The night shift went until midnight.
After ten o’clock, the number of customers in the store decreased, and there was no need to constantly watch the cashier, so Zhang Xianyu started restocking the shelves.
Busy until a bit past eleven, the store was basically empty, and outside, only the occasional passerby could be seen.
Zhang Xianyu tidied up and got ready to hand over his shift.
Suddenly, the front door chimed, and the automatic door slid open.
A man walked in, glanced at Zhang Xianyu, and said: “A pack of Esse.”
“Twelve yuan. Alipay or WeChat?”
Zhang Xianyu asked, handing him the cigarettes.
The man took out his phone and brought up the Alipay payment screen.
Zhang Xianyu noticed his hands were exceptionally clean and pale, strangely contrasting with his aged face.
After paying, the man left. Zhang Xianyu continued restocking.
At exactly midnight, his colleague arrived for the shift change.
After handing over duties and packing a few leftover boxed meals, Zhang Xianyu slowly made his way home with the food.
Tonight, he planned to summon some wandering spirits in the neighborhood to ask if they had any clues about the murderer.
By the time he reached the apartment complex, it was already past midnight.
Most apartment lights were off, with only a few still on.
Tree shadows swayed downstairs under dim streetlights.
Zhang Xianyu squatted at a fork near the building, opened the boxed meals, and set them out.
Then he lit three cigarettes and rested them on the lids to let them burn quietly.
White smoke slowly drifted in all directions, and the surrounding heat seemed to cool down a few degrees.
Zhang Xianyu waited patiently.
Before long, he heard whispers nearby.
Eventually, two brave wandering ghosts stepped forward.
They didn’t rush for the food but cautiously stood at a distance and asked: “What orders does the master have?”
Both ghosts had died violently.
One was swollen and dripping wet; the other’s face was bloody with a gaping hole in the back of his head, exposing brain matter.
Anyone encountering this scene at night would likely either faint or go insane from fear.
Although Zhang Xianyu wasn’t afraid, the sight was still jarring.
He mentally recalled Wu Shui’s pretty face to cleanse his visual memory and said: “I want to ask you a few questions. About a month ago, was there anything unusual in the neighborhood?”
The ghosts drooled slightly while staring at the food.
They were lonely spirits without worshippers and usually didn’t have the power to get a full meal.
So they earnestly tried to recall anything unusual.
They had roamed the area for a long time and were familiar with it, but a month ago, nothing seemed out of place.
“Nothing unusual,” the water ghost shook his head first.
Zijing Garden was his usual haunt, and he loved peeking into households for gossip.
If something had happened, he’d have noticed.
The ghost with the split skull also thought for a while and gave the same answer.
Zhang Xianyu sighed.
He had expected things might not go smoothly, but having no clues at all was still disappointing.
He pushed the boxed meals toward them.
“Thanks. These are your rewards. If possible, please try to ask around nearby if anything strange happened here a month ago. If you find anything, come to Room 204.”
“204?”
The skull-split ghost suddenly paused while devouring his food, turning his drafty head thoughtfully.
Then he hesitated,
“Actually, there might’ve been something strange. But that old madman is always rambling, so I’m not sure if he was just having another episode.”
There were quite a few wandering spirits in the complex besides the two, and this “old madman” was one of them.
It seemed like he had a mental illness when he was alive and remained eccentric after death.
Other ghosts avoided him and called him “old madman” in private.
“I think it was a little over a month ago when the old madman said he saw a monster in 204. He even said he was almost eaten by it.”
“Do you remember the exact time?”
The split-skull ghost thought hard and shook his head.
“Not really. But I remember that just a few days after he said that, the family in 204 died. Died miserably.”
Zhang Xianyu’s eyes darkened.
“Where’s the old madman now?”
The ghosts both shook their heads.
“No idea. Ever since he said there was a monster in 204, he’s been hiding. We haven’t seen him since.”
“Do you know what the monster looks like?”
Still shaking their heads.
“The old madman only said it was really, really big…and that it ate someone.”
“It ate someone?”
Zhang Xianyu’s gaze dropped.
So a few days before the family in 204 was murdered, someone had already been eaten?
That didn’t make sense…
Logically, it didn’t add up.
That family was killed days later.
So who was the person eaten earlier in Room 204?
Zhang Xianyu suddenly had a guess—but no evidence to support it.
“Do you remember his exact words?”
“How could we remember that?”
The split-skull ghost licked the food box clean.
Since he couldn’t get anything more from the two ghosts, Zhang Xianyu cleaned up the trash and slowly walked home.
Wu Shui had already gone to bed.
After a quick wash, Zhang Xianyu lay in bed, tossing and turning.
Unable to sleep, he finally sat up and sent a message to Zhang Shaoying, asking if anyone had gone missing in Zijing Garden a few days before the murders in 204.
At that moment, Zhang Shaoying was buried in case files, trying to find a breakthrough.
He had been tirelessly searching for clues for this case for over a month, but there was still no progress.
After receiving Zhang Xianyu’s message, Zhang Shaoying replied immediately: “No. Why are you asking?”
He had practically turned Zijing Garden upside down investigating this case.
If someone else had gone missing, there was no way he wouldn’t know about it.
Zhang Xianyu replied,
“Nothing. I’ll tell you when I figure it out.”
Zhang Shaoying: ???
Why bring it up and then leave me hanging?
Now that Zhang Xianyu had gotten a definitive answer from Zhang Shaoying, he felt more certain about his theory.
He continued revising his notes in his notebook.
The old madman had said he saw a man-eating monster in Room 204 and nearly got eaten himself.
But Zhang Shaoying had confirmed that no one else had gone missing in Zijing Garden.
Assuming the monster really existed, it couldn’t have just packed up a takeaway meal from somewhere else to Room 204, right?
So, the person the old madman claimed was eaten might not have existed at all.
Or, in another interpretation: the person wasn’t eaten by the monster, but was actually with the monster.
Perhaps due to the old madman’s unstable mental state or unclear expression, he mistakenly thought the person was eaten.
Assuming the entire family in Room 204 was killed by the monster, then the creature the old madman saw might be the same one Zhang Xianyu fought in his dream.
That would explain why the monster showed up in 204 days earlier—it had been stalking the residents and came to scout the area.
Following this logic, besides the monster, there was likely another person present during the crime.
If he could trace this person, it would be much easier to investigate.
After all, monsters are formless, but humans are tangible; if a human was involved, there would surely be some trace left behind.
Zhang Xianyu called Zhang Shaoying again.
Zhang Shaoying: ???
What now?
“Before the murder happened, was there any unfamiliar person frequently entering or leaving Building 3 at night?”
Zhang Shaoying rubbed his temples.
“No.”
They had already reviewed the surveillance footage from the entire neighborhood and especially Building 3 after the murder, scrutinizing every face to find suspicious people.
The community had many residents and lax security, making it difficult to identify unfamiliar faces.
However, Zhang and his colleagues had thoroughly examined Building 3’s footage multiple times.
No strangers had entered or exited late at night.
“That’s why we once suspected it was someone familiar.”
If the killer was a resident of Building 3, it would all make sense.
However, they had already investigated every single resident and still hadn’t found a suspect.
The family in Room 204 got along well with the neighbors.
The couple were office workers, and an elderly family member took care of their grandson.
The old woman often danced with other elderly ladies in the square, so they had built friendly relations with the neighbors.
Based on the interviews and information gathered, they had a very good reputation and no known conflicts with anyone.
No strangers entered or exited…
Zhang Xianyu fell silent, thinking.
The killer must’ve used the monster to bypass the surveillance.
But there were so many cameras—surely the monster couldn’t teleport him straight into 204.
Based on his encounter with the monster in the dream, it wasn’t powerful enough for something like that.
His mind quickly ran through the possibilities, discarding the more superstitious ones.
Then he said to Zhang Shaoying: “I accidentally ran into a homeless guy today. He said he saw someone enter Building 3 late at night a few days before the murder.”
Zhang Shaoying’s expression immediately became serious.
“Got it. I’ll double-check the footage.”
He began considering that maybe the person had some way to avoid Building 3’s cameras.
But in a community with so many surveillance cameras, someone entering in the dead of night couldn’t have gone completely unnoticed.
With nothing more he could do for now, Zhang Xianyu hung up the phone, stretched, and took the opportunity to get some sleep.
The Next Morning
Zhang Xianyu was woken by the rich aroma of food.
He hadn’t eaten much the previous night, so smelling something delicious early in the morning made his stomach growl.
Stretching, he got out of bed, shuffled in slippers toward the source of the smell—and saw Lin Wushui coming out of the kitchen carrying two steaming bowls of seafood congee.
Lin Wushui smiled brightly when he saw him: “You’re awake? I made breakfast—come try it.”
Zhang Xianyu stood frozen in place, eyeing Lin Wushui suspiciously, as if he were a whole new person.
His gaze shifted to the coffee table in the living room—seven or eight plates of delicate snacks and side dishes were laid out.
The corners of his mouth twitched as he asked incredulously: “You made all this?”
Lin Wushui nodded without a hint of guilt: “Mm-hmm, I made it all.”
I paid someone to make it, so technically it’s still my doing.
No problem there at all.