And it would serve as an unmistakable sign, symbolizing the cause and effect of their tragedy, and calling for people’s attention to the national disaster.

As for what would happen to him, he hardly cared. Everything was finished for him with her death, and he was nothing but a ‘walking corpse’ – except for the delivery of his ultimate statement at the ending of the seven-seven. That was the only good thing he believed he could do for her. And in a frenzied figment of his imagination, for the whole society, too. Things could not go on like this. It would be the ultimate wake-up call about the disastrous consequences, to which everyone had to pay serious attention: ‘With air quality like this, many more people, and even those much younger, would turn into victims.’

The statement also gave a quite detailed account of the serial murder from the very beginning – from the chance encounter with the first victim Peng, to the premeditated killing of the subsequent victims.

The location of the first victim near the Bund Bridge and the Bund prompted him to look for other central locations for a large audience.

As for the attack time, Lou did not have to think too much about it. Shen had breathed her last breath in the early morning, before six.

For the second victim, Lou targeted the weather bureau, which had been forecasting the clear, clean air for years as the governmental mouthpiece. It proved to be too difficult to ambush the head of the bureau, who did not appear so early in the morning. So Lou thought that an anchorman would be symbolic enough, but he was unable to take action on the second seventh day, not just because of those surveillance cameras installed all over the People’s Square, but also because no one walked out of the bureau so early that morning. So he attacked on the eighth day instead, as Linghu walked out of the weather bureau wearing a mask. It saved Lou a mask.

As for the third victim, Yan, Lou chose her for a different reason. She was a salesperson for one of the new apartments Lou had looked at in Lujiazui, but when he came up with the amount available for the down payment, she practically drove him out. The price had shot up like crazy in a couple of days. The uncontrollable housing prices were not a problem she had created, but her refusal to be flexible was something he could not forget. He knew about Yan’s jogging in the morning, and Lujiazui made the perfect location for the crime. With eight days passed between the first and second victims, he waited for only six days for Yan. He tried to follow the time pattern of the ritual killing.

As for the fourth victim, Xiang, Lou had no idea about the video in the background. Nor about her husband being Geng. Lou was just so angry with the official media for its silence about the air pollution. He had once worked on a network program for a kindergarten school close to the Wenhui building, so knew there were people working at the newspaper for the night. She fell prey on her way back to the Wenhui office, still having the earthen oven cake in her hand. It happened to be a windy morning. As he planted the mask beside her, he put the half-eaten cake on top, lest it would be blown away.