Murder Bureau within Bureau

  We live in a three-bedroom, one-living room apartment, with each person having their own room. I've never been to Ah Feng's and Pan Zi's rooms, but from what I can gather, Ah Feng's room is like a warehouse, even having an old-fashioned Walkman.

  After we got home, he took out this recorder and the two of us crouched in a circle in the living room, listening carefully to the recording.

  We both leaned in close, afraid of missing something. But after listening for a minute or so, I didn't hear any movement coming from inside either.

  Pan Zi complained again, saying what's the point of this broken thing, is there any clue?

  Maybe we didn't listen carefully, or maybe our hearing is not good. Lu Yufeng made a discovery and looked at Panzi, who was still making a "hushing" sound.

  We might as well not listen anymore, let's just look at him and wait for him to get a result before telling us.

  Finally, Ah Feng sat on the ground with a thud, shaking his head and sighing. I was taken aback by this strange behavior of his and asked him a question.

  A Feng turned around and entered the room, holding out a large speaker from inside. The speaker was originally placed on the computer. He directly plugged the speaker into the portable player, connected to the power source, adjusted all the volume to maximum while rewinding the tape back, then said listen carefully, and pressed the play button.

  This time it was clear, with the external release, I heard a faint noise coming from inside, which is hard to describe, like someone was crying softly, someone was laughing lightly, and there were also sounds of something hitting the ground, like a child throwing glass balls.

  The sound lasted for three minutes and then there was complete silence.

  Lu Yifeng turned off his portable music player and asked us very seriously, "Do you understand?"

  But Panzi and I understand each other. We both shook our heads, indicating that we didn't understand!

  I found that Lu Yifeng is quite a bad person, he asked us but didn't give us an explanation, just yawned and said it's been a long night and we're all tired, told us to go back to our rooms and sleep, and continue discussing when we wake up.

  I had no choice, although I didn't want to sleep, but seeing Ah Feng's completely red eyes, I could only do as he said.

  I sleep on a soft bed, lie down and don't care if I'm sleepy or not, after a while I become lazy, I didn't deliberately hold back this laziness, close my eyes and fall asleep.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was almost evening, and outside the house was very quiet. I guess Ah Feng and the others haven't gotten up yet.

  I rubbed my dizzy head, wanting to go to the toilet, but when I came out of the bedroom, I saw Ah Feng sitting upright on the sofa, with that wireless communicator still in front of him.

  His eyes are still so red, I guess he didn't sleep much at all, taking advantage of when we two were asleep, he secretly got up and contacted the organization.

  He looked at me and beckoned me over. I guessed he had something to say and didn't even bother to pee, so I walked over quickly.

  Lu Yufeng asked me to sit next to him, lit a cigarette and took two quiet puffs, as if to clear his mind. He said, "These two death cases are very tricky, I still don't understand them now. That recording is even more confusing. Since it's like this, why don't we find a medium to ask for help, see if he can assist us?"

  I'm a bit confused because when I came back this afternoon, Ah Feng's smile indicated that he understood the recording, so why did he deny it after sleeping for a while? Moreover, what is a medium? It's just a shaman or someone who practices divination. They can invite spirits or drive out evil, no problem, but asking them about criminal cases is a bit too much.

  I didn't hide or evade either, shaking my head to negate his point of view.

  Lu Yifeng smiled, pinched off the unfinished cigarette and said to me, "Believe it or not, there are very few cases in China where a medium is used to crack a case. However, abroad, many bizarre cases were cracked by the police with the help of mediums. We shouldn't be too conservative either. Coincidentally, Lanzhou has two very famous mediums. Let's go find one and ask them something right away."

  I saw that he was very determined, and I estimated that it would be impossible to persuade him otherwise. After some thought, I figured that asking a medium for answers wouldn't take much time anyway, so I nodded in compromise.

  Next, I went to wash up. Lu Yifeng woke up Panzi. We first casually found a place to deal with two mouths. Lu Yifeng drove us in the black sedan to another residential area and stopped under a unit door.

  He pointed at the entrance of this building through the car window and said that the spiritual medium we were looking for lived on the sixth floor.

  I looked up and saw that the building had only six floors, with two households on each floor. The two households on the sixth floor were particularly eye-catching: one had a floor-to-ceiling window that looked quite elegant, while the other had black windows that blocked out all light.

  "I wonder if the house with black curtains is inhabited by a spiritual medium?"

  Lu Yufeng said I only got half of it right, the entire sixth floor is for mediums, the house with black curtains is where they live, and the other one is his office.

  Then he invited us to get off and led the way up to the sixth floor. In the corridor between the fifth and sixth floors, we encountered a railing door with a doorbell, which was installed later. Anyway, all the mediums on the sixth floor set up a "checkpoint" here.

  Lu Yifeng pressed the doorbell, and soon someone came down from upstairs.

  This man looks very strange, wearing a white robe with weird patterns printed on it, and his appearance is also particularly strange. He is especially dark, as if he had been dyed in an ink bottle, and there is a scar between his eyes, which makes me think of Judge Bao.

  Lu Yifeng said a few words through the gate, "A friend sent over a cassette tape by mail, it sounds strange, I'd like to ask Master to take a look."

  Since there's a deal to be made, the spiritual medium naturally welcomes all comers, opening the door and inviting us in.

  I also can't quite put into words what it feels like, but from the moment I stepped foot in his house, my whole heart felt uncomfortable.

  The house had either ox skulls or Luo Pan symbols hanging, and there was a faint scent of incense and burning paper that made one's eyes itch. In the center of the room, an old-fashioned desk was placed, and he asked us to sit in front of it and take out our tapes.

  Lu Yufeng was quite considerate and brought not only a cassette tape but also a portable player and earphones, which he handed over in one go.

  The medium fell silent and I knew he wouldn't speak for more than three minutes from now on.

  I looked around, east and west. I didn't have any thoughts, just looking around randomly, but I found that Ah Feng was also sizing up the surroundings, with a subtle observing expression on his face.

  I recalled what he said and did before, and suddenly felt a shock in my heart, thinking that he wouldn't suspect the medium of being the murderer, would he?

  These bizarre murder cases, with hell money and ghosts, are really related to the spirit medium. I originally followed Ah Feng to find a spirit medium just to go through the motions, but now I've made up my mind not to cause trouble and cooperate with Ah Feng to get this investigation done properly.

  The three minutes passed quickly, the medium sighed, took off his headphones, stared at us two and suddenly asked, "What are you three people?"

  I thought it was true, this little black kid still has some skills, can hear some truth.

  Pan was about to speak foolishly, opening his mouth to say something, but I secretly stepped on his foot, making him shut up in time.

  Lu Yifeng didn't want to tell the truth, but he also had a strategy. He took out 300 yuan from his pocket and slapped it on the table, changing the subject again, "Master, why don't you talk about this recording instead?"

  The medium is still quite concerned about the money, he didn't ask much anymore, but instead took out the tape recorder and held it up to emphasize to us, "Have you three heard of the concept of death energy?"

  I'm unfamiliar with this term, and Panzi added that he had heard of geocentrism, which was discovered by a man named Newton who was hit on the head by an apple.

  The medium was amused by Panzi, and used his mysterious theory to explain it. "In fact, the concept of death gravity is relatively unfamiliar to most people. Its essence is similar to gravitational force, but it's a mysterious power that brings people into the abyss of death. For example, some people hear the sound of glass beads falling on the roof before they die, which belongs to death gravity, because the real source of this sound is not the glass beads, but the ghostly eyeballs."

  Then he looked at the tape and said that the recording inside was all about death, and whoever heard it would be haunted by evil spirits and suffer from bad luck.

  I was being very objective in listening, and I wasn't that scared, but when he finished speaking, the lights in the entire room started flickering irregularly, and a faint laughter suddenly came from outside the door, hey!