Chapter 240: This Community Will Be Empty Sooner or Later
"Uncle, do you still remember me?" Zhou Yi asked standing at the window of the guard room.
The security guard was listening to the radio as usual, as if nothing that happened could shake his state of life.
Hearing Zhou Yi's voice, he raised his head, squinted his eyes and looked at him, then pointed at him and said, "You are...you are..."
After thinking for a long time, the old man still couldn't say it, and he felt like there was something stuck in his throat.
Finally, the old man put his hand down and said two words: "Looks familiar."
Zhou Yi didn't feel that surprised. Anyway, he didn't intend to find the old man to find out the situation. After all, the old man was just a mascot.
He went to the neighborhood committee to find out what was going on, but found the door closed.
Just realized that today is Sunday.
After thinking about it, I went back to the guard room and asked the old man for the contact information of the head of the neighborhood committee.
Zhou Yi directly took out his ID and explained his needs.
After the old man understood, he began to rummage through boxes and drawers looking for contact information.
After waiting for five or six minutes, Zhou Yi wanted to give up. His eyes accidentally fell on a calendar on the wall next to him. The calendar was from 1995.
In the blank space below the calendar were written the three words "Director Chen" and an eight-digit phone number.
"Uncle, is this it?" Zhou Yi asked.
The old man looked up in the direction he pointed, and was immediately as delighted as if Columbus had discovered the New World. He nodded repeatedly: "Ah, right, right."
Zhou Yi took out his cell phone and dialed the number.
At this moment, the security guard suddenly pointed at Zhou Yi and said with sudden realization: "I remember now, you are from the food company."
Zhou Yi said calmly, "Uncle, listen to more operas to prevent Alzheimer's disease."
"Okay."
Ten minutes later, a bald middle-aged man in his forties wearing glasses hurriedly ran in from outside the community. Seeing Zhou Yi standing at the gate, the two looked at each other.
"Is it...Officer Zhou?"
"Director Chen from the neighborhood committee, right?"
"It's me, it's me, hello, Officer Zhou."
Zhou Yi pointed inside the community and asked, "Doesn't Director Chen live in Donghai Community?"
Zhou Yi remembers that in the early years, many neighborhood committee staff were recruited nearby in order to familiarize themselves with the area and facilitate their work.
Director Chen smiled sheepishly, "We were originally going to live here, but then something happened in the neighborhood. My wife is timid, and the factory works three shifts, so she doesn't dare walk at night. So, we had no choice but to rent a house nearby."
Zhou Yi felt something was wrong, and asked hurriedly, "Are there many families like yours who have moved away from the community?"
Director Chen nodded. "Quite a few. Especially in Xu Jiaguang's building. Almost everyone who could afford it has moved out. Who would dare to live there? Even during the day, no one dares to walk through that corridor. Many people would rather go around it."
This kind of thing is actually not the fault of the neighbors. Anyone would be scared, especially those who have to pass by Xu Jiaguang's house when going up and down the stairs.
If one day when you pass by, the door suddenly creaks open, you will be scared to death.
"What about the original tenants? Did many of them quit as well?"
"Of course. Who would dare to rent a house in our community now? Basically, most of the previous tenants have left. We have even gone through mediation several times to get the deposit back."
Shit, the worst has happened.
The tenants were originally the main suspects, and this situation undoubtedly made their investigation work exponentially more difficult.
Zhou Yi, desperately trying to save his life, asked, "Director Chen, does your neighborhood committee have the tenant's residence registration information?"
Director Chen shook his head: "I really don't have that."
Zhou Yi's heart suddenly sank, and he planned to continue asking whether there had been any abnormal tenants who terminated their leases in the past one or two months, that is, the tenants who suddenly said they couldn't live there anymore and maybe didn't even bother to discuss the deposit with the landlord.
Before I could ask, Director Chen said, "But we did a population registration."
Zhou Yi's sinking heart instantly rose again, but at the same time he felt strange. If they didn't even register the tenants, why would they do a population registration?
When asked, Director Chen explained that it was because there had been an outbreak of dysentery, an infectious disease, in the community before. Because many people were infected at that time, the staff of the epidemic prevention station came to deal with it.
Since the exact cause was not found at the time, the epidemic prevention station was afraid that the epidemic would spread, so it asked the neighborhood committee to do a population registration for verification.
Zhou Yi was overjoyed and asked about the registration time. He found out that it was at the end of February, about two weeks before Zhang Hui disappeared.
Follow Director Chen back to the neighborhood committee to get the registration record. With this record, by comparing it with the registered permanent population, we can find out all the tenants who have moved out.
However, with about 2,000 people in the community, it is a strenuous job.
On the way to the neighborhood committee, passing by an open space, Zhou Yi saw Qiao Jiali chatting enthusiastically with a group of old men and women.
"Officer Zhou, can I ask what happened? Did something happen again?" Director Chen asked fearfully.
Zhou Yi didn't want to create panic, so he said, "No, there are still some things to investigate in the previous case. I can't tell you the details. We have regulations."
"It's okay, it's okay. I understand. Just don't let anything else happen." Director Chen murmured.
But Zhou Yi felt that the Donghai community would never recover.
After a door-to-door investigation today, all residents in the community will immediately understand that something has happened again.
The Zhang Hui case caused many people to flee the community.
If there is another case, I will probably have to run away.
I'm afraid that this Donghai community will sooner or later become a deserted community. We can only wait for the real estate industry to develop and see if there is a chance for demolition.
I went to the neighborhood committee and got the population registration list that Director Chen mentioned.
Zhou Yi flipped through the list. There were house numbers and names on it, but no other information such as ID numbers. Its actual use might be limited, and it could only be said to be better than nothing.
Zhou Yi noticed that many names on the list had red ticks next to them, so he asked, "Director Chen, do these red ticks refer to tenants?"
Director Chen took a look and said, "No, this is a mark made by the epidemic prevention station after checking the people who have dysentery."
Zhou Yi nodded and asked if he could take it first.
Director Chen said this is no longer needed, so you can use it.
Zhou Yi asked him again, in the one to two months before Zhang Hui disappeared, were there any tenants in the community who suddenly moved out without reason?
Director Chen thought for a moment and said, "It seems that someone in Building 8 moved out. They said it was the rent due date, so the landlord went to collect the rent several times, but no one opened the door. Thinking something was amiss, the landlord used a spare key, only to discover the locks had been changed. He then called a locksmith, who finally opened the door."
"Is there anything in the room?" Zhou Yi asked hurriedly.
"No one was there. The furniture and appliances were all there, even the tenants' clothes were there, but there was no one there."
Zhou Yi immediately realized something was wrong and asked hurriedly, "Which household in Building 8 is it?"
"I'm really not sure about this. How about I ask for you?"
"No need, I'll go by myself. Director Chen, please think about it again. If you remember anything unusual, notify me immediately." Zhou Yi picked up the pen and paper on the table, left him a number, and then left.
Director Chen's heart suddenly began to beat fast. Was this really just an investigation into Zhang Hui's case? Was there something else going on?
Suddenly, he felt a chill in the room and a chilling feeling.
It’s over. I don’t dare come to work during the day anymore. What should I do?
Zhou Yi left the neighborhood committee and contacted Shi Tao by radio, telling him that there might be something unusual in Building No. 8.
The two soon met at the entrance of the corridor and first knocked on the doors of two households on the first floor.
There is no one in the house. I wonder if they have moved away.
There was someone in the other house. The head of the household was a burly man who looked at the two men warily.
After the two showed their IDs and asked, the big man immediately pointed to the upstairs and said, "Room 601 upstairs is still empty. I don't know what's wrong with the person who rented it. I heard that they didn't take anything."
Zhou Yi asked him again if he knew who the landlord of room 601 upstairs was?
The big man said that the landlord lived in the building next door and provided a house number.
Before closing the shop, Shi Tao asked a question: "Why didn't you move out?"
Apparently, they had discovered during their door-to-door survey that many people had moved away.
The big man said indifferently that he was a pig butcher and there was nothing to be afraid of.
Shi Tao nodded, and as he left, he said to Zhou Yi, "In ancient times, it was said that butchers carried an evil spirit that even ghosts were afraid of."
The two found the landlord, an elderly couple, and confirmed that they were the landlords of 601.
They learned that the previous tenant was a young man named Meng, not from the area, and probably under 30 years old. The original agreement was for a one-year lease, with three months' rent and a deposit, but he suddenly disappeared after only three months.
Zhou Yi asked them if they had a copy of the tenant's ID card. The old man said no and signed a handwritten contract.
Then he took out the contract and showed it to Zhou Yi and the others. He found it was extremely simple. It just stated that he wanted to rent Room 601, Building 8, Donghai Community, for one year, with a deposit of three months' rent and a monthly fee.
The signature is a name called "Meng Qingtong", and there is no other information.
The old man took two people to open the door of 601. He said that he didn't know when the tenant surnamed Meng disappeared. He found that no one was at home when he went to collect rent on March 1. Then he didn't see this person for several days, so he used the spare key to open the door, but found that the lock had been changed.
Zhou Yi asked whether the house had been cleaned after Meng Qingtong disappeared.
The old man shook his head and said that the people's belongings were still there and he didn't dare to touch them, he just changed the lock.
I’m afraid that if someone comes back suddenly, I won’t be able to explain myself.
It seems that this landlord is a relatively kind person.
"Oh, I was thinking about when I could rent out this house again, but now it seems difficult." The old man sighed, took out the key and opened the door.
As soon as Zhou Yi and Shi Tao entered the room, their expressions changed immediately.
Because they smelled a foul odor of decay.
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