"Are you blind? That's not a doll toy, that's a corpse! Let go of me!" No matter how the homeless man struggled, he couldn't break free from Li Zheng and Tian Lei's grip. He thrashed for several minutes before finally going still.
"No wonder he's homeless — turns out he's a nutcase." With the homeless man no longer resisting, Tian Lei relaxed. Li Zheng, however, did the exact opposite — he pulled out a pair of handcuffs and cuffed the homeless man right there.
"Hey, Old Li, isn't this a bit much for a homeless guy?"
Li Zheng kicked away a pile of garbage nearby, revealing several lengths of rebar with their ends ground to sharp points hidden underneath. "Don't let your guard down. People who live on the streets — once they get desperate, there's nothing they won't do."
Seeing the hidden rebar, Tian Lei fell silent. He remembered clearly that the homeless man had been trying to run in that direction just moments ago.
"I'm not crazy! I'm trying to save you!" the homeless man shouted stubbornly.
"Cut the crap. You dug all these doll fragments out of the trash, didn't you?" Li Zheng looked at the broken dolls scattered across the floor — toys abandoned by their owners, stripped of their former charm, turned strange and ugly, their cracked faces filled with loneliness and sorrow.
"No! They're not toys! They were already here! It has nothing to do with me!"
"Still lying through your teeth?" Tian Lei carried the rebar to a distance where the homeless man couldn't reach it. "There are so many rooms in this complex — why is it that the room you're staying in is the one covered in doll fragments? Do you have some kind of weird fetish?"
The homeless man seemed genuinely wronged, and his tone didn't sound like someone who was lying. "Mingyang Residential Complex is extremely unlucky — lots of people have died here. Every resident who moves in gets tangled up with something. A lot of people in the eastern suburbs know about this. If it hadn't been for that heavy rainstorm that one time, with nowhere else to shelter, I never would have come into this place."
"Stop dodging the question and answer me — did you make a mess of these doll fragments inside the room?" Tian Lei's voice rose.
"No! The first time I walked into that room, I saw a bunch of corpses lying inside!"
"Then why would you keep living in that room?" Tian Lei had given up trying to correct the homeless man's phrasing.
"Once you see those corpses, you can't go back! He'll come after you — it doesn't matter where you run!" the homeless man screamed like a lunatic. "Right now, you're standing on their corpses, and one day, they'll be standing on yours!"
"Old Li, what do you think?" Tian Lei was getting creeped out by the homeless man's words. In any other setting, he wouldn't have felt a thing — but this place was just too eerie.
"You're actually buying what a crazy man says? Keep an eye on him. I'm going to ask Captain Yan." Li Zheng stepped into the bedroom, where Captain Yan and
"You're a little late for that." Captain Yan gave a helpless gesture toward
Captain Yan cleared his throat and called over to
"Most of these dolls are made of plastic, and the manufacturing dates span a wide range — they look like they were collected from various places by the homeless man. What I'm more curious about is why he smashed every last one of them."
"Maybe he was just venting?"
"I doubt it's that simple. I studied toy design and manufacturing in college, so I'm fairly familiar with the materials used in making toys. These fragments have problems ranging from the material to the paint."
Captain Yan stared at it for a long while but genuinely couldn't tell. "The paint's fading?"
"Exactly. It looks like these fragments were boiled in hot water — not only is the paint severely faded, but the edges are completely deformed..."
Captain Yan couldn't figure it out either. After snapping a few photos, he headed for the door. "Let's go check out Room 104 first. That room is the key to tonight."
When the homeless man saw Captain Yan come out, he started shouting again. "You've seen the corpses — they'll come for you tonight!"
"You keep saying 'corpses, corpses.' In your eyes, does this look like a human head to you?"
The homeless man's reaction didn't look like an act, and it caught
"Could he have actually seen something?" At first,
He set the doll head aside and played along with the homeless man's understanding. "In your eyes, these doll fragments are all corpses. Then do you know who killed them?"
"I didn't kill anyone! I don't know anything! He just told me to stay here and watch over the corpses — I don't know anything else!"
"He?"
"I can't say — if I talk, I'll die! I'll definitely die! He'll kill me, he'll kill you!" The homeless man clutched his head, crouched down on the ground, and broke into anguished sobs.
"This killer really is despicable — threatening a homeless man in his fifties or sixties." Tian Lei looked at Captain Yan and Li Zheng. "Should we bring him back to the station?"
"Call the officer on duty at your precinct and have him brought back for questioning." Captain Yan stared at the homeless man's face for a long time. "I've seen that exact expression on the faces of many murder-case witnesses before. He may have actually witnessed a killing."
"A m-murder?" Tian Lei hadn't expected a routine civil disturbance to lead to a homicide case. He immediately called Xiao Qing and the others who were on duty.
"Li Zheng, keep photographing and collecting evidence. Give me the high-beam flashlight — we're going to check out Room 104 first." Captain Yan and
In the corridor,
"Captain Yan, I just saw someone else enter the complex — on an electric scooter. Probably not someone looking for shelter from the rain."
"All of you stay sharp. We go into Room 104, confirm everything's clear, and leave immediately." Captain Yan took the lead, and the group moved without delay, arriving at the tenth floor in no time.