Chi Qing stood in the long corridor, with the elevator that had been involved in the accident right behind him and the room number 1301 directly in front of him.
The peephole on the door stared quietly down the corridor.
The pitch-black peephole resembled a pair of icy eyes, watching them.
After clarifying the limited information they knew, the neighbor across the hall looked at Chi Qing and Xie Lin with lingering doubt. “Do you two… know him? Is there a reason you’re looking for him?”
The cat is about to give birth.
This excuse was obviously no longer usable.
Amidst the silence, the phone in Chi Qing’s pocket rang. He slipped off one of his gloves, and the name “Ji Mingrui” appeared on the screen.
The moment Chi Qing answered, Ji Mingrui’s booming voice began to pour out his grievances relentlessly. “I can’t sleep, brother. My mind is completely filled with the case. Do you have time right now? I want to chat with you, or maybe we can head out for a meal tonight. The two of us hasn’t gathered in a long time.”
Chi Qing glanced at the time. “First of all, it hasn’t even been three hours since we parted. Secondly, I have a situation here. Bring a few people over.”
“?”
Ji Mingrui was utterly perplexed. “What situation?”
Even though Ji Mingrui was a police officer himself and encountered various accidents far more frequently than the average person, he fell vastly short compared to these two registered consultants. They had parted less than three hours ago; what kind of homicide case had these two harbingers of misfortune run into in such a short span of time?
A car accident?
Someone jumping off a building?
Or did they just happen to cross paths with a pervert committing a crime?
……
Ji Mingrui thought to himself that all these hypotheses were highly likely to occur.
However, he never could have imagined that Chi Qing’s “situation” completely exceeded the boundaries of his imagination.
Because Chi Qing said coldly, “We might have found his home.”
Ji Mingrui felt as though he had been struck on the head with a club, completely dumbfounded. “Whose home?”
Chi Qing: “The lunatic who set fire to the church.”
“……”
There hadn’t been a single lead on the case, and everyone had left the meeting with gloomy countenances. Yet, how long had it been since they got off work, and they had already tracked down the killer’s home?!
If Ji Mingrui hadn’t started suffering from insomnia after arriving home, he would have almost suspected that he was dreaming right now.
“Where is his home?”
“In the same building where we live.”
Even Chi Qing found it incredible when he uttered these words. For such a long time, they had been living in the same building as this instigator, sharing a single elevator, and might have even crossed paths during some inadvertent moment.
“I rented this apartment out about a year ago. The tenant is a short man who works in logistics and transportation; he rented this place because of a job change. I don’t know this man in a hat and mask you’re speaking of.”
“You don’t even know who lives here?”
The landlord was a middle-aged man who had rushed over through the night clutching his keys. Upon receiving the call from the police, he thought a homicide had taken place in the apartment. Opening the door to find it looked no different from when he rented it out, he finally breathed a sigh of relief. “I own several apartments, and I have my regular work to attend to. As long as tenants pay their rent on time and there are no neighborly conflicts, who would come over to check every single day?”
Ji Mingrui: “……” Is this the world of wealthy individuals?
“Then go ahead and take a look,” the landlord said, handing the keys over to them. “It just so happens that I haven’t found the next tenant during this period.”
Chi Qing felt a bizarre sensation standing within this apartment.
Because it was located in the same building, the layout of this apartment was identical to Xie Lin’s Unit 01.
Aside from the different interior design style, every single layout from the entrance hall to the living room was exactly the same as Xie Lin’s home, evoking an indescribable sense of “intrusion.”
The apartment had been cleaned thoroughly when the tenant moved out; the windows were bright, the counters were clean, and even the coffee table the landlord had hauled from a secondhand furniture market was wiped to a shine, leaving almost no trace of anyone having lived there.
The curtains were gray, and so was the flooring.
Xie Lin was also as familiar with the layout of this apartment as one could possibly be. While examining the living room to see if anything had been left behind, he asked the landlord, “Was the rent paid every month by that ‘short man’ you mentioned?”
This was precisely what puzzled the landlord as well. “Yes. Ever since we added each other on WeChat, it has never changed to anyone else. How could someone else be living in my apartment?”
“May I take a look at your phone?”
“Ah, sure.”
The chat history between the landlord and the tenant indeed showed that the two had just added each other as friends a year ago. After that, their conversations were sparse; aside from the quarterly rent payments, there was practically no other exchange.
Occasionally, the tenant would report property maintenance issues within the apartment, and other casual chats were concentrated around holidays, where the two would exchange blessings.
Judging from the chat history, this “tenant” appeared completely normal.
At the very top of the chat box sat the tenant’s name: Li Yuan.
“Go look up this Li Yuan’s personal information,” Xie Lin said as he handed the phone back to the landlord. “Especially missing person records within the past year.”
Ji Mingrui froze for a moment. “What do you mean by that sentence……”
Chi Qing picked up the thread. “It means this ‘tenant’ has highly likely already met with foul play.”
The following morning, a plainly dressed woman leading a six-year-old child walked into the General Bureau.
The woman’s clothes were put on inside out, and she hadn’t even had time to comb her hair. Her hands were rough, and she wore a pair of beige cotton trousers on her lower body. The woman’s eyes were a cloudy brown, and due to long-term labor, she did not look particularly energetic.
“Li Yuan is my husband. He hasn’t returned home for a year, but he sends messages to me every once in a while to let me know he’s safe. He said the company is very busy and he’s always working overtime, so this year would be a bit difficult… Once his job stabilizes, he plans to arrange for our child to transfer schools over here.”
“I know of that residential community. Although the rent is a bit expensive, it’s very close to his company, and he intended to find someone to share the rent with… I don’t know the specifics, and it isn’t very convenient for me to go over either.”
“……”
In the chat logs between Li Yuan and his wife, the words Li Yuan spoke consisted of only a few characters.
- Just finished work.
- Yeah.
- Going on a business trip in a while, won’t be checking my phone much.
……
Staring at these chat logs, everyone felt a chill run down their spines. They could all instantly distinguish who had sent these messages—it was the “Priest” who had somehow “replaced” Li Yuan to move into room 1301 half a year ago.
This family possessed a typical dynamic where the husband was strong and the wife was weak, coupled with the man striving alone outside, resulting in very little communication between the two.
It was precisely for this reason that the “Priest” had managed to avoid exposing himself for the past half year.
The woman’s expression was frantic; her woman’s intuition made her sense that her husband had highly likely met with some mishap. “What happened to him? Did something happen? Can I see him? Where… where is he right now?”
This was a question everyone desperately wanted the answer to as well.
Where did the real Li Yuan go?
To put this question more accurately, it should be: Where is Li Yuan’s corpse?
Following an entire day of screening and investigation, the possibility of the corpse being concealed near the residential community could basically be ruled out.
As night descended, the investigation operations became disadvantageous. While several teams continued their work, Xie Lin and Chi Qing headed back first to feed the cat. Little Star had grown a bit bigger recently and wasn’t as clingy as before. Hearing the sound of the door opening, it perched quite reservedly upon the coffee table, casting a faint glance toward them before turning its head back away.
Xie Lin set his things down and walked over to its side, wanting to stroke its head. “The little guy has actually learned to put on airs.”
The cat let out a “meow,” leaping down from the coffee table right before human clutches could touch it, remaining somewhat averse to Xie Lin as always.
These past two days had been too frantic with so many things happening. By the time Chi Qing finished his shower, Xie Lin had already fallen asleep on the sofa.
The man had been watching television while waiting for him earlier; the remote control was still clutched in his hand with his palm facing outward, the back of his hand obscuring his eyelids. Even his sleeping posture looked as though it had been deliberately posed.
Presumably, the light from the television was preventing him from sleeping peacefully.
Chi Qing walked over, intending to slide the remote control out of his hand.
However, before Chi Qing’s hand could touch the remote control, it first brushed against the man’s fingertips. To his surprise, he heard a voice: 【……Brother.】
The word sounded like an unconscious murmur within a dream.
【Brother……】
【No…… run quickly……】
It sounded incredibly chaotic.
Chi Qing did not know what kind of dream he was having.
But it was glaringly obvious that at this moment, Xie Lin was insecure, frantic, and anxious.
The man still possessed a highly defensive nature and slept lightly. Sensing the remote control in his hand slide outward by a few millimeters, his tightly closed eyes quickly opened a crack. Seeing that the person was Chi Qing, he closed his eyes once more with peace of mind.
Xie Lin pinched the bridge of his nose and asked, “What time is it?”
Chi Qing: “You’ve been asleep for an hour.”
Xie Lin let out an “ah.”
Chi Qing: “Had a nightmare?”
Xie Lin opened his eyes, staring at the ceiling as he said, “I dreamed of my brother.”
Perhaps it was because he had been exposed to too many cases recently, or perhaps it was because he had chatted with Chi Qing before, or maybe it was because so many people had suddenly paid attention to that old case from ten years ago. He had drifted into a heavy sleep, only to unexpectedly dream of that day—dreaming of Xie Feng.
Chi Qing had never heard about Xie Lin’s brother.
But he had always known that the date of the crime must hold a meaning for him that extended far beyond that.
If it were just that, Xie Lin wouldn’t have set it as his door lock password.
Just as Chi Qing hadn’t set his that way.
Unless one was insane, no one would input that sequence of numbers every single day upon returning home, forcing themselves to recall that day.
……Then again, Xie Lin couldn’t exactly be considered a normal person to begin with.
Chi Qing, who wasn’t entirely normal himself, thought this way.
Thus, Chi Qing asked, “A dream related to the door lock password?”
This time, Xie Lin remained silent for even longer—so long that Chi Qing began to wonder if he had fallen back asleep—before Xie Lin spoke slowly, “That case was handled by my brother. His name was Xie Feng.”
Chi Qing had already obtained this information previously; Xie Lin had mentioned last time that precisely because he was Xie Feng’s younger brother, he deduced that the killer would definitely be interested in him.
“The final rescue mission concluded,” Xie Lin said at last, “but he failed to return.”
What the phrase failed to return signified was self-evident.
As a survivor, Chi Qing did not directly participate in the case investigation; he was the one being investigated and questioned, so he wasn’t clear on which one was ‘Xie Feng,’ nor did he know who the criminal investigation officers were who charged in wearing bulletproof helmets that day to rescue them. His impression of the final day was boiled down to just two words: chaos.
That day had truly been far too chaotic.
Frantic footsteps, gunfire, explosions, and roars.
……
Countless sounds invaded from various different directions.
Chi Qing’s hands had been tied behind his back at the time. He used a piece of shattered wall stone hidden in his sleeve—which he had spent a long time grinding before barely sharpening it—to attempt to sever the thick hemp rope. Blood seeped from his palm. When the rope was severed halfway through, the tightly locked iron door was violently smashed open from the outside.
Chi Qing subconsciously flipped the angle of the stone in his hand, pointing the sharp end toward the door.
Having stayed in the darkness for too long, the sliver of light that suddenly shone in from the outside felt piercing to his eyes. Chi Qing squinted his eyes, and before he could see the person clearly, he only heard a somewhat gentle phrase: “Don’t be afraid.”
At that time, he did not yet know that the voice belonged to Xie Lin’s brother.
