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Xing Yafang slammed her hands on the table and shouted loudly. By the time we regained our composure, she had already walked out of the room. The heavy sound of the door slamming echoed behind her as she disappeared. The rest of us finally fell silent; you looked at me, and I looked at you, but the argument had ceased.
Wang Yikai glanced at everyone before turning to me and said, "Officer, seven years ago, Lu Zhiqiu was brutally murdered at the construction site. It’s impossible for us not to know about a living person dying there; that would be a lie. Just because we were present at the scene doesn’t make us murderers. You must have our contact information, right?"
The old lady had indeed provided us with their contact details and current addresses.
I nodded in acknowledgment.
Wang Yikai raised his voice to address everyone, "I was the class monitor back then, as you all know. You all live and work in Dongxing City; if you have any issues, feel free to reach out to us anytime. But honestly, I don’t want to stay here any longer."
"I need to leave first," Wang Yikai said to me. "Many things are in the past; why bring them up again? We’ve all moved on with our lives. Let’s wrap this up as soon as possible!"
With that, he walked out the door.
The others followed suit, each offering a brief farewell before quietly leaving. Only Luo Ding remained curled up in a corner of the room, unwilling to leave. It was clear that everyone else wanted to get away from this place, but Luo Ding was reluctant to go. His fear of returning home suggested something truly unsettling awaited him there.
What should have been a pleasant reunion had turned into this. At the start, everyone had come with fond memories of their youth, but now they were leaving with shadows cast by a murder case from seven years ago. If they had known it would end up like this, I doubt any of these thirteen people would have attended the gathering.
Zhao Mingkun and I exchanged glances. He looked at the curled-up figure of Luo Ding and asked, "What about him?"
I paused for a moment before replying to Zhao Mingkun, "Where are we staying tonight? I think Luo Ding's place could be a good option. He might still have some useful information for us. What do you think?"
Zhao Mingkun nodded in agreement.
I approached Luo Ding slowly and said gently, "Luo Ding, since there’s something unclean at your home, how about we go check it out tonight?"
"Yes, there are ghosts. No, it’s not just my home," Luo Ding replied in a panic. "Ghosts are everywhere; no matter where we go, Lu Zhiqiu's spirit follows us. Anyone who has seen Lu Zhiqiu's body will be brutally killed. Not just me but my classmates too—everyone is already haunted by that ghost. We... we’re all going to die."
As he spoke, Luo Ding trembled violently.
I frowned, realizing that we could analyze some issues from Luo Ding's words. For instance, seven years had passed, so how could Luo Ding be certain that it was Lu Zhiqiu's ghost during the supernatural event, rather than some other wandering spirit?
After seven years, if it were someone else, they might have forgotten who Lu Zhiqiu was. Yet Luo Ding had never forgotten. There must be something more that Luo Ding wasn't revealing.
Thinking of this, I asked, "Luo Ding, did you see something seven years ago? Why are you so sure that the ghost is Lu Zhiqiu? Why do you believe that Lu Zhiqiu would kill everyone who saw her body?"
Luo Ding hugged his knees and buried his head in his lap. He glanced sideways at me and Zhao Mingkun and said, "I just know. I just know."
"Did you meet Lu Zhiqiu seven years ago?" I pressed on. "Did you kill her? Otherwise, why would you be so afraid of Lu Zhiqiu? If it wasn't you, why would she come back to kill you?"
"Because..."
Luo Ding had just uttered two words when a louder shout drowned him out. The sound came from outside the door, a mix of male and female screams. The three of us turned to look at the door just as it was suddenly pushed open. Several women rushed in, screaming.
The expressions on their faces were filled with panic; they clearly didn't know what had happened outside.
"What happened?"
I quickly grabbed one of the women to ask.
Zhang Xue appeared particularly flustered. After several questions, she finally said, "Outside, in the elevator... there’s been a death in the elevator! Xing Yafang... Xing Yafang is dead! She died inside the elevator!"
Zhao Mingkun and I exchanged glances and hurried outside. We saw several people gathered at the entrance of an elevator, staring inside.
"What happened to her?"
"Call a doctor! Call a doctor!"
In an instant, chaos erupted. Zhao Mingkun and I pushed through the crowd to see what had happened. At the elevator door, a woman lay sprawled on the ground. Her upper body was outside the elevator, while her lower half remained inside. The body was blocking the elevator doors, preventing them from closing.
A pool of blood had formed near her head.
From the clothes she wore, it was clear that this woman was none other than Xing Yafang.
Zhao Mingkun had already put on gloves and turned Xing Yafang over. As she was flipped, gasps of shock filled the air. We saw that her eye sockets were empty; there were no eyeballs left. Zhao Mingkun quickly placed his hand on her neck, checking for any signs of life.
"Get her to the hospital, quickly!" Wang Yikai shouted, reacting first.
But Zhao Mingkun shook his head and said, "It's too late. She's gone."
The surrounding noise gradually subsided as everyone stared at Zhao Mingkun kneeling on the ground, holding the lifeless body devoid of eyes. No one could have imagined that such a tragedy would occur just moments after Xing Yafang had left. I could hardly believe that the murderer had been so brazen as to kill in front of us all.
Xing Yafang was the first to leave, while the rest of us had followed her out after a short interval. If the murderer was one of the remaining twelve people, it seemed impossible.
I stood up and stepped into the elevator.
Facing the elevator wall, I couldn't discern anything unusual. But when I turned around, I noticed bloody handprints on the inner side of the elevator door. They appeared and disappeared as the doors continued to close. The buttons on one side of the elevator were also smeared with blood.
I closed my eyes and let my mind wander, conjuring a vivid image.
At that moment, there must have been two people in the elevator: Xing Yafang and the murderer. When Xing Yafang entered, she likely felt no suspicion towards this person. The murderer stood behind her, waiting for the right moment to strike. The instant the elevator doors closed, Xing Yafang's fate was sealed.
After a brief moment of movement, the murderer seized control from behind and plunged a dagger into both of Xing Yafang's eye sockets. Caught off guard, she had no chance to defend herself; in an instant, her eyes were gouged out. Blood streamed from her hands as she clutched her bleeding face.
Blinded by pain and fear, she frantically pressed the elevator buttons in a desperate attempt to open the doors while pounding on them with her other hand. In that fleeting moment, her blood left marks on both the doors and buttons.
The Murderer pulled Xing Yafang from behind. At the moment the elevator doors opened, the Murderer stepped out, leaving Xing Yafang trapped inside.
Then, the elevator ascended to the top floor, where Xing Yafang had already lost consciousness. As the elevator doors opened, she fell forward onto the ground. Thus, half of her body remained inside the elevator while the other half was outside. This explained why her body lay sprawled on the floor.
I opened my eyes. This scene was almost exactly what I had envisioned the moment I entered the elevator. However, upon closer reflection, it was clear that this was not a very feasible plan. The Royal Garden Hotel had a considerable number of guests; although we had booked the top floor, there could still be people on the lower levels.
If the Murderer encountered someone waiting for the elevator as they left, they would be caught on the spot. If that were the case, then the Murderer's audacity was astonishing. Moreover, there was a significant flaw in this approach: the Murderer had no way of knowing who would exit first or that Xing Yafang would come out alone.
If a man were to come out first, he might have been capable of resisting.
Furthermore, and most importantly, there were security cameras in the elevator; it was unlikely that the Murderer would choose such a method. But if this wasn’t how the Murderer killed, then how did they do it?
At that moment, everyone had already moved the body out of the elevator.
I stood at the entrance of the elevator, preventing it from functioning normally. Just then, Zhao Mingkun lifted the hand of the female corpse. I looked over and saw that her hand was tightly clenched; through her fingers, I could see a flat object within her grasp. Zhao Mingkun exerted some effort before finally prying her fingers open.
What we saw was a crushed eyeball resting in her palm. No, it shouldn’t even be called an eyeball anymore; it had become flattened, with its pupil and lens liquefied and stuck to her hand. This indicated that Xing Yafang had been alive when her eyeball was crushed.
A person who hoped to have their eyeball returned to their socket would never crush it themselves. Just like Hu Xiaoxue, that seven or eight-year-old child, who understood well enough to protect their own eyes.
As I pondered this, another elevator door suddenly opened.
Several security guards stepped out and one of them said, "We've arrived at our destination; the elevator has stopped. It seems... something has happened..."
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