Nightmare Despair

Chapter 46: Dead body
"Don't crowd here, go home... everyone go home, what are you doing here so early in the morning instead of sleeping?"

A young policeman patiently tried to drive away the onlookers, but the Chixing people's deep-rooted love of watching the excitement meant that no one wanted to leave until they had finished enjoying the spectacle.

After a few words of persuasion, the police officers lost their nerve and simply let them be.

"Never mind, there aren't many people anyway. Just hurry up and collect the bodies... You'll go with Brother Li later..."

Zhou Kai mingled in the sparse crowd, walking past the police with a blank expression.

He captured the word "corpse" with precision.

"A murder? A suicide or a violent crime?"

Zhou Kai has never liked to join in the fun, but only if the fun doesn't happen in front of his house.

He frowned and followed the crowd toward the car with its lights flashing.

Lu Yan lives in this building, and Zhou Kai doesn't want anything to happen to her.

If there are any abnormalities, it's best to find out in advance.

Upon closer inspection, it became clear that it wasn't an ambulance at all, but a forensic investigation vehicle—a vehicle used by forensic doctors.

Inside the area cordoned off by the police tape, a forensic doctor was using a small shovel to scrape people on the asphalt road.

One stroke after another, like scraping off a piece of chewing gum that was stuck too tightly.

The bloody and bizarre scene caused several middle-aged women who had managed to squeeze into the front row to immediately cover their noses, gag, and back away, creating a gap in the crowd.

Zhou Kai stood at a distance, observing coldly.

The hushed conversation between the forensic doctor and the police officer drifted over.

"He fell from a height of at least 100 meters. Which helicopter company had the accident?"

"If only it were that simple..."

"What do you mean?"

"That means the surveillance footage shows he fell out of a second-floor window!"

The male forensic doctor abruptly ripped off his mask, his face filled with absurdity and disbelief.

"What kind of occasion is this? Don't joke like that!"

The young policeman looked around awkwardly, and seeing that no one was paying attention, he grabbed the forensic doctor's arm: "I'm not kidding, keep your voice down... this is weird."

"Stop looking, let's go."

An older, unshaven policeman kicked the talkative young officer and then waved impatiently toward Zhou Kai.

Zhou Kai's gaze lingered on the forensic doctor's small shovel, which was covered in red and black substances, before he turned and left as if nothing had happened.

My mind was in complete turmoil.

A person fell from the second floor and was smashed into a pile of minced meat?
The big joke of slipping the world.

No one with normal logic would believe it, even if they saw it with their own eyes.

Because this completely defies common sense.

But Zhou Kai felt a strange sense of familiarity with the scene.

He's been through it.

In the nightmare.

The time he discovered the nursery, he was dragged into an illusion by the paper figures and fell down a staircase less than a meter high, but it felt like he was falling from a height of more than ten meters.

"Are there similar paper-doll monsters in real life? No, probably not."

"After I broke free of the illusion, I had no additional injuries."

"There's another reason."

Zhou Kai frowned, a vague and inexplicable restlessness rising in his heart.

……

The nightmare was filled with an oppressive atmosphere, with darkness and rain mixed together, thick and sticky like tar.

People with claustrophobia cannot stay in their nightmares for even a minute.

But Zhou Kai settled in and even gradually felt right at home.

However, the mental and emotional toll of that environment still exists.

Therefore, Zhou Kai gradually needed to stay in open and bright places to relieve that tension.

I got up early today for this reason.

He planned to take a walk in the nearby park, stroll around, and then go to the boxing gym; the timing was perfect.

But just then, Zhou Kai's phone vibrated.

Someone called, and the contact person's name was...the landlord.

Zhou Kai was puzzled. It was still a long time before the rent was due, so why was this tightwad suddenly contacting him?

Then the call was connected.

The landlord across the street spoke in a much softer tone, a stark contrast to his usual stern demeanor.

"Young man, where are you? Come back quickly... something's happened to your house."

"Something happened?"

"Okay, I'll be right back." Zhou Kai sensed a subtle implication in the landlord's tone; the guy was scared.

Fear of oneself, and of things related to oneself.

Before long, Zhou Kai had returned to the Pigeon Cage residential area where he used to rent a place.

From a distance, I could see a pile of luggage downstairs, all of which was roughly packed up.

A chubby middle-aged man was pacing nervously and nervously in the shadows.

As soon as he saw Zhou Kai return, he quickly ran to Zhou Kai's side.

He hurriedly said, "Brother Zhou, look at this... My living conditions here are just average, and I really can't accommodate such powerful people as you."

"I've had your luggage packed for you. How about... you look for another place to rent?"

He shook his head violently, his fat face jiggling.

"Anyway, I definitely won't dare to rent my house to you again."

Is this still the same greedy, lustful, and short-tempered landlord I remember? Today he seems like a completely different person.

It seems like... he's been scared out of his wits?
Zhou Kai's heart sank, and he pressed for an answer: "What exactly happened?"

The landlord's expression was stiff: "You can go up and see for yourself."

“I’ve made it clear beforehand that I have no connection with those people and I don’t want to have any connection with them.”

those people.

Zhou Kai probably understood what was going on, and with a cold face, he walked towards his familiar way home.

Everything seemed the same as usual, yet there were subtle differences.

This unique kind of disorder makes people feel inexplicably anxious when walking through it.

Go upstairs.

The hallway was covered in colorful paint with insulting words written on it.

Come back home.

The not-very-sturdy wooden door was torn into pieces and scattered haphazardly in the hallway. On some of the larger door panels, footprints of about size 45 or 46 were clearly visible, which should have been men's footprints.

"Are you going to come knocking on my door to cause trouble?"

Zhou Kai sneered.

"There aren't many people I have a grudge against lately, just a few... I'll find you all."

Just as the most difficult murder cases to solve are those involving random killings without cause, the most difficult revenge cases are those involving malicious acts without cause.

However, there were his and his sister's names in the hallway, and his identity as a student at the Falcon Wing Boxing Gym.

All of these point to important information about the identity of the person in charge.

In less than two or three seconds, Zhou Kai guessed who did it.

"It's not that Wu Meng is absent; they've recently disappeared, and there's a very high probability they've given up on monitoring me."

"And besides Wumeng, the only one with such a huge contradiction who would do something so disgusting to me is you."

Zhou Kai thought of Wang Jinquan, whom he had beaten like a dead dog and who had been slapped into the hospital by Chen Ping.

"Interesting, even lying in a hospital bed, you still find time to resort to such underhanded tactics..."

A hint of malice flashed in Zhou Kai's eyes.

Just then, the landlord came running up from downstairs, huffing and puffing.

sweating a lot.

He said awkwardly, "I didn't break your laptop, so don't ask me to pay for it... And the cost of replacing the door and repainting the hallway will be deducted from your deposit."

Zhou Kai asked indifferently, "How much do you want?"

The landlord's eyes lit up, and he tentatively asked, "Thirty thousand?"

Zhou Kai stared at him: "Three thousand at most."

The landlord was stunned for a moment, and was about to lash out, but then seemed to realize something and shrank back, choosing to compromise.

……

To encourage residents to buy homes, Akasei mandates extremely high security deposits for rental properties, amounting to one-sixth of the total house price.

For example, Zhou Qing paid a deposit of 60,000 yuan to rent this house.

Now, 57,000 have been returned to Zhou Kai.

Zhou Kai certainly wouldn't keep any of the money. After taking out three thousand from his advance salary to make up the difference, Zhou Kai transferred the money to Zhou Qing without missing a single penny.

After concealing the trouble she was being given, she said she wouldn't need to rent a place for the time being...

Before finding a new place to stay, Zhou Kai would stay wherever his luggage was stored...

For now, I can only go to Lu Yan's house.

Zhou Qing learned that Zhou Kai wanted to stay at Lu Yan's house temporarily.

I replied that it was fine, and didn't ask any further questions.

(End of this chapter)