Lei Mi - Profiler

As the others quickly tried to smooth things over, Fang Mu grabbed his jacket and backpack and stormed out of the room.

When he was only a few steps down the hall, he heard Deng Linyue call his name. She quickly caught up to him.

"Don't be angry. They didn't mean anything bad by it." As she took his arm, a pleading look flashed through her eyes. "Why don't you stay for a little while?"

He lightly pushed her arm away. "I can't. You guys have fun. Don't stay too late."

He turned and walked away. He didn't look back once.

Unexpectedly, Du Yu was already back in their dorm room. When Fang Mu walked in, Du Yu was leaning back in his chair and talking on the phone, still wearing his garish new Nikes. A half-empty beer bottle was on the desk.

"What are you doing back here?" Fang Mu peeked behind the door. "Where's Zhang Yao?"

Du Yu waved for him to be quiet and listened closely to whoever was on the phone. After a few seconds, he threw it against the desk with a bang, grabbed his beer, and took a huge gulp.

Fang Mu frowned. "What's wrong with you?"

Putting the beer down, Du Yu burped and said, "I'm…I'm fine."

Noticing his roommate's red eyes, Fang Mu asked again, "Seriously, what is it?"

"Man, I don't even know myself," said Du Yu at last. Then, as if he was finally letting something out that he had been holding back a long time, he continued. "Right when we arrived at the karaoke club someone called me, but when I picked up, the person on the other end was silent. Then just as I hung up, they called me again and still didn't say word. While I was standing there confused, Zhang Yao became suspicious and demanded that I tell her what was going on."

Fang Mu laughed. "I'm not surprised. If I were Zhang Yao and I saw someone was calling you that late, and especially on Christmas Eve, I'd be suspicious, too. Not to mention, you do have a wandering eye."

"I swear to God," said Du Yu, talking faster, "I've never done anything to dishonor Zhang Yao."

Fang Mu chuckled. "All right, I believe you. Then what happened?"

"Then she got angry and stormed off. When I tried to stop her, the crazy woman turned around and slapped me across the face." He rubbed his cheek as if it still hurt. "After that I was too pissed off to care, so I ignored her and caught a cab back here."

Fang Mu looked at his watch. It was almost 4 a.m. "Where is she now? Back in her dorm?"

"I don't know; no one's picking up the phone in her dorm room. I called her cell several times, but every time she just hangs up immediately."

Fang Mu smiled. "She's probably just still angry at you. Tomorrow — oh, I mean today — you'd better just humor her."

Du Yu didn't respond directly, just glared at his cell phone and muttered, "This girl, man. Her temper is too goddamn bad, and I normally just put up with it." He kicked his leg out, causing one of his shoes to fly into the corner of the room.

"Jeez, don't take it out on the shoes, man."

Fang Mu was in slippers. He shuffled over and grabbed the shoe. Just as he was about to pass it back to Du Yu, he saw something that made him freeze.

The word "AIR" was written on either side of the shoe in huge letters, and on both sides the designer had very skillfully transformed the shape of the A and the R. On the outer side, the R was placed beside the toe cap, while on the inner side, it had been subtly altered and was sewed by the heel of the shoe in a fluid way that looked extremely well-coordinated.

This meant that the placement of the A and the R was reversed on either side, and through some minute tweaks in their design, the two letters looked very similar.

It made Fang Mu think. Could the right-hand symbol he had seen on the window that night have actually been an R?

R? What was that supposed to mean?

When Du Yu saw that Fang Mu was staring blankly at his shoe, he asked curiously, "What's up?"

Coming back to reality, Fang Mu shook his head and said, "Oh, nothing." Then he tossed the shoe back to Du Yu.

"Jeez, a little softer, please. These are brand new."

This guy, thought Fang Mu. How come it wasn't a problem when he was the one kicking his shoe into the corner of the room?

Smiling to himself, Fang Mu grabbed his washbasin from beneath his bed and headed to the bathroom.

After he finished washing up, he returned to the room to find Du Yu on the phone again.

"Well," he said, "did she pick up?"

"Her phone's off," said Du Yu, tossing his phone on the desk. "What the hell? Where could she have gone?"

"There's nothing to worry about. It's really late; I'm sure she's just asleep." Fang Mu took off his glasses and then hopped in bed and pulled the covers up.

Du Yu didn't seem ready in the least to go to sleep. He just continued to lean back in his chair, staring at his shoes, lost in thought. After a while, he suddenly said, "Fang Mu." His voice was slightly trembling.

"Yeah?"

"You don't think…something happened to her, do you?"

"I don't think so." Fang Mu paused. "People were out all over the city tonight; nothing bad could have happened. You should get some sleep and not worry about it."

Du Yu stood up and walked anxiously around the room several times. Then he once more grabbed his phone and dialed.

"Hey, where'd you run off to…? Oh, Deng Linyue. Did Yaoyao come back yet?… Oh, I see… Yeah, he's here… You want to talk to him?… Oh, okay. Talk to you later."

Du Yu sat heavily at his desk. Without turning around, he said, "Deng Linyue asked if you were back."

"What about Zhang Yao?"

Du Yu didn't say anything.

"Maybe we should go look for her," said Fang Mu, reaching for his pants.

"No way!" yelled Du Yu suddenly. "Let her be an idiot if she wants!" He leapt to his feet, strode over to the door and angrily switched off the light. "Go to sleep!"

At 6:30 in the morning Fang Mu was woken by the sound of his ringing phone. He groggily sat up and reached for it, only to see that Du Yu was still sitting at his desk, phone in hand.

"You didn't sleep at all?" Fang Mu asked.

Du Yu's face was covered with stubble and he looked a lot more haggard. Squinting his eyes, he nodded at Fang Mu.

Fang Mu noticed that Du Yu's other hand was holding his stomach. "What's wrong?"

"My stomach hurts a little. I probably drank too much last night."

Fang Mu climbed out of bed and pulled on his clothes. "Come on. Let's grab some porridge at the dining hall and then find Zhang Yao."

The dining hall was fairly empty. Most people had probably stayed out late the night before and were sleeping in. Fang Mu had Du Yu find them seats while he went and bought them breakfast.

Two girls were standing beside him, scooping tea eggs onto their plates and chatting about the party they'd went to the night before.

When Fang Mu had stacked his tray high with food, he headed back to his table. As he passed the two girls, he happened to hear one of them say, "…It's really strange. It's so cold out today, but for some reason the pool's full of water…"

Fang Mu suddenly slowed his pace, and as he walked toward where Du Yu was sitting, he looked back at the two girls.

Abruptly, he placed his tray on one of the tables beside him and began running for the exit.

R was for river!

The symbol on the left wasn't a q — it was an uppercase G! Water droplets had dripped down the two letters, elongating them, which had made the G look like a q with a line through the middle.

GR. Green River!

The Green River Killer.

As Fang Mu burst out of the dining hall doors, he knocked a male student to the ground, but at this point he no longer cared.

Run! Run! Run!