Chapter 38 Dead Men
Song Lubai and Lao Zhang returned to the office after work and ran into Xiao Yan and her group who had just returned from patrol.
Hearing their conversation, Song Lubai asked in surprise, "Hu Xiaoqing is missing?"
Xiao Yan nodded. "Grandma Li said that Hu Xiaoqing was beaten in the middle of the night and hasn't returned home since he went out the next day. It's been three days now."
"We've already reported it to the police. We've searched many places today, but we can't find him, and no one has seen him."
Song Lubai muttered, "Where could a grown man like him run off to?"
Zhao Lei: "Something might really go wrong."
Several people looked at him with disapproval.
Zhao Lei: "What I said was possible. Is it normal for a grown man to disappear for three days without any reason?"
While the group was discussing, another sanitation worker from the street, Old Li, ran up to them, wailing and howling.
"There's a dead person in the toilet! You all need to come with me to see! It's like a ghost story! He looks so much like Xiao Hu..."
Old Li, the sanitation worker, looked as if he had seen a ghost, and he was still holding his tools, which were covered in feces.
This sentence caused an uproar in the office, and even Secretary Chen followed the crowd out.
"Which toilet? Who died? Lead the way!"
There are quite a few public toilets in the area, and the toilet where the dead was found is only a seven or eight-minute walk from the street office. That's why Old Li would come to the street office to inform the staff first, instead of calling the police.
Old Li jogged all the way to the public toilet, went around to the back of the toilet where people emptied latrines, and pointed to a spot in the latrine where there was clearly a person, saying, "Look, this is the women's toilet stall. If he fell in, he could only have fallen in from the women's toilet."
"This toilet is cleaned every two weeks, and today is the day for cleaning. I haven't seen Hu Xiaoqing for the past few days, and I thought something had happened to him because of his family. I never expected to see his face while I was cleaning the toilet."
Old Li felt like vomiting just thinking about that scene.
It's not disgust, it's just an instinctive feeling of nausea when you see a dead person.
He was a sanitation worker who was in contact with the cesspools year after year and had long been immune to the filth underneath, but this was the first time he had ever dug up a corpse in all his years of sanitation work.
Old Li used a tool to pry open the corpse's head. The moment Hu Xiaoqing's face was revealed, those who had seen Hu Xiaoqing before immediately spoke up to confirm that this person was indeed Hu Xiaoqing.
The smell was too strong, and the face was too terrifying.
Those who had never seen anything like this before ran off to vomit.
Song Lubai almost vomited up her sour water.
Secretary Chen: "Call the police and also notify the Hu family."
That scene was too much for an ordinary person to bear a second glance.
Many people moved to a place where they couldn't see the body and gathered together to discuss it quietly.
While they were recovering the body over there, everyone here was speculating about why Hu Xiaoqing had died in the women's restroom.
"Could it have been Shen Lingyu?"
Shen Lingyu went to their neighborhood office and said she wanted to kill the entire Hu family and then commit suicide.
Hu Xiaoqing died just a few days after they started talking, so Shen Lingyu seems suspicious no matter how I look at it.
Xiao Yan: "Shen Lingyu is in the hospital, how could she have drowned in the toilet, the women's toilet?"
"You won't drown if you fall into this toilet, will you?"
"Who else could it be but Shen Lingyu? What a coincidence!"
"She hated the Hu family with a vengeance..."
Song Lubai remained silent.
Because she also suspected Shen Lingyu.
When she visited Shen Lingyu at the hospital, she heard her say that after beating someone up in the middle of the night, she went back to the hospital, and even the people in the ward didn't know that she had gone out.
She is determined to get a divorce. If Hu Xiaoqing listens to his parents and refuses to divorce, will Shen Lingyu try to kill him if she is pushed to the limit?
That's entirely possible.
Upon glancing up, Song Lubai saw Director Wang frowning across from her and asked, "Director Wang, you've seen a lot in the subdistrict office. In your opinion, does this matter have anything to do with Shen Lingyu?"
I just couldn't bear not to say something to her.
Swish, swish, swish.
Almost all eyes were on Director Wang.
Everyone in the office remembered Director Wang's confident assertion that Shen Lingyu wouldn't dare to say such a thing.
She resolutely refused to issue a certificate for divorce.
Director Wang also thought of this, and his face darkened as he glared fiercely at Song Lubai.
She looked somewhat embarrassed, and her tone was noticeably harsh: "How would I know how someone died? We'll have to wait for the police to come and investigate."
Xiao Yan sighed, "If it's really because of family conflicts, then it's such a pity. They're so young, how could things have come to this?"
Just as Director Wang was looking annoyed, Hu Xiaoqing's parents, who had received the news, arrived.
Upon seeing the body that had been retrieved, Hu Lishi clutched her chest and immediately fainted.
Old Hu knelt beside the corpse, howling inhumanly.
When the police arrived, Old Hu said excitedly, "It must have been that bitch Shen Lingyu who did it. You must give us justice!"
Old Hu felt that it was inseparable from Shen Lingyu, and others felt the same way when they heard it.
The body was taken away by the police, and the people from the neighborhood office also went back.
Not long after they returned, the police came to the street office and asked the staff of the office to assist the police in finding clues about Hu Xiaoqing's death.
After the police left, Secretary Chen assigned the task of conducting investigations and inquiries.
When she got back that day, Song Lubai couldn't eat a single bite of food; all she could think about was Hu Xiaoqing's filthy, dead face.
After two days of visiting various places, my legs were about to give out, but I still couldn't get any useful information.
Several times when I passed by the Hu family's house, the wailing sounds coming from the courtyard were unsettling.
As they emerged from another house, they heard hurried footsteps behind them. Turning around, they saw a girl who looked to be sixteen or seventeen.
The girl looked hesitant, as if she had something to say but didn't know whether she should.
They knocked on the door and asked the girl a few questions, but her family didn't give any special information.
"You have something to say? Just say whatever comes to mind, don't be afraid."
The girl bit her lip and said, "I've seen that latrine cleaner several times in the women's restroom."
The three of them immediately brightened up.
When was the last time you saw him? Was it five days ago?
The girl shook her head. "No, it's been about two weeks since I last saw him."
The three were disappointed.
Song Lubai: "He's a latrine cleaner. It's not surprising that you've seen him in the toilet. What do you find strange?"
The girl nodded and finished speaking in one breath: "He always peeps in the toilet. There are holes in the wall in the middle of the toilet. Even if it is plugged up, it will be chiseled open again after a while. I know he did it. He not only peeps in the men's toilet, but also hides in the women's toilet after dark. I caught him once. I was so scared that I never went to the toilet in that area again."
Zhao Lei cursed, "Damn it, it was this bastard all along."
Remembering that the person was already dead, Zhao Lei felt it was inappropriate to curse like that and immediately stopped talking.
Xiao Yan, however, didn't care at all: "What a hooligan."
"Why didn't you call the police when you saw it?"
The girl bit her lip. "I don't dare. He slapped me that time and said he would kill me if I dared to tell anyone. He also said he knew where I lived."
Song Lubai's fist hardened.
Good riddance.
The latrine was his best resting place.
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