Chapter Eighty-Four: Torn to Pieces

For a moment, my mind was in complete disarray. If what this water rat said was true, then Wang Lun, the man with the tattoo of the God of War on his back, had already been dead for half a month. In that case, Liu Dong could not have been the one who killed him.

At the same time, as Peng Li had said, if the case were classified as a supernatural incident, then Liu Dong might very well be cleared of the charge.

At the thought of this, a faint spark of hope flared in my heart. Strange as this all sounded, at least I had found a direction to follow.

That day at the karaoke bar, I had already felt that something was off about Wang Lun. And no beer bottle, no matter how it was swung, could possibly have smashed a man's head clean off.

I hurriedly asked the water rat what had happened exactly. Half a month ago, who had killed Wang Lun?

The water rat seemed to recall something unimaginably horrible. His whole face turned ashen with fear; he stammered and dared not speak, keeping his head lowered and refusing to look at us.

Peng Li lost his temper on the spot. With a kick he sent the water rat sprawling to the ground, then cursed at him, telling him to speak if he was told to speak.

I was truly helpless against Peng Li's explosive temper. I had no idea what he had gone through in the past to make him so vicious.

I hurried over and stopped him from beating the water rat any further. Then I helped the water rat up and told him that as long as he told us the truth, I guaranteed I would not make things hard for him.

"Really?" The water rat looked at me doubtfully, while his narrow slit eyes kept darting toward Peng Li.

Peng Li took a swig from the bottle of white liquor he carried with him, then said, "I'm only looking into Wang Lun's case now. As long as you tell the truth, I won't pursue whatever you bastards did before. But if you keep quiet, I'll charge you with armed assault on a police officer right now."

No sooner had he spoken than Peng Li, with astonishing speed, stuffed the gun from his hand into the water rat's hands. The water rat trembled and dropped it at once.

Peng Li pinched the gun up with two fingers, wrapped it in a transparent plastic bag, and said that this was evidence now. As for whether the water rat wanted to be sentenced or not, that was his own choice.

The water rat stared at the two of us in terror. It was obvious Peng Li had scared him witless. I pressed hard on his shoulder and said, "Buddy, just tell us. In a minute he'll accuse you of stealing state secrets too!"

At last the water rat nodded and told us everything he knew, exactly as it had happened.

It turned out that the water rat and Wang Lun were both notorious junkies. Half a month earlier, because they had no money to buy drugs, they had started thinking of ways to make some.

So they decided on robbery: find a secluded place with few people, stop a car, and make up some excuse to rob the driver of whatever cash he had.

That night, the water rat and Wang Lun successfully robbed a driver in a very remote place. But the driver did not have much cash on him, only a bank card. So the two of them decided that one would keep watch over the driver while the other went to the nearest bank to withdraw money.

At the time, Wang Lun stayed behind to guard the driver, while the water rat was sent to withdraw the money.

What the water rat had not expected was that the card number and password were both correct, but there was less than twenty dollars in the account. He was furious then and there, ready to come back with the card and settle accounts with that man. Yet when he returned with the card, he saw a scene that nearly broke him.

As he said this, my curiosity was instantly hooked. But his face had already gone pale with fright, and his whole body was trembling uncontrollably.

I quickly took a cigarette from my bag and held it out to him, signaling for him to calm down and not be nervous. When he got back there, what exactly had he seen?

"A monster!"

The water rat's face was full of terror as he spoke. The monster had crawled out of the trunk of that car. It looked like a human being, but it was wrapped head to toe in a cloak, and its eyes were glowing green.

At the time, Wang Lun was suddenly attacked by that monster. In almost a single move, the thing had clamped a hand around his throat and lifted him into the air. Then the driver told Wang Lun to recite his date of birth and birth hour.

Wang Lun was already so terrified that his soul had nearly flown away; how could he remember such things? Then the driver pressed a hand on top of Wang Lun's head and closed his eyes, as though sensing something.

About ten seconds later, the driver withdrew his hand and spoke to the monster in a string of words the water rat could not understand, as if issuing some kind of command.

After receiving the order, the monster immediately pinned Wang Lun's head down with one hand, while its other hand, with its long nails, pierced straight through his neck.

And that was not even the most horrifying part. The reason the water rat called that thing a monster was that the man's strength was astonishing. After piercing Wang Lun's neck, he actually tore Wang Lun's head clean off, then ripped his body into pieces.

"With his bare hands?" Hearing this, an image immediately flashed through my mind of those absurd anti-Japanese television dramas where heroes tear enemies apart with their hands.

"Yes, with his bare hands." By then, the water rat was already drenched in sweat.

I drew in a deep breath and looked at Peng Li beside me. He had clearly been shaken by the tale as well. He was still holding the cigarette between his fingers, and it was not until the ember burned his fingertips that he hurriedly flicked it away.

"You're not lying?" I was still half skeptical of the water rat's story, and asked whether he had simply seen it wrong.

The water rat said how could he possibly have mistaken something like that? If we did not believe him, he could take us to the scene. He had seen with his own eyes how the driver and the monster dug a pit in the woods nearby and buried Wang Lun's corpse there.

Peng Li and I exchanged a glance. He then decided to drive us to the place the water rat had described. After more than an hour on the road, the three of us arrived beside a desolate little grove.

In the car, the water rat had been worried the whole time about whether Peng Li would arrest him. Peng Li replied that as long as he had not lied, no one would trouble him afterward. Only then did the water rat relax.

After arriving at the grove, the water rat quickly pointed out the burial spot. He said that on that day he had personally seen the driver and the monster bury Wang Lun's body right there. Later, because he was too frightened, he had hidden in the bushes nearby, and only ran back after the two men drove off. After that, terrified as he was, he did not dare report it to the police and instead hid in the same remote billiard hall from before.

At that point, Peng Li took a fireman's shovel from the car and signaled for the water rat to dig the body out. Though frightened, the water rat did not dare refuse, so he took the military shovel and started digging.

After about ten minutes, a putrid stench rushed out at once. Sure enough, within that pit, the water rat dug up several pieces of a corpse.

But the remains had already decayed beyond recognition, and maggots crawled everywhere. I could not tell at all whether this body was Wang Lun's.

Peng Li frowned, took a gulp of white liquor, then pointed at the pile of remains and told the water rat to put them back together for him.

The water rat was so frightened that he dropped to his knees before Peng Li on the spot and said, "Brother, d-don't joke like that."

Peng Li paid him no mind. "I'll give you three counts."

For a brief moment, I thought I saw that the water rat had even wet himself. In the end, his eyes rolled back and he collapsed straight to the ground.

I did not know whether this fool was faking it, but with that kind of胆量 he still dared to mix in the underworld? I was truly speechless.

Peng Li had originally wanted to kick the man awake, but I stopped him. I said that even if you woke him now, in less than ten seconds he would probably faint again. We might as well do it ourselves.

So the two of us took out a pair of gloves from Peng Li's car and put them on, then, fighting off our revulsion, we dug all the remains out of the soil. After nearly half an hour of moving the pieces around, we finally managed to piece together the corpse, which had been torn into more than twenty fragments.

Even so, the body was definitely very much like the dead Wang Lun: a broad face and a bulky build. But the whole head had rotted into a ghastly ruin, making it impossible to tell whether it was truly him.

It was not until I turned the body over and saw the conspicuous tattoo of Guan Yu on his back that I could be certain: this corpse was Wang Lun, without a doubt.