My House of Horrors

Chen Ge was silent as he fell under Tian Lei’s scrutiny. Then, he said something that shocked everyone there. “Last night, when my employee and I dropped Huang Ling at her home, she revealed to us that her husband was a mental patient with serious control issues.”

“The crazy person is not her but her husband?” Tian Lei put down his phone. “What evidence do you have to make that claim?”

“Huang Ling has been working to support the whole family. Her husband cooped himself up at home and rejected human communication. From how they both carried themselves, it is clear that Jia Ming is the one that has a bigger possibility of being a mental patient.” Chen Ge turned to Captain Yan. “Before this, I asked Captain Yan to investigate Jia Ming; you can ask Captain Yan for the details.”

“You have not seen them in person and barely investigated, so how could you make such a rushed conclusion? I’ve met both Jia Ming and Huang Ling already. Even Huang Ling herself thought she was sick, but you said it was her husband that is sick. Don’t tell me you know the patient better than she knows herself?”

Worried that there might be an accident, Tian Lei had rushed to Huang Ling’s home early in the morning after getting the report from the taxi driver. He did not see the so-called murder, and there was no domestic violence. There was not one trace of injury or wound on Huang Ling’s body.

“I still insist on my point of view. I feel like you have been tricked by Huang Ling’s husband. He was once a kind and gentle person, but people change. After being let down by life again and again, there is now a demon living inside his body.” Things had developed out of his expectations. Before Huang Ling could investigate, she had been taken over by the ghost. This triggered a sense of alarm within Chen Ge. “The opponent this time is very cunning; I shan’t let my guard down.”

Chen Ge and Tian Lei argued nonstop, and the taxi driver was confused. Who was the real mental patient? Who was lying? He never once considered that, but there was one thing that was certain—he was never going to drive to Eastern Jiujiang in the middle of the night again.

“Please, both of you. Quiet down.” Captain Yan wanted Chen Ge and Tian Lei to stop arguing. “Do you have the written records from Huang Ling and her husband?”

“We only have the one given by her husband. Huang Ling suffered from a mental breakdown last night. We were afraid of triggering her, so we just asked a few simple questions.” Tian Lei was stationed in Eastern Jiujiang, so he was more attached to the citizens there compared to those who came from Western Jiujiang. However, at times, attachment and kindness could cloud one’s objective analysis.

“The direction of your investigation was wrong from the beginning. It was Huang Ling who was with Chen Ge last night, and it was also Huang Ling who drove the taxi and left the note for the taxi driver. This woman is the most crucial part of the entire case.” Captain Yan dropped the record that the officers from Eastern Jiujiang had collected on the table. “Come, we’ll go to Huang Ling’s place now. I also wish to meet them in person.”

“You also wish to go? There’s no need. Just leave this case to us.” Tian Lei did not realize the severity of the issue that was hiding behind this case. He believed that their own officers could handle this case perfectly fine.

“Since I’ve run into this case, then I’ll just take a look. I can’t just walk away—that is not what a police officer should do.” Captain Yan opened the office door and walked out immediately. Lee Zheng and Chen Ge followed closely behind him. Soon, only Tian Lei and the taxi driver were left inside the room.

“Sir, what is happening now? Can I leave already?” The driver had already gave up hope that he would get any more compensation.

“Why don’t you come with us? You’re the victim; you should be there.” Tian Lei put on his cap and also walked out of his office. “Xiao Qing, Xiao Wen, stay back to look over the place. We might be working late tonight. If there’s an emergency, just call me.”

“Captain Tian, where are you going?” Xiao Qing had just cleaned up the floor, but the drunkard vomited once more.

“To solve a case.” Tian Lei waved his hand and led the driver out of the police station.

The two police cars arrived at Huang Ling’s place around 9 pm.

“Captain Yan, isn’t it a bit rude for us to show up like this without informing them?” Tian Lei jogged over after he got out from his car.

“Haven’t you informed them this morning already?”

“But the rules…”

The group reached the fourth floor and knocked on the door for a long time before they heard footsteps coming from inside the room.

“Who is it?” The man was very cautious and did not open the door immediately.

“We’re the police. Please open the door now to assist in our investigation.”

“Inspector Tian?” The door was pushed open, and a haggard looking middle-aged man pushed his head out. “Why did you come back? Didn’t you ask everything in the morning?”

“We’ll talk inside.” The few people all entered the room. Chen Ge followed at the back and kept his presence low. The place was not big, and it looked very spartan. The couch was old, likely a second-hand purchase. There was a stain on the coffee table, and a bag of fruit candy was sitting on top of it.

“Sit anywhere you want.” The middle-aged man looked much older than he actually was. He walked into the kitchen and came out with several glasses of water.

“Where is your wife? Is she doing better? Actually, we have a few questions to ask her.” On the surface, Captain Yan asked about Huang Ling, but in reality, he kept his gaze on the middle-aged man’s face to focus on the changes to his expression.

“She is feeling much better. I’ll go get her.” The middle-aged man walked to the bedroom door and knocked on it lightly. “Huang Ling, the police officers want to ask you something.”

Several minutes later, a woman who looked like she had lost all will to live dragged herself out from the bedroom.

“You’re Huang Ling?” Captain Yan studied the woman before him for a very long time. How she looked in person was so different from the picture. “Where did you run into Chen Ge last night? Why would you set his phone number as your no. 1 speed dial?”

“I cannot remember anymore. I cannot remember anything that happened last night.” The woman sat on the sofa, and she did not even look at Chen Ge to acknowledge his presence.

“You don’t have any memory at all?”

“No! No! No!” Huang Ling suddenly raised her voice, and she used both of her hands to knock heavily on her head. Jia Ming, who was closest to her, did not rush over to help immediately, but it was Chen Ge and Tian Lei, who were further away, that stepped up to the plate. They grabbed Huang Ling’s arms at the same time. “Please calm down!”

“I did not see anything! I did not see anything last night!” Huang Ling was weirdly agitated.

“This was how she reacted when we arrived this morning. She would act up whenever we brought up anything related to last night.” Tian Lei leaned back to inform Captain Yan after Huang Ling calmed down slightly. “She was already a sick person. She probably was traumatized last night, and it exacerbated her condition.”

“There has to be a trigger that caused this change in her.” Captain Yan turned to look at Jia Ming, who stood to the side. “What did you do last night?”

“I was staying at home the whole night. When Huang Ling returned, she was already acting strangely like she was being threatened by someone. The condition was similar to what happened earlier. Whenever I tried to ask her what happened, she would hit her own head heavily.”

After Jia Ming said that, he silently looked around the room and added, “What happened to them last night, you should ask the taxi driver and the creep called Chen Ge. They were together last night.”

Jia Ming was very familiar with his wife’s condition. After Huang Ling stopped struggling, he picked up a candy from the table and placed it in Huang Ling’s mouth. Weirdly enough, once the candy entered the woman’s mouth, Huang Ling calmed down almost immediately.

“She likes candy?” Captain Yan and Chen Ge noticed this detail, and they were both instantly reminded of Ma Fu, whom they just met at the prison. When Ma Fu was acting up, only by feeding him candy would he be able to calm down.

“But the candy is not medicine, right? Why would it have this calming property?” Captain Yan was confused, but Chen Ge next to him had a brief idea already. Ma Fu was able to calm down after eating the sweets because several children’s souls had entered his body. The children seemed to be interested in the candy. Following that vein of thought, Huang Ling’s body might be playing host to one or several ‘children’.

“It’s just a very normal candy. If you don’t believe me, you can take a few to conduct tests on it.” Jia Ming then picked up the bag of candy and gave it to Captain Yan. Captain Yan did not accept it but reached out to pick out one candy. “One is enough. Thank you.”

Huang Ling finally settled down. Captain Yan did not have any questions for her anymore. He had Lee Zheng help her back to the bedroom to rest. He and Tian Lei asked Jia Ming a few more questions. They only prepared to leave around 11 pm.

“Thank you for your cooperation. We will definitely uncover the truth.” Captain Yan walked at the front. After the other officers left the room, Chen Ge only moved away his gaze that had been staring at the bedroom door. Now, only Jia Ming and Chen Ge remained in the room, and the room temperature was drastically dropping.

“My friend, how can I help you? Do you have any question you want to ask?”

“It’s nothing. It’s not simple for you to take care of a mentally-unstable woman by yourself.” Chen Fe tapped Jia Ming’s shoulders lightly. He did not say anything else and headed out the door. After they were downstairs, Lee Zheng took out his phone and silently walked near to Captain Yan. “When I sent Huang Ling back into the bedroom, I snapped a few pictures of the interior. There doesn’t seem to be any problems. This Jia Ming doesn’t have a motive to commit this crime.”

“Jia Ming is definitely related somehow to Huang Ling’s mental illness,” Captain Yan said firmly. “When Huang Ling was acting up earlier, Jia Ming was closest to her, but he just stood there, not doing anything. There were many similar details.”

“However, based on Tian Lei and his team’s investigation, all of the neighbors only had good thing to say about Jia Ming. They thought that he was a very good guy. Haven’t we looked through this man’s working history? No matter how you look at it, he is a good person. Why would someone like this torture his wife until she went crazy?” Lee Zheng had studied criminal psychology before. The change in human character has a process and symptoms. Jia Ming’s performance was different from the thing that was described in the books.

“Will a good person be good forever?” Captain Yan looked at the candy in his hand before opening the wrapping.

“But a good person will have a moral compass in their heart, and they will not do things that are too over the line.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. When a good person loses their moral compass, they will become even worse, falling into the endless abyss.” Captain Yan placed the candy inside his mouth and added an observation seemingly out of nowhere. “This is because he knows the candy is no longer sweet.”

Opening the door of the police car, Captain Yan gave Lee Zheng one final order. “Your team has done a very good job solving the case of the eye-gouging murderer. Team two can temporarily take over the rest of the case. I want you and your team to silently investigate the case of Jia Ming and Huang Ling.”

“Captain Yan, isn’t this case under the Eastern Jiujiang’s police station’s jurisdiction? Isn’t it a bit over the line if we go ahead and butt in?” He did not think that the case was small, but Lee Zheng said so because he was worried that the people from Eastern Jiujiang Police Station might have some comments.

“That is why I told you to carry out your investigation in the dark.” Captain Yan’s fingers tapped the edge of the car window, and his countenance slowly turned serious. “Keep your eyes open. I have a feeling this is related to a very big case.”

“It shouldn’t be. Eastern Jiujiang has always been peaceful.” Lee Zheng also turned serious. He knew that Captain Yan was not one to joke around. “It has been peaceful, yes, but now…”

Before Captain Yan could finish, the door opened, and Chen Ge, who had just gotten down the stairs, very expertly crawled into the police car. “Sorry I’m late.”

“It’s fine. Lee Zheng, we’ll go back to New Century Park to drop Chen Ge off first.” Lee Zheng and Captain Yan both stopped talking about the earlier topic.

“Thank you, do you mind driving faster?” Chen Ge said. He still had something else to do that night. After the police left, he had touched Jia Ming’s body. He wanted to use the ghost on his person to test out the enemy. However, after he laid his hand on Jia Ming, Chen Ge had realized that other than Zhang Ya in his shadow, he did not carry any other employees with him. He had left his backpack at the haunted house.

Chen Ge was unable to command Zhang Ya, and he was afraid that his action might alert Jia Ming, so he prepared to return to New Century Park to grab all of his equipment and turn back later, using the most direct method to get to the bottom of the truth.

The police car had not started when an old lady walked out from the stairs. The old lady walked slowly to the car and tapped lightly on the car window.

“How can I help you?” Captain Yan opened the car door and stepped out.

“Sir, my son bought me an apartment at Ming Yang Residence. It has been several years already since then, but I still am unable to move into that house. Can you ask around to find out when the place will be completed?” The old lady sounded so saddened that one was unable to say no.

“Ming Yang Residence? Okay, I will help you ask around. Please return to your room. It’s getting late, and the winds are strong.” Captain Yan walked the old lady back to her room and returned to the car. “Go and get Tian Lei. He should be more familiar with this place.”

Lee Zheng called behind him, and Tian Lei got out from his police car and raced to Captain Yan. “Captain Yan, are you looking for me?”

“How much do you know about Ming Yang Residence?”

Tian Lei shook his head. “The Ming Yang Residence project has been inactive for many years already. The tenants come and create trouble every year, and we have to send out our people to talk to them and tell them that we pity them. We know that most of them have used all of the saving to buy this place, but this is something that can’t be helped.”

“Something that can’t be helped?” Captain Yan raised his head.

“There have been three investors. The first one died from illness, the second one got into a car accident when the place was half-built, and the third one decided to commit suicide by jumping off the half-finished building in the middle of the night. Rumors started flying around that the place is cursed, so no one dares to take over anymore.”

“All three investors met a bad end; this shouldn’t be a coincidence.” Captain Yan thought about it and told Lee Zheng, “When we get back, go and pull all the records on Ming Yang Residence.”

“Okay.” Lee Zheng gave an okay sign.

“Captain Yan, I suggest you stay away from this. That Ming Yang Residence is a hot mess; anyone who gets too close to it will be unlucky.” Tian Lei seemed to have experienced that himself.

“Also, you. I need a file from you as well.” Captain Yan raised the car window and ignored Tian Lei, who stood next to the car with an unhappy face.

The car engine started. After they left the area, Captain Yan suddenly turned to look at Chen Ge and tossed out a random question. “Chen Ge, did you know Jia Ming before this?”

“No,” Chen Ge answered on reflex.

Captain Yan nodded, and his expression softened. “You’d better watch over yourself. I have a feeling that Jia Ming has a strange hostility against you. During the questioning, he kept coming up with ways to push the blame on you.”