Blood Handprint - Chapter 4
Reply [8]: After Wenshan finished washing up, he walked to the door and naturally glanced at the trench. This glance made him break out in goosebumps. He saw the shoe prints on the trench and a thin layer of mud.
Wenshan almost screamed in surprise and quickly turned the door lock. To his astonishment, it opened with just one turn. He remembered that he had specifically locked it several times yesterday.
Wenshan threw down his bag, squatted down, and searched the floor carefully again. The porcelain floor was clean and bright, spotless, and he could not find a trace of dirt.
At this moment, Wenshan truly felt afraid. Who was it? What did it want? Why was it just standing at the door for a moment? Was it just to scare him?
Wenshan dared not joke about his handsome sleeping posture anymore and hurriedly opened the door and left.
At the police station, he spent the whole morning checking information. The results were numerous; buildings like this were everywhere and countless. However, Wenshan was determined that as long as the building really existed, he would find it.
At noon, he hurriedly ate a few bites of food and rode his bike out. Centered on the police station, he expanded the search area circle by circle. Wenshan was determined to search the entire city to find that building. Once he found that building, he could find the window on the third floor, and then the answer to who lived in that room might be there.
Of course, things didn't go so smoothly. When Wenshan returned exhausted after a long afternoon of searching, he still hadn't found anything. However, as he ruled out one similar residential building after another, he became even more convinced that he had seen that building before. Yes, and that piece of wall resembling a map of China—he must have seen them at some point in the past.
Night fell silently over the city like a giant black cloth, and Wenshan began to feel a fear of the darkness. He dreaded the coming of night, for it would force him to return to that dream, to walk into that empty passage. And there was that person hidden in the darkness, and the mysterious shoe prints on the chasm. Thinking of all this, his heart tightened, and a chill began to seep from his pores.
Wenshan chain-smoked as he pondered whether to go home tonight. Going home meant facing it all again, but if he didn't go home, could he escape again? As long as he felt sleepy, he had to sleep, and sleeping meant he still couldn't escape that terrible and strange dream.
Damn it, no matter what, I don't believe in that stuff. I'm still a policeman, after all. Wenshan cursed inwardly. Suddenly he remembered that there was a video camera in the criminal investigation department. He decided to borrow it for the night to see who had come to his house in the middle of the night and left shoe prints.
Wenshan borrowed the video camera under some pretext, asked how to use it, and then went straight home.
Once inside, he carefully locked the door again and then cleaned the ditch. After doing all that, he took a shower, and then started fiddling with the video camera. Following his colleague's instructions, he set up the tripod, determined the recording angle (of course, facing the front door), loaded the film, and shot a test clip. The results were good, so he was relieved and started drinking.
Wenshan wasn't a big drinker, and after a few drinks he started to feel dizzy. He struggled to get up and turned on the video camera. After hearing the hissing sound of the machine turning, he collapsed onto the sofa and fell asleep.
The familiar passageway was right in front of him. Wenshan realized it, and his feet were already moving. It was a long, unavoidable route. Wenshan took alternating steps forward until he arrived at the apartment building again. Wenshan's eyes involuntarily drifted to the third-floor window; the light was still on. Wenshan stood there for a moment, his mind blank, but involuntarily, he began to walk, not back, but into the apartment building, step by step climbing the stairs.
Wenshan followed his footsteps up to room number two on the third floor. He was faced with another door, but this one was an iron door with a large upside-down "福" (good fortune) character pasted on it. Wenshan thought he would knock, but he didn't. He just stood there, staring intently at the iron door. Then he noticed a peephole on the door, but it seemed there wasn't one; there was only a small, dark opening.
Wenshan didn't know why, but he automatically pressed his eye into the hole, and something incredible happened: on the other side of the hole, he also saw an eye looking in his direction.
Wenshan watched for a while, then silently turned and left. He didn't seem to go down the stairs, but instead walked directly onto the empty passageway. He walked and walked, for an unknown amount of time, when suddenly that long-absent kick struck his back again. Wenshan lurched forward, his body plummeting downwards.
He woke up, still covered in sweat.
After opening his eyes and calming himself down, Wenshan, without bothering to wipe the sweat from his face, hurriedly looked for the video camera, only to find that the tripod had fallen to the ground at some point. The video camera was still firmly attached to the tripod, but the lens was no longer pointing towards the door, but towards the television.
Wenshan stood up and strode towards the door. The shoe prints that Wenshan least wanted to see reappeared silently on the ditch, the bits of dirt seeming to mock him. Wenshan quickly turned around and turned the doorknob; the door opened with a click.
A video camera, yes, maybe it recorded something before it fell over? Wenshan practically jumped to the TV. He connected the camera, turned on the TV, switched to AV, and the picture immediately appeared. It started with a door, just a door. Wenshan waited a bit, getting impatient, and pressed fast forward. Suddenly, he saw the camera shake, so he quickly paused, then rewound. He saw the door again, and it started playing normally. First the door, then the camera shook the ceiling, and then the TV appeared. It seemed that's when it fell over. Did someone deliberately kick it over? But the door hadn't been opened before. Wenshan played it over and over again, but still found nothing.
Sound? Yes, no video was recorded, so what about the sound? Wenshan turned the TV volume up to the maximum. But to his disappointment, apart from a hissing static, nothing was recorded.
---Magpie Bridge Fairy
Reply [9]: It's over. He collapsed to the floor in despair.
five
Finally, dawn broke. Wenshan changed his clothes and went to work. While returning the video camera, he asked his colleague, "Can this thing record audio?" His colleague replied, "Sure, you just need to connect a receiver. But this receiver has been broken for six months, and the department rarely uses it, so we haven't replaced it. It's an old-fashioned one; we'll get a newer one that won't need a separate receiver." Wenshan cursed inwardly and left.
He returned to his office, checked in, and hurriedly rode his bike out to continue searching for that apartment building. The sooner he found it, the better it would be for unraveling the dream. It was safe to say that he was now at a point where there was no time to lose.
Wenshan had never imagined the city had so many streets and alleys. He wandered around for half a day, but hadn't even finished exploring the entire eastern district. Around noon, his phone rang. It was his police station, telling him to return. They said a vicious fight had broken out in his jurisdiction and he needed to handle it personally. Wenshan said he'd be right back, but the person on the other end said he didn't need to go back to the station. "Go to the hospital first," they said. "The injured have been taken to the hospital, and the assailant has been detained and is being questioned. Go to the hospital to get his statement and injury report." So Wenshan had no choice but to end his wandering and head to the hospital.
The injured person's injuries were quite serious; one of the stab wounds penetrated the abdomen and damaged the liver. When Wenshan arrived, the patient was in the operating room undergoing emergency treatment.
After waiting for more than an hour, Wenshan saw the operating room door open and the attending physician, Zhao Fenqiang, came out. Wenshan quickly followed and asked him what was wrong. When Zhao saw Wenshan suddenly stand up from the bench in the corridor and stand in front of him, he seemed startled and stared at Wenshan. Wenshan quickly said, "I'm from the police station. How is the injured person inside?" Zhao quickly recovered and nodded, saying, "He's out of danger, but if he had been brought in any later, things might have been different."
Wenshan noticed that Zhao Fenqiang hadn't left after speaking; he was still staring intently at Wenshan, seemingly waiting for his next words. Wenshan figured there was nothing more to ask, so he simply said, "Then could you please have the doctor prepare a medical report for us later?" Zhao nodded again before leaving.
On the way back to the police station, Wenshan felt inexplicably heavy-hearted, as if something was amiss. What was it? He felt as if a sheet of paper was covering him, just a tiny bit away from being pierced so he could see the whole picture.
What exactly is wrong? The injured person? The hospital? Or the doctor? The doctor, yes, Dr. Zhao, his eyes... strange, yet so familiar. Could it be—
Wenshan almost jumped up in the car. He quickly turned around and rushed back to the hospital.
He realized—it was that look in Zhao Fenqiang's eyes just now, exactly the same look he'd seen through that small hole in his dream last night. There was no doubt about it. Wenshan slapped his head repeatedly in the car. Why was he so stupid? The apartment building he'd been searching for for two days was right under his nose! Hadn't he been to the dormitory behind the hospital several times? That map of China was of that building!
At this moment, Wenshan felt his whole body boiling, and all the memories of that building rushed into his mind. About two years ago, he had come to that building because he had an urgent matter to consult a doctor. At that time, he was very interested in studying the shape of the map on the wall. His colleague who came with him had argued with him about it, saying that it didn't look like a map of China at all. But Wenshan insisted that it did, very much so.
Soon Wenshan arrived downstairs, and the familiar building's exterior appeared before his eyes again, along with the map-shaped debris on the wall, exactly the same as in his dream. Wenshan parked his car downstairs and looked up at the window on the third floor. Sure enough, the half-curtain was exactly the same as in his dream.
This is the place.
Wenshan slowly walked into the building and went up to the door of room number two on the third floor. The iron gate, the peephole—everything was exactly the same as last night. Standing in front of the door, Wenshan's earlier excitement vanished, replaced by a sudden chill. Why? He hadn't been here for two years. Why was his dream so vivid and real? Why was he dreaming about this place? What was his relationship with Zhao Fenqiang? Wenshan racked his brains but couldn't figure it out. Aside from some work-related interactions, he had absolutely no connection with Zhao Fenqiang. Why was he repeatedly appearing in his dreams to find him?
Just then, footsteps sounded on the stairs, and an old lady came down. Seeing Wenshan standing there blankly, she looked at him with a puzzled expression. After thinking for a moment, Wenshan took the initiative to ask, "Auntie, does Dr. Liu live here?"
The old lady laughed when she heard that. "Dr. Liu is in the next building. You have to go down to another staircase, which is also on the third floor. Dr. Zhao lives here."
Wenshan pretended to suddenly realize something, patted his forehead, and said, "So I was wrong. Thank you, ma'am."
"You're welcome, hehe," the old lady said happily, her little feet tumbling down the stairs.
Although Wenshan found the building from his dream, it also brought him more questions. He silently pushed his bike out of the hospital when his phone rang. It was Lu Kang calling, asking him to come to his office later. Wenshan readily agreed. He first went back to the police station to explain the situation of the injured at the hospital before heading to the rehabilitation hospital.
Lu Kang then led him to that spacious office.
"Are you still going to let me lie here?" Wenshan asked with a smile.