Chapter 1: Strange Phenomena in the Underworld

  Huo Jucai drove his car onto the street, starting this monotonous work very late every day.

  He arrived at a mutton noodle restaurant and suddenly felt his stomach was empty, so he got off the car and went in to order a bowl of mutton noodles and sat down at a table by the door to eat. Just as he was eating, Chen Zhenhua and Huang Aiguo also came in, both of them were here to eat something too, from their faces, they must have stayed up all night again for Ruan Jiaolü's murder case, and the words "no result" almost appeared on their foreheads.

  They were both quite disheartened.

  The three of them met and exchanged a few pleasantries before sitting down at the same table to eat their noodles. Seeing that the other two looked dejected, He Juyuan asked: "What's wrong? Has there been no progress on the case?"

  Chen Zhenhua nodded helplessly and said, "I always feel that what Xiong Lunbing says is a bit of a lie, but I just can't hear the flaw in it. What do you think we should do?"

  Huang Aiguo took a sip of the soup, then raised his head and said: "Yes, he said that he and Ruan Jiaolü had a good relationship, and now even dreams of her being killed are nightmares rather than reality. You say, he has already said so, how can we have the nerve to tell him 'you also have suspicions'? But he indeed has suspicions, since he loves his wife so much, why did he bring other women back home? Ruan Jiaolü just died a few days ago and her body is still cold." The two of them had been secretly monitoring Xiong Lengbing for the past two days, seeing that every night he would go to bars and karaoke halls, and even when he came home in the middle of the night, he would be drunk, and bring women back to spend the night. For such a person whose words and actions were completely different, Chen Zhenhua and Huang Aiguo simply couldn't understand.

  "I just think that Xiong Linji is a despicable person," Chen Zhenhua said, "His beady eyes and pug nose make people feel disgusted at first sight." As he spoke, he pulled out a photo and spat on it.

  Huo Jucai raised his head and looked at Chen Zhenhua with a smile. "Is he that bad? Let me take a look."

  Chen Zhenhua handed the photo to Huo Jucai, and Huo Jucai didn't look at it, but when he did, he was shocked. He stared at the photo for half a moment without speaking, his sword-like eyebrows tightly furrowed, his expression solemn.

  "What's wrong?" Chen Zhenhua asked in puzzlement as he looked at Huo Jucai staring at the photo with such an expression, very perplexed.

  "Ho Jucai asked, 'You said this man is called Xiong Lunbing?'"

  "Yes." Chen Zhenhua said, he was originally holding a chopstick with rice noodles to his mouth, seeing He Jucai ask, so he put the food back in the bowl and looked at He Jucai.

  "I saw a photo at our director's place, the person in the photo looks exactly like Xiong Linbing, and it was taken with our director when they were university classmates. But I heard from the director that this person is not called Xiong Linbing, um... right, his name is Wang Canglong." said Huo Jucui.

  "Wang Canglong?!" Chen Zhenhua was even more shocked when he heard this name, it was like a thunderbolt on a sunny day. Although he didn't dare to confirm whether what He Jucai said was true or not, judging from He Jucai's astonished expression, most of this matter was probably true.

  "You said that the person in this photo looks like your director's classmate?" Chen Zhenhua took the photo from Huo Jucai and examined it seriously.

  "It's just like him!" said Huo Jucai, "Not only is it similar, but you can say it's the same person. Look at this person's mole on the corner of their mouth, my director's classmate also has a mole in the same position."

  "Who is this Wang Canglong you're talking about?" Huang Aiguo had never heard of the name Wang Canglong, and seeing Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucui's faces change color at the same time, he curiously asked.

  Huo Jucai shook his head, he also didn't know why seeing this photo suddenly made him feel a sense of unease in his heart, apart from that he looked at Chen Zhenhua with the same confusion as Huang Aiguo.

  "Wang Canglong, a freeloader in Wubang City, killed a girl a few months ago - a kind-hearted girl, and then swindled away the large sum of money left to her by her deceased father, and its whereabouts are unknown," said Chen Zhenhua.

  Huo Jucai suddenly remembered the beautiful woman who walked with her head in her hands in the underworld, the woman whose body was filled with air and died.

  "Is it him?" Huo Jucai exclaimed in surprise.

  "Who is it?" Huang Aiguo asked in confusion. He seemed a bit dazed.

  "A lunatic," Chen Zhenhua suddenly said angrily to Huang Aiguo, then looked at Huo Jucui and asked, "You say he's your director's classmate, well, now we'll go ask your director, I want to confirm the facts."

  "I think so too," said Huo Jucai.

  The three men made up their minds and immediately got up, drove straight to the Urban Management Bureau, entered the director's office, and saw that the director was playing games on his computer. When he saw someone coming in, he hastily exited due to a moment of panic and pretended to be very serious about doing something.

  He was initially unhappy to hear the knock on the door, but when he saw it was Huo Jucai, his gloomy face suddenly lit up, and a dazzlingly bright chrysanthemum appeared on his face. He hastily got up and warmly greeted them.

  Chen Zhenhua and Huang Aiguo entered the room, exchanged a few pleasantries with the director, and then Huang Aiguo started chatting with him about family matters. Meanwhile, Chen Zhenhua walked over to the corner of the wall to "admire" the director's graduation photo.

  As expected, he saw that person, and Huo Jucai was right. The person in the graduation photo looked exactly like the one in the photo of Xiong Lengbing in his hand, as if they were carved out of the same mold. The only difference was that the name on the graduation photo was Wang Canglong, while the name in his hand was Xiong Lengbing.

  "Is this your classmate?" Chen Zhenhua looked at the photo and then sat back in his seat, handing the photo to the director.

  "Yes, he was my college classmate," the director said. "I heard that this kid got rich, he used to be very quiet when reading books, didn't like to talk, and had few friends. I couldn't believe it when I thought about how he became rich now. Sometimes I think about him and feel puzzled in my heart - how can such a foolish person get rich? And why can we only live on that meager salary? It's really infuriating to think about it. Our salaries are barely enough for some people to spend once, but we have to work hard all month."

  "Of course, there's a bit of jealousy between people," Huang Aiguo said. "But where is the hometown of your classmate who became rich overnight?"

  The director thought for a moment and said: "His hometown is in Guizhou, it seems to be in a remote village in Anshun, Guizhou. The name of the village seems to be Longyan Village."

  "Longyan Village?!" Chen Zhenhua said, also remembering the address mentioned by the director.

  Having obtained the address of a man named Wang Canglong, Chen Zhenhua and Huang Aiguo bid farewell and left. Huo Jucui also hastily slipped away, and the three went to the police station together. Huang Aiguo and Chen Zhenhua had previously asked Xiong Lengbing for his transcript, and Xiong Lengbing had told them his address, so they wanted to go back to the police station to review the address that Xiong Lengbing had mentioned at the time.

  "Hong Leng Bing said his hometown is in the suburbs of Bijie City, Guizhou Province. Look, it's just at Qiaotou Village. Both are from Guizhou, but they don't belong to the same person. It's so coincidental that two people can be so similar, it's almost unbelievable."

  "We don't have to rack our brains guessing anymore, why not just go ask at these two places and we'll know?" said Huo Jucai.

  "That's right!" Huang Aiguo said, "We'll split up and take care of things separately. I'll go to Bijie, you two go to Anshun."

  Chen Zhenhua agreed, and the three set off immediately, first heading in a line towards Guizhou, but soon parted ways, with one car heading to Bijie and another to Anshun.

  Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucang drove for two days and two nights before arriving in Anshun City, then went to Zhenning under the leadership of the local police station and arrived at Longyan Village.

  When they arrived at the village entrance, they saw an old man carrying a hoe from the village. The two got off the car with photos and asked the old man: "Hello sir, I'd like to ask you something, do you know this person?"

  The old man looked at the person in the photo carefully and nodded, saying: "Isn't this Xiao Longlong from our village?"

  "Little dragon?" Chen Zhenhua said.

  "Oh," said the old man, "this Xiaolonglong is what our villagers are used to calling him. His real name is Wang Canglong, and he lives in our village. It's just that for several years, we haven't seen him or his family. Xiaolonglong went out of province to study and came back saying he wanted to take his parents to live in the city, and after that, they were never seen again in the village."

  "Where did he go to university?" Chen Zhenhua asked.

  "It seems like Ubon University," said the old man, "He's the only university student in our village. However..."

  The old man hesitated for a moment, put down his hoe, and continued: "Although he is the only college student in the village, we also look down on him. He doesn't like to talk, and in the twenty years of living in the village, he never greeted anyone else. When others called him, he didn't respond, but at home, he talked a lot, and only spoke with his parents."

  "What did he and his parents say?" Huang Aiguo asked.

  "What he says is unclear to us, but we all love hearing him argue with his parents. Even after going to university and coming back, they've had many arguments. We don't like his character," said the old man.

  "Where is his home?" Chen Zhenhua asked again.

  "It's the first house east of the village, a thatched hut. It has been uninhabited for a long time and was washed away by the rain." The old man said.

  "Alright, thank you," Chen Zhenhua thanked the old man and then headed in the direction he pointed towards Wang Canglong's old house.

  They arrived at the east of the village and indeed saw a three-room thatched hut, with one room on the left already collapsed. Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucui, along with the police officers from the police station who followed them, entered the courtyard and found that the only entrance to the thatched hut was through a large door in the middle room, which had a lock on it that had rusted due to long disuse.

  Huo Jucai stepped forward and pried open the lock, opening the large door. A musty smell wafted out, and the dust on the door seemed to be dancing in celebration, causing the three of them to cough for a good while.

  The house is very damp and the tables and chairs inside have turned black and rotten. A few simple pieces of furniture reveal the poverty of Wang Canglong's home.

  Three people entered the house and looked around everywhere inside, but in this house where everything could be seen at a glance, they found nothing.

  "Come and see!" Just as they were about to give up searching, the policeman suddenly shouted.

  Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucun hastily walked to the side of the police officer, carefully looking along the wall that the police officer was pointing at. They found that this wall seemed a bit thicker than the other walls, and it protruded inward. Judging from the color of the wall, this wall should have been built later than the other walls.

  Then Chen Zhenhua was puzzled, similarly house walls, why does this wall look newer?

  Out of curiosity, he reached out to touch it, bending his fingers like Holmes and tapping on the wall, which emitted a "huh" sound. This sound indicated that there was a gap in the wall.

  Hearing the strange noise, Chen Zhenhua and Huo Jucui exchanged a glance, while the police officer was very impatient, he had already found a hoe and swung it forcefully towards the wall.

  The three of them only heard a "bang" and the wall was smashed, the scene in front of them made them tremble with fear, and the three of them were suddenly shocked.

  It turned out that this was a double-sided wall, made into a box shape, with two stinking and dry male and female corpses lying inside.