Chapter 247 Corpses in the Secret Room
One month later, on the morning of March 15 in Qiyang City
The tranquility of Jingyang Street was broken by a series of crisp hammering sounds.
Xiao Zhang stood in front of an old house, swung a hammer and smashed it at the mottled wall.
His voice echoed in the empty room: "Foreman, are we still hiring laborers?"
The foreman held a cigarette in his mouth, glanced at Xiao Zhang nonchalantly, and said softly: "190 yuan a day, if you can accept it, hire two."
As soon as he finished speaking, Xiao Zhang responded excitedly: "Okay, I'll call them over this afternoon."
After saying that, he started hammering the wall again, and the sound of the hammer hitting the wall echoed around.
Xiao Zhang wiped the sweat from his forehead and couldn't help but sigh: "Rich people are different. They are willing to buy this old house that has been unoccupied for almost 20 years."
The foreman took over the conversation and said while drinking water: "I heard that it is going to be renovated into a private restaurant."
Soon, time passed quietly with the sound of hammering. After about half an hour, Xiao Zhang's hammer suddenly stopped.
He and the foreman were stunned because they discovered that there was a secret room hidden behind the wall.
As they walked in cautiously, the sight before them made them both gasp.
In the secret room, a corpse was lying peacefully on the table, with its coat clinging tightly to its bones. Such a weird scene instantly made everyone present shudder.
Xiao Zhang and the foreman looked at each other and called the police without hesitation.
Forensic pathologist Mo Qian happened to be working nearby. After hearing the news, he arrived at the scene before Yan Yi and Ye Bai.
The moment he opened the door, Mo Qian seemed to be surrounded by an atmosphere of stagnation in time and space.
Time seemed to have stopped in this secret room, and everything remained in the distant past.
The calendar on the wall stopped at December 3, 2003, the final mark of the years.
There is no ventilation in the secret room. The only entrance and exit is the tightly closed stone door. It is heavy and silent, as if it isolates all the noise from the outside world.
Mo Qian's eyes fell on the table. The furnishings on the table were simple and old: a burnt-out oil lamp, an opened bottle of quick-acting heart pills lying quietly beside it, an old water cup; a rusty lighter placed on a box of cigarettes, and next to it was a yellowed and grayed cowhide notebook.
There was an open pen pressed on the deceased's elbow, and the contents of the notebook were only half written before fate ruthlessly froze them.
Mo Qian picked up the recording device in his hand and started recording: "Judging from what the deceased was wearing, he should be a man. He was wearing a coat on his back, with no signs of puncture, and no external injuries on his head. The possibility of homicide is temporarily ruled out. Combined with the date on the calendar, the time of death should be winter."
His eyes fell on the bottle of quick-acting heart-saving pills again, and his tone was a little heavy, "A bottle of quick-acting heart-saving pills that has been opened..."
Combined with the deceased's death posture, Mo Qian made a preliminary inference: "The deceased should have suffered from heart disease, perhaps a heart attack, or sudden death, and died before he could take the quick-acting heart-saving pills. For more details, we need to take the deceased back for testing."
At the scene, trace personnel were carefully searching for clues.
When they opened the pockets of the deceased Miao Xiang, they saw an old black slider phone and several old banknotes that had been withdrawn from circulation.
At the same time, Zhong Ziqun had just returned from outside, sweating profusely, but unable to hide his excitement: "Captain Yan, I found out! The owner of the house is Miao He, 51 years old, and lives nearby. I brought her here."
Yan Yi immediately went up to him and asked anxiously, "Don't you know that there is a secret room in this old house?"
Miao He looked bewildered, his eyes full of confusion: "I didn't know there was a secret room in this house. This house belongs to my brother, but he disappeared more than ten years ago. I couldn't find him, so I kept the house for him, hoping he would come back one day. But my health is not good now, and I have to buy one or two thousand dollars of medicine every month. I really have no choice but to sell the house."
When she learned that there was a secret room in the house and her brother had died in that secret room and had never left for so many years, tears instantly blurred her eyes and she choked and said, "This...how could this be? I always thought my brother went abroad or went to another place."
At this time, Ye Bai was still observing carefully in the secret room and had not come out yet.
The notebook that was pressed down by the deceased seemed to be soaked in corpse fluid. The pages were stuck together and could not be easily torn apart. The handwriting on it also became mottled and blurred, making it difficult to recognize.
Just when he was in trouble, he suddenly found a cabinet door under the desk.
Out of curiosity, he reached out to pull it, but found that the cabinet door was locked.
Ye Bai's eyes were heavy as he began to sort out his thoughts. The secret room, the notebook, the locked door...
Is there some secret hidden behind it?
Yan Yi asked Miao He, "What's your brother's name? How old was he when he disappeared? Is he married?"
Miao He wiped away tears and said, "My brother's name is Miao Xiang. He was not married. I remember very clearly that he was 32 years old when he disappeared."