HHH Chapter 71

Rainy night, desolate ridge, under the lush canopy, a man pale from blood loss and another frantically digging in the soil beneath a tree.

The first pit was nearly half a meter deep, rainwater and mud constantly pouring in, the shovel striking dry soil at the bottom.

“Not here!” Luo Zhe suppressed his frustration. “Where exactly is the Gzi Bead?”

“Under the tree,” Ningma’s head began to spin. Blood loss and low temperature brought an abnormal flush to his face. “I buried it under the tree, you’re digging in the wrong spot, try the other side.”

Luo Zhe climbed out with the shovel, walked two steps to the opposite side of the tree trunk. “Here? Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” each word becoming weaker. “It should be.”

Luo Zhe stared at Ningma, slumped in the wheelbarrow, then stamped on the muddy ground, grabbed the shovel and plunged it in, sending a spray of wet soil around him.

“Tell me about your fiancee,” Ningma shook his head, trying to clear it. “I’m about to fall asleep.”

“You can’t sleep,” Luo Zhe took out a pack of cigarettes, lit two, and stuck one in Ningma’s mouth. “I’ll talk to you, you hang in there. I’ll tell you how they killed my fiancee.”

“Okay,” despite having quit smoking, the sudden rush of nicotine brought by a deep breath was a welcome sensation, sharpening his mind a little. “Go on, I’m listening.”

“Two years ago, it was the same, a weekend with heavy rain, 11 a.m., the same time I was listening to some bullshit conference call with my department head, and my fiancee was checking into this murderous hotel alone with her suitcase.”

Luo Zhe narrated as he dug vigorously, “It’s not uncommon for men to travel alone, but she ran into Tamu, who was covering for Luo Kang. They look very similar, almost indistinguishable at first glance. I think I know both of them, right?”

Ningma weakly nodded, signaling Luo Zhe to continue.

“Tamu saw my fiancee alone and was aroused, initially trying to flirt, but after being rejected, he simply became evil. He had the head chef at the Chinese restaurant put “Jinda” in her food, a hallucinogen concocted with something like local shamanistic magic.”

“That night, Tamu broke into my fiancee’s room with bad intentions, but luckily she was discovered in time and I notified the front desk, and the hotel then sent people to check it out.”

Ningma interrupted, “You remember I said that three people went to the hotel at the time? When they were about to open my fiancee’s room, they found that there was no one else at all, but I just said that Tamu was in the room…”

Luo Zhe turned around and explained, “Yes, three people came at that time, but you forgot that Luo Kang was among them, and Luo Kang knew that Tamu was in the room, so while my fiancee was flustered and went into the room to check, he pretended to be following behind, but actually didn’t go in at all!”

“So, only two went in,” Ningma immediately understood. “Plus Tamu in the room, that’s three people?”

Luo Zhe spat and continued to dig the pit in front of him, “Yes, three people came, two went in, and with the one inside the room, three people left in the end!”

Ningma asked in surprise, “What about Luo Kang?”

“Who knows,” Luo Zhe gripped the shovel handle with both hands and exerted force. “Maybe he was behind the door or in the linen closet or something. The surveillance cameras two years ago weren’t high-definition, and it was night so the lighting was very dim. If he hid until morning and then came out, who would notice?”

“That’s evidence,” Ningma reminded him. “As long as there are surveillance cameras.”

“Useless,” Luo Zhe flung a shovel full of dirt away. “His identity was just a bellhop. With people coming and going in the hotel, you can’t prove anything with a blurry figure alone. Plus, the video shows he already ‘left’.”

“What about later?” Ningma didn’t dwell on it and continued to ask, “What about the second night?”

“The second night,” Luo Zhe took a deep breath. “The food sent to my fiancee’s room was laced with a double dose. And there’s something you definitely don’t know: room 519# is almost never open to the public. Have you ever wondered why? That room is only for dignitaries, celebrities, people who are either rich or powerful.”

“Why?” Ningma shook his head.

“It’s for escape,” Luo Zhe said, looking at the gradually weakening Ningma. “Besides the surveillance cameras inside the room, 519# has a secret passage that leads to the freight elevator. People staying there can leave the hotel quietly if they know how to open it. Similarly, only the night manager knows that 519# has a secret passage.”

“You mean Huang, the night manager?” Ningma asked in surprise, not expecting such a classic room to have such an unexpected use.

“Yes, it’s him. Besides him, there’s also Tamu,” Luo Zhe stared straight at the pit. “That night, he raped my fiancee. I don’t want to imagine everything that happened in the dark. The first time, my fiancee was already half-unconscious from the high dose of hallucinogens, so she could only turn on my phone but couldn’t answer because her brain and tongue were numb.”

“The first time?” Ningma caught the key word. “Tamu came a second time?”

“The first time was at twelve, he went again at three in the morning,” Luo Zhe’s eyes turned red. “Again, my fiancee completely confused what was happening in the hallucinogens and reality. She couldn’t bear it anymore and her mind began to collapse, unable to distinguish between what was real and what was fake. In this situation, a person can only run.”

“And the process of running away will also be subjected to huge psychological pressure, like an addict ingesting more drugs than the body can handle, hallucinations, paranoia, plus physical damage, no one can be sober!”

“So, the video shows her pressing all the floor buttons in the elevator, behaving differently on each floor, and finally chasing, crying and shouting in the basement until she was hoarse and collapsed to the ground, where she was found the next day.”

Ningma also seemed unable to believe it, opened his mouth, but couldn’t say anything.

“She was found the next morning,” Luo Zhe resumed his work, the pit in front of him getting deeper and deeper. “She was sent back to the room and checked out until dusk. I don’t know how she spent her time alone in the room. It must have been full of torment. She didn’t answer my phone. If I’m not mistaken, she wanted to leave the hotel first.”

“But she was found,” Luo Zhe suddenly turned around. “In the last few seconds of the video, Luo Kang gave your fiancee a piece of paper. It was this piece of paper that made her return to the hotel in a way that no normal person would consider possible!”

“What was written on the paper?” Ningma leaned forward and asked eagerly.

Luo Zhe stuck the shovel into the dirt, took out a crumpled piece of black paper from his pocket, and handed it to Ningma. “Read it yourself, I found it on her body.”

The tofu-sized piece of paper was soaked with rain. Carefully opening it revealed words blurred by the rain, very scribbled and messy, like a primary school student’s writing:

“Go to the back wall of the hotel’s central kitchen, and help me kill him!”