Thriller Night Talk

They sat in the cafe for an hour and had dinner for the day. 

The sky gradually darkened.

At this time, a new mail was sent to Wei Fuyuan’s inbox.

Master Wei opened the mail and found that it was the same address Bei Quan had asked him to contact before leaving Sāntúchuān. This time, the size of the attachment was big. It was a 1 GB file.

He downloaded the attachment, unzipped it, opened it, and was so shocked that he couldn’t speak. 

The attachment turned out to be the investigation data of a fire case.

“Oh, here it is.”

Bei Quan pushed aside the plate with only a few onions and green peppers, beckoned the waiter to take away the cups and plates, and then moved his body to Wei Fuyuan’s side.

All of a sudden, Bei Quan moved very close to Wei Fuyuan’s body, which made Wei Fuyuan stiff.

He could smell the fragrance of Bei Quan.

Unlike other men’s colognes, Bei Quan smells like the fragrance of a certain plant.

If Wei Fuyuan had to describe it, it smelled like wormwood, and it seemed more like Osmanthus fragrans.

Somehow, Master Wei suddenly felt a little impetuous. 

He went back to the beginning of the attachment and pushed his mobile phone screen towards Bei Quan.

The two read the information in the attachment silently.

“So that’s it.”

Bei Quan took out his pen and paper, summarizing the clues they had now one by one. 

On September 28th last year, near the station about one stop away from here, there was a serious fire in a renovated apartment of an old building.

After an investigation, the fire started at about 1:30 in the morning. The cause of the fire was that cigarette butts ignited the garbage accumulated in the corridor on the first floor.

At that time, the weather was dry, and there were a lot of combustible materials in the old building. The fire spread rapidly, and it quickly reached the top floor.

Police 119 quickly tried to reach the scene, but was blocked at the intersection by private cars parked everywhere. Fortunately, the floor of the burning flat was not high and only six families lived there when the accident happened. Most people successfully escaped. Only a young female on the fourth floor was trapped in the fire and finally burned alive. 

“The girl who was burned to death was named Ye Jia. She was just 24 years old when she died. She had graduated from university for a year and worked in a private company.”

Wei Fuyuan sighed regretfully while reading the information.

The girl in the photo, Ye Jia, had a delicate face and her hair was neatly tied into a ponytail; she was a diligent and cautious top student.

Master Wei felt very sad when he thought that such a beautiful and delicate girl would be burned to death not long after she started her life. 

“You see, in our case, the three parties happened to be involved in the fire.”

Bei Quan said, taking notes on the paper quickly.

“Liu Fei, the second victim, lived on the first floor of the apartment where the accident happened. Lin Xue, who fell off the trestle at the end of last month, lived next to Ye Jia, who was burned to death.”

Ktf alq bo tlr qfc qbxfv ufcais bc atf qjqfg. 

“Cr obg Zfcu Zbemtjcu, tlr klof rjlv atja ktfc atf olgf ygbxf bea, tf tjqqfcfv ab qjrr ys atf olgf…”

Dfl Hejc aegcfv tlr tfjv jcv rwlifv ja Qfl Mesejc.

“Qtja vb sbe atlcx?”

“Ktlr… lr lcvffv j yla kflgv…” 

Wei Fuyuan thought for a while. He decided to be cautious and not jump to conclusions.

“What happened to the first deceased?”

In this series of strange accidents, the first one was Wu Qingping. He ran into the construction site late at night drunk and was killed by steel bars.

It’s just that Wu Qingping was a rich man, with a net worth of over 100 million, and he would never reside in this kind of old city. Master Wei couldn’t comprehend how he was related to this fire accident. 

Bei Quan smiled and replied, “Have you ever noticed the company name of this boss Wu?”

“Yes, that’s it!”

Wei Fuyuan suddenly realized, “Ye Jia, who was burned to death in the fire, worked in Wu Qingping’s company before she died!”

Bei Quan nodded, reached for his glass, and repeated the question, “Now, what do you think?” 

Wei Fuyuan frowned, concentrating on it, and after a while, he suddenly slapped his thigh.

“I see!”

He imitated the classic action of a primary school detective and pointed to the void, “the killer must be Mr. A!”

Bei Quan’s cup-holding hand shook, “knocking” on the table. 

“Oh?”

He looked up and said, “Why do you say that?”

“Don’t novels and movies often have such stalkers?”

Wei Fuyuan was finally able to explain his reasoning to Bei Quan. 

“When someone dies somewhere, his relatives or lovers feel that someone should be responsible for his death, but they can’t find the murderer, so they decide to kill all the people who may be related to the incident! ”

Master Wei reached out and pushed the glasses that didn’t exist on the bridge of his nose.

“I think only the murderer knows his criteria for choosing the victim. Therefore, Mr. A, who claims to have ‘predictive power’, must be the real murderer!”

“Well, it sounds pretty good. It makes sense.” 

Bei Quan asked, “However, how did Mr. A make the four murders look like accidents?”

“This… Maybe some kind of trap.”

He tried to make himself logically self-consistent.

“There is a special theme in mystery novels called ‘impossible crime’. The murderer always designs some ingenious traps to disguise the murder as an accident or something. ” 

Wei Fuyuan had an epiphany.

For example, Liu Fei, who had fallen into the manhole and burned to death, I guess the manhole cover he lifted was actually replaced by a false cover made of foam or wooden boards. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain how he can lift a 200jin iron cover! ”

Wei Fuyuan raised his eyebrows toward Beiquan, who thought he had solved the case. Although he didn’t say anything, the expression on his face clearly read the three words ‘Quickly praise me’.

“Perhaps.” 

Bei Quan smiled slightly, “But how did Mr. A make Liu Fei’s beloved thing fall into the manhole accurately? How can he change the manhole cover secretly without the monitoring probe, and then replace the real manhole cover afterward? ”

Wei Fuyuan couldn’t answer.

But he didn’t want to give up his reasoning.

“Perhaps… Mr. A has set up a kind of mechanism such as a magnet and tampered with the monitoring records!” Master Wei said vaguely. 

“It doesn’t matter, no matter what the truth is, we will find the answer soon.”

Bei Quan did not continue to dwell on this topic.

He looked down at his watch, “It’s almost time, let’s go.”

——

The car drove out of Xizhimen Street and headed south.

They are heading to the death place of the third deceased, Meng Mouchang. 

At that time, to avoid the possible inspection of drunk driving, Meng Mouchang decided to take the remote fork road. At this hour, it was convenient for Bei Quan and Wei Fuyuan to take action.

Wei Fuyuan’s driving skills were very good. According to the navigation, he turned to the place of the accident.

“It should be here.”

Master Wei pulled the car to the side of the road. He was careful to make sure that he had stepped on the foot brake before he stopped, and got out of the car. 

The iron railing that pierced through Meng Mouchang was originally a family’s flower bed fence. It was removed long after the accident. Now there was only a circle of screw marks on the bottom.

Wei Fuyuan turned on the flashlight function of his mobile phone, knelt, and studied it carefully for a while, but didn’t see anything suspicious.

“It’s been more than a month. Even if there were any traces at the beginning, they should be gone now?”

He muttered in his heart that he was a business major student, not a student of criminal investigation or trace inspection. Even if he stayed here until dawn, he couldn’t find anything. Moreover, although this place was remote, it was still a residential area after all. If a passer-by reports them to the police as a suspicious person; how should he explain to the police why they were wandering here at night?! 

“Or shall we go back?”

Wei Fuyuan stood up.

“Let’s leave the investigation to the police. At most, we can send an anonymous letter to tell them that Mr. A is suspicious…”

Bei Quan raised his hand and interrupted Wei Fuyuan. 

“Can’t you see anything?” he asked.

Wei Fuyuan: “??”

It was the place where a person died at night, and the abruptness of such a phrase made people’s backs shiver.

Wei Fuyuan trembled, “Why, what do you see?” 

“… Can’t you see it?”

Bei Quan muttered softly, “Obviously it was born… I thought you could at least see it.”

Wei Fuyuan pricked his ears, but he still couldn’t hear the ambiguous words that Bei Quan was muttering.

Just when he wanted to ask further, Bei Quan had already opened the black suitcase he had brought along with him, and took out a perfume bottle with a long tail from it. 

Master Wei: “???”

Bei Quan took the small bottle and went to Wei Fuyuan. He pulled the cap off the bottle and said, “Lower your head.”

Wei Fuyuan reflexively dropped his head slightly, facing Bei Quan’s eyes.

The next second, a cold mist was sprayed on his left eye. It didn’t hurt, but there was a strange feeling of a foreign substance. 

He reflexively stretched out his hand to wipe it, but Bei Quan quickly grabbed his hand and sprayed water on his right eye.

Then Bei Quan let go of Wei Fuyuan and took two steps back.

“Now, turn around and take a look.”

He said with a smile. 

Wei Fuyuan, puzzled, rubbed his eyes and turned back.

The next second, Master Wei’s face turned pale. He leaned back reflexively, stepped back several steps, and suddenly hit Bei Quan. Then he staggered again and fell down on the concrete floor.

“Ah—-”

As soon as Wei Fuyuan’s scream uttered a syllable, Bei Quan quickly covered his mouth with his hands. 

“Hush, Hush -”

Bei Quan came closer and whispered in Wei Fuyuan’s ear, “Do not scream, do not be afraid, I’m here.”

Wei Fuyuan was shivering and forced himself to calm down, but his voice was still slightly shaking.

” What is that? What on earth is that!?” 

He raised his hand and pointed forward fumblingly.

Right in front of Wei Fuyuan’s fingertips was the railing that was removed after the accident.

In the eyes of ordinary people, it was an open space with nothing.

Master Wei, on the other hand, vividly saw a gray figure kneeling on the open area, clutching his knees in his hands, his face buried between the knees, and he did not move. 

“You, you, what did you do just now!”

Wei Fuyuan desperately rubbed his eyes.

“Why, why do I suddenly have the illusion that there is a person there?”