Chapter 10: Size
Jiang Cheng didn’t make any sound as he quickly stood up to hide in the toilet. Therefore, the ‘person’ Fatty saw sleeping on the ground beside the bed was not Jiang Cheng but the shadow that had just crawled out.
After the real Jiang Cheng hid in the toilet, while Fatty was distracted, he dragged the man in. Chen Xiaomeng switched on the lights in the room. After the lights came on, everyone saw the mess on the bed and the puddle of water on the ground. The water spread from the bed to the bedroom door. The group walked to the door and realised there were water puddles in the corridor as well. The water continued until it ended before the locked door.
Xie Yu was carried away by the ghost while inside the blanket. The thought was horrifying. No one had any hope that he was still alive.
Man Li tried to suppress the chill in his heart as he turned to Jiang Cheng, “Did you manage to see the ghost’s appearance?”
Fatty shook his head. He said the room was too dark, and he was…
Everyone knew that he was scared. After all, he was a newbie. It was understandable.
Just as Sister Nuan was about to say something, Jiang Cheng suddenly said, “It’s that girl.”
“What?”
“The girl from the family of four.”
Man Li was shocked, “How can you tell?”After they reached the bungalow, they had not seen any pictures, so they should have no idea what the family looked like.
Jiang Cheng lifted his head and looked at the locked door at the end of the corridor. “The ghost was wearing a pair of female casual shoes. I’ve seen them in the shoe closet before.”
Chen Xiaomeng said with a pale face, “It looks like our hypothesis was right. The other family members tortured the girl and then killed her. Now, she… is back for revenge.”
“We have nothing to do with her death. Why did she target?” Fatty thought back to what had happened earlier and was still scared.
Sister Nuan scoffed, “Are you going to reason with a ghost?”
“Enough!” Man Li cut in. “Stop talking. I’m going to go there to take a look. Who’s coming with me?” He was talking about the locked room at the end of the corridor. The ghost disappeared before that door with Xie Yu. This was a very important clue. In the end, everyone decided to go together. It would be more dangerous if they split up. Plus, based on what Man Li and Sister Nuan said, the ghosts rarely killed consecutively.
Different from before, Man Li only pushed the door lightly, and it opened. The lock… had been unlocked.
Behind the door was a small room. Since there was no window, they could only see a bit of the room through the light in the corridor. The room was about ⅔ the boy’s bedroom. It was dark, and no one entered it.
Jiang Cheng walked forward and searched the wall near the wall. Following a click, the lights in the room came on. Even though they were prepared, when they saw the room, they still sucked in a cold breath.
There was a rolled-up blanket in the middle of the room. A pair of feet dangled out weakly. Several seconds later, Sister Nuan walked forward to slowly unroll the blanket.
“Ah!” Chen Xiaomeng covered her mouth.
Xie Yu was snuggled inside the blanket. His eyes bulged out, and his pupils widened. The muscles on his face spasmed. It was clear that he was dead. His hands froze in the shape of claws, guarding his chest. The veins on the back of his hands popped.
Jiang Cheng walked forward to pull up a corner of Xie Yu’s shirt. His body was covered in wounds. They looked like whip wounds. There were a few spots of blunt-force traumas as well. His two hands were locked with handcuffs.
Sister Nuan found a backpack nearby. The backpack had a vibe, a dagger, handcuffs, ropes and candles of varying sizes. After comparison, the rope inside the backpack was similar to the rope found in the garage.
Fatty stared at the bloody tools, and his voice trembled, “Was Xie Yu tortured to death?”
“No.” Jiang Cheng stood up. “The wounds on his body are too uniform. This means this was no struggle. In other words, he was already unconscious when he was tortured.
“I believe he was scared to death and then dragged here to be tortured.”
“Corpse mutilation?”
Jiang Cheng nodded. “I believe so.”
“Brother, can you not be so calm?” Fatty almost cried. “If I weren’t with you, based on your reaction, I would have suspected you were behind this.”
Jiang Cheng said righteously, “Nonsense. Even though my workplace also provides this kind of service, it is built on the basis of mutual agreement. Plus, we wouldn’t go so far.”
Seeing the topic was about to be led astray, Man Li quickly jumped out to remind them to look for clues. However, Jiang Cheng pointed at the shoes Xie Yu was wearing, “This is not right. He wasn’t wearing these shoes earlier.”
Everyone’s gaze moved to the shoes. It was a pair of sports shoes. It was very common. It didn’t match Xie Yu’s appearance. Plus, the shoes looked too big for him. Man Li grabbed the knife Sister Nuan found in the backpack. He knelt on the ground and used the knife to cut through the shoelaces. He removed the shoes.
Then, something shocking happened.
There was another pair of shoes inside the sports shoes!
This was a pair of compressed leather shoes. Xie Yu’s feet were bent out of shape. It felt like his feet had been broken before the ghost put the sports shoes on him. Clearly, the leather shoes were Xie Yu’s own shoes.
“Is this the shoes of the boy?” Chen Xiaomeng looked at the shoes and said, “But the pair of sports shoes we found in the first-floor living room…”
Jiang Cheng knew the thing that troubled her. Even though the two pairs of sports shoes looked similar, the sizes were so different. They didn’t seem to belong to the same person.
“Is the shoe closet used to store the shoes the boy has had over the years? This pair is the one he wore when he was older.”
Jiang Cheng thought about it and said, “It’s possible, but I don’t think the chance of that is high. We’ve searched the whole bungalow. Did any of you find other shoes with this size?”
Everyone was silent. Then, Sister Nuan asked carefully, “So you mean there are three males in this bungalow, the father and his two sons.”