It’s Him – Ch11

Is it here?

Soon, Li Yugui returned. The elderly woman and Aunt Zhang did not urge her to come back, since the person had already been incapacitated and locked back in the basement. They did not want to delay Li Yugui’s work.

They had found an eerie balance between searching for the killer and their own lives.

Li Yugui finished cooking before returning and had even collected her wages for the day.

No police came.

The old woman’s phone call, of course, couldn’t have been to the police. She had called her daughter-in-law. She was old, but not an honest person. She stayed at home mainly to prevent any accidents from happening next door.

When Li Yugui came back, she immediately noticed that there were two other people in her house. She quickly realized something was wrong.

“Did he escape?”

Aunt Zhang, whose name was Zhang Mingcai, stood up and said, “It’s fine. My mother found him quickly, and a colleague covered my shift. I’ve already taken care of him and locked him back in. But how did he get out? Didn’t you lock the basement door?”

The rope had been undone, which wasn’t impossible, but the basement door was locked from the outside with a bolt lock, and it was still intact.

Li Yugui frowned. “I locked it when I left.”

But she was more concerned about another issue. “Did he see your faces?”

“Yes.”

“Then let’s align our stories. You two are my neighbors and found a thief in my house, so in a panic, you knocked him unconscious,” Li Yugui said.

Zhang Mingcai didn’t care about these details. She said, “Why are you saying this? Do you think we’ll let you take on all the risks alone?” She wasn’t afraid of anything in her life.

Zhang Mingcai continued, “This time, we caught him when he escaped, which is good. But what if he’s discovered by someone else?”

Li Yugui said, “Xunxun must have already discovered it, but hasn’t said anything.”

“Ah, if this drags this kid into it, that’s not good.”

“She wasn’t involved in our actions. I’ll make sure she won’t be affected by us,” Li Yugui said.

Zhang Mingcai said, “As long as you’re sure.”

While the two of them were talking, the elderly woman was inspecting the basement door. After some time, she turned to them and asked, “When you left, were you sure the door was closed properly?”

Li Yugui walked over. “I check it every day.”

“Then it shouldn’t be possible for this door to be opened from the inside.”

This wasn’t an intelligent lock or a password lock; it was a basic bolt-style lock that could only be locked from the outside.

Li Yugui opened the basement door again and carefully examined the lock.

The two middle-aged women and the elderly lady circled around the door, pondering.

“I’ll go in and try. You lock it from the outside, and I’ll see if I can open it with vibrations,” Zhang Mingcai said as she walked downstairs.

Li Yugui handed her a flashlight. “There’s no light inside. Be careful, don’t trip.”

Zhang Mingcai nodded and, as she descended, shone the flashlight towards the person still unconscious, who hadn’t woken up yet.

When she reached the bottom, Li Yugui made sure her head wouldn’t hit the door above, and only then did she close the door.

Li Yugui pulled out the bolt. The bolt was rectangular and fairly thick.

The person inside began shaking the door in intervals, but the bolt didn’t budge.

They changed the method of shaking, but still, the bolt didn’t move.

Although this type of mechanical lock seemed clumsy and not smart, it truly couldn’t be opened from the inside.

After struggling for several minutes, the three of them gave up. Li Yugui opened the door, questioning herself. “Did I really forget to close it?”

Zhang Mingcai shook her head. “There’s also the possibility that the door can be opened from the inside.”

She had been thinking about this while locked inside.

People often have some deep-rooted fears. Whoever designed this basement clearly feared the outside world, and such people would develop new fears in the basement. One fear being, what if they were locked in one day?

She had been feeling around the inside earlier, hoping to find a way to open it from within.

It was too dark inside to find a way to open it, but this possibility couldn’t be ruled out.

The three of them reopened the door and began inspecting it inch by inch.

The door wasn’t small, and since it had patterns on it, inspecting it was time-consuming. They could only check it one inch at a time.

The elderly lady quickly said, “Here!”

It turned out that near the bolt, there was an inconspicuous hidden panel.

Zhang Mingcai pried open the panel and saw that it led to a passage. From there, they could slowly move the bolt aside.

This was a very concealed mechanism.

Especially in the dark basement, it was almost impossible to find by touch, not to mention it wasn’t like there was a button or something. One had to press the metal bolt and carefully move it inch by inch.

It was nearly impossible for an ordinary person to do this.

The three of them fell silent.

The information among them flowed freely.

They were all family members of victims from years ago.

For them, the events of that time were a shadow they could never escape. Over the years, they had been searching for the killer, but it felt like searching for a needle in a haystack. The killer seemed to have vanished, never to be seen again.

In the first few years, the victims’ families contacted each other almost every month. They rarely met but kept in touch. At that time, they still hoped the killer would be found.

Ten years passed…

Fifteen years passed…

No one believed they would ever find the killer. Perhaps the killer had died a long time ago. Perhaps after the last case, the killer died—otherwise, how could one explain that after the last case, the killer never committed another crime?

The families of the victims had also stopped contacting each other. They returned to their lives and tried to live as normal people. But whenever they heard news of a serial killer case being solved, there would be a moment of confusion.

Zhang Mingcai had been alone for a long time. She had mental health issues but knew that Li Yugui had another daughter, a very smart child who had even gotten into the best high school in Pingcheng. When she heard this, she thought of her own child, who should have graduated from university by now.

For this daughter, Li Yugui came to Pingcheng.

Li Yugui continued working as a customer service representative, making calls every day to promote new services—mobile, telecom, and internet. She worked for each company for a while.

Zhang Mingcai didn’t keep in touch with her much, thinking that Li Yugui had started a new life and had finally managed to overcome the shadow of the past. She didn’t want to disturb her.

Until two years ago, when Li Yugui, whom she hadn’t contacted in a long time, suddenly found her and told her that she had found the killer.

It turned out that her daughter had gotten into trouble at school and was facing expulsion. Li Yugui had to go to the school to plead for her daughter. There, she encountered the killer.

Li Yugui was sure this person was the killer—one hundred percent sure.

At first, Zhang Mingcai didn’t really believe this person could be the killer, because he really didn’t seem like one.

Teacher Zhao was a typical man from the southwest, less than 1.7 meters tall, with a strong scholarly aura.

He had his own child, whom he cherished very much. He was gentle with his students and calm and rational when handling matters. It was hard to believe such a person could be a killer.

They investigated him thoroughly. He didn’t own any property, and had been living in the school dormitory since becoming a teacher. When the killings happened, he still had a wife.

The real killer would need a place to lock up victims. At first, they thought the killer might be living alone, without a job, without kids, someone who hated society, hated families, and hated children.

Teacher Zhao didn’t fit any of these traits.

Moreover, the first child’s disappearance and death were six days apart.

There was very little information released to the public. All people saw were the police’s missing child notices, the child’s grandfather regretting leaving the child, and the child’s mother crying on local TV, begging the killer not to harm the child.

There were no explanations from the authorities. Some insiders said the child had been killed, but didn’t elaborate on the details.

What the public didn’t know was that six days after the parents pleaded with the killer, they received a small package. The coroner was able to determine the child’s exact time of death. The child wasn’t killed the day they went missing; six days had passed. The killer had been extremely cruel.

The child’s grandfather received the package and committed suicide the next day, overwhelmed with guilt.

To hide a child for six days requires a specific environment.

Well, it’s not common to have a basement. Such places are hard to discover.

How many such basements exist in this city?

And… perhaps…

If Teacher Zhao is the killer, then this basement would undoubtedly be the best choice…

Zhang Mingcai looked at Li Yugui.

This place was close to the school. Since it was near the school, it was mostly rented by people with children, and they didn’t know each other. This condition was why they had chosen this place as their crime scene.

The two women looked at the room, at the basement, and suddenly, from the pain, they felt a chill all over their bodies.

When they were choosing a house, neither the agent nor the landlord mentioned there was a basement. They had originally been more interested in another house, because the neighboring house was also available for rent, whereas this house already had someone living next door.

But when Zhang Mingcai arrived here, she had a bad feeling. She had been involved with music in the past, and when she stepped into the house, she noticed something strange. Some places made different sounds when stepped on.

While the agent was in the kitchen, she went to investigate why it sounded different and found a secret door leading to the basement.

What was this?

So they decided on this house. When the Jin family learned about their situation, they bought the house next door, compensated the original tenants, and let Zhang Mingcai and the elderly woman move in.

Is it here?

Is this the place where their children spent their last moments?

Is this the place that they had searched for countless times over the past twenty years?

Did they, by mistake, lock the killer in the same place?

Did they finally get justice for their children?

Is it real?

Could it be like this?

They didn’t know. They could only turn their gaze towards the basement again.