? Get up that mountain!”

People aren’t as interested when it’s not their own business. But as they say, big rewards make brave men. I promised everyone one hundred yuan tonight, and a two-thousand-yuan reward for whoever found Guan Zengbin. That’s when the crowd started to get fired up.

That’s human nature. You can hardly blame them—they’d never met Guan Zengbin or even knew who she was. To them, her life was nothing but a line in some newspaper.

Soon enough, the young men set off in a noisy group toward the mountain.

I turned to Gu Chen. “Using them is just a way to buy time. Get on the phone and call in backup. If the killer who’s been making that sharp laugh really is the ‘ghost’ the villagers talk about, then he must have some kind of transportation. Have people block the roads leading into Dongxing City.”

Gu Chen didn’t dare wait. He rushed off to do it.

Meanwhile, I handed the Chief a cigarette and spoke quietly. “Sorry for my tone earlier. I was just worried. I hope you understand—this is life and death.”

The Chief waved it off. “I get it. If my wife had gone missing, I’d be more worked up than you.”

As I smoked, I asked, “What is it on the mountain that scares everyone off?”

The Chief tugged his coat tight. Cigarette between his fingers, he answered, “Honestly, I hate spreading ghost stories—I’m a party member after all. But a lot of villagers have seen and heard things. Too many witnesses for it to be fake.”

“What did they see?” I pressed.

The Chief explained, “At first, it was just kids in the village saying things. There’s nothing for them to do, so they’re always running wild on the mountain, even though every family tries to stop them. Some of the kids said they heard a woman crying up there.”

I’d heard the killer laugh, and cry too. When he murders, it’s always that sharp laugh. But back in the sewers, I definitely heard him crying. Maybe he really has multiple personalities. We still don’t know which side of him does which thing.

The Chief went on, “At first we thought it was Wu Xiufen.”

He shook his head. “But it wasn’t. The kids were mostly up there watching Wu Xiufen burn paper—just curiosity. It’s normal for her to cry for her husband. But the kids said it wasn’t her. They know her voice.”

“So it wasn’t Wu Xiufen?” I asked.

“No,” the Chief said, taking a drag and letting smoke out through his nose. “At first, nobody paid attention. But then an adult who went up the mountain at night to chop wood heard a woman crying. He got so scared he ran home. Others went up at night just to see for themselves.”

“Sometimes it’s like a baby’s cry. Sometimes a man’s laughter. Sometimes all sorts of sounds at once.” The Chief stared off toward the mountain. “Eventually, someone saw the ghost by a grave. Said it was just a woman’s head, crying in front of the tombstone.”

I frowned. “A head crying at the grave? Zhang Qiang’s grave?”

The Chief nodded hard. “The head floated in the air, hair hanging down. The villager was hiding and saw the ghost’s face in profile. At first, she was crying, but then a man’s voice came from her mouth, then a little girl’s—like it was a bunch of people, but there was only that one head.”

“Even stranger,” the Chief continued, puffing hard on his cigarette before tossing it to the ground, “is that it sounded like they were talking to each other. Life, death, sleep—random things. The villager crouching behind a tree was stunned. And then, all of a sudden, the head turned and stared right at them.”

“What happened after that?” I asked. “Did they get a good look at the ghost’s face?”

The Chief shook his head. “That villager fell badly ill when they got home—nothing could cure it. Found a priest or something who said one of their souls had been frightened out. Once he did some rituals, the villager got better. That’s when they finally told us the whole story. With all the previous strange sounds, rumors of a haunting started to spread.”

Listening to the Chief, I started to piece things together.

He added, “So nobody dares go up the mountain anymore—except for Wu Xiufen, burning paper there for thirty years. Actually, this time of night, Wu Xiufen should’ve already come down. You should’ve seen her. Where is she? Did something happen…?”

Seeing my dark expression, the Chief swallowed the rest of his words.

I said coldly, “Wu Xiufen is dead. And if we don’t hurry, Guan Zengbin will die too.”

“Wu Xiufen is dead?” The Chief took a moment to process that. “But she’s been going to the mountain for thirty years, nothing ever happened. Was it the ghost?”

I shook my head. “Not a ghost. There’s no such thing as ghosts—it’s a person.”

“A person?”

Before the Chief could finish, Gu Chen shouted, “Wu Meng, there’s nobody else we can call!”