Abnormal
At dusk, my cell phone suddenly heard a rapid ringtone.
I picked up the phone, and Shen Guyue's excited voice immediately came from the receiver: "Lin Tian, I have a new discovery: the headless murder in the rental house a year ago actually hid a shocking secret!"
"What secret?" I asked calmly.
"That's it…" Shen Guyue was about to reply when a dull knock on the door suddenly came from the receiver, "Wait a minute, I'll go see who it is first and I'll contact you later."
Shen Guyue hung up the phone, and I couldn't help but snap my fingers happily.
My name is Lin Tian, I am a campus detective, and Shen Guyue is my "compatible" partner. Our greatest interest is to enjoy the addictive excitement in the process of finding the truth.
Our target this time was a rental house near the campus, known as the "House of Death." The cause was that a couple who had just entered school were brutally murdered there six months ago. Their heads were brutally cut off, and their whereabouts are still unknown. What's even more strange is that there were no valuable clues left at the crime scene, and there were no signs that the doors or windows had been pried. The whole scene was creepy and weird. After more than a week of our investigation, the truth hidden in the haunted house has gradually begun to surface.
The whole night, I was waiting for Shen Guyue's call, but my phone never rang again. When I called back, I found that he had turned off his phone abnormally.
The time came to midnight, my eyelids had begun to fight, and my consciousness gradually became hazy.
Half asleep and half awake, I was suddenly woken up by a strange cold air, and at the same time, a numbing feeling came from my ankle. I was shocked and quickly turned over to sit up and found that Shen Guyue had returned without knowing it. He was standing beside my bed, squatting down and tying something to my feet.
"What are you doing?" I touched my ankle and accidentally touched his hand. The hand was hard and cold, and the ice-like touch immediately made my hair stand on end.
Only then did I realize that Shen Guyue's body was incredibly filled with wisps of cold white mist.
"Gu Yue, are you okay?" I asked with a trembling voice.
Shen Guyue raised his head stiffly, and I found that there was a strange layer of frost condensing on the tips of his hair. He looked at me dimly with a pair of empty eyes, and pointed at my ankle with his pale fingers.
I quickly looked around and found that my ankle was tied with a strange red thread. The red thread was as thin as a hair, shining with blood-colored light in the darkness. One end of it was wrapped around my ankle, and the other end extended toward the darkness outside the bedroom door, leading to an unknown place.
"What does this mean?" I asked in surprise.
Shen Guyue just looked at me silently. Suddenly, two terrifying tears of blood fell from her eyes.
Amidst my screams, the light in the dormitory was suddenly turned on.
"Are you hysterical?" Lu Feng complained dissatisfiedly when he returned to the dormitory at some point.
I gasped for air. In the dim light, Shen Guyue and the strange red thread had disappeared, but a strange white mist was still rising faintly from my ankle.
I didn't dare to close my eyes the whole night. The chaotic heartbeat made me vaguely feel that something bad was about to happen.
Haunted house
As soon as it dawned, I got up and went straight to the rental house where the murder had occurred.
After opening the door of the rental house, I found that Shen Guyue was not in the house. I looked at my watch. It was not yet eight o'clock. Where would he be so early?
I made random guesses and tried to call his number again – his phone was still turned off. I frowned: Maybe all the questions will be answered after Shen Guyue comes back.
I sighed and sat on the sofa in the living room, waiting for Shen Guyue's return. The dark sky outside was filled with rain, making the already lifeless rental house even more eerie and terrifying.
Time passed by minute by minute. I couldn't help but feel a little tired after not sleeping all night last night. After yawning a few times, my consciousness gradually fell into a blur.
I don't know how long I slept, but I suddenly woke up with a chill. Night was already falling outside the window, and I frowned, secretly wondering why I slept for so long. Suddenly, I took a sharp breath of air-the fluorescent lamp that was originally turned off in the room was glowing faintly.
A chill quietly crept up my back, and beads of sweat suddenly appeared on my forehead.
The sound of typing on the keyboard suddenly came from the bedroom nearby. I quickly looked around and found that Shen Guyue had returned at some point and was sitting in front of the computer busy with something.
I swallowed and quietly came to his back. I saw him looking over and over at a photo on the monitor, which was a photo of a man and a woman. The girl in the photo was holding the boy's arm sweetly, while the boy had a weird smile on his lips. The lower right foot of the photo shows the date the photo was taken: October 17, 2014. I recalled it in my mind and found that it was actually the time when the murder occurred in the rental house.
"Are these two the lovers who died here?" I asked with a frown.
But Shen Guyue suddenly hit the keyboard like crazy and typed a series of inexplicable words on the screen: There are more than two people.
"What do you mean?" I looked at him in surprise, but he turned a deaf ear to my question and continued to type that puzzling sentence like a man possessed.
"What's wrong with you?" Shen Guyue's abnormality made me feel numb. I patted his shoulder subconsciously, but I felt that his body was as cold as ice. Could it be that last night was not a dream at all? Shen Guyue has…
Shen Guyue suddenly stopped tapping, and the rental house fell into a terrible silence. Suddenly, with a harsh bone-grinding sound, his head twisted back a hundred and eighty degrees in a strange way, and the corners of his purple mouth slowly turned up into a strange arc. Then, the skin on his face cracked, and in the blink of an eye, the entire face fell off like a rotten wall, leaving only a bloody skeleton smiling eerily at me…
I shuddered suddenly, opened my eyes, and found that I was still leaning on the armrest of the sofa in the living room without moving an inch. In the distance, the bell at eight o'clock in the morning was echoing leisurely.
I wiped the cold sweat from my head. The terrible nightmare made me feel short of breath. I shook my sore neck in an attempt to relieve my nervousness, but I opened my mouth wide as I looked at the fluorescent lamp above my head that emitted a dim yellow light.
No, something really happened here while I was taking a nap!
I quickly stood up and searched the entire house carefully, including the closet and under the bed, but still found nothing.
A strange cold feeling suddenly came from my ankle. I lowered my head in shock and found that the strange red line appeared in front of my eyes again. The other end extends towards the kitchen of the rental house.
third person
After hesitating for a moment, I carefully walked along the direction where the red line extended, wanting to see where it would take me. Unexpectedly, the other end of the red line disappeared behind the refrigerator door in the kitchen.
For some reason, looking at the gray refrigerator standing quietly at the foot of the wall, my heart suddenly tightened, and an ominous premonition began to spread wantonly in my heart.
After swallowing, I stepped forward and opened the refrigerator door. A hard object rolled down the open door to my feet. I lowered my head and glanced at the object, and I was so scared that I almost screamed – it turned out to be frozen into an "ice lump" Shen Guyue. His face was extremely distorted, and his eyes widened in fear as if he had seen something incredible before he died.
I tremblingly put my fingers into his nostrils and found that he was no longer breathing.
An inexplicable sense of fear suddenly surrounded me: How could Shen Guyue die in the refrigerator? Was it to avoid some terrible danger or was she forced to death by some unknown force?
Recalling the cold white mist he exuded last night, I suddenly felt the hairs on my hair stand on end. What frightened me even more was that the other end of the red line on my foot was actually held tightly in his stiff right hand. The other blood-colored thread he was holding in his left hand stretched out of the window strangely, extending towards the hazy distance in the rain and mist.
With a long sigh, I tried to close Shen Guyue's eyes that refused to close. Suddenly, I noticed that his pair of dim pupils moved strangely to the lower left, as if he was looking at his left pocket.
I dared to put my hand into his pocket, and found a notebook as big as the palm of my hand.
I took it out and flipped through two pages curiously, and found that it contained his records related to this investigation.
Suddenly, a photo fell from my notebook. I picked it up and saw that it was the photo of a couple I had seen on my computer in my sleep. However, the date in the lower left corner of the photo had been circled by Shen Guyue with a red oil pen, and on the page with the photo was written a line of small words that made me shudder: More than two people.
Looking at that eerie photo, I couldn't help but fall into deep thought.
Suddenly, I took a breath of air-conditioning and hurriedly stood up to look at the photo and found the shooting location in the house – it was an empty and narrow passage in the house. Taking photos from this angle is definitely beyond the scope of the Selfie function of photographic equipment. Completed, that is, there was a third person in the house at that time.
"Lin Tian, what are you doing?!" Just as the outline of the entire murder began to take shape in my mind, a scream suddenly came from behind me. I turned around suddenly and saw Lu Feng looking at me in shock. His eyes were falling on Shen Guyue's crouched body not far away, his face suddenly twisted, and after a moment of silence, he screamed and ran out the door.
hidden murderer
I knew that if I let Lu Feng leave like this, I would have no excuse for Shen Guyue's death, so I quickly caught up with him and dragged him back into the house.
"Things are not what you think. There is someone else who killed Shen Guyue." I explained to him with a frown.
"Nonsense, is there anyone else in this room besides you?" He looked at me with fear in his eyes.
I hurriedly told him the ins and outs of the discovery of Shen Guyue's body, and finally expressed my own analysis: "According to my speculation, the reason why the couple died mysteriously in a closed environment similar to a secret room was not caused by ghosts or gods. It was because there was a third person in the room at that time. Because of this, there were no signs of the door or window being pried when the two were killed. And judging from the photos, this person and the deceased should be very familiar. I just don't know why they were brutally murdered later. It was because Shen Guyue gradually got closer to the truth of the murder during the investigation that the murderer became murderous again.
"You mean, the murderer is nearby now?" Lu Feng's face suddenly turned pale.
"It's possible." I nodded solemnly. Seeing that Lu Feng was shaking with fear, I quickly changed the subject and asked him why he was here?
Lu Feng swallowed a few mouthfuls of saliva before he stammered and told me that he saw me acting strangely last night and left the dormitory in a panic this morning. He was worried that I would encounter some problem, so he followed me here. Unexpectedly, As soon as he entered the door, he saw a scene that frightened him.
"Lu Feng, do you believe there are ghosts in the world?" I suddenly looked into his eyes and asked.
Lu Feng frowned and thought for a while, then finally shook his head.
"I think you'd better believe it, because I feel that Shen Guyue's ghost seems to be guiding me secretly, and the reason why I was able to find his body was because of the red thread on his feet." I said as I spoke to him. Pointing to my ankle, I was suddenly shocked – at this time, there was nothing above my ankle, and the red thread that was originally tightly held in the hand of Shen Guyue's corpse was also gone.
midnight guide
After reporting the news of Shen Guyue's death to the police, I returned to the dormitory with an uneasy feeling.
Countless questions almost overwhelmed my brain: Why did Shen Guyue die in the refrigerator? Who was knocking on the door during the last call between me and him? Why does that red thread come and go? What does it want to guide me?
After thinking hard to no avail, I shook my head and temporarily turned my attention to the analysis of the murderer: If my previous reasoning was correct, the murderer must be a friend of the victim couple. He killed his friend with such a cruel method. No matter how good his psychological quality is, he will inevitably have some emotional fluctuations. What I need to do is to find out who among the friends around the deceased has behaved abnormally before and after the incident.
Soon, a boy named Tang Hao came into my sight. He and the deceased were high school classmates, but when college just started, he did not register at school but mysteriously disappeared.
Looking at the gentle boy wearing glasses in the photo in front of me, I couldn't help but frown: judging from the current situation, this man named Tang Hao has a serious murder suspicion.
It was already one o'clock in the morning, but I was still lying in bed, tossing and turning, and my mind was filled with all kinds of speculations about the case. Now I envy Lu Feng. He had just witnessed the mysterious death of his roommate during the day, and he could still sleep soundly at night.
I sighed and was about to go over the case again when I suddenly felt a tightness in my ankle and a dull pain from being strangled by something.
I looked down quickly. In the darkness, that strange red line appeared in front of my eyes without anyone noticing, and it curved and extended toward the door.
I was looking at this red thread that came and went without a trace and was amazed when I suddenly felt a pulling sensation on my ankle, as if something was tugging on the red thread at the other end.
I was startled, and my body followed the red line involuntarily and walked out of the dormitory. I was walking alone in the dark night, and when I discovered where the red line was leading me to, I suddenly felt chilled all over—it turned out to be the underground morgue of the city hospital.
In the cold morgue, I saw Shen Guyue's body again. The expression on his face was still ferocious and terrifying, and he was clutching the other end of the red thread tightly in his hand.
"Brother, do you want to tell me something else?" I asked tremblingly, looking at Shen Guyue's body.
At this time, I saw his cold body suddenly shaking. The red rope in his right hand slowly moved to his left hand as if it had come to life. It gradually merged with the red rope in his left hand and then passed through the door of the morgue. It extended into the boundless night.
"You want me to follow the red line?" I asked differently. I don't know if it was my misunderstanding, but I noticed that his purple face nodded slightly.
Totally wrong
That red thread took me around and around in the city shrouded in darkness, and finally disappeared into a bottomless hole in the forest on the outskirts of the city.
I looked into the huge cave and felt waves of cold moisture coming from it, mixed with a disgusting rancid smell.
Looking at the soft and steep cave wall, I knew that this was definitely not a place I could explore alone, so I took out my cell phone and made a call. Half an hour later, Lu Feng came to me panting with a bundle of ropes.
"Why did you call me here in the middle of the night?" He complained with his lips curled up, his face full of dissatisfaction at being disturbed from his dream.
"There should be key clues to the murder here." I pointed at the gloomy hole next to me and said.
"How do you know?" He looked at me with doubtful eyes.
"It was the red thread that led me here." I said solemnly, even though the red thread had disappeared when Lu Feng appeared.
"Lin Tian, is your brain broken?" Lu Feng looked at my empty ankle, and a hint of anger appeared on his face.
"Just believe me this time." I said as I wrapped the rope around my waist and handed the other end to Lu Feng.
Lu Feng grumbled and took the rope. With his help, I began to slowly slide towards the bottom of the cave.
The hole was wet and damp, and it looked like it was a sinkhole formed after rain washed away the soil. The cold water vapor made me shiver in my thin clothes, and the increasingly strong rancid smell almost made me suffocate.
A few minutes later, I finally reached the bottom of the cave. Looking up, I found that the entrance of the cave had turned into a hole the size of a bowl.
I swallowed and looked around with the faint light of my phone. The scene in front of me was so shocking that I took a breath of air–in the mud piled at the bottom of the cave, there were two completely white bones. head. On one of the skulls, the eerie long hair was flying in all directions with the sinister wind pouring in from the entrance of the cave.
It turned out to be the missing head of the murdered couple.
I only felt that my limbs instantly became cold, and I retreated almost instinctively. Suddenly, there was a crisp "click" sound in the soil behind me, and something was torn apart by my step.
I shivered, and hurriedly bent down to touch my feet, but I touched a strange object. I hurriedly put the thing under the light of my mobile phone and observed it for a long time. Suddenly, my brain went blank with a buzzing sound – it turned out to be a broken pair of glasses.
My heart started beating uncontrollably. In my memory, only one person related to the murder case wore such glasses, and that was Tang Hao. But why did his glasses appear in this cave?
Suddenly, a terrible suspicion came into my mind: Could it be that one of the two skeletons here is Tang Hao?
"Lu Feng, pull me up quickly!" I yelled at the hole above my head, only to find a black shadow rushing towards me. I hurriedly dodged to avoid it, and then I realized that it was the end of the rope at the other end.
In surprise, Lu Feng's face was slowly revealed in the moonlight at the entrance of the cave. He glanced condescendingly at me, who was helpless at the bottom of the cave, and a slightly familiar smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
reinforcement
I suddenly took a breath of air: the smile on Lu Feng’s face was exactly the same as that of the boy in the photo! No, they are clearly the same person! Although he could change his appearance through plastic surgery and remain anonymous, his evil smile completely betrayed his true identity.
"Are you the murderer?" I asked in disbelief, but the answer was a cold snort and a figure who walked away without turning around.
I was helplessly trapped at the bottom of the cave, with only two ghastly skulls accompanying me. In desperation and fear, my consciousness was stripped away from my body bit by bit. I feel like I really failed this time, and I was completely manipulated by the murderer.
A cold breath suddenly came from the ankle, and the red thread began to flicker with a blood-red light in the darkness.
"I'm sorry Gu Yue, I'm afraid I'm going to disappoint you this time." I smiled bitterly and shook my head. But suddenly, a bold idea suddenly popped into my mind: If this red line can take me to Shen Guyue's body, is the reverse also feasible?
Thinking of this, I hurriedly pulled the red thread on my foot, but unexpectedly, there was a dragging feeling from the other end of the weight.
As if I saw hope, I gritted my teeth and quickly pulled the red thread. I don’t know how long it took, but the moonlight at the entrance of the cave suddenly dimmed, and a ferocious face appeared above my head. Its empty eyes looked at me , killing Renru , and its twisted facial features looked shocking in the pale moonlight.
"Brother, help me!" I shouted towards the hole. I couldn't believe I was asking for help from a corpse.
It looked at me and made a "gurgling" sound in its throat, like a breath. As the sound became louder and louder, a strange white mist gradually rose from the ground beneath my feet. The white mist rolled and swirled, gradually condensing into two headless white shadows, and when they slowly placed the skeleton at the bottom of the cave on their empty necks, with a ray of white light, a long figure suddenly appeared in front of my eyes. There was a girl and a gentle man wearing glasses.
"Thank you for helping us find the missing head." A hollow and distant male voice drifted into my ears. It told me that they were good friends, but the girl's boyfriend was jealous and even suspected that his girlfriend was having an affair with his brother. That night, after the two made a slightly ambiguous joke, his jealousy finally erupted like a volcano – he brutally killed the two of them, cut off their heads and threw them into a hole to vent his anger.
During its faint narration, I began to feel dizzy, and my whole body felt as if I was in the clouds. When I recovered from this trance, I found myself back at the entrance of the cave. Shen Guyue's body fell at my feet, with a satisfied smile on its purple mouth and the two skulls in its stiff hands.
Suddenly, Shen Guyue stood up straight, and a strange red line suddenly appeared in the dark eye socket, extending in the direction where Lu Feng left…
postscript
Lu Feng died, a horrible death. He lay curled up on the floor of the dormitory. Two skulls bit his ears, one on the left and one on the right, while a corpse with a distorted face strangled his throat with a pair of cold hands. His bulging eyes were full of great fear and despair. No one knew what terrible changes he had suffered before his death.
What is puzzling is that according to forensic investigation, the hideous-looking corpse turned out to be Shen Guyue who had died long ago. It is said that the night before, the body that was lying on the morgue bed of the city hospital was dragged out of the morgue by a red line that came from nowhere. No one knows where it went after that…