Standing beside Chen Ge, Wen Qing did not dare ask why. She was afraid that the walls had ears, and they might overhear some important information.
"Why don't you and Granny Lee stay in the living room for now?"
Chen Ge was left alone in the bedroom. He closed the bedroom door, squatted down beside the bed, and inspected the boy's body.
There were burn marks from electric shocks and bruises from beatings. Chen Ge's eyes finally landed on the boy's neck. "He was strangled to death by electric wires. There are wood shavings stuck between his fingernails. Before the boy died, his arms were tied to the bed frame …"
Chen Ge untied the ropes around the body and covered the boy with a clean sheet. "On the surface, the electrician looks like a quiet, harmless, low-level worker, but in reality, his personality is more violent than a normal person. However, he keeps all his anger bottled up inside his heart, and then he releases his anger by bullying those who are weaker than him. Deep down, he is a thug."
The electrician's situation was not an isolated case. Chen Ge started to think deeper. "Under the restriction of morality and law, their true nature is hidden, but in Xiang Nuan's world behind the door, the worst part of their personality is completely exposed. This door appears to amplify the evil in human nature, making everyone become twisted and scary. "
Chen Ge tried to guess what the ghost fetus was thinking, but there were too few clues.
Looking through his backpack, Chen Ge realized that blood vessels had started to appear on the comic. He tried to call his employees, but there was still no response.
"Chen Ge!"
Wen Qing's voice came from outside the bedroom, and then the bedroom door was pushed open. "Something seems to have happened downstairs!"
The sound of running, screaming, and crying mixed together in the stairwell. It was very chaotic.
"Don't panic. Let them stay for a while longer."
Chen Ge slowly walked out from the room. The faces of the few neighbors flashed across his mind. "Who will be next?"
The group came to the second floor. A faded scent of blood lingered in the air, and fresh blood could be seen on the stairs.
"What's going on?" Before Chen Ge got close, he could already hear Auntie Ding crying. The other neighbors had surrounded the stairwell, blocking the way.
"The electrician is dead." Xiao Sun leaned against the stairs, his face pale.
"Dead?!" Chen Ge looked very surprised. He quickened his pace and passed through the crowd. "Get out of the way!"
Standing at the corner between the first and second floor, Chen Ge seemed to be frozen. He saw Auntie Ding lying on the ground, crying out Jia Qi's name. Her hands and upper body were covered in blood.
Aunt Ding seemed to have lost her mind due to grief. No one could get close to her, or rather, no one was willing to get close to her.
"You … killed him?" Chen Ge's pupils trembled. "He was our only lead!"
"Jia Qi was the first child I adopted. He went missing in this neighborhood! I've been looking for him! " Auntie Ding's hair was disheveled, and her hands pressed against the blood on the ground. "That is my child. Can you understand how I feel as a mother? Do you know how I felt when I saw the child … "
Auntie Ding was sobbing. She seemed to have lost all of her energy as she collapsed in a pool of blood.
"Indeed, I can't say that Sister Ding killed him. I saw with my own eyes that Sister Ding got into an argument with the electrician. They fell down the stairs, and the fruit knife just so happened to stab into the electrician's neck. That is karma." The one who spoke was a tenant from the fifth floor. He was very tall, and he always stood next to Auntie Ding. This was the first time he had communicated with Chen Ge.
"Are you surprised?" Chen Ge's eyes glanced past Auntie Ding to look down the first-floor corridor.
The electrician had already run out of the stairwell. His body was at the entrance of the stairwell, and there was a bloody handprint on the locked steel door.
"There was a knife stuck in his neck. Even if he survived, he wouldn't have been able to speak. Unfortunately, the lead that we've worked so hard to find has ended just like that." Chen Ge sounded helpless. He glanced at the tall man. "What is your name?"
"My surname is Li."
"How come there is a smell of medicine on you?"
"I'm a pediatrician."
"Does medicine for children have such a strong smell?" Chen Ge did not wait for the man to answer before he changed the subject. "I was not there when the electrician died. Did you hear what he said at the end?"
"He called Auntie Ding's full name …"
Xiao Sun wanted to say something, but he was interrupted by Doctor Li. "The electrician is dead now. We need to confirm whether he is Qu Gui's killer or not."
"But …" Xiao Sun insisted, but he was interrupted by Chen Ge. "That's right. The most important thing now is to capture the killer. If the electrician is Qu Gui's killer, then of course it's a happy ending, but I'm worried that the electrician is just an accomplice, and the real killer is still hiding in this building."
A living person had been killed before their eyes, and the atmosphere in the building became more and more oppressive.
"I'll send Auntie Ding back to her room first. She saw her adopted son's body, and she was too traumatized today." Doctor Li wanted to help Auntie Ding up from the pool of blood, but he failed multiple times. He looked at the crowd and waved at a short man. "Big Head, come and help me."
The short man had no hair, and his face was mostly swollen. He looked like he was deformed.
Big Head and Doctor Li helped Auntie Ding up to the fourth floor. Chen Ge watched their backs silently.
"Doctor Li is tall and strong, and he looks like he has a lot of strength. There is no way he can't move Auntie Ding. He is just looking for an excuse to leave with Big Head. The three of them should know each other, and they should be a team."
Doctor Li, Big Head, Auntie Ding, and the electrician — Chen Ge suspected that it was them who had worked together to kill the landlord and steal all the keys.
As for their reason for killing the landlord, Chen Ge had a guess. The landlord had discovered their secret, so the landlord had to die.
"Er … what should we do with the electrician's body?" Qu Gui's body was still lying in the living room, and now there was another dead body in the building. Their original intention was to track down the killer, but things started to spiral out of control. It was as if someone was playing tricks in the dark, trying to get rid of all the tenants in the building.
"Ignore the electrician's body for now. I just made a very scary discovery." After Xiao Sun saw Doctor Li and the rest walk away, he dared to speak. "The electrician was pushed down the stairs. The person who did it was not Auntie Ding but Doctor Li. At the time, they were running at the front."
"Jia Qi is Auntie Ding's adopted son, so why would Doctor Li act so rashly? He does not look like someone with a strong sense of justice. " Chen Ge was slowly guiding the direction of the neighbors' thinking. He could not be as direct as Xiao Sun because he had no idea how many people were involved in the landlord's murder.
However, one thing was for sure — there should not be too many people involved in the landlord's murder, or else they would not have been so afraid of Chen Ge, and they would not have sacrificed the electrician.
"I also think this is weird." The middle-aged man with the lingerie stashed in the corner stood alone. He did not trust anyone. "That Ding woman is acting strangely today. Normally, she treats her adopted son badly. Compared to taking care of a child, she treats him more like a pet. Whenever she is unhappy, she will beat and scold him."
"So, you think Auntie Ding did not kill the electrician to avenge her adopted son? She was worried about something else? "
"That is not what I said!" The middle-aged man looked at Chen Ge and waved his hands. He was an old tenant here, so he knew that speaking without thinking could lead to death.
"How about we go and ask Wu You? It's the kid who lives in Room 301. The neighbors all say that the kid is a liar, but I think the kid is quite a nice person. However, he might have some psychological problems due to the lack of company for a long time. Don't we have a psychiatrist here? We can take a look at him. "Xiao Sun suddenly offered, and that caused the middle-aged man to break out in a cold sweat.
"Wu You, that kid, is full of lies. You can't trust anything that comes out of his mouth. Furthermore, he is just a kid, what would he know? Let him see the dead body. Don't scare him too much. "The middle-aged man shook his head, pretending to be calm.
"Fine, I'm just giving you a suggestion. After all, the kid keeps running around the building. Perhaps he might know something." Xiao Sun was analyzing the situation rationally. He did not realize that he had become a thorn in the side of most people.
Chen Ge wiped away the sweat on his forehead. As a normal person, after being dragged into a murder case, the first thing he needed to do was not to become a detective to solve the case but to protect himself.
Chen Ge understood Xiao Sun's method of repeatedly jumping on the edge of death, but he did not agree with it.
"I also don't think there's a need to ask a kid, but the murderer is hiding inside the building. It's too dangerous to leave Wu You alone at home. It's better to have him stay with us." When Chen Ge said the first half, the middle-aged man nodded, but when he heard the second half of Chen Ge's statement, his head froze.
"Wouldn't it be too inconvenient to bring a child with him?"
"It's fine, I'll protect him. Let's go to Room 301 to fetch Wu You now." Chen Ge walked directly to the third floor. Once he entered the third-floor corridor, he saw a boy's face poke out from the room at the end of the corridor. It was quite scary even at night.
"Wu You, there's a murderer in this building. It's not safe for you to stay alone. Why don't you come with us?" Chen Ge wanted to reach out to hold Wu You's hand, but the boy dodged away.
"A murderer?" Wu You looked at Chen Ge and the tenants and used that very childish voice to say, "Aren't you all murderers?"
"Look, this child only knows how to lie." The middle-aged man spread out his hands, looking helpless.
"You know we're all murderers, so why are you still here? Aren't you afraid? "Chen Ge looked at the boy before him.
"I'm waiting for my parents."
"If you're killed, your parents won't be able to find you, so you'd better come with me." Chen Ge's way of reasoning with the boy was very hard.
Grabbing Wu You's hand, Chen Ge had him stay by his side.
Noticing how determined Chen Ge was, the middle-aged man suddenly said that he was not feeling well and wanted to go home. Chen Ge did not stop him and allowed him to leave.
Actually, Chen Ge knew very well that the middle-aged man had left because he was worried that Wu You would spill the beans, so he was in a hurry to go back and destroy those things.
After the middle-aged man left, the rest of the group headed to Auntie Ding's room on the fourth floor.
Doctor Li had called Big Head and Auntie Ding over to discuss something, so Chen Ge did not want to give them too much time.
When they reached the fourth floor, Chen Ge saw Big Head waiting outside Auntie Ding's room.
"Is Sister Ding feeling better?"
"With Doctor Li here, she should be fine." Big Head had a strange appearance, but the way he spoke was kind. He gave off the impression that he was an honest person who was easy to bully.
"Something happened after you left. I wish to ask Auntie Ding about it in person."
"She still needs to rest."
"You better get out of the way. This is very serious." Behind Chen Ge were Qu Yin, Xiao Sun, Wen Qing, and Granny Lee. They had the advantage in numbers. "I will go in alone. I will not disturb Sister Ding's rest."
"Okay." Big Head knocked on the door. About ten seconds later, the door opened, and Chen Ge walked in alone.
Even though Auntie Ding was not young anymore, the decoration of the room was very girlish, and the main color was pink.
Once Chen Ge entered the room, he was hit by the heavy scent of perfume and air freshener. He coughed lightly and voluntarily closed the door.
Auntie Ding was lying on the sofa, and Doctor Li stood next to her. When they saw Chen Ge walk in, their expressions did not look so good.
"How can I help you?"
"Do you remember that perverted middle-aged man on the third floor?"
"What's wrong?"
"Just now, he said that the electrician did not fall down the stairs on his own but was pushed down by someone. Then, he very subtly hinted for us to go and ask Wu You about it." Chen Ge's face was cold.
"Did you manage to get anything out of him?" Auntie Ding's face was pale, and her voice was shaking.
"The child has been traumatized. We can't understand what he is saying at all. For example, Auntie Ding always carries the child up and down the stairs, and a child appears like a ghost beside him." Chen Ge did not seem to notice Auntie Ding's face that was turning paler. He continued to say, "The key is not the child but the uncle on the third floor. He lives right next to Wu You, and I suspect that he was the one who taught Wu You these things. After all, even if a child likes to lie, he would not say these things all the time. "
"You have a point." Doctor Li and Auntie Ding nodded in unison.
"Other than that, I have noticed something else. The uncle seems to be interfering with our search for the truth. I suspect …" Chen Ge raised his head, and his eyes were shining. "Could he be the killer that killed the landlord?"
"That is very possible. There are many strange things about the man." Auntie Ding's face became redder, and her words became clearer. "There are many women's underwear at his home. I have no idea where he got them from, but in any case, the man is very disgusting."
"You suspect him, and he wants to lead the case to you." Chen Ge hesitated for a long time. "I also do not know who to trust. How about this? We will pretend to go to one of the rooms on the third floor to investigate, and then we will take a detour to his home. We will conduct a surprise inspection and see if we can find any evidence. If there is something related to the landlord's murder at his home, then we can confirm that he is the landlord's killer. "
Chen Ge was very brave. The real reason he was doing this was to make the killer hand over the evidence himself. This was a series of traps.
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