Chapter 105

Chapter 105

Everything that happened to Meng Yifan and me started in that residential community.

Our shop went out of business because there was a stigmatized property there.

Meng Yifan was sued because it was a stigmatized property.

And it was there that we were haunted by the ghosts of Li Xiumei and Du Yuwei.

In fact, the identity of the prime suspect had been exposed long ago. I just didn’t suspect him at the time; I had even consciously ruled him out as a suspect.

Returning to this community once more, I prepared to head inside alone after getting out of the car.

Meng Yifan wanted to come with me, but Song Xiaotian stopped him.

“Let him go by himself.”

“Why?”

“Don’t ask. You’ll know the answer in a while.”

I stood at the main gate, hesitating for a long time before finally walking in.

I searched all over the community for that Old Woman.

She was the one I had met during my first night testing the house.

She was the one who told me the house had been sold once before, fifteen years ago. It was through that lead that I discovered my father had crossed paths with Lv Zhengxian fifteen years back.

At the time, Lv Zhengxian was a fugitive and didn’t dare buy property under his own name, so he gave my father a sum of money to act as the titleholder.

Thinking back now, that excuse was laughably pathetic.

I spotted the Old Woman in the community pavilion, sitting and chatting with a group of other seniors.

The moment she saw me, the smile vanished from her face. She stood up, intending to leave.

I followed her immediately and intercepted her at the bottom of her building.

“Ma’am, you know a lot of things, don’t you? Please, tell me.”

“I don’t know anything!”

She waved her hands dismissively, her face full of panic as she tried to get away from me.

“There’s no way you don’t know anything. You live in Unit 4, and that apartment is in Unit 3. Both are on the fifth floor-you’re only separated by a single wall!”

As I spoke, I dropped to my knees right in front of her. “I’m begging you, tell me. What exactly did you hear fifteen years ago?”

The Old Woman looked at me with fear in her eyes. “Young man, I’ve already got one foot in the grave. I don’t want to cause trouble. Can you please just stop asking? I’m begging you as an old woman.”

My voice choked up. “The people who lived there fifteen years ago have no idea what you heard or saw. No one is going to come for revenge. My girlfriend was killed by them. I just want to know who they are. I’m begging you. I’ll kowtow to you.”

With that, I slammed my forehead against the ground, kowtowing several times in succession.

“Don’t do that, young man. Please, don’t.”

The Old Woman reached out to pull me up and said hurriedly, “Come with me. I’ll tell you what I know.”

I scrambled up from the ground and followed her to a secluded spot with fewer people around.

She pulled me down to sit and said in a tiny whisper, “I can’t guarantee if what I’m telling you is the truth. Just listen.”

I nodded. “Don’t worry, I understand.”

Only then did she speak. “It was a night fifteen years ago. It was already past midnight when I heard a young girl scream from next door.”

I asked urgently, “It came from inside that apartment?”

The Old Woman nodded. “I have neurasthenia and don’t sleep very well, so I heard it. But when I asked my husband the next day, he said he didn’t hear a thing.”

I asked again, “Besides that scream, did you hear anything else?”
The Old Woman thought for a moment and said, “After I heard that girl scream, I heard her call out two names. She said something about not letting them get away with it.”

I immediately grew tense. “Which two names?”

The Old Woman shook her head. “I didn’t hear them very clearly back then, and I remember them even less now. But I remember their surnames. One seemed to be Li, and the other was Chen.”

My breathing grew ragged, that suffocating sensation returning as my head spun.

I forced myself to stay calm. This Old Woman knew a lot; she had overheard many things by chance. I had to remain composed to get every detail.

The person she called “Li” was likely Lv Zhengxian. The elderly often have poor hearing, and she must have mistaken “Lv” for “Li.”

The scream she heard must have been from the night Li Xiumei was murdered.

“Have you ever seen those two men, the ones named Lv and Chen?” I asked.

The Old Woman pondered for a while before saying, “I saw the one named Li. He and that girl seemed to be a couple. But as for the one named Chen, I’m not too sure. All I know is there was a man who often came to visit the couple.”

My entire body began to shake, and my voice trembled. “Do you remember any identifying features of the man who visited them? Or did you hear what the couple called him?”

The Old Woman thought it over. “That man looked quite refined and always wore a pair of glasses. I once heard the young couple call him… Brother Wen.”

I froze in place as if struck by lightning, unable to recover for a long time.

The Old Woman had to call out to me several times before I snapped back to my senses.

“Young man, I’ve told you everything I know. Please don’t come looking for me again.”

“I’ve kept this bottled up for many years. Ever since I heard that girl’s scream that night, I never saw her again. I told my old man about it, but he told me not to meddle in other people’s business.”

“Now that I’ve said it, I feel much better.”

After saying her piece, the Old Woman turned and walked away.

I walked toward the exit of the residential compound, my soul feeling as though it had left my body. With every step, my legs felt like they weighed a thousand pounds.

I should have come to ask this Old Woman a long time ago. If I had just asked her, I would have known who that person was from her own mouth.

Why didn’t I come?

Why did I wait until now to ask?

Was it because… it involved him, so I intentionally avoided it?

Yesterday at the restaurant, Song Xiaotian had asked a question: what would I do if I found out one day that a loved one close to me had done something terrible?

I hadn’t given a straight answer yesterday, but in truth… I had known the answer for a long time, and I had already acted on it.

I knew everything was about to end.

My home was going to be gone.

At that thought, I couldn’t stop my tears. They poured down my face uncontrollably.

As I walked out of the compound, I saw Song Xiaotian and Meng Yifan standing there. I didn’t know how to face them, and my entire body simply collapsed.

“Whoa, what happened!”

Meng Yifan and Song Xiaotian rushed over to support me.

“What’s wrong? What exactly did you do in there? Why are you crying?” Meng Yifan demanded.

I looked at them both and said in a hoarse voice, “I know who killed Fang Man.”

Meng Yifan’s eyes widened. “Who?”

“Chen Guowen.”

I sobbed as I spoke the name. “It’s my father. He’s the one who killed Fang Man. He’s the prime suspect.”