Chapter 1: Strange Phenomena in the Underworld

  Late at night, the sky is a blur and it's drizzling, the raindrops pattering against the trees and bamboo leaves in the wilderness, making a deep night even more mysterious.

  The dormitory of the city sanitation workers, in this quiet deep night, there is still a room with lights on, and the light shines out from the already dilapidated window, looking weak.

  Under the lamp, against the wall, there was a single steel wire bed. On the bed, a young man lay reading a book. It wasn't a science book or a textbook used in school, but rather "The Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection".

  His name is Chen Zhenhua, he has been fond of detective novels since childhood. In junior high school, he often hid under the desk to secretly read and didn't listen to the teacher's lectures, resulting in poor academic performance. He was often scolded by his parents for this, and frequently ridiculed by teachers and classmates.

  He dropped out of school then.

  He dropped out of school and stayed at home, always holding on to something. His parents worked in the fields, while he hid at home reading detective novels. The neighbors ridiculed him for being useless, and his parents were even more worried seeing him idle around, so they told him to go out and find a job.

  He came to the city and looked for a long time but couldn't find a suitable job. Once he finally found one, but was fired by his boss because he was caught peeking during work hours.

  Helpless, his parents had to find him a job sweeping streets at the sanitation station through connections.

  At first, he didn't want to work at the sanitation station. He thought he wasn't the kind of person who did dirty work. Although people all say that labor is not divided into nobility and baseness, it's just something people say in a grandiose manner when they have to, but sweeping the streets has always been looked down upon by others, and sometimes even met with disdain. He clearly remembers one time when a TV news broadcast showed a scene where a leader from the municipal government was lavishly praising the greatness of sanitation workers and their spirit of dedication at an annual summary meeting, even loudly calling on all citizens to respect those silent and unknown sanitation workers who created a beautiful environment for the city. The speech was delivered with great passion and enthusiasm. After hearing the speech, the hearts of the sanitation workers who were fighting on the streets and in the dust felt warm for a moment. But unexpectedly, this leader who called on people to respect sanitation workers actually scolded an old man sweeping the street as a lowly pig in broad daylight, and even spat at the old man. The reason was that the old man had accidentally swept some dust onto the shiny shoes of the leader who had just walked by with his nose covered.

  But Chen Zhenhua later still chose this job, because as long as he swept the section of road assigned to him clean, he could sit down and read his "Sherlock Holmes Detective Collection".

  He lived in a shabby dormitory, which was a single room, just suitable for a young bachelor like him. The house was not spacious, and it was dark inside with no light. The whitewash on the walls had fallen off in many places, and the top of the wall by the window was blackened due to water leakage. The wooden bars on the window were full of termites, and they were rotten. In the left corner of the room, there was a steel wire bed, but it was also rusty. This was his "home".

  Every day after work, he wouldn't go anywhere and would lie on his bed reading, completely absorbed in it. Many times, he imagined himself as Holmes, almost to the point of being obsessed.

  He often fantasizes that he is a mysterious detective, wearing a black windbreaker, a black top hat, and a pair of long boots, using his sharp eyes to find clues at the crime scene. He also fantasizes that he is a police officer, using his wise mind to analyze the case, uncover the truth, and catch one by one evil criminals. If allowed, he would like to open a private detective agency.

  Every morning at five or six o'clock, he gets up and goes out to sweep the streets. As he sweeps, he analyzes a certain aspect of what he saw the night before. His head is always lowered, his eyes fixed on the ground, and his sweeping movements are slow and meticulous, just like a policeman carefully examining a crime scene for fear of destroying evidence. Every time he sweeps with the broom, he has to squat down to examine the irregular patterns left by the broom on the ground.

  He didn't go to work today, he had a cold and a high fever. So he stayed in his small room reading books until late at night when he felt his eyes getting dry, then put down the book, got up and walked to the window, listening to the crisp sound of raindrops on the leaves outside.

  The night is quiet and mysterious, even with the patter of rain.

  Outside the window, in the distant mountains, it was now a dark mass. In the distance, the earth and the dark sky revealed a ghostly outline; near, on a mountain, there was an abandoned building, although he couldn't see the building clearly now, but his heart knew where it was and what it looked like. He had looked at that building from the window more than once, sometimes under the bright moonlight, he would look for a long time, the empty and old building, with the decoration of withered grass, was desolate to the point where he often fantasized about ghosts floating out of it. But what he thought about even more wasn't ghosts, he often fantasized that there would be a murder case inside, a murder case that even the police couldn't solve, and then only rely on his unparalleled wisdom to uncover the truth of the case.

  But none of this ever happened.

  He stared at the night sky for a long time, turned around and walked back to bed, carrying his usual inexplicable melancholy, sighed and sat on the bed, silent for a moment, stretched his waist, ready to go to bed and spend the boring day.

  Suddenly, he heard a scream, a shrill cry that seemed to tear through the heavy veil that shrouded the earth, a sound filled with despair and sent shivers down his spine.

  He sprang up from bed all of a sudden, standing in the room like a wooden stake with his ear cocked to listen, but he could no longer hear any sound coming over.

  He stood still for a long time, then slowly moved towards the window with fear, looking out into the distance, hoping to know why such a heart-piercing scream came on this dead silent night.

  The patter of rain sounds like a sad person crying out.

  The night outside the window is still as dark and mysterious, the fine rain is like a maiden's slender jade fingers plucking the strings of a distant zither, the sound of which is heartbreaking and poignant.

  Despite this, he believed that the scream was not misheard, and if his guess was correct, he vaguely felt that the long-awaited homicide case had finally occurred.

  A murder has taken place! This strange idea flashed through his mind like lightning.

  It's possible that due to the scream being so mournful, he didn't feel the excitement and thrill of finally fulfilling his long-held desire. Instead, he felt a little scared, even terrified, almost suffocating. His heart was racing all night!

  Lying in bed, he tossed and turned, unable to sleep, his mind constantly thinking about the eerie scream from earlier, analyzing what kind of scream it was: In the dead of night, why would someone go up that desolate mountain? Was it a woman's or man's cry? Was someone murdered or did they see something terrifying? Who was the killer? Is the victim dead? This series of questions entwined his suddenly drained thoughts. Fear mixed with insomnia made him feel extremely miserable.

  After a long and difficult wait, the dawn finally arrived, with dew drops sparkling in the morning twilight. The rising sun shone like a girl's golden hair on the ground, grass, and leaves.

  Outside the window, small birds chirped and called, a quiet black night struggled to step out of the gentle sunlight at dawn.

  Chen Zhenhua hastily ran to the window, he could see that not far away outside the city, the abandoned buildings nestled in the mountains were overgrown with weeds. But he just couldn't see any movement inside the building.

  Just as he was looking up and gazing out, he heard the sound of police sirens coming in waves, with tense and majestic police cars heading towards the ruins.

  He heard the police car, and he was even more certain that the scream he had heard last night was indeed a desperate and tragic cry from a poor victim in a life-threatening situation. He was delighted that his judgment was accurate, and for this, he was also proud of having such an intelligent mind.

  He rushed out of the house, wanting to prove his judgment was infallible with his own eyes.

  He came to the huge abandoned building because he thought that the abandoned building was where the miserable cry had come from last night.

  Upon arriving at the mountain top, it was already crowded with people. Everyone was chatting and discussing among themselves, some were whispering to each other, and even pointing fingers, all talking about something.

  The warehouse surrounded by withered grass was already cordoned off by police tape, with several policemen walking around inside. A group of curious onlookers gathered outside the cordon, peering in.

  "What's going on?" Chen Zhenhua squeezed into the crowd and asked an old man beside him.

  The old man casually said without turning his head: "There's a dead person inside!"

  "Is he dead?" He opened his eyes wide and looked inside, muttering to himself, "He's really dead! My judgment was correct after all."

  At this time, the police came out, and many people wanted to know what had happened inside and why the dead person was dead. So they all involuntarily approached the police, hoping to hear news that could satisfy their curiosity from the police's mouth.

  "Excuse me?" An old policeman walked up to an old man and asked, "Which one of you lives around here?"

  The old man said: "We all live nearby, damn it, scared us to death, that scream was too scary, we got goosebumps just listening to it."

  "Did you hear the scream?" The old policeman frowned and continued to ask, "You said you heard a scream, did you?"

  The old man nodded firmly with a hint of pride, feeling that his existence was valuable enough to have heard such a scream. He cleared his throat and said in a loud voice, "Yes, officer, you didn't mishear me. I did hear that scream, and it came from right here. However... it was raining at night, and it was too dark, so I didn't dare go out to see what happened." His words were laced with spittle. The others stared at him with their mouths agape.

  "By comparison I shouldn't be that old," the old policeman said with a smile, "you don't have to call me 'uncle', except for hearing a scream there's nothing else."

  The old man nodded, paused for a moment, and seemed to remember something. He furrowed his brow and said: "There was only one sharp cry. This place used to be a factory belonging to the Guangyuan Company. At first, the factory was very lively, but later it was said that the factory was haunted, and some people died for no reason. The people in the factory were all afraid, so they all left, and that's why it became the ruins you see today."

  "Haunted?" asked the old policeman, "Someone else died under unnatural circumstances? What's going on?"

  "Listening to the villagers who used to work in this factory, they said that at that time, the deceased had no injuries, was physically strong and did not die of illness, so it's not a ghost, what is it?"

  "Are you saying that the death is quite strange?" said the police officer. "There's also a body here today, and no fatal wounds can be seen on him either, nor are there any signs of struggle around."

  The old policeman said that Chen Zhenhua, who was listening on the side, was fascinated by the story and his blood was boiling. He thought this case might be like one of those in "Sherlock Holmes" stories, and he could probably crack it. He believed in himself and even more so in his own wisdom.

  In short, he thought an opportunity had come!