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Kapitel 31

Yang Zheng knew something was wrong; he sensed the power surging through his body.

He thought of something else in the quiet, warm seawater that he couldn't see but could feel.

He knew what that thing was, but when he was facing Yang Mei just now, he could tell her that he had killed his ex-girlfriend, but he couldn't tell her this secret.

He would never tell anyone this secret, not even until his death.

He wasn't alone in that warm sea. In countless dreams afterward, he dreamt of the sudden darkness engulfing him. He even told Yang Mei that he could hear the thing tearing at his body and sucking his blood. But in reality, it wasn't him who should be afraid, but the thing itself.

He caught it in the seawater, tore at its body, sucked its blood, and watched it slowly melt away.

This was the scene that appeared most often in his dreams later on.

When he woke up, he remembered what his mother had told him when he was very young: "You once had a younger brother, but he could never come into this world."

The mother's words revealed such deep resentment—because you killed him, you killed your brother in the womb before you were born!

At first, he felt wronged. Later, as he grew older, he indirectly learned from others that he really did have a twin brother who, at birth, had become a "sheet of parchment." This condition often occurs in monozygotic twins and is medically known as "paper fetus." The cause is that the blood circulation of the two fetuses is interconnected through the placenta, which can lead to twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. This manifests as one fetus receiving a large amount of blood from the other. On the one hand, this causes excessive strain on the recipient fetus's heart, excessive urine output, and polyhydramnios; on the other hand, the donor fetus, due to poor blood supply, suffers from maldevelopment or death. After death, it can be compressed into a thin sheet by the other fetus.

Therefore, Yang Zheng has no idea whether the entity lurking within him is his deceased brother or his true self. But regardless, he must prevent the other self from breaking free.

Just then, he suddenly heard a sound, looked up, and saw the image reappear on the television in the corner.

Immediately, his eyes widened, and his whole body began to tremble uncontrollably.

In the scene, Yang Mei is backing away, trying to avoid the man who is approaching her step by step. Although only the back of the man is visible, Yang Zheng is not unfamiliar with him.

The man was the household registration police officer from the back alley.

Now, he has finally found the bayberries.

Chapter 20

The noisy scene had quieted down, but a strong stench of blood still lingered in the room. How much blood is in a person's body? Approximately 6% to 8% of body weight. Qin Ge suspected that all of Xu Wen's blood had been spread across the bedroom floor—or rather, it had gradually congealed. Anyone standing in such a room would feel uneasy.

But Ma Nan seemed to have forgotten about the blood; he had been standing in the bedroom for almost an hour.

"Do you like reading mystery novels?" This was what Ma Nan said to him before entering the room.

“Unless a policeman never reads, he’s bound to enjoy mystery novels,” Qin Ge said. In fact, he is a mystery novel enthusiast, but his work has left him with less and less time to read.

“Then you must know a lot about locked-room murders,” Ma Nan said.

"Murder in a locked room is an impossible crime. It is physics-wise impossible for a criminal to kill someone in a closed room and then escape. But in reality, the so-called locked room is just a smokescreen used by criminals. It is usually cleverly set up to create an illusion."

"That's right, there is no such thing as a real locked-room murder in this world. The locked room is just a trick."

“But a criminal who can come up with such a trick and not be exposed must be no ordinary person. In our jargon, he must be a high-IQ criminal,” Qin Ge said. “I have been a police officer for many years and have handled many cases. I have also encountered a few high-IQ criminals, but this is the first time I have ever seen a locked room.

"That's because locked-room murders are highly improbable in reality. All locked-room murders require many basic conditions: either the victim wasn't murdered, the murderer didn't actually escape from the locked room, or a witness's lie can create the illusion of a locked room. In detective novels, the most common devices are special mechanisms. These mechanisms generally serve three purposes: killing the victim from the outside, providing a secret passage for the murderer to escape, or locking the door from the outside."

Qin Ge nodded. He had seen some so-called locked-room mystery guides online, some complex, some simple, but they all boiled down to a few types—the essence remained the same despite the variations. Reading mystery novels was essentially an intellectual contest with the author; no one seemed to care much about its feasibility in reality.

Qin Ge recently read a Japanese mystery novel about a tall building that was slightly tilted during construction. Later, a group of people moved in and stayed in different rooms. They discovered that some rooms had small air vents in different locations. Later, someone died in a sealed room. The truth was that the air vents in the different rooms could form a diagonal line from top to bottom. The criminal could throw a dagger from one place on the roof, and the dagger would slide down the pre-drilled channel, passing through the different air vents and landing in the victim's room, specifically near the bed. If someone was lying in bed sleeping, the dagger would be impaled on their heart.

Of course, the author planted many foreshadowing elements to ensure the dagger could slide to its predetermined location, and also explained the dagger's sliding path in several places. Such a concept is undeniably ingenious and highly entertaining to read. However, in reality, who would build a building specifically to kill someone? This is the difference between fiction and reality; the impracticality in reality does not diminish the immense appeal of mystery novels.

Now, Qin Ge and Ma Nan are tasked with solving a real, locked-room murder that is happening right before their eyes.

A thorough inspection of the room confirmed that it was indeed an empty space before the officers kicked down the door—just an ordinary room with a door and a window. The door was locked from the inside, a fact confirmed by all the officers. The window was also a standard PVC window, with intact glass and all the latches securely fastened.

Besides the doors and windows, there was an air conditioner hole in one corner of the bedroom, but after the air conditioner pipes ran through it, there was hardly any space left, and it was sealed with cement.

Therefore, this is a 100% secret room.

Let's take a look inside the room. Besides the bed, there's only a wardrobe; nothing unusual is there. The decor is simple, with laminate flooring and a custom-made wooden door from a furniture store. Because the living room has tiled flooring, there's a brass strip pressing down where the bedroom and living room floors meet.

With the door closed, except for a small gap on the lock that the patrolman had kicked, not a single ray of light could get in.

Xu Wen died in this room, and the detective left a clue in the room.

Although Qin Ge felt it wouldn't be easy to encounter a locked-room murder, with Ma Nan around, he was too lazy to think too hard. So, later, when Ma Nan was alone in the murder room, he lay down on the sofa in the living room to rest for a while.

He glanced at his watch; it was already past 4 a.m. When he groggily turned over and opened his eyes, he looked at his watch again and found that an hour had already passed.

Looking up, I saw Ma Nan's back, squatting by the bedroom door.

Qin Ge got up, walked over, and stood behind Ma Nan. She saw that the copper strip at the joint between the living room and bedroom floors had been pried off. The copper strip was about two fingers wide, with half of it made of wood flooring and the other half of it made of tiles. On the wood flooring, there was a black dot the size of a broad bean. At first glance, it looked like a blob of ink, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a pattern rather than a blob of ink.

■

Ma Nan stared blankly at the pattern, so engrossed that he didn't even notice Qin Ge standing behind him.

Qin Ge rubbed his eyes, perking up. Without asking, he knew that Ma Nan had solved the mystery of the locked room and found the clues left by the executioner.

"Hey, stop thinking about it. Tell me, how did you find this place?" He patted Ma Nan on the shoulder.

Ma Nan turned around, looking tired: "Which part would you like to hear first?"

"Let's go through the escape room in order."

Ma Nan stood up and gestured for Qin Ge to wait a moment. He went to the bathroom to wash his face and came back feeling more refreshed. Then he slowly told Qin Ge how he discovered the secret under the copper bar.

“All locked-room mysteries, when the answer is revealed, turn out to be very simple. If the locked-room tricks deliberately set up in those detective novels are like that, let alone locked-room murders that happen in real life,” Ma Nan said slowly. “Just now, I was in the room, closed the door, and found that this room was really too ordinary, just like the houses most of us live in. If you were to set it up as a locked room, it would not be an easy thing to do.”

“I checked the window first. There was nothing outside that I could climb onto. The window was tightly closed and the inside was locked, so I ruled it out first,” Ma Nan said.

“Then all that’s left is the door,” Qin Ge added.

Ma Nan nodded: "If the door is the only exit, then the key to this secret room is how to lock the door from the outside. Let's take a look at the lock on the door. The locks on ordinary houses can be locked from the outside with a key, but this kind of through lock can't, because it doesn't have a key. To lock it, you have to turn the knob from the inside. The key is, if the door is closed, how can someone outside turn the knob?"