The Yu Brothers’ Case Book

It was nearly nine by the time they walked out of the apartment.

During the interval between, Yang De Cheng and Yan Si had wrestled – the former trying to stuff the anti-inflammatory medicine into the forensic investigator’s mouth while the later claiming that as a doctor, he knew his own condition very well and that he was nowhere close to being forced to eat it.

In the end, Yang De Cheng had decided to call Li Zi Hong, who had not yet gone to work. This finally made Yan Si obediently take the pill, ending the fight.

“Are you sure it’s here?”

Yang De Cheng served as the driver using his own, sapphire-coloured minivan. He voiced his question after they turned onto a decently sized street.

Yan Si scratched his chin as he stared at the extremely familiar-looking street and turned to look back at his questioning friend. “Mm, seems so. The address is here.”

“…You didn’t notice that his address was close to where you’d been attacked?” Yang De Cheng coldly glanced at the forensic investigator that had not been around for long before turning to focus back on the road. About three roads away was where the beverage supplier from a few days ago had been. “I didn’t know you had a poor sense of direction.” Huh, he actually has this kind of weakness?

“I don’t know the streets around this area, and I was interrogating people while navigating my way there a few days ago,” Yan Si immediately retorted back. He wasn’t even from the central district in the first place.

Yang De Cheng shook his head with a helpless expression. “The address you mentioned should be the third house.” He quickly found the location Yan Si had mentioned after searching down the row of old-fashioned townhouses. Coincidentally, there seemed to be a foreign girl watering flowers in front of the home. “I’ll go down and ask.” He parked the car and went ahead to question the girl.

Yan Si sat in the car listening to them chat in English, yawning with slight boredom.

Just as he was about to leave the car as well, he suddenly caught sight of a few inconspicuous fingerprints on the glass of the shut car window next to him. They were pressed against the bottom right corner, extremely close to where the lock was. Moreover, the fingerprints gradually increased in intensity, clearly not a mere illusion. It was like someone was exerting force against the window.

Yan Si watched the fingerprints press down harder and harder. As he began to wonder if the window would crack, the sound of the door opening abruptly broke his concentration. He turned to see Yan De Cheng opening the door and getting into the car. When Yan Si turned back around, the fingerprints had already vanished.

“What were you looking at?” Yang De Cheng asked curiously, having seen the person sitting in the front seat nearly plastered to the window.

“The marvels of the world,” Yan Si honestly replied.

“What in the-what…?” Yang De Cheng could not understand at all, nor could he be bothered to ask further. Instead, he voiced what he had found out from his questions [to the girl]. “That foreigner said this house was sold to her boss last year, so it’s their residence now. She came last year to take care of the boss’s mother. All she knows is that the previous owner moved somewhere nearby, but she doesn’t know if it’s the person we’re looking for.”

“Should we just go take a look first?”

“I knew you were going to say that, so I asked for the address.” Yang De Cheng rolled his eyes at his friend before starting the car. “Luckily, that foreigner had previously helped her boss send some letters they had received before the other person had changed their address, so she knew where the place is.”

“What amazing luck,” Yan Si happily said as he gazed outside.

“…What’s luckier is that it’s the road right next to where your crime scene was.”

“…Are you kidding?”

Yang De Cheng eyed the person next to him. “I’m seriously starting to suspect you have very bad luck these days.” Can it really be that coincidental? That this person just happens to be near the crime scene? “Could it be that guy was watching nearby, sniggering to himself as he watched you get hurt?”

“No way,” Yan Si instantly shut down the other person’s mocking. “If he was there, he would probably have been the one cutting me. He definitely wouldn’t have been standing outside.”

“I surrender.” Yang De Cheng raised a hand as he said, “How can you say those things so naturally? So frustrating.”

“It’s the truth. Just like how the student that was ganged up on can clearly become a psychic, yet stubbornly refuses to do so,” Yan Si chuckled while rubbing his injured arm.

“Does your injury hurt?” Yang De Cheng furrowed his brows questioningly when he noticed the other person’s actions. He had no interest in discussing the somewhat pitiful university student.

“Probably inflamed. Don’t worry, I can handle it myself. It’s nothing serious.”

As they chatted, they quickly arrived at the crime scene from the incident a few days ago.

Allegedly, the wife and the daughter from the incident were temporarily living with a relative as their loved ones and friends helped prepare the funeral arrangements. Many doors had white cloths hung up. The yellow tape had not been taken down; it was still hanging outside. Some had been ripped away by people that had walked by, so half was lying on the ground while the other half waved around wildly in the wind.

Despite getting a rare vacation, Yan Si still felt unhappy when he remembered that this was where he had been attacked, hurting his arm so that he had to hand over all his work to others.

Honestly speaking, he was quite bothered by the deceased’s condition. Although Li Zi Hong and the junior that had taken the task had told him the results of the dissection, he still felt it would be more realistic if he had done it himself.

Following the foreigner girl’s directions, the two of them got off their car and walked for a bit, finally coming to a stop in front of a small four-story apartment. There was an open staircase and a row of mailboxes next to it. The buildings seemed to be quite old.

“Seems like the second floor.” Yan Si directly pressed the doorbell. A moment later, a voice came from the intercom, “Senior Chang An?”

The intercom at the doorbell was silent for a long time.

“Probably not?” Yang De Cheng glared at the silent intercom and shrugged. “Given up yet?”

“Nope, this shouldn’t be wrong. Otherwise, they would’ve immediately replied that the person isn’t there.” The moment he said this, the sound of the intercom cutting off rang out. Yan Si smiled at his friend without saying anything. After a chain of footsteps coming downstairs, the small apartment door was opened.

The person standing behind the door was a somewhat dispirited young man around their age. In addition to his long and messy hair, his blue-striped, short-sleeved shirt had some strange yellow blotches.

“Senior Chang An.” Yan Si nodded, somewhat astonished but instantly recognising the other person.

This young man – Lai Chang An – had a glint in his eyes as he stared at his two visitors. “What did you guys come here for?”

“I heard you were looking for me before, so I think it should be me asking you that instead?” Yan Si didn’t like dragging things out so he bluntly said, “Talk here?”

“…Let’s go outside.” Lai Chang An paused. Knowing that the other person would likely not leave until the question was answered, he pointed at a drinks shop at the end of the street. “Over there.” As he spoke, he walked past the visitors to lead the way.

Seeing that they really were going, Yang De Cheng huffed and quickly followed behind.

Yan Si, who had wanted to survey the little apartment that had its back facing the fire escape from the crime scene, raised his brows when he happened to see a few pale fingerprints suddenly appear on the originally spotless mailboxes. It was as if someone was pulling a malicious prank from the inside, the five fingers stretching out from the mailbox, opening it and pressing against the edges. A single eyeball appeared in the space, quietly peeking out at them from inside.

Yan Si knew that there was basically no way someone could stuff their head into such an old-fashioned mailbox to peep at them, unless that person planned to be stuck inside forever.

Judging from the extended fingers, the hand belonged to a female, one that was not alive.

As if noticing his gaze, the fingers slowly retracted back inside, and the eyes also retreated gradually to disappear back into the darkness.

“Ah Si?”

After walking a bit, Yang De Cheng belatedly noticed that his friend had not followed behind, so he quickly circled back.

“Coming.” Yan Si waved his hand as he glanced at the mailbox once again. He directly opened the door to look inside, not seeing anything as expected. He then stuck his hand into that particular mailbox to fish around inside, but still did not find anything, and he couldn’t help but inwardly feel a bit disappointed.

“What are you doing? Stealing letters?!” Yang De Cheng had no idea what the other person was trying to do. He grabbed hold of the person still wanting to rip open the mailbox, directly dragging him away. “The sooner you get this done with, the sooner we can get back.”

“You’re really naggy, even more than my past roommate,” Yan Si pouted as he was forced to run along. He had been on the verge of figuring out what was out of place but had lost the thought the moment he’d been interrupted.

“…Then I’ll just call Xiao Li over now.” Yang De Cheng took out his cellphone.

“I’m sorry, I was wrong. Please don’t.”

He still wasn’t sure if today counted as lucky or unlucky.

After walking to the shop at the end of the road where there was a below average drinks shop, Yan Si unexpectedly bumped into someone he recognised…Technically not exactly someone he knew, but rather someone he had coincidently just met yesterday.

“Yan-dàgē?” The shop staff standing behind the front counter also stared dumbly at him.

“You know each other?” Yang De Cheng looked at the glasses-wearing and faintly blushing shop worker and tugged his friend as he asked, “You have friends like these?” He had thought that this guy’s friends would all be the extremely sharp type…and even if they were lacking, they would end up being tempered to be more intellectual, not someone that looked as blank and clumsy like this.

“A person related to the one from yesterday.” Yan Si turned to nod at Su Zhang. “What a coincidence. But I didn’t come looking for you, no need to panic. Please don’t pay us any mind.”

“Ahhh, welcome. Please sit here.” After getting a glare from the shop manager, Su Zhang hurriedly led the three people inside, bringing them to a quieter, emptier place to sit.

After ordering all their drinks, Yang De Cheng waved the timid shop worker away.

Then, they fell into a blanket of silence.

Yan Si tilted his head in thought, as nobody had spoken a word even by the time their drinks all arrived. Even the person that had been searching for him was nested in his seat with a foul expression, his mouth tightly sealed and refusing to budge.

He shrugged. Since nobody was speaking, he could only start first. “Should I say ‘long time no see’…Senior Chang An, I heard you were looking around for me before. Now that I’ve come all the way here, don’t you have anything you want me to help with?” Yan Si suddenly felt something extremely strange about the senior sitting in front of him.

In his memory, this person had always been high-spirited. Back in school, he had been an eye-catching existence that even the instructors would praise. In their last meeting, while there had been conflict between them, the other person had been quite intense still. In stark contrast, the person before them was confused and lacked any liveliness. If it weren’t for the fact that his looks had not changed at all, Yan Si really would have wondered if the other was an alien wearing their skin.

Yan Si thought back to the information that Li Zi Hong had investigated for him, and truly felt it was a bit of a shame. He had thought that this person would have found their own path like Yang De Cheng had, but that was clearly not the case.

“It’s already fine now,” Lai Chang An finally muttered after being stared down by the other two for half a minute. His dull eyes that were so different from his school days faced his two juniors. “But I never would have thought you guys would agree to come mock me. I’m a disaster enough as it is already.”

“Mm, it is pretty disastrous. You’re really looking like a homeless person. I never would have thought that the neat and tidy senior from school would end up like this one day.” The moment Yan Si said this, Yang De Cheng instantly elbowed his side.

“…Do you know how many people you’ve offended with your manner of speaking since back then?” Lai Chang An coldly stated with a heavy stare.

“That’s why I chose a job where I don’t need to face living people, so that I won’t randomly get killed from revenge one day.” Yan Si openly acknowledged as he smiled. “By the way, is Junior Xue Yi together with you?”

Lai Chang An paused, his mood obviously shifting in what appeared to be slight upset. “No, don’t bring her up again.”

Yang De Cheng and Yan Si exchanged a look with each other. They had no idea what had occurred, but figured that the couple might have split up so they ended the subject and tactfully did not question further.

Lai Chang An took a sip of his sweet drink, coughing as he put his cup down. “…You were helping with the murder case from two days ago?”

“Yep, Senior enjoys watching these things too?” Yan Si was truly a bit surprised by this. He widened his eyes as he stated, “I hadn’t imagined that Senior Chang An would even worry about us?”

“The news mentioned that an irregular forensic investigator was slashed, and even had your name.” Lai Chang An indifferently stated how he had come to know of this, completely ignoring the other’s question. “It was really noisy outside that day.”

“Did Senior see the criminal?” Yan Si recalled that the person’s residence was opposite the fire escape, and instantly sat up straight. “Did you see them while they were running away or anything? Did you tell the officers nearby when they were investigating?”

“I didn’t see anything.” Lai Chang An only stated four words in reply.

“Pity. Since everyone ran out to watch the show, there was nobody that saw the criminal’s escape route.” Yan Si sighed, playing with glass cup that was filled with boba. “The criminal was extremely cunning, leaving basically no traces behind.”

“No point in telling me.” Lai Chang An sharply stood, no longer wanting to continue wasting time with the other two. He pulled out a wrinkled paper bill from his pocket and tossed it onto the table. “Don’t come looking for me anymore for no reason.” Without caring about how the other two responded, he directly left the shop, bumping into the glasses-wearing shop worker midway. Yet he did not even look back, let alone apologise.

“Hmph, quite a nasty attitude.” Yang De Cheng glanced at the bill on the table and shook his head. “Don’t think it was that bad back in school. Why did you blabber on about irrelevant things just now? There wasn’t any need to discuss the criminal and all that.”

“Oh, just official duties; it has nothing to do with personal grudges. It would’ve been great if he had seen it; the police currently haven’t found any useful clues.” Yan Si saw the person just happen to pass by outside the window just then, bee-lining straight back to his small apartment, and he couldn’t help but find it amusing for some reason. “It went pretty well. At least we sat down and talked. But the fact that he’s not with our junior anymore was a bit unexpected to me.” Since they had already lived together even in the past, he figured that they would still be now.

“Yeah, pretty surprising. I thought he’d be tied together with that woman for the rest of their lives; who would’ve thought they’d already split up at some point. Are you satisfied? Can I go get my fish now?” Yang De Cheng shot a look of exasperation at the overly meddlesome person. Instead of staying to continue drinking these cheap, colourful drinks, he directly grabbed the bill and went to find the shop worker to pay.

When Yan Si walked outside to wait, he glanced back at the small apartment once more, but did not spot the thing from before. He did not know what its appearance signified either.

However, if the student that was ganged up on often saw these kinds of things, the boy’s heart was extraordinarily strong.

Since Yan Si constantly studied corpses, he was more numb to such sights and didn’t feel much from it. However, an average person would find the experience extremely difficult to accept, especially a youth. In other words, it was not an easy feat for the student that was ganged up on. For that matter, the boy was able to continue living his usual life while seeing such things all the time. As expected, he really is suited for this stuff. Why not just hurry up and go specialise in spirit communication? He’d do well, and the income wouldn’t be bad either.

“What are you looking at?” Yang De Cheng asked as he finished paying and walked out of the shop, putting his wallet away.

“You gave him your business card?” Yan Si asked instead of answering, noticing his friend pushing the business cards into his wallet.

“Oh, that student kept asking where we worked, saying that he still has money to return to you. So I gave him my business card and told him that I work for a restaurant, and he could just come to the shop instead…Why did you lend money to someone you didn’t know?”

“It just happened. Plus, I was helping the student that was ganged up on pay for his clothes. Can’t he just accept the goodwill instead of paying back…seriously, I already told him there wasn’t a need.”

“You clearly have nothing better to do,” Yang De Cheng jokingly scolded the other as he took out his keys to unlock the car. However, he came to a sharp stop to stare at his minivan in disbelief.

The sight of a completely destroyed sapphire car welcomed them, despite having been completely flawless just half an hour ago.

“Wow.” Yan Si stared dumbly at the surface now covered in scratches. Even the windows were completely cracked.

It took a while for Yang De Cheng to snap out of it, and he circled his car in shock. “Holy shit, isn’t that too much? Just who would be this cruel?” For the car to be destroyed to such an extent in this short of a period, even shattering the windows, it was clearly not a prank but rather an act of highly malicious intent.

Yan Si surveyed the disastrous state of the car, somewhat suspicious. “Weird, there are scratches on the roof as well.” He saw the scars that stretched from the sides all the way up. When he climbed up, he saw that the roof was indeed scratched up too.

That was definitely unusual. People did not usually bother slashing even the top of a car.

Yan Si unconsciously glanced down at the metal section he was holding onto, suddenly noticing that the scratches seemed to match his own fingernails exactly – orderly rows of five that were just a few centimetres closer together than his own. It really made it appear like someone had used their fingernails to destroy the car, though logically speaking, such a thing was impossible.

“Well, let’s report it to the police first.”

***

As his friend was handling the matter of the car with the police, Yan Si once again unexpectedly bumped into that student.

“Ah, huh…you are both still here?” Su Zhang walked out of the drinks shop carrying a bag of dark items, also surprised to see the people who had left a while ago were still around.

“There was some trouble with the car. Are there often people vandalising cars around here?” Yan Si tugged at his high collar, already starting to feel as if he was blowing out steam from standing under the bright sun.

Su Zhang quickly shook his head. “No, never heard of it. This is the first time I’ve seen this.” He caught sight of Yan Si’s action then secretly shot a peek at Yang De Cheng, who was still with the police inspecting the car. “Do you want to come over to my place and wait there for a bit…I live nearby, right up there.” He pointed at a small apartment complex nearby as he spoke.

Live nearby?

Although Yan Si had heard the boy say his address the previous night, it was spoken softly plus Yan Si had not bothered to take special note. He had no idea that it would be over here. “No need, I can just wait a bit here.”

“That…might not be good for your injury.” Su Zhang pointed at the gauze starting to moisten slightly as he smiled kindly. “The one on your face too. The place I’m renting out has air conditioning, you can come and sit…it’ll be more comfortable.”

“Ah Si, you go to his place first.” Yang De Cheng, who was currently frustrated about his car, heard the conversation and interjected, “It might take a while longer to deal with this, and I still need to call a repair shop to tow it away later. I’ll call you once I’m done. Or did you want to take a taxi back first?”

“Might as well just go and wait at his place for you since you’ve already suggested it.” Yan Si shrugged, aware that he was an injured person and staying around would just bring trouble. He accepted Su Zhang’s offer, “I’ll be troubling you then.”

Su Zhang seemed somewhat happy, instantly smiling as he answered, “Not at all. I live in the building over there, on the third story.” As he said this, he led Yan Si over to the apartment.

Yan Si was shocked as he followed behind. Originally, he thought the boy lived in the apartment next door. However, the place that Su Zhang was bringing him to was actually the building Senior Lai lived in. Lai Chang An just happened to be right below this student.

What kind of luck is all this today? Definitely abnormal.

“This place belongs to my coworker’s uncle that he no longer uses.” Su Zhang opened the door as he said to the person behind him in a slightly nervous tone, “The rent is really cheap, around three or four thousand yuan…”

“I didn’t ask you how much your rent was.” Yan Si shrugged, having zero interest in such things. He scanned the apartment. Based on the location and the condition of the place, he could guess that the rent was likely not as the boy said. However, if the boy was renting from someone he knew, a ridiculously low rate was understandable.

As Su Zhang was clumsily opening the door, the door from the second level opened. From between the space underneath the metal rail of the staircase, Yan Si could see the person come out from the second level [residence]. The other person also froze when they saw him.

“You, get down here!”

Lai Chang An instantly shouted out.

Yan Si raised an eyebrow, leaning forwards on the stair rails as he smiled at the other person. “I just want to clarify first that this Student Su is the one that invited me to his home. I have no intentions of disturbing Senior.” Even if I did, it wouldn’t be in a such a roundabout way.

For some reason, Lai Chang An seemed extremely furious, yet the anger was not directed towards him. Either way, he stomped up the stairs, charged forwards to grab Yan Si, then began to drag him down to the second level.

“Wait-wait a moment.” Su Zhang froze in shock, unsure of what was happening.

After being dragged downstairs, Yan Si was surprised to discover that Lai Chang An did not directly toss him out. Instead, he was pulled straight into the residence on the second floor.

The space inside was smaller than he had imagined, just two rooms and a living room. It had not been cleaned for some time; there were trash and books tossed all over the ground, with a bag of something unknown dumped next to the porch.

“Senior Chang An, you might need to find a specialised cleaning company to deal with your home,” Yan Si earnestly recommended when he saw cockroaches crawling on the walls and caught a whiff of some mysterious stench.

Lai Chang An slammed the door shut, his expression stormy as he turned on the air conditioning instead. The whirring of the struggling machine instantly filled the messy space. “What exactly are you trying to do?”

“Nothing. I just said that it was Student Su from upstairs that had invited me over.” Yan Si kicked aside the junk covering the floor and sat down by himself. “Your air conditioning seems on the verge of dying.” The noise was very loud, causing the entire house to rumble.

“If you come near here again, you’re dead.” Lai Chang An coldly glared at the person in dislike, not saying anything else.

“Oh, so scary.” Yan Si stared at the window behind them, and after thinking about it, automatically walked over to open it without bothering to deal with the dark-eyed owner. As expected, he saw the fire escape from the other day. However, this apartment was somewhat far – a block away – so he could not directly see the beverage supplier’s residence. “You guys probably get thieves often around here.”

“How did you know?” Lai Chang An’s voice sounded from behind.

“There’s too much junk on the fire escape. Plus, I see at least eight residences with bars on their windows. You should probably install some too, Senior. Otherwise, your place will get broken into easily.” There had been a reason why the murderer had been able to escape so swiftly that day. Yan Si surveyed the building rooves covered with metal sheets, balconies, and canopies, guessing that the murderer had likely planned an escape route in advance. It was no wonder why they had acted without any restraint.

When he looked up, he noticed that Su Zhang had not set up bars on his window up on the third level either, perhaps because he was too poor. It looked extremely unsafe.

“Nobody would want to come in and steal from this kind of place.” Lai Chang An glanced around the floor covered in trash. “You think this is a high-end place like yours?”

“Doesn’t matter how fancy the residence is. There will always be people that want to steal from it.” Yan Si recalled the black shoeprint as he grinned. “There can be treasure even in trash, without you knowing it, Senior.”

There was no sound behind him.

When Yan Si turned around, he saw the owner currently flipping through a magazine in their hand, completely ignoring him.

Yan Si shrugged. It was the other who had let him in, so he wasn’t going to hold himself back. He stuck his head out the window, trying his best to evaluate the criminal’s escape route. Back then, Yu Xia should have made some sort of record about the path after chasing the criminal. He recalled that a certain Songshan apprentice had given pursuit for quite a while, but he did not know if they had passed this place.

“I’m going to buy things.” Lai Chang An suddenly stood up, possibly unable to bear being in the same room as Yan Si. Tossing the magazine, he walked out of the residence. “Once that car is dealt with, you’d better scram from my home.”

Yan Si shrugged as he watched the owner walk out and slam the door.

***

Yang De Cheng took longer than expected to handle the car matter.

As a result, Yan Si, who had been abandoned inside the home alone, used the magazine to kill the second large cockroach on the wall, then began to tidy the books and objects in his boredom.

For some reason, there were quite a few magazines and books. There were female magazines, medical magazines, and news-related ones.

When he looked around, he found that there was an internet router as well. However, it was connected to the residence, likely used by the computer inside.

After turning off the not very cold and extremely noisy air conditioning, Yan Si kicked aside an astrology magazine. Then, he paused, his gaze locked onto a dark footprint on the ground.

It was as if someone had stepped there, the shoeprint extremely clear underneath the book it had hidden under. However, it was not the same as the one from his home. Although it was also dark, it was not completely black, but rather had hints of dark red. Moreover, it carried more depth, coming from the window and pointed into the house.

Yan Si raised his brows at this and crouched down next to the print, using his fingernail to scratch it then rubbing the dust between his fingers. Following the direction of the print, he began to clear away other junk. As expected, there were still half of the other prints nearby, hidden underneath the trash. They all had the same dark colour.

After clearing the path, he didn’t find any others.

He crossed his arms in thought for a while before opening the trash bag tossed on the porch. When he poured it out, he found a large amount of broken junk, books, and even take-out boxes that cockroaches were feasting on. The strange stench grew stronger.

Yan Si rummaged through several bags, even accidentally spilling out some foul-smelling vegetable juice, before finally finding what he had predicted. After picking out some toilet paper, he pulled out a crumpled newspaper with half a shoeprint, along with a small cockroach that he flicked off.

“What a pain.” He studied a newspaper, noticing that several sheets inside the bag had been rolled into a ball. Since there was a bunch of vegetable juice on it, he struggled to see the date, but found that it was quite old already. From his crouched position next to the garbage bag, he let out a sigh, tossed everything down, then walked into the kitchen to wash his hands. Afterwards, he pulled out his cellphone to call Yu Xia.

Before the call connected, he walked out to the kitchen and suddenly noticed that the door had been opened. It had not been pushed open like someone had returned but had been cracked open the slightest bit. A few fingers were reaching through it, quietly grasping onto the door. It would have been fine if these were normal fingers, but as Yan Si held the phone with his shoulder, he spotted the bloodless and somewhat swollen, purplish fingertips. Thus, he walked over and swung the door open.

There was not a single person in the empty stairwell.

He tilted his head in thought for a moment before shutting the door again, locking it this time. The person on the other end of the line was likely busy, as they did not pick up and the call went straight to the answering machine.

Yan Si hung up and began to walk back. Then, he heard the faint sound of the door opening again, and he instantly turned around again to see that the door had been opened by just a crack once more, the fingers slowly reaching in from outside and quietly clutching onto the door, pushing it inwards bit by bit.

This time, Yan Si did not bother waiting for it to flee. He suddenly kicked the door closed, crushing the fingers in place, all splayed out.

Just as he was revelling over the effectiveness of this method, the fingers once again vanished. When he opened the door, there was still nothing to be seen.

Yan Si stood at the vacant doorway. After pondering this over for a few seconds, he decided that it was likely an old corpse. When he shut the door and spun around, he was suddenly facing a black thing hanging down outside the window he had opened earlier.

It was a person suspended upside down. More accurately, it was a woman, just the upper half. The black thing was her long hair floating in the breeze.

Her face, which was the same colour as the fingers from before, had no expression. However, her eyes were unusually large…or rather, he could see two large bloody cavities on the woman’s face. It was as if someone had ripped through her skin, tearing it off to reveal the flesh underneath. The embedded eyeballs stared straight at the person inside the home.

Perhaps because he had seen worse deaths before, Yan Si was only stunned for two seconds by the thing hanging upside down outside the window. He then instantly ran over to the window. However, the other thing’s movements were faster than his, instantly disappearing above the window. It did not just vanish into thin air as he had expected, but shifted upwards, as if some force had pulled her up.

Yan Si pressed against the window frame as he looked up but was unable to see anything.

“Hmph.” Yan Si wrung his wrists in faint disappointment. Just as he was about to head back inside, he suddenly caught sight of something on the frame he had been leaning against that he had no noticed earlier because of its tiny size. When he examined it more closely, he saw that it was a dark red stain that seemed to have been wiped by someone before. However, it had not been cleaned very well.

He rubbed the stain with furrowed brows.

Upon closer inspection, he found that there were some [stains] on the outer wall underneath the window as well. The traces had all been cleaned before. Yan Si grabbed the window, sticking the upper half of his body out as he used his injured hand to hold his cellphone and take some photos of the splotches outside.

While his concentration was focused on the dark spots underneath, something prickly suddenly fell from above and landed on the back of his neck, falling off bit by bit and sticking onto his neck.

Although he was wearing a high collar today, there were still exposed sections. Plus, the feathery object gradually increased in number, soon covering the entire back of his head.

Yan Si continued his original movement, then abruptly flipped his phone to flash a picture behind him without warning. When he turned around, there was nothing to be seen.

“Weird, does the student that was ganged up on often bump into these types too?” He studied the photo he had taken just now with his phone, but nothing had been captured aside from a bit of his own face.

In comparison, the one from the water tower had been much friendlier. At least he had been able to get a clear picture of its main features.

He shrugged. Since there was nothing there, might as well finish the task at hand first.

When Yan Si leaned out a second time, he felt a heavy downwards push from above before he had even aimed his cellphone towards the wall. The force was unfathomably greater than that of a human. Before he could grab the other person so that they could meet the same end, he lost his balance and fell outwards, landing straight on the junk-filled fire escape.

All he could feel that instant was a sharp pain, and a dizziness from crashing into who knew what. After a few seconds of powerlessness, he finally realised that the thing had truly been coming at him with malicious intent…luckily, his cellphone had not been damaged.

Also, he really needed to report this damned fire escape; there was way too much trash in it.

In his daze, Yan Si caught a glimpse of some dark spots on the ground underneath the garbage. However, he no longer had the strength to rummage through heavy objects…

The next second, he fainted, dead to the world around him.