"300,000? That cheap?"
Looking at this old house, it would probably cost at least 1 million, so I couldn't understand why the previous owner sold it for just 300,000. Was it because he wanted to find a place to breed European bullet ants and deliberately sold it cheaply? But selling it at such a low price would make it even easier for others to discover.
Huang Ju told me they had contacted the real estate agent and found that a person named Min Anmin had recently bought the house. There had been several previous owners, with the first being Hua Junmin, who had owned the house five years ago. Hua Junmin's family was once doing fine, but one day, the husband, Hua Junmin, found out that his wife was having an affair with one of his old classmates and suspected that the child was not his.
Angry that night, he killed the child and mixed its flesh into the food, which he then served to his wife. When she ate part of it, he told her it was the child's meat. This made his wife nearly go mad, and they got into a violent fight. Afterward, the wife, deeply upset, went upstairs. She poured gasoline on herself and set herself on fire, which caused a massive fire that engulfed the whole house. Hua Junmin also didn't escape and was burned to death.
It's said that when the woman was engulfed by the flames, covered in blood, she laughed loudly on the second floor and kept slashing her own body with a knife, spraying blood all over the walls, saying, "It's all my fault, you shouldn't have suffered like this!"
"I'll come down to join you now!" The woman's body was completely burned, and the house soon became a sea of flames.
This rumor scared the newly assigned police officers, who trembled in fear and dared not go up to the second floor.
However, I felt this might be connected to the case. Since Hua Junmin had died, the first owner no longer mattered, but what about the second one?
Huang Ju had investigated this but didn't find anything at first. But now, he had discovered that the second owner was named Hong Xingchen.
In Huang Ju's technical department, we learned about Hong Xingchen. He was a relatively well-known pharmaceutical businessman in Shuiyu Town. It seemed strange for someone like him to sell the house, which was worth 1 million, for just 300,000. This was obviously a bad deal, and a huge loss.
Could Hong Xingchen really be that foolish? Min Anmin likely didn't know anything about this. If I were in his shoes and saw the house at such a low price, I would have been tempted too.
So, the problem must be with Hong Xingchen. I asked Zhao Simeng for her opinion, and she said, "You're the criminal detective. My opinion as a forensic assistant isn't worth much."
"Hehe, you've helped me a lot in criminal investigations too."
Since Zhao Simeng agreed, I decided to look into the second owner, Hong Xingchen.
I borrowed two officers from Huang Ju and asked Zhao Simeng to go to Shuiyu Town's police station to examine the woman's body. We split up, and I quickly found Hong Xingchen's address. The technician in Shuiyu Town sent me the location, and I soon arrived at his residence.
He hadn't lived in the old house for a long time, since it had been sold to Min Anmin. The house he lived in now was a nice garden house, much better than the old one. People like Hong Xingchen, being a businessman, likely had more than one house. The way he sold the old house, though, didn't make any sense for a businessman, which is why I decided to investigate him.
I knocked on the door with two officers. After a few knocks, a young girl, around 20 years old, opened the door. She was wearing a neat jacket. Upon seeing us, she asked, "Who are you?"
I showed my police badge and asked, "Is this Hong Xingchen's house?"
"Yes, please come in!" Upon recognizing my identity, the girl became very polite and quickly let us inside.
After entering the house, I immediately asked, "Is Hong Xingchen not at home?"
"My dad had to go on a business trip. He won't be back for about a week," the girl said while pouring us some tea.
"Did he say where he was going on his business trip?" I asked as I sat down.
"No, he's very busy, always traveling around. I don't want him to work so hard, but after my mother passed away, he's been like this."
"Your mother passed away? What happened?"
"She died suddenly when I was 15, and I don't know the details. After that, my father was never home. I heard he has many women outside, and my mother was driven to death because of that."
"15? How old are you now?"
"20."
I was right about her age. I asked, "Has Hong Xingchen been in contact with any strange people recently, or has anything unusual happened?"
"He's the same as always, traveling around, leaving me alone at home. Nothing else."
"I understand. We're currently investigating a case related to your father. Have you ever been to an old Qing Dynasty house?"
"Of course I have. I even lived there before!"
"When was that?"
"It was shortly after my mom passed away. At that time, my dad didn't have enough money to buy another house, so he let me live in the old one."
"Did you not know anything about what happened in the old house?"
She shook her head. I thought if she knew there had been a fire and a death there, she would never have dared to live there. Her father must have kept that from her. I wondered, if her mother had died five years ago, how was that connected to the death of the first owner, Hua Junmin? Could it be a coincidence?
As I was thinking, Hong Xingchen's daughter asked, "Officer, do you have any other questions?"
I asked, "Could you show me your father's room?"
"Sure!"
I followed Hong Xingchen's daughter upstairs, while the two officers waited downstairs.
When we reached the second floor, she said, "It's the room in the middle." I opened the door to Hong Xingchen's room and saw a fairly ordinary layout, but the walls were covered with many insect specimen paintings. These works were done using oil paints and looked quite artistic.
I smelled the walls and recognized the scent. It was the same as the paint used in the old house on the second floor—the same fresh, nature-inspired scent, as though it was freshly applied with natural oils, a kind of paint that had even been featured on television.
These paintings had been up for a while, and considering the old house's paint had been applied less than two weeks ago, this meant Hong Xingchen had recently been back to the old house.