Xieyang Road was an awkward existence in Xiarong City.
The Beicheng District had enclosed its left side to create a cultural corridor, while its right side was tightly connected to the commercial cluster of the Zhongcheng District. Xieyang District, however, hadn’t benefited from any of these districts, with old buildings from the last century filling the streets and alleys.
The Major Crime Unit’s car was parked outside Xieyang Road, unable to drive in. At the intersection, tricycles and handcarts were stacked up like a pyramid. The police cars from the district police that arrived earlier were worried that they couldn’t reverse out, so they parked even farther away.
The car door opened. An Xun and Xi Wan quickly grabbed their forensic kits and ran—they were the forensic doctor and trace inspector, and they were always the fastest to the scene. Ji Chenjiao followed closely, stepping out of the car, but instead of rushing into the crowd, he took a moment to survey the surroundings. Xieyang Road was like an eyesore in the midst of steel and concrete, with old buildings and handcarts selling small goods filling any available space on the street.
The case in Xiewu Alley had already spread by morning. Up ahead, a fried tofu vendor was passionately recounting the events as if he had witnessed them firsthand. But the moment he saw the police, he immediately fell silent, squeezing out a fawning smile on his tanned face.
Ji Chenjiao smiled at him in return, stepped around the cart, and walked inside. Behind him, the vendor started talking again. “The victim was an outsider, wearing traditional Chinese dress—legs spread open right here; everything inside was visible! And guess what? It was a man! Then they looked deeper—oh, turns out he was living a double life…”
The victim wasn’t actually hiding anything, but for a murder case to be handled by the Major Crimes Unit, there must have been something unusual about it.
This morning, the Beicheng District Police Station received a report. The caller, Wang Lifen, said that the person living next door had died at home, and her little grandson was so terrified that his soul nearly left his body.
The criminal investigation team from the district police station immediately rushed to the scene and sealed it off. The crime scene was in an old eight-story building with a hollow zigzag staircase. Each floor had four apartments, and every living room had a window facing the corridor.
According to Wang Lifen, the door to apartment 4-2 wasn’t locked. Her grandson just touched it, and it opened. Once it opened, he saw a dead body inside. The man only had moved in at the end of the last year. He was a young man with no proper job who came and went mysteriously and even liked to scare children.
The criminal police asked her how she knew the man didn’t have a proper job. She retorted, “My son and daughter-in-law leave for work every day at seven in the morning. He doesn’t leave until noon. Who with a real job acts like that?”
The victim was wearing a women’s Chinese traditional attire and a wig, which were put on after his death. The killer, after murdering him, deliberately dressed him in women’s clothing, which was very strange. However, what truly alerted the police station was the cause of death. His neck had been twisted, and apart from some minor pressure marks on his chest and arms, there were no other signs of struggle.
This indicated that the killer subdued him and caused his death in a very short amount of time, a move that could be considered the work of a professional killer.
The killer was experienced. This was no longer a case that the district police could investigate on their own.
Before setting out, Ji Chenjiao had looked at the photos of the crime scene sent by the district police. The victim was initially sitting on the ground, with his back leaning against the leg of the folding table, his head tilted to the right. After the district police colleagues arrived, they laid him flat on the ground, causing the wig to fall off.
Ji Chenjiao felt the seated victim looked somewhat familiar, but once the wigs were removed and the full face was revealed, he turned out to be a middle-aged man with a slight bald spot. That sense of familiarity faded away.
As Ji Chenjiao passed by the wall covered with psoriasis ads, he arrived at the apartment 4-2. The moment he laid eyes on the victim, he suddenly understood where the sense of familiarity had come from—half a month ago, on the day Xi Wan hosted the dinner, there had been a man in the traditional drum troupe dressed exactly like this!
The look in the man’s eyes when he lifted his head suddenly became clear. Ji Chenjiao paused for a moment, thinking, Is it him? No, the person in the photo didn’t look like the same person.
Xi Wan, who had arrived a little earlier, also noticed and called out, “Boss, do you remember that handsome guy from the traditional drum troupe?”
Ji Chenjiao put on gloves and shoe covers, squatted beside the body, and carefully examined the face and body. He shook his head. “The clothes are similar, but it’s not the same person.”
“It’s not the same. That handsome guy was only in his twenties, definitely not over thirty.” Xi Wan said, puzzled. “Is there any particular reason for this outfit? Why bother dressing him in it?”
An Xun and the district police’s forensic doctor were discussing their discoveries. An Xun agreed with the district police forensic doctor’s examination. The victim’s cervical vertebrae were cleanly broken, not from being struck by a heavy object or repeatedly bent, and the marks on the victim’s chest and arms were caused by the killer binding him from behind.
“There are obvious drag marks inside and outside the door, and the victim’s footprints were found in the corridor and on the stairs. There are three sets of footprints in the room, which match the shoe prints on the rack. There are the footprints of the residents here. However, the C group of footprints appeared after the drag marks, so they most likely belong to the killer.” Xi Wan explained as she and Ji Chenjiao walked to the door and demonstrated.
“Based on the time of death estimated by the forensic team, the killer acted between midnight and 2 AM today (April 6th). The killer was standing at the door. The corridor light was broken, and since it was late, if the lights weren’t on inside, passersby wouldn’t notice the door was open.” Xi Wan tried to clasp Ji Chenjiao’s hands with her left hand, but she couldn’t grip them properly. With a significant height difference, her right hand couldn’t hook onto Ji Chenjiao’s collarbone like the killer had done.
She let go of his hands and said, “It’s fine; just try to understand, given how tall you are.”
Even without Xi Wan demonstrating, Ji Chenjiao could imagine the scene at the time. While observing the furnishings in the room, he said, “The three sets of footprints all belong to the residents. Does this mean the killer lives here?”
“But the caller, Wang Lifen, said the victim was the one living here. We all felt something was off.” The district police detective said, “She said the person living here was a young man, good-looking but a hooligan. This man is at least in his forties. We asked her to identify the body, but she refused.”
As soon as the mention of a good-looking young man came up, Ji Chenjiao and Xi Wan exchanged a glance, inevitably reminded of the man from the traditional drum troupe.
This apartment had two bedrooms and a living room. Although the furniture was old, it was kept very clean. One of the rooms showed no signs of being lived in; when you open the door, you could still smell the musty scent from being closed off for a long time without ventilation. The other room had neatly folded blankets, and the wardrobe was filled with dust bags, sealing more blankets. Six or seven men’s T-shirts, sportswear, and jackets were neatly hung in categories.
The person living here must really love cleaning.
There was a plastic shoe rack at the door, pink in color, the kind of cheap item commonly found in five-yuan stores. However, it was different from other furniture because it was new. On the shoe rack were a pair of flip-flops, a pair of cotton slippers, and a pair of black and blue sneakers, each corresponding to the footprints inside the room.
“The C footprints correspond to these shoes.” Xi Wan said, pointing to the sneakers.
Ji Chenjiao found it strange. “Did he change shoes when he left? And put them back on the shoe rack? What about the footprints at the door?”
“There are too many footprints at the door; it’s hard to distinguish.” Xi Wan said, furrowing her brows. “This case is a bit strange.”
The scene investigation wasn’t over yet, but more and more people were gathering in the corridor. Suddenly, a frantic female voice came from upstairs, as if she had just woken up. “Who died? Have you seen my man? Did he go to watch the commotion?”
Ji Chenjiao immediately stepped into the corridor, and the woman happened to be coming down the stairs. Her hair was dry, tangled, and messy, and she was wearing a coral fleece robe. Her tattooed eyebrows and lips had faded, much like her loose, lifeless skin.
Ji Chenjiao glanced upstairs, then looked into the room, mentally picturing what might have happened during the night. The person living in 4-2 was hiding in the darkness, while the person from upstairs, as usual, came home in the early morning. Walking down a path he could find even with their eyes closed, unaware and unalert, he was suddenly grabbed by a pair of outstretched hands, dragged in, and killed.
Ji Chenjiao asked, “Which floor do you live on?‘
The woman’s voice was hoarse, clearly from smoking too much. “Sixth floor? Have you seen my man?”
Ji Chenjiao asked, “Who is your man? Do you have a photo?”
The woman turned on her phone’s screen, and the wallpaper displayed a picture of them together. It was a picture of a middle-aged man and a woman, with the man having a bald spot.
Although a person’s appearance could change significantly after death, Ji Chenjiao had dealt with too many corpses to immediately recognize that the person lying inside was the one the woman was looking for.
The woman leaned forward, her gaze passing over Ji Chenjiao and landing on the corpse. She let out a bewildered ‘ah’ and covered her mouth, “That’s not… that’s not…”
The identity of the deceased was suddenly clarified because of this interruption.
Huang Xuntong, 40 years old, unemployed with no fixed occupation. He worked part-time at a hotpot restaurant and a Mahjong hall, often returning home late at night. He occasionally played Mahjong all night, then went straight to the market to collect money and unload goods. He had a strong addiction to alcohol and gambling and tended to spend lavishly outside.
He lived in 6-3 with Shao Ling. Shao Ling also had no fixed occupation, working in a massage parlor and a hair salon, doing questionable business, and she was 39 years old.
The two of them weren’t married, didn’t have children, and were just getting by together.
Shao Ling stared at the body for a long time, her face showing little sorrow, as she just couldn’t process what had happened right away. Just as An Xun was about to take the body away, Shao Ling finally understood what had occurred. Two tears fell, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand, then she didn’t cry anymore.
“He’s dead, so what? It’s not like we can go on living together anyway. Now I can just find myself a new man.” She tilted her head, looking at An Xun, and casually flirted, “You’re quite handsome; how about having a chat with me, good-looking?”
An Xun was the most timid member of the Major Crimes Unit. Easily startled, he quickly retreated behind Xi Wan.
“Tsk, no fun.” Shao Ling clapped her hands as if brushing off the dust. “Well, I’ll be leaving now.”
Ji Chenjiao raised his hand to stop her. “You can’t go back for now. There are some things we still need to clarify with you.”
Shao Ling, very impatient, cursed as she was taken into the police car. “That old man is dead, so what? It’s already good enough that someone is collecting the body, and now you’re investigating all this!”
Along with the investigation, a neighborhood search began. Upon learning that the person who died wasn’t the tenant of 4-2, Wang Lifen’s face turned pale with fright. “Then he must have killed someone! I told you he was no good!”
Wang Lifen could only curse but couldn’t say the name of the person living in 4-2. Fortunately, she had the phone number of the householder for 4-2. “The surname is Ji. His father used to live here, but he left several years ago.”
Ji Chenjiao made a phone call and had the householder, Ji Zhan, come over. He was a middle-aged man with graying hair. As soon as he saw the situation at 4-2, he immediately started swearing, saying that he finally managed to rent out the place and was looking forward to just collecting rent easily, but unexpectedly, he had brought in a troublemaker.
Ji Chenjiao found it strange. “Haven’t it been rented out before?”
Ji Zhan shook his head, his face filled with sorrow. “This is my father’s house. He passed away. You see, he died in a hospice, and his body was never brought back here, so it didn’t even count as dying at home. However, this place just won’t rent out. Every time it seemed like it was about to be settled, the person renting would hear something from someone and then refuse to rent it!”
“Sigh, Xiao Ling didn’t mind; he said my house has good lighting and good ventilation, and in winter, one can even get a cool breeze. What a strange person. Who keeps their window wide open in winter? I should’ve known there was something wrong with him!” Ji Zhan said as he took out the rental agreement he brought with him, with the tenant’s personal information slipped inside. “Look!”
Ji Chenjiao took it and saw the familiar face on the copy of the rental agreement. It turned out that the man who had been playing the traditional drum was named Ling Lie.