The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

“Currently, only family members are allowed to visit the patient.”

After Yu Yin put down his luggage and rented out a scooter from a nearby garage, he headed straight to the hospital to make some inquiries first. Sure enough, the answer he received was as he had expected.

The young nurse said with a suspecting gaze, “If you are Miss Li’s friend, you may have to wait several days for the patient to wake up and reach a stable condition before being able to visit.”

“Alright.”

Since this was foreign ground for Yu Yin, and he had no way of using connections to force himself in, he could only leave the nurse station. Xiao Yu raised his head to glance at him from his seat in the corridor. More than half of his face was covered by the straw hat, but this getup actually made him more conspicuous inside the hospital. Every person who passed by would unconsciously turn their head to get a second look at the odd combination.

Yu Yi ignored the curious looks from Passerby A, B, and more. After buying a drink, he sat down next to Xiao Yu and passed it over to the person who had been waiting for him. “Honestly, although we’ve run down here like this, I have no idea where to start looking from…the villa definitely has police, so I can’t go inside. Originally, I thought the fastest way would be to ask that woman, but it seems she’s in a pretty bad state right now.”

He had absolutely no idea what she could have encountered.

According to his uncle, she had fainted from extreme shock.

But he had grown up with that woman; there weren’t many things that could frighten her. Although she was a pretty flowery person and dated tons of men, going after whoever she pleased and going through a damn ton of them, she was always able to handle things properly due to her good communication skills. As a result, she had never really incited anything like getting struck by a car or having acid tossed at her to ruin her face.

From a certain angle, it could be said that Li Lin Yue was a woman who wasn’t as simple as her pretty face.

She was always just playing around.

Since the past, all the way up until now, Yu Yin had rarely seen her show any fear or other intense emotion. What exactly did she bump into that could make her this terrified?

He could not even begin to imagine or guess.

As he pondered this, Xiao Yu suddenly stood up, hugging his arms around himself as he looked around.

“Were you touched by something?” Yu Yin looked around as well as he asked this, but he did not see anything.

Xiao Yu tilted his head in thought for a moment before nodding and pointing to their left.

Yu Yin stood up and slightly squinted in that direction. It was where the hospital’s emergency staircase was. He briefly saw some vague shadows moving around in the area, but they quickly vanished without a trace.

“Can’t see them.” Yu Yin rubbed his eyes and discovered that this was the first time he had wanted to see them, but could not.

While he wondered if his sporadic vision had really been whacked out of him or not, he heard the sound of fragmented discussion come from the other side of the corridor. The instant he heard this, he immediately bounded towards the emergency staircase, dragging Xiao Yu along with him. As he’d expected, a few police officers soon walked through the place they had just been lingering around, standing side by side in discussion. One of them was also the last person he wanted to bump into.

“Damn it, I knew Uncle would act fast.” He carefully tugged at Xiao Yu. Before Yu Xia could sense any abnormality, they quickly left through the emergency staircase and went out the hospital’s back door.

After running for half an hour or so, Xiao Yu stopped in his tracks.

Yu Yin turned around just happened to see the straw hat drop onto the road. With a huff, he walked back to grab it. Just as he straightened himself back up, he saw a middle-aged couple standing outside the hospital entrance. They wore identical uniforms from some pension, and appeared to be in their thirties or fourties. There seemed to be traces of nervousness in their expressions.

When he focused in on their conversation, he could faintly hear their conversation.

“What do we do…why did something happen in that place…”

“Let’s get someone to ask the doctors around and see…”

When they noticed Yu Yin staring at them, their discussion abruptly halted.

“Excuse me, may I ask if you two are from the nearby pension?” Yu Yin expressed his goodwill first as he pointed at the name printed on their clothes. “My friends said they’d come over here to play a few days ago. Since I had other things, I came a few days late.”

They had pretty normal outer appearances. The man was on the skinnier side and was quite tall. The woman was on the more petite side. For some reason, the man seemed somewhat on edge, constantly looking around.

The female staff member nodded at him first and said in a relatively polite tone, “My apologies. Since the summer break is a peak period, we constantly have customers here. Your friends may not be staying over at our place, or did they leave a name with you?”

Yu Yin pointed at the name on their shirts. “One of them is called Li Lin Yue; she was sent to the hospital.”

As soon as he mentioned the name, the two people’s expressions clearly changed.

“Are you two from the same school as them?” The staff members hurriedly asked as they pulled Yu Yin and Xiao Yu off to a more remote area around the back door.

“Same class.” Yu Yin flashed his student ID and continued to lie with a straight face, “We agreed to gather in the eastern district, but none of my calls were going through, so I came here to look for them. I just rented a room in a nearby hotel, and will probably stay for two or three days…could you two tell me what happened to my classmates?”

“That’s…” The two exchanged a glance, seemingly debating whether to speak or not.

“We won’t tell anyone else,” Yu Yin said. However, they still seemed hesitant.

Xiao Yu suddenly pulled out his cellphone to type some words out and, to Yu Yin’s astonishment, turned the phone to show the words: “Shūshu, Āyí, you two are the owners; the pension belongs to you. If you don’t want to tell the police, we can go search for our friends on our own.” (TLN: Shūshu 叔叔 = uncle or polite form of address for an older male.)

Although Yu Yin was somewhat shocked, having no idea how Xiao Yu could tell these two were the owners, he did not make any move to interrupt.

“How did you know we were the owners?” The man asked, clearly also slightly bewildered.

Xiao Yu silently pointed at the wedding ring on his finger before flipping through his backpack to take out the travel guide pamphlet, which was identical to the one in Yu Yin’s hands. He turned to one of the pages introducing the numerous pensions. On the colored, printed page was a photo of the woman and the pension. The caption was something along the lines of: “The enterprise built up through the landlady’s painstaking efforts”, and the woman just happened to be wearing an identical ring.

Yu Yin couldn’t help but flush slightly in shame when he saw how accurately and precisely the other had memorized the guide, in comparison to Yu Yin, who had been the first to flip through the pamphlet so many times it was starting to fall apart.

“Just as my younger brother said, we just want to find our classmates. Although it’s currently summer break, we don’t want to get any warnings from the school either, so we won’t tell anyone else. There’s no need to worry about that.” Yu Yin patted Xiao Yu’s shoulder and told the couple, “I simply want to ask some questions about the place my classmates stayed in and go take a look at it. I won’t cause any trouble for you. Maybe they just took a detour to some other place, and I might be able to find it since I’m close with them. You don’t need to give your answer immediately. If you can tell us, just leave a message for us at the hotel we are staying at. My name is Yu Yin.”

After the short greeting, Yu Yin pulled Xiao Yu with him to leave.

He was certain that the matter would quickly start to unfold.

As expected, three hours later that same evening, the penthouse owners left a spare key, the villa address, and a package addressed to him with the front counter.

There were two names written on top: Xie Qing Hai and Wang Yu Fen.

***

At 10:30 PM that same evening.

“Hm? That student that was ganged up on and Xiao Yu didn’t come looking for me.”

After a short exchange on the phone while currently stopped at a traffic light, Yan Si cut the call. His friend who had originally been napping half opened his eyes. “Officer Yu?” He seemed to have heard a familiar voice from the other end of the phone.

It was a somewhat anxious, but also very polite question.

Yan Si turned to look at the yawning Li Zi Hong and nodded. “Yep, Yu Tong. It seems that his two children left a message saying they would go on vacation and ran out somewhere to play. But they didn’t tell him the address, nor are any calls to their cellphones going through. Xiao Yu’s went straight to the answering machine as well, so the father was worried.”

Li Zi Hong actually more or less knew where the two had gone. He sat up and eyed Yan Si, who was sniggering to himself while forwarding a file on the phone. “They likely went to the southern district.”

This was actually an easy guess, since Yu Yin was just too meddlesome. As long as it involved someone he knew, there was an 80-90% chance that he would scurry over like an ant that had caught a whiff of honey.

“Yep, they went to the southern district. Boss Xia will definitely skin him alive.” Yan Si cheerfully sent out the file and simultaneously placed his phone to one side as the traffic light turned green.

“Then why are you laughing?” Li Zi Hong frowned. He felt like the laughter from the person in the driver’s seat was very annoying. At the same time, he also wanted to point out that being on the phone while driving was a violation of traffic regulations.

“I forwarded something that can help the student that was ganged up on to avoid being hunted down and killed. But he turned off his cellphone, so it’s up to whether the Heavens decide to help him or not.” Yan Si was still chuckling to himself as he said this, which only made his friend even more lost. In order to avoid being questioned further or have his phone forcibly taken, Yan Si changed the topic. “Oh right, about that re-examination of the corpses from the fourth floor you asked me to do, the results are still the same. The characteristics on their bodies share identical parts with Xiao Yu’s parents. Although they were rotted away by water, some of the intact sections can more or less still be analysed…it’s almost certain that they are from the same thing.”

“Different seller, but same item.” Having completely confirmed this conjecture, Li Zi Hong re-closed his eyes.

“It does sound pretty strange though. But regardless of whether it’s the fourth floor incident or Xiao Yu’s family incident, neither of the cases will sport any conclusion no matter how far they are pursued.” Yan Si kept his gaze focused straight ahead as he casually stated, “The sellers just supply the drug, they don’t request for their buyers to kill people. Murdering one’s own family after using a drug and causing personality changes and hallucinations…exactly who is the killer in the end? What outcome is there to chase after? These are tricky…even if the ultimate suspect for the incidents is captured, they can’t necessary pay out anything for these cases. At most, they would just be judged guilty for selling drugs. In the end, what does capturing these people give in return to the victims?”

This was a grey area.

Having a perfect ending was impossible.

The drug seller would never end up being declared as guilty for murder. They would just be handed over to the law for their crimes, and then leave prison after completing their sentence.

But those with their lives ended no longer existed.

Li Zi Hong slightly opened his eyes to glance over at Yan Si. “You have already heard of the matter regarding that drug seller posting a bail?”

“Yep.” Because there wasn’t complete evidence, it was barely enough to lay a prosecution. But in the end, it was finally concluded to be covered by a bail.

Although the criminal admitted to selling drugs to the residents of the fourth floor, the penalty sentence allowed for him to exchange money for a bail to leave.

“According to his testimony, he did actually go to the fourth floor that day to collect payments, since that family had owed him money for the incense for a long while. But the moment he opened the door, all he could see was the male owner brandishing a knife. The splattered blood was also a result of the injury from that time. Later, he voluntarily went to an inconspicuous doctor to get treatment, so there were no records left behind.” Yan Si’s tone was indifferent. Although he was dissatisfied with the sentence, he could only choose to appeal to Li Zi Hong. He crossed his arms and said, “He continuously denies that he circulated the drugs around the school. Despite the fact that the back of the car was tested as a positive match to the drug, we have no way of obtaining evidence, and he denies the fact. Only…”

The red light brightened once more.

Yan Si turned on the music to alleviate the serious atmosphere inside the car.

Roughly two seconds later, an expensive racecar came down from the adjacent line. Suddenly, its window rolled down.

A flash of light appeared in the black, evening sky.

Before Yan Si had even realized what this meant, Li Zi Hong suddenly pressed down on a button to change the angle of his seat, causing him to fall flat on his back.

A few sounds rang out as something struck the window and outer walls of the car.

“Damn it!” Li Zi Hong, who was now entirely awake, propped himself up. The second the traffic light turned green, he saw the driver from the car next to them tilt his head deviously to stick his their tongue and give the middle finger. Then, the racecar whizzed away.

“Ow, ow, ow…what the hell…” Yan Si had been slammed down without any warning. He pressed down on his hip as he loosened his seatbelt and crawled back up.

The cars behind them began to honk. Soon afterwards, they lost patience and simply charged past their car.

“We were shot at, are you alright?” Li Zi Hong mentally noted the car’s license plate and the driver’s appearance before finally remembering that they had not managed to avoid the first shot and that they should be calling an ambulance.

“Twisted my hip.” Yan Si clutched his hip as he looked at the cracked glass. He then raised a finger to give it a few knocks. “Luckily, when a friend recommended me to change to bulletproof glass last time, I did it.” But the outer shell of the car might need to be changed.

Under what situation would someone recommend him to change to bulletproof glass?

Li Zi Hong very much wanted to voice this question, but he restrained himself. “It was that person.” He called the station and, after giving a general description of what had happened, he asked the police to go restrain the other car as soon as possible.

The instant he had seen that car, he had recognised the driver as the drug dealer that had just been bailed out.

“Seeing as they came after my car, it seems like you must have been watched by them.” Having waited up until now to open fire meant the other party had probably been eyeing them the entire night.

“…”

Yan Si patted his shoulder. “This is great, that guy is really seeking his own death sentence. This is a new crime!” Running over and attacking an off-work forensic investigator and prosecutor after being bailed is [a crime], right? It’s a charge that they won’t be able to easily escape from.

“But if possible, I still really want to go get checked for injuries first.” He had fallen on his hip without warning just now. “Getting a sprained hip on a car doesn’t really sound good, if word of it gets out, who knows how others will twist it…” It would be fine if it were a police flower or even a corpse flower, but why am I unlucky enough for it to not be a flower after all? (TLN: flower = beauty.)

“Please shut your mouth.”

It was not long before police cars stopped around them. The officers set up yellow tape as both those with familiar and unfamiliar faces knocked on their car windows to indicate that the outside was secured.

Thus, the long and endless night had only just begun.

***

Yu Yin checked his watch: 10:30.

He turned around to glance at Xiao Yu, who was currently flipping through some kind of book. “I’m going to head over to the villa, do you want to come along?” Since it’s said that the best time to find some “friends” is in the middle of the night. His only strength was his ability to occasionally see ghosts, so he could only start from there. Plus, there shouldn’t be people around the villa at this time; the police typically searched around during the daytime. This was probably when they would go back to rest or organise their information.

He flipped through the things the front counter had given him. Included inside was also the worker’s uniform for the pension. It looked like couple was even more thorough than they were.

Are they just trying everything in desperation now…? If they’re able to trust people they don’t even know to this extent, they must really be panicking.

Xiao Yu nodded and grabbed his bag before following along.

After bidding farewell with the hotel staff, Yu Yin and Xiao Yu began to advance towards the not too distant villa according to the address on the paper.

Because it was a lodging area, it wasn’t exactly quiet even at night. As they rode the scooter through the open field, they would still occasionally pass by some people also visiting here. Most were pretty young, likely students. There were also a few couples and one or two small families that had come to vacation earlier.

“What is your impression on the owner couple?” Yu Yin casually asked as he faced the evening breeze.

He did not hear any voice from behind. It seemed as if the other person didn’t have any particular opinion.

They felt like normal people, there was nothing strange about them.

Yu Yin abruptly saw a person appear to face him in the middle of the narrow road. Yu Yin jolted in fright and hurriedly angled the vehicle while slamming onto the brakes.

The scooter turned tightly and skidded for a whole ten centimeters before it stopped next to the dark ravine. Xiao Yu, who was sitting in the back, had also been pretty terrified. His entire body was tightly clutched around Yu Yin’s back.

“Fuck! You…” Yu Yin raised his head to give the person a good scolding, but when he looked again closely, there was nobody to be seen. Yu Yin automatically went silent.

Alright, I think my sporadic vision is back.

Yu Yin quietly balanced the vehicle as he looked around the empty, pitch-black road.

Xiao Yu pointed at the other side of the field while tugging at Ah Yin’s clothes.

When Yu Yin glanced over in that direction, he noticed that the villa without any lights on had at some point appeared on the vacant field. From the distance, it looked like an enormous, strange area that gave off an indescribable, towering feeling.

Luckily, there were lamps along the street. Otherwise, it would really seem like a haunted house.

Yu Yin restarted the engine several times. Possibly as a result of the sudden movement earlier, the scooter momentarily did not start up. After it made a hopeful noise, Yu Yin instead felt despair as it immediately burned out. “Damn it, I didn’t break it, did I?” He glared at the vehicle still on strike with a helpless feeling.

Xiao Yu crouched down next to it and after a brief moment of contemplation, glanced back to judge their distance from the villa.

“It’s fine, it’s pretty close. I’ll just push the bike along as well.” Yu Yin scratched at his bandanna. They had just bumped into people earlier, but now he could not even see a single dog around. This place is probably pretty remote already.

Xiao Yu nodded and stood back up to follow behind.

Although Yu Yin had said it was close, it wasn’t quite exactly. With the extra addition of a bike that couldn’t move, it took them around ten minutes to walk to the villa. Yu Yin felt the physical strain as his entire head began to faintly throb with a dull pain.

When they looked over at the villa front door, there was absolutely no trace of light coming from the tightly closed-up villa.

There were traces of the grass yard having been run over by cars, as well as marks left behind by people treading across. It appeared that these were likely from the police offers that had just left this place earlier.

It seemed that they had chosen a pretty good time to arrive – it was just somewhat frightening.

There seemed to be some kind of noise coming from the pitch-dark house, created from something that was moving about.

Yu Yin parked the scooter and grabbed the key that the pension owners had given him to open the front door without any hesitation. He then turned on the light. Xiao Yu quickly ran in to follow him inside and opened all the lights in the living room. The strange feeling from the darkness was immediately expelled from the light; it just looked like any other house.

Just from looking at it like this, there was nothing odd about the place at all, nor did there seem to be any areas that had issues.

But after walking up and down the floors, Yu Yin felt something was wrong.

So they just never came back after going out to play?

He walked around the living room while pondering this, recalling that the pension owners had mentioned that his classmates had rented out bikes. However, both the bikes and their riders had completely vanished. That meant they had likely gone out, but did not return.

According to what the staff had said, there had still been one boy when they had delivered the barbecue tools. But in the end, only Li Lin Yue had been found. Based on this description, Ah Yin could guess that the person who had stayed behind must have been Yi Tai.

But where did they go?

Yu Yin could not come up with an explanation. When he sat down on the sofa, he noticed a small bedroom on the side.

This kind of room was typically meant to be used for those that had more difficulty with going up and down the stairs. He used the key to open it and, as expected, met the sight of a very normal room. There was nothing special about the place.

Xiao Yu stood next to him and heard the fragmented noises from underneath, immediately backing up automatically.

“Oh, there’s a field nearby, so there are probably rats running around the water pipes.” Yu Yin didn’t pay it much mind. Having spotted nothing, Yu Yin closed the door before crouching down to lock the paper door. “Huh?”

After turning it two or three times, the key had somehow gotten stuck.

“Weird, isn’t this key too poorly made?” Yu Yin tried to pull it out a few times as well and furrowed his brows when he was still unsuccessful.

Xiao Yu suddenly jumped next to him and immediately yanked him backwards in panic.

“What is it?” Yu Yin turned to look at him, completely confused as to why he was being pulled.

Xiao Yu just continued to frantically shake his head, unsure of how to express it, while tugging at the paper door.

Yu Yin narrowed his eyes and, using the light from the living room, saw what Xiao Yu was talking about amidst the darkness behind the door.

A black figure could be faintly seen crouching on the other side of the paper door.

***

They did not dare to even breathe.

The key stuck in the door made a bizarre grinding sound, and then it was twisted out in the opposite direction.

Yu Yin subconsciously reacted and immediately charged over to grab the key and turn it as hard as possible in the opposite direction to lock the door again. However, the other side seemed to resist against him with an extremely great amount of power.

He could feel the key go taunt, about to snap from the two forces.

The door suddenly began to shake violently. Then, it opened a small crack, and the glowing, green eyes flashed as they watched the other side.

Xiao Yu raced over to shut the door again, and then held it fast to make sure it could not re-open.

“Damn it! What the hell is this!” The string of curses practically tumbled out of Yu Yin’s mouth although he had no idea what kind of ghost was in the room. The door was trembling intensely once more, and the resisting force did not fade either. It seemed to be against him re-locking the door.

The ghostly shadow on the other side of the door was so blurry that he could not tell if it was still there or not.

Then, the shaking stopped.

Xiao Yu let out of a soft sigh as he sensed the force on the other side of the door disappear. He looked down at Yu Yin, who was still crouched on the ground and struggling to pull the key out. “Looks like…”

Before he could even finish speaking, a fierce bang suddenly came from the wood-framed, paper window. Xiao Yu was not able to see what it was from where his nearby position; all he could feel was something cold touch his shoulder. When he turned back around to look, all he saw was a blood-soaked blade slowly being retracted through the torn-out hole in the paper door. A certain person’s eyes were evilly glaring at them through the door.

“You fucking dare to touch my brother?!” Without a second thought, Yu Yin stuck his hand through to stab the eyes behind the door. When he withdrew his hand back out, he felt the force on the other side of the key loosen, and he immediately pulled the key out from the keyhole.

The clamour from the paper door abruptly stopped.

The black shadow seemed to have evaporated without a trace.

Yu Yin inspected the hand he had just used to stab the eyeballs. On his fingers were some black substance that had a foul odour that was enough to make anyone want to vomit. Yu Yin’s face twisted into one of disgust, and he quickly charged into the kitchen to wash off his hand.

Xiao Yu followed behind him while eyeing the paper door, not daring to look away.

“There’s definitely a problem with this house.” Yu Yin grabbed a lamp to flash it around a few times. After making sure there were no humanoid shadows or anything running out again, Yu Yin finally sighed in slight relief. He grabbed onto Xiao Yu’s shoulder and said, “Let me see it!”

There was definitely a cut on his skin, but it was very shallow. This made Yu Yin relax a bit. “But that thing is definitely filthy, so we should go to the hospital first.”

Xiao Yu suddenly grabbed onto Yu Yin, having caught sight of a silver object next to the paper door. After triple-checking there was nothing on the other side of the door, he went to pick up the object.

Upon closer look at the small mass of twisted silver, Yu Yin quickly recognized it as half of the snapped key. “Weird, how did it get tossed over here?”

Nobody could answer his question.

“Whatever, let’s just make a trip to the hospital, we can discuss this later.”

Yu Yin eyed the paper door that now had a ripped hole in it. He had a vague feeling that this matter was not as simple as they had thought it was. He dragged the other person with him and they slowly retreated back to the front door of the villa.

The second they stepped outside, the lights in the living room all went out with a pop.

The originally quiet sounds were instantly magnified. The doors designed to segment each floor next at the staircase were all slammed open by some force. The series of bangs travelled down to the first floor and echoed through the large, empty space.

“Let’s go.” They slowly backed out and Yu Yin finally closed the front door. Despite this, he could still hear the sound of rats running around in the water pipes below.

The entire villa became enshrouded in darkness once more, and Yu Yin figured that it was unlikely something would charge out. He reflexively started up the engine of the scooter before recalling that it hadn’t been able to start earlier. “Damn it…” I wonder if I can find someone to pick us up.

But just then, the scooter was suddenly revived.

“Seriously, what the hell is this!”