Reborn in the 1990s, I want my husband to live to be a hundred.

"This time, we've solved more than just one case!" Tian Guoqiang said.

Deng Xiuzhen waited for what was to come, but Tian Guoqiang instead asked, "Is there any water to drink?"

"Yes, yes, I'm sorry I forgot. Please have a seat, I'll go get some water." Deng Xiuzhen agreed and quickly went to get some water. Usually, she was the one who went to find Tian Guoqiang. Just now, she was so focused on listening to the big case that she hadn't really thought that she was the host and Tian Guoqiang was the guest, and that she should be the one to entertain the guest.

After taking a sip of water to calm himself down, Tian Guoqiang told Deng Xiuzhen that after hearing the story she had heard, he immediately arranged for someone to secretly keep an eye on Chen Chuang, while he himself took a colleague to secretly check on Chen Chuang's two-story building.

Chen Chuang's house does indeed have a basement. It wasn't originally intended to be a basement, but because the house was built on a dry ditch, the ground needed to be leveled, so the foundation had to be raised. Cement pillars were poured at the bottom of the ditch, and reinforced concrete was poured on top of the pillars.

Chen Chuang filled the gaps on both sides of the pillar with bricks to create a space (the front was already level with the road, so the entrance was on the first floor. The back was generally higher), and opened a door on the left side of the house (towards the river).

"They really dug a cellar in the basement?" Deng Xiuzhen felt it was a bit surreal.

Tian Guoqiang glanced at her and said, "The basement is well-built, and the walls are even covered with waterproof and moisture-proof panels."

There were some miscellaneous items piled up, arranged quite neatly.

I went around the basement, carefully examined the floor, and moved all the clutter aside, but I found nothing.

Then I went inside the house and saw nothing unusual. There was a large yard behind the house with many trees, flowers and plants, and a pavilion near the yard wall.

I looked around the yard, but I didn't find any covered slabs, cellars, or anything like that. The pavilion was also very ordinary, just plastered with cement..."

"Hey, can you just pick out the important points?" After listening for so long, Deng Xiuzhen couldn't find a single problem. She was getting anxious. The main problem was that she still had to cook dinner, and her child would be getting out of school soon.

"Don't interrupt me! What's the rush? I'm about to get to the point, aren't I? This case has a big impact; people from the province have come, and I need to give a report. I need to explain things in detail, right?" Tian Guoqiang said, taking a sip of water. After several encounters, he had unconsciously come to regard Deng Xiuzhen as someone he knew very well, and his speech had become very casual.

"Alright, alright, please continue." Deng Xiuzhen brought over the vegetables, pulled up a stool, sat down, and listened while picking the vegetables.

Tian Guoqiang's lips twitched, somewhat amused and exasperated. He continued, "We didn't find anything, but there's a smell in the yard, the smell of dead rats you mentioned."

I followed the smell and found several things that looked like vents under the eaves, but there were no pipes on the inner or outer walls.

I inserted a soft steel wire inside and found it was hollow and very deep.

This is definitely not right!

Remembering what you said about the underground ventilation duct, I went to the basement to take a look.

That kid's a real talent! Didn't they say the basement walls were all waterproofed and moisture-proofed? There's a hidden door in the back wall. The hidden door leads to his cellar, which he calls his underground palace, where he's the king, an emperor-like figure.

Instead of digging directly downwards, he dug a passage more than a meter wide from the back wall of the basement towards the yard.

Then they dug down another two meters and found a cellar of about forty square meters, divided into one large room and two smaller rooms. Six women were imprisoned there, the oldest being in their thirties or forties, the youngest only fifteen or sixteen. They ate, drank, relieved themselves, and slept in the large room. One of the smaller rooms was used by him to 'favor his harem.'

"That beast!" Deng Xiuzhen cursed angrily, feeling a deep sense of lingering fear. If it weren't for that fly, or her intuition, she probably would have been locked up herself.

“Is this what you call a beast? He did something even more beastly!” Tian Guoqiang continued, “The other small room was empty. About two meters down from the lower right corner of that small room, he dug a cellar of more than ten square meters.”

The passageways and cellars were all built with brick and cement walls, topped with stainless steel sheets, and the ground was plastered with cement. The stainless steel sheets were covered with tarpaulin and soundproofing cotton. Normally, shouts from several meters underground wouldn't be heard outside, but with these additional measures, even if the women screamed their lungs out, no one outside would hear them.

The cellar above, where people were imprisoned, was already enough to warrant a thousand cuts; but what was happening in the cellar below was simply...

Tian Guoqiang felt nauseous just thinking about it.

Deng Xiuzhen stared at Tian Guoqiang without speaking, her hands having long since stopped working. She couldn't guess what would happen next, but she felt it definitely wasn't good news.

“If he encounters someone who doesn’t obey, tries to escape, or resists, he will kill them and then drag them to the cellar below to be used as fertilizer.” Tian Guoqiang’s voice was much lower.

"To be used as corpse fertilizer?" Deng Xiuzhen couldn't believe it.

"Yes, because it's used for composting, there's a smell of dead rats coming out, and a lot of flies. Even though it's done underground, the smell and flies can still come out through the vents."

Both fell silent.

After a long pause, Deng Xiuzhen finally asked, "Why is he doing this?"

Tian Guoqiang replied, "After this house was built, he started digging cellars, initially to hide the abducted women and children. Later, with the crackdown on human trafficking, Song Qinghua and Liu Xiaozhen were arrested, and a group of children were rescued, right? He felt that continuing would cause problems, so he went into hiding."

He heard somewhere that the price of blood orchids was outrageously high. So he kept the women who hadn't sold their orchids, partly to satisfy his twisted mentality, and partly to bleed the orchids with their blood.

"After killing someone, burying them seems like too much trouble. Why not turn them into fertilizer and use it to grow special trees that might be very valuable..."

"He used to traffic women and children?" Deng Xiuzhen asked in surprise.

"Yes, he is the old man. Song Qinghua and Liu Xiaozhen really didn't know he was an old man."

Chen Guohu knew, but he dared not say it, for fear that Chen Chuang would kill his wife and son.

Chen Chuang is a ruthless and extremely perverted person.

When he was digging the cellar, he tricked a man from out of town into helping him. He locked the man in the basement, chained him up, and threatened him to do the work, promising to let him go once the job was done.

After he finished, he killed the man, buried him in the cellar, and then covered it with cement.

He didn't kill Chen Guohu because Chen Guohu discovered his murder and documented it. Not only did he document it, but he also took photos.

One time, he forgot to turn off the camera flash, which alerted Chen Chuang, who then realized that Chen Guohu had been following him.

Chen Chuang said: If Chen Guohu dares to tell anyone, he will kill his whole family.

Chen Guohu brought trouble upon himself and, in order to protect himself, threatened Chen Chuang: "I have hidden the evidence in a secret place. If something happens to my family, the evidence will be exposed."

The two restrained each other, then, finding themselves kindred spirits, they conspired together in evil deeds.

"Was it Chen Chuang who went to my house to put the ash bucket?" Deng Xiuzhen suddenly realized.

"Yes, he wants to find evidence that Chen Guohu is hiding."

Fearing that they hadn't found it themselves, and that someone else would discover it after moving in, they resorted to ghost stories and spread rumors.