The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

Yu Yin stared at his cellphone.

“What in the world is he up to?” He glanced outside the balcony with a frustrated expression. It was completely quiet. He could see everywhere around the house from here. However, there wasn’t anything special, so he walked back inside.

Xiao Hai and Shuang Shuang were sitting on the bed. They had opened the dressing table and laid out all the items onto the floor to play with.

After opening the windows, the air in the house had slowly circulated out. He could still hear a bit of the barely discernible footsteps, but they seemed to be fairly distant from them. There was no indication of them approaching either.

“There’s nothing of value in this house anymore,” Xiao Hai suddenly announced as she swung her feet on the bed.

“Huh?” Yu Yin turned around and saw that there really was nothing valuable among the items the little girl had rummaged through. Even the jewellery appeared to be cheaply-priced, as it was starting to rust.

“There’s receipts for loans too. Looks like they were pretty short on money.” Xiao Hai flicked out a piece of paper, shrugging as she saw the different sums that had been taken out on loans. “There’s an underground company on here. Seems like this family was in quite a bad state even though the house still looks pretty good. They should’ve mortgaged it off. I wonder if the bank would accept it…they might be scared off by ghosts. What a shame for the survivor to have to shoulder so much debt…I wonder if they can renounce the inheritance.”

There was a strange smell that Yu Yin had sensed from the very beginning. He surveyed the room and saw that the little girl was currently playing with a necklace, so he gave a signal to Xiao Hai and walked outside by himself.

As he stood in the corridor, he heard footsteps below, while the smell gradually grew stronger as he neared the upwards staircase.

The staircase was immersed in darkness. He saw half of the suit-wearing woman sticking out from the darkness, standing next to the second floor staircase and looking down at him.

Above?

Yu Yin glanced at the two girls in the room before patting his chest and taking a deep breath. He then carefully began to walk up.

The stairwell was completely dark. After turning around onto the stairs, he was surrounded by such a deep black that he could not even see his own fingers on his outstretched hand. It was completely different from the first and second floors. Yu Yin also felt the temperature abruptly drop, [the breeze] lightly brushing past his skin.

He felt a faint unwillingness.

Since nearly dying the last time, Yu Yin had felt his senses towards these strange things had grown sharper. It wasn’t that he could really see everything…his sporadic vision was still the same as before. But it seemed as if he could feel an even deep layer to it…

He felt that this place did not harbour any hostility towards him, the complete opposite from the last time. This seemed to be some section of their memory.

The screams echoed throughout the entire house.

He could still hear the mournful cries, the jumble of noise coming from numerous people in the distance. It was like an endless repetition of the most horrifying moment before their deaths.

It was not because some unknown robber had broken in, nor because they had been implicated that they felt despair and helplessness. It was because they had seen one of the people closest to them kill them with a knife.

It was impossible for Yu Yin to imagine what these people’s final thoughts had been, or the last scenes they had seen before dying.

When the blade was delivered into his closest relatives’ bodies, what was he thinking?

Yu Yin shook his head and stepped into the darkness. Fortunately, the third floor’s layout was similar to the second floor’s, and there wasn’t any junk in the hallway. As a result, Yu Yin was able to pass through the corridor pretty smoothly, before feeling around for a candle and lighter he had grabbed upon entering just now.

The instant he lit the candle, he saw a black silhouette flash past him from the corner. “There’s nothing here, there’s nothing here…” Repeating this twice helped him gathered the courage to continue onwards. He felt that the fact that he was used to seeing ghostly shadows now was quite depressing. Maybe he really was well-suited to be on those “Ghosts: Chase, Chase, Chase” shows…his thoughts had wandered too much. If possible, he really would not want to see these things that were not quite there.

The third floor was very chilly, or more accurately, cold – to the point where he instantly formed goosebumps. However, the stench was definitely growing stronger as he entered the level.

It was the stink of a corpse.

This was no longer his first time smelling it, so he could quickly identify it.

The stench that floated through the air belonged to the decomposition of some biological form that he could not discern. Before he could advance more than a few steps, he heard a door in front of him emit a strange “du-du-du” sound on his right side.

It was a wooden door. It looked extremely ordinary, but the noise was coming from inside. He went forwards and turned the doorknob a few times, but discovered that it was locked tightly, making it impossible to open.

He stood before the door, and the smell seemed to grow especially concentrated, as if it was coming out from behind this specific door.

The moment curiosity struck the heart, the heart would grow an extremely strong desire to seek the truth.

After trying to open it a few times to no avail, Yu Yin glanced around for any tools that could possibly help. With a moment’s thought, he got down onto all fours to see if he could spot anything from the crack underneath.

Then, he saw a pair of eyes.

A pair of murky, grey eyes were staring straight back at him from behind the door.

The flame shone onto the nearly blind pupils, the light flickering bizarrely.

For a few seconds, Yu Yin’s mind went completely blank. He first only sensed the exceptionally powerful stench come out from the door, then that sound, before finally realising there was a pair of eyes gazing right at him.

Yu Yin felt the hairs on his body rise on end, and he immediately shot backwards.

“What are you doing, Dàgēgē?”

“Ahhh!”

Yu Yin jumped in fright from the sudden voice and his hand dropped the candle. Out of the corners of his eyes, he saw the last of the light illuminate the face of Shuang Shuang, who had at some point arrived next to him.

Shuang Shuang picked up the candle that had left a black burn mark on the ground. “Dàgēgē, you shouldn’t do that. You’ll burn the house down.”

Having nearly been scared to death, Yu Yin clutched his chest and took a few deep breaths before quickly scrambling to stand up. “No-nothing, I’m just trying to see what’s in there.” He sometimes truly believed that humans were scarier [than ghosts], such as moments like these.

“What the hell are you two up to?” Xiao Hai came up the second floor staircase as well, stopping at the top. “Holy crap, what is giving off that stink?” She smelled the stench that had not been as obvious downstairs, but was extremely concentrated upstairs.

“You smell it too?” Yu Yin was taken aback. If even she could smell it, then it wasn’t just his personal reaction. The stink undoubtedly existed.

“Hell, is your nose just there for decoration? How could you not smell something that terrible?” Xiao Hai cursed as she looked around. “And this place is too dark, there aren’t even windows in this hallway. What is up with that?” As she spoke, she jumped past Yu Yin to open another door.

This door’s lock was on the outside where the hallway was, and it was not blocked off in any way.

The instant the door opened, the light and air fought to surge out from the corridor, forcing the rotten smell to dilute a bit. Directly behind the door was a balcony. It was not large, and it still had bamboo poles used for hanging up clothing outside, although the plastic film on it had already broken down. It was evident that it had been unused for a very long time.

The other side leading to the balcony was a French window. However, because there was a bunch of dark-coloured papers stuck on the inside surface of it, there was no way of seeing through the window to look at the room. The windows were also tightly locked and unable to be opened.

“This floor only has that room, I wonder if it’s a worship room,” Xiao Hai said after circling around the floor.

Yu Yin walked out to join her on the balcony and felt the chills in his body start to warm back up, his mood calming slightly with it. When he looked back, he saw Shuang Shuang blow out the candle and giggle as she also followed out to tug at his clothes. “That room can’t be opened~”

“Yeah…wonder if there’s anything inside.” Yu Yin did not pay any mind to the little girl’s tone. He walked up to the balcony and looked down to see someone stick their head out from the first floor window and glance up at him.

The posture was extremely unnatural…He could see the person’s back, yet their face was directly staring straight at him – the burned face was distorted in a sinister manner, and it was completely blank of expression.

A second later, the head instantly retreated from the window back inside.

Xiao Hai walked over to lean against the wall. “That room seems to be sectioned off with wooden boards, probably to change the area that had been designed for a worship room into a different room.”

There was nothing odd about this, as many townhouses had such layours.

“Oh.” Yu Yin absentmindedly replied while scratching his head, having not seen anything else. Then, he spotted some nearby residents pop out their heads. “Seems like we’ve drawn other peoples’ attention. Let’s leave here first.”

“Who cares? At most, they’ll just think we came here as a test of courage.” Xiao Hai indifferently replied, “A lot of crazy people that don’t fear death love coming here as bets. You can tell just by all the candle oil downstairs.”

He had thought it had been left by Shuang Shuang. But now that he pondered over it again, Xiao Hai was right. A little girl could not have possessed the strength to pile all the stuff from the living room off to one side, making it impossible to discern the original layout.

But despite her words, Xiao Hai still followed him back out to the hallway. They locked the door, and the three of them retreated out of the house from the back door in single file, then re-closed the door that could now be opened wide.

Before leaving, Yu Yin seemed to catch a glimpse of a black car quietly vanish on the other side of the street.

When he raised his head, he saw the house’s windows filled with black silhouettes.

The screams once again began to echo from the empty space…

***

By the time Yu Yin returned home, it was already evening, and all the lights in the living room were on.

He had originally thought that the other person would loiter outside for longer before returning home, like yesterday. It seemed like he should have called home first to ask if he should buy some dinner back from the convenience store on the way.

As Yu Yin thought this to himself, he fished out his key and opened the door.

A patrol car slowly passed by. His home had already become a critical patrolling point over the past two days, and he often saw patrolling officers pass through. Sometimes, they would even roll down their car windows to give a greeting.

The lock on the door had already been replaced, and the old key would not work.

Yu Yin sighed and pressed the doorbell a few times. The door was quickly opened.

As expected, the person behind the door was Xiao Yu, who had returned home first. He still had a towel wrapped around his head; it appeared that he had just come out of the bath.

“How did you get in? Also, you need to blow your hair after washing it.” Yu Yin rubbed Xiao Yu’s head through the towel, then spoke as he walked his motorbike into the yard.

“Key…left with neighbour.”

Xiao Yu quickly held the towel in place to keep it from falling, then quickly withdrew from the door. He had just come out of the bath, so the wind brought chills to his body. As a result, he ran straight back into the house.

Upon entering the house, Yu Yin discovered another person in the living room.

“I bought some food.” Li Zi Hong was setting up the game console with the TV as he gave his greeting.

“…Eh, you don’t need to go to work today, Li-dàgē?” Yu Yin noticed the paper bags on the table and quickly went to bring out drinks for the guest.

“Arranged break. I did go into the office briefly, and promised Yu Tong that I would come pick up Xiao Yu in the afternoon. But he ended up not being here, so I waited at a nearby coffee shop until around four.” Li Zi Hong had actually called [Xiao Yu] countless times as well. As Li Zi Hong plugged in the last cable, he pulled out a bunch of game discs from the bag he had brought. Xiao Yu took them and began to seriously contemplate which one to choose.

Yu Yin nodded, noticing the thick work bag nearby. He knew that Li Zi Hong had likely been handling some other official matters too. The two of them both shifted their gazes to the fellow currently deciding on a game disc.

The person being watched unexpectedly did not show any reaction.

While waiting for Xiao Yu to make his choice, Li Zi Hong furrowed his brows slightly as he noticed something. He then reached over to grab Yu Yin’s clothes. “What is that smell on you?”

Upon hearing this question, Yu Yin hurriedly tugged at his own clothes to take a whiff. As expected, it was the rotting stench…he had brought the stink back from that house. It was an extremely horrible smell.

After a moment’s thought, Li Zi Hong stood up, having a general idea of what the smell was. “Where did you get it from?”

“Shhhh.” Yu Yin dragged the other person out of the living room, all the way to the kitchen. After confirming the person still in the living room had not noticed anything off, he quietly answered Li Zi Hong, “I went to Xiao Yu’s house.”

“You went to—”

“Sh.” Yu Yin frantically stuck his head out to scan the corridor, very afraid of Xiao Yu overhearing, as the latter’s mood had been extremely unstable recently. He lowered his voice even further to say, “Did Yan-dàgē not tell you? He took away my bloody clothes, saying that he would run some type of test for something between a ghost and a person…”

He was certain that Yan Si had dumped it at Jiu Shen’s, followed by Jiu Shen’s endless wails.

The investigation officer had recently become more and more afraid of him visiting…

“I heard about the matter regarding the bloody clothing.” However, Li Zi Hong had not seen it yet. He narrowed his eyes and asked, “How many times did you go inside?”

“Eh, just twice. I didn’t even know it was his house at first. It was really a coincidence.” Yu Yin quickly summarised the two situations, purposely hiding the fact that Xiao Hai had followed him in as well, since he was afraid of getting her into trouble. After all, Xiao Hai’s identity was a bit special, so he was concerned about inconveniencing her.

Li Zi Hong simply listened to it all. He did not immediately speak afterwards, seemingly pondering something.

A while passed before he finally spoke. However, his question was not related to the Shaodi house. “You said you saw a female wearing a work-suit…that might have been Shuang Shuang’s mother?”

“Yeah, at least, that’s what I think.”

“Is her hair long or short? Other features? A general description is fine.”

Yu Yin could only stare dumbly at Li Zi Hong for a moment upon hearing the questions. However, he still tried to recall from his memories. “She has a very average look. Her hair is dark and long…”

“Su Tong Shuang’s mother had short, brown hair when she died.” Li Zi Hong immediately cut off Yu Yin’s words in a straightforward manner.

“Huh?”

This time, Yu Yin was shocked.

Then who was it that he had seen?

“Since Yu Tong mentioned the incident recently, I checked the case files. The incident when Su Tong Shuang’s family had gotten into a car accident had many suspicious points. The mother’s death had left behind quite a large amount of insurance money, and the father had immediately remarried the following year. This had raised some questions from the investigator responsible that time, but they were never able to find anything concrete. The case was closed as being entirely accidental.”

Yu Yin tilted his head to glance at the prosecutor next to him. “…Is there something wrong with her family?”

The person in front of him would likely not have gone through the effort to specifically look into the case just because his dad had mentioned it. If the prosecutor was investigating it, that signified the household likely had some kind of issue.

Li Zi Hong smiled faintly. “You’re quick. Although the investigator back then did not find any problems, the suspicious point was the woman who came in later. During our recent check of all the cases for any relation to the incense, we discovered that this second marriage partner had come into contact with Wang Zhao Tang before. She had once helped him sell incense.”

Yu Yin’s eyes grew wide, and he couldn’t help but cough as he nearly choked on his own saliva. He had never imagined such a coincidental event could exist. “Wait, so you’re saying that Shuang Shuang’s Āyí is one of Wang Zhao Tang’s connections…or is she another addict?” Holy crap, so Shuang Shuang is also a victim of that incense?

When Yu Yin thought back to her strange actions during their recent interactions, he nearly felt his hairs stand on end.

“We do not know yet. However, we have already dispatched people to contact Shuang Shuang’s father. Moreover, the woman’s whereabouts are currently unknown. On the surface, it appears that she stole money and fled, but in reality, there is no way we can say for certain.” Li Zi Hong shrugged. He had also felt that this was a bit too coincidental. He let out a soft sigh and said, “Wait here.”

He returned to retrieve his work bag from the living room, then rummaged through it to pull out a few folders.

While Yu Yin stood next to him, he heard the sound of the telephone ringing coming from the living room.

Li Zi Hong found a photo and passed it over to Yu Yin.

“So, is this the woman you saw next to Su Tong Shuang?”

When Yu Yin took the photo and got a clear look at it, he felt a chill crawl up from his feet all the way to his head, with everything between his toes and scalp going numb as goosebumps formed all over his body.

The woman in the photo was smiling at him. Although she was not wearing a suit, she was undoubtedly identical to the person he had seen.

Her relatively attractive face and long black hair had appeared before him multiple times now. It was the woman he had assumed to be Shuang Shuang’s mother.

“This is not Tong Su Shuang’s mother. This is her father’s second marriage partner. Her name is Lin Ya Qing, and she has been missing for five days now.”

The sky gradually darkened.

At a bit past seven, a car parked in front of the haunted house filled with sounds and shadows.

Although the building appeared to be an extremely ordinary townhouse, it had been completely abandoned after a case not long ago involving the murder of the entire family. The residents nearby would almost never pass by this house at night, while any passerby unaware [of the situation] would often run away in terror when a human silhouette suddenly appeared.

Word was that it had later become a spot for misbehaved juveniles to test their courage. They would often be seen racing out of the house, screaming and even rolling or crawling on the ground in attempt to flee.

After a while, the residents on both sides of the house also moved away.

Nobody dared to become neighbours of this kind of house.

“…You guys invited me out tonight because you wanted to come see a haunted house, not because you wanted to grab a late-night snack?” Although Jiu Shen was on vacation, he had still been called out to go look at a house that he had just visited a year ago. He honestly had a strong desire to stay in the car forever rather than go outside.

It’s a haunted house, you know…

Even before it had ghosts, he had already been terrified of this house. Yet he had been called over now after there were ghosts.

He shot an accusatory look at the car’s owner and the fearless Yu Yin as he purposely took his sweet time. He had absolutely no desire to get out of the car.

“You seemed to be pretty free,” Li Zi Hong replied with an infuriating response after thinking for a moment with his arms crossed.

Jiu Shen let out a wail and banged his head against the glass next to him.

“And you have also been here before.”

After turning off the engine, Li Zi Hong got off the car first, not really concerned about what the haunted house might hold, and glanced at the pitch-black third floor. Although he had visited several times before, he had never entered inside. Everything he knew about this house was based on the case files and photos.

Yu Yin was the second person to jump off the car.

They had not told Xiao Yu that they would come here. Instead, they had called Yan Si to go over and play video games with Xiao Yu before heading out. For the time being, they were not worried about the younger one vanishing without a trace while nobody was watching.

Who knows what he’s up to…

“Did you say that you saw the eyes on the second floor?” Li Zi Hong turned on a flashlight. He then began to knock the car doors, pushing for the investigation officer still sitting inside to quickly come out.

“A locked room on the third floor.” Yu Yin was now belatedly realising that there was something strange about Shuang Shuang’s words. She had said “That room can’t be opened” rather than “That room can’t open”.

It was evident that the room contained something that could not be seen, rather than it having been locked in the first place.

Nearly five more minutes passed before the final person exited the car with heavy steps. Holding the work bag he had grabbed last minute, he trembled as he said, “…Agree first that we’ll leave immediately if we don’t see anything after circling around the area once.” His heart could not take wandering around multiple times.

“Alright.” Li Zi Hong shook the flashlight in his hand as he pondered whether it would have actually been better to investigate if he had the power restored.

Yu Yin had also grabbed a small flashlight from home on his way out. When he looked at the powerful white light, he suddenly felt like they were going on some kind of exploration.

He recalled that there had been similar setups in a few of the video games he’d brought home to play…

When he swung the bright light around, he caught a glimpse of a human face pressed against the glass of the window. However, it disappeared before he could get a good look.

…Maybe we should call Xiao Hai over.

But she’s working right now, and she might beat me up if I tried. Plus, Dad isn’t here to lure her out. It might be best if I actually don’t think about it.

The three people entered the house from the back door.

Jiu Shen stuck right behind Li Zi Hong the entire way, just short of directly jumping onto Li Zi Hong’s back. He did not dare to look around, his gaze locked only onto the suit the person in front of him wore.

Yu Yin, who was walking behind them, saw numerous feet in the dark shadows of the house under the bright light. It was as if they were hiding in the corners watching them. The feet did not come near them, although Yu Yin could not tell if it was because of the protective amulet’s effect, or if they really did not want to get close. When the beam of light passed through, the feet would vanish. However, he would once again see many different feet appear in the next patch of shadows.

Li Zi Hong furrowed his brows at the sight of the extremely messy room. “Were there no successors or relatives that came to clean up after the incident?” He pushed Jiu Shen away from his back as he voiced his question.

“Ah, their family did not have any communications with other relatives. The other family just left after paying respects to the deceased, and the two families shared no blood relationship. The only legal successor is Xiao Yu…so…” Aside from Xiao Yu, nobody else can touch this house. Jiu Shen snuck a peek at the destroyed living room that did not quite match the image in his memory. However, before he could see anything strange, he quickly shrunk his neck back like an ostrich.

After they walked in a circle around the living room, a mournful scream suddenly came from the staircase. It was so out of the blue that it felt as if the silent air had been instantly ripped apart by a powerful force.

Li Zi Hong grabbed Jiu Shen, who was just about to run for his life towards the exit, then shone the flashlight in the direction of the stairs. There was absolutely nothing on the stairwell shrouded by darkness, and the scream instantly quieted after a few seconds.

“Did you g-g-g-g-guys….hear something….”

Jiu Shen’s legs nearly gave out on him as he pointed at the foot of the stairs and shouted at the other two planning to go up, “There’s something unscientific up there!”

“That is precisely why we came here.” Li Zi Hong did not particularly feel fear towards such things. He patted Jiu Shen’s shoulder and said, “A righteous heart defies evil.”

“Liar! Unless you’re saying that Ah Yin’s heart is crooked…” He bumps into those unscientific things all the time!

“Jiu Shen-Gē, could you not drag me down with you?” Yu Yin immediately shot back.

“If you are really that afraid, you can just wait for us at the door. We will call you if we find anything.” After a moment’s thought, Li Zi Hong pointed at the locked front door as he suggested a way to dispel the other’s woes.

“Ah, you’ll need to be careful, Jiu Shen-Gē. There are quite a few downstairs, so make sure you don’t bump into them.” Yu Yin was saying this out of goodwill, afraid that Jiu Shen would end up getting frightened a dozen times in succession if he stayed below all alone.

“Damn it…”

Jiu Shen grabbed onto Li Zi Hong’s suit. There was no way he dared to stay downstairs alone after hearing that warning. As he internally felt his heart begin to cry and bleed, he followed them up the stairs.

Why am I here with these two on the most terrifying, unscientific exploration instead of staying in my own warm home?

Li Zi Hong did not actually want to scare the investigation officer to death, so after a moment’s thought, he decided to skip straight past the second floor to go straight towards the problematic third floor room that Yu Yin had mentioned.

When they turned around to head up the stairs, they clearly sensed the surrounding temperature severely drop. Even Jiu Shen, who was sandwiched in between the other two, couldn’t help but sneeze.

“It’s the same stench.” Li Zi Hong sensed the smell in the air get stronger as they went up. After a few steps, they quickly saw the door on the side. Leading the way, he tried turning the doorknob. However, it was tightly locked and impossible to open.

Li Zi Hong dropped his gaze down at the crack under the door. Ignoring the dust and filth covering the ground, he quickly dropped down onto all fours to shine the flashlight inside.

Almost instantly, they heard a du-du-du sound. It stood out even more so in the silent atmosphere.

Jiu Shen cowered back. “Uh, um, can we hurry up and open the door to look inside and then leave as quickly as possible?” This place is super unscientific, including the air temperature. Just how supernatural can the temperature be to basically act as air conditioning?

“You can pick locks?” Li Zi Hong and Yu Yin turned around to look at him in unison.

“I can…for this kind.” Jiu Shen studied the slightly jammed lock on the door and fished out a tool from his bag. “…As long as there isn’t anything unscientific on the other side.”

But it definitely does.

Yu Yin sensed his friend’s silent woe.

Opening the door did not actually take much time. Less than a minute had passed before they heard the click of the lock opening, and Jiu Shen immediately opened the room. In that moment, the horrific smell rushed outwards. Its powerful stench was suffocating, causing the investigation officer in front to choke and cough uncontrollably.

Li Zi Hong immediately opened the balcony door on the side to let the air flow through. However, he couldn’t help but frown at the smell that still lingered.

Jiu Shen pulled out masks and gloves to hand to the others. He grabbed a portable lamp to illuminate the room filled with black paper, only to see a person lying on a short table in the middle of the room. The tightly sealed space did not contain any insects, and the temperature was so low that it was head-numbing.

The dead body reflected under the lamp’s light had long, black hair. It wore the suit of an office worker, although the cloth was already soaked with body fluids; the water and blood mixed together to form a different dark colour. One could just barely tell that the cloth had originally been grey.

The fluids were dripping down from the body and falling onto the top of a plastic box. This was what generated the empty du-du-du sounds.

Yu Yin shifted his gaze. However, he immediately saw a foot in the corner. A woman stood near them, her grey eyes and face glaring at them with an expression of severe accusation and malice.

“Call the police.” Li Zi Hong shoved his cellphone towards Jiu Shen, who was just about to escape out the door. Then, he noticed a few thousand yuan bills and some incense on the floor and stuck onto the corpse’s fluids.

He also noticed some footprints on the ground, so he did not advance further. They would have to wait for support to arrive before entering the scene.

“I’m going to go out for a bit.” Yu Yin could not bear the smell any longer, and he pushed Jiu Shen out to the balcony to make the call.

Li Zi Hong waved his hand, and after grabbing the portable lamp from them, continued to scan over the layout of the room from the doorway.

The room had a simple arrangement. The French window connecting to the balcony was covered with black paper for some reason. The floor was made of ordinary marble. Aside from a study desk, a small bed, and a cabinet, there was no much else inside.

If there’s a desk, there should be a chair…He found some fractured wood in the corner, which appeared to be a broken chair. However, it seemed like it had only become damaged recently.

Then, he suddenly felt a pain in his thigh.

It all happened very naturally. An ice-cold, sharp object passed through the cloth of his pants, piercing straight into his leg.

Li Zi Hong automatically lowered his head to see a relatively pretty, small face that held no expression. Under the powerful light of the lamp, the face was frighteningly pale.

It was a little girl. The little girl let go, the awl that she had been holding in her hand was now firmly stuck into his leg.

“Who allowed you come to my secret base!”

The little girl let out a howl.

***

“Shuang Shuang, what are you doing!”

As the chilling scene inside the room unfolded, the first one to rush inside was Yu Yin. He immediately pushed away the little girl who was still intending to attack. They had not noticed anyone else inside the house at all, and had no way of knowing where the little girl had appeared from.

The little girl struggled violently, leaving a few bloody scratches on his face. “It’s all your fault! Dàgēgē knows that it’s my secret base, but you still brought other people here—” The screams filled the entire house. “Who allowed you to enter—”

“Are you alright?!” As Yu Yin restrained the girl, Jiu Shen quickly pulled out his toolbox to look for items he could use for emergency first-aid.

Li Zi Hong was half kneeling on the ground as he felt his wound. “Doesn’t seem like there is an injury to the major arteries…” A victory amidst misfortune. Although it was painful, he was not in any immediate danger.

“This place is mine—” Shuang Shuang, who was being held down on the ground, struggled to fight back as she began to wail, “Why do you people always treat Shuang Shuang like this…it hurts…”

Yu Yin could only keep her pressed down to the ground despite her ear-piercing shrieks, as he did not dare to be careless. When he raised his head, he saw the woman wearing a grey suit looking straight at him from where she stood outside the balcony. There were also many feet behind her, as if watching the show.

He could hear screams echo from the inner depths of the house.

Then, the police sirens began to drown out the cries.

A few minutes later, the entire area around the house lit up. After some more time, some headlights and a generator were delivered over, and the darkness inside the house was completely dissipated.

A large number of officers filled the sealed off house, opening the locked front door and all the windows.

At some point, without Yu Yin noticing, the feet and the woman had disappeared.

A female officer carried the bawling Shuang Shuang away. Then, the house was surrounded by yellow tape. After some more time passed, someone hurriedly ran over with an emergency first-aid kits.

At the moment, Jiu Shen was utilising his professional skills and helping to take photos of the room and take videos as records.

“Wow, so when you three said you’d come here in the middle of the night, it was to find a corpse and get stabbed?” Yan Si had also rushed over to the balcony. When he saw the other two people, he sighed and asked, “I’ve called an ambulance for you. Is the injury severe?”

As he spoke, he crouched down to inspect Li Zi Hong’s leg. The bit of the lethal weapon sticking out was covered in blood and rust. They would need to give him some shots and do a thorough disinfecting.

“It’s fine, go look at that body first.” Li Zi Hong did not really care about his injury; he was more interested in figuring out the corpse’s situation.

“Five minutes won’t hurt, the body isn’t going to run away,” Yan Si rebuked as he first helped his friend with the emergency treatment.

“Huh, if you ran out here, then where’s Xiao Yu?” Yu Yin rubbed the wounds on his face as he glanced around. However, he did not see Xiao Yu.

“Before I heard the news, your dad had already returned home. Boss seems to be rushing over here right now, he should be arriving soon.” Yan Si glanced at the other person as he tossed some disinfectant and ointment to him.

Yu Yin nodded and turned to look downstairs. The flashing police lights were jumbling all together as many officers walked to and fro while saying something he could not hear. Most of the people were officers from the administrative region that had been dispatched as temporary support. It seemed like they would still have to wait for other investigators and helpers.

After finishing provisional treatment on Li Zi Hong’s injury, Yan Si stepped inside the room to examine the female corpse.

From where he stood on the balcony, Yu Yin could see the little girl who had appeared to calm down significantly after the female officer’s soothing. Her large, tear-filled eyes looked so innocent and pitiful on her small, flushed face that it had stirred something out of the female cop as she patiently comforted the girl.

“Dàgēgē…”

The soft, childish voice floated through the air from the other side.

Shuang Shuang tightly clutched her clothes as she looked at him with a fearful but also longing expression. He belatedly noticed that the little girl was actually wearing the dress that Li Lin Yue had bought for her, rather than the clothing she had been wearing when they had come previously.

Shuang Shuang cautiously stretched her hands out towards him like a small, frightened animal.

Yu Yin sighed and bent down.

The little girl smiled widely as she immediately jumped into his arms to hug him tightly, nearly cutting off his air supply. The girl did not pay this any mind as she let out a cute laugh that was the exact opposite emotion from her noisy crying just earlier. A few tears dripped onto his neck, leaving behind a slight chill.

“Dàgēgē, don’t be mad at Shuang Shuang…”

Yu Yin patted the little girl on the back and picked her up in his arms. He felt the girl’s breath next to his ear.

“Listen…Shuang Shuang’s Āyí needed punishing…because she wasn’t being good…” The girl’s soft lips were right above his warming earlobes as she spoke in a coquettish tone, “She wore Mommy’s clothes, she wore Shuang Shuang’s Mommy’s clothes…so she needed to say sorry to Mommy…Daddy said Mommy is in Heaven…so the bad Āyí should go to Hell to never, ever, ever stop saying sorry to Mommy…”

As Yu Yin heard the quiet mutters, he felt a cold sweat drip down from his body.

The little girl’s tinkling laugh was guiltless, like that of an angel.

“So, Shuang Shuang sent Āyí to Hell.”

The little girl carefully held his hand as she then said to him the next words, as if she was telling him a very tender secret:

“Next will be Daddy.”