Chapter 4
Edward Quan ·
24
The woman was still holding me.
Suddenly, she whispered in my ear:
“It… is here!”
She trembled all over. I hurriedly asked:
“What is?”
“The hanging ghost… It’s here!”
“The ghost? Where?”
“Outside the door. I can feel it.”
Then she abruptly burrowed under the covers.
This time, I put my arms around her.
“Don’t be scared. I’ll take a look. I’m fated to be a lone star of calamity. Even ghosts have to get out of my way.”
I went to the door and looked through the peephole.
Nothing outside.
At that moment, a message arrived on my phone.
Its contents made every hair on my body stand up.
【It’s so stuffy inside the suitcase, so cold in the woods. How could you be cruel enough to bury me?】
The sender…
Was Li Yong, the man I’d buried last night.
Could he… still be alive?
25
“Did you… see the hanging ghost?”
The woman suddenly poked her head out of the covers.
I quickly shook mine.
“No. You’re probably so anxious you’re imagining things. I have some sedatives in the kitchen. I’ll get them.”
I found the medicine.
After watching her take it, I excused myself and hid in the bathroom.
Carefully closing the door, I hurriedly messaged Li Yong’s phone.
【Who are you?】
The reply came quickly.
【I’m… Li Yong, of course.】
I asked:
【You’re not dead?】
Another reply.
【Even as a ghost, I won’t let you off. Dressing as a woman, you made me suffer like this.】
【That’s because you’re stupid. You couldn’t even tell a man from a woman!】
A while later, another message arrived.
【The recorder has evidence of your murder. You won’t end well either. At worst, we’ll die together.】
I immediately grew angry.
【Cut the crap. I don’t believe you’re Li Yong. Who are you really?】
【I’m outside your door. Open it and see for yourself.】
As soon as I finished reading, four very soft knocks sounded.
I rushed out of the bathroom and ran to the door.
I looked through the peephole.
One glance made my scalp crawl.
Because in the corridor outside…
A corpse was hanging.
Its feet were off the floor, its head drooping. Suspended before my door, it swayed gently.
I could clearly see its face.
It really was Li Yong!
26
Terrified, I stumbled backward.
Impossible…
Absolutely impossible!
Then I noticed something else.
The woman on the bed…
Was gone.
There was only a sheet of paper by the pillow.
I hurriedly picked it up.
It seemed to be a page torn from her diary.
The first line read:
May 17. Weather: clear.
I remembered that date.
It was the day the couple moved in.
As their landlord, I’d even helped with their luggage.
But what followed made my scalp prickle…
【When I discovered my landlord had installed a camera in my room, I didn’t call the police.
I moved here in disguise, playing both man and woman. As it happened, I could use the landlord to help me kill two people.
I’d never told anyone about my disguise.
I had delicate features and a slight build.
With my fine, versatile voice, the right makeup, and the right clothes, I could play two roles alone.
In men’s clothing, I was Deng Bing, the bearded husband.
In women’s clothing, I was Liu Min, the beautiful, devoted wife.
Nobody who saw us could tell we were the same person.
My new landlord was no exception.】
27
I went numb as I finished reading.
The person upstairs had known about my cameras from the start.
Stranger still, Deng Bing and Liu Min…
Were the same person!
No wonder Deng Bing was always home by day and at work by night.
While Liu Min was always home at night and at work by day.
I’d wondered why their schedules dovetailed so perfectly.
It had been one person playing two roles.
Compared with him, my own disguise was nothing.
Worst of all, the beautiful woman I’d been secretly watching all this time…
Was a man.
And I’d invited him to stay tonight.
We’d even shared a bed.
This…
Was utterly ridiculous.
Wait!
Why was I being allowed to read this diary page?
Why was Li Yong’s body outside?
The man in the wardrobe seemed to have gone quiet long ago too.
My eyes happened to fall on the mosquito coil in the corner.
A chill shot down my spine.
Because I suddenly realized something…
Something terribly frightening!
28
The instant I realized something was wrong, a deafening explosion erupted in front of me.
The enormous shock wave hurled me to the floor.
The world spun. My ears rang and my vision blurred.
Before I could react, fierce flames engulfed the room.
My whole body burned. I was limp and powerless, unable even to struggle.
Amid the sea of fire, my consciousness slowly sank into darkness.
29
May 17. Weather: clear.
When I discovered my landlord had installed a camera in my room, I didn’t call the police.
I moved here in disguise, playing both man and woman. As it happened, I could use the landlord to help me kill two people.
I’d never told anyone about my disguise.
I had delicate features and a slight build.
With my fine, versatile voice, the right makeup, and the right clothes, I could play two roles alone.
In men’s clothing, I was Deng Bing, the bearded husband.
In women’s clothing, I was Liu Min, the gentle, beautiful wife.
Nobody who saw us could tell we were the same person.
My new landlord was no exception.
(Congenital encephalitis has caused my memory to deteriorate. I have to keep a diary every day to preserve my memories.)
30
May 18. Daytime. Weather: overcast.
After a full day cleaning the house, I could finally move in today.
With me came the black cat my little sister had kept while she was alive.
The house had two floors. I decided to live upstairs.
The ground floor would serve another purpose.
Once everything was settled, I went down to inspect the bedroom.
My little sister had been its previous tenant.
Ten days ago, the police told me she’d hanged herself.
From the chandelier in this very room.
I’d never believed it was suicide.
She’d been cheerful, optimistic, in love with life.
Ever since we were children, she’d encouraged me, her brother with encephalitis, to keep living well.
Even when she found a dying black cat by the roadside, she’d done her best to save it and raise it.
How could someone so kind, who cherished life, simply kill herself?
Fortunately, I found her black cat in a ditch near this house.
I discovered the collar around its neck was a recorder.
And not an ordinary recorder.
It could record video too.
My sister had made the collar especially to film first-person videos of walking her cat.
In that recorder collar, I found the truth about her death.
31
There were three men responsible for my sister’s murder.
One was the owner of this house, my current landlord, Zhou Lei.
The other two were brothers, the electricians Li Yong and Li Gang.
Not long before, while repairing the electrical system in the complex, the brothers had happened to meet my sister returning home.
Her beauty gave them ugly ideas.
They secretly followed her repeatedly, even pretending to be ghosts outside her door to frighten her.
One night, they broke into her room and sexually assaulted her.
Afraid of being exposed, they then decided to kill her to silence her.
They strangled her with a rope, then hung her from the chandelier.
Staging a suicide.
Immediately after they fled, the landlord, Zhou Lei, entered with his spare key.