Chapter 207: The Time of the Mourning Apparel, Condolence Visitor, and Funeral Door

I ignored Ye Weilong and went into the last room. It held a dilapidated wire cot, its legs still bound by a few lengths of coarse hemp rope.

Lu Xing and his group must have already cleared out. I was still a step too late.

I walked over to the cot and picked up the hemp rope. Dark red bloodstains mottled its surface, the blood having soaked deep into the fibers—likely from biting into flesh during a prolonged binding.

I set the rope down and looked at the cot itself. A set of mourning clothes lay right in the center. I shook the garments out, and a few long strands of hair fluttered out along with a piece of white paper.

The long black hair had to be Xiaofeng's. As for the white paper, my brows drew into a deep frown the moment I read it.

Only five characters were written on it: "Guess who I am?"

To criminal investigators, the saying "handwriting reflects the person" was never just an empty idiom. Some veteran detectives could profile a criminal's personality based purely on the handwriting they left behind, narrowing the search radius and helping crack the case.

But the five characters in front of me were exceedingly ordinary. I couldn't even tell if the writer was male or female, let alone pull any useful clues from the strokes.

"They left this note at the scene because they knew the police would inevitably find it, but why leave this specific message?"

I stared at the white paper in my hand. It felt like a deliberate provocation directed at the police.

'Guess who I am?' Standing in the room, I recalled Mr. Gu explicitly using the word "they" at the end of his account. Lu Xing hadn't been the only one here. Though Lu Xing was unhinged and ruthless, I knew he disliked doing meaningless things; it was highly likely the other person had left this note.

Of course, I couldn't rule out the possibility that they had done this deliberately as a smokescreen. There were too many possibilities to say for sure.

I returned the mourning clothes and the note to where I found them. The room offered no further clues.

"Looks like I'll have to ask Mr. Gu for the specific details." I walked out of the room and found Ye Weilong crouching in the corner like he was violently carsick. He had his hands braced on the floor and his head pressed against the wall. The wealthy, handsome young man was having the darkest, most traumatic day of his life.

"Did you call the police?"

"Yeah." He nodded meekly. The strapping young man, standing over a meter ninety, was completely dispirited. Even his voice was weak.

"Let's head back the way we came. We shouldn't disturb the scene; we'll wait for the police here."

I started walking. Just as I was about to leave the basement, Ye Weilong's voice rang out from behind me, tinged with a slight sob. "Wait up! Wait a second!"

"What is it now?"

"Can you give me a hand? My legs fell asleep..."

I dragged Ye Weilong out of the basement and ran straight into a worried-looking Jiang Fei. She hurried over. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine. You should probably check on him instead. This little brother of yours saw some bloody scenes unfit for children today. He's probably traumatized." I unceremoniously dumped Ye Weilong onto the shop's floor tiles. Seeing this, his girlfriend, Jia Qingbai, threw herself to his side, weeping bitterly and sobbing her heart out in a display of masterful acting.

By the time I stepped out of the shop, a good Samaritan had already rushed Mr. Gu to the hospital. A few minutes later, two police cruisers pulled up to the entrance of the commercial street.

"Make way! Step aside!" Several officers pushed through, cordoning off the storefront with police tape. Shortly after, Tie Ningxiang, who was leading the team, stepped out of the cruiser.

"Senior, over here!"

I shouted, waving her over. Tie Ningxiang spotted me, straightened her police cap, and strode inside.

"You were the one who discovered this homicide first again?"

"The primary witness is a friend of mine. He's already been taken to the hospital."

Tie Ningxiang nodded and led the forensics team down into the basement. Zhao Bin, who had been trailing behind her, shot me a few furtive glances. "Jian Ge, before I met you, Jiangcheng barely had a single major violent crime all year."

"What are you trying to say, kid?" I grinned at the neatly uniformed Zhao Bin, who was clutching a recording device.

He scratched his head. "Do you have a distant Japanese cousin or something? That Edogawa Conan guy. You two share the exact same attribute—wherever you go, people die. It's ridiculously domineering."

"Zhao Bin!"

Tie Ningxiang's firm yet gentle voice rang out from the basement. Little Zhao immediately clamped his mouth shut, flicked on his equipment, and scurried down the stairs.

"It's not that people drop dead wherever I go; it's that you guys arrive too late. Who knows how many corpses are still hidden in the sunless shadows of this city, or how many wronged souls spend their nights weeping?" Standing in the shop, I let out a heavy sigh. As long as commissions kept coming from the Underworld, the missions from the Underworld Live Show would never end, and the Super Thriller Broadcast would continue forever.

Forensics wrapped up their sweep around noon. Jiang Fei, the handsome young man who had nearly passed out, and I headed to the hospital together. By then, Mr. Gu's condition had stabilized, and he was resting in a special care ward with an IV drip.

"Mr. Gu, this is Tie Ningxiang, the captain of the Municipal Sub-bureau Criminal Investigation Detachment. She's specifically in charge of Lu Xing's case. If you recall any details, just tell her directly." Tie Ningxiang and I were the only ones in the room; the others had been stopped outside.

"Gao Jian, did you manage to save Xiaofeng?" Mr. Gu's voice was low and heavy; his body still hadn't fully recovered.

I shook my head. "I was a step too late. Not only did they successfully evacuate, but they also wiped the scene completely clean."

"It's my fault. I was far too careless," Mr. Gu said, his tone dripping with remorse. "I've been scouring the streets and alleys of Jiangcheng for days. Just this morning, I felt a sudden 'whim,' almost as if an unseen force was drawing me northward. The moment I stepped onto that commercial street, my Gu bugs reacted."

"My days of bitter searching had finally borne fruit, so naturally, I was thrilled. The streets were fairly empty at the time, so I found a secluded spot and tried to test their strength first. But to my shock, not a single one of the Gu bugs I sent out returned."

Mr. Gu hammered a fist against the side of his bed. "They must have noticed me right then. But my pride got the better of me, and I wanted to rescue Xiaofeng on my own. As a result, when I commanded my Natal Gu to charge into the shop, I walked right into their trap. There were two of them, and they flanked me from the front and back. I fought with everything I had and only barely managed to escape by diving out the window."

"You said there were two of them?" I mentally tallied up the Two-Faced Buddha's subordinates. Aside from Lu Xing, there were Zimao and Zichou, but one of the twins had died in a dream, and the other had perished in the Jiang Family Villa Area. "Can you remember what they looked like?"

Mr. Gu opened his mouth uncertainly. "One of them was definitely Lu Xing. As for the other... I know I saw his face clearly, but now I can't remember it at all. You have to believe me—it's like I suddenly forgot him. I just can't remember no matter how hard I try."

Mr. Gu's pained expression didn't look feigned, nor did he have any reason to lie to me. "Don't panic. Just take your time and think."

"I can't remember it at all. You need to be careful—that man whose face I can't recall is even more dangerous than Lu Xing!" Mr. Gu repeatedly emphasized this point, yet he couldn't explain exactly what made the man so dangerous.

'The Two-Faced Buddha has more subordinates than just Lu Xing, but why are they so dead set on Jiangcheng?' Unable to figure out an answer, I continued questioning Mr. Gu. "When I went into the basement, I found a set of mourning clothes. Do you know what that means?"

Mr. Gu pondered for a long time before slowly speaking up. "While I was fighting them in that room, I happened to catch sight of a calendar sitting on the table. A few specific dates had been marked on it. They were respectively written with three terms: draping hemp, Mourning Guest, and mourning gate."

"Draping hemp, Mourning Guest, and mourning gate?" Because of my livestreams, I had gone out of my way to research the Eight Characters Divine Fiends. The terms mourning apparel, condolence visitor, and funeral door also referred to three inauspicious astrological hours in one's destiny. "Why would Lu Xing specifically mark those three days? And what does that have to do with the mourning clothes and that note?"

...

By the afternoon, the statements and evidence collection were completely wrapped up. Mr. Gu still couldn't recall the other man's face, bringing the case to a dead end. The white paper bearing the strange message had also been taken away by the police as evidence.

Outside the hospital, Tie Ningxiang and I walked side by side in front. I turned down her offer to give me a ride back to the station in her police cruiser and quietly saw her off.

"Can we head to my house now?" Jiang Fei only stepped up beside me once Tie Ningxiang was gone. Her gaze was somewhat complicated, and she repeatedly touched her wrist—the spot where the Red Cord of Marriage had previously bound her.

"Let's go. We'll resolve your issue today."

No sooner had the words left my mouth than Ye Weilong and his ex-girlfriend hurried over. "No way. I'm going with him. I won't feel safe otherwise."

Ye Weilong had only just managed to catch his breath by now. However, after what he had experienced in the basement, he didn't dare meet my eyes anymore. Even his voice was weak and limp, making him look like a deflated balloon.