Chapter 23

Jiang Luo gripped the bed board and peered beneath the bed for a long time without seeing anything. Late at night, and he actually felt a little disappointed.

The female ghost hung up. The Mobile Phone screen went dark. Jiang Luo sighed, lay back on the bed, and sent the recording to the 'Burn Incense for Matters' group chat.

The group chat lit up quickly.

[Ge Zhu: I've heard the back-to-back story before. Is she under the bed?]

[Jiang Luo: Nothing under the bed]

[Ge Zhu: Taoist shocked face.jpg]

[Wenren Lian: Kuang Zheng and I are still outside. Progress has stalled a bit.]

Jiang Luo's gaze shifted to Xu Yan's bed.

Xu Yan's shoes sat by the bed, the ring of mud spots on them even denser now. In May weather, yesterday's rain traces would have dried—unless someone had gone to a damp place on purpose, no other spot would leave marks like these.

Damp. Slow to dry. Hidden location.

[Jiang Luo: What about The Sewer?]

The Sewer?

Wenren Lian, still searching for clues by Lake Side, paused, then considered: 'Makes sense.'

He looked up at Kuang Zheng, who was earnestly circling Lake Side again and again, and raised his voice: 'Kuang Zheng, let's go.'

Kuang Zheng tossed the stone in his hand, walked quickly to his side, didn't even ask—just did whatever Wenren Lian said.

Wenren Lian relayed Jiang Luo's words to him. 'We really hadn't thought of The Sewer.'

Kuang Zheng nodded silently, then said: 'I'll go down. You don't need to.'

Wenren Lian, amused: 'Why?'

Kuang Zheng's dark eyes glanced at him, then at the skirt he was wearing.

'This,' Wenren Lian winked at him, 'doesn't stop me from climbing into a sewer.'

They found a nearby sewer entrance. Kuang Zheng pulled up the manhole cover, jumped in first, and reached up to help Wenren Lian down.

Wenren Lian was wearing a dress and a wig, but he was undeniably a man—tall, evenly built. When Kuang Zheng steadied him, he worried he might hurt Kuang Zheng, but Kuang Zheng's expression didn't change as he firmly guided Wenren Lian to the ground.

The smell in The Sewer wasn't pleasant, but the ground on either side of the water flow was relatively clean. Wenren Lian stepped down and felt the wet sandy mud underfoot.

A small smile crossed his face. 'This should be the place.'

The two steeled themselves and carefully made their way along The Sewer, Kuang Zheng leading, completely shielding his companion at every turn.

After roughly half an hour, Wenren Lian spotted something in the water. They fished it out—a yellow tin can.

Wenren Lian found the production date on the tin. 'April 27... wasn't that just a few days ago?'

Some small food residue remained inside. Kuang Zheng bent to sniff it, looked in the direction the can had drifted from. 'It was opened not long ago.'

Wenren Lian looked too, raised an eyebrow and smiled: 'Blessings without measure. Finally some progress.'

*

Jiang Luo slept only a few hours before opening his eyes again.

The high school dorm had no air conditioning; after a night's sleep, his back was sticky with sweat. Jiang Luo hurried through a shower. Midway through, Wenren Lian called, his tone bright: 'Meet at School Warehouse. There's a surprise for you.'

Jiang Luo guessed they'd found something. He sped through washing up in five minutes and walked out of the bathroom with a still-damp face.

Bai Ye Feng happened to be returning from outside the dorm. The hot steam from Jiang Luo hit his glasses, fogging them, blurring his features, lending him a fractured, colder air than usual.

Jiang Luo gave his hair a couple of casual wipes, wrapped the still-dripping strands in a towel, and smiled first: 'Classmate Bai, just went out?'

Bai Ye Feng calmly removed his lenses, pulled out a tissue to wipe them, his eyes sliding over Jiang Luo like a snake's, still gentle: 'Yes. Are you going out too?'

Jiang Luo nodded, tossed the towel on the bed, and was about to leave with Zhuo Zhongqiu. As he brushed past Bai Ye Feng, he suddenly stopped, smiled sideways: 'See you tonight, Classmate Bai.'

Bai Ye Feng smiled: 'See you tonight.'

Only after they left the dorm building did Zhuo Zhongqiu frown hesitantly: 'Bai Ye Feng...'

Why did she suddenly feel something off about him? Just passing Bai Ye Feng, Zhuo Zhongqiu had been seized by a soul-shivering creepiness.

For that instant, Zhuo Zhongqiu even thought she was facing some extreme, terrifying monster.

But she looked at Jiang Luo—his expression calm, even a strange smile at the corner of his mouth—and her heart settled again.

Jiang Luo was more sensitive to this than she was. If he hadn't reacted, her feeling must have been a mistake.

School Warehouse was behind Academic Zone. When Jiang Luo arrived, he saw Wenren Lian waiting by the door.

Zhuo Zhongqiu asked: 'What did you find?'

Wenren Lian smiled and turned: 'Why not go in and see for yourselves?'

Inside the warehouse, everyone was huddled in a corner whispering. Jiang Luo patted Lu You's shoulder, leaned in to look, and saw in the corner a wild-haired man who looked like a savage.

The man looked terrified, smelled terrible all over, as if he hadn't bathed in eight hundred years. Jiang Luo bent to look at him and suddenly felt the man was familiar. He wrapped his hand in a tissue, lifted the man's face, pushed his beard and vagabond-like hair to either side, and examined him carefully.

Wasn't this one of the three workers who had killed Wang Xin Hui?

And the one who had never spoken.

Jiang Luo probed: 'Wang Xin Hui...'

At the name, the worker shuddered violently, curled up, and screamed: 'Don't kill me, don't kill me...'

Jiang Luo narrowed his eyes, yanked hard on the worker's hair, asked coldly: 'What's your relationship with Wang Xin Hui.'

The worker was too terrified to hear him clearly.

Zhuo Zhongqiu fetched a basin of cold water and splashed it over the man's head. He shivered, briefly sobered. The tall Lu You and Kuang Zheng stood menacingly beside him. 'Speak.'

The worker cringed in fear. Jiang Luo pulled up Wang Xin Hui's photo on his Mobile Phone and held it before him: 'What's her relationship with you.'

The girl in the photo smiled shyly and sweetly, hair tied up, youthful and pretty.

The worker stared blankly at the photo, mumbled: 'She's my girlfriend.'

Jiang Luo pulled up Fu Yuaner's photo: 'Who is she.'

The worker trembled: 'She, she's Liu Zhi's girlfriend.'

Jiang Luo put away his Mobile Phone: 'What's your relationship with Liu Zhi.'

'Liu Zhi and I are, are good buddies.'

......

This was a multi-person crime.

Fu Yuaner's first romance was a teacher-student affair with the handsome teacher. For a conservative good girl, this was explosively out-of-line behavior.

But Fu Yuaner quickly immersed herself in the joy of love.

But she was too naive and innocent, repeatedly folding her dreams into Liu Zhi's life. Approaching high school graduation, she anxiously kept asking about their future.

Liu Zhi grew weary of her questions, gradually forming the idea of shaking Fu Yuaner off.

During the school expansion, Liu Zhi's good buddy Jin Yuangao met Fu Yuaner through Liu Zhi's introduction.

The gender ratio among Liu Zhi and Jin Yuangao's generation was extreme—three out of five men would stay single. Jin Yuangao was young, decent-looking, just uneducated. Seeing his buddy's pretty girlfriend, he was envious and itching, pestering Fu Yuaner at meals to introduce him to a girlfriend.

Fu Yuaner, pestered beyond endurance, could only introduce her best friend to Jin Yuangao.

Fu Yuaner's best friend Wang Xin Hui was also a good girl, already swayed by the sweet romance her friend described. After being introduced to Jin Yuangao, she half-heartedly agreed.

Jin Yuangao, though finding his girlfriend less pretty than Fu Yuaner, thought her passably pretty. He happily bought food and went to Liu Zhi's teacher apartment, treating Liu Zhi and Fu Yuaner to a meal. Jin Yuangao drank too much beer, stepped out to pee, came back to see Liu Zhi pressing Fu Yuaner's head down hard against the table—she was already dead.

Jin Yuangao was stunned. Liu Zhi, sweating profusely, looked up: 'Yuangao, you have to help me.'

Jin Yuangao nodded instinctively.

Once he nodded, Jin Yuangao panicked, but Liu Zhi was his buddy—he couldn't let him go to prison. So he called two coworkers who hung around society, inviting them over for drinks.

Once the two coworkers were drunk, Liu Zhi brought out Fu Yuaner's body. The wound on her head covered with a towel, clothes disheveled, lying on the sofa as if drunk asleep. Liu Zhi barely hinted before the two workers, lust-drunk, pounced on her.

Halfway through, the two workers sensed something wrong.

Why wasn't she moving or making a sound?

They pulled off the towel, saw Fu Yuaner's pale face, and tumbled off her in terror.

Liu Zhi's expression changed. Coldly: 'You have to help me dispose of the body, or I'll report you for raping and killing my girlfriend.'

The two workers had no choice but to agree. Under cover of night, they carried the body downstairs, puzzling over how to dispose of it—when Wang Xin Hui saw them.

They hadn't noticed her, but Liu Zhi spotted the jewelry Wang Xin Hui dropped as she fled. Realizing they'd been seen, the four men's faces darkened. Liu Zhi slung Fu Yuaner on his back, stared at the other three: 'She's yours to deal with.'

Liu Zhi walked off alone with Fu Yuaner in another direction.

To avoid exposure and atone for his betrayed coworkers, Jin Yuangao stayed silent, watching Wang Xin Hui die horribly and get flushed down the toilet...

Jin Yuangao didn't know where Liu Zhi hid Fu Yuaner's body, but in the same year after the school expansion, the two workers who raped and killed Wang Xin Hui also died one after another.

Tormented by fear into mental breakdown, Jin Yuangao went back to Liu Zhi, who told him to hide in the school's sewer—as long as the female ghost couldn't find him, she couldn't kill him.

Jin Yuangao hid there until now.

......

Jiang Luo immediately: 'Call the police.'

Police arrived at the warehouse quickly, with staff. They were ready to dispatch—no need for Jiang Luo's group to say much before they arrested Jin Yuangao.

Staff asked expectantly: 'Are you submitting your answer now?'

Jiang Luo shook his head: 'We'll submit later.'

Five hours left until the Competition ends. Of the three questions, only the most crucial remains—where is Fu Yuaner's body hidden?

Ye Xun: 'Of the clues given, only one hasn't been used.'

'4-5 person room,' Jiang Luo smiled bitterly. 'I've checked under the bed boards, smashed the walls, haven't found Fu Yuaner's body. Could it be in the space between two floors?'

Lu You bluntly: 'Liu Zhi's Office is a four-person room.'

Ge Zhu laughed: 'You don't think he'd actually put the body in the office?'

Jiang Luo remembered Liu Zhi's attendance sheet, eyes lit up: 'Makes sense.'

'Liu Zhi killed Fu Yuaner and hid her body in this school. Why didn't he leave Changqing High School when no one was watching?' Jiang Luo sprinted toward the Office. 'He came to class every day without fail, never late once in five months. You can't apply normal logic to a pervert's thinking—maybe he wanted the body right under his nose, thinking that was the safest place?'

That way he could prevent any accident—because the killer himself stood guard over the corpse every day.

Lu You ran after him, puzzled: '...How do you understand a pervert's thinking then?'