Le tombeau de Qin Shi Huang

Chapitre 2

---hqszs

Reply [8]: Hey bro, let me eat first. I'm starving. 55555. GU, ... GU, ... ---hqszs Reply [9]: "But please go to the corridor for a while. I'll take care of this rat." Jian asked: "Do you have any black garbage bags?"

After taking the garbage bag from Mrs. Goh, Jian pushed her out of room 301 and closed the door, preparing to deal with the strange rat alone. He took out gloves from his pocket, put them on, and walked step by step toward the rat trap.

As soon as the sword approached, the large rat, whose body was stuck in the cage door, thrashed about even more violently. Its sharp yellow incisors, beneath its wart-covered nose, gleamed with a damp sheen and emitted a sharp squeaking sound.

Jian Xiang tried to remain calm, forcefully lifting the handle of the rat trap with his right hand. He felt the heavy pull of gravity and the rat's swaying as it tried to escape. The giant rat's left leg kicked wildly in the air, while its two front paws inside the trap desperately clawed at the gaps in the cage walls.

Just as Jian Xiang was heading towards the bathroom to drown the strange rat, the rat trap suddenly sank, and the rat's right foot sprang out of the trap, making a piercing metallic scraping sound. Its belly was caught in the cage door, making the strange rat's cries even more shrill. At the same time, as the cage shook, the giant rat's two thick, fat hind legs climbed onto Jian Xiang's legs, and its sharp claws hooked onto his trouser legs.

Startled, Jian Xiang reflexively drew his baton from his waist and struck the rat's tail hard, breaking the rat's pelvic bones.

Just as the strange rat was emitting a pitiful howl and its upper body was still struggling desperately, Jian Xiang threw the rat trap into the bathtub and turned on the tap to let the water pour out and fill it.

As the water level rose, the giant rat paddled wildly with its two front paws, but it couldn't change the fact that it was drowning. Just as the cold water submerged the rat's outstretched nose, a few bubbles rose from the surface, and the giant rat's movements finally came to a complete stop. Its body floated up and down with the tiny ripples, its teeth and lips opened weakly, and its bright black eyes stared blankly into space.

The shrill screams that had filled the bathroom still echoed in Jian Xiang's ears.

He slumped onto the edge of the bathtub for a while, taking several deep breaths to make sure his heartbeat had gradually calmed down. Only then did Jianxiang notice a bucket next to the toilet in the bathroom. He felt a pang of regret; if he hadn't been startled by the mouse that almost escaped its cage, he should have thrown the cage into the bucket.

Would Mrs. Goethe dare to bathe in a bathtub where a large rat had drowned? Therefore, this method of disposal must absolutely not be told to her while she is outside the door.

In any case, the matter was finally resolved. Jian Xiang lifted the cage again and threw the giant rat's corpse into the black garbage bag. Unlike its previous ferocious appearance, the giant rat's eyes were empty, its red tongue was sticking out, its limp body was dripping water rhythmically, and its tail hung straight in the air.

The bulging black plastic bag made a rustling sound, giving one the unpleasant feeling that the giant rat was still wriggling.

Just as he was about to drain all the water from the bathtub, Jian Xiang noticed a layer of liquid floating on the surface of the water.

"This is blood...?" Jian Xiang muttered to himself without realizing it.

Jian Xiang recalled the strange rat's fur being covered in black slime—but he found himself unwilling to immediately open the garbage bag and take another look at the disgusting dead rat.

---hqszs

Reply [10]: I agree.

---Saying Goodbye to Cambridge

Reply [11]: I'm waiting, I'm a little impatient.

---Saying Goodbye to Cambridge

Reply [12]: Make a note

---13859899020

Reply [13]: Marked

---ll33750

Reply [14]: When will it continue?

---Caleb

Reply [15]: The process was well written, but the ending was a bit disappointing. . . . Hehe, you'll see when you read it---chivelili Reply [16]: Why hasn't it been posted yet? Trying to scam some people?

---Saying Goodbye to Cambridge

Reply [17]: OP, do you have any more?

---lefung

Reply [18]: sdgasdfg

---leoxu

Reply [19]: OP, haven't you finished eating yet? Did you go for a nap again?

Come back soon, it's time to go to work.

---Big Forehead

Reply [20]: Make a note

---Nini Pig

Reply [21]: Make a note of this first

---Western Piglets

Reply [22]: Support

---leeyoungq

Reply [23]: Sorry, I overslept at noon and was woken up by the manager. Oh no...

---hqszs

Reply [24]: 2. If there's nothing else, I think I'll stop bothering you.

Before letting Mrs. Ge in, Jian Xiang thought for a long time before deciding to take the rat carcass back to the station and have the forensic team examine whether the liquid on the fur was really blood before considering further action, rather than continuing to stay at the Ge residence to conduct an investigation with an uncertain purpose.

To his surprise, Mrs. Goh was unwilling to let him leave. "Officer, please, that rat is really suspicious! I've lived here for so long and I've never seen such a big rat. There must be a carcass in the living room. You have to help me find it!"

Jian Xiang was stunned. "If there really is a body, why do you think it's in the living room?"

"Because...because I remember very clearly that last night before I went to sleep, I carefully closed the bathroom and kitchen doors, and locked my own bedroom door tightly. Under these circumstances, there couldn't possibly be an extra mouse in the living room! Before reporting it to the police, I searched the corners and the ceiling, but I didn't find any mouse holes! So, the mouse must have been hiding in the living room last night, I just didn't know it. Look at that mouse, the slime on its body must have been recently applied, so someone must have secretly broken into my house, killed someone in my living room, and then hid the body there, finally luring the mouse to eat the corpse!"

"This..." Jian Xiang was speechless for a moment.

Mrs. Goh continued, "I don't know when it started, but I've always felt that someone can freely come and go from my room."

The gas was turned off tightly the night before, but it was leaking the next morning; the lights were off the night before, but they were on the next day! The faucets, the fan switches, even the bedroom door had been opened! No matter how carefully I checked, it was no use! Like this morning, there were water stains on the kitchen counter, even though I'm sure I wiped them clean with a cloth before bed… "Mrs. Ge, please calm down," Jian Xiang said, trying to stop her from getting agitated. "The living room is simply furnished, with not much furniture, it's unlikely there's any body hidden there…" "It must be that stranger who broke into my house, took the body, and left me with a greedy big rat!" she cried out.

Jian Xiang couldn't persuade her otherwise, so he asked Mrs. Ge to sit down and promised that he would find a way.

"I'll go downstairs and ask the building manager to lend me the CCTV footage from last night to check if there really was an intruder."

So, Jian persuaded Mrs. Ge to leave Room 301 and walked back to the building's entrance hall at the bottom of the narrow staircase. After showing his police badge, the previously sleepy-eyed building manager suddenly perked up and very cooperatively provided a VCR and television screen to play the content recorded by the surveillance cameras the previous night.

I quickly rotated the remote control, looking around for a while, but found nothing unusual in the surveillance cameras set up on each floor and in the main corridors. Everyone coming and going was a resident known to the manager, and more importantly, no one else had opened room 301 in the third-floor corridor all night.

In other words, unless someone entered through a third-floor window, the claim that "someone brought the body into Room 301 and then took it away" is absolutely untenable.

So, how did the rats appear? After Jian went upstairs to Room 301, accompanied by Mrs. Ge, he conducted another thorough search of the living room walls and ceiling, and checked each door and all the furniture, but he couldn't find a trace of blood, let alone a corpse.

That's incredible.

Jian Xiang tried to think calmly; there must be something he had overlooked. With no other solutions in sight, he suggested to Mrs. Ge that they also check the other rooms.

However, the entire Room 301 was like a huge, sealed reinforced concrete box. Last night before going to bed, Mrs. Ge closed all the entrances and exits to the outside of the residence, including the bedroom window and the French windows of the balcony.

While searching for possible hiding places for the giant rat, Jian learned that Mrs. Ge's mental state was constantly tense due to her work in the hospital emergency room and morgue when she was young. Even after she quit her job, got married, and had children, she continued to suffer from insomnia. She only gradually became able to fall asleep after her children grew up. However, this situation did not last long. Her husband's death and her son's independence caused her to suffer from anxiety again.

Nevertheless, after personally conducting the search, Jian Xiang became increasingly certain that Mrs. Ge's words were true.

What exactly happened? Where else in Room 301 could a rat possibly get in and out? He suddenly remembered that when he was in police academy, he had read many detective novels. His criminal investigation professors often required students to read excellent detective works from Europe, America, or Japan to cultivate their abilities in searching for clues and logical reasoning. Thus, famous detectives who solved many mysterious and bizarre cases, such as C. Auguste DuPont, Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, Ellery Queen, and Hercule Poirot, became his idols during his student days.

Sherlock Holmes once said, "When all impossibilities have been eliminated, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."

So, in this incident, where exactly does the extremely unlikely truth lie? Considering all the facts he saw, can we arrive at an unimaginable yet plausible answer? First, according to the administrator, no one else broke into room 301 last night.

Second, there were no holes in the living room that the giant rats could enter.

Third, Mrs. Goh claimed that someone had been breaking into her home for a long time.

It is obvious that the first and third points are contradictory, but Mrs. Goe's frightened expression makes it impossible to conclude that she is lying.

As for the second point, the results of the on-site investigation are also incompatible with the rat carcasses in the garbage bag.

In other words… in other words… as if struck by lightning, a sudden flash of inspiration struck Jian Xiang, and he finally discovered the full answer to the mystery: 'Mrs. Ge.' Jian Xiang could clearly hear his own heartbeat. 'Please tell me, in this apartment building, which tenant haven't you encountered recently?'

3. At around 11:20 a.m. on the same day, a police car braked at the intersection of Jianguo Road and Nantai Road. At that time, the scorching sun seemed eager to escape spring, continuing to burn Kaohsiung City, which was almost on the edge of the tropics.

The car door opened, and three police officers got out.

Sitting in the back seat was Gao Qinfu, the head of the criminal investigation team at the Sanmin Precinct; getting out of the driver's seat was Zheng Shaode, Jianxiang's junior. As for the third person—it was Fang Liwei, a police officer who was catching up on sleep.

"Why would Jianxiang wake you up like this?" Shaode said. "It seems the 'Big Rat Murder Case' isn't so simple."

"Stop joking, isn't Jian Xiang the 'murderer' in the big rat case...?" Li Wei yawned casually.

Team Leader Gao said, "Xiao Wu's intuition is always very accurate. I think there must be a reason why he brought in the entire criminal investigation team."

---Empty City

Reply [25]: "If there's nothing else, I think I'll stop bothering you."

Before letting Mrs. Ge in, Jian Xiang thought for a long time before deciding to take the rat carcass back to the station and have the forensic team examine whether the liquid on the fur was really blood before considering further action, rather than continuing to stay at the Ge residence to conduct an investigation with an uncertain purpose.

To his surprise, Mrs. Goh was unwilling to let him leave. "Officer, please, that rat is really suspicious! I've lived here for so long and I've never seen such a big rat. There must be a carcass in the living room. You have to help me find it!"

Jian Xiang was stunned. "If there really is a body, why do you think it's in the living room?"

"Because...because I remember very clearly that last night before I went to sleep, I carefully closed the bathroom and kitchen doors, and I also locked my bedroom door tightly. Under these circumstances, there's no way there could be an extra mouse in the living room! Before reporting the incident, I searched the corners and the ceiling, but I didn't find any mouse holes! So, the mouse must have been hiding in the living room last night, but I just didn't know it. Look at that mouse, the slime on its body must have been recently applied, so someone must have secretly broken into my house, killed someone in my living room, and then hid the body there, finally luring the mouse to eat the corpse!"

"This..." Jian Xiang was speechless for a moment.

Mrs. Goh continued, “I don’t know when it started, but I’ve always felt like someone can freely come and go from my room. The gas was turned off tightly the night before, but I found it leaking the next morning; the lights were off the night before, but they were on the next day! And the faucets, the fan switches, even the door has been opened! No matter how carefully I check, it’s no use! Like this morning, there were water stains on the kitchen counter, but I’m sure I wiped it clean with a cloth before going to bed…” “Mrs. Goh, please calm down,” Jian Xiang said, trying to stop her from getting agitated. “The living room is simply furnished, with not much furniture, it’s unlikely to be able to hide a corpse…” “Then it must be that stranger who broke into my house, took the body away, and left me with a greedy big rat!” she cried out.

Jian Xiang couldn't persuade her otherwise, so he asked Mrs. Ge to sit down and promised that he would find a way.

"I'll go downstairs and ask the building manager to borrow the surveillance footage from last night to check if there really was an intruder."

So, Jian persuaded Mrs. Ge to leave Room 301 and walked back to the building's entrance hall at the bottom of the narrow staircase. After showing his police badge, the previously sleepy-eyed building manager suddenly perked up and very cooperatively provided a video recorder and television screen to play back the content recorded by the surveillance cameras the previous night.

I quickly rotated the remote control, looking around for a while, but found nothing unusual in the surveillance cameras set up on each floor and in the main corridors. Everyone coming and going was a resident known to the manager, and more importantly, no one else had opened room 301 in the third-floor corridor all night.

In other words, unless the body was brought in from a third-floor window, the claim that "someone brought the body into Room 301 and then took it away" is absolutely untenable.

So, how did the rats appear? After Jian went upstairs to Room 301, accompanied by Mrs. Ge, he conducted another thorough search of the living room walls and ceiling, and checked each door and all the furniture, but he couldn't find a trace of blood, let alone a corpse.

That's incredible.

Jian Xiang tried to think calmly; there must be something he had overlooked. With no other solutions in sight, he suggested to Mrs. Ge that they also check the other rooms.

However, the entire Room 301 was like a huge, sealed reinforced concrete box. Last night before going to bed, Mrs. Ge closed all the entrances and exits to the outside of the residence, including the bedroom window and the French windows of the balcony.

While searching for possible hiding places for the giant rat, Jian learned that Mrs. Ge's mental state was constantly tense due to her work in the hospital emergency room and morgue when she was young. Even after she quit her job, got married, and had children, she continued to suffer from insomnia. She only gradually became able to fall asleep after her children grew up. However, this situation did not last long. Her husband's death and her son's independence caused her to suffer from anxiety again.

Nevertheless, after personally conducting the search, Jian Xiang became increasingly certain that Mrs. Ge's words were true.

What exactly happened? In Room 301, where else could rats get in and out?

He suddenly remembered that he had read many detective novels when he was in police academy. His professors, who taught criminal investigation, often required students to read excellent detective works from Europe, America, or Japan to cultivate their abilities in investigating clues and logical reasoning. Thus, famous detectives who solved many mysterious and bizarre cases, such as C. Auguste DuPont, Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown, Ellery Queen, and Hercule Poirot, became his idols during his student days.

---hqszs