633 Who Am I
After the middle-aged woman hung up, she walked ahead. She looked like she had an emergency. After the woman left, Han Fei walked down the corridor.
Someone had purchased the entire basement. The person should be crazy because they had written inexplicable and despairing words on the wall. The smell of Formalin in the air intensified and more blood appeared on the ground. This crime-scene-like basement gave Han Fei a strange familiarity.
‘I’m a comedy actor. Why would I be familiar with the smell of Formalin and crime scenes?’ Then, he remembered the stories he wrote. ‘What kind of person am I?’
Han Fei carefully avoided the bloodstains. A normal person would be frightened in his position. However, as a mental patient, Han Fei didn’t feel afraid when he saw the gore. If anything, he felt more at ease. He was very conflicted with his persona. The more he investigated, the more confused he became. ‘I have no memory of my parents working in the basement… Doctor Fu mentioned the appearance of many nameless corpses around the city, and the man, who called himself my father, is an excellent coroner. Are my parents the crazed murderers? Did I lose my memory after seeing them in action? Or they have been feeding me drugs so that I lose my memory? I have been living with a pair of murderers. They can’t be my parents!’ Regardless, all of the possibilities were scary.
Han Fei didn’t have a concept of parents in his heart at all. That unit didn’t feature in his memory. Different thoughts appeared in his mind. Han Fei walked past the bloodstains and came to the last room in the basement. The door was locked, and blood was seeping through the bottom gap.
“The blood has coagulated. They flowed out of the door when the mother was cleaning the room. So the first crime scene should be inside this room.” Han Fei mumbled to himself. “For blood which is lodged at the gap, one should use chemicals…” Han Fei was shocked by his thought. “Why would I know that?” He had lost his memory, but he still retained his instinct. But his instincts were very strange.
Han Fei covered his hand with his clothes and tried the door. The door was locked. ‘I’m not going to come back to this scary home after I leave, so I need to clarify this before I go.’ Han Fei looked around and found a thin iron wire. He twisted it into a suitable shape and jammed it into the lock. Han Fei just wanted to give it a try. However, his fingers worked on their own, and the lock sprung. Han Fei was in disbelief as he stared at the open door.
A wooden table was placed inside the darkroom. Various scripts and pens were scattered around the table. The table was soaked with blood. There were three shelves behind the table. The first was filled with books, the second was filled with various bottles of specimens, and the last was filled with murder weapons and medicines.
The walls were covered in blossoms of blood.
“Is this the devil’s room? The author worked on his writing while studying the dead bodies?” The scene had been severely damaged. The heavy scent of Formalin and a curious stench lingered in the air. Han Fei slowly moved forward, and he realized with a shock that his body had gotten used to the smell. Normal people might vomit when they were exposed to Formalin, but he only frowned. This meant that he was around Formalin often in the past!
Han Fei walked to the table and picked up the script left on the table.
“The sixth story—the rental tenant. The woman moved into the building in the month of July. Her stomach grew bigger and bigger. Her emotions also frayed. She became agitated and fought with people every night. However, I was curious. She lived alone on the sixth floor. Who was she arguing with?
“The second time I saw her was one month later. She didn’t look too good. She refused to take the elevator. She used the stairs and grumbled endlessly, as she climbed the stairs with her big belly. She refused to interact with anyone. Everyone thought she was crazy so they slowly ignored her.
“The sound of the argument at night grew louder and louder. However, no one knew who she was arguing with. Some speculated she was arguing with the man who abandoned her on the phone, but I believed things were not that simple.
“The third time I saw her was the night before she died.
“That night, I went downstairs for a cigarette run. When I passed by the sixth floor, I heard a commotion from her house. I paused for a moment at the stairwell.
“The woman slowly crawled out of the room. Her face was thin, and her lips moved as she cursed. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Every part of her body was thin except for her bulging stomach.
“I knew then that the woman wasn’t pregnant, and it was not a human inside her womb.”
The complete script was on the table, but Han Fei had a feeling it was not over yet. He glanced at the blood around him. “How did he know it’s not a human inside her stomach?”
Han Fei put down the script, and his heart was chilled. He found the first part of the script in his room, and now the other part was on the wooden table. Didn’t that suggest that he was the owner of this Devil’s Room?
He was familiar with the smell of Formalin and dead bodies. He knew how to clean up crime scenes and lockpicking. When he saw the knives on the shelf, he wanted to grab them. They all pointed towards one thing. Han Fei had lost his memory, but he still retained his amazing observational skill. Cleaning up a crime scene was not something easy. A normal person would have a hard time doing it. However, when Han Fei saw the bloodstain, he immediately came up with a solution to obscure it. ‘I’m so familiar with it. Am I the serial killer?’ Han Fei stood there dazed. This was an impactful discovery. ‘But if I’m the serial killer, why is the couple cleaning the crime scene? Did they discover my crimes and have been using medicine to change me? My parents cleaned up my trails so that I would be given a chance to start again? If that’s true, then they really have my best interest in their hearts but…’ Han Fei gripped his hands. ‘If I’m the killer, I should be punished by the law. That is what I truly believe.’
Han Fei was heavily conflicted. He was like a blank canvas. He wanted to believe in the best version of himself.
Han Fei rolled up his sleeves and pushed the door that led to the inner room. He was very professional. He didn’t leave behind any footprint or handprint. He walked noiselessly too.
The stench was stronger in the inner room. Some costumes were left in this room.
The first costume was an orphanage uniform. It was very old, and it had been cut through many times. Han Fei looked through it, and a ball of paper fell out. It was a page from a script. The handwriting was blurry and hard to read. It was completely different from the other scripts. “Monday, 00.01, a child who escaped from the orphanage died from asphyxiation. I remember how purplish his face was when he died. He struggled until the end. He was like a bird whose wings were broken. I knew he couldn’t fly away from this world because someone had broken his wings.”
The script was bloody, like it was written at the crime scene. “The killer recorded everything after each kill?”
Han Fei looked at the second costume. It was an old doll costume. It was different from the one he wore. It was tighter. There was a ball hidden in the costume too. “On Tuesday night, a young man got off from nightshift. He just finished the theme park’s Ghost Night activity. He wanted to get off work, but he couldn’t take off his costume. He died from asphyxiation. I suspect he was very afraid when he was consumed by darkness. But I’m not afraid anymore.”
Han Fei put away the note and turned to the third costume. It was a clown costume. It was very colorful and came with a mask and a hat. The costume was a perfect fit for Han Fei. Han Fei wanted to look for the note but as he approached, the clown mask fell to the ground. It was quite a scary mask. The smile on the mask was uncanny. Han Fei found the note behind the mask. The handwriting was blood red.
“Sunday nights are very exciting. I like to walk the street alone so that everyone can see my smile. Then I’ll go collect their smiles. All along, I want to be someone who can heal all pain and despair, but I can’t even cure myself. Shush. Don’t look behind the mask. Guess, am I crying or laughing behind the mask?”
The last costume appeared it belonged to Han Fei. He had a feeling he had worn this costume and done many things in it.
‘The people who identify as my parents are too short or too tall for these costumes. So they can’t be the owner of this room.’ Han Fei held his forehead. ‘Am I really the serial killer?’
At that moment, Fu Tian’s mother’s words echoed in his mind. He was reminded of that incident when they met. “No!” Han Fei’s eyes changed. “At least in that woman’s eyes, I am someone who is kind, brave, and not afraid of challenging fate. She believes I’d be the world’s best husband and father. That is the highest praise in the world.”
The things in the room were a huge contrast to the things in the room. Han Fei felt torn apart like half of him was in the light and the other half in the dark.
“Which one is the real me?” Han Fei needed to define himself since he lost his memory. Was he the crazy murderer or an innocent man dragged into this madness?
“Who am I?”
