This ear definitely belonged to the man from the day before. Judging by the incision, the cut was clean and fast. From the degree of blood solidification, I surmised that the ear was cut off about five or six hours ago.
I couldn’t think of anyone so skillful who would help me like this. What puzzled me most was how this person found out about this dispute I had and how did he find the man? The only people I talked to about this were Xiaotao and Sun Tiger. They refused to do anything last night, but did they secretly and quietly attack the man after all?
That didn’t sound likely, though. Xiaotao’s fighting technique was Sanda, the martial arts taught in the police force. They generally did not train with knives or swords at all. As for Sun Tiger, I’d never once seen him fight before, but I couldn’t imagine a man like him cutting someone’s ear so cleanly, then putting it into an ice box and delivering it to me.
I closed the box and resealed it. Freshly cut body organs could be stored for a long time under refrigerated conditions, and if it was retrieved within ten hours, it could be reconnected to the owner. Seeing that the ear was placed on ice, I guessed that its owner would come and fetch it later.
Sure enough, at about seven o’clock in the morning, the man from yesterday rushed into my room with a few of his henchmen. His right ear was wrapped in a bandage that was soaked red with blood. He glared at me and looked as if he was about to attack me, but instead he gritted his teeth and knelt down to the ground in front of me. His men knelt down after him. My roommates’ jaws dropped when they saw what was happening.
“Please forgive me for what I did yesterday,” said the man. “Can you please return that thing to me?”
“Where’s Baldy?” I asked.
“He’s doing fine,” the man replied. “I didn’t hurt him at all! I swear!”
“No, that won’t do,” I said coldly. “I won’t give this back to you until I see him!”
The man raised his hand and proclaimed, “I, Cao Mou, swear to the heavens that if I deceive you, I’ll get strangled to death the moment I leave through this door!”
To the underworld, getting ‘strangled to death’ was considered the most serious oath. I knew that he was telling the truth then, so I gave him the box.
Once the group of people left, Dali exploded out of the bathroom and exclaimed, “Holy shit, dude! That was awesome! He acted as if he was going to beat you up yesterday, but he was kneeling on the floor begging you today! How did you do it, dude?”
I smiled and shrugged. I had absolutely no idea what was going on. I didn’t ask anyone to cut off the guy’s ear!
At about half past seven, Baldy ran towards my room and I could hear his voice in the hallway long before he reached me.
“Song-ge! Song-ge!” he shouted.
He was indeed uninjured. His face was full of bandages, but it was evidently from the old injuries. The minute he saw me, he knelt down to the floor.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Baldy clasped his hands together in respect and replied, “You saved my life, Song-ge! I don’t know how I could ever repay you. Come on, let me buy you a nice meal!”
He then urged me to go out with him and asked me which restaurant around here was the most expensive one. I pointed to a bun shop, where two bowls of egg drop soup and six meat buns would only cost five yuan.
“You’re kidding me, Song-ge!” he shouted. “I should treat you to a breakfast that costs at least a thousand yuan! You saved my life after all!”
“We’re in a college town, stupid!” I chuckled. “What business would a fancy restaurant have around here? Besides, the buns here are delicious. The fillings are so meaty and juicy—you should try them!”
Baldy obediently took a bite of a bun. Then he asked me, “Which faculty are you studying in, Song-ge?”
“Electronics,” I answered.
Baldy stepped into the middle of the restaurant and shouted, “Everyone listen! Song Yang of the Electronics Faculty is going to buy everyone breakfast. Order whatever you like—Song-ge here will pay for it all!”
The whole place erupted in cheers. Plenty of people got up from their seats to order more soup and buns. Baldy looked on with a wide grin on his face. I never went back to that restaurant after that day, because the shop owner would have such an oleaginous smile on his face whenever he saw me.
Baldy went on to tell me what happened last night animatedly. The old boss’s son was about to kill him, but right at the last second, a shadowy figure came out of nowhere and all the lights were turned off. The next thing he heard was Cao Mou’s piercing scream.
“Do not hurt this man,” he heard a voice say. “Apologize to Song Yang before dawn. Otherwise, you will never see your ear again.”
The lights came back on and all the men were ordered to search the whole place, but the mysterious figure was gone without a trace. Cao Mou was so furious that he was almost going to chop Baldy into pieces and feed him to the fish, but his men stopped him and convinced him that Baldy’s life was not worth his ear.
Baldy asked if I was that shadowy figure. I laughed sheepishly but said nothing. In my mind, I was wildly going through the list of people that I knew to figure out who it could’ve been. Was it one of those people involved in the cases I solved? But no one fit the characteristics that Baldy described.
After breakfast, Baldy offered to take me into the city to have some fun. I refused him repeatedly, to which he replied, “You won’t let me treat you to a nice meal, you won’t accept any of my gifts, and now you say you don’t like going to nightclubs! How can I ever repay you then, Song-ge?”
“Just stay alive!” I answered. “You may be helpful to me in the future.”
“Right!” Baldy thumped his chest. “This life of mine is yours, Song-ge! One word from you and I’ll walk through fire and cross oceans without question, Song-ge!”
Eventually, I managed to send him away. I was dog tired because, first of all, I didn’t sleep at all last night, and second of all, Baldy could be so tiring sometimes. When I returned to my room, I found the dorm warden there waiting for me. She warned me never to invite any hooligans into the dorm ever again and scolded me for the next few minutes. I could only respond with a nod.
After she left, Dali burst into laughter and said, “The gangsters are all afraid of you, you’re afraid of the dorm warden, and then she’s afraid of the gangsters! It’s a complete circle!”
“Shut up!” I spat.
“So, what did you have for breakfast?” he asked.
I climbed into bed and answered, “Just some buns and soup nearby. You know the place. It’s free for all right now, so you should go grab some too.”
I closed my eyes to get some rest, but then a thought flashed in my mind. This person was able to accurately cut off someone’s ear in the dark. Could it be that this person had Cave Vision like me? But Cave Vision was a secret technique that only members of the Song family could learn.
Apart from that, I was an only child, and as far as I knew, Grandpa never mentioned anything about other relatives. As I pondered upon the subject, I drifted off to sleep out of exhaustion.
The few days after that went by uneventfully. Then I received a call from Xiaotao who told me that a new case had just occurred and asked if I wanted to help her with the investigation.
“Did you have to ask?” I responded. “You know I’m always eager to do it!”
“Well, it’s not murder this time. It’s difficult to explain. Why don’t you just come over now?”
I agreed and rushed to the police station with Dali. Xiaotao handed us three envelopes the minute she saw us. They contained the bonus for Dali, Lao Yao, and me for our contributions in solving the murders by Qu Tingting and Chu Yan. We each received more than eight thousand yuan, and I was excited to spend it on new equipment.
Xiaotao then led us to a conference room where we met a policeman aged about forty who introduced himself as Old Zhang. I noticed that one of his buttons was gone. The police had a strict dress code. They could get salary cuts just from the most minor details. Only detectives and those involved in criminal investigations were allowed to wear casual clothes when they were on duty.
I later learned that this button was related to a strange thing that he saw last night.
A woman from the area that Old Zhang patrolled had been reported missing three days ago. The missing woman was an artist and she often went out to the fields alone to get inspiration for her art. She would sometimes be gone for several days at a time, which was why the police didn’t take the report seriously at first.
Last night, Old Zhang was patrolling the area. He wanted to check if the woman had come back. When he got to her house, he noticed that the door was ajar. He pushed it open and saw a thin man standing alone in the room.
The man was about 180 cm tall. He wore a white trench coat, a pair of sunglasses, and was carrying something that looked like a sword in his hand.
Old Zhang was frightened. He realized that this man might be a gangster, so he reached for his taser.
“Police, don’t move!” shouted Old Zhang.
The man swung his sword at Old Zhang just as if he was a samurai in the movies. All he saw was the glint of silver light from the blade, and the man was gone. Old Zhang was then left with a taser that was sliced in half and a missing button.
Then Old Zhang saw the man jump out the window—but they were on the sixth floor!