"Things? What are you talking about? Can you tell me which floor it's on?"
The middle-aged man shook his head. "I can't be sure. If I knew which floor it was, I would have cursed them out already. These rude people, are their legs broken? They won't even come downstairs to throw out the trash. But it's strange, I've cursed them out a few times before, so they usually don't throw the trash down from upstairs. And if they do, they won't do it at the time I come. That time was really strange."
Wang Shen walked to the trash can and looked up at the upstairs apartments. Only two apartments had their lights on. "Uncle, did you find that bag of trash you threw down later?"
"I thought it was strange at the time, so I looked around near the trash cans. I got angry when I thought about it; there was so much trash on the ground. I didn't find anything else, just some clothes, shoes, and other daily necessities. Some of them even looked relatively new."
Clothes? Shoes? Daily necessities? Wang Shen noted this information down in his notebook. "Are those daily necessities for men or women? Can you tell?"
"Most of them are men's, and a small portion are women's. I..." The man handling the trash paused for a moment. "I even picked out a few nice ones to take with me. Anyway, throwing those things away would be a waste, and we should conserve resources, shouldn't we?"
"What did you take?" Wang Shen pressed.
"No, no. No, no, this is something they didn't want. It's not illegal for me to take it, is it?" Seeing Wang Shen's hurried tone and flustered expression, the uncle immediately waved his hand and explained.
"Don't be nervous, that's not what I meant. I just want to know what you took? Are those things still there? If they are, maybe I can buy them." Wang Shen waved his hand in return, revealing a friendly smile.
The middle-aged man still looked at Wang Shen suspiciously, then said slowly, "Actually, I didn't take much, just some clothes and a pair of shoes. The shoes were too big for me, so I couldn't wear them and just left them there. I've already thrown away some of the clothes, leaving only one jacket." The man paused, then secretly glanced at Wang Shen again. Seeing the smile on Wang Shen's face, he seemed to relax his guard a little. "By the way, you said you wanted to buy those things?" The man's voice was soft, tinged with a hint of probing.
Wang Shen smiled and nodded.
"You can have these things, but this is all the money you'll get. Is that alright?" The man's right hand trembled as he flicked up three fingers. Suddenly, he seemed to think the price was too high and hurriedly hid his ring finger back in his palm. Now, only two fingers of the man's right hand remained standing in the night air.
“No problem.” Wang Shen nodded immediately. “But how are you going to give it to me?” Wang Shen tapped his head and glanced at the uncle.
"Wait here, my house isn't far from here, half an hour, just half an hour. I'll definitely be back within half an hour." The uncle was a little excited, never expecting to earn extra money so easily on such an ordinary night. While telling Wang Shen to wait patiently, the uncle rushed to his construction vehicle. The vehicle turned on its headlights and sped away into the alley.
Wang Shen glanced at his watch, estimating the time. He could use this time to check on Han Mo's apartment again. Wang Shen entered the building; the motion-activated lights in the hallway seemed malfunctioning. He stamped his foot, and the overhead lights slowly came on. A moment later, Wang Shen stood at Han Mo's door. He took the apartment key out of his pocket. This key had been stored in the archives along with Han Mo's file. Just as Wang Shen was about to use the key to open the door, he saw his neighbor's door open.
"Hello." Wang Shen walked over and greeted her. Standing in front of Wang Shen was a middle-aged woman with heavily curled hair, wearing a dress covered in embroidered red flowers.
The middle-aged woman was about to lock the door, but upon hearing Wang Shen's shout, she immediately slipped inside, leaving the door ajar. She glanced at Wang Shen warily and asked, "Who are you?"
Wang Shen took his police ID out of his pocket and placed it in front of the middle-aged woman. Upon seeing Wang Shen's ID, the woman relaxed considerably, her grip on the door lock loosening slightly. "What do you need?"
"Are you going out, ma'am?" Wang Shen asked the middle-aged woman solicitously.
"Is it illegal to do square dancing?" the middle-aged woman asked, while tidying her curly and fluffy hair.
"Of course not, of course not. I just want to take up a few minutes of your time, sister, to find out about the situation of that family back then." Wang Shen pointed to Han Mo's house.
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