Pang must have taken Lou for a new client. Puncturing the clock probably meant half an hour or an hour, Lou supposed, but he did not have to guess about “puncturing the hole” or “playing the jade flute.”

Lou took out his badge. “Take me to Room 135.”

Startled like a wakened sleepwalker, Pang tried in vain to convince the cop that no one was there. When they arrived at the room in question, the door was locked, with no light coming out of it. At Lou’s insistence, the night manager took out a key, opened the door, and turned on the light.

The light outlined a sordid scene. On a sofa bed lay two naked bodies, their legs still entwined like fried dough sticks. A middle-aged man with gray-streaked hair and long hairy limbs slept next to a young girl, thin, ill-developed, perhaps only seventeen or eighteen, with slack breasts and a broad patch of black hair over her groin. The room stank of sex and other suspicious odors. The glaring light failed to wake them up.

Walking over to the bed with a frown, Lou shoved the man on the shoulder. When the man showed no sign of response, Lou leaned down and was shocked to find him dead. The girl slept on, a luscious smile playing on her lips, her hand resting on his cold belly.

A more stunning discovery came to Lou. The dead man was none other than Detective Hua Ting, the head of the special case squad of the Fujian Police. Impulsively, Lou grabbed a blanket to cover the body before he pulled back the dead man’s eyelid-a bloodshot eye stared back at him with an unfathomable message. The corneas were not exactly opaque, which suggested that the death was recent. He turned to pick up Hua’s clothing, which was scattered on the ground, and felt something bulging in the pants pocket. It was a pack of cigarettes, Flying Horse.