Judge of Souls - Chapter 103

Deng Bian stared intently at Jiang Feng, trying to detect any telltale signs from him. However, the other party didn’t even furrow his brow, and his breathing remained as calm as ever, as if he hadn’t heard her words at all.

Deng Bian was about to press further when Jiang Feng said calmly, “You have no evidence.”

Deng Bian: “What?”

Jiang Feng said, “My enrollment records are real.”

Deng Bian was stunned for a moment, then said, “All the faculty and staff from your middle and high schools said they had never seen you. The school never assigned you a dormitory. Your name isn’t on any class rosters either.”

“I paid tuition fees. I have graduation records. My ID number genuinely exists. You don’t need to intimidate me,” Jiang Feng said. “Is it my fault that they don’t remember me?”

Officer Ye almost burst out laughing and nodded knowingly, “Every class has a few people you just can’t remember no matter what. I can’t even remember what my classmates were called or what they looked like now.”

Deng Bian was left speechless.

Jiang Feng asked, “How much time is left until the twenty-four hours are up?”

“I didn’t keep track,” Officer Ye turned around and said, “Let me ask them for you.”

Deng Bian glared fiercely at Officer Ye.

Jiang Feng leaned forward and spread out one hand in an inviting gesture, “Are you going to keep arguing with me, or are you going to listen to my opinion properly?”

“I think you’re a very dangerous person,” Deng Bian said. “I have no intention of cooperating with you.”

Jiang Feng: “So what are you thinking?”

Deng Bian also leaned forward, looking directly into his eyes and said, “I don’t believe in ghosts and gods. If they really existed, ghosts wouldn’t need to go through all this trouble. Those who play tricks have always been humans. As long as you appeared in XX residential area, I’ll definitely be able to dig it up.”

Jiang Feng: “Did you see me appear in the surveillance footage?”

“There are always blind spots in street surveillance. You could get in a car at a blind spot and then take a detour home. In any case, there are many possibilities; we just haven’t investigated them yet.”

“Then come find me after you’ve finished investigating.”

Officer Ye said quietly from the side, “It’s impossible to investigate. The screening costs would be too high. Without evidence to prove your guilt, this kind of behavior is simply a waste of police resources.”

Jiang Feng: “Can you let me see that suspect?”

Deng Bian scoffed, “Can investigation records be disclosed freely?”

Officer Ye fiddled with the tablet on the desk and muttered, “Well, directly bringing someone into the interrogation room isn’t proper procedure either.”

Ordinary people would be intimidated by the interrogation room, but unexpectedly, neither of these two people today showed any fear.

Six people had died in this residential area within two months! To be precise, six people had died in one building. What kind of coincidence could there be in the world? But each case was too independent; the only suspicious clue was Jiang Feng’s emergency call.

It appeared abruptly, with no logical explanation whatsoever.

After another moment of deadlock, Deng Bian stood up helplessly and said, “Release him.”

Officer Ye led Jiang Feng out, and Zhang Yangyang was also released from the other side.

Seeing the two of them, he made a gesture of sealing his mouth and saluted his two revolutionary comrades, “Don’t worry, I didn’t say anything.”

Everyone collectively turned to look.

Officer Ye: “……”

What could your brain capacity possibly have to say!

Officer Ye pulled out a small paper figure and gave it to Jiang Feng, asking, “Do you know how to use this? Chu Xuanliang gave it to me.”

Jiang Feng took it. “I’ll head out first.”

Deng Bian shook out her suit jacket and snorted disdainfully.

She turned to go see the suspect who had killed his wife.

“Still the same?”

“Same as before. No matter how we question him, his story remains consistent, and the details match up. It seems to be true.”

Officer Ye followed in as well.

****

The neighbor looked just like countless middle-aged men: slightly pot-bellied, balding, round-faced, with dark-toned skin. The short-sleeved shirt he wore was still stained with blood, the hem somewhat dirty, and the color had begun to turn black.

He slammed the table repeatedly as he pleaded his case. “My wife was really acting strange! She definitely had an affair with Liu Shan, and they wanted to kill me for money, but I saw through it!”

“Why do you say that?”

“I saw it! I saw it with my own eyes! They wanted to kill me; I could feel their malice! I was going crazy! Even if they hadn’t made the first move this time, I would have!”

He pointed at the ceiling and said:

“Liu Shan, Liu Shan has been living upstairs from me. He has a grudge against me. This person is particularly twisted. Once, because of a parking issue, I angered him. Actually, it wasn’t really anger—we just had a few words, and later neighbors came to break up the fight, so we dispersed. This matter should have ended there, right? But this pervert throws garbage at my door every day! Sometimes it’s rotting vegetables, sometimes dead mice, sometimes toilet paper from their bathroom! He also spits at my doorway and deliberately comes to knock on my door in the middle of the night, playing ghost tricks! Damn it!”

Someone asked, “Are you sure it was him?”

“I’m certain! Every time I heard a commotion and went out, it was him I saw! He would also stand at the stairway entrance and smile at me in this particularly twisted way—the kind of smile that makes your whole body crawl. He even hypocritically brought moon cakes to my family once, but when I broke them open, they were all moldy inside! I think he’s just mentally ill, really. He’s wanted to kill me for a long time.”

Police officer: “So you wanted to kill him?”

“I didn’t kill him!” The man slammed the table excitedly. “I’ve already admitted to killing my wife. Why wouldn’t I admit to wanting to kill him? I didn’t! I really didn’t! That bastard is just lying!”

Police officer: “What about your wife then?”

“I’ve lived with her day and night for so many years; I know what she’s going to do even when she farts. Once I came home early from work, and she didn’t know. I saw her and Liu Shan pulling and tugging at each other at the door. What a pair of adulterers!”

The police officer slammed the table. “Don’t use foul language! You don’t have that right. Your wife is already dead. After all these years together, and she even bore you a child—can’t you show some respect for the deceased?”

The man’s lips trembled, he clenched his fists, but his voice grew quieter as he continued, “After the two of them got together, she became completely wrong. I saw funeral home search records on her phone, and she had also looked up burial procedures. She tried to hide it from me, and whenever she saw me, she would panic and run away. She would secretly talk to someone on the phone and quietly mention my name.”

“Once when I was eating dinner she made, I found a needle in the food. Fortunately, I was sharp-eyed at the time and didn’t swallow it! Also, one night when I asked her to bring me a glass of water, she brought me a cup of soapy water instead! Isn’t this attempted murder? It is, right!”

He swallowed some saliva. “Once in the middle of the night, I woke up and found she wasn’t lying in bed. I had pulled the curtains closed before going to sleep, but she had opened them again after getting up. When I turned around, I saw her face. She was standing in front of the window looking at me with a sinister smile, holding a pair of scissors in her hand.”

“I was very scared at the time and jumped up, asking what she was doing. She said her toenail had cracked and she got up to cut her nails. Bullshit! She wanted to kill me! She wanted to kill me right then!”

“There were many, many more times! She would deliberately splash boiling water on me after heating it up, and when exercising, she would swing the equipment in her hands at me. In short, everything… She even said with her own mouth that she would kill me…” He pounded the table painfully and said, “We were husband and wife for so many years, but her heart was so vicious that she had to put me to death. Look now—neither of us can live!”

Police officer: “What about last night?”

“I’ve said it many times already. Please believe me! Last night, I came home from the night shift and was sitting on the sofa resting normally when that woman came over with a knife. She rushed over to kill me, and I thought I might as well fight her to the death. Then when I tried to grab the knife from her, Liu Shan rushed out of my room. They wanted to kill me together, and in my excitement, I stabbed her… Liu Shan was also scared away.”

“……”

****

Jiang Feng and Zhang Yangyang were in the bathroom.

He filled the sink with water and used a divination technique to confirm that there were no vengeful spirits following the man, then drained the water.

He couldn’t hear voices anyway.

Then he put Zhang Yangyang on the bus back home and stayed alone on the street waiting for someone.

An hour later, Officer Ye came out of the police station.

He walked over to meet up with Jiang Feng, stretched out his legs, and collapsed on the bench, exhaling wearily.

Jiang Feng: “What did that man say?”

“Pretty much the same,” Officer Ye roughly recounted it. “Don’t say I told you this—we can’t spread this information around.”

“I took a quick look earlier, and there are no ghosts on him. And if it were ghost possession, he wouldn’t have had memory or rationality at the time. Now he’s clearly being influenced by his own emotions,” Jiang Feng said. “You can investigate according to normal procedures for now.”

Officer Ye said, “We can’t rule out that he’s trying to reduce his sentence by deliberately steering toward excessive self-defense. Our people are still slowly investigating, but his mental state is obviously somewhat abnormal.”

Jiang Feng: “I always feel something is wrong somewhere.”

Officer Ye reached over and patted his shoulder. “This case can basically be characterized, but we can’t rule out that Deng Bian will have someone watch you. Keep a low profile for the next couple of days, and there should be no problems.”

Jiang Feng: “Mm.”

Officer Ye: “Where are you going now? I’ll give you a ride.”

Jiang Feng stood up and said, “I want to go find Liu Shan.”

Officer Ye: “……”

Is the wind too loud so you didn’t hear clearly, or are you completely ignoring what I said?

Jiang Feng said, “If this matter isn’t handled properly, your supervisor probably won’t let me off the hook. And I’m also a bit curious whether so many deaths really constitute a supernatural incident.”

Officer Ye looked at his expression and said defeatedly, “Fine. I’ll take you there.”

Liu Shan had already returned home. Yesterday he had only been startled; there were no injuries on his body. After waking up, he went home.

The media hadn’t reported on it yet, so he was relatively peaceful, though neighbors had come to ask him about what happened.

He found Jiang Feng somewhat familiar but couldn’t recall where he’d seen him for the moment. But Officer Ye was a police officer whom he had seen before, so without much hesitation, he let them in.

Jiang Feng confirmed once again.

No negative energy on his body, and none in the room either. Normal.

Liu Shan looked like his composure had returned to normal. He went to the kitchen to pour them two glasses of water while asking, “Has there been progress in the case? Why did he want to kill me?”

Jiang Feng glanced at Officer Ye and replied, “He said you wanted to kill him.”

When Liu Shan heard this, he nearly exploded. “Is he mentally ill? He’s actually framing me too?! I told you he’s been abnormal for a long time! You can ask anyone, find out who really has problems!”

His bangs swayed with his emotions, and he forcefully set his cup down on the table, splashing water out.

“This person is really particularly mentally ill. Any casual joke can make him jump up. Every day when I come home and pass by his door, he has to come out and curse at me. Is it worth it? Is it really worth it? He’s mentally ill!”

“There was also one time when I came home, and he rushed out with a cleaver, his eyes looking like they could shoot fire at me. I was nearly scared to death and hurriedly ran back home.”

“And he’s particularly wicked! He throws garbage directly at the door instead of disposing of it properly. It stinks, damn it! The whole building reeks of that foul smell from their house. What’s wrong with him?”

“And he commits domestic violence—his domestic violence is particularly severe, do you know? His wife cried so loudly that everyone in the building could hear it. We went to intervene, but he acted like we were trying to harm him.”

He swallowed some saliva to moisten his throat, sat down on the sofa, and continued talking.

“He didn’t used to hit people often. I don’t know what happened recently, but he suddenly became violent. My god, I saw his wife being beaten and hospitalized by him several times, and he acted like nothing happened. His wife thought he was possessed and asked us around, wanting to find a Taoist priest for him. But when he caught her that time, she was nearly beaten to death.”

He clapped his hands with a look of certainty:

“Demolition! It must be demolition! I heard them say that his family’s house back in his hometown was going to be demolished. His father’s old house is huge—it was expanded back then, and he later built a small earthen house there too. It’s all his. With such a large area, wouldn’t the demolition compensation be a huge sum of money? It was from that time that they started arguing constantly and then fighting. I estimate that once the man had money, he looked down on his wife.”

Jiang Feng asked, “Have you two had any disputes before?”

“No! How would I dare to confront a man capable of domestic violence? Anyone who dares to commit domestic violence dares to kill. There was a woman in our building who was beaten to death by her husband through domestic violence, and the man was only sentenced to a few years. You haven’t seen his viciousness—we’re not surprised at all that he killed his wife!”

Jiang Feng: “For example, parking issues at the residential area entrance? I see that parking here is quite irregular. Why don’t you park in the underground garage?”

Liu Shan said dismissively, “Not really? How long ago was that? That was ages ago.”

He turned his face and suddenly understood what Jiang Feng meant.

“Holy sh*t?” Liu Shan was completely shocked and exclaimed repeatedly, “Holy sh*t, holy sh*t, no way, right? Just over parking, and he wanted to kill me?”

Jiang Feng: “No, I was just guessing randomly, giving you a hint.”

Liu Shan’s expression was uncertain, clearly not believing him.

“I’m not a police officer, so I don’t know the specific case details. I’m a…” Jiang Feng’s gaze shifted slightly, “psychologist. I came to investigate to facilitate psychological evaluation.”

Liu Shan breathed a sigh of relief and slapped his leg. “I see! You also think he’s mentally ill, right? He really is!”