Blood Handprint

Chapter 1

Blood Handprint

Before this series of strange events, Wenshan never felt that he was any different from others. He believed that what happened to others could happen to him, and vice versa. However, after that night, Wenshan changed his mind.

one

Wenshan is an ordinary police officer at a local police station, so ordinary that no one would think he is a policeman when he is not wearing his uniform.

He worked at this police station for four years. During those four years, the cases he handled were mostly fights and thefts, with occasional raids on prostitution rings. The only thing he was happy about was personally catching a drug dealer. It was actually just an accident. When checking his documents, he noticed a man looking flustered. His professional instincts told him to lock him up in the police car and take him back first, no matter what. Unexpectedly, they found 30 grams of methamphetamine. This led to a major cross-provincial drug trafficking case, thanks to the city's criminal investigation department. I heard that several investigators were promoted for their contributions. In any case, all he got in Wenshan was a bonus of 1,800 yuan and an infinite longing for criminal investigation work. The prize money was later exchanged for a leather jacket, which ended up at the bottom of his wife Wang Yu's wardrobe. There was never any weather suitable for leather jackets in this area, and he felt awkward about it for a long time. Later, Wang Yu explained that she lost her parents at a young age and had always envied her classmates who wore leather jackets. For a long time, the desire to own a leather jacket overshadowed all other dreams; whether she wore it or not, she was determined to have one in her lifetime. Since it fulfilled one of his wife's dreams, Wenshan felt that the prize money had been well spent.

The city of Wenshan is located on the lower part of the hen's belly on the map of China, far from where the eggs are laid. However, after 1979, several golden eggs did indeed hatch on the hen's belly.

That day seemed unusual from the very beginning. When Wenshan opened his sleepy eyes, a light rain was falling outside the window. In the cool yet warm weather of late spring, the only pleasant thing was to stay in bed and let your mind wander. Wenshan was no exception. He suppressed his slightly urgent bladder, lit a cigarette, leaned against the headboard, and listened to his wife complaining that the rainy season had caused her leather jacket to develop mold spots before she had even worn it.

Back at the police station, Wenshan had barely taken a sip of water when a group of people rushed in. Several of them looked as if they had just crawled out of a pond; their light gray urban management uniforms, stained with red and yellow mud, resembled camouflage. They were escorting a vegetable farmer, an elderly man in his fifties, whose deeply wrinkled face was a formidable barrier that even the young men beside him couldn't overcome. After a flurry of chatter, Wenshan understood that the old man had been illegally occupying space for his stall and had resisted the urban management officers' enforcement. When the officers lawfully confiscated his tools, he violently resisted, managing to throw three or four young men to the ground several times. Wenshan glanced at the men in their camouflage uniforms, suppressing a near-laugh, and solemnly completed the written statement. Later, after the urban management officers left, he made a cup of tea for the old man, and the two chatted. It turned out the old man had been a reconnaissance soldier in the People's Liberation Army and had fought in the Korean War. Wenshan listened with great interest to his wartime anecdotes throughout the morning, treated the old man to a boxed lunch at noon, and then saw him off.

There were still cases in the afternoon, still fight cases. Because there was an injured person in the hospital, he had to go with the family who reported the incident to the hospital to investigate. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, and the sticky feeling on the road resembled the smiles of girls outside roadside hair salons. At the hospital, after taking statements, Wenshan found a doctor to inquire about the injured person's injuries. At this moment, a nurse rushed into the duty room and loudly made a phone call. The call was probably to a major hospital in the city, saying that a patient with a fall had arrived at the emergency room, and they didn't have enough type B plasma for the surgery, requiring urgent assistance. Upon hearing this, Wenshan said without hesitation, "Draw mine first. I'm type O blood; saving lives is the priority." The nurse, her big eyes blinking behind her mask, said, "Two to three thousand cc." Wenshan was stunned for a moment. So much? Sigh, the words were already out, and going back on his word seemed a bit unbecoming of his police uniform. So, he gritted his teeth and said, "Saving lives is the priority, just draw... 2500 cc then." Wenshan gave a compromise number.

After having his blood drawn, Wenshan felt dizzy and lightheaded. He drank the milk the nurse bought for him, but his eyelids were too heavy to stay open, so he fell asleep on a cot in the hospital's on-call room. Wenshan slept very soundly, perhaps the best and deepest sleep he had ever had. During this time, he felt as if he were dreaming, yet it wasn't quite a dream. He felt himself walking, surrounded by nothing, his body feeling very light. He just kept walking, and even though there was nothing in front of him, he didn't care. He just kept walking, as if he had never experienced anything, had nothing to think about, felt no fatigue, and was undisturbed. He walked and walked until he finally reached the end of his sleep, then slowly woke up.

Instinctively, he knew it was already night. The duty room was lit, quiet, and deserted; it was just as still outside. Wenshan rubbed his eyes, looked around, and didn't want to get up immediately. He seemed to enjoy the rare quiet atmosphere. A person who has just woken up is a little groggy, so he put his hands behind his head, stared fixedly at the ceiling, and tried not to think about anything, drifting into a hazy, dreamlike state.

Just then, there seemed to be a faint sound outside. Wenshan immediately held his breath, focusing all his nerves on his ears, trying to pinpoint the source of the sound.

Knock, knock, knock... Yes, it was an extremely soft knocking sound, rhythmic yet weak, as if a very soft, weightless object was striking the door. It certainly wasn't fingers tapping, Wenshan thought with certainty.

---Magpie Bridge Fairy

Reply [3]: Who—Wenshan asked, but there was no answer. The knocking also disappeared, and the echo of his voice still lingered in the air, making the silent environment seem even more profound.

Suddenly, the curtains above Wenshan's head fluttered open with a whoosh, and a strange gust of wind rushed in through the window, only to vanish without a trace, the curtains slowly returning to their original state. Wenshan felt a chill run through him, unsure whether it was from the gust of wind or from a coldness within his body.

Wenshan couldn't lie still any longer. He stood up, stretched his limbs, and immediately felt the blood rushing through his veins, driving away the chill. After putting on his shoes, he walked to the door. Just as he was about to open it, he hesitated. He felt as if there was someone standing outside, and he hadn't heard any footsteps leave after the knock.

Regardless, he had to go through this door to leave, so Wenshan took a deep breath, calmed his wildly beating heart, and yanked the door open—

There was nothing outside the door. Wenshan peeked into the corridor, but there wasn't a soul in sight. Wenshan found it strange; how could there be no one in the hospital? Perhaps there were no patients, and the doctors and nurses had all gone to sleep. Wenshan shook his head and turned to close the door.

As soon as he turned around, Wenshan was so frightened by the sight before him that he screamed and instinctively took a big step back. Cold sweat poured from his pores as if he had heard the starting gun.

A large, bloody handprint was clearly imprinted on the door! Fresh blood was still slowly trickling down the handprint, forming small, winding worm-like patterns.

When he came to his senses, he shouted, "Doctor, doctor, is anyone there?"

Back in the duty room, Wenshan puffed on his cigarette. The nurses on duty nearby were whispering among themselves, and some doctors would occasionally come over and chat with him casually. Wenshan just mumbled in response. They were all waiting for the doctor who had taken his fingerprints and blood samples for testing.

A moment later, the door opened, and the lab technician rushed in, adjusting his glasses and looking at Wenshan, saying, "Officer Wen, this...this blood sample...is...it's yours."

Everyone, including Wen Shan, was stunned. Wen Shan's first reaction was to stretch out his hands and look at them in surprise, and all eyes were focused on his hands.

His palms were smooth and clean.

The entire room fell silent for a moment, as if frozen in time, and the nurses huddled together.

"I had my blood drawn this afternoon, where is the blood?" Wenshan suddenly realized and asked anxiously.

“We’ve used up all the surgical supplies,” a doctor replied.

"Where is the person who had the surgery?" Wenshan asked again.

"Dead."

"Dead?" Wenshan exclaimed in surprise. At this moment, he no longer cared about the waste of his 2500cc.

The doctor nodded in response, and suddenly a few chattering sounds filled the air.

"Where is the dead man?" Wenshan asked with a gloomy face.

“It’s in the morgue at the end of this corridor.” The doctor’s answer, made mechanical by fear, made his words both coherent and rapid.

"Let's go take a look together."

The group walked in unison, perhaps out of curiosity or fear, or perhaps out of fear that kept them from straying from the group. They all walked very close together toward the morgue.

At the morgue entrance, everyone stood for a while, no one taking the initiative to open the door. After waiting a while, Wenshan frowned, glanced at the doctors and nurses behind him, and resolutely pushed open the door—

By the light of the corridor, you can see several white mortuary beds placed inside, quiet and unremarkable.

Wenshan asked a doctor to turn on the light. On the left side of the morgue, there was a row of refrigerated boxes, and each box had a sign on its door indicating the information of the deceased lying inside.

The doctor next to him handed a notebook to Wenshan and said, "The deceased's name is Feng Xinhua, and he is in the fourth column of the second row." He then handed Wenshan a pair of rubber gloves.

Wenshan put on his gloves and went over to the morgue. He glanced at the small card on the door and, sure enough, it read "Feng Xinhua." Without thinking, he reached out and pulled out the morgue box—

The deceased was naked, with purplish-blue skin. Due to the low temperature, a thin layer of frost had formed all over his body. The most conspicuous place was a large suture in his abdomen. The suturing technique was very rough, presumably because the deceased could not be saved at the time, so the doctor did not need to suture him carefully.

Wenshan stared at the deceased for a long time. The deceased's palm was facing down, pressed against the bottom of the box. Finally, he mustered his courage, turned around, and glanced at the medical staff standing behind him. Everyone's eyes were on him. Wenshan slowly extended his right hand, gently grasped the deceased's wrist, and suddenly flipped it over—

Ah—the screams of the female nurses came from behind, and Wenshan and the male doctors involuntarily gasped. Their scalps and backs felt as if they had been suddenly ripped off, their thoughts seemed to have been thrown into Siberia in an instant, and the tendons in their feet seemed to have run away with their thoughts, leaving them numb and unsteady on their feet.

The deceased's palms were clearly covered in blood-red liquid!

Soon, Wenshan regained his senses, his thoughts and tendons returning to normal, though the chill on his scalp and back lingered. He turned his head, unable to bear looking at the deceased's face, as if afraid the body would suddenly awaken. At the same time, he pushed the refrigerator door, and the refrigerator slowly retracted.