Chapter 144: The Same Person!

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All of Hu Yufang and Qiu Xiao’s roommates were here. I did not mention that for the time being, but continued questioning them.

When asked why Hu Yufang and Qiu Xiao had quarreled, they said they did not know much. Apparently, they could not even say when it had begun. Their respective roommates had simply noticed that the two of them would return to their dormitories in a fury. When asked what had happened, neither would say. They only admitted that they had quarreled.

At first, no one paid much attention. But they soon realized that the arguments were becoming more and more frequent.

Moreover, their quarrels had begun before Qiu Lei came to the school to cause trouble. In other words, they could not have been arguing because Qiu Xiao’s family opposed their relationship. At the very least, that was not the main reason. Their roommates told me that during their most serious quarrel, Hu Yufang refused to see Qiu Xiao for several days.

Qiu Xiao endured it for a few days, but eventually lost control. Standing in the rain beneath the girls’ dormitory, he shouted Hu Yufang’s name. He did so for several days in a row before Hu Yufang finally softened.

Before Hu Yufang’s body was discovered, she and Qiu Xiao had another violent quarrel. If Qiu Xiao truly had not killed Hu Yufang, then the last time he saw her should have been two days before her body was found.

After their quarrel, they never saw each other again before Hu Yufang’s death.

By then, the school was nearly on vacation, and few students remained on campus. Qiu Xiao and Hu Yufang were often away from their dormitories after their quarrel, so Qiu Xiao had no alibi.

By the time we finished questioning everyone, night was approaching. It was not until we were driving back to the police station that I told the officers about the clue I had deduced.

I suspected that when Qiu Xiao sent the other students away during his night shift, he had not done so to secure some private time to defile the body. That time had been meant for someone else.

The officers stared at me blankly for a moment before immediately asking why.

“First of all, Qiu Xiao probably did not send those students away out of kindness,” I replied. “They were all student volunteers who had chosen to help manage the morgue. Most of them participated because they wanted to gain experience while easing the school’s burden.

“Given that, Qiu Xiao should not have told them to leave. They had volunteered to be there. If the school had forced them to take shifts, it would have been understandable. He must have gone to considerable trouble to persuade them to leave; otherwise, they would not all have actually gone.”

From this, we could basically conclude that Qiu Xiao had sent his classmates away for some illicit purpose. But whether he had been plotting something for himself or for someone else still required further consideration.

Suppose Qiu Xiao had truly had intimate contact with one of the bodies in the morgue. There would certainly have been some odor on him. The morgue was filled with the smell of formaldehyde, but if he had merely been on duty and spent one night there, the scent clinging to him would not have been especially strong.

Direct contact with a corpse, however, would have been different.

Yet after finishing his night shift, Qiu Xiao either went straight to class or returned to his room and fell into bed. No one had noticed any strange odor on him. That might have been because he had never touched a body at all. Even if the smell had been faint, his first act upon returning should have been to take a shower—not to go straight to sleep.

Considering all these clues, I suspected that the time Qiu Xiao had secured alone in the morgue had been for someone else. The morgue administrator’s recollection that a female corpse seemed to have been moved was probably true as well. The person Qiu Xiao had helped had tampered with the body—and that person possessed a peculiar obsession with corpses.

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I immediately thought of several recent corpse cases.

When we returned to the police station, Fatty Lu was just about to leave. I was preparing to tell him my theory, but he said that his shift was over and that I should come early the next day to discuss it with him. After saying that, Fatty Lu hurried outside, which infuriated Wang Yazhuo. She kept cursing him under her breath.

After returning to the hotel, Wang Yazhuo asked how the investigation had gone. I told her my theory.

If my deduction was correct and Qiu Xiao had truly secured time alone in the morgue for someone else, then that person must have been very close to him. Otherwise, Qiu Xiao would never have taken such a risk for him. Qiu Xiao’s dazed state, and his repeated refusal to reveal the true murderer of Hu Yufang, might also indicate that this person was extraordinarily important to him.

That person had a peculiar obsession with corpses, and the murderers in several recent cases had likewise displayed perverse fixations involving corpses.

When these facts were connected, one possibility emerged: the person for whom Qiu Xiao had secured private time in the morgue, the person who had killed Hu Yufang, and the perpetrators of the recent cases might all be one and the same.

All the clues suggested that the targets of these three incidents had something in common.

Wang Yazhuo was slightly startled when she heard this. Then she immediately asked, “This was definitely committed by someone Qiu Xiao knew. Could it have been that Qiu Lei?”

Her deduction was not without merit. This person was not only very familiar with Qiu Xiao but also extremely important to him—perhaps no less important than Hu Yufang. Otherwise, Qiu Xiao would not have kept silent when he was dazed and most vulnerable to interrogation.

Based on the investigation so far, Qiu Lei was indeed the greatest suspect. He had also fled.

However, Qiu Lei’s appearance and financial circumstances contradicted my earlier deductions. That did not make me dismiss him as a suspect; after all, my earlier conclusions were merely subjective guesses, and I could not yet know whether they were correct.

Following this line of reasoning, it was even possible that Qiu Xiao had taken Hu Yufang’s body and done those things to it under the murderer’s influence.

Qiu Xiao must have known what that person intended to do when he helped secure private time in the morgue. After Hu Yufang’s death, Qiu Xiao could not bear to leave her, so he repeated the same acts. Even after the corpse had severely decomposed, he still could not bring himself to bury her.

Qiu Xiao’s roommates said that he had always lived a healthy lifestyle and that they had never noticed any abnormal proclivities in him. This greatly reduced the likelihood that his peculiar fixation had existed for a long time. Without some external stimulus, an ordinary person’s mind would not suddenly become so severely twisted.

I suspected that Qiu Xiao’s fixation with Hu Yufang’s corpse was directed only toward the woman he had loved so deeply, and that it had developed after her death.

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I had been sharing a room with Wang Yazhuo for several days, and she was no longer as shy as before. Still, every time she finished bathing, she dressed herself in layers, as if terrified that I might see her body. I occasionally teased her about it, and each time her face turned redder than an apple.

The little ghost had also grown increasingly mischievous and stubbornly refused to sleep in the middle. Sometimes she slept beside me; at other times, she curled up in Wang Yazhuo’s arms. But no matter which side she slept on, she was always pushing us toward each other. It was common for Wang Yazhuo and me to wake up in the morning with our bodies pressed together.

We both asked the little ghost where she had learned such bad habits. Pouting, she pointed at the television and complained that the people on television always slept very close to one another.

Only then did I realize that ever since we had returned to the hotel, the little ghost had spent her free time staring at the black-and-white television. To a child who had grown up in the wilderness, a television was unimaginably fascinating.

Just as Wang Yazhuo and I were laughing helplessly, the little ghost said something that left her utterly mortified.

“Sister Yazhuo, do you want to be Brother Fang Han’s wife?”

The little ghost did not understand what the word meant. Perhaps, in her eyes, it represented the closest possible relationship, since she herself had said that she wanted to be my wife. Her understanding of the word was completely innocent.

When Wang Yazhuo did not answer, the little ghost turned to me and asked again.

The little ghost had made the tension of the past few days much easier to bear.

I shrugged and lifted the corner of my mouth with amusement. “I have no objection. Ask Sister Yazhuo.”

At that, Wang Yazhuo’s face grew even redder. She gave me a huff and hid beneath the blankets.

It was already late at night, so I stopped teasing her, held the little ghost close, and went to sleep.

After dawn, we returned to the branch office. Fatty Lu had already arrived at work. But before I could tell him about the clues I had analyzed the previous day, he suddenly rose with an unusually grave expression.

He asked me sternly, “Fang Han, do you really think I don’t know why you’re so invested in this case?”

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