Chapter 251: Eyeball in Her Hand

2022-05-20

I spoke up, asking, “What exactly is going on here?”

The man suddenly squared his shoulders, his tone turning confrontational. “I’ve always said Hu Pei was trouble, and I’ll say it again today. Wasn’t he seeing that woman before? Now that she’s dead, he just pretends it never happened? We’re all neighbors here. You think you can pull this off and no one will say a word?”

Hu Pei’s mother, slumped on the floor, snapped back at the middle-aged man. “Oh, Zhang, you’re just jealous of my son! You tried for years and never got into Dongxing University, isn’t that why you’re still bitter? It’s been twenty years and you’re still slandering him? I won’t stand for it! I’ll fight you!”

She tried to charge at him but couldn’t even get to her feet straight. She stumbled sideways, lunging at the man. He dodged, and she crashed into someone else. Suddenly, the whole place erupted in chaos, people shoving, shouting, grabbing and yelling in the cramped hallway. It turned into pure pandemonium, with people getting knocked down left and right.

Inside the apartment, Zhao Mingkun and I hurried forward to break it up—it did no good.

Right then, there was a sudden ‘thump’ from behind us. I turned just in time to see two round objects rolling across the floor, bouncing once or twice before coming to a stop by the door.

“Oh my god, those… those are eyeballs!” someone in the crowd blurted out.

The noisy crowd instantly fell silent. Hands were still gripping collars, feet frozen mid-kick, but everyone just stared, wide-eyed at the round objects on the floor as if time itself had stopped.

Everyone just stared in shock.

Then it hit us—it was all from the commotion. The floor shaking must have reached the little girl’s body, leaning in a delicate balance against the wall. The sudden tremor sent her tumbling forward onto the ground.

“I saw it—the eyeball fell out of the girl’s hand,” a young woman whispered. “When she hit the floor, it just rolled right out of her hand… I saw it, I really did…”

Her voice trembled, halting and fragile, pulling all our nerves taut.

The eyeballs just sat there silently. In the dull center of each, damage was clear—scarred and corroded, no longer the smooth ellipse of a healthy eye. Chunks were missing.

Zhao Mingkun seemed to realize something and moved to the girl’s side, gently lifting her hand. After a close look, Zhao said, “I think I just discovered something big.”

She glanced at me, and I noticed her face was pale—an odd mixture of fear and disbelief. For a woman who’d seen and even caused plenty of death, this was something else.

“What is it?” I asked—the question on everyone’s mind.

After a few steadying breaths, Zhao Mingkun said, “Back when the girl was still standing, I checked her eye sockets. I found lots of tiny cuts around them, small but deep—not even a centimeter. And just now, I took a good look at her fingernails.”

“Her hands are tiny,” Zhao added, then fell silent.

She didn’t have to say more; the implication was clear to anyone listening. But how on earth could a seven or eight-year-old even do something like that?

Zhao saw my grim expression and knew I got it.

“As much as I hate to admit it, that’s the truth,” Zhao said. She went over to the door, picked up the two eyeballs, and gently placed them beside the little girl.

The place was dead quiet. Even Hu Pei’s mother, who’d been wailing nonstop, was silent. The truth of it was simply too horrifying, too shocking.

Right then, outside the door, we heard the wild, broken cries of a woman. By now I figured this had to be Hu Xiaoxue’s mother. She was wailing with a hoarse, cracked voice like someone dying of thirst.

Someone had tracked her down and brought her back. I stepped aside and saw the woman held up on each side. Her hair hung wild, her clothes were torn in patches, she wore one shoe with the other missing. She moved like she had no bones left, lurching even with the help.

Of course—she’d lost her daughter. Her whole world had collapsed.

It was hard to believe this was the same woman from the family photo at Hu Pei’s new house. In the picture, she was this graceful, beautiful young mother. Now, she looked twenty years older and at her wit’s end. With help, she made it to the third floor.

When she reached the third floor, her strength suddenly surged. She broke free from the people holding her, charging into the apartment. As she burst in, she shoved me aside with such force I nearly fell. In a flash, she was at the little girl’s side, cradling the body.

Zhao Mingkun edged backward at the sight.

Suddenly, the woman pulled a fruit knife from her shirt. She rolled the girl’s body over, facing everyone. We barely had time to react. The woman started cutting at the girl’s mouth with the knife.

Her voice was low, desperate, and just this side of deranged as she muttered, “Sweetie, didn’t you love to laugh? Why won’t you smile now? Smile for me—mommy’s here. Why won’t you laugh? C’mon, smile, mommy loves it when you smile. Heh heh, smile.”

When the lifeless body didn’t respond, her face suddenly darkened. Her motions grew frantic.

“Smile, smile!” Her voice grew sharper and raspier, making everyone flinch.

At last, the bystanders sprang into action.

The old woman cried out, “My daughter-in-law, my son, my grandchild! How did we offend the heavens to deserve this?”

At those words, the crazed woman drew back, as if terrified. She instantly shoved the knife to her chest, clinging to it with trembling hands. “Ghosts, they’re ghosts! He’s back, he’s back! Don’t come near me, stay away! You’re all ghosts, stay back! Stay away!”

Zhao Mingkun gave me a look. “Let’s go.”

We’d already wasted far too much time here.

Just as Zhao Mingkun started to move, the woman lunged at her, knife in hand, aiming to stab. But Zhao hardly broke a sweat—she twisted sideways, grabbed the woman’s wrist, and with one smooth motion wrenched the knife loose. The blade clattered to the floor.

“She’s completely lost her mind,” Zhao Mingkun said after glancing at the stunned onlookers. “Take her out of here. Others will be coming to investigate soon.”

Only then did people rush to restrain the woman.

Zhao Mingkun and I made our way downstairs.

“You think she might just be faking?” I asked. “She looks so disturbed—maybe she really did see a ghost or something?”

Zhao Mingkun was quiet for a moment. “When she tried to stab me just now, it didn’t look like an act. And she’d have no reason to fake it. A mother who could hurt her own child like that—she really must have lost her mind.”

“If that’s the case, we’re not getting anything out of her,” I replied. “We might’ve just walked in on a murder in progress. The girl’s not been dead long. Judging by the scene, Hu Xiaoxue’s mother and grandmother probably ran out to buy groceries, leaving her home alone. The food they brought back looks like veggies for the next day, so they weren’t gone for long.”

Zhao Mingkun pointed down the hall. “Old apartment block—no cameras. I bet Hu Pei never imagined that sending his wife and daughter here would just hand the killer an opening.”

“We’ll just have to take it one step at a time,” I said.

We barely made it to the second floor when a whole group came up the stairs.

We came face to face at the landing.