Everyone Seems Very Busy

The landlord was a middle-aged man in his forties or fifties, who looked hearty and couldn't stop talking.

"Speaking of which, I was truly wronged. My place was spotless before, but two years ago, two young men moved in. Both were lads, and ever since then, things haven't been peaceful here."

"They told me they used to be a group of three, but one of them didn't work nearby, so they split up. These two lads rented a two-person room here."

"One of them is named Li Dongqiang, and the other is Wang Erwa."

"They were fine at first, but it hadn't even been a month before I saw their friend show up. He was flustered, his face as pale as a sheet!"

"That friend frantically pulled the two lads away, as if to take them to his place for a few days."

"They came back a few days later, laughing and joking, like nothing had happened."

"But two months later, I noticed they started acting strange. They looked utterly dejected. When I asked, it turned out their flustered friend had died outside..."

Hearing this, Qing Huan's expression grew agitated. The friend the landlord was talking about was very likely Zhao Wen!

"Apparently, he died under suspicious circumstances," the landlord said, shaking his head. "Ever since then, those two lads started acting strange too."

"I don't know what got into them, but they became paranoid, always saying someone was spying on them."

"My nice, clean apartment, they ruined it! They nailed the windows shut with wooden planks! Not a crack left!"

"The ventilation window above the door was also completely covered with newspaper, and even the peephole was stuffed with tissue paper. Just... not a single gap, you understand?"

Gu Mian nodded.

"But even that wasn't enough. That Wang Erwa always felt like he was being watched from all directions, no matter where he went. He even went to find a spirit medium."

"That spirit medium was also unreliable. She made him a tall paper effigy and told him to carry it on his back, saying it would ward off disaster!"

"So Wang Erwa stopped going out altogether. He spent all his days at home carrying this stark white paper figure on his back, which was terrifying."

"And that Li Dongqiang was even more unreliable than Wang Erwa. He felt like he was being watched, so he desperately tried to squeeze into small spaces, like a cat, you know?"

Gu Mian nodded.

"At first, he hid in the wardrobe, but the wardrobe was too big, so he hid under the table. But there was still space under the table."

"Later, he actually crammed himself into a small cabinet on the table. You know those small cabinets, right? Oh my! Even a child would have trouble fitting in, but he, a grown man over 1.7 meters tall, managed to squeeze in."

"I don't know how he got himself in there. He was all curled up, and his skin was practically peeling off!"

"But he still thought the small cabinet was too big and actually wanted to crawl into the sewer! Wasn't that suicidal?"

"We desperately pulled him back. He looked very annoyed and just moved out of my place, relocating to another apartment not far away."

"Li Dongqiang moved out, but Wang Erwa stayed. I kept a close eye on him, afraid he might suddenly do something drastic."

"But keeping an eye on him couldn't keep him here. Not long after Li Dongqiang moved out, this Wang Erwa died, died in his bed."

"When we saw his body, he had used a rope to tie himself and that paper effigy together tightly, as if the paper figure had become part of his back."

"Sigh..."

The landlord sighed at this point.

Qing Huan's face was extremely grim.

He was smart enough to guess who was following him – Wang Erwa.

The tall, distorted white figure behind him was Wang Erwa's paper effigy. It was likely that the moment the paper effigy fully touched his back, it would be his death day.

Thinking of this, Qing Huan felt a chill run down his spine.

Gu Mian spoke, asking, "What about Li Dongqiang? Do you know which apartment he moved to?"

The landlord thought for a moment. "I think it was Hejia Apartment, not far to the east. I heard he died later too... It's truly bizarre..."

The two exchanged a glance. That was the apartment Lin Yue'er lived in.

It was 3:05 now. They still had time.

Immediately, they hurried to Hejia Apartment, where Lin Yue'er lived.

Yuwen Hao and the others seemed to have not investigated this place yet. The landlord here looked a bit curious when they arrived.

"Hello," Gu Mian said to the landlord. "We are friends of Lin Yue'er. She seems to have encountered something unclean here recently. We'd like to ask you a few things."

The landlord was a young woman, seemingly unmarried. This apartment was likely an ancestral inheritance.

She nodded cooperatively. "What is it?"

"It was about two years ago. Do you remember a tenant named Li Dongqiang from two years ago?"

Upon hearing the name, the young woman reacted strongly. She nodded vigorously. "I remember, of course, I remember! My father hadn't handed over the property to me yet, but I remember this person clearly!"

"When this person came back then, I felt something was off. His expression was too tense, like an escaped fugitive."

"But his ID showed no problems, so we couldn't refuse him. We just let him pay the rent and move in."

"He paid half a year's rent upfront. I found it quite strange at the time. The tenants usually paid month by month, but he paid for half a year at once."

"At first, I was puzzled, but later I understood why he paid for half a year upfront."

"He was sick! He was afraid of being kicked out when his lease expired!"

"This person rarely went out. If he absolutely had to go out, he would wrap himself up tightly, his head swiveling around nervously, as if afraid of being discovered."

"That's not even the worst of it. What's really deadly is he has a peculiar habit: he likes to squeeze into small spaces, and once he's in, he stays for a whole day."

"The house we rented to him, the cabinets on the desk, the shoe rack, the kitchen cupboards – he's broken them all by squeezing into them!"

"You know how it is, our business isn't easy. If one house has a problem, the whole building goes downhill."

"And he's so weird, really scary. My dad was afraid of him, so he wanted him to move out."

"We offered him money, compensation for breaking the lease, but he refused to move, insisting on staying. My dad went to see him every few days, trying to persuade him to leave."

"Until one day..."

"My dad went to see him again, but he couldn't find him anywhere in the house."

"At first, we thought he'd gone out, but after waiting for several days without seeing him, and it was summer, so the smell... you know?"

"We didn't see him for days, and then the room started to stink."

"My dad suspected he had died in the room and searched everywhere he could think of, but found nothing."

"A few more days passed, and the room got progressively worse, the stench was unbearable. We had no choice but to call the police."

"Later, the police found him under the bed..."

"There was a gap of less than ten centimeters under the bed. We have no idea how he managed to squeeze in."

"The room was sealed shut, and there was no one else inside besides him. But when they found him, he was all the way in the back, as if... he was hiding from something."