Chapter 34 Diary
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“Cousin, did you find any clues?” Lin Lan sat up from the bed, having found nothing.
“Just a bit.” Chu Feng flicked his thumb, flipping the pages back to the first page after the one where Little Shiyu made five ticks, and Lin Lan leaned over to take a look.
“Ah, it’s doodles?”
“Yeah.”
Chu Feng nodded. Perhaps he had also flipped through Little Shiyu’s doodle book when he was a child, but at that time, he didn’t know anything and couldn’t make out any content.
Lin Lan looked down at Little Shiyu’s diary doodle book. The first page was from 22 years ago, on the first day of school.
On the diary was drawn a school gate, and there was also a stick figure carrying a school bag, likely representing Little Shiyu himself.
Chu Feng continued to look through it. He was afraid that Little Shiyu had drawn something extraordinary in his doodle book when he was in first grade, so he instructed Lin Lan, “I’ll look at this, you help me check the wardrobe.”
“Sure thing.”
Lin Lan opened the small wooden cabinet beside the bed, where there were only a few pieces of clothing, looking a bit too big for Little Shiyu in first grade. Surprisingly, the best-looking one was still the blue and white school uniform. Lin Lan opened each piece of clothing, starting to search.
Chu Feng continued to study Little Shiyu’s diary, flipping through a few pages until he saw a familiar picture.
A stick figure carrying a school bag led the way, followed by two other stick figures. One was drawn a bit slender, with a somewhat handsome appearance, and there was a smiley face drawn beside it, indicating that Little Shiyu liked this person. The other stick figure was deliberately drawn with a large head and ears, with a big frown beside it, indicating that Little Shiyu didn’t like this person at all.
Chu Feng chuckled inwardly; the slimmer stick figure should be himself. This was about him and a classmate going to Little Shiyu’s house together. The classmate thought Little Shiyu’s house was poor and small and never came again. Little Chu Feng, however, found Little Shiyu’s house very interesting and often went to play with Little Shiyu afterwards.
Flipping through a few more pages, Little Shiyu drew a tricycle parked in front of a residential building… It should be a tricycle. Chu Feng tried hard to interpret Little Shiyu’s soulful artwork. This should indicate that there was a new person moving in.
On the drawing, the window of an apartment on the fourth floor was marked with the number 402, and a dejected stick figure was drawn inside the window.
—The one moving in was the unemployed man who abused cats.
Beside this drawing, Little Shiyu made two rows of annotations:
First row: Tick √
After the tick was drawn an unhappy face, indicating that Little Shiyu also didn’t like this person.
Second row: Little Shiyu drew a black spider with eight legs, with a crying expression written beside it.
Chu Feng guessed that this might indicate that the cat abuser was very afraid of spiders.
Three Little Shiyus at the age of seven, one holding a cat, one catching a spider, and one observing a swallow. Chu Feng thought, now it was perfect; cats, spiders, and swallows, these three animals were all linked to the people in the building:
The man in Room 304 might own a cat;
The unemployed man in Room 402 abused cats, and he was also afraid of spiders;
There might be some relationship between the aunt in Room 401 and the cat abuser in Room 402 because after the cat abuser killed the cat, the bloodstains in the third-floor corridor were cleaned by this aunt calling a painter to paint the walls. At the same time, they also perversely poked the swallow’s nest in front of Little Shiyu’s house.
Chu Feng continued to flip through and found a page about Room 401. A stick figure of a woman with an explosive hairstyle was opening the door, looking somewhat frustrated, with a tick √ written beside it in the remarks.
Chu Feng speculated that this might indicate that Little Shiyu had dealt with these people, and a tick indicated that the task was completed.
Five ticks, there should be five people.
The third person was the drunkard in Room 403, who slipped on a banana peel and fell in the small courtyard, and there was also a tick √ beside the remarks.
Only two people left.
Chu Feng thought, in terms of [security issues], there were exactly two people left. One was the uncle from Room 304, who ran a convenience store, kept cats, and was friendly to people, but inexplicably would crouch in front of Little Shiyu’s door, peeping through the peephole.
The other was the occupant of Room 504, who made noise even though nobody lived there.
Chu Feng flipped through the pages again, thinking that the next person Little Shiyu would have dealt with should be the uncle from Room 304—
On the next page, there was a drawing of a convenience store, with a large matchstick figure sitting at the cash register behind the glass counter, hands folded, and a smile drawn on the round head of the matchstick figure. The smile’s curvature was eerie, like that of a puppet’s smirk. Staring at it for a while would give one an inexplicable sense of fear.
——The annotation next to this uncle was not a check mark (√) but a red circle with a diagonal line: a prohibition symbol!
Chu Feng frowned, what did this mean? Was the uncle very dangerous? Should they stay away from him?
Chu Feng flipped through further, finding a rough diagram of the entire building drawn by Little Shiyu, with each small window labeled with a room number, and next to it were five check marks.
——It was known that Little Shiyu did not deal with the uncle from the convenience store, nor were there any records regarding the occupant of Room 504. So who were the two additional people that had been dealt with?
“Cousin—”
Suddenly, Lin Lan, who was rummaging through the closet, called out, “I… think I found something! But I’m not sure if it’s useful?”
“Let me see.”
Chu Feng put away Little Shiyu’s doodle diary to study later. He turned and walked to the closet, where he saw Lin Lan pulling out a few things from Little Shiyu’s blue and white school uniform jacket:
A brass-colored five-cent coin; a pocket book from the Little Master Instant Noodles; and… a crumpled red scarf.
Chu Feng immediately noticed that the red scarf seemed out of place.
There was no way Little Shiyu, who was in first grade, would have joined the Young Pioneers. Chu Feng remembered that he was one of the first to join, while Xie Shiyu was in the last batch. With Little Shiyu’s grades and behavior at school, it was impossible for him to wear the red scarf in first grade.
But not everyone knew Xie Shiyu as well as he did. To Lin Lan, this was just an ordinary red scarf. Kids would often tear off the collars of their school uniforms and stuff them into their pockets when changing clothes, leaving them wrinkled, and it was nothing out of the ordinary.
Chu Feng slowly unraveled the crumpled red scarf, spreading it out completely—
At the end, a piece of silk ribbon was revealed inside the red scarf!
“D*mn! It’s hidden so securely!!” Lin Lan exclaimed in surprise.
Chu Feng looked and saw that the silk ribbon was bright blue. Normally, it would be used for staff identification cards worn around the neck during company events. There were white letters on the back of the ribbon:
…Ning Limited.
The ribbon had been torn off, with silk fibers splitting at the broken end, and the word “Ning” was right at the break, invisible.
“Ltd… Cousin! Isn’t the man from Room 402 who abused the cat said to be unemployed? Is it possible that this company is his former employer?” Lin Lan said, “But… why would Brother Xie hide… the severed ribbon of a dead person?!”
Chu Feng carefully laid out the silk ribbon on the ground.
Soon, they discovered that a small section of the silk ribbon had been stained with color, like it had been splattered with coffee stains. Under the blue silk background, this small section appeared unusually purplish-brown.
“This is…!”
“Bloodstains.”
“D*mn! Is… that, why would Brother Xie hide… a dead person’s… Could it be him?!” Though I also feel that cat abuser deserved to die, but… D*mn…”
“It’s not him,” Chu Feng shook his head, “Which murderer would hide such crucial evidence by themselves?”
Normally, this ribbon would be worn around the deceased’s neck, and it was stained with blood, indicating that the deceased bled from the neck, that is, they were killed.
Question one: Who was the victim?
It was highly likely that it was the man who abused the cat in Room 402.
If the 7-year-old Xie Shiyu wasn’t the killer, then hiding this thing meant he might have been to the scene of the crime, or even witnessed the murderer.
Question two: What was the room number of the murderer?
Did the murderer at the time know that 7-year-old Xie Shiyu had hidden their evidence? If the murderer found out, then what exactly happened back then…
Chu Feng also put away the blood-stained ribbon. He patted Lin Lan, who was frightened, “Let’s go to the living room.”
They had found enough useful clues in Xie Shiyu’s room. The rest were just some old toys, clothes, and miscellaneous items that didn’t seem to be of much use at the moment.
The two of them left Xie Shiyu’s room. As soon as they entered the living room, Chu Feng froze.
In the forty to fifty square meter home, you could see all the way to the end at a glance.
But Chu Feng and Lin Lan, with four eyes between them, just couldn’t see X, a big man of nearly two meters tall.
Xi had disappeared!
“How… how is this possible? Great God X–!!” Lin Lan, holding a flashlight, shone it around the living room in confusion.
Great God X’s character is stable, reliable, and dedicated. It’s impossible for him to suddenly leave them and run off on his own.
Chu Feng gestured for Lin Lan to check by the door while he went to the window.
The orange-yellow light from the flashlight reflected off the window glass. Chu Feng walked over, but there was no one there. He lifted the dirty gray curtain, revealing nothing but emptiness.
“Ah, ah, ah, ah—!!!”
Chu Feng heard Lin Lan’s scream and immediately turned back. “What’s wrong?”
Under the flashlight’s beam, Chu Feng saw Lin Lan sitting at the doorway, trembling, pointing shakily at the partially open door. “Cousin… Look…”
Chu Feng strode over and opened the door completely—
Snap!!
The door was stuck, and outside was a wall.
The hallway had vanished!
It was replaced by a wall—a solid, thick cement wall, blocking their way out.
Chu Feng knocked on the wall, finding it solid with no hollow spaces.
“Cousin… I’m really scared! What… what’s going on??”
Lin Lan crawled up from the doorway, completely bewildered. He had been hit by too many shocks in succession—first with the safety issues surrounding Little Xie, then the abnormal residents in the entire building, followed by the bloodstains on the third floor, and the blood-stained silk ribbon. And now, the corridor has inexplicably disappeared!
“Cousin… could it be because of… 404? Maybe it’s really unlucky, so this happened…”
Lin Lan shuddered, thinking that the number 404 was indeed very ominous. Furthermore, 404 had a special meaning—it was the most common internet error, indicating that the requested webpage has been deleted, moved, or…
Never existed.
Chu Feng patted Lin Lan on the shoulder. “Stop making wild guesses.”
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