I don’t know if it was to make up for deceiving my body and heart all these days, but before entering the big hole, He Jian actually had Chen Yuan give me a temporary work permit, saying: “I’ve cleared it with the bureau. After all, this undercover investigation has caused you a lot of trouble. Building 29 is your house – the truth is equally important to you. So you’re specially permitted to witness firsthand who has been causing trouble in your house.”
I was stunned for a moment. While putting on shoe covers and gloves, what came to mind was another matter: “So if I pay you salary later, you’re essentially drawing double pay from the bureau and from me? You’re the one with a side job?”
He Jian was amused: “How could I actually accept it? Though this is my first time doing undercover work with a formal salary, don’t worry boss – I’ll calculate the money for that Buddhist bracelet you tipped me and return it to you at original price.”
Speaking thus, He Jian stuck tape to his shoe soles and was about to go down into the big hole. Thinking he was taking the lead for Building 29, I grabbed him: “Don’t return it to me… I’ve made you do plenty of work this past month. It was originally for your parents’ blessings anyway – keep it.”
“Let’s talk about this later, boss. Catching ghosts won’t wait.”
He Jian patted me, tested with a lighter, then jumped directly into the hole. He extended his hand to me: “You follow behind me. Wang Wei stays at Building 29, Chen Yuan comes down to bring up the rear.”
“Got it, boss.”
Thinking I was about to see with my own eyes the “evil spirit” that had long occupied Building 29, my heart immediately started beating uncontrollably. With He Jian’s assistance, I climbed down into the big hole using both hands and feet, quickly discovering that the passage below had been renovated to quite a scale – you didn’t even need to crawl inside, adults could walk directly just by bowing their heads.
Shit.
When the flashlight beam hit, I was nearly dumbfounded, never having imagined the space below would be so large – it was like living directly above an underground palace.
If this place could avoid being sealed later and be counted as part of Building 29’s floor area, I could totally open a small pickle factory down here.
While my mind was wandering, suddenly a slight cold breeze brushed my face, and instantly I understood where Building 29’s intermittent coolness came from.
Looking at it now, that storage room very likely had an entrance leading up to the second floor. The culprit that had repeatedly awakened me in the middle of the night was – Building 29 wasn’t a completely sealed building. Besides the doors and windows we knew about, there was such a big hole below for external ventilation.
I pulled He Jian wanting to tell him my discovery, but at this moment He Jian had already become the completely unfamiliar deputy captain. He made a sharp-eyed shushing gesture at me and shone his flashlight downward –
I saw the dust-covered dirt ground densely covered with human footprints.
My scalp tingled and I instinctively hid behind him, while He Jian silently led us toward the other end of the corridor.
Soon, at the corridor’s end appeared a hole covered by wooden boards. Whether from wind or hasty covering, the boards were now somewhat askew, exposing a dark corner, so that cold wind blew over from the other side.
“Don’t move yet.”
He Jian gestured to us with lip movements, and when his hand reached toward his lower back I realized the seriousness of the situation.
Obviously, Chen Yuan and Wang Wei hadn’t come empty-handed either – they had brought equipment for their deputy captain.
“We’ll scout ahead, you wait here.”
He Jian signaled me to stay put. He and Chen Yuan moved the wooden boards aside, one on each side. Then like an agile leopard, He Jian’s gun-wielding figure disappeared into the darkness behind the boards.
I could say that since moving into Building 29, I’d been enjoying treatment befitting the old, weak, sick, and disabled. Just as I was waiting anxiously, suddenly two muffled dog barks came from the other side of the boards, making my heart skip a beat.
Dog barks… could it be…
Before I could recover, He Jian said “all clear” from the other side, then he and Chen Yuan directly moved the entire board away. I immediately saw a table with grooves on top.
That was a hotpot table.
I sucked in a sharp breath and shone my flashlight in a circle. In the pitch-black air raid shelter were scattered broken tables and chairs, the ground was full of cigarette butts, and hotpot menus still not completely torn off the walls bore a brand name I’d seen many times at Building 29’s intersection.
This was the cave hotpot restaurant next to Huangliang Yimeng!
He Jian tucked his gun back into his waist and casually picked up a newspaper from below – it was Yu Jiang Evening News from three months ago.
He Jian said lightly: “This is other pages from that newspaper found above the bathroom… I took that newspaper to the bureau to investigate, but since it wasn’t the front page and didn’t even have the newsstand owner’s fingerprints, there was no way to trace it.”
“…”
I belatedly realized this kid had wanted to take that newspaper for this reason, couldn’t help glancing at him sideways: “And here I thought you were really being filial to me…”
“Helping you catch ghosts isn’t filial enough? Besides, I’m older than you, boss – you can’t take advantage of me.”
He Jian smiled. To find more clues, after contacting backup he and Chen Yuan searched around. To be safe, I stuck close to him, quickly finding some food packaging bags in the hotpot restaurant’s corner.
“From two years ago.”
He Jian looked at the date and stuffed the plastic packaging into an evidence bag: “I investigated the shops around here before. This cave hotpot restaurant has been closed for nearly three years. Guan Yinli had preserved this air raid shelter, but investment attraction wasn’t ideal – it sat empty for many years before being rented to this hotpot restaurant. From decoration to closure took only seven months total.”
I thought about it: “Building 29 has had deaths for eight years now. Looking at this secret passage’s scale, it definitely existed long ago, just perhaps wasn’t originally opened this large…”
“Now it seems when the cave hotpot restaurant officially rented from Guan Yinli, they definitely didn’t discover this secret passage, meaning it must have been sealed then and successfully fooled the hotpot restaurant.”
He Jian and I sorted through the timeline together, quickly discovering that during the hotpot restaurant’s seven months of operation, Building 29 was also vacant. In other words, during those seven months, this secret passage had no need for use.
The question was, what kind of person could legally appear in the air raid shelter to modify secret passages undetected, while also having foreknowledge of the hotpot restaurant’s imminent arrival, sealing the passage before the restaurant took over…
In the end, even with my 0.1 Conan-level deductive ability, I could easily arrive at an answer.
In an instant, I felt a chill surge up my spine.
“It couldn’t be…”
Halfway through my words, Chen Yuan at the entrance position suddenly shouted: “Who’s there!”
In an instant, I heard the crisp sound of a chain hitting the ground. At the same time, He Jian in front of me had vanished. I watched helplessly as he vaulted over the table in front of him and rushed out of the cave hotpot restaurant with Chen Yuan, one in front and one behind.
Clearly, someone had just tried to unlock the iron door and been discovered by Chen Yuan before fleeing. I struggled to catch up, only to see He Jian too lazy to even pick up the keys on the ground, flying up with a kick to directly break open the door, chasing after someone with the speed of flight amid a pack of wild dogs.
Knowing someone was a criminal police deputy captain and seeing him as a criminal police deputy captain were two different things.
Now I fucking finally understood how He Jian got all those muscles.
Seeing the wild dogs outside couldn’t catch up to He Jian and Chen Yuan and were turning to come bite me in the shop, my heart skipped a beat. I quickly blocked the iron door and returned to Building 29 through the secret passage.
On the other side, Han Sha and the others had long been waiting for us.
Wang Wei pulled the dusty me up, asking curiously: “Where are the deputy captain and Chen Yuan?”
I caught my breath and said helplessly: “Those two ran faster than dogs. I think I shouldn’t overestimate myself… Anyway, this secret passage leads to the cave hotpot restaurant next door. Someone with keys to the hotpot restaurant came from that side.”
When I said this, both Han Sha and Song Nanshi’s expressions changed dramatically. Han Sha frowned: “That storefront is still for rent. If the other party has keys…”
I gritted my teeth: “Let’s not sit idle either. Today’s a workday – if nothing unexpected happens, he should be at work. We can cut off his escape route.”
Without delay, the rest of us immediately set out. Walking there, my heart was all over the place. After all, they’d fucking discovered an underground palace beneath Building 29 – buying a house of 150 square meters and getting an extra 100 square meters free. Who could immediately digest encountering such a thing?
Since catching people wasn’t my turn anyway, to relieve nervous tension I sent Bai Liu a WeChat message then simply started chatting with Wang Wei, asking: “Speaking of which, your bureau’s reinforcements still haven’t arrived. Won’t your deputy captain get into trouble going to arrest people like this?”
Wang Wei was startled, then quickly smiled: “No, the deputy captain has done this kind of mission many times – there are countless more dangerous ones. He even has a nickname: Shancheng’s Nightmare. When he first transferred over, the deputy captain said the people he catches now are much more reasonable than before – at least they won’t casually send him to the hospital for two months.”
“…”
Sending a nightmare to catch ghosts was indeed professionally appropriate.
I sighed inwardly and couldn’t help asking again: “He really volunteered to investigate this case? I wasn’t wrong before, right? Your team giving him leave wasn’t to let him salvage his marriage?”
Wang Wei hesitated, then finally nodded: “Captain He… his divorce was very sudden. After that, except for going home to see his parents, he practically lived at the bureau. Our deputy chief couldn’t stand it and forced him to take leave. Who would have thought that in less than two days, he said he wanted to investigate this case…”
So even nightmares weren’t invincible.
I pondered this briefly and understood. Just then a “stop” sounded in the distance. Looking up, I saw a familiar figure running quickly past with He Jian in hot pursuit. Seeing Wang Wei, he shouted: “Xiao Wang, block him!”
Wang Wei hardly needed him to say it – she had already rushed forward. The moment that person’s steps faltered, He Jian flew forward and tackled him down, then extremely efficiently blocked the other’s struggles – restraint, handcuffs, arrest all in one smooth sequence. Before I could react, he was already calling the team.
“Got him. Come to Fulai Real Estate at Guan Yinli – we’re right at the entrance.”
He Jian pulled the person up from the ground. Even with disheveled hair and covered in sweat, this was a face I couldn’t possibly mistake.
“When people panic and flee desperately, they subconsciously choose roads they’re relatively more familiar with, so I didn’t expect he’d actually run back here.”
He Jian wiped away sweat.
Seeing my complex expression, he sighed: “You should have thought it was him… Someone who could simultaneously modify Building 29 and the cave hotpot restaurant would necessarily need long-term possession of keys to both sides. Because official investment attraction wasn’t going well, Guan Yinli’s sales office including some landlords here had long fully entrusted keys to intermediaries, having them show properties on their behalf.”
“But why would you do such things, Manager Hu?”
Though I’d thought of it, I still didn’t understand.
Besides buying this house, he and I had no grievances. Why would it reach the point of sneaking into my house in the middle of the night wanting to take my life?
Even though my psychological endurance had greatly increased over this past month, thinking he was the first person I’d met after moving to Guan Yinli, my heart inevitably sank.
Human hearts were unfathomable, but… there had to be a reason, right?
“Why exactly would…”
“That house – no one is qualified to live there.”
Suddenly, Manager Hu raised his head and looked at me coldly: “That’s a house belonging to the dead. No one should live there. You’re no exception.”