Ji Yongtao thought he had heard it wrong: Where?
Telephone: Yunnan Road...
Ji Yongtao: No, nightclub?
Phone: Yes, Xu Fei is in the nightclub and has been checked. Come quickly.
Ji Yongtao hung up the phone and was stunned for a long time before he was sure that he was not dreaming.
There was a police car parked outside the nightclub, and all activities inside had stopped, but the music was still playing, a deafening song by Zhang Qiang.
Xu Fei sat in a private room, flanked by two disciplinary officers. Ji Yongtao hurried in: "Hello, comrade, here, a cigarette..."
He smoked a circle and calmed down a little.
The glass coffee table in the private room was laden with wine, and two hostesses in suspenders and blue eyeshadow squatted beside it. Ji Yongtao nervously checked: Was the door closed or open?
Disciplinary Officer: The door is open.
Ji Yongtao breathed a sigh of relief. The nature of the investigation was vastly different between being investigated behind closed doors and being investigated openly.
Disciplinary Officer: It's like this. Recently, some universities have reported that certain nightclubs are accepting students for entertainment during the summer vacation, corrupting them. So, we've also conducted an investigation. Tonight, we found out that Xu Fei couldn't produce proof of employment, and he admitted to being a student at University A.
Ji Yongtao: Have you notified the school?
The disciplinary officer shook the cigarette in his hand: No, he said his brother is Comrade Ji from the brigade, so he asked someone in the system to contact you to verify the situation.
Ji Yongtao took the initiative to hold the other person's hand: Thank you for pulling the student out of the wrong path in time. I will educate him well when I go back and ensure that there will be no next time!
Chu Jiajun muttered: I have grown up...
Ji Yongtao yelled: Shut up!
After the disciplinary officers left, Ji Yongtao asked the two drinking companions to leave and sat down on the sofa tiredly.
Ji Yongtao: Let's go back and deal with you.
Chu Jiajun refused to leave.
Ji Yongtao: Drinking and looking for someone to drink with you, do you know what hooliganism is?
Chu Jiajun: I know, he's just being a hooligan.
Ji Yongtao: You know how dare you?! Do you still want to read this book?! I think you don't want to read it!
Ji Yongtao wanted to pull him up: "Buy me a ticket tomorrow and get out! I can't support you anymore! Lying, going to nightclubs, looking for a hostess, drinking—do you even look like a student?!"
Chu Jiajun refused to get up: You spend all day chasing bank robbers, have you ever cared about me?
Outside the box, other guests gathered curiously.
Chu Jiajun: How did I take care of you when you were in the hospital? I was always by your side! Your injuries haven't healed yet, and you're chasing those bank robbers all day. Are you trying to get yourself killed?!
Ji Yongtao: My job is to chase after people like that. Why wouldn't I chase after them? Should we just starve together?!
Chu Jiajun: They're just a few bank robbers, aren't you going to stop them? They rob as they please, what's it to you? There are so many bank robbers across the country every day, the newspapers can barely keep up. Can you catch them all?
A guest outside couldn't help but laugh softly, but was silenced by Ji Yongtao's glare.
Ji Yongtao: There is something wrong with what you said. Have you drunk too much?
Chu Jiajun's eyes were red and his speech was a little slurred, obviously he had been drinking.
Ji Yongtao looked at the pile of wine bottles on the table: How much did you drink...
Chu Jiajun held a half-full bottle of wine: "Don't worry about me! If I drink myself to death, it's my own business! Maybe one day I'll hear that you're dead..."
Ji Yongtao calmed down a little, sat back next to him, and picked up a bottle of foreign liquor with only the bottom left and shook it: You can't come to the nightclub either.
Chu Jiajun: I am an adult, why can't adults come?
Several drunken guests outside cheered him on: "Yeah! Adults should come to nightclubs!"
Ji Yongtao slammed the table and said, "Which unit, which name! Come back with me to the bureau to check my identity!"
The guests outside scattered like birds and beasts.
Ji Yongtao turned around and comforted him: "You're still studying. Wait until you enter the workforce before coming to a place like this." Besides, what's so fun about this place? It's only for entrepreneurs who come here to socialize. What are you doing here? Who are you socializing with?
Chu Jiajun smiled with red eyes, fell on the sofa holding the bottle of wine, and almost passed out from drunkenness.
The nightclub manager came and peeked in at the door.
Ji Yongtao: You're the manager, right? I'll help him pay for the drinks...
Manager: No, no, no!
Ji Yongtao: Yes, yes. How much?
Manager: Oh, he drank it himself, plus he treated everyone else to drinks...
Ji Yongtao: What?
Manager: He treated everyone in the restaurant to drinks. He opened dozens of bottles of Remy Martin... Here's the bill.
Manager: Thirty-seven thousand six hundred and sixty-seven and eighty, I'll round off the decimal for you, thirty-seven thousand...
Ji Yongtao stuffed the huge sum of one hundred yuan back into the money with his hand, expressionless: I will not pursue the matter of you letting college students into the entertainment club this time, and there must not be a next time.
He dragged Chu Jiajun out. As he was being dragged up, Chu Jiajun used his toes to hook a black briefcase from under the sofa and kicked it silently to the manager's feet.
As they passed by the manager, her drunken eyes stared at the man quietly for two seconds, and everything was said without words; after they left, the manager put away the briefcase full of money without saying a word.
-
Chu Jiajun was so drunk that he couldn't walk, and Ji Yongtao couldn't force him onto the motorcycle.
Chu Jiajun: Just stay here tonight...
Ji Yongtao: How can I live here?
The manager smiled at the door: Yes, you can stay overnight. You can sleep in the box for a while and wait for this classmate... comrade to wake up a little before leaving.
In the private room, the pile of empty bottles hadn't been cleared away. The hostesses leaned against the corridor, smoking, putting on makeup, and humming Fei Xiang's songs. The two men returned to the private room and collapsed onto the large black leather sofa.
The light above kept changing color—Chu Jiajun's fingers were tampering with the colorful light switches on the wall. Ji Yongtao grabbed his hand, and he used his other hand to touch it, until he had to use both hands to grab it.
Ji Yongtao picked up the bottle and took a sip: Are you still making trouble?
Chu Jiajun said nothing and just looked at him quietly.
Ji Yongtao lay down beside him and said, "Don't worry, I'll be fine. The fortune teller said I can live past my sixties."
Ji Yongtao: If I work hard now, we might be able to have a big house... Don't you like those? Like the villa on Huaihai Middle Road...
Chu Jiajun: You don't have to work so hard.
Ji Yongtao laughed: "Then we need to change our approach. We need to flatter the boss and learn how to write reports. We can write about buying onions, ginger and garlic as "using personal ability to promote the progress of the fruit and vegetable trade and retail industry in South China"... Damn, isn't that Liu Weide...?"
Ji Yongtao sighed: Someone has to do the work.
Chu Jiajun: Yes, if you don't do it, there are others who will.
Ji Yongtao: Where do so many "others" come from?... You'll understand when you start working. Everyone has to do their part well. Xiaofei, what do you want to do in the future?
Chu Jiajun: Banking industry.
Ji Yongtao frowned: "Isn't the professional gap a bit too wide? Do you understand banking?"
Chu Jiajun laughed.
Ji Yongtao: Besides banking, what else do you do?
Chu Jiajun looked at him under the flashing colorful lights: I can also perform magic tricks.
He reached into Ji Yongtao's pocket and felt for his wallet and cigarettes. Chu Jiajun pulled out a hundred-yuan note, put the cigarette between his lips, struck a match, and lit the note.
Just like Chow Yun-fat's classic scene in the movie, he lit a cigarette with the sparks from the burning banknotes.
Ji Yongtao was a little drunk and smiled bitterly: You burned one-third of my monthly allowance, and then what?
Then, Chu Jiajun took out a hundred-yuan bill from his pocket and stuffed it into his collar.
Chu Jiajun: Do you want to see more? Can I change it again for you?
Just like that, one, two, three banknotes were burned... The ground was covered with the ashes of burnt banknotes, which were blown by the air conditioner like flying butterflies.
Ji Yongtao fell into a deep sleep in the slightly cool room.
-
At some point, he woke up.
Still in the private room, still on the sofa, still with the constantly flickering lights...
A man stood in front of the sofa, looking at him quietly.
Flashing lights continuously fell on the figure. At that moment, this figure overlapped with the one in my memory—the parking lot, the flashing lights, the mask…
Before he could regain his senses, Ji Yongtao pounced on him, grabbed his throat tightly, and dragged him down; the man also grabbed Ji Yongtao's neck and fought back, but only for a few seconds -
The hands that were pinching his neck became gentle and soft, sliding down his neck, outlining the outline of his Adam's apple.
Ji Yongtao sobered up and looked at the person who was pressed under him, his innocent eyes filled with tears...
Brother Yong, what's wrong with you?
The man asked.
He let go of his hand.
I mistook you for someone else...
Who is it?
...a bad guy.
Is it really bad? So bad that you want to kill me?
He is not a human being, he is an evil ghost and cannot be left outside.
As soon as the sun comes out, the evil spirits will disappear on their own.
When the sun comes out, the evil ghost will put on human skin. When the moon comes out, it will turn back into a ghost.
Do I look like its human skin?
The coffee table that was knocked over due to the pulling tilted down, and the various glass wine bottles on it poured down like a galaxy, falling on them and then rolling to the ground.
Chu Jiajun curled up under him and fell asleep, with wine flowing all over the floor and soaking her long black hair.
In this suffocating and oppressive posture, the two indulged themselves again.
-
It was half past five and the sky was just beginning to light.
He took Xu Fei home, pushing the motorcycle, and the two walked slowly along the river bank.
Xu Fei was still drunk and walked unsteadily, like a propped-up human skin frame, dancing in the wind.
He took a wrong step and rolled down the slope of the river bank and fell into the shallow water of the Ai Ya River.
Ji Yongtao stood on the bank, leaning against his motorcycle as he watched his miserable state, laughing heartily. Chu Jiajun stood in the mud, retching the remaining wine into the river.
Ji Yongtao was halfway laughing when suddenly a ball of mud hit his face - Chu Jiajun dug a ball of mud from the river bank and threw it in his face.
Ji Yongtao: Bah, it went into my mouth...
Another ball hit his face. This time, it was Chu Jiajun standing in the water, laughing non-stop.
His laughter didn't last long. Ji Yongtao, who was on the riverbank, threw his motorcycle into the water, dragging him down with him into the mud. They were in a mess, fighting and pulling each other. Chu Jiajun smiled and begged for mercy: "I won't do it again! I won't do it again!"
A few early risers on their way to the farmers' market passed by, watching and laughing. They played around for a while, then washed themselves briefly in the river. On the other side, under the bridge, four children, on their way to their morning classes, were also playing in the water, poking at something with sticks.
Child: He's a dead person!
Chu Jiajun smiled and pulled his wet clothes over and waded through the water: Are you dead?
Child: It's all turned white!
The children weren't afraid of the dead body; they gathered around with great interest. While Ji Yongtao was getting dressed, he told Chu Jiajun to chase them away: "I'll report this to the unit. You just stay nearby and watch over them so they don't actually mess with the body."
Child: There's more than one! There's another one without arms in the mud under the bridge!
Ji Yongtao: Don't move, wait for the adults to come and clean up.
Gradually, more and more people crossed the bridge. They were used to seeing the dead floating in the water, and at most they would scold the children and tell them to get out of the way. Chu Jiajun felt his way over to the bridge, and before the young men could, he used a branch to hook the floating corpse out.
Seeing that it was the "thing" he had lost, he boredly threw the branch away and let it float back.
The people who came to collect the bodies came quickly and set up a cordon at the entrance of the bridge. Ji Yongtao told him to go home and not to worry about it.
Someone shouted: Brother Yong, something is wrong, there is still a lot of mud under the mud!
Ji Yongtao: More than two?
Investigator: We dug up another one! That makes five now!
More and more people gathered, and more and more objects covered with white cloth appeared on the ground. Nearly fifteen more bodies were dug out from under the mud on several other riverbanks.
They were all missing limbs, like sparrows eaten by wild cats.
-
In a western-style restaurant, Chen Xiaohu was eating a steak. His hair had been shaved into a buzz cut in prison, making him look even more sturdy.
Fang Ping also arrived. He was driving a new car with a woman in it. The two of them laughed and joked at the door for a while before he got out of the car and asked her to drive back.
Ever since she'd introduced Chu Jiajun to that job and escaped from the Jinyang Hotel, Fang Ping had felt a sense of pride and success. She changed into an imported windbreaker and donned sunglasses, and as she walked through the door, a strong scent of cologne followed.
Fang Ping: Big brother, this time we really made a gold exhibition. Damn, it's rich! That's gold! The purest gold in the whole South!
Fang Ping paced back and forth excitedly, rubbing her hands together: "I want to move to a bigger house, so I can have a big ballroom..."
Chu Jiajun chuckled. Chen Xiaohu glanced at him with disgust and continued eating.
Chu Jiajun: After you complete this mission, you can all be the big brothers in the underworld, right, Brother Hu?
He poked Chen Xiaohu's shoulder with his finger, but the young man didn't respond.
Fang Ping was very excited. He used to get drunk all day, talk about doing big things, and become the laughing stock of the underground dance hall. Recently, he had turned his life around with Chu Jiajun. As soon as he sat down in the dance hall, several people rushed to light his cigarette.
A while ago, Chu Jiajun said that he would look more like his elder brother if he grew his hair longer. Fang Ping remembered it and deliberately grew her hair longer so that she could tie it into a small braid.
The South China Gold Exhibition was held at the new Convention and Exhibition Center on Huaihai Road. Chu Jiajun had chosen it as his target because of the postponed jewelry exhibition.
Although it has been postponed, the venue has not changed and it should still be held at a high-star hotel.
Gaoxing Hotel is 780 meters away from the Convention and Exhibition Hall on Huaihai Road, and is connected to the main road.
Exhibitions at the Gaoxing Guest House are very peaceful - every time an exhibition is held, iron fences are placed on the main cross road next to it, one parking space is left, and vehicles are allowed to pass in turn.
Chu Jiajun sometimes went swimming in the Ai Ya River after dinner. The wastewater outlet was very wide and was the main drainage pipe of the city.
The outlet of this main drainage pipe is not blocked.
It can accommodate an adult.
Fang Ping twisted his body in the restaurant. In his heart, he was sure that this operation would succeed. Although several impromptu robberies had failed before, Chu Jiajun could also lead them to escape.
This time we have better equipment and more sophisticated planning, and victory is certain.
Room screen: Big house! Big brother! Remy Martin!
Chu Jiajun sat on the table and twisted his body a few times: Yeah yeah yeah!
Chen Xiaohu remained silent.
Chu Jiajun spent two hours explaining the general plan of their infiltration and escape route. Chen Xiaohu remained silent the entire time.
After Fang Ping left, he was alone with Chu Jiajun, and he said bitterly: He and we are not the same kind of people.
Chu Jiajun: Oh? Who are we?
Chen Xiaohu: That's how we live. What about him? He wants to be a good person once he's made enough money! On this path, if you mess around for a day, you mess around for a lifetime. How can you ever quit?
Chu Jiajun squinted his eyes and leaned forward: "You are absolutely right. I despise the way he lives."
Chu Jiajun reached out and rubbed Chen Xiaohu's head: That's why you can become a real big brother.
Chu Jiajun: Do you know that this gold exhibition is my final exam for you?
Chu Jiajun: This is a final exam, a drill. A jewelry exhibition requires the coordination of several teams, so you need to be able to work independently.
Chen Xiaohu's eyes sparkled. "I will, Brother Chu, you're my idol! I grew up listening to your stories! My dad always envied Marshal Tianpeng for having such a capable godson, saying he could do anything. I wasn't convinced at first, but after seeing so many of your cases, I really admire you!"
Chen Xiaohu: Bro, I noticed you live in Ai Ya River. You're so cool! That's the police officer community!
Chu Jiajun: Well, I'll just stay wherever I want. It's not that I want to live here, I just want to find a place to stay.
Chen Xiaohu: Aren't you afraid because there are police officers all around you?
Chu Jiajun: What are you afraid of? I haven't had any...
Before he finished speaking, Chu Jiajun's copier rang. It was Ji Yongtao paging him.
Ji Yongtao: Where are you?! You're not allowed to stay outside anymore, go home immediately!
-
The floor of the room was filled with body bags.
Judging from the number that can be found so far, there are twenty-seven, but the number is still increasing.
The discovery was made on August 27th, during summer vacation. By September 3rd, a total of 45 bodies had been found.
Some news leaked out from the inside.
The body was frozen, parts of the body were chopped off, and then thrown into the Aiya River, where it sank.
In City A, there's a cannibal. Maybe it's Chu Jiajun.
The investigation into Chu Jiajun has reached a strange dead end.
A strict citywide inspection is in place. With two permits required for outsiders to stay in the city, no unidentified individuals will be allowed in hotels, rental homes, inns, or nightclubs. In places where accommodation is permitted, any sighting of single or group males with unusual schedules, unemployed individuals, or lavish spending will be reported immediately.
Although some reports were received, none of them were found.
This is quite contradictory. First, based on the investigations conducted by Li Village at the time, it's unlikely that Chu Jiajun had any relatives stranded outside the village—at least relatives capable of taking him in. But now, looking at this man's strange whereabouts, it seems likely that he was being harbored by relatives and friends, providing him with a safe identity.