WHEN HU-LAOSHI WAS STABBED, the rain had already eased off a bit, so the bus’s tire tracks hadn’t washed away completely. The driver had been at the front of the bus when Hu-laoshi shoved the hijacker out the door. Qu Tong would’ve had to escape from the back of the bus, then run in a direction that wouldn’t get her caught in the headlights. With that in mind, it didn’t take long for the search team to find a few of her tiny footprints.
The police dogs were released, following the trail.
Everyone felt that they’d gotten quite lucky. The road the hijackers had picked was old and unmaintained. There was lots of mud, so Qu Tong had left behind plenty of footprints. If they followed those, they thought, surely they’d find the girl. But even when the clock ticked past midnight, there still was no sign of her.
Qu Tong’s parents watched anxiously as the police and volunteer drivers scurried around. The mother’s eyes were like motion-activated lights—they lit up whenever someone passed her. Then the light would go out again as each rescuer left.
“Sergeant Luo, come look at this.”
Luo Wenzhou weaved through the group of people. A few police dogs had stopped at the same spot. They sat to the side, their tongues lolling. He patted one on the head as he passed it, then bent down to see blood on a sharp stone. Something had also gotten caught on the stone: a section of a leather sandal strap.
“We showed it to the parents, and they confirmed that this is a decorative strap from Qu Tong’s sandal,” one rescuer said. “There are shoeprints behind it, and then several long skid marks right here. We think the girl ran here, tripped on this stone, and fell. There are also shoeprints from an adult, as well as tire marks. The shoe was about a men’s size seven or eight—most likely a man’s.”
Luo Wenzhou thought for a moment. “So you’re saying someone just so happened to drive by here, then took the kid away.”
“It’s likely. The dogs lose her scent here.”
Using his coworker’s flashlight, Luo Wenzhou surveyed the whole area. There was a chaotic-looking line of footprints, and then clues that the girl had tripped. On the other hand, the man’s footsteps were steady, each one clear and even. It didn’t seem like he’d been in a rush.
“I think this is good news, Sergeant Luo. I mean, it just rained, and this is a mountainous area with loose soil, so safety’s a concern. If a passerby did a good deed and saved her, she at least won’t have to spend the night out in the wild.”
But Luo Wenzhou’s expression remained grave. He was silent for a long time. “Keep the scene intact,” he said slowly. “Go get someone from Forensics to come take a look. I want them to tell me as soon as possible, based on the evidence here, whether the girl went with this guy willingly. Also…get ready to send out a missing-person report. And pay close attention to whether any children are found nearby.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Go contact that museum that the kids visited today too.” Luo Wenzhou lit a cigarette, his thoughts heavy. He reviewed everything carefully in his mind, trying to see whether he’d missed anything. “While you’re at it, check out the museum guests and the security cameras at the highway entrances.”
His coworker looked confused. “Huh?”
“Find out what cars passed by tonight,” Luo Wenzhou said quietly. “Take special notice of any single male drivers. I was feeling pretty optimistic a minute ago, but now I suddenly feel like this situation doesn’t warrant optimism at all.”
Imagine if—in the remote wilderness, with no one else around—a disheveled little girl suddenly ran out in front of you and told you that a criminal had hijacked her school bus. How would a normal person react? The average citizen wouldn’t have the guts to take on a knife-wielding criminal. They might not even dare to let the child into their car without verifying what she’d said. After all, plenty of criminals used children to help them commit crimes. A typical passerby might callously pretend not to see, or else question the girl, figure out the situation, and immediately call the police.
But from the moment they confirmed that the bus had been hijacked in Xiling County, every call the police received from that area was directed to Luo Wenzhou as quickly as possible. It had been hours since Qu Tong escaped, so why hadn’t they heard anything?
Her disappearance cast a shadow over the entire rescue operation.
✦ ✦ ✦
THREE DAYS PASSED LIKE THAT. Missing-person notices went up all over the internet and in print media, as well as airing on the radio. But the police received no new information, and there were no leads about whoever had picked up Qu Tong.
Then, on the third evening, Qu Tong’s parents visited Yancheng Municipal Public Security Bureau with a memory card.
“We don’t know who left this or when. It was in the milk-delivery box, and with Qu Tong missing, we hadn’t gotten around to picking up the milk for these last few days,” said Qu Tong’s father, his eyes reddened. “So bottles had been collecting there. We didn’t remember the milk until the delivery person knocked on the door this morning to ask about it. When we collected the milk…this fell out of the box.”
Lang Qiao took the memory card with a gloved hand. “What’s on it?”
Qu Tong’s mother suddenly broke down, bursting into tears. “A…recording.”
Fifteen minutes later, Luo Wenzhou rushed into Deputy Lu’s office. When Lu Youliang listened to the recording, he forgot to light the cigarette in his hand.
The whole thing was less than a minute long. It began with a girl’s terrified screams. Next came the sounds of a frantic struggle. Thirty or so seconds later, the ruckus and screaming died down to nothing, and then there was a rattling like someone furiously shaking a metal box of bells. The reverberating ringing was heartrending; it seemed never-ending. Then, abruptly, the recording ended.
Once Lu Youliang had listened to the recording, the corner of his eye twitched, his expression changing.
“Deputy Lu,” said Luo Wenzhou, “I shouldn’t make random guesses. We don’t have enough evidence yet. Still, I listened to Lao-Yang talk about the Lianhuashan case for most of my life. ‘Memorable’ would be putting it lightly. But I have to confirm this with you. After all, we only heard about that case years ago—you’re the only one who experienced it firsthand. Is this recording similar to the calls the victims’ families used to get? Could this be a copycat?”
Lu Youliang slowly blew a smoke ring and didn’t say anything for a long time. Luo Wenzhou had never seen the old deputy look so serious.
“That was a huge case back in the day. You can still find the long reports the newspapers back then did. We didn’t know to keep things under wraps at the time, so details like ‘the victim’s parents received frightening phone calls’ got revealed to the public. But…” Lu Youliang paused. “The first case we knew of—the Lianhuashan case—included one detail I actually would’ve forgotten if you hadn’t brought it up. When the victim’s father was giving us his witness statement, he said that he’d heard the sound of his daughter’s pencil case on the phone. Guo Fei had the kind of metal pencil case that was popular at the time. According to her parents, she’d collected a handful of colorful little bells that she kept in the pencil case. She occasionally took it out and shook it, irritating her parents. They’d even yelled at her for that. Guo Fei’s father said that the sound on the phone was definitely someone shaking the pencil case. That was why he was certain that the girl on the phone was his daughter.”
Lu Youliang and Luo Wenzhou exchanged grim glances. This was a tiny detail, and they didn’t have a recording of the phone call, only the parents’ testimony. They would have been anxious and frightened when they took the call, and given that unstable mental state, it was very possible they’d misheard. Since this detail was difficult to confirm, the police couldn’t assume that it constituted concrete proof.
Neither the file on the case, nor Yang Zhengfeng’s notes, mentioned this neglected detail. Even Deputy Lu had almost forgotten, and Luo Wenzhou had never heard of such a thing. The police wouldn’t have publicized an unconfirmed detail like that, either. So…
Had the sound on the new recording been a coincidence? Or was someone replicating the case twenty years ago?
Was this a copycat or a ghost?