77 A Murder Game Meant to Divert Attention

White Night said he wanted to play a game with me, then tipped out a whole sackful of mangled corpses, and I froze on the spot.

But I was no longer the ordinary Chen Mu I had once been. I was playing the part of a depraved maniac. So I steadied myself, glanced down at the pile of remains with a look of practiced indifference, and said to him, “White Night, so you know already?”

By “know,” I meant my memories had returned.

White Night looked at me. He did not answer at once, only watched me in silence. The pure moonlight fell across his face, lending him an eerie, seductive beauty, like the flawless and exquisite vampire prince from a film.

I knew he was probably probing me, sizing me up, so I gazed back at him just as quietly. For a few fleeting moments I almost wanted to flinch, but then I thought of how I might once have brutally killed so many people, and my heart turned cold. I no longer cared very much whether I lived or died, so I simply stared at White Night with eyes as dead as a corpse.

Soon White Night withdrew his gaze and said, “A-Mu, I know everything now. This is the real you. White Night welcomes the king’s return.”

I did not answer. Instead, I lowered my eyes to the remains at my feet. I knew White Night had not brought a sack of body parts for no reason. Since he had carried this ghastly thing here, he must have had an intent. The so-called game he mentioned was surely meant to test me, to see whether I had truly recovered.

So I began thinking at once. Soon I had an idea. From the materials Professor He had given me, I knew I had a perverse taste for dismembering and stitching corpses together, a habit formed in childhood. I clearly remembered the video in which I reassembled the cooked body of an infant.

Thus I said directly to White Night, “If there’s a game, then let’s begin.”

As soon as I finished speaking, I quickly crouched down beside the heap of remains. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a trace of genuine amusement flicker across White Night’s face, and I knew I had gambled correctly. The game was to reassemble the corpse from the severed pieces.

White Night crouched as well. Without the slightest hesitation, he plunged his long, slender hand into the pile and soon pulled out half a head.

The skull had been split from top to bottom through the crown, so with one half of a human head in his hand, splashed with blood, I could not tell who it was.

But when White Night quickly selected the other half and fitted the two pieces together, I recognized it at once. It was Little Liu, the officer who had once followed me when I was sleepwalking.

I had already suspected that Little Liu might have met with misfortune, but after learning that everything was under Fang Qinghe’s control, I had come to think Little Liu might still be alive, because Jin Ze had said Fang Qinghe would never move against one of his own.

So even now, seeing Little Liu’s corpse, I was still shaken to the core. Had Fang Qinghe truly resolved to go all in only after learning that an officer had been killed? Was Little Liu really killed by me? Or had Fang Qinghe become so ruthless that he was willing to sacrifice a police officer’s life to frame me and force me to cooperate as an undercover agent?

As those doubts surged through my mind, White Night caught the look in my eyes. He immediately said, “A-Mu, it seems you can’t remember the scene of killing this officer. So you still haven’t fully recovered. Still, this time I’ll believe you, because I saw with my own eyes the way you tortured him to death.”

Only after hearing White Night say that did I realize I had truly gone evil once.

But I could not let White Night take the lead. The files said that although he and I were close partners, he was also my subordinate. I could not let him lead me by the nose, or I would give myself away.

So I whipped my head around and said to him, “White Night, mind your place, and mind your tone when you speak to me. I’m back, so do not address me again in that doubtful way. It will make me unhappy.”

My tactic worked surprisingly well. White Night was not angered by my coldness. On the contrary, his expression softened, and he looked quite pleased, almost as though he enjoyed being mistreated. The harsher I was to him, the happier he seemed.

In that magnetic voice of his, he murmured, “Yes, Master.”

Yet even in that voice there was not only deference; faintly, I could detect a hint of mockery. I could tell our relationship had likely been even closer than I had imagined.

So I said no more and quickly began sorting through the remains beside me.

In truth, I had no memory of such a depraved game, but last night I had forcibly implanted many memories of the deranged Chen Mu into my mind, so I was still able to sort out another corpse in short order.

Yes, the remains White Night had poured out belonged to two bodies. White Night assembled Officer Little Liu, while I put together the other corpse.

I had pieced together this person’s head, but I did not know him. I did not know the owner of the body, nor did I know where White Night had obtained these remains.

But I did not ask aloud. I was afraid that if I asked too much, White Night would begin to doubt me again.

And I truly did have some talent for this. Very soon I found the arms, abdomen, buttocks, thighs, feet, and various other severed parts among the heap and slowly assembled the whole body. But because these were the remains of two men, getting the right body back together was still quite difficult.

Still, I was clever enough. I followed closely behind White Night, waiting until he had picked up a matching part before I took the other piece of the same kind. In this way, I was only just a little slower than him.

In the end, after about five minutes, White Night finished reassembling Little Liu’s corpse, though it was missing the right hand, which had earlier been in my pocket and taken away by the police.

Right behind him, I also finished assembling the other male corpse.

White Night was preparing to sew the bodies together, but I suddenly stood up and said, “The game is over. There’s no need to stitch them. Let’s talk about what we should do next.”

With that, I kicked the plastic bag I had brought, sending out Fang Lin’s head, and said to White Night, “I’ve already killed Fang Lin, and I brought her head with me. It’s time to end this killing game. But since it’s been a long time since I touched this game, and I’ve only just recovered myself, I still can’t recall the whole thing clearly. So as for what comes next, you’ll decide for now.”

As I said it, I was still somewhat uneasy, because I felt I might have acted too hastily. Fortunately, White Night did not show any suspicion toward me. Perhaps he was hiding his own feelings as well.

He merely looked at me and asked, “You don’t know who this corpse is?”

I glanced at the body and asked back, “Who is it?”

White Night said flatly, “This is Scars’ guardian, something like the relationship between you and me.”

I froze at that and hurriedly asked, “Why did you kill him? That is forbidden by the organization. The killing game is not over, and yet we have killed our opponent. We will be judged for this!”

As soon as I finished, White Night suddenly turned to look at me, then said, “A-Mu, it seems you really have forgotten. Did you really think this was just a simple killing game?”

I went still, my heart leaping into my throat. Instinct told me the real crux was coming. Perhaps this was the very reason Fang Qinghe had sent me undercover. The killing game was not merely a depraved pastime. Behind it lay some earthshaking secret.

So I looked at White Night and said, “There isn’t much time. I need the truth. Finish the task as quickly as possible and get out of here. We must already be under police surveillance.”

Whether White Night truly trusted me or not, I could not tell, but he said directly, “Does Scars really think he is worthy of being our opponent? He is only a sparring partner for this killing game. On the surface, it looks like a competition, but in truth the people Scars killed were merely there for cover. Everyone, including the police, and even the Dawn organization, believes we are using a killing game to hunt down their members. But they do not know that this is not a simple game. Although both Scars and the people we killed are members of Dawn, the ones we killed are the real prize. Every person we killed carried Dawn’s secrets within their body, secrets the victims themselves never even knew! We cut off heads, tongues, and so on to display our cruelty and perversity, and to score points in the contest, but in reality we were taking something important from within them. That was merely a cover.”

Listening to White Night, I almost blurted out a question about what those secrets were, but I held back. I could not appear too eager or impatient.

At last I understood why every case had seemed so bloody and depraved, why heads had to be sent and all that. It had all been a façade. The truth was that something important was hidden inside the victims’ bodies. Just like the first time, in the police station’s autopsy room, when the organs of the gender-swapped corpse had been emptied out. Something had indeed been taken, but not, as Jin Ze had analyzed, something unfavorable to the killer. It was a secret connected to Dawn. The murderer had killed in pursuit of that secret.

Then what, aside from organs, had been taken from the victims?

I was nearly frantic, but White Night simply would not tell me.

He only said, “A-Mu, it is not that you have forgotten these secrets. When the organization assigned this killing game, they did not tell you. But they did tell me. They instructed me to tell you the truth at the proper time, and I think now is not yet the proper time.”

I immediately asked, “Isn’t the killing game almost over? Then when will you tell me?”

White Night said, “After you kill Scars.”