SES Chapter 123 Part 1

Chapter 123

What kind of person only washes one foot?

Luo Ren thought for a moment. “What if the other foot is a prosthetic?”

Mu Dai didn’t answer. She kept her head down, eating her cold soup dumplings—handing the puzzle over to Luo Ren so he wouldn’t get distracted asking why she’d gone climbing stairs.

But she still had her doubts. Many people with prosthetics take them off in private or when they’re alone. Ding Guohua never left his house—was it really necessary for him to wear his prosthetic all day, even while sleeping?

Luo Ren said, “Maybe it’s not a prosthetic. Maybe he really just has one foot.”

If that were the case, then the inconvenience wouldn’t be too severe. Some people prefer never to take it off, to preserve the illusion of wholeness and find some psychological comfort.

It sounded likea  foot amputation.

But in the Fishing Line Doll case, the people who had been amputated were all dead. And yet…

Mu Dai looked at Luo Ren. “In the later cases we saw, connected to the Murder Bamboo Slips—like that old clam, or the woman in the village—why weren’t their feet cut off after death?”

She wasn’t sure if clams even had feet, but that woman had definitely been buried whole.

Luo Ren said, “That’s easy to explain. Remember, the shaman told us—the Phoenix Buckle’s power was transferred to us.”

Before them, nobody had ever paid attention to the Murder Slips. So the Phoenix Buckle had to punish offenders directly, on its own. In Luo Ren’s view, that punishment was redundant. Once the murderer was already dead, cutting off a foot was nothing more than a hollow declaration.

After they got involved, the hunt for the Murder Slips finally had a proper path.

But it was true—everyone whose foot was amputated had already been dead. So why was Ding Guohua still alive?

Luo Ren raised his head, looking at the darkened sixth-floor window. “Let’s go up and ask him directly.”

After a round of knocking, a light came on inside. Ding Guohua’s voice was impatient. “Who is it?”

There was no peephole, so the only way to check was to open the door.

Luo Ren smiled. “It’s me again.”

Ding Guohua’s face turned sour. He was about to shut the door when Luo Ren braced it with his hand.

“I want to ask you about an HIV diagnosis in Nantian County twenty years ago.”

Ding Guohua snapped, “I told you, I don’t know! Keep harassing me like this and I’ll call the police.”

Luo Ren said quietly, “Isn’t there a patch of skin missing from your back?”

Ding Guohua froze. His lips trembled, and the color drained from his face.

Luo Ren pressed further. “And your left foot—wasn’t it cut off suddenly, so suddenly that even you couldn’t explain who did it?”

The force holding against Luo Ren’s hand on the door weakened.

Luo Ren let go. “I know others like you. Interested in comparing notes?”

After a pause, they heard the security chain sliding loose.

Luo Ren and Mu Dai exchanged a glance, both exhaling softly.

Ding Guohua’s apartment was old-fashioned. A crocheted white tablecloth on the table, a black-and-white television, a thermos painted with peonies.

He shuffled about awkwardly, poured them water into ceramic mugs, then dragged a round stool over to sit across from them, clutching his pants legs nervously.

“You said there are others like me?”

“My uncle. He killed himself. When his body was found, his left foot was gone. His back too—missing a patch of skin, rectangular, shaped like a bamboo slip.”

Ding Guohua’s mouth hung open for a moment before he let out a faint “Oh.”

Luo Ren motioned toward his leg. “How did it happen?”

Ding Guohua gave a bitter smile. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Still, he went on. “I was home, taking a nap. Suddenly, the pain hit—so sharp my whole body seized up. I woke up drenched. At first, I thought I’d wet the bed like a child. But when I pulled back the blanket, the smell of blood hit me in the face. The stump was right there, bone gleaming white through the blood.”

At the time, he had been fighting with his wife. She had stormed off to her mother’s, leaving him alone. The windows were shut, the door was bolted, and the blanket hadn’t even been pulled back. And yet—just like that—his foot was gone.

Luckily, he was a doctor. He knew how to stop the bleeding, tied off his thigh with bandages, and saved himself. The pain was so overwhelming, he barely noticed the itching on his back—he only realized something was wrong days later in the shower.

Luo Ren asked, “Before you took that nap, did anything unusual happen?”

Ding Guohua thought for a moment. “A woman came by… about the HIV diagnosis you’re asking about.”

He described her as unstable—one moment begging him in tears to cure her, the next spitting in his face, kicking his door, and hurling bricks through his windows.

“These patients exist,” he said. “When you can’t cure them, they blame you for everything, and when they can’t vent their anger anywhere else, they take it out on the doctor.”

“That noon, she came to my door again—pounding, shouting. I ignored her, went to bed. Half-asleep, I could still hear her scratching at the door, sobbing.”

Luo Ren’s eyes narrowed. In his experience, when a Murder Slip left one host, the next was often close by. This fit.

Mu Dai suddenly asked, “We looked into you before. There was barely any information. Not a single word about you losing a foot. Nobody else knows?”

Luo Ren was surprised she thought of that—he hadn’t.

Ding Guohua laughed bitterly. “I never told anyone. I treated the wound myself. At first, I took sick leave. Later, when I had to go out, I fitted myself with a fake foot. If people asked why I limped, I said I’d had a bad fall.”

Luo Ren stared at him. “Why keep it secret?”

Ding Guohua’s expression turned dazed. “I don’t know. Around that time… a lot of strange things happened. Losing my foot felt like retribution.”

He struggled to describe the “strange things.” At first, it was little mistakes in diagnosis—like bumping into a patient at the pharmacy window, glancing at his prescription, and advising against a drug… only to discover later he’d been the one to prescribe it.

He thought he was just tired. Told himself: Old Ding, you can’t let your mind slip. One wrong word can cost a life.