After breakfast, Leo and Li Biqing decided to go to the church in town.
According to the information provided by the county police, before Bellely's return, both daughters were adopted in the orphanage set up in the church, and they were taken care of by a priest named Bai Yisi. Bellaire is now detained as a suspect, and her youngest daughter Debi is still raised by the priest.
"Father Bai Yisi? Are you familiar with him?" the federal agent asked the county police officer.
"Yes, he has served in the church in this small town for almost 20 years." The other party replied, "I have never seen a priest who is more pious than him, living a simple life and being kind to others. In his eyes, every child is an angel. , So I'm not tired of the tedious affairs of the orphanage."
"Sounds like a saint." The Chinese boy commented in a low voice.
The federal agent shrugged: "I don't deny that there are real saints, but this year, the ratio of villains to saints is like the lake where you swim and the cup of coffee in my hand."
"How can it be such an exaggeration." Li Biqing smiled, "We might as well visit the priest and talk to Debi by the way-can you, Leo?"
The black-haired agent nodded, looking calm.
The only Catholic church in the town is located on the outskirts, near the forest, old and quiet.
When they found Father Bai Yisi, the 40-year-old gray-haired man was half-kneeling on the floor, listening intently to a three or four-year-old black boy stumblingly describing his painting.
"What is this... whale? Yes, it looks a little skinny, do you want to feed it... small fish? Yes, it eats those... you want to eat too? No problem, I will explain to Sister Emma, Shall we have fried fish tonight..."
Leo stepped forward and said, "Father—"
"Please wait a minute." The priest replied without looking up, and continued to whisper to the children until he left with the drawing book contentedly, and then got up and said to Leo: "Sorry, if you don't let the children think about it. After saying that, they will be very lost... What can you do with me?"
Federal agents and his companions looked at the priest: his face is slightly longer, his forehead is broad, his gray-blue eyes are deep and clear, and his body is a little thin. Under the old and clean black robe, he looks like a tall bamboo. Looks like a respectable elder.
Leo showed his credentials, "We are here for Renee's case. I heard that her sister was adopted by the church's orphanage?"
Father Bai Yisi showed a look of disapproval, "Debi is only a five-year-old child, I don't think I can help the FBI."
"How do you know if you don't try?" the agent asked back, "Are you worried about that child? I promise that we will try our best to adopt a gentle method and will not irritate her."
Father Bai Yisi hesitated for a moment, and reluctantly agreed, "Come with me, I will take you to her room." He turned his head and walked and said, "You can let me stay in the room when you ask questions. Are you here? I'm afraid this child will admit his birth."
"No problem," the agent said.
When Leo and Li Biqing saw Debi, she was sitting on the carpet next to the small bed, playing with an old radio and tape recorder. The tape recorder is in the shape of a pink bunny. The tips of the two ears have been polished away from the paint, and one side is cracked. It looks like a girl's toys and collections for many years.
Li Biqing felt that Leo's muscles were stiff the moment he saw her. He calmly put his palm on the opponent's waist and stroked it encouragingly.
No matter what happens, I am by your side.
Leo knew the meaning of this action, and the nervous and anxious nerves that began to miraculously eased. He stopped three meters away from the little girl, hesitated, and took another step forward. Li Biqing passed him, squatted down in front of the little girl, and asked in a gentle and brisk tone: "Hi, Debi, what are you playing with?"
The little girl looked up at him, seemingly not interested in answering at all, and then lowered her head to fiddle with the buttons on the radio.
There is no sound from the radio.
"The rabbit is so cute, but I think it is hungry and has no energy to sing." Li Biqing said to her.
Debi stopped and looked up at him again. "She, not it." She corrected it with a stress, and then asked, "What does she like to eat? Carrots?"
"No, I think she likes to eat batteries." Li Biqing gave him a wink, motioned him to get the battery, and then took out something from his trouser pocket, which is a puppet that can be put in his hand to play a talking game. A big furry raccoon. This is what he bought from the toy store on his way to the church to coax the children. "In addition, she feels very lonely and needs a partner to play with her while you sleep. What do you think of this raccoon, he is a great boy!"
Debi took the blue raccoon from him and asked the pink rabbit: "Do you like him, Renee?"
Li Biqing said in surprise: "Rennie? Isn't this your sister's name?"
"She said she likes it, but she can't play with him." Debi said to herself, throwing away the raccoon puppet and holding the pink bunny radio into her arms. "Mom will beat her."
Li Biqing pondered the information revealed in the childish words and asked cautiously: "Does my mother often beat Renee?"
"Yes, hit her, slap her, sometimes with branches."
"why?"
"Mom said she was bad, a bad girl."
"What do you think? Do you also think Renee is a bad girl?"
"I don't know." Debi thought for a while, and said, "Renee will scream at me, hit me on the head, and sometimes buy me candy and donuts, half good and half bad."
"Where did she get the money for sugar and donuts, did my mother give it?"
"I don't know, mom won't give us money." Debi seemed to find it a little boring, and she refused to speak again after she said it.
It seems that she doesn't want to mention her mother, so she has to find another entry point, Li Biqing thought. He pointed to the long ears of the bunny radio: "You said she was Renee? Is she your sister?"
Debi looked at him strangely, as if thinking the question was really silly, "She's a rabbit." The little girl said quietly, "But Renee sang in the rabbit."
"Rennie... singing in the rabbit? What do you mean?" Li Biqing asked.
"She likes that song, she often hums." Debi said.
After thinking about it, Li Biqing didn't understand the ambiguous sentence, so he turned to the subject and asked, "Does Renee have any friends? Apart from you and mother, who else does she often stay with?"
Debi looked up at Father Bai Yisi who was standing in the corner of the room.
"Oh, I know, the priest has adopted you for more than two years, except for the priest?"
"I don't know." The little girl said listlessly, and she used her nails to pick the keys of the recorder, making a faint creaking noise.
Father Bai Yisi, who had been very quiet, stepped forward and said, "Sorry, I think you have asked enough. This poor child doesn't know anything. She only remembers mother and sister hitting her. I believe time can wash away. Go away from bad memories, but the premise is not to keep people from mentioning the past in front of her."
At this moment Leo walked into the room and brought a few batteries. Li Biqing took it and handed it to Debi: "Do you want to feed the rabbit something?"
The little girl nodded.
He put the battery into the old radio and cassette player, and then pressed the play button.
The mini-tape turned up, hissing softly, like a moan of wounded time fragments, and then a piece of music floated out, accompanied by a slow and strong drumbeat, which at first sounded a bit like church music, a low and ethereal mezzo-soprano , With poetic piety, holy and spiritual. But Li Biqing always felt something was wrong.
After listening for a while, he suddenly discovered that the tune was full of indescribable gloom. No, it's not just gloom, it's darkness, solemnity, depression, fear, it's a secret wound, a moan of mourning, a tremor of the soul, like a pale long-haired ghost wandering among the tombstones, dripping Cold tears, singing funeral songs that hurt people's hearts...
"You lie, silent there before me
Your tears, they mean nothing to me
The wind, howling at the window
The love, you never gave, I give to you, Really don't deserve it
but now, there's nothing you can do
So sleep in your only memory
And weep, my dearest mother
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes, goodbye
It was always you that I despised
I don't feel enough for you cry, on my
Here's a lullaby to close your eyes, goodbye, goodbye...
In any case, this is not a song that a nine-year-old girl should listen to.
Li Biqing seemed to be stabbed by a needle, and suddenly pressed the stop button.
"... Is this the song Renee likes?" he asked Debby.
The little girl nodded.
"This song... sounds very evil," Father Bai Yisi frowned deeply, "especially the phrase'Farewell', like the whisper of a ghost."
Li Biqing opened the cassette door, took out the small piece of tape, and said to the priest: "I want to borrow this tape. Can I return it in a few days?"
The priest replied: "As long as its owner agrees."
Li Biqing turned around and asked the little girl: "I want to hear Renee sing, can you lend it to me?"
Debi stared at him with big baby blue eyes, "Renee doesn't like to be heard. Mom will beat her when she knows."
"I hid and listened secretly, and promised not to be known by others, nor will my mother know."
"… you promise?"
"Yes," Li Biqing pulled over the expressionless Leo and showed her the badge pin on the inside of the suit, "in the name of the police."
"Well, trust the police, adults say that." Debi lowered her head, reached into the raccoon puppet, and began to play with her new toy.
"Excuse me, sorry." Li Biqing nodded to Father Bai Yisi, and the two said goodbye politely.
It wasn't until he walked out of the church that Li Biqing felt the black-haired agent's tight body relax a little bit. He took the other's arm with concern, "Are you okay, Leo?"
"Fortunately, it's easier than I thought." Leo grinned reluctantly, "I try not to look at her face."
Li Biqing hugged him and patted his back comfortingly, "Slowly he will get better, until you are completely relieved."
Leo returned with a tighter hug, buried his face in the hair of the Chinese boy's ear, and greedily smelled his body odor-it was the most effective tranquilizer and a seductive psychedelic.
At this time, the cell phone in the pocket rang unpleasantly.
Leo delayed for at least half a minute before letting go and took out his phone to answer. Soon he ended the call and said to Li Biqing: "It's Eden. There is news from the search team that there are no fresh corpses at the bottom of the lake except for four old bones. Those four people's bodies and nearby There was nothing suspicious in the silt, they suspected that they drowned accidentally."
"In other words, there is only one victim like Renee?" Li Biqing murmured with her eyebrows raised in thought, "No, it doesn't fit my guess..."
Leo deliberated and tried his best to choose a statement that would not hit him: "Maybe, the murderer has only killed Renee so far? It is not ruled out that he has other targets, but he has not had time to start..."
Li Biqing thought, but didn't talk.
Leo was annoyed that he couldn't make his words more pleasurable, and he pulled him into the car. "Anyway, the clue looks completely broken. Although we believe that Bellély did not kill her daughter, we can't provide any real evidence. , The court will not win the trust, we can only continue to work hard, hoping to find some clues about the murderer."
"... I want to listen to this tape carefully." Li Biqing sat in the car and was silent for a long time before suddenly speaking.
"No problem, I will buy a radio cassette player when I pass by the electronics store later," the agent said.
Back at the hotel, Li Biqing stuffed the tape into the newly bought radio and cassette player, pressed the play button, and the gloomy and secretive singing once again floated in the room.
Leo used his laptop to search the Internet and quickly found information about the song.
"The title of the song is "Room of Angel". It is an episode of a horror game. The lyrics should express the complicated mood of a child abandoned by his mother when facing the deceased mother. On the one hand, she has always ignored her mother. , Repulsed, abandoned her and felt hatred; on the other hand, she loved her deeply, even though she thought her mother had never loved herself. She presented a lullaby to her mother to send her away, but at the same time, she would not She shed a tear."
Li Biqing groaned: "Actually, it is not the mother who died, but the daughter... Renee loved listening to this song during her lifetime, and it is likely that she found emotional resonance from it. Regrettably, this precocious girl treated Bellely That kind of complicated love-hate relationship may never be noticed by that mentally problematic mother."
Leo didn't speak, the topic made him feel heavy.
The repeatedly chanted song is nearing its end, and the two seem to be trapped in the secluded state it created. Until the song is over, only the idling sound of the tape hissing is left, and they remain silent.
I don’t know how long it took, maybe five or six minutes. Just as Li Biqing got up to turn off the radio, some faint and weird sound suddenly came out from the stereo...
Li Biqing was startled.
"—What sound is this?"
Leo pressed his ear to listen carefully, "... The sound of footsteps is almost inaudible. And... the bell?"
Li Biqing nodded, "It doesn't sound like ordinary bells. It is an old-fashioned, big one, similar to a bronze bell in a temple?"
"... It's the church bell! I just noticed that the Catholic church has a tall bell tower with a pavilion-like top, with a metal alarm clock hanging from it. Visually, it's probably more than one meter high. This should be It's the sound of the hammer hitting the big clock." Leo said.
"In other words, the latter part is actually a recording? The location is in the church. Was Renee recorded it? Why?"
"It's still not clear, listen again."
Then there was another silence.
The two listened patiently until the rustling footsteps sounded again, and the footsteps began to reverberate with the creak of the rusty door shaft. They could almost imagine the scene: Renee wearing a black dress uniformly distributed by the orphanage, hugging a radio tape recorder in the shape of a pink rabbit, ghostly drifting across the atrium and corridor of the church, opening a rarely opened door, and walking in. A narrow, reverberating space—that might be a staircase leading to the cellar. She was a little curious, a little nervous, and a little scared. She held the rabbit tightly with her fingers, and accidentally pressed the record button...
Then there was a long silence.
Suddenly, a strong footstep suddenly pierced the silence, as if the dusted mirror was knocked down by a miss, and smashed to pieces-the sound of hurried running and rapid gasping were recorded extremely clearly and faithfully on the rotating tape. The drum beat generally strikes the listener's heartstrings.
Renee, what frightened her and made her run suddenly in panic? Or did she peek into the secret that scared her
The two listened very carefully with their ears erected, but all the sound stopped abruptly, the play button automatically jumped up, and the tape ended.
Leo and Li Biqing looked at each other and saw that each other's eyes were filled with confusion and determination to explore.
"... It seems that we need to go to church again."
"But if you go directly like this, I'm afraid you won't be able to detect anything. Unless you apply for a court search warrant, but I think if the suspect is the only Catholic church in the town that is known for its pious and conservative, then it might not be easy to do."
"Do you know that there is an idiom called'Dark Chen Cang'." The Chinese boy said.
The federal agent slowly laughed: "It sounds unruly, boy, but you have always been in this style."
Li Biqing smiled and asked, "What about you?"
"I only do what I think is right-but you, stay in the hotel for me honestly."
"Want to leave me alone, no way!"
"I can also handcuff you to the bed rail."
"Come on, let's do this again!" Li Biqing said dissatisfiedly, "It's just a church, not Longtan Tiger Den. What is the danger? You have to let me follow, otherwise..."
"Otherwise?" The black-haired agent narrowed his eyes dangerously.
"Otherwise I will feel very, very boring, maybe I will call a group of strippers to come to the room to have a party or something... Oh, don't think I dare to do it, if Jasmine finds out, I will tell her, in fact, I I wanted to go to church to cleanse my soul, but her brother resolutely refused, so I had to fall." The boy said slyly.
"...Well, you won. But you have to follow me and follow the instructions." Leo compromised helplessly.
The winner shouted happily: "Yes, sir!"