44 The King of Dogs Among Dogs

When I saw Zheng Wei standing at the doorway, repeating that phrase, “Where is the Dog King?”, I was utterly stunned, frozen in disbelief. Was this “dead man” trying to send me a message?

Panic surged through me, and suddenly, Jin Ze’s words echoed in my mind—ghosts are merely the evil harbored in people’s hearts. So I tried to approach the situation rationally, from a scientific perspective. There were only two possibilities: either this wasn’t Zheng Wei, or Zheng Wei hadn’t died after all.

As soon as this thought occurred to me, another idea flashed through my mind: Zheng Wei’s head. Yes, that’s right, we all seemed to have overlooked a crucial detail—the whereabouts of Zheng Wei’s head. Among all the recent murders—Chen Mengying, Liu Yang, Chen Jing, Zhang Wentong, Liu Qinglong—the victims’ heads had all passed through my hands, either shipped out or delivered by me. Only Zheng Wei’s head was never accounted for. Was this merely an oversight by the killer, or was there a deeper purpose?

Suddenly, another word surfaced in my mind: feigned death. What if Zheng Wei was never really dead? Miao Miao said that day he died of suffocation, but I’d heard of cases of apparent death in medical literature. Clinically, people in a state of apparent death show no signs of life, unless checked by advanced equipment capable of detecting faint vital signs. But that day, I saw Miao Miao examine him—she only felt for a pulse, and immediately declared Zheng Wei dead, without any further examination, merely promising an autopsy that I never heard any results from.

Thinking back, Miao Miao’s assessment was indeed rather hasty. A terrifying thought gripped me: what if Zheng Wei was the mastermind behind it all? He could have staged his death as a cover, his “corpse” lying in the morgue. After all, who would ever suspect a dead man? Zheng Wei had every opportunity—he was intimately familiar with the police station, his “body” could have been stored with those of Zhang Wentong and the others, making it easy for him to steal the heads. As an insider, he had connections within the department; for all I knew, half the station could have been bought off by him. Even Miao Miao might have been complicit. And his apartment was right above mine—surely no mere coincidence. Everything seemed intertwined, and Zheng Wei truly had motive and means.

The only thing I couldn’t figure out was: if Zheng Wei was the real culprit, why didn’t he save his wife, Chen Jing? But for someone so deranged, perhaps a woman didn’t mean much to him.

I opened my mouth, wanting to speak to him. Whatever the truth, he was trying to communicate with me, so I had to respond, to see what he really wanted.

But as soon as I tried, I found I couldn’t utter a sound. Darkness closed in, and I lost consciousness. As I slipped under, that question—“Where is the Dog King?”—kept echoing in my ears.

I don’t know how much time passed before I came to. My mind was foggy. I opened my eyes on instinct and saw Fang Qinghe and Jin Ze there with me.

I wasn’t in my holding cell, but in another room that looked like a surveillance control center.

Seeing me awake, Fang Qinghe immediately asked, “Chen Mu, how do you feel? Are you able to talk?”

I nodded, then quickly said, “Someone tried to hurt me—what happened? Zheng Wei—I saw Zheng Wei! You should investigate him!”

Fang Qinghe motioned for me to calm down, telling me to watch some surveillance footage first. Jin Ze queued up the video and played it for me.

It was a recording from my detention room. Jin Ze obviously didn’t want to waste time, so he started the playback from the moment He Ping brought my father in.

Having lived through it myself, I was familiar with the scene. I explained to them, “That’s my father. He works in Guangzhou. I have no idea how he knew I was detained. Did the police contact him?”

Jin Ze said they hadn’t, which raised the possibility of a mole in the station. Since He Ping brought my father, suspicion naturally fell on him.

The footage moved on to the part where I hid the note in the lotus root cake. I knew Fang Qinghe and the others would catch this, so I debated whether to mention it, but given what happened later, I decided to come clean. After all, I wasn’t even sure the note had come from my father.

So, before Jin Ze could ask, I explained the contents of the note and told them, “My father would never harm me. He’s just an honest worker—he probably had no idea.”

Jin Ze nodded and kept watching. Next came the scene where Zheng Wei appeared at the door, repeating, “Where is the Dog King?”

At that point, Jin Ze switched to another video—footage from the corridor outside my room. What I saw left me stunned.

Two figures appeared at the end of the hall. At first, I thought it was two people, but soon realized it was one person—or, more accurately, one and a half.

One was He Ping, and in his arms he carried half a corpse—the upper half of Zheng Wei, from chest to head. He Ping crouched outside my door, hunched low to avoid being seen, pried open Zheng Wei’s eyelids, and positioned the corpse outside the barred window, making it look as if Zheng Wei was standing at the door.

Then He Ping pinched his throat and, mimicking a voice, said, “Where is the Dog King?”

In a flash, I understood. Damn, so that was it—I’d concocted all those theories about Zheng Wei being the mastermind, scaring myself senseless with my own imagination.

But a string of questions arose: Why would He Ping want to terrify me like this? Was he really the mole?

I turned to Jin Ze. “He Ping—is he the traitor? Where is he now? Have you caught him? Why do this—what’s the point? Isn’t he exposing himself?”

Jin Ze replied, “Watch the next segment and you’ll understand. Someone put a sedative in your food—it’s not poison, but it’s extremely calming and has mild hallucinogenic effects. They wanted you to fall into a deep sleep, possibly to induce a state of sleepwalking. The note that said, ‘Where is the Dog King?’ and the repetitive chanting of that question—it was all a kind of hypnosis. They wanted that phrase embedded in your subconscious, so that during sleepwalking, you’d respond to it. The odds aren’t high, but they succeeded.”

I only half-understood. “They succeeded at what? So the point was to make me remember that phrase while sleepwalking? It was all hypnosis? At first, I thought it was some secret signal.”

As I spoke, Jin Ze rewound the footage to my detention room. Watching what happened next, despite being mentally prepared, I shivered uncontrollably. I was deeply unsettled by what I saw.

I was passed out on the bed, and after about ten minutes, I suddenly sat bolt upright, zombie-like, and jumped down. I stood there motionless, eyes fixed unblinkingly on a corner of the room—though there was nothing there, I stared as if transfixed.

Suddenly, I broke into an eerie, twisted grin. My own smile sent a chill down my spine.

In the footage, I then walked to the door, pressed my head against the bars, and seemed to go berserk.

I shouted into the hallway, “The Dog King is in the dog! The Dog King is in the dog! The Dog King is in the dog...”

I looked utterly deranged. Watching myself in that state, I was horrified. I never imagined I’d behave like that while sleepwalking—maybe it was the drugs.

At this point, Fang Qinghe came over and asked, “Chen Mu, I know you don’t remember what happened while you were sleepwalking, but think carefully—what could those words mean?”

I racked my brains, a sharp pain shooting through my skull, probably from the lingering effects of the drug.

Suddenly, it was as if a hammer struck my mind, and an idea burst forth.

I immediately turned to Fang Qinghe and said, “The Dog King is in the dog. Dog King, dog, the Mastiff Park, Tibetan mastiff, Liu Snake.”