Three hours had passed since I was locked up in the cell. I was in utter despair when the police brought in an unscrupulous looking man. He glanced at me and asked, “What are you here for, brother?”
I ignored him, but he moved very close to me and with an oleaginous smile on his face he said, “Officer Wang ordered me to take good care of you!”
I shrank away from him immediately. It sounded like the police had decided to completely desert me and wash their hands of me forever. To think that I was their comrade in arms just hours earlier! Now I was reduced to an object of their ridicule.
At that moment, I vowed to myself that once I got out of here, I would find them and exact my revenge on them!
My thoughts were suddenly interrupted when the shady guy tapped my shoulder. He slipped out a leg of ham, a bottle of mineral water and a tea bag out of his coat.
“You must be hungry,” he said. “Here, have some food!”
My eyes widened. So he really did mean it when he said he was going to take good care of me!
“Come on, eat up!” he urged. “You don’t want the prison guard to see this! If he does then we’re both screwed!”
I hadn’t had any food since noon, so I grabbed the ham and gorged on it.
“Was that Officer Wang you talked about Wang Yuanchao?” I asked him when I finished the ham.
“That’s the man!” he answered. “Allow me to introduce myself. They call me Hamster on the street. I’m Officer Wang’s informant.”
All this new information overwhelmed me. I couldn’t help but wonder aloud, “Then why did they treat me so coldly earlier?”
“You’re not stupid, are you?” scoffed Hamster, patting my shoulder. “That’s only for show! For whatever reason, you’re definitely involved in this case. If they didn’t pretend to be harsh on you, they’d definitely be removed from the investigation.”
The truth of Hamster’s words hit me. I almost cried due to sheer relief. Still, couldn’t they just give me some hints along the way? They almost made me genuinely hate them!
But the more I thought of it, the more I understood the necessity of Xiaotao’s actions. The more I lost control of my emotions and lashed out, the more realistic her plan would seem to outsiders. Everything she did, she did it to get a chance to save me. I proved to be too inexperienced in some areas.
Hamster stared at me with a smile and asked, “You look pretty important, brother. Who are you really?”
“I’m just a college student,” I replied simply.
“Your father must be pretty powerful, then,” he continued.
“He’s just an ordinary businessman.”
Hamster looked confused. He couldn’t think of a reason why a college kid like me would receive the protection of the police. Still, he held out a hand and uttered, “Why don’t we be friends? I’m not as powerful as a police officer, but I can do many things that the police can’t.”
In normal circumstances, I would’ve ignored him, but I’d been through so much that day and Hamster was the only person who treated me well. I shook hands with him. I couldn’t believe that a boring guy like me would ever make friends with gangsters.
Hamster went on to brag about his past ‘glorious deeds.’ He told me he’d blocked a knife attack to save a notorious mafia boss before. He’d also supposedly smuggled a ton of ecstasy pills into Thailand, spent a night at the hottest nightclub in Beijing, and dined with Li Ka-shing.
I had observed his expressions closely all along, and sure enough none of what he claimed was true, but I humored him and said nothing.
At about eleven o’clock, Xiaotao returned to interrogate me. Before I was taken into another room, Hamster whispered to me, “Contact me whenever you need any help. I’m always at your service!”
I was then brought into the interrogation room and was left alone with Xiaotao and Wang Yuanchao. Xiaotao smiled and joked, “Who would’ve thought that I’d be interrogating the great detective himself!”
“So you’ve decided to drop the act now?” I asked.
“Uh-huh,” she answered casually. “Captain Lin has approved the formation of a task force to investigate the case and I’m the team leader. I’m so glad you understood my intentions. I was so worried I might’ve actually hurt your feelings just now!”
She actually did. Not that I would admit it, though.
“Did you think that I’d be fooled by your obvious acts?” I lied. “I was just putting on an act myself to make it more believable!”
“I still feel bad about it, though,” Xiaotao admitted. “I’ll make it up to you when this is all over. Anyway, we’ll take your official statements now. Wang Yuanchao, you’re in charge of recording everything.”
And so, I proceeded to relay the whole incident from beginning to the end. I told them of my suspicions of Professor Li. Xiaotao slammed the table and lamented, “Too bad we can’t arrest her now since we don’t have any concrete evidence! Even if she confessed that she’d hypnotized Ye Shiwen, we’d still have no choice but to let her go!”
“Has there ever been a murder case involving hypnosis before?” I asked.
“Yes!”
Xiaotao told me of a murderer named Li Wenhai who was captured three years ago. He was a psychologist and a specialist in hypnotherapy. He was unbelievably talented at hypnotizing people. The method he used was to hold the victim’s neck tightly until they were almost asphyxiated and perform hypnosis on them. Because the victim’s brain lacked oxygen, the success rate of hypnosis was almost 100%.
Everything Xiaotao understood about hypnosis, she learnt it from that case. She told me that not all hypnosis attempts would be successful. Some people were more impressionable, some were psychologically impenetrable. Wang Yuanchao, for example, had been in the paramilitary for a long time, so he had especially strong willpower and would be a tough target for hypnosis.
Besides, hypnosis was nothing like what was shown in films and television shows where all you needed was a pocket watch. In reality, the whole process would take at least five to ten minutes of uninterrupted interaction.
“Then that means if Professor Li wanted to hypnotize Shiwen and Dali, she would need to be alone with them for five to ten minutes,” I postulated.
“Is Ye Shiwen a very impressionable person?” asked Xiaotao.
“It’s hard to say,” I replied, “but even if he was, wouldn’t it raise his suspicions if Professor Li turned up and tried to hypnotize him for five minutes? Would he just let her do it?”
“She tried to hypnotize you too, didn’t she?” Xiaotao asked. “How did you resist her attempt?”
“Now that you mention it…” I considered it for a while. “Her eye. I saw her eye, then all of a sudden my mind turned foggy and I began to see what she tried to suggest to me…”
“What did her eye look like?”
I described the curious green eye to her. Xiaotao raised an eyebrow and remarked, “Do you think an eye that can hypnotize people really exists? If so, wouldn’t she be able to control everyone then?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think such a thing exists. Otherwise this whole world would’ve been under her control by now.”
“What motives would she have for killing Zhang Yan, anyway?”
“Beats me. I can’t think of any at the moment. They don’t seem to have any special relationship other than that of a professor and a student.”
I paused. Then I suddenly remembered an important fact.
“Wait!” I exclaimed. “Professor Li’s full name is Li Wenjia!”
Xiaotao was astonished.
“And she’s an expert in hypnosis too!” Xiaotao commented. “Wang Yuanchao, investigate the relationship between her and Li Wenhai now!”
“Meanwhile,” I added, “let’s go question Li Wenjia!”
I was about to stand up and walk out of the room, when Xiaotao shouted, “Come back here! Have you forgotten that you’re a murder suspect right now?”
I stopped dead in my tracks and turned around, scratching my head in embarrassment.
“You always forget everything once you’re in investigating mode,” laughed Xiaotao.
“By the way, is Li Wenhai still alive?” I asked.
“No,” Xiaotao shook her head. “He died a few months ago. I sent him to prison myself a few years ago. Since he was an intellectual, he was severely bullied by other inmates. He couldn’t take it anymore so he sharpened a toothbrush and killed himself with it.”
“I see. So, do I need to stay in the cell for a few more days?” I asked.
“No!” answered Xiaotao with a lovely smile. “I’ll bail you out later.”
“Then could you get Hamster out too?” I asked. He took good care of me after all.
“He didn’t break any law,” answered Wang Yuanchao. “I sent him in there. He’s gone out now.”
“What about Shiwen?”
“He won’t be bailed out,” replied Xiaotao. “He’ll be transferred to the prison in two days. After all, hundreds of people saw him kill the victim with their own eyes. It wouldn’t be a good idea to let him return to campus.”
I sighed heavily, knowing how hard it must be for Shiwen to spend the night in jail.
I then went to see him once I was bailed out. We didn’t talk, though, because he was in a total mental breakdown. He knelt on the floor and cried incessantly. I comforted him through the bars and promised him not to worry, because I would absolutely prove his innocence!
1. business magnate and philanthropist. Currently the 30th richest person in the world.