Temporary Calm

A month after Tang Sui's body was found, Hui Nan still came to work every day. New teachers had arrived to fill the vacancies. The four remaining teachers of Class 4, Grade 4 were Zhai Jia, Zhu Hua, Hui Nan, and Zhang Yao.

For a whole month, the campus had been strangely peaceful. No more deaths. No strange incidents. The teachers had started out with only the most cautious optimism. Now it was beginning to feel as though the case had truly ended. But however much they tried to believe it, a deep fear still lived inside each of them. Until the police closed the case officially, that fear would not go away.

The police were no less eager to close it than anyone. Detective Wu Xian wanted to close it more than anyone. With an ordinary murder case, he would have wrapped things up long ago. What made this one different was that among the victims was the son of the deputy public security director.

To close the case, every loose end had to be resolved: how had the killer driven Huang Lu into the stairwell in her sleeping clothes in the middle of the night; how had the killer poisoned Xiao Jin's food; why had the killer stolen Wang Qin's body, and where was it now?

The case had dragged on for a month. For the surviving teachers, especially someone as psychologically fragile as Zhai Jia, the strain was immense. Every day spent in a state of excessive tension had made her erratic and suspicious. It was wearing her down, and beginning to affect the people around her. Her boyfriend, a man called A Cheng who shared an apartment with her, was growing deeply frustrated. Many times Zhai Jia shook him awake in the middle of the night to check whether the door was locked, whether the window was shut, or to listen to whether footsteps were coming from outside. A Cheng drove a taxi; he couldn't afford to sleep badly before a shift, so eventually he switched to nights — sleeping during the day while Zhai Jia was at school, and going out to work when she came home in the evenings. As a result, Zhai Jia was frequently alone in the apartment. Being alone was terrifying to her — danger could come at any moment, and she had no way to fight it. Every night was spent in fear. Until one day, something happened.

That evening after work Zhai Jia came home to find A Cheng already gone for his shift. She cooked something for herself and sat alone on a chair, working the colorful bead bracelet on her wrist. Nothing felt worth doing.

Ding-dong, ding-dong. The intercom buzzed with urgency. The gatekeeper's voice crackled through: "Package for A Cheng."

"Send it up," Zhai Jia said listlessly.

A few minutes later, a delivery man appeared at her door. Tall, face covered by a mask, baseball cap pulled low — so low she couldn't make out his eyes. The delivery man held out a red envelope, handed it to her, then produced a form: "Sign here." The voice came muffled through the mask, but Zhai Jia found it oddly familiar — she couldn't place who it reminded her of.

Zhai Jia signed. The delivery man turned and left. Zhai Jia stared hard at his back as he walked down the corridor. She was growing more and more certain this was someone she had known before. She searched through her memory. He reached the stairwell landing, turned sideways, and disappeared. In the moment she caught his profile, a vague figure in her memory suddenly snapped into focus: this man looked like the dead Jia Shi.