Empty Nest Corpses
The higher floors lacked security windows; the dark blue glass was half-open, and the screen window was still occupied by a black human-shaped window, creating a hazy light that distinguished it from the other apartments.
Wen Dai suppressed her gaze and the strange feeling lingering in her heart. Adhering to the principle of not meddling in other people's business, she set a route home and vowed not to deviate from it.
She covered her lips with her hand, breathed on them, and secretly sniffed the air—Chen Sizhe had indeed lied to her!
Even so, the first thing Wen Dai did upon arriving home was to wash up.
After taking a shower and having a full meal, Wen Dai looked at the trash on the dining table, her thoughts conflicted. One thought said she should go to sleep, while the other said it wasn't too late to sleep after throwing away the trash.
So Wen Dai changed out of her pajamas and into her everyday clothes. As she walked with a trash bag to the small garbage station in the community, her gaze once again involuntarily drifted toward that building.
Behind the building were corridors with doors embedded in the walls. As if her gaze had an automatic tracking ability, Wen Dai instinctively stared at one of the doors; it was clearly far away, but she clearly saw the door number—607.
"Hey, little sister, give me the trash." Standing in front of the garbage station, the sanitation worker auntie who was helping to sort the garbage waved to her. Wen Dai, who was unconsciously sensing that she had been called out, was brought back to her senses and blankly replied "Hey". Then she took two quick steps forward and handed the trash to the sanitation worker auntie.
Without the trash hanging in her hand, Wen Dai walked back with unsteady steps. Before she was even halfway home, she veered off course and headed towards the building next to the entrance of the residential complex. A series of strange events were clearly being directed at her, urging her to meddle in this trivial matter.
"I don't remember having eyesight good enough to see someone's house number from hundreds of meters away, let alone having night vision good enough to make out someone's face," Wen Dai said to the immortal behind her, keeping the explanation to herself.
No response was received.
She went into the building by herself.
Inside this building, the thin iron pipe handrails are already rusted. I had heard that this building had lost the most residents, and many of those who remained were elderly people living alone who had difficulty paying property fees. When I knocked on the doors, nine out of ten households would remain silent.
It shouldn't be as cold inside as outside, but as Wen Dai climbed the stairs, she felt her face become even stiffer, and even the warmth from climbing the stairs didn't seem to help.
Repeating the uphill and turning motion, she arrived at the sixth floor and ventured to the door of room 607.
Rehearse in your mind—if someone opens the door, say, "Sorry, wrong door."; if no one opens the door, call the police.
With his fist clenched, the middle and index fingers exerted force, and the "knock knock" on the door was particularly loud in the quiet corridor.
After a moment of silence, Wen Dai continued knocking without receiving a response. After about ten minutes of knocking, the knuckles of her exposed hand were already red from the cold.
After moving her stiff, cold fingers, the anxiety weighing on her heart caused her to close her eyes. What followed was an even more presumptuous act of spying.
The third eye's perspective penetrates the tightly closed doorway. On the shoe rack in the entryway, there are only a few pairs of walking shoes and old cloth shoes. The living room, with its lights on, spills a little white light. Stepping out of the entryway, the gaze shifts towards the balcony, only to find it empty.
The stench of rotten eggs mixed with the smell of urine reached into her nasal cavity, followed by a faint, earthy, musty, damp smell in her throat. Wen Dai suppressed her nausea.
Unfortunately, that's the downside of olfactory perception. Unlike smelling with your nose in real life, once you perceive it, it appears out of thin air in your body.
Shifting my gaze, the image that entered my mind was an old woman lying diagonally on the sofa. I could still tell she was an old woman by the length of her hair. Her face didn't appear swollen, but her grayish-green skin and the dark red, branch-like lines on her face proved that she was already a corpse—a corpse that had been dead for several days.
Wen Dai noticed the fine frost forming around her eyes, mouth, and nose, and her breath involuntarily tightened. Then, she suddenly opened her eyes and took a few steps back.
The images that filled her mind were like close-ups after being cut apart. The scent that she sensed within her body forced her to swallow several times, her throat dry.
Her hand, which was reaching into her pocket for her phone, trembled unconsciously. Wen Dai frantically dialed the police hotline with her phone in hand.
She's seen a lot of people, both living and ghosts, in her line of work—but that doesn't mean she's seen a dead person, a real, existing corpse.
"Hello. This is apartment 607 in building 1 of Xiuwen Community, Tiaobo Road, Feng'an District. I think I smell a stench of a corpse, but I can't get anyone to answer the door."
Perhaps it was the trembling voice that added credibility to Wen Dai's words, because the female case manager who answered the call immediately reassured her and told her to stay where she was and wait, "We'll be there soon."
After hanging up the phone, Wen Dai's hand, holding the phone limply, fell to her sides. She took two steps back, her back pressed against the corridor railing. Her gaze was fixed blankly ahead, slowly plunging down the closed door, and she plunged down with it.
The dispatched investigators strode up the empty staircase, followed by several men in investigator uniforms who led the locksmith who was sandwiched in the middle.
Upon arrival, the first thing that caught my eye was Wen Dai, who was crouching against the corridor railing. Her long black down jacket had almost wrapped her up like a ball, making her the only black figure in the deserted corridor.
The female clerk who was on duty at the police station quickly walked up to Wen Dai. She bent down and placed a hand on Wen Dai's shoulder, whose eyes were empty. Her eyelids were lifted up slightly, and her concerned eyes reflected Wen Dai's face. "Are you alright?"
Still processing the visual shock, Wen Dai slowly raised her chin. The scene she had just witnessed could only be stored away in the warehouse of her mind. She pointed to door 607 across the street and looked up to meet the eyes of the female clerk. "Can't you smell it? There's a smell, like rotten eggs, and a foul odor, it stinks."
She freed one hand to hold onto the wall behind her, and with the help of the female clerk, she stood up, glancing at the locksmith who was holding tools and preparing to unlock the door.
"I suddenly received a fare in the middle of the night, so I went out to wait for my boss's driver. When I was standing on the street, I subconsciously turned my head and saw a dark figure standing in front of the window of a house with the light on. My eyesight is pretty good, so I could make out part of the facial features. It was really scary..."
Wen Dai clenched her fist and pressed it against her nose. Beneath her slightly furrowed brows were peach blossom eyes that seemed about to cry, and her unfocused pupils, coupled with her fearful voice, conveyed a sense of conviction: "When I came back after finishing my business this morning, I don't know why, but I looked at this house again, and that figure was still there!"
She stared wide-eyed, terrified and helpless, at the female clerk who was gently patting her shoulder to comfort her.
"I went home for a while, and after having breakfast, I came out to throw out the trash. I thought about it again and again, and decided to come and take a look. I should at least talk to the residents here. But after knocking for more than ten minutes, no one answered the door. Instead, I smelled a stench." Wen Dai made a gagging motion, shrank her shoulders, and looked scared and timid.
The female clerk put her arm around Wen Dai's shoulder, keeping her eyes fixed on her face, and nodded, saying, "Okay, we understand. Calm yourself down and don't be afraid anymore. You'll know everything once we go in."
Just then, the locksmith opened the door, and a stench wafted out. Several detectives and the locksmith standing nearby frowned in unison.
The female clerk removed her hand from Wen Dai's shoulder, turned around to face the door, tilted her head to look at Wen Dai, and then looked at the locksmith standing next to her, who seemed a little uneasy. "You can wait at the door for a while."
A group of locksmiths went in, followed by a few "tsks," "sighs," and a mix of exclamations, then a murmur of discussion. A female locksmith who came out shortly after glanced at Wen Dai, then turned to the locksmith and said, "You can leave now."
Finally, her gaze fell on Wen Dai's face, and the female clerk said, "You need to come with us to the Chizheng Office first to make a statement."
The result of meddling in other people's business is that I stayed at the righteous place from morning to afternoon:
During the statement taking, Wen Dai maintained a very serious demeanor, her tone both anxious and resolute.
“I’m not mentally ill. I really saw it. You can check the surveillance footage. It was around 10 or 11 p.m. last night. I was standing on the street waiting for a bus when I turned around and looked at that house.”
“I got back around nine o’clock, and I looked up at that place again. Today was the first time I had ever been inside that building. If it weren’t for that strange scene, I wouldn’t have gone there for no reason. You can check all the surveillance footage if you don’t believe me.”
During this time, the female investigator repeatedly reassured her and nodded in trust, but Wen Dai knew that she might be getting involved with mental illness again.
Lunch was provided by the female investigator; it was dumplings and fried glutinous rice balls brought from home by her father. Wen Dai ate half of it, and the investigator smiled at her, watching her cheeks bulge, and said, "Eat slowly, don't choke. These dumplings and glutinous rice balls were all made by my mom; from the dough to the filling, they're all handmade. I've always thought they tasted great. But speaking of which, why are you working at night? What kind of work do you do?"
Wen Dai paused her act of poking at the glutinous rice ball and stuffing it into her mouth. She swallowed the food in her mouth and met the female investigator's probing gaze.
“I work in the field of metaphysics. I’m quite clear-headed and not crazy. I went out at night because a client’s child kept crying and thrashing around all night, so he asked me to take a look. I dealt with it for a while. Then my partner had a fever, so I went with him to a hospital in Cuihu District because that client was in Cuihu District. You can check the surveillance footage if you don’t believe me.”
“We stayed in the hospital until morning. He bought me breakfast and then brought me back. That’s when I saw that figure for the second time.”
A male investigator responsible for reviewing surveillance footage walked over and patted the female investigator on the shoulder. He lowered his eyelids and closed them slightly, then nodded his chin. “She didn’t lie, and based on the surveillance footage from the past two weeks, she has a solid alibi, because she just returned two days ago.”
"Hey, so you think there really are ghosts and gods?" The male investigator seemed quite interested in this topic. He rested one hand on the table and turned his curious eyes to Wen Dai's face.
Putting down her chopsticks, Wen Dai leaned back in her chair. "If you believe, it exists; if you don't, it doesn't. If you don't believe, you should at least show some respect. I won't force non-believers to believe. I work in this industry myself, so I'll definitely say it exists."
Having cleared Wen Dai of suspicion, the female investigator finally had the mind to have a serious chat with Wen Dai. She rested her chin on her hand and said, "Actually, when we are handling cases, we will encounter some things that cannot be explained by science. But if we want to close the case, we certainly can't use such mysterious reasons. We can't say we believe in them on the surface either. However—I have been to temples with my parents to pray to gods and Buddhas quite a few times in private."
Their discussion about ghosts and spirits continued throughout their lunch break.
In the afternoon, the investigators who had been surrounding Wen Dai, clearly taking her words as a story, all went off to do their work, leaving Wen Dai alone in her chair, her bottom aching from sitting.
Around 4 a.m., the old woman's children finally appeared.
Leading the group was an elderly man in his early sixties, dressed in a neat overcoat. The woman beside him seemed even older. Behind them were several younger men, presumably men in their forties, who were in their prime. The first to step forward said in a loud voice, "We've already examined her. There's no doubt that my mother-in-law had heart problems. We can confirm it. It was definitely sudden cardiac death. Who discovered my mother-in-law's death?"
Wen Dai, whose attention had been drawn to them the moment they entered, looked up, raised her arm, and stood up, shifting her aching bottom. "I was the one who discovered it."
Before Wen Dai could recount her discovery, the female investigator sitting at her workstation stood up and blocked her way. "It was this girl who discovered it. She's quite perceptive. If she hadn't noticed something was wrong, it probably wouldn't have been discovered until it was severely decomposed, especially since it's winter now. Here's a statement; your family can take a look."
She handed the materials she was holding to the person in charge.
Wen Dai, who was being shielded by the female investigator, blinked. She lowered her head and thought to herself that it was fortunate the investigator hadn't said that she was the one who was more neurotic.
These people didn't seem interested in the discovery process; they simply passed it around and returned it. However, some children who had come over to join in the fun were looking at the materials with great interest. A boy and a girl, who looked to be in middle school, were studying them together.
After returning the materials to the female investigator, the family briefly turned their attention to Wen Dai.
Thank you.
"Thank you, little sister."
A few brief thanks couldn't hide the perfunctory attitude, pushing the sixty-year-old man to the back. The middle-aged man stared straight at the female clerk and asked, "Hey, clerk, I'd like to ask, how will my mother-in-law's estate be divided after she passed away? She didn't make a will, so who will get the house?"
The investigators inside were clearly used to this situation. The female investigator being questioned gestured for a pause, saying, "For inheritance issues, go to the notary office or the court. We are only responsible for death investigations. Since it has been determined to be a natural death, we can close the case here."
She turned her head to look at Wen Dai, who was standing behind her, tilted her face slightly towards the door, and said in a low voice, "Thank you for your help today. You can go home now."
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