But what the students found truly unsettling wasn't this bleak scenery; it was the presence of all the stern-eyed policemen constantly hurrying about.
The special investigation team had already been stationed at the campus for over a week. They could be seen in academic buildings, dining halls, dorms, and library, either in uniform or plainclothes. Many students, used to their previously unencumbered lives, felt increasingly uncomfortable, and a sense of antipathy slowly spread among the student body. Nearly every day some kind of dispute between a student and a police officer was reported to campus security. For the pair of provosts individually in charge of student affairs and campus management, every day was a headache. They each prayed for no one else to die and that the police would catch the killer as soon as possible.
Unlike his peers who were either indifferent to or annoyed by these recent developments, Fang Mu was much more concerned with the progress of the investigation. As Tai Wei had requested, no word of Fang Mu's connection to the case was being aired for the time being and all investigations into his background were conducted in secret. This allowed Fang Mu to continue searching undisturbed for clues to the sixth crime. Of course, unless he was forced to be elsewhere, Tai Wei was by the kid's side nearly every day—just in case.
Today was another busy afternoon. Fang Mu was in the reference room poring over the thick book before him while Tai Wei was sleeping soundly at the next table over, flecks of saliva hanging from the corners of his mouth.
The reference room was crowded. It was almost finals, and with everyone busy writing their term papers, students were constantly arriving to checkout books. When they saw Tai Wei passed out on the table, more than a few eyebrows were raised, and Librarian Sun kept worriedly glancing over at the brand new edition of
200 Years of Western Crime (1800-1993)
propped under the policeman's head.
Fang Mu rubbed his temples in exhaustion and then flipped to the next page. While reading one of the paragraphs, his breath suddenly caught in his throat.
He quickly read it again two more times, his face reddening with excitement. He jumped out of his seat, ran over to Tai Wei, and shook him awake.
"Hey," he said, "you need to look at this."
Tai Wei leapt to his feet in surprise, saliva hanging from his mouth, one hand going to his sidearm.
"What's going on?" he cried.
At the sound of his voice, everyone in the reference room looked up in surprise. One student who had been climbing a stepladder to reach a book on the top shelf was so startled he fell to the floor.
Ignoring all the displeased looks around him, Fang Mu merely smiled apologetically at Librarian Sun, who appeared stupefied, and impatiently placed the open book in front of Tai Wei.
Buttoning the holster on his gun, Tai Wei awkwardly looked down. He immediately frowned. When he had finished reading, he took out a pack of cigarettes and placed one in his mouth. Seeing this, Fang Mu quickly pulled him out into the hall.
The two of them smoked in silence in the stairwell. When their cigarettes were half gone, Tai Wei looked at Fang Mu and asked probingly: "The Yorkshire Ripper? You think that's who the killer's going to copy next?"
"I think it's a definite possibility." Fang Mu tossed his cigarette to the floor and slowly crushed it with his foot. "You just read it yourself. That five-pound note matches him perfectly."
Tai Wei nodded and thought back on what he had just read.
Dubbed the "Yorkshire Ripper", a British man named Peter Sutcliffe had killed thirteen women between 1975 and 1980. His method of choice was to beat his victims over the head with a ball-peen hammer and then stab them in the chest with a screwdriver. After killing them, he liked to place a five-pound note in one of their hands.
"In that case, do you think the next victim will be a woman?" asked Tai Wei.
"If he's really going to copy the Yorkshire Ripper, then yes, there's no doubt about it." Saying this, Fang Mu watched a group of girls cheerfully emerge from a yoga class at the other end of the corridor.
"Well, shit," said Tai Wei, forcefully throwing his cigarette to the floor. "I'll go call everyone together and figure out some way to stop this. How many female students do you have here?"
"About four thousand."
"Christ!"
That afternoon, the more observant students noticed that some curious new people had arrived on campus and some equally curious things were taking place. Security personnel were increased in all the women's dorms and a room on the sixth floor of each was cleared out and converted into an on-duty lounge. In the women's bathhouse, the sixth shower stall was locked, as was the number six locker in the women's changing room in the gymnasium. In the academic buildings, keen-eyed, well-dressed women with a bulge at their hips could also be seen strolling near number six classrooms, women's bathrooms, and along sixth floor hallways.
All the tools belonging to the maintenance department – especially hammers and screwdrivers – were individually registered and workers were required to sign them out whenever they needed to use them. On campus, vehicles were frequently stopped and examined. Students became more concerned about their civil rights than ever before, and on several occasions their resistance turned physical. After this state of unrest persisted for another week, the police and school administrators finally held an emergency meeting. The ultimate result was that police checks would be limited to men over 30-year-old, and unless it was absolutely necessary, students would no longer be interrogated. With that, the atmosphere on campus settled down a little.
While strolling past the gymnasium one Wednesday afternoon, Fang Mu happened to glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, Tai Wei was following him a short ways back. Fang Mu couldn't help but sigh.
The sight of a policeman shadowing a student all day, every day, had already made a lot of people suspicious. Fang Mu suggested that Tai Wei take care of some of the other campus security work, saying that he didn't need to follow him all the time. "I'm going to be the final one," he had said. "So he's not going to do anything to me now." Although Tai Wei had seemed to agree, Fang Mu still constantly noticed the policeman over his shoulder.
Around noon that day, Fang Mu had received an unexpected call from Xing Zhisen of the Changhong City PSB. Old Xing was the same as always. After barely a word of greeting, he immediately asked Fang Mu how the investigation was going. He then told him flatly that they had already looked into all the old cases Fang Mu had helped solve and they had turned up nothing. Although Old Xing ended the call by telling Fang Mu to take care of himself and that if he needed anything, not to hesitate calling, Fang Mu still felt a little disheartened. After anxiously circling his room for a few minutes, he decided that he might as well go out.
At that moment, several members of the student union were hanging a posting on the bulletin board outside the gymnasium when Fang Mu got there. Liu Jianjun was among them. The poster was huge, and on it a basketball player was leaping towards the hoop, ball in hand. Fang Mu recognized him as Su Jun, star of the provincial basketball team. Because the bulletin board's aluminum frame was a little uneven, the poster would not lie flat. With a hammer in hand, one of the students had climbed up a ladder and was pounding the frame back in place.
Instantly a plainclothes cop appeared beneath him. With a cold look in his eyes, he asked, "Where's the registration slip for that hammer?"
Glancing contemptuously down at him, the student said, "I don't have one."
Liu Jianjun, who was helping to hold up the poster, quickly explained. "It doesn't belong to the maintenance department. It's from our dorm."
As soon as he heard this, the cop walked over and pulled on the student's pant leg. "Get down."
"What do you think you're doing?" yelled the student.
"Give me your student ID card!"
"I don't have it!" returned the student, shaking the cop off his leg.
The cop's face went dark and he kicked at the ladder. "Get down here!"
The student staggered atop the ladder, nearly falling. Now he, too, was enraged. "You trying to kill me?" he yelled, pointing the hammer at the cop's face. "You can't catch the killer, so you've decided to throw your weight around with the students, huh? You guys are real brave. How the hell did our country produce trash like you?"
The cop's face immediately set hard as steel. He reached up and pulled the student off the ladder.
Fang Mu hurriedly tried to break it up, but before he could say anything, Tai Wei had sprinted over and grabbed the cop, who had just begun rolling up his sleeves.
"What's going on?" Tai Wei asked the student. "Where's your student ID?"
By now the student was a little afraid. "I didn't bring it," he said quietly.
Liu Jianjun quickly spoke up. "He's a chemistry major. His name is Qin Dahai. I can vouch for him."
"And who are you?" asked Tai Wei.
"I'm at the law school. My name is Liu Jianjun." He pointed at Fang Mu. "He can vouch for me."
Fang Mu quickly turned to Tai Wei and nodded.
"Then whose hammer is this?" said Tai Wei, looking at Fang Mu.
"Our dorm's," he said.
Tai Wei took the hammer and weighed it in his hand for a moment. Then he passed it back. "Keep an eye on it. Don't lend it out and don't lose it. I hope you can support our work here."
"Yes, sir," said Liu Jianjun, quickly nodding his head. He pulled on the sleeve of the other student. The miffed student softly and reluctantly said, "Yes, sir."
The plainclothes cop was still livid. Patting him on the shoulder, Tai Wei said, "All right, go on and get back to work."
"These little brats," muttered the cop, still fuming. "We work from dawn to dusk to protect them and the bastards still don't –"
"Enough!" yelled Tai Wei, cutting him off. "Get back on patrol."
"Yes, sir!" The cop glared once more at the student, and then spun around and walked off.
When he was some distance away, Tai Wei shook his head and sighed. "It's not their fault. They've been working day and night recently. Now they're exhausted, so it's no wonder tempers are flaring a little."
Fang Mu smiled to show he understood. When he turned back around, he saw that Liu Jianjun and the other students were still awkwardly standing around. He hurried to smooth things over.
"What are you guys up to? Is some event coming up?"
Liu Jianjun gave a big smile. "Tomorrow night the provincial basketball team is going to play our school team in a friendly match." He pointed at the poster. "Su Jun will be there, too. You know the guy's on the national team, right?"
"Whoa! That's awesome." Fang Mu couldn't help but feel a little envious.
"Man, I told you! You should have joined the team. You could be competing against one of the top players in the country."
"I wouldn't have a chance," said Fang Mu, laughing and playing it cool, although inside he really wished he could take part as well.
He looked back at Tai Wei. The guy was frowning deeply. Fang Mu knew exactly what he was thinking. Working security at an event this big would be astronomically difficult. There would be a ton of spectators and a million things to watch for. The scene did not lend itself to being easily controlled. If they messed up, the killer could use this as an opportunity to strike.
Of course, none of this had occurred to Liu Jianjun.
"Tomorrow you'll have to come and cheer me on!" he said, glowing with excitement.
By then Tai Wei had already started walking away. Fang Mu gave Liu Jianjun a quick "I'll be there", and hurried to catch up with Tai Wei.
"How the hell did the school not tell us about this sooner?" asked Tai Wei angrily. He shook his head and waved Fang Mu away. "You get back to your dorm. I need to go and figure out how we're going to secure this thing. Oh, and be careful."
Having no choice, Fang Mu just nodded and said, "Okay."
The following evening, the basketball game began on schedule in the school gymnasium.
The gymnasium was a fully functioning sports arena, with a court that conformed to international standards and retractable bleachers that could seat over 2,000 people. Although the game wasn't set to begin until 7:30, by 6 p.m. students had already filled every seat and even the aisles were packed tight.