Shi Yu found out about this incident after the sun had set that day.
After returning home, he took a shower, then curled himself up in the quilt and slept till night. When he woke up, he stared at the scene of stars and neon lights scattered half above and half below outside the floor-to-ceiling window for a few minutes before he got himself out of bed.
It was still early before the clock-in time, so Shi Yu went to the kitchen in her pajamas, opened the refrigerator, took out the last box of milk, and used a straw to poke open the aluminum foil.
It has a strong milky flavor but is not sweet, and the cool feeling flows down the throat into the stomach.
He closed his eyes and looked at the sky outside. In the end, he didn't order takeout. He drank the milk in gulps, threw the empty box into the trash bag, and then went to change his clothes.
At 11:30 p.m., Shi Yu put on her coat, locked the door, and went down from the 23rd floor to the first floor.
As the handover time approaches, those in charge of the time period from 4pm to midnight have already started chatting about what they are going to eat after get off work.
Hearing someone pushing the door, Zhong Shou, who was on duty, hurriedly pressed the pause button on the TV series. When he turned around and saw who was coming, his hand paused.
Shi Yu sat down in the empty seat.
Zhong Shou dumped his phone on the table, his panicked expression calmed down, and he leaned on the backrest to move: "Did you know what happened to Lao Zhang?"
Shi Yu didn't bring paper and pen this time. He only took a C programming tutorial that he didn't remember when he bought it at a discount. He nodded to show that he understood, and then opened the book.
Zhong Shou turned sideways and asked: "Why didn't you go when everyone went to visit in the morning?"
Shi Yu listened: "Why should I go?"
Zhong Shousi didn't expect him to give such an answer. He was stunned for several seconds before he pulled the corner of his mouth and smiled: "Why?"
"Almost all the people who got off work this morning went, except for a few who had other things to do and couldn't spare the time. Are you the only one who wants to be treated specially?"
"He had such a serious incident in the hospital that he was almost given a critical illness notice. You've known him for so long, but you don't even bother to visit him? Did you go straight to sleep as soon as you got back? Do you still think that visiting an old man like him is an eyesore to you?"
"Don't you know how Uncle Zhang treats you? Who offered to take you on when no one wanted to work with you when you first came? Who took your place after you had a car accident and asked for such a long leave? Who covered for you every time you fell asleep in the duty room and told people who went in to keep their voices down so as not to disturb you? Is this how you repay him?"
Each sentence is more serious and more aggressive than the last.
Another person who was on duty with Zhong Shou was sitting in front of the monitor and eating melon seeds. He frowned when he heard this: "Xiao Zhong."
Shi Yu waited quietly for him to finish, her voice emotionless: "I have no obligation to visit."
Zhong Shou laughed out loud: "Ha, you are amazing. Uncle Zhang likes you so much and treats you so well. Now that something has happened, you can still say that it is natural that you don't want to go. Then, if your mother dies in front of you one day in the future, will you not shed a single tear? You are so awesome, why didn't the car hit you to death?"
"Xiao Zhong!"
“Ding-ling-ling——”
The alarm clock just rang. The man who was eating sunflower seeds threw away the shells, pulled the man up from the chair, and pushed him out of the duty room: "Okay, okay, it's time to get off work. Go clock in quickly. You can still make it in time for a midnight snack."
After finally getting some peace and quiet, the man who was eating melon seeds came back, looking a little embarrassed: "Don't take what he just said to heart, that brat just keeps talking nonsense."
Shi Yu shook his head.
The man who was eating melon seeds muttered a few words like "Zhong Shou is stubborn and young and hot-tempered, so don't bother with him", then left with his things.
Shi Yu took over from them and sat in front of the computer. He watched the surveillance for a while, then took out his mobile phone and opened the group chat that had the Do Not Disturb function turned on but still had a small red dot in the upper right corner.
Lao Zhang is a good man who has worked as a security guard for nearly twenty years. He divorced his wife when he was young and never remarried or had children. He is always kind and easy to talk to people around him, and he is even more caring towards young people and children, even tolerant to the point of doting on them.
The people he favored included Shi Yu and Zhong Shou.
To be precise, the person who was taken care of by Lao Zhang at the beginning was Zhong Shou. It was not until Shi Yu joined this industry half a year ago, unexpectedly by everyone. However, when everyone subconsciously resisted and alienated him because of the rumors about him, Zhong Shou asked the foreman to change groups without hesitation, and he became the same group with Shi Yu.
No one thought there was anything wrong with it. After all, if Zhang's son was still around, he would be about the same age as him now, so people would love him and love his family as well.
Shi Yu opened the group chat and scrolled up.
"Brother Shu, have you been to the hospital? What happened to Lao Zhang? What did the doctor say?"
"Cerebral arterial pseudocavernous sinus syndrome."
"...Brother Shu, please be considerate of us, a bunch of illiterate high school dropouts."
"To put it simply, it was a cerebrovascular disease, and that's why he fainted."
"But I didn't see anything wrong with Lao Zhang before. How come he suddenly got sick?"
"The doctor said that the causes of brain diseases are very complicated and there are many reasons that are not clear yet. Lao Zhang hasn't woken up yet. We were kicked out before we even saw him. They said it was inconvenient for so many people to visit. But his wife has gone to take care of him. In short, we'll talk about it after he gets better."
"oh……"
In addition to this, there is another incident that has been frequently mentioned by everyone: following the security guard Lao Zhang who inexplicably fainted in the bushes outside Lanwan Community last night, another resident suddenly fell to the ground in a fresh food store not far from the community today, and was seen by someone who happened to be at the scene and spread the news.
Because the person in the accident was an old man, and even if he didn't have the usual problems of people of that age, his health was not as good as that of young people, so it was normal for him to suddenly have some problems. Therefore, the mention of the old man's incident in the fresh food store was just a daily gossip, and no one took it seriously.
However, a photo flashed before my eyes as I slid down.
Shi Yu's fingertips paused on the screen, clicked it, and enlarged it.
The background of the photo is the fresh food store where the old lady in the gossip works. A little girl who seems to be only three or four years old is huddled next to her. She has her head down and only her back can be seen. The pigtails on both sides of her head are tied together with pink rubber bands.
Shi Yu looked at the photo for two or three seconds, then slowly lowered his eyelashes.
Because Lao Zhang was in the hospital and couldn't come, Shi Yu was the only one in the duty room that night.
He occasionally checked the surveillance camera and pressed the gate button, and spent the rest of his time flipping through the programming book. He waited uneventfully until dawn, put away his things, nodded to the security guard who came to relieve his shift as a greeting, and then left the duty room.
It was already broad daylight outside.
The fat boss was using a mesh to scoop the noodles out of the pot. He looked up and saw someone passing by. He quickly called out, "Hey, bro! Do you want to come in for breakfast?"
Shi Yu seemed not to hear it. Just as he passed by the store entrance, someone reached out to stop him.
The fat boss saw his face and was stunned for a moment: "Did you just get off work? Do you want a bowl of noodles? It just so happens that you gave me too much money that night, I'll treat you."
The other party didn't respond, so he stopped asking and just pulled the person in and pressed him into an empty seat.
Shi Yu sat on the chair for half a minute. His consciousness slowly regained consciousness and he realized that his body was abnormally cold.
From yesterday till now, he only drank one box of milk. He remembered that it was the last box and wanted to go to the shopping mall outside the community to buy a new one, but not long after he walked out of Lanwan, his internal organs protested together, and he didn't remember what happened next.
Now it seems that he happened to run into the shop owner when he was in a daze.
"The noodles are here."
The fat boss put the porcelain bowl on the table: "Come, try our cooking."
Shi Yu was stunned for two seconds before he raised his hand to take the chopsticks.
The rising white steam filled his eyes and eyebrows, and the temperature of the food warmed his lungs. He swallowed slowly and said softly, "Thank you."
The fat boss said, "Hey, what's the big deal? You look so pale, maybe you didn't eat anything all night?"
Shi Yu didn't say anything and ate noodles quietly.
The fat boss was still intimidated by him, and seeing that he didn't want to chat, he didn't force himself to find a topic. Just then, the boss's wife came over to take over the daytime job of looking after the store, and she took off her apron.
Shi Yu swallowed the last bite, put down the bowl, left the store, and went to the shopping plaza opposite Lanwan Community.
The milk box was too heavy, so Shi Yu ordered a door-to-door delivery service.
I had just arrived home and hadn't even stepped into the door frame when, in the next second, seven or eight people jumped out from the surrounding corners, the stairs of the emergency passage, and behind the huge potted plant decorations.
One of them stepped forward and yanked him backwards, pressing his foot against the door.
Shi Yu's back hit the wall. He looked up at the person who did it, then looked at the other people around him.
Then, the leader took out his ID from his pocket and said, "I am Jing Shen, the captain of the Criminal Investigation Brigade of the Municipal Public Security Bureau. We now suspect that you are involved in a vicious case. Please come with us to cooperate with the investigation."
※
Half an hour later, Shi Yu sat in the interrogation room for the second time.
The difference was that the person questioning him was a different person: "Are you the gatekeeper of Lanwan Community?"
Shi Yu said, “Yes.”
"Why do you want to be a security guard?" Jing Shen's psychological quality is much better than Xiao Wang's before. "To experience life?"
Shi Yu said: "To make money."
Jing Shen did not question the suspect, but leaned casually against the metal table and asked, "Are you short of money?"
Shi Yu's expression was calm: "These two things should not conflict with each other."
The other party didn't hide, so Jing Shen naturally wouldn't hide either. He just looked directly into the other party's eyes: "Tianshui Lanwan is a well-known high-end residential area. The price per square meter is tens of thousands at the bottom, and the highest can reach six figures. The 23rd floor where you live is a single-family house. The area including the balcony is the widest in the entire building. The property fee you have to pay every month can be equivalent to the monthly meal expenses of us civil servants."
"You are the last one to join the security guards at Tianshuilanwan Community. You were only assigned to work half a year ago, and you had a car accident a month ago. The management approved you for paid sick leave, but you returned to your post just one week after you were discharged from the hospital. You haven't even had a follow-up check for a whole month."
Jing Shen pressed the spring button at the end of the pen, and the tip of the pen extended and retracted, making a clicking sound: "To make money?"
He chewed on the word and smiled slightly: "Master, tell me again, why do you have to be a security guard?"
The air was silent for a second or two.
Shi Yu said: "Experience life."
Depth of Field: "You just said no."
Shi Yu: “I would say that the two are not in conflict.”
Jing Shen stared at him for a moment and skipped this topic for the time being: "At 3 a.m. on the 5th, you left the duty room directly after receiving a call. What were you doing?"
“Dealing with noise pollution.”
"Did you pay attention to the surrounding rings on your way to the food stall?"
When Shi Yu heard this, he understood something: "No."
"Did you see anything unusual?"
"No."
Jing Shen put down his hand and tapped the pen on the table: "Then did you know that your colleague fell in the bushes on the roadside where you were walking from Tianshui Lanwan to the food stall, and you could see it as long as you turned your head?"
Shi Yu showed no expression: "I don't know."
Jing Shen thought that this might be the calmest suspect he had ever interrogated.
Shi Yu asked, "Is he dead?"
"you do not know?"
"What I heard about him was that he was sick, not injured. The police's business should not have extended to finding the pathogenic factor that caused a patient to suddenly become ill."
Shi Yu looked at him and said bluntly, "I have been unable to understand why the police care so much about this, which was originally an ordinary accident? Is it because his sudden illness is related to murder for money? Is it because his illness is fake and someone is plotting against him? Or is it because his case is just a cover and there are other hidden stories underneath, which are the cases you really care about or need to verify?"
"If it's the first case, you should go to the hospital and wait for him to wake up and ask him directly. If it's the second case, you should find out why the hospital lied to the visitors and said it was an emergency. If it's the third case, you should investigate the hidden incident itself."
Jing Shen has been in this industry for so many years and he can say with real name that he really, really hates this type of suspect.
If you are not careful, you can easily be led by the nose.
His patience ran out, and he went straight to the point: "Did you harm Zhang Gaoli?"
"no."
"You said that after he left that night, you chose to go out to persuade the hooligans outside the community, and you didn't leave at all?"
"yes."
"Is there any evidence?"
Shi Yu was silent for a while: "During this time, I received four calls."
Depth of Field frowned.
Shi Yu continued, "I also ran into security guards patrolling the neighborhood."
The depth of field taps the pen tightly.
"If I really wanted to harm someone, I would choose this time to commit the crime. Anyone could make a phone call or a security guard could come over, and the fact that I was not in the duty room would be exposed in an instant. If I took action after I went out after receiving the fifth call, the victim should have gone to deal with the noise problem and returned to his post after solving it. Why would he wait in the green belt? Was he waiting for someone to harm him?" Shi Yu said, "You should not suspect me, no matter who you suspect."
Depth of Field frowned deeply.
Shi Yu asked for the third time: "Is he dead?"
A few seconds later.
“Alive.”
"No one was killed, and there were no guns or drugs involved, so why is your city's public security bureau harping on this matter?"
※
Outside the interrogation room, Xiao Wang and Li Yuanbao turned around at the same time.
Xiao Wang sat cross-legged on the chair and said, "I don't understand either. Isn't this just an accident? Why do the higher-ups keep harping on this matter? Have you ever seen an elderly person in a family have a sudden heart attack and call the police? Can the police diagnose or perform surgery? Why do the higher-ups insist that there is such a murderer?"
Li Yuanbao shook his head: "I don't know."
Xiao Wang's thoughts began to wander: "Could it be that Zhang got sick because someone drugged him?"
Li Yuanbao shook his head again: "I don't know."
Xiao Wang's thoughts continued to wander: "Or maybe the suspect had offended someone and they deliberately used this incident to punish him?"
Li Yuanbao still shook his head: "I don't know."
Xiao Wang couldn't stop his thoughts any longer: "Or maybe there's no illness at all, or murder for money? Is this actually a supernatural event?"
Li Yuanbao, who had been exposed to materialism since childhood, twitched his mouth.
Xiao Wang, who has loved Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio since childhood, was so distracted that even eight horses couldn't pull him back: "It's still witchcraft, sorcery, incantation, and ghost-making... ah!"
Jing Shen was holding a blue folder in his hand. He just walked out of the interrogation room when he heard this nonsense. He kicked him on the butt without any ambiguity: "Stop talking nonsense."
"I just don't understand why we keep picking on him?"
Xiao Wang really didn't understand: "He went to work for no reason, dealt with a group of hooligans for no reason, and called the police for no reason, but inexplicably he became a suspect in a vicious case and was locked up in the police station. The most inexplicable thing is that when he asked you what you had done wrong, you refused to tell him anything..."
He looked at the other party's increasingly gloomy face, and finally remembered that he was at least a big boss with countless teams under his command. His status was more than one level higher than that of a small policeman like himself in a grassroots police station. His voice quietly became smaller: "... He didn't tell us anything."
Jing Shen looked at him for a while, then suddenly opened the blue folder in his hand, pulled out a sheet of something from it, and threw it into his arms.
Xiao Wang answered the call in a panic, fearing that the other party would write his name down in the memo book. The next second, he heard the other party say, "Look for yourself."
Jing Shen said this, closed the folder, turned around and left: "Remember to wait in the conference room after reading it."
Xiao Wang watched him walk away, lowered his head, and saw the bold black words at the top of the A4 paper:
"About the National Security Agency's Special Investigation and Processing Team for Paranormal Events"
supernatural.
How did he say that?
——Or maybe there is no disease at all, or murder for money? Is this actually a supernatural event? Or is it witchcraft, sorcery, incantation, or ghost magic?
Xiao Wang's mind went blank for two seconds.
Is he talking nonsense?
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