Replacing the Evil Way

Chapter 19: Better to believe it exists

“Captain He, do you think this will work?”

A technical investigation colleague fiddled with the computer and pushed the screen toward He Wei, saying, “The living room, kitchen, bedrooms, and stairwell are all equipped with these miniature cameras. If you don’t look carefully, you won’t notice them. We set the video to be saved for seven days. Is that okay?”

He Wei nodded. Seven days would be enough for him to crack this trick of pretending to be a ghost. He patted his colleague’s shoulder and said, “Thanks. Let your Captain Nie know that I appreciate the cooperation. We’ll use the equipment responsibly and return it soon; it won’t take too long.”

“You’re joking, Captain He. The Criminal Investigation Department needs the assistance of the Technical Investigation Department, and of course, we’ll gladly help. Captain Nie instructed us that helping Captain He is the most important thing.”

After he left, He Wei walked around the building, checking all the corners where these miniature cameras were discreetly installed. He believed that even the food thief wouldn’t have the time to search for them. As long as the cameras captured the culprit, he was confident in apprehending the person.

Back at the police station, He Wei went to the Technical Department, where Zheng Youqing was just about to find him. She stood by the door with documents in her arms, tilting her head and looking sweet like the girl next door.

“Captain He, is it that serious? Calling in the technical investigators and all.”

“Yeah, I don’t have time to keep an eye on my home all the time, so I asked the tech team to install a few cameras,” He Wei said, his gaze falling on the report in her hands. “Have you got any results from the fingerprint analysis?”

“I was just about to talk to you about that.” Zheng Youqing waved him in. He Wei followed her into the lab, where she picked up a piece of tape with tweezers and handed it to him. “Here, this is what you gave me.”

He Wei took the tweezers and carefully inspected the tape, unable to help but ask, “Where are the fingerprints?”

“I don’t know. When you brought it in, I was in the middle of another identification process, so I put it in the evidence box first. After half an hour, I went to retrieve it, but there was only an empty piece of tape with no fingerprints at all.”

A strange feeling arose in He Wei’s heart. He immediately took out his phone and checked the photos he had taken of the shoe prints. As expected, the entrance floor in the photos was clean and spotless, with no shoe prints whatsoever.

How could this be? He Wei furrowed his brows, and Zheng Youqing waved her hand in front of him, sounding somewhat uneasy. “What’s wrong? Don’t worry; evidence can be lost under certain improper storage conditions. Next time you have fingerprints, let me know, and I won’t lose them.”

No, it was not that simple. This was different from evidence loss. He Wei knew it, but he didn’t tell her about the supernatural events that happened in his dormitory. It wouldn’t be good to scare the young girl.

Lately, luck hasn’t been on his side. Besides the perplexing case he was handling, there was now an additional troublesome matter to deal with.

—

The owner of the mansion on Fulong Mountain has been contacted. He had surgery out of town and was discharged yesterday. As soon as he returned to Shengzhou City today, he came to the police station to cooperate with the investigation.

“Name.”

“Xia Liang.”

“Age.”

“24.”

Ke Dongrui scrutinized the young man and asked, “How did the mansion end up registered under your name? Did your family give it to you?”

“My grandfather bought it from the British when he was young. He only has me as his grandson, and a couple of years ago, he left it to me as an inheritance.”

“If it’s given to you, why has such a large house been empty all this time?” Ke Dongrui looked through the documents. “According to our investigation, you are still renting a house in the city, and the area is less than one-fifth of the mansion’s size.”

“I wanted to live inside, but I dare not,” Xia Liang said with innocent, round eyes. “I used to live there when I was a child, but later our whole family moved to the city. There are unclean things in the mansion. My father wanted to put it up for sale, but my grandfather wouldn’t allow it. Now someone died there, and it’s really become a haunted house.”

“Unclean things?” Ke Dongrui’s pen paused. “You mean it’s haunted?”

Xia Liang’s expression immediately became exaggerated as he vividly described the strange occurrences. Things disappearing inexplicably in the house, hearing voices at night, and sometimes even seeing figures at the staircase… In short, his examples matched scenes from typical horror haunted house stories.

Ke Dongrui was skeptical, feeling that the young man’s words weren’t reliable, but she recorded everything truthfully. She took out a photo of He Wei and asked, “Do you know this person?”

Xia Liang shook his head, saying he had never seen him before. Ke Dongrui remained silent, and in her investigation of their social connections, she found no link between these two individuals. It seemed that He Wei’s death had nothing to do with the mansion; the killer probably chose the place because it was unoccupied.

After the routine questioning was over, Xia Liang confirmed and signed the transcript, and Ke Dongrui escorted him out. As they were leaving, they bumped into Cheng Zesheng walking towards them. Xia Liang stopped in his tracks and stared at Cheng Zesheng’s back. Ke Dongrui asked, “What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing. That guy we just talked to is really good-looking. I feel like I’ve seen him in a dream.”

Ke Dongrui laughed, “You’re a man, Captain Cheng wouldn’t want to be a man’s ‘dream lover.'”

Xia Liang scratched the back of his head, “His surname is Cheng? In my dream, he seemed to have the same surname. But hey, I was a cop in it, hehe…”

Cheng Zesheng didn’t just return from being outside; he was packing his things to go out. He drove to the Provincial Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital, bought a basket of fruits on the way, and secretly brought a pack of cigarettes, hidden in the fruit basket.

On the fourth floor of the inpatient department was the surgical ward. Cheng Zesheng carried the fruit basket and found the familiar bed. Before he entered the room, he heard someone inside giving an educational talk. He stood outside the door, waiting until the family cadre’s guidance was over before knocking on the door.

The person who opened the door was a middle-aged woman who saw Cheng Zesheng with a smile. “Zesheng, how come you have time to come over?” She called out, “Old man! Stop pretending to sleep, Zesheng is here!”

“Shimu1 must be joking. No matter how busy I am, I have to come and see Master.”

The middle-aged man lying on the hospital bed suddenly sat up, but unfortunately, his leg was in a cast, making it difficult for him to move. Otherwise, he would have made a graceful movement like a carp leaping up. His wife kept nagging at him, saying he pretended to sleep whenever she scolded him, but when someone else came, he immediately became energetic. Clearly, he didn’t take his wife seriously.

This man with his leg in a cast was Yan Minglang, the head of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Shengzhou City Bureau. He was Cheng Zesheng’s mentor, and Cheng Zesheng had been following him closely since entering the city bureau, considered a well-trained and devoted disciple. Yan Minglang was in his fifties, a few years away from retirement, but his body no longer allowed him to be on the front lines. Especially after he accidentally suffered a comminuted fracture in his right leg while chasing a suspect two months ago, his recovery had not been smooth due to his age, and he hadn’t been discharged yet.

Every day, Yan Minglang’s wife tirelessly came to the hospital to take care of him. She earnestly advised him to retire and hand over the heavy burden of the team to the young and capable Cheng Zesheng. Yan Minglang had discussed this with Chief Huang before, and they both had the same idea. However, Chief Huang suggested that he shouldn’t rush to unload the responsibilities so quickly. He should receive some support first, but since Yan Minglang’s health hadn’t fully recovered yet, most of the authority in the Criminal Investigation Division had already fallen into the hands of Vice Captain Cheng Zesheng.

While his wife went to the water room with a water bottle, Yan Minglang glanced at the fruit basket. “You, young fellow, lack sincerity. Don’t you understand what your master needs?”

Cheng Zesheng looked outside the door to make sure his master’s wife was far away, then whispered to the fruit basket, “I’m here. Keep it well hidden. I’m involved in smuggling, and if I get caught, I’ll be severely sentenced.”

Yan Minglang reached out and felt the hard cigarette box, immediately showing a happy smile. He praised Cheng Zesheng for being resourceful and quickly hid the cigarette box under the pillow. The two of them discussed the case, and Cheng Zesheng mentioned the strange things he encountered recently, seeking the analysis of his experienced mentor.

“You mean the victim’s identity and many pieces of information don’t match with the dead bodies?”

“The discrepancy is too significant, yet there’s the same face, the same fingerprints, and the same DNA; it’s truly bizarre.”

“In our line of work, we believe in science, but as we handle more cases, we are bound to encounter some unscientific things,” Yan Minglang rubbed his chin. “Didn’t I tell you before? Right after graduating from the police academy, I followed an experienced colleague to investigate a homicide case. It happened over thirty years ago when a butcher killed his wife, but we couldn’t find the body anywhere. We couldn’t prosecute the butcher without evidence and had to let him go.”

“After he returned home, he happily slaughtered the pigs and cooked a large pot of food for his six-year-old son. That night, the boy started vomiting and having diarrhea, and he had a high fever. He babbled, saying, ‘Mom is calling from the soup pot, and he ate his Mom.’ Later, the experienced colleague took the team to carefully inspect the pigsty and finally found a finger in a pile of swill. That’s when we realized this man had fed his wife’s body to the pigs.”

“Afterward, the butcher admitted to the murder, but he couldn’t understand how his son knew about it. At the time of the murder, his son was sent to his grandmother’s house in another city and wasn’t even present. So, you see, it’s strange, isn’t it? If it weren’t for the ‘dream communication,’ we might never have solved that case, and it would remain an unsolved mystery.”

Cheng Zesheng nodded, “I understand there might be such a possibility, but the case I’m currently handling is quite different from any I’ve encountered before. Master, I won’t hide it from you. Based on the scene reconstruction and the biological traces on the evidence, the conclusion we arrived at is that the victim strangled himself. But is that even possible? How could a person have such skills?”

“Zesheng, there are so many things in this world that science finds difficult to explain. Since there is a chain of evidence supporting your doubts, keep investigating, and you’ll eventually find an explanation.”

After leaving the hospital, Cheng Zesheng passed by a supermarket and remembered to buy some emergency food reserves to avoid his neighbors thinking he was freeloading, which could lead to awkward situations. He bought a bunch of vacuum-packed cooked food, frozen food, and dairy products, filling a large bag.

When he got home, Cheng Zesheng stuffed the food into the refrigerator, filling both the freezer and the fridge. He thought for a moment and decided to leave a note on the fridge.

[Feel free to eat whatever, no need to be polite.]

The signature at the end was just one word – “Cheng.”

———

Lately, He Wei has been returning home diligently in the evenings, which surprised Chong Zhen. “What’s going on? You’ve been going home for three days in a row. Are you hiding a secret lover in your luxury apartment?”

“…” He Wei motioned for him to get in the car, taking him to see who was hiding there.

“I never expected this, never! Even you, Lao He, have these romantic thoughts. Even a steel tree can bloom.” Chong Zhen spoke leisurely, “Come on, tell me what kind of girl you’ve been seeing? Your buddy will give her a once-over.”

“I’m afraid you’ll be scared to death,” He Wei smirked. “Love between a person and a ghost is impossible.”

“…” Chong Zhen didn’t believe him, so he followed He Wei back to room 404. After opening the door, He Wei crouched down to examine the traces at the entrance and whispered, “Someone has been here.”

“What?” Chong Zhen asked.

He Wei took out his phone and smiled at Chong Zhen. “Watch this magic trick.”

He asked Chong Zhen to watch the shoeprints at the door and then took a photo with his phone, confirming if he had captured it. Then, the two of them stepped outside, and he opened the image again, but now the floor appeared entirely clean and white, without a single footprint.

“…Damn!” Chong Zhen squeezed out the word through his teeth. “What software did you use to edit that?”

“No editing, that’s how I took the photo. The evidence we previously collected also vanished when we brought it back to the station,” He Wei opened the door and said calmly, “Currently, I don’t know the reason, so I installed the cameras to figure out what’s going on.”

Chong Zhen felt a chill and got goosebumps all over his body.

After He Wei went inside, he checked the whole house, walked into the kitchen, and noticed the note stuck on it, causing his pupils to contract.

He opened the fridge, and it was filled to the brim with a wide variety of food, several times more than what had been stolen a few days ago. He Wei looked at the note in his hand, and the surname “Cheng” had been on his mind too much recently. The font on the note looked increasingly familiar.

“Chong Zhen, go back to the station and bring the notebook we took from Cheng Zesheng!”

Chong Zhen hurriedly agreed, grabbed the car keys, and left as quickly as he could.

He Wei opened the notebook and began watching the surveillance footage. During the day, the house was empty, but around 7 p.m., an hour before he returned, the door opened.

As if someone had opened it, the security door remained open for just two seconds before closing by itself. Although he couldn’t see anyone, He Wei could simulate the scene of someone entering. He switched the surveillance to the kitchen, and the footage seemed to be affected by electromagnetic interference, showing ripples and slight shaking. In the blink of an eye, there was already another note on the fridge.

“…” He Wei picked up the new note, staring at the words written on it.

He never believed in ghosts, but the various events that had happened in the past few days had been breaking the boundaries of his understanding, forcing him to question the truths of science.

Chong Zhen came back, gasping for breath. He Wei opened the notebook and compared the handwriting with the note, observing the writing habits. Though he wasn’t an expert in handwriting analysis, in general, he could be 80% sure, and that would be close enough to the actual result.

“… This note might have been written by Cheng Zesheng.”