Chapter 16
On the other side of the world from Wayward’s lucky seed, an old cop was ambling along Queen’s Road West, ready to call it
a night.
He had been dealing with Lunar New Year shenanigans for a week—always a raucous good time for everyone in Hong Kong, except
the local police force. But he had put off this routine welfare check for many months, and even though he was certain it would
be a big case of nothing, the flat in question was on the way back home.
His stomach grumbled. His wife had made his favorite for his late dinner, her incomparable clay pot rice, with its embedded
slices of sweet red sausage and cured pork belly nestled between steamed bok choy. He could already taste the crunchy rice
anointed with decadent animal fat.
Kicking aside the remnants of exploded firecrackers, he finally reached the high-rise, one of many that scraped the sky in
the Sai Ying Pun district. He checked his phone again and, as he entered, noted with minor interest that the occupant was
apparently a fortune teller.
Real estate on the island was notoriously astronomical, and the cop was more than slightly envious of this Master Chu’s literally high status as the old elevator pulled itself to the very top floor of the apartment complex.
No doubt this was no mere fortune teller if he could afford a penthouse!
No next of kin either, the cop mumbled to himself, consulting the report.
He walked up to the fortune teller’s front door and knocked. There was no reply.
Well, that’s that, he said, shrugging to himself as he turned to leave, ready for dinner. Usually these welfare checks were simply misunderstandings
from people going on trips without telling their neighbors. The elevator was still waiting for him as he approached it.
Then . . . he caught a familiar whiff of a certain smell. It was a smell he knew very well. He sniffed the air again, and
turned back to the penthouse door.
Making a split decision, he charged and slammed his entire considerable weight against the door and it burst open, taking
him with it into the flat.
Instantly, the cop buried his nose into the crook of his elbow as the undeniable smell of human decay invaded his nostrils.
In the middle of the living room, sprawled face down on an old polyester couch, was the body of an old man. And sticking out
of his back, still damningly erect with its final use, was a kitchen knife buried deep into him.
Sighing to himself upon realizing his wife’s clay pot rice was now hours away, the cop radioed for backup.
Got a deceased one in Sai Ying Pun, he said. Likely foul play.
As the responder crackled back at him, the cop leaned in closer to the corpse, his expert eyes realizing that the advanced
level of decay was marked with telltale signs of natural mummification.
Interesting, he thought to himself as he snapped a photo with his phone for evidence. Whoever murdered this man was likely
long gone.
And that was because the fortune teller Master Chu had been dead for at least a year.