chapter 8
“The layout of this house is abnormal.”
Meng Yifan had noticed something was off too.
We walked out of the master bedroom together, examining the wall that separated the master bedroom from the adjacent room.
The room next to the master bedroom was a study, but the wall dividing the master bedroom and the study was unusually thick.
The thickness of a residential load-bearing wall is generally between 160 and 240 millimeters, but this wall was nearly a thousand millimeters thick-almost a meter.
A load-bearing wall doesn’t need to be this thick, and a non-load-bearing wall would be even less likely to be so thick.
This wall took up at least three or four square meters of the master bedroom’s space. What developer would be so foolish?
Moreover, this wall in the master bedroom was exactly where a large wardrobe was placed, covering the wall.
We hurried back into the master bedroom and opened several doors of the wardrobe.
All the clothes inside had already been moved out; it seemed the buyer couple had no intention of coming back to live here.
This kind of large wardrobe is custom-made, with workers bringing up all the materials piece by piece and then assembling them into a complete wardrobe.
The back panel of the wardrobe was glued to the wall with special adhesive, making the whole wardrobe extremely secure. It couldn’t be moved, only dismantled.
I could tell the wardrobe was expensive-solid wood custom-made, with thick panels. But I wasn’t familiar with furniture and couldn’t tell what kind of wood it was.
I reached out and knocked up and down on the panels; they were very sturdy. But when I touched the back panel of the wardrobe, I immediately frowned.
“Second-in-Command, is there a problem?”
Meng Yifan and the others saw my expression and quickly asked.
I didn’t answer, but pressed hard on the back panel with my hand.
It was fine until I pressed… I broke the wardrobe. The back panel caved in, exposing the wood shavings inside.
“Whoa, Second-in-Command, you broke it.”
“We’ll have to pay for that…”
Xie Peng and Li Xingyang hadn’t realized the seriousness of the situation.
But Meng Yifan and I both turned pale, cold sweat breaking out again.
“Something is seeping out from inside this wall, corroding the back panel of the wardrobe…”
As for what it was, I couldn’t be sure, and I didn’t dare say it out loud.
This was a big deal, maybe even enough to involve the police.
Meng Yifan wasn’t stupid. He immediately took out his phone and contacted the buyer, telling him to come over right away.
He didn’t say much on the phone, just asked the buyer to come and discuss returning the house.
The buyer was more than happy to oblige, saying he’d be there immediately.
After waiting nearly an hour, the buyer arrived, but he came alone-his wife didn’t come.
Actually, it was better that his wife didn’t come, since she was a shrew and would definitely start a fight.
The buyer’s surname was Hu, a man nearing fifty, whom we called Mr. Hu.
When Mr. Hu arrived and saw us holding hammers and crowbars, he was startled.
“What are you doing?”
“Mr. Hu, let me ask you something first.”
I led him to the master bedroom and pointed at the wardrobe: “This wardrobe was here before you moved in, right?”
When I brought him and his wife to view the house, the wardrobe was already here, but since this was serious, I needed to confirm again.
“Yes, you were the one who showed us the house, and the wardrobe was right here.”
Mr. Hu explained, “My wife and I saw that the wardrobe was in good condition and of good quality. Plus, after the renovation we were short on money, so we didn’t replace the wardrobe in the room and just kept using it.”
I said, “I’m going to smash this wardrobe now. You won’t ask me to pay for it, will you?”
Mr. Hu’s eyes widened: “Smash it? It’s perfectly fine-why smash it?”
I glanced at Meng Yifan, and when he nodded, I said, “There might be a corpse hidden in the wall behind this wardrobe.”
The words hit Mr. Hu like a sledgehammer; he froze, his eyes wide and round.
Seeing that he didn’t stop us, I called Xie Peng and Li Xingyang over to start smashing the back panel of the wardrobe.
Actually, it didn’t take much effort-the corrosion was so severe that with a little force, a few hits and pries, the back panel quickly collapsed.
As soon as the back panel fell, the true face of the wall was revealed.
Everyone in the room gasped, and Mr. Hu let out a strange cry.
We all jumped back in fright, dropping our tools on the floor.
Behind the wardrobe, the wall had originally been painted with white latex paint, but now the paint and the wall surface were bulging, as if soaked in water.
And the bulging area outlined the shape of a human figure!
There really was a corpse hidden inside this wall!
Someone had killed a person in this room, then rebuilt the wall, sealed the corpse inside with cement, painted the wall, and installed a custom wardrobe to cover it.
But after so many years, the corpse had decomposed, and Corpse Oil had seeped out from inside the wall, outlining the human shape and corroding the back panel of the wardrobe.
It turned out the buyer couple weren’t mentally disturbed-there really was someone in this room watching them, always watching them…
“Chen Mo…”
Meng Yifan swallowed hard, gripping my shoulder tightly: “Call… call the police!”
My hands trembling, I pulled out my phone and hurriedly dialed the emergency number.