Chapter 342: A Reason

May 20, 2022

Li Jun’s body lay before us. At first glance there wasn’t a scratch on him. His eyes were closed and his face was impossibly pale. His school uniform was spattered with mud—that had already been there before we set him down.

Looking closer, I noticed one side of his uniform was clean while the other was caked in dirt. I shifted my focus to his shoes. There was hardly any mud on the soles, but the side of the shoe was covered in it.

That told us something clear: Li Jun didn’t get here by himself. The ground in the small grove was a muddy mess. It hadn’t rained lately but there were still plenty of puddles. Anyone walking here would have mud caked on their soles. Li Jun’s shoes? Practically spotless.

Which could only mean someone carried him here and dumped him. With that in mind I squatted down to study his face and head. No serious wounds, just a few tiny bruises. Judging by those, they were inflicted while he was still alive.

There weren’t any footprints around either. It seemed like someone had erased them.

Right then Gu Chen was patting down Li Jun’s clothes, probably hoping to find something useful.

The principal stared at Li Jun’s body, his forehead slick with cold sweat. He mumbled, “How am I supposed to explain this to Li Jun’s parents? If he’d died anywhere else, maybe it’d be easier, but the woods behind the school? If this blows up, the school’ll get blamed for everything. What on earth is going on here?”

I frowned, keeping quiet. Li Jun’s backpack had been found with Hu Ningning’s, which could only mean the killer took both kids at the same time. But only one body had turned up. Where was Hu Ningning? And the killer had called the principal, told him where to find Li Jun’s body… Just like the child’s body in the well, this meant the killer knew the school inside and out.

This all pointed to careful planning. So maybe the killer hadn’t only grabbed two kids. There could be more. Right now, the top priority was to find the killer before any other children went missing.

Gu Chen finally spoke up. “Found a note.”

Our attention snapped to Gu Chen, who now held a slip of paper. From the corner of my eye I could tell the handwriting matched the previous note—it was definitely from the same person. This time, the words read—First task: Find the reason.

Gu Chen looked at the note and read aloud, “First task, find the reason? The reason for what?”

I frowned. Another short, white slip. No more information. This felt like the killer’s way of inviting us to play a game—step one right in front of us.

Nothing else on the note.

“Maybe the reason is why Li Jun died here?” one of the school leaders asked, absently rubbing his balding head and staring at the body, his voice uncertain.

I let out a sigh. “Could be. But we should still get the coroner. We need to find out exactly how Li Jun died.”

Gu Chen nodded. “I know the locals, I’ll make the call. For now, let’s take the child’s body back.”

With that, Gu Chen gently lifted the small body and headed toward the school.

I followed, speaking as we walked. “If this was premeditated, the killer didn’t just pick the kids at random. He must have his own method for choosing. Since two kids were taken together, we can guess the main target is children, but we still don’t know if there’s an age limit.”

The principal listened, nodding. He chimed in, “So you mean… you don’t know the age range the killer’s after? Both of these kids are around eight—maybe older ones, too? Like, up to preteens?”

“You’re probably right,” I replied, glancing at Li Jun’s body. “But that’s just a rough guess. The killer could have other standards. For now, let’s not alert the parents, at least not until the autopsy’s done. Otherwise, if the families kick up a fuss, it’ll only make things harder.”

Hearing that, the principal smacked his own head so hard we both jumped. Seeing us look back, the school leader muttered, “What a mess. Li Jun dies out of nowhere and we just have to find the killer? How do we even begin?”

I said, “The killer’s left us clues all along. That means we have plenty of chances to catch him. For now, we need to learn more about Hu Ningning and Li Jun. Why were they targeted? That’s the question we need to answer.”

I turned to the principal. “Isn’t Sun Qingqing their homeroom teacher? Where is she now?”

The principal replied, “She went out to help with the investigation. I’ll call her back.”

An hour later, Sun Qingqing returned with a few others. I couldn’t help but feel anxious—what if they recognized me on sight? But I had to act normal; Dongxing City was huge, and they saw plenty of faces every day. There was no way they’d remember me specifically.

An older man walked over and grasped Gu Chen’s hand, smiling. “Gu Chen, you’re back?”

“Uncle Chen! This is my colleague, just call him Little Wu.”

Uncle Chen nodded and shook my hand, then said, “Gu Chen, I know why you’re back. That little girl Gu Hui—I even attended her full moon banquet. This case isn’t simple. But it’s good you’re here; maybe you can help us figure out what’s really going on.”

Gu Chen nodded, getting right to the point. “We found Li Jun’s body earlier. There’s nothing obvious about it, so let’s have the town coroner determine the cause of death.”

Uncle Chen nodded, then turned to a middle-aged man nearby. “Go check the body and take it to the funeral home for the autopsy. I’ll brief my nephews on the current situation.”

The middle-aged coroner nodded. The principal led him to the room where Li Jun’s body had been placed, reminding Sun Qingqing over and over to follow our instructions.

I looked at Sun Qingqing. She was about our age—maybe twenty-two or twenty-three—with red, swollen eyes that showed she’d been crying for quite a while. Still, she had a certain innocence about her, and she was easy on the eyes.

I introduced myself gently. “Sun Qingqing, I’m the one you spoke to on the phone.”

Sun Qingqing nodded.

We all sat down. Uncle Chen began, “We don’t have many leads yet. I’ll fill you in on what we do know. We got the report yesterday around eight in the evening and started investigating, focusing on surveillance around the school and working out from there.”

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“At the same time,” Uncle Chen went on, “some colleagues went to the train and bus stations to make sure the kids hadn’t been taken away, but there was no sign of them there. We traced surveillance footage until it led to a small road on the edge of town, and after that, nothing—no more cameras.”

I nodded. Dongxing City or not, this was still a small town. There were lots of little roads—countless, really. It made perfect sense that there’d be stretches with no cameras.

I asked, “Were the two kids together?”

Uncle Chen nodded. “Yeah, the surveillance shows them walking together. But based on what we know, Li Jun lived in town while Hu Ningning’s home was farther out in Zhi Li Village—same village as Gu Chen. The kids weren’t headed the same direction, but they were together all the same.”

Gu Chen glanced at me. “Was it really a date?”

Uncle Chen shook his head. “We still haven’t pieced together exactly what the kids were up to. If it was a date—well, they’re just little kids, probably just fooling around. Where the camera footage ended, we searched around outside town and found both of their backpacks by the roadside in a patch of woods.”

That caught my interest. “Which direction was that? Any guess as to where they were headed?”

Uncle Chen shook his head. “No idea. Looked like they were just two kids playing after school, wandered into an empty woods and met the killer.”

I rubbed my eyes and asked, “That’s it?”

Uncle Chen nodded. “That’s it. We haven’t got anything else. We did find a note, though—with…”

I cut him off. “We know about the note.”

Uncle Chen nodded again. “With twenty years on the force, I can tell this case isn’t simple. I think the killer could have some sick obsession with kids…”

Uncle Chen’s hunch sounded pretty plausible. The killer obviously had some twisted interest in children.

We still didn’t know how Li Jun died. His body showed nothing on the outside, but that didn’t mean there weren’t injuries under the uniform.

“Let’s check the body.” Seemed Uncle Chen had nothing more at the moment…