“Those who are going to visit the hospitals,” Huang Xiaotao ordered, “please also find out more about this strange blood-sucking disease.”
“Wait!” I interjected. “I want to visit all the major orphanages in Nanjiang City.”
“Why?” asked Huang Xiaotao.
“Well, this is just my speculation,” I said. “If there are no officers available to accompany me, I can go alone. But you’ll have to provide me an official document as proof that I’m working with the police.”
“Never mind, I’ll go with you,” said Huang Xiaotao. She then ended the meeting and let everyone go on about their tasks.
Dali and I were soon in Huang Xiaotao’s car. She looked up locations of orphanages in Nanjiang City on the GPS.
“The nearest one is the Loving Welfare Home,” she said. “Let's go there and take a look.”
“Okay!” I chirped. “I’m going to take a short nap. I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.” After that, I put the front passenger seat down and soon fell asleep.
The next thing I knew, I heard Huang Xiaotao’s voice.
“Get up, we’re here.”
I opened my eyes and saw a white building covered with green vines outside the car window. The sign that said ‘Loving Welfare Home’ was hung on the door at the courtyard. I yawned, then felt grateful that I took a nap because I was much more refreshed now.
Huang Xiaotao took a wet wipe out of her purse and handed it to me so I could wipe my face. I thanked her.
As I was wiping my face I said, “You police officers really are hard working. You must get very little sleep. How can your skin stay so nice and clear?”
Huang Xiaotao opened the glove compartment and I saw a lot of facial masks inside.
“When I do get to sleep, I’ll cover my face with hydrating masks!” she said.
“Whoa, these are all imported brand facial masks, you usually spend a lot of money like it’s no big deal at all. You do come from a rich family, don’t you?” I looked at all the luxury brand masks that must’ve cost hundreds of yuan, and I was completely stunned.
“It’s a secret!” she whispered with a naughty smile. “Let's get going! Hey, Dali…”
I heard snoring coming from the back seat. When we turned around, Dali was lying in the back seat, sleeping soundly. Huang Xiaotao was ready to wake him up, but I stopped her.
“Never mind, let him sleep,” I said. “Let’s go check this orphanage. I’m not confident that we’ll find anything in the first place we look.”
We walked into the orphanage and asked the person in charge if there was a child with very pale skin, afraid of the sun, and had no body hair. The person in charge led us to the medical office to find a thick medical record file. After reading it, we finally decided that there was never such a child here. We left and thanked the staff there.
“Why do you think the murderer used to be in an orphanage?”
“I can't tell you for now,” I said. “There are probably a few more orphanages in Nanjiang City. I’ll tell you when we’ve visited all of them.”
“And if we find nothing?” Huang Xiaotao asked.
“I’ll treat you to a meal,” I said.
Huang Xiaotao sneered, “A meal paid by a poor student like you?”
“It would be my honor to treat a beautiful woman to a meal,” I said with a faint smile on my face.
We soon went to three more orphanages, but found nothing. Luckily, Huang Xiaotao drove her own car. If it had been just me and Dali, we’d spend most of the time just waiting for the bus.
At noon, Huang Xiaotao drove to a drive-thru and ordered two set meals. As she was ordering, Dali suddenly sat up and said, “I want fried chicken wings and a large Coke with lots of ice.”
Huang Xiaotao glared at him and snapped, “How do you wake up so easily when it’s time to eat?”
“That’s how my biological clock works,” replied Dali with a wide grin. “No matter how late I slept last night, I would always wake up when it’s lunch time the next day. Aren’t I amazing, Xiaotao-jiejie?”
“You’re no different from a pig!” said Huang Xiaotao. She then asked the waitress for another set meal.
After we finished eating, Huang Xiaotao searched on the GPS again.
“Song Yang, there’s only one orphanage left in Nanjiang City,” she said. “You better decide where we’re going to have dinner because you’re paying if we don’t find anything here either.”
“Okay!” I nodded.
“Food stalls by the street don’t satisfy me, you know,” she added with a smirk. “So you’d better be prepared to dig deep into your wallet!”
After more than an hour, we came to the last orphanage. It was called the Sacred Heart Orphanage. The location of this orphanage was relatively rural, and it looked like a church that stood alone in a birch forest. The place was quiet and peaceful, and there was a big white cross on the spire of the building.
“Is it a church?” Dali asked.
“I remember that this orphanage receives donations by Christians in Nanjiang City. That’s why it was built this way,” Huang Xiaotao explained.
We pushed the door into the orphanage. The courtyard was quiet, and leaves fell from the birch trees next to the road like a gentle rain.
There was a nun sitting in the doorway, knitting a sweater. When we came in, she asked who we were looking for. Huang Xiaotao explained everything to her and the nun immediately gasped.
“Oh, I remember a child who was just as you described!”
I exchanged a look with Huang Xiaotao. We’ve come to the right place!
The nun said that the child was adopted twenty years ago. At that time, he was only seven years old. Because he looked strange and was afraid of the sun, several nuns, pastors, and the director himself had heated arguments about him, suggesting that he was probably a demon child and that they should not have taken him in. Yet, the kind dean resolutely opposed it. He said that even if he was a demon child, the glory of God would influence him and he would be led to the path of faith and virtue.
This child seldom ate any food. He would never touch food such as milk, meat, and peanuts. He had a bony face, and was as thin as a rake. He was in that state of malnutrition for a long time. He fainted once, and a nun injected nutrients into his body, but unfortunately that injection almost killed him. He developed a layer of blisters all over his body. He kept wailing in pain on the ground and it frightened everyone.
There was something frightening about the child. When the nun was checking the garden one night, she found that all the chickens in the chicken coop had died. She thought that a weasel had snuck in, but instead saw that child in the chicken coop, blood still dripping from his mouth, and his eyes were even glowing like an animal! She was so terrified that she almost lost her wits!
Because of this incident, the child was confined for three days, but he was born with an extremely introverted personality, so the confinement was not really a punishment for him. In fact, he even preferred to stay in the dark room.
Later, he even bit a nun on her neck, almost killing her. Everyone felt that they couldn't endure it any more, and threatened to stop working there if the director did not take the child away. Some people even said that the child was a descendant of Cain and should be left under the sun to die.
The dean vehemently disagreed. He said that the child should be pitied, not hated. If he was driven out, he was afraid that he would not survive a single day. He also said that when God exiled Cain, he said that 'Everyone who kills Cain will be punished seven times over.' If this child was indeed a descendant of Cain, killing him would definitely bring on a curse!
So, the director took the child to the atonement room, educated him all day, and used the Bible to influence him.
The director was a compassionate person. He had always been a saint in everyone’s eyes. Eventually, even this child changed under the director’s influence. Since then, he never bit anyone again, although everyone was on guard and extra cautious when he was around, and he was not allowed to go too close to the other children.
That was until he was eighteen years old when he escaped from the orphanage, and then nothing was heard of him again. For the staff in the orphanage, it was as if this nightmare was finally over.
After listening to the aunt's narrative, I am certain that this person was the murderer we were looking for!
“What is his name? And do you have any other details about him?” Huang Xiaotao asked.
“No, I don't know much about him,” said the nun. “But I can take you to the director if you like.”
“Yes, please!” said Huang Xiaotao. “That would be so helpful of you!”
On the way, Dali suddenly asked me, “Dude, what the hell does the descendant of Cain mean?”
“Cain is a figure in the Bible,” I explained. “According to legends, he was the ancestor of all vampires. So, Count Dracula, the Vampire Queen, and all the other vampires are said to be the descendants of Cain.”