The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

When they rushed over to the pension, she was at the front counter as usual, as if waiting for customers to arrive.

She said: We really did not do it on purpose.

She said: Because I was already pregnant, I went to the group to find my man that day.

She said: I was just feeling uncomfortable, so I sat on a nearby trunk. But I ended up being forcefully pushed down by the group leader.

She said: We did not know that there was excess oil inside the bottle.

She said: We did not know that the group leader would crash into the electric cord and cause sparks to burst out.

She said: It was already too late for us to rescue anyone, so we could only run away.

Then, she fell silent.

“Wang Yu Fen refused to answer any questions.” It was the next afternoon after they had arrested the pension owners. Yu Xia sat next to the sickbed to tell the other three of the general situation. “But she made it clear that they have no idea where the missing eighteen people are. The reason they agreed to let Ah Yin go search around was originally because they were afraid the police would discover something if they went in and out of the house too much. Also, nothing came out of questioning Xie Qing Hai either. His violence seems to be out of control; he destroyed quite a few things. We asked the doctor to temporarily sedate him while we continue the interrogation.”

Yi Tai nodded from where he sat on the hospital bed he had been sent back to. He then turned to look at the pair of brothers next to him.

“Did the boss bring up his daughter, or did you guys find anything about her?” He felt strangely helpless when he thought of that little girl.

Yu Xia shook his head, saying that they had not found anything. However, he suspected there was something wrong with that wall. If its scent was not originally from the painting itself, then someone must have lit incense in front of it for long periods of time.

But typically speaking, there was no reason to constantly pay respects in front of a painting.

When he had brought this up, the police had also found it suspicious, and they had already requested for a search permit. They would probably receive the documents and go tear down that wall within the next two days or so.

Yu Xia stood by his standpoint. Obviously, he did not wish for anything to be dug out. Even if it meant that all the effort was wasted, he was not willing to see anything be inside.

“Oh right, Xiao Yu, we found a large bag [of incense] in the pension office space. Since you’ve seen that incense before, come back to the station with me later to confirm if it’s the same,” Yu Xia told the other child. This had been the other reason for his visit.

Xiao Yu quickly nodded. He looked back at Yu Xia with slight impatience, as if he wanted to immediately go confirm it.

“Then you guys should head out first, Uncle. Yi Tai and I will stay here and wait for you two,” Yu Yin suddenly urged. “I’ll just sleep here tonight, there’s beds for family members here anyways.”

“Let’s go with that then. You just stay here and take care of your classmate; if I’m free later, I’ll come by again.” Yu Xia stood up and led Xiao Yu out of the room.

After the door closed, they could hear some voices talking outside, possibly from some other police officers.

When it fell quiet again, Yu Yin checked his watch and the color of the sky outside.

Yi Tai picked up the book placed on the drawers next to him and casually flipped through it.

“Why are you reading an instruction manual so intently?!” Yu Yin had originally assumed it was a magazine or a novel, but when he looked more closely, it was actually a user manual for things like the air conditioning and telephone in the room.

“Sorry, it’s a habit of mine when I am bored.” Yi Tai replied with a shrug after he put the object back down.

“Why don’t I help you go buy a book?” Honestly speaking, he wasn’t that close with Yi Tai. They had only met a few times, thus having a tiny friendship with each other. Yu Yin sometimes really had no idea what thoughts were going through the other person’s head. And now that Ah Fang, who usually stuck around him, wasn’t here either, he did not how much they could talk to each other.

“I will trouble you to do so then. I think I will have to stay here for at least a few more days.” Yi Tai glanced down at the bandages around his arm and absent-mindedly said, “There is no need to think too much about choosing the book, I read anything.”

“Alright.” Yu Yin rummaged through his bag to find his wallet as he began to contemplate what food to buy as well.

Yi Tai studied his classmate and friend for a while, before turning on the television. “There is a hardware store outside the hospital. You should go there and buy a ball of plastic rope; a red or yellow colour would be more eye-catching.”

Yu Yin whirled around and stared at Yi Tai in shock. He was beyond astonished at this point.

Yi Tai angled his head to glance at Yu Yin with a faint smile, seemingly not thinking his words were surprising in any way. “It would be easier to find people that way, right?”

“You know what I’m thinking about?” Yu Yin finally snapped out of his reverie after blankly spacing out for a while. He had not expected his plans to be so easily seen through.

Yi Tai nodded. “I do. From what I can tell, you and your brother are nearly always together, so I found it a bit odd that you told them to not to come back until tomorrow.”

Yu Yin sighed and raised his hands [in surrender]. “If I don’t find them soon, I’m afraid there will only be corpses left.”

“I know, which is why I am not stopping you.” I’m just suggesting you bring some rope. Yi Tai then said, “If nothing goes wrong, give me a call. I will notify people to go searching for you tomorrow morning.”

After staring at Yi Tai for a very long time, Yu Yin finally let out a long breath. “No wonder Ah Fang always mentions you’re a bit weird whenever the two of us talk. He’s not wrong at all.” Yu Yin scratched his head before letting his shoulders fall.

“I’m not weird at all. I’m just a normal person.” This was the subconscious reply from the injured person being called out as strange. Said person then went back to flipping through the instruction manual.

Yu Yin was very tempted to shoot back with: “You’re obviously a freak”, but was unable to blurt this out when he suddenly remembered Yi Tai stomping on the rotting corpse. It’s probably best to not accidentally offend this person.

“I am in your care then.”

***

There was a pile of papers in the fax machine.

“Isn’t this way too much? What information are you trying to get transferred over?” Yan Si had already stayed up the entire night. He yawned as he flipped through the entire packet; most of the words densely packed together on the full sheets of paper were English, although there was a decent amount of Chinese mixed in as well.

“The information from the electronics game centre investigation. It has all been copied already. I asked around; apparently Yu Yin and Shaodi Yu were also involved in that case.” After the fax machine stopped, Li Zi Hong pulled out the three-centimetres thick pile of papers and began to read through it. “Back then, the presence of something was detected in the centre’s air conditioning vent through analysis, which was later confirmed to have the same composition as that incense…but that is not what bothers me.”

“Oh?” Yan Si also began to grow curious. Now that he thought about it, he seemed to have first gotten to know Yu Yin through the electronics game centre incident.

“The drug’s effects are naturally very weak – taking it once or twice does not seem to have any impact. But it contains certain components that are addictive. Aside from the game centre incident, the people involved in the fourth floor and Shaodi Yu’s family incidents all clearly displayed aggressive behaviour. What bugs me in that case is Shaodi Yu; he seems to have been following Yu Yin very closely since the game centre case. Has he not expressed any unusual behaviour?”

Yan Si eyed his friend and waved a hand in indifferent dismissal. “There’s nothing strange about that. Student that was ganged up is honestly a pretty good person. He’s easy to get along with, and he has quite a loyal personality. He later started caring a lot for Xiao Yu, so there isn’t anything special about it.” Actually, Yan Si had taken quite a liking to the two children, especially Yu Yin. The child never held grudges, and he sported an easy-going temperament. Finding a good kid that did not return any punches was pretty rare nowadays.

“You misunderstand my words.” Li Zi Hong exhaled lightly and earnestly met Yan Si’s gaze. “What I mean to say is, why has Shaodi Yu not shown any of the aggressive tendencies or other symptoms after appearing where the drug has been used?”

Hearing Li Zi Hong had mentioned this, Yan Si also began to find it unexpected, despite not finding anything odd originally. “Didn’t we assume he had been locked inside the bathroom before for a very long time? So it’s quite possible he had been able to evade the scent that way?”

Li Zi Hong shook his head with furrowed brows. “That isn’t quite right. According to what the two Officer Yu’s told me, Shaodi Yu remembered the scent, and very clearly too. In addition, the bathroom could not possibly remove the smoke completely. Moreover, the information indicates that he still attended school normally every day; if the incense was lit at the small shrine table in the living room, wouldn’t there be a period when he would inhale it between the time he came back from school and when he was locked up in the bathroom?”

“…You have a point.” As Yan Si thought this over more closely, he also began to find it a bit strange. When he thought back to the times he had played together with them, he could not come up with any unusual points. Aside from not speaking, Xiao Yu was like any other typical child. He did not show any obvious indications otherwise.

“Actually, just like you, I never noticed anything peculiar whenever I went to their home. That’s why I find it even stranger.” Li Zi Hong had recently been paying visits to their place with electronics recently, and his mind was filled with questions. At first, he had originally wanted to approach the child and the Yu family to observe their interactions, but he had not seen any abnormalities.

Not even the slightest hint.

“Ah, I thought of something. It’s not that there isn’t anything unusual at all.” Yan Si suddenly clapped his hands together as he said, “Xiao Yu doesn’t seem to have ever brought up his own family before. Don’t people typically beg to be brought back [to their home], or want to grab something as a memento? But he did not bring anything back from his house, going directly over to the home of the student that was ganged up on without even a single photo. He has never requested to see the bodies or the grave before either. I heard Boss say before that his daily lifestyle had not been affected at all, and he’s even begun to convey some of his likes. However, he has never expressed anything regarding his family.”

Li Zi Hong looked at him. “Are you sure?”

“Mhm, Xiao Yu often comes to me to play too, so I obviously know him better than you do. With that kind of stiff expression and lack of friendliness, how could you learn of anything?” Yan Si proudly declared with a raised chest. The words: “I’m the better one at intimacy” were written all over his face, clearly asking to be punched.

“…” Li Zi Hong stared at his friend with a sceptical look but decided not to pay any mind to the last part. “I think I will have to have a formal discussion with them once they return this time.”

Yan Si shrugged and yawned again as he opened the refrigerator to grab a drink. He then thought of something else. “Oh right, you need to pay close attention to that Teng Qi person and his younger cousin. There is something complicated going on with them.” Although he could not say why, he had sensed something strange about those two at first sight.

“I know.” Li Zi Hong indicated he would keep an eye out, as he was also bothered by their identities.

He had investigated Teng Qi’s background before but had not found anything outstanding. The information did not indicate any suspicious points; he was just like an ordinary person.

The more Li Zi Hong studied those two, the stronger this feeling of suspicion became. Li Zi Hong put down the papers in his hands and sighed as he fell back into his chair.

After ten or so short seconds of silence, the cellphones placed on the desk suddenly went off. Moreover, both of theirs rang with different tones at the same time.

“Can you not at least use a ringing sound?” Yan Si saw an eye-roll pointed towards him. He answered the call, and the voice on the other end spoke in its usual pattern, requested for him to go over and temporarily help out.

When he put his phone back down, he saw that Li Zi Hong’s expression had also worsened. He had probably received the same notification.

“That person died.” Li Zi Hong shut his cellphone as his fingers pressed his now throbbing temples.

The body of that drug dealer who had shot at them had just been found while they had been resting. He had sported a bullet through his head, and his limbs had been tied up when he had first been discovered. It was evident that he had been killed.

“Time to go back to work.”

***

He returned to that place once more.

Neither the clouds nor the moon were visible in the dark sky. Even stranger was that there were not even stars to be seen. After sunset, the sky had been entirely dyed a pitch-black colour.

Yu Yin shook the flashlight in his hand and shone it on the empty, dark villa.

Unlike his past visits, he was moving alone this time, which was a somewhat unfamiliar feeling…okay, more like a pretty heavy feeling of pressure.

He crossed over the yellow tape, opened the front door, and walked into the deserted villa.

There was only a large hole left in the spot where the body had been dug out. For easier operations, the paper door had been completely torn down. After walking in a circle around the house, Yu Yin stepped back out to tie the plastic rope around a random tree in the yard. He then jumped onto his rental bike and began to ride it towards the direction of the common person’s shrine, letting out the rope behind him.

Going down alone made the journey seem particularly long.

But at least right when he felt the urge to toss his bike aside, he finally entered the empty lot.

Yu Yin looked around, but did not see the short, old man. He could only faintly smell traces of alcohol in the air; the old man had probably gone drinking somewhere again.

After parking his bike, he stood before the black stage and shone his flashlight beam into the depths underneath. The tightly packed, dark silhouettes were instantly illuminated. It seemed as if they had been waiting for him here for a very long time.

If he was not so short on time, he would rather die than come to this hair-raising place.

Yu Yin mentally counted the eighteen names to himself, deciding that once the matter was resolved and everyone was found, he would go back and strangle each and every one of them to death.

He readied himself and took one step into the space under the dark stage. The flashlight instantly went out, and at nearly the same time, he heard muttering voices all around him, as if countless people were speaking next to him. However, he could not understand their words at all, as they sounded extremely alien.

When Yu Yin stepped out of the stage, he noticed that there was an extra shadow next to him, following him as he got onto his bike.

Then, they slowly headed towards the villa.

This time, the trip seemed even longer. He was on the small path through the field for a long time before it finally led him back to the villa. The instant he entered the spacious yard, Yu Yin saw many bikes parked there.

Nineteen of them in total.

When he raised his head, he saw that there was a person standing behind each window. Every one of them was staring at him blankly. The dim lights stretched their silhouettes so that it appeared as if they all had enormous, black shadows behind them.

He could hear the various noises coming from inside the house.

Glancing down at the rope tied around his wrist, he saw that it was nearly used up.

The front door of the villa silently opened in slow motion before him. There was a sinister atmosphere inside. The empty, furniture-less house waited for him.

He looked up at those people. Although not certain who it started from, each of them slowly began to wave in his direction, just as he had seen before.

Then, Yu Yin stepped into the villa.

The door shut with a bang and locked itself.

***

A scream pierced through the quiet air inside the hospital.

Almost instantaneously, Yi Tai flipped out of his bed. That sound seemed to have come from close by, followed by noises from banging into doors. It was evident that someone had raced out of a nearby room.

The large commotion quickly drew the nurses over from the nurse station.

When he opened his door, he was immediately met with the sight of Li Lin Yue struggling against the several people restraining her. Her pretty face was all twisted together as endless screams escaped from her wide-open, pale and bloodless lips. “Let me go! They’re waiting for me!”

“Quickly call the doctor!” One of the nurses immediately responded and hurriedly ran away. The remaining few people held onto the female student persistently trying to charge outside. “Please calm down a bit!”

It was half past five in the morning.

One of the nurses cried out in pain as a thin cut was scratched onto her face.

“Be quiet!”

Yi Tai came up from behind to restrain her unusually powerful movements, having to exert quite a bit of effort. Actually, the screams and shouts in the hallway had alarmed the other patients in the surrounding rooms, and most of them were standing outside their open doors while rubbing their eyes to see what was going on. However, most of them were just onlookers; nobody dared to help stop the girl that had seemingly lost her mind.

Everyone was talking to each other, trying to guess exactly what had happened to this patient.

After the doctor was urgently fetched, he injected her with a sedative to calm her back down. But this time, her face was deathly pale, to the point where it looked quite frightening.

Some of the nurses had been scratched in various places while holding her, but they still professionally supported her back into her room first.

Once he saw the other meddlesome people go back to their rooms and close their doors, Yi Tai checked the time. When he returned to his room, he grabbed a thin jacket to wear over himself and began to walk out.

Just as he was about to call some other people, he saw Yu Xia and Yu Yin’s younger brother walk out of the elevator.

“Ah Yin isn’t with you?”

Yu Xia did not even bother giving a greeting, directly cutting to the chase and saying, “That damn brat, I called his cellphone many times but couldn’t connect. What is he doing?!” After calling several times, he had realised something was wrong, so he had handed over his work and headed straight over here.

Yi Tai looked out at the sky that was beginning to brighten. He sighed and shook his head at them. “Let’s go look for him now.”

He only managed to take two steps before he was suddenly stopped in place by someone pulling him from his side. He turned to see Yu Yin’s brother staring at him with a very strange expression in his eyes. Yu Xia, who was standing further back, did not seem to notice this.

“He is still fine right now.” Yi Tai gently pried Xiao Yu’s hands off him and politely said, “Let’s go look for him together.”

Xiao Yu did not have much trust in the person standing before him.

“I don’t know how to explain this matter, so please do not ask me. You will understand when you see it.” After he emphasised this statement, he went ahead and walked out the hospital door without paying any mind to how the others responded.

Fortunately, Li Lin Yue’s commotion had caused the people at the nursing station to hurriedly call the doctor and her family members, so they did not notice him openly leave.

Yu Xia cursed and quickly chased after, with Xiao Yu following behind. They had no idea what Yu Yin and this student were up to, but they obviously knew that if they did not follow the latter now, they would not know where to go searching around.

After exiting the hospital, Yi Tai called a cab, and the three of them returned back to stand before the villa.

“Why did that brat run over here again to do?!” Yu Xia stared at the sealed-off villa, resolving to give Yu Yin a good beating first once they saw each other. I clearly already told him not to come here anymore, but he still refused to listen!

Xiao Yu lifted up the yellow tape to run straight into the yard without looking back. He stood next to the tree with rope wrapped around it. After studying it for a moment, he picked up the rope and began to follow it out.

“We should go too.” Seeing that Xiao Yu had already found it, Yi Tai coughed and clapped a hand on Yu Xia’s shoulder. The two of them began to follow behind Xiao Yu.

The yellow, synthetic rope extended an extremely long distance, leading through the field and straight towards the common person’s shrine.

Since it was morning, there were a few people making rounds through the field, standing among the tall rice crops and curiously watching the three people doing something as ridiculous as pulling on some rope.

“Did something happen?” A person wearing a bamboo hat shouted at them.

Yu Xia immediately waved a hand in reply, indicating that nothing was wrong.

Xiao Yu continued to pull on the rope, and midway, spotted a section that had been knotted to continue it since it was not long enough. He suddenly began to race forwards along the rope’s path.

“Xiao Yu!” Yu Xia had no idea why Xiao Yu had begun to run all of a sudden, but he quickly chased after.

Once they crossed through the forest, Xiao Yu walked across the black stage without hesitation, heading straight into the weeds behind.

Yu Xia quickly grabbed Xiao Yu to stop him from charging into the large section of unmaintained underbrush that could practically submerge a person inside it. “There are snakes in there!” In fact, it was possible that snakes were not the only things present; there could even be poisonous bugs. They were all wearing short sleeves, so rashly rushing in could easily lead to injury.

Xiao Yu gripped Yu Xia’s hand. Without any intention of stopping, he opened his mouth and viciously bit down on it. When the other person let out in pain, he immediately darted into the wild growth. Ignoring the cuts forming on his arms and face, he continued holding onto the synthetic rope deep inside the grass and ran further in without stopping. The bugs that had originally been resting inside all flew away in alarm from the large movements, and quite a few unidentifiable things leapt away as well.

“Xiao Yu! Get out of there!” Yu Xia shouted at the source of the disturbance and immediately made a call to request for support. In the short few seconds he hung up the call and was planning to follow inside, he discovered that Yi Tai, who had originally been behind him, had at some point tunnelled inside as well. The grass had been pried apart, leaving behind a narrow path.

Upon closer look, Yu Xia discovered that there were actually many rocks under the grasses. However, the rocks were odd shapes; some were rectangular and some were round. There were also some worn-away strips of cloth underneath a few rocks, although it was no longer possible to discern their original colours.

When Yu Xia picked up these rocks to get a clear look, he recognised what they were. With a click of his tongue, he also charged into the grass.

Yi Tai, who had been following at a slightly slower pace, was also pulling apart the grasses and stomping down on the sharp sections while also widening the path a bit. Soon afterwards, he saw Yu Yin’s brother stop for some reason, and then use his bare hands to start yanking out the surrounding, sharp grasses.

It was as if he had no sense of pain. The weeds instantly cut his hands so that they were dripping with fresh blood, but there was not even a slightest crease of his brows visible.

Yi Tai saw that the yellow rope had ended under the dirt right next to Xiao Yu’s feet.

“Stop!” He quickly grabbed Xiao Yu’s hands and took off the thin jacket on his body. He tore them into strips and wrapped them around the hands. “If you are like this, Ah Yin will take his anger out on me later.”

Xiao Yu glanced at the cloth around his hands and continued to tear at the extremely thick and tangled weeds. Yi Tai also began to help him remove the nearby grasses.

By the time Yu Xia had caught up, a small space had been cleared around where the plastic rope was.

Xiao Yu pushed the pulled grass away and crouched down to begin digging at the dirt.

“Xiao Yu, that’s enough!” Yu Xia noticed that Xiao Yu’s actions were already a bit out of control. This time, Yu Xia forcefully restrained Xiao Yu, refusing to let go no matter whether he was bitten or not.

“There seems to be something underneath.” Comparatively speaking, Yi Tai was a lot calmer. He found a sharp, triangular rock nearby and began to dig at the somewhat hard dirt layer. Since the cleared out weeds had also loosened the soil, it became pretty easy to dig through once he had knocked through a portion of it.

After continuing this action for a while, Yi Tai struck something. He raised his head to exchange a glance with Yu Xia, the latter loosening his grip so that Xiao Yu stopped struggling and immediately freed himself to help dig up the remaining dirt.

Then, a black wooden board appeared underneath.

The plastic rope they had followed all the way here had been embedded through the black slab of wood in an extremely unusual way, as if indicating that this was the end point.

Xiao Yu swiped the sharp rock out of Yi Tai’s hands and forcefully struck the wood a few times. The slab was unexpectedly not very thick, likely a sloppy piece of work using shoddy materials. After a few knocks, it split apart to form a hole.

Once Xiao Yu widened the hole, he froze. Yu Xia and Yi Tai, who had crouched down next to him to help, froze at the same time as well.

Half a face appeared behind the hole. It was half of Yu Yin’s face, but it had already turned deathly pale. When the light struck the wood, half of a black skull appeared behind his head, its slightly exposed, dark eye sockets staring straight at them while radiating a loathing towards its destroyers. However, nothing could be seen from the empty sockets.

An eerie laugh rang out from the distance, vanishing into the coffin.