“……Look, look, look for a friend……”
The cassette tape was still looping that section of the nursery rhyme.
This household song, familiar to everyone, sounded utterly spine-chilling at this moment. This was especially true because the quality of this cassette tape was poor; it frequently stuttered halfway through playback, making that half-line of “look, look” sound broken and disjointed.
After an eerie, jagged skip, the tape spun again, continuing to sing only after a few bursts of crackle and static.
“Look bzzt…… look bzzz-zt…… who is my good friend?”
Almost everyone present had numerous questions surface in their minds.
So that “Hi” was his way of greeting the person he was looking for. It wasn’t just a random stroke of a pen, nor was it done out of a desire to show off his malicious act of arson.
He was looking for someone.
Looking for a friend?
Who was his “friend”?
Who…… was he looking for?
At this moment, the detective responsible for conducting the background investigation pushed the door open and entered, holding a file: “The victim’s identity information has been found. He lived in Xiaoshan, quite a distance from the church. There are three people in his family. His girlfriend reported it to the police early this morning, saying he went for a night run near the church last night but never returned after the whole night passed. The victim’s surname is Li, his profession is an IT engineer, he is not religious, and he had absolutely no intersection with any of the individuals connected to this case.”
“He probably just happened to pass by at that exact point in time, so he was targeted.”
There was no particular reason for his murder; it was pure, unadulterated bad luck.
This kind of baseless, illogical homicide was not uncommon.
The case still required further investigation. The two consultants, Chi Qing and Xie Lin, left work earlier than everyone else. Xie Lin drove Chi Qing back to feed the cat. During the drive, Wu Zhi, whom he hadn’t contacted in a long time, called: “Young Master Wu’s birthday party, you coming?”
Xie Lin: “Have you no shame, calling yourself Young Master Wu?”
Wu Zhi didn’t mind: “Well, I don’t have any real power, so can’t I at least get myself some empty titles?”
Xie Lin glanced at Chi Qing in the passenger seat, who had his eyes lowered, meticulously wiping his phone with an alcohol swab, and said, “Not coming.”
Wu Zhi: “That busy?”
Xie Lin rested his hand on the steering wheel: “It’s not that I’m busy. It’s just that I’m the type of guy who forgets his friends when romance calls.”
“……”
How could someone say they forget their friends when romance calls with such righteous confidence?
Once Xie Lin hung up the phone and Chi Qing finished wiping his phone, Chi Qing unlocked his screen to surf the internet. He absently recalled the version of “Xie Lin” he had seen in the bar a long time ago—someone who looked like a frequent patron of bars, sitting there drinking while half the establishment stared at him.
Chi Qing asked casually, “Why aren’t you going?”
Xie Lin said something completely mismatched with his appearance: “What’s the point of going to a place like that? I’d rather stay at home with you.”
Xie Lin added: “Of course, it doesn’t necessarily have to be at home; other places are fine too, provided that you are there.”
On their way back, they happened to pass by the place where they had crashed into another car while investigating the USB flash drive. On one side of the road was a lake, and on the other side was a fork in the road. With just a single glance, Chi Qing could vividly recall what happened that day.
Xie Lin: “What are you thinking about?”
Chi Qing withdrew his gaze: “I was thinking about how, back then when I was sitting in the passenger seat, I surprisingly didn’t murder you a single time in my mind.”
It would be a lie to say Chi Qing hadn’t been stunned by Xie Lin’s actions back then. But ever since he found out that Xie Lin had entered that old case ten years ago on his own initiative, he suddenly felt that it wouldn’t be surprising no matter what kind of things this psychotic boyfriend surnamed Xie did.
Because the collision accident back then had happened so suddenly, the car body had scraped against the roadside guardrail. Chi Qing glanced out the window and saw a tiny, unnoticeable dent on the guardrail—perhaps because the degree of damage wasn’t severe, the guardrail had never been replaced or repaired.
After the sun dipped below the horizon, the weather turned overcast accordingly.
The surface of the lake turned into a misty, hazy grey.
That dent gave him an epiphany. Chi Qing suddenly stared at that small dent and said, “If he really participated in these cases, it would be impossible for him to leave absolutely no trace.”
Xie Lin: “Hmm?”
The dark clouds hung low, looking as if they were about to press down.
So where was the “dent” left by that person?
After the car parked in the residential compound’s underground garage, the two prepared to take the elevator upstairs. A married couple behind them, who were also heading upstairs, directly avoided the elevator and walked toward the fire exit beside it. Pushing open the fire exit door, the man took a bag of fruit from the woman’s hand, preparing to climb the stairs.
And by this time, the elevator had already arrived.
Xie Lin held down the open button on the side of the elevator to prevent it from closing automatically, and smiled very politely at the two of them, saying, “The elevator is here. Are you two not riding?”
The couple waved their hands repeatedly: “Oh my, who would dare ride this elevator?”
They clearly didn’t recognize Xie Lin and Chi Qing, assuming they were residents who had just moved in, so they said in low voices, “Someone died in this elevator. The elevator malfunctioned, ascended to the top floor, and they were crushed to death alive.”
The man’s voice grew lower and deeper the further he spoke, as if afraid of disturbing something: “I heard that when that person died, there were still two people inside the elevator. Those two people seemed to be lunatics, and they even held up an umbrella. Just think about that scene, how terrifying, how cursed.”
The named lunatic Xie: “……”
The named lunatic Chi: “……”
“Many people in our building don’t dare ride this elevator anymore. Do you want to climb the stairs together?” the man invited warmly. “Climbing stairs strengthens the body, saves the environment, and is very safe. You don’t have to worry about elevator accidents; it kills multiple birds with one stone. You young people should climb stairs more often.”
No matter how good Xie Lin was at polite small talk, it was difficult for him to find any suitable pleasantries to respond to the man’s invitation at this moment: “We……”
Chi Qing didn’t know what kind of expression to make either. Taking over the conversation, he said, “No need, we are atheists.”
“If you want to talk about whether someone has died, there probably aren’t many clean spots among the places you step on every day,” Chi Qing said, his dark, heavy pupils casting a chilling glance toward the entrance of the fire exit. “There are plenty of murder cases in fire exits too. Many people seeking revenge choose to ambush others in the stairwells.”
“……”
The fire exit was equipped with motion-sensor lights. Because no one was walking on the upper floors, it looked pitch-black.
Hearing this, the couple looked up, completely creeped out by his words.
Only after the two of them walked into the elevator did they realize what kind of public reaction the previous elevator incident had triggered.
In truth, the elevator had already been repaired and cleaned. The walls were sleek and bright, clean enough to reflect a person’s shadow. Xie Lin and Chi Qing’s shadows stood close together; if one didn’t know, it was completely impossible to tell that such a bloody murder had once taken place in this elevator.
Xie Lin: “You scared them just now.”
Chi Qing: “Just stating facts.”
As the rare few who dared to ride the elevator, the two talked calmly inside about what to have for dinner later: “Let’s not have steak. I’ll make a few home-cooked dishes in a bit. Do you have any dietary restrictions?”
Chi Qing had been spacing out along the way, his hands stuffed inside his coat pockets. He consistently felt as though there was something overlooked regarding these cases.
What was it?
He wasn’t listening closely to what Xie Lin was saying at all, offering an absentminded, perfunctory response: “Oh.”
Xie Lin: “What are you ‘oh’-ing for? I’m asking you a question.”
Chi Qing continued to be perfunctory: “Anything is fine.”
“……”
“You decide.”
Xie Lin found it amusing. He halted his hand, which was originally preparing to press the floor button, leaving his fingers hovering in the air. Then, he asked in a casual manner: “How about this: we’ll eat you first after going back.”
Chi Qing let out an “mm.”
Only after letting out the “mm” did he realize something was wrong: “……?”
“I think you should just starve to death.”
Xie Lin raised an eyebrow slightly and pressed the floor button.
The exact moment he pressed the floor button, Chi Qing suddenly said, “Wait.”
“What’s wrong?”
Chi Qing spoke slowly: “……I think I know what’s wrong.”
Chi Qing wound the timeline stored in his mind back to the day of the elevator accident.
That day, when he and Xie Lin were keeping that killer at bay inside the elevator, there was a very important detail. But no one had noticed it at the time; they were too busy fighting the man. In a life-or-death crisis, one couldn’t pay attention to that many details.
“Do you still remember, we were just about to catch him back then,” Chi Qing recalled the scene that happened that day, including the elevator that suddenly ascended rapidly. “That day, at that specific point in time, someone pressed the button for the 13th floor. Was that really just a coincidence?”
It was truly just that coincidental.
Right when they were about to catch the other party, the elevator went up.
The only participating suspect who could have helped them solve the case was crushed into a bloody pulp right before their eyes.
“That point in time back then wasn’t during peak foot traffic. It wasn’t the weekend, and many people hadn’t even gotten off work yet. It was precisely because of these prerequisites that the killer made his move on the elevator.”
Was the person who pressed the 13th floor button that day truly an ordinary resident who just happened to call the elevator when barely anyone was traveling?
Honestly, the probability of this accident was not high.
With Chi Qing putting it this way, Xie Lin felt it was suspicious too.
Once the masked man died, all clues were completely cut off.
His death was an extremely critical link at the time.
Moreover, the number 13……
Xie Lin had finished pressing the floor button, but he hadn’t pulled his hand back yet. His finger slid upward slowly, finally tapping lightly on the number “13”: “This number is very special to them. They fear 13, believing this number brings misfortune. But would the ‘Priest’ be afraid?”
Xie Lin found that he understood “him” very well without needing to think too much: “With his kind of personality, he believes he is God and can dictate everything. It’s impossible for him to fear 13, nor would he fear misfortune. On the contrary, 13 might even be his lucky number.”
Chi Qing felt the same way: “After all, this person is abnormal; he’s a lunatic too.”
Xie Lin glanced at him, completely lacking self-awareness as he questioned: “A lunatic is a lunatic, why did you have to add the word ‘too’?”
Chi Qing extended a hand wearing a black glove, layering his fingers over Xie Lin’s hand and pressing down with some force, lighting up the button that was originally grey: “Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to.”
The “13” button turned scarlet, and the elevator ascended rapidly just like that day.
Ding.
A few seconds later, the elevator doors opened.
There were two households on the 13th floor. One was a family of three whom Xie Lin had already met when he first moved in. The other had been vacant a few years ago, with quite a few tenants moving in and out, making it very easy to confirm which household it would be if someone on the 13th floor was a suspect.
Chi Qing was clearly not very adept at the act of greeting “neighbors.” Standing at the doorway, he still looked very much like someone coming to collect a debt, so he consciously stood to the side.
He surveyed the surroundings and found that the hallway was very clean. Unlike other households, no simple shoe rack had been placed at the entryway for easy access. This was completely opposite to the resident at the other end of the hallway. Not only was there no shoe rack, but even the nationally uniform bright red “Peace as You Go in and Out” doormat hadn’t been laid down.
It was too clean—so clean that it didn’t look like a place where someone lived and conducted their daily life.
Even someone with a germaphobia like Chi Qing would habitually place an umbrella, a bottle of disinfectant, and a pack of tissues at the door.
Xie Lin stepped forward and pressed the doorbell.
They had only come over to confirm. When the other party opened the door, they would just fabricate some excuse.
Xie Lin: “Should we say we ran out of soy sauce?”
Chi Qing: “If you run out of soy sauce, can’t you buy it yourself?”
Xie Lin: “True, that scenario isn’t urgent enough. How about this: let’s say the cat at home is about to give birth, and ask if he knows how to deliver kittens?”
Chi Qing: “……”
However, none of these prepared, clumsy excuses could be used because no one opened the door even after the doorbell was pressed several times. Just as Xie Lin was about to press it again, the neighbor across the hall happened to come out to throw away trash. The neighbor said, “Are you looking for something? The tenant of this unit moved out a few days ago.”
“Moved out? Moved where?”
“I’m not sure where he moved either. We didn’t cross paths many times and rarely saw him.”
“When did he start renting this apartment?”
The neighbor thought about it: “It must have been…… half a year or so ago.”
“Do you remember what he looks like?”
“Speaking of appearance, this point is rather strange. He wore a hat and a face mask, so I never actually saw his face. He was quite tall, though.”
Hearing this, Xie Lin and Chi Qing simultaneously said in their minds: It’s him.
The day the accident happened, the 13th floor.
Seeing that the elevator was taking forever to come up, ‘he’ had continuously pressed the elevator button to “hurry” it.
Hearing the commotion, the resident from the opposite household pushed open the door and asked, “Is the elevator broken?”
The person who urgently needed the elevator wore a hat and a mask, his silhouette thin. With his finger pressed against the elevator button, his voice was hoarse. No one could see that the corners of his mouth beneath the mask were actually turned up slightly as he said, “It seems so. I’ve been pressing it for a long time and there’s no response.”
