Zhang Li shuffled his steps slowly, not daring to turn his back to
Slam!
Chen Ge locked the door from the inside, carrying the Skull Cracking Hammer as he stepped into the room. He looked left and right.
The room was bare, furnished with a few ordinary pieces of furniture. The acrid smell of cheap cigarettes hung in the air.
An iron ashtray sat on the coffee table, piled high with cigarette butts. Around the sofa, cigarette ash was scattered everywhere, along with small burn holes from careless embers.
"You like smoking?" Chen Ge made himself at home, pulling up a chair and sitting in the living room near the doorway.
"Does that count as the first question?" Zhang Li said with a long face, standing next to the coffee table — if anything, he seemed the more nervous one.
"Just answer whatever I ask. This is for your own good." Chen Ge studied the cigarette butts on the iron tray. They came in many brands, but all of them were dirt cheap.
"For my own good?" Zhang Li took a few steps back, leaning against the windowsill. "What exactly do you want?"
Chen Ge took the security guard ID from his pocket, placed it on the coffee table, and put the Skull Cracking Hammer away. "Who was the woman you went to the haunted house with this morning?"
"My sister. She recently quit her job and has been in a bad mood, so I took a day off to take her to the amusement park."
"When the two of you entered the haunted house, why did you deliberately avoid the students from Jiujiang Medical College? Were you worried about being recognized?" Chen Ge was weaving a wide net for Zhang Li, waiting for him to step in before slowly drawing it tight.
"Those students don't like me. If they recognized me, it could cause trouble." Zhang Li took a deep breath. "Besides, my sister and I have gotten used to it."
"Used to what?" Chen Ge caught the hint of something deeper in Zhang Li's words — it seemed he was hiding more.
"My sister used to attend Jiujiang Medical College. She got into a conflict with another girl at the school over some incident, and as it happened, the very next day that girl disappeared." Zhang Li's fingers slowly clenched. "After that, rumors started spreading around the school — people said the girl's disappearance was connected to my sister."
It really was quite a coincidence. No wonder Li Zheng had listed Zhang Shihan and Zhang Li as suspects.
Chen Ge nodded. "What exactly did the students say?"
"At first those bastards at least had the decency to talk behind my sister's back. Later they just discussed it openly right in front of her. They said the girl had gotten into a fight with my sister, which made her depression worse until she finally killed herself. Others flat out called my sister a murderer, saying she was the one who'd hidden the girl away." At this point, Zhang Li pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took one out, and lit it.
Smoke billowed up, and only then did Zhang Li seem to feel a bit better. "A lot of students who used to be close to my sister all abandoned her. During that time, my sister was on the verge of a breakdown. She even went searching all over the school for the missing girl herself, but she was never found."
"No wonder you've been so cold toward the Jiujiang Medical College students. I didn't know all this had happened." Chen Ge looked at Zhang Li and spoke after a long pause. "The police once contacted me. In the case of the missing girl's murder, both you and your sister were key suspects. Their suspicion wasn't baseless — when you consider motive, opportunity, and capability, the two of you look like the most likely culprits."
"We didn't kill anyone! That girl's disappearance has nothing to do with us!" Zhang Li was clearly agitated, but he didn't dare show it openly. He could only bite down on the cigarette butt in his mouth, venting his frustration on it.
"I know you didn't kill anyone. The real culprit isn't you two — you were just being used." Only now, having heard Zhang Li recount what happened all those years ago, did Chen Ge fully understand how meticulous the person behind this scheme had been. Not only had they disposed of all the evidence, but they'd also manipulated those clueless students into creating two scapegoats, sending the police off in the wrong direction entirely.
When Zhang Li heard Chen Ge say with such certainty that they were not the killers, this bad-tempered man looked at Chen Ge with surprise. In that moment, he suddenly felt that the man sitting before him wasn't so detestable after all.
"You wouldn't know this since you've been off work today, but the missing girl's body has been found, and the person who killed her has turned himself in." Chen Ge didn't hide anything.
"Who was the killer?!" Zhang Li crushed the cigarette and strode up to Chen Ge.
"That carefully dressed staff member from your school — the one called
"Liu Zhe!" Zhang Li froze on the spot, as though he could barely accept the truth.
"Liu Zhe is only one of the killers. There's still another one we haven't found. All we know is that the second killer is connected to the underground morgue."
"You?" Zhang Li caught the odd way Chen Ge had phrased that.
Chen Ge's expression turned serious in an instant. He pointed at the locked door. "What I'm about to tell you — don't breathe a word of it to anyone."
Zhang Li nodded nervously. "I'm the only one who lives on this floor, so there's no worry about anyone overhearing. And I absolutely won't tell a third person."
"Good." Chen Ge took out his phone and showed Zhang Li his extensive call history with Captain Yan from the city sub-bureau, Li Sanbao from the Xicheng police station, and Li Zheng from the First Criminal Investigation Unit. Then he spoke slowly, "In fact, I'm an informant arranged by the police. I've assisted in the investigation of numerous cases."
Zhang Li half-understood, but for reasons he couldn't quite explain, he was gradually starting to feel that Chen Ge could be trusted.
"Your and your sister's current situation isn't great." Chen Ge immediately followed up with another bombshell. "There's still one killer at large, so the danger is far from over. He's extremely familiar with Jiujiang Medical College — he's probably hiding right among you. We can't determine who it is yet, and to avoid causing panic, that's why I've come. I need to gather information from you."
"If there's anything I know, I'll tell you for sure." Zhang Li's voice was no longer so strained. He sat down next to Chen Ge, his attitude completely different from before.
"We need information about the underground morgue — the more detailed, the better." Chen Ge didn't waste time beating around the bush.
"Last time you people came, didn't the school already provide you with a set of documents?" Zhang Li was puzzled, but he chose to trust Chen Ge anyway. "The library archives have the old architectural blueprints of the morgue. If you need them, I can take some photos for you."
"Blueprints are only part of the picture." Chen Ge wasn't satisfied. "You've been a security guard at that school for years — have you ever noticed anything strange coming out of the underground morgue? Or encountered any unusual incidents?"