Chapter 58: The Hammer Demon Case (Part 27)

"You've finally come." Li Rui heard his own voice echoing in the silent room.

The short man turned around with an ambiguous smile lingering on his face. His eyes gleamed faintly in the darkness, bearing an uncanny resemblance to the blood-stained poplar stick at the crime scene.

"Officer Li," the short man's voice was hoarse, "are you looking for me?"

Li Rui tried to sit up, only to find his body completely paralyzed. He watched as the short man pulled a silver bracelet from his pocket, catching the cold moonlight.

"Do you know what this is?" The short man held the bracelet up to his eyes. "This belongs to the one I loved. On the day she married someone else, she wore this very bracelet."

Li Rui's throat tightened. "Is that why you're making everyone else pay with their lives?"

The short man laughed, a sound like fingernails scraping across glass. "Pay with their lives? No, I am merely granting them release. Just like my sister, living is simply too agonizing. If you have the ability, come after me, hahaha..."

Then, he watched the short man sprint rapidly into the pitch-black night, running at a speed so blinding that even his shadow became a mere blur...

He strained his eyes to see clearly, but to no avail. In the end, he could only discern a single direction—northeast.

On December 2nd, in Yu County. He used stolen money to check into a small inn. During the day, he wandered aimlessly through the countryside. It was then that he singled out old Mrs. Xu Huaihong, who lived alone with her granddaughter. Upon returning to his room, he purchased a four-pound octagonal hammer, two pairs of string gloves, and a pair of dark, high-topped military-green sneakers.

At dusk, he left the inn. Before departing, he deliberately tore off the sleeves of his undershirt, intending to slip them over his shoes while committing the crime.

The early winter's cold wind, laden with frost grains, swept across the village's earthen walls and withered trees. The night was as dark as ink; the villagers had long since retreated into their warm bedding, with only a few dim, yellowish lights flickering in the darkness. Like a foraging wildcat, the short man roamed the village alleys for about half an hour, until an old mountain bicycle caught his eye.

The exhausted rider had casually discarded the bicycle in the courtyard and entered the house without even locking the door. Crouching in the shadows, the short man stared fixedly with blazing eyes at the ajar door. Once the sound of snoring drifted from within, he crept stealthily into the yard, wheeled the bicycle away, and hid it behind a straw stack outside the village to prepare for his escape.

Old Mrs. Xu's house was situated in the center of the village. Three main rooms faced south, with a crude kitchen on the east side and two vacant rooms on the west. The short man slipped in quietly from the south side of the kitchen; the blade of his knife emitted a faint "creak" as it slid into the door gap.

The moonlight filtered through the lattice window, illuminating the aged furniture in the main room and the New Year pictures on the wall. A faint, moldy scent permeated the air.

Even though he knew this household possessed few savings, the short man raised the iron hammer and struck without hesitation at the sleeping old Mrs. Xu and her granddaughter. As the hammerhead fell, fresh blood splattered onto the mottled wallpaper, blending with the festive red of the New Year pictures.

After completing his brutal act, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he used the victims' scissors to pry open two wooden chests, searching for any hidden valuables. However, apart from some old clothes and miscellaneous trifles, the chests contained nothing else.

Before leaving, he locked the front door from the outside, as if sealing this evil away for eternity. By the straw stack at the village edge, he dug a shallow pit, intending to bury the iron hammer in the frozen soil of the ridge. A strand of silver-white hair was wedged in the crevices of the hammerhead, gleaming faintly in the night like the unclosed eyes of the wrongfully dead.

Afterward, he mounted the stolen bicycle and sped toward Fu County.

The tires crushed the frosted dirt road, producing a faint "creak," as if whispering a mournful lament for his sinful deeds.

At that moment, Li Rui suddenly burst forth from the fog, attempting to tackle that sinful figure.

Yet he grabbed only thin air, as if the person had never existed at all. Turning around, he saw the village remained as dormant as before, save for that locked door trembling slightly in the wind.

The two forced-open camphorwood chests gaped like dark voids, exuding a pungent odor mingling old mugwort and blood. Bloody fingerprints stained the tattered rags at the bottom of the chests, their patterns identical to the palm print left near the slash marks on the door panel.

Shocked, Li Rui gazed around, gripped by an overwhelming terror.

"Officer Li, I'm right here!"

The cold wind swept across the wheat fields, whipping up a few withered leaves as a blurred figure slowly emerged from the boundless darkness.

"You can never catch me!" the short man arrogantly declared.

"You..." Li Rui felt his own body dissolving, as if about to be swallowed entirely by the darkness.

Suddenly, the short man's face began to contort, transforming into countless faces of his victims, along with the surviving young girl. Their eyes were hollow and vacant, yet their lips curved into eerie, chilling smiles.

"Officer Li," they chanted in unison, "you can never catch him."

Li Rui jolted awake, cold sweat soaking through his shirt.

The neon lights outside the window flickered on, but the light and shadows on the wall were no longer mottled. He sat up, his fingers unconsciously rubbing against the bloodstain on the bed sheet, as if silently accusing those horrific, inhuman atrocities.

"Sob, sob, sob..." He grabbed his phone and answered Wen Rou's call.

"Where are you? Why haven't you answered your phone all night?" Wen Rou asked anxiously.

"What is it?"

"Something's happened. In Dashilinchuan Village, Linchuan County, he has appeared again."

"Understood!"

After hanging up, Li Rui walked over to the window. The distant horizon was tinged with a pale, fish-belly white; a new day was about to begin.

The morning sun, like a rusted blade, etched the outline of Zhang Jianzhong's house onto the frozen earth.

The courtyard gate was half-open, and the cold wind brushing past the hinges emitted a thread-like, weeping sound.

The woven-rope bed in the inner room was deeply indented. Zhang Jianzhong lay flat on his back, his skull smashed like a crushed walnut. Brain matter mixed with blood had soaked the peony-patterned pillowcase, staining the family portrait tucked beneath the pillow—in the photograph, the little granddaughter was smiling at the lens, and where her dimple had been, a fragment of bone was now embedded. His wife, Liu Lan, was curled up at the foot of the bed, her floral-patterned cotton-padded jacket torn open. The birthmark on her collarbone gleamed purplish-blue in the moonlight, resembling a withered ginkgo leaf.

On the windowsill, half a bowl of cooled brown sugar water was crusted with ice crystals, reflecting the dilapidated cobwebs on the ceiling. The spider silk trembled slightly in the chill, clinging to a bloody fingernail.

Li Rui hurried over. "How is it?"

"The couple, they're both..." Lei Chen's expression was sorrowful as he sighed, "This fellow often travels dozens of miles on foot to the crime scenes without relying on any transportation. After each crime, he treks long distances through the night, slipping out of our dragnet by dawn. Therefore, almost none of the villagers at the crime scenes ever spot him, let alone retain any impression of him."

"This bastard is remarkably resilient and hardworking!" Li Rui gritted his teeth.

Just then, Xiao Wang ran over. "Captain Lei, the murder weapon was found in the straw stack outside the village."

"Oh?" Lei Chen's eyes lit up. "Let's go take a look."

Beside the straw stack, bicycle tire tracks were deeply pressed into the frozen soil. The blood-stained octagonal hammer was wedged diagonally into the stack, the ice crystals on its tip refracting a deep, glowing blue light, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Liu Lan's dilated pupils at the moment of her death.

Following the tire tracks on the ground, Li Rui suddenly recalled his dream and said, "East."

"East? What's east?" Lei Chen asked, puzzled.

"He went east. After him!" Li Rui said firmly.

"Is there... is there any evidence?" Lei Chen hesitated, unable to decide immediately.

"Trust me!"

Right at that moment, on Linchuan Avenue, a hurried figure was walking briskly from west to east.

A sharp-eyed patrol officer noticed he was wearing clothes damp with dew and mud clinging to his shoes, and thus stopped him. "Hey, you there, stop!"

"Where are you from? What are you doing out so early?" the police officer stepped forward to interrogate him.

Facing the police, the man realized that failing to tell the truth would be tantamount to walking right into a trap, so he truthfully reported his real name and address.

"Wait here. Come back to the station with me, I need to run a check."

The patrol officer escorted the slight man into the police station. Dew had frozen into ice crystals on his old jacket, and riverbank silt coated the sides of his shoes. The six o'clock morning street was as empty as a wilderness, broken only by the crisp crunch of police boots crushing thin ice.

The duty officer was sipping overnight strong tea. The radiator hissed, and the interrogation logbook lay open on a chipped desk.

"Xiao Guo, help me run a check on this person," officer Lao Lü said.

"Lao Lü, I've checked. This person does exist!" A fountain pen scratched across the paper, and a telephone cord dangled beside the ink bottle.

"Good, thank you!" Hearing this, Lao Lü let down his guard.

At twenty past six, the telephone rang sharply. As the police station director grabbed the receiver, he knocked over the enamel mug, sending brown tea stains spreading across the floor.

"All checkpoints, lock down!" he roared down the corridor.

The duty officer hurried into the cafeteria and shouted, "Lao Lü, you're still eating noodles? Let's go!" Stuffing noodles into his mouth, Lao Lü asked, "What's going on?" The officer replied, "We just received orders from superiors to immediately set up checkpoints in our jurisdiction and assist in investigating the suspect of a major homicide that just occurred in the neighboring county." Lao Lü exclaimed in astonishment, "What?"

And that major homicide was the very crime the short man had just committed.

The kitchen steam was blurring the window glass. The chef sprinkled a handful of chopped scallions into the iron wok, oil spatters popping over the blazing stove fire. The sound of a knife striking the cutting board resembled a heartbeat. As noodles churned in the boiling water, three police cars roared out of the police station.

By the time the police returned from setting up the roadblocks, it was already noon. Famished, they ate noodles while loudly discussing the details of the homicide case mentioned in the bulletin.

The short man naturally recognized that the case being discussed was the one he had just perpetrated, and he also knew that their roadblocks and blockades had yielded nothing. Feigning curiosity, he sidled up to them and asked, "Which place are you talking about where a murder happened?"

Lao Lü abruptly turned his head, a strand of noodle hanging from his chin. Remembering only then that he had detained someone, he said irritably, "Prying into things that are none of your business! Is this anything for you to ask about?"

"There's nothing for you here anymore," he spat out half a cigarette butt. "You can go!"

The short man put on a pitiful expression and pleaded, "I'm starving. Can I at least finish a bowl of noodles before I leave?"

Impatiently, Lao Lü snapped, "Who cares about your noodles, get lost!"

The short man feigned a dejected air as he left the police station, the rooftop searchlight casting a slender shadow behind him. He counted to his twelfth step before breaking into a run, his cotton shoes leaving a honeycomb pattern of holes in the snow.