Thriller Night Talk

Translator-Rhapsodite

Editor-PerpetualMreow, Proofreader-Ghostie

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

The sky gradually darkened.

At this time, a new email appeared in Wei Fuyuan’s inbox.

Young Master Wei opened the email and found that the sender was the same person whom Bei Quan had asked to contact before they set out. The size of the attachment was big: it was a 1 GB file.

He downloaded the attachment, unlocked and opened it. Wei Fuyuan was stunned speechless by the contents.

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

“Oh, here it is.”

Bei Quan pushed the plate with a few remaining onions and green peppers to the side. He beckoned the waiter to take away the cups and plates, and moved closer to Wei Fuyuan.

The sudden proximity made Wei Fuyuan become stiff.

They were so close that the pleasing fragrance coming from Bei Quan gently assaulted his nose. Unlike other men’s colognes, Bei Quan had a natural scent of greenery.

If Wei Fuyuan had to describe it, it smelled like wormwood and after taking a deep breath, it seemed more like Osmanthus fragrans.

Young Master Wei suddenly felt a little hot.

He hastily went back to the beginning of the attachment and shoved 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 now had, one by one.

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

After investigation, it was concluded that the fire began at approximately 1:30 in the morning. The cause of the fire was a cigarette butt that had 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; thus, the fire spread rapidly and 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 who lived there were present when the accident happened, and almost everyone successfully escaped. Only a young female on the fourth floor was trapped in the fire and was burned alive.

“The girl who was burned to death was called Ye Jia. She was only 24 years old when she died. She had graduated from university a year prior and had been working in a private company.”

Wei Fuyuan sighed regretfully while reading the information.

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

Young Master Wei felt very sad when he thought that such a beautiful and delicate girl was burned to death shortly after stepping into the beginning of her life.

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

Bei Quan said while quickly writing down notes on the paper.

“Liu Fei, the second victim, lived on the second 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.”

He gently poked the paper with the tip of his pen.

“As for Meng Mouchang, his wife said that he had happened to pass by the area at the time the fire broke out…”

Bei Quan turned his head and smiled at Wei Fuyuan.

“What do you think?”

“This… is indeed a bit weird…”

.

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

“What happened to the first deceased person?”

In this series of strange accidents, the first to die had been Wu Qingping who had run into the construction site late at night while 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 have never resided in this kind of old city. Young Master Wei couldn’t think of? how he could be 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 hand holding the cup 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 could have been related to the incident!”

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

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

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

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

“This… Maybe through some sort of trap.”

He tried to make himself logically self-consistent.

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

Wei Fuyuan had an epiphany.

“Then Liu Fei, who had fallen into the manhole and burned to death——I’m guessing the sewer cover he lifted was actually replaced by a false cover made of foam or wooden boards! Otherwise, it would be too difficult to explain how he can lift a 200 jin iron cover!”

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

“Perhaps.”

Bei Quan smiled lightly, “But how could Mr. A make Liu Fei’s beloved thing fall into the sewer accurately? How could he have secretly replaced the sewer’s cover secretly without assistance and not be caught by the surveillance?”

Wei Fuyuan didn’t have an 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!” Young Master Wei said weakly.

“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 were heading to the place of death of the third deceased, Meng Mouchang.

Before his accident, the inebriated Meng Mouchang had decided to take the remote fork road to avoid a possible inspection for drunk driving. At this hour, it was convenient for Beiquan and Wei Fuyuan to take that same road.

Wei Fuyuan’s driving skills were very good. It wasn’t long before they arrived at the place of the accident.

“This should be the place.”

Young 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 parked and got out of the car.

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

Wei Fuyuan turned on the flashlight function of his mobile phone, knelt and studied the marks 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 cried in his heart that he was a business major student and not a student of criminal investigation or trace inspection! Even if he stayed here until dawn, he wouldn’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. 𝘣𝑒𝘥𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝑙．𝘤𝘰𝘮

“You really can’t see anything?” He asked.

Wei Fuyuan: “???”

The abruptness of such a phrase in the middle of the night and at the place where a person had died, made people’s backs feel cold.

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 couldn’t hear the ambiguous words that Bei Quan was muttering.

Just as he was about to ask, Bei Quan opened the black suitcase he had brought along with him and took out a perfume bottle with a long tail from it.

Young 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 from the foreign substance.

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

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, Young Master Wei’s face was drained of all color. He jolted back reflexively and backed up several steps until he collided with Bei Quan. Then he staggered again and fell forward on the concrete floor.

“Ah——-”

As soon as Wei Fuyuan uttered a syllable of the beginnings of a scream, Bei Quan covered his mouth with his hands.

“Hush, Hush——”

Bei Quan came close and whispered in Wei Fuyuan’s ear, “Don’t scream, don’t be afraid, I’m here.”

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

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

He raised his hand and pointed a trembling finger.

Right before Wei Fuyuan’s fingertips was the railing that had been removed after the accident.

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

Young Master Wei, on the other hand, saw vividly, a gray, immobile figure kneeling on the open area, clutching his knees with his hands and his face buried between the knees.

“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?”