Sweeping Mouse Ridge – Chapter One : 2

One December morning, after the “Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case” was solved, the author of this book invited his old friend Hu Yanyun to go to Sweeping Mouse Ridge to recount the events leading up to and from this thrilling case. Upon hearing my request, he didn’t immediately agree, only saying, “It’s been a long time since we last met; let’s go for a walk on the ridge.”

We met at Cherry Street subway station. He still had a youthful, baby-faced appearance; though thirty years old, he looked only in his early twenties. He wore a short, black Korean-style down jacket, a stylish white cashmere scarf around his neck, and dark blue skinny jeans. He looked energetic and capable, his eyes as clear as ever, though a faint sadness lingered between his brows. I thought, perhaps he hadn’t yet recovered from the bizarre case from over a month ago.

We exited the subway at Exit A and waited for the bus in front of the West Suburbs Municipal Engineering Company. The bus arrived shortly after. We sat side by side in the back double seat. As the car started moving, I saw a small, yellowish-brown hill flash by outside the right window. On the hill stood a gray water tower, shaped like an upside-down grenade propped up on a mound of earth. This scenery, so different from the city, gave me a sudden feeling that the Sweeping Mouse Ridge Case, compared to the cases Hu Yanyun had previously solved, possessed a completely different aura—a unique aura of the urban-rural fringe: cruel, rugged, wild, and filthy, like a half-human, half-monster, its upper body a grotesque expanse of rural life, its lower body a bizarre and repulsive urban landscape.

The bus slowly made its way along Yinlu Street. Each stop was short, and the street was fairly clean, lined with buildings that still retained a semblance of civility, such as a China Mobile branch, an insurance company, a Jinjiang Inn, and a Wumart supermarket. However, as it approached Qingshikou East Lane, the road suddenly narrowed, like tapering trousers, with many gaps appearing in the pavement. The number of multi-story buildings decreased, while the number of single-story houses increased, many with large, twelve-pane windows typical of the 1950s and 60s. The iron railings outside the windows were rusty, and various unidentifiable weeds grew in the cracks between the bricks…

“Stop’s here.” The bus stopped, and Hu Yanyun suddenly pulled me aside.

“We haven’t reached our stop yet,” I said. “The next stop is Sweeping Mouse Ridge.”

“Get off!” He swiped his bus card without further ado, and I could only smile wryly and follow him off the bus.

We stood at the head of a white marble balustrade bridge, beneath which stretched the wide Wuding River irrigation canal. The canal, running east to west, was completely dry, revealing only gray-black frozen soil and glittering ice crystals in the sunlight. At the westernmost end of the canal, nestled in a hillside, stood a square, bluish-gray building with regularly spaced holes. Hu Yanyun told me that it was the Qingshikou Hydropower Station, built in 1964. After crossing the road, we walked west along the north bank of the canal. The entire path was a steep uphill slope covered with uneven igneous or granite blocks. In particularly steep sections, there were one or two steplike stone slabs; stepping on them made the entire hillside feel like it was swaying. To our right were rows of low brick houses, rising steeply up the slope, their roofs covered in black tarpaulin. The scent of spearmint mouthwash wafted slowly down the ditch. Several people wearing red armbands were gathered at the doorway of one house, talking to a woman inside who was wearing purple thermal underwear and shivering from the cold. Beside her stood a little girl, her cheeks as rough and red as her cotton-padded coat, munching on a piece of corn.

“This place, ‘Sweeping Mouse Ridge,’ can be seen as the southern extension of the Western Hills. Look at the mountain range; here, the Western Hills show a clear downward slope,” said Hu Yanyun, pointing to the gently curving hillside in the distance. “After the Liaowu Academy was completed, Dou Yunhu was deeply moved and wrote an article to commemorate it. However, he didn’t mention the academy at all, but instead vividly described the scenic beauty of the Western Hills. Some of the phrases are particularly exquisite: ‘The morning bell tolls several times, roosting birds cry in disarray, and suddenly the window paper is brightly lit, gradually turning a deep red. Pushing open the door, one sees: on the ridge, the first rays of dawn appear, the verdant peaks seem to drip with moisture, clear and bright as if washed, the surrounding peaks appearing as if in a grand salute; below the ridge, thousands of houses stand still, smoke rising from chimneys, people standing, and occasionally a dog barks, heard from afar but silent nearby…'”

Unfortunately, a black dog confined in an aluminum alloy enclosure suddenly barked angrily at us, unleashing a chorus of barking like a street brawl across the entire mountain ridge. This completely ruined the ancient elegance of a century ago, much to the dismay of Hu Yanyun, who was indulging in nostalgic reflections. We chatted as we walked, and before we knew it, we reached the summit. Standing beside a white sign that read “Forest Fire Prevention is Everyone’s Responsibility,” I was slightly out of breath. Here was a flat concrete area, surrounded by bare jujube and locust trees, with birdcages hanging from them. Warblers, larks, and other birds hopped and chirped, while several old men sat quietly around a stone table playing cards.

After resting for a while, we continued on. Several tall high-voltage power line towers, resembling miniature versions of the Eiffel Tower, appeared on the ridge. The dense and tangled wires connecting them sliced ​​the already gloomy sky into black-framed photographs, blocking our path upwards. So we turned north, walking down a sloping concrete road. After a few steps, we came to a narrow alley less than ten meters wide, running east to west. Perhaps because the school building to the south blocked the sunlight, the alley was unusually deserted, completely empty. Long, lead-gray walls, about two meters high, lined both sides of the alley. Behind the southern wall was Sweeping Mouse Ridge Middle School, and behind the northern wall was—

Hu Yanyun noticed my question and nodded, saying, “Sweeping Mouse Ridge Station is inside.”

There wasn’t the usual chilling wind that emanates from a suspense novel at this moment, but I felt a chill run down my spine. Even worse, Hu Yanyun mischievously added, “You saw the news, right? That night, the criminals drove along this very concrete road to escape to the back of the mountain, successfully avoiding the surveillance cameras.”

A scene suddenly appeared before my eyes, or rather, two scenes intertwined in the same background: one was a black Spyder slowly and silently driving through the alley, heading towards the mountains under the cover of night, leaving four corpses and a mysterious fire forever within the walls; the other scene was also in the alley, in the deeper darkness, where more than a dozen police cars, fire trucks and ambulances were jostled together, their flashing lights illuminating the night sky like an unsettling ghost, people in black police uniforms, orange firefighter uniforms and white coats were busy and shuttling about with tense expressions, like a fuse twisted together and already lit, and at the other end of the fuse was the huge city of twenty million people below the mountains. At the time, the sleeping city was completely unaware of the incident and the sensation it would cause. It wasn’t until the next morning, when people were browsing the news on their phones on the subway, rubbing their sleepy eyes, that fear and astonishment appeared on their faces: Who had left four charred bodies on the Sweeping Mouse Ridge, and why?