Who Will Kill Me Tonight? - Chapter 5

The trampled grass suggested something heavy had pressed down over a fairly large area. Cheng Jun crouched beside it and swept his flashlight across the ground for a rough estimate of the impression. It looked like someone had fallen here and gone through a struggle.

He brushed his hand over two broken stalks of grass and found a faint shoeprint blurred by rain. It looked to be about size 40.

Following the traces, his eyes settled on the cement mixer on the construction site. That scorched, acrid smell was coming from there.

No matter how you looked at it, the whole site felt strange. Gravel and sand were scattered about messily as though something had been dragged across the ground. Even at the bare concrete stairway, where water should not have been, there were damp marks.

Cheng Jun walked over to the cement mixer and noticed splatters of cement on the ground. Operating a machine like this in heavy rain had clearly short-circuited the system and burned out the wiring.

In the cold beam of his flashlight, the spilled cement trailed forward, where two distinct drag marks were pressed into the muddy gravel.

Switching the flashlight to his other hand, Cheng Jun blew warm breath onto his stiff fingers, then followed the vehicle marks. There was a large pit dug for the foundation just ahead, and rainwater had turned the area around into a swamp of mud. A tractor sat not far away.

As he approached the pit, Cheng Jun noticed the soil had been deliberately disturbed. Fresh traces of cement clung to the earth, and at the edge, a mound bulged slightly, with some gray cement peeking through.

Had someone buried something here? A broken mixer, scattered cement, and this mound of earth—what was the connection?

Cheng Jun jumped down. His boot sank a little into the mud, and the slippery ground almost made him fall. Luckily, he trained every day and had a good sense of balance. He promptly took two steps back to steady himself.

The beam of his flashlight swept across and caught a scrap of red fabric stained with cement. The fabric looked quite thick. He remembered Yuan Li saying that the girl was wearing a red hoodie, and a sudden, bad feeling seized Cheng Jun.

He used his bare hand to dig at a patch of dirt, only to uncover more fragments of red fabric along with denim material. The soil had been intentionally packed thick and tamped down firmly by someone. Digging like this by hand would take far too long.

Cheng Jun immediately climbed back out, found a shovel on the site, and quickly returned to the foundation pit. Holding the flashlight in his mouth, he carefully used the shovel to remove the soil, not daring to dig too deep. After about five or six shovelfuls, the shovel scraped against something soft. He froze.

There was no way he could risk pushing the shovel any farther. Instead, he went to his knees and brushed the dirt away with his hands.

Slowly, a pale arm covered in mud came into view. Though the arm was cold, it still held a trace of warmth, suggesting life.

Panic sharpened Cheng Jun’s focus. He carved through the soil with his hands afraid the shovel might injure the person beneath. He traced along the length of the arm, searching for the head’s location. He needed to dig her out as quickly as possible to prevent suffocation.

At that moment, time was of the essence. He had no time to worry about the rough mud tearing his hands. Although his hands were covered in calluses from training, the mud was mixed with cement and gravel, and after only a short time of digging, his hands had already started to feel hot and painful.

At last, he broke through and uncovered a face—familiar, yet strangely unfamiliar at the same time.

The girl’s eyes were shut tight, her face was smeared with mud and black hair matted against her skin. Though unconscious, he could see her breaths becoming increasingly heavier, as though her body was greedily trying to take in as much air as possible.

Cheng Jun breathed a sigh of relief, but he didn’t dare to leave the girl there. Even if digging her out suddenly risked complications like crush syndrome, he had to get her out quickly.

The night was bitterly cold. Even in his thick police-issue winter uniform, the chill cut into Cheng Jun’s exposed skin. But the girl was completely bare. Her lips were already purple from cold, and her eyelids were thin as paper, giving off an air of extreme fragility. She had a very ordinary face; one could call it plain at best.

Yet on such a dark night, lying in the wet earth, she appeared haunting. Her body was stained with mud, and her sleeping face stirred a sense of sorrow.

It only made her appear more ghostlike.

Cheng Jun dug the girl out completely. At this point, he couldn’t care about propriety. He quickly stripped off his coat and wrapped her snuggly within it. Then, holding her tightly with one arm, he climbed his way out with the other.

It was only then he realized how excessively thin and frail she was. She was almost weightless, as though air itself might carry her away.

He sprinted to the patrol car, switched on the heater, and soon warmth spread through the vehicle.

The girl curled within the heavy black coat, her long pale legs exposed, and black hair dripping muddy water across the seat. In that moment, her frailty was unbearable to witness. It was a sight that only evoked pity.

To be buried alive…what she had suffered was cruel beyond words. Had he been any later, she would have met her end.

Cheng Jun called Shao Qilu and told him he was heading to the hospital. He had found the person, but she was not conscious and needed to be checked at a hospital. He also told him that there were no wounds on her abdomen.

It seemed Feng Zijian, in his panic, had only assumed he stabbed Liang Jing. In truth, she had no such injury. Her body bore only minor scrapes from gravel and soil, no knife wound, and no bleeding at all.

The whole case now reeked of strangeness. Who had Liang Jing encountered at this site? Who would bury an innocent girl alive in such a brutal manner?

If she had seen the killer of bus 702, this could be a lead. He called the station and ordered the site to be investigated immediately. Even if fingerprints had been washed away, there must still be traces left behind.

As for the answers, he would have to wait for Liang Jing to wake up.

Perhaps because she had warmed up, the girl curled up in the police coat stirred as the car drove on. Her lashes trembled, then she slowly opened her eyes. What lingered in them was terror.

That look of raw panic, despair, and agony of someone dragged to the very edge of death pierced Cheng Jun like a blade as he glanced at her through the rearview mirror.

Cheng Jun wanted to ask her something, but the words stuck in his throat. He couldn’t bring himself to say anything.

What could he ask a girl who had just crawled back from death? Ask her to relive the nightmare?