Der umwerfende Premierminister

Kapitel 10

"Oh, that's what I was just about to say. This guy is from Guizhou, unemployed, and was sentenced to three years in prison for fraud on October 12, 2006. He's currently serving his sentence at the Fourth Prison in Shandong Province."

"Thank you so much!" Li Hong said gratefully as she wrote down her thanks.

"Teacher Li, what are you investigating? What's going on with these people?" Xiao Jia on the other end of the phone seemed to have a lot of questions.

“These people are guests who stayed in the same hotel room at different times. I’ll tell you in detail when I get back to Beijing,” Li Hong replied simply.

"Oh, I see. Have you contacted the local police?"

"There's no need for that right now. Thank you, Xiao Jia!"

"Don't mention it. Tell me more about it when you get back. I'm very interested."

"Hehe, okay. Goodbye."

"goodbye."

After hanging up the phone, Li Hong felt somewhat disappointed. Although she had found the other victim in room 104, it didn't help much in tracking down the witch. That damned woman! She didn't leave any useful information. Was there really no way to find her? She had initially thought the register was an important clue, but now it seemed to have little practical value. She put down the phone and sat there sulking.

Li Hong's mind was in turmoil. She felt her initial plans had been completely disrupted, and finding the witch had become the biggest problem. Although she still had the portrait as a clue, there were too many uncertainties in the investigation. For example, if her interpretation of the dream was wrong, and the gruesome woman she saw in the dream wasn't the witch at all, then the portrait would lose its primary purpose (at most, it could only lead to another unrelated deceased person); secondly, if no one in the hotel could recognize the person in the portrait, or if they recognized her but kept quiet, then this clue would also be lost; finally, if she used an unfamiliar drawing method and the portrait was inaccurate (after all, the deceased she saw in the dream had a broken jaw), then it was very likely that no one would be able to recognize the deceased. Therefore, the portrait clue was not as powerful as the register.

"Oh my god! I'm going crazy!" Li Hong clutched her head—although she could call to inquire about the other victim in room 104, she had no interest in it because it wasn't a direct lead. It made her feel utterly hopeless.

*****************************

Li Hong reluctantly dialed Liu Huiquan's family number, her mind preoccupied with finding that damned witch. However, this other victim was equally significant and might indirectly provide some useful clues, so she had to put down "Wang Ya" and pick up the phone. Her phone was about to die, plugged into the charger, so Li Hong had to stand next to the socket to make the call.

The deceased's wife, Zhao Lingling, answered the phone. She was very wary of this call from an unknown number, and only after Li Hong explained the reason and gave her a long talk did her doubts gradually dissipate. She then described to Li Hong the general situation on the day of the accident.

Mr. and Mrs. Liu were not visiting the city as tourists, and December is not the peak tourist season. They came here to collect debts. They originally planned to stay for three days and then do some sightseeing on the last day, but an unexpected incident occurred on their very first day of stay.

They arrived at the hotel around 9 PM, and after having barbecued seafood outside around 10 PM, they returned to their room. Zhao Lingling changed clothes in the room, while Liu Huiquan went straight to the bathroom to shower. Because the room was quite cold, Zhao Lingling could hear her husband complaining of the cold from the bathroom. She clearly remembered reminding him that he had a client meeting the next day and should shave. Afterwards, she heard the sound of water running from the bathroom, and then turned on the TV to watch a program.

About ten minutes later, the TV Zhao Lingling was watching suddenly lost signal, so she went outside to call for a hotel staff member to check the TV. However, since the hotel corridor was unlit, she called out a few times without getting a response, and then closed the door out of fear. Only then did she remember that her husband hadn't moved from the bathroom for a while. Just as she was about to knock on the door to remind him not to catch a cold, she suddenly noticed blood seeping from under the bathroom door.

Zhao Lingling's memory of what happened next is unclear. She only remembers frantically opening the bathroom door (which wasn't locked) and finding her husband lying in a pool of blood. With her last shred of reason, she dialed 120 (the emergency number) and screamed wildly in the hallway. Later, before anyone arrived at room 104, she only remembers holding her husband's body and crying, not even bothering to find him any clothing to cover himself, let alone take any first aid measures. However, Liu Huiquan was already dead, and the room was cold, so his body had completely lost its body temperature.

"Do you remember how Mr. Liu committed suicide?" Li Hong asked softly. She was deeply moved by the grief on the other end of the phone, but she had to continue asking for some details.

"He slashed his own throat with a razor..."

"So that's how it is..." Li Hong said, still shaken. Now she roughly figured out what Liu Huiquan had done during those ten minutes in the bathroom. That's right, like Ma Guiping, he was also seduced by the evil spirit of the black cat and ultimately committed suicide.

"I'm so sorry to bother you, and to ask you about this again..." Li Hong said on the phone.

"It's alright, it's all in the past now." Zhao Lingling said, choking back tears, "It's all the old man's bad luck. He suffered most of his life, and just when the factory was starting to do well, he abandoned us..."

"Do you remember what shoes Mr. Liu was wearing when he passed away? What size were they? Also, was his leg injured?" Li Hong remembered this question and had to interrupt him.

“He had polio, his right leg wasn’t very flexible, and he suffered a lot because of the disease,” Zhao Lingling said. “He was wearing round-toed cloth shoes, size 42, on the day he passed away.”

A thought flashed through Li Hong's mind, and she immediately remembered the pair of cloth shoes she had seen that night. That was it—his ghost!

"Why are you asking these questions? Is there some new clue?" The woman on the other end of the phone was breathing rapidly. Clearly, she also had strong doubts about her husband's motive for suicide. The police's call was so strange that she thought they had discovered some new clue.

“Oh, no,” Li Hong said softly. “This phone call is because another person committed suicide a few days ago in the same bathroom where your husband committed suicide…”

38. The witch's name (2)

Before Li Hong could hang up the phone, there was a hurried knock on the door. Zhao Lingling on the other end of the line was still in shock, but Li Hong could only comfort her for a few moments before hanging up.

Zheng Zhihao was standing outside the door. Li Hong opened the door and was startled by his hurried appearance: "What's wrong?"

"I just called you to ask you to go to the kitchen, but the line was always busy," Zheng Zhihao said as he entered the room.

"Go to the kitchen?" Li Hong was taken aback.

“I’ve found the person who wrote the note, and I’ve also found the person who recognized the portrait,” Zheng Zhihao said, blinking.

"Really!?" Li Hong was so happy she almost jumped for joy. So all her worries about the portrait were unnecessary. "You're really amazing. I was just on the phone checking on another victim before 104. But the witch registered with a fake ID."

“There was indeed another victim. But it doesn’t matter much that the witch used a pseudonym,” Zheng Zhihao said with a smile. “Your portrait really came in very handy; a chef downstairs recognized the woman in the portrait at a glance.”

"Isn't he the one who wrote the note?"

“No, the person who wrote the note was a cleaner,” Zheng Zhihao said, sitting on the bed, and took out a cigarette.

"I'll treat you to something, I'll light it for you." Li Hong snatched the lighter.

"Haha, look how happy you are." Zheng Zhihao laughed heartily, took a satisfying drag on his cigarette, and then became serious.

"This is what happened. I first found the cleaning lady who wrote the note. She was on the first floor watching her grandson do his summer homework. I only asked her a few questions before her face turned pale, and she kept waving her hands, telling me not to make a fuss. After she pulled me to a secluded place, she told me that her boss didn't want to publicize the matter. She was old and couldn't bear to see such things. She wrote the note hoping the police could investigate whether it was haunted or not—now all the hotel staff know you're a police officer."

"That saves me the trouble of explaining," Li Hong said casually.

"I hope so. But let's not alert them," Zheng Zhihao said with some worry.

"What do you mean?"

“Think about it, why would the witch have a grudge against this hotel? Did she die in room 104? How did she die? If it’s really like what you saw in your dream, that she was raped and murdered, and her spirit is still lingering in the hotel, then maybe the murderer is still at large, or even in this hotel,” Zheng Zhihao said.

Li Hong's face turned pale; she had never considered this possibility. His reminder made her realize that her identity as a police officer might indeed have put the murderer on guard, and he might already be on the run.

"Then... what do we do now?" Li Hong asked anxiously. "How was I supposed to know that investigating a suicide case would lead to another case from before?"

“Yes, I didn’t know at first either. It wasn’t until the old lady told me that everyone in the hotel knew you were a policeman that I suddenly realized it. If the witch died a natural death, it would be best if there was no murderer, but if there really is a murderer, maybe he won’t let you go either…” Zheng Zhihao said in a low voice.

"Don't scare me." Li Hong's face turned even paler.

"You'd better be careful. We don't need to bother your cop buddies until the very last moment and before we find solid evidence. I'll protect you during this time."

“Okay…” Li Hong lowered her head. She was thinking that if the murderer really attacked her in the middle of the night, she, a single woman, would no match for him, especially since the murderer was in the dark while she was in the light—now, it was all good that both the murderer and the ghost wanted to get rid of her.

Wait a minute! Li Hong suddenly realized, "I'm a little confused. Since the witch is already dead and has become a vengeful ghost, why isn't she seeking revenge on the murderer? Why is she still haunting me?"

“Maybe there’s no killer. Until we find out the truth, these are all just speculations,” Zheng Zhihao said, exhaling a puff of smoke. “Even if there is a killer, there are two possible reasons why it hasn’t taken revenge. One is that you were marked by the black cat, and it’s determined to catch you; the other reason is that the killer is not yet in its control area, and its power has not yet reached the point where it can fly all over the earth.”

"But you said the murderer might be in the hotel."

"That's just a possibility. Besides, the witch only absorbed two spirits, and her energy boost only happened in the last few days. Maybe she hasn't found an opportunity to take revenge yet."

Li Hong felt her heart pounding. Zheng Zhihao's words had indeed shocked her. She had been so focused on finding the witch that she had overlooked the dark figure in her dream digging a hole and burying the body. That figure was very likely the murderer, but its identity was impossible to determine. Was it a hotel employee, or a guest staying in another room at the time?

"Okay, let's not think about that anymore," Zheng Zhihao said after putting out his cigarette. "We've gone off-topic. I've noticed that we always seem to go off-topic when we talk to each other."

"You went off-topic first!" Li Hong said. She responded verbally, but her heart was still uneasy. She began to worry about how she would get through the night. The thought of being alone in such a large room at night sent chills down her spine, especially since the witch had already been in her room. Li Hong wasn't afraid of dead people, nor of bloodshed, but she was afraid of the dead rising from the ground, and she was afraid of the murderer lurking outside the window with an axe…

"Hey, what are you spacing out for?" Zheng Zhihao called out to her.

"No, it's nothing," Li Hong replied evasively. She then thought that if Zheng Zhihao stayed overnight, she would feel much more at ease. But how could she possibly ask him for that? Her face flushed.

“I said, did you hear what I said?” Zheng Zhihao shouted in front of her.

"Huh? No. What did you just say?" Li Hong stared at him.

“I said that the chef knew the woman’s name in the portrait,” Zheng Zhihao sighed and repeated.

"Oh? Really?" Li Hong immediately became interested and smiled ingratiatingly, "Go ahead and tell me, I won't be stunned anymore."

Zheng Zhihao pursed his lips, truly at a loss with her, and continued, "The chef's surname is Liu, everyone calls him Big Liu. He didn't want to tell me at first, but thanks to the old lady who wrote the note, he was persuaded for a long time. Big Liu said that the girl was a guest who stayed in 104 last summer, and she suddenly had a strong craving for hometown food, so she came to him."

"Where is she from?" Li Hong asked quickly.

"She's from Sichuan, a Yao ethnic minority girl, and her real name is Ya Chaolan-Yadang. Da Liu is a rough but meticulous person. Because he really liked this pretty girl, he made sure to remember her name."

"And then?" Li Hong asked while taking notes, thinking to herself that the girl's name was really beautiful.

"Then Da Liu told me that the two of them chatted in the hall for a while that day. Because the content was quite special, he still remembers it now. For example, the girl's surname was Ya, which is a prominent family in the local area that worships ancestors, and only members of the Ya family can become priests. As for the name Ya Dang, it is similar to a name of prohibition in the Yao ethnic group, meaning a woman sitting on a bench. I remember reading some information before that Ya Dang means witch in the Yao and Zhuang ethnic groups. Maybe she was afraid of scaring Da Liu, so she didn't say that she was a witch."

"So that's how it is," Li Hong said thoughtfully.

"Da Liu then briefly told me some of the things Ya Chaolan had told him that day. She said that her hometown was not originally in Sichuan, but in Yunnan. Her father's generation moved to Sichuan, and her mother was from Sichuan. She was chosen to be a priest when she was very young, but the local old priest disagreed, so she ran away alone and made her home wherever she went."

"Has no one looked for her? It's so pitiful that she's so young and has to wander the world all by herself," Li Hong sighed.

“Yes, Da Liu felt sorry for her and advised her to find a job and live a good life. He even suggested that she work as a waitress in the hotel.” Zheng Zhihao laughed as he spoke. “Da Liu is not married yet. He took a liking to her and persuaded her to stay.”

Li Hong didn't laugh.

"However, Ya Chaolan is used to wandering and doesn't like to stay in one place. By the way, Da Liu said he also gave her a saury to feed her cat."

"Ah! So that means she hadn't killed the cat yet. Did Da Liu see that cat? Does he remember the exact time? The exact time of the conversation?"

“He had seen that cat before. It was a pure black foreign cat with very shiny fur and a lively spirit, but it wasn’t friendly to people. He remembered that the conversation had just ended after the May Day holiday, and there were quite a few guests at that time. Later, Ya Chaolan came to stay twice more, but each time she pretended not to know Da Liu, so he didn’t bother to look for her again—that’s about it.” Zheng Zhihao finished speaking and took a big gulp of water.

The room fell silent. Now, both Li Hong and Zheng Zhihao knew very well that this Ya Chaolan-Yadang was the witch they had been searching for, and indeed, just as they had initially suspected—she was the root of the whole incident.

P.S.: All proper names of people and places mentioned in the novel are fictional creations of the author and have no hidden meaning. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

PS2: If you like it, please click "Add to Favorites". I want to see how many readers are interested in this book. It's a small gesture, but it gives me a lot of encouragement. Thank you!

39. Hotel owner (1)

Since learning some of the witch's background, Li Hong felt a mixture of fear and curiosity. She admitted that she had been drawn to this little girl named Ya Chaolan, especially since such a lovely girl had ultimately died, leaving her with a sense of regret. Therefore, the cause of Ya Chaolan's death deeply troubled her. Li Hong also knew that in remote mountainous areas, there were countless girls like Ya Chaolan, born ordinary, living ordinary lives, and dying quietly. But Ya Chaolan, who had left the mountains, was different from them; her short life was filled with struggle, and even in death, her ghost haunted the living.

Now she stood by the window, watching the noisy crowd gathering below. Two double-decker buses were parked not far away, their trunks open—Ma Guiping's colleagues had finished their three-day trip and would be leaving soon. This reminded Li Hong of Li Li; she wondered if Li Li would be leaving with them. She took out her phone and sent Li Li a text message.

Sigh, they're all leaving. This scene reminded Li Hong of the phrase "empty place, deserted place." Perhaps it was envy, but their departure made Li Hong feel very sad, and it made her miss her life in Beijing even more, thinking of her single dormitory room and the cute Kitty cat hanging on the wall. Although it was only for three short days, she now felt a sense of alienation from society, and her previous life seemed like a dream, as if it had never happened.

"Let it end quickly! Let it end quickly!" Li Hong prayed silently in her heart.

************************

The hotel owner had returned and was currently busy settling the bill with Ma Guiping's superiors. Li Hong sat far away in a corner of the lobby, watching him busily working on a large stack of invoices. He was a middle-aged man of medium build, with well-maintained skin and jet-black hair. Although not particularly handsome, he looked much younger than the fishermen who spent their days at sea. Li Hong had met the local fishermen before, and she was astonished by their dark skin and wrinkled faces, finding it hard to believe the intense sunlight could be so powerful.

Zheng Zhihao wasn't beside her; instead, he was outside, smoking incessantly. Li Hong watched him smoke and recalled his words: "I now suspect that Ya Chaolan's death is closely related to the boss, and I even suspect he's the murderer. There are two reasons: first, he hid the registration book, most likely to destroy evidence of Ya Chaolan's stay; second, he blocked the news, warning the staff not to talk about room 104. Why did he go to such lengths to cover up the past of room 104? If he's the murderer, the problem is solved."

Li Hong agreed with his point of view, but was unwilling to draw a conclusion because she felt there were still some doubts that needed to be clarified. First, why did he not destroy the register but only hide it? Second, there was no evidence that Ya Chaolan died here; perhaps she died elsewhere. Third, his physique was very different from the shadowy figure she saw in her dream. The shadowy figure was big and burly, while he appeared refined and gentle.

The conversation with the boss was particularly important, so they arrived early and waited.

*********************

"I'm so sorry to have kept you both waiting!" The boss rubbed his hands together as he walked towards Li Hong. He was in a good mood and his face was glowing because he had just made a big deal.

"It's alright, your business is important," Li Hong said with a smile. "What's your surname?"

"No need for formalities, my surname is Tian, and my name is Tian Weidong." The boss also smiled and said, his eyes constantly scanning Li Hong and Zheng Zhihao, because he had already heard that these two were police officers who had been staying here for three days to investigate the cause of the sudden death of the guest in room 104. "Let's talk in the room, it's not very convenient in the lobby."

Li Hong nodded and followed the boss upstairs. Zheng Zhihao followed behind them at a leisurely pace, without saying a word.

Room 208 on the second floor was the owner's private room. Upon entering, Li Hong noticed that the room's decor differed slightly from the other rooms, appearing very simple. However, the large pile of books on the desk surprised her. She quickly glanced at the titles: "Hotel Management," "Hotel Management Science," "Motivating Your Employees," and so on. These were all books on hotel management, suggesting that the owner, Tian Weidong, had a strong entrepreneurial spirit.

"Please sit wherever you like," the owner said with a smile, then took out paper cups and made tea for the two guests.

“Please don’t be so polite,” Li Hong stopped him. “We just wanted to get some information and wouldn’t dare to bother you any further.”

"Well, you should have some tea too!" The shopkeeper pulled out a tea canister he had been keeping in his drawer; the tea looked to be of very good quality.