AD | Chapter 19

A person does not walk towards evil because they yearn for evil, but because they mistakenly regard evil as the happiness they are pursuing.

— Mary Shelley

The two drove to Ning’an Community. There were already quite a few people gathering at the entrance of the building unit. As soon as they walked into the stairwell, a foul stench hit their noses, making them both frown involuntarily.

Lu Qingfeng had just reached the fifth floor when he saw Tao Yu squatting on the ground, covering his face, looking somewhat pained.

Jiang Huainan stood nearby, soothing him in a low voice. Turning his head and seeing them, he gently patted Tao Yu’s shoulder: “Captain Lu is here.”

Tao Yu still squatted without moving, his voice weak: “Let me… catch my breath for a moment…”

“What’s the situation?” Lu Qingfeng looked at Tao Yu squatting on the ground, then turned to Jiang Huainan.

Jiang Huainan introduced the situation directly: “It’s like this. The deceased is named Tang Bin, 25 years old. He rented this place and lived alone. The neighbors recently kept noticing a strange smell and reported it to property management, but it was useless. Today, the landlord happened to come over to collect rent. The two of them met, felt something was off, opened the door, and discovered the deceased.”

Lu Qingfeng frowned slightly, about to ask for more details, when Lin Shuyao beside him suddenly spoke up: “Where is the body?”

Jiang Huainan pointed to the room nearby and said softly: “The deceased is inside. The forensic doctor from the branch bureau is also inside. Captain Lu, Dr. Lin, you can go in and take a look yourselves…”

At this point, Tao Yu seemed to have recovered somewhat. He looked up at the two and added: “I don’t think it’s a lack of psychological resilience on my part. It’s mainly that… the deceased is just too smelly. I went in and took one look, and I really couldn’t handle it.”

Hearing this, Lin Shuyao nodded at him. With an expressionless face, he put on a mask and shoe covers at the doorway, then carried his forensic kit into the room.

Seeing this, Lu Qingfeng turned his head to look at Lin Shuyao walking into the room, then turned back to Tao Yu and asked: “Where are the people who reported the case? Have statements been taken?”

Tao Yu said: “The person who reported the case is the landlord of this apartment. Statements have been taken. The landlord and the deceased’s neighbor are waiting over there.” After speaking, he pointed with his hand toward another room.

With Tao Yu’s gesture, Lu Qingfeng only then noticed that the room next to the one where the murder occurred was also wide open. Looking in from the outside, it seemed that several people were sitting inside. Lu Qingfeng nodded at him and walked over.

He entered the room and sat down opposite the two men: “Hello, my name is Lu Qingfeng, Team Leader of the Municipal Bureau. I would like to ask you both a few questions.”

The two men opposite him nodded respectively. Lu Qingfeng continued to ask: “Which one of you is the deceased’s landlord?”

Hearing this, the thin, tall man opposite said: “Me, I am.”

“When did you rent the house to the deceased?” Lu Qingfeng asked.

Hearing this, the man looked up and began to recall: “About a month ago. My old house was listed with an agency. A little over a month ago, the agency called to tell me someone wanted to rent it. I went there when signing the contract, so I met him once.” He rubbed his fingers together. “This young man seemed to be from out of town. He looked fair-skinned and tender, and seemed quite polite.”

Speaking of this, he picked up the water cup on the table, took a sip, and continued: “He was very satisfied after viewing the room and signed the contract on the spot. After signing, I chatted with him for a few sentences. I was curious about their profession. He said he was some kind of uploader on Site A? He said he wasn’t usually home often, and we even added each other on WeChat.”

“Did you contact each other frequently?” Lu Qingfeng asked.

“It was average. We had contact when paying rent for the first three months…” The landlord spoke, but his tone suddenly became agitated: “This month, he was overdue for a long time. No matter how I urged him, he didn’t reply. One night, when I got home from work, I saw he had sent me a message saying ‘110’. I thought something had happened at the time, and I even tried to call him. But later, I realized I seemed to have been played by him.”

Lu Qingfeng remained silent, signaling with his eyes for him to continue.

“Later, after a few more hours, because I couldn’t reach him earlier and was considering whether to call the police, he suddenly sent me another message on WeChat, saying that relatives had come to his house just now, and the children in the relative’s family were ignorant and had randomly used his phone to send messages. I was quite angry at the time, but seeing his good attitude, the matter was dropped.”

“After that, I didn’t pay much attention. But a couple of days ago… when it was time to collect rent, I couldn’t reach him no matter what. Calls and everything went unanswered, so I came here.”

The man slumped his shoulders dejectedly as he spoke: “Oh, police officer, look, what should I do about my house? It’s an old community, and the rent isn’t high. Now that a life has been lost, I definitely won’t be able to rent this house out in the future.”

Seeing this, Lu Qingfeng felt somewhat helpless. He comforted the man for a few moments until the other party’s emotions calmed down again. Only then did he turn his head and ask the other man: “So, are you the deceased’s neighbor?”

That man nodded and then voluntarily spoke up: “Hello, police officer. My name is Li Feng. I am indeed his neighbor.”

“So, how was your relationship with the deceased usually?”

Hearing this, Li Feng’s eyes widened suddenly, and he blurted out: “Police officer, ever since this person moved in, I don’t even know how I’ve survived these past few months!”

“Oh? What do you mean by that?” Lu Qingfeng’s eyebrows moved slightly.

“When he first moved in, I even greeted him. He used to be quite quiet. But in the last month or two,” Li Feng lowered his voice, “in the middle of the night, there were always heart-wrenching screams from a man…”

After speaking, Li Feng raised his cup and gulped down water. Water droplets splashed onto his trembling hand, reminding him of Tang Bin’s abnormal behavior before death.

From next door came a series of clattering sounds of things being smashed, followed by a man’s hoarse howling: “Ah! Don’t—don’t!!”

The old walls could not block any noise. Li Feng was abruptly woken from his sleep by the screaming. He sat up in bed and couldn’t help but irritably pound the bed board: “Damn it, here we go again! Wailing like ghosts every day!”

This was not the first time. Sometimes the sound would last for half the night, disturbing the peace of all the neighbors. When Li Feng could no longer bear it, he had knocked on the door several times. But after knocking many times, the door was only opened a crack once.

“You didn’t see how he looked,” Li Feng recalled with lingering fear. “He was much thinner than when he first moved in. He looked particularly listless, as if he were seriously ill. I peeked through the doorway and saw the house was messy, seemingly full of garbage everywhere. I was startled and didn’t dare to provoke him…”

“Then, I said a few words to him, asking him to keep his voice down and such. But he ignored me and just slammed the door shut with a ‘bang’.”

Lu Qingfeng listened quietly to his description, nodded, and then asked: “Regarding the strange smell you mentioned earlier, can you recall when the smell started appearing?”

“Sigh, it was just a few days ago. My job is like this; sometimes I work day shifts, sometimes night shifts. So, the day before yesterday, when I came back from my night shift, I smelled a strong stench as soon as I walked up to the third-floor stairwell…” He frowned, recalling. “I thought the trash next door hadn’t been thrown out and had rotted, causing the smell. After all, I had seen scenes like this before. Next door, they would take out takeout containers that had been piled up for a long time to throw away, and there was always a stench.”

Having understood the general course of events, Lu Qingfeng stood up and nodded slightly to the two: “Alright, thank you both. We will contact you again if there are any developments.”

Just as he turned to leave, the landlord grabbed his sleeve: “Hey, hey, hey, police officer, you’re leaving now, so what about my house? Are you just going to leave it like this? Don’t you plan to clean it up?”

Lu Qingfeng paused, his gaze falling on the hand tightly gripping his cuff: “That is your own matter. It is not under our jurisdiction. Before this case is closed, this place will be temporarily sealed as a crime scene.” His voice suddenly turned cold. “If you continue to cause trouble, we will take you in for disturbing public order. Do you have any other questions?”

The landlord pulled his hand back as if electrocuted. His arrogant demeanor instantly extinguished, and his voice dropped by half: “No more, no more. I will handle the matter of the house myself. Sorry to trouble you, police officers.”

Lin Shuyao, who was busy in front of the wardrobe, heard Lu Qingfeng suddenly lose his temper. He made no comment, ignored the commotion behind him, and continued with the work in his hands.

Lu Qingfeng strode over and gently placed his hand on his shoulder: “How is it? Did you find any useful clues?”

“The deceased is male, aged around 20 to 25,” Lin Shuyao frowned, looking into the depths of the wardrobe. “The body was curled up inside the wardrobe… Although the scene looks very messy, it doesn’t seem to be caused by a struggle. He most likely curled himself into the wardrobe voluntarily.”

Tao Yu, looking around at the mess on the floor, couldn’t help but interject: “With clothes all over the floor, he had to throw all the clothes out first, and then sit in there so… uncomfortably? What was he trying to achieve? Does he have a mental illness?”

Lin Shuyao’s gaze swept over the scattered clothes on the ground: “Judging by the direction of these scattered clothes, it doesn’t look like they were thrown out all at once. It looks more like someone was rummaging for something multiple times.”

“But there’s no need to throw things around in such a mess!” Tao Yu complained again.

Lin Shuyao did not respond. He walked to the head of the deceased’s bed and gently pulled open the drawer: “What’s placed at the head of the bed is what he takes regularly, or at least what he has been taking recently.” As he spoke, he picked up a medicine bottle from the drawer: “If I’m not mistaken… look, Alprazolam.”