Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
At 9 a.m., the bright sunshine shone on the earth, making the whole city look fresh and bright. However, Zhao Yu couldn’t shake loose the evil haze that was in his heart.
At this moment, Zhao Yu was sitting in the police car. He was getting ready to go to a very important place, Lang Xiangyang’s home!
He was in the police car with Ran Tao and Cui Lizhu. The Beiqian police had also sent over a police force in three police cars to assist them. This made Zhao Yu feel more secure.
When his police car was about to arrive at its destination, Zhao Yu habitually looked at his watch. The reason why he chose this time to come to Lang Xiangyang’s home was not only to search his apartment in person, but was also for another important reason… Today’s side adventure!
In fact, Lang Xiangyang’s apartment was the exact location that he had received in the instructions for the side adventure location. He didn’t expect this, but because today’s hexagram was a Qian Gen hexagram, Zhao Yu believed that Lang Xiangyang’s home would definitely give him some insight into the case!
When Zhao Yu arrived at Liang Xiangyang’s apartment building, local police officers were already waiting there, as was Lang Xiangyang’s cousin, Lang Xiangqian. The efficiency of the Beiqian police force really impressed Zhao Yu, and he thought to himself… If I could work with such a team for every case, I could get twice the results with only half the effort!
Zhao Yu greeted all of the police officers present as Deputy Bureau Chief Xu introduced him to them. They then proceeded to enter the apartment building.
Lang Xiangyang’s apartment was an old-fashioned low-rise building. They lived on the second floor, which was a classic three-bedroom layout. But, Zhao Yu was here to see the basement specifically, as the side adventure’s data showed that was the exact location for it.
So, when Zhao Yu signaled to Ran Tao, Ran Tao immediately called over several strong young men, who lifted Zhao Yu and his wheelchair, then descended down the stairs to the basement. Zhao Yu then bowed his head and compared his location with the map from his mobile phone, confirming that the side adventure’s exact location was indeed the basement.
But, he noticed that he had arrived five minutes early. The actual side adventure would not begin until five minutes had passed!
Zhao Yu was curious about what would happen in the basement. Everything here had already been carefully searched by the police. They shouldn’t have missed anything. What else could I possibly find? Should I use some devices, like an Invisible Fluoroscopic Device? As Zhao Yu thought about this, he suddenly heard a cell phone ringing in the basement.
Zhao Yu was startled, as was Ran Tao, who rushed forward and opened the basement door. The lights were on in the basement, and they could see two people in white clothes were inside it. The ringing had come from one of their phones!
One of the persons took out her cell phone and took off her mask as she went outside. Zhao Yu recognized her immediately. Zhang Peipei? Why is she here?
Then, Zhao Yu remembered that she had gone to the Forensics Department after she had left the office. At that time, she said that she would go to the scene again to see if there was any other evidence. That explained why she was here.
She did notice Zhao Yu and Ran Tao as she went to the other side of the basement corridor and said into her mobile phone, “Mr. Gao, have you seen the picture?”
She then waited for a moment, presumably listening to Mr. Gao’s response on the other end of the line, then said, “Yes, besides isotopes, we can also do an invasion experiment. We can then narrow down the timeframe to half a year.”
While Zhang Peipei was speaking into her phone, she finally saw Ran Tao and Zhao Yu. She immediately stopped them, while quickly saying, “Don’t go in yet!”
Zhao Yu and Ran Tao looked at each other and wondered what to do next. Zhang Peipei seemed to have found something important.
Then, Zhang Peipei said a lot of technical terms into her mobile phone. After that, she put down the phone and said to Zhao Yu and Ran Tao, “Excuse me, please call the apartment owner and tell him to come here now!”
“What?” Zhao Yu and Ran Tao exclaimed in unison. They were very confused, as the owner of the house was, of course, dead!
When they explained this to her, she said, “Oh… Well… Call his cousin… That’s the one who I talked to before I guess…” Zhang Peipei said.
she then turned to Zhao Yu and said with a serious look, “Leader Zhao, you got here at just the right time. I found something important!”
Zhao Yu was surprised to hear this, but before he could respond, Ran Tao shouted loudly upstairs, asking Lang Xiangyang’s cousin Lang Xiangqian to come down.
“Leader Zhao, come and have a look…” After seeing Lang Xiangqian, Zhang Peipei quietly walked into the basement and pointed at numerous old items as she said, “When I came in, I immediately saw these things. Most of the items here have water stains that look like they are the results of water spraying versus water dripping or flooding, while the bottom of the items have obvious damage marks that appear to be from them soaking in liquid. See here… Look…”
As she was speaking, she lifted a carton. The bottom of the carton was rotted and deformed, and there were obvious signs of erosion at the very bottom of it.
She then said, “Now, look at the heating pipe above our heads. It’s clearly been repaired with a steel patch, which means that it must have broken before, perhaps because the basement has been under water before!”
“Yes!” Lang Xiangqian exclaimed, then explained in a hurry, “The police officer just asked me about this! I will never forget it. This basement has been flooded before! I remember that it was just after my cousin died.”
Lang Xiangqian then said, “My cousin had only been dead for a week, yet such a terrible thing happened! It was another heavy blow to our family, and to make matters worse, the property management didn’t help us at all. Finally, my cousin’s wife’s younger cousin came to repair it. It was a very unpleasant time in our lives, which is why I can remember it so clearly.”
“Oh… And…” Lang Xiangqian then added, “After my cousin died, his wife became ill. So, after the pipe was repaired, we didn’t clean the basement after that. There seemed to be no need to do so, as there was nothing valuable in it.”
Lang Xiangqian then said, “Now, coming here again, I see that it looks the exact same as it did those many years ago. So, my cousin clearly must not have come down to clean this place up.”
Suddenly, Zhang Peipei exclaimed, “Leader Zhao, this is the key problem! I found it! Here… I want to talk about it with you!”
Zhang Peipei then rushed over to Zhao Yu and showed him a picture from her cell phone and said, “Look at it carefully, especially the cardboard box in which you found the devil suit.”
“Oh…” As Zhao Yu looked at the picture, he understood exactly what she meant. The cardboard box also had water stains, but it did not appear to have been seriously damaged like the others.
Ran Tao stood in the doorway, pointed to the deepest corner of the basement, and explained, “I found this box in a pile of old stuff! Maybe this box was covered by something else at that time, which would explain why it didn’t get soaked…”
“That’s impossible, as the water in the basement was over my ankle at that time!” Lang Xiangqian said.
“I checked the original location of the box and found that everything else around it was eroded much worse than it was!” Zhang Peipei said. “So… There is no need to examine this box at all, as it is clear that someone put the box there later on… After the flood!”
“So… So…” Ran Tao stammered as he scratched his head out of habit.
Zhang Peipei then said with certainty, “I have checked this box. It is made of paper. If it was soaked in water, it would have been seriously deformed, if not disintegrated altogether! Since the box is intact, it means that the box has not been soaked in water, so it was put there a long time after the pipe broke and the building flooded!”
Zhao Yu nodded. At that time, he seemed to understand today’s side adventure, and he said, “So… That means that Lang Xiangyang is not the murderer from the Devil Case! Someone used the devil suit to frame him!”
As Zhao Yu sat at the basement door, he thought hard about the case. Suddenly, he remembered the line that he had heard in the hot pot mutton restaurant… True is false and false is true! Is the system trying to tell me that we have made a mistake? Did we mistake what was false as what was true?
Suddenly, all of the case details popped into Zhao Yu’s mind, including Zhang Jingru’s recorded confession, Zhang Jingru’s devil picture, Han Kuan’s 11 Kills, the dark and horrible illustrations in Han Kuan’s manuscript and Han Kuan’s abnormal reaction in the restroom.
He also thought of Han Kuan’s suffering from the bullying and his humiliation in school, as well as Laogua’s fall and the devil suit in Lang Xiangyang’s basement. All of these pieces of information seemed messy and unrelated at first, when in fact, they were all deeply connected!
So, that’s the truth of the Devil Case? Suddenly, Zhao Yu clenched his fists and trembled.
