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墨書 Inktalez
Zhao Mingkun looked at the phone again and said, "There’s a line of text here."
I leaned in and indeed saw a few blood-stained Chinese characters slowly appearing beside the female head: "I have returned."
"Someone set up a program on the phone?" Zhao Mingkun said. "With how smart phones are getting these days, it shouldn't be too difficult to do that."
Her words suddenly reminded me, and I replied, "Although this phone has a large screen, it’s not a smartphone. Even if it were a smartphone, it would be outdated by now."
Upon hearing my words, Zhao Mingkun handed the phone to me and said, "I’m not very knowledgeable about this."
I asked, "What kind of phone do you use?"
Zhao Mingkun took out a Nokia phone. When she pulled it out, I felt as if I had been transported back to the early 2000s when Nokia dominated the mobile market. It was clear that this phone was quite old; the numbers on the keypad were worn away, and I couldn't tell how many years it had been in use.
Noticing my surprise, Zhao Mingkun explained, "I can't use a phone that can access the internet. I've heard that various apps can activate GPS tracking in the background, which is too dangerous. Besides, this phone holds some significance for me; however, that's another story."
"What about it?" Zhao Mingkun then asked me, "What’s your take on this?"
I began to explain, "Your earlier comment reminded me that since the advent of touchscreen phones, all mobile screens have been resistive. To put it simply, resistive screens require pressure. As phones evolved, multi-touch became a major demand for users, leading to the introduction of more expensive capacitive screens. Capacitive screens rely on electrical current."
Sensing Zhao Mingkun's confusion, I continued to clarify, "If it's a capacitive screen, when a person's finger touches the screen, it forms a coupling capacitor with the screen since the human body has its own magnetic field and electrical current. However, if someone wears insulating gloves, they won't be able to operate it at all."
"How do you know all this?" Zhao Mingkun asked, seemingly skeptical that someone who didn't even know what factorials were could possess such knowledge.
I pointed to my head and said, "Memory and observation; I once read about it in a book."
"What does this imply?" Zhao Mingkun looked at me.
I replied, "It implies that this phone does not belong to Hu Pei. Looking at the furnishings in the house—the network television, the tablet casually placed on the tea table, and the fitness tracker—along with the robotic vacuum cleaner by the wall—all indicate that Hu Pei is quite knowledgeable about electronic products. Moreover, someone who can afford to buy a 120-square-meter apartment here and even purchase a robotic vacuum certainly wouldn't lack the funds to buy a capacitive smartphone."
I casually flipped through the contacts on my phone, only to find that there wasn't a single person listed. However, this was indeed not a smartphone, and installing a frightening program on a non-smartphone seemed quite challenging.
"If this phone doesn't belong to Hu Pei, then the only possibility left is that Hu Pei's own phone was taken by the Murderer," Zhao Mingkun continued from where I left off. "But judging by the screen protector, it looks like Hu Pei's style. So, there's only one possibility: this phone wasn't meant for Hu Pei to see, but for someone who would see the corpse. Clearly, the Murderer never expected us to see the phone first."
With that thought in mind, I locked the screen and then opened it again. Sure enough, that piercing scream echoed out once more.
"I can confirm that this phone definitely does not belong to Hu Pei. To design such a program, especially on a non-smartphone, one would have to tamper with the system software. And judging by the wear on this phone's screen, it's been around for quite some time. Even if it doesn't match your Nokia's age, it must be at least four or five years old."
"Moreover," I shook the phone lightly and continued, "there isn't a single contact in here, but we haven't found a second phone. As you said, Hu Pei's phone was taken by the Murderer."
"Then, did Hu Pei's phone contain something that the Murderer cared about?" Zhao Mingkun asked.
"On the screen were four words—'I have returned.' And more will die."
"Exactly," Zhao Mingkun replied. "We need to find her."
I frowned. "Find who?"
Zhao Mingkun turned and pointed; from the kitchen, one could just see into a bedroom where a family portrait hung above the bed—a family of three, with a daughter who looked about seven or eight years old.
Suddenly, I recalled something strange: when we discovered the body, the deceased had already been dead for six hours.
Yet during those six hours, the door had been ajar, and the corpse lay on the floor—this indicated that no one had come through during that time. That was rather abnormal. The current time was around noon, meaning the deceased must have died before six in the morning. It seemed odd that neither the wife nor child was home at that hour.
So where had the wife and child gone?
Zhao Mingkun wiped the phone screen with a cloth he carried and stepped out of the room to place the phone back into the deceased's pocket before turning to me and saying, "I think what we need to do now is find his wife and son."
I replied, "If we can find them, perhaps we'll understand what Hu Pei was truly afraid of."
"Just." I looked at the corpse and asked, "Where should we go to find them?"
Zhao Mingkun pointed to his head and raised an eyebrow at me. "I just saw his ID, and the address here doesn't match. But that address is also in Dongxing City. Hu Pei's daughter should still be in school; she wouldn't hide in the countryside. So, they are likely there. Hu Pei must have sent them."
I snapped my fingers. "Exactly!"
Zhao Mingkun glanced around the house again, seemingly confirming that no traces were left behind, then said, "We've wasted enough time here. If your police colleague has any sense, the police are probably on their way now. We can't stay here any longer; let's go."
I nodded.
Once again, I hopped onto the motorcycle, and Zhao Mingkun took me to the address on Hu Pei's ID.
"Does this have anything to do with Wu Zui?" I asked, holding onto Zhao Mingkun, feeling puzzled.
Zhao Mingkun sighed. "Now that you ask me, I'm not too sure either. But from that image, it seems there’s some old grudge involved."
I agreed with Zhao Mingkun's perspective. "Yeah, the resolution of that image isn't high. It's clear it was taken many years ago. But so much time has passed; I still don't know who that woman in the photo is. If I were still the captain of the Special Operations Group, I could have had Mary look into it. Now, we can only rely on ourselves."
Thinking about this, I turned to Zhao Mingkun and asked, "So what are we going to do about this?"
Zhao Mingkun was silent for a moment before he spoke. "Don't you already have an answer in your heart? Hu Pei is dead; you still need to find the original blueprints related to Hu Pei, right? I think such a large place must have been built by a construction team; it couldn't have been done by one person."
I replied, "That's right; the villagers later didn't see any workers. There must be another exit in the underground space. Let's investigate; we've come this far anyway."
"Investigate and quickly prove your innocence," Zhao Mingkun said quietly.
This place was on the outskirts of Dongxing City. It seemed that after Hu Pei made a fortune as a designer, he bought an apartment in downtown Dongxing City. By the time we arrived here, it was already two o'clock in the afternoon. Since last night until now, I had only drunk half a bowl of porridge, and my stomach was growling with hunger.
Zhao Mingkun put on a mask and went into a store to buy two loaves of bread and two bottles of mineral water. "Eat up; what we can think of, the police might also consider. After eating, let's hurry and ask around. Luckily you still have an expired police badge; otherwise, we'd be in more trouble."
I spoke up, "The police investigation has a long process, and I know it better than you. Their pace shouldn't be as fast as ours."
Zhao Mingkun let out a cold laugh and said, "One of the most important points in fleeing is to never think of yourself as the smartest."
As he spoke, Zhao Mingkun had already finished a piece of bread and said, "Let's go."
We arrived in this area, though it couldn't really be called an area since even the doorman didn't know where it was or if there was any property management here. Just as we reached the bottom of the building and were about to head upstairs, suddenly, a disheveled woman ran out from inside.
The woman charged straight at us, shouting, "Red, red! Black, black! Haha, red! Black! Ghost! It's a ghost! The ghost is coming, the ghost is coming, haha!"
The sudden appearance of the woman startled me. She tightly grabbed Zhao Mingkun's wrist and cried out, "Eyes, no eyes! She's standing there! She's dead! There's a ghost! There's a ghost!"
Seeing that Zhao Mingkun remained unmoved, the woman continued to scream as she ran off into the distance.
Zhao Mingkun frowned and turned to look at the woman's retreating figure.
"Come on," I said. "What are you standing there for?"
Zhao Mingkun continued to gaze at the woman's back for a moment before finally following me upstairs.
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