Chapter Forty-Two: A Nighttime Investigation

Walking through the night, the dense leaves rustled in the wind, sounding uncannily like furtive footsteps.

Li Can found the residential building where Liu Huadong lived. At the entrance, the sign read “Old Street Community, Building Eight.” Directly across from the hallway stood a red-brick wall enclosing a vast courtyard, where numerous private cars were parked—likely a lot leased out by a private contractor. The narrow lane between the wall and Building Eight measured just three or four meters across, only wide enough for a single car to pass.

Despite the limited space, several cars were tightly parked along one side, their wheels straddling both the road and the curb, bodies tilting precariously. Just a few more centimeters inwards, and they would have scraped against the wall. Such masterful parallel parking could only be achieved by a seasoned driver!

On the ground floor, it was plain that the tenants had altered the original apartments: what had once been windows were now doors. One bore the sign “Old Street Teahouse,” the other, “One-Stop Funeral Services,” with several white funeral wreaths leaning by the entrance, left boldly unattended. Then again, who would ever steal something meant for the dead? And even if someone did, who would dare buy it? Wreaths were meant to honor departed loved ones; if the spirits learned their tributes were ill-gotten, they might burst from their coffins in a rage, cursing their unfilial descendants and scaring them out of their wits!

Li Can took a deep breath and set foot on the stairs.

The stairwell was narrow, one railing already mottled with rust. At the corner between the first floor and the stairs, piles of discarded items had accumulated, as if untouched for countless years. Each floor of the building housed just two apartments, one on the left and one on the right, with a white pipe running up the center—likely to protect fiber optic cables or other fragile wiring. Li Can glanced at the small advertisements pasted along the pipe: all for locksmiths or drain cleaning.

There were no motion-sensor lights in the hallway. Even if there were, Li Can wouldn’t have risked making a sound; he kept his footsteps feather-light.

The fourth, fifth, and sixth floors were much like the lower ones, save for an abundance of red marker scrawls on the walls—sloppy handwriting, almost illegible. From the script, it was clear these were the work of some mischievous child: declarations of hate, playful threats, vulgarities hurled at neighbors above.

“What a little prodigy…” Li Can thought wryly. If his own child ever pulled such a stunt, he’d have to give them a good slap. Clearly, someone hadn’t been paying attention in language class—a sea of misspellings!

On the seventh floor, one apartment caught Li Can’s eye. Its wooden door, stripped of paint, had withered willow branches hanging in the corner—who knew how long they’d been left to dry—and a battered Bagua mirror affixed above, casting a cold, eerie reflection. The sight sent a chill down his spine.

Li Can hadn’t seen such superstitious wards in the city for a long time and couldn’t help but linger. At that moment, his right hand, holding his phone, brushed against the wooden door, and he suddenly felt a warm current blowing across his skin.

His breath caught. He checked again and realized there was a crack in the old door; the warmth seemed to be wafting out from within.

“If a room’s been sealed off for a long time, the temperature inside would indeed differ from outside,” Li Can muttered, stepping back. As he started up the stairs to the eighth floor, he glanced again at the wooden door, now swallowed by shadow, a strange sense of being watched creeping over him.

“Maybe it’s just the Bagua mirror,” he told himself, shaking his head and turning away.

At the stairwell corner between the seventh and eighth floors, bags of unused cement were piled—some already hardened, others still barely usable. Judging by the thick dust on the packaging, they’d been there for ages.

Finally, he reached the eighth floor. Both apartments had security doors; one displayed a couplet, the other nothing but a notice for overdue electricity payment—102.7 yuan, posted just yesterday. The resident: Liu Huadong.

Li Can took out the key, slid it silently into the lock, and gently turned. The door creaked under its own weight. Swiftly, he lifted the door while pushing it open, and the sound ceased.

A simple enough trick: the security door was too heavy, worn by years of use, its main hinge pulling downwards and grinding the frame with every movement. By lifting it, he avoided contact with the worn surface and thus the noise.

He carefully locked the door behind him, but before he could exhale, a faint, almost imperceptible stench reached his nose.

He knew that smell all too well. Just a year ago, he’d inhaled it while keeping vigil over his parents’ bodies.

The stench of death.

Instantly alert, Li Can’s muscles tensed. He slipped his phone into his pocket and drew out a flashlight, switching it on.

The apartment was a simple one-bedroom layout. To the left of the entrance was the kitchen, to the right the bathroom. Ahead lay the living room, facing an open window, its sheer white curtains gently swaying as if someone had just brushed past them. But there was nobody there—only the occasional night breeze.

The bedroom was off to the left of the living room, its door half ajar.

Shifting the flashlight to his left hand, Li Can willed a white flame to flicker to life along the back of his right, the air shimmering with heat.

He was already quite practiced in summoning the white flame, having trained in solitude these past few days.

After confirming his control over the flame, he edged toward the kitchen door and peered inside—empty.

He crept to the bathroom. Still empty. The mirror directly across reflected his own slightly ridiculous posture and wary expression.

Kitchen and bathroom clear, the living room’s layout fully visible, Li Can turned his attention to the bedroom.

He pushed the door open. Inside stood a double bed, the sheets filthy, the blanket thrown haphazardly on top, a single pillow in the middle, yellowed with age.

Two bedside tables flanked the headboard. On one, a mobile phone and charger; on the other, a dark ceramic bowl—too far away to discern its contents.

A huge wardrobe stretched from floor to ceiling. Some odds and ends cluttered the space under the bed.

“Seems I was overthinking it. No one’s here,” Li Can thought, extinguishing the white flame. He glanced at the bedroom window, shaded by blackout curtains that blocked all outside light.

He parted the curtains just enough to peek out, able to see the neighboring kitchen and the surroundings clearly from this vantage.

“So many posters…”

Walls and even the ceiling were pasted edge to edge with posters, mostly of scantily clad models—an assault on the eyes.

“Do monsters have such tastes too?” he mused.

Li Can didn’t linger in the bedroom and returned to the living room. The faint odor of death persisted, but its source eluded him.

The living room had all the usual appliances. The TV remote on the coffee table was wrapped thickly in clear tape, likely a precaution after some past accident.

Unable to think of any immediate way to search for clues, Li Can settled onto the sofa to ponder. As he sat, he felt something hard between the backrest and the cushion.

Reaching in, he pulled out a diary—its cover torn, the edges yellowed with age.

(To be continued…)